Pezock's page

"Meh..." Pezock shrugs and looks around, running his hand over the inside of the giant crab shell and crowing a bit at his pet chickens. "Actually, Pezock likes it here. It is good to speak to real people instead of fish and birds, but this is home now. My home, Pezock's home, yes, yes."

His melancholy mood brightens suddenly and he says excitedly, "Maybe Pezock visit tree lady sometime! Good eyes we have. Saw on map where blondies said her home was, yes? You go say goodbye to friend, later Pezock say hello to tree lady, later when no black lions on prowl. Good, good plan it is!"

Looking around the table, he picks up his mixer and gives it a shake revealing that there is a bit more of his specialty left. "Any blondie thirsty still? Princess, harpy, shorty?"

Pezock cocks his head to one side, then the other as he stares at Lureene, beak agape. You get the distinct feeling that he's wondering if the succubus is toying with him. "Pirates in Freetown? Pirates are Freetown! Pirates, buccaneers, smuggler's, freebooters... yes, yes, yes, and yes. All of those. Captain Zoventai, she kept Pezock safe, she did. Got poor sad Zucks away from nasty pirates. Pretty, pretty Captain... Too bad that blondies killed all the giants, Pezock promised to wet Eraka's blade in their blood. All gone now, all gone."

"Hum, hum, hum..." Pezock clicks his tongue and pats his head as he tries to remember. "Headed for Sygonna in Mestara, that we know. Sometimes we stop at Al Rochshaas in Renátu, sometimes Mubar or Nyendab in Khemya. Razor's Edge, that was always a good time... Oh, but the last port we called before nasty navy ship chased us onto the rocks, that was Freetown in Dafar it was. Yes, yes, Freetown! You should go there, many sad Zucks we helped."

"Very unfortunate, yes... But mission?" He thinks for a moment on her question, feathers ruffled as he tries to think on what she asked. "Captain Zoventai had us carry passengers. Zucks from Dafar, yes, lots of Zucks. She was nice though, never made them pay. Always had rich people in Mestara pay their way, help them find new work."

He sighs with remorse. "Too bad they all drowned in shipwreck, got stuck in hold and could never get out. So sad."

"Ooh, nice map! TENGU!" He seems rather excited when he sees himself noted. "That is us, yes?"

Once he has settled down a bit, he notes where Gelik is pointing and nods, "Yes, Crow's Tooth is there. All that is left of her anyway. Yes, nothing left now but ghosts and sea-shrunk timbers."

Pezock shrugs his shoulders. "Don't mind, not painful unless you get bit by shark or crabs. Ship is all smashed up now, Pezock salvaged what he could. Captain's sword is all that's left. Yes, it was a gift to us. Yes it was!"

"Mmm," Pezock pauses in mid-snack, his beak making a snapping sound not unlike someone smacking their lips. "Ship was called The Crow's Tooth. Eraka was our friend, a good captain too. Bright red! Yes, bright red feathers she had. Pretty Tengu, pretty, pretty, but stupid, evil giants ate her and everyone else. Only poor Pezock left now..."

As he speaks, Pezock strokes the hilt of the saw-toothed blades with a reverent, almost loving look in his tear-filled eyes. "Old shipwreck is not far away. We go, sometimes, and watch sunset together. The Crow's Tooth was a good ship, always laughter, always fun. Everyone liked us. Yes they did. Liked us a lot. If you follow the beach west and around to the south of the parrot's island, you can still see her. Crow's Tooth all broken on the rocks now. So sad... so sad..."

"Spicy and sweet, keeps us healthy and happy!"

As Gelik tips his back, Pezock continues, "Secret ingredient is like cross between pepper and horseradish. Yes, it's good!"

After what sounds like a terrible tummult outside, Pezock finally comes back in with a rather irate chicken under each arm. Grumbling to himself, he marches over to a crate in the corner and deposits them inside, quickly covering it with a weighted cargo net so they can't escape again.

After giving a loud, "Harumph!" he begins pulling down some poorly smoked sculpin from a line strung across the room above head level, setting them and some fresh sea urchins out on miss-matched dishes from various wrecks.

"Ooh rum, yes! Yes rum for guests!" The tengu vanishes behind a sail-cloth partition and you can hear the clattering of bottles before he emerges triumphantly with a clear glass vessel molded with the likeness of a giant octopus. The liquor inside is so dark as to be nearly black.

"Mmm, Black Kraken!"

Eagerly he begins whistling a sailing jig as he pours a healthy amount of the rum into a beat-up old pewter shaker. He next shreds some fragrant leaves and muddles them with the nectar an exotic-looking fruit you don't recognize. Lastly, faster than you can react, he reaches into the make-shift chicken coop and snatches up a pair of brown eggs. He cracks them open, carefully draining the clear whites into the shaker before gulping down the yolks himself and tossing the shells outside. After a bit more prodding of the leaves, he pours the syrupy mixture in with the rum and egg whites, covers it and proceeds to shake it thoroughly.

