Seaside 5: Kinda like One Piece without the anime

[bc56]

Lost Beach

"Class?" Selekhael asks. That doesn't make any sense to her. Aren't classes things that happen in schools? But where would June find a fishing class out here? "Maybe we could make one? We could use a branch for a rod, uh, seaweed for a string, and a sharp rock for a hook?" She doesn't sound confident in that statement.

[Vahnavoi]

Forgotten Pirate Cove

Frigate waves goodbye and the swordsman, who totally has a name it's just Earl has forgotten it totally, descends into the dark. It really is descend; beyond, there's a narrow and slippery staircase down. The stairs are jasper like the door, but water trickles down the red stonework, making it slick and treacherous. The staircase ends, rather abruptly, with a statue of a dragon. The statue is carved of black marble, and it's roaring and has its wings spread wide. The teeth aren't stone, rather metal- brass, slightly verdigrised and tarnished, but still very sharp. The water flows down the stairs, but there's no puddle. A rivulet runs between the dragon's feet.

The swordsman's name is long and unknown to the stones around him, so for now he's just a swordsman. He makes his way down the stairs slowly yet surely. When he sees the statue, his free hand instinctively reaches the hilt of his longer sword, but he never draws it when he realizes the dragon is not, at the moment, animate. He stands before it, holding his flame close to its roaring maw. It almost looks like the statue is spitting the fire at him.

Who brought this thing here? Was it brought, in the first place? It looks too big to have been carried down the stairs in one piece. Maybe it was sculpted on the spot? The swordsman sways from side to side, taking in its details. There's something faintly familiar about it - it reminds him of the Ouroboros symbol on his haori. Did he fight a dragon once? Or fight alongside one? His memory's kind of hazy on that point...

After some time, his bare feet get cold from standing in the trickling water, so he shifts his position and stretches his toes to get some blood flowing. This makes him notice the water's not pooling at the base of the statue. There must be some larger space for water to flow into - maybe behind the statue? He reaches for the statue's right wing with his free hand and pulls experimentally. The statue looks light enough that he could probably lift it and move it aside, but it might be attached to something. He's trying to feel if it's loose from the ground first, before wasting his breath.

---

[Pyramid on a Volcanic Island]

It takes a lot of rock to cover the entire above-ground portion of the Octahedron, but Leah knows what she's doing. At the end of the day, where there once was a gleaming white limestone structure, there is now a rough black pyramid of basalt and obsidian, only distinguishable from the surrounding terrain by careful examination. With Magdalene snatched away by eldritch powers, only Leah and the captain are left on the island. It seems one adventure has come to a close and now it's time to head for new ones. Hopefully Leah didn't forget anything...

---

[Pyramid floating in ice]

Meanwhile, far away, a limestone pyramid with a golden top sticks out of a massive iceberg, floating southward amidst a large ice floe. A thin carpet of snow covers the ice leading up to the pyramid - and on it, still, are footprints of Leah and Magdalene, leading up to the pyramid from the edge of the ice...

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cove

The statue is firmly affixed to the wall, not the floor, and pulling too hard may lead the wing to breaking off. A close examination will reveal a rather obvious button in the dragon's mouth, though it's possibly a bit too obvious. A very thorough examination will reveal that button is linked only to the dragon's jaw, and the dragon's right foreleg conceals another, very well hidden lever.

If the button is pressed, the jaw closes about the swordsman's hand- or whatever else is used to press it. Despite the verdigris on the brass teeth, they are still sharp.

If the lever is pulled, and the rest of the dragon pushed, the wall swings open.

Beyond is a square room, nine metres in every respect. Directly opposite is another door, the only obvious exit of this room. The next door is wood, old but sturdy. The water flowing into the room means the floor is covered in water, and in the middle is a small grated drain, though it seems blocked- water isn't leaving the chamber very quickly. As a result, it looks as though the bottom of the opposite door has swollen. It might be stuck. This room appears mostly empty; a wooden ladder, old and rotten, is mostly submerged by the water. Once the swordsman is through the door, he can hear faint sobbing, only audible when he's close to the door.

Outside the Octahedron

Athiniel flinches slightly as Magdalene makes her escape, and watches her go with a bit of consternation and a shudder. That didn't look particularly pleasant.

The earthbending was pretty impressive, the sea-elf thought, and they clutch their box tight against their chest and turn to Leah. "Let's be away from this accursed place. No offence. Got ye a jollyboat?" I'm pretty sure they stumbled upon Leah's boat earlier, but didn't recognise the outboard motor.

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten Pirate Cove]

The swordsman misses the button entirely. When pulling the wing doesn't make the statue budge, he tries lifting it up from its torso, then its legs, accidentally hitting the lever while running his hand down the leg. After finding it, he pulls and pushes it back and forth a few times. When nothing seems to happen, he starts trying to move the statue at the same time. After few minutes of trial and error, he finally manages to push the dragon in the right direction while pulling the lever.

Puzzled, he walks into the next room, but is still glancing at the dragon. It's clear whoever placed it didn't want uninvited visitors, but why place such a conspicuous thing at the entrance? Was the statue chosen, perhaps, to serve as a warning? Or did this place have an above-ground portion beyond the jasper archway once?

He feels the grate and the wooden ladder before he sees them, due to wading through water barefoot. It doesn't exactly hurt, but it's not pleasant either, and serves to snap him out of his absent-minded wondering. He lowers his light close to the water to see what he's stepping on, but what he sees doesn't tell him much. He straightens up and walks to the door, stopping within kicking distance of it. "Are you a ghost?", he asks loudly, expecting anyone beyond to listen. "If you are, know that my name is Star of Hope Shines Eternal in the Pitch-Black Universe. I've come to release you from your earthly bonds." He taps his swords. "One way or another."

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cove

As he addresses the door, a ghost rises from the floor behind him. She was a young girl, maybe nineteen, and pretty. She's pale and translucent, and was pale in life, too. Her eyes are watery blue, her hair short and white-blonde. She wears gold shackles at wrists and ankles, and a sleeveless white silk dress that leaves a lot of bare flesh, especially on her torso. It doesn't hide the gaping hole where her heart was cut out, either. "You will? Oh, thank you, thank you so! Please, I have been trapped down here for so, so long. I just want to see the sun one last time. Find my body, I... I can't remember my way around these tunnels any more. It should be on the altar in the temple. Find it, carry it outside, please, please. If you'll help, I'll give you a boon. Not much of one, but... it'll help." That might answer the question of the dragon- it's a warning, or perhaps a representation of the god worshipped within.

[5a Violista]

[Lost Beach]

"Sure!" June says. She looks down into the water again. This might actually be a decent way to see how crafting works. Presumably it acts like real life, because most other things seem to have followed real life, but it'd be good to confirm. "I'll get the seaweed."

She swims over to some seaweed that she spotted, and dives down to pick it.

Once she has a bunch of it, she goes back to a rock and starts braiding them together to strengthen the seaweed 'string' and make it more compact.

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten Pirate Cove]

The swordsman tenses when he hears a voice from behind him, but once he turns and actually sees the ghost speaking to him, he relaxes. He's seen this before... more times than he can remember. At least this heartless ghost is not trying to eat him at this very moment. "I'll do what I can", he answer her, as if the girl being dead rather than alive is of no concern. "I need no boons from you, but if you can, I suggest you stay close. Just in case I fail." And with those words, he kicks backwards, with enough force to blast the door off its hinges... or smash through in a shower of splinters, depending on which is the path of least resistance.

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cove

"I can't leave this room. I was so focused on that door when I died and the world beyond it... I have to stay here. Unless you bring me my bones. Don't worry about me; I'm dead. Nothing here can harm me. They tried." She floats to the open door and stares longingly at the staircase and the light at the top.

Beyond the door is a tunnel, dark and shadowy, lit only by glowing crystals set in the walls. It immediately turns right, for ten or so metres, before splitting. One branch heads north, and the other south. The northern tunnel turns west after twelve metres, and the southern one turns east, slightly further away.

[bc56]

Lost Beach

June is correct, she just ties some stuff together to make a hook and rod. Meanwhile, Selekhael swims around and finds a driftwood branch and passes it over to June. "Will this work?" It's not especially straight, but it looks about the right size.

