Slipfang: Sevenstones

[Abalon]

Helena still felt a little somber from not having been able to bring back Duo. But the fact the spiders sealed the door means that maybe they weren't as gone as she thought. She went back onto the bridge and leaned on the wooden edge, looking out at the vast sea

"If I start being afraid every time I go into this thing, I'll never kill that accursed flower"

She sighs, taking out the small bronze locket around her neck and opening it. Inside was a picture of her, probably before she died, and that woman. Funnily enough, she doesn't remember where she got it from

"...Just where are you?"

As the ship cuts across the waves, she decides to do something a little more relaxing. K was obviously going to be out of comission for a while, but they'd already started to work on something. They wouldn't mind if she tried adding to it, right?

OOC

Dunno what to roll to make the map

[Morkskittar]

 

[X]-[X]-[X]-[ ]-[ ]

Journey to Sevenstones

Helena – Cartographizing

Hisjam – On Watch

Kryk T'k – At the Helm (Forging Ahead)

 

Krevimar's Ruin Cartography: [X]-[X]-[ ]-[ ]-[ ]

Mindcatcher Growth: [ ]-[ ]-[ ]

 

---

 

Kryk T'k drove the Slipfang like a beetle infected with dashroot spores, the ship's longjaw slicing through the treetops at such speed that at times Helena and Ham thought they were flying. The itzenko, even though they had been absent for most of the harrowing encounter, seemed to be taking K's injury and Duo's loss hard. Ham pressed their companion on the issue briefly, and got the impression that something Duo had said about the hornet hivemind had unsettled him deeply, and he wanted nothing more than to get as far from it as possible. Though a bit uncomfortable with the pace, Ham let it be.

The Slipfang's crew sailed in a comfortable, reflective silence. Helena spent much of the next leg of their voyage in the navigation suite behind the wheelhouse, carrying on K's legacy. Ham, meanwhile stayed near the prow, watching the waves. In the distance, they occasionally sighted a small ship, and once a plume of some sort of smoke, as well as the omnipresent flowers of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Ham was idly playing with one of the spectral slinks on the deck when the skapp-beetle hive hummed with activity, and a beetle dove down into it from the sky, bearing a missive from their sister ship. Ham read the letter, and then went to tell the others.

The Argos had fared better than they, it seemed. The letter spoke of the crew encountering a wrecked ship, and then fighting off a monstrous monster of the depths called a "cuda" and making friends with the rescuees. They were all glad that their friends were doing well, but pangs of envy also lurked in the backs of all their hearts. Helena sent off a quick reply to their sister ship before returning to her, and K's, maps.

Ham, lost in reflection, noticed the oncoming obstacle almost too late.

Almost directly ahead of them, anchored at four points upon the green sea, sat a moderately sized pontoon structure of splintered wood and pitted metal, itself topped with a ramshackle hut of some sort. Ragged flags fluttered in the breeze, and from a chimney in the hut rose a thin column of chemical vapor. Ham called out a warning, but Kryk T'k was unable to hear.

Helena, sensing something amiss, finished up her portion of K's map and then ran out to see what was the matter. Helena, with keener eyes than Ham, spotted the figures standing upon the platform. One was a six-limbed machine built around a cannon that was (now) facing directly at them. Nearby it was a floating ardent skull, and near that was a light-blue ketra, arms reinforced with metal and head tendrils tied back and swathed in cloth, holding a hammer and gesticulating in the direction of a large outrider, just as ramshackle as the platform and hut, sitting on the sea.

Helena ran back up to Kryk T'k, snapping him out of his reverie, and yanked the wheel to the side, causing the Slipfang to miss the platform, and cut the engine. As she did so, the spider-cannon fired a shot at them, but their sudden change in speed caused the shot to miss the wheelhouse; instead, it passed mere inches above Ham's head with an alarming whoosh. Their ship glided past the platform with a sickening crack, and then slid to a top just beyond it. Worried, Ham looked back, but the platform was intact; they seemed to have only run over the outrider. The spider-cannon looked to be aiming to take another shot.

