Jven,
Here is your next observation assignment…does Peregrine have any tattoos in unusual places, and if so, where?
(You get extra credit if you get a close enough look to describe them in detail). Have fun!
Nikita
Dear Jveddek,
Firestorm Peak was disgusting. The illusionary island was disturbing. I don´t know how to begin describing our situation now. Instead, I will draw a weak analogy and go from there.
When I was a little girl, I had a mild aversion to bugs and other vermin. That attitude changed when my brother planted a nest of spider eggs in my bedding. I woke up screaming, covered in hundreds of tiny (and in my mind very hungry) spiders. For a few years afterward, I checked under my blanket every night before climbing into bed, and as you well know, I suffered from an intense fear of spiders for years. The point is this: if something can ruin the safety and comfort of a familiar environment, it can instill a powerful fear. Think on that as you read what follows.
Today I began to understand Ravenloft. I will tell you about it, but you will not believe me.
I´ll pick up on our third day out, at breakfast (which was dinnertime to my landlubbing friends) to set the tone for the horrors that followed. The food on this journey promised to be unusually good, as oatmeal and salt fish, rather than hard tack, was doled out to all the crew. And why shouldn´t the food be good? We had been told that this was to be a short sail, only a few days. The menu put the new crewmen I recognized from the docks of Sailor´s End in good spirits. The others, I supposed, were simply used to such fare—an indication of a generous captain?
As for my companions, Nikita picked at her oatmeal and disappeared quickly, before any of the crew could notice her increasingly obvious cough. She looked dreadful—well, dreadful for Nikita, which means that only 80% of the crew stared at her through all of breakfast with lust in their hearts. Disappointed with the size of her own portion, Ester glanced over at Nikita´s largely uneaten bowl of oatmeal with longing. However, she knew without being told not to eat after a sick person.
While the rest of us finished our portions, Ulfie visited the sailors in search of new friends and salt fish scraps. A few variations on his name floated around the mess as he collected pats on the head and tidbits of fish.
When Canliss made a remark about getting Ulfie a spiked collar (I´m sure he didn´t mean that Ulfie needed to be protected from the attentions of goodhearted seafaring folk, Old Man, so don´t get your hackles up), one of the men allowed as how it was a good idea. He was a leatherworker, and he offered to craft one for Ulfie. Kariya politely declined, but he countered by saying that "every ship´s mascot should have something like that." Kariya seemed unconvinced—if we live to disembark this vessel, I doubt very much that he will be sporting a spiked collar.
After breaking our fast, we headed to our respective posts for the twilight shift. While I helped Peregrine with measurements on deck, I noticed the first mate at the wheel for this shift. Yes, I was able to tear my eyes away from the handsome navigator…to rest them briefly on the dashing first mate. Yum. As I looked from one to the other, I recall thinking that so far, Ravenloft wasn´t so bad. There I was, taking in a sunset with the roll of the waves beneath my feet and a handsome man at my side. Above us, I could see Canliss in the rigging, and already looking more able…I would say "confident", but Canliss always looks confident, even without cause. Also on deck, Rhavin and Ester hauled seawater in buckets. Rhavin also frequently looked up to reassure himself that Nikita, in the crow´s nest, was safe. Below, Kariya was learning to clean ballistae. Kariya told me later that she spent that shift asking the other gunners about the small "flintlocks" that we had seen in Sailor´s End.
"You should see the ships from some of those places," piped up one gunner. "The places where that black powder actually works."
I don´t remember seeing any black powder associated with those short sticks, but maybe it´s a spell component that they keep elsewhere on their persons. Anyway, it seems that the ships from ports that use this stuff are even bigger than the Endurance, which is bigger than any of our ships back home. Supposedly, they have guns (which is what the short sticks I saw are) on those ships as big as ballistae. Seeing my friends settled into their work, I figured I had better control my lust for Peregrine enough to do my own. With a more serious eye, then, did I turn to our charts when we finally went below. From looking at the charts, I could gather that the ship sailed in deep seas, on an easterly course, but to where? There was no obvious landmass on our heading. There were numerous charts, which seemed to go together, but how? No coastlines matched up, and none of the currents marked off seemed to flow from one chart to the other. Either these charts were wildly inaccurate, we weren´t really going to a destination, or I was about to learn a whole new brand of navigation. "Um, Peregrine?" I ventured with a touch of embarrassment.
