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Thu 17th Aug 2023 06:09

Having a whale of a time.

by Tobias Shadowmane

I sat finishing preparations on the cart with with Bogbean, Bricky and Luna as something heavy thumped onto the deck of the ship and I heard a loud roar. I ran around the cart to find Drexla and the first mate confronted by a large red eel folk with a giant hook. He swung at Drexla and the first mate tried to restrain him calling out for the captain and telling us not to hurt him because he's another crew member. Not wanting to kill an apparent crewmate I summoned up my magic in an attempt to lull the beast into a slumber, however this failed and when he hit Drexla I ran forward as the first mate grappled him. I tried to tie him up as V ran up and attempted to persuade him into calming. I attempted to tie him and the bastard bit me, finally V ran over and hit him with the but of his knife and knocked him out.
 
I somehow find myself unsurprised, unsurprised that V had another crew member he failed to mention and unsurprised that he posed unwarranted danger to everyone around him. Again when questioning V about what happened he continued to avoid answering and seemed offended we'd question his bloodthirsty uncontrolled crew. Not long after V and his crew went below deck to have some sort of discussion and I decided to start turning all of my ingredients into long lasting rations.
 
As we continued on our journey we had two weeks to ourselves and I decided to focus on my magic thinking that it may help my abilities to heal and maybe get me closer to the Twilight Mother. Luna was nice enough to take a week and show me what she knew about magic, how to shape it and draw it out. I found the week incredibly helpful and managed to spend another week forming my energy into motes of radiant light. Near the end of the second week after I exhausted the last of my magic we began to be pursued by two killer whale. columns of water began to arise from the front of the ship and V narrowly avoiding them, as he did the whales rose up on streams of water crossing over the deck of the ship and coming straight for me as I was nearest them. I've never seen such a creature that can control the water around it and use that to actively hunt ships is quite unheard of as far as I know. They hovered above the deck of the ship and as I readied myself a huge fist of water slammed into me and attempted to grapple me to no avail as I shrugged it off. Bogbean walked through the hand as if it weren't there and leapt on the back of one of the whales and I threw my spear at the other as it...(flew?..swam?) at Torvas looking for a quick meal. The whale that Bogbean rode, rose into the sky rolling over to throw her from its back. As she hit the deck Drexla shot the one that was high up, breaking its concentration and drooping it right on Bricky and Bogbean. Bricky with nary a second to lose, threw Bogbean clear of the whales crash zone, allowing himself to be crushed. One whale died as it hit the deck and the other fell by Torvas an Luna who grabbed its tail and held it in place as we finished it off. The creatures were massive, Bogbean and I were barely strong enough to lift it to allow Luna and Drexla to try and pull Bricky free, unfortunately his arm stayed beneath the monster. Luna, bless her heart, crawled underneath to retrieve his missing limb, The whale was incredibly heavy, Bogbean and I faltered in our strength dropping it on her legs before she could scramble her way from beneath. She shouted in pain and when we lifted the whale once more we found her legs severely injured and she couldn't stand on her own.
 
Bogbean did her very best to reattach Brickys arm with mild success, whilst I tried to splint Luna's legs and give her a numbing balm. We carried the two below deck so they could try to rest. Eventually Bricky awoke, his body contorting and snapping back into its original form, well as close to as bogbean could manage accidentally attaching it backwards. I will never get over how resilient of a creature he is.
 
We returned to the deck of the ship and began to plan how to get these huge whales off the deck. we decided that the whales were so big that we would need to secure everything abored and push them off at the same time as to not damage the ship. We discussed for a few minutes and began to make preparations, bricky however decided to ignore all this and test his new abilities and push one of the whales off, causing the entire ship to list drastically from one side to another launching V, Torvas, and myself overboard. V, having captained a ship for a time and being a scale kin was an expert swimmer, easily making his way aboard. I however was wearing my gear and had never really swam in deep waters, neither had Torvas. I tried to hold his reigns and keep up with the ship as they tried getting us abored. by the time I was heaved onto the deck I was exhausted.
 
The time time I've been traveling since the sky tore open I have not been visited by the twilight mother.
 
The next morning we decided to make landfall, and uh "docked the ship", we worked to unload the cart with the new crane contraption that Drexla had outfitted to the ship, and with the strength of bogbean we unloaded the cart without issue and torvas as well. I'm always amazed at how strong she is for one so small. Not long after we had been on the path we heard a noise coming from the back of the cart and found Miguel in the back eating a weeks worth of rations, anger had surged in me like I haven't felt in a long time, my father would have flogged any man in his troupe who would do some such action. I took a moment to breath and tried speaking to him rationally. Bogbean had other plans and laid into him good not that he didn't deserve but it was a bit much, especially when bricky dropped him on the ground and picked up bogbean I almost felt bad for him.
 
Further up the road we came across the aftermath of a massacare, there was bone fragments and blood all around a shredded cart. While investigating the carnage we found a large egg most likely belonging to the kankeu, as we were already on our way to the village we decided to take the youngone to there people, and after burring the remains and saying a prayer we continued onto our path and whatever it may bring.