Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

For in-universe game play. Journey through both familiar and foreign settings, explore lost ruins and forgotten cities, and try to bring light to the darkness of the world... or, you know, blow stuff up. Either way.
Post Reply
User avatar
Sareth
RPG All-Star
Posts: 2604
Joined: August 23rd, 2007, 8:54 pm

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Sareth »

"NOW HEAR THIS!" the speaking tubes throughout the ship barked. "ALL CATS ARE TO REPORT TO THE ENGINE ROOM AT ONCE!"

Two crewmen up in the galley grabbing snacks, since their night had been interrupted, eyed one another.

"The Captain's quite mad you know." One said.

"Barking," the other replied.
Image
Image
Garlock
Forum Trainee
Posts: 24
Joined: July 30th, 2009, 3:48 pm
Location: Ummm... *Looks around* Here?

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Garlock »

[OOC: Apologies. Work-related business. I have no explanation for the others. Suggest prodding them all to see what's up.]

It was finally ready. It'd taken him as long as it did because of the way had had to execute it, essentially transmitting the intent of the magic along a length of shadowy tendrils. You play with fire like that and you risk burning alot more than yourself, so you do it carefully. Contained now in the coils of darkness were potent energies that would burst and cause the small ship to, consequently, also blast the ship itself wide open, igniting it in an impressive fireball. It was covered in what looked like a black nettle, and it had a few of those remote eyes to direct it. Suffice to say, this would take some concentration to work.

"Alright, now-"

"NOW HEAR THIS! ALL CATS ARE TO REPORT TO THE ENGINE ROOM AT ONCE!"

"What?! Dammit, not now. Not now!"

That phrase would be uttered in two places at once. The first was, of course, Garlock standing at the railing of the aft crow's nest, about to unleash his surprise on the Alice. Simultaneously, his familiar said these exact words from the forward gun room as he was listening to Cannon Usage 101. Grumbling, the red-eyed cat found himself heading back for the bridge, surprised that Rip or someone hadn't fixed it yet. Of course, that's when he told him what was up. He looked at the complex machinery, and then back at Rip.

"You want me to what?"

He didn't actually need him to explain it again. It's just that it sounded like Rip was insane for effectively sending him into the grinder. The cat sighed in irritation, and got down to work. He crouched low to get into the small space in the works, his mind going 'This is insane...'This is insane...'This is insane...' in an endless litany. What precisely happened in there is anyone's guess, but there was an almost-comical succession of bangs and clunks, cursing and shouting, from in that mess. And once he located the monkeywrech, there was this sizzling sound...followed by suddenly everything unjamming itself. The cat walked out again, somehow in one piece.

"Alright. Finished. Now, in the words of my kind, 'I can haz break nao plz?'."
User avatar
Graybeard
The Heretical Admin
Posts: 7180
Joined: August 20th, 2007, 8:26 am
Location: Nuevo Mexico y Colorado, Estados Unidos

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Graybeard »

'I can haz break nao plz?'

"I'd certainly think so," Rip said. He was trying to remember a small spell that one of his old Sashi Mu classmates had taught him, a classmate who had a cat familiar. He'd said it was a useful "motivator" ... but it also worked well as a reward at times like this. "Here's a small thank-you for services rendered."

He extracted one of Thurston's cigars from his pocket, getting a disgusted look from the cat with which he completely agreed. "Not to worry," he said. "You're not going to have to eat this thing, or smoke it, or anything like that. I just need some raw material." He pinched off an end of the stogie (Thurston would want that done anyway), replaced the longer piece of cigar in his pocket, concentrated on the small end piece in his palm, muttered a spell. The vegetable matter glowed and underwent a very minor transformation.

What had previously been tobacco was now a small but absolutely Grade-A, hyperpotent bit of catnip.

"Here, take your break, you've earned it," Rip said, tossing the leaves on the floor. He headed back toward sick bay, where a hoarse scream suggested that Doc Barrel had succeeded in reviving the saboteur ... for better or for worse.
Image

Because old is wise, does good, and above all, kicks ass.
User avatar
Reavey
New Poster
Posts: 11
Joined: July 31st, 2009, 4:18 am

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Reavey »

((OOC: I'm sorry for my absence, I went away for a few days and only discovered after I left that I would have no access to the internet =/ ))

As he watched the black tendrils doing something to the saboteurs craft Reyn opened his mouth to ask what Garlock was doing before thinking better of it and closing it. There was no real need to ask anyway as it was obviously some kind of trap designed to go off on the ship's return to the Alice. A different thought did occur to him though and he turned to the mage.