"Shh," he responded shortly, without so much as a glance up from the compass he had in hand. Such a look of intensity on his face…kind of sexy…until I noticed that he was clutching the compass so tightly that his fingertips were white. No wonder he didn´t want to field any questions while he worked: he was anxious about his calculations.
So I wasn´t the only one uncomfortable with navigating from these charts. What in any plane of existence was he doing? I didn´t follow the calculations at all, but he definitely did them each a few times…and sometimes he got different answers. Unable to decipher the stream of numbers, I returned my gaze to the crazy—quilt of charts. There must be some way to make sense of them, I thought, and surely if I applied myself I would begin to figure it out. If it´s true what Kariya and Rhavin said about Ravenloft, that it´s really a collection of planes rather than just one…? No, it was too absurd. So far, Ravenloft seemed pretty normal once we got away from Sailor´s End. The charts must have just been out of order. I decided to look for one of the few names I recognized: Graben, New Valchar Springs, or Sailor´s End.
After some time, I spotted the island of Graben, which had a city of Graben labeled. There were also a few other settlements, including Seaheim and Kirchenheim. It was not on the chart showing our position. The island looked like a hand, a left hand, with the island of Knamn making a detached thumb. That island showed a village of Mirdorf. The shoals indicated around the island would make for ugly shallow—water navigation later. But how in the hell were we going to get there from here?
I was getting a headache from looking at the disconnected array of charts before me, a condition unrelieved by the shriek of delight audible from one of the cabins beyond. I jerked my head up in surprise.
"What goes on on this ship?" I asked Peregrine with an eyebrow raised. Not only did he not answer, he hadn´t even noticed the noise. He was still threatening to crush that compass as a casualty of his nerves. At the end of that shift, I returned briefly to the cabin I ostensibly shared with Nikita. I was greeted by more stuff than I remembered either of us having. It was as if the very gods had spent the afternoon dropping all manner of flotsam around the cabin. And my blanket, plus another from our own stock, had been appropriated to supplement the one from Nikita´s own berth. A heap of blankets was trying to abscond with Nikita´s cigar and some toiletries; however, I noted that their progress towards the door, while remarkable, did not appear to be advancing in Nikita´s absence. In the midst of this chaos, several long sheets of paper had been laid out in a neat row to allow the ink to dry. I didn´t try to read any of the writing—Nikita isn´t shy about giving people written notes, so if I was meant to have any of this material, I was certain she´d give it to me. Upon further inspection of the mess in the cabin, I discovered a note from my Torodinite friend. It read:
I had to chuckle. I swear, she uses these assignments as an excuse to be nosy. I didn´t have long to contemplate her assignment, however, because Ester shared some big news at dinner. The shriek I´d heard that evening had been her joy at discovering that Hilt, her sword, was "working" again. That meant that magic items functioned in these waters!
Of course, good news brings out a certain playfulness in me. As delicious as the stew we dined upon was, I took pains to point out various pieces of meat to Canliss as horse kidney, dog stomach and pig lung, etc. The sailors around us snickered. To his credit, Canliss put a good face on it by asking for details. His explanation for handling this line of teasing so well was that he had been a street urchin. The gods alone know what he ate in his childhood. I don´t like to think about it.
After dinner, I decided to take a caulk. I knew sleeping on deck would leave tar lines on Canliss´ handsome black silks, but I hesitated to share the cabin with coughing Nikita. As I bedded down just below the sterncastle, I closed my eyes to the comforting sounds of business aboard ship: the slap of bare feet on deck, the creak of wood and rigging, the casual banter of sailors punctuated by the occasional barked order. The roll of the waves lulled me to sleep in my nest of coiled hawsers. Just beyond, I knew Ester was practicing her swordplay, but I was long asleep by the time the giantess retired. I slept well, but I will admit to being a bit stiff as I began my prayers when I awoke.
Afterward, I headed to breakfast to receive my allotment of oatmeal. The food on this ship was almost too good to be believed, but after the island incident, I dared not dwell on the plausibility of the menu. Nikita was not at breakfast. I hoped Rhavin was having more success at looking out for her than I was, but you know Torodinites: when they don´t want to be seen, you might as well not look.
Before we finished our portions, Kariya told us that she had been visited by Jacob—the same person she had encountered at her cabin door the first night aboard (so he was Jacob, not looking for someone by that name, as I´d first thought). She said that this had also happened yet another time, but last night, she managed to make a grab for him before he walked away. Her hands went right through him!
