Black Hunger Rising

We are in Saltmarsh. I do not like land that is so undecided about where it ends and where water begins, but Eostra-Captain knows this place and the Ship of the Line was heading towards it, so we hardly had a choice.
 
I do not like not being able to choose where to go.
 
Flick keeps disappearing, but I was also allowed to take shore leave. Not that I wanted to, but there was a call for help from a fellow guardian of balance. He is ... short. And wearing tree bits. There is quite a lot of trees, too. I will never get used to them growing out of earth and stone like that, moving only so very slowly. Land life is unnerving.
 
Even more unnerving is what he has shown me. There is blackness rising from the water, kissing the land. Things dead and dying. And around statues there is a breath of sickness that seems connected to the Black Tide. I need to talk to Eostra-Captain, to L'huuna of the Swift Swimmers and Jaggerjaws the Ever Hungry. And Flick, the Little Dragon, if we can find him again. So slippery.
 
We need to stop this. How to tell them? Humans are so surly and strangely in love with saying things they do not mean and then expecting me to understand that because they put stress on certain words they meant the opposite. I can see Eostra-Captain saying: "Brilliant, let's all drop everything we're doing and run off on this errand." And then only when I end up tackling the problem alone I will realize essin did not mean it. And essin will be flustered and rolling essins eyes.
 
I will think about my words, carefully. And maybe I will find someone to teach me how to put the weird stress on the right words, myself.
 
Sweet Seas protect the Ship and all that are hers.