Antlers
Shifter_Master
Neziul
Iluvtoji
IAmTheIsland
Bugman
Passable Writer
Fetzen
Not a Sayan
Stanifly
a cable which had managed to wrap itself around his right ankle brought him crashing to the ground the minute he tried to take a single step.
The cable wrapped around Connor's ankle was wrapped around a lever which protruded from the mass of gears and cogs in the floor. And so, when the cable was pulled with the force of Connor's fall, the lever was upset in its position only slightly -- enough to slowly release a chain one link at a time.
clink . . . clink . . . clink . . . clink . . .
On the outside of the ship -- visible from on deck -- two long thick poles began to fan out, click by click, from the sides of the ship. There were shimmering, glimmering, undamaged sails attached to those poles. They fluttered above the breaking sea like wings.
When she heard the hiss she grabbed a pipe that was nearby. . . . She grabbed a nearby lamp, not sure if should would find a way to light it, but when she had a way she would have a light source if it got really dark.
The oil sloshed inside the brass lamp, and there was still enough of its ashen wick to light, should she desire to do so. As this was a boiler room for the likes of a steamship, of course there were ovens -- and therefore, there were a variety of ways by which Risa might light her newfound lamp: boxes upon boxes of matches, stacked inside a cabinet opposite the closet of coal, for one. For another, a gadget hanging on the walls behind the boilers that appeared to be a pistol but was very much someone's humorous reinvention of the flamethrower. But again, this was not immediately apparent upon first observation.
A quivering voice sobbed through the speaker:
“Hey, baby, hey... I knew... I just soooo knew I'd see ya again, I swear... I missed you LynLyn... I'm... I'm soooo...sosososo sorry, baby... I didn't mean to get you killed. I'm soooo sorry...”
She slowly backed away to the speaker. Once she got there she looked away for the first time. "Hey, is anyone there? There is something down here. Get us out of here," she yelled out.
Gulping, he slowly backed away and drew his bayonet . . . "Whatever you're doing," He called out to the writer, who was trying to call for help via the horn. "I hope to God it actually works, otherwise I'm going to start cutting things and hoping for the best."
The glint of the bayonet glimmered in the red eye of their observer by the ceiling: the curled dark lizard that watched and listened and quite probably had a set or two of very sharp teeth. The flash of the slightly-sparkling blade sent the lizard skittering along the ceiling -- yes, running upside-down above their heads like a freakish insect -- and it rushed directly toward the two hapless prisoners. Its red eyes glinted.
Here, where the beast was closer and more easily observed (not that Connor nor Risa would generally be so inclined to carefully observe an unknown animal rushing at them upside-down) it was clear that the beast was not as big as it might have first appeared. It was indeed as long as a man from head to tail, but was sinewy and shimmering black, with little legs that skittered while it slithered. Its head was no bigger than a small melon, its jaws just big enough to perhaps take off a person's hand. Its blood-red eyes took up half its head and were focused intently on Connor's bayonet.
It stopped on the ceiling just above Connor and Risa, and then it suddenly lashed down at them, snapping at Connor's blade with a mouthful of needle teeth. Like a cat entranced by a laser, it only had eyes for the sword and could care less who wielded it. At least now it was away from the ladders and the trap doors in the ceiling.
. . . she scanned it over and committed the place the pendulum pointed to to memory, and then put it on its side. . . . Reaching down, she meant to roll up the map and take it with her, but the sides caught her palm at an odd angle, and gave her a thin slit beneath her fingers. . . . She rolled it up properly then, and folded it to fit under her shirt. . . . then she tried to step, the odd balance had her stumbling back into the table, free hand scrambling for a grasp, but all she found was the pendulum and the remaining bone dust.
Unbeknownst to Moss, the application of her blood on the map had caused it to begin to change. Whenever she desired to open it again the map would show her an island in a spot that had been very much blank before -- the spot to which the pendulum had been pointing so earnestly.
Moss' name had been written beside the island, just as beside the other islands were lists of others' names. Hers was the only one that had not been crossed out.
. . . put [the silver key] carefully into his pocket . . . He finally reached the ticking object [pocket watch] and picked it up and also pocketed it, but it kept ticking so he took it out and kept fiddling with it until the ticking stopped. He had clicked something which stopped it . . .
To Elin, there were certainly no consequences to stopping the pocket watch which annoyed him so. And yet, there were consequences indeed.
In the Observatory, the orrery had suddenly stopped. The planets had ceased moving around the sun, and the clockwork fell silent.
The walls and ceiling of the map room writhed and stretched like snakes wriggling for the best view of the sunlight newly opened in the room above.
Oh, but that was not the least of the disaster that would befall them all should the pocket watch continue to be silent. It had ticked for thousands of years, and had been meant to tick for thousands more.
Even now, those on the deck might notice peculiar patterns in the shapes of the clouds that swirled above -- like several storms spinning at once high above. The air was becoming electric.
He then threw the gun at [Chris] as it flung into the air as he was aiming for the guys head but it would fall short aiming closer to the guy's back or abdomen if he turned around.
Snatching the weapon he stood up but did not point it at him, preferring to stay non aggressive. "What the hell? Are you trying to hit me or something?" He glanced at the flintlock for a moment to see if it was primed. He had some knowledge of how such a thing operated. Loading such a weapon would be another thing so if it was actually loaded it would only be one shot without some supplies and instruction.
