< Indigestion | Ex Pulplogs | Name O'Spain >
ST After the last of the arrows had been fired and there seemed to be little change of more coming (at least for the moment), the Circle gathered its wits and began trying to figure out who was hurt and what had happened. There arose two slight problems. First: Oteki was bleeding rather a great deal from an arrow lodged in his ribs. Second: For no apparent reason, Corve had disappeared and where he had been taking cover there was only a patch of distu
ST disturbed black sand.
Myrrh "Oh hell...Oteki, lie down!" Looks about franticly for Carmine.
Carmine "...Corve?" Carmine calls out, then notices Oteki's brand new sucking chest wound and decides to do something about it. "Yes, lie down!" She demands, then kneels in the black sand by him and pushes essence into his wounds.
Captain Oteki appears rather... irritated by the arrow in his ribs, which is, as the narrator mentioned, bleeding rather heavily. He is staring at it with a look of confused annoyance. So confused, in fact, that it takes him a moment to formulate a proper response. But that moment passes. "Bloody... OW!" he shouts.
Myrrh defends Carmine and Oteki, holding his hands out in case he needs to direct the wind against any more arrows.
ST There is no response from Corve.
Captain Oteki coughs. "Ye folks seem to have the hardest time keepin' together." he notes with a grin.
ST A lean-bodied, sandy haired man looking vaguely familiar to the Circle (well, not Oteki) appears from behind an outcropping of rocks. Dressed in bright green lizard skins and carrying a pair of sharp-looking Moonsilver blades across his back he looks like the Lunar that appeared out of the clockwork sphere they rescued Xar from in Abundance.
Sands raises his hands away from his weapons to show the Circle he means no harm and offers them a slightly mocking smile.
Myrrh "...how did you get out? Also you might want to look out for any flying arrows..."
Carmine pulls the arrow out as the wound closes up around it, only slightly destroying Oteki's shirt with gouts of blood as she does so. "There."
Sands "I swam, flew and variously otherwise moved myself to assorted locations, ending in here. But I just thought to let you know that you shouldn't be here. It's rather dangerous. Seems your friend has already learned that."
Captain Oteki sits up. "I'll be needin' a new shirt." he states flatly. "Remind me t'appropriate one from whoever it is that shot me after I jab 'im in the eye with this arrow."
Myrrh "What do you mean? Did something happen to Corve?
Carmine "I don't think that black bandages would suit you..." she notes as she looks up.
Sands "I'd assume so, since he's been shot with an arrow." Sands cocks his head, apparently amused that Myrrh failed to notice "Corve" getting shot.
Captain Oteki gives Carmine a sly smile. "Ye'd be surprised. I've been told I look rather dashin' in black. Then again, that sort o'comment mostly comes out o'the mouths o'impressionable young noblewomen, and they'd think I be dashin' if I were wearin' sackcloth."
Carmine just raises an eyebrow then stands gracefully.
Myrrh "He's not Corve. Corve was the scruffy guy, the one who unlocked your cage."
Myrrh "Corve just sort of...disappeared."
Sands "Oh. Well then I guess two of your friends learned that."
Captain Oteki stands, and sorts himself out, brushing black sand out of his hair and adjusting his (originally) white sleeveless shirt. "Now, first thing's first." he mutters to himself, before focusing on Sands. "Who the hell are ye, anyway?"
Carmine eyes Sands very oddly.
Xar`Rex{S} tries to open his eyes, and finds the option of keeping them closed is more pleasant. He pushes against the walls surrounding him, then, as he did once before when imprisoned with Sands, hauls back and punches the wall, growling. To the bystanders, Sands' stomach bulges, and he grunts in mild pain.
Carmine "..Is something the matter with your stomach?"
Sands "Ate something that didn't agree with me." He coughs. "I'm Sands."
Myrrh "Did you happen to see Xar anywhere? He seems to have gone missing as well.
Captain Oteki nods. "Well then, ahoy thar, Sands. Thank ye for the warnin' about the dangers o'this 'ere island."
Sands "He might well have gotten in over his head. It's fair easy on this little rock."
Myrrh "You don't say...what makes this place so dangerous?
Myrrh "Other than the abyssal mummy who shoots arrows."
Captain Oteki slips the arrow that pierced his side into his satchel, among the dozens of other ultimately useless things he carries around in there.
