All in all, this is a pretty good set-up for another “Two Characters Bluff Their Way into the Bad Guys’ Base” scene.
Also, “Amara gets kidnapped by pirates” is a story concept I’ve had for a while now.
Also also, it should go without saying by this point that Nolan’s got it bad for Amara…
Kat storms into the Lyte public house.
“Amara got kidnapped by pirates,” she explains simply. “I need help.”
“What?” Nolan exclaims.
“Come on, uh —” Kat stares at Nolan and realises she doesn’t remember his name. “— you. We’re going to go save your girlfriend.”
“She is not my —” Nolan begins.
He blinks as a thought occurs to him.
“Wait. Does Amara talk about me?”
“Take it up with her after we rescue her,” Kat says, hauling Nolan to his feet and out of the pub.
The rest of the Lyte Brigade stares dumbly as this unfolds.
“S-should we go help?” Tancred asks, breaking the silence.
“Probably,” Pela says. “Amara’s our friend and Nolan is our Captain.”
Soon, Kat and the Lyte Brigade are at Darkstone Manor, trying to come up with a plan to rescue Amara from her piratical captors, as Dunstana restlessly orbits the table, trying to peer over the others’ shoulders to offer her own input.
“I’ve scoped out the pirates’ boathouse,” Kat explains. “And it’s built like a fortress. We’re either going to hit it really hard, or be really clever to find a way inside.”
“We could try to bluff our way in,” Matilda offers. “Put on disguises, or something, and talk them into just letting us in.”
“All seven of us?” Tancred asks.
“We could pretend to be new recruits who want to join the pirates,” Nolan offers.
“Oh!” Pela says suddenly. “We could bake a really big pie for the rest of us to hide in while two of us deliver it to the pirates.”
“But wouldn’t they realise that they never ordered a giant pie?” Matilda asks.
Pela frowns. “Oh, yeah. That’s the sort of thing they’d be talking about.” Her frown deepens. “I think I might just be hungry. Maybe we should stop for lunch.”
Falcata points to Kat’s sketch of the pirates’ boathouse. “That side door seems like an obvious week point,” she offers. “We could simply batter it down and storm the boathouse.”
“Can we storm an entire crew of pirates with seven people?” Nolan asks.
“What we set fire to one of the outbuildings?” Tancred offers. “What’s that, a storage shed? We could use that as a distraction without running the risk of hurting anyone?”
Tancred looks up to the others staring in mute bemusement at him.
“What?” he asks defensively. “It’s a perfectly legitimate siege tactic.”
“We can’t just go around starting fires in the dock district!” Matilda protests.
“But, you know, if we did start a fire,” Dunstana muses.
“We are not starting any fires!” Kat interjects. “Especially not you, Dunstana!”
“But —”
“No, Dunstana.”
“Not even a little one?”
“No, Dunstana.”
Kat slumps back against the couch.
“Ugh. We’re not getting anywhere!”
“Come on,” Nolan urges the others. “Amara is counting on us! We can’t just leave her there. I’m sure we can think of something if we all work together.”
Dunstana slowly raises her hand.
“No fires, Dunstana!” Kat says.
“Would some music help you think?” Dunstana asks hopefully.
She reaches into her coat pockets and pulls out her cowbell.
CLONK! CLONK! CLONK!
“Why do you still have that?”
When suddenly:
Image via Dictionary.com
If I knew how to put the DunstanHeh face on the .gif, I totally would have…
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