"That will suit." Harmony says icily. "Enjoy your hunting, and when my mother comes for what she wants, I hope you remember this as the moment you could have got something out of it."
She turns and walks away, before splitting into a wide grin. "Thanks Polli, that was fun! Oh mother is going to get a kick out of this when I tell her!"
"What exactly is your mother?" Polli asks bluntly, though most of her attention is on Dony.
Tessa is about to answer that question, but looks both left and right as if expecting someone to appear out of thin air. She pauses and then shakes her head no.
Val follows Harmony as the captain heads off and then silently informs her companions, [there's a chance those two girls might be waiting to talk to us if we take that next turn right over there...]
Taking a slight detour around the corner does indeed reveal the two girls standing at the corner of a junction. The younger girl stands behind the older one, peeking around her at you all. You notice that the older girl has chosen a position that gives her multiple avenues to run if required.
"You said you were offering food," the older girl says, suspicion dripping from her words. "What do you want for it?"
The younger girl's eyes seem to be drawn to Tessa and she fingers her own hair subconsciously.
Seeing how interested the younger girl is in Tessa's hair, Val sheathes her blades and transforms from her four-armed persona into a young Varisian woman with a thick braid of vibrant red hair hanging past her waist.
"The food is free," Val answers as reassuringly as she can. "I'm curious about you two's stories and I'll trade you true tales of adventures at sea for them."
"What exactly is your mother?" Polli asks bluntly, though most of her attention is on Dony.
"The who is more important than the what, but my mother is a changeling." Harmony says, still smiling. "That's why my brother and I have heterochromia. It's generally a sign of changeling blood - so she assumed that's what I am. My mother killed her hag mother though, so there's not chance she'd ever turn."
Faced with the little girls Harmony gives Tessa a nudge - this is clearly a situation for her to deal with.
The older girl's suspicion grows visibly stronger and she takes a step back, pressing a hand behind her to move the younger girl along as well. "The free things are always the most costly." she says.
The younger girl slips from behind her protector and moves closer to Tessa. "Mona!" the older girl hisses. Ignoring her friend, the girl looks up at the bold captain. "Your h-h-h-h ... h-h-hair is so puh-puh-puh-pretty," she stammers out. "Could I ... t-t-t ... t-t-touch it?"
Val maintains her stoic facade but inwardly groans over her own red hair failing to attract the younger girl’s attention. Focusing instead on the older girl, she smirks and answers, ”you’re a smart girl, and you’ve learned a lot on the streets... no doubt that’s what’s kept you both alive. Please allow me teach you something new though. People who are short on resources, or unusually greedy, expect payment for every gift—with them free things are always costly—but people who have plenty of resources can afford to gamble on getting any return on what they give. I hope that I can be friends with both of you, and I have plenty of resources; so, I offer you a free meal and expect no payment, but I hope that maybe eating together, or even just feeding you, might help us become friends.”
She pauses to look appraisingly at the girl then pulls out two gold pieces and offers, ”if you’re not interested in eating with me, or in having a powerful friend, you can just have these gold pieces to feed yourselves.”
Trying to watch her younger companion and Tessa at the same time, the girl's eyes nevertheless widen at the sight of the two gold coins. She approaches cautiously and when she gets within distance, she snatches the gold coins from Val's fingers. She bites down on one of them and steps back.
"Just food?" she asks. "'Cause I'll tell ya right now, we don't do no bed stuff."
Val smiles warmly and assures the girls, "No bed stuff. All of us have partners we do our bed stuff with, and beyond that none of us approve of doing bed stuff with people who don't really want to do it."
"Those gold pieces are yours now. No strings attached. If you want to eat with us we can go eat together wherever you want, and if you don't you can go eat without us."
Tessa starts to crouch to be eye-level with the younger girl, but pauses half way down. She looks over where the old women was, then back to the girl and then back to Harmony. Smiling, she returns to full height again and says "You know, love? Best not, I think. Hair is all the rage this day, but guess what, I have something even better. How old are you?, Mona?"
After getting an answer, she reaches into her coin pouch and pulls out one gold coin for each year of the young girl's life. "These are just for you. Put them away somewhere safe and don't spend them right away. Alright?"
She drops the coins into the girls hand and winks at her before returning to Harmony's side and whispering [smaller]"I think the old one paid the young one to snatch a piece of my hair. But guess what? I'm on to her. Yep. Can't full ole Tessa. HA!"
"It's not free" Polli points out, but with none of the usual bite "She wants to trade, food for information. We have food, you have information. Also..." Polli lowers herself to her knees "I have magic that could clean and color your hair to look just like hers, for about an hour, if you want?" leaning forward with a whisper loud enough that everyone could hear she adds "I also have magic that would make all Her hair fall out, and always wanted to try it, she would look so silly without any of that pretty hair, don't you think?"
