It is some hours before Matla returns with about fifty tribesmen in tow. It seems that half are there to help butcher the carcass, and the other half are there to gawk.
"Wow! I not believe only eight took it down!"
"No-one died?"
"A mastodon! Did it gore anyone?"
"Toe to toe? Really?" The whole crowd looks with awe toward the two former giants. Tenoch is there, and takes the opportunity to administer infusions to Ciarán and Mtumbwi to aid their recovery.
"You should consider yourselves very lucky you are alive," he notes as they drink the cool, peppermint flavored liquid, "Your are brave men, but this is the Isle of Dread. You must tread carefully if you wish to survive. Such creatures are best taken down from a height, and at range. Use its animal intelligence against it, and do not forget that your own brain is your greatest ally out here amongst the beasts. They will beat you matching muscles every time."
It is a remarkably short amount of time before even the bone knives of the Tanaroans have the mastodon stripped of meat and are ready to drag the leaf-wrapped meat - topped with the complete head of the Mastodon - along on a makeshift matt with woven vines for each man to pull on. The journey back to Tanaroa takes the group well past sunset, but all the village turns out to see the warriors' return.
A massive cheer erupts from the crowd as the specialists enter astride the pile of meat. As the feast arrives at the foot of the pyramid, Chief Yatzil ascends to the top and holds her hands out. It is a good minute or so before the crowd finally hushes.
"My people!" she begins, "These travelers come from far away. They come with steel for our hands. They come with fire in hearts. They come and feed tribe with bounty of the Isle. I declare now: these travelers not just friends of Tanaroans. These travelers are Tanaroans! Feast on meat, and honor new members of tribe!"
Tenoch walks up behind the eight crewmen holding a massive lump of tight meat, dripping in blood and smiles, "Now, who will be taking the first bite out of the heart?"
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Femi looks to the heart, and cannot manage it. He waits for someone else to take the first bite, and makes a little bet with himself as to who it may be. Mtumbi with his aggressive nature? Or Bazsil with his natural superiority? Or someone else?, he wonders.
Femi has a marvelous time at the party. The people of the village are perhaps simple, but their simplicity appealed to him. A party with meat for the downing of a great beast of the jungle. How excellent!
”Mtwumbi, great idea with those bear traps. It may not have slowed it down, but it did injure it - and every little bit helps…”
”Bazsil, nice display, making yourself a target to gather the beast to us. Very dangerous, and very well done…”
”Ciaran, when it attacked you I thought you were a goner. Glad you survived the blows that surely would have killed me…”
”Aeslin, too bad the sleeping didn’t work - that would have made for a short battle indeed…”
”Gado, nice work with the illusion. I thought about dabbling in such magics myself, but I have not the creativity…”
”Elon, nice spell - too bad it didn’t work. Never the less, your yak was great, charging in like that…”
”Gratum, too bad your crossbow missed, but that was very brave rushing in to heal in the middle of combat…”
He greats and chats with everyone he sees, moving through the party like a fish moving through the water. He glides smoothly from conversation to conversation, trying to inhale the whole village into his lungs. He breathes deeply, and tries to listen more than speak - though there are plenty of stories told by both sides - some true, some exaggerations, some outright falsehoods. It doesn’t matter on a night like this.
And he eats. Oh how he eats! Unable to keep food down on the ship, he’s lost much weight and appetite, and he tries to gain both back i a single evening. He nibbles at this and that, that and this, constantly all night long. He samples everything he sees and drinks his fill. Not a heavy drinker, he lets down his guard this night and gets pleasantly pickled as the evening wears on.
A quiet drunk, he speaks less and less and listens more and more as his eyes glaze over and his head begins to nod. A full belly and wine-laden bloodstream eventually do him in and he collapses somewhere, to nap a little as the party goes on around him. He wakes a few hours later, and rejoins the revelry likely still ongoing - a second wind!
Elon, on his way to help the Mean One, sees Barley go down in a heap as a tribal member rushes to the fallen man's side. "Maybe next time, Ciaran!" yells Elon as he about-faces and rushes to Barley's side, quickly healing him with his most powerful spells.
The magicks move into the yak's body and quickly repair the wound, leaving Barley right as rain.
"Mooo..." says the prone yak as he opens his eyes to see his best friend and that the pain is gone. He gently licks the face of the dwarf as the man giggles.
The dwarf pats Barley on the head and the pair quickly heads back towards town with the rest of the crew.
