36: Man-'o-Well

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The 36th episode of The Magical Monster High School Drama! series. After recovering from Eric's bad piloting, Kiereniel, Móts and Yassi go back to the pirate spelljammer ship to loot it for all it's worth.

## Plot

Clarence brings the talk back to the matters at hand: Akio. He says he did have quite a lot of insurance, but could make an alteration to their agreement regarding the zombie. He says Akio can be the whole party’s responsibility; Móts’s only; or they can just space him. Does Móts want to acknowledge, on paper, responsibility for everything Akio does? He doesn’t want to space Akio, but then realises - they can just send Akio back home! Clarence vetoes that idea, he says the portal on ship doesn’t work that way. Asking Jesebel where Akio is right now, she responds he is not on the ship. Sighing, he asks for the last surveillance footage.

It displays Akio walking up to Violet outside the brig, then teleporting inside... Mostly. The scene switches to inside the brig where they witness Akio being thrown across the room by the force field, then after he talks with Eric some more. Akio then simply disappears through the door. There is no further footage. And his disappearing act did not look similar to his usual teleport.

Clarence asks Kiera whether he can construct an anti magic ward in the brig. The angel expresses a desire still to visit the pirate ship again but says he will work on it once he has materials. That concludes the briefing.

Meanwhile Violet goes to 'chase the dragon' in her quarters, and Yassi reinforces the shield generators around the engine. Kiera and Móts go to talk to Yassi and Kiera asks her if she would accompany them to the wooden ship again. She says she’s kind of busy, but asks what’s happening with Akio. They tell her he’s nowhere to be found, but that he’ll probably return in either ten minutes or several weeks. Yassi says she’ll finish working on the forcefield generators here and when she finishes, if Akio still hasn’t appeared, she’ll come with them.

They agree, and Móts wanders about the ship looking for Akio, beginning with the brig. He manages to release the zombie’s severed arm from the door. It’s wet and gory, and not entirely fresh. He goes in and sees Eric, but no sign of how Akio disappeared. After a couple of hours, Yassi is finished, and they have made their way back to the Man ‘o War. They jump back over to the ship, along with Hector, the four armed dude. There are quite a few unexplored parts of the ship. Around them are several abandoned weapons, cannonballs, swords, axes.

Móts tromps over to the captain’s wheel for the fun of it, in iron man form. Yassi comes over too, examines it, then asks Kiera if this is magic too. He says basically everything here is. Also up here are some swivelly mortars, but apart from that and a birdstand, there isn’t much. The wheel itself has runes carved into it, and a compass. Móts tries turning the wheel, and they can variously hear and feel the rudder turning and the masts rotating, very slowly. He then tries to angle the sails as far as he can to try and turn the ship away from the dying star. They turn, but the ship doen’t move, he also sees a gearstick next to the compass. Yassi goes to look at the rudder moving, but it seems to be just an ordinary rudder, but with runes. She skitters back up. Fiddling with the wheel, Móts notices a globe filled with liquid, which they figure out controls the up and down orientation of the ship.

Yassi sees something odd, shadowy figures behind Móts, that disappear when she looks at them directly. She tells everyone this, but no one else can see them. They go down to explore more. They travel down through the crew area, back to the mana well. The room is essentially as they left it, the mana well, the stone well with runes, bookshelves. Kiera takes another look at the well, this time in person, noticing again the containment runes, as well as power management, and lines of power running out from this room to all parts of the ship. Móts begins reading a children’s picture book on magic. Yassi can still see the shadowy figures around Móts.

Kiera then peruses the books himself to try and find information on the mana well. Effectively, it’s infinite storage of energy. He feels confident he can interface with it, and sees there is one line of mana that cannot be fiddled with, among the other systems. Kiera follows it to the middle of the ship, where it ends, seeming to go down. They go down to the next floor, finding this area seems to be the cargo hold, littered with barrels and kegs. Up in the ceiling, there is a huge gem surrounded by another stone circle, complete with magical runes. Kiereniel determines this device is containing an air spirit/elemental, who is perpetually casting several spells: constantly creating fresh breathable air, maintaining the shape of the atmosphere, deflecting radiation, maintaining the temperature, and reinforcing the hull.

Yassi climbs the wall to look at the crystal, determining it’s some kind of quartz, but it isn’t connect to anything non-magic. She comes back down. Móts looks through the hold, finding there is a lot of stored food and wool. Yassi finds that there are some cannonballs here too, of different metals, and some are engraved. Kiereniel says that they are designed to explode when exposed to enough force. She gives one of these to Hector to look after, which she’d like to study back on the Raptor, and briefly discusses goops with Móts as they go back to the central conduit. She says Hector would have loved to discuss this, before... The accident.

