The Unknown: A Game of Fear, Ignorance, and Adventure

[Zemalac]

"Okay," said Deslock. "Well, then. We've found you two, but we seem to be shedding others. Pah." The explorer appeared to be deflated for a moment, the hollows of his cheeks standing out starkly. Then he took a breath that seemed to restore his usual bluster, and spoke. "Moving on. Garril, don't kill people. Yet. Unless you have a good reason for it. We'll play that one by ear."

He straightened his posture, found that he was still a good half a foot shorter than the orc, and turned to loom over Derlan instead. "And now, if you please, I'd like the pair of you to give me some idea of what you've been up to, beyond getting trapped inside active volcanoes." And then, almost as an afterthought, "Well done on surviving that, by the way."

_______________________________________​

Doctor Nexaddo heaved himself out of the fore hatch, grateful for a cool breeze after being slow roasted below deck. From nearby he could hear Grummond grumbling--there continued to be a lack of able bodies around, and there was nothing imaginable that should be causing the group to spend such an enormous amount of time on what amounted to a faulty time bomb. The volcano was still a threat, so why were they still there? The doctor's anxiousness grew the more he thought about it, sending him pacing up and down the deck railing.

Surely the Expedition shouldn't have been gone this long? How long did it take to grab a mast and drag it out to a ship? The Doctor was admittedly no sailor, but he didn't think it should take this long.

He took a deep breath, collected his thoughts and looked around for somebody to occupy his time.

 

[Shapsters]

Derlan, having picked up Deslock's attempts to appear taller than him decided to not let the taller man get the best of him, bending his head between his legs he suddenly thrust himself into a full handstand. Red, fiery hair touching the ground and orange legs sticking straight up in the air, Derlan grunted in an attempt to keep himself balanced,

"Well you see... Eurgh- I- Son of a-" Derlan shifted on his hands and wiggled his legs, "You see I was bored and looking for something to do with my natural- pguh- erm- natural... blah blah blah I'll cut to the chase I found myself trapped inside a volcano and Garril found, and saved me. Without that lovely Orc I wouldn't be here!"

Smiling at the captain, Derlan was satisfied by his explanation and more than thrilled by his handstand abilities.

 

[Zemalac]

There was a moment of silence.

Deslock began to speak, stopped himself, and knelt so he could speak easier to the handstanding elf.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "You're not, uh...fuck...the hell have you got in your bloodstream, elf? Are you high?"

 

[Shapsters]

"High? You're damn right I'm high! High on life! I just narrowly escaped out of an active volcano with no more than a scratch on my pretty head! I am more than alright my good man." Derlan now folded his body back up and worked his way back onto his feet, looking at the now crouched Deslock, Derlan continued, "Look Deslock, when it comes to me and Garril there is nothing to worry about. We've done nothing wrong in the slightest. Now the rest of the crew... can't speak for them."

 

[Zemalac]

"Right," said Deslock. "Good to hear, then." He stood back up. "I wasn't so much worried about you doing anything wrong as I was worried about having things done to you, by the way. Things can get a little...weird out in the wilderness." He paused to see if he was being understood. "Just...well. Good work keeping yourself alive, Derlan. Garril as well. Good work, both of you, in keeping Derlan alive. As I understand it Garril did about as much as you did yourself."

He turned towards the cave. "Okay. Enough dallying. Let's get the elf and the orc and leave. I mean the other elf and orc. Ice elf. You know what I mean. Tulgrog! Kadeam!"

In the mouth of the tunnel, he halted. Without turning around he said, "And Derlan? Garril? I, uh...Good to see you both survived."

 

[Shapsters]

"Well now isn't that sweet! You missed me didn't you you old dog?" Derlan grabbed Deslock and gave him a large bear hug, squeezing as hard as he good Derlan grinned a wide smiled, "Now if we're heading back I think I'll just go on my own, you folks are nice and all but you only serve to slow me down!"