---
Elon sees the body being stripped of meat and such, leaving bone, tusk and unsavory cuts left behind. The Coiffed One takes a tusk from the creature as Elon declares the head for himself. "Huzzah! The head of this beast shall be the primary tap in your room, Gado! The remaining tusk shall be your drinking vessel and shall reattach to the head when not in use!"
Elon quickly begins to scribble into his notebook, etching out how to feed the tap through the trunk of the beast and how to create a silvered tusk to replace Baszil's claim. "Hmm... if we can make a self-cleaning system in the line, then ye won't have to clean the drinking tusk or the line in between ales!" he says excitedly."Now if only there was a way to craft an oven in the beast's mouth that delivers fresh pastry..."
Mtumbwi walks up to the heart and takes it in both hands. The slippery, blubbery heart is squish and raw. Mtumbwi raises the heart to rip out a chunk as the red blood trickles thick and clotted down. He pauses before his incisors rip into the meat.
"Bah. It is not for me. Though I stared into the face of death with this beast, it was not my thrust that killed it. S#@$ I didn't even hit that damned beast though it was as big as a trireme.
"The first bite goes to the true Hero of the Hunt. Sit down Baszil you arrogant ass.
"Ciarán. There is no man or woman I would want at my side when facing sure death than you. May you live a long life to father many strong sons.
"Seriously Bazsil, I am NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU."
Mtumbwi walks the heart over to Ciarán, kneels before him and offers him the heart.
After he takes the heart back and rips into the meat,. Chewing loudly and smacking his lips he resumes his seat near Femi.
"Thanks for <chew> saying, <chew> nice things. <chew, chew>. You did good to. <chew> talking and stuff. <chew> Real elegant. <chew>" Mtumbwi starts to pick at his teeth to get the meat out, before farting loudly.
A mastodon head for the bar and tap...
"Genius!!" Gado exclaims to Elon as he shows him the updated plans. "I am honored that you would give me the tusk for my drinking vessel." Gado beams.
Will I be able to lift it? Eh, that's what magic is for.
Gado absolutely revels in the celebrity from slaying the massive creature, only blushing a few times when someone asks if he really did deliver the killing blow.
That is sure to impress Ixchel... he muses as the entourage makes their way back into the camp.
When the heart is offered, Gado does his best to hide his revulsion at such a distasteful thing, hoping the natives didn't notice it and think less of him for it. He is relieved that Mtumbwi and Ciaran seem so eager, and he can hide in the back for this event.
"You should consider yourselves very lucky you are alive," he notes as they drink the cool, peppermint flavored liquid, "Your are brave men, but this is the Isle of Dread. You must tread carefully if you wish to survive."
Isle of Dread? If these people have been cut off for so long, how is it that they know the name of their Isle? And why would they name it such? As if they have something else to compare it to?
Bazsil snorts, an idea coming to him.
"Why do you call it the Isle of Dread? Is it because you and your people lack the courage to master this isle? Why is it that you call it something you fear rather than something you should aspire to? We should be calling this place Isle of Courage!"
Bazsil flicks his curls back, having made a good point in his mind.
"Perhaps when you discover the balls between your legs, you will discover that the wall is not meant to keep this village safe from the island, but to keep the island safe from what man can accomplish."
* * *
Bazsil notes the queen's lack of discussion over the big bone Bazsil laid at her feet and resolves to bring up his big bone again later.
"Why do you call it the Isle of Dread? Is it because you and your people lack the courage to master this isle? Why is it that you call it something you fear rather than something you should aspire to? We should be calling this place Isle of Courage!"
"We call it the Isle of Dread" begins Tenoch, "Because it is a place to fear. You are confident, true - but there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. One will spur you on to great things, the other can get you killed out there. It has been called the Isle of Dread since before the Gods departed, and the name has been passed down through generations of our ancestors. I know not exactly why it was called such, but the name is apt."
Tenoch regards the mastodon feast laid out before the tribe. "Perhaps, though, you truly are simply confident. Perhaps you do have what it takes to master this Isle. Perhaps your example will prove to the Tanaroans and the other tribes that we can and should settle north of the wall and we shall sally forth."
"Perhaps you die," sneers the Zombie Mistress from the crowd before disappearing once more into the shadows.
Ciaran nods stiffly at Mtumbwi's words (despite the healing, he's still barely able to move) and takes the first bite of the heart. Raw, bloody flesh with the toughness of leather.
"Thank you," he says, although it's not entirely clear whether he says it to Mtumbwi or the dead mastodon, or to the gods themselves.
