fungus among us - Part Two

[rubyrubyruby]

Two things make Chase happy tonight, the first, he is not down in the fouls stench, two, when he does descend he can hold his breath for extended periods. The ice drake circles high above watching for signs his aid is required.

The main deck is silent apart from those ever-present creakings of wood while a vessel is at sea. Could be lulling to an experienced sailor, but the unhealthy smells from ~under~ the maindeck would not provide an attractive place to rest.
Ruby ventures upwards to the deck, clambering to use Lorne's helpful grapple and staying near the rail. A moist flapping noise is coming from below, like a score of newly landed fish are frantically expiring. And occasionally the sounds of wet soles moving unseen to different compartments. All of this inbetween islands of silence.
"Beginnin tah think Cornelia gots lots 'o wis-doom an fore-thought."

"Ain't gonna tell ya wrong, there." accepting the dagger from Cornelia, Lorne is the last up the line, but offers it to Ruby once he's on deck, drawing his own cutlass once more, and looking around snow. His free hand fishing a kerchief from inside of his jacket, using it to cover his nose and mouth - a little better, but better than nothing. If only by a small margin. Moving slowly, carefully, moving towards where the helm is - to try and get the ship to stop it's drifting, first off, so it doesn't run into the course of any others.

Wynter is still floating mid air off the side of the ship with bow drawn and playing watch for those now coming aboard. She drifts along with Lorne to help cover him while still being able to see the others. She's on edge. The smell and the relative quiet of it all making her antsy.

Chase banks, his spread wings catching the wind as he descends in tightening circles coming closer and closer to the ship, "Beware" he warns, his voice booms, "The ship may have plague...we ought to scuttle her." he looks at the ship, "she may be taking on water anyway."

Once Lorne and Ruby are clambering up the ropes towards the deck, she directs the longboat towards the vicinity of the Fireheart. On the way there, she checks over her shoulder more than once to keep an eye on the figures moving on the odd vessel's deck. There's a single look upwards at the dragon that circles high overhead. As she gets closer to her ship she hollars across the water towards her crew. "Get ready to get me up there quick like and prepare to move position."

The wheel is unattended, revolving slowly and very much in danger of careening into sister ships. There are ropes dangling to either side that allow to secure it to a straight course. There are a few caterpillars inching furrily along some of the spokes.
Fly-bys of the ship will allow fly-guys and fly-girls to notice the ship's portholes. Glass or sturdy wooden shutters. Gun ports and hatches. Some start to creak open. Some have grey shapes squelched up wetly against the glass and coil.

Ruby takes the knife and draws confidence from the feel of hard metal in her first. It gives a teeny-tiny ~eek~ while her fist tightens further. "Aye...Aye..." The bad feeling intensifies as she walks towards the main hatch that leads downwards. Her bare toes poking at the latch. "Avast...Crew 'o tha Aton-" She mentally summons the full name and continues, "...Atonahui. Ahoy! State yer bloody busy-ness an status!"

Seeing the wheel unmanned, Lorne moves quickly to secure the lines in place - after turning her back onto an approximation of her previous course. "Aye, not sure what she were carryin, but these fuzzy little things do not belonging, if it were stores and food." glad he had Wynter to keep overwatch, offering her a nod once the wheel was secure and the ship wasn't at - as much of - a risk to the rest of the fleet. Chase's booming voice has him frowning, and then hurrying down to join Ruby.

The Pathi woman floats back from the ship, eyes scanning the side. Movement below! It doesn't look human! Be aware!" She takes aim on one of the gun ports that seems to be trying to move and open up. Should anything not human peer out she seems ready to let fly..well there's no arrow in her bow but let fly with something.

Cornelia swallows hard as she spots the strange things moving behind the portholes. The longboat bumps against the side of the Fireheart, dragging her attention back to her situation. Well, at least the air over this way isn't so puke-worhty. Scrambling up the rope ladder like a monkey, she climbs over the rail and points to the wheel. "Try and get us a lil closer but far enough. Ship ain't right and I got a feelin' we're gunna be needing to use the orb." she says to the first mate before duckinng below to grab her spear and a few more knives.