 

---

 

Alfred was so engaged in his conversation with their unexpectedly chatty dinghy that they did not notice the oncoming threat barreling toward him like a long-extinct freight train. He sighed. "Hrh...well if you do not have anything else of importance to say... I will be going back inside to work on something. We can have this discussion about your completion later, Pieter." As he turned to fulfil his promise, Wattson floated out of the house and chirped at him, while Cecily stopped her scanning of the sea and locked her cannon on something.

Alfred turned to the north, and his eye-marks danced in alarm. "What-?!" He barely had time to react before a large ship made of bone, a wicked serrated ripsaw prow at its front, swerved to avoid hitting his home and instead crunched right over Pieter the dinghy. Bits of wood and metal flew every which way, including a screw that bounced off Alfred's temple. He simply stared, processing, as Cecily fired a shot that nearly hit an alarming looking gau on the front deck. He heard Cecily begin loading another shot as the ship came to a halt just beyond his platform. Alfred peered over the edge of the platform at the splinters that remained of Pieter, and then looked over at the much larger ship.

 

---

 

Alfred, his skull Wattson, and his spider-cannon Cecily regarded the newcomers with dismay and suspicion. He had only just met Pieter the talking-boat-that-shouldn't-have-been-talking, sure, but it had taken him a while to make the thing. The crew of the Slipfang was surprised to see a hermit who seemed to have, upon closer look at the piles of scrap scattered about the platform, set up a rattlehand's workshop in the middle of nowhere. Where were his customers?

Ham and Kryk T'k were focused on the strange ketra, and the cannon pointed at them, but Helena was actually staring down at the treetops, looking unnerved.

Kryk T'k cleared his throat. "Apologies are due! I did not mean to destroy your vessel. I... was not paying sufficient attention."

 

OOC

No rolls necessary for the map; cartographizing just requires you to devote time during a journey. :)

Feel free to also send more specific messages to your sister ship by beetle whenever. You will be continually updating each other after major events, and so can be assumed to have the same rough knowledge.

Also, welcome to Alfred! Your itzenko friend has destroyed his ship. :P

 

[Abalon]

Helena was more busy with what she saw over on the treeline than what was going on. Entire ships!? A pirate one at that too... that smelled bad, even for her. More concerning was the one right next to them, which brought her back to the realisation of why she took the bar in the first place

"Ah! Yes we are so sorry for that we were just... stuff happened and we weren't as attentive as we usually are, sorry"

Her words came more as a panicked and guilty deluge than a constructed answers, but they eventually slowed down as she looked for their reaction

"Erm... Could you tell your friend to point the cannon away from us please? We'd be more than happy to repay you in some way and want you no harm, promise"

She even holds out both of her hands in a gesture of surrender

[Ratty Gnawtail]

"Pieter..." Alfred managed as he stared down at the outrider that had been challenging his philosophy on life, "you died as you lived...in pieces..."

 

He shook slightly, a jolt running down his back as he looked up and regarded the interlopers that had apparently slain poor Pieter so cruelly.

 

"Cecily! Hold fire. Punch core 311. Reactivate on 895."

 

Another jolt. The people on the ship were talking, apologising. Alfred held up a gloved hand.

 

"One moment!"

 

And with that he scurried around the back of his workshop where the sound of him repeating something that sounded like: "the sun in a box, the sun in a box, and the edges burn with light" before he returned and looked almost sadly at the remains of his outrider. All the time the modified ardent skull bobbed and regarded the crew of the Slipfang impassively.

[Passione]

Ham felt their spongy body deform as the ordnance narrowly miss them. Their lips part, their cheeks quake, and their stalks buckle in the wake of cannon fire. The sensations do not register. It is the reverberations, the memory of it, that makes their knees weak.

"Was there someone on the boat?!" Ham runs up and down the deck, looking at the debris for any signs of life. With heart pounding with each step they take, they bound across the ship and yet find nothing. 

"Apologies. It was a litany of errors. I was supposed to be watching the sea but I didn't see you and your folks in time. And when I did, our helmsman seem to be taken by our friend's last words. We are lucky our ghost friend got us to swerve."