Sands "Don't know about any mummies, but there's things under the sand. Nasty things. And, well, arrows keep flying around for no reason. All sorts of nasty monsters up here too. Better to just find somewhere else to be."
Xar`Rex{S} takes a moment to shift a little, trying to ease the pain of his wounds, then starts chewing.
Myrrh "Can't unfortunately. Now we've got to find Corve and Xar...and I suppose the mummy."
Sands rubs a hand on his belly, looking unhappy. He frowns and grunts.
Myrrh "...are you alright?"
Myrrh "You haven't been shot with an arrow have you?"
Xar`Rex{S} swallows a chunk, and takes another bite, methodically.
Captain Oteki produces a little jar and scoops a little of the black sand into it, dropping that into his satchel as well.
Carmine "Are you sure you don't want me to take a look at you..?"
Sands "I'm fine."
Carmine "You look pretty uncomfortable..."
Xar`Rex{S} groans as he is crushed further, acid dripping into his wounds, and slips back into unconsciousness. Sands upset stomach seems to have stopped bothering him now.
Sands "I'm feeling better."
Myrrh "Well alright. If you know so much about this island maybe you can show us around?
Sands "I'm afraid that might be fair stupid. Maybe you take my advice and leave? Your friends might come find you later."
Carmine "No, we need to find them /now/. We're not leaving without them."
Captain Oteki starts wandering about. "Oy, there, lovely lady," he calls, "I'm gonna take a look around, seein' as yer sandy associate here seems unable to serve as a particularly useful guide. Do me a favor and rush to me aid should I be shot again, or maimed in some way, aye?"
Myrrh "I'm with Carmine. Xar should go off on his own against a bunch of monsters."
Sands shakes his head, looking annoyed.
Carmine "I'm not sure your shirt can survive much more of that, so try to be careful..."
Captain Oteki whistles merrily as he wanders around, taking in the sights.
Sands "Your friends might not want you to get hurt looking for them. Might even be unsafe if you make someone get nervous."
Carmine "And who might that someone be?"
Sands shrugs. "Don't know. Might be sad for your friends though."
Captain Oteki calls from his ever-widening circle of exploration: "I already been hurt, an' ye know what they say, in for a penny, in for a pound, or... whatever that be in the local currency..."
Myrrh "You know if your stomache is hurting you maybe I could get Carmine to take a look or have one of the bugs check you over?"
Sands "I don't much enjoy things crawling around inside me, thanks."
Xar`Rex{S} snorts, Sands' words loud in his ears, pulling him back into bleary awareness. He stays still, though, recovering his strength somewhat.
Carmine shakes her head. "We should just go look with Oteki, Myrrh."
Sands catches Carmine's arm as she starts walking away. "You want to leave the island before those two find any more of your friends."
Carmine "We want our friends back from them. You can help us or stay out of the *way!*"
Captain Oteki continues wandering, but pays attention to the conversation, and grins at that last bit. "Actually, I've often wondered at th' benefits an' drawbacks o'bein' one of those "Abyssaly" types. It'd be nice to have a first 'and account. Maybe the denizens o'this island would like to discuss it over a good strong drink?"
Sands "If you leave now, I'll give you the lizard back."
Carmine whirls on him. "What do you mean by that comment?"
Myrrh "What do you mean give him back?"
Sands "I speak plain enough. You're wasting time here. Leave and you can have him back."
Captain Oteki looks under some nearby rocks, poking around with a stick. "Maybe 'is stomach troubles 'ave more to do with /who he ate than what/, aye?"
Myrrh narrows his eyes...that goat fucking BASTARD! Nobody does that to poor Xar. "Carmine, be a dear and hack this man open?"
Xar`Rex{S} snorts again, "Give me back? I don't need you to *let me go*" although all that comes out is muffled noise. He stretches a little, then focuses, and calls up the ancestral form of the dragon kings, his body growing, pushing against the walls of his prison which expand neatly to accompany him. He roars, and his teeth flash white in the darkness, where no one can see.
Carmine "I am not leaving without CORVE!" She explains, at volume, her castemark flaring as she activates combat magics.
Sands "And cut your friend open too?"
Myrrh "Oh I don't know, she's very good with a sharp object..."
Captain Oteki "If ye just take off 'is head, I'm sure I've got a knife in my satchel somewhere so we can carve 'im out at our leisure!" Oh hey look, some shrubs! *poke poke*
Xar`Rex{S} strikes, tearing into his prison walls with fang and claw, tearing bloody chunks away with great shakes of his head.
