Sandra laughs and tosses back her mane of fiery red hair. "I go where ever the Pirate Queen sends me, for I am her priestess."
She suddenly gets serious and lowers her voice, "Something is amiss on this ship, and I'm not sure what it is. I thinking we may need to form our own crew and get our own ship as soon as we can. We need more people to come with us...."
Havok pipes up suddenly "Fishguts! The cook! He says the same thing, this ship is a poison! I think he might want to help us if given the chance..."
"Well, I certainly wouldn't mind being on different ship. This one is just so, so, well, I don't know how to describe it, but I hate it. I'm not much of a sailor or a fighter, but I would go with you if you would have me."
That night, a turtle stew is served and rum rations are served.
Phaedra downs her rum and eats her stew. Then she decided that since she has her harp back she should play it for her new friends. Sadly she doesn't know much in the way of pirate songs, but knows lots of love storys and picks a cheerful to sing as she plays her harp for the group
Your playing is beautiful and your singing is still quite good. Aldon and Havok smile blissfully as they close their eyes. Sandra looks like she would rather something to dance too. After your done playing you are approached by Rosie, a rather sullen looking Halfling female.
"Done be the best playing I heard this side of the shackles. Me thinks I can play with you if I ever get my fiddle back from the damn thieves who stole it! How you come by your instrument? They didn't take it when they press ganged who like they did with me?"
Phaedra shrugs at Rosie's question. "Someone decided to give it back. I guess they just wanted to hear some music. I would love to have someone to play duets with. Maybe we could talk someone into giving you your fiddle back?"
Rosie shakes her head and sighs, "Been down to the quartermaster shop every day so far and I get the same answer, that it's now the Captain's property"
You can see that Havok is hearing your conversation intently. He looks at Rosie and blushes slightly.
Aldon brings over a roll of crusty bread with butter, "It's sweet, it's not a cake or pie, but will serve as dessert well enough." He smiles.
"Thank you Aldon."
Phaedra smiles up at him as she takes her roll. He is just so nice and kinda sweet.
"Maybe I could try taking a turn at talking to her?"
Rosey shrugs "Be my guest, but I suspect you will have as much luck as I." Rosey sighs in sadness, thinking of her fiddle.
You notice Havok stroking his chin slightly and appears to be looking at you, waiting for something.
"Well, it couldn't to try at least, right?"
Phaedra moves over to Havok on her way to go to the quatermaster's cabin.
"Havok, would you walk me to the quartermaster's?"
When they are alone, Phaedra will give Havok a chance to say anything.
Havok jumps down from his spot on the railing and follows after Phaedra, he says nothing as the make the decent down into the ship to the quartermasters shop.
Once you get there, it's apparent that the shop is closed for the day as the door is closed and the light above the door has been snuffed out.
"Well drat. I guess we will have to come back tomorrow to talk to the quartermaster."
Phaedra sadly shakes her head and will head back to the bunk room.
Havok tugs on Phaedra's skirt and puts his finger to his mouth to motion for her to be quiet. He makes a motion around his eyes, indicating to her to keep a watch out.
He removes what looks like two long metal sticks and is about to fiddle with the lock, when Havok thinks for a moment and opens the door. Which slides open without any fuss. He silently steps into the Quartermaster shop.
Phaedra clasps her hands over her own mouth to avoid any little squeaks of surprise from coming out.
We're breaking into the quartermaster's? Oh jeez! Won't we get into big trouble for this??
Phaedra looks around to see if she sees anyone else coming...
Being extremely careful, Havok goes straight to a chest, almost as if he knows the quartermasters shop. Opening it up be takes out a silver fiddle and hands it to Phaedra.
He then sneaks over to a locker and opens it up, he waves you over and gestures inside. You see the rest of your belongs as well as a collection of other equipment. A rifle and a box of what appears to be bullets, each stamped with a blue eagle. A pair of pretty fans with various metal hooks and spikes as well as some unusual looking Tien armor. And finally a dwarven hook hammer with studded leather.
Havok motions in a lifting manner, indicating that they pair of you should carry out everything inside. He grabs a large sack and starts carefully placing everything inside.
Slightly shaking, Phaeda helps Havok.
Once finished packing, You and Havok begin to carry the sack of equipment back to your bunks.
You both quietly make it back to your bunks. Havok whispers closely "We should store the stuff in our bunk lockers until the morning and then We can distribute it out. Good job back there, you'll make a great pirate one day!"
Phaedra blushes a bit at Havok's compliment and whispers back. "Thank you Havok. I never ever though of myself becoming a pirate, but since I'm stuck here I suppose I may as well give it a go."
The next morning you awake to find no surprises this time, no men waiting to delay you to work or harass you. Once on deck you are given the task of being a runner, relaying messages between the various officers. Most of them ignore your presence, but a few, like Mr. Plugg, look down their nose at you.
Glad that no one was waiting to waylay her this morning, Phaedra is in a fairly decent mood as she goes about her task of being a runner. Though she is a bit nervous when in Mr. Plugg's presence. Something about him just makes her uneasy.
Phaedra will spend the day working diligently, she doesn't want to mess up any messages between the officers.
She always smiles at her new friends whenever she passes them by on her errands though.
