FISTINGLY DELICIOUS
Just before the Dawnchaser dived beneath the waves, he'd received urgent communications from the bridge crew for him to dock.
And it was a good thing he did. Yub Yub hopped off the gyro as soon as it was secured and scampered for the interior. The Gearborn hung back to watch the ship's descent into the deeps.
And into a familiar sight... Gav looked over the railing to see the spires of the underwater city in the distance.
"This is all rather familiar," he muttered to himself. Gav checked his movements. Slower than usual, but then again, they were underwater. He shrugged and went off to find someone, anyone, to talk to.
The hits keep rollin'!
The Maid
"Beats me if I know, Yathe. But I can tell this will be good already" says the Captain as she leans forward towards the glass in the newly erected wheel room.
Though the Captain frowned a little as she noticed the people outside not floating in the water and the tone of the ambient "Could it be...?"
Throwing caution to the wind and being forward as she tends to be, the Captain presses a button on the board before her... and the walls and glass before her go down, leaving the platform bare as it was before... and letting all the water outside rush into her and Yathe.
Though it soon enough proved to feel a bit different than expected. It felt much lighter than water and easy to move though. It also was quite warm for the depth at which they must be. And to boot... it carried sound quite easily "Ah! Light water. Very very interesting... the whole city must be built for it" says the Captain as she walks out into the deck giving Dax a little pat in the shoulder "Breathe, it is completely harmless... and everyone get out here!"
"Very, very interesting... Jeina do prepare us for an expedition out there" says the Captain... though soon enough she would notice that the Yeoman was not next to her. She fished for a little crystal device on her pockets before speaking to it "Jeina? Jeina? Hello?"
Ah yes. They Yeoman is missing.
If I'm sure of something it's that I'm not sure of anything.
"I don't trust this water," Dax said, still holding his breath. "I'll make sure to keep some air handy just in case. But you can't find Jeina?" Looking around, and not seeing her, he added, "Maybe she was hungry?" and ran down into the ship, yelling, "Jeinaaaaaaaaaaaa!" repeatedly as he made his way down to the mess hall. "Jeina, where are you, this isn't funny."
"Oh no," Fabius said, hearing a screaming elph in the distance. "Pretty girl is missing? Fabius will save!" Dropping the ball he was trying to hand to Nora, he started running around wildly looking for the Yeoman.
"Misses Yeoman, is okay come out, is just Fabius, is not barbarian death squads!"
Light for a human was not light for a pixie. Yathe found herself knocked over in the air as the water crashed into her, sending her tumbling inside its supernatural current. The air was knocked out of her and water rushed in its place. She thrashed for a bit before realizing that she was breathing just fine.
"What in the world?" Yathe said in awe. She looked around, everyone seemed to be fine after recovering from the shock. Everyone except Yeoman Jeina, who was missing.
The pixie tried to fly but her wings did not feel right. Of course! She was in water. Yathe mentally kicked herself for missing the obvious. She was not so much flying as swimming with her wings. An oddity by itself since Yathe could not swim normally, hence why she avoided using the large communal bath during wash time. Now she was treading the water almost as if it was air. There was still a noticeable drag though, and the feeling that when she stopped she would start sinking to the floor.
Nevertheless, she pumped her wings and went higher. Looking this way and that, she scanned the area for the missing crew woman.
"No sign of her from up there." She reported to the captain after descending.
FISTINGLY DELICIOUS
The call filtered down onto the deck for any idle crewmembers to join in the search for the missing yeowoman, Jeina. Gav joined up with a few others on their search, starting in the decks and the stairs and paths leading up to the bridge and everywhere else.
The hits keep rollin'!
The Maid
And then, no matter how much they looked and where they did so, the Yeoman would not be found within the ship.
The Captain furrowed her brow and then inspected the little crystal device she used to communicate "Well... according to what I know, had something grave happened to Jeina this gem would lose its glow. So, I can only conclude one thing. Whatever forces brought the ship down to this city must have taken our dear Yeoman with us during submersion"
"Thus! We must now conduct a search for Jeina, heading towards this ruined city and confront the nature of whatever lies in wait!"
If I'm sure of something it's that I'm not sure of anything.
"Captain." The voice of the ship's engineer spoke back to the captain through her communication device. "Does this ship have a means of propulsion other than the sails which we can use? Unless you mean to suggest the crew depart from the Dawnchaser to approach those ruins, we will require a means of moving.
