|
You know the saying - 'Walk a mile in one's shoes' - You spend some time as a creature to find out what are their struggles, then try to help with that aspect."
Eldon looks down at his nice boots. Unusual for a halfling.
'That seems like a reasonable way of thinking. Some of us are different. Should I cast Light on something and chuck it down the hole?'
Channary moves over to the rotted and rusted remains of a lifeboat finding nothing in there but what looks like the left overs of a fish orgy. She does look up and notices the room beyond where the door has rotted off completely. The only thing remaining in the room is a few piles of soggy wood that might have been crates a lifetime ago.
Eldon gets a look inside the aft cabin. Most of the place has rotted or decomposed, but the few hints of rusted or corroded metal and outlines of things from decomposition shows it might have been a stately appointed place at one point in time.
Dropping a light down into the deck below proves that the place has been tidied and organized with an attempt made at even cleaning the algae up as well.
Rogar tries to feel better, but the movement of the waves from the docks and even moreso the rocking of the boat on the sea leaves him feeling Stupefied as his brain is awash with the disease he caught earlier.
Loka looks down the stairs past the form of Rogar and sees a room that has been ordered and organized, where boxes that clearly weren't on the ship when it sank are in clear stacks with some sort of scrawling on the side. The light source Eldon dropped in has rolled some distance and highlights the room as she can see it as being completely empty.
|
Rogar is unused to feeling queasiness on the water, and spends several moments trying to figure out what foul sorcery is causing a veteran sailor to feel seasickness. It isn't until he finally registers that his brain is swimmy that he realizes it's definitely not seasickness.
"I'll..." He pauses, swallows, then rubs his dizzy head. "I'll go down first. Make sure it's safe."
He plods down the stairs, still feeling like the world keeps wanting to spin.
Down the stairs and looking at the room, Rogar recognizes that the doors at this level are new additions, completely dry and solid wood, not the waterlogged algae ridden thing that the rest of the ship is. He also soon notices there's a figure under the stairs, hiding away from the group of trespassing people, but seems to be watching everyone closely. The large humanoid is stitched together from various human and possibly other creatures. It has one giant hand, and a second where the fingers are closer to tentacles.
Both Loka and Dengar get the immediate sense from the organized and reordered crates, to the attempt at cleaning to the scrape marks of the boxes being pushed around, this creature is bored to near death about being on the wreck. It's stare is curious and it wants more but can't be sure about the party.
On the defensive it would need to be placated before it would attempt to talk or move from its semi-sage spot under the stairs.
Maybe a performance or something to read might help. Or putting on a illusory show even.
Thalaasi's acrobatic exploits does seem to mollify the creature some as it drops the aggressive stance and looks less likely to strike out.
Oof, dangit forgot to say it was a different person's dice...
Loka, having a moment to look at the creature, immediately recognizes it. This is Uncle Fred from the grocery store around the corner from her place. He always had odd shaped hands and always wears gloves and long-sleeve shirts. It's a surprise he has this much stitching on him and even more that his hands looked like that but the face is unmistakable!
Loka times her pipes with Thalaasi's juggling and after a moment the two have a pretty convincing performance going. Uncle Fred starts to smile as he raises his hands and starts clapping in time. After a bit he starts to dance along with the tune and tries to juggle a few bottles himself, though they end up on the floor, shattered after a few moments.
Uncle Fred has calmed down completely and seems ready to follow Loka and Thalaasi like a lost duckling if they let him.
Looking around the room there's two more rooms to the fore and aft of the ship with newly installed doors.
|
|
Loka, having a moment to look at the creature, immediately recognizes it. This is Uncle Fred from the grocery store around the corner from her place. He always had odd shaped hands and always wears gloves and long-sleeve shirts. It's a surprise he has this much stitching on him and even more that his hands looked like that but the face is unmistakable!
Eldon walks into an odd situation and impromptu performance, but decides against getting involved and instead moves for the door at the fore of the ship. The door is unlocked and well oiled but the moisture has caused it to swell slightly requiring a little shoving to make it pop open. Inside, in stark contrast to the rest of the ship, this cabin has been mostly cleared of algae and cleaned with what looks like bleach. Six simple beds, complete with fresh, if musty, linens, are crammed into the space. A few small footlockers are shoved under some of the beds.
One of the beds has a small bundle of cloth on them, something someone either forgot or didn't want to risk Uncle Fred to retrieve. It proves to be a dirty rag, but inside are bundled two crying angel pendants. The room otherwise has been stripped of anything beyond the basics for sleeping and washing.
Rogar heads to the aft of the ship. This door too has swollen shut, but it proves no hard task for the burly dwarf. The cabin’s floor beyond has been cleared of the algae present everywhere else on the ship, and a simple table has been set up in the center of the room, with a few chairs pulled up around it. The aft wall bears a large carving of a coat of arms, visible even despite the wear of the elements. An antique lantern hangs above the carving, casting a faint periwinkle light over papers strewn over the table.