With that, Derlan bowed and clambered off the rocks where he stood, taking off into a sprint he headed into the jungle.

 

[Peteron]

Tulgrog emerged from the cave, his face sweating from the heat. He took notice to the others before them, and waved to them joyfully.

"Thank God! I thought I would never get out of that fiery shithole!" He wiped his brow, grinning viciously as the sunlight hit his face. He paused, turning back towards the volcano. "Eh, Elfy will be out in a sec! Can't keep up with my speed I suppose. Haha!"

 

[Sporky111]

As predicted, Kadeam emerged from the cave soon after Tulgrog. He was panting from the heat and smoke, wiping his eyes as he emerged into the light.

"What a hellish spot that is." he commented. His clothes seemed to be wet and clinging to his body, and he promptly peeled off his cloak and wrung it out. Grey-tinged fluid flowed out of the fabric onto the ground, then he gave it a shake and pulled it back around his shoulders.

 

[Zemalac]

"Good, then," said Deslock. "Now that we're all back together, we can--uh--Kadeam, what the hell happened to you? You went into a damn volcano, how did you have an opportunity to go swimming?"

He shook his head. "Or do I not want to know? Pah. Okay. We still need to find Mr. Ristow and, uh...James?" A sailor nearby glowered and muttered assent. "Right. Let's be off. Maybe along the way someone can fill me in on what's so interesting about the tunnels in this godsdamned volcano."

 

[Zemalac]

"Spread out," Deslock had said. "Don't lose sight of each other. Try and find places someone might have holed up during the eruption. High ground and whatnot."

And so they had spread out, kept in sight of each other, and (in their minds, at least) done a pretty good job of searching the island. Sure, they couldn't look everywhere, and sure, if someone was dying in the brush ten feet from them there would be no way for them to tell through the thick vegetation, and sure, there were burned-out areas they couldn't even get to through the smoke and flames, but they did their best. There is only so much we can do, they thought. We tried.

They did not find San Ristow or the sailor James.

The day ended with Tyrone Deslock deep in a black mood, stomping through the jungle like a brooding elephant. The rest of the search party did their best to keep out of his way, with varying levels of success. Every time someone put a foot wrong they flinched, expecting the Explorer to explode at them, but each time he remained silent, mouth set, eyes glaring straight ahead.

By the time they reached the beach again the search party was a nervous wreck. They were greeted by a sailor who was blissfully unaware of Deslock's mood.

"Sir," he said, "we've got the mast on floats and ready to be pulled out to the ship, sir. Could have it up by tomorrow, if you wanted to move that fast."

Deslock, staring at the huge mast on shore, was silent.

"We'd, uh..." began the sailor, hesitating at the lack of response. "No one really wants to stay here, sir. Except some people from the Osprey who don't want to leave the old bird. The rest of us, though, we'd like to get moving again before the mountain kills us, sir."

Deslock shifted his silent gaze to the sailor, who flinched. "We've talked it over," he said, almost defensively.

The Explorer nodded, once. "Right," he said. "Good. Well done. We'll leave tomorrow."

He turned to the search party. "Get some rest, people. The sands are warm and comfortable." He glanced at the mountain above, and added "If you want to spend the night on the ship, I wouldn't blame you, though."

Spoiler: Secret Actions

Anyone who wants to do a quick secret action during the night, send it to me fast. Be warned, though: everyone is on edge because of the volcano and because of the still missing sailor and Mr. Ristow. Those sneaking about tonight are more likely to be accosted by the increasingly paranoid crew of the Cepolada.

 

[MintyNinja]

Spoiler: So that the previous post can be seen.

Because The Escapist got hungry.

 

[Yorgmiester]

Prithis nodded and turned away, striking a path back down the hill to the bay. The remainder of his day was spent strolling this way and that across the beach, collecting strange plants from the jungle's edge, and basking sleepily on the warm sand. When the sun was halfway to the horizon and there still showed no sign of the search party returning, he decided to catch a longboat ride and do some exploring on the Cepolada. The vessel was unremarkable at best, much as he expected, and the lower decks were rather cramped for the satyr's large frame. He quickly returned to the island.

