21:04 <Crion> The next few days don't have to be difficult ones; Tony seems fully amenable to taking all of your sweet time, at least. And you've got enough fuel that unless you want to stop in South Carolina -- probably in Charleston -- you don't have to. The Wild Goose does indeed wander. 21:07 <Crion> Stewart's out a shirt and maybe some dignity, but other than that, he and Melanie both are probably getting towards right as rain, if they're not there already. 21:07 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't mind the wait, and the pain ebbs with time. There's plenty of ways to be productive. If he's not streaming or editing or recording or testing new setups for future content, there's boat chores to do. Plus he's been making increasingly elaborate syrups for the bar. And there's still hours left in the day to hang out and goof off; he's started watching this documentary that's 21:07 <VoxPVoxD> coming out about the 90s Bulls. He'd never realized Michael Jordan was so cool. 21:08 <trenchfoot> That isn't the read Nels took from it, but. 21:12 <Crion> Rose gets back to him about look-ups from the book. Colin Carth, "A Man, A Shore," captain of the Green Gospel, the original Irish Rover -- the book had some stuff to say about him, mainly that he turns up here and there as a con man, swindler, and liar par excellance whose gimmick is honorable conduct in battle and dealing in quality goods. It's unclear how he accomplishes this, but the 21:12 <Crion> somewhat different lyrics that Stewart got to the folk shanty are a tip off that the man(?) compulsively lies about his past. He also doesn't age, doesn't seem to have to eat, and is almost physically repelled from anything approaching grand acts of heroism or sticking his neck out for the community. 21:13 <VoxPVoxD> That all scans. 21:13 <VoxPVoxD> This is what Lauren means by 'tsundere', right? 21:13 <Crion> He is intimately connected to the Lost and Arcadia somehow -- the Book's unclear here. Apparently his Keeper, name and disposition unknown, was the first of the Gentry to create Huntsman, and was both so fascinated with its creation and so infuriated that the Lost it was made to stalk slipped its tether that it tried to double its gains...and create a fetch for the Huntsman. 21:14 <banana> Melanie's almost disappointed to have missed the guy. Almost, because not meeting people is always easier. How does the swindling go with the quality merchandise? Maybe he charges WAY too much. 21:15 <Crion> It apparently did not work as planned. The fetch was sullen and rebellious, actively deleterious to its 'proper' form's duties, and when the changeling -- Jomny Dandelion, of Poland -- finally freed his Huntsman's heart, the fetch immediately scarpered off to parts unknown...some 500 years ago. 21:18 <Crion> Sadly there's less information on the Pursuers. Almost nothing besides a description of the herald and some barebones info on how they fight that Stewart is already unpleasantly familiar with. Rose theorizes it might be having trouble because the Huntsman (-men?) is so new, and knocking one of its manifestations out of the local time stream probably hasn't helped. 21:22 <Crion> The weather was bad the last day or so -- storms at sea meant Tony brought the Goose in near shore just to be safe -- but other than that it's been relaxing, fishing, and downing brews, while other boats making more local trips wave as they pass by. 21:23 <banana> The slow trip south makes it feel like we're leaving transient island dangers behind, even though they can probably fly faster than the Goose is moving. Melanie's still trying to somehow keep an eye on everyone simultaneously, but she'll relax enough to do boatwork and catch up on podcasts. "Does anyone think the freehold was just trying to get us out of town for a while so the weird shit 21:23 <banana> would happen elsewhere?" 21:23 <dammitwho> It's hard to really chill while two of her friends are injured, but Maggie relaxes as they slowly heal and noodles around with a squeezebox. 21:23 <VoxPVoxD> Ah well. Stewart thanks Rose for her help and promises to make it up to her. "That's a level of planning and internal security that hasn't been in evidence with the kind of stuff they keep needing us to do." 21:24 <Crion> Rose will get on looking up the Mistress of the High House and the other related Title that showed up at Prom and check back soonish. 21:24 <VoxPVoxD> She's so great. 