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Jin just lay there for a moment, stunned by the force of the explosion and a very loud ringing in his ears. He felt no need to move whatsoever. The pirates were dead. By golly, he was just going to lie here until the ringing went away and he felt easy enough to move again...

But then people might think you're dead, lying face-down like that, his Second Thoughts objected.

Jin groaned and raised his head up, glazed eyes staring at Blossom for a moment before his brain realized she was holding something. Oh, a Vulnerary? That might be of service right now. "Th-thank you," he rasped as fingers clenched the top of the bottle. Usually the bottles weren't Jin's style (hard to drink with a facemask), but he'd make an exception. Not like it was hard to keep your back to everyone else as you downed the shot.

The potion helped restore Jin and his hearing in time to catch the gist of Arashe's plan: this time, they'd go on the defensive. That suited him--looking around, apparently only two out of four Bishops survived the pirate battle. A shortage of staff-users... it was now his turn.

But between the time the Mordache planks landed and enemy soldiers came storming across, Jin would have time for one shot...

As Knights began marching across Plank 3, Jin aimed...

And put the lead Knight to sleep.

The other Knights behind him remained puzzled for a second before shouting curses at the man, shaking him, trying their best to wake him up.

The Sleep gem shattered after the cast, its last use spent. But it had done with the Sage needed done, and could now concentrate on bolstering anyone who took a hit with Mend.

(Jin placed a Mend gem on the staff after the Sleep gem broke.)

On the immobilized Unit Four, nothing noteworthy happened besides three more shots of Fenrir being fired at three more random people on the Sevenmoon. The archers were sill in position to fire at any enemy that came into their range, as well. And that’s about all for now.

But on Unit Six, lots of stuff was happening! So it evens out. Sort of.

Exact numbers hadn’t been considered, so the writer can’t genuinely say how many Mordache-enemies there were (but it’s enough to give them a hard time without killing characters that actually have names, presumably). The Shamans were fortunate in that they could remain behind all their comrades and still effectively attack. Their Flux spells were targeted and the first wave of defense on the Learanian ship; the sword users nearest the planks, impeding Mordache troops from crossing ships. Dark magic was slower, and not exactly terribly difficult to dodge, but it also took up a lot of space. Thus, the Learanian swordsmen it was aimed at could attempt to get out of the way, freeing a path for Knights, horse-less Cavaliers, and Soldiers to get a lot further on the ship – or they could take the hit, perhaps leaving them susceptible to easy attacks from the Knights. Some of the archers also remained hidden from enemy fire, and aimed to bring down the wyvern riders in the sky whenever the opportunity presented itself. And for the sake of having a battle with casualties on both sides, let’s believe at least a couple of wyverns got shot down – one of them spiraling downward, terribly dramatically, tragically even, right onto the Learanian ship, the impact breaking something on board and killing the poor rider.

The barrels aimed towards the Knights leading their comrades onto the Learanian vessel were both successful and unsuccessful. They all hit their mark, one of them even knocking a Knight that had fallen asleep in the middle of a battle (tsk, tsk – sleeping on the job) off the planks to a certain death in the ocean where his armor would corrode just as his body would. But for the non-sleeping Knights, the barrels weren’t enough to stop progress. They were Knights; beefy FEF-equivalents to linebackers (or whatever position in sports soaks up hits – the writer has no idea) with good defenses and sturdy armor! The barrels hit them and reverberated back several inches. It knocked the wind out of them, sure, but it hardly incapacitated them. They rolled the barrels right back the direction they came from with the strength of Knights behind ‘em. But between getting hit by a barrel and taking the time to push ‘em back, the sword users who were to attack them had great opportunities to make some attacks, so I’m sure a few of them died (likely the ones Arashe and the Bishop shot at included since barrels + melee attackers + taking additional hits = odds stacked against you), littering the space-limited battlefield. But that didn’t stop more Mordacheans from coming. Also, Hutch would be boarding in a post, and possibly Starsky a post after that. And they don’t ******** around. So they’ll need to be dealt with by named, preferably promoted people (heads up made so the fight may end sooner than later)

So uh, keep fighting! You’re doing fabulous considering the circumstances, I’m sure~

Things were not going well. He had lost three men to those abnormally skilled pirates, and it didn't help that three more of his men had been shot down while they were distracted by the exploding ship.

