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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 0:06:22 GMT
"Hey, Toots got some Genre Savvy mixed in there," Hod replies, with an arched bushy eyebrow. Everyone turns to him.
"Genre Savvy?" Jim-Lad repeats.
"I'll explain later," Hod sighs. Tink tinkles something at him, which the kid does not translate for whatever reason, and he rolls his eyes and nods resignedly.
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Post by Snowfire on Mar 6, 2011 0:36:36 GMT
I stabilise fully, finding my balance. "Can you take me up on deck? I'd like to see the sky."
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 0:39:25 GMT
Find your balance? You don't have that particular sense. But I guess you can go up on deck anyway...
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Post by Professor H. Talhoffer on Mar 6, 2011 0:46:52 GMT
"As for interesting things while you were gone... It's all been a bit of a mess. I'd like to get to land before we try and sort it out, the confusion mixes ill with seasickness."
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 0:51:25 GMT
The Cap'n sighs.
"Jim-Lad! Take 'em up top!"
"Aye-aye, Cap'n," Jim-Lad nods, and leads the group up to the top deck. The sea is calm and sunny in all directions. No sign of any other vessels.
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Post by Professor H. Talhoffer on Mar 6, 2011 0:55:49 GMT
Right, well I guess I'd best make those upgrades now, shouldn't I?
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Post by Snowfire on Mar 6, 2011 1:06:30 GMT
"Land sounds good."
I look up into the bright blue of the sky as we come out on deck and another smile creases my face as I just let the sunshine brush my skin. I then take several steps back, ensuring that I have several feet of separation from anything and anyone around me, before reaching into my bag and pulling out a Skittle.
"Everyone stand well back." I warn, before popping the sweet into my mouth.
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Post by Professor H. Talhoffer on Mar 6, 2011 1:13:25 GMT
"Yeah... I'm gonna go add those keels now..." I say, before tying a rope to the railing (and around my waist), picking up my tools and materials and diving into the water.
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 13:41:52 GMT
The firey wings burst once more from Xylia's body. Trouble is, she's since reformed her most recent illusion... which involved her floating several inches above the ground. The wings, however, are bound not to her illusion but to her self, so they appear this time to be sprouting from half way down her back. The tips of them brush the deck. It catches fire.
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Kapn complains.
Meanwhile, Talhoffer hits the surface of the water and sinks beneath, the rope on the railing going taught and dragging him through the sea alongside the vessel. He blinks until his eyes get used to being underwater (again).
There's a... something, in front of him. The kind of something that you might think one would get if a human were to procreate with a crab and a jellyfish, simultaneously, inside the reactor core at Chernobyl, while drinking a heapload of Irn Bru.
Back up on the bridge, Xylia sees a large greatcoated figure at the rail towards the bow, who remains perfectly still while the rest of the pirates are freaking out over the fire. As she watches, he raises his head a notch and slowly reaches into his coat.
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Post by Professor H. Talhoffer on Mar 6, 2011 13:45:17 GMT
"Ah, hello Xyth'Aiktrllla, haven't seen you in a while..."
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 13:50:40 GMT
The thing whips out a batch of tentacly things, but Talhoffer is fast enough to catch them with one of his tools. The wrap around it, whipping it from his grasp, and the metal of the tool starts to heat with a hiss. The thing whips another batch of tentacles towards him.
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Post by Snowfire on Mar 6, 2011 13:52:00 GMT
"Sorry!" I pull my wings in and up, away from the wood of the deck as I unravel the levitation illusion. "These are kind of new to me, I'm still trying to work out exactly how the work." As the pirates rush to deal with the small deck fire, I move very carefully out of their way and towards the figure near the bow. "You seem remarkably unconcerned. And I don't think I saw you last time." I remark.
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Post by Professor H. Talhoffer on Mar 6, 2011 13:54:03 GMT
"No! Down. Down... Good boy. Now let go... Good... Here, have a treat." I then toss it an apple, which happens to be in my pocket. Oddly, the apple tossing works as though it were in the air, despite being underwater...
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 14:00:04 GMT
The large pirate turns around and points a large crossbow at Xylia, the bolt-tip brushing her throat. His dark, sunken eyes stare at her with some odd mix of fear and accusation from above his huge, grizzly beard.
She can still hear the cries from behind her-
"Jim-Lad! Fetch us some more water!" "We hasn't got any more, Cap'n!" "Hasn't got any water? We're on the SEA!"
- but can't really pay much attention to them right now.
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Post by Professor H. Talhoffer on Mar 6, 2011 14:05:41 GMT
Any word on my conversation with my old friend here?
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 14:06:16 GMT
The thing in the water suddenly switches its tentacly things from Talhoffer to the apple. They grab it and squeeze. It splits and begins to rot spontaneously. Three sickly-orange eyes gaze at Talhoffer with some emotion that cannot be accurately described in any language that exists in this dimension save one that is only used by Tibetan monkeys, but whatever it is, it isn't pleasant.
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Post by Snowfire on Mar 6, 2011 14:29:50 GMT
I blink once. Then again. "Have I done something to wrong you?"
What does this person look like to my magic-sight and reality distortion sense?
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Post by Professor H. Talhoffer on Mar 6, 2011 14:50:35 GMT
"Look, I'm sorry about all that but it wasn't my fault! And it was two hundred years ago, can you not forgive me?"
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 18:06:55 GMT
The large pirate looks pretty standard to magic-sense - He's got a little more than most of the people on the ship, but less than Xylia or Hod or Tink. In terms of reality distortion - well, there's certainly something up. Some sort of law of life isn't applying to this guy - at least one, but it's too messed up to tell. And then, looking into his eyes...
They say, some of them at least, that the last thing a man ever sees before he dies remains in his eyes as some sort of afterimage. Well, this guy doesn't seem to be a corpse, but there's something in those eyes nonetheless. Not something that can be seen, but something that definitely isn't part of this reality. It's just wrong, in the same kind of way as that thing she showed Titania.
Either way, he says nothing, only growling questioningly.
Speaking of wrong things, there are a couple of them climbing onto the deck now. One, to the left, is vaguely humanoid, only it doesn't have any legs. To compensate, it's got some extra arms where its ears should be. It also appears to have shunned the concept of 'face' in favour of 'just a carpet of purple spines'. A squelching sound from the right indicates another thing climbing up there, and a green octopoid tentacle lined with tiny, toothy mouths emerges from over the edge.
The large pirate looks to either side, then back to Xylia.
Down below, the similarly abominable creature answers Talhoffer's question by whipping another set of stingers at him. They miss completely, instead catching the rope he's tied to. It catches fire. Underwater.
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Post by Snowfire on Mar 6, 2011 18:50:11 GMT
"Yours?" I inquire, indicating the creatures rising out of the sea around the ship. "From the Rotten Sea perhaps?"
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 19:11:56 GMT
At the words "Rotten Sea", he grasps the front of Xylia's clothing and begins searching her expression urgently. From behind her come the sounds of confusion and fear as someone notices the creatures of the deck.
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Post by Snowfire on Mar 6, 2011 20:04:41 GMT
I raise one eyebrow at the pirate's reaction. "Interesting."
"Yes, I know about that place. It's how I have these." I very slowly pull a Skittle from my bag. "I saw something in the waters here, something that my contacts verified as coming from there. Are you running from it, or are you and these things its compatriots?"
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 20:18:15 GMT
He shakes his head, very slowly, and casts Xylia aside, aiming his crossbow instead at the thing with no legs as it hops up onto its arms, staggers at the cluster of pirates smothering the flames, and leaps.
The bolt catches it in one of its armpits and sends it off-course, squealing, to land on the deck just behind the pirates and slide across it, the pirates standing there and turning their heads in perfect unison to follow it as it slides over the wood and eventually hits the rail at the other side with an inhuman noise of immense disapproval.
By this point, the other creature has made its way onto the deck and stood up. It consists of little more than a ball of rubbery flesh, covered all over in randomly-placed mouth-lined tentacles and balanced on four thicker 'legs'. It whips a tentacle out at Xylia, who can't react fast enough to stop it from wrapping around her and sinking its little needly teeth into multiple points over her body.
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Post by Snowfire on Mar 6, 2011 20:22:23 GMT
Are my wings still active?
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Post by jokester on Mar 6, 2011 22:34:53 GMT
Hang on... let me check... nope, the floor is not on fire around you, so I'm assuming they died down.
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Post by Snowfire on Mar 6, 2011 23:41:21 GMT
Ok. Good and bad at the same time. Nyeh.
My shield flows into being at my side, pushing the tentacle back as I pull my illusions inwards to make them totally skintight, giving me a few inches of free space. My other hand, the one with the Skittle in it, flies up in the time my trick just bought me and I bite down and swallow the sweet.
At the same time, my sword unravels - yes, not the correct term, sorry - out of its own bracelet and stabs upwards through the tentacle around me.
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Post by Professor H. Talhoffer on Mar 7, 2011 2:13:27 GMT
Meanwhile, under water:
"Ok Xythie, that's enough." I draw my sword and whack him on the nose with the flat of the blade.
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Post by jokester on Mar 7, 2011 13:57:22 GMT
Xylia finds at first that she cannot pull her illusions away from the creature's multiple mouths, but manages to make them let go by flickering the illusions as she draws them in.
The creature backs off clumsily, but the tentacle she just cut off leaps of its own accord and wraps around her leg, this time drawing blood due to the skin-tight nature of her current illusions.
The legless thing further down the deck stands up again and begins lumbering towards the pirates, who back off in confusion.
"Jim-Lad!" Cap'n demands. "What the hell be that thing?"
"I doesn't know Cap'n," Jim-Lad responds.
The crossbow-wielding pirate moves forward to take aim at the thing again, but in doing so is too preoccupied to notice the tentacley one stumbling upon him from behind and jumping onto his back, lathcing on wherever it can grab. He falls forwards and his shot misses spectacularly, sparking off a rail and disappearing into the sky.
Down in the water, and a little bit behind the moving ship, Talhoffer's rope snaps and he falls further behind as his sword makes connection with the thing in there with him. The thing hisses, spews some dark, burning liquid onto Talhoffer, and begins to swim swiftly away. The liquid is quickly washed away too in the currents caused by the wake of the ship.
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Post by Professor H. Talhoffer on Mar 7, 2011 14:01:43 GMT
Right, well then it's a good thing I've put a tracking beacon on the ship and have the tracing machine in my bag. It's also a good thing that I have some torpedo engines in here somewhere...
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Post by Snowfire on Mar 7, 2011 14:46:47 GMT
So I'm guessing me using my wings isn't allowed then?
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