Sister Hilan Observes the Preparations of the Ekzokia

Sister Hilan heads down the inn stairs just in time to see Denlo, Renalt, and Sari nod and begin to leave. Felazo follows her down close behind, and they take the table that the trio left. “What is going into getting the Ekzokia ready?”

Felazo, after ordering breakfast salads for them, shrugs. “I need to check the capture, restock the food and water supplies, though with Sari’s habits we might not have as much of a problem on the food side of things. After we restock, we need to go through and rebalance the ship and tie everything down. And I have several minutia to cast to keep the ship clean. And I’m going to run through and check the rigging, as well as coil up some spare rope for emergencies.”

Sister Hilan listens, taking it in. He had not involved anyone at their last stop, so she got the feeling he generally does this on his own. And yet, she feels like she ought to try to be helpful, at the very least. “Okay, I can’t help with any of the checking, as I wouldn’t know what to check for, but I can help move the new supplies into our hold, though your direction would be required for the placement. And I can coil rope, though I must admit I don’t fully grasp what it is for.”

“Remember how I tied us to the ship va Cotropla?” he asks.

The sister thinks about it. “It was some sort of spell, moving the ropes of your ship to meet the enemy’s hull.”

Felazo explains, “Well, those ropes aren’t really for boarding. They are for emergency holds and tying things down, using the same method. Because much of the auxiliary of the Ekzokia, admittedly, I did design specifically so that I might be capable of fixing the problems without leaving the wheel.”

Sister Hilan nods. “That does make sense,” she begins, then after thinking a moment, adds, “If you would not find it improprietous, could I shadow you in your checks?”

Felazo looks curiously across the table as he holds the last bite of his salad on a fork. “What for?” he wonders, before chomping down.

“There is much I have yet to learn about the world. And yesterday afternoon, when you and Ren were speaking about ‘the catch’, I realized I did not know how the Ekzokia actually works. All the sailing vessels I am used to can only travel by sail or rowing, and can only do so for at most a couple of days before needing to be pulled onto land and dried.”

Felazo swallows. “That would be the seal, but it only needs to be checked once a cycle, and I had Kalzia check that back in the Peaceful Fishing Collective. And I suppose you can follow along, but it will involve swimming and I will not be taking any time out of the somewhat busy next few hours to explain what I’m looking for or why.”

Sister Hilan finishes her own breakfast. “That’s only fair. I suppose if there is swimming involved in the process, I ought not don my armor.”

“Or you could, and get an intense workout in,” Felazo jokes, then does add for clarification, “And swimming is only involved for part of checking the catch. If you do not wish to, you won’t miss much.” And with that, Felazo stands up, leaves some coin for the meal, and begins to leave.

Sister Hilan follows curiously. Because Renalt had acted like her lack of understanding of their new, albeit far from permanent, home was surprising, and in doing so realized how deep her ignorance went. And, as frequently happens when most monastic members of the Darian order realize they do not understand something, she decides it is a problem that must be rectified.

Felazo travels back to the Ekzokia the long way, swinging past an odd hut by the end of the docks. Sister Hilan watches as he gets into a heated discussion over labor costs and weighing barrels with a skinny dwarf man whose beard is wider than his face. Eventually, the Sea Elf aggressively waves the dwarf off, then begins to head back to the pier where the Ekzokia is docked. Felazo climbs aboard, and Sister Hilan follows, dropping her bindle of armor and shield off down the hatch into the hold. When Felazo went down to check the supply, she could pick it back up. Until then, down there is out of sight of any unsavory individuals that might make a poor decision over a suit of full plate. Felazo gestures towards Kalzia, and the small monkeylike abomination scurries down into the ship, towards Felazo’s own chambers. Then Felazo walks over to the side rail opposite the pier, takes a deep breath, and hops over. Sister Hilan follows, and by the time she hits the water, Felazo begins to dive.

Trying to watch what someone does while underwater is hard enough, but watching someone who seems to be operating purely on instinct when one has never opened their eyes underwater before is another animal entirely. Sister Hilan tries her best to watch as Felazo swims down under the ship and, using the ship to propel himself, quickly moves over what she can only assume is the catch-a ribbed fabric of some kind, currently flush with this ship’s keep. Felazo stops briefly at one point, prodding at a part of it that looks more the ribbed color than the non-ribbed color, before making some kind of uncertain face and continuing his swim. Finally, after a distance that would put this catch’s size on par with the sails above, Felazo redirects and pushes himself to the surface, this time on the pier side. Sister Hilan follows, and upon breaking the surface, she gasps for another breath. Felazo is already making his way towards the piles of the pier by the bracing, to make his way up. Slow enough this time for her to get her breath back and catch up, at the very least.

