128 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
128 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: 00028
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created: Sat, 29 Oct 2022 08:36:51 -0600
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updated: Sat, 29 Oct 2022 08:36:51 -0600
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public: yes
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syndicated: yes
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---
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### 00028 {#00028}
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> ~*a new player enters the chat*~
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>
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> Gabs had a good life. Her little devil children were all grown
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> adults now, and she no longer wanted to toil away running a
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> business. When she initially shuttered her little tavern, she
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> thought she might just retire. She made it two whole years of
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> working in a garden, occasionally seeing grandkids, and reading
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> romance novels. She eventually decided she needed a vacation from
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> her retirement and traveled to a nearby port town. She was sure to
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> find something fun to do there.
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>
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> Gabs eventually sees Inquire Within, and the smell of debauchery
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> wafting from within made her miss her days gossiping at her tavern.
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> She enters and orders a terrible drink and listens and watches.
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>
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> Hearing the tales being spun by Mister Three-Fingered, she decides,
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> “I’ve never been on a ship, that’s something that sounds exciting!”
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>
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> Half-drunk and eager for something exciting, she will join on the
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> journey!
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>
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> Gabs is a lanky older half-devil lady who is here to schmooze and
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> have fun!
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~
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> Meta: a warm welcome to the latest member of our tea party! This is
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> a short post to help smooth the temporal jumps between the recent
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> narratives so far. As Inky reaches the deck, they see Gabs
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> approaching from the other side of the ship as well, and flashes
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> them a grin in greeting. After listening to the captain petering on
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> about the glorious days of the now sunken ship below, while
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> tinkering with the bell's tentacles — being rewarded with a mild
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> zap and marginally better fit for the effort — Inky turns to the
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> party. "When you're ready."
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You reach into the tank and discover that grabbing a breathing bell
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takes some finesse. They are very slippery! But you get the hang of
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it and make a ladle out of your hands and scoop one up.
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"Okay now!" laughs Three-Fingered Gerald. He gives you a wink, but
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it's easy to miss because of the eyepatch. "Don't put it on until
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right before you jump. It won't be able to breathe for you until
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you're in the water. And this!" he continues, fitting a heavy, padded
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vest around your shoulders, "will carry you down." It is a vest of
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many pockets, each one holding a small dense sandbag the size of your
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hand. "When you're ready to come back up, just start dropping
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ballast, right?"
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You hop up on the ship railing and pull the breathing bell on over
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your head. It immediately contracts and squeezes and hugs your head
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like a second skin, and its stubby little tentacles grab hold around
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your jawline, and it feels like you have a wet plastic bag clinging
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to your face, and you think you might have made a grave mistake.
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Resisting the urge to panic, you push off the railing and jump
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overboard. You are briefly air born and then profoundly waterbound,
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crashing through the surface of the sea into the briny soup below.
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The oxygen starts to flow as the breathing bell begins to do its job.
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As you sink, you feel as though you are floating through space,
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entering another world.
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After a while you start to hear voices arguing in the distance. As
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you get closer, two large shapes start to come into focus. The first
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is a hulking, hairless merbear. Top half (hairless) bear, bottom half
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fish. The second figure is a tardigrade the size of a large merbear.
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It has eight jointless legs, each tipped with four sharp claws. It
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wriggles and wobbles like jelly as it gesticulates.
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"No, I am the true Bear of the Sea! I am called a Water Bear, after
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all!"
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"Hornswoggle and poppycock! It is I who am the Bear of the Sea! I am
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half bear after all! You're just some kind of segmented nematode or
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something."
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The tardigrade quivers with indignation. "I'll have you know I'm a
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panarthropod, thank you very much. And this is the ideal physical
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body! You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks
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like. I've lived under the polar ice cap, and in a sulfurous
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mountaintop hot spring. I've traveled through the vacuum of space to
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the moon! Have you ever been to the moon?"
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"Why don't you go be the Bear of the Moon then if you like it so
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much!"
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"You're just as much fish as you are bear, are you sure you're not
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the Fish of the Sea?"
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"Are you sure you're not the Blob of the Sea, you too many armed bowl
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of jelly?"
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"Hey! Hey, you there!" The arguing quasi-bears have spotted your slow
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descent. "Come, yes, float slowly this way! You must settle an
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argument for us! Tell this slightly mammalian fish that I am the true
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Bear of the Sea!"
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"The Bear of the Sea must be at least 'slightly mammalian' you
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egg-laying scientific curiosity! You, tell this cousin of a barnacle
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that I---the mighty merbear---am the true Bear of the Sea! Say this
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and I will guide and protect you on your journey."
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"No! Would you like to visit the moon? Say that I, tardigrade, am
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Bear of the Sea and I will introduce you to my moon friends!"
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"He had to make friends on the moon because nobody on Urth can stand
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him!"
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"You're just mean, you know that?"
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You are still quite some way from the sea bed, and there is no sight
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of the SS RSS.
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WHAT DO YOU DO
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[www](https://framalistes.org/sympa/arc/tildepals/2022-10/msg00023.html)
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