As evening descended the search party finally returned, empty handed. One vindictively tyrannous Deslock rendered the landing area quiet uncongenial for a brief time, during which Prithis stood imperturbable and caught some valuable study time on human antagonism. The hubbub died down in short order, unfortunately, and Prithis soon found musings of slumber crowding their hefty girths into his brain once again. After taking polite leave of his fellow sailors (most of whom stared at him befuddled) he wandered off across the moonlit beach.

A short distance from the landing area he stopped, and shifted his hooves into a comfortable-looking indent of the sand. Leaning on his staff he turned his eyes upwards and watched the stars, as was his custom. In only a few minutes he had fallen fast asleep, with the cool tide nipping at his ankles.

 

[Zemalac]

The night was calm. Men whispered in the shadows, yes, plotting dark deeds to come, but such a thing could almost pass for normal on this Expedition. Overall it was a night of rest. There were no knives in the darkness, no poisons or mysterious fires, just the chorus of whispers from the shadowy corners and the absence of sound that was men asleep.

And then, on the horizon, a hint of light.

"RISE AND SHINE, YOU LAZY-ASS BASTARDS! YOUR MOTHER MAY HAVE LET YA SLEEP PAST SUNRISE, BUT YOU'LL FIND SHE AIN'T HERE JUST NOW!"

Thus was the Expedition awakened, to a dawn stained gray by an overcast sky.

"Who the hell is shouting?" demanded Deslock, emerging from what had been a tent before he'd been startled awake and inadvertently taken out the central pole. "Is that the bosun? It can't be dawn already, I can't see the godsdamned sun." Though much of the crew shared that feeling, they emerged grumbling from their beds all the same. It took all of ten minutes for someone to rekindle the fire from the coals of the night before, and five minutes after that for breakfast to be cooking.

Deslock ate a hard ship's biscuit topped with crab meat as he stared at the hulking mast on shore.

"How long did you say it'd take you to get that out to the Cepolada?" he asked the boatswain.

The sailor hesitated only for a moment. "Five hours, at the most," he said. "More likely three. If absolutely nothing goes wrong, two."

"Good to hear," said Deslock. "Let's get off this godsforsaken rock as soon as we can move."

"Yes, sir," said the boatswain fervently, turning to begin the day's shouting anew.

 

[Zemalac]

The hardest part was getting the mast from the water onto the Cepolada. The ship's carpenter took one look at it and declared it impossible, so it took a little longer than expected.

Captain Grummond, examining the procedure, was not happy. "We need a damn dry dock," he said, "not this jury-rigged whatever-the-hell this is."

Nevertheless, they managed, with pulleys and smashed fingers and rope and raw muscle. When the mast finally settled into place, caulked and tied down securely, the sailors cheered. And if their cheer might have been more at the prospect of getting away from the island rather than at seeing their ship repaired, well, who could blame them?

On the beach, an exchange of a graver nature was going on.

"You're quite sure you don't want to join us?" Deslock asked, for the third time.

"Certain," said Riley Lynch. "I'll take my chances with another ship passing by." In a lower voice, "To be frank, I doubt your Expedition will survive your voyage. And if I'm to die in a godsforsaken wilderness, then I'll die with the old Osprey, thank you very much."

"Well," said Deslock after a short pause. "If you're quite sure, then..."

"Absolutely," said Mr. Lynch firmly. "I won't be alone--a few of the boys are sticking around too. They feel the same as I do. Don't worry about me."

"I just hate to abandon you here, after you gave us the mast and--" Deslock started to say, before Lynch interrupted him.

"Say rather that I'm abandoning you," he said. "Abandoning your Expedition to your voyage and your continent for the safety of the Osprey."

