Anyone for Sushi?|Rivenway, Ronduin

[Darastrix]

Boats were a common sight on the Great River. There were fishing boats, leisure craft, ferries, merchant vessels, and the occasional large ship, but there had been few of any such craft on the waters of late. But now, surging through the chill waters from the north, sails at full, was an unusual sight indeed: a fleet of icebreaker ships, the colours of the Khelek Crystalands flying in the wind.

The crew below had been keeping a sharp eye out in case repairs were needed as they had crossed into Ronduinian waters, but the thick double-planking (used in Khelek's ships to prevent them from being damaged by ice floes) seemed to be serving them well against the other lake hazards. On deck and below, soldiers prepared themselves in case the kuo-toa decided to attack the ships, ready to fight and freeze the lake to cut off quick escape.

"Ahoy, Ronduin!" a Wind-Ice bellowed from the bow of the lead ship. "Khelek sends her aid!"

[Kender Bard]

From the docks and the beach the soldiers and guards fighting there gave up a cheer that could be heard from the boats. The Kuo-toa began to make a tactical retreat, though not so far as to let the Ronduins think they'd suddenly turned tail. One of the Storms that Shadow had given over to Cascata made a show of sending a bolt of lightning after one.

Another group of Kuo-toa approached the ships and began to swim around them warily, unsure of this new presence. Several stabbed at the hulls with their weapons from below but the sturdy ships proved far too much trouble to bother with from below.

[Darastrix]

The Ices didn't bother with showboating; they were there to work. Soldiers positioned on the decks readied their weapons while the Ice elementals worked in concert to form sheets of ice on the surface of the river ahead of their ships. The crews on board worked to pull in the sails, allowing the ships to begin to slow, though even with the decrease in speed, it looked like the ice might block them from reaching the island itself or even damage the ships. The lead vessel was moving between two ever-growing floes of ice that already lacked the space between them to allow passage. But instead of being trapped or crushed between the ice, the ship actually came out of the water, its oddly-rounded body becoming visible as its shape allowed it to be pushed harmlessly onto the ice as the Ices worked to extend the field to keep their ships "aground." If the kuo-toa wanted their ships, they'd have to come onto the ice to get them.

[Kender Bard]

Clearly the Kuo-toa were greatly confused at how to deal with this new enemy. Some began to attack the ice from below. Others swam away from the ships and focused on trying to get to the shore. But a great many of them clambered onto the ice and tried to scale the sides of the ships, their hands and feet sticking as though the creatures had been coated in sticky tar.

[Northen Light36]

Several of the Storms watching quickly attempted to stop the Kuo-toa climbing the ships by flinging carefully aimed bolts of lightning at the monsters.

[Kender Bard]

Although many of the Kuo-toa that were thusly struck let go of the ships and fell back to the ice below, not all of them were hit before managing to pull themselves up to the deck level. A couple, holding harpoons, boldly threw them at the first humans the saw while the rest tried to simply get up and over so as to acquire steady footing on the deck.

[Darastrix]

Some of the men who had been leaning over the side to take aim at the Kuo-toa jumped away from the rail in surprise at the lightning and rubbed the light from their eyes. They hadn’t expected to see that many Storms to be in Ronduin, of all places. The Ice-Wind near the bow called back to shore, “Storms! Strike those on the ice! The men need to be able to see!” And if it turned out the lightning could actually travel through the ice like it could water, so much the better.

The men farther back on the ships, closer to the stern, weren’t as bothered. The Kuo-toa there were harder to see from the shore, let alone be aimed for, so they fired their arrows down at the climbers, while those scattered over the deck stepped in to cover the men who’d had a little too good of a view of the Storm strikes.

The two targets for the harpoon-wielding Kuo-toa were hit. One, a veteran soldier, turned her head away to avoid being struck on the chin, and suffered the hit to her jaw instead, bone crunching and her mouth filling with blood. As another swordswoman ran forward to defend her sister-in-arms, the first touched the sign on her knuckle to create a makeshift cast of ice around her jaw, holding the harpoon still while she tried to saw through the shaft with her own weapon.

The second was hit in the forearm, forcing him to drop his sword and draw the limb in to his body, pressing his palm against the opposite wrist. A shower of razor-sharp ice shards flew from the man toward his attacker even as a younger man zipped to his side with wind-borne speed and thrust at the creature with a spear.

[Northen Light36]

The storms responded to the request and threw their lighting at the Kuo-toa on the ice.

[Kender Bard]

Between the Ices and the Storms (and the Waters, once they saw opportunities to lend a hand) all of the Kuo-Toa were either killed or driven off. Most were slain and great cheers went up from the coast of Ronduin as they shouted praise and thanks to their Khelekian cousins and the Storms who had nobly lent their aid.