21:24 <trenchfoot> Nels: "It's occurred to me. But we're incredibly nice and cool, so I don't think they'd do that?" 21:25 <banana> Melanie: "Yeah but like. Who's the chicken and who's the egg here." Maybe tomorrow's breakfast? 21:26 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "The sense I have is that they had some ominous sense that they needed a motley on hand for stuff and then this is just the stuff the freehold's been dealt since we got together. I'm not sure they know a ton more than we do right now." 21:27 <Crion> The Storyteller realizes that merely asking this question incentivizes a certain answer, but is anyone making a point to keep up with local maritime news for the states they're traveling along? Obviously you can get weather patterns and navigable maps without having the Coast Guard or the US NavCen channels on. 21:27 <banana> "You're right, but it's kind of disappointing. Authority figures should have more than six-twelve months' reserves of wisdom.. as is it feels like everyone's hiding behind everyone else. Which is what we, broadly, do." 21:28 <trenchfoot> Nels doesn't even keep up with regular news. 21:29 <banana> Melanie: "Sword bunkers, powerful skulls, wherever Winter went. Lord Sages resigning, Hedge-experts fleeing.. I'd say some of us were being groomed to do 'responsibility' though Nels may have fixed that." 21:29 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart added some stuff to his regular news feed ticker, and as long as the GPS keeps updating that should be folding in local news as we go. 21:30 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Groomed or not, we're responsible. There's a lot of powerful and capable people in the Freehold but the number who want to actually do stuff, and be accountable when stuff goes bad... it's not big." 21:30 <Crion> Then Stewart will be aware that a ship roughly their size was sunk on a clear evening in open water just over the Georgia line, and the Coast Guard are looking into it but have no explanation as of yet. 21:32 <banana> Melanie: "Yeah, I'm okay with it. Knowing about a threat to home and family and freaking.. doing something about it.. works for me. It's cope but there's a really good excuse." 21:32 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah I'm not super worried. We've been through a lot of shit and we haven't really come close to failing, so much as just being really unhappy." 21:32 <VoxPVoxD> "Maybe that's just what adulthood is like for everyone." 21:32 <VoxPVoxD> "When we pass that yacht that sank randomly down Georgia way maybe we can ask them." 21:32 <VoxPVoxD> No survivors, I'm assuming? 21:33 <trenchfoot> Nels: "The what now?" 21:33 <banana> "Ominous conversation insertion #1. Someone turn on a tv and they'll just be finishing a newscast about all the vanishing yachts." 21:33 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart pulls the article up on his phone and starts to read it out loud before he decides he sounds like a tool and just hands it to Nels. 21:34 <Crion> No survivors, though the Coast Guard hasn't given names or even technically causes of death. 21:34 <banana> The funny thing is they actually did that for coronavirus. 21:36 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Forlorn and kind of twisted hope here, but maybe that sort of thing isn't all that abnormal? Cripes, I didn't realize how dangerous it was outside the cities. With the werewolfs and who knows what all." 21:36 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart will turn on a TV, though, to see if Melanie's right and we do live in Shaun of the Dead or something. 21:37 <Crion> Right now it's wall-to-wall coronavirus stuff, yeah. 21:37 <Crion> One family yacht getting sunk isn't making the news anyway but Georgia local TV, probably. 21:37 <VoxPVoxD> "Did you hear about how all the rich people in New York headed for the Hamptons or whatever as the city was locking down? It'd be pretty funny in an O Henry way if a bunch of evil mermaids ate them." 21:37 <Crion> *anywhere 21:39 <trenchfoot> After a few moments reading, Nels just passes the phone back. Yacht or no, it's... probably not relevant to what they're sailing here. 21:39 <banana> "They wouldn't have to be evil. Could just be Occupy mermaids." 21:40 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "That's a fair point. Evil or anarchist mermaids." 21:43 <Crion> Chup at least has been enjoying the pace. And Stewart being uncommonly good at fishing. 