Aeslin looks on as the Zombie Master berates her team. "Bazsil, it matters not what he thinks. We shall sally forth on the morrow, I would think, and start to discover what is out there. Until then, let us celebrate our success. Still, it is interesting that the beast seemed to have a mind as powerful as its frame, is it not?"
"Tomorrow? Have we collected enough supplies and intelligence on what's beyond the wall to set out so soon?"
"I thought we came supplied? But, I am no experienced adventurer... we could wait until all are ready. I don't think that the island will care either way!"
"I'm going to need more healing tonight then."
"We call it the Isle of Dread because it is a place to fear. You are confident, true - but there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance...but the name is apt."
Bazsil returns a smug look to the man.
"Funny how you call me arrogant, when you are the one claiming what can and cannot be done by man. Which one of us is truly arrogant?"
"Bazsil, it matters not what he thinks."
Bazsil regards the woman who understands literally nothing about man, about others things much, but about man, both physical and what their purpose on Golarion was, she knows nothing.
"That, simply put Aeslin, is just not true. That he thinks that is precisely the problem. That he and their leaders like him," Bazsil shifts an irritated glance a the chief, "keep telling their warriors what they cannot do and what they must fear. No wonder they have not tamed this island yet. Their thinking is precisely what is wrong."
"Man, Gado." Elon remarks to the more intelligent of the crew. "This lot needs to focus on the more important things in life. Like a Mastodon tap for the ship's bar... err... I mean your study!" he says with a smile.
"Do you have any magicks that can create food stuffs or at least turn a small area into an oven? I want to make the mouth dispense pastries, but will settle for at least letting them cook pastries, though that would mean I would need to practice my pastry cheffing..." Elon says, his mind running down various tangents.
"Also, do we have any silver or steel to make the tap-tusk? I bet I can melt down Lucy before Bazsil notices..." Elon ponders as he eyes the man's hammer. "Yeah, I can definitely do it before he notices, but I bet he won't be happy..."
"I'm sure we can find steel on the ship." Gado replies half-heartedly as he searches his mind for the proper spell to accomplish what Elon is hoping for.
"You know, my good friend. I have communed with the elementals on the plane of fire on many occasions. Perhaps there is a way they can help us with the pastry dilemma. What if we collected a few samples of fire lizards, or flying embers. They would be like a common iguana, or toad here on our plane, but they are born with the essence of fire in their bodies. With the right containment system, we could keep one fat and happy while using its radiant heat to power the convection!"
Gado laughs heartily and slaps Elon on the back in his excitement. He fumbles with his fingers during his conversation, tending to talk with his hands far more when he is half in the bag.
"Hey Jinoch, Whaddya think about that?" he says to a passing young man, on the verge of completing his ritual that names him one of the tribal warriors. The boy-soon-to-be-man screws up his face in confusion and continues walking along, quickly lost in the hubbub of the celebration.
Gado eventually gets up and stumbles over to Aeslin. He flops an arm over her shoulder, leaning on her slightly as he takes another big pull from his custom emblazoned mug.
Smart Little Man It said. It was a gift from Bazsil, though Gado was pretty sure that his warrior friend had someone else make it.
"So Ixchel hasn't talked to me since the other night. You're a woman. *hic* So is it me? Am I doing something wrong? How am I supposed to know? She didn't really say we were a thing, or anything. Is that suppose to be assumed? I'm not really sure how this works. Should I just go talk to her? Or would that be weird?" Gado flops his head almost completely sideways and looks up past his forehead for Aeslin's reaction.
"Funny how you call me arrogant, when you are the one claiming what can and cannot be done by man. Which one of us is truly arrogant?"
"I did not call you arrogant, my friend," smiles Tenoch, "Just confident with an added caution that you do not stray to far from overconfidence into arrogance. As for me, presumptuous perhaps... and my position does require quite an ego, I will admit. In any case, you have the history of the name of the Isle as best as I can recall it. I pray you are successful and return alive."
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Ciaran desperately wants to drink to relieve his pain, but does little more than wet his lips with it, not wanting to fall back into the drunken pit he recently escaped from.
His evening is therefore spent sitting in the one spot by the fire, painfully eating everything that comes within arm's reach.
Whenever is relevant...
"Logistically, we have three options - the resources we can carry with us, the ship, and (for as long as they remain friendly), the village. We should consider having the ship parallel us along the coast, so they we have their resources and a method of quick extraction should we need it in the event of an emergency. Or at least having it wait in designated harbours to check in with at set times. It would be risky for them though, although I'm sure Barbarosa would think it was worth it.
