The Chase

SPACE Tharg is at a full run, but stops every ten or fifteen yards to sniff the ground again. Conner seems to trust his cousin’s instincts completely. He asks the group to stay behind a good twenty yards or so. Tharg and Conner continue tracking.
SPACE Tharg sniffs his way down the path until he comes to a spot where the road forks. He looks confused up ahead, sniffing and moving back and forth between possible pathways. Conner motions for the rest of the group to approach.
SPACE “Tharg say he smell too much deer pee-pee,” he informs the group. “Lose smell of pirates and Cain.”
SPACE “Damn!” Alasdair curses.
SPACE “Tell him to keep trying,” Alliandra encourages. “Maybe he can pick their scent back up a bit farther down the path.”

SPACE While Tharg sniffs his way up the left trail, Conner moves a ways down the right. The left trail steepens up ahead, winding down deeper into jungle. The right path seems more heavily overgrown with foliage.
SPACE From behind them, a good fifteen yards or so before the clearing, Cyrdan calls out to the group. “Have him sniff over here,” he says, and, with that, pulls back some low-hanging branches to reveal a thinner pathway leading in a vaguely southernly direction.
SPACE The group stands on the road in front of the pathway. More of a deertrail than a path, it is hardly visible at all. From the road, with the branches obscuring it, it is invisible.
SPACE Tharg takes a huge sniff from the ground and snorts again in a deep SNIFF-IFF-SNORT, and sets off again down the pathway this time.
SPACE “Apparently, this is the way,” Alasdair sarcastically comments. The group readies their weapons. Tharg continues sniffing. Cyrdan knocks an arrow.

SPACE The pathway winds through the jungle, passed berry bushes and fruit trees, under low-strung vines and palm leaves, and between the tall, hairy trunks of giant bean-nut trees and coral upcroppings until, finally, it ends at a small cliff’s edge.
SPACE The cliff, overlooking a small beach area and the ocean beyond, has rocky steps leading down its side. At the bottom of the cliff, the beach holds some debris and fallen trees. Seagulls screech overhead, diving at crabs and dead fish washed up on shore. There, in the water, still pushing a small rowboat further into the sea, are the targets.

SPACE Six men are doing their best to float the small rowboat. Though their faces are hardly discernable from the group’s position, it is easy to tell by their dress and appearance that they are pirates. Running down the natural staircase to the bottom of the cliff, the group moves in.
SPACE They are spotted, however, by one of the pirates. He rushes over to the pushed rowboat and yells, “They’re here!” to one of the other crewmen.
SPACE Tharg and Conner press onward to engage in battle while Cyrdan looses his first black-feathered arrow. Alliandra remains at the back of the rush of angry adventurers.

SPACE As the group draws closer to the fleeing pirates, Cain’s familiar face becomes apparent. Two pirates engage the barbarians with shortswords, but the long reach of Tharg’s oar proves its worth yet again. Forcing the pirates backward, the cousins press forward as Meggana and Grant join the fray. Outnumbered and scared, the pirates turn their backs in a final fatal mistake. Grant spins his hand axe over and over, carving one pirate’s back into ribbons. Conner stabs into and through the throat of the other, allowing the man a final “thwwwehh” that ends abruptly in a neckful of blood.
SPACE “ROW!!!” a voice screams in a high-pitched screech of lost nerves and impatience. The voice is familiar, though it does not belong to Cain.
SPACE Upon further scrutiny, the survivors recognize the voice of their former captor. It is the First Mate of The Salty Death, Vertigore’s former right-hand man. Johnny Simon.
SPACE The four forward warriors, Tharg, Conner, Meggana, and Grant, pursue the pirates into the ankle deep water. Two pirates turn and face them.
SPACE Simon barks orders. “Hold them off!” His black tunic whipping in the ocean air, he holds his bejeweled longsword overhead. Cain is sitting behind him, beginning to row.
SPACE Swinging shortswords and dirks wildly, the two pirates face the party with feigned confidence.
SPACE The rowboat is afloat now. Both Cain and Simon row with vigor. “They’re not guards!” Simon cries.
SPACE Cyrdan releases more wicked arrows from his bow. Singing through the air, one of three wooden shafts find their mark deep inside another pirate’s shoulder. The wounded man cries out.
SPACE The warriors attack the outnumbered crewdogs with grunts and hollers. The pirates swing and parry as best they can, but are quickly overrun by the group. One of the crewdogs, a brown-bearded man wearing leathers bracers, bolts for the jungle. Alasdair riddles the man’s body with thrown daggers, killing him before he can reach the jungle.
SPACE The other pirate also falls dead, his skull crushed from the mighty oar of Tharg. Moving passed his crushed and broken body, they do their best to catch up with the rowboat containing Cain and Simon. Meggana slips momentarily on the dead seaman’s splattered brains.
SPACE Grant stops his pursuit once the water reaches his waist. Tharg and Conner begin to swim after the small watercraft where Cain and Simon are pointing and laughing. Meggana begins stringing a short composite bow that she pulls from her shoulder.

SPACE “Swim, little fishy, swim!” Simon calls giddily. Their craft is a good twenty-five yards from the shore, and a lifetime out of reach from the angrily swimming barbarians.
SPACE “Come on, you big, dumb sons of bitches!” Cain cries, a laugh in his voice.

SPACE Cyrdan runs into the water, stopping as the waves crash against his thighs. Taking aim, he pulls his bowstring taut. Meggana, too, notches an arrow. The two rowing targets see their aggressors and share a look of panic. They duck in anticipation of the oncoming flurry.
SPACE Cyrdan and Meggana loose arrow after arrow, Cyrdan aiming specifically for Cain. Ducking and cursing their lack of options, Cain and Simon row fervently.
SPACE Arrow after arrow slips beneath the surf. On the fifth attempt, a shriek from Cain signals a hit. He stands for all to see the shaft poking through his left arm. He drops his oar and holds his wound with his opposite hand, crying out. The rowboat begins to rock from the standing elf’s off-balance protest of pain.

SPACE Grant mutters a breathy 'yes' at the sight. Tharg and Conner crawl back up on shore, lungs heaving for air. Alasdair and Alliandra join the party at the waterline. The group is pleased at the outcome, though slightly disappointed that Cain and Simon escaped… for now.

SPACE Meggana laughs out loud and adds, “That was fun!”

SPACE Off in the distance, barely visible due to dense outland fog, rests a tiny island. The rowboat appears to be headed in that direction, and Cain and Simon with it.

SPACE Conner begins decapitating the dead pirates, a common warpractice of the Dragonspine barbarian clans. Tharg helps him carve.

SPACE Alliandra turns away from the sight and voices the thoughts of every other member of the group.

SPACE “Now what?”