Sands staggers and coughs up flecks of blood before his Castemark, a crescent moon, flares silver-blue-violet and the lean-bodied man disappears, replaced by a flock of green-plumed birds that fly up into the sky, shrieking their anger.
Xar`Rex{S} continues to lash out, although he feels oddly displaced and altogether not there.
Captain Oteki blinks a little at that. "Well I weren't expectin' that..." he mutters from amidst the very uninteresting shrubs.
Myrrh "I'm not so sure if I should start shooting birds...":
Carmine "Doesn't that thing have a stun mode?"
Myrrh "Oh! Right!" Opens fire on the flock of birds!
Captain Oteki frowns. "Ye know, if yer draconic friend be inside that there flock o'birds, it might be a bad idea to, ye know, separate them from one another. Reformin' without, say, part o'Xar's head might be... unpleasant."
Myrrh "Well if I can get them all I won't need to worry!
Myrrh "T Hen? again how do we tie up someone turned into a flock of birds?"
Xar`Rex{S} roars as pain seems to come from twelve places at once, but is undeterred
Captain Oteki roots through his satchel. "I probably have a net in here somewhere, in case o'fishin'."
Myrrh "A net huh?"
Captain Oteki pulls out a fairly large mess of fishnetting. "Aye."
Myrrh "Hand it over!" Myrrh starts rapidly altering his rifle in a manner that would probably only made sense to Xar.
Captain Oteki throws the net at Myrrh.
Myrrh starts stuffing the net down a strange second barrel under the first one.
Myrrh after finaly stuffing all of the net into the strange device Myrrh takes careful aim and the nearest bird! "I hope this works better than the original tests..." Myrrh FIR Es? and flings the net to capture one of the birds!
Myrrh swears a litany of curses that would make Corve blanch as the bird dodges the net narrowly. "The goat felcher is in twelve different bodies! He should atleast be distracted!"
Captain Oteki watches his net fly through the air, and follows it's arc toward where it lands. He goes after it. "Note to self," he mutters quietly, "Get Myrrh to teach me how to use a gun."
Sands sends one of himselves back to circle around the Solars. It caws down at them "You can have him back if you leave!"
Captain Oteki "Fine, then! Give me back me dragon, and I'll be on me way, aye?!"
Sands "And the rest of you?"
Myrrh "You are one ungratful...whatever the hell you are."
Myrrh "We save you and you EAT Xar?!"
Sands "Leave the island! Back on your boat!"
Myrrh And what exactly did they pay you to eat Corve?"
Captain Oteki sends Jin to get the crew to bring the Ill Omen back down. "I don't know about ye, but the sure chance o'gettin' one o'me friends back is certainly better'n nothin'."
Sands "I know nothing of him, but leave or you will be missing two friends instead of one!"
Myrrh looks at Carmine. He certainly doesn't want her going berzerk and gutting the bird...
Captain Oteki strides back toward the others. "We be in a severely hampered bargainin' position, ladies an' gents." he says with a frown. "We be needin' to recconoiter an' figure out a more likely method t'get Corve back."
Carmine "I'm /not/ leaving Corve here." she says firmly.
Captain Oteki looks Carmine in the eye. "We ain't leavin' nobody nowhere. We're gettin' off the island an' figurin' out what to do next. I understan' ye have feelins for th'gent, but lettin' one friend suffer to save another ain't a good tactic, an' both you an' I know that."
Myrrh thinks for a moment. Damn monsters. Corve had better be alright!
Carmine narrows her eyes at Oteki, but very reluctantly nods
Captain Oteki nods turns back to Sands. "Aye, we be leavin'. Ye need a ride somewhere, bird-brain?"
Sands "Fly to 10 miles out, I will return your lizard then!"
Captain Oteki "I be waitin' for me ship, ye fethin' ingrate. Ye can stop yellin'."
Myrrh glares daggers at Sands. He definitely could use a good ice horneting...
Captain Oteki waits for the inevitable arrival of the Ill Omen, and for the crew to toss down ropes. He then climbs onto the deck.
Xar`Rex{S} floats around in confusion and impatience
Carmine gets onboard the boat.
Myrrh follows Carmine, one final glance back at Sands.
Sands keeps his word and, after the Omen has retreated to 10 miles from the island without incident, Xar is returned. One of the birds that the blond-haired Lunar had become lands briefly on the deck, lays an egg and flies off.