"It's obvious enough that you're doing something to this thing so it'll explode or whatever when it gets back to the Alice, but how is it going to get there?" He asked, "Is it not going to require someone to steer it or something? If that's the case who are you going to find that would be willing to pilot it? I guess they might not die if they got onto the Alice quickly enough and hid but it'd still be really dangerous." He thought about what he had said for a few seconds before hastily adding,

"If it does need a pilot of some sort I do not want to have anything to do with it, I'm neither particularly brave or stupid." If it did require a pilot there would be someone amongst the crew idiotic enough to volunteer; there were always people desperate enough to prove themselves through stupid acts. Reyn was determined that he would have nothing to do with it. All he wanted was to go back to his bunk and sleep for as long as he could, preferably through the battles to come.
Garlock
Forum Trainee
Posts: 24
Joined: July 30th, 2009, 3:48 pm
Location: Ummm... *Looks around* Here?

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Garlock »

You know, it's funny. Nobody mentioned drugs on this flight. As soon as the tobacco was catnip, he was aware of its scent. As soon as Rip handed it over, the cat took it and turned away with a quick "Excuse me.", heading out of the room. It had already started, though. One of his back legs was doing that cat shuffle thing where it twitches alot. We'll just pan away from that for the moment...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

...and return to Garlock, who was now having his grand master scheme of the day commented on by one of the other crew. Reyn, was it? Yes, he believed so. Anyway, the man was thinking that they needed a pilot for this floating deathtrap he'd just made. Well, at least he'd realized what it was and that anyone on board was dead meat. Now, all he had to do was explain how that was not necessary. The mage faced Reyn, the shadow of his hood keeping his features indistinguishable.

"I don't think anyone will be flying this thing ever again. The interior is now a squirming mass of shadow-tendrils and eyeballs. Once I let this thing go, I plan to drive it off with my control of that hideous mass. Don't you see? No man on board would be stupid enough to give their life away. I'm doing this for my benefit, and that it's fun. It's like that cook in the restaurant all over again! THE COLORS, MAN! THE COLORS!!"

Towards the end of his explanation, Garlock's hands got all shakey and he seemed oddly more exciteable. The normal reason for why this is would be that he's insane. The actual reason would not be apparent, but had people known...it would have made alot more sense.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It all started when Garlock's cat ran into the bridge and proclaimed that "They watch us with their tiny feet..." before scampering off to the head and literally bouncing off the walls in there. Then, he leapt out, going...

"What? Hmm? Who's there? Stop moving! Stop moving, I said!"

He caused at least one crew member to trip and all the rest to look at him funny, a babbling cat tearing around the length of the ship before finally heading up to the other crow's nest where Shorty was. The big man looked at him once and knew immediately what was up. He let him fidget around on his own, not saying anything. Finally, the cat was on the railing, looking out from the ship, two feet dangling.

"You're...awfully quiet."

"Cats on nip often strike at anything makin' noises. Familiars are often twitchy when-"

"Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah. Look, I've been thinking...that ship might never come back because they wanna get at the lovely-lovely treasure and leave before we find her. What do you say, towering inferno?"
User avatar
Sareth
RPG All-Star
Posts: 2604
Joined: August 23rd, 2007, 8:54 pm

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Sareth »

"What the..." Katie was covering her shapely (and far more chaste than chased) buttocks and glaring.

Something had come dashing in on all fours, too small to be a human, but certainly not acting like any animal she knew of aboard. It had proceeded to knock over the helmsman, who had desperately attempted to catch himself, but had only succeeded in grabbing the trousers of the navigator, who was updating the charts after the airship had done several loops (which had ended with the sudden repair of the engines.) The trousers had been insufficiently secured for the sudden weight of the admittedly overweight helmsman, and thus had come crashing down along with him. The Navigator, now suddenly overbalanced by the shoulders of the helmsman striking his knees had attempted to step forward to catch himself, only for his trousers to prevent this by being around his ankles. He had fallen, and in the process his sword, which he never wore scabbarded (claiming naked steel looked more sexy) had come loose. It had bounced off the table on which the charts were rolled out, then flipped three times across the room, scoring a direct hit on the seat of Katie's pants. While the tip had barely avoided damaging her skin, her pants had fared far worse, developing a rather large rent, and now the very dark brown skin of her derriere was public record.

