Farrel Sea

[Sareth]

"Port?" I replied. "I didn't think we were anywhere near any ports."

[AdamZero]

"Port means the boat's left." I said as I passed Jamie and Jasmine, crossing the deck to the port side. A raft was bobbing up and down a way's away from the ship. I could see something or someone covered in a heavy cloak atop the raft. There was some manner of life force, but it seemed to tired and weak for me to tell exactly what it was.

"Get a hook and line!" I heard someone call.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: So what's on the raft? A brand new player character getting introduced? An escapee from the island? Bait offered by a giant underwater kraken so that it can pull down and devour the ship? BOOBIES? I have no idea. Meanwhile, until somebody comes up with an answer:]

As they waited (trolls were good at that), a thought struck Scrobian. "My uncle, which way will the Small Ones be coming from? Growf's Drainpipe runs all the way through the continent. They could be coming from either end of it."

"Good thought," Grope agreed. "I hadn't thought of that. I think they'll come from the east, though. If I understand their plan, and of course you can never be sure with Small Ones, they were going to try to get a ship from a city up on the northeast coast of their country. It'll be a shorter voyage from there to here if they come in from the east end of the Drainpipe."

"Maybe," Harzh'biah said, "but you have to remember that these Small Ones are basically crazy."

A rumbling chuckle. "Also a point. Still, I think that's where they'll come from." He didn't add that he'd been having just the very slightest tingling from the Blood-Binding scar for a while now, and it seemed to be telling him to look that way to relieve it. Was his friend Lucas in danger on the eastern sea? Well, any sea voyage was risky. "Let's move that way and see if we can intercept them a little earlier." The trolls broke camp.

[Sareth]

"I knew that," I muttered, even though it wasn't true. I followed after Marcus and stared down at the raft. The ship began to slow as sail was furled and a sailor ran up with a rope and hook, expertly tossing it to snag the floating wood. Several sailors began hauling on the rope, pulling the raft closer.

I looked down at the raft as it began to thump against the hull. The ship was small enough for the raft to actually not be that far below the railing, and as I looked I could make out the fact that the rags appeared to have been made of canvas. A wave tossed the raft hard against the side, causing the bundle to slide and shift, unsettling things enough for me to see...

"The skin on that arm is green."

[Graybeard]

A crewman elbowed his way to the rail. "Lemme see." He pulled out a spyglass.

"By the Great Squid! That's a flippin' troll!"

[AdamZero]

"Nobody do anything!" I yelled out, as the men pulling the raft closer nearly dropped their ropes. "But don't let that raft loose." I looked to Lucas. "Oi, is that Grope?" He shook his head, on of his hands was pressed to his arm. I wasn't sure why. "Get a rope an ready to bring them aboard."

Every crew member looked at me like they thought I was crazy, or that they wanted to kill me, or both.

"Do it." I growled, more than a little magic glimmering in my eyes. "NOW."

It took a lot of grumbling, and she was bumped into the hull more than once on her way up, but the troll woman was alive and on deck in a relatively short while.

I left the tarp on her for the most part, not simply for to preserve her dignity, but to keep my self from falling apart.

I was going to sink that island into the sea.

[Graybeard]

"They're looking for something," Grope said, watching the strange sinking boat. The three trolls were making sure to remain under cover most of the time as they hiked east, but every now and then, one of them crept closer to the cliff's edge; it was always a good idea to keep tabs on what an enemy was doing.

"Let them," Harzh'biah replied; she was beginning to get back into the mood for leadership, as a female troll should. "We're not strong enough to take them on. As long as they can't come up here, we're best off just waiting for your weird Small Ones, as strange as it sounds to say that."

"We are," Grope agreed. "I don't think they'll be coming up here. The cliffs are vertical, I'm not even sure we could get down to them ourselves if we wanted -- hey, what's this?"

For the first time since they'd reached the northern side of Growf's Drainpipe, the trolls were looking at the remains of a campfire that was quite obviously not their own -- and not very old, either.

[OOC: I'm out of pocket for a couple of days, so have fun with the troll you've just brought aboard the good ship lollipop...]

[Graybeard]

[OOC: So where did everybody go? To try to get things moving again:]

The troll looked around, panic in her eyes. She was babbling incoherently, the words unintelligible even to the people on board who spoke the language.

"Looks like she's had a fright," one of the crewmen said. He didn't want to think about what might terrify a troll into a state like this... and then he looked out on the water.

"Ship, off the starboard bow. Way out there, and ... damn."

As they watched, the distant ship very deliberately submerged.

[Sareth]

[OOC]Master's level homework is a bitch...[/OOC]

"Aw hell..." I muttered. "I guess they know we're coming now. That was one of them."

[Graybeard]

The crew didn't have any time to respond to Jamie's observation before a column of bubbles rose where the submarine had disappeared. The bubbles started moving rapidly toward the ship, leaving a wake.

"INCOMING!" a crewman shouted.