"Fall back and regroup," Valter yelled above the sounds of the battle.

When the remaining wyverns pulled back, Valter ran a head count. It did not look good. He had brought too few people. What they needed was reinforcements and a new plan.

(( *deep breath* Alright, let's see how I do... ))

Luckily for Arashe and his forces, a good defense was seeming like quite the capable offense, this time. The barrel attack stunned the enemy Knights for long enough to allow the Myrmidons and Mercenaries to dodge the incoming Flux attacks, and still not lose any ground. After all, people would have to pass around the knights that were reeling from the blows, and that could easily put them in danger of friendly fire or worse, tripping up their allies. Simply put, the barrels gave the Learanians the brief moment needed to dodge the Flux attacks, for the most part. Though of course at about the same time, attacks were being made on the legs of those Knights, with the assailants quickly moving out of the way of the Flux as they both kept themselves out of the Knights' ranges and out of the line of magical fire. When the spells fizzled out, all of the swordsmen still stood strong. Well-placed hits from the sides towards each remaining Knight sent their likely immobile bodies over the edge and into the waters below. And as the other troops began to cross the plank, assuming they weren't killed by the inner six archers (three at the front and back parts of the ship) they were met by at least two Learanians the moment they got near the Learanian ship. On planks 1, 2 and 4, there were trios consisting each of two Mercenaries and a Myrmidon, while plank 3 boasted the Hero Blossom and a Myrmidon. As the foes got into range, the groups proceeded to attack from three sides, hopefully preventing them from even attacking before another blade was aimed right for their backside. And while the overabundance of lance-using foes was obvious, the swordsmen were mostly able to completely dodge and parry the attacks, as their range meant little if a Mercenary could block the lance swing or stab with their sword and jerk the foe off into the ocean. The advantage in numbers allowed the swordsmen to still be mostly unscathed, save a few minor injuries here and there.

The archers, of course, were still twelve strong and attacking in full force. The inner archers continued unloading arrows onto the soldiers crossing the planks, running valuable interference for the swordsmen lying in wait. The six outer archers, however, had a slight change in target. Though they were originally aiming for both the enemy Archers and Shamans, the shout from Blossom was easily adapted into the assault. Soon, the six archers split themselves into two teams: one of each trio proceeded to keep firing upon the enemy archers, while the other two aimed right for the Shamans in the back. And given how preoccupied they were with their spellcasting, damage was almost guaranteed, and their magical onslaught would soon likely stop altogether. Oh, and of course, the archers aiming for those Shamans were able to fire off a few arrows towards any healers, too.

The wyvern that fell to the Learanian deck went largely unnoticed by most of the swordsmen, save the ones on the far left, as it was closest to them. However, it was simply a noise in the background, and didn't do anything to shatter their attention too much. After all, wyverns were falling left and right in the battle just before, so it wasn't anything new. The wyvern fell onto the deck rather close to the left plank, as just mentioned, though it was rather close to the entrance to below the deck. So, it was more than enough ruckus to lure out the two crewmen who threw one of the barrels at the Knights. While they were rather shocked that a wyvern was sitting about five feet in front of them, dead, wheels began to turn as they remembered some of Arashe's orders.

Using the dead wyvern as cover, the crewmen proceeded to take cloths and scraps of anything flammable they could find, stuffing them into the bottles of liquor. Getting fire was as easy as a shout below decks, obviously, and within about a minute of the wyvern's impact, the men each took a turn wreaking havoc on the enemy forces. The first one stood up, using the Wyvern's rather large frame to conceal most of his body (and who would be putting their attention towards a dead wyvern for about a minute in a battle, anyway?) before throwing the firebomb straight across the gap between ships and right onto the Mordachean vessel's deck. The bottle shattered, as they often do, and soon fire was erupting (albeit rather contained) across the deck of the Mordache ship closer to planks 1 and 2. Not only would the fire likely sew confusion through the enemy archers and mages, it would also demand soldiers stay behind and put the fires out. The second man did the same thing, though instead of aiming straight across to make some sort of double-layered fire or something, he threw it diagonally, trying to aim it towards the far side of the boat. That throw... didn't go so well, and ended up only going so far as those crossing plank 2 before it collided with something (whether it be a soldier or armor or a weapon), likely drenching at least one person with flame. Maybe, if they were lucky, the guy would end up flailing about and sending multiple people into the ocean! ...but, seeing as they could only easily hit straight across, they were likely not going to aim anywhere but there when they prepared more of the molotov cocktails.