The pistol was indeed a flintlock, indeed primed, and indeed loaded -- but not with common shot. The stuff that filled that pistol was bluish in color, a type of stone that had been shaped into pellets for the purpose of shooting. There was no more of it in this room at all -- but then, there was a whole ship to explore.
From the ceiling came a rhythmic knocking sound.
. . . a small trickle of blood started to roll down his face. . . . He finished his rage by knocking all of the crumbling books that rested upon the bookcase in every direction of the room. . . . He grabbed onto the book with both hands and used his feet as leverage and placed them on the next row on the shelf and he tugged with all of his might. It was the most annoying book that he had ever come across, Christopher had got annoyed with the book and punched it before he turned away from it angrily.
Of course, the forehead tends to bleed quite a lot even when it is only nicked. So it was that even though Christopher had only a minor injury blood trickled down his face in a steady red stream. It flecked on the books he cast aside, and it dappled the leaves of the saplings that he crushed underfoot. Books fell open all around him, bloodspattered pages crumpled, plantlife crinkled under their bindings.
One such book -- spattered with particularly more blood than the others -- lay open on the floor with rich drawings presented on its pages. On each page of the book were illustrations of events from Christopher's own life.
And the book that he punched? It squeaked on its hinge and a hidden compartment popped open. Inside this compartment, sitting on a velvet cushion, was a single pearl.
She approached cautiously, and reached out her right hand to touch the one different globe, the one in the third orbit with the smaller sphere circling it. Her finger had just made contact when the ship gave a significant lurch, and the Egyptian stumbled away, tripping over the fringe on her ankle-length chiton and falling to her hands and knees.
Unbeknownst to Zosime, at the moment her finger touched the globe the orrery had stopped -- but it wasn't her fault at all, not really (it was, incidentally, entirely Elin's fault). The ticking stopped. And while the ship lurched, the representation of the Earth glimmered beneath the shining shape of a fingerprint. The fingerprint glowed for a moment and then dissipated, as if absorbed. And yet, deep within the little marble, something glowed and burned like fire.
Outside, yellow flashes of lightning glowed behind the clouds above.
She wondered if the carvings [on the pillar] would be clearer if she could somehow remove the bark, but the bald woman had no tool with which to attempt such a feat. . . . Circling the pillar, she eventually came to the recessed hand-print. Unable to resist her curiosity, Zosime raised her left hand, her dominant hand, the one that she had touched the leaves when he first awoke, and pressed it against the matching marking on the pillar.
Electricity.
It tickled and zapped her palm, and it wasn't entirely pleasant -- but Zosime would find that she would not be able to pry her hand away no matter how she tried, no matter how much the ripples of shocks pricked her palm.
Above them, the ceiling clinked and ground, and a square opening in the dome soon flooded the room with light. The saplings in the floor and ceiling grew rapidly, greedy for the light. The telescope whirred and clicked and came to life, notching itself upward to gaze up at the swirling clouds through the new hole in the ceiling. Only when the telescope clicked into place did the pillar release Zosime's hand.
It was only a matter of a few steps up to a platform to look through the telescope's lens -- and to see Zosime's home through the clouds, as if looking down on her loved ones from above.
The mechanical mouse jumped down to the floor and scurried underneath the door to the outside.
Tamara-Jane rolled up to her hands and knees when her strained hitching sobs faded and she finally caught her breath. . . . She was torn up pretty bad. Bleeding too. . . . Slowly, yet deliberately, a trembling hand reached out rainbow coloured fingertips to stroke the darling fuzzy face of the fox that she knew was not a fox but her love in disguise carrying that stuffed white bunny. Finally she whispered, spurned on by the wavering strength of a broken heart:
“Hey, baby, hey... I knew... I just soooo knew I'd see ya again, I swear... I missed you LynLyn... I'm... I'm soooo...sosososo sorry, baby... I didn't mean to get you killed. I'm soooo sorry...”
The fox ducked to avoid her hand; it skittered and dodged her, and jumped backward with the rabbit still damp and dangling in its teeth. Bits of fluff drifted on the sea wind. It stared at Tamara-Jane -- and then it ran. The fox bolted a few feet across the deck, then stopped and looked back at her as if to ensure she was following. But it looked quickly to Sidwell with a spark of fear or annoyance before it sped off and disappeared down a staircase at the opposite end of the deck.
. . . by the time she reached the door her conviction to be absolutely anywhere but in there overcame her induced imbalance, and she was outside in the thick air.
Wavering, he stepped a little closer [to Tamara-Jane] and spoke, unsure of exactly what he was interrupting. "Forgiveness comes to all good souls," he offered, trying to compensate for the regret the woman was clearly showing.
Tamara's reply would be cut off by a shout from a brass speaker on the wall near them. The same voice emitted from a similar speaker on the wall beside Moss. It was a female voice, panicked and afraid.
"Hey, is anyone there? There is something down here. Get us out of here!"
A male voice muttered behind the voice in the speaker, and there was a distinct sound of mechanical clinking and the skitter of claws.
Two long thick poles began to fan out, click by click, from the sides of the ship. There were shimmering, glimmering, undamaged sails attached to those poles. They fluttered above the breaking sea like wings.
Peculiar patterns formed in the shapes of the clouds that swirled above -- like several storms spinning at once high above. The air was becoming electric.
The waves crashed all around them, and the ship tossed while the wind howled.
The butterfly on the rim of Sidwell's hat fluttered its extravagant silvery wings, as content as on a quiet spring day.
