Surkil begs your leave, reminding you that you must be present at the docks by six, as<span style="font-style: italic">Swiftwind</span>must depart by seven to catch the evening tide. You now have a period of free time available, of about three hours, and 225 gold each from Surkil. {Please let me know what you want to do with that time and money, if anything. I'm happy to assume that those of you who had supplies which were eaten by Elanna, replace them (you don't need to account for the cost of this as it is negligable. If there's anything else anyone else wants to roleplay, or that might be difficult, let me know (I do remember we need to go back to Xarces/Prinne/Alizome train scene).}.<br/><br/>Close to the equator on the south coast of the continent of Khorvaire, the sun is still high in the sky, even as afternoon wanes into evening. The docks are cooler than in the heat of the day, and what'd been a pleasant ocean breeze now blows chill as you approach the quayside. {Large image}<div style="padding: 3px; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 1px solid #d8d8d8; font-size: 1em;"><div style="text-transform: uppercase; border-bottom: 1px solid #CCCCCC; margin-bottom: 3px; font-size: 0.8em; font-weight: bold; display: block;"><span onclick="if (this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display != '') {  this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = ''; this.innerHTML = '&lt;b&gt;Spoiler: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;a href=\'#\' onClick=\'return false;\'&gt;hide&lt;/a&gt;'; } else { this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = 'none'; this.innerHTML = '&lt;b&gt;Spoiler: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;a href=\'#\' onClick=\'return false;\'&gt;show&lt;/a&gt;'; }"><b>Spoiler: </b><a href="#" onclick="return false;">show</a></span></div><div class="quotecontent"><div style="display: none;">[image]http://andysdnd.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/dd-4th-edition-eberron-map.jpg[/image]</div></div></div><br/><br/>The<span style="font-style: italic">Swiftwind</span>, it transpires, is a sloop, single-masted and some fifty-five feet long and sixteen feet wide {11 squares by 3, gargantuan vehicle}. You're noticably looking<span style="font-style: italic">down</span>on her from the Korranberg docks. Her lean lines and low freeboard clearly mark a single, portal-less cargodeck between the open main deck and the bilges. Aft, a small castle rises a single deck high, the ship's wheel mounted on the poop deck above it. It's clear that it will not be a spacious or overly comfortable voyage.<br/><br/>“You're Surkil's supercargo?” A grizzled man, bareheaded with a thick beard. His age could stand anywhere from forty to sixty, for though the sea has aged his face it's strengthed the broad muscles of his bared chest. A tattoo – the reaching tentacles of d'Lyrandar's sigil – coil about his bicep. [image]http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071229132117/eberron/images/thumb/c/cf/Dragonmarked_House_COA_Lyrandar.jpg/180px-Dragonmarked_House_COA_Lyrandar.jpg[/image]{The captain of the ship will be a d'Lyrandar – it is so obvious that Surkil will not have mentioned it, and any of you with any experience of the Five Nations will know this – or at least, if the captain is not a d'Lyrandar, he will not object to your increasing his status by first misaddressing him as such}. If he is taken aback by your monstrous natures, he does a good job of covering it.“Excellent,” he booms. “Is that all you've brought with you?” {I assume you're relatively lightly laden}. “Excellent,” he continues. “We'll get you squared away, be down the Seawall on the tide and through the nip soon as you can spit.” He glances up, into the<span style="font-style: italic">Swiftwind</span>'s rigging. “With your permission, Cap'n.” {Large image. NB: Seawall is also the common name of the river running south from the Seawall mountains to the sea. The 'nip' is the slight narrowing at the mouth of the river. In Daguuni (goblinoid) and particularly among the more traditional of hobgoblins (who ruled the Empire of Darguun), the river is the Paluur, for the ruined, many-towered city that stands at its head.