Next is the pair of Myrmidon and Bishop. Given how late the Joshiepost came, I'll just say he was healed during those preparations, as there was more than enough time for the Bishop to run around healing people with wood in their leg propped against a mast. So now Derrin is like, primed for battle once more. Good for him. Now, back in the present, the Bishop decided it was best to run off towards the side of the boat Arashe, Blossom and Jin were not on, much closer to planks 1 and 2. The Bishop decided it would likely be smartest to remain on an offensive, and only heal those who were in grave danger. After all, there were at least two people at each plank, so they could afford to get a little banged up, and he would come in when they got really hurt. The Bishop was once more concealed behind a mast, though this one was, as noted before, closer to planks 1 and 2. He just kinda kept up that whole thing with using the Light tome on the first thing to get close to the swordsmen at plank 1, occasionally firing at the enemies at plank 2, as the firebomb may have made things easier for that group.

And we now, finally, get to Arashe. He was pleased that his troops were being rather autonomous, and the Ranger was overjoyed to see them able to hold their own against Mordache even with their injuries. Maybe they did have a chance, after all. He scanned the battlefield, looking for whichever place was in need of his support the most. The one furthest from him was getting light magic support, the next one had fire, the third had Blossom, and both the edge planks were being aided by archers, as well (their contributions to those defenses were much more noticeable than they were on the middle planks) so Arashe decided to aim for the enemies all the way on the other ship. The Ranger saw that the other archers were dealing with the Shamans, so he aimed two Brave Bow arrows towards two different healers before aiming a third towards a soldier crossing the plank closest to him (4).

As the third arrow flew from the bow, Arashe sighed, surveying the battlefield again with a decidedly more grim expression. Sure, they were lasting now, but for how long? The reinforcements he had called were on their way, he could see them, but they weren't there yet! It wouldn't matter if they were on their way if all of Arashe's forces ended up dead or damn close before then! And all he was doing was commanding them like pigs to the eventual slaughter while he was nice and safe and out of combat! He was supposed to be their commander! Valter was fighting with his subordinates, hell, the captain of the Phantom flatout tried to rush Arashe before he died. And he was going to just sit there and fire arrows from the safety of the wheel. Honestly, he'd had enough.

Arashe quickly stowed the Brave Bow back in whatever odd section of hammerspace bow-users had access to when they had more than one bow and unsheathed his Stiletto dagger as he began to walk past the archers that were firing upon various foes. One of them tried to ask him what he was doing, but Arashe simply ignored him. A moment or so later, Arashe was alongside his troops at plank 4, shoving down the shaft of a Soldier's lance as he drove the jagged blade of the Stiletto into the enemy's neck. As he pulled the dagger out, Arashe shoved the near-corpse backwards with a butt of his shoulder while he pushed the lance backwards with him, sending the man wobbling around off-balance until he fell backwards likely onto whoever was behind him, probably putting yet another hiccup in the Mordache force's attempts to board. With only a few hand gestures, Arashe moved a swordsman towards Blossom's plank, giving her some possibly much-needed assistance, and keeping defenses balanced across the board. At this point, Arashe is more than willing to go through an entire ship's worth of enemies just to keep his troops from facing more losses so by all means, throw something at him~

(( TL;DR time, because my posts are probably getting even longer! Okay, so. The swordsmen were able to use good timing to let the Flux castings be used to keep the enemy from advancing too much, and are currently attacking in a rotating fashion to minimize injuries. The Knights that didn't die already were shoved off of the planks by the large Mercenary swords that were aided by the likely attacks on the legs from before. Now, they're just for the most part bottlenecking the foes and taking them out one by one. The archers are once more attacking foe from a distance, with the inner groups attacking those crossing the planks while the outer groups attack the healers and Shamans. The wyvern crashing into the deck was used as cover by two gutsy civilians who are now throwing molotov cocktails onto the enemies from the safety granted by hiding behind a scaled corpse. One firebomb landed on the Mordache ship, and the other landed on some poor sap on plank 2. The Bishop relocated himself and is now attacking plank 1 while his personal guard Myrmidon is doing his job. And Arashe has now taken an active combat spot at plank 4, sending one of those troops to round out those at plank 3 to three people. So each plank has three people: 1 and 2 each have two Myrmidons and a Mercenary, 3 has Blossom, a Mercenary and a Myrmidon, and 4 has Arashe, a Mercenary and a Myrmidon. Archers are still attacking both the planks and the mages/healers, and don't forget a ship is still on its way!

