|
Post by Admin on Mar 30, 2020 4:18:19 GMT
[OOC: Copied from last thread for reference.]
The crew rushes to their tasks with great efficiency. They have all travelled through shadows before and knew what tasks invariably awaited them once the dangerous journey was completed.
From looking across the swath of destruction, Brennon notices that it is not the usual sea he would expect from the travel; it had the feel of a very shallow sea. He can even see an occasional top of a tree poking out of the water and even, maybe, the top of a building or two.
Brennon finds the Conductor in the chair where he left him. The man seems worse for wear after the trip through Shadow. His head lools and he continues to mutter an endless litany of railroad statistics. He ends the chant with "11:26! 11:26! 11:26 at the Chahdia roundabout!"
Brennon knows that there is no train station in that area.
|
|
|
Post by Brennon on Apr 1, 2020 6:32:41 GMT
Well, the conductor has clearly got a screw loose somewhere, or more likely, a cog. Brennon has food left for him and heads for a scant few hours' sleep before trying to pull the ship back towards Begma or more familiar waters. Just because Celessia is able to sail where there are any navigable waters, apparently including sufficiently large floods, doesn't mean he wants to be caught above the rooftops when the waters recede.
To approach close enough to Amber to deliver Hammett to Begma, Brennon will have to find one of the established sea lanes already connected to Begma. Where he picks it up is under his control, but the path after that will accept very little interference. Maybe the isle of Delia, always convenient for hiding behind to ambush prey on the sea lanes. Alternately, he could head for Ratovar, or Tar'Tuin, wilder ports in Amber's 'opposite' direction. Ports where Celessia is partly known, and she is guaranteed to be able to replace her missing crew from the more experienced amongst the taverns, pleasure-houses, and the extra children of the organized crime syndicates. Hammett might like some of those.
Brennon decides to leave the decision until he is slightly better rested.
[ooc: yeah, I just made up 3 places. People with more creative time or inspiration could make an encyclopedia of shadows topic and write little entries about all of them. Or the GM could make up more details to give Brennon some better choice in his direction.]
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 1, 2020 8:26:58 GMT
[OOC: Make up al he places you like. The more the merrier and it gives the rest of us something to use.]
The next morning arrives in a warm, humid fog. The sun of this place glows pink through the mist giving the desolation a rose hew. The crew report that the water level is rising; somewhere in this shadow someone or something is pouring water onto this plain.
|
|
|
Post by Brennon on Apr 1, 2020 17:58:20 GMT
"Good then," Captian Brennon replies to the report. "That means there's time for breakfast. Would you see if our passenger Pinky has recovered her health enough for breakfast yet?"
The rest of the desperate from Kasaba count as stowaways, and will therefore have been pressed into service by now. Brennon doesn't like having raw hands aboard without even a basic knowledge of the sea, but they can be dropped at the nearest friendly port if they work, or over the side if they don't. The crack of the lash can be occasionally heard encouraging laggards, which puts a slight frown on the Captain's face. He trusts his crew not to punish someone for something they don't knkw how to do, but he'll need to keep an eye on things. Celessia dislikes foreign blood on her decks, as it can be hard to keep the associated memories from seeping in.
After a contemplation of the beautiful sunrise from the quarterdeck, and the sight and smell of the inundated towns below, he decides breakfast will happen without a view.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 5, 2020 1:02:04 GMT
Brennon finds Pinky recovered from nausea and a bit sheepish.
"Don't know why it all hit me like that, Captain. I've seen stuff before but today it just didn't sit right.
"What was going on back there in Kasaba near the end? What do you think happened to Gerard?"
|
|
|
Post by Brennon on Apr 7, 2020 5:36:52 GMT
"Gerard? He's probably nursing a headache back in Amber. He pulled all the power of a different reality into Kasaba, making the explosions." Brennon assumes Pinky knows nothing of other shadows, like most normal denizens.
