Pirate RP - Quest for the Snark

[Huntress]

In case you guys thought that I can only make Discworld references.

To set the rules in stone: this roleplay, albeit officially a Pirate Guild story, is open for everyone who wants to roll along in some form or other, as long as you're an official member of any guild and in their ranklist. If you're not, go join one, or better yet, join us. No godmoding, no burning my ship, and if it stretches on into February, there is to be a sudden but inevitable starcrossed romance on Valentine's Day. That's an order. Let's ride =D

***

Imagination is a powerful tool indeed. It has started wars, it has divided entire nations, it has rewritten histories. It has given lives to innumerable things and creatures over time. It has created worlds.

Imagine, if you will, a world.

A small world, rolling down its path in the midst of stars with its two moons in tow like excited children. A world studded with continents, covered in clouds and immersed in magic.

Pan down onto Mare Mille Barcos, a largely untamed sea that still sees a lot of naval traffic, owing to the sprawling expanse of Tabloid Town that sits on its jagged coastline. The city is the biggest and most important trade center of the entire continent and even though only a few weeks have passed since a war broke out in it and drenched it in the Underdeep, it's already recovered at speed only people who have to move huge sums of money on a daily basis are capable of producing.

Our story, however, starts roughly fifty miles down the coast, in the smaller, more often overlooked and thus much, much touchier city of Le Singe. It may not be as big, but it still has a fairly nice Old Town with some lovely architecture and a bell tower and nice clean streets and a decent-sized harbour that doesn't get as much traffic but is still there because a coastside city can't well go without a harbour, it'd clash with the image.

Pan down onto the harbour. It's mostly filled with fishing boats at this hour of the day, but it also has a few foreign galleons and one bright white brigantine that's currently flying the ice blue flag of the country of Nordstatern, because pirates aren't stupid.

Pan down onto the handful of figures on the deck. A lot of them seem to be small and four-legged.

Pan down onto a pair of brownish green eyes surrounded by approximately half a pound of eyeliner.

...too close. A little too close.

For Huntress, the long-standing - as much as she preferred the term "long-suffering" - captain of the White Weewoo, they were definitely too close for comfort. Sure, she knew that it'd happen eventually. Ever since the third War of the Guilds, she knew that she was hugely in debt with Zagora, the best and most expensive voodoo witch on the planet. This was why she'd stayed in Le Singe for weeks in the first place: Zagora was going to show up sooner or later to cash in the debt and nobody with half a brain lets a witch travel so far for it that she'll be cranky by the time she gets to you. But looking into her makeup-heavy eyes here and now was unnerving all the same.

"How about we go to my cabin?" she asked rather hopelessly, just to display some general signs of hospitality. "I believe we have coffee brewing."

"No, zhank you," Zagora said coolly, leaning against the railing, her numerous colorful skirts billowing in the fresh afternoon wind. "Neizher ov us beleevs in empty courtesee, so vhy bozher? I'm only here to remind you zat you have a leetle debt wiz me."

"How much are you asking?" Hunty asked a bit coldly. Zagora was one of those people whose appearance was so deceiving that it started to approach the definition of Exactly What It Says On The Tin from the other side. She was a short, stout woman of an unknown, possibly mixed ethnicity, all parts of which had 'foreign' written all over it. She looked like a gypsy who would've looked fake in a gypsy camp. Dozens of amulents jingled when she moved and you always had to look into her calm, amiable eyes to remind yourself that behind this colorful facade was a woman who did dark arts with the casualness of an accountant.

Zagora smiled cheerfully. "Vell. For starters, I protected ze blarf in ze war, zat's five hundred zhinees. Zhree hundred zhousand zhinees for ze anti-Underdeep amulet zat you blew up viz ze Underdeep, and note zat I'm not even zharging for my time in zat battle. So zat's zhree hundred zhousand five hundred, plus turnover tax."

Hunty's face remained more or less emotionless. On one hand, Zagora had said that she was just doing her civic duty when she'd handed over the amulet for defeating the Underdeep so this part of the bill was hugely unfair, but on the other hand she had dragged the witch along to that battle at the point of her crossbow, so in the end she was still lucky to only get a bill.

"What if we can't pay?"

The gypsy woman had clearly expected that question. She smiled again, pulling a torn yellowish sheet of paper from her pocket and handing it over.

"Find me zees," she said, "and ze debt vill be repaid."