Ruby has no pistol. But at least she has the knife. She gives Lorne's lovely cutlass a bit of jealous eyeballing, and reverses her hold on the knife and lifts the hatch with her foot. "Should be grain. Or veggies. Just a floatin cow or mill for tha fleet. Food for feed. I don't 'ave me ledger, but it might 'ave shared some 'o its cargo tah feed part 'o tha fleet..."
Nothing jumps out immediately!
It waits a heartbeat and then a trio of crewmembers try to race for the ladder and climb to safety. "Help! Help!" Tendrils of grey, like fat slimy worms seek their ankles.

Something not-human does squizzlesquirt out of a couple of the gun ports. A spill of vomitous bile preceeds ropey things like intestines, which flop out and down to the water to lap like tongues. A figure appears, shrieking and tries to dive to safety and is snagged by one of them and hoisted like a snared rabbit.

Chase flies closer to Wynter, "They should get the hell off of that thing..." his voice at a normal volume now, "they we can destroy the bloody thing."

Lorne watches for a moment, then blinks slowly. "I would say that be a good indication of.. get tha bugger off the ship and sink her. And.. since Cornelia be takin our skiff..." he points his cutlass towards the Fireheart, now that she was moving closer. "How do you be feelin bout a midnight swim in the ocean, Captain? I be thinking our odds be better than stayin onboard now."

Words mutter across Wynter's lips and a arrow of flame appears strung in the silver bow. She launches it at the grey tendrils seeking to claim the crew that flees, her brows rising up towards her hairline and she can only agree with Chase and the others. She screams out. "Get out of there! Jump far out and overboard!"

Cornelia makes it back onto the deck of the Fireheart with spear in hand and a belt full of daggers just in time to see the horrors over the water. She blanches, going still for a moment at the sight of sinuous writhing appendages and glances up at the sails for a moment before looking at the first mate. "Change of plans, don't get closer but position us defensively." The smaller boat still bobs along the side of the ship, and she rushes for the rail "Head back... head back but don't you let anyone on but the folks you took over there!"
Ruby answers by letting the hatch drop and then after a panicky instinct, moves to stamp both feet upon the lid to belowdecks. Her eyes go wide and she'd got pale if she could. "Right." she rasps, "I seen enough." Louds thuds and charges of something start thumping upwards hard enough to jostle floor boards. "Fook me. Abandon ship! We can't let it live. Every femme for 'erself!"
Arms and spaghetti strands of grey-grey pry through a floorboard here and there, making for a fun dash to the railing if someone wants to risk it. Fat greasy caterpillars crawl out of better cracks in the structure.

Wynter's elemental arrow skewers one of the tendrils and it drops its prize as it sizzles and curls up into a withered waving thing.

The other gun ports burst open like a playdo fun factory, oozing horrible goop-covered cannons forward. Worms push and fall out of the positioned barrels and a frame of waving tendrils wave like petals of a bizarre flower. A glow builds from within some of the goop-choked cannons.

The dragon hoovers, his wings flapping to maintain his postion as he begins a hissing whisper, his words so profane as to defy the ability to recal them a moment after they are heard. The air growwing bitter cold around him as shimering javlins of ice form in his claws. Chase's baleful gaze on the ships hull at the water line, his intent clear to any who know him. The ship will be sailing to the oceans bottom.

Lorne was at the start of that - as soon as he saw Ruby let the hatch drop, he was turning to run, sprinting as fast as his body would allow towards the railing, using his cutlass to hack a line as he grabbed and went. Using it to get a bit more distance by swinging over the rail. Then letting go to dive into the water. A great swimmer he was not - but something like that was on the ship behind him was enough to inspire him to emulate shark and dolphin alike, in splashing towards the Fireheart.

Wynter lowers her bow as the ship tries to come apart at the seams with grey matter with a desire all it's own. Lorne is in the water and Ruby moving that way as well. She calls out again and points, a bonfire bursting into being above that hatch Ruby stompped apon. The bow raising back up to cover the Captain's retreat off the ship.

The boat rowing back towards the impending mess picks up speed when the ship begins to glow, making a beeline towards the hovering dragon. Cornelia leans over the rail to the Fireheart, her eyes squinting and straining to try and see what is going on over there. Letting out a gasp as Lorne's unmistakeable figure goes over the rail, she watches him plummet into the black water and waits for his head to pop back up. Only then does she start scanning the surrounding ships to see if anything else is amiss.

