Privateers of Lssthp II [IC]

[TriciaOso]

As he was browsing he made sure to keep his ears open about any strange happenings, and he asked the salesman if they'd seen the Broad Fin recently, or perhaps a goal oriented Tortle? He asked casually, like it wasn't a big deal either way.

Min is happy to listen to Frrkkk's questions, but she is not very much help, unfortunately; she is out of the goblin city of Sheerfast for the first time and can only talk about her own adventures. She doesn't have any memory of a Tortle, but she is full of information about their ultimate destination (an extremely rare diplomatic delegation to human lands for a coronation), her shipboard romance (a stoker named Brom), and their other passengers (two 'bigshot Bounders' she calls Moustakas and 'your cousin.')

He takes a break from his work to check out the merchant vessel and how it operates.

Nobim has never been on a steamship before in his long life, and it's fascinating. The concept of a boiler and using steam to drive a wheel is obvious to anyone who has seen a teapot, but the problem is elemental spirits -- boiling steam in quantity attracts steam mephits, and steam mephits destroy things for the fun of it. Only goblins have the art of building steam engines that aren't elaborate bombs. The boiler is hung with large quantities of spirit traps that extract the mephits into glass and silver canisters. They make terrible faces at Nobim, and it occurs to him to wonder where they are disposed of. Mass banishment? Dumped into the Cataract of Steam? It's interesting.

Nobim and Frrkkk fall into stride beside each other on their way back to the White Cliff, and so it is that you are both approached by a uniformed female troglodyte. Unlike the occasional semi-feral troglodytes who scrabble up from the Underdark in Lssthp, this one is clean, upright and seems to have her smell under control; strong and unusual, but not actually offensive. Like those trogs, however, she is blind, led through the world by her nose. It's strange to see the double handcrossbows strapped to her narrow hips. But somehow she does look like she can use them. Other than her eyes, she doesn't look that different from an ordinary red kobold.

"Word to the wise, lads," she says conversationally. "Your captain was asking us about a tortle and a ship. Don't know much about tortles or ships, and I told her so. Asked if we've seen anything weird and I don't see -- much. But I've been doing some thinking and I might've left something out."

"There was a fella approached me in Baratano. Can't smell a shell, of course, much less anything about cracks filled in with gold, but he sure moved heavy. Smelled bad, and that's me saying that, you know? Wanted me to bring him on the ship as a stowaway. Weird thing is, I thought about it. I thought about it hard. I've had some experience with enchantment, though--" She touches a silver figure of a goat's head on a pendant-- "And I came to my senses and shot him down."

"Thought it might be the kind of thing you wanted to know. I'm Tomyris," she adds belatedly.