Urchin Quest

[Broken25]

“Eel…you’re right. I have gotten bigger since last time you saw me. I’m big enough to work now, and you’re getting older. You've got no customers right now, you're not busy. Give me a ride, show me how to steer and pole the boat, and if I’m any good maybe in a few months you can relax in a dry tavern while I take the rainy nights. My Father was a boatman, it's a good trade, and you don't have any kids of your own to give the boat to when you retire, right?” (+Manipulation, +Sail, +Bureaucracy, Ally: Grinning Eel)

[Wise Old Guru]

(Is there a complete character sheet somewhere?)

Yes...but it's just a PDF on my computer at present. Once you've spent your starting points, I'll make the charsheet public and we get get into the real meat of the adventure.

[Jairain]

Yay future boatman!

[The MG]

“You knew my Father, Eel. He was a deadbeat who gambled away all his money and died in debt. Mother always told me to be better than him, and I mean to do that. If I tell you I’m going to give you a fish, then today or tomorrow or the next day, I’m going to catch a fish and give it to you. I pay my debts.”

[Wise Old Guru]

Retirement Plan: 4
Flattery Will Get You Home: 3
HONOR! 1

“Eel…you’re right. I have gotten bigger since last time you saw me. I’m big enough to work now, and you’re getting older. Give me a ride, show me how to steer and pole the boat, and if I’m any good maybe you can retire and I take over in couple years.”

Eel raises an eyebrow.

“Kid. It is raining. It is getting dark. The water is runnin’ higher an’ faster than I’ve seen it in years. And this time of night there’s gonna be heavy traffic. No way I’m lettin’ you steer my boat, you’d get us both killed.”

“But-“

“Shut it. Not happening. But fine, I’ll give you a ride to Nighthammer. Catch me some fish. If you really wanna follow in your Daddy’s footsteps, come talk to me sometime when the weather isn’t shit and traffic isn’t heavy and I’ll see if you’ve got the knack.”

“…thank you, Eel,” you smile as you clamber into the boat.

Once you’re settled, Grinning Eel stands up and poles the boat away from the dock. You watch him carefully, studying his movements in the hopes you’ll impress him when you take him up on that offer. It may not be as prestigious as being a monk…but piloting a canal boat pays okay and seems a lot easier to break into, and nobody’s making you sit in the rain studying and meditating. I mean…you’re still sitting in the rain and studying what Grinning Eel is doing, but at least you’re going somewhere, not just staying in the same place.

You reach into your pocket and pinch one of your worms to keep it from wriggling out of your wet hands as you place it on your hook. Grinning Eel lifts his lantern a bit to give you better light, then hangs it from a hook on the pole at the back of the boat. The flame gutters low and weak and sputters in the wet air, but the glass keeps it safe from the rain. You toss one end of your line into the water and loop the other end around your ankle. That way if you get a bite you can use both hands to haul it in.

For a while, you wait for a fish. You spend the time watching Grinning Eel. He has a pole with a paddle on one end, and he stands at the back of the boat, peering into the gloom, cold rain pouring down the brims of his hat. Every now and then he cocks his head and adjust course a bit. You can’t see more than a couple of boat lengths ahead through the rain, but Eel deftly adjust course a minute or so before each obstacle, guiding you around several mid-sized cargo rafts coming up the canal with oars. You get the impression he’s doing it by ear. Closing your eyes and concentrating, you can start to make out the difference between the rhythmic slap-splash oars pulling some other boat up towards you against the current and the dull pounding of the rain. Eel doesn’t steer much-the canal’s current is steady and strong.

You curl up against the cold rain and decide that you really need to get yourself a hat like Grinning Eel has got. It’s interesting to study Eel for a while, but you soon get bored. Every now and then you’ll shift to get more comfortable in the boat and the string tied to your ankle will tug gently and you’ll start up, expecting a fish…but nothing bites.

After a time you reel in your line and find that the worm has fallen off it. You put another on the hook.

“Try tossin’ the line over there,” Eel grumbles. “Where the eaves of that building hang out over the water.”

You can’t see any building through all the rain, but you nod and toss the hook in that direction.

“Always bugs and shit falling off that roof into the water over there,” Eel tells you. “Good fishing spot.”

He’s right! Not two minutes later you feel a tug at your ankle. You wait until you get a yank, then you jerk the line to set the hook. Eel puts his paddle in the water, and when the fish is tired out you haul it in hand over hand. It’s not that big, but it’s a fish! Eel holds the lantern out so you can see, and you smack its head hard with the flat of your ‘knife’ to stun it and then remove your hook.

