Jammers Summary: Chapter 1, Turn 11

----------- = Meanwhile, elsewhere...
*********** = Later...

"Who knows hof this creature? I have seen none like hit before. Will there be hothers like hit nearby?" Deigatt says.

"There may well be, at that," Nilaroo rumbles, as he keeps his eye around the asteroid field. His sword, bloody, lies beside the scavver. Nilaroo now has his longbow out, arrow nocked but not drawn as he carefully watches.

Seeing that Nilaroo and the others have everything well in hand, Billy uncocks the ballista. He then stomps off to Italapate, mumbling to himself angrily. He looks up to the human and takes his crossbow and bolts. "Thanks 'Pate. A little too late, though. You missed all the fun! Oh... Umm... Nice hair." Billy winks and looks for a spot to put his crossbow and bolts. Somewhere close at hand but out of the way.

Billy then walks over to the Scavver corpse and sighs. "Good work, Nilaroo. I hate these things, being bite sized and all..."

Italapate kicks lightly at the Scavver, then stifles a yawn. "Good work guys..." he says, then returns to his bunk to sleep.

Billy goes over to Nilaroo and says, "You're hurt 'Roo. Let me see what I can do." Billy lays his fingers delicately on the wound and frowns in concentration. Nilaroo feels a comforting warmth flowing from Billy's fingers into his wound. Billy says, "That's all I can do for now... But it is much better than it was." Nilaroo can see that the wound is almost healed. Though it is closed, scabs have formed and staunched the bleeding.

Below, on the Bridge: As the sounds of battle die out, Raken breathes a sigh of relief. "Looks like they got it. Careful, though. The creature you described is a night scavver; they travel in packs," he says to Talus. "All in all, its a good omen. I'll see about getting someone to guard the helm room while I go up above to make sure they don't make the mistake of throwing the carcass overboard." He opens the door and looks for someone to take over guard duty for a few moments. He sees Holland moving into the helm room, nods, and heads above decks.

Upon entering the bridge, Holland finds out that the threat has already been eliminated, rubbing his eyes Holland says to Talus, "Keep us moving, there might be more scavvers around."

The ship slows slightly as Talus relaxes, then speeds back up as the half-elf returns his attention to threading the ship through the asteroids. He uses the senses gained by using the helm to keep aware of what is going on around the ship, and in particular keeps watch for anymore scavvers.

Back Topside: "So that's a scavver," Kain muses as he sees the beast. "Looks like a shark, only its black." Walking around the scavver, he sniffs and says, "Except for that" when he sees the single, and decidedly human-looking, eye.

Grigree looks at it sideways as he says, "That's a big one, too. I've only seen one other in my entire career." He finishes looking at the carcass, looks over at Kain, and goes on. "Most of the ones you'll see are smaller, and easy to deal with. Just have the crew go below decks and shoot at them from the cover of a doorway." Grigree's face darkens a bit as he continues. "One of those," he points over with his sword, "attacked a squidship I was on. It started with the lookout in the crow's nest and broke through the side wall into the aft castle where we kept the helm. Our helmsman lost an arm before we could kill the beast. It got itself trapped in the tight quarters."

Grigree continues after a pause, "Good thing this one was taken care of so fast." He looks over at Deigatt, Billy, and Nilaroo and smiles, a quiet growl escaping his throat. "Nice work, mates."

"Hmmm...well, we're almost to Finagle, so...ah, if you guys want to get some rest, perhaps we can ah, switch shifts now." Looking to Radick and Grigree for their assent, Kain then goes back to looking at the scavver.

Grigree shrugs, "May as well. I couldn't sleep anyway."

Billy says: "OK. It's about that time anyway. And I sure could use something to eat about now..."

"So, ah, what do we do with it?" Kain asks once everyone starts to go about their own business. Beginning an inspection of the rigging and the sail fin, he looks up "Can't just leave it upon the deck, can we?"

"Are there bounties on scavver's in this sphere?" Grigree asks of those present, especially the Post-Captain. "Maybe we could sell it."

The Captain snorts, "Prince Andru pay folks to kill scavvers? What'd eat his prisoners then?"

Another shrug from Grigree. "Guess we'll just have to eat it," he mumbles with a smile.

A quite chuckle comes from the stairs, where Raken is walking up. He pulls out his blade and moves over to the scavver. "Who wants to help me skin this thing? We're going to eat good tonight! And who knows what we'll find in the gullet of this thing. As for the corpse, the hide makes good leather; the fins are used by some cultures for medical purposes." He kneels down to begin skinning the scavver, eventually cutting open the gullet. He lifts it open to see what is in it, but is disappointed to find it is empty.

He proceeds to carefully skin and butcher the beast, sending its meet to Holland in the galley. the leather strips are then laid carefully out to dry on the deck.

Radick comes to the deck a little after the scavver is killed and the gutting has begun. He is obviously ready for combat, with his leather armor on and his full array of weaponry ready. Keeping a straight face showing no emotion he moves off to the railing and says nothing. When Kain suggests a shift change he nods his head and then begins to move for the rigging.

As the trip continues, Leera calls the crew to the upper decks before her shift, "I have spoken with Holland about my use of illusions in battle. I'll try to confine myself to a small set of illusions I have used often. When you see these visions, please refrain from either punching them or sticking knives in them." She grimaces. "These are the illusions I use most often:"

In succession, the following visions are seen:

A figure dressed in pitch black full plate armor; The second Eelship (complete with casting mage); A giant skeleton; A slobbering ratman; A group of ten figures dressed in pure black chainmail.