21:44 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart has the skillset and temperament of a middle-aged suburban dad, minus the middle age, suburbs, or fatherhood. 21:45 <trenchfoot> Does he at least have the doomsday prepper mentality? 21:45 <banana> To Maggie: "Most people would assume the werewolves make it more dangerous. But they seem to be like.. netflix Our Planet activists?" 21:46 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "They're rangers of the border marches." 21:46 <VoxPVoxD> "Basically like if Yogi Bear was responsible for keeping Jellystone safe." 21:46 <banana> "He does. He prevents forest fires." 21:47 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I don't know who that is." 21:47 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Hey, maybe if everyone's inside all summer no one will accidentally burn a shitload of the western half of the country down this year." 21:48 <banana> Would Nels care to view more cartoon youtubes? 21:48 <banana> Melanie's misremembering bears here but they'll probably end up on the Flintstones anyway. 21:49 <trenchfoot> Yes! Cartoons are fun. 21:49 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's a 1960s cartoon about a bear with the mannerisms of a 1950s comedian who was himself bringing 1910s vaudeville mannerisms to television. He hung out in a national park and stole pic-a-nic baskets from human campers, had a constant feud with the park range, stuff like that." 21:49 <VoxPVoxD> "I haven't seen them since I was a little kid so I can't promise they're good or, like, not insanely racist somehow." 21:50 <Crion> One would be remiss not to mention 'named after a 1950s Yankees catcher.' 21:51 <VoxPVoxD> Doesn't Nels know enough of the dark side of the 20th century already? 21:52 <trenchfoot> Nels: "That is just, so much to unpack." 21:53 <banana> While they're pulling up some kind of hanna-barbera Content: "I used to watch old cartoons at my friend's house. You reminded me just now because her mom used to say that this was stuff they won't show us in school anymore because of political correctness, which - she said - had gone mad." 21:54 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Mainly the thing is he talks funny. 'Hey hey Boo-Boo! I'm smarter than the av-er-age bear!'." 21:55 <trenchfoot> Looking vaguely lost: "This was a popular thing?" 21:56 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Oh shoot, yeah, I saw that one on the youtubes. I like the big guy. Not a fan of the horrible little fellow." 21:56 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah at this particular point in time Disney and Warner were at kind of a low ebb. Hanna Barbera was the game in town." 21:56 <VoxPVoxD> "There was one about a family in space, and another one about a family in the stone age..." 21:57 <Crion> Lauren, coming above deck: "And it turned out they were living in the same world. Just one in the clouds, one on the ground." 21:57 <VoxPVoxD> "The best one was the one about the crime-solving kids and their mascot animal who roved around solving mysteries." 21:58 <Crion> "Or maybe that was just fan canon once they crossed over." She picks Chup up, who seems vaguely offended, and grabs a beer from the fridge. "Anyone need one?" 21:58 <trenchfoot> Nels looks between them, then at Chup, and then back to Stewart. 21:59 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart holds up his in-progress drink at Lauren, then looks at Nels and says, "Yeah, you're the 'Daphne'." 22:02 <Crion> Lauren: "I went as Daphne for Halloween a couple times. Glad there are a bunch of other tiny redheads in the culture now." 22:02 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's a classic look, which is easy to forget now that everyone naturally dresses like Velma." 22:03 <banana> Melanie: "Did you see that absolutely ridiculous Gillian Anderson thing? On Twitter?" 22:03 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "No, what was it?" 22:03 <trenchfoot> Nels: "The who on the what?" 22:03 <banana> "This was a quote, I don't know whether it was recent or something old, where she was like yeah, it sucked working in the industry back then as a woman who wasn't conventionally attractive." 22:04 <banana> "Which I'm guessing is code for redhead too but. COME ON." 22:04 <dammitwho> Maggie frowns. "Gilligan was a woman?" 