Ham was buzzing to find the words to appease the rattlehand. So much so that it take them a while to notice their arms and the lading they bear. "We- we have someone injured aboard. We need medical help. The Wildsea is dangerous enough as it is."

Things were moving fast. This could get ugly quick.

And then the ketra called for the cannon to stand down, excused himself, and went inside.

"So the boat is Pieter,... was Pieter. And Cecily is the cannon with limbs. Hi? Skull friend, are you an Anchored too?"

[Morkskittar]

To their great relief, Ham saw no signs that there had ever been life on board the crushed remnants of Pieter, though both they - and Helena - noted with some worry that several of Pieter's component parts were twitching unnaturally on the leaves. Ham even swore they saw a plank roll over a few times in a manner most unbecoming of wreckage.

OOC

Poor Pieter indeed. :( I'm not sure Alfred would do a good job patching up K; she'd end up more machine than moth!

[Ratty Gnawtail]

The skull tilted slightly and regarded Ham with hollow eyes, it gave a single short mechanical sounding beep. Whether that was a yes or a no or just a beep, only those who spoke in such a tongue could tell.

 

Alfred by then had returned again and was looking down at the fragments of Pieter. He looked up, but noticebly his eye markings never seemed to directly look any of the Slipfang's crew in the eyes (or eye locations.)

 

"Injured person? This is not a medical facility, unless the injured person is of metal, wood, or other such material (or wants to be made out of those), there is little I can do. I can offer tea though. Wattson here," he indicated the floating ardent skull, "makes a very nice nettle spine tea. Very good for calming nerves. Might be time for a cup myself."

 

He looked about for a long pole with a net on the end to try and fish out some of the remains of Pieter. If anything, the deceased dinghy might find new life in something else.

 

"By any chance," Alfred began as he worked, "have any of you encountered a traitorous excuse for a ship...skiff I guess?... Goes by the name of Sally. She wanted to be called Cassandra I think and decided to leave me here. A lesson in not granting sentience to objects or ships, unless you are ready for the consequences." He turned to Wattson, "Present company excluded of course."

 

Wattson gave a dull and weary sounding beep in response.

 

"Oh and I am Alfred by the way. It has been a long time since I have seen or spoken to any flesh/organic people. Mostly just things that probably have no business having voices. I think the solitude out here might be getting to me."

[Passione]

With a voice gradually growing weaker, Ham chases the ketra as they fish for parts. "I see... Unfortunate. I can't say we've met this Sally. I can't say we can stay for tea." Ham can feel their hyphae throb, their fingers twitch, their knees buckle. 

"Could we help you gather what remains of Pieter? Would that consider us square? Is it enough? Did we have somebody killed?" Scanning the horizon for further complications, their stare lingers on Cecily and their limbs. They stare into the middle distance. When they snap back to reality, they think twice about jumping overboard or using the Slipfang's nets to gather what it ran over. From what they gathered from the scrapyard, K is the best of them at wave-walking. At speeding in general, really. Considering how the wreck twitch, hauling it by hand might be folly.

Code-switching briefly to Gaudimm, Ham replied. "Hisjam, but you can call me Ham. Less spittle. Easier to remember."

"Don't have to say that twice. The Wildsea has its ways of making us loopy."

[Morkskittar]

Both Alfred and Ham looked down at the remnants of Pieter after Ham offered to help fix them, and bore witness to a curious sight. It looked like the shattered remnants of Pieter were reassembling itself; nails, screws, wood, and metal plates all began to drag themselves across the treetop, jamming themselves together in a way that was beginning to form the rough approximation of a ship... if that ship had an eye only for shape and form and not function, and was held together by sheer force of will more than by commonly accepted mechanical means.

The platform Alfred was standing on jerked then, causing the ketra to nearly lose his balance and topple down into the sea. Wattson and Cecily both reacted to their master's near-fall, entering a protective mode. It was then that both gau and ketra noted that the ladders, planks, and patches on Alfred's platform nearest to the fallen Dieter were beginning to bend towards the re-assembling ship. A few screws and nails popped right from the platform, causing it to buckle again.