Chase lets fly, to spear of ice shoot from his claws, hitting the water at speed, and growing as they speed tword their mark, as they crash into the hull (looking more like torpedo's then spears.) they explode with force enough to make the ship bob like a cork in a gale. Wood splinters and water fly in all directions!

Ruby doesn't wait long in following Lorne. The thumps trying to get up through the hatch are determined. Their doomed screams or gibbering hunger spur her onwards. She's snagged at by the icky things, scraping at her skin to dislodge the feeling of creepy-crawlies, slicing at things that get too close. "Kill it!" She feels the heat summoned near the soon-to-erupt hatch. Thanking Bog that Lorne had the wherewithal of making sure the vessel wouldn't drift closer to the other ships, she barges through the rail with a crash and is in the water and swimming hard. Behind her things try to anaconda their way up the masts and swipe at airborne folk. Fungal growth preceeds temporary wilting, resulting in a renewed blossom of life or power as things are consumed. Feeding upon itself and trying to expand past the wooden prison.

The other sister-ships to the icky vessel appear alright for the time being. The current events have their crew watching in open-mouthed horror at whatever is transpiring. The tendrils on the ship ~are~ getting longer or stretchy though. At present, they're a danger to anything within 30 feet of the bulging ship. As if on reflex or hiccup, the sticky guns pressed flushed to the gunports glorp out a thick seedy oval. The first blast carves into the water with a huge splash, but rapidly sinks. The seconds salvo skips across the water like a stone alarmingly.

Chase's ice torpedo's create great gouges in the ship and expose a grey second hull that's grown against the interior sections like a jello mold, temporarily keeping the water from surging in. The 'stuff' doesn't like the ice or kinetic force though, and squirms back to leave wounds where it receives the worst punishment.

Lorne aimes for the skiff and Cornelia when he sees it getting closer, scrambling to get aboard with the help of extra hands, then turning to look for Ruby, expressing mournfully. "Lost my hat. That was my favorite hat..." huffed out a breath to clear his mouth of water - not trusting to swallow any of it, even this far away from what was going on. "Get Captain Incarnate and get us back to the Fireheart.. we may no have Stormcannon yet, but we've got ballistae to at least aid in the help of destroyin or puttin holes in that thing from far off."

Wynter is forced to jet upwards and out of the range of the writhing thing. her face locked in something of disgust and horror. "What the hell were they doing?" She says more to herself then to the others.
Spying Ruby clear of the ship and Chase already puncturing the vessel she heads up higher and above the ship a good hundred feet and faces downward. Drawing her bow back and whispering a arrow of compressed air forms in the bow but it starts to grow bigger and bigger the more she speaks. Her arms begin to tremble.

Chase roars, "Get them clear!" Icy knives explode from his claws whirling through the air to chop chucks our of the tendrils chasing those fleeing the ship. The dragon on the move trying to contain the'ship' and it's ooze to keep it from getting to the fleet.
The trio of crewmates on the longboat haul a rather waterlogged Lorne into the safety of the boat. Cornelia still aboard the Fireheart paces along the rail, her fists clenching and unclenching before she stumbles backwards when things escalate. Staring as waving, flailing tenndrils spill and grow further, she scans the water again. The smaller boat is in motion, heading closer to the infected boat in search of Ruby.

Ruby sputters and chokes on sea water as she madly front-crawls through the water after Lorne and to the skiff. Goals. She can hear the destructive smashing behind her as she pulls herself up onto the skiff. Spitting salty, she waves her arms and shouts, blood of storms voice carrying along the water, calling for unarmed ships to heave off to a safer distance. "I get you a 'at made 'o solid gold. We gotta sink tha bastard!" She peers towards that longboat from earlier they passed, blinking away water. "Lost sight 'o tha longboat, but it ain't allowed anywhere near anybody. Gotta protect tha rest 'o everyone. Sacrifice what can't be saved."

