Date: on or about yearspawn, 5165 Olven Calender, 4 Yana, year of the toad in local reckoning.
Position: Teatherdocked, customs citidel, forbiddenspace
Ship's condition: neet and trim, clean and well supplied.
This will be an exceptional first entry, but then circumstances have made Fosterling an exceptional vessel. Her story begins with the destruction of Effulgent Matron, a fleet tender and lightship under my command. As Captain-Adjunct, I was not initially privy to the details of the fleet's mission, and frankly I prefered it that way. Lightships are fleet support vessels, not warships, and Matron was no exception. She was my ship, however old, bought and paid.
I came aboard her as an unrated youth near the end of what is now called the “Second Unhuman War” (though the reason it is known by that title is a mystery to me, for there were a number of men on my ship alone), and purchased her when I retired (the whole of which is a tale I may append to this log entry, but the circumstances of which compelled me to take on the mission in which she perished). The mission she was on at the time of her destruction was to support a naval fleet on a diplomatic mission to a remote sphere known only for it's "foreverwood" ships.
The diplomat, a monk and arcanist named Geoffrey, was a native of Brindle (also known ominously as “the forbidden planet”), and was returning home to smooth over some bad relations that flared up over an attempted invasion by the Admiralty at some point in the past. Unfortunately for us we were intercepted by a massive fleet of thirty or more humanoid ships, mostly scorpions. Badly outnumbered, even Matron was pressed into line combat. When both Majestic and Starchild (Both Armada-class carriers) fell, The fleet admiral decided on a desperate course of action. He took his burning Man-O-War, Constance into close contact with the core of the opposing fleet using the remaining flitters as a screen; once there he activated an enchanted rod.
From the wreckage of Effulgent Matron's splintered quarterdeck, I watched as he strode out to the fron of his vessel, the rod seemingly drawing in all light to itself like some kind of anti-star. Shortly thereafter, what appeared to be a massive sphere of annihilation grew out of it until it came to be almost a hundred meters across, at which point it began to somehow suck things in. It was like a sort of bottomless hole of blackness hanging in space, devouring all the air and most of the ships and wreckage from both sides, though due to Matron's comparative fragility, she was destroyed earlier, and thus further out, sparing my life. All that remained of both fleets was the aft bulb of Constance, most of the port wing of an armada (though whether it was Majestic's or Starchild's I could not say), and a sizable collection of wreckage and corpses.
On further examination, one of these corpses was Bronan, one of the human mercinaries, but he was so close to death that only his musclebound thick-headedness allowed him survive until the next day when I regained enough power to heal him. My worries about my own survival turned out to be more than a little unfounded though, as the Admiral's Helmsman, Moody, turned out to be a sort of construct who survived the deadly atmosphere, and managed to escape with the helm intact. All of which brings me to the crux.
Amongst the salvage from the battle I discovered an enchanted lyre of building! The skills I learned helping to craft ice racers as a child assisted me here, and I was able to play the lyre for just over two hours without missing a note. The resultant combination of my two disparate skills was a new mosquito, whose frame was crafted from beams pared from the man-o-war, hull composed of planks from my own quarterdeck, and wingsails grafted from pieces of the armada's wing. I even managed to salvage enough legs from the scorpions that I was able to cobble together more or less proper landing struts! Thus equipped with ship and helm, we set off to at least make the attempt to carry out the mission, or at least inform the leadership of Brindal that their envoy had perished. I armed the mosquito to the teeth, embedding an orc ballista in the bow, Constance's jettison aft, and took onto the top deck two more ballista and a catapult from Matron's complement.
Flying no flag, and armed to the teeth, I felt it unlikely that any would make an attempt on us now that the orcs were out of the picture locally. Using charts salvaged from the wreckage, I plotted my course as directly as possible, even coming in between two closely placed spheres in a fairly dangerous maneuver, then heading to the customs station where a gnome called only “Skippy” who was good enough to assist me in navigating the local bureaucracy. There are exhaustive laws with harsh penalties, and no slack was likely to be given to an elf in any event, so I kept my head down, merely buying a meal and this tome to use as ships log (apart from paying docking and examination fees of course).
The allotted birth time is almost up, and I am the only sailor onboard, so I will include other details in my next entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment