Black Water Cut With Ivory [Lekalis Hugo Volundr]

[rosallora]

[Volundr]

"It's clear you haven't hunted beasts of the sea 'fore," says the cartographer. He unhooks his hand, letting the flesh be free of excess weight for the time being. "Just you be patient. Time'll come for the hunt, it will. Whatever road the cap'n takes, I'll follow. And I know you will as well. S'not good practice to go against her. She's a hard woman when it comes down to it, she gets the job done regardless of what the task is in fronta her. Worked with her for near three years, she's always been the same woman." He drums his fingers on the desk, watching as red spots through the other side of the bandage, but doesn't soak it. "What're you doin', between now and the hunt?"

-----

[Tavi]

She crouches down comfortably as Hugo takes his things. She feels no need to look away, no twitch of modesty. She just waits, picking at her fingernails that are dark underneath. She whistles through her teeth, some little tune she likely picked up from another onboard. "Going to hunt. You, with that?" She grins a bit, a loose hand gesturing to the lute.

----

[Lekalis]

It is like a spell has broken indeed, and everyone and everything is back in their places. Sal sends out some orders, moving the ship forward. "If we find it in the night, then we find it in the night," she calls into the air. "The moon is bright and heavy enough to guide the way."

"Might make the beast stronger," says one man to another, within Lekalis' earshot.

"Might make Tobin turn against."

"Shut the yap," the first replies, rolling his eyes. "Damned pansy fishboy if I ever knew one. Tobin, do it? He barely bit off fingers when he had the chance."

"Yea but he bit em clean off didn't he?"

The two gripe at each other in grunts and nudges, an extension of their bickering. The creature chained was quiet, nearly as harmless appearing as he was as a man - though the tentacles, the eyes, the teeth concealed behind flesh... they were a rather different picture.

Sal nods to Lekalis as she passes, looking out and over the water. Small white marks moved and disappeared in black water. Her eyes travel warily over the place where the water meets the sky.

[Bloodtrailkiller]

/Lekalis/

The jabber did little to settle the growing migraine in the Ex-Lord's mind; he glanced over to Sal as she passed and offered a small smile in kind to her nod, though he waited a moment to massage his temple with two digits before peeling out to follow Sal.
"Captain..." He didn't rightly call out, but spoke with a raised voice to demand her attention,
"... Your secrecy makes more sense now. Though its done little to inspire much trust." Lekalis intoned and made a half glance to the monster with a small scowl,
"But... I digress; how... long has Tobin been this way?" Lekalis inquired with dire care and some woe as he made a small turn to look at the monster again. His gaze held on the uncomfortably familiar mass of flesh that seemed to struggle to be the shape of man, less by the confines of reality and more upon the preposition that Tobin had once been a man... a mentality the Lord was too ready to comprehend.

[EloHim]

[Volundr]
"Its clear to me that you think you know me. Or the monster we are hunting. I only hope that Captain knows better, else we're all doomed." - Hunting a Sea Serpent...in a LONGBOAT. That was no shark or goddamn whale! Hickory was content with killing them all, it seemed. He ignores the idle chit-chat Hickory tries to make. Viking might not be on edge right now but he wanted to know the options that they had.-"I work at the forge and kill monsters. What kinds of weapons this ship has? Cannons are obvious, but is there anything else?"- if by some miracle they had a ballista buried somewhere on board - their chances would already look a lot better.

[rosallora]

[Lekalis]

"Long as we've known him," she replies, not quite looking at him. Her eyes had a way of avoiding gazes, looking just beyond or just above, giving the impression she was always on the lookout for something else. "When we found him it was south about forty miles from the Estate, actually. Bruckshire. He wasn't in the best condition. Human, of course. But bloodied. Stoned. He'd been chased further south because he'd been found out. He changes when the moon changes - half-moons. Like the one tonight." She tilts her chin up slightly and to the right, indicating the perfect half in the sky. "Said he'd lived mostly as a hermit near the beach, making jewelry out of shells and the like to sell to commonfolk in exchange for small needs. Something must have gone wrong. But I don't ask any more questions than I would of the others; we all have secrets, you know that. And we're nothing without them."

A dark pause rests on the railing, and she breaks it by resting her elbow upon it and continuing. "He can hold his breath longer than any person, I'll give him that much. I have quite the collection of shells in my quarters gifted from him - and other geegaws too. Swords. Spears. Teeth of things big enough to take your head off in one bite." She grins. "I can tell you're disturbed. It's usual; we were as well. But it's like being on the ocean long enough. Eventually, being on land feels entirely... too stable."

[Volundr]

"Harpoon launcher," Hickory says, leaning against his desk. "Sleek lookin' thing too. We got two of them that we're gonna shackle up at the prow. Guess they're gonna be settin' those up soon. Didn't want em takin' up too much deck space. So yeah they're gonna be up there. Other'n that Volundr, we are what we are. We're a merchant sailing vessel, you have to remind yourself of that. We're not usually monster hunters. That, apparently, is what you do." He folds one arm into the other.

[Kidney]

Hugo flicked to look at Tavi, smiling small-like, blushing slightly. He look another look over his items, and pulled forth a hammer from the floor. Heavy and blackened, he looked over his shoulder, smile fading and a cold, icy expression taking hold. He looked back to the hammer, and set it down. "I didn't come here to hunt anything. Nothing." He said, huffing and beginning to slip his blue outfit over his shorts and thin tunic. 

His feet began to jingle, and he quickly buttoned the front of his outfit up, and turned to Tavi. "Ta-da!" He said, smiling, fluffing his collar high and eyeing Tavi one more time before stealing back to his pile, and pulling forth a cracked porcelain tri-mask.  He slipped it on, and shifted it quietly to the smiling light-blue side. He began to pull his lute over his form, but instead, he let it hand by the strap from his hand, reaching down to put his hammer on his hip, and wiggled his toes, twinkling rings from his foot-bells drifting in Tavi's direction. 

He turned to Tavi, "Hullo." 

[EloHim]

[Volundr]
"Well, damn. Thats all I had to hear!"- this was already looking a lot better. A good shot through the eye-socket, straight into the brain... Nah, that would be too good to be true. If the harpoons were spear-sized then it will probably just tickle it...or enrage the beast and then the ship will certainly sink.
The bastard must be hurt from the inside, stabbed in the gut, through the heart in order to prevent the worst from happening...Wait a minute...from the inside, was it? A grin made its way onto the face.
“He...hehehehe....HAHAHAHA!”
The outburst of nigh-maniacal laughter erupts from Viking’s chest. That idea sounded like something his grandfather would think of. What he thought of was suicidal to the point of madness, but...what if it worked? If it was too mad, then it must work. 
“OF COURSE! LONGBOAT! Hickory! Want to make nice - hold onto that for me.”
He puts his hammer on the table near Hickory, chuckling and grinning all the way through.
“No use for a hammer where cutting 's required. If we’ll live - I’ll pick it up afterwards. Now excuse me, but i'm gonna pick meself a couple of swords."- he says heading for the door.
Before leaving through the opened door he stops.
“Oh, and thanks for patching me up.” - those were the last words Vol said before leaving Hickory’s room. He remembers his way to the Armory where he rifled through the weaponry, nabbing himself two short-swords, or what was closest to those.

[rosallora]

[Volundr]

The viking finds what he's looking for. Laden down with steel, he's quite the picture. And reinvigorated, he is ready for the task ahead, however long it may take to find them. The weapons are steady in his hand, but there is something to them, something that speaks of older battles and long lost men. They will serve him well, regardless.

[Hugo]

Tavi manages a strained smile as she's confronted with the tri-face mask and a strange little greeting. "Ah, yes. Hullo." She mimics his speech, looking outwardly uncomfortable. "You are ready?" She takes another step backwards, putting some distance between her and the more eerie looking bard, now that he was clothed in his things. Something about the jingly bells put her ill at ease.

[Lekalis, but also All]

And then, the boat shudders, tosed suddenly to the left by a force too great to be a rogue wave out of the blue. The captain clings to the rail as she and Lekalis are put closer to the surface of the ocean, the boat righting itself quickly. "By Hells," she says, grabbing for a line. She loops it around herself and ties a noose about her waist. "I believe that is what I've hired you to take care of."