[Recaiden]

"Well, it is the black market," the shopelf says, but then she insists that "It's different. What we do is frowned upon in polite company, sure, and illegal in some places, but it's not like it's immoral or unethical or anything." So she claims. "They're just animals. Cute ones, but still just animals. At least we have standards." Unlike the people in the black black market, who presumably have no standards at all.

Anyway, enough talking about potential competitors.
She's got product to sell.
"We take special care to not give them any names so that when they're bought their new owners can give them whatever names they want. They adapt pretty quickly, so it works better that way. In terms of diet..." She looks at the tag on the cage, checking to see if this particular dog has any listed. Nope. "Well, they're omnivores, with a huge preference for meat. No chocolate, obviously. If you buy regular dogfood then that works too. Not ideal, so I'd recommend supplementing it with more meat."

The dog uses psychic powers to move quickly.
The elf goes back to the papers, to see if the story behind being scared of children has a story. Yup! There it is. "While being trained, it tended shy away from larger creatures and go after smaller creatures exclusively. After hurting someone children who were nearby, that got trained out of it pretty quick. Avoids children now, that one."

The streets outside are emptying.


The sailor's ghost mentions that historically the merpeople have been pretty good trade partners, actually. It was only recently that that changed, but he has no idea why.

The mermaid's shadow is cheered up. Yeah! She trusts them to do that. She also knows where the nearby fort is, generally. Never actually been there, because the fort is a military base while this outpost is more of a pilgrimage site and any military action is largely ceremonial, but she knows the general location. If they get close enough, it shouldn't be hard to find.

If they decide to leave now to go to the fort, then she'll lead the way to its general location.

Anchor gives a faint smile. The people in the blacker market surely also have standards. Worse standards, admittedly.
Probably this isn't particularly immoral, but she doubts the shopkeeper has really thought things through.

After listening to the care information, she nods. "I know what a dog is. I mean, these are special dogs, so they might need special care. That's all."
"I'll take this one. Seems like a good hard-working dog." And how versatile, to both bite and swim with its psychic powers!

---

The shadow does think they should go to the fort. The only mystery is what was the scary singing screeching thing. And these mermaids don't seem to be talking about that.

Although, she does want to ask, if the mermaid knows what started the trouble between them and the land-dwellers?

But after that, the next thing to do is look for the captive humans.
Lead the way, mermaid shadow!

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten Pirate Cove]

"You have my condolences."

The swordsman, carrying his fireball on his palm again, wanders into the crystal-lined corridor. When he reaches the branch, he stops and thinks. It feels like one of these tunnels ought to take him back towards where he came from. He wanders short distance to the south, then north, just enough to see which way the tunnels turn, before turning around again and deciding to head south first.

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cove

The tunnels are flat, and to get down here the swordsman descended a long staircase. The tunnel doesn't lead to the surface in the south, but to another tunnel to the east. They're slightly misaligned where the meet, the southerly tunnel extending just past the entrance to the east and a few centimetres of step. That tunnel is fifty-seven metres long or so, before it turns north again, then fifteen metres later more east, then north, then west, then south to the point it's very close to where it was earlier in the loop, ending in a wooden door to the west. It's locked, so it depends on if Star of Hope wants to go back and look for a key or another way around or kick it in.

[5a Violista]

[Coast Crawling]

It's true, the shopkeeper hasn't really thought this through. However! She knows that she's 100% correct, because it's obvious.

The shopelf feels silly for saying unnecessary things about dog care. "O-of course," she says. "Let me just get the key and the paperwork." She also gives a price, which feels reasonable for a somewhat-competitive market where you could just go to another store and get a magic cat instead, if you wanted.

She returns to the desk, to grab a key and a paperwork and a leash and also a special key that Anchor could use to release the psychic-inhibitor that's around its neck, and bring them to Anchor.

There!

Everything's good to go.


As far as the mermaid knows, the whole thing started a while ago when there was more and more friction between the two groups. But it wasn't really that bad until very recently: the sister and a few other mermaids went up the river to the waterfall, to perform an all-night religious ritual, and none of them came back. And that's what sparked arming up to go there and fight.
(The sailor's ghost mentions that he doesn't know what happened to them. The locals know to stay out of the river during the ritual period, but there were a few distant traders around, like usual.)