22:05 <banana> "No no no." It feels a bit weird to google image search Gillian Anderson, but Nels and Maggie need to see. 22:05 <Crion> Lauren rolls her eyes. "Was it attached to like, a glamor shot? Not with a u. Because that's all, like, massaged by her agent to sound needy to the men reading it." 22:05 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "They made a live action version of the traveling mystery solving cartoon in the 1990s, but they collapsed the two guy characters into one guy character and the two girl characters into one girl character. Gillian Anderson played the composite girl character." 22:05 <VoxPVoxD> "She is *very* pretty." 22:06 <banana> Melanie: "She is super hot but allegedly Coded As.. not that. It's dumb." 22:06 <Crion> Lauren giggles at that description of The X-Files. "No, Mulder is Scooby and Shaggy combined. Skinner is Fred." 22:06 <VoxPVoxD> "I guess she's very specifically not, like, visibly Southern Californian? But come on." 22:06 <dammitwho> Maggie's eyebrows climb into the stratosphere when Melanie shows her the picture. "Was... she dressed like that on the show? What sort of tv show did you say this was?" 22:07 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "No, she was dressed like an FBI agent." 22:07 <Crion> Lauren: "She was an FBI agent! But -- and I remember this specifically -- they went out of their fuckin' way to get her into her bra and panties in the pilot." 22:07 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I also remember that." 22:07 <trenchfoot> Nels: "They were probably right to do so." 22:08 <Crion> She slaps his arm, not very hard, without looking. "It was the nineties so they weren't even all that sexy." 22:08 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart grins reflexively. 22:09 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "But yeah the premise was that this guy was trying to use FBI time to look up aliens and vampires and stuff, and they sent this doctor to follow him around and point out he was a moron." 22:09 <VoxPVoxD> "But it turned out all that stuff was real all along." 22:10 <VoxPVoxD> "Which is the main difference between it and the cartoon. In the cartoon the ghost always turned out to be someone in a costume trying to commit insurance fraud." 22:10 <banana> Melanie: "Thinking back, it's a bit surprising that They let it air." 22:10 <banana> "'They'? We? Whoever." 22:10 <trenchfoot> "And this was like, a popular television show?" 22:10 <VoxPVoxD> "It was the most popular television show, for a while." 22:11 <Crion> Lauren makes a face. "So much so they gave it the coveted lead-in from Cops." 22:11 <dammitwho> "I'm not a prude, but whew. I guess we've come a long way from the ol' Hays code." 22:11 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I don't know what that is either." 22:11 <VoxPVoxD> "...I completely forgot Cops was a thing." 22:11 <dammitwho> Maggie hmmms. "I bet that could be fun, if the fella was a moron for other reasons unrelated to ghosts and whatnot." 22:12 <VoxPVoxD> To Maggie: "TV's gotten a lot more salacious but movies have gotten a lot tamer. They stopped going by the Hays code some time in the 70s I think, and for a couple of decades there every movie had a softcore porn scene in it for some reason." 22:12 <dammitwho> "Christ almighty, I know what 'Cops' is, and I rue the goddamn day I ever heard of it." Incensed, she turns to Nels. "Imagine a TV show where they put cameras on pigs and film them going around arresting people!" 22:13 <trenchfoot> "...why would anyone do that? Or watch it?" 22:14 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Sex sells. The way they packaged and marketed it was a lot less sophisticated at the time." 22:14 <Crion> Lauren: "Cheap to make, and people love to see poor people get their shit kicked in." 22:16 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh, Cops. Yeah I dunno. I basically took the theme song as a kind of reverse alarm clock and immediately went to my room for the night." 22:18 <VoxPVoxD> "There was an episode of the X-Files that was done up like 'Cops', wasn't there?" 22:19 <VoxPVoxD> "There's a whole genre of horror movies that are basically done up like Cops where they just give some guy a camera and he runs around trying to see the bad guy." 22:20 <trenchfoot> Nels: "And this is... to scare people, like they were the ones with the camera?" 22:21 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah. The first really famous one is actually set like, an hour west of Baltimore." 22:27 <VoxPVoxD> Oh hey, while Melanie's here: "Have you been watching The Last Dance?" 