A head breaches the water. A head with scales and jagged needle teeth, an eye without eyelid, bright and sickly yellow-amber, and Tobin, tied to the mast, makes some terrible sound, a low and sonorous thing that rattles over the ship and towards the creature.

[EloHim]

[Volundr]
If it was felt on the top deck, one could imagine what was going on in the lower ones. The hit was strong, strong enough to take the viking of his feet, yet again crashing into the nearby wall.
"Four leagues, my ass! This thing is RIGHT HERE!"- he angrily said as he scrambled to get back on his two feet and get out of the armory.
He wanted to say that he knew that was going to happen...but that would be a lie. I mean, the thing that Captain kept on the ship definitely could've just called it to them... One monster calling another on a friendly dinner.
No. Fuck those thoughts. He should see the beast with his own eyes first. And then...if he's lucky Vol will get to see what colour Serpent's blood is.
He gets up the ladder.

He sees it.

He hears the voice of his mother, ringing in his ears. A memory rising from the deep.
"Jörmungandr, serpent of Midgard,
Borne of Angrboda and Loki
Cast away by Odin,
left to rot."
That was the usual beginning of the tale of World Serpent his mother used to tell him when he asked. Vol liked that story, like all other stories of gods and monsters.
The fact that this came to mind when he saw the monstrosity...was eerie to say the least.
Story made flesh. Legend proven real…
[TOWERING. FIERCE. TERRIBLE. NIGHTMARE MADE MATERIAL.]

There was no time to install harpoon launchers. Not if the bastard attacked them now. The ship will hold a few hits but no one would be able to place any structure on the top deck without losing men to the sea below.
The monster on deck called him. Must’ve.Let them have their chat. He needed a goddamn boat.

[rosallora]

The captain springs into quick action, leaping away from her perch by the lordling and going towards the bow. "To the boats! To your stations!"

Crewmembers started running, ordering to each other, communicating in the way that the gears of a well-oiled clock did, turning each other and pushing more still into smooth action. Some run for the sides of the boat where the longboats were kept, pushing canvas away to reveal the sets of long, thin oars that would keep it moving when it was in the water.

The creature howled, its scales glimmering in the moonlight, dark but visible against the black of the water. Its eyes where white discs, the spines standing straight, a slight translucency that communicated flesh and webbing. This was no mechanical fiend, this was no apparition appearing in a sailor's mind as he threw off the last vestiges of a wild night, no, this was the nightmare as it appeared, diving and crashing into the water. It displaced froths of white foam, clearly marking its position.

Tied to his post by heavy chain, the abomination Tobin howled, a bloodcurdling sound, low and mournful and panicked all at once.

[Kidney]

Heh. Silly Tavi.

Without much care, Hugo relaxed onto his heels, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. "I think I am, perchance." He giggled, tapping a few fingers to the heavy hammer at his hip.

The sound that came next brought that relaxed nature to an end. The screams and howl made Hugo jump, and he immediately fell to his hands and feet, like an animal, for a few moments. He flew to his feet, nearly touching the ceiling, before he reached and pulled his lute from his back. He strummed one chord, melodious, though hindered by its singularity. Hugo laughed, though out of fear more than pomp. 

"I..." He stopped himself.  

"Am no longer ready."

[EloHim]

[Volundr]

This brings back memories. The storm, the screams, the ruckus... Volundr was home. Vikings were not so different from usual humans in these situations...just more used to it.
He helps people ready the longboat, ready to get into it and finally get to the business at hand. Either he succeeds, or dies. The people around him are unfamiliar, so no big deal about 'em. They came ready to die,else they would not be here at all, right?

The screaming beast on the ship makes his head hurt something fierce. More than the monstrosity out there. Why no one yet told him to shut the fuck up?! Maybe he should? No...He needs to focus on the bigger fish. The plan was already in his head... he just needed to execute it.
When the first boat hits the water, he's already on it.

[Bloodtrailkiller]

/Lekalis/

The more he listened, the more he felt embroiled in some foul dream. More he wished it all could be explained so simply; sailors who'd stolen madness onto a ship, and now... the quarry made manifest.
In truth, it was perhaps some fleeting semblance of sanity that had the Ex-Lord cling to the idea that the supposed great serpent was some misconstruction of a writhing great maggot of some kind, or some other Eldritch apparation to be taken with blood and steel. Yet, as the boat rocked and the sonorous bellow of the beast reverberated through the nightly air and through reality itself, it became clear that the inkly scrawlings had been all too true.