And the PC tracker states roughly that... Arashe and Blossom are on the front lines, Jin is running support, Derrin is... probably about to run support for somewhere, Valter is flying around doing something and everyone else seems to have pretty much stopped posting but no biggie, 'cause we still got four or five PCs going pretty strong, depending on how you count.))

Unit Four was having the s**t beat of it with that volley of cannons shot at it, causing a little bit of hysteria among Mordache’s, non-naval-focused troops. Worse yet, their assailants had connected to them, and ******** pirates were getting into the groove of what they likely did best: causing s**t and killing s**t. At the very least, the magic users on Unit Four had successfully launched a third round of siege tomes before canons had returned fire on them. Plus, as the Sevenmoon came closer and closer, the archers onboard finally had them in range to start firing away, which they did. But once the pirates got onto their ship, they were dealing with absolute Hell. The remaining magic users went from using their siege tomes to more common tomes. Many of the soldiers were scattering amid all the chaos, but they attempted to fight back all the same as the pirates boarded their ship. Jessie herself was faring well, slashing, stabbing, attacking anyone approached with her Silver Lance.

Meanwhile, Unit Six wasn’t in nearly as bad a condition as Unit Four was, but they weren’t doing fabulous either with the Learanian leftovers giving them as much trouble as they were.

The Archers were firing and being fired at by opposing Archers, except Mordache’s outnumbered those of Learania’s. They didn’t have a Ranger firing a Brave Bow, though, which is obviously more valuable. While the Archers were originally firing at the opposing Archers, Starsky could see his troops were having trouble getting very far in their efforts to board the enemy ship due to the Learanians bottlenecking them in. That wasn’t going to do if they were to overtake the Learanians. “Archers and Shamans, aim for the wretches blocking our advance!” he roared as the unmounted Paladin himself began approaching the plank nearest to him (4). The Shamans had been doing so to begin with, but some of the Archers quickly assisted them in doing so.

And speaking of the Shamans, it was truly fortunate that the troop formations had been arranged to provide plenty of protection for them in the form of Knights as their bodyguards, which had saved most of them more than once by this point with the opposing ranged attackers focusing their attention of the magic users. Some shots had gotten through their human defenses and penetrated a number of their frail bodies, but for most of them at this point, the show would go on! Which meant more Flux attacks! The healers, being in the rear as well, were able to tend to some of them that hadn’t died from their wounds yet, also. As far as the Shamans attacking went, after one of the Flux spells had inexplicably disappeared, very weird, the efforts to attack that area specifically were doubled over! The areas around all the other planks had at least one Flux spell aimed at one of the sword users blocking it, but at least three went towards those guarding the third plank.

And then a fire broke out on Unit Six. Orders were made for the ship crew to put it out, but the fire still stirred rifts in the order. Eventually people got around to attempting to deal with the fire though. One of the soldiers on Plank 2 caught on fire, as well, flailing into the ocean and dragging another soldier with him as well. Hutch had been right behind those that fell to the waters on fire and was growing tired of all this nonsense. There being a slight gap ahead of him, he rushed forward across the entire plank, even knocking those ahead of him forward, and then swung his axe across the chests of the two myrmidons ahead of him. This (unmounted) Great Knight was not in a good mood; he was going to cut a b***h! And cut a b***h after that b***h. And another after that one until he was stopped. The soldiers on the other planks continued to fight, as they had been doing so before, though, the only anomaly being Starsky’s preparation to cross over the fourth plank, himself.

