Session 71 - Welcome Wagon

Previously, Across the Horizon...
Our brave adventurers successfully descended to the core of the Edge of the World in search of the Machine City to cure Aurin's affliction and to aid Dobverat in preventing the Logos from... from something, Dobverat's communication wasn't the clearest it could have been.
What they found was Alexander, the Holy Avenger, a Guardian Force, one possessed by a Parasite named Azi Dahaka, a Parasite that lured adventurers of all kinds to the Edge of the World, adding them to its own collection, its own library for uncovering secrets.
With the destruction of Dahaka's host, Azdar Chid, the hold on Aurin seemed to be lifted. With the destruction of Dahaka's host, the entire island attempted to swallow the party and trap them there forever.
Despite multiple close calls involving twisted minds and iron-sighted weapons, our adventurers battled their way clear of the Edge of the World and escaped on Meteor, dodging the Seventh Dawn on their way back to civilization and the safety of the Starfall.
It is aboard this ship that we find them on the following day, after a solid night's sleep in their own shipboard beds, surrounded by friends, associates, and whatever label has been assigned to Apoc on this day...
**
The Starfall drifts through the sky above Machanon, with no particular course set, Marina lazily looking for places of interest that aren't too interesting.
Celeste is working on some cross-stitching, navigational map ignored.
The Hive run through lines for an upcoming play should they all be pressed into diplomatic action again. Apoc is helping them, but his heart's not really in it.
Artemicion directs Owen on where exactly to move his forge, since Owen has yet to realize that it takes more than one person to move an entire forge, and Artemicion isn't about to tell him otherwise.
The Starfall is a familiar collection of chatter and commotion, comforting in its reliability.
The officers have yet to regain their full composure.
Yesterday, everyone was so beat that there wasn’t much room for introductions and debriefs; the crew from the island pretty much confirmed their continued living status, then fell into their respective cabins to wash up and sleep.
The next morning, after a costume change, Linnet still sports dark circles under her eyes and major bruises in several places, but she looks much more with it. “Could someone find Rahel and Jasper and ask them to please meet me in the galley five minutes ago? Don’t disturb Marina or Celeste, I’d really like to not have their attention diverted if we meet something Interesting, but I have a bit of restoring order ahead of me and I’d like to get a jump on it before I run out of steam. Bast, I’d appreciate it if you and Aurin could follow me just long enough for a first meeting.” There’s really no room in her monologue for a word edgewise. Aurin looks a bit overwhelmed but at least seems to recognize the word “galley” as a good one.
On their way to the kitchen, Aurin stops abruptly when a small spotted lump lands on his right shoe and starts batting at the dangling lace. “Um, Linnet? You seem to have pests.”
“Hm? Oh, that one’s supposed to be here. Triscuit, play nice.” Linnet stops, crouches in the hall, and scritches Triscuit behind the ears. “Feel free to lift him off by the scruff of the neck if he’s being a pain, but he’s really pretty harmless. He’s gotten a habit of stealing loose socks, though, so don’t leave them out if your cabin door’s open.”
“...wait, my cabin?”
“Well, yes, even if you’re only with us for a day or two, we assume you plan to sleep sometime. You’re in a guest cabin, and if you decide to stick around, it becomes a not-a-guest-anymore cabin. It’s very simple.”
Any further discussion on this point is postponed by arrival at Linnet’s demesne. The drying rack is full of dishes and there’s the leftovers of a salad in a bowl on the table, which means that not only did people continue to eat while she was away, they even cleaned up after themselves. Really, Linnet couldn’t ask for a better crew.
Bjrn emerges from a shadow only to depart through the door in search of Linnet's other friends.
Bast settles down at the table, taking a slow sip from a flask as they wait for the others to arrive.
Yves arrives without his satchel, one lop-ear twitching slightly. "I need someone to explain to the stagehands that we need to clear at least one more room, because when I said so they kept explaining the purpose of the parts in the room I suggested, and... I understand the engineering! I do! I do not object to lowering people from a crane that's supposed to look like a mystical dragon, the fog machine is fine, I just need the space!"
Rahel gallavants into the room, as luminescent as ever. Jasper walks in with a notebook and a pen, plus a dozen more just like it tucked into the utilikilt.
In the time it takes to boil a pot of water and give Aurin the brief raid-the-galley-when-you’re-hungry tour, Bast introduces them to their guest. Linnet summarizes the introduction she’d like the rest of the crew to receive: “he’s had a rough time, so please tell them to take it easy on him, and look Apoc straight in the eye when you say it. He doesn’t need an entire production descending on him at once.” Rahel looks momentarily put out, but Jasper claps a hand on her shoulder in a way that means both she doesn’t mean anything by it, you’re fine and lay off.
