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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4927061" data-attributes="member: 3285">Lady Quay: Part 1 – A Woman in NeedCaptain Miro was striking in appearance, especially for a woman in her fifties.  Her short, spiked hair was the color of her cutlass blade, a vibrant silver. She was seldom without a sweat-stained strip of red silk tied around her head.  The headband matched her waistcoat, the buttons of which were pure gold, as were the hop rings that dangled from her ears. Like many sailors, Miro spent her life barefoot, the better to tread the canting deck and navigate the shrouds.“She was a real looker once,” said Kham, staring at her from the other side of the ship.In her youth Miro must have been an arresting beauty, but the rigors of her trade left their mark in the wrinkles at her eyes and in the coarseness of her skin.  Still, she was a handsome woman, if a somewhat unrefined one. Vlad smirked.  “She seems very sad.”“A pirate’s life is sadness and woe.” Kham spun on one heel, encompassing the ship.  “We're rascals, scoundrels, villains, and knaves,” sang Kham.  Vlad looked dubiously at Kham. “You’re drunk.”“We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs,” sang Kham.“Drink up, me 'earties,” shouted some of the crew in chorus, “yo ho!”Kham chuckled and sighed.  “Where’s the elf when you need a good song?”“What’s gotten into you?” asked Vlad in irritation.  Kham laughed again.  “You mean this?” he tore off the scarf he wore on the ship and pointed to the yellowish wound.  It would never heal correctly.  “Or do you mean the fact that my powers don’t work?”“What?” asked Vlad in disbelief.  “Since when?”“Since we closed Carcosa.”  Kham was somewhere between giggling and crying.  “I can’t walk between worlds anymore because there’s no world to walk, you see.”“Something off the port bow!” shouted a crewman.No more than fifty yards off the port bow floated a small, crudely built raft.  The craft had been lashed together of ill-fitting timber, sporting a single mast that bore a sail that appeared to have once served duty as a bed sheet.  One end of the pitiful raft was partially submerged, due in no small part to the large, seaweed-laden chest encumbering it.  Water lapped over the legs of the raft’s single passenger, a woman in a sodden evening gown who pulled determinedly at the sea with a broken paddle.“Mr. val’Abebi?” asked Captain Miro wearily.  “Would you like to rescue the damsel in distress?”“Oh sure,” said Kham.  He took two steps forward and then slipped.  Kham let out a loud belly laugh.  “Maybe later!”Vlad shook his head.  “I’ll do it.”“It’s a trap,” said Sebastian matter-of-factly.  He flapped down from the crow’s nest, serving as lookout.  No crewman begrudged the dark-kin of the duty. “Well we can’t just leave her out there.” The crew obliged Vlad with a small rowboat and lowered him over the side of the Lady Quay.  “Hello?” Vlad rowed towards the woman. “Do you need help?”The woman scowled back at Vlad and continued to paddle the raft as if intent on keeping the contents of her chest to herself.  Vlad rowed closer. “Hello? Do you speak Coryani?”The woman stopped paddling.  Vlad threw her a rope.She immediately began trying to lash her beloved chest to the rope, but it was clear she couldn’t manage the feat without assistance.  Vlad rowed closer to help.Suddenly, the woman melted into a pile of seaweed. A second later, four horse-like beings reared up around Vlad, sculpted of seaweed.  “Kelpies!”  Kham rolled over on the ship’s deck in a fit of laughter.  “He got suckered in by kelpies!”Vlad drew his sword and slashed outwards.  The things threatened to smother him with sopping seaweed, striking with their sodden hooves.“He’s surrounded!” shouted Captain Miro.  “On my mark,” shouted Sebastian, “flip the rowboat over.”“What?” asked Vlad, desperately trying to defend himself from all sides.“You heard me.  Do it now!”Vlad grabbed hold of the edges of his rowboat and heaved sideways.  The boat rolled, dunking him underwater. “Incendiaries globus!”A ball of fire engulfed the kelpies.  The kelp easily ignited.  Their screams were a bizarre mix of a horse’s whinny and a woman’s shriek.  In moments, all that was left was blackened bits of kelp and the floating chest.  A second later, Vlad’s rowboat flipped over, the floating chest purchased next to him.  He looked around, sputtering.“What just happened?” asked Vlad.</blockquote>

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