Kryk T'k clicked their mandibles together, and rose up to a great height atop a rippling fur. "I sense spirits on the wind; the veil between worlds is thin here, can you feel it? There is a chill, like what one feels before a slipscar. What has happened here?" Ham and Helena, at least, felt, a chill (Helena more than a chill); Alfred was somewhat preoccupied trying to keep his balance as his platform began to gently tilt, the various parts and gadgets scattered across the platform starting to slowly slide towards himself and "Pieter" below him.

[Ratty Gnawtail]

Alfred's eye marks seemed to blink for a moment as realisation sank in and he tried to cling on to something as Cecily and Wattson attempted to stop him from falling.

 

"Oh...ooooh...I get it now, that's what Pieter meant by 'only if the others can come as well', 'wanting to be free', and 'making the [i]others[/i] bodies as well'. That would explain the voices, see Wattson i'm not crazy! I guess this is what I get for using fragments from assorted shipwrecks to build all of this."

 

Both Cecily and Wattson gave what sounded almost like an irritated beep on unison.

 

"...I guess I should focus on not being dragged into Pieter MkII. Pieter? Can you hear me? What you are doing will not work, if you stop for a moment and let me get some tools, preferably from these nice people that may or may not have previously killed you (they did say they owed compensation) I will make sure you and your others will be free."

 

OOC: Veils with Outwit maybe to stall for time for the others to rescue Alfred and for us to deal with Pieter II the Revenganing? Or I guess if I somehow get a success maybe even talk him down? :P

 

OOC: Edit: Oh no twisty time :P

 

Veils + Outwit

Edited February 24 by Ratty Gnawtail (see edit history)

[Passione]

Their gaze guided by the itzenko, Ham tries to commit to memory what the dinghy looked before and how it is straining to form itself now. Consciousness can be capricious at the best of times, sure. But this is one of those moments where it is better to live in it rather than scrambling to capture it. If this is one of those slipscars that can translocate, crawl, glide, or wave-walk, they need to be wary about how prickly these ghosts can be.

One moment, they are focused on taking it all in. Then another, their ears prick up, the chill comes as the words leave Kryk T'k's mouth.

'Wait. No, wait. The ketra.' "Look out!" Parts of the pontoon animate to join the writhing wreck. Ham makes haste, climbs the Slipfang's rig-ropes, undoes some of the fastenings, and swings towards Alfred's general location.

"Is that thing fit to sail? I don't think we're safe here." cried the gau, slightly tearing up and cowering.

Edited March 5 by Passione
dinghy h (see edit history)

[Morkskittar]

In a state of rising panic, Ham uses the rigging ropes criss-crossing the deck of the Slipfang to quickly tie themselves a tether and then half-swings and half-jumps across to the platform, having the presence of mind to prepare and bring another rope-tether with him. The gau lands with a light thud on the deck of Alfred's platform, not too far from the ketra.

Meanwhile, Kryk T'k, seeing that he is of no other use, makes his way back to the wheelhouse to prepare to maneuver the ship however it is necessary.

Helena stares out at the horizon, her eyes tracing a battle, a timeless, unending duel between two ghost vessels, one piratical and one not. They then flick their gaze back to "Pieter," and her eyes follow the outline of another ghost ship... but this particular ghost ship seems to be changing shape, its spectral form becoming larger, and it gathers materials to itself, building itself a body from whatever is on hand. Other ghostly, smaller shapes move below the leaves.

Alfred barely notices Ham land on the platform, but Cecily's cannon immediately trains itself on the brave little gau. Alfred also does not see the ghost form of Pieter, but only that the spare bits and parts scattered about the treetops, and hammered together in the form of his platform, are forming themselves into the rough shape of a leaf-going vessel.