The Helmsman and the Navigator were attempting to disentangle themselves from one another, with relatively little success owing to each managing to knock the other's limbs out from under him with his own efforts to get stable. The ship was starting a gentle roll owing to the lack of anyone on the helm, and the streaking whatever, screaming something about tiny feet, had departed.

"Someone is going to die now," Katie growled, holding her newly aerated pants shut. She turned to walk to her quarters when the captain walked in.

"Katie, dear," he commented idly.

"SIR!" Katie snapped to attention. The navigator and helmsman stopped their struggling, went wide eyed, and then turned red, the Helmsman from blushing, the Navigator from the blood coming from the Navigator's left nostril. Both, wisely, said nothing.

"Did they say they had a prisoner?"

"Yes sir," Katie replied, shifting uncomfortably as cold air began working its way down along her thigh.

"Please go extend my compliments to the man, if you would."

"Now sir?"

"Of course," Captain Rakham replied. "If you wait, the surgeon might kill the poor man."

"Yes sir," Katie replied. She turned and began walking back toward the galley, which served as a make shift hospital when not being used to feed the men. Given the way the previous cook had been, that had saved time as the men hadn't needed to go anywhere after the meal to deal with the meal's results.

"Katie," Captain Rakham commented.

"Sir?" Katie responded.

"That color thong doesn't suit you."

"Yes sir."
Image
Image
User avatar
Graybeard
The Heretical Admin
Posts: 7180
Joined: August 20th, 2007, 8:26 am
Location: Nuevo Mexico y Colorado, Estados Unidos

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Graybeard »

Not having anything obvious to do while the "interrogation" proceeded in sick bay, Rip returned to his bunk, to be confronted by a foul stench. "Smoking in bed again, Thurston?"

"RRAAAWK. Go sodomize yourself, boss." Actually, the parrot said it in an obscure language of the far north, which Rip didn't speak, but it didn't matter, he got the idea. Did he have the mana left for an appropriate counter? He thought so. Thurston, you should know better than that by now -- so it's time for a lesson.

A muttered spell, and a cloud of condensation appeared in midair above Thurston's bunk. It compacted down to the size of a golf ball or so, then erupted back outward with a SPLOOSSHHH. What, in essence, was a cloudburst a foot in diameter, poured down on the end of the cigar. Of course, directly beneath the cigar was the parrot who was smoking it.

Thurston's moist, nay, sopping invective was now in a much more common language, but Rip didn't hear a word of it; his spellcasting (and his body) exhausted for the time being, he was asleep before the doused cigar stopped sizzling.
Image

Because old is wise, does good, and above all, kicks ass.
User avatar
Reavey
New Poster
Posts: 11
Joined: July 31st, 2009, 4:18 am

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Reavey »

Deciding he had heard more than enough about the floating death trap and he had moved to leave when the mage started yelling about colours. Turning back to face the Garlock he stared in confusion, the man hardly acted normal most of the time but this was weird even for him. Even so it was probably best not to inquire; in his current unpredictable state the Garlock seemed as likely to destroy Reyn as remember to send the ship off. Backing away quickly Reyn dismissed himself as quickly as possible.

"Right, I'm going to go and finally relieve whoever's on watch, Shorty I think. I'll see you later." While being on watch was going to be unquestionably dull it suddenly seemed infinitely better than remaining with the insane mage. Walking quickly he only slowed his pace once he was almost to the bottom of the ladder. He was regretting signing up for this job more and more; he just hoped that he could make it through in one piece so that he could never fly again.

Climbing the ladder he hauled himself into what little space was unoccupied in the crow's nest barely withholding a wince when he saw that Garlock's cat was also here. It was not that he disliked cats, the opposite was in fact true, he was simply uneasy around animals that were about as intelligent as he. Doing his best to ignore the cat for now he turned to Shorty.

