Swamped

If there's one upside to all this sudden movement, it's that the ram seems to be having more trouble with it than you are. Since you haven't seen any sign of Rider on this side of the creature, you decide to take this chance to investigate what's past it.

Before long, you start hearing noises. Noises that sound an awful lot like scale armor striking wood. You hope he's not having trouble keeping his balance.

You follow the noise and find Rider, picking himself up.

"Good, you're here," he says. "I received your message. I'm most concerned about the level of involvement the gods have - they're usually content to stay out of mortal business." He glances at the rather full strap on your back. "Shouldn't you be getting that staff to Long? And what's that lever for?"

"I don't know exactly where he is," you admit. "Uh, as for the lever, I found it wedged between two gears. Figured I should get it out."

"Even though you don't know what it was doing there."

"It was making some fierce smoke! Sure looked bad to me."

Rider folds his arms.

"Did you remove it before or after the ship started making sudden turns?"

"Um, before. Wait, you think it might have been stopping that somehow?"

"I can't say for sure. But these turns seem very deliberate, and yet show no concern for those on board. It's the sort of pattern I'd expect if someone were controlling the ship without being aboard it. And if there were a system to allow that, and someone on the ship knew about it and wanted to maintain control, it follows they would sabotage that particular system."

You have to admit that makes a lot of sense. Though you wonder - but don't feel it would be useful to actually ask - how Rider could pick up on the turns being deliberate.

"So you think I should put this back?"

"That's one course of action. The other would be to see where they take us. They don't seem to be trying to cause a crash, so we might learn something if we follow that route." Rider glances around. "In any event, if the short wizard is indeed incapacitated, then it is not so urgent that I keep watch on the system he was trying to destroy. But I thought it would be easier for you to find me if I stayed in one place."

"Oh, right. A couple of things have come up since your note. First, Ash is paralyzed by a message, too. I don't know what it said, because a giant beetle is trying to keep me away from him."

"That would be Qlat's servant. I came across him earlier."

"Right, well. He led me to the staff, and a bunch of beetles were crawling around in that room. They spelled out a message that the gods are not of one mind, and then I noticed that the message that Ash got was made of wool. And there's a ram running around down here with a patch of wool missing."

"Baaaa."

You turn around.

"Maybe I should have mentioned that part first," you say.

Rider doesn't seem very surprised.

"It's inconvenient that I don't have my lance, but I'll manage," he says. "Corvus, I have a quick job for you while I take care of this troublemaker."

Of course he does. What in the hells could he want you to do at a time like this?

Bring Marshall some reading material.

"Marshall is safe, I assume?" Rider says, stepping between you and the ram.

"Last I saw, yeah. Been a lot happening on this ship in the last little while, though. You want me to check up?"

"Well, that would put my mind at ease. But more importantly, I'd like you to deliver this book on my behalf."

Rider hands you a book. The title doesn't even look like letters to you, and flipping it open, neither do .

"One, where'd you even get this; two, why Marshall rather than Long?"

Rider has already grabbed the ram by the horns, but he still takes the time to answer you.

"I ran into some trouble when we were being transported. Some soldiers who, as far as I can tell, are under the command of someone calling himself 'the Master'. One of them was carrying that book, I managed to grab it before they captured me and they couldn't figure out where I hid it."

You're not sure you want to know where he did.

"But why Marshall?"

"Marshall is the one trustworthy person I know of who might be able to use it but won't understand how to," Rider says. "I'm afraid I don't have time to explain more than that right now."

You guess that's the best explanation you're getting. You run off.

"And you might want to put that lever back first," Rider calls out.

Oh. Right, that. Would cut down on the crazy turns.

If only you could remember exactly where you found it. This place is a mess of machinery.

Well, you know roughly where it was. And there's got to be some way to figure out which pair of gears it was between, right?

Well, if there is a way, you hope you can figure it out when you get back there. The gears probably got dented or something from all the grinding on the lever.

Hang on. Are you in the right place? All the gears you can see around here are in sets of three. But you only remember two grinding together on this lever...

Wait. You may not have found the gears, but you think you spot the... the thing the lever goes in. Is that called a fulcrum? You're not sure, it's not like you've dealt with a lot of levers in your life.

What you do know is that this thing looks like it should have a lever and it doesn't. So the gears shouldn't be too far from here, right? Seems a bit silly to grab a lever from the other side of the ship just to jam up some gears.