The captain took the paper, trying to hide her relief. She knew that Zagora only charged crazy-high prices because that's how high the cost prices of her items were. Her ingredients were usually rare, expensive and very hard to find. If it was an animal, it was probably small, nearly extinct and poisonous. If it was a plant, it probably grew at the bottom of the ocean and was poisonous. If it was a gemstone, heck, it was probably poisonous. But a deadly quest would still be better than a deadly bill. Deadly quests are what pirates do.

She realized that the witch was still talking, and something in Zagora's voice hinted that the quest not only had a catch, but possibly also a painful haul, suffocation and a barbeque for dinner.

"I vant you to bring me ze Snark," said the witch.

[Deleted]

(Time to get this party started! And by that I mean "haul in the possibly crazy alien NPC who appears to have contracted Foot-In-Mouth Syndrome". )


Fate was a strange thing sometimes. Some people were powerless to stop it, but some could take it and throw it out the window. Some people had completely uneventful lives, but some had lives which would be calm one moment, then chaotic for the next few years.

Nearly three months ago, one off-worlder had arrived on the NTWF through some sort of warp. She lived in an abandoned building in Le Singe, trying to get by through odd jobs and whatnot.

A few weeks ago, while she was on an errand in Tabloid Town, chaos erupted. The Underdeep was unleashed; somehow she managed to keep avoiding death, thanks to some newly-awakened powers which she barely knew anything about.

The off-worlder had also discovered, joined, and been seperated from the pirates of the White Weewoo. And hours after she returned to Le Singe once the nightmare had ended, she found herself reunited with the crew.


Three minutes ago, Nasuella Lagan had emerged from the galley with bandages wrapped around one of her hands. Her explanation: "I was trying to cut up some food. I... kinda dropped the knife."

So while the Captain and this witch (Zagora was her name, apparently) had an important discussion about debts to pay, the tall, lanky, blue-furred humanoid coati was sitting cross-legged on deck, putting more bandages on her wounded hand. Of course, she was paying attention to the conversation - she had to.

When the Captain asked if they couldn't pay, Zagora revealed that yes, there was an alternative. Nasue's ear turned to focus on what the witch was saying, trying to tune out the faint buzzing in the background.

Find the... Snark?

The Snark.


"The... Snark?" Nasue's thickly-accented voice was (possibly) the first to respond. "Um... th-that doesn't have anything to do with snide remarks, right? As in snarking? I-I mean, I know I could be wrong and all but--ow!"

She sharply turned her head to see that her tail was being chewed on by a weasel (of the quadrapedal type). The coati growled in response.

"Don't bite my tail! And shouldn't you be with the band?"

[Goosh]

As the quartermaster of the White Weewoo, Goosh felt it was his duty to listen to this plot-important conversation and offer his insight, which was what quartermasters did. Probably. The job had come with a long, serious speech about responsibilities that he had, you know, not actually listened to.

But now he was listening. So, you see, it all worked out.

Unfortunately, his listening was severely hampered by how lovely the sun and breeze were. Now he leant over the railing, not looking toward Le Singe, which was probably full of architecture and folk dances and all sorts of lovely and boring culture--but also dangling purses.

No, he looked toward the sea, following a large dark shape cruising just under the surface. A tentacle emerged from the water, waggled around a bit, and then disappeared.

It was then that he remembered the whole listening thing.

"Don't bite my tail! And shouldn't you be with the band?"

Ah. Not quite the plot importance he was hoping for. He'd pretend he had heard the conversation and then pay attention when Hunty filled everyone else in.

In the interim, he strolled past the blue-furred girl to whom he had not been formally introduced--she was probably a new recruit, or a hostage--and, scooping the weasel in his arms, slipped belowdecks, calling Zylaa's name.

EDIT: Because Zylaa is a better person than I am.

[Jina]

It had only been a few weeks since the Underdeep had turned into a big monster-thing and they'd blown it up. Funny, it felt more like 2 months, 29 days. Jina was sitting on the deck. She had been doing random piratey stuff around the ship, but then Zagora had come and started talking about a debt. That seemed more important than random piratey stuff, so she'd decided to listen. Unlike some Gooshes.

"I vant you to bring me ze Snark."

"Oh cool, a quest!" Jina grinned. "Anyone remember that time when we stole that book for that weird guy? That was fun."

"The... Snark? Um... th-that doesn't have anything to do with snide remarks, right? As in snarking?"

"No, silly. The Snark is a... a... okay, I actually don't know. But I know it wasn't what you said. ...So what is the Snark, exactly?"