The lantern and the coat of arms strongly suggest the ship is a relic of the original Silent Tide invasion nearly a century ago.
Back in the central lower deck, Dengar calls for Uncle Fred to follow him up stairs and the lumbering, stitched together grocer follows him readily. This gives everyone down below a chance to examine the room he was in closely.
Among and almost hidden by the intact and organized crates is a single broken and battered one.
|
The elf will search around now that Uncle Fred is gone
perception
With his sharp elven eyes he notices that The papers strewn across the table and he read them. His find include a few export forms with resiquite stamps and signatures for a shipment of goods from Nexian capital of Quantium. There's also a series of financial records, including notes of sizeable sums paid to the same individual whose name appears on the export form — very likely the result of bribery.
|
|
Lokaloka joins Rogar in searching the aft compartment...
"Hmmm. Someone smuggling? I's not knows what all this is for, but looks like someone being paid to look other way."
Finding a bunch of what appears to be solid furniture, Lokaloka draws her team's attention. "Looks here! Furniture probly has hiding places to smuggle stuff in and out of Absalom."
Thalaasi finds the papers on the table and goes through them giving a bit of explanation to what might have been going on on the ship recently, but doesn't explain where the ship came from or how old it is.
Loka finds further evidence of the smuggling ring in the furniture.
Fred watches the sea gulls when Dengar points them out, seeming to lose sight of what's going on around him. When asked if he speaks the grocer shakes his head. Instead he reaches a tentacled hand over the side of the boat and quickly fishes up a moderate sized fish for Dengar, handing it over as a gift.
Rogar tries to gain some insight into the significance of the ship, but fails to find any.
|
|
Channary stops inspecting the scratches on the deck, and only now notices the creature ascending from the bellows of the ship. She looks at the walking patchwork of a man, and is set aback. Such a creature should not exist, yet here it is. She feels pity for the silent abomination standing in front of her, and approaches as it lobs a fish at Dengar. A gentle abomination, at least.
Not sure if the creature will notice her and get startled in its - what seems to be a - catatonic state, she announces her presence by politely greeting the creature and waving when it looks at her. She slowly creeps towards the man, and looks at the joints of his extremities, doubting they are natural, she looks for stitches or similar traces.
Loka and Eldon also don't grasp the significance of the coat of arms at the back of the ship. At this point it might just be better to haul the coat back to the Grand Lodge and have someone look at it there.
As the coat of arms leaves the periwinkle light of the lantern in the room, it disappears as a basic painting of a ship at sea replaces it. Moving it back into the light reveals the coat again. Looking at the lantern, it doesn't actually have a flame, looking more like an everburning torch. The casing around it also has a multitude of colored lens that can slide around and make different colors with the lantern. Both are probably the same set and should be taken together.
On the deck, Channary quickly recognizes the handiwork of a flesh-forged creature. These golems are made from parts of grown in vats and then stitched together at the final stage. It allows for a great deal of customization in your final creature. It gives the half-orc a lop sided smile when she gets closer and starts to try fishing up another fish for her too.
From the dinghy you took to get over here, the Cap'n looks up at the people on deck. "Find a new friend? I'm okay with ferryin' 'im to oprt as long as you promise he isn't hostile. You bout ready to get going?"
The half-orc captain scoffs slightly at Loka's words. "Ain't look like any Uncle or grocer I ever seen. And Grocery stores are where you buy food, sweetie. But it seems you've named him and he didn't kill you. I'll trust him on the boat if you feel he's safe."
See in all the things piled in the halfling's hands the Cap'n's eyes light up. "Oh, you're gonna need the extra space barge for all that!"She then flips a lever on the dinghy as part of it unfolds and expands out into another whole bench of sitting room. Means I get to tack on 10 more gold to my service fee! This is why I love ferrying you around, well this and the stories!"
|
|
Channary produces 2 gold, assuming the party will share the cost. "Hefty price, but probably worth it. This man was stitched together, and somehow i alive. It is fascinating, but a spit in the face of naturally occuring species."
She looks at 'Fred' again, but can't feel anything else but pity for the creature.
|
|
Rogar looks at his remaining three gold pieces sitting at the bottom of his coin purse and sighs, producing two of them. He'd be fine swimming back, but some of the others probably wouldn't. And he has no idea how "Uncle Fred" would fare. The creature looks strong, but that doesn't necessarily equate to "knows how to swim."
He adds his two to the pile of coins Channary has started.
The Cap'n shakes her head and doesn't accept the coin. "Society's got me 'on call' meaning I just send them an 'invoice' once a month for any ferrying I do. The small one is quite right about the society's feelings on expeditions."
She reaches under her seat and pulls out a flagon of something. "] But this service does come with drinks! If ya want some."