Anyway, the mermaid shadow leads the way to the general location of the undersea fort. From there, it's not that hard to find it: there's both armed mermaids and armed mermen swimming around as guards, and the fort itself is dimly lit in a greenish-blue fluorescent color.


[Lost Beach]

"Sure," she says, taking the driftwood. She ties the end of the seaweed braid onto the stick, and then goes back to braiding at the bottom. She also puts periodic ties in the 'string' to keep it from unraveling or getting loose when it breaks. Or, even, because she's technically tying this while swimming and using a rock as support to keep herself from drifting away.

After a little thought about how hard this is, she instead chooses to wrap her legs around the rock so that both her hands are free to braid the seaweed.

"Any pointed rock should be fine, but if it has an overhang or is arrowhead-shaped or has a hole in it or something, that'd make it a lot easier," she says.

[bc56]

Lost Beach

Selekhael dives into the water, searching for a sharp rock. She's down there a long time though. She's still down there.

Is June at all worried by this? She's got plenty of time to keep weaving while Selekhael's gone. But maybe it's a bad thing that the probably more-powerful-than her angel just disappeared beneath the waves?

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten pirate cove]

Does this tunnel circle some greater room? The swordsman wonders this as he walks onward, counting his steps. He also wonders whether he missed a branch somewhere. Where would the northern path have lead? Oh well. When he reaches the door, he doesn't even consider finding a key - any such thing's probably rusted to dust somewhere. He gives it a good kick, and if one is not enough, he gives it a second kick. He has time, it's bound to give in sooner or later.

[Reinholdt]

[Outside Octahedron]

"Language!" Leah shouts after Magdalene. The portal hopping girl would probably be ok. Probably. Otherwise she wouldn't constantly be opening portals with tentacles inside them.

Only perverts do that.

The Earthbender motions to the Captain. "Yeah. My boat's right over here. You want to steer? I hate boats." It doesn't take long to find where she left it. Which is a bit of a relief. She wasn't sure how long they had officially been inside that place, with how wonky things were, but at least nothing happened to her ride.

[Arkhosia]

Spoiler

Show

Bombmercials

"Grand! We'll start up the machine then and run it a few times. We're not going to be filming yet so don't worry too much about saying the line. Just focus on keeping yourself steady, 'kay?" Azil turns to the other goblins. "Okay boys, start it up!" He gestures to them as they nod and push a button.

The prop Blanche is sitting on starts to slowly move forward while vibrating underneath her.

"Just tell me when you want to speed it up. This is like a quarter of the speed its supposed to go at."

"Hang in there, Blanche!" She can hear Anika shout.

Bombmercials

"Okay, sounds good!" Blanche preoccupies herself with finding the best place to hold onto. It doesn't seem likely for staying on top of this thing to be that tough a task... although, it's not like bombs are designed to be ridden.

All things considered, the catgirl actually seems a bit surprised when the mechanism starts up. This wasn't as bad as she thought! She shifts slightly and sits upright as she gets used to the rocking... and blushes a little as she realizes that straddling a vibrating object like this might get a little awkward. "I think I can take a higher speed, ma'am," she states, pushing that concern aside.

[Recaiden]

Anchor counts out the price of the dog, making a little stack of almost-entirely normal coins.
What a weird little industry to have sprung up here.
Probably for the best that she didn't run across a magic cat store first; she might have gotten attached to them.

When the shopelf returns, she initials their copy of the paperwork, applies the leash to the dog, and thanks the elf for all the help.

She also asks, since she's just visiting town, how to avoid the actual black black market? Wouldn't want to run across businesspeople with no standards, right?

---

So a stranger, or someone who ignored the ritual, disappeared a bunch of mermaids, and then the mermaids went after the nearest humans...what a mess!

Off they swim. Hopefully the ghost doesn't have too much trouble keeping up.
The light form the fort is beautiful, the shadow thinks. But the mersoldiers might be suspicious of them, more than the mermaids at the ritual outpost were. They should swim carefully as they head in.