[Zylaa]

Zylaa had intended to be on deck listening to the plot-relevant conversation, but then realized that, as quartermaster, that was Goosh's official duty. Instead, she was catching up on her official duties as Second Mate, which included the treasury.

As someone had once observed, putting her in charge of the treasury might not have been the wisest of decisions.

Tragically, averting the apocalypse had not paid well, and Zylaa could not fulfill one of her lifelong dreams of rolling in a pile of gold dubloons. Instead, they were left with an amount of money that was probably referenced somewhere in the Guild canon, so Zylaa will not bother to make any specifics. Suffice to say that it was small, and much smaller than the debt they owed to Zagora. Around the exposed inventory of the guild, the weasels clustered, staring forlornly at money that they had, for once, been absolutely forbidden to touch. Several had scampered off in frustration, and many more had returned to their instruments, where they were playing variations on the Pirates of the Caribbean opening music. The mysterious, creepy kind that evoked fog and mystery, instead of the current beautiful, sunny weather.

Being belowdecks on a day like this and finding out how little money they had was bad enough. Going back up in the beautiful day to report this to the Captain and to the powerful witch who wanted several thousand shinies from them would be... worse.

"Zylaa!" she heard Goosh call from the ladder to belowdecks.

"You've got the plot summary already?" she asked, then caught sight of the weasel in Goosh's arms. "Oh, never mind. What's wrong with the weasel?"

[Speck]

She walked into town carrying nothing but a rucksack over her shoulder, a hard plastic suitcase in her hand, and the bland jumpsuit that was customary of Spacefleet employees. She hadn't been employed by them, but she had been working closely with them so that she might get an early release from their brig. She really didn't want to be in this town, but she had heard that a white frigate would be docked here, so she had made the journey.

Speck glanced at the buildings as she made her way down to the ship, now in view. A lot had changed in Le Singe since she had first left, but not enough to make her completely forget her old life here. The familiar buildings held memories of a happier time in her young life, when she still had her father and her mother. Supposedly, her father might still be out there...

She shook the thought away and continued to walk, shifting the weight of the bag to her other shoulder.

((I may or may not have a plan for Speck, should I need to drop out of the RP suddenly... I know I have a habit of doing that.))

[Huntress]

"Um... th-that doesn't have anything to do with snide remarks, right? As in snarking?" Hunty heard Nasue ask as she unfolded the paper thoughtfully.

"There'd be no need to travel anywhere if we needed that sort of snark," she said. "No, I believe what we're looking for is..."

The paper read SNARK in big clear letters. She turned it over in her hands a few times. There was nothing else.

"Just in case we forget?" she asked dryly.

"Just in case you forget," Zagora said, her voice smooth.

The captain closed her eyes for a moment. This is a voodoo witch. You can't tell her to stop her crazy little mind-games. You can't grab her by the shoulders and shake her and tell her to be straightforward just once in her life. You can't tell her to bugger off and just leave her there, sailing away like any proper pirate should.

One day, she thought grimly, we will have a trip that doesn't involve repaying a huge debt and sorting out the troubles we've gotten ourselves into. We've spent so much time getting ourselves out of trouble that we don't even have any time left for getting into trouble.

"Can you give us any other helpful pointers as to where to find that thing or what it is?" she asked, refolding the paper and stuffing it in her pocket with exaggerated, mocking care.

"Nozheeng," said the witch, her face still the perfect serene picture of cheerful calmness.

Don't yell at her. You can't yell at her. Keep cool now, take it out on your crew later and be a sucky captain and get overthrown in a mutiny and tossed overboard with a loaded pistol with a single shot, and then lecture them on the rocky relationship between gunpowder and seawater because they really shouldn't be that stupid. Gah.

"Nozheeng is known besides ze name," Zagora said. "Eet could be a plant, or an animal, or an item. I beleev it to be organic, zhough. Eet might be found on ze cold icy norzhern shores, or ze jungles in ze vest, or ze mountains. Zere have been different storees, and none have been proven. But it does exist."

"Ah, good," Hunty said weakly. "For a moment I thought that it'd be complicated." She paused, scowling. "Is it magical? I mean, inherently?"

"I zheenk so, yes," nodded the witch. "Eet's commonly agreed zat ze Snark has powaful magical protek-zeeon zat it uses to hide from man. Vhich is vhy zhere's so little info."

"Well, I am no man," Hunty said with a wry grin. "Come on, work with us here. Give us every bit of info that might help us along, it's in your interests after all."

"I just did." Zagora turned and nodded at the crew, smiling. "Good day to you all." And with that, she left.