Unphased, Ester excused herself to practice with her sword on deck. The momentary lull in the conversation allowed me to try to process what I´d just heard. Sometimes, when my friends start talking about Ravenloft, they just assume that everyone can keep up. As usual, I was going to need more to go on. "What do you make of this, Kariya?" I asked. This story strained credibility, even coming from my intensely logical friend.
"A ghost? I don´t know. It must be physical to have knocked on my door. I don´t understand at all." Kariya paused, surveying the expressions on our faces. Canliss looked on with his usual expression of casual interest, but Rhavin´s face showed a spark of recognition. Kariya asked, "hasn´t anyone else seen this guy?"
"Yes," replied Rhavin simply.
"You have?"
"Yes, yesterday and last night in Nikita´s room."
"Why didn´t you say something?" she asked in exasperation. He complains about Canliss not giving full disclosure. Honestly.
"Last night someone knocked at the door. White shirt, boots, breeches…"
"That´s him!" Kariya exclaimed, but both she and Rhavin settled down when they observed that all of the sailors in the mess were wearing white shirts, boots and breeches.
Rhavin knit his brow in frustration. He clearly had more to add to this absurd story, but he couldn´t quite piece it together in a plausible way. "What was odd was the fact that I went after him…and there´s no way he could have gotten up and out of there…onto the main deck and away from my view…"
Unfortunately, the conversation seemed to deteriorate from there into some tall tales from that Temmer fellow who was performing the night we took Jvorg out for his birthday. Why do people repeat that sort of nonsense? I stopped paying attention.
"Well, I´m going to ask the gunner if he´s seen it," Kariya announced abruptly.
"Do you want to take this to the captain?" Rhavin asked with the typical Esterealean belief that anything worth discussing is worth bringing to someone in authority. Kariya firmly declined, undoubtedly feeling more comfortable with Koresh. In spite of all the talk, we finished our meal well before we were due to relieve the last shift. "I´m going to take this bowl of oatmeal to Nikita," Rhavin told us as he rose.
"Okay," replied Kariya, "See if she´s tested her spells."
Canliss looked at the bowl in Rhavin´s hand. "Are you sure she doesn´t need more than just that?"
He probably meant something other than the way Rhavin took it.
"Oh. Clean water." Rhavin stepped over to the cook, not far from us, who rationed out the water to the crew. As he began to explain, I kept an eye on him. I´d heard of captains ordering sailors who´d allegedly stolen more than their fair share of water to be flogged. Certainly Garvyn didn´t strike me as the type for such draconian measures, but I was sure Rhavin´s "sick friend" story was going to raise the cook´s suspicion. They know nothing of Estereal and his paladins here.
"Why doesn´t she come for food?" the cook asked, already suspicious.
"She wished to be alone." A truthful response from Rhavin, but not necessarily one that would help his case. He continued, "I was going to bring water, with breakfast, to her in her cabin."
"How can I be sure that you´re going to take her water to her and not go around the corner and drink it yourself?"
Like I said, no knowledge of Estereal and his paladins.
"I´ve had my water." Again, the truth.
"Do I look like this is my first cruise?" replied the cook, who was clearly not on his first cruise. The sailors seated nearby laughed out loud at that. One actually doubled over and fell of the bench with a thud, still laughing.
Not understanding why the cook was so incredulous, Rhavin insisted, "I wouldn´t drink her water." "Gee, I couldn´t imagine why." The cook looked pointedly at the tiny tin cup in Rhavin´s hand. More laughter from the crew. Poor Rhavin. He needed help. "Then, can I have her oatmeal?"
I laughed out loud as the cook stared, momentarily dumbfounded by Rhavin´s boldness.
"I can´t have her oatmeal, and I can´t take her water?"
"No," said the cook, who was obviously beginning to enjoy being the center of attention, "you can´t have Mort´s oatmeal, and you can´t have Charlie´s water." This scene was very amusing, but I had to put a stop to it before anything serious happened—like me pissing myself from laughing. I approached the cook and introduced myself.
"Excuse me," I said, struggling to get the words out between chuckles, "My name is Jven. I´m a priestess of the Oceanlord."
That seemed to register with the cook. He introduced himself as Basil, of all things. Luckily for me, I was already laughing when he said that. Rhavin´s puzzled gaze shifted from him, to me and back again. One can´t really announce that one´s plague—ridden friend can´t come to breakfast because she´s teeming with ill humours. I continued, making it up as I went, since the complete truth wasn´t an option. "Nikita is a fellow priestess of mine, a priestess of the Dream Master. Uh, this particular time of the season, she, uh, spends a few days alone in prayer. Rhavin was going to bring her some oatmeal and her ration of clean water."
