The girl turned away after he finished speaking, begging for her to understand why it was so important that she not do anything to him. Only Ivy said nothing to that effect, instead nattering on again about the engine and their future plans. Jötz felt she hadn’t been listening, not really. At least not to all of it. Common sense told him as it would anyone with half a brain that it was best to get as much distance between the Spark and himself as possible before she completely destroyed what he was by trying to [i]imrpove[/i] him.

Only Jötz was a Jaegermonster. Common sense was not an attribute often associated with then, even if they were not quite as reckless as they made themselves seem to be. Besides which, he had made a promise to look after her until she was safe. Their loyalty to the House of Heterodyne had its foundations in that same Jaeger sense of perverse honor Jötz and his fellows adhered to. He had promise Ivy he would see her safe and with her arm restored, and that was a bargain he couldn't go back on even as his cynicism scolded him for making such a bad deal. 

“No,” he grumped, “I gets chou vhere I promised. Den ve kin talk abouts chat comes after, ja?”

Turning his own back to her now, Jötz began to make his way down the flooded hallway to see what else there was. There was actually rather little. He could tell by looking which rooms were for sleeping and cooking and storage, especially the stretched cargo hold midships where his footfalls echoed against the rusting steel. Completely abandoned. Further along towards the bow, he came across another steep ladder that led up to a hatch, much like the one they had come down. Beyond that, there was one last door. 

This one was shut fast, a bronze nameplate heavily pitted and verdant with age right at eye level. Frowning, Jötz tried the door. It was sealed fast. Rubbing the cloth of his sleeve against the metal plaque a few times, he squinted as he tried to read the archaic font that had been razed into the bronze. It was in English, which took him longer to translate in his head. 

“Captain… Ja-kob… Moore… Ludd.” Jötz frowned. Why did that name sound so familiar? It did have something to do with the Canallers, but he couldn’t remember what. He tried sounding it out several times in different ways to see if it jarred any memories. “Jakob More Ludd… Jake Ob Mere Ludd… Jake Oft M’Blood… Jakomoblud… Jackamooludd… Giacomo…”

His brushed the tipped of his talon fingers across it, squinting. His lips barely moved as he whispered a combination that unlocked his memories. “Jack of More Blood.”

Jötz’s eyes went wide and he stepped back. Captain Jack of More Blood, a viscous pirate captain that had terrorized the canalways and rivers and lakes of most of Europa with impunity. He had been a privateer so feared that it had taken the Storm King himself to put on end to him. Only the story had never said exactly what had happened, only that he had been defeated! If this was his ship…

“Iiiivy!” Jötz roared. Backpedalling for severals steps, he turned to half run and half slog through the brackish water back towards the engine room. No doubt while he explored, she had started work on the engine. If the tales of the infamous pirate and his miraculous barge of death were even the least bit true, then firing up the hulk’s boiler may not be the best of ideas… at least not without an army standing by! “Chou may not vants to do that!!”