"Tasty, Pezock promises!"

At last, he finds a trio of reasonably clean sea shells to use as tumblers and strains out enough for all for of you. Raising his shell up, he says, "Drink, drink, it's good! I name this Swamp Sludge, even though there's no swamp on island."

"No..." He shakes his head energetically, "No help. Pezock is good here. Birds are nice, and crabs are good. Pezock even lives in a crab. Nice crab, nice big crab. Oh, we could invite goldie-harpy to lunch, and princess-goldie, and shorty-goldie. Others are scary though, not the big one or the cat, or dark-eyes! No, no, not them."

Pezock shirk's away from Lureene's touch, and hugs the hilt of his sword to him. That's when something about it strike Lureene as familiar, it looks like the same design as the jagged sabres that Chivane and Sorsha wielded!

The tengu shakes his head emphatically and rasps out, "NO! You can't touch my things, they're mine! Captain Zoventai was our friend! She gave it to Pezock!"

The mad tengu looks around at each of you fearfully, as if expecting to be jumped at any moment.

Eric: Diplomacy check if you would please.

"Come... or stay?" Pezock repeats slowly. The strange Tengu squats on the sand, rocking back and forth as he considers the implication of what has just been offered. At times you can hear him murmuring to himself, nodding and shaking his head and he runs thru the possibilities.

After much deliberation, Pezock looks up at you, still squatting, wings folded around himself. He bobs his head enthusiastically, hopefully, and says, "Yes, Pezock would leave this place if he could. Nothing but birds and crabs for us here."

"Princess?" Pezock mutters quietly. He looks around as if trying to find where such a character might be hiding.

Pezock nervously steps out from behind Lureene, nervously fingering the hilts of his weapons, eyes never straying far from Talvyra. "N– n– nice Little Sister?"

Pezock turns around, feathers puffed up, and eyes wide. He cranes his neck to look up at the gigantic warrior before his eyes lock onto Talvyra.

With a look of sheer terror on his face, he dives behind Lureene, clinging to her wings and nearly bowling her over as he points and shouts, "BLACK LION, BLACK LION!!!" over and over.

...

Pezock stops talking to himself and his head snaps around, staring cock-eyed at Lureene with beak agape. He tips his head from one side to the other and back again as if trying to ascertain if she is real or not.

At length, he rubs a finger where his ear must be and resumes muttering, "Not nice to tease, not nice. It's ok, the giants are human cannibals, what do they care about us? Oh they'll learn her, they'll learn her! Mmm, yes too much work to pluck us, but that little harpy is pre-plucked, just like her friends. I wish we had friends. Oh hush, friends just get eaten, better off alone..."

A loud "HA!" erupts from the Tengu so suddenly that Gelik nearly falls over in surprise.

"You hear that?" he asks. "SAFE she says! HAHAHA!!! Yeah, guess they haven't run into the devil or any of the BIG guys yet. Hooo they're gonna looove this one!"

When Lureene glances back, she can see that Alis is still smiling serenely, not even suspecting that inside the princess is in a mild state of disbelief at Lureene's approach at diplomacy.

"Eeeh?" Pezock turns to look towards Silent Island, eyes squinted. "Huh... well looks all droopy now alright. I seen all that dust blowing up off it in the sunset last night, thought maybe the pygmies were up to no good. What all's up there, anyway? Anything good, I've never been."

"Whaaat?!" The Tengu thrusts his head out the curtain covering the entrance to his home, his yellow beak agape even as he scratches the back of his head, black feathers glossy in the morning sunlight. He approaches to within about 30 feet, head cocked to one side as if trying to make sense of what she just said. He wears only a pair of well-worn, repeatedly-patched dun-colored overalls with a red bandanna knotted about his forehead, along with a pair of blades on an old leather belt and several trinkets of glittering gold jewelry.

"Now you look here!" He holds his wings up and turns around twice before giving his wing-like arms a forceful flap that raises a small cloud of sand. "Do you see any blight, goldie? You think I don't preen or something? PAH!"

The tengu fluffs his feathers up and then with a loud, "Hmmph!" collapses them back against his body. He kicks at the sand with with his yellow-clawed foot, evidently not noticing that he's supposed to be impressed by Lureene's looks. "So, what did you want to tell old Pezock? That you wanted to beat my ass again, or maybe mess up my traps some more? Oh, that's right, you wanted to tell me I had moldy feathers, that's right!"

He holds up his hands before letting them flap back to his sides.

The violent motions and cawwing stop for a moment. The crab's left claw points to the west and a gruff voice calls out, "Go that way, can't miss it! Now get out of here, harpy!"