"Well, you know what?" replied the cook, looking from Rhavin to me. "I trust a good—lookin´ young lady who´s also a priestess of the Oceanlord."
His eyes shifted back to Rhavin. "And I don´t trust you."
Rhavin looked like you could have knocked him over with a puff of smoke. He´d undoubtedly never gotten that kind of reaction before. Certainly not since he began his service to Estereal. The fact that I´d just fabricated that nonsense about Nikita right in front of him couldn´t have helped him cope with what had just transpired. I wasn´t too worried, though—for an Esterealean, Rhavin is very flexible.
As for the cook, he handed me a heaping mass of oatmeal and a full cup of water, sharing in the kind of low voice that only comes from the loins, "I get dreams sometimes. I saw her when she came on board. She can interpret my dreams. You just tell her that Basil will whip up something real good dreamwise for her to…dream about."
Ugh. He was leering, and she wasn´t even here! That shouldn´t be possible! How does she put up with this crap? Trying not to show my disgust, I offered my thanks with a wink, and took off. I didn´t wait for Rhavin. I knew he´d catch up.
"How do you speak to these people?" he asked in exasperation. See? He caught up. Poor guy. He wasn´t destined to get it, so I didn´t try to explain. "Oh—Rhavin, did you want to take her this?" I held out the overflowing bowl of oatmeal and the essentially double portion of water.
"No," he sighed. "We´re going the same way. Let´s go and discuss this."
He did step in front of me to continue the delivery, and I could see from his tense posture that a change of subject might be a good idea.
"So, what was it you guys were talking about with regard to the insubstantial guy?" I asked, figuring that would do the trick. Besides, I needed to have that conversation explained to me.
"Well," he said, taking the bait, "I do remember Temmer talking about some strange things. If we are in Ravenloft, then the question is why doesn´t anyone mention this except us?"
"It may be that everybody just knows about this except us."
"It could be. Maybe that´s why we got these rooms." The conversation ended upon our arrival at the cabin Nikita and I shared.
"Rhavin!" Nikita exclaimed, "You´re clean!" She was right, and I hadn´t even noticed. Rhavin was back to his usual spotless condition.
"Jven brought you oatmeal and water," said Rhavin, gesturing toward me. I had to stifle another snicker at the note of irritation in his voice.
Nikita´s eyes widened as she looked at the huge oaten mass designated for her consumption. "I can´t eat all that!"
"They wouldn´t give me any."
"What?" Nikita clearly did not comprehend how the overflowing bowl translated as Rhavin not being given any.
"I tried to get it for you, but they wouldn´t give it to me. I think it´s because Jven speaks sailor. But she didn´t say anything odd."
Nikita and I exchanged amused looks, but I decided not to say anything. Let Nikita explain it to him. "I don´t speak sailor!" he exclaimed in frustration. Since Rhavin´s magical cleanliness was working again, Nikita gracefully ended that conversation by testing her own powers. She tried to heal herself. Though she regained a little color, she still looked dreadful. Encouraged, she tried to cure herself again. That effort failed in a fit of coughing. "Oh for heaven´s sake, Nikita," I said, reaching toward her with my holy symbol in hand. She backed away, unwilling to let me touch her. Well, I wasn´t going to fight her about it. Not yet.
"No, let me try it again." She made it through the entire prayer this time without a cough, and she looked better instantly. Then she said some gibberish. Rhavin didn´t understand it, either, but then she went right back to Hurvan. I guess she was trying to feel out how much of our gods—given powers were working somehow because she followed that act by shapeshifting into her mouse form.
"Hey—hey—hey! Mouse form is bad on this ship! You might end up in the stew!" said Rhavin to the tiny gray mouse. Either he really thinks ill of the cook or he believed that line of crap I gave Canliss over dinner. He was probably just teasing her, though. He has a pretty good sense of humor for a paladin. Regardless, Nikita shifted back to her human form at this remark.
As far as I was concerned, my work here was done: Nikita was alive and casting spells, and now she had enough oatmeal and water to feed any two large sailors. So, I headed up to the deck.
The beautiful afternoon´s cloudless sky of brilliant blue gradually gave way to a stunning sunset. Before long, the others joined me on deck. Nikita made for the rigging with Rhavin watching her even more intently than usual as she climbed. The others went about their business while I met Peregrine. He seemed oblivious to the single, large moon that rose as we took our measurements. I nearly looked for the other moon, but I quickly realized that the one before us was too big to be either Raaba or Reeba. We definitely weren´t off the coast of Hurva. I wished to linger in the light of that beautiful but otherworldly moon with the handsome navigator, but Peregrine broke my reverie with a businesslike remark about our heading.