[5a Violista]

[Lost Beach]
after thirty seconds
There's really no problem. June doesn't even think about it, and just continues braiding.

after one minute
She expects Selekhael to reappear pretty soon, so she just keeps on braiding and tightening the seaweed.

after one minute, thirty seconds
She stops braiding.
Maybe breathing isn't actually necessary in this game when you're underwater...? No, that's ridiculous. She already knows firsthand that you need to breathe air.
June glances around in the direction of where Selekhael dived down. Shouldn't she be coming up soon?

after two minutes
"...hey?" she calls out. "You stuck in a current or something?"
With the false fishing rod in hand, she swims over to where Selekhael had dived down. She looks down, trying to spot her. If she can't, she submerges and opens her eyes underwater, looking for her.


[Coast Crawling]

The elf smiles and thanks her and, feeling duty to help out a dear customer, gladly answers Anchor's questions:
After glancing at the clock (if she wants to get back to the fisherdock below the waterfall in time, then she can still look around for another 40 minutes or so) and then out the window, she says, "Well, it's getting late, so your best bet to avoid them would be to get out of this area as soon as possible. Stick to the larger, well-lit streets and you should be fine. If the people are walking and moving, that's good because they're headed away but if you see people who are just standing or loafing around then you should definitely avoid them because they'll definitely try to lure you and trick you with their bad business practices. And if you come back tomorrow, watch out for any lamp-posts that have this symbol etched into them because those mark the sites of where you might find the black market." She traces out a jagged symbol in the air.

She smiles again. "But don't worry! Just leave quickly, and you'll be fine. All the reputable shops are closing up in a few minutes, anyway." In fact, if Anchor leaves the store right now, she'll see the lizardman carrying dog cages - several empty - and a resigned look on his face and bitemarks in his arm because of an escaped dog which led to a comedy of errors that caused four other dogs to escape. He was only able to recapture one of them.

---

The ghost is lagging behind quite a bit, but fortunately they're not that hard to follow and when the undersea currents are right he gains some ground. He spots them heading towards the fort and chases afterwards.

Speaking of spotting them, one of the mersoldiers spots the shadows out of the corner of his eye. He turns, ready to sound the alarm, but can't find whatever's casting the shadows so he figures it was just a trick of the light.
Another mersoldier spots the shadows and also tries to find the source casting them. Unable to find the source, he looks again for the shadows and swims to a different angle. Unable to find anything significant, he informs another soldier that he spotted an irregularity. The other soldier tells him that his mind is just playing tricks on him again and that he's too paranoid, but he insists that he still has to report it up the chain of command. The other soldier complains that this means more work for everyone, but eventually relents and agrees to watch his post until he gets back.

The inside of the fort has tall hallways, where people going one way swim on top and people going the other swim on the bottom. The hallways are pretty dark, but there's lights at every intersection, every corner, and at the entrance to the rooms (all the rooms are pretty spacious) and contain the sorts of things you'd expect at a military outpost. The hallways themselves are pretty sparsely populated because everyone's either on patrol or resting in one of the rooms, or...
...
There's actually two mermaids swimming together, talking about the prisoners and how one of them already had a shift with the prisoners and the other will have to take over soon, and various other things like the lips of the prisoners and which ones are the best kissers because apparently a mermaid's kiss can prevent them from drowning for a while.

[Shadowcaller]

Spoiler: Quotes

Show

[Moonwell Convergence]
Awen

Even flying on a broom, though, the ship suddenly jolting will still crash her into the nearest wall.
Sure, she's still upright and not crashing into the floor, but walls still hurt sometimes.


Ordinarily, the spell won't allow its host to make any actions - after all, they're completely unconscious and asleep and, arguably, their life force is completely disconnected from the body, and will remain so until the spell ends, is canceled one way or another, or the host body dies. After all, it's not a kind of spell where Awen's coercing or forcing the subject to take actions - she's in the pilot seat, taking the actions herself.
But the telepathic connection might allow something weird to happen. Awen wouldn't know; she's never tried this spell or anything like it on something that has a constant telepathic connection with others. Or if the body has weird reflexes that stop it from harming itself. Or...well, there's a lot of complications that could happen to stop something from happening, but the host regaining control without special circumstances isn't one of them.

