Shadowydreamer’s Scribbles
A Place where a Dreamer throws up stories.
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On the good ship Lollypop
Meena wasn’t surprised to find Ceekra standing at the bow of the ship, nose twitching into the wind as they sailed over the waters towards the newly refound Innothule swamp. The dark elf was unhappy to see clouds underneath her instead of water, but the ratonga seemed to take to flying as she took to every other adventure; with great enthusiasm. The young warrior had clamboured out onto the bowsprit and was easily balanced out on the wooden pole even with clanking armour and a small arsenal adorning her. Her tail was twitching in the wind, seeming to indicate joy as much as counter balance. Meena once again reaffirmed to herself what a complete and utter nutter her partner was. She sighed, best friend really. How had she fallen so far to be friends with a grub eating rat?
Ceekra’s ears turned as Meena stopped and her head turned to follow. She gave a bucktoothed grinned. “This is GREAT!” She turned and bounded back down the pole to the deck. Two of the gnomish sailors stopped their rope knotting to give an applause. Ceekra gave them a proud bow.
“Great is not the adjective I would have chosen,” Meena replied through gritted teeth. With every clang and bang she expected the giant metal fans to stop turning and for the ship to plummet into the ocean before. The gnomish Captain had chittered something about the giant balloon sausage over their heads not letting them fall, but Meena was entirely too familiar with Gnomish technology and ability to believe him. Surely in a city full of magi there had to be a safer and more sensible way to travel.
She hadn’t been surprised that Darus had also fallen in love with the ship at first glance. A follower of Bristlebane he could go from cheerfully cutting people into small cubes on a table to bouncing around making rum references and saying ‘Yar, me harties’ with a strange accent. The gnomes seemed to like him. In fact, the only one the gnomes didn’t seem to like was her and that was probably because she’d threatened to turn the cabin boy into a cabbage if he touched any of her belongings. “Couldn’t you turn him into something useful? Like a camel? Or an elephant or..” She’d shoved the mate out the door and bolted it. Really, all she could actually have done was murder the little snot an animate his corpse to tap dance on the deck until the Innoruk forsaken thing blew up in a typical gnomish accident.
Darus slipped up beside her and took her secondary hand in his own. He turned her to look off the port side. “Thar she be,” he said simply.
“ooooh.” Ceekra emoted, scurrying across the deck to look down at their destination.
Meena didn’t see what the fuss was about. Huge cliffs, waterfalls, swamps, lost civilization of a bunch of mud eating frogs and trolls and she was here why exactly? She spotted the dock as the ship came about. “We’re landing up there?” she snarled at the nearest gnome.
“Yup!” he said cheerfully. “That’s where our base is! Best ale this side of Guk!”
“It’s the only ale..” she trailed off as she realized she’d walked right into the gnome’s point. Darus turned his head, she was sure, so she wouldn’t see his smirk. “A whole village full of gnomes?” Meena asked with a wince.
“Oh no, we have tall people too. And scaley people. And tailed people. And furry people. Pretty much anyone who wants to explore the ruins and dig up fun stuff, they’re all there.” The gnome sailor was happy to explain with grand gestures and sweeping hands.
“And how do you keep the peace?” Meena asked with raised eyebrow.
“Oh, well, anyone we don’t like, we shoot out of a canon.” The gnome sailor replied with a solemn nod. “Well, actually, we shoot those we do like out of canons too, but we aim those ones better. We try not to feed those we like to the crocodiles.”
“Oh, well, as long as you try,” Meena muttered between ground teeth. She wondered how upset the Overlord would be if she blasted the sausage balloon on her way off and sent the ship and crew to be eaten by crocodiles. Someone in Qeynos would probably declare active battle over it for poisoning the crocodiles and she would lose rank and standing for the resulting conflict with stupid people which was always a terrible waste of resources. Stupid tree hugging druids, even Freeport was infested with them.
She was starting to think of tossing the sailor overboard anyway as he went on, and on, and on, about the wonders of the colony when the finally bumped up to the dock and gnomes swarmed about tying things together. Meena ignored them all as she descended to her cabin, grabbed her pack and handed it to the zombie she’d animated before they left the coast. He didn’t even smell too bad yet. She strode back up onto deck with the undead human behind her. He’d been a sailor before she’d found a better use for him, she supposed it was only fair he’d gotten one last trip on a vessel.
Darus and Ceekra clamboured up after her and followed her off the ship. Like docks anywhere they were accousted by urchins wanting errands for coin, cheap merchants trying to unload cheaper merchandise and all sorts of dockside lollies. The ocean may be a five minute fall underneath the cliff, but there was still plenty of things the same as the ocean side docks of Freeport. “The next person to come within grabbing distance of me will become my porter’s partner.” Meena said in a voice meant to carry across the caverns of House dinners. Even the silliest of gnomes decided to leave her alone.
Ceekra sighed, “You take all the fun out of this sometimes.”
Meena rolled her eyes. “You and Darus can go exploring while I go investigating where we’re going and how we’re getting there. Try not to get yourself killed.”
Ceekra snickered, “Haven’t yet.. and with an inquis tailing me, I think I should be fine.”
Meena sighed and continued to where the Captain had claimed the best inn ever had rooms waiting for them. Of course, considering the shanty colony, it was probably the only inn. She looked dubiously up at the crumbling rock steps that looked older than her clan and climbed up them carefully. She had no plans on breaking her neck before she had broken the neck of the current Queen of Neriak and taken her place.
Ceekra and Darus, of course, just ran up them without care or consideration of consequence. She was surrounded by idiots.