"The safety of an island on fire," said Deslock. Lynch shrugged.

"Compared with what you're likely to see?" he said with a laugh, "I doubt the volcano will be any trouble at all."

_________________________________________​

"All right people, load up!" Deslock shouted to the Expedition. "All aboard who are coming aboard! Let's clear out!"

Spoiler: TIME-SKIP

My next post will most likely be another time-skip, this one a bit longer than the others. As such, if you want to do any secret actions behind the scenes during the voyage or while everyone is leaving the island, now is the time to tell me.

 

[Sporky111]

Spoiler: ah, barnacles . . .

I meant to post yesterday but got caught up and forgot. I hope it's not the case for everyone else, and you're all just busy with your diabolical scheme's behind the scenes.

Kadeam groaned a bit as he was awakened by the shouting nearby. A quick look out of his little cave told him it was still before dawn, so he had no idea why they were being awakened. But regardless, he sat up and stretched.

He'd never bothered with covering the end of his hideout, since he naturally preferred the cold. There was a series of soft pattering sounds as the dew rolled off his naked upper body and fell to the ground.

At least I can enjoy the chill a bit. he thought to himself as he pulled his shirt and cloak on. Morning was always a slow time for other folk, he found. The cold was always a deterrent to getting anything done in good time. But as an ice elf in a hot climate, he loved the morning for that reason.

He partook in breakfast eagerly, standing off to the side of most of the sailors who were huddled close to the fire. In fact, standing and waiting was what filled the rest of the morning for him as well. The fixing of the mast on the vessel that would take him out of there, the Cepolada, went along fairly quickly. And even better, he got to see it happen from the shore without having to contribute.

"All aboard who are coming aboard! Let's clear out!"

Looking toward the source of the voice, Kadeam spotted the seemingly always-loud Deslock. It was a bit of a grim thought that he'd be spending an indefinite amount of time under the leadership of this man, but Kadeam started towards him anyway. Some chance of getting home was better than no chance, which was what he expected that Lynch and the others who'd opted to stay had.

 

[Lost In The Void]

Cid rose to the shouting, no almost scream of this new leader Deslock, "All aboard who are coming aboard! Lets clear out!"

Cid hadn't been sleeping well anyways, it seemed that both his dreams and the real world around him were conspiring to make his life as misrable as possible and both tortured him without respite. He had looked at his destroyed silken bed sheets and was forced to leave them, the island was getting warmer and warmer, leaving him dehydrated for the most part, the food was horrid, the company smelled horrid and most of all, he hadn't had a chance to clean his suit or fix his hair since the crash of his investment. In short Cid was horrified by the turn of events thus far.

The hard labour that he knew was ahead did nothing to improve his mood as he grabbed a stale biscuit and buttered it before that delicacy vanished to the hoards of the others' stomachs. At least the morning was cool though, enough that it was worth a small blessing in Cid's eyes, he was sure that wouldn't last where they were going.

After breakfast, however he scrounged in a small bag for the small mirror that hadn't managed to break, a small miracle at that. Once Cid looked at himself though he wished it had; his face looked taunt rather than healthy due to lack of cool, his eyes had red cracks and his hair was worse than he thought. As he headed towards Deslock he kept his second eye on the mirror, trying to fix his horrible appearence; he was not a barbarian like what most of these people appeared to be and as such he wasn't about to look like one.

Spoiler: OOC

A bit of a filler post, but I figured Cid needed to do something

 

[Zemalac]

The mast was set, the tide was in, and Grummond was attempting to make it quite clear to Deslock that if they didn't leave right now they wouldn't be leaving until the tide changed again. Despite the Captain's bullhorn, he still wasn't really able to make himself heard by those on shore.

"...bastard get...wait for no man...gods of sea and thunder..."

Deslock ignored Grummond's distant rant.

"Last boat out," he said. "Everyone on the ship who's coming with us." There was a silent moment, made slightly awkward by the fact that everyone who was leaving was already in the longboat or on the Cepolada.