22:29 <trenchfoot> "Are we positive that whatever happened there wasn't actually one of the friends of Dracula or whatever?" 22:30 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I don't know, I've got no idea how Hollywood works. You have to imagine there's a ton of vampires and stuff out there, right?" 22:32 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Yeah. I'm just -- it's weirdly less scary if it's a real person who wanted a paycheck." 22:33 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "The terrible secret of the world is that even real monsters are just people who want a paycheck." 22:34 <trenchfoot> She purses her lips but does not respond. 22:39 <Crion> Lauren sighs at what she's begun to call, in private, Stewartisms. 22:39 <VoxPVoxD> What?? 22:39 <VoxPVoxD> Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow! 22:41 <Crion> Saying things that people just said back to them with a twist...you can only do it for so long before it becomes your Thing. 22:41 <VoxPVoxD> Ugh. 22:41 <Crion> She hasn't said it around Tony or the girls yet, though. 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> Whew. 22:43 <banana> Melanie: "Yes, I've seen- like half of it while trying to write. It was good though. Or..." 22:44 <banana> "I don't know much about film so eyedeekay if it was 'good' good, but I definitely got drawn in! Like, as a portrayal of a dynasty, they really made Jordan and the Bulls look amazing. Compelling as well as, obviously, winning." 22:45 <Crion> Lauren: "That guy was a psycho." 22:45 <Crion> "Is, I guess?" 22:45 <banana> "He's alive. Why a psycho?" 22:45 <trenchfoot> Nels: "He had what I am reliably informed is a Hitler moustache, like, on purpose." 22:46 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, they did a really good job letting everyone's personalities come out. Especially Jordan's. You never get to see that kind of world-historical level of unreprentant will up close and have him sitting there like 'yeah that's right, I did that, and I'd do it again'. Usually guys like that get written about posthumously." 22:47 <banana> "Of course he'd do it again. It worked." 22:47 <Crion> Lauren clamps her mouth shut. 22:47 <banana> Melanie: "He was the greatest ball player for decades and also so good at marketing he made, like, billions of dollars." 22:47 <dammitwho> Maggie scratches her cheek. "I don't know much about basketball, but from what I saw of that Michael Jordan fella... do you think one day he'll just go to the front of his house and pull the pillars in on himself like Samson?" 22:47 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks at Lauren questioningly. 22:48 <Crion> She gives him the "don't press" look. 22:48 <banana> "I don't actually know what that thing is what the moustache though. Is that real?" 22:50 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart googles it. "Yeah he did it in a commercial like 10 years ago." 22:50 <banana> Melanie: "..why.." 22:50 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I... don't know." 22:50 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Who's going to stop him?" 22:51 <VoxPVoxD> "Maybe he wanted to see if he was bigger than Hitler? Like, make that the Jordan moustache now." 22:51 <VoxPVoxD> "I don't think it worked." 22:51 <banana> "Yeah, well, they were both Time Man of the Year." 22:51 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "In 2006, everyone was." 22:51 <VoxPVoxD> "They made the cover reflective and everything." 22:52 <VoxPVoxD> "To this day really tedious people will put '2006 Time Person of the Year' in their social media bios." 22:52 <banana> "Once, we didn't know an entire magazine could be a loser." 22:53 <trenchfoot> "No, we did. They just didn't last long enough to be remembered." 22:54 <banana> Melanie: "So this was an official confirmation. The scientific experiment which determined that you can be lamer than Ricky from gym while being made entirely out of glossy paper." 22:55 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "And yet, they didn't give us all the Nobel Prize." 