Swamped

Make the lizard follow the beetle?

You listen just a little longer, and you realize something. Those aren't human footsteps - or grebling, for that matter. Because of your lack of familiarity with this particular floor, you can't narrow it down much more than that, but you can likely communicate with whatever you're hearing.

You decide to wait, signaling to the priest to stay still. He begrudgingly does.

A few moments later, a beetle roughly the size of a swamp hen marches over to you, and looks up expectantly. This must be another messenger from the gods.

"What is it you want?"

The beetle lifts one of his forelegs and points at the priest beside you.

"I'm not interested in anything one of Qlat's servants has to say," the priest grumbles. "Isn't this something that can be handled between the gods themselves?"

The beetle responds by flinging something at the priest's head.

"I believe Qlat wishes to give Reth a gift, and you're the one receiving it on her behalf," you say, as the priest rubs the spot he was struck in. "The messenger merely responded to your greeting in kind."

And it's already left. But the object it threw is laying on the ground. You take a moment to work out what it is.

Some kind of gadget with a button on it. Smells like grebling?

It's a small box with a single button on it. You recall that Theo was working on something similar, some sort of control mechanism that could be operated from a distance. He never quite figured out a way to make it work without ether, he'd said.

Actually, come to think of it, there's a grebling smell to this device, and you don't mean just where it struck your companion. It's not anyone you've smelled before, though.

You hand it to the priest.

"Since this was delivered to you, I believe it would be best if you were to hold onto it," you tell him, as you try to locate the slicer beetle's footsteps again.

"I don't even know what it is. And I'm not trusting anything from a human god, least of all Qlat."

"Well, that's just my opinion. Feel free to wait and see if Reth suggests otherwise. Now, I'm going to have to ask you to be quiet for a moment..."

"How long is this going to take?" the priest grumbles, evidently ignoring you. Apparently he's just not used to staying quiet. You've at least picked the trail back up, but to keep on it you'll need to get him to stop distracting you.

Preferably without resorting to force. If he were trained as a fighter, that might be a viable last resort - but you're not sure that you can properly moderate your blows on someone who doesn't know how to take them at all.

Well, it's not hard to explain why you need him to stay quiet, really. The main problem is that he's not willing to listen. Perhaps it's just a matter of getting his attention.

Well, you suppose there's one sure way to get a priest's attention. Especially one who's so convinced of his importance.

"Through divine guidance, we find... what was it? Strength? Courage?"

The priest suddenly stops his grumbling.

"The wisdom that will overcome our foes," he says. "It's not that hard to remember. You trying to make some kind of point?"

"It simply came to mind because we have received divine guidance. Perhaps you can reflect on what this means for us while I listen for the beetle."

The priest seems somewhat annoyed, but he does stay quiet. Seems he's reasonably cooperative if you word things the right way.

Ah. You think you hear the beetle stopping, and trying to shift directions. This must be where the trail ends. The room you're looking for shouldn't be far off. You lead the priest over there, and open the door once you're sure there's no one else around.

It is, indeed, a small room, with a chamber in the corner. Unfortunately, whatever device controls it isn't in here, as the rest of the room is empty.

Still, there's bound to be some trail to the control device from here. There should definitely be an ethereal one, at the minimum, but there's likely to be some physical sign of it as well.

You just need to figure out where to start looking.

Look for landmarks.

Dust for prints

Looking more closely, you see some shapes cut into the surface of the corner chamber. They look like someone's touched them a fair amount.

You don't think these symbols are actual controls - rather, there's a device elsewhere that reacts when they're touched. You could experiment with what they do, but that could draw attention and you're not sure you could trace the signal, since it's most likely ethereal.

What you can do is look for other signs of the operator's trail. And really, they're fairly obvious now that you're focused on them. However, there's no guarantee they'll lead to the control device soon; but it's something.

Of course, a trail goes two ways. Should you focus on where it came from, or where it's going?

Where it goes. If there's still someone nearby, it'd be good to know where.