So you probably are in about the right place. Though, that's funny. You just noticed something next to the fulcrum or whatever. Looks like a plaque, and the letters are Common ones.

Huh. Could it be an explanation of what this lever's supposed to do? You take a closer look to check what it says.

In case of emergency, pull lever to retrieve parachute.

EMERGENCY PARACHUTE RELEASE

What's a parachute?

Well, whatever it does, this isn't an emergency yet. Seems like an odd choice for a lever to break, though. Why sabotage an emergency system?

You suppose that's a point in favor of the gears being close by, though. It makes less sense as a deliberate choice and more sense as "grab the nearest lever". So you head a little bit forward.

Here we go. The three-gear setups are giving way to two-gear ones. Now you just have to find the right two gears. You scan the edges of each pair you come across for damage, but after a half-dozen or so tries without any luck, you think you need a better plan.

Well, when you came by before, you were climbing on the machinery. You were too focused on maintaining your balance to notice much about the details of it, but you can at least look around and see what seems more climbable.

And you think you're starting to remember some of this stuff a bit better. You keep an eye on the high road while following it as best you can from the ground, and soon enough you come to a pair of gears with some noticeably worn-down teeth.

Just to be sure, you wedge the lever back in when the worn teeth are next to each other. In case it was important to get it stuck in that particular position.

Just as you get it in place, you feel the ship making another sharp turn. You've got no idea what your course is now, not that you had much idea to begin with. Maybe someone should take the controls and try to figure out where you should be going.

As if you didn't have enough to do already. Speaking of which, it's probably best to take care of Marshall first; you still don't know exactly where Long is. Of course, before doing anything at all, you should be getting to one of the ladders. Might need to explore a bit to figure out where it takes you, too; you can't remember exactly which one you climbed down to begin with.

So you may as well head for the nearest one. You start walking that way.

And then you hear a strange noise overhead. You look up to see Rider wrestling with a ram that is, somehow, hovering several feet off the ground.

Maybe you could lend him a hand somehow.

Nah, he's got it! You'll just tell whoever you find about the ram and send them to help out.

Rider is certainly capable of handling himself, probably even in a ridiculous situation like this. And, well, if he thought he needed help he wouldn't have sent you off on an errand.

On the other hand, letting Rider handle things his way is prone to causing problems. So maybe you shouldn't leave him on his own too long. Maybe you'll just get Marshall to come along and help; Long's injured and his approach is too similar to Rider's anyhow.

Mostly you're just hoping you don't have to deal with any other weird surprises. You climb the ladder and start heading for the cells.

The walk is, for once, uneventful. It's almost putting you on edge.

When you arrive, you see that Shume is still paralyzed, and the quiet kid is still bowed down. Marshall just seems to be staring at them both.

"Nothing's really happened, other than all the shaking," Marshall says. "Is Captain Long all right?"

"He's awake, and resting," you say. "Ash seems to have been hit by the same thing this wizard was, though. And I found Rider, but he's gotten into a fight. He told me to give you this."

You hand over the book. Marshall stares at it.

And then, very suddenly, the quiet kid rushes over and holds up the other book to Marshall. Marshall takes it, tentatively, and the kid starts bowing.

Well, that was unexpected. Now what?

Can you even read these, Marshall? Do they have anything to do with one another?

I don't suppose it's possible that they're both the same book, using different lexigraphs?

Marshall glances at the books, confused, and hands them to you.

"Could you hold these while I have a look? It's a bit awkward to use them with one hand."

"Sure," you say, not really thinking very hard about it. Marshall starts flipping through each book in turn.

"This is weird. They're both filled with strange symbols, which are probably letters, but it seems to be two entirely different sets. So, two different languages?"

You're more concerned with the kid, who seems to think Marshall is as important as Shume. Maybe it's because he saw you handing over a book, and figured Marshall must be someone to give books to?

"It's even stranger than that!" Marshall says suddenly. "I keep seeing 'words' with the same length and pattern of symbols. It's like one of these books is a cipher for the other. Where did Rider even get this one?"

"I'm not too clear on that, really. See, we got here through magic, but it wasn't the same thing as the gateways. And Rider says he got attacked on the way, I don't even understand how that's possible. Seems he grabbed it from his attackers, though."

You glance down at the bowing kid, and turn back to Marshall.