(tl;dr summary: Unit Six is having hell against Captain Tarr and his crew, but attacking back. On Unit Four, the archers are aiming for the myrmidons/mercenaries blocking the planks, more Flux spells were fired, this time focusing on those defending against Plank 3, and Hutch crossed over and is killing s**t. Starsky's about to cross Plank 4. If I ignored or missed resposnding to something, assume whatever you had happen actually happened. For instance, Arashe's attack on the healers.)

Healing people shouldn't have to BE this hard!

True, for the most part Jin, the Bishop, and Serra (who had been enlisted by the other two to assist in healing efforts because even she couldn't possibly screw that up, right?) only had to heal three or four people. But that wasn't at all simple when their patients were getting injured on an average of every five or six seconds! Thank their stars that Blossom was defending one of the planks; had she been just another Mercenary, one of the planks would have fallen, and they'd have been overrun some time ago. But for the most part, she'd stymied the enemy advance across that plank--that is, until now.

"Dammit... hold a moment," Jin ordered the Myrmidon he was healing (currently Plank 2) and hurried over to the plank on his right (I'm guessing Plank 3 is this one). He gave Blossom a once-over for a second, making sure she hadn't taken any arrow wounds. Nope, didn't look like she had. Good, that would make his job much quicker. He knelt down, and the Mend gem glowed--in short order, Blossom's wounds were healed.

"There," Jin said. "Now keep goi--"

His head whipped around at a scream behind him. That Myrmidon he'd left behind? The poor sod just found himself literally beheaded by some soldier's axe. The perp had the armor of some sort of promoted soldier, and the demeanor of someone who really had just one thing on his mind: Making their lives as ******** miserable as humanly possible.

Oh, sonofa--

Just as Hutch was about to cross, Jin leapt in front of him.

"You shall not pass," was all he said before before giving a lunge, stiletto extended in an effort to pierce Hutch's armor.

See, that was the nice thing about stilettos--armor didn't really stop them. Sure, the heavy armor of Great Knights was something to write home about, but most armors had trouble dealing with these miniature Armorslayers.

...But it should be noted that Jin here had to stand his ground as a fill-in. His ilk... do not work well at all in standing their ground. That would become readily apparent if and when Hutch started swinging that nasty axe, or when the archers fired. Even Flux would not be irrelevant, for Elder trumps Nature, and Jin would surely feel the pain given by enough Flux.

In short, if anyone were to realize this and take his place or perhaps fend Hutch off, that would be great.

Reinforcements had arrived. Valter's unit was now a much larger force than it was at the beginning of the fight. The enemy archers would be spread thin trying to take them all down. They would be much more formidable than before. Especially with the Captain's new plan of attack.

"Alright, soldiers, listen up. Do anything and everything you can to avoid their arrows. Dodge, dip, duck, dive, and... dodge. Just don't get hit, okay? Unless you want to end up like that guy," Valter instructed, motioning toward the fallen wyvern on the deck of the ship. "Come up behind the enemy. Leave the ones near the planks to our guys on the ground. Now get out there and remind everyone why we are the pride of the Learanian Guard."

TL;DR: This is most certainly not too long. Read it, right now! D:<

Here’s my own attempt at keeping it simple:

The generics kept doing what they were doing in the previous post. Which means more Flux, more arrows, more people crossing. Same pattern. Hutch attacked and killed a generic defender of the plank he crossed before Jin showed up and swung his axe just after Jin shanked Hutch with his Stiletto. The Stilletto hits! Hutch hurts! But he’s not a quitter! Blossom shows up as Hutch is swinging so their attacks parry each other. Hutch quickly swings again! What will Blossom DO?

If someone attacks a Mordachean, then the Mordachean got attacked, pertaining to Valter’s group.

Starsky crosses the plank and cuts at least one generic Learanian before thrusting his lance at Arashe from a safe distance from an immediate retaliation.

Half the generics changed their attention to the other ship when it showed up, but they’re not likely to be very successful against them.

If you attacked someone, assume a Knight tried to cover them if they’re a frail unit, and that otherwise, the attack was successful.

(Yeah, I might flesh it out later, but the actions would essentially remain the same. Just kill all the Mordacheans, already! Minimal details because a. it lets you insert them to your advantage to end this sooner, b. short posts mean you can respond to them sooner, c. I’m really just trying to help this thread end ASAP now)