Climbing up, and returning to the Ekzokia, Sister Hilan watches as Felazo looks at some chains that move through the area between the normal holds of the ship and the hull, a cramped and dark passageway which seems to wrap all the way around the Ekzokia. He unhooks the chain from a hook attached to a bar that goes through the ceiling, keeping it taut while attaching it to a pin protruding directly from the hull. Then they head back up to the wheel, where he pulls the lever, looks at Kalzia, who rushes over with a little bottle. Felazo pours just a bit into the crevices of the lever, and Sister Hilan assumes it to be some kind of oil, because when he tests the lever a second time, it swings much smoother through the motion. Seemingly satisfied, Felazo returns the lever to its upwards position, and heads back down to reattach the chain.

Next, he begins to go through the barrels, looking at the emptied ones, and their labels, as well as the opened but not yet emptied barrels. Sister Hilan uses the opportunity to pick back up her bindle and, heading into the hammock chamber, don her armor. After all, she presumes, this is the same sort of food inventory she’d seen countless times before. Even when ships had to pull ashore at night, they could never assume that there would be food on that shore. And certainly not fresh water. Felazo rushes past her as she finishes tying the final leather straps of her plate armor, clearly off to argue with the skinny dwarf some more. Sister Hilan, rather than follow, goes up to the deck to see what Kalzia has been up to.

The small abomination has gathered on deck several items that it is standing over protectively. The oil bottle is one of them, as is some kind of tar-like substance in a tin jar, some ash, a solitary feather, and a corpse already starting to decompose. One of the living pirates who had attacked them. A curious collection, she suspects the feather and the corpse are used in some spell he might frequently have to use in getting the boat ready, because she can think of no other use for either. The tar and the ash both might be as well, but she has heard of tar being used on ropes and ash being used for cleaning, so she can’t be certain about those two.

Felazo returns after a few minutes, leading a cart driven by that dwarf from earlier, clearly grumpy. In the back of the cart are several barrels. Sister Hilan heads down to the pier and asks Felazo, “Should I bring these all down to the hold?”

Felazo nods, saying, “I told you there wouldn’t be a grossness upcharge this time,” to the dwarf.

The dwarf looks up at Sister Hilan. “You must be a truly insane human. I’d personally sooner travel with whoever currently captains the Whirlwind than this spiritist.”

Sister Hilan smiles, and lifts a pair of barrels from the back. “No,” she says, “I just have a question to find, and I think he’s on the path to get me to it.” She takes the barrels onto the deck, then returns. Felazo takes one barrel up with him for every two that the monastic sister carries, and the transit is done swiftly. Felazo pays the dwarf and adds, “And next time, you should believe me.”

The dwarf shakes his head and says something quite rude about Felazo’s heritage in Dwarfish, before turning his cart back the way he came. “He doesn’t seem to like you very much,” Sister Hilan says to her captain.

“I couldn’t know why,” the captain says as his eyes seem to almost seep a sickly shadow as he reaches out towards the corpse, and bursting forth out of its body, the corpse’s skeleton sits up and takes Felazo’s hand. With a smirk, “Come now, everything to the basement,” he says, before giving a nod to Kalzia. As Sister Hilan begins to lift barrels to help move things, she notices out of the corner of her eye, Kalzia begins to sweep the remaining corpsebits off of the ship and into the sea.

Once all the barrels are in the hold, Felazo begins to direct her and the skeleton which barrels to put where. After about a minute, he politely asks the skeleton to sit down in the corner, and it does so before disanimating. Without the skeleton around, Felazo begins to help as well, moving the barrels closer and tying things down. After quite a bit of time, they finish below decks, everything tied tight and ready for sail. Felazo almost immediately turns on his heel and heads back up, above the decks and into the ropes above. Darting like a man well used to this, he moves from ladder-like rope section to ladder-like rope section, tugging at them, and looking at spots. This time, he doesn’t stop anywhere, nor gesture towards the small monkeyesque creature. Sliding down, he returns to the deck, and tells Sister Hilan. “If you don’t mind, good Sister, could you wrap the spare ropes around those pins there and there,” gesturing towards small, kneehigh pillars sticking out of the deck at three places, “While I start getting everything clean and presentable.”

He heads over to where Kalzia had been standing vigil, and as he walks, Kalzia takes the small tin of tar and the bottle of oil and rushes back inside. Sister Hilan begins gathering up the rope to wrap it, while Felazo picks up the feather..

While wrapping the cord around the third post, she sees a cart on the approach, with a massive masked man in the driver’s seat. Looking over, Felazo has just finished whatever magic he was doing because the feather is just finishing burning up into nothingness. As she wraps, she tells him, “The others are returning.”

“Perfect timing then,” he says. “We can set sail once they’re aboard with their goods. You help them board, I’ll determine the currents.”

Sister Hilan nods. She understands that, while the basics of sailing and the structure of their ships are no secret, the Sea Elf’s current determinators were definitely that. As her captain heads downstairs, she waits to see what her other companions have returned.