"Also, I've raised the shields to prevent this strange water from entering into the ship. While it appears safe for the moment, I request expanding the shield to the deck as well, pushing it out and allowing all of you to breathe in normal oxygen... for however long that may last. If the force that dragged down the ship is linked to the crew not drowning, I would advise caution against taking in that 'water' for much longer."
Nora meanwhile, helping the crew members scour the ship for their missing Yeoman, wondered to herself why anyone would take their Jeina.
"...maybe some sea king wanted her for a wife or something?" she said to no one in particular.
"Make her wife?" Fabius said in disbelief, hearing what Nora had said. "Not if-a Fabius say anything about it." He brought up his right hand and clenched it into fist. "Barbarian bastard stealing pretty womens have another thing a-comings."
"Jeeiii....naaaa....," Dax had been everywhere on the ship and was pretty tired. Well, not everywhere, this place was huge. He was calling out for the Yeoman with no luck wherever he went, though. Now, he was hopelessly lost - part of him wondered if he was even on the ship anymore.
He heard something coming from a door up ahead and figured it had to be a person. And they probably knew the way out. Walking briskly through, he saw it was a woman near some fancy-looking dials. Probably the engine room or something. But, something about her seemed familiar, but it was all fuzzy. He couldn't quite remember where he had seen her.
"Oh, uh... heyyyyyy.... how's it goin'?" he asked, walking towards her with his hands in his jacket pockets.
The Maid
"This will be a on-foot mission, Corona. The ship will remain where it is for now. Light Water is not harmful to the organism, but if we encounter any problems I'm sure our magic users will be kind enough to provide a solution to a lack of air" says the Captain through the communication apparatus, before she presses a button on the dashboard of the wheel.
Then from the side of the ship a plank was lowered to the rocky terrain underneath the ship and the Captain proceeded to move towards it "Fighters, to me. Everyone else, its your choice if you wish to come save our dear little Yeoman from the scales of some merman king"
If I'm sure of something it's that I'm not sure of anything.
One one hand, staying on the ship seemed the safest choice to Yathelalina. On the other, it was hard to recount in her journal what would take place with the rescuers if she was not there to witness it herself. Second hand accounts would help but then what was the point of coming on this voyage if she wasn't going to see these events with her own eyes? The pixie has hid during the battle with the pirates but there was not anything she could have done then. Everyone was ten times her size! Here at least, everyone was going in as blind as her, so the handicap put them all on equal footing.
Besides, if whatever had caused Jeina to disappear had plucked her right off the Dawnchaser, then the ship probably was not any safer than the open sea anyway.
"Captain!" Yathe fluttered as best she could in the water to the human woman before descending (sinking?) onto her shoulder. "I'm coming with you. Perhaps I can see from a higher vantage point."
"Is good attitude, little flying one," Fabius said, still clenching a fist as he spoke. "And Fabius is a-coming too - Fabius will bring emergency supply," his fist became an open palm, and patted the medical bag in his left hand, "And perform autopsy on barbarian fish king when he is to the death, yes?"
FISTINGLY DELICIOUS
"Who's gonna cut fishpeople open? Are we gonna cut fishpeople open?"
Gav was behind the vampire, looking as if he just swung by as he was helping to look for Jeina. Apparently he might not have gotten the memo, which didn't explain why he was holding a what appeared to be a modified rivet gun. Given the blankness of his face, it was difficult to tell what feeling he was expressing.
"'Cause they might not like that, you know..."
edited 8th Mar '13 6:11:02 PM by mantlemask
The hits keep rollin'!
"Here!" Nora rushed over to the Captain, raising her hand up from behind Fabius's back. "And yeah, let's go show that fish king that Jeina doesn't belong to him - she belongs to the Captain!"
Meanwhile, in the engine room, Corona stared at Dax somewhat blankly.
"...it's going alright," she finally responded, before answering the Captain's call. "I will come with you. My talents could be of use in your search."
Turning back to the elph, she proceeded to walk past him and motioned him to follow. "I'll lead you back to the deck. The engine room is off limits to non-engineers."