"We also need to decide what our goals are. Do we want to explore the island step by step, or do we want to head straight to the centre to see this 'home of the gods'? There's also the matter of the road, which we could follow for as long as it lasts."
"Logistically, we have three options - the resources we can carry with us, the ship, and (for as long as they remain friendly), the village. We should consider having the ship parallel us along the coast, so they we have their resources and a method of quick extraction should we need it in the event of an emergency. Or at least having it wait in designated harbours to check in with at set times. It would be risky for them though, although I'm sure Barbarosa would think it was worth it.
"We also need to decide what our goals are. Do we want to explore the island step by step, or do we want to head straight to the centre to see this 'home of the gods'? There's also the matter of the road, which we could follow for as long as it lasts."
Femi continues to drink, but he sips lightly now - easing off his heavier drinking earlier in the evening.
”You make good points. If Barbarosa will shadow us, that would be grand, but I suspect we’re on our own. So with that, I think we should follow the road more than the coast. Stick to something we can use to escape quickly if we need to. Or at least relatively quickly.”
He thinks a little further, ”Yeah, let’s try the road, I bet it leads to the center eventually anyway.”
He thinks a little further, ”Yeah, let’s try the road, I bet it leads to the center eventually anyway.”
Bazsil begins to warm up to the talkative human.
"You. You, I like. You are thinking like a good man, a man who understands," Bazsil says. "We should follow the road, because it was meant to lead us somewhere. And someone built it for us, for humans. It will be good to know where it goes and why it was built."
"If we follow the road for two days, we will leave these areas unexplored. Once there, we can either keep pressing on in the same direction - towards the gods at the centre of the island - or we can start a more systematic side to side pattern."
Gratum looks among his companions as he drinks, hears their different thoughts. The ivory tap seems a waste, 'till it goes missing... he muses, then considers the future of their expedition, and finally states "It's a shame we can't take the ship inland, down the road with us." he completes his thought in Taldane, "Mean's we'll have to leave anything bigger than a basilisks head behind."
"Well, maybe we need to find some creatures that we can use as pack animals. Use them to carry out our stuff. Or, perhaps, we could try and learn a spell at would serve as such a thing... Some sort of floating disk.
"As for a road, Gratum, do you the engineering behind making a good road? Maybe we make our own after the tar pits. We should check that out, in any case. Two days, seems a pretty safe first trek out, other than our hunting expedition. I wonder if we could take one of those pachyderms... If only someone could control them...
Gratum laughs. Then realizes Aeslin's serious about the request.
"It just isn't feasible, lass. We came here to explore, and building a good solid road takes time in the best of conditions, leave alone while under constant threat of monsters"
Unsure he's sufficiently explained, he continues, "Besides, if we're exploring (which is our mission), we don't know where the road should end yet, or turn, or need a bridge."
Aeslin mentions pack animals and finding a creature big enough to carry huge loads. More than a few eyes turn to the literal tonnes of roasting mastodon meat on the tribal fire pits...
Wandering around the campfire in a drunken stupor, Mtumbwi tries to dazzle his new tribe mates with his divine power, alternating from growing larger and knocking people off their stools, or shooting electric arcs into people's butts when they are bending over.
"Cocks!" he shouts as loud as he can to whomever he can find. "We need to fight cocks!"
"Harlan, you good for nothing number cruncher! Where is my prize cock? I need to teach these native tribe mates friends how to fight them.
You. Tribemate friend. I am of you. Tribe. Get cock. Hurry before I put a foot up your ass." he implores to one of his new friends.
Mtumbwi spends the next 20-minutes looking for stones to make a circle about 10-feet in diameter. After dropping several stones on his feet, he grabs a fallen branch. Placing the tip in the sand, he scoots backward trying his best to draw a circle. As he wobbles backward, his feet get tangled and he falls into a pile of sand, leaves, and branches. Rising to his feet, swaying much like The Audacious did on the sea, a feeling of sadness comes over him. He tips over and begins his descent into blackness. Heavy snoring follows.
"Baaahahahaha!" Gado laughs drunkenly at the show Mtumbwi is putting on. Forgetting that he shouldn't bend over during the display, Gado leans over to pick up a stone to help the man, and is rewarded with a shock in the nether regions.
"Yeaaahh!" he looks around, confused. He shrugs his shoulders and bends down to pick the rock up again. Thankfully, Mtumbwi has moved on to other things.