They follow one of the other inactive lines to the back of the ship, to the rudder, on the inside. Wondering whether its to do with propulsion, Yassi remarks rudders are usually for changing direction, but outside there was a breeze. Climbing down to see what is happening outside might be helpful, and Yassi volunteers for this and scurries off. The others explore more, back to the main deck, looking around at the sails, the front of the ship, winches, and finding the two harpoon guns, one of which has a line attached to the whale. There are also several gimballed cannons along the side of the ship, also with runes for propulsion of the cannonballs, though they are still loaded with gunpowder.

Móts searches around for a flint and steel and lights one of the cannons. It fires, and the cannon rockets backwards on a rope, hitting Kiereniel. Ow. Móts quickly shoots him with some standard healing goop, while Yassi shouts up asking what happened after the ship rattled. The blue goop intergrates slightly into Kiera’s suit, and he is healed. His com beeps, and he receives a 3D image of the rudder, complete with runes that Kiera identifies as producing the wind. Yassi also notes that every plank of the ship also has faint runes, which Kiera hadn’t even noticed.

Móts moves the gearstick next to the captain’s wheel from 0 to 1, and the wind down at the outside of the ship increases to the point that Yassi fears being blown off, and scurries inside one of the portholes. She uses her com to tell Móts whatever he did worked, but that he should stop, and he stops it. This actually moved the ship away from the Raptor. Yassi then meets back up with the rest of the party. Móts says he will investigate the magical source on the whale now, before they cut the rope to it, and the others go back to investigate the ship’s systems more. Kiereniel finds and traces another mana line.

Móts finds a giant shattered shard of rock embedded in the whale’s head. He says it appears to be what actually killed the whale, and the source of the magic rather than the whale itself. Móts sends a hologram back to the others. Kiera, looking at this picture, posits that the crystal could have actually grown out of the whale rather than entered, or even fused with the whale’s skeleton. There is flesh around the thing like gum around a tooth; it looks like it was part of the whale or there for a while. Móts tries to pull it out, but that’s no good, so he changes to sword and board form, and begins cutting the object out of the dead whale. When he cuts through the skull, the fluids inside erupt and mist at the heat from the laser sword. The Raptor maneuvers into position to grab the object when it is free.

Downstairs, Kiereniel follows the next two mana lines to two more gun decks. The last line leads up into the cabin on deck. On the desk is a scroll unfurled, displaying a starmap of this solar system. It’s hand drawn, with the dying star, some of the other wrecks, and other planetoids, as well as the ship itself. It’s also moving slowly to reflect the movement outside. Also here is the captain’s sword on the wall, a giant falchion, a model of the ship, and a private bathing area and bedroom. There is also a row of ledgers, all listed as belonging to different ships, with cargo manifests, employers and owners’ details, and insurance info. Some of the ledgers are from similarly old fashioned style vessels, but some are from definitely more advanced vessels. Trophies, perhaps. Yassi also finds the captain’s selection of sex toys, and a handheld telescope. It’s magical, and can see far farther than a normal telescope, perhaps up to a lightyear, as well as detecting other forms of light beyond the visible like ultraviolet and and infrared. There is also a glass dome that magnifies details on the scroll map. The zoom is far enough that placed over a planet, you can see mountain ranges. Kiera places it over the small moon, seeing craters and such, but not the runes. In the quarters, a sleeping mask by the bed is also magic, functioning as a recreational viewing mask, with several terabytes of porn stored on it. The sheets have self cleaning and repairing enchantments on them.

They take the map & dome, telescope, mask, bedding and falchion back to the ship along with the cannonball, the ledgers, and arcane paraphernalia around the well to investigate on the Raptor. The object in the whale is towed into the Raptor, and everyone reboards, Kiera less gracefully than the others. The blue left in his suit repairs his small injury, and disappears. It’s been about six hours since they left. Kiera goes to figure out making some protective wards around the brig. He relays to Clarence that a ward that protects against any and all magic is doable, but will be costly in terms of power.

Yassi cooks for herself and Móts, before helping him with his mechsuit, which was damaged slightly from the superheated gore spray. Kiereniel comes up, having finished with the temporary wards and redecorated the brig, and eats the leftovers. After this, they sleep. The object from the whale’s skull, after having been examined, is incomplete, but has several tiny channels that may be magical. It appears as if it’s purpose is to focus energy down these channels.

## Cast and Crew

* Game Master - Terry
* Akio - Marco
* Eric Withakay - Ben
* Ishkandar - Salem
* Kiereniel - Josh (TheRealWiredUP)
* Lysandryl - Damien
* Mótsognir - Rory
* Violet - Kitto
* Yassi - George (Drake1000)

* Script Supervisor - George (Drake1000)
* Publication Editior - Josh (TheRealWiredUP)

## References

1. ↑ Space is a bitch to those used to flying in atmosphere