Captain Oteki stomps off to his cabin, looking rather... unpleasant.
Xar`Rex{S} blinks as he is surrounded by something different, taps at it, and breaks it open. The egg shatters, and a sticky, goo-covered Tyrannosaurus-shaped Dragon-King is sprawled on the deck.
Myrrh "...I think i'm going to be sick. Xar, are you alright?"
ST The birds that Sands had become are now nothing but distant specks and then, gone.
Captain Oteki returns from his cabin sometime later, still rather angry-looking, except this time holding a box. "Myrrh." he says, much of his usual joviality missing. "I think ye might be able to help me with somethin'."
Xar`Rex "I need a bath."
Xar`Rex shrinks, returning to his natural form, and losing the grey-white cast of his stone form.
Myrrh glances away from the...messy...xar to Oteki "What do you need help with?"
Carmine "Xar! Are you alright?"
Xar`Rex "I am... but I am confused. Sands attacked me, but says he does not work with the Dark One. I do not understand."
Captain Oteki sets the rather attractive wood case on a nearby table, which appears to have been made from some sort of extremely large spool. "I be needin' ye to teach me how to fire a gun. I be rather sick o' standin' by helplessly if me enemy is more than a couple o'meters off th'ground. Do ye have any experience with the use o'smaller firearms?"
Carmine "I don't think anything we found down there was real, Xar."
Xar`Rex "He is here. He is real." he holds up a dripping claw, then turns slightly, showing newly repaired flesh on his shoulder. "He BIT me."
Myrrh "Maybe he's just an asshole?"
Carmine looks at his shoulder with concern. "But he didn't know us. And neither does Oteki!"
Xar`Rex "He remembered me."
Carmine "Perhaps he was lying then. To one of us."
Xar`Rex "He asked about you..."
Captain Oteki fiddles with a number of locks on the case. "I still say ye be havin' prophetic dreams o'some sort." he mutters, and then opens the case, and pulling out what looks like a large, heavy, blocky revolver, made of bluish steel, wrappings of golden orichalcum wire, and several dimly-glowing sections of intricately carved yellow jade. "I need to be knowin' how to use this properly before we be wrestin' Corve from th'hands o'that
Carmine "Oh ..."
Xar`Rex "Corve, what happened to him? Sands said he did not know."
Carmine "He just VANISHED."
Myrrh "He dodged the arrow and then...disappeared. I wonder why the island is so important to that savage."
Xar`Rex "Tell me, how. What arrow?"
Myrrh The abyssal started shooting arrows at us! He got Oteki."
Captain Oteki pulls an arrow from his satchel, dropping it on the table, while staring at the revolver in his hand.
Xar`Rex "He wanted to get you away from the Dark One... on the island."
Myrrh "Which Dark One?"
Myrrh "We certainly seem to be meeting our share lately."
Xar`Rex "Falling Darkness."
Myrrh "Well Oteki...sure I can teach you how to shoot. We could use another gun at any rate. This Darkness fellow is a rough guy."
Captain Oteki nods. "I be gettin' that impression, an' that be why we left. We ain't gonna get nowhere if we just bash our collective heads against every obstacle that we be runnin' into."
Xar`Rex "I'll be right back." The dragon king stands, and leaps over the side of the airship, plummeting down through the air to land in the water with nary a splash.
Carmine "..Xa...arr.." Carmine looks upset
Myrrh "If he goes back to the island again I'm going to kill him...well not kill him. But I think I might hobble him."
Myrrh looks over the side of the ship
Xar`Rex emerges a few seconds later, doing a sort of reverse dive from the water into the air, spreads his wings and flies back to the ship. He lands on the railing, grasping it with the claws of his feet, and shakes himself. "I feel better."
Carmine "...what was that for?"
Xar`Rex "I needed a bath." he flicks the last of the water from his scales.
Carmine "Ohh."
Xar`Rex "I smell better now." His nostrils flare.
Carmine smiles
Xar`Rex "Now I need to rest, I think." He looks for a sunny spot, and sprawls out in it with a deep sigh. "We will rescue Corve soon, yes?"
Myrrh "Let's hope!"
Captain Oteki nods. "Ye can count on it, big guy. I been placed in somethin' of a foul mood about th'whole thing."
Carmine "Yes!"
Xar`Rex "Yes, I am in this foul mood too."
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