Outside the kitchen of the Feisty Jelly...
Niklas, who at this point may very well be made of disappointment, walks back to the ship. He notices that nobody appears to be around on deck. Even the captain's gone off somewhere.
Everybody has abandoned him, dammit. Fortunately, that does not last for long, as the skeletal murder squad arrives soon enough.
In a dark alley of some sort...
Mark decides to help this man when it is obvious that he has lost enough blood to provide no real resistance.
[Mark medicine roll: 2]
However, he realizes that his medical skills and tools, though considerable, are not quite good enough to mend several major severed blood vessels and a ruined trachea, at least not before the man expires. Oh well. With the aid of Kevin, he drags the fellow back to the ship and considers how exactly is a man like a fishing rod.
Ooh, ooh, he has an idea. He could take the spine, reinforce it with some femurs, then take some sinew to get a string, possibly using slightly carved phalanges to make hooks. All in all, quite possible. But first, he must help Kevin.
[Mark "medicine" roll: 6+1]
He looks at Kevin's skeletal shape. Hm, this will not do. Too pedestrian. He does not do pedestrian work. Also, it'd be a bit too simple to just take Kevin's skull and stick it on the guy's skeleton. So he'll do something rather different. Something... special!
To do this, he swings his halberd diagonally, easily shattering Kevin's central skeletal structure and watching as the entire thing comes down like a jigsaw puzzle in a tornado, leaving only the spine mostly intact and the new arms in reasonably good shape. Okay, now for fun! He takes Kevin's skull, which appears to be in total shock, and puts it on a barrel overlooking the sea. This has the additional effect of preventing Kevin from seeing what Mark is doing. In the meantime, he feels like parts are being added to his skull.
Some time later, Kevin is rudely grabbed from his position and stuck on some sort of pillar. It appears to have a spine in its center, but is also covered in jagged spikes formed from the remains of Kevin's shattered skeleton. The pillar is two meters in length and has a pelvis at the bottom. From it come two rather sizable and also spiky legs. Along the pillar there are four arms, two about half a meter from the bottom of the skeletal column, two about half a meter from the top of it. In the middle of the pillar is something resembling a curious standard, with two sets of horizontal protrusions formed of collarbones and femurs about half a meter apart vertically located smack dab in the middle of the pillar. Between them is the face of the drunkard, stretched out beyond reason and with certain patches from other bits of the body added in places. It takes a moment before Kevin realizes he can actually move the thing, forming lots of exaggerated, darkly comic expressions. Finally, his skull appears to be somewhat reinforced. Not to mention he seems to have a jester's hat on his skull that seems to be made of the dead drunk and a whole bunch of human skin strips hanging vertically from his top pair of arms along their entire length.
In addition, he appears to have what seems like a fishing rod on his back as an integral part of his spine, with a fishing line formed from sinew, a prominent bone hook hanging from it. This is a bit troubling, as it seems to hint at certain intentions on Mark's part that Kevin may not entirely appreciate.
In a shipyard of some kind...
Scott, having succeeded for once, dumps the sludge on the floor and fills the jars with pitch. He then locates no cloth that isn't in the outfit of one of the workers. Guess they keep their cloth secure here.
At least his jar has a lid, Scott thinks. Also, it's not like pitch flows all that well. There's a reason they caulk ships with it.
At a lovely fire pit of hatred...
Sigmund, after distancing himself from the fire, provides an analysis of the things currently going on.
"It seems that the remains of that tree hate us even after being burnt. Fortunately, it doesn't do anything to us besides bothering you slightly. Not that it matters now, but we should take that into account. So, can you put this mushroom near the fire? That way, if we manage grow more of it, we can experiment with its deadly qualities."
After handing Morton the mushroom, he looks on as the butler performs more monstrous alchemy.
"Indeed, it appears the tree does have some... stranger properties, intense hatred none the least."
Morton balances the mushroom on the oar, which isn't really all that difficult, then gets ready to do an amazing experiment.
"Thank you, good Sir Sigmund, let us try the test now... although I had wished under more normal circumstances."
He then starts to move the oar closer to the fire. As the oar enters the smoke, Morton hears a bit of a soft crackle. He can't really see what is going on, but he can certainly feel that the oar seems to be... moving. Or, to be precise, something's moving on it. He can't see what, but it's certainly something. Morton also notices that the smoke is moving closer to him slowly, but surely.
At the gates of a hilltop fort...
Darren explains his purpose here to the guard.
"I'm just here to find something. A god-given mission and all that good stuff."
The watchman stares at him suspiciously.
"FIND WHAT? AND WHICH GOD?"
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Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 557513 times)