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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jairami" data-source="post: 134133" data-attributes="member: 1148">Khuuld's body rapidly cooled as it lay on the deck, tendrils of yellowed brown and sickly purple snaking across his body as his lifeblood leeched away.  But if there is one thing Khuuld possesses, it is a stubborn determination to live.  Before Collin or Andrew could even get to him to bind his wounds, his breathing had stabilized*.  While still shallow, he no longer appeared to be dying.Frederick, besides muscle spasms and uncontrolled twitching, appeared to be alive and unharmed, but he was catatonic.Dragging them into the crew's quarters, the remaining party set the two of them on bunks to recover.  Tylette attempted to administer to their wounds, but without any formal training, the best she could do was try to comfort them.  Caema and his mates were clustered below decks, wide-eyed and whispering when Collin found them.  He tried to reassure them, but it ended up taking an order to get them moving.  Stretching even thinner, they manned the ship as best they could and it limped along to the south.It took Khuuld three days to wake from his fitful slumber, dried blood adhered old makeshift bandages to the wounds across his upper chest and sides.  Stumbling into the daylight the first thing he heard was Tylette's gasp.  Khuuld's brush with death apparently had had some negative effects upon him.  His black eyes and jet black hair remained unchanged, but his skin had turned the sickly pallor of a week-old bruise, a putrid yellowed brown color.  His stretched features were somewhat reminiscent of the gaunt skeletal figure she had seen torturing Khuuld in her vision.Stumbling over to the edge of the ship he waived her off and dry heaved until he was spitting up blood.  Then he collapsed against the banister to sit and in pain trying to recover his strength.The next morning Frederick came to.  Alive and seemingly unharmed he berated himself endlessly for what had happened.  To his mind, he had failed his friends and Equitus again.  Worse, instead of falling in combat trying to defend his friends, he had passed out in fear.  He knew nothing of the hags' supernatural abilities, and looking around and finding himself the only one laid out on a bunk just added further fuel to his growing fire of self-hatred.As he sat there railing against himself, he was further angered by his inactivity and with that buried his emotions to fester as guilt and began to see about doing what needed to be done.  His prayers brought him a sense of peace and forgiveness but he pushed it away brusquely feeling he did not deserve it.Up on deck, the sails were full and the ship appeared to be making good progress to the south.  He nodded to this and then saw Khuuld working the ropes.  At the sight of him, Frederick seriously considered pitching himself overboard and letting his armor drag him to what he felt was his duly earned reward.  But any self-pity was stomped on promptly by Khuuld who noticed him standing there doing nothing.Khuuld barked at him, "Yeh're always goin' on 'bout 'ow yeh're gonna tayke care o' me.  'ow it's so bloody important to yeh.  But 'ere I em, 'alf-dead an yeh stand there with yer bloomin' mouth hangin' open.  Get up 'ere an HEAL me!"And so he did, but no matter how much of Equitus's blessing he laid upon Khuuld, the bruised pallor of his skin remained.  Hanging his head and shoulders sagging, Frederick left Khuuld to his work and sought out Andrew to heal his wounds as well.  As it turned out, everyone else was fine, and between making notes on what he had been learning about navigation from Caema and his own observations as they traveled Collin filled Frederick in on the rest of what had happened.As the days passed, Frederick spent much of his time away from his friends and more in the company of Caema and his men.  Dentral seemed to be having an especially hard time.  He had been one of two cabin boys under their former captain.  Frederick spent his time talking to them of who they were, what they had done, and what must be done.  He did his best to befriend them, but they lived in almost perpetual fear.  Each new that his life was forfeit, and every time Khuuld lost his temper and lashed out, each saw his end.  Frederick did his best to reassure them and calm them and out of it he gained out of necessity a little more skill at sea.As more time passed, Caema looked to Frederick before called out orders, and eventually he left it to Frederick entirely.  The crew had begun calling him "Captain" though what Andrew, Tylette, Collin, and Khuuld thought of that was anyone's guess.  Regardless, as Frederick became more used to what needed to be done where and how to keep the ship moving, and Collin became more confident with maps and vectors, applying his love of mathematics and geometry there progress increased significantly.  And so it was, that after half a month skirting the coast, Tylette called out from the crow's nest, having spotted a stone wharf jutting out into a sheltered harbor.As they got closer, they could make out a single wooden house at the end of the wharf and nothing but deep forest in every direction beyond.  Consulting his map, Collin tried to explain that as unlikely as it seemed, there was nothing here but the dock, and that Galearon appeared to be at least a full day's, if not two, ride to the south.  As they maneuvered into the harbor though Collin forgot all about maps, ships, and nearly everything else as he laid eyes upon the two figures standing upon the dock.They were shorter than even Collin but were beautifully built with long bones and huge expressive eyes.  Their arrow straight hair was broken by long elegant ears that came to points.  It was the first time Collin had seen an elf outside of a woodcut in a book.Each stood motionless, looking the ship up and down, pausing to rest upon each person aboard.  Frederick gave the mooring orders but as the crew tossed the lines, the elves did not move and the ropes splashed into the water.  Puzzled, they pulled them back aboard and dropped anchor, attempting to dock without aid.  Eventually they managed to secure themselves and lower the gangplank, when they did, they found the elves standing to either side of it.By that time Collin had exhausted the last of his patience and his excitement overcame him.  He raced down the gangplank to speak with the elves.*Khuuld's player actually managed to roll 007 on his first try to stabilize.  He was at something like -8 or -9 so it was important.  I think I said something Eric's Grandmother wouldn't have approved of at the luck, but I merely attributed it to the voice in Khuuld's head.  }<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> </blockquote>

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