jakunen
Gumshoe
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Posts: 81 
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Post by jakunen on Jul 16, 2015 7:12:56 GMT -5
This logbook, wider than it is tall and thick with slightly yellow pages, is covered and bound in dull brown leather that has seen better days. The edges and spine are reinforced with polished grey metal. While the outside of the book has no markings or titles, the first page inside is titled with black ink:
THE BLACK MOON
Captain's Log
Captain Frederic Blair
1st Mate Roderic Blair
Chief Engineer Isolde Grimstead-Blair