Evening rolls around a roasted fish is served. Havok smiles as he hands it out "Havok roasted himself!" Several sailors looks disgusted by this fact, but the fish remains delicious.
Rum rations are portioned out by Grok the quartermaster.
After supper, Havok hands you the bag of everyone's equipment, "Officers are in their dining room, best chance to hand it all out"
"Good idea Havok, help me gather everyone together, alright?"
With Havok's assistance, Phaedra gathers their little group, plus Rosie off into a corner of the ship.
"Thanks to Havok's nimble fingers, we have a little something for everyone."
Phaedra will then begin passing out items, beginning with Rosie's fiddle.
Rosie beams when she see's her fiddle "I believe your now my new best friends! I think it prudent to play music together!" She goes bounding off to tune her fiddle.
Everyone else thanks you and smiles while retrieving their gear. When you bring out the rifle, Aldon sighs with relief. He's so happy that he forgets his manners and hugs you and plants a kiss upon your lips. He realizes himself and lets you go, flushing with embarrassment.
Phaedra is quite taken by surprise when Aldon plants the kiss on her and blushes a rather fetching shade of scarlet. "Oh my....
Not knowing quite how to respond to his unexpected gratitude, Phaedra instead turns to retrieve her own harp and moves to join Rosie in playing together.
During her performance though, Phaedra keeps sneaking glances over at Aldon.
You and Rosie perform for the majority of the evening, to the applause and cheers of a large crowd. Rosie even teaches you the verses for a few sailing shanties and a small area of the deck clears out to make way for dancers.
Later that night, once the night watch begins, you head downstairs, with the shanty songs still in your head. Once you get to your bunk, you notice Aldon there, as he sees you approach, he tries to speak "Hey, ummm, I ummm..." He begins to blush slightly as he can't quite say what he wants to say.
Phaedra nervously sits down beside Aldon, also a bit unsure of what to say.
"So, uhm...I guess that rifle of yours was rather important to you. You seemed quite...uhm...happy to be getting it back. Though really, all the credit should go to Havok. I merely helped to keep lookout and carry the things back here."
Aldon sighs slightly and covers his eyes with his hand "No, that's not all of it... it was nice to get my rifle back, but I... I find myself needing to embrace you. I've never felt this way for someone, I fight off the urge even as we speak..."
Phaedra finds herself blushing yet again. He, he finds the need to embrace me? Oh, what am I supposed to do? I mean, he is certainly nice enough and he is most certainly handsome, but I barely know him and we are basically prisoners aboard this ship. Yet I do feel myself attracted to him as well and I don't understand it...
"I've never really felt that way before either and I fear that I do not know what to do now."
Aldon appears slightly ashamed for a second, "I'm sorry, I know we don't know each other very well, but I would like to know everything about you... where you grew up... what your parents were like..." He seems lost in a thought for a moment before embracing Phaedra and passionately kissing her. "What your lips taste like..."
Phaedra's little 'eep' of surprise is muffled by Aldon's mouth as he kisses her. After the initial shock, Phaedra leans into him as she begins to return his kiss. Though after a minute she seems to return to senses and places her hands against his chest as she breaks the kiss.
"Please, I can't do this here. Not in a common bunkroom surrounded by pirates. Perhaps we could go slowly?"
Aldon nods and looks around, obviously forgetting himself. "Yeah, once we get out of this situation it will be easier for us to get to know each other. In the mean time, we can talk?"
Phaedra takes on of Aldon's hands in hers. "Of course we can talk. Where would you like to start?"
"Tell me everything about your home. All about Korvosa" He smiles, excited to hear about it
"Well, I haven't actually stayed in Korvosa for more than a few weeks at a time since my mother passed away when I was only several years old. After that, my father pretty much lives on his ship and of course I stayed with him. He makes a good living trading a good many things from Korvosa to Cheliax. Things like Thileu bark and seafoods. We had a second home in Cheliax that we would stay in occasionally too while we would wait for our cargos to be sold. Then, father would use most of that money to buy things that were harder to come buy in Korvosa. Like fine cloths, fruits that won't grow in our climate and any other little luxury goods that he could fine in the markets."
You talk for most of the night, exchanging stores from your various homelands. Finally you head to bed, feeling rather lightheaded. As you get up the next morning, the sun is out and it feels like the start of a glorious day.
Just as your about to start your morning chores, one of the fellow swabs comes running on deck. He has several bite marks on his arms and neck. He runs over to Mr. Plugg and begins to explain himself. You overhear something about a creature loose down in the bilges.
Not long after, Mr. Plugg strolls over to you, "You! Take your friends and go down to the bilges, you have an hour to get rid of what ever is down there!"
Knowing it useless argue with the man, Phaedra goes to gather her frieds.
"Apparently something bit one of the swabs who was manning the bilges today, so Plugg has decided that we need to go down there and get rid of whatever did it. He gave us an to do it in, though he didn't say what would happen if we didn't do it within that hours time."
Aldon and Havok nod as the get up from their chores and join you, Norbin looks around a bit before noding as well. Mierra looks a bit confused before she is dragged off by Norbin.
As you head down to the bilges and upon the door, the stink of stale salt water and oil assaults your nose. Various crates and debris float around in the salt water.
Sorry. This week is looking to be a slow one for me. With the hubby at home all day we been trying to spend some time together,