"Okay," Hunty said when the witch was well out of hearing range. "That settles it. Next time the Apocalypse is happening, we're so not getting involved. Instead we'll buy loads of popcorn, dress in black leather, teach the weasels a bunch of Dragonforce songs and ride the world to hell in style." She leaned against the railing. "And while we're waiting for that to happen, does anyone still need any last-minute stuff from the shore? I believe a quick library trip to Mage Manor is in order."

[Speck]

Speck trudged up the plank that led up from the dock, and onto the deck of the White Weewoo. It didn't have a jolly roger flying at its mast, but there was no mistaking the pirate ship. She stopped at the top of the gangway, just before it led onto the deck.

She took a second to clear her throat, then projected, "Hoy hoy, Captain!"

Although she didn't know whether the port guards knew about the ship's identity, she would rather not draw their attention by shouting anyone's name.

"Permission to board?" Speck supposed it would have been better to stay on the dock to ask the question. There would have been no risking any accidents that might happen if she were forced off of the gangway. Too late now, she gave an inward shrug.

[Goosh]

"The weasel's been bugging a crew member. At least, I think she's a crew member."

What Goosh neglected to mention was that although ostensibly he had taken the weasel here for some mild discipline, he had actually come belowdecks in search of Zylaa. He didn't mention this because it was one of those things that, when mentioned, made him sound like a sappy idiot.

He noticed that a couple of sparkles were dancing along his fur, and tried to restrain himself.

"I missed the plot summary, I'm afraid." He set the weasel down in the pit band with the others. "I think we have to find a shark or something." He searched for something to say. "Maybe we should go check with Hunty?"

[Zylaa]

"The weasel's been bugging a crew member. At least, I think she's a crew member."

"Oh the coati? Yeah she's a crew member now." Zylaa shrugged, indicating that crew members seemed to pop up these days, how odd was that, although not really as the pirates' general hiring policy had always been "You wanna join? Great! Help with piratey things now."

It was a very eloquent shrug.

"I missed the plot summary, I'm afraid," said Goosh. "I think we have to find a shark or something... Maybe we should go check with Hunty?"

"Or perhaps we should just carry on in oblivion and wait to see what new eldritch horror starts attacking us," she said, grinning. "Surprises like that spice up life so." She carried on gazing at him for a second, before going "Right. Weasel discipline," and turning towards the offender.

She plucked the weasel up from the band, very determinedly focusing on it and not looking back up at Goosh. She told herself this was because if he happened to be sparkling, she would have to swoon, and that was just inconvenient.

Never mind that he only sparkled he was nervous. He could have a sudden panic attack or something. You never know.

"Don't bother people," she told the weasel, who looked up at her in sorrow.

"Wanted shinies. Thought other furry person would tell you to give me shinies. Needed to get their attention." It sighed, a sigh full of world-weary resignation.

"I outrank her," said Zylaa. "Anyway, if you want shinies, bothering people is a bad way to go about it. So be nice to crewmembers, yes?" The weasel nodded. Zylaa was never exactly sure how to discipline her furry minions, as they had the attention span of a goldfish on sugar. Anything she said was liable to be forgotten. "Why don't you go play... whatever your instrument in the band is?" She set it back down into the band and turned to Goosh.

"I've done what I can," she said, actually meeting his eyes after a momentary internal dialogue consisting of stop being silly, he's just a person, eyes meeting is something that happens all the time, no need to get all worked up over it. "Time to get informed." She headed up onto the deck, hoping that this new plot would mean she didn't have to report on the abysmal state of the Weewoo's finances.

[Deleted]

Okay, so this 'Snark' definitely wasn't the sort of snarking that happened so much with this crew. On one hand, it was good to get that cleared up. On the other... well, there wasn't much more information about it than that. It could quite literally be anything, if she was hearing the witch correctly.

Nasue sighed, still holding her tail. So, either we're being sent after a something which exists but is barely known-about, or we just got told to chase a rumour. Occam's razor? It's a rumour. But come to think of it, that theory has been wrong before...

Once Zagora had left, the Captain did some of her own snarking about not getting involved in future Apocalypses (a sentiment the coati could agree with) before asking if anyone needed to go ashore for anything.

"Oh, uh--I think I've got everything. Not that I had much on me to begin with," Nasue replied, getting to her feet. Even as she stood it was clear that she towered over... some of the crew? Most of the crew? She was quite a bit taller than the Captain, at least. Not that it made any difference when it came to power relationships.