23:07 <Crion> Afternoon bleeds into night, there's streaming to do, fishing to do, meandering to do. You wander down into the Georgia waters. Coast Guard's a bit heavier than normal, but that just means you see one of their cutters every three hours instead of every four, and they're moving in pairs. Look weirdly up-armored, though, and the guys on deck have rifles out... 23:07 <VoxPVoxD> Maybe it *was* ominous after all... 23:08 <Crion> The sun's hanging low in the sky and you're making decent time when Stewart and Maggie see something going on aft, maybe just with their eyes or through a mariner's monoscope they happened to have just bought. Stewart isn't quite sure what he's seeing in the chop off their aft, but Maggie... 23:09 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't have a spyglass, which is probably why he can't see it. "Maggie? You see that?" 23:12 <dammitwho> Maggie: "What in the Hell, Michigan? If I remember the civil defense pamphlets right, that's a U-Boat wake! Local eccentric with an antique submarine? Hidden krauts who don't know the war's over?" 23:14 <Crion> It is closing, fast. And the tower is just about to crest out of the water -- but thanks to Maggie's keen eye, Tony can get to the helm and get the boat up to full speed before it can get in a sneak attack. 23:14 <Crion> Because it appears to be trying to ram you. 23:15 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "What????" 23:16 <Crion> When the "u-boat" surfaces, it's pitch black and sleek, but has, strapped to every surface, skeletal corpses. Some appear to be Nazi; some German Empire; some Holy Roman Empire; some Germanic tribal barbarian; there's even an astronaut or two on there, it seems. 23:16 <VoxPVoxD> What?????????????????? 23:16 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart cranes over the railing to get a good look. 23:17 <Crion> It waggles and keens a bit, the corpses on it shaking; it seems alive, maybe, or at least a whole of a thing. It is not happy you've seen it, and are now gunning full throttle away from it. 23:17 <Crion> It hunts the Atlantic, and its bones whistle in the wind. 23:17 <Crion> Roll initiative. 23:20 <VoxPVoxD> As the thing gets closer, Stewart starts to back away — but he keeps his ears open. 23:20 <Crion> Die Besatzung -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQM1c-XCDc Überheblich, Überlegen; Übernehmen, Übergeben; Überraschen, Überfallen; Deutschland, Deutschland, über allen. 23:22 <VoxPVoxD> Oh, fuck. 23:37 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart calls after whoever's ducking inside: "Make sure Lauren knows not to come out!" 23:38 <trenchfoot> Nels will tell her as much, with Stewart's say-so, if she sees her while fetching her gear. 23:51 <banana> Melanie turns to see - and grips the rail in shock, gnarled fingers going grey-white at the sight of the thing rushing toward them. She doesn't hesitate further, too reactive and too afraid to delay; she tears her hands from the railing and strides onto the upper deck, calling upon every promise a goblin made to Summer. Opening more of herself to the Wyrd than she's dared. 23:51 <banana> The fear is replaced entirely with rage. External anger flows from somewhere into her, and out of her through split-bark cracks; she's surrounded with a red shimmering that looks very much, visually, like her sparring partner's flames. It's not heat - it's pure caremad. 23:55 <Crion> The u-boat almost seems to snarl as it takes a second approach in, but instead of ramming the Goose directly it screeches up alongside it -- and the bones of the dead begin to pick themselves off the hull, and wander towards their prey on the deck. They don't seem to register Melanie's new state. Especially the one that Tony mega blasts with his shotgun, sending it scattering like bowling 23:55 <Crion> pins. 23:58 <VoxPVoxD> Melanie flares up, Tony blasts away, and Stewart falls to pieces. For a second it looks like he's burning up, as glowing orange cracks open up in his skin, embers fwooshing out from his hands, his neck, his face. He seems to dry up, withering and browning rapidly over seconds, before the breeze blows him apart and carries what looks like a loose confederation of autumn leaves and a swarm 23:58 <VoxPVoxD> of fireflies toward the encroaching boat. 00:01 <Crion> As one skeleton falls, four more rise. They're not rising as one group, but instead staggered from across the boat -- though not so far down it to not be a threat. 00:04 <banana> Melanie looks dazed, furious. She inhales the salt spray and her heat-shimmer is leavened with droplets, becoming a burning steam. Moving incredibly faster than her usual pace - the limb movements don't even make sense - she's on one of the germanic dead and has both arms in its ribcage, scattering the quiescent bones all directions. Other nearby skeletons begin to spit-roast, if only they 00:04 <banana> had flesh. 