Eventually, as the night winds down, Gado screws up his courage to approach Ixchel again. He takes a deep breath to say something to her, but can't even get a word out before she grabs his arm and takes him to his tent.
Well that was easy...
Gado's eyes flutter open as the pounding in his head becomes to loud to ignore. His lips are dry and cracked and his body aches, the aftereffects of a night of heavy drinking and carousing. He grimaces when once again he realizes that he is alone in his bed, but convinces himself that Ixchel must be an early riser, as it is already halfway through the morning when he ambles out to relieve himself.
After some time to gather his senses, Gado sees the Colonel barking orders and overseeing gear being ferried to the camp, and decides to go speak with him.
"Mornin sunshine." The Colonel says gruffly, and more than a little sarcastically as the wee little man approaches.
"Mornin to you too!" Gado says, forcing a bit of cheeriness, and completely missing the sarcastic tone.
"Pass a message along to Barbarosa, if you would please? We are going to stay here in the village and settle in for the next couple of days. We need to establish some trade, and see what we can do to get a proper forge started to equip the natives with proper steel weapons and armor, from what stores of ore we have on the ship.
"In a few days, we will begin forays into the jungle to begin exploration. We are going to be leaning on Gratum heavily as we search for raw materials to supplement what little we have brought. If we are lucky, we will find some ore that can be smelted.
"Our first forays will be short trips, hoping to locate native materials within a few days travel of the walls. We will need to locate a place to establish an outer base camp to launch from as well, for when we start making deeper delves into the island.
"Uh... Did you catch all that? Are you even listening?" Gado looks up at the sea-hardened man, slightly confused.
This pig nosed fairy prick thinks he can tell me what to do.
The Colonel stands impassively, arms folded across his chest as he watches deck hands trapse back and forth from the rowboats and inland.
"Anyway, we will try to focus most of our forays along the coast, and will need to coordinate Captain Barbarosa's movement with the ship. We can work out a series of signals with flares... are you getting this?"
"F$*% off pansy boy. I'm busy." The Colonel snorts before stomping off up the beach to bark orders at one of the deckhands struggling with a rowboat that seems to be stuck on the shore.
"Well that was rude..." Gado stands motionless, stunned for a few minutes.
"Guess I better make an appointment with Barbarosa." he muses before wandering back to his tent to meet with Elon about the tap and oven plans they were talking about last night.
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While Femi is glad to have the solid earth beneath his feet and would stay in the village to relax a few days, he worries the varied group might commit some atrocity that makes us unwelcome here.
"Let's get going quickly. Maybe not tomorrow, as some of us will be nursing this long night's entertainment, but the day after? That gives us a day in the village to rest and recover and prepare rations and the like."
"Then two days up the road to the tar pits - and on to adventure from there!"
EDIT
He realizes that Gado has been talking the whole time and making plans and he falls to silence, nodding with agreement to all Gado has said.
"Good plan!"
While Femi is glad to have the solid earth beneath his feet and would stay in the village to relax a few days, he worries the varied group might commit some atrocity that makes us unwelcome here.
"Let's get going quickly. Maybe not tomorrow, as some of us will be nursing this long night's entertainment, but the day after? That gives us a day in the village to rest and recover and prepare rations and the like."
"Then two days up the road to the tar pits - and on to adventure from there!"
EDIT
He realizes that Gado has been talking the whole time and making plans and he falls to silence, nodding with agreement to all Gado has said."Good plan!"
"Well, I guess it's not the worst plan I've ever heard," Barbarosa addresses the companions. The last hour spent on dry land seems not to have improved his attitude at all, "The Audacious will be ready for you off the coast whenever you need her... but you have to do me a favor first. Since the natives love you so damned much, see if you can figure out if there are any dangers along the coast. Their longboats don't go far but they can at least stay within sight of land. I'm hoping they've been out of the bay."
Barbarosa takes one last pull from his tankard. "Elon, this grog's great! You should have tried the sweetened piss they tried to feed me last time I was here."
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Eventually, as the night winds down, Gado screws up his courage to approach
IxchelYatzil again. He takes a deep breath to say something to her, but can't even get a word out before she grabs his arm and takes him tohis tenther hut.Well that was easy...
The flames of the brazier have dimmed without additional fuel being added during the night. Gado cannot quite see what is going on as Ixchel propels him toward the bed. "Strip," she orders, beginning to do so herself by taking her headdress off, "Both of you."
Suddenly, a flicker of light plays off the back of the hut and Gado sees Bazsil there. The man had responded to an earlier invitation - more of a command really - from the chief asking him to be at the hut at a set time.