}<div style="padding: 3px; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 1px solid #d8d8d8; font-size: 1em;"><div style="text-transform: uppercase; border-bottom: 1px solid #CCCCCC; margin-bottom: 3px; font-size: 0.8em; font-weight: bold; display: block;"><span onclick="if (this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display != '') {  this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = ''; this.innerHTML = '&lt;b&gt;Spoiler: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;a href=\'#\' onClick=\'return false;\'&gt;hide&lt;/a&gt;'; } else { this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = 'none'; this.innerHTML = '&lt;b&gt;Spoiler: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;a href=\'#\' onClick=\'return false;\'&gt;show&lt;/a&gt;'; }"><b>Spoiler: </b><a href="#" onclick="return false;">show</a></span></div><div class="quotecontent"><div style="display: none;">[image]http://andysdnd.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/dd_-_4th_edition_-_eberron_map_khorvaire.jpg[/image]</div></div></div><br/><br/>“Gladly, Master Ulrik,” {no knowledge check required, traditionally the only 'd'Lyrandar' aboard ship is the captain. Other members of the family use their first names. 'Master' in this case means the man is her first-mate} a half-elf girl calls back. “Seems our daily fights over shoreleave are suspended forthwith,”<br/><div style="padding: 3px; background-color: #FFFFFF; border: 1px solid #d8d8d8; font-size: 1em;"><div style="text-transform: uppercase; border-bottom: 1px solid #CCCCCC; margin-bottom: 3px; font-size: 0.8em; font-weight: bold; display: block;"><span onclick="if (this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display != '') {  this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = ''; this.innerHTML = '&lt;b&gt;Spoiler: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;a href=\'#\' onClick=\'return false;\'&gt;hide&lt;/a&gt;'; } else { this.parentNode.parentNode.getElementsByTagName('div')[1].getElementsByTagName('div')[0].style.display = 'none'; this.innerHTML = '&lt;b&gt;Spoiler: &lt;/b&gt;&lt;a href=\'#\' onClick=\'return false;\'&gt;show&lt;/a&gt;'; }"><b>Spoiler: </b><a href="#" onclick="return false;">show</a></span></div><div class="quotecontent"><div style="display: none;"><img alt="Image" src="http://danbooru.donmai.us/data/sample/sample-2465711e76a9b438e82ab9149ceb738e.jpg"/><br/>Lion and Ulrik. Imagine Lyrandar tentacles in place of the piratical symbols and you're pretty close. Lion doesn't usually wear her coat in port, though.</div></div></div><br/>“Fight's 'taint about shoreleave, Cap'n,” the man answers. “No Lyrandar sailor alive'd question his Cap'n's right to grant and recind at will, for all member 'o, the crew, 'herself included.” He pauses, drawing breath. “But you're'n father left me your guardianship on dry land, and he'd skin me and string me up by the yardarm, on a line long enough to dangle me for the fishes, and I'd count myself lucky your mother didn't catch me first, if'n I'd let you go tomcatting on't Korranberg docksdistrict.”<br/><br/>“Spoilsport,” the girl replied, wrapping her knees about a line, sticking her tongue out at the man as she slid down its length for her kneeboots to smack against the stone of the quayside. As she does so, you note her shirt synches only from her right shoulder, baring the left, itself marked with a swirling pattern that seems somehow deeper than any tattoo. Knowledge Arcane DC8 [spoiler]You know that this is the Dragonmark of House Lyrandar, granting its bearer powers beyond the mundane, in this case those relating to wind and wave.[spoiler] “It'll be good to feel the sea's spray on my face again,” she continues. “We've been in port too long. It'll be nice not to fight again, least till we reach-”<br/><br/>The man's mouth opens-<br/><br/>“-our destination,” the girl continues, with a grin, and his lips snap shut over a shout that would've covered her words.