Then, he gives Aurin a warm handshake and eases into some quiet small talk while Linnet pulls Rahel to the side.
“I’d like to start up some of our old drills with the crew - partly for morale, partly because I can sense folks are getting a little edgy waiting for us between engagements, partly in case you all need to pull a diversion like another play again. How would you and a few of our production staff feel about reinstituting fight and dance calls?”
There's an inquisitive expression from Bast, mid-sip, as he looks from Linnet to Isa.
Rahel’s eyebrows shoot up and she nearly knocks her chair over in excitement. “Hot damn that’s the best idea you’ve had since Brownie Bar Breakfast! You’re right, we’re getting a little antsy, and some footwork drills could be just the thing we need. We’ll even pull in the rest of the crew if you’d like; we’ve got some simpler stuff to go over and I’d be happy to teach some new steps to get everyone’s feet pointed in the same direction. Runa should really be running dance call, and Mogali might be able to work in some tumbling and gymnastics drills. Say, an hour at a time, maybe three days a week? And as for fight call, normally that's Brandt's thing, and I know he's been wanting to approach Isaline about making them more realistic...but I also know he's kind of scared to death of her. So that's up to her." Rahel glances over her shoulder to where Isa leans against the counter, eating an apple, and throws her a quick salute.
"...think I slept through brownie bar breakfast," Yves mutters, flopping down in a chair.
"Now that we have an actual blacksmith on board, too, I know Mogni's been mooning around holding some of our stage swords and looking hopeful and put-upon... Oh, don't worry, Yves, we'll make it happen again this week. I need so many brownies." Linnet hasn't sat still since she walked in and is stirring something brown right now.
"So that's...what, practice? Stage fights?" Bast asks.
"It is, but we can easily work in some actual combat moves in there, particularly if we start with unarmed. The base is all a movement drill, really, and fighting is just as much about avoiding getting hit as it is about doing the hitting. ...I could certainly stand to be lighter on my feet these days."
Rahel finishes scribbling some notes, steals a swipe of Linnet's brownie batter, and tells Yves, "Talk to Jasper about the room, he'll help you work around argumentative stagehands. Lin, I'll go rustle up some drills. Back later!" Already singing a familiar fight song, she's gone in a flash.
"Hm." There's a thoughtful look in Bast's eye. "Isa? Think you could also teach them a thing or two about actual fighting, not just making it look good?"
Isa swallows some coffee. "Not sure I could do anything else. Ask Clayton," she says, referring obliquely to the reason he was walking around with a nose splint last week.
That gets a smile. "If they don't learn more than when to duck and run, we're still ahead."
"Learning how, and when, to run might be good all around," Yves mumbles into the cup of coffee he has acquired for himself somewhere in the last few minutes.
"...oh. Okay, Isa, maybe you need to work Rahel into your training sessions with Celeste and Yves first, so that you have a bridge between stage combat and real combat. Good grief, poor Clayton." But Linnet's chuckling.
Bast unsmiles. "So that's sorted. Dance, though?"
"Again, reflexes and movement. Reactions, being quick on your feet, being able to read another person's movements, work around several other people, work in a team, and stretch parts of your body that might not be stretched the same way with a weapon in your hand. And, dance call happens before fight call, so hopefully by the time you're fighting, you're sufficiently limbered up and awake. "Not that I ever seriously busted anything by showing up to fight call after an all-nighter. And if I did I'm not telling anyone about it. Besides, if we find anyone who's truly useless with a weapon in their hand, at least we can get some unarmed training in that way."
Right now, it's just the officers, Aurin, and Jasper, so the cook sets down her bowl and turns around. "While we're here, while it's just us: we probably have some things that need talking out after the, uh, adventure we just had. As usual, the galley is open as a safe space for conversation except for regular mealtimes as posted on the schedule outside my door. Anytime outside of that, you need to talk to me, you just knock; you need to talk to someone else and want me to mediate, that works too. I figure it's probably going to take a few days." For a minute, Linnet actually allows herself to look as worn thin as she feels. "Carry on. Someone grab me a cake pan?"
"You can get some good sparring in hung over," Isa notes. "there's a real incentive to avoid getting hit."
"...we may have a lesson on that. Yves, what did you need a room cleared out for, and did it particularly need to be the room with the crane and the fog machine?"
Yves is trying to figure out which pan is a cake pan. "I'm trying to put together a room for Principia," he says, "and I thought... maybe something like a library? An actual working one, even if it a very small one, with whatever books we can pull together that people don't mind sharing, and the next time we're in a proper city I'll go buy some more. Unless that would be worse than a non-library, after what happened. I don't know. Uh. I think this is a cake pan. Anyway, it doesn't have to be that room specifically."