"What?" asks Yatzil, not sure what to make of Gado's confused expression (she cannot see well enough in the shadowed hut to know how Bazsil is reacting), "Bazsil says he likes form of man. I like both Bazsil and Gado. I have both Bazsil and Gado. Problem?" The chief's tone suggests that she is very much used to both getting her way and having her way.
Gado looks from Bazsil to the delightfully intimidating woman in front of him back and forth several times. Before the shock begins to wear off, Gado reaches for his mug, which thankfully is full again. He takes a loooooooong drink and burps into his arm, trying poorly to conceal the not-so-attractive bodily function.
hope that kicks in soon...
Mtumbwi... the cock fight happens, and is wildly popular.
"Stupid voice of god! Make a list or something!
"I'm confused. Am I in this scene or not?"
"Stupid voice of god! Make a list or something!
"I'm confused. Am I in this scene or not?"
Woah. Hopefully Ixchel didn't notice. Or at least doesn't get jealous. Gado slinks out of the chief's tent to head towards his pavilion.
Though Yatzil is the chief. Maybe she understands that the chief gets what the chief wants.
"I still can't believe we pulled off that one position though. Genius use of the enlarge spell if I do say so myself." Gado mumbles to himself as he begins to strut instead of just walk.
"Oh, hey Bazsil. *Ahem* Ah... Good morning so far?"
Yea, that doesn't make it any less awkward...
"So that grease spell. Works pretty good for more than just your hair huh? Heheh..."
You're not supposed to talk about it you dolt! Now its really awkward...
Late into the night, Gratum sits and watches the fire. Keeping Ciaran company, and drinking twice as much.
He watches Baszil strut away from the party long before the night is over, Lucy swinging by his side, after Baszil has passed he says to Ciaran, "He seem somehow more certain of himself right now?..."
Eventually, when the party has died down quite a bit, he sees the Chief dragging Gado away towards her hut. Again speaking to Ciaran, "Heh! Good on the boy, he can't learn everything in books..."
The next morning he hears,
"So that grease spell. Works pretty good for more than just your hair huh? Heheh..."
And spits out his beer!
These mugs are too small. he thinks. Then wanders over to Elon, "I have an idea," he says with urgency. He points to the kegs and raises his eyebrows, "It comes in towers."
Ciaran nods.
"I just hope he's read at least one book and knows what to do with it."
"Well, I guess it's not the worst plan I've ever heard," Barbarosa addresses the companions. The last hour spent on dry land seems not to have improved his attitude at all, "The Audacious will be ready for you off the coast whenever you need her... but you have to do me a favor first. Since the natives love you so damned much, see if you can figure out if there are any dangers along the coast. Their longboats don't go far but they can at least stay within sight of land. I'm hoping they've been out of the bay."
"How about - assuming intel from the locals is favourable - we meet at that bight on the west coast in a week's time?"
Bazsil smirks as Gado is lead in. He prepares himself to leave.
"Gado is a good, smart man. It might be that he will teach you what I have failed to teach you. And maybe when you are worth me, I will return. You cannot believe yourself and your tribe so weak, and you cannot be so scared, and earn a man like me."
Bazsil nods Gado to go get his prize.
"I will find other amusements more worthy of this man's time."
Bazsil bows smugly and leaves. He will eventually find his way to Elon for drink on his way to Mtumbwi's cockfighting. He is surprised that it involves chickens and not manhoods. He assumed he would be winning easily, but instead loses money in bad wagers.
At first interested in Mtumbwi's cockfights, Aeslin soon is horrified by what she is seeing. She wants to leave, but is forced to stay by here companion, the weasel. Several times Sebastian looks ready to jump into the fight, but always he is showed away by the shipwright. Aeslin herself barely notices this, mesmirized and horrified as she is... And perhaps the lethal little weasel is lulling her into this state. She doesn't bet, as she doesn't know enough to win, and her daddy taught her that gambling is for fools, unless you have already stalked the odds in your favor.
Once again the familiar stalks his prey, they two tasty looking fowl. He is blessed with extra intelligence, like all familiars, and is content to wait until the contestants have worn each other down. Ever so cautiously he makes he way closer.... Closer... Until the moment is right.. The cockerel with the broken comb stumbles... Looks to fall... And then, in a flurry of feathers and fur, he strikes!
The natives call out, intrigued by the new development. Mtumbwi didn't say anything about a weasel! More bets fly, now for or against Sebastian! Even Aeslin gets in on that, betting for her friend!