You opt to follow the trail forward, if only because you might be caught off guard if it turns out to be shorter than you expect. If someone is still nearby, best to work that out as soon as possible.

"What, where are we going now?" the priest asks as you turn back towards the door.

"Someone was here. I'm trying to work out where they are now."

"Fine. You do that, I'm staying right here. I'm getting tired of being led around while everybody circles the stone instead of saying what they want."

Hmm. It probably works better for your tracking if you don't have to keep an eye on him, but on the other hand, you're not sure how good of an idea it is to leave him alone. Reth guided you to him for a reason, after all, and he's got that object from Qlat now too. What if his captors find him here, and take it from him?

Then again, the trail might be a short one and you could return quickly. And it's going to be troublesome to convince him to come along if you don't have a particular reason for wanting him with you.

You take a moment to consider what to do with him before you continue on the trail.

Feed the slicer beetle to the talking lizard and tell it to come find you quickly if anybody else shows up, then leave the priest and the lizard behind while you investigate.

Let him stay behind, you won't be long

Well. It's not as if you have to leave him alone. You whisper some instructions to the lizard to find you if anyone else arrives in the room. Then you head off and follow the trail.

It seems to lead towards the edges of the ship. And you're starting to notice fresher trails. Seems this happened a while ago - well, it's still worth investigating. You'll just need to be careful.

Soon, the trail leads to a door. More interestingly, it leads to a marking on the wall.

It takes you a moment to catch it, but you soon realize it's a simplified drawing of the Marshguard hand signal for "Acknowledged". Corvus must have made it... which means you should be able to pick up his trail from here.

But you can probably pick it up at any point. Good to know this is here, but what you're looking for is the control device. And you think you wandered a bit further than you meant to - it's not likely to be here. You should still be able to get back and follow the reverse trail, which might be a better bet for finding the device...

Wait. You hear footsteps back the way you came. You're sure these ones are human, and they're getting closer.

What now?

Surprise tackle!

You opt for a surprise attack; if this is a hostile, then it may be useful to get information out of them. You should be able to recognize Corvus' colors at a glance, and for that matter the same goes for Long or Marshall if they're running free; if you see any of them, you should be able to stop in time.

So you start walking towards the footsteps, as quietly as you can, and lie in wait near an intersection, holding yourself against the wall. You ready yourself...

...and relax once you see the brown-and-green of a Bogknight's uniform in front of you. Whoever it is happens to turn the other way, so you have plenty of chances to confirm.

But then a moment later, you become concerned. This knight is too tall to be Marshall, and has neither Long's cloak nor the heavier uniform he's been lugging around since your fight. Could they have captured another Bogknight, or is someone working with them?

Well. You soon get a little more information, because apparently this knight is eager to hear the sound of his own voice.

"In less than a day, I've gone from almost commanding the Bogknights to washing windows," he grumbles. "Well, at least they won't make noise like that damned 'spatial regulator' thing. So much noise, especially the pump... Why can't that quiet kid refill it, anyways? Seems more useful than most other things he could be doing."

Hmm. This must be Sergeant Ash. And it sounds like he's just been where you want to go. How fortunate.

You follow his trail back, and soon enough you find a door, with a loud humming behind it. You think this is the place.

But the door is locked. You could break it down, but that might draw unwanted attention. Is there another option?

Rotten plank! They really should have repaired that

You glance around. There's a floor plank that seems to be rotting nearby. You can break off the rotten portion without making much noise.

It leaves a small hole, but it's enough to allow you to lift some planks around it more easily. You don't think crawling under the floor will be particularly useful, though; the space under there is too thin for most humans, let alone one with your build.

But you can clear a way to the wall, and then loosen some of the boards in there relatively quietly. There's no way you'll be able to fix all this up, of course, so you expect they'll be on alert after you're done; but Ember should be better able to help.

You make a hole in the wall and step through. You've found the device, and as Ash said, it's quite noisy. Then again, it's a noise that's supposed to be present, so it might not draw as much attention... unless someone decides to make sure the door is closed.