Gradually, a mist began to rise from the flat sea, eventually obscuring that eerie single moon. Even so, I could easily see to make my last measurements with Peregrine, and Canliss and the men in the rigging weren´t hampered by the decreased moonlight. They looked almost as if they were flying over the ropes as they adjusted the sails, drawing them taut. Their work was to no avail: we were utterly becalmed. That evening, Peregrine taught me how to translate the calculations we had made into directions that the men at the wheel could follow. We would do this together daily now. When we went below deck, I noticed that we still hadn´t made it off the chart where I thought our position had been on my last shift. And since I wasn´t getting anywhere with Peregrine, either, I couldn´t complete my observation assignment. If telling Peregrine about my assignment hadn´t been against the rules, I might have been able to parley that into an excuse to [several scratched out words] get to know him better. Too bad.
At dinner after my shift, Ulfie visited Basil, who had saved a big soup bone for him. Ulfie gleefully displayed the bone for all of us. I´m sure Rhavin thinks everyone in the party but him can get special treatment from the cook. I didn´t point out that Ulfie didn´t need to know sailor slang to get his food, either. Meanwhile, Ester polished off her dinner in a few mouthfuls and began looking at the enormous portion that the cook had again allotted to Nikita, who had again avoided the mess.
"Is Nikita going to eat all that?" she asked hopefully.
"Ester, why don´t you help me take this to Nikita?" I answered. Nikita would probably try to give Ester the whole thing, but I hoped to chaperone them. Rhavin tried to persuade Ester to make a meal of the food in the box, but concrete—thinking Ester wanted the nearly overflowing bowl she could see now. Realizing this, Rhavin gave up after a few minutes, and I set off with the giantess to the cabin lodging Nikita and some of my stuff.
Tonight, I didn´t even cross the threshold for fear that the mess would attack me. Gods and saints above, how could it have gotten worse?
"Oh my gods," I cried, surveying the latest advances of chaos, "what happened in here?"
When I stooped to put the double portion of stew on the floor, Ester piped up, "I´ll help you if you don´t want to eat all that."
"You can eat most of it, Ester," she allowed.
Happy to oblige, Ester picked up the bowl and started eating.
"Where are yesterday´s bowls?" I asked, unable to spot them in the riot of articles within the cabin.
"Uh, I think they´re under the bed here…let me look. Oh, no, wait, they´re on my bed."
What a landlubber. "Bed" indeed! I didn´t bother to correct her, although I might have winced (both times) when she said it.
"So, when are you going to come and eat with us?" Ester asked between mouthfuls.
I suggested that she leave the bowls outside our cabin so Canliss could cast a clean cantrip on them. Now that I think about it, though, I don´t think I actually told Canliss about this plan. Oh well, I´ll catch up with him eventually.
Ester and I left Nikita to her chaos to head up on deck, where some of the crew were singing bawdy sailor songs. They had been saving up their rum rations, and they were now well into a cheerful drunken state. I didn´t recognize any of the songs, but the themes of drinking and debauchery certainly had a familiar ring. Ester´s eyes widened when she saw the rum going around and she found out she was entitled to some.
"Hey, Jven?" she asked, "Should I get my rum ration?"
"You need to drink more," piped up one sailor, who waved his bottle in our general direction. He was too smashed to see exactly to whom he should aim his alcohol.
"Should I go get my rum ration? Will they give it to me?"
Naturally, I encouraged her to claim her rum ration at once.
Someone from behind offered to "take care of it" for her if she got it. The others guffawed. It takes a lot of rum to generate the kind of nerve needed to take advantage of a giantess, especially one with a really big sword. These guys clearly had a big head start on me with the drinking.
"Will you teach me some of those songs?" Ester asked of the sailor behind me.
"You bring your rum, and we´ll teach you all the songs."
At that, Ester immediately dashed below decks. While she was below, I turned to the sailor next to me and told him the one about the barmaid with the talking frog. That one went over so well that I told a couple more. In return, I learned some really good ones. They don´t translate well onto paper, so you´ll just have to hope that we´ll see each other again. As the jokes were being shared, I noticed that Peregrine was also at the party, but he wasn´t drinking. Too bad: it might have done him some good. How am I supposed to pick up a completely sober officer? On the other hand, he was laughing at even the dumbest jokes. Anyone in a good enough mood to laugh at some of those clunkers might be receptive to [several more completely scratched out words; the end of the sentence is squeezed into the right margin of the page] friendly overtures.