"I've been sent to replace you." He said, "First watch is about up and I see no point in waiting until second watch actually starts, at least you can go and get some sleep for now."
Garlock
Forum Trainee
Posts: 24
Joined: July 30th, 2009, 3:48 pm
Location: Ummm... *Looks around* Here?

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Garlock »

This unofficially made it Garlock's watch at the end of the ship, Reyn wisely leaving him to it. The magus was lucid and mad all at once at the best of times. He had, in fact, seemingly gone off the deep end with sudden and inexplicable babbling. Fortunately, in that respect, he was reducing it to mere mutter. He was impatient and somewhat jittery, the latter of the two problems being a carry-over from...the other crow's nest, which Reyn walked in on, at about mid-conversation with Shorty.

"...though I never complain about it, sometimes I wish I had some goddamn hands. You don't KNOW what it's like not being able to open things!"

Okay, it was mostly the cat talking like a drunk and Shorty mostly ignoring it. The point about the Alice was reasonable enough, but like ANY cat he just kept carrying on about his problems. Typical. Shorty looked over as soon as Reyn spoke to him.

"I've been sent to replace you. First watch is about up and I see no point in waiting until second watch actually starts, at least you can go and get some sleep for now."

"Assuming this one doesn't keep me up. Allow me to rid you of him."

With that, Shorty scooped up the cat...

"...because they're animals, serving us up in restaurants. Lousy bastards! I'll tear them ap- AAAAAGGGhhhhh...!"

...and tossed him down the ladderway. Shorty nodded at Reyn before heading down himself. Funny, though. There was no thump at the end or loud cursing. Come to think of it, how did he get up here, anyway? We may never know, but upon reaching the crew quarters, he was the cat stalking around, muttering something about a "Wet Bird" smell. And BACK at Garlock with the mini-blimp, the magus waited, irritably, and talking to himself.

"Now, on the one side, I could wait and ensure that I get a clean kill with this thing. But on the other, this is starting to put a crimp on my mana. Guess I'll flip a coin..."

He pulled out a coin, tossed it in the air, and lost it as a sharp breeze took it. He stared at that for a moment, then shrugged.

"Release! Go find enemies! Chop-chop!"

The smaller airship began to move on its own accord, Garlock having told it to let go of the railing. Inside the thing, there was a mass of dark tendril madness ready to explode. He just needed to get it to find a target, to find them. Where was the other ship? Where was their opposition?
User avatar
Graybeard
The Heretical Admin
Posts: 7180
Joined: August 20th, 2007, 8:26 am
Location: Nuevo Mexico y Colorado, Estados Unidos

Re: Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: Hard to participate here since Rip is conked out from post-spell fatigue, but hey, he's got a familiar...]

Between Rip's titanic snores and his own soaked plumage, Thurston couldn't sleep. Swearing under his breath in one (actually, about three at once) of the eleven languages he spoke, he half-flew, half-stumbled out into a passage leading to a crow's nest. Maybe some night air would do him some good. At the very least, it might dry out the wet cigar he still held clamped in his beak, not that that would do him too much good since, lacking hands, he couldn't light it himself. Well, maybe whoever had the night watch would take pity on him; one of the red-shirts had done it earlier ... which, of course, was why his feathers were soaking wet now.

When he got to the crow's nest, a crewman was mumbling to himself; he thought the guy's name was Garlock, if he remembered correctly. Out in the distance, a small airship, limned in magical glow, was heading off in the direction where then Queen Alice's Revenge had last been seen. This Garlock fellow wasn't just mumbling, actually; he was chortling gleefully about something, some kind of booby trap he'd set up on the receding airship from the sound of it. This could be fun to watch, Thurston thought, as he settled in beside the man.

Or not.

The airship-bomb looked to have made it about three quarters of the way to the Revenge, its running lights visible in the distance, when there was a sudden gust of wind from that direction. As he watched, the Revenge got that magical glow of some serious spellcasting going on. Simultaneously, the gust of wind doubled and redoubled in force. The small airship ceased in its progress toward the other ship, paused in midair ... and reversed its course, heading back toward the Bonny Read.

Not many things could make Thurston drop his cigar voluntarily, lit or not, but there was a time and a place for everything.

"RRAAAAWWWK. Incoming."
Image

Because old is wise, does good, and above all, kicks ass.
Post Reply