Harmony just smiles, although Tessa has come across a potential point. "Well done sweetie." She says, kissing her fellow captain on the cheek.
”No,” Val corrects the sylph, “the food is free. If you have information that you want to share with us then we’ll pay you fairly for it apart from the food.”
"You know, love? Best not, I think. Hair is all the rage this day, but guess what, I have something even better. How old are you?, Mona?"
The girl's face falls when Tessa declines. "I'm Eh-eh-eh-eh ... eh-eleven," she manages with some effort.
After getting an answer, she reaches into her coin pouch and pulls out one gold coin for each year of the young girl's life. "These are just for you. Put them away somewhere safe and don't spend them right away. Alright?"
Mona's eyes widen into saucers at the bounty of gold being dropped into her hands and she giggles at Polli's whispered words. Her older friend is not so amused, grabbing the younger girl by the shoulder and pulling her back behind her. "What are you playing at?" she demands, anger sharpening her words. "What do you want with us? People don't just give out gold for nothin'. I already told you we ain't doin' nothing like what you probably want. We ain't got information worth that much gold." She seems to consider the situation for a little longer. "There's a place on the pier," she says before turning and leading her charge through the alley with the expectation that you'll follow.
A few twists and turns later and you come out dockside. One wharf down and the girl stops in front of an open stall heavy with the scent of fried fish.
"Hey! I already telled you that I ain't givin' out any handouts! So you two dockrats best get out o' me sight!" a harsh voice shouts out. A grizzled man tending the fryers is the source of the challenge. Skinny, but with a long beard that seems thick with congealed oil.
"Two plates, Skez," the older girl replies proudly. "The ladies is payin'." She points at you and the man gives you a looking over. "And don't skimp on the plates. They's got good coin so it'll go bad for you if'n they're not happy."
The man continues to look at you as if waiting for you to confirm that you're footing the bill.
Val chuckles again and gives the older girl an amused glance. [Technically, I already gave you the gold to pay for the food, but I like your boldness.]
Turning to the vendor she smiles politely and answers, “seven plates, please,” producing a few gold as she does.
"Are you prone to ignoring your customers or do you just need a thick stick rammed up those ears of yours to clear out the wax!" Polli snaps at the man to pepper Val's politeness with a HURRY YOUR ASS UP.
She'll give the girls a slight smile when he isn't looking.
Tessa laughs at Mona, "ELEVEN! Of course you are! I'm surprised your not thirteen!" she drops the coins into the girls hand and before departing whispers, "When you grow up, come look for Pirate Queen Tessa. I'm always looking for brave gals like yourself. Go get some food now, you hear? You need to start training those muscles!"
--
Tessa beams at her appraisal from Harmony, whether or not her brilliant deductions were true or not, a kiss is a kiss!
---
"Better make them your best damned plates, too." Tessa says, folding her arms across her chest.
"Sorry, Your Ladyships," 'Skez' declares with a toothless smile. "Them's two can be a bit o' a handful." He quickly plates up seven heaping plates of what you assume to be fried fish. Along with the fish are numerous balls of dough fried in the same oil. "Can I get Your Ladyships something to drink as well?" he asks, wiping his hands on his stained apron.
"Beers," the older girl says, speaking up through a mouthful of food and holding up a finger and pointing at herself and Mona.
The man's smile tightens just a bit, but he nods and gestures at a gangly youth who quickly fills a pair of semi-clean mugs.
Donomsail isn't sure what game is being played at this point and so is staying silent. But she is alert and ready with spells in case something goes wrong very quickly, not that she has any experience with that.
Val takes her plate and a cup of the strongest drink Skez has available and pays the man. Then she follows the girls to wherever they plan to eat and begins to chat with them about their lives, and about her own adventures at sea if they seem interested.
Polli starts tentatively to cast predestination to clean and color the hair of the youngest. "See, much prettier to hers now." she says "none of us had a good start in life. Loneliness, torture, loss, expectation, but it didn't stop a single one of us. You can do the same. Never give up, little one, no matter what."
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The older girl, whom you confirm is named Feather, explains through mouthfuls of fried fish that she had arranged to purchase an elixir that, according to the instructions giving by Bibi - also known as the Dark Angel, if consumed under a full moon will remove Mona's speech difficulties. She traded a swatch of cloth that was stolen from the tunic of a candlemaker near the docks. Feather has no idea what Bibi plans on using the cloth for and doesn't care.