“Good catch, kid. Just toss it in the bottom of the boat. Rain’ll keep it fresh until we get there.”

“Won’t it bother your next fare if you’ve got a fish flopping around under the seat?”

“Feh.” Eel hangs the lantern back on its pole.

You put another worm on the hook. “That one’s your fare, Eel. Next one’s mine.”

“Fuck that. You catch another one, I get whichever is bigger, kid.”

“…fine.” You grumble. You toss the hook back in the canal.

There are several minutes of silence as you wait for another fish to bite. Then you hear splashing coming from up ahead.

“Alright, be quiet, kid,” Eel grumbles. Not like you haven’t been quiet for five minutes anyway. “Nighthammer traffic’s coming. I gotta pay attention.”

You nod. From downriver, you can hear boatmen calling to one another in the dark.

“On your port!”

“Ahoy the raft! ‘Ey, I said AHOY THE RAFT!”

“That you over there, Tern?!”

Grinning Eel cups a hand to the side of his mouth and yells himself: “Oy! Comin’ downriver along the north bank! Make way!”

“Mela’s tits!”

“Shove over!”

“Eel, what’re you doin’ comin’ downriver in the fuckin’ rain at fuckin’ sunset, man?!”

“Got a fare was runnin’ late!” Eel croaks back to the last caller, his grey mustache twitching. His voice sounds a bit raspy, probably he doesn’t usually have to yell over the splashing of the driving rain on the surface of the water.

“Well I hope they’re payin’ extra, it’s a shit night to be out!”

There’s a gentle tug at your ankle. Another fish!

“My rates is always reasonable, Whirling Eddie!” Eel laughs.

You wait…another tug. Then the line pulls hard, and you yank back to set the hook…caught a second fish! You’re going to eat well tonight!

“Sure, sure,” Whirling Eddie laughs back. The lanterns of the Nighthammer boats are coming into view now, illuminating the rain in glowing circles around dozens of shadowy boat shapes. Each of them is likely packed with three or four passengers on their way home from working the day shift at the forges.

“Eel! I got another one!” You smile. “Feels even bigger than the-woah!”

The twine yanks your ankle. Hard. Your boat swerves left…towards all those lanterns and shadowy boat shapes.

“SHIT.” Eel grits his teeth and slams his paddle into the water to correct your course. The twine tied around your ankle is taught, running up to the lip of the boat and then out into the rain at a hard straight angle. It’s starting to dig into your ankle.

What do you do?

Let the thing tire itself out and then reel it in! You’ve obviously got a big one here, if it’s got this much fight in it! That’s dinner and breakfast and lunch tomorrow, or maybe a few coins at the fish market if you can land it!

Try to reel it in now. If it’s big enough to yank the boat off course, letting the fish tire itself out might mean getting dragged into a collision with the other boats, but you’re not about to let this fish get away just because it might get you and Grinning Eel and five or six other people drowned!

Take your new knife and cut the line. Food and money is nice, but it’s not worth the risk of a collision.

Take your new knife and cut the line. If it was YOUR fish it’d be worth taking some risks, but you’re not gonna risk your life when you already agreed the fish would go to Grinning Eel if it was bigger than the first one.

Yell at the other boatmen to get the hell out your way! You and your fish are COMING THROUGH!

*************************************
Inventory:

• Tattered Rags
• Fishhooks (2)
• Rough twine (1 roll)
• Improvised Fishing Line w/hook
• 3 Large Earthworms
• Your Lucky Pebble
• Pile of Stolen Clothes (mostly rags)
• Twine Armband
• Steel spearhead (six-inch knife blade with a clumsy handle)

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You Have Gained:
Attributes: (9/13 Allocated)
+1 Manipulation (Persuading Eel to help you by appealing to his self-interest)

Abilities: (18/28 Allocated)
+1 Sail (Studying Grinning Eel as he steered your boat, seriously considering following in Daddy's footsteps)
+1 Bureaucracy (Negotiating a ride by offering to become a business partner)
+1 Awareness (Learning the art of navigating by sound when visibility is bad)

Specialties: (0/4 Allocated)

Merits: (1/7 Allocated)
+Grinning Eel, 1 Pt Ally

[Erinys]

Let it tire itself out.

[semicasual]

>Try to reel it in. Use the weight of your body for leverage.

