Airship Pirates, Chapter 1: Isabel

[Sareth]

In the morning their was quite a racket on the bridge. The Captain had emerged from his cabin, sniffed, declared that they had missed the target, and returned to his mysterious abode. Katie, however, had thrown quite the tizzy.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T CHECK THE CHARTS?" she bellowed.

"Well, I hadn't been told to," the man replied meekly.

"YOU'RE THE NAVIGATOR! You're EXPECTED to check the charts!" Katie had yelled, not meekly at all.

"Well, somebody should have told me that," the navigator muttered.

Katie, whose skin was already pretty dark to begin with, turned purple. Then she turned an even deeper shade of purple. Then she turned a color not even on the charts, but which is even more dark than purple. Then she really got mad.

The strip she tore off the man's flesh verbally would likely never grow back, given the things she said, the way she said them, and the volume she said them in. Fortunately for you readers, we're not allowed to repeat any of it by law. No... not even on this forum, and we've been to the Errant Story sub-forum. We know how they talk in there. It's still that bad.

After a good 15 minutes, Katie turned the ship around, and they headed back to the proper sight for the raid. About noon, the Captain came out of his quarters. "Take us down," the man commented. "Away the anchor, and ready the men to find the Queen Anne's Revenge."

"Yes sir."

After the Captain had disappeared once again, Katie rounded up the crew. "Everyone sober enough to command a hang glider, get in the hold and assemble the gliders. You're headed out to find where they've hid the Queen Anne's Revenge while they're raiding the dig. The rest of you, ready the ship to attack."

The crew looked at one another in confusion. Finally, one of the men, a braver sort, raised his hand. "Um... Katie?" Katie gave him a look that implied she was itching to shoot someone. Again. Never-the-less, he was a brave soul (he *was* an air pirate, after all) and so he continued on. "I don't think any of us knows how to hang glide."

"GET IN THE HOLD, YOU SORRY LOT OF DIRT EATING SONS OF LUMINOSITA FLUFFERS!"

The crew scattered.

[Graybeard]

Rip slept surprisingly well for the rest of the night. In fact, the sun was well above the horizon when he woke up, to a familiar stench wafting down from Thurston's roost. Well, what were they going to do to punish him for smoking on board, throw him off the ship? He'd just turn around and fly back onto it. Gross physical insult wouldn't work, either; familiars were nigh unto indestructible. Still, something needed to be done. Rip sighed and contented himself with another Micro-Cloudburst to extinguish the cigar, just as he'd done earlier.

Eventually Thurston finished cursing and was in the mood for conversation again. "RAAWK. You missed all the excitement, boss." "And how so?" Rip asked.

Thurston made the machine-gun noise that passed for parrot laughter. "The cap'n figured out that the Queen A wasn't out there, just about the same time he figured out he'd lost lock on the target too. Damn, Kattie was pissed. Went lookin' for somebody t'keelhaul, until Garlock pointed out that this thing ain't got a keel."

"So did they actually throw anybody overboard instead?" Rip asked. Wrackham had been known to do such things.

"Naw," Thurston said. "Kattie got calmed down somehow, everythin's good again ... 'cept for one small thing."

"And what is that?" Rip asked, not sure he wanted to know.

The parrot coughed once or twice. "Well, the helmsman says ... we're ... lost."

[OOC: Note that this one and the entry before it were posted within seconds of each other. Neither author saw what the other was writing, and there was no attempt to coordinate the two. What can I say? Great minds think alike.]

[Sareth]

[OOC]Well... minds think alike, I'll give you that. *grins*[/OOC]

[Xzen]

"GET IN THE HOLD, YOU SORRY LOT OF DIRT EATING SONS OF LUMINOSITA FLUFFERS!"

Two thoughts entered Xzen's mind approximately simultaneously at that point.

Thought the first: Roughly nine days ago, I would've been a bit more offended by that insult. This thought amused him.

Thought the second: I guess I'm going to learn how to hang-glide today. This thought terrified him.

Xzen decided he preferred to focus on the first thought.

As he made his way down to the hold, he noted with pride that his steam-line repair from last night seemed to be holding. Out of mental habit, he started to rebuke himself for having a prideful thought, then stopped. This is ridiculous, he thought. I've quit the Veracian priesthood, been exiled from my homeland, joined a band of air pirates while attempting to conceal my former profession and faith, goaded a superior airman into... passing gas to save a small town, I'm about to learn how to hang-glide, and there's better than even odds that I'm going to commit at least one murder before this whole mess is over. And I'm worrying about PRIDEFUL THOUGHTS?

This thought depressed him.

"Damn," muttered Xzen, cursing for the fourth time in his life.

In need of a distraction, Xzen looked around the hold to see who else was crazy enough to be down here...

[Xzen]

(OOC: Anyone...? Anyone........? Garlock? )

[Graybeard]

"I wish I knew how to cast a mass Slow Fall," Rip told Thurston as they headed for the hold. "A lot of those guys are going to need one."

"RAAWWK. Roger that, boss. You goin' with 'em?"

Rip considered. "I don't know yet. Depends how many hang gliders there are, and how many of the crew have managed to find a place to hide. Of course, there aren't many places to hide on an airship. I suppose I should; at least I've flown a hang glider before, even though it was a long time ago."

Thurston cocked an eye at him. "I don't remember that."

Rip smiled. "You wouldn't. It was way back at Sashi Mu, before I got you. There was a flying club, and I messed around with it for a while."

"RAAWWK. Somehow you don't seem like the type."

