Return to Port Lorrel

As we play, occasionally we'll close a thread and open a new one to keep the size of threads (and relative complexity) down to a dull roar. Here's where we store the closed posts from the history of Errant Road.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Tamina finally managed to spit out the last of the sea water with a grimace on her face, and then nearly lost her balance as the ship began to rock.

"Wha-?"

"Get that thing off the anchor! The sea's choppy enough! We'll capsize!"

Captain Rigby cursed the air blue at the sight of enormous body thrashing at the end of his livelihood (OOC And by that I mean the ship of course :D /OOC) fronted by a face that was mostly long rows of teeth and a snarling pair of black eyes that looked up at him with a mixture of pain and malevolence. The ship rocked again and the short man nearly fell, grabbing with reflexes he didn't know he had to seize the railing. Behind him, he heard the tortured creak of the winch for the anchor under pressure it wasn't meant to withstand. He wheeled around and barked an order to his men.

"Drop it!"

The two sailors at the wheel did as they were bid. A moment later the clatter of heavy metal was heard as the chain unspun with blurring speed. A crash sent another wave washing over the deck as the monstrosity hit the water.

Silence descended.

The kobold cautiously but curiously sneaked over to the stern and peered into the water. The ripples of the giant were lapsing back with the minimum of fuss even as The Clark slowed to a halt. Tamina breath a sigh of relief but it was one mixed with disapointment. She'd wanted to taste a seafaring delicacy and that big fish had certainly fit the bill.

"Ah well." She shrugged. "Nev' mi-"

The force of the pull that seized the ship was so sudden and powerful that at first the southern continent native was sure that the ship had hit an underwater tsunami. The Clark jerked twenty feet backwards and then stopped so abruptly that the kobold was driven gut first into the railings hard enough for the air to depart her lungs. She tried to scream as it dawned on her what had happened but the sound wouldn't come. She just about managed to straighen up and draw a ragged breath before the second pull of the still-trapped sea monster came. In retrospect the timing was really, really unfortunate.

Tamina went somersaulting over the railing and this time she did scream. Her flailing arms caught the porthole some fifteen feet above sea level and held on for dear life, leaving the wailing kobold suspended over a choppy sea with a monster below that could swallow her whole without touching the sides.

"JAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY-MMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"

OOC Retcon- misspellings/OOC
Last edited by Jack Rothwell on July 16th, 2011, 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Graybeard
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

Post by Graybeard »

"So what now?" the first man on the hill said. "We really don't want to go looking in town."

His companion nodded. "Yes, that would be awkward." In other words, it would get the local police down on their asses faster than a drunk soldier on a temple whore. "But we may not have any choice."

The first man gestured. "Ship coming in." The boat bearing Jamie and Tamina was now in full view, half way from the horizon to the point. "Why don't we see if there's anyone suitable there?"

The second main snickered. "You've got to be joking. What are the chances of finding a virgin on a sailing ship?" This got a laugh in response, but the two men started down the hill, toward the harbor.
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Sareth
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

Post by Sareth »

"Jeeze, Tamina. What do you think you're doing?" Jamie bent over the railing and reached down toward Tamina. "Grab my hand!"

The ship gave another lurch, and Jamie felt herself going over the side as well. She suddenly jerked to a stop as she felt a hand snag into the waist of her pants. "Hey!" she yelped. "Watch the hands!"

As she felt herself being hauled up by her pants Jamie reached down and grabbed Tamina's arm with both hands. She dragged upward, her belly scraping over the wood of the rail, and then her chest.

"Ow, dammit! Don't scrape my tits off!"

Suddenly the direction of the ship's lurching changed. The rail dropped out from under her, and she felt herself rising, still clasping The Kobold's arm. She gave a surprised whoop as the deck traveled farther and farther away. The whoop changed to swearing as she felt the tug on her pants disappear, right along with the pants themselves.

And then gravity kicked back in just as the ship began rapidly writing itself again.

"Oh, fuck me."

With unpleasant rapidity the inevitable occurred. Jamie slammed chest first into the deck. As she bounced upward, Tamina completed her decent, landing on Jamie and driving her chest into the deck yet again.