Thankfully, Alfred's words seemed to strike some chord, for the wanton ghostly gathering of materials by Pieter slows. A voice rumbles through the air, startling Helena and Ham, and unsettling Alfred. This voice was different from the one he had heard Pieter speaking in before; it was much deeper and harder to understand, as if it was struggling to form words. The voice seemed to come from the air around the reforming Pieter.

"You have made... a promise... you shall... build me a form... and then we shall... rule the waves... together..."

[Ratty Gnawtail]

Alfred stopped dead. Images scattered and flowed behind his eyes. He saw himself astride the phantom ship, rebuilt and made formidable as it tore through the verdant seas. The two of them would be feared. All whom stood against them would fall to Alfred’s genius and Pieter’s potency. He would make the lightning cannon that had long been upon his mind and would channel his flaw to destroy all in his path. Pieter would consume the remains of their foes and grow bigger and bigger with Alfred’s aid. Alfred would have a nice tricorn styled hat too, maybe with a feather in it. A red one. All would fear him.

 

A jolt ran across his back and then another, he cried out before straightening and looking at the slowly forming Pieter. His eye markings stared deeply at the ship.

 

“No.”

 

Cecily seemed to turn its cannon between Ham and Pieter as if undecided which was the greater threat whilst Wattson continued to bob. Alfred took a breath.

 

“I do not want to rule, Pieter or whoever you really are. You should realise that. Will ruling the waves grant me a cure? Or will I just serve your needs? Look at you, your assembly is all wrong, held together by whatever animates you. You barely have the strength to hold a conversation in Low Sour, let alone Brasstongue or the like. My purpose lies elsewhere.”

 

He clenched and unclenched a gloved hand. Another jolt before he measured his emotion.

 

“I only promised to make sure you and your others will be free. I can help you, but I will not serve you or rule alongside you. Whatever you decide to do with your freedom is up to you, but I ask you consider if it is better to explore and live in this world than rule it.”

 

Alfred glanced back at the Gau that Cecily had shot at, seemingly noticing that he had landed nearby. He gave a weak attempt of a smile.

 

“Well Ham, I suppose neither of us expected this, eh?”

[Passione]

With unsteady legs and fists stiff shut, Ham catches their breath on the floating workshop.

Pieter's words call to mind some sort of scorned romance with the aforementioned Cassandra. 'What now?! Is she here? What do they mean by "rule" anyway?.'

"Is it - is it talking to you?" Ham looks around the pontoon, double taking on the trio, as the apparition collects more materials for its corporeal form. "How do you pilot this thing?"

"I don't know what you promised, but I know ghosts are big on obligations, injustices, and vend'ttas." Not wanting to stick around, Ham implores Alfred to elaborate on their arrangement. "I say we pay the piper, and get the hell out of the way. Else, I'm afraid none of us might have the chance to pursue our purpose. I know this is sudden, but either weigh anchor or join us o-aboard the Slipfang."

'Expectations, ghosts defy expectations. But then again, I can't rule out the gift of prophecy.' Things are devolving quick and the more Ham learns, the more Ham does not understand.

[Ratty Gnawtail]

"Hm? I suppose I assumed 'Pieter' was talking to me. As for piloting, don't ask me, I usually had others for that or the ship itself."

 

He paused at Ham's final words. "Join you? That's..." He paused as if awaiting a jolt and his eye markings seemed to narrow as nothing came, "huh. Hm. I think I just might take you up on that, Ham, if you and your companions would have me. As for paying the piper, let me see if I can get him to call the tune first." He then spoke in a quiet tone to the Gau, "If this does not work, we might need to make a fighting escape."

 

He turned back to the assembling Pieter again.

 

"I will add onto what I have said upon your deliberations with a thought, 'Pieter'." Alfred's speech began to take on the clipped undertones of Brasstongue as he spoke. "It seems to me that all parties here: myself, yourself, your others, and these people can profit from some collaboration. If we were to help build your body so that you could sail and be free, you could also assist and grant us any salvage, charts, whispers, or other such boons that lurk amongst the wreckage of which you may have no real use for. I help you, you help me, we help you, you help us. No need for conflict and we all can go about our own destinies/purposes/or whatever."