"You're sure..." Deslock began, but Riley interrupted him.

"Yes," he said. "Ye gods man, just go already, all right? We'll be fine. Better than fine. Just stop asking, okay?"

"Okay," said Deslock. "Right. Well, then."

Awkward silence.

"I don't suppose you could, you know, if our missing men show up..." Deslock left the sentence hanging.

"We'll look for them," promised Riley.

"Thank you." Deslock sighed. "Goodbye then, Mr. Lynch. Best of luck to you and your men."

"And to you," said Riley Lynch.

And so the last longboat left the volcanic isle with its fallen bird and its plume of ash. And so the sails were raised on the patchwork mast, and so the Expedition moved away from the island, and even further away from anything resembling civilization. There would be no more other ships, no more trade routes or old Imperial watchtowers. From here on, they were on their own.

Deslock watched the dwindling speck that was Riley Lynch, first mate of the Osprey, until he could no longer distinguish the man from the sand and trees; and then he watched until the island sank out of sight below the horizon, just another smudge against the sky.

Only then did he turn back to his ship and his crew, muttering to himself. "The hell does he know that I don't?"

_______________________________________________​

REPORT: Introduction

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce to you the madcap, action-packed island known only as the Osprey's Nest! We've got storms, we've got firefights in dark tunnels and negotiations for millions of coins across shadowed tables! But what happens when the negotiations are interrupted by someone kicking down the door, or when the frantic searching for magic in the jungles is punctuated by a volcanic eruption? Then, my friends, things get interesting! With a glorious combination of fire, gunpowder, blood and gold, ladies and gentlemen give it up for The Osprey's Nest!

REPORT: The Breakdown

Note: Please remember that I will not inform you as to how many agents were assigned to each task.

The agent tasked with acquiring certain information from the old man Daltomas, a passenger on the Osprey, succeeded partially.

The agent tasked with killing Daltomas succeeded.

The agent tasked with protecting Daltomas failed.

The agent charged with destroying Daltomas' bodyguard failed.

The agent tasked with retrieving the artifact from the volcano temple succeeded.

Spoiler: OOC

My next post will be a time-skip, and probably rather large. In the meantime, enjoy this after action report, and maybe start putting two and two together a little bit.

 

[Zemalac]

The sailors sang to themselves as they worked the days away. They sang cheerful songs when the sun was bright, they sang fearful songs when the clouds blocked the sun, and they sang dark songs in the dead of night. It didn't matter what the tune was, what mattered was the singing. When the hands are busy the mind starts to wander, and sometimes it wanders to things a sailor doesn't want to ponder.

My arms aching, back's breaking, legs aching neck
And this whole ruddy ship is a huge creaking wreck.
Flown ten thousand miles with this thorn in our sides
Though the wind's steady strong with no clouds in the skies.​

The crew did not like the Expedition, not any more at least. The Cepolada, they felt, could have made just as much of a profit quite a bit safer if they'd just stuck to ferrying goods across the Merchant's Water. All they had to worry about there was pirates and the occasional bout of politics. Out here they had to contend with gods only know what. The crew had a hard time deciding what was worse, the volcanoes and the strange animals and the storms, or the Expedition with their pistols and knives in the shadows.

A month out from the island now sardonically being called the Osprey's Nest, an elf sailor named Creewin vanished while standing the night watch. A search of the ship found no trace of him. Had they been on land, they would have said that the earth had opened up and swallowed him.

Each and every night after that the crew stood double watch.

The ropes creaking, ship's leaking, sails are on fire,
And this whole bloody ship could go up like a pyre.
We've got smiles on our faces, but we've seen this before
No telling just now what we have in store.​

Every day the lookout searched for land, with an increasing air of gloom and desperation as the days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. The ship had already had a mast replaced on the voyage (bad luck, they whispered in the shadows, bad luck to take a mast from a broken ship), and the sailors feared to think what else would need to be replaced. The sails? The entire ship? The crew?