"Though, knowing me, chances are I'll forget something and remember that too late, when we're about to die and I'm the crew's only hope and... wait, dangit, I shouldn't get caught up in worrying like this! A-again, I mean!" She sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Sorry, Captain. Still a bit edgy."

It was an improvement from before, in some ways. In the weeks since the nightmare of the third Guilds' War, Nasue had calmed down and relaxed around the crew of the White Weewoo. Okay, so she still got spooked at times and needed to run off and calm down, and she still wasn't much of a fighter. Not to mention she still got too worked up now and then. But at least it wasn't as bad as it was before.

Footsteps got her attention, so she turned to find Zylaa emerging from beneath deck. Wait, dangit! I forgot to thank... whoever got that weasel off me! ...worry about it later. (There was also someone requesting to come on board. The Captain could deal with that, the coati decided.)

"Did you hear anything? ...wait, you were beneath deck, weren't you?" She sighed (again). "Witch-lady-person asked us to get a something, which is okay except hardly anything's known about it. Including where it is. So we need to do some homework."

[Kengplant]

Where Keng had been for the past... how long had it been? A year? More? Who could tell? Time got funny when you went planet hopping. Spend too much time on one planet where days are 15 eanos long, which roughly equaled 15.33 hours and there were only 247.5 days in a year and you tend to loose track of how many NTWF days it had been.

Had she written a letter before she'd left explaining to the next ranking officer that toodles, they were in charge of Spacefleet now? She was pretty sure she remembered writing it... but she couldn't recall having ever sent it... That was the problem with letters, if you never gave it to the person they could never read it.

Never the less she was back now and feeling rather refreshed. Well, aside from the few hundred light-years of jet lag anyways. She'd wound up landing in a small town not too far from Tabloid Town. She'd meant to land in Tabloid Town, but she'd spotted a fashionably shiny white ship in the harbour of this particular settlement before she'd made it the last 55 miles. It hadn't occurred to her until now just how unpractical it was having such a bright ship for a group of pirates. It was a tad recognizable.

So she parked her newfangled flying contraption where anyone could see it or come across it, then turned on it's cloaking device: not because she wanted to hide the ship, but just because she always liked the small gathering that would always happen when people started walking into it. Last she was aware of, Spacefleet had dropped the official "we don't exist so shut up about it" policy.

Once cloaked, she looked around to ensure she had a proper audience, then snapped twice. Now it's one thing to watch a ship cloak, and it got a few "oohs" from some folk, but it's still quite another thing to not know that there is a grizzly bear about to run out of what now appears to be thin air. That got some "aaaahhhs" out of quite a few more folk.

"Alright Muskoka, let's go see if we can't catch up with old friends?" Keng said amiably to the large bear, who was now 3 or 4 years old -depending on how much time had actually passed since they'd left- and still had his squeaky fish toy.

squeak

Came the usual response. It was almost, but not quite like Morse Code.

The docks weren't far off, and the two were soon there. Now that they were it seemed a rather awkward situation because Keng couldn't quite remember under what terms she and the Captain had parted. Her original plan had been to just waltz right on up and say hi as loudly as she could. But such a plan seemed folly now, so she settled for standing at the bottom of the ramp and looking indecisive.

[Speck]

Over the sound of the waves, seagulls, and various other sounds of the docks, Speck heard a scuffle of feet behind her. She turned around and looked down at Keng and her large, furry companion.

Rather than continuing to wait for Captain Huntress' response, she made her way down the ramp and straight for the werewolf.

"Hey, Keng...," She struggled to keep eye contact, "How's planet-hopping been treating you?"

Speck hoped that Keng didn't know too much about the high-tech anklet that tracked her movement on the planet. Spacefleet had assigned her the anklet when they had released her from their "care", as a precaution. It sat uncomfortably in her boot, tucked away from sight.

[Kengplant]

Happy to get at least a preliminary greeting that wasn't a threat or a sword through her gut, Keng grinned widely, grabbed Speck, and gave her a hug. It seemed the piratey thing to do in that she-totally-just-dropped-the-Weewoo's-crew-down-a-few-bad-arr-points sorta way.

When she released Speck a few seconds later she was still smiling. "It was fun but, eh, you know aliens; always trying to get you to eat the local delicacies and participate in sports that require 6 hands." Keng winked.

[Speck]

When Keng hugged her, Speck tensed up out of reflex, startled. She tentatively hugged back. The pirate gave Keng a weak smile, and an even weaker laugh when Keng winked.

"How 'bout we see if the cap'm'll let us aboard?" She asked.