Emmaline gripped the lock and whispered her incantation. Nothing happened. The strange elven metal indifferent to her magics. Sighing she gripped the bar instead, and splintered it to rust. The crew burst free and grabbed their weapons. The approaching dark elves might have been taken aback as their former slaves rushed at them from two directions but they reacted like professional soldiers. With a shout the approaching elves pivoted into two echelons, locking their shields against the rush. For a moment they onrushing crew faced a wall of evil sigils and glittering spear points. There was a tremendous crash and the formation flew appart in a spray of metal, blood and gore. One of the carronades on the Hammer had evidently still been loaded and had been used to good effect. The elves had no time to regroup, the crew, all experience sailors, weren't phased by the roar of cannons the way landsmen were. They tore in with desperate fury. The elves were grabbing for swords and swatting with shields but the shock of it was too much. Emmaline saw one elf go down with a split skull, another lost a hand to a hacking blade. There was curious sound of deforming metal as a length of chain smashed the side of his helmet deforming the metal and whipping his head sideways with a crack. The fury of the crew as like the sea in a storm. Their fear transmuted into blind rage. One of the crew, already spitted on a spear, grabbed his killer and wreched his neck sideways. 

With nothing useful to add to the developing rout, Emmaline hurried up onto the Hammer, feeling an odd sense of security despite the fact the ship was in such dire straits. The Hammer was a home of sorts, for all of its complicated associations. She looked at the rigging and tried to figure out what needed to be done to get it sailing. Then she realized there was no wind to drive the sails. How were they going to get out of here? Emmaline wracked her brain for a minute trying to think of a solution. There was a sudden hissing at her wrist and she looked down to see that the snake bracelet she had aquired in Tobaro had roused itself. It slithered down onto the table and turned to look up at Emmaline with its emerald eyes, hissing in a complicated cadence.

"Huh, that is a good idea," she agreed, "but how would I..." She was interupted by more hissing. Emmaline nodded her head as the snake made a guesture with its tail. She opened the draw and drew out Markus' navigational instruments and hurried up onto the deck. She retreated to the poop deck and knelt down behind the wheel, pulling a set of brass dividers from the leather case she started scratching at the deck, marking out arcane sigils on the dark timber. It was difficult to know whether Markus would be angrier about the defacing of his deck of the damage to his instruments, but she figured she could worry about that later.