"Whatever was caught in the storm's interface, where the two realities were competing, was destroyed. He was at the center, so safe from the destruction when it slipped his control. We got out by riding the edge of the rip, which is why we had such a bad time of it." He leaves out other specific details for the moment, like where they are and why, in particular, they ended up in a cesspit.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 7, 2020 7:35:55 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/SXpkXBr/flapper~jpg "Coo, so, like, you ripped us out of Kasaba and into another shadow?" she asks. "Hammett does it better by using those card tricks o' his."As if by some sort of premonition, Brennon feels the contact from one of those 'card tricks'.
|
|
|
Post by Brennon on Apr 7, 2020 14:38:35 GMT
[ooc: Really? With the ship still in [Psychic Barrier] mode? Just want to check before responding. Her orders were to drop the barrier only for an hour at noon each day. It was just described as dawn.]
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 7, 2020 23:54:20 GMT
[OOC: shit, I forgot! Now to figure out the time differential in these shadows.]
Brennon doesn't feel the tingling of an attempted trump contact and is free to go about his usual business!
|
|
|
Post by Brennon on Apr 10, 2020 15:29:43 GMT
Hammett and his card tricks. Of course. Brennon smiles to cover his disappointment as Pinky picks up on what he's explaining faster than he expected, like a stage magician whose audience already knows his trick.
"Aye, somewhat like that. Only, I don't have a card to get here, or back. I've never seen this place before, and we probably won't see it again. We'll still manage to connect with Hammett again, though. I'll have Celessia lower her defences around noon, and I'll try the card he gave me again."
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 11, 2020 2:19:15 GMT
#s://i~ibb~co/SXpkXBr/flapper~jpg The ship begins to be gently pulled by a current taking her away from the rising sun. "If Hamm got out of Kasaba then he probably went back to his weirdo homeland." she shudders.
|
|
|
Post by Brennon on Apr 12, 2020 6:10:07 GMT
"He comes from a strange place?" This is news to Brennon. "I never thought of him as being the odd type. I guess he must have picked up his card tricks somewhere other than Kasaba, but I never thought about what sort of place it might be." He lets Pinky talk on a bit, asking questions about where she grew up, what she knows about the strangeness of Hammett's homeland, whether she's been on a ship before.
Once breakfast is done, Brennon will head up for a chat with the figurehead. Since they aren't in port, Celessia is being her living, glorious self again, not bothering to conceal her true nature. Some of the sailors chat with her as they perform their duties, but none of the 'new hands' want to go near the front of the ship.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 12, 2020 8:16:54 GMT
Pinky talks but doesn't give many details about her past. She and the rest of the Wormwood's crew are from the same place and the promise of adventure and thanks for his having saved them during the Black Road War had them follow Hammett in his travels and businesses. They have been to his homeland a few times but it is not their favoured kind of place.
As the morning progresses the mist begins to burn off the sea but, oddly the giant red sun doesn't rise in the sky but sits slightly above the horizon. As far as the eye can see it is just water in this place covered in ruined ships and dead people with occasional bits of buildings jutting above the waterline.
|
|
|
Post by Brennon on Apr 12, 2020 23:27:41 GMT
After bringing the ship up to speed with his plans, Brennon takes over the wheel again, heading for deeper seas, thay he is familiar with. He decides to try to get to either the Golden Circle, with the isle of Delgos, or the pirate port of Ratovar, in the Chaosian direction, whichever seems easier from 'here'. He'll keep at the wheel for half a watch at a time, taking breaks, checking on crew, passenger, and prisoner in turn, and when he feels a little more blue water (deep seas) under Celessia's keel, he'll decide it's close enough to noon to trump Hammett.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 13, 2020 13:03:51 GMT
Looking away from the sun, Brennon finds a break in the shadows allowing Celessia to travel the shadows. That the water is water, the sky air and the sun a sun it seems that this place is closer to the Amber side of the multiverse. The black path is travelled, Pinky begins puking again in the storm and wrack, and eventually, the ship and crew arrive in Delgos under heavy rain. From the sun lightening of the clouds above it looks to be close to noon.
|
|