I needed a drink before I got that bold, and a young woman like me can usually charm a sip here and there. Unlike Ester, I had been taking my rum ration, so I was going to have to rely on the generosity of men who hadn´t been among women in a long time. I didn´t drink to capacity, however. Perhaps I´ve been spoiled by Ebb Tide´s stores, but the rum aboard the Endurance was of a quality remarkable only for its ability to peel paint. Nevertheless, it was better than being totally sober, particularly after everyone at dinner took that nonsense about insubstantial people so seriously.
While trying to score a swallow of the stuff (wretched though it was, rum was rum) I asked one of the more drunken men about this "Jacob" with no success. "I´m Jacob," he slurred, his breath almost liquid from the heavy smell of alcohol.
"You are?" He was not. He had substance.
He nodded anyway.
"And you´ve been visiting my friends in the middle of the night?"
Again, a nod.
"Even the male ones?"
He paused before nodding a third time. I think the hesitation may have been from dizziness caused by all the nodding rather than forethought. The other guys roared with laughter. None of the other sailors were of a mind to talk about Jacob, however. Besides, the music was starting.
Before long, the dancing got underway. Some of the men were teaching Ester to dance. Amusing to watch though it was, it was an exercise in futility. The planking of the deck shook in time with the music as she…moved. Meanwhile, I flirted with Peregrine casually. Dumb jokes he gets; flirting is beyond him. A few other men asked me to dance, but most of them seemed hesitant while I was with Peregrine (although I was beginning to feel that I wasn´t so much with him as next to him). For his part, the navigator completely missed opportunity after opportunity to ask me to dance. Finally, I grabbed his wrist and tried to pull him into the action.
"I—I don´t dance," he said simply.
"Why in the world not?" I asked with my best flirtatious smile. It was a reasonable question, too. It´s not like drunken sailors do all that complicated gypsy stuff.
"I—I can´t dance."
Evidently, he wasn´t willing to learn, either, because he remained fixed in that spot as if his boots had been nailed to the timbers. He doesn´t drink and he doesn´t dance. Why am I so attracted to this guy? "Oh, fine!" I said with a roll of my eyes. The other sailors were only too happy to dance with me, but I did steal a glance back at Peregrine, rooted to the same spot as the sun sank behind him, from time to time.
As the night wore on, more and more of the men passed out or staggered back to their bunks below decks. Somehow, I lost sight of Peregrine, or I might not have decided to bed down among the hawsers on deck like the night before. I noticed that Ester, too, finally stretched out on the deck. Taking a caulk is just about the only way she has enough space to do stretch.
By morning, the wind had picked up enough to move the Endurance along at a brisk pace. As the day went on, it began blowing very hard indeed. Just before the midday meal, Captain Garvyn ordered all portholes secured, all the ballistae chained down, and all hands on deck. This information came to us by way word of mouth. Since Captain Garvyn mans the wheel during the first shift and we´ve all been assigned to the second, we´d seen little of him to that point.
Rhavin passed me just as I emerged onto the deck. "I´m going down to Nikita and telling her to…" a gust of wind blasted my ears, obscuring the next few words, "…her damn room!"
Rooms and beds, indeed! I´ve definitely fallen in with the wrong crowd, Old Man.
I looked above the commotion on deck toward the skies. Enormous black cumulonimbus clouds oppressed us from the horizon to almost directly overhead, making the huge craft suddenly feel quite small. Although I stood well away from her rails, salt mist sprayed my face from Endurance´s prow hammering of the rough seas. My bones ached with certainty that the coming storm was like to be the mother of all squalls. I scanned the deck for my friends among the bustling sailors before getting to work myself. Canliss had arrived on deck and begun climbing the rigging to help furl most of the sails. The storm sail had been raised in a last ditch effort to outrun the coming squall. However, one end of the storm sail was whipping free in the winds, and half a dozen men in the rigging struggled to master it—fortunately, Canliss was nowhere near that battle, as he would have no idea how dangerous recovering a loose sail is. I should probably speak to him about that, not that he´d be cautious even knowing that men die in the attempt to recover sails. I was guessing that there could be between ten and fifteen thousand square feet of sail on Endurance—can you even imagine that much canvas, Old Man? I´d never seen so much sail before I boarded this ship.