"It's ambitious, at least." More coffee finds its way into Isa.
Jasper looks a bit lost. "Linnet, did we acquire another librarian, and have you failed to introduce them?"
"Principia can't stay in my room indefinitely," Yves says woefully. "It's just... too soon! We barely know each other! I don't want to be pushy."
Linnet is trying to stifle a giggle and failing. "Yves, why don't you go ask Principia if they'd like a tour of the ship, and possibly to meet our quartermaster and discuss a shipboard library?"
"So long as we're on rooms, what is Artemicion doing with the forge?" Bast glances towards the door, past which there are Noises and alarming masses being moved about.
"Oh, that's a good idea. Just... approach it sidelong, see how things go. See, this is why I knew you'd know how to handle it." Yves gulps down some coffee, leaves the pan of some sort beside Linnet, and heads out to make exactly this suggestion.
Linnet lifts up the most elaborately decorated bundt pan she's ever seen. "Why the heck...never mind. Jasper, Principia is an ancient sentient book of no clear pronoun who accompanied us out of a time-displaced library because their choices were that or be captured by relic hunters. It's kind of a long story. And they and Yves might sort of be in the beginnings of something more than a friendship? And it is the cutest thing ever."
To his credit, Jasper doesn't comment; he just gives Linnet a very strange look and then mulls this over for about a minute and a half, then nods.
The door opens, and Artemicion wanders in, clearly in a better mood than the moogle has been since signing on. "Which of you was responsible for hiring that strapping young lad?"
Linnet points a spatula at Isa and hands a large bowl of strawberries, a cutting board, and two paring knives to the table.
Artemicion helps himself to a strawberry and none of the work.
"Owen?" Isa asks. "He's worked for us for years, wanted to come along. How could I say no?"
"He's wonderful. Teach him nothing." There is the sound of an entire building dropping into place, as if from on high, and Artemicion smiles. "We've set up dividers so i have both the artisan workshop and the conventional workshop. This... task I have been given vexes me, but a more peaceful working environment should help me make this perfectly imperfect blade."
Somewhere in another part of the ship, an extended tour of this marvel of ancient engineering has just begun. Delivered by one enthusiastic viera to one especially ancient book, as it so happens. It might take a while.
"Regardless. The first set of weapons for your crew are complete, and so long as they are met with the approval they of course merit, I will begin working on a second set for any new hires." He claims a second strawberry. "And should any of you need any work on any of your own weapons, do let me know. There is plenty of inspiration to be found between the monotonous and the impossible."
"Somewhere in there must be the truth? Thank you, Artemicion. Speaking as someone with no eye for weapons but an eye for people, you're a gem. Now please stop pinching the strawberries before they make it to the brownie bar." Linnet winks at the blacksmith.
"Speaking of weapons," Isa says casually, between coffees, "we're accumulating a very strange little arsenal as prizes."
Bast perks up at that slightly. "I might drop in soon. Got an idea I want to try out."
"Jasper, adding to the list: possible library, upon consulting with Principia, and definitely an armory. We need a separate little space for poking at our weird arsenal in case any of it explodes. Please," she adds, "not to overstep the Captain, but speaking as someone who dislikes things exploding when they're not expected to. If the three of you want to go sort that out a little later, once Yves and Principia get back from their grand tour, maybe we'll actually know what to do with some of our strange arsenal by the time we need to use it." (Brownies are in the oven, someone's whipping cream, someone else is stirring more cream into melted chocolate, and a brownie bar brunch is coming together.)
Artemicion continues to not help, but will wait for brownies. He's not a monster.
"About time we arranged one, I think." Bast gives Linnet an approving nod. "And do we want something for the masks as well? If this keeps up, I doubt we'll be able to carry them all around with us."
Isa sips. "A nice display case arrangement," she mostly says to herself.
"That's probably a secure sort of thing," Linnet replies, glaring at Bast with a not in front of anyone not directly involved in the mask process look. (Materials for a fruit salad are split among the table to make the work go faster.)
At a slightly different distance and direction than before, Yves is attempting to delicately explain the Engine Situation of the ship to Principia, and his hopes for resolving it without unleashing terrifying wrath upon all the modern nations, especially because then he'd have to stop the terrifying wrath and he feels really bad about it when he has to fight an epic unearthly being that actually has a legitimate grievance.
Principia has many thoughts on the self-proclaimed Queen of the Eidolons, as she appears multiple times in Alexander's library, always as a cautionary tale, and once as an outright traitor to all Guardian Forces.
Ten minutes after Artemicion leaves, Apocynthion Lunakrei Tolvani, the Third, makes an entrance not at all befitting his name. "The brownies are distracting our actors," he says, "so I have been sent here to see if they are available for everyone, or just our returning heroes here."