The smile widened. "What do you mean by that? I have a Y chromosome, don't I? That makes me the type. The entire membership of the club was male, that was all it took."

Thurston was beginning to get the picture. "Testosterone poisoning?"

Rip's smile was a leer now. "That, plus a desire to get a better view into the windows of the girls' dorm. You wouldn't believe what some of 'em would do for magical enhancements..."

[Sareth]

"Right!" came the call from the speaking tube in the cargo bay. "You lot ready to go?"

The voice was feminine, which made a pretty strong case as to who it might be. No one seemed inclined to argue, at least. And when no one said they weren't ready (wisely) the voice continued. "Hit the air! First person to find the Queen Alice's Revenge and report back alive, gets an extra share of the loot!"

[OOC]Generally, yeah. If you're still active in this thread, have fun with it. Go out, learn how to fly (and remember the key to flying is not hitting the ground) and create what adventures you wish. I'm not going to be saying "So and so found the Queen Alice's Revenge" so whoever wants it, gets dibs by posting first... then having fun *surviving* finding it.[/OOC]

[Graybeard]

Rip heard the order, kept inspecting the glider that he'd chosen.

"RAAAWWK. Boss? We gonna go?" Thurston asked.

Rip calmly continued with his inspection. "Soon enough. The first thing you do with a hang glider, though, is make sure the damn thing will fly with you attached to it -- which means, among other things, making sure that you will stay attached. There's a lot of pre-flight to be done. I don't want to die from not doing it."

As if to make Rip's point, a red-shirted crewman bellowed "GANGWAY!" and sprinted past him, holding a glider. By the shoulder harness. Unattached to his shoulders.

Only a moment later, the crewman jumped off the drop-down door to the hold, and quite predictably, had the airfoil ripped out of his hands by the wind. The unmanned glider flew just fine without him; he, without the glider, didn't do nearly so well.

"GAAAAAAAHHhhhh..." the man's scream receded in the distance below, as Rip continued checking out his mount.

Thurston clucked disapprovingly. "Boss, you didn't even cast a Slow Fall to try to save that guy? I'm disappointed."

Rip shrugged. "What's the point? The spell would have worn off while he was still a thousand feet in the air. I'm just saving him a few seconds of sheer terror, helping him get it over with. He'll still have plenty of time to pray to Luminosita, for all the good it'll do him. Besides, I'm saving energy for spellcasting that may actually matter. Now let's get going." Inspections complete, he slipped into the shoulder harness.

[Xzen]

"Hard to argue with that logic, cold as it is," thought Xzen. He'd watched in horror as the red-shirted crewman lost his grip on his glider and dropped out of sight. For a tiny, brief moment of insanity, he'd even considered diving down after him, trying to find some way to catch up to him, and then casting repeated slow-fall spells until they both landed safely. But then Xzen had remembered he had absolutely zero skydiving experience and would probably just have gotten himself killed in the process. And he couldn't do any good for anybody if he was dead.

Xzen quietly muttered a prayer on behalf of the crewman to... well, not to Luminosita. He'd seen through that charade. But he prayed anyway, to whoever or whatever might be listening. Couldn't hurt.

On the plus side, after witnessing their comrade's kamikaze fall, there was a renewed interest among all hands in making sure they were more securely attached to their rigs. Rip seemed to be the most sure of himself, and many crewmen, Xzen included, were watching him and following his example, with varying degrees of success.

More importantly, though, everyone was stalling. And Xzen didn't want to still be in the hold when that foul-mouthed first officer came back downstairs... she was likely to start THROWING people out the door, ready or not. So, Xzen checked his harnesses for the fifth time, pointed himself towards the door, and took off at a full sprint, running right past Rip. And as he neared the door, he let loose with his battle-cry:

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

Followed by, "FUUUUUUUUCK," using that particular profanity for the first time in his life, as the nose of his hang glider turned straight down, bringing Xzen straight down with it. Xzen almost wasted a slow-fall spell right then and there, but then collected himself long enough to realize the harness was at least holding.

"Alright, I have a wing. I should use it." Xzen experimented with shifting his body weight around in the harness, trying things on instinct, and in just a few seconds, he'd pulled out of his descent and leveled off. He couldn't see the Bonny Read, which suggested he was somewhat underneath it. He also couldn't see the Queen Anne's Revenge, but the mere fact that he wasn't plummeting to his death was enough for now, right?

Unsure if anyone could even hear him, Xzen looked up and shouted, "WHAT ARE YOU WIMPS WAITING FOR? GET OUT HERE!!!"

[Graybeard]

"WHAT ARE YOU WIMPS WAITING FOR? GET OUT HERE!!!"

It seemed like a fair enough question, Rip allowed. He and Thurston exchanged glances, with improbably similar facial expressions, given that they were of different species. "Shall we?" And they were off.

Fortune, or Luminosita, or something like that, appeared to be smiling on this little escapade, Rip noticed. Both the weather and the geography looked good for hang gliding. The Bonny Read was circling over a low ridge that descended from the mountains to the west toward the shore. There would be a combination of down-slope winds and thermals that should allow a skillful hang-glider pilot (which, of course, did not necessarily mean these hang-glider pilots...) to change his flight direction by varying the lift to gain or lose altitude. Even better, the coast didn't have the ground fog that it often developed, so that they'd not only be able to keep track of where they were, but even have a shot at seeing the Queen Alice's Revenge.

It wasn't lost on Rip, however, that these same conditions would give the Queen A a better chance of seeing them.