Meet the Classes - The Freebooter

The Freebooter, adventurers and thieves for gold. Risking life and limb for the promise of treasure. With more art from the Talented Franklin Lima (https://www.instagram.com/frank.fcl?igsh=MWEyY2Rlbm15ZGpjZQ%3D%3D)

I also wanted to give you all a small glimpse into an adventure a Freebooter might have. I hope you enjoy. 

Fortune's Favour,

- Miller

The Dragon's Hollow 

A gambler knows when to leave the table before things get heated. Unfortunately for Sal, the exit was at the bottom of a cliff of crashing waves and rocks like spears. With him hanging on for dear life, there was no room for folding–he was all in. He had been moving inch by agonizing inch for an hour up the cliff's rock edge, gripping every rock knuckles white. He cursed to himself for choosing this day, of all the days, to do this. The storm overhead was brewing like an ocean gale, and already the rocks and handholds were slick with the little rain that overhung the waves. He made do, often using his knife to jam into rocks to lift himself when possible. But he had lost his knife about twenty feet down, wedged in a rock that threatened to throw him off his footing if he yanked hard enough. So he had to go on without it. He gritted at his foolish mistake, as that knife had been with him as long as he could remember. It fed him as much as it protected him. Sighing to himself, he began to climb once more. There was always another knife to buy, along with the loot he was promised would be here. He first heard the rumour of Cliff Island from a drunkard in the town's bar, barely coherent. 

“An Island, y’see? Full of gold if you can get to the top. But it's guarded by a dragon,” the drunkard belched. And it was not until Sal heard his friend say the same story, albeit with much more clarity. And when Sal questioned him about it, he gave every detail the drunkard did, including the part about a dragon that guarded its hoard. “Dragons? No such thing.” Sal laughed. But he wasn’t laughing anymore. For all that he cared, the cliff he had to climb was the only real dragon.     

He could see the bottom of the cliff's lip, and somehow, the sight overwhelmed his muscles with newfound strength. But he kept his slow pace, knowing this was the moment a man would surely die, when the universe found it most ironic and filled with drama. A rock from underneath him broke off, causing him to hang by his fingers, the slick rock threatening to throw him off. His heart was in his throat until his feet found another purchase on the rock. Looking up, Sal saw only a grey swirl of ashen smoke replacing the sky, thunder booming like a war trumpet warning of impending doom. Sal stuck his tongue out and up to the sky in defiance. What must have only been an hour and a half felt like days as Sal grabbed hold of the top of the cliff’s lip. A victorious smile lit his dirt-caked face. With his free hand, he checked his belt, feeling his sabre still secure in its scabbard, along with his flintlock pistol tucked behind the knot of his belt sash. Though if he had to fight as soon as he stood on solid ground, the pistol was no more useful than an ornate club until it was loaded. He couldn't risk being shot by his gun halfway up a cliff by some unlucky mishap. So a club would have to do. Risking a peek over, all he could see was a rocky plain leading up to a dry hill. The plateau resembled a desert more than anything. And on top of that hill stood a ruined structure covered in dense foliage that somehow only grows in that spot amidst the waste plateau. Sal risked the leap and pulled out his sabre the moment he got even footing again, instinctively drawing his flintlock. Deathly quiet surrounded him, and Sal took this moment to load a ball into his pistol, pouring black powder and the rest of his luck into the flintlock's pan. Cocking the hammer halfway, his sabre in the other hand, Sal pressed on.

The storm began to grow above him, and what was once grey smoke turned to the blackness of a roaring bonfire. And the thunder pressed ever closer, booming after flashes of lightning over the crashing waves. Sal gulped a mouthful of salt-tinged air as he moved closer to the ruin. Only hearing stories, never anything concrete, as he had hoped. And all the stories told of this place being deserted—an island that more resembled a tower one would see in a city, only twenty-five feet from the mainland's cliff end—once joined by a rope bridge that was cut from the mainland’s side. And as far as anyone Sal had talked to remembered, it was always like that.

