closed.

[apologist]

WHO: Jehan, Freddie, Val, and their new BFF Marcoulf
WHAT: A group of Chantry clerics specialising in research and the discovery of historical artifacts require a protective escort as they sail from Jader to Treviso.
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Off the coast of Salle
NOTES: Nah

Comments

[apologist]

The moments preceding this were somewhere between terrifying and bracing, depending on how one feels about pirates (dispatched) and storms (lingering). For their charges, definitely terrifying. The Chantry personnel they were sent to escort vanished below well before they were boarded, where they presumably remain, protecting their cargo. But the crew mostly did not vanish, and our INTREPID HEROES entirely did not.

—a few of the crew might have vanished into the water. There will have to be a headcount, later, when Marcoulf has removed the squid from his face, and Val has not been lightly stabbed, and Jehan is not tangled in ropes and suspended sideways slightly above the deck, and Freddie is not—wherever Freddie is.

(Freddie is very nearly, but not entirely, overboard.)

"Are we alive?" Jehan asks, very loudly, trying to be heard over the wind.

[aventuriere]

"For the time being," Freddie calls, "Which may not be very long, unless one of you care to assist?"

She doesn't sound distressed, at least not the way a person normally might in such a situation--clinging to the side of a ship, balanced somewhat precariously atop the frame of a porthole. "Whenever you've a moment," she adds brightly, "Assuming any of you live still and I am not speaking with Jehan's no-doubt-extremely-holy spirit." She's too low to see or be seen from the deck herself.

[degenere]

"I," Val announces, "am bleeding. But only a little. Which means that I live, still, and am not in a position to assist. de Ricart!"

What is he doing, is the way that Val calls his name. Intonation left over from someone who used to order servants around and, then carried that same intonation over to ordering around underclassmen at the University. Val never fetched his own books, not even when he was an underclassman.

There is no time to be thinking of books now. Val is leaning up against the stair-rail that leads to the upper deck. His hand is clasped over his other arm, doing little to stem the flow of blood. Which is not so bad, really, as bloodflow goes. He lifts his hand away a little, and gets a peek. Not so bad at all.

"de Ricart!" he calls, again. "Are you a ghost, now? I half hope so. I have yet to see one. Though a ghost would be unable to assist Freddie--wherever she is--so perhaps I will save that hope."

[esquive]

He isn't a ghost, but Marcoulf does look positively ghastly as he stumbles his way aft with his knife still in hand. He's matted with a blue black bile, the blade with the same. The squid must be dead or dying from the slashes on its body and tentacles, but it's still clinging stubbornly. Luckily his nose and right eye are freer than the rest of him and the waving knife must say something like, 'I've been busy' as he makes his way to the rail after the tinny sound of Freddie's voice over the growling wind.

Well that's farther than he can reach (Hello Freddie; luckily she isn't the type to be startled backward off precariois footholds by monstrous tentacle faced creatures showing up to lend a hand).

There's line all over, but Maker help him if he knows what any of it ties to or holds up. Instead, Marcoulf divests himself of his sword and swordbelt. He wraps the leather twice around his hand and slings the empty sheath over the rail for her to haul herself up by.

[apologist]

Jehan has a sword—which is not particularly his choice of weapon, and weapons are not particularly his choice in general, but better in his hand than a raider's, surely—and by leaning and stretching he is able to set the tip against the deck and use it to pilot himself around to follow Marcoulf's movements with wide, initially silent eyes.

Only initially silent.

"Maker's mercy," he says, primarily to Valentine, as the ship pitches enough for the sword tip to jostle free and he's set to spinning on the ropes again. "He is being devoured."

Yet valiantly saving Freddie all the same. Jehan manages to stab down the swordpoint and steady enough to look for Val instead, to evaluate whether only a little blood is indeed only a little, or quite a lot, and Valentine is only being modest.

The verdict: "I have seen cats leave deeper scratcher, de Foncé."

SORRY i forgot to track this

[aventuriere]

"Hello," Freddie says as Marcoulf leans over the rail. She is about as non-plussed as Freddies get, which is to say that she stares for a moment, long enough for him to settle on the sheath and lower it down for her. She wastes no time, once it appears, in reaching up with one hand to grab at the leather, hand over hand up it until she can find the next foothold. Wet hands and wet leather stick in an unpleasant-but-useful way, and soon enough she head both arms over the rail, hauling herself back onto the deck.

"Do you know," she says, slightly breathless but not about to be delayed any longer, "That you have a squid attached to your head? I believe it is a Rivaini Ring-Squid--Val, do you think? Or I suppose it might be a Purple Spotted Rock Squid, but these markings around the eyes--Val, are you coming? It's a very unusual pattern, but perhaps you've seen it, this is more your area than mine."

cuts you out of my life

[degenere]

"Your angle is wrong because you are tangled in ropes," Val says, stung. "And even cat scratches hurt, Jeannot, though not so much as the cruelty of a dear friend sneering at injury, which is what truly leaves marks irreparable, unhealable--"

But speaking of injury, Maker's mercy: that squid. Val's attention has wandered from his freely-bleeding cat's scratch to the perplexing figure that Marcoulf cuts, silhouetted against the stormy sky. With his hand clapped over his injury, he scoots his arse backwards, uses the force of his back against the rail and his legs planted firmly against the deck to lever himself to his feet.

"I think it is a Ring-Squid, but the light, it is terrible. de Ricart, come here, so it is easier to see. What happened to my bag? If it has washed overboard, I will throw myself overboard out of misery," but not really, and he even lets go of his own arm to reach over and stop Jehan from spinning about in his rope-tangle entirely.

whoops same (ﾍﾟ◇ﾟ)」

[esquive]

Panic was reserved for minutes ago as he'd been flailing around trying to peel the thing off his face in the midst of the chaos. Now that the deck has been cleared of pirates, and the squid's tentacles have stopped twisting, and the bodies that he's meant to be looking after are more or less accounted for (cat scratches not withstanding), Marcoulf simply blinks his free eye as if to say, Yes, I'm aware. There's a clumsy, half blind effort to sling the swordbelt back around his waist, though Marcoulf can't quite manage to secure it as he hobbles for Jehan and Val.

He mumbles something through the gelatinous flesh and suction cupped tentacles that might roughly translate to, "Is it poisonous?" just as easily as "Your bag looks to be under that corpse over there."