The Maid
"My heart fills with warm at seeing you all gathering with me to explore the unknown and to rescue or dear Yeoman!" says the Captain with a big smile as she hops onto the railing of the ship "Alright then, everyone that's coming hurry up! The rest hold the fort right here"
With that, the Captain of the ship jumped right off the board of the ship... the Light Water making it so that she hits the rocky floor relatively lightly. All the while ignoring the plank that she herself lowered at the side of the ship.
"I say we go through the city... on course to that building on the top of the hill. It will give us a good vantage point to better see the far off palace and we might something of importance in such a magnificent place" says John as he walks down the plank, letting Elias take care of keeping the ship safe on this opportunity.
If I'm sure of something it's that I'm not sure of anything.
"Thanks!" Dax said, following the engineer back out. He made sure to take another big breath of air before he went out, too. Not telling what that water would do to you.
"Is good you have warm heart," Fabius said as he tagged along. "Cold heart belong to fish barbarian. For now, at least."
FISTINGLY DELICIOUS
"Actually, I don't think it's a heart, per se," Gav began dubiously as he attached the rivet gun. "It's more like a... Wait, did you mean that metaphorically?"
He followed the captain as she jumped off the rail, his blue eyes glowing bright against the dimness of the water.
edited 12th Mar '13 10:25:51 PM by mantlemask
The hits keep rollin'!
"I... think he does...?" There was a pause in Nora's words as she started wondering that herself. Shrugging, the warrior girl hopped after the Captain, kicking up a small clout of dust from the sea floor as she landed.
Corona, meanwhile, emerged from the trapdoor with Dax, giving Elias a small nod before following John down the plank. "My apologies for my lateness, Captain. The engine room is some distance from the exit."
"You will solve mystery for sure once you stick large pointy metal sword in where his heart is or is not, no?" Fabius said to Nora as he walked. "Or if you make heart fly out with gun, that work too," he added to Gav.
"Hey, where are you guys going, aren't we looking for Jeina?" Dax asked when he and Corona came out of the ship and started walking with the others.
"What makes you think there's a barba- Woah!"
Yathe's words were interrupted when the shoulder she was sitting on, the captain's, suddenly vaulted over the rails and off the ship. She clung to the human woman's shirt to avoid being knocked off and left behind. Light Water or not, a pixie was just inferior to everyone else when in water. Hitching a ride with one of her giant comrades was the best method of travel right now.
She shot an unhappy glance at the captain, who couldn't see it since the pixie was out of her immediate field of vision, before hearing the others eagerly discuss filleting fishmen. Lugheads, the lot of them, Yathe thought dismissively.
"I agree with John." she said. "In fact, I could just hover up and - "
The shadow of a shark cruising above went by just as Yathelalina's feet had left the captain's shoulder. The quickly returned there. "Never mind. I'll stay right here."
Corona and Dax's words reached her just as she settled down again.
"According to our merry band of adventurers, the yeoman's been taken by mermaids." the pixie said sarcastically. "We're going into the ruins to see if we can get a better vantage point of where she might be from there." She pointed towards the building on the hill at the word, 'there'.
The Maid
Thus, the adventurous party of explorers set off into the mysterious sunken city that lay before them.
It was not a long way until they found the first homes, deserted of seemingly all life but small fishes and other such sea life. The building were mostly made of rock, nice evenly carved stones, sturdy enough to last centuries as some of them looked.
The insides were mostly bare except for the odd abandoned stone shrine and some vases which in some moment must have borne marvelous images painted upon them. However, time and the current of Light Water seems to have done their work to pick the ceramic almost bare. Their walk was mostly uninterrupted until they reached the base of the hill which led into the massive temple which was their destination.
"Hazard a guess of what we might find at the top?" asked their intrepid Captain.
If I'm sure of something it's that I'm not sure of anything.
The entire ship sank - or, rather, dived - into the ocean. Yathelalina watched from a porthole as the ocean enveloped the Dawnchaser. The salty air being replaced by the salty sea. Clear blue water went on for as far she could see. Displaced schools of fish scurrying away as the giant vessel descended into their territory.
The pixie's breath was caught in her throat as the sunken city came into view. The magnificent structures held her spellbound as her eyes took in every building, the unbroken and the decaying alike. It was not like anything she had ever seen before, of heard before, for that matter.
"The captain." Yathe said suddenly. The pixie zipped down the hall, looking for where the ca[tain would be until she found her.
"Captain! Where on Earth are we?" She pointed outside to the ruins. "Just what the heck is that? "