The back-stabbing, loot-nabbing plans behind doors
Running low on the rum and depleting our stores
Can't tell who's on our side and who's ready to flip
When we hit the next port the whole crew could jump ship.​

The last few weeks of the voyage was a near-hallucinatory time. It seemed like not a day could go past without some poor soul squinting into the sun and thinking he saw a dragon's wings. The lookout swore he'd seen land in the distance just a moment ago, men thought they heard footsteps in the hold at night, and the crew daily made sacrifices of rum and fish to their old gods of the sea; the makeshift shrine they'd set up in the hold was piled high with their offerings. The sailors muttered and sweated and spoke not a word of mutiny, for the Captain's glare was everywhere and the Explorer's furious gaze oversaw everything they knew.

With the moods flaring, crew's glaring, cut-throats the lot
With a paranoid captain always smelling a plot
We've worked hard on this journey, but there's no land in sight
And before it's all ended there could be a fight.​

The storm swept up out of nowhere. The clouds were black, the waves almost swamped the decks, and the rain drove down like the bullets of the firing squad. The sky looked like the gods were fighting, the battle lines drawn by lightning and thunder.

The lookout was hesitant to say it, for he had been wrong so many times before. But here, this time, in the chaos of the storm, his eyes were giving him the truth.

"LAND HO!" he shouted from the crow's nest, unheard amid the fury of the storm. "LAND HO!"

My arms aching, back's breaking, legs aching neck
And this whole ruddy ship is a huge creaking wreck.
Flown ten thousand miles with this thorn in our sides
Though the wind's steady strong with no clouds in the skies.​

The ropes creaking, ship's leaking, sails are on fire,
And this whole bloody ship could go up like a pyre.
We've got smiles on our faces, but we've seen this before
No telling just now what we have in store.

-"Aether Shanty," Abney Park​

 

[Zemalac]

"Wake up, Deslock," said Grummond through the door. When there was no response he pounded on the wood with his fist and roared, "Wake up!"

"Fuck you," Deslock said from his cabin. "Was up all night fighting the storm. Let a man have some peace."

"You're gonna want to see this," said Gummond.

"Unless it's the Continent, I don't give a damn," said Deslock. Grummond laughed.

"Guess what?" he said.

_______________________________________​

"You were serious," said Deslock, staring.

"Would I lie to you?" said the captain, a satisfied note in his voice.

"Dunno," grunted Deslock, not taking his eyes of the most welcome sight of the voyage. "Damn me, but I was starting to think it didn't actually exist."

There, stretching before his eyes, was land. Not an island, he knew; he could see no end to the curve of the beach, no halting of the trees beyond. The sea simply stopped, and the earth began.

The Explorer knew he had practicalities to attend to, details that must be arranged. He'd thought up plans for this moment when he'd first conceived of the Expedition years ago, but for a moment he didn't remember them. He was overwhelmed by the enormity of the land before him, and for a little while at least he was content to simply drink it all in. The air after the storm tasted like wine, the water sparkled like diamonds, and the sun was like the promise of all the gold there was.

Deslock shook his head. Practical things needed to be done.

"Have you found a good anchorage?" he asked the Captain.

"Been having the lookout keep an eye out for one," said Grummond. "He thinks he's spotted a good bay."

"Good," said Deslock. "That's good. Let's get a move on, then." He turned and grinned a huge and sudden smile. "We made it," he told Grummond. "We actually made it."

The Captain nodded gruffly. "Told ya I could get you here," was all he said.

 

[MintyNinja]

Rokya quickly made his way on to the deck when he heard the news. They had actually done it, they had found the Unknown Continent. Could it still be called the Unknown Continent now? What would Deslocke name it? Maybe he was sponsored to name it something specific? These thoughts quickly disappeared as the merchant took in the view before him. A fresh start for some, a new market for others.