Feather's mother was a washer woman who died when she was five and she's been on her own since then. She has no idea about Mona's parentage, having found her wandering in one of the twisted passages of the slums as a toddler. They've been together ever since.
Her story of how they came together is interrupted by a very excited Mona when Polli cleans and transforms her hair to a red similar to Tessa's.
"Feather! Feather! See?! M-m-m-my hair is puh-puh-puh-pretty now!" she sputters, tugging on the girl's sleeve and bouncing on her feet.
The older girl actually smiles with affection at Mona's excitement before turning back to Valeria.
"That sounds like a good offer," she says, but her smile fades. "Taking care of Mona is a full-time job in itself, though. And that's what I gots to do. She's my responsibility." She turns to Polli and holds out one of the precious gold coins. "Thank you for ... for doing that," she says.
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"It's only for an hour now, but I might have an idea on a spell to do it permanently, meaning forever if you wish, but that will have to wait." she tries to explain to the little one. She looks at the coin for a moment, then her face lights up in a true smile (might be the first time some of the crew has seen one). "You impressed Pirate Queen Tessa, over there remember? And then she offered you a spot on the Siren once you are older. That makes you one of us. All 'reasonable magical services are free of charge for fellow Sirens." she pauses for a moment, then reaches up to search through her hair for two pins "On that note, take these. One for each. I should be able to find you if you have them on your person, for future hair berrying. If you don't want to be found, simply hide them in a safe place."
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Watching her love treat the orphan girls in such a magnanimous way reinforces what she sees in Polli, the part of her that so rarely gets shown to others, that even Polli herself seems scared of. With great tenderness Donomsail wraps a hand around Polli's free hand and brings it to her lips for a kiss, tears of love and happiness sliding down her cheeks as she does so.
"We can be on a puh-puh-puh ... puh-pirate ship?" Mona questions, her eyes going wide again. She turns to her friend. "Feather? D-d-d-d ... d-did you h-h-hear that?" she asks before turning back to Polli. "H-h-h-how old do I h-h-have to be?"
With a soft smile, and a gentle pushing her plate of fish things to the kids, she leans in and points "The berry there is Tessa." she points and then to Harmony "The raven is Violet. They are our captains. One ship two captains, one is a pirate queen and the other is smart. It's best not to question the Why of things about that." she waves away the Whys. "All that being said, they determine the Age limits of when you can officially join the crew, since we do a lot of fighting monsters and bad men. But when we are in port next, you can come aboard to find out if it is to your liking."
Val can't help but smile at the revelation of Polli's nurturing maternal instincts. She catches the sylph's eye and silently says to her, [Cabin boys are usually about their age. The Siren, obviously, should have a cabin girl instead of a cabin boy, and we have two captains- why not two cabin girls? We'd have to check them to make sure they're not in any way enchanted or anything, and the captains would have to approve, but its the same number of teleport spells back to the ship with them as it is without?]
Polli looks at Val and gives a slight shake of her bespectacled head. [we are about to go to war]
Feather pats Mona's shoulder. "Some day, Mona. When you're older," she says, though there's a faint yearning in her eyes as well. "We gots to leave the nice ladies to their business. I'm sure they've got more important things to do than talk with us." She turns the smaller girl to face her and shows a rare smile. "Besides, we gots to find a place to hole up until tonight. It's gonna be a full moon," she says meaningfully.
Mona bounces on her seat. "And then I can take my puh-puh-puh ... puh-potion and everything will be all b-b-b-better!" she says with excitement.
Feather turns to you and runs her hand through her short, dark hair. "I thank ya for the meal. We gots to be going now."
"We're not g-g-gonna see that Miss F-f-f-f ..." Mona begins, but in something you haven't seen before, Feather interrupts her. "No. We're not seeing ... her."
"B-b-but you said that you'd ..."
"Mona," Feather says in a stern voice that causes the little girl to look down. "I know what I said, but we got other things that are more important. I'll explain it to her later." She looks at you all again. "Thanks again," she says. Taking Mona's hand she begins heading towards a nearby alley.
Val smiles warmly as the two girls prepare to leave but inwardly she can't help but feel a bit dissatisfied with how they're leaving things, and curious about this Miss F...
"Was that a secret?" the redheaded Varisian teen gasps. "I love secrets. I'll trade you a secret for a secret. Oh, I have a good one... if you tell me about Miss F, I'll show you a safe, private place to hole up for the night!"
She shoots a glance to her fellow Sirens and silently says, [I'm going to show them the abandoned alchemist's shop that Tessa claimed, if that's alright. They could sleep there and be a lot safer than they are on the street. Polli, are you taking most of us back to the Siren tonight or waiting and bringing all of us tomorrow?]