Lorne snorts his amusement, but nods. Cornelia would know he had a dozen 'favorite hats' that he kept losing, either through adventure or misplacement. But he would heave to, and help the skiff get turned about - knowing Wynter and Chase could both fly, and wanted to keep them away from the growing reach of the tentacles. "And what in the Shadow hells were they cartin that turned into... that mess?" a gesture made, back towards the other ship.

Wynter's arrow continues to grow larger and larger still until it looks like a balista bolt sticking out of her bow. The compressed air looking like a swirling mist of vapor spinning rapidly in it's held form. The force of that spin fighting to break free of her hold. She's panting. Sweating as she takes aim just beside the center mast on the main deck. And then she's lossed it, speaking even as she does so. The arrow stricking the deck almost before her words are done. The arrow strikes the deck and her secondary acrana lights that compressed air with flame.

Cornelia stands, watching both Wynter and Chase work on decimating the ship with their magics. Fire. Ice. Whatever is on that boat surely can't survive the onslaught, can it?! As more ice knives into wood and into grey tissue, she sways slightly before blinking at the blaze of flames. Snapping herself out of it, she scans the water for the smaller boat carrying Lorne and Ruby on board.

Ruby responds to Lorne's question with a shudder and a wide grimace. "I 'Opefully somethin freakish rare." Flinching as another skipping cannonball covered in ick rockets randomly past, barely missing the ships trying to veer away. "I'll 'ave tah inspect tha others tha sailed with 'er. Inspect with an axe in one 'and an a pistol in tha other, Truth."
Ruby lifts her arm as if to shield her face as splinters and sliced sections of filthy fungal-beast occur. Wynter's conjuration and unleashing of sorcerous forces impact upon the deck in a brillant coruscating flash. It collapses the structural integrity of the already bulging hull. The masts collapse and crack, the keel sundering with thunderous snaps. The ship tries to hold together via the glue of the entity growing through the hold, but the ship starts to come apart under the frosty, firey, air assault.

The growth that has absorbed crew and food stores doesn't enjoy the salt water and squeals and the weight of the vessel helps start drag it down in the water. Tendrils lash madly. Slap-slappin. Efforts to expand and seed beyond its own decks stymied. A bloom of fungal spores trying to spread but the lack of wind hampers things.
The previously escaping longboat is bobbing in isolation on the seas. Confusion and fear impeding the sailors from pulling towards any one vessel yet.

"And three or four torches in hand with those behind you.. with that pair ready to unleash their own hells." Getting back to the Fireheart, Lorne holds the rope ladder for Ruby to ascend, before following along behind. "Turn to the sides, ranging shots - and make sure you don't hit the overgrown lizard or the lovely lass flittin about in the air." Calling out orders almost as soon as the foot hits the deck. "Then bring us about and make for the Beast."

Wynter is lost in the flame, smoke and debris for a moment. She was far too close to her own blast. The heat and force impacting her like a hammer and tossing her aloft, thankfully above the spore cloud. Her body appears still rising, her eyes mostly closed and a dazed expression. She tops her arc and begins to freefall.

Chase flys low the waves hitting his scales, about to launch another attack when he notes the free falling Wynter. He snarls "damnit!" then angles toward her with all the speed he can muster, his body missing hers by inches, catching her in his hind claws to bring her with him up and away from the spore cloud and the burning ship.
Cornelia has to split her attention between the.. once ship, and the small boat moving towards the ship she is on. There's a small sigh of relief with the ick reacts unfavorably towards the sea water, there's some hope there. Hurrying to the edge of the rail where the ladder is secured, she helps Ruby over and then Lorne. "Ya lost your hat." she points out with a little smile before glancing back towards the ship. Spotting the Dragon General, since he sticks out like a sore thumb in the black velvet of the sky, she glances towards where Wynter last was. Knitting her brows, she frowns some. "Where is she?"

Ruby loses a year of her life seeing Wynter's body arcing from the concussive blast, and then to be snagged in mid-air by Chase. "Bog's balls..." Ruby balls up a wad of saliva and casts it over the side to punctuate things. Hissing out a breath she rasps, bringing out a trump card. Making contact with her First mate and murmering with slightly glazed over eyes, "Don't take nuthin aboard tha's floatin. Fire at will if you see anythin twitch from tha Cibolan formation. Prepare tha marines for some 'ousekeepin inspections..."