Well. Best to take care of this quickly, then. You could simply smash it, but it's magical in nature, so that might be dangerous. So, before resorting to brute force, you look carefully for other ways to shut it down.

Put it under a really cold temperature so it'll temporarily stop working.

You spot what looks like a toolset in a corner. They're probably for maintaining the machine.

And chances are, if used improperly, they can be quite effective at sabotaging it.

You quickly inspect them, and notice that one is quite cold to the touch. Perhaps it's to prevent the machine from overheating.

Well. The machine is pumping something, and it's unlikely to function as well if whatever it's pumping is frozen. You take the cold-tool and touch it to the pump.

The resulting noise is quite jarring. And the pump soon breaks, with a solid frozen mass popping out.

You don't expect that to go unnoticed for long. You rush back to the room where you left the priest and the lizard.

Now what?

Hold on! The vessel is shaking!

You don't have much time to think about what happens next, because the ship starts shaking. The lizard's feet are able to stick to the floor no matter what state it's in, and the grebling priest has claws that offer a good grip, but you aren't so fortunate. So you grab hold of the closest stable thing, the chamber in the corner of the room. The door isn't nearly steady enough.

"By Reth, what's going on?" the priest shouts.

You don't have an answer right away. But you do have very good hearing. You focus on the sounds that accompany the shaking, and you find among them a loud growl. And the other main sound is that of something colliding with wood.

It's no growl you're familiar with, though, and all the flying beasts you can think of large enough to threaten a ship are extinct. So what could it be...

Well. You can think of two possibilities, both of which have very concerning implications. The first is that it's a Giant, sent here by the gods - they've already shown their interest in what's happening here, but a Giant would be a serious escalation. The second is almost more disturbing, though - that someone used time magic to bring an enormous flying beast here from the past.

The shaking calms down, but you can't relax. If you're going to make any sort of move here, you'll have to think of what it is quickly, before you lose your chance to act.

consider that the growl is of wood breaking and important things breaking

You didn't see many signs of an active crew here. If the ship is taking on damage from whatever's attacking, they might not have the personnel to deal with it. Since your aim isn't to make the thing crash - at least, not until you know more about its purpose - perhaps that would be the best place to direct your efforts.

Of course, you also have no idea what's important to keeping this ship in the air. You've barely spent time on sailing ships, let alone flying ones. The best you can do is listen for loud breaks and investigate them.

Hmm. Large one in the side of the ship. Well, it sounds unpleasant, but it also sounds like it's just wood. Since you're not at risk of taking on water, it's not likely to be urgent. You continue listening.

Wait. You think you heard some kind of scraping sound down below. That's worth looking at. You open the door, and the priest starts yelling.

"Where in Reth's name are you going? You're not just going to leave me here, are you?"

"I'm investigating something. You can feel free to come along if you want."

The priest grumbles something under his breath and scurries over to you. The lizard also hops onto your shoulder. You head down the nearest ladder and try to work out where you heard the scraping.

Ah. You think you found it - two gears seem to have been knocked out of alignment and are striking each other in the wrong places. You're not much of a mechanic, but this shouldn't be that difficult to fix. You reach towards them...

...and, on instinct, you duck, just before an icicle goes flying over your head.

"You must be the Rider. We've heard so much about you."

You turn to your assailant. A short and elderly human, dressed in what looks to be Eastern Continent garb. He's wielding a staff.

You can tell he's a powerful mage. You can likely handle him, but the priest and the lizard are at risk. Besides, you don't know what he wants. Best to see if you can resolve this peacefully first.

"Why did you sabotage those gears?"

"Oh, they're nothing overly important. They just allow the ship to maintain altitude without manual adjustments. If not attended to, why, there's a whole hour before it hits the ground."

"You're trying to crash the ship, then. To what end?"

"I just don't want it causing problems for me later. I've got nothing against you, or Carma for that matter, but I can't afford to let anyone else's plans interfere with my own."

You can see the staff starting to shift a little. He's readying another spell. You'll need to make your next move fast.

Dive for the geezer's legs before he can launch another icicle!

Pull the staff from his hands. He can't cast spells without a staff.