"I think he considers you an authority now. Might be because I handed you that book. Um, so if you want him to stop that, it might be easiest to give him something to do."

"I suppose," Marshall says. "But I'm not sure what would be helpful. What are we even trying to do right now? Help Rider? Help Ash? Get that staff to Captain Long? Find that Carma woman? Or are we just looking for a way to get off this ship?"

Point taken. You should probably figure out what you're doing.

Find a way to get off, and then look into helping the others. Best to have a plan.

It does occur to you that you haven't made any effort to find a way back. Ember never mentioned that it would be a problem, so you assumed he had a way to retrieve you. Besides, Marshall and Long were brought here somehow, so presumably whatever handled that can go in the other direction.

"Let's figure out how to leave," you say. "What do you remember about coming here?"

"Well, I was following an ether trail, and Captain Long was there, and then... well, suddenly we were in a very small room. It was almost like a closet. Then we saw Ash, and... he must have knocked us out or something, because I don't remember anything clearly after that until I woke up in that cell."

Not much to go on. Ash could probably give you more answers, but not in his current state. Maybe Carma could be persuaded, if you had any idea where to find her, but relying on the hospitality of your captor is hardly ideal.

"Don't suppose you remember anything about where this closet was."

Marshall thinks for a bit.

"I think it was in a larger room. I remember catching a glimpse of an open door behind Ash. But I couldn't say where it was..."

Hmm? The quiet kid looked up for just a moment, before putting their head back down.

"Well, maybe we've got someone can lead us there," you say, looking down.

"Can you lead us to where the Captain and I arrived?" Marshall asks. The kid slowly gets up, bows to Marshall, and walks out. Guess they know their way around, at least.

You and Marshall start following, and soon enough the kid leads you to a room. When you open it up, you find it's mostly empty, except for a small chamber in the corner. There's some weird symbols cut into the wooden walls of the chamber.

"What do you make of this, Marshall?"

Marshall glances at the symbols.

"I think I saw these in one of those books. And I think there's some ether here? But it seems to be fading. It might not work the way it's supposed to."

Well, that's not very promising. Now what?

Put Marshall into the closet with the books and close the door on him.

"Maybe something happens when someone's inside," you muse. "You want to try it? It might be something with ether, in which case I wouldn't notice."

Marshall seems a little skeptical.

"I won't touch anything!" you say, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. "I'll just close the door and you tell me if you see anything. If the ether's fading, there's no way it's going to act up on its own, is there?"

"Not on its own, no," Marshall says. "And I don't think I can subconsciously manipulate ether if I'm specifically sensing it. I'm just a little worried that if something does go wrong, I might end up halfway across the world."

"I guess that makes sense. But you're a lot more likely to be able to figure out if that's happening than I am."

"You're saying that like I've known anything about how magic works for more than a few days." Marshall paces back and forth for a bit. "I think it would be safer to ask Captain Long... but then, he probably needs to rest."

"Okay, tell you what. If you notice anything about the ether that worries you, just open the door. Or, I guess if you need your hand for something else, then kick the door real hard so I know to let you out."

"All right. I suppose that's safe enough."

You open the door to the chamber, and Marshall steps in. Then you shut the door and wait for a response.

There's a chilling sensation in your ears, and a slightly sour taste on your tongue. A feeling of unease. Nothing seems to happen physically to Marshall, but that worries you even more.

Strangely, you start to feel something before Marshall even comes out. Your ears start to feel strangely cool, and for just a moment you think you taste something sour.

Maybe you're just worrying more than you realized. You attempt to distract yourself by looking at the carved symbols on the outside of the chamber. You don't really know what you expect them to do, but it might offer some kind of clue as to what they're for.

Hmm, you thought you saw a hint of light around one of them. It looks like a circle with some kind of unfamiliar shape inside. But it only seemed to last for a moment.

Not long after, Marshall steps out.

"There's ether in there, all right. But it doesn't seem to be doing anything. I tried casting a simple spell with it, but it didn't react. Don't know enough about ether to know what that could mean, maybe Captain Long does."

"And you're feeling fine?"

"About as good as could be expected," Marshall says with a shrug. "I'm thinking we should find the captain."

"Yeah," you mutter noncommitally. You really don't know why you feel so bothered. Even the fact that Marshall is fine seems to be getting to you. Somehow it doesn't feel normal.

Wait. You think you know what it is. The swamp is calling you - not very insistently yet, but you're pretty sure it's getting started.