<span style="font-style: italic">Her</span>eyes run over the group of you, and you judge yourselves judged interesting. The remnants of childish beauty sit uneasy on her, made gangling by the onset of her teen years, though the balance required aloft and aboard has beaten any gawkishness from her. In a decade, she'll clearly be a beauty men duel for, if she doesn't prefer to fight on her own account. For now... she looks like a daughter who's applied her mother's makeup, on a rocking ship, with naught but a cracked mirror and using dockside whores for models. It'd be ridiculous, save for the naïve longing in her eyes, as they slide, never slipping below the waist, across each of Jules and Xarces and Bellicious and Aethon in turn.<br/><br/>The glare that follows from the grizzled man is... quelling.<span style="font-style: italic">Not this one</span>it says, quite clearly.<br/><br/>“Captain Lion d'Lyrandar, at your service,” the girl says, bowing elaborately. There's not much cleavage to flash, but she makes a decent effort, turning slightly so the shoulder-off part of her off-the-shoulder shirt faces you, and grazing low enough that her bony butt is visible across her back.<br/><br/>Clearly enough, her eyes are fixated, trying to peer beneath Aethon's forelegs.<br/><br/>Ulrik's glare focusses especially on the centaur. “O' course, we ain't exactly equipped for livestock,” he says, “beggin' your pardon, sir. Your choice's between the hold, which ain't pleasant, the deck, which is exposed an' those hooves don't look made for weather-” his gaze slides to the southeastern horizon “-of which we'll be getting some,” he continues, and Lion nods her agreement definitively, “or not getting off'f your knees, which is about the only way you'll fit in a cabin. O' which we only got three, anyhow,” he continues. “The Cap'n's and mine an' Tobin's. Mr Surkil an' I can bunk up, and Tobin can take the floor o'course. Upto the Cap'n if she wants to share with you three ladies,” he indicates Linda, Prinne and Alizome with a wave of his hand, the prospect of having the Captain he was charged with protecting bunking with a predatory naga apparently more appealing than her bunking with men. “If not, I expect you three will be gentlemen and give the ladies the room an' take the hold 'yurselves.” He pauses, considering. “'Course, y'r also free to coil up with the lads in the fo'castle nook, but 'tis a mighty bumpy ride in the bows at the best of times, when there's a blow... don't bear thinkin' about.”<br/><br/>“Of course I'll share my cabin with the guests of our valued charterer,” Lion says, “but I reserve the right to choose my own companions,” she smirks, “and I so choose-”<br/><br/>“Begging your pardon, Cap'n,” Ulrik interrupts, absolutely politely. “But I'm mate and loadmaster aboard the<span style="font-style: italic">Swiftwind</span>. The disposition of cargo – and<span style="font-style: italic">supercargo</span>– is my role and responsibility. You may not appropriate them from me.” He pauses. “You are of course free to relieve me of my duties – all my duties – and set me ashore.”<br/><br/>His eyes meet Lion's, and, in that moment, it seemed it would've been instant death to step between the grizzled seaman and the slip of a half-elfgirl.<br/><br/>Lion blinks first, turning her face away. “So be it,” she says. “You know,” she muses idly. “One day I'll sit on the Council of Captains, and the sea regulations will be mine to redraft.”<br/><br/>Ulrik inclines his head in acknowledgement. “Come that day you may have daughters of your own, and quite different desires.”<br/><br/>“Some, perhaps,” Lion replies, her eyes twinkling. “In others, I have confidence of their durability.”<br/><br/>It seems to you, this time, that her admiring look is far subtler, and directed at Ulrik himself. If he notices, he gives no sign of having done so.<br/><br/>“Very well,” Lion says. “The ladies will share my cabin, if they so agree.”<br/><br/>{Whether or not the group accepts – Prinne will go along with whatever Alizome and Linda desire – the next line will be...}<br/><br/>“Best be about it then, Mr Ulrik,” Lion commands, “particularly make arrangements to get this fine centaur safely down to my deck.” {A climb check DC5 from everyone will be required to make it down the steeply-inclined gangplank. Remember you can 'take ten' or 'take twenty'}. Prinne will proceed slowly and carefully, using her roots and fronds to carefully steady herself. Who knows what kind of havoc would be reacked on her delicate internal fluid balance if she became immersed in<span style="font-style: italic">salt</span>water.