Jamie crawled out from under Tamina, sat up, and glanced down to discover that the slide over the railing had shredded the front of her shirt, and that her underwhelminly sized assets were exposed, revealing a shockingly purple expanse of skin. "Oh, that's going to hurt any second nOWGWDAMMONKEYFUCKINGSONOFASYPHALITICWHORETHATFUGGINSMARTSOWOWOW!"

Drawing a breath, Jamie snatched up the harpoon that had miraculously remained on deck when nothing else had. She raced forward with murder in her eyes. "Winch that bitch back in here! I'm gonna gut it!"

One od the sailors shifted nervously. "But the Captain..."

Jamie glared and pointed to a badly abused button on her chest. "Do you know how sensitive these things are? Do you know what this feels like?"

The sailor swallowed. "No?"

Jamie pointed the harpoon at his crotch.

"Weigh anchor!" the man squeaked.

Before anyone could get to the capstan, however, everyone tumbled once more, this time backwards. A spray of water began blasting over the deck, raining salty water down onto the deck.

High above, clinging for dear life to the mast, the lookout shrieked "Land ho! And approaching mighty fast! I don't think it'll be taking all night to get there at this speed."

The Captain lurched to his feet and kept into the rigging high enough to see above the continuing spray. His eyes grew wide as he took in the enormous bow wave, then turned to see the frothing wake behind the ship.

"Luminosita's flatulent arse!" he exclaimed.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

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Tamina staggered to her feet, blinking stars out of her eyes as she tried to recover from getting the wind knocked out of her twice in the space of a single minute. She saw what the lookout was pointing to and gasped; a jagged outcrop on the coast of the continent, and approaching much too fast.

The ship had turned to chaos, people were running to and fro in between sickening lurches to secure the rolling paraphernalia on the deck. Even as the kobold watched she heard a man scream as a loose cannonball rolled over his foot. A group of men had organised themselves just enough to try and pull the anchor back in and stop the oversized fish's pull but they had might as well have been trying to rein in a mad bull with a piece of string. A tortured noise announced the bolts at the base of the winch beginning to give up the ghost. A metal missle pinged loose and knocked a man off the rigging in a tumbling fashion which would've been funny in other circumstances. Captain Rigby, to his credit, was still barking orders and trying to hold his men together, the fact that his shouts were periodically interrupted by waves of water and disorientating bucks of the ship did nothing to shut him up.

Another lurch sent the ship turning sharply to the starboard side and sent another cascade of foam across the deck, the kobold yelped in pain as a wooden pole cracked her sharply in the ankle. She snatched the offending article up, more to throw it away from her than anything else, but she paused at the sight of it. It was a harpoon. The parts of Tamina's mind that weren't gibbering with panic managed to cooperate long enough to present her with an idea. At least an idea better than waiting to be smashed to pieces against large jagged rocks. She breathed deeply, swore a short prayer and threw it.

Tamina's previous attempts at fishing had been largely unsuccessful mainly because of the size of her prey and the unfamiliar weight of the tool she used. But against a target the size of the one pulling The Clark she could hardly miss. The harpoon streaked through the air and punched into the blotchy grey back of the monstrosity. The fresh pain seizing the creature caused it to thrash harder for a few bone-jaggling moments.

Then it stopped.

It turned.

And began swimming back towards them.
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

Post by Graybeard »

The two priests of whatever-they-were-priests-of watched the distant spectacle as they descended the bluff into town.

"You know, there might be something there," one of them said. "Don't you remember the prophecy?"

"Prophecy?" the other echoed.

"You know, the one where the sacrificial virgin can harness the power of the elements," the first one explained patiently.

The second looked dubious. "I don't think I ever heard of that one."

A smile. "That's 'cause I just made it up. But it ought to be a good shtick to use as bait, don't you think?"
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Sareth
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

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"OooooohnonononONONONONO!" The Captain stared at the monstrosity rushing toward the ship with wide eyed horror. The man gripped the railing with white knuckled fingers and broke out in a cold sweat. "Not the ship! NOT THE SHIP!"

Beside him, Jamie was paid just as rapt attention, but for different reason. "Cooooool. That thing is FAST!"

No longer being pulled by the beast, the ship's forward momentum began dropping to something maintained solely by the wind. It was still moving forward at a shockingly good clip however. With the combined speed of the ship and the fish heading towards one another the distance closed rapidly.