With the control panel glowing in different colors...she doesn't really know what to do with it. She's already tried randomly hitting buttons. That didn't work.
Because of whatever those telepathic connections are saying, she doesn't have enough time to figure out what all the control panel says. And besides, didn't they do some weird locking thing? At this point because of that, she's not sure she can end the spell herself without killing the host body. And they have minutes, not hours! She can't just wait for it to wear off.
She can't speak to warn the others, because she already used suffocation magic on herself. Plus the whole throat thing!
The only thing she can do, it seems, is hope this body dies as quickly as possible so that after going back to her own body she can tell the others what happened. And, given this regeneration, she's not sure that's not going to take a long time.

She racks her brain. There's very few useful spells she can cast with the suffocation magic active, or with a torn throat, and with this body instead of her own. Are there any at all that could end this situation? Killing the body, ending the spell, she doesn't care, this whole thing was really unplanned and had too many unexpected variables.

Moonwell Convergence - VIGIL Airship

"That, or our trio inside managed to do some damage." Blanche grins as she watches some of the ship's functions start to seemingly glitch out, but sobers when she picks up on the trajectory it's slumping into.

"Keep alongside it! We need to be there for as long as possible if our gals manage to make it out for an extraction!" She silently acknowledges that they might have to pull away at some point, but doesn't voice it yet - abandoning Anika to avoid getting caught in an explosion isn't a thought Blanche wants to dwell on until it's absolutely necessary.

[Post Moonwell Explosion Hoedown]

Geneva gently sets down the crew members she had caught, though she's keeping a close eye on things just in case she needs to snag everyone again.

She can't do anything about their comrades aboard the enemy air ship.

At all.

Nothing.

She hates feeling helpless like that.

But there's still work to be done!

She'll zip around the deck of the airship, helping with the operation of the vessel where she can and exuding an aura of hopeful determination where she can't. Hopefully a little psychic nudge can help someone who is feeling paralyzed by the crisis.

Moonwell Convergence

Saint Lazarus reaches out for her sword, uses it to stagger back to her feet, and nearly falls over again because of this stupid ship jolting all over the place. In frustration, she reaches out towards the flame thing that tried to use her sword to wriggle itself free, opens her jaws just a little further than any humanoid should, and tries to bite a chunk of it as punishment for being such an annoying, aggravating little nuisance. Now, obviously trying to eat fire shouldn't work, but nothing about Saint Lazarus's digestive system makes sense. Her compulsion to consume and destroy is more of a supernatural ritual than a biological imperative. It's the idea of eating freshly murdered human flesh that sustains her, rather than the meat itself. So if she can get a chunk of the elemental down her throat, it'll burn horrendously on the way down, but after that, it's just going to be reduced to nothingness. It's not the right kind of material to fuel her regenerative processes, but even weird fire monsters don't usually take well to having an entire arm bitten out of existence.

[Moonwell Convergence]

Saint Laz & Anika

The fire elemental roars as its arm is suddenly chomped off. Having just won its freedom the last thing it expected was for someone to eat it.
Already weakened from being trapped in that tank for hundreds of years it can't take much damage. Thus as it has its freaking arm torn off its form simply collapses and it winks out of existence.
But as Laz consumes its essence she also gains some of its memories.

Most of it is being trapped in a tank of course, but it also knows that both it and many beings like it were created and made to fulfill similar goals by the demons. Some to power engines, devices and weapons while others were to serve more directly as laborers or soldiers. They can't really be called slaves as they lack a proper will, but they can't really be called robots either as each of them had the potential to be more than just mindless sources of energy or minions.

Even if Laz herself normally wouldn't feel empathy towards such a being, the feelings she gets through the elementals memories might make her more inclined to.

Meanwhile, Anika gets up too, easing the ghoul knights load considerably as she's no longer being crushed by a bear, and starts charging towards the pit fiend as it reaches for the control panel.

The bear ends up slamming into the demons back right as its leaning over it. The result is the fiend falling right into and through the panel and that's when everything starts glowing red as a siren starts blaring across the ship. Uh-oh.

Awen

Awen will be thrown back into her own body as the demon pilot loses consciousness. it will take more than just a few minutes for it to recover considering how much it was bleeding out.
But once she's back in her own mind she have somehow regained some of the fiends memories. She will for instance know, as it was the last thing it was thinking of as it was passing it out, that the alarm they're hearing means the ship is preparing for a kind of emergency teleportation procedure that's extremely dangerous. Especially as the controls have been messed with so several other of the ships systems have been activated at the same time.

