Mysteries of the Floating Islands

[Florien]

Ah. Good. We're here.

Avanyiss takes in her surroundings.

Well, I think the first question is obvious. The crew didn't know why they crashed if you remember, so I suppose we should figure out why it happened.

>Was it simply a crash, was it taken down by projectile fire, or was it struck by a dragon?

[Mr. Lee Hammer]

And while we're at that, I wonder if there's anything we can salvage?

> Is there anything (money, weapons, armor, anything useful) that can be salvaged?

[GoldenCityBird]

@SmilyCube112: 4

There's a door - and it's been forced open from the outside, likely with some sort of crowbar. Additionally, you take note of the material of the hull - some kind of elm wood, reinforced with good iron. You even manage to take a peek inside through a porthole - very little damage, though everything is upside-down, for obvious reasons.


@Florien: ???

It's impossible for you to tell at the moment. The tracks seem to indicate, to you, that it was travelling at quite a high velocity.

@Matthew: ???

You don't see anything of the sort around at the moment.

[SmilyCube112]

"Well, good news here is that there's very little interior damage, and the materials used to make this seem sturdy enough to not only survive the crash, but also make striking it down from the air a difficult task to accomplish. What isn't so good is that this door's been forced open from the outside." Magnus says to the group, after inspecting the airship. He's not liking the last part, though, but continues with "I'd hazard a guess that this was caused by either a hostile stowaway who escaped before the crash, or sabotage."

[Florien]

Eeeehhh...

Maybe it's sabotage... but I don't know.

It was going fast when it crashed, but it's not broken up too much. At the very least, dragon damage would be obvious, if the dragon used fire. Could it be a helm operator problem? I doubt the engine room has a view of the outside, so if the helm operator was incapacitated and the rudder and flaps turned wrong, if someone turned the thing that tells the engine room how fast to engine to "all the speed", that would be a plausible explanation. The issue is how no one would notice until then.


All the crew we talked to were in the second engine room, so none of them actually saw what happened. and the captain called them to say there'd been "an explosion." Not that they were attacked, that there had been an explosion. I don't doubt there was an explosion, some of the crew were injured. The captain said there'd been an explosion...

Avanyiss pauses for a moment, as if she's thinking about something, but it's quite possible she already figured this part out and is just pausing for dramatic effect.

...on the top of the ship. It's too big to flip, maybe, but... most of these craft have an etched metal layout map on one of the walls. We need to know the orientation of the two engines. Are they horizontal or vertical?

>Look for one of those layout maps of the ship and locate the engine positions.

[GoldenCityBird]

@Florien: You roll a 4

One handy-dandy map! Since I cannot access my computer right now, I'm going to do my best to condense it all into text form:

*There are two engine rooms - one on the port side, one on the starboard side. They are both at the lowest level, alongside some kind of "thruster" (exact composition not stated).

* If the map is telling the truth, then your current location is Cabin Starboard-6, three floors above the engines. There's a handy escape route marked out.

* Each label is sublabelled in a language other than... whatever one we're speaking now. It uses the same script, to an extent, but it's clearly a different language.

* Engines aren't the only way the ship is kept afloat - a great balloon, filled with some sort of gas, was the primary lifting method. It clearly didn't survive impact.

Any other questions you may ask, I will answer for you.


(Also paging others: @Matthew, @TenOfSwords13, @MadameButterflyKnife, @SmilyCube112, @Despair-s-Archon-of-Memes)

[Florien]

...Excellent! We've got a full map. Love this.

So, this raises a new and exciting question: What exactly exploded on deck? Obviously it couldn't have been an engine, because the engine rooms are both on the lower decks, which is what I was wondering.

Now, the deck is up, but if we just invert this map, the ship being upside down... Oh, and I fully expect some evidence has been stolen, someone already broke in. But the damage should still be clear. But just because we can't look or, at the very least, not get a particularly good view of the topside of the deck doesn't mean we can't just... walk along the bottom side of the deck here and figure out what kind of damage there is.

>Look at the floor, which by my estimate is the underside of the topmost deck, for explosion, impact, or fire damage

[MadameButterflyKnife]

"Excellent idea. Since there are multiple floors, I say investigating anything that could have been of interest on the ship would also be a good idea."

> check the floor above for anything of interest

[Mr. Lee Hammer]

Now we're getting somewhere.

> Explore the engine rooms

[SmilyCube112]

"Well, I might as well check the floor below us. Don't want to leave any stone unturned, now, do we?"

> Investigate the floor below (the one above the engine room).

[GoldenCityBird]

Cabin Starboard-6

@Florien: You roll a 2

Well, someone had to find a weak point in the cabin floor, and it might as well be you. You fall a grand total of three feet downwards.

The deck

It's a little dark down here, but something definitely smells rotten. Seriously, it's like you fell into the world's dryest sewers.

Hallways, floor 3

@Matthew, @SmilyCube112, @MadameButterflyKnife

The three of you go deeper into the bowels of the ship, navigating past smashed-up furniture and crockery. Eventually, you come across a large stairwell - which the map indicated was the "Grand Staircase" - going both up and down. There's also a door to the side, also forced open, which seems to lead directly upwards (downwards if the ship was operational). You'll have to choose your routes carefully here.

[SmilyCube112]

"Okay, three paths, three people. Any ideas for who goes in what direction?"

