Day 2 Mercenary coast

The man seems confused and shakes his head negatively.

Don't do it so. Storm hits us. We lost. Looking for help. We friends

The look on his face shifts to panic and he blows the horn.

Hector stifles a sigh as events unfold, and the grogs move to stand in front of Argyros and Galenos, acting to shield them from any harm that may come.

OOC: Hector and one of the Tweedles will guard the magus, and the other Tweedle will guard our priest.

Argyros says in Greek
"Ho man I knew I should have work on my arab. Sorry guys, I really did my best. But hey, maybe this will end well. No worries"

Then to the man
Hooo no.We friends. Peace. Help?

Galenos is certain that this will go badly, and begins praying.

Men begin entering the beach from the woods behind the man, alone or in pairs. Each of the men is armed with a bow, and begin to assemble around the man who blew the horn, talking in the harsh language which is not Arabic between themselves.

"There is no way we can stand against them. Hector, have we a white flag we could show?"

It occurs to Galenos that, with more people on the shore, the chances one of them speaks a matching language has gone up.

"Do any of you speak Greek? We are friends!"
"Do any of you speak Latin? We are friends!"

OOC; How far from the shore is our boat? If we can easily get out of bow shot range, Hector will suggest we do that.

"Are you the bringers of the storms?"

Praise be, a language in common! Well met, good sir! Your question is not quite clear to me, but if you are asking whether we are responsible for the storm that wrecked you, we are not.

Indeed, we find ourselves in a similar state; for although we still have our ship, we have little to eat or drink, and know not where we are.

We had hoped we might be able to join with you, for mutual assistance; but for the moment, may we at least come ashore and talk without fear of your arrows?

The man turns to the others and speaks with them. "Please, come ashore, we will lay down our arms to talk, but first we will wait a bit for the rest of our company to arrive."

Over the next half hour a total of ten men emerge from the woods, the apparent leader converses with the others then approaches your group.
"You say you have been stranded by a storm as we have, and yet your ship appears to be intact."

"Hi fellows. We have quite a captain here and we can consider ourselves as very lucky so we manage to be in one piece. But our goods are really damaged and the ship could be repaired a bit for sure. And more we're kinda lost. Really. I'm pretty sure we could all workd together and leave this sea all in one piece

The man strokes his chin, and his hood slips, allowing you to see his scar and missing ear. "Perhaps. It would take many trips, going back and forth from island to island, unless we build a second ship, as we might do without your assistance, so what is it you would be wanting of us? I am familiar with the Black Sea, though I am not certain of our exact location since the attack by the sea serpents."

Galenos spreads his hands.

We are in complementary situations. We have a ship, but our crew is small and our passengers, while skilled in many areas, are not all suited to a life of living by their hands; and yet we find ourselves in unknown lands, some of which we have already found to be host to hostile creatures, and with barely a day's provisions remaining - although, with luck, our colleagues are gathering some little sustenance over yonder as we speak.

You, on the other hand, have no ship; but your company is of good size, and all armed. You seem like you have experience of surviving on your wits, and you know something of our location. I don't believe we had thought of the details of any formal arrangement yet; we simply imagined that we would do better as a unified group than as two separate ones - indeed, I believe God must have brought us together for that purpose!

I suppose we would welcome you as guides and guards, and we in turn would offer you space on our ship and whatever services we can. We have an excellent healer, and I think you would be surprised at what some of our other members can turn their hands to.

ooc: Really? They'd need two ships for 10 men? Surely any decent sea-going vessel would be able to accommodate all of them and any livestock, and still probably have room left over for us - or is my naval history a couple of centuries too modern?

OOC: keep in mind there are also NPC characters in the game "laborers" who are the sailors/fishermen aboard your ship. Also they are 10men with some supplies, and 21 horses. And I believe your naval history may be a bit in advance, though to be fair the ship is as well- however it is not an overly large ship, though it is a very advanced one for the period.

The man considers this proposal for a minute than nods "We accept your proposal, and in fact, as our delay has likely voided the contract we had hoped to have, if things go well during this trial period we will consider staying on as guardsmen should you find yourselves in need in a less dire and more permanent situation, though of course we would need to talk price at that point. Until we find civilization however, the deal will hold as it stands."

Formalities over, Galenos attempts more idle conversation.

From where do your band hail, if I may ask? And where did you learn your Greek? - it is excellent, and a godsend to this meeting!

"Primarilly Russ, though we have worked for Constantinople in the past, before the Latins invaded, and we have worked some jobs in the Levant. I learned Greek in Constantinople. If we are agreed, we should perhaps deal with the immediate issues, like how to manage our transportation. We've managed to explore about half of this island, but we have managed to locate a game trail and running water. We are a bit short on feed for the horses however.."