It might just tear the entire ship apart unless someone shuts it off.

[Post Moonwell Explosion Hoedown]

The rest of the crew starts to fulfill Blanche's orders the best they can to turn the ship around, or at least try to as a lot of them seem unsure what they're supposed to do exactly. That's where Geneva comes in as it doesn't seem all the adventurers have been assigned specific tasks onboard the vessel so a lot of them either end up standing around doing nothing or is asking around what they're supposed to do.

Thus those little psychic nudges really helps out a lot to get the crew into action. Even if they don't know what to do they simply go out and help out someone who's already doing something which makes everything more effective.

They will probably have to work more on the discipline and defined roles in the future but as these are mostly adventurers the apparent lack of it shouldn't be too surprising.
However, one of the crew members, the short foxy fellow that spoke to Blanche earlier, is still standing by her side. "Hey, catto. We should try to capture that ship. It can turn invisible and we can figure out more about those creatures. I mean, if nothing else I know people we could sell it too."

The obelisk ship's flight path is unchanged and seems to be intending to slowly land on the mountain at its current pace. But it seems to be slowly speeding up again. Regardless to say, whatever speed its coming at it won't be able to land on that surface and will simply crash into it.

Bombmercials

She can see Azil give her the thumbs up all the way from the beach. "Great! But be careful and hold on as it accelerates. It gets especially bumpy before it can reach max speed, where it gets much smoother."

"Looking good, girl! Keep it up!" She can hear Anika exclaim all the way from the beach as the prop bomb moves starts to back up and then move forward again. Now both picking up in speed and vibrations. It will be difficult to even speak normally right now as her whole body is vibrating with the machine.

[bc56]

Lost Beach

Selekhael doesn't respond when June calls out. She isn't visible from the surface when June swims over. So of course, June has to dive in. It will probably take a little while for her to spot the angel once she's down there. The water is a bit murky. But there Selekhael is. She's found a rock that's the perfect shape (if a little big). The only problem is that it's wedged beneath a large, round boulder. Selekhael's wrenching at the rock with both front paws, trying to lift it off the smaller rock.

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cave

Actually the loop is around an outcrop of very dense rock the builders couldn't remove, and if he looks for something in the walls, he probably won't find anything.

The door is kicked down! It wasn't very hard. Inside, he's opened a door on the narrow side of a long, thin chamber. It's nine metres wide and thirty metres long, with an arched roof meeting in the middle. There's two rows of pews along each side, but no altar in this chamber. There's an idol at the far end, depicting three humanoid figures facing outwards, their arms stretched behind them and merging at the wrists. Instead of faces, each has a circular hole ringed with shark teeth. The rest of the idol is made of lead, polished to a dull sheen. The only source of light in this chamber comes from a sphere suspended in the hoop formed by the idol's arms, a glowing ball of harsh blue-white light that creates deep shadows and blinds to look at. There's also an archway in the northern wall, leading to another corridor. Lurking under one of the pews is something that looks like an old leather knapsack, though it's hard to see between the harsh light and deep shadows. There are no bones, bloodstains or signs of people, recently or otherwise.

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten pirate cove]

The swordsman notices the light first - it's annoyingly brighter than his own ball of fire. He shields his eyes with his free hand, walking across this... temple? Untill he stands before the weird statue. Trying to keep from looking directly into the light, he moves his own lightsource around to see details of the idol.

It is an ugly thing. He can't imagine whatever thing it is decipting as anything benevolent or worth of worship. The dragon at the entrance was nicer.

He turns around, turning his back to the harsh light, and starts walking along the wall to his right. Before he circles all the way to the northern corridor entrance, the light from his flame falls on piece of the knapsack. Curious, he kicks it out from under the pew. When he realizes what it is, he kneels to get a closer look, opening it and emptying it on the floor should there be anything inside.

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cave

When it's opened, eight tentacles shoot out and try to wrap around the swordsman's face and neck, starting to squeeze and pull him closer to a gnashing beak in the centre. Apparently, the knapsack contains some kind of hungry squid-thing. Other things spill out as he fights the squid, but I imagine he's a bit too distracted to notice them all.