His foot met the slope of the hill leading up to the ruin. And now, at this distance, he could see the foliage was dead. Thin tree trunks were bent and piled all over the top of the ruin, lying on it as if to replace the collapsed roof. He quickly moved up the hill, no longer enjoying being out in the open, and into the main archway of the building. The tiled floor was cracked, and some areas were ripped from their foundation. More tree trunks were on the ground. Unhooking his lantern and lighting the wick, he could see the walls carved with elegant patterns, the cause of the building’s state unknown. The carvings were in a language he didn’t recognize or had ever seen. The script jumped from one wall to the next, with some sections repeating patterns. The carvings were paired with illustrations that unfolded into a story. Sal tried to find any hidden meaning in the remaining walls. From what he could piece together, the walls showed a single figure, holding the sun in his hands, following people in the background. Most of the face’s expressions were brushed away by time. But Sal could see the wariness of the few that were still visible. The next wall showed the figure among followers, holding the ball of fire for all to see, and most of the faces were still visible, and they looked in amazement at the great fire before them. The last showed the figure holding the ball of flame, erupting into a giant scaled beast. Sal could not shake the feeling of the cults and their weird dealings, sacrifices and kidnapping of people in the night, swaying them with the lie of knowledge kept hidden. 

Sal couldn’t gather any more from the artwork on the remaining walls. So he looked for what he was here for–gold. And lots of it from the stories he’d heard.  

After a two-hour search, no gold was found. So Sal, in a fit of embarrassment, set himself up to take a nap in what looked to be the main room, perhaps where the cult did its rituals. Torn banners with ink bleached away by the sun stood idle in the corner next to a pile of books and a ruined remnant of their shelf. Spreading an old fishing net he had found into a hammock, where he took his rest. Lounging in the hammock, he looked up at the sky above. The storm had been slowly breaking, and the whisps of light green sky could be seen past the dying smoke. Breaking through the torn roof, creating a silhouette of rib-like bars across the walls. The emerald green planet floated in the sky, like a great wall keeping half of space behind its giant form. Every time Sal looked at it, he felt insignificant against something that was a mere backdrop to him. The planet was so huge that he could never see it in full view. And he watched as it moved closer and closer to blot out the sun in a long night. By his reckoning, it was within the waning hours of the Owl, so he had at least twelve more hours of day left. And as the light pierced the ruin’s hole-covered roof, Sal realized it was not a roof. 

Its jaws were open wide to him, as if in mid-lunge to strike. Its bone white claws, suspended by netting, caught in a frightening display of an apex predator. Its ribs, too many for any animal Sal has ever come across, were pointed and long, thin as a branch. Some still clung to the animal, while many more were tossed to the ground all around Sal’s Hammock. Then he heard a creak, and a crack came from one of the beams. He tied the hammock off. And the beast, in a crescendo of snapping ropes and beams, came rushing towards him, its claws outstretched forward towards its prey. Sal, for a moment, was fixed with fear, before instinct and reality came over him, and he jumped from the hammock and onto the broken tile. Scrambling to find better cover and jumping into the next room. Awaiting the deafening crash. It came down like the sound of a full forest crashing down. Hearing wood and stone break and smash from what he could only assume were the claws of the immense beast, tearing the room apart to look for him. Though he didn’t believe it would be of much use, Sal pulled his sabre out anyway, ready to strike. 

For some time, the ruin went quiet. The only sound was the rushing blood in Sal’s veins. Slowly, he moved from his hiding place back into the room. Dust from ages past was lifted into the air, causing the light of the sky to dazzle in the slivers of green. Sal pushed the dust away with one hand while keeping his pistol out in front of him, making his way back to the center of the room. The dust slowly dissipated, wafting in thick clouds through the air, making its way low as the wind took it away. The banners on the wall were torn to pieces in the crash. And another table in the corner was rendered dust under a rotted beam. A pile of white bone and shattered stone covered the main room. One Sal wished never to meet alive. Its flat, outstretched skull, the black eye sockets staring blankly at the world. Even in death, it looked as if hunting. He quickly pocketed one of the beast's toe claws, which was just about the size of his hand.

Sal ventured back to the tower island’s cliff, hammering in a piton to the dusty ground and tying a rope to it. There may not have been gold, but Sal had one damn fine story to tell.