Of all the things Lekalis had witnessed, he supposed he should have expected such tall tales to be true; he was veritably at the center of one such tall tale, and each misbegotten soul that dredged itself unto the pit of the Darkest Estate seemed to carry with it a tale as long as the trail there.

Thus, he beheld the serpent and its mayhem with tired eyes as he gently swayed with the shook boat; he had the wherewithal to carefully bring his spear about, planting its bladed tip into the boards to secure himself as he sized up the creature with praxic admiration. Serpents were no simple thing to slay... it was the head or the length of their body, and neither option seemed practical to the scale of the beast; much as he loathed them, cannons would have made the affair easier.

The dreadful wail of Tobin took Lekalis' attentions for a moment; was it base causality that the monster screamed, or was there something more to the connection of the two aside the sea?
Such queries pulled the Veteran's mouth into a thin line, and tightened his grip on his spear. His eyes idly trailed a crewman bustling onto a longboat... were they thinking to handle the creature as one might handle a whale? He supposed it was far from the worst idea, though he was hard pressed to consider it sane by any means. Albeit, sanity seemed to be kicked and mutilated in ever brutal means since the ritual.
"Bother..." He grumbled as he pinched his brow and put himself into motion; setting his looted Trident into his spear's sheathe, it made him a touch late to boarding the first longboat, but he found himself aboard and at the rear of the boat.
He had no intention of dying himself, though he was certain there were enough suicidal souls on the vanguard boat to compensate and ward him. At the very least, the Vikingr bedecked in razors and hammer should have enough meat and mad intent.

He steeled himself, and stifled a yawn; perhaps he should have eaten quicker and stolen a nap instead of plying for questions... the answers had done naught for him, after all. He shut one eye and lowered himself in the boat, digging his spear into the floor of the Longboat, he tried to prepare flesh and bone for the violence ahead...

[rosallora]

[Hugo]

"Get ready!" Tavi shouts, a command that she spits out as the boat rocks, the stout woman steadying herself against the wood wall. She grunts with effort, then digs her booted feet in against the floorboards as she starts to run out of the room like she's been possessed. "No time to waste! Monster's here!" She doesn't wait for him, going regardless of his following her or not.

[Volundr and Lekalis]

The water is cold as ice when the froth flecks over the side of the longboat, a crew of fifteen in it, including the two men from the Hamlet. The sky is dark but the stars and moon illuminate what they need to see: water with white peaks, and a serpent that is now slithering and sliding in and out of the water.

The man at the bow shouts with a voice louder than the waves, calling them to action. "PULL!" The oars are grabbed by the men around them, and pulled in unison. The boat begins to move with the propulsion. "Pull like you've never done before, you damned dogs, you rat bastards, prove yourself worthy of somethin' in your life! Pull! Pull!"

The wind off the water slices through the air. Ice in lungs, fire on the palms. The monster is ahead of them, a mass moving in patterns that don't quite make sense, its long, serpentine body moving through the water, cutting in and out of visibility. Around them mens' breath puffs in heavy, hot rasps, grunts made in unison as they pull, and pull, and pull.

[Kidney]

The scene around him is hard to explain, devoid of characters, yet a soliloquy not rehearsed. 'Twas not a stage play. Hugo rushed after Tavi like a serpent through tall grass, nearly lapping the larger woman before keeping pace with her, barreling to whatever place she deemed necessary, and hopefully safe. 

"TAVI!" He yelled, "WHERE ARE WE GOING?" He said, confusion apparent, but altogether trusting. 

[rosallora]

[Hugo]

"The deck!" She hurries up the second set of stairs, the night coming into view cold and clear. She shouts at the sight in front of her, the serpent breaking through the water to roar and rear, the longboats beginning the path out to meet it. "Hells..."

The smaller woman was at a loss for words, staring at the sight. The captain snaps, her eyes bright with the hunt.

"If you have able hands then you'll get to the harpoon! Go!"

Tavi looks to Hugo. "I'll need help handling it!"

"Make yourself useful," the Captain spits at Hugo, "earn your place at sea!"