[MadameButterflyKnife]

"I am willing to go deeper into the bowels of this ship. I can go upwards from our perspective; downwards into the ship."

[Mr. Lee Hammer]

I would also be willing to explore the bowels of the ship.

[SmilyCube112]

"Well, since it seems that two routes leads the same direction, I'll leave you two to deal with that while I take the remaining path." Magnus says to the other two.

[GoldenCityBird]

(Just double checking for @Matthew and @MadameButterflyKnife - will you be taking seperate staircases, or sharing one of them?)

The Deck

@SmilyCube112: You walk down the stairs that would've led upwards. After a bit of manouevring, you step downwards onto the ground, the ship's deck directly above you. Avanyiss can be seen in the mid-distance. The scent is quite frankly overpowering.

[MadameButterflyKnife]

Hadil points to one path. "I take on, you take the other."

[Mr. Lee Hammer]

Fine with me.

[SmilyCube112]

After getting there, and noticing Avanyiss, Magnus realises that he basically found an alternate path to where the lizard went to, and after going over his options, decides to stay in the area for now, just in case there's anything he can do/help with here.

[Florien]

SHITFUCKAAA

Vels my fucking leg. Ow. Alright.

Avanyiss stands up, mostly uninjured.

...Am I the only one who's going to comment on the smell? Smells like rot, and not the good smelling kind.

Now, there's a few options for what could be causing that smell. At the very least, whatever it is isn't explosive, so we should be safe there. The explosive components of decay have no smell, and are lighter than air, so since we can smell decay, we should be safe, as that means whatever explosive gasses might have built up will have escaped and gotten out of the hull by now. Someone definitely was looking for something, the doors being forced. I wouldn't be shocked if they got it, but I'll figure out the situation with what took down the ship later. For now...

>Look for the source of the smell. It probably won't be that difficult, since it's apparently so strong.

Magnus, go look for the source. GO GO GO! It's probably important, and worst case, it's a horde of zombies that will attempt to eat our flesh, and we can outrun zombies. Probably.

[SmilyCube112]

"Zombies would most likely smell of rotting flesh. Does it smell like that too you? I'll help you, sure, but just sayin'."

> Help Avanyiss search for the source of the smell.

[Florien]

Rotting flesh, literal actual shit, I don't know. I'm not super used to rotting flesh, the necromancers at the guild were mandated to either mask the smells or prevent their zombies from rotting just after I signed up.

...of course, they got pissy about it and started demanding we buy them jars upon jars of museum beetles to strip their zombies of meat. Absolute dicks. Fuck that archaic "disturbing the dead" bullshit reason necromancers were looked at with suspicion and occasional malice, the real reason they should be looked at with suspicion is that performative outrage over being told to perform a common courtesy. Bet they'd be pissy if we told them to follow basic hygiene standards... OH WAIT WE DID AND THEY WERE! Of course they fucking did. "Wash your hands ever before you help the medics maybe?" "NO WE ARE SO CLEAN RIGHT NOW AND ALWAYS! OUR SKIN, OUR SCALES, THEY ARE RADIANT AND SHINY BOTH, WE CANNOT BECOME DIRTY! I WITNESS NO DIRT!" Fucking Vels, people like that. I swear.

...that aside...

Then something clicks for her.

could the smell be ahhh... what do you call it? Egg-stone... ahhh fuck that's not even close. Suffer. Suave. Syultar. Suddu... S-something.

Oh, Sulfur. You call it sulfur. Not explosive on its own though... though it is a precursor to gundust. Usually doesn't smell so much once it's part of it, but if they were making gun dust, that could cause an explosion, though why the ship would be making its own is quite beyond me.

[SmilyCube112]

......"Backstory implications aside, the only reason I see as to why they would be making their own gunpowder was for security concerns - But carrying the ingredients needed was in itself a safety issue. Though, you'd also need......."

And then he realises it.

"Ammonia. God dammed odorous ammonia. It's more odorous than sulfur, so odds are it's what we're looking for. Could be wrong, though."

[Florien]

Nahhh, ammonia smells clean. Or... ahhh... well, not clean exactly. Not terrible. It doesn't smell terrible, it just smells like it's angry at you in particular and is attempting to kill you through stabbing your brain through your nose. It doesn't smell like rot or sewers, so much. Sulfur though is just virulently unpleasant in smell, while being generally pretty innocuous in purpose. Unless you're making... ahhhh... what do you call it here? Oil of something. Oil of Vitriol. Whatever. Or gundust I suppose, though the individual ingredients are surprisingly stable. I don't know, I'm probably way off about what the smell is. Could just be dead crew, or something we don't fully understand. Could be a portal to an eldritch plane of tentacled rot-beings. Could be the tipped-over seasickness barrel they have in those new big ships where they're too large to get to the deck consistently when sick. Could be mildly poisonous gas displacing all the air and gradually suffocating us!

Fuck, I'm becoming an Irekhin. Paranoid of a bomb around every corner. We are the SCIENCE TEAM. We are not parnaoid, we follow SAFETY PROCEDURES. I am not an Irekhin. I will never be an Irekhin. Irekhiniv protect me. I hire Irekhin. I am not an Irekhin myself.

(Avanyiss, despite her denials, was.)

[SmilyCube112]

"............What the bongo bananas is an Irekhin? Is it a species of sentient undead cacti or something?" Magnus says, in sheer confusion towards........this?