Everywhere on the ship, loose boxes and barrels were stowed or battened down with ropes or chains. Presumably, Kariya was below, battening down the equipment there with the other gunners. Nearby, one sailor, Stubbs, was helping Ester find an oilskin that could cover enough of the giantess to be worth it. I laughed in spite of myself at the pants, which caught Ester just below the knees, and the coat, which was stretched tight across her shoulders. The other crewmembers, who had donned oilskins, seemed lost in the normally baggy garments by comparison.
"Do I have to wear this?" Ester asked me when she spotted me.
"Well," I chuckled, "only if you want to be partially dry."
Ester seemed on the verge of pouting as she flexed her arms against the tightness across her muscular chest. She said, "I don´t mind getting wet."
"Oh, you´ll get really wet," chimed in Stubbs. "You´ll be miserable."
"But I can just go down and dry off," she said hopefully.
"There ain´t no dryin´ off."
By the look of the skies, truer words had seldom been spoken. Just the same, I declined the oilskins myself. Unlike my landlubbing friends, I don´t equate being wet with being miserable. However, this decision ruined my credibility in terms of persuading Ester to wear the oilskins offered to her.
"Then it doesn´t matter if I wear one or not," decided Ester.
"You should put one on," put in Nikita, who had arrived on deck (whether because of or in spite of what Rhavin had gone to tell her, I still don´t know). Slender Nikita was practically swimming in the oilskins she had pulled on. Underneath all the fabric, however, she looked considerably healthier. The helpful sailor scowled.
"You can´t work if you´re that wet. We´ve got somethin´ in here to fit you.´
He went back to rummaging through the box of oilskins for even larger coats and pants. I began passing out some oilskins to the other sailors as they approached. While this little drama unfolded, Basil stuck his head out of the galley, cleaver in hand, to call for volunteers to batten down the kitchen.
Ester´s head spun around toward the greasy cook. "The kitchen!"
But Stubbs wasn´t done trying to fit her, so Rhavin and Nikita ended up taking on that task. Rhavin muttered something to Nikita and she patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. I hope he isn´t still upset about the oatmeal/water scene. Having emptied one chest of oilskins, I grabbed some rope to tie it closed and lash it to the mast.
Not long afterward, I noticed that Stubbs had given up on outfitting Ester in oilskins and sent her down to secure the cargo hold. I winced, hoping they´d give her enough supervision, since Ester has no idea how to balance out the cargo below decks.
Speaking of below decks, where was Peregrine? I finished helping to tie down one more box, and headed below to find him. Kariya was emerging with the other gunners to check the state of affairs with their equipment on deck.
It was time for the change of shift by the time I found Peregrine stowing the charts and breakable navigation instruments. I helped him finish up, and we settled in to wait out the storm. When I ran out of jokes to tell Peregrine, I poked my head up to the deck to check on my friends. Sheets of rain pounded the ship´s deck and poured over her sides, while her rigging creaked with the strain against her sails and her masts in the wind. Despite the decreased visibility, I could just make out Captain Garvyn and two other men struggling with the wheel. It must have taken all of their combined strength to point the ship into the waves. If they failed to keep her on that heading, the Endurance´s timbers, stout though I had perceived them to be, would surely smash to bits. Suddenly, I spied Canliss still up there, working to get the last of the sails furled. Please, Jvelto, I prayed silently, let him hang on and not do anything too stupid. I don´t know why I worry about him. On the other hand, you know yourself how dangerous climbing the rigging and stowing loose sails can be. And Canliss doesn´t always take direction very well. Also high above the deck was Nikita, and I hoped that the sailors had helped her to secure herself to the mast. My Torodinite friend has remarkable balance, but now was scarcely the time to test it when good old—fashioned rope and sailors willing to help her use it (she still can´t tie a knot worth a damn) were available. Luckily, she usually has more sense than Canliss—or at least a clearer perception of her own mortality. I couldn´t really see her except to barely make out an oilskin—clad figure leaning on or tied to the mast.
Although Ester was now in the cargo hold, Rhavin had reemerged from the kitchen to help the few remaining men on deck. The chore for them now was to monitor the battened down gear for shifting or broken restraining lines. When the lightning illuminated the deck momentarily, I saw with relief that he had removed his boots to work on the slick planks—Rhavin is no seaman, but he´s hardly a fool. Between lashing various barrels, boxes and chests to the masts, Rhavin occasionally sneaked a look up to the crow´s nest on the mizzenmast. I didn´t suppose he could see her any better than I could.