Does it have something to do with this device? Or are Long and Rider feeling the same way? Hells, Ash might for all you know.

Marshall's right. You should go see Long. But you never thought to get directions from the priest, so you'll have to figure out where he is on your own.

Well, if you just backtrack a bit, you'll probably run into him.

Oh, and you can see if Rider still needs help, or what.

You're really struggling to come up with something. It's not like you know any tracking techniques, especially ones that might work in a ship.

But... you know an excellent tracker, don't you. So why not just ask him for help?

"Let's go and give Rider a hand. He should be able to help us find Long."

"Right... didn't you say he was in a fight?" Marshall asks. "Who's he fighting? I got a bit distracted by the books, so I'm not sure if you told me."

"Oh, um. A rather large ram. It seems to be a servant of some god or other. Last I saw, it was flying. Well, floating at least."

Marshall just stares.

"How exactly are we supposed to help him fight that? I don't even have my slicer, Carma stole it."

"Good question."

It's probably best to make a plan now, in case it involves bringing anything down there. Time to see what you can think up.

Maybe we should scope out the situation above decks. Some rope or netting could be scavenged to use against the ram, and maybe you can find the slicer.

"Well, there's some rope above deck, that might be useful for tying the beast down. Maybe Carma's there, too, since it sounded like something was going on outside the ship. Which means we could get your slicer back."

"If we do, I'd like my glove back too."

"Sure. But first let's figure out what we're doing. There should be a ladder up not far from here."

"Oh. A ladder," Marshall mutters. "Do you mind if I stay down here while you look?"

Ooh, right. Probably tough to use a ladder with only one arm.

"Yeah, just stay there, I'll let you know if I need any help."

You head for the ladder, with Marshall close behind. The quiet kid seems to be following you, maybe because they don't know what else to do. Well, it's not like you've got that many ideas.

As you reach the top, you see an enormous beast sprawled out on the deck, and Carma unconscious nearby. You also see the ship's figurehead lying on the deck. What in the hells happened here?

Well, at this point you're not really surprised to see more problems popping up. The question is what you're going to do about it.

Check the enormous beast first, make sure it's not going to be a danger anytime soon.

You suppose, out of all the potential problems you've got right now, the one where an enormous creature wakes up and starts rampaging is the hardest to deal with. So you should figure out if it's even alive.

As you approach it, though, you hear a distinctive caw. You look around and don't see anything, though.

"I hope that's not someone just making bird noises," you grumble. Then you glance back to the beast and see a crow perched on its head.

"Caw," says the crow. It doesn't seem inclined to elaborate, beyond repeating it as you get closer.

"Okay. So this thing is a matter for the gods. Fair enough," you say with a shrug. Then you glance at Carma, and point to her. "How about her?"

The crow says nothing. Guess that means it's okay to check up on her.

You can see she's still breathing - other than that, you can't tell much at a glance. She doesn't seem to have the slicer on her, though - maybe she tossed it during the fight and didn't bother to pick it up.

Well, this is your best chance to restrain her. And there must be some way to get an unconscious prisoner below deck, since you woke up there and didn't feel like you'd been dropped off a ladder. Probably in the captain's cabin, if you were to hazard a guess.

Okay, you suppose the first step in that is getting some ropes. And the easiest way to get those is probably from the window-washing mechanism. So you start heading over there.

But suddenly, you catch a brief glimpse of an increasingly-familiar slicer, a moment before everything goes black.

Immense quantities of churning water

The storm is heavy out there. The crew are working hard to keep the water from flooding in.

That's not your concern, though. Your main concern is figuring out where you even are, which is hard enough when the ship isn't being flung every which-way. It would help if you had a map that was newer than two hundred years old, too.

VOLUME 3

Shipped

You go by Chip these days, and you're the navigator on this godforsaken ship. Which means you take a disproportionate share of the blame when you hit rough waters. Well, at least you've got the storm to point to this time. Hard to predict the weather - even the bloody wizard can't do that, so why should you be expected to do any better.

As best as you can tell, comparing your rough sketch to Faron's old route, you're around a third of the way to the other continent. Assuming the scale's remotely accurate, of course. If you manage to maintain pace, that means you'll hit it in another year or so.

Another year of this. It's already enough to drive you mad, and if you even make it, the return voyage will be just as long.

Why in the hells did you sign up for this in the first place?

Obviously for the money