"There will be plenty for everyone in about ten minutes, so they have just enough time to run the song once more and then put the props away." Linnet is still not very well disposed toward Apoc, but nobody can be crabby in the face of brownies. "And put the skeletonic keys back on the ring this time, please, we seem to lose one every time we do the song, they do not go in pockets. I just need to set the table and then I promise I made enough for three hungry crews this size."
"...what are they rehearsing down there?" Bast asks.
"It's called "With Couerl-Like Tread," but whoever wrote it assumed that couerls were stealthy and quiet and the song is not stealthy and quiet at all. The cavaliers are planning a robbery. It's sort of fight call and dance call all in one."
Apoc is keeping his questions toward Linnet very light and harmless lately. "Honestly, stealth and quiet are not really anyone's strength on this ship. Save perhaps Chmurka, who I assume is still traveling with us, somewhere."
"That one's a favorite precisely because it's so contradictory. Also because buckling your swash is always a fun way to end your workout."
"So I've heard." Bast nods to Apoc, but his interest is clearly taken by Linnet and the notion of the actors planning a robbery.
"Captain," Apoc says jovially. Isa gets the usual we-don't-talk-and-I-know-that's-by-design nod, and nothing at all attempted further.
("No sound at all / we never speak a word / a fly's foot-fall would be distinctly heard," they belt with the force of a cadence count...)
"--eternity, a bit much?" Yves' voice drifts into earshot as he makes his way back toward the kitchen. Or galley. Whatever it's called on ships. "In any case, having your perspective on the problem has been very useful. Now, in here you'll find--" He stops in the doorway, and blinks once. "--about the same people who were here when I left, but not quite. I suppose that happens. Principia, you've already met most of these people, but not quite all. Ah. Let me see."
Apoc lights up on seeing Yves, though he's not sure who Yves is talking to.
Yves brightens further, though he doesn't have a lot more wattage he can add to the current setting. "Apoc! Please meet Principia, who was, unfortunately, forced to flee from a previous home, and will be traveling with us. Principia, this is Apoc, who has a complicated relationship with the stars. He's one of the actors in the crew." His gesture is toward the ground and slightly behind him, for the first part of that introduction.
"Charmed," says a talking book.
(A chorus of "IN SILENCE DREADDDDDD" over happy chords and crashing cymbals from below adds to the suspended disbelief of the moment.)
Apoc blinks, and then kneels down. "Principia, I am honored that you have decided to call the Starfall your home, and a better host and guide than Yves you will not find. Should you want for anything during your adjustment, you need only ask, and everyone here will do all that they can to make you feel welcome."
"Welcome, Principia! Though I would recommend staying near the ceiling of the galley, as it gets a bit messy down below. Speaking of which, Bast, Isa, come help me set the buffet table?"
Isa finishes her coffee, rinses out her mug, sets it on a drying rack, and goes to help Linnet. It's entirely coincidental that during this entire process her gaze never falls on Apoc.
Bast gets up from his seat, putting away the flask he's been absent-mindedly holding the past few minutes, and comes along.
"And this is Jasper," Yves adds to Principia, "the quartermaster, who will know how to manage putting together a ship library, which I'd rather been thinking about for a while now. I think it's mostly a matter of picking a room to clear out, putting up some shelves, and then, uh, books. And... uh... an... organizational system?" He looks a bit desperately toward Linnet. "So on and so forth!"
"It may take some work to get the file delivery system working properly, but I am sure with blueprints and ingenuity you will be able to figure it out," Principia says with all confidence in Yves.
"Ingenuity we have in spades, and on blueprints, we can collaborate. I'll see what rooms we can find that don't have very difficult pieces of equipment in them." Jasper rises from the table, bows slightly to Principia - no hands to shake - smiles again at Aurin, and tucks his pen behind his ear. "Linnet, I'll go get the crew. Afterward, we'll do the dishes and get out of your hair, okay?"
Yves beams at the compliment. And makes a tiny little gesture between Apoc and Principia, from behind the book, as if to say, You're both cool, be friends!
"Jasper, you'll spoil me." Linnet pulls pans of brownies out of the oven and takes a deep breath. "BRUNCH!" she yells, loud enough for most of the ship to come running.
And over warm brownies with whipped cream and assorted toppings, plus a giant fruit salad, plus some cheese and other assorted savory nibbles, new friendships are made, stamina is restored, and a sense of homey cheer once again pervades the Starfall.
Bast whistles quietly - first at Linnet being louder than he ever recalls her being before, and then at the smell that washes over the galley. Before the small space is swarmed by actors, he grabs one of the kitchen knives, carves out a corner of one pan of brownies and samples it. Linnet's look of mixed scandal and concern gets only a "Captain's privilege" in reply.