CSI KIRKWALL: A Bad Case of Crabs || closed

[staysail]

WHO: Korrin, Darras - and then their new friends Tessa, Alex, and Alistair
WHAT: an assignment for the Naval Presence project turns into ye olde CSI, and then turns into ye olde crab brawl, and then (if we're lucky) becomes a delicious crab dinner
WHEN: vaguely during Harvestmere - Firstfall
WHERE: Lowtown and then the Wounded Coast
NOTES: mission is split into two parts, one for investigation and one for fighting a crab on the shores and in the surf. otherwise nothing else except I think this monster is... a little crabby.

Comments

[periastron]

“Or, maybe we can just float over it and hope for the best!” Brightly, before Alex snaps her fingers, “oh wait, we can’t, because this world still has gravity and other laws of science. Maybe you can just assume germ theory is bullshit, too.”

Concern for your health and the health of others is such a miserable trait, and all.

Alex unslings some rope from her shoulder, working fast to tie it into a lasso. “We get the ropes around its legs, bring it down. Tie up the pincers so it can’t crush us, go to down.” A glance to the others, and she exhales. “I guess I’ll get on that.” She’s a brawler, and fists are going to do shit against a giant armoured crab. Alex starts wading, and then dived below the surface - shallow as it is - so she can try to get closer to the crab without it seeing what she’s doing as she starts looping the first bit of rope around one of its legs.

[staysail]

Beneath the water, the full size of the crab becomes clearer. Water distorts anything that's below its surface, shrinking and exaggerating sizes, blurring the lines. What looked big from a perspective above the surface is massive below the surface. Like how they say you can see only the tip of an iceberg, or a rock, or what shows of a reef when the tide is low. Jointed legs the size of small tree-trunks; a broad round abdomen and shell as large as a cart. The pincers would stand as tall as a full-grown man, jagged-edged and dangerous.

As Alex ducks beneath the water, the crab shrinks back, stirring up the water. Its eye stalks retract, pulling in. One of those great claws swipes out at her. The other is hauled above the surface of the water, snapping madly.

Darras, in Korrin's renewed barrier, swears and grabs firmer hold of his knife. The claw doesn't get near to him. It butts up against the barrier, furious.

"Behind it, beneath, where it's soft--that's where we hit it, to stop it from bloody moving--it's an old trick, unless it can be electrocuted without frying Alex--"