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten pirate cove]

The suddenness of something shooting towards his face makes the swordsman flinch and he loses hold of his lightsource, the ball of fire winking out of existence. However, he soon recovers and starts peeling the squid off his face with both hands, accidentally crushing something else underfoot as he stands up.

"Okay. You. Off!" , he snarls, trying to grab the squid's body and tear it away from himself. He's stronger than it, but he has less arms than it has tentacles, so it might take some effort. If the opportunity presents itself, he'll jam his fist into the sea creature's beak. Maybe it will calm down when it realizes he's too tough to chew.

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cove

The squid feels odd, under his fingers; it's a stuffed toy, animated by magic, not a real squid. The squid recoils after being punched, letting go and trying to pull all the scattered objects back into the knapsack. It's apparently intended as an anti-theft device, but it's maybe not very effective.

Lying on the floor, having spilled from the bag, are a shattered bottle, formerly containing some kind of potion. Exactly what is hard to determine; the swordsman stepped on it. There's also a necklace of animal teeth on a leather thong, a hagstone on a seperate leather thong, a brass dagger, a green glass orb with two gold bands around it, a cloth pouch and an antique pocket-watch made of silver and gold on a broken gold chain.

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten Pirate Cove]

"Path of Destruction: Crimson Flame Cannon!" , the swordsman intones, recreating their lightsource on their palm. Confused, he watches as the toy squid scrambles to get all the scattered belongings back in the sack. When he notices the shards of glass, he lifts his foot up to examine it - not because he's worried of injury, but because he's curious about what manner of goo he's standing in.

After giving it a good look, he lowers his foot - on the toy squid! "Nuh-uh. These are mine now" , he says to the squid, though he has no clue if it can even hear things. Once he has the squid pinned down, he starts picking up the scattered objects, or wrenching them from grasp of flailing tentacles, one by one with his free hand. He has little idea what all this junk is for, but the pocket watch stands out. He gives it a more thorough look, searching for initials of a name or any other clues of its former owner.

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cove

It was a metallic green liquid, hard to say exactly what it did- but he might struggle walking, since it was a Potion of Speed, and he's only got it on one shoe. One foot may travel faster than the other.

The pouch clinks metallically when picked up, there's coins or rings inside. The pocketwatch ticks and tocks, still working despite long abandonment, and enscribed on the back is a coat of arms, a heater shield supported by a pair of winged lions and bearing diamond chequers, with a badger resting on top of the shield.

The squid has all its treasures wrested off it! It gives up and tries gathering up the shards of glass to reclaim the potion, not smart enough to realise it's broken and useless.

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten Pirate Cove]

The joke's on the narrator - the man has no shoes! But having one foot faster than another may prove troublesome - it remains to be seen.

The swordsman stares at the pocket watch's inscription in this mix of crimson and blue light. It feels significant - he knows it's significant - but he can't make head or tails of it. "Here. You can have this back" , he mutters to the squid, lowering the watch within grasp of its tentacles. Then he lifts his foot off of it and sits on the pew, watching the squid collects its treasures. If it really looks like it will collect all the things back into the sack, he'll let it do that, before picking up the sack and tying it shut, stuffing the toy back in there himself if he has to. If not, he'll sort the stuff himself and then, knapsack in one hand and ball of light in the other, head into the northern corridor, half walking, half hopping.

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cove

The animate squid toy is easily stuffed back into the knapsack and sealed within, the various relics and objects with it.

The tunnel is nine metres long, and ends in a wooden portcullis, which is currently up. Beyond that, another long, narrow room, on the same alignment as the former. This one's not a temple, though- it's a forge of some kind, with an anvil, a smeltery, a forge, a firepit, and bellows. Despite long disuse, the flames are still hot, and there's glowing white runes carved into the sides of the forge. There's a bullet press, and other smithing tools, for blacksmithing and gunsmithing. There's two racks on the walls, opposite each other; one has four polearms, a two-handed sword and a warhammer set into it, the other has five muskets.

Opposite the portcullis, there's two wooden doors leading away, quite close to each other.