[LadyLens]

I happen to know a bit about trolling, the proper term for what we're doing. There's no way that fish can keep up that fight for long if it's being pulled hard into the current; its gills won't be able to work properly. So pull it in! Give it to Eel without griping, and that's (hopefully) impress him with our honesty, and just landing it will show we've got the strength and grit to be at least worth considering as a successor. And it's not like we're getting the raw end of the deal; we've already landed one decent sized fish, so one way or another we both get a decent supper out of this. Besides, if we don't land it, that probably no supper at all.

[BadassOverlord]

Reel it in. This might be our white whale!

[Jairain]

I like the yelling, while letting itself tire itself out. Sounds funny and just a bit entitled

[wonderandawe]

Reel it in and yell out a warning to the other boaters.

[The MG]

Let the thing tire itself out and then reel it in.

[BlueWinds]

>Try to reel it in now.

[Wise Old Guru]

Let It Tire Itself Out: 2
Reel it In: 4
Out of my way!: 2

No way you’re letting this fish get away! Especially not in front of Grinning Eel, who you’re trying to impress! You grab the taut twine and pull as hard as you can. The line stings your cold, rain-drenched fingers as you pull in about two arm lengths of line…and as you pull, you pull the boat towards your fish, and towards the other boats.

“What in the name of Heaven did you catch, kid?” Eel grunts, paddling the boat hard in the opposite direction to the one you’re pulling in.

“I dunno, but whatever it is, it’s-“ you start to say, before a tremendous plume of water erupts from the canal ahead of you. In the dim lantern light, you can’t make out the details, but the shape that bursts from the calm surface of the water is immense, dwarfing the little canal boat it has lifted up over the water in its vast jaws, and you can make out the gleam of teeth and yellow eyes in the light of the suddenly-swinging lanterns. The sounds of splintering wood and screams of panic come a split second later. The twine in your fingers cuts into your flesh as the slack you had pulled in runs back out of your hands, and then it almost lifts you bodily into the air by the ankle you’ve tied it off to…and then the monster up ahead dives, taking a whole canal boat with it, and the line pulls back down, and everyone is yelling, and Eel is cursing, and the boat is careening forward towards the other boats as the front side where you’re sitting is pulled downwards…

It seems you have caught a river dragon. Think fast! Do you:

Cut the line, quick, before it drags you under! Then yell at Eel to make it to shore while it’s distracted eating the people in that boat it just capsized!

Cut the line, quick, before it tears off your whole leg! Then yell at Eel to row over and help rescue those people splashing around in the water before it comes back!

Cut the line, quick, before it drags you straight into the rest of the boats and causes a massive pileup! Then yell to the other boats to get to shore, quick, before it comes back!

Cut the line-that twine is going to snap anyway, no reason to let it cut your ankle any worse than it already has. Then, as calmly as you are able, scream at the top of your lungs: “HELP! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP! THIS RIVER DRAGON IS OBSTRUCTING OUR TRADE!”

Cut the line? Hah! This is how your legend begins! You are going to LAND that monster, and be FAMOUS, and be RICH, and make a RAINCOAT out of its SCALES! KEEP REELING IT IN!

Or…Something else?


*************************************
Resources You Have Available:

• Tattered Rags
• Fishhooks (2)
• Rough twine (1 roll)
• Improvised Fishing Line with a damn River Dragon on the other end of it
• 3 Large Earthworms
• Your Lucky Pebble
• Twine Armband
• Steel spearhead (six-inch knife blade with a clumsy handle)
• A fish
• An oil lantern
• Grinning Eel, expert boatman
• Some fifty feet of rope coiled in the bottom of the boat

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You Have Gained:
Attributes: (10/13 Allocated)*
Strength +1 (Choosing brute force over patience)
*Physical attributes now have 5 allocated, and therefore you are Phys-primary. Social attributes are at 3 and Mental 2, so secondary/tertiary categories are still undecided. You have to spend 1 point more on physical attributes. If you allocate both remaining points to Mental stats you'll be Mental secondary, otherwise you may devote 1 to Social and 1 to Mental to be Social secondary.
Abilities: (18/28 Allocated)
Survival +1 (This totally would have worked if you'd just caught a fish)

Specialties: (0/4 Allocated)

Merits: (1/7 Allocated)

[Erinys]

“HELP! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP! THIS RIVER DRAGON IS OBSTRUCTING OUR TRADE!”

((lol)) No... just, no. I would be blamed, and probably turned inside-out. Or Eel could get blamed.


Cut the line, quick, before it tears off your whole leg! Then yell at Eel to row over and help rescue those people splashing around in the water before it comes back!