[Up to the captains]" Polli answers.
"Tonight." Harmony says, in answer to the unspoken questions. "Unless we have a good reason not to. The Siren can't wait around much longer."
"I can't take everybody home tonight. One of us will have to stay until tomorrow." Polli admits.
The Captain nods in agreement. "I think we have a volunteer then. Let's hustle Sirens, and miniature Sirens." She adds, giving the waifs a smile.
[I did the math before we left and knew we couldn’t all return tonight... I told Meiying I wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.]
With their meal concluded, the Sirens (apart from Valeria) gather around Polli who magically transports them back to the deck of their ship. Some of the crew are slightly surprised, expecting you back no sooner than tomorrow. Meiying is on deck a few minutes later, wiping her hands on her apron.
"Ma'ams? I was told that you weren't going to be back until tomorrow?" she questions. "Did something ...? Where's Miss Korvin?" She twists the apron in her hands.
"Miss ... 'F' ... is no different than most of the other people here. She wants to take advantage of us. Is someone gonna be mad if they find out we're staying here?" Feather asks when Val opens the door. When it's explained who the owner of the building is, Feather's eyes grow a little wider.
"It's na-na-na-not haunted, is it?" Mona asks, her eyes looking from shadowed corner to dark crevice.
"She is pursuing leads. I'll get her in the morning." Polli assures Meiying.
The white-haired woman's relief is clear. "Thank you, Ma'am," she says to Polli. "I thought that ... well ... it doesn't really matter. She's ok. She'll be back tomorrow." She nods to herself and turns to make her way back to the galley.
"She's just an old woman that wants us to come work for her," Feather says, disgust dripping off her words as she gives Val a glare.
"She's not s-s-s-s-so bad," Mona argues, her eyes dropping to the floor. The older girl continues to look at Valeria as she continues, "She runs the 'House of Pleasurable Petals'." Her look of continued disgust makes it clear what sort of place that would be. "I don't know wh-wh-wh-what they do, but s-s-she said she'd t-t-t-teach us," Mona adds.
Feather rolls her eyes as she looks at Valeria.
~~~~
Val notices the girls leave just before midnight, assumable to make use of Mona's potion. They don't return.
Val is disappointed when the girls take off but relieved that she didn’t show them the secret door. Trusting that she’ll be able to track them down later if she wants—or needs—to, she takes the form of a busty blonde elf and heads out to buy a bag of mints and a couple of fresh pastries from her and Mei’s favorite bakery. Then she settles in to wait for Polli.
With Valeria returned to the ship the next morning, the Siren sets sail for the island of the Black Tower.
The Isle of the Black Tower lies along the western edge of the Shackles archipelago. Despite being near the Cannibal Islands, even the notorious flesh-eaters give the isle wide birth, for it is commonly believed today that the island is haunted by the ghost of the Shrouded Queen.
- Day 317
Eleven days later finds the noble crew anchored off the island. The island on which the Black Tower is located was little more than a nameless, jungle-covered rock before the Shrouded Queen rose her home from its heart. Today, the island is known as the Isle of the Black Tower in honor of its most striking feature. The island is roughly circular, about a half-mile in diameter, covered with dense jungle, and 120 feet above sea level at its highest point.
A mysterious slender tower of black stone sits at the small island’s center. Standing over 400 feet in height but measuring only 30 feet in diameter, the tower looks more like an impossibly tall black pin sticking out of the center of the isle, as if some vengeful god had pierced the island from above with a gargantuan needle.
Tessa paces up and deck with the tower off in the distance. Walking up and down the officers, she says aloud and not to one person in particular "Right. This is important to me and I intend to make a point of flashing off our loot from this place at the next tower. So make sure we leave nothing behind but the dead and gather as much as possible."
Looking to Harmony she asks, "Am I forgetting anything?"
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"I think that covers it." Harmony says with a smile. "Oh yes. Don't die." With that she makes a shoo-ing motion, "Right, let's go!"
After the speeches are done and the real preparations are underway, Val quietly asks the captains, ”so, what’s the plan? Do you want me to scout ahead, or should we stick together and hope the jungle will provide enough cover to avoid drawing too much attention? Or, Polli and I could fly to the top and then she could teleport back and bring everyone else up there, although that could fall apart if there are any guardians watching up there...”
"I think splitting up is going to be extremely risky." Harmony says calmly. "There's no way that tower should be able to stand as it is, so that means magic and once you get magic involved there's no way of guaranteeing anything. I say we stick together - that way if something does go wrong we can all help each other out."
"I agree. Let's stick together and head in as one. I would hate for something to be waiting for a lone scout to appear, Val."