After two hours of angry rains attacking the deck of Endurance, the storm subsided with our ship seemingly intact. Only a few sails and very little cargo had come loose, a testament to the crew considering the wickedness of the squall. Nonetheless, dinner after our shift was a cold affair as the seas were still too rough to risk fire in the galley.
Before sitting down to dinner, Nikita dashed around the mess looking for sailors in need of healing. Every blessed one of the men there allowed as how they needed some doctoring, even though I could plainly see that they only had some mild bumps and bruises. Nikita cast healing spells on many of them. I didn´t point out to her that there was more lust than pain driving these requests for her attentions. She probably knew that anyway. What a commotion! I elected to hold back—the day wasn´t entirely over, and who knew what spells might be wanted later. After a few minutes or so, she caught on and used some sailor slang to chase a few of them away. Good for her! She had been looking too terrified of the men. It´s about time she showed them a little backbone. That night, I took a caulk one more time. I wasn´t entirely sure that Nikita was healthy again, and besides, I still hadn´t had my fill of the comforting sounds of the ocean and the ship. It was raining lightly when I settled into the hawsers I´d been using as a nest, and some of the sailors thought I was a bit daft for sleeping in the drizzle. I didn´t mind the dampness or the chill, of course, so I just smiled and bid them good night. Once again, the sounds of the ocean lulled me to sleep while the men of the third shift worked through the night around me.
The next day, we dropped anchor rather than drift in the currents, for the winds had died once again. Thick fog rolled up from the ocean, reaching Endurance´s rails quickly. Although it gave an eerie look to the seascape, I sensed nothing unusual about this fog. However, before long it had become thick enough to prevent me from noticing a giantess approaching me.
Ester sounded a bit nervous when she asked, "Jven, this isn´t the Ravenloft fog, right?"
"How would I know? Anyway, this Ravenloft thing—it doesn´t seem like such a big deal," I answered.
"Well, we did almost get the plague," Ester pointed out. I guess we don´t know for sure that Nikita´s illness was the plague.
"Well, yeah," I said, "but since then, it´s been rum and parties on deck."
"And the ghosts."
"I haven´t seen the ghosts. So far, I don´t see what the big deal is."
Clearly, Ester had an easier time than I did believing what she´d been told about Jacob despite (or rather because of) the fact that she´d not stuck around to hear the details.
Over breakfast, Nikita mentioned that she could cast the nap spell again. At first, I thought she was saying that for my benefit because I looked so terrible from sleeping on deck. While lying out in the rain doesn´t bother me, Canliss´ silks are another story. However, when I glanced over at Kariya and Rhavin, I saw that they looked awful. When I asked why, Nikita answered that they had seen a sign from the prophecy last night. Something about "lifeless child of stern mother found" but instead of talking much about that, they started bitching about Jacob again. I stopped listening.
Before I could ask, Nikita handed me a note with that sly expression Torodinites get when they´re incredibly pleased with themselves.
"Oh, wait, I got this information on Peregrine for you."
The others laughed.
"Just in case you were curious," she added.
The others laughed harder. Honestly. Does she ever quit? I´m embarrassed to report that I immediately opened up the note to study her findings. The note read:
Well the first and last bits were hardly a revelation, but the "trapped" thing held my attention.
"This is curious," I said, looking to Nikita for her thoughts on this finding.
"That he´s trapped."
Someone suggested that maybe he didn´t like his job. Someone else suggested that he might be married, but that didn´t go under the heading of "success in profession." What if he can´t get off the ship? Nah, that was silly. As far as I could tell, there was no reason for Garvyn to confine his navigator to the vessel. I crumpled up the note.
"You are so nosy," I said to Nikita with a smirk as I shoved the note into my belt pouch.
"That´s why she´s so good at observation," put in Kariya, matter—of—factly.
Nikita shrugged off the remark to say, "Maybe you can find out how long he´s been with the ship and the history of it. Maybe it used to be a passenger ship." I blinked at Nikita. Why should we care if the Endurance used to be a passenger ship or a garbage scow? Had I missed something? Someone made the leap from there that we were on a "ghost ship". Geez, this Jacob character had everyone upset.
When breakfast ended, I asked Nikita to help me with my hair before my shift with Peregrine. Somehow, she got me looking presentable in time for my shift. By the time I got up on deck, the fog had obscured the red and white flag on the mizzenmast. So much for the navigation measurements, I thought as I knelt just below the starboard sterncastle for my prayers. How would Peregrine and I pass the time on our shift? I was sure I could come up with some suggestions after my morning devotions.
May your cup run over with the juice of the barley,
Jven