00:15 <trenchfoot> Nels races back to the deck and just - blasts. A skeleton falls. 00:16 <Crion> More rise from the ship's hull as -- well, Tony just blasted another one down. This might be quickly getting out of hand, though. 00:17 <VoxPVoxD> There's a whole bunch of dry leaves fluttering among them. 00:18 <banana> Melanie has the presence of mind to mumbleyell, "Stay back.. away from me, the, uh, the steam.." In reality she's not sure it would be any less satisfying to smash a pile of leaves than a pile of bones right now. 00:31 <banana> But the bones are right here, so... they rain on the deck like harbingers of a storm. Through the induced rage, Melanie has time to worry about the vessel/creature/Boat. Reanimating these once-warriors can't be its only means of feeding. 00:44 <VoxPVoxD> The skeletons keep coming... but the leaves change tack. Instead of dancing between them at chest level, baiting their attacks into each other, it gets low, down by their ankles, inviting overhead strikes that dig into the U-Boat's outer hull. 00:45 <Crion> As Stewart deflects the blows from the skeletons downward into the skin of their own ship -- striking harder than they previously could have under their own power -- a horrible squealing noise, like metal giving way under strain, echoes across the...submarine? The creature? Whatever it is, it's had enough. Injured sufficiently to detach it from the Wild Goose, the U-Boat simply dives, 00:45 <Crion> leaving the skeletons...and those of you who can't fly...to plop down into the drink. 00:46 <VoxPVoxD> No!!! 00:46 <Crion> The bones whisk along behind it in its wake... 00:47 <Crion> Tony realizes what's happening quickly enough to loop around with the Goose. 00:50 <VoxPVoxD> That's not what Stewart wanted at all. Ah fuck. Oh fuck. Can Melanie and Maggie swim?! 00:52 <banana> Well, no. Not with the berserk fury physically shuddering its way out of her body, emotion given gaseous form and returning her movements to their normal lassitude. But she can float, a plank from a shipwreck, head-above-water an irrelevance because she doesn't actually breathe most of the time. 00:53 <Crion> While worrying about the others, Stewart also has time to think. Namely, the U-Boat came at them with a tactic, spent significant effort applying it...and completely ate shit. He quite literally made it stop hitting itself. It's probably a good bet to assume that thing is not defeated, nor even significantly injured, so much as it is backing off to figure out what the hell it just walked 00:53 <Crion> into. Clearly, it thought it was hunting one of the Chuck LeBarons of the world. 00:53 <VoxPVoxD> Ah shit. 00:53 <VoxPVoxD> So there's every chance it'll be back, having adapted. But no guarantee if, when, or how. 00:54 <Crion> Probably so. 00:55 <dammitwho> Maggie can swim, and in fact will do so quite quickly, hauling ass up the Wild Goose's ladder while going "Augh, itchy itchy itchy! One of you get me a towel!" 00:56 <banana> Glub glub. "Blblrlblb- ahhh." Melanie manages to turn onto her back and do a sort of snow angel thing to slowly propel herself gooseward. What the hell was all that. The skeleton boat and so on. 00:56 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart collides with himself in a flash of sparks. "Oh my god, I am so sorry. I just thought— I just thought, it seemed like an alive thing, maybe it'd have a pain response. I didn't realize— fuck!" 00:56 <VoxPVoxD> He runs off to get an armful of towels from inside. 01:00 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart comes back with the towels for Maggie. "The bad news is, we just scared it off, so it can come back. The bad news is it clearly bit off way more than it thought it was gonna have to chew, so it's going to be licking its wounds for a while probably." 01:01 <banana> From the ladder: "Do U-Boats hold grudges?" 01:02 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I bet that one does." 01:03 <dammitwho> "Stewart, it's fine, we just got a little wet!" Eesh. Is the ocean supposed to itch like that? Could be pollution, but... maybe keep an eye on that kind of thing. 01:03 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't say that he's picturing Die Beatzsung saying, in Michael Jordan's voice, with a camp German accent and the toothbrush mustache: Und I took zat personally.