At the last second the beast dove under as though aiming to smash into the ship's keel and hole it below the waterline. Jamie leaned over to stare down into the water while the Captain squeezed his eyes shut with a whimper. Everyone waited with baited breath.

The ship gave a tiny little twitch.

The Captain opened his eyes, clearly confused. Jamie glared at the water, clearly let down. The crew looked around, clearly relieved.

Suddenly, beside the ship a giant dome of water lifted, then ran back into the sea. The flowing water revealed the head of what charitably could be described as being eel-like, if eels were the size of small castles. It turned first one eye and then another on the ship.

The Captain turned, gave the crew a swift salute, and then walked into his cabin.

The eel-thing's giant mouth opened. The crew recoiled in horror.

The eel belched.

A vast stench rolled across the deck, making most of the onlookers gag. The First Mate ducked down and vomited into a convenient bucket. This proved fortuitous as a harpoon struck the mast just against his upraised buttocks, driving deeply into the wood and wobbling in a vibration so violent the handle struck the First Mate on the ass, driving his head into the now full bucket. Next to him, a large anchor landed on the deck, still holding part of a large fishlike jaw.

The eel sunk under the waves.

Jamie was awestruck. She slowly turned toward Tamina, then gasped, "You should have saved the harpoon for that!"

An enormous vaguely eel-like tail flipped up out of the water and batted an enormous wave towards the ship's stern. The boat lifted, and then began rushing towards the still distant shore as fast as it had been moving while being towed by the meal fish.

The crewman up in the crow's nest slid down the mast like it was a fireman's pole. He struck the deck hard, bounced, and came to rest on his backside. Looking at the passengers, he announced, "We'll be docking in five minutes." He buried his face in his hands. "Whether we want to or not."
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

Post by Graybeard »

"They do seem to be drawing a crowd, don't they?" the second sort-of-priest said, watching the ship. "Maybe there really is a virgin on board."

The other man's eyes lit up. "Just think of the possibilities! Our Goddess, Queen of the Earth, may get hooked up with the God of the Sea, the Prince of Tides, if we pull this off..."

The second man looked at him. "The Prince of Tides? What's that?"

"I don't know. I just made that up, too."
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

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Out of ideas, out of bravery and certainly out of luck, Tamina numbly grasped the sturdiest big of rigging she could find, curled into the tightest ball she could manage, made a mewling noise and waited for the inevitable as the coast sped towards them.

OOC If anyone wants to smash up The Clark go ahead, btw./OOC
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Sareth
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

Post by Sareth »

The wave the Clark was riding swept it forward rapidly as everyone clung to whatever for dear life. The ship rushed towards land, then float right over the top of the wharf, down a street, and into an empty lot between two buildings. At this point the water receded, leaving the ship sitting upright, propped up by several large stones. As people gathered around below, wringing out their clothing and staring up at their new neighbor, the crew gathered at the railing looking down at the muddy ground.

"How are we going to get it back in the ocean?" the First Mate asked, bemused.

"We're not," the Captain replied, walking out of the cabin area with a large, mostly empty bottle in his hand. "I'm not going to sea ever, ever again." He walked over to an axe and lept overboard. Eying the hull, he spat into his hands (dropping the bottle inadvertently in the process), then took a good swing at the hull with it. "I'm turning it into a tavern and inn."

Jamie, who had rushed below to grab Nera and her stuff, landed beside him.

"AND YOU AREN'T INVITED!" the Captain bellowed at her.

Jamie smiled. "Thanks for the ride!" She went up on tiptoe and kissed his bearded cheek (then made a face). Then she waved to Tamina. "Come on down! I need a drink."
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Return to Port Lorrel

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Tamina, summoning up a supreme effort of will, managed to extricate herself from the rigging (in which her claws had scored deep gouges) and followed her companion on legs which felt like elastic bands down the hastily erected gangplank which led, blessedly, onto street level. The shock took a little longer to wear off, the southern continent native babbleld to herself in her own tounge for several seconds.

<"Never, never, never going sailing again. Fish aren't supposed to do that. Fish aren't supposed to eat you. Gods, I'm never eating fish again.">

Tamina finally noticed her companion looking at her with a mixture of concern and amusement. She righted herself and replied.

"Drink sounds good. But away from the docks." She grinned painfully and took Jamie's hand. "Please?"
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