Deigatt says loudly to Holland, "Perhaps the human woman would consider shouting hout a codeword to warn the rest hof the crew when she his creating her deceptions so that only hour foes will be fooled by them. Hof course, I ham presuming she has habandoned her delight hin deceiving hus with her magicks."

Holland shakes his head and says, "That has been considered; however, it would defeat the purpose. For one, if Leera was to yell out a code-word when casting her spells, it would draw attention to her. Her specialty is avoiding attention, not attracting it. Also, if she were to cast multiple illusions, our enemies might wonder why she kept yelling the same words, once they realize that one is an illusion, they would not be fooled by the rest."

Billy interjects with a suggestion. "Instead of a code word, why not incorporate an emblem or a symbol that we would recognize. How about a patch with a little whirlwind on it? The figure in pitch black plate armor and the ten figures in chain- mail could have a patch on their shoulders, the Eelship illusion could be flying a flag with a whirlwind on it, the giant skeleton could have the whirlwinds in its eye sockets, the slobbering ratman could have it on a piece of clothing and so on. This would not limit Leera to those particular illusions."

Holland smiles and lets out a soft chuckle, "That has been considered as well. The problem is that during combat, you may not have the time to give people a thorough examination looking for a whirl-wind."

Holland continues, "It should suffice to know the main five illusions that she employs. Of course, she would not cast the illusion of a group of figures dressed in black chainmail if our foes were all decked in black chainmail as well, the same for the other illusions. It should be simple to note if a huge skeleton or a group of warriors came bursting up from the lower deck to do battle with our enemies, at least, that is what we are hoping."

Holland concludes, "If this doesn't work out, we will make modifications but I believe that things will work out quite handedly. As for her delight in deceiving us; everyone is allowed to make mistakes. Those that don't kill you become learning points. I believe that is enough said on that."

As everyone breaks up and returns to their work, Deigatt muses to no one in particular: "Doesn't 'finagle' mean 'trick' hor 'deceive' hin the human tongue? I wonder hif the human woman had some hand hin selecting hour destination."

After four hours or so Finagle, the second farming asteroid comes into view. With Captain Wilhelmina standing next to her on the bridge and passing on Finagle specific docking information, Leera is able to bring the Whirlwind in with only one little gravity "jump" as she aligned the planes. Soon the ship is docked across the wharf from the Flowfish.

On deck as the Whirlwind docks, Kain clasps his hands behind his back, watching the activity on the Flowfish. "I'll ah, hmm.. yes, I think I'll stay here," he says slowly, nervously watching all the action going on in the port. "Rigging needs to be checked again," he adds, moving to put work to his words. After satisfying himself that all that can be done has been done, Kain recovers his rucksack from the crew quarters. Still making no moves to leave the ship, Kain begins making sketches of the asteroid in his tome.

Captain Wilhelmina heads out of the bridge and up onto the deck, she pauses as she passes Grigree (he's just closest, it appears). "Tell the others they will not be needed to help stow cargo aboard the Flowfish. Instead, arrange for whatever supplies are needed to repair this vessel with the portmaster and try to get the ship's maneuverability, at least, back up to snuff. We cast off in 12 hours."

"Aye aye, Cap'n," Grigree says.

With that she hops onto the wharf and strolls towards the Flowfish, "'Pon my Soul, Lt. Sabbagh, you better not have let anything have happened to my ship," she cries out.

Grigree gathers the people on the deck and tells them, "The Cap'n says we don't have to move crates from the Flowfish today. Instead, we have twelve hours to get the Whirlwind in as good shape as possible." He looks over at the broken tail spines. "I'll wake Nilaroo. We'll need him to organize the fix."

Glancing over at the settlement, Talus speaks up, "I will go an see about getting the supplies we need for the repairs. If someone can give me a list of what's needed that is."

Holland smiles, "I am sure that Nilaroo would be able to give you a more than complete list."

The half-elf continues, "Just one question, what are we going to use for payment?"

Holland rubs his forehead, "Hmm, that is a good question," turning he runs after Wilhemina and asks, "Post-Captain, does the merchant-house have lines of credit here that we are authorized to use to purchase repair supplies?"

"This asteroid is owned and operated by House Moune, and the ship belongs to House Moune, there will be no bills. Sign your name, and then write 'By command of Capt. W' to the forms they give you." She replies.

Holland nods and with a smile says, "Ah, I see. Thank you Post-Captain." and hurries back aboard to repeat her instructions to everyone else.

Grigree then turns to go back towards the stair case to the lower deck. After a quick hop down the steps, he knocks on the door to the room Nilaroo is in. "We need your help to organize repairs to the ship. The Cap'n gave us twelve hours before we leave back for the Rock."

Once awakened, Nilaroo quickly makes a mental list of items needed to repair the ship, including tools. Working quickly, he scrawls the list onto a piece of sailcloth using a charcoal stub, arranging things from most necessary to least, and most available to least. His list completed, Nilaroo heads to the deck to present it to the Captain. "I realize that most of these items will not be found on this farming asteroid, Talus. However, in order to work with the items we can find, I will also need to purchase at least a few tools in order to work."

While waiting for the supplies to arrive, Billy spots a tavern nearby on the harbourfront. His eyes immediately brighten. "Anyone care to join me for a quick nip o' the sudsy?" he asks of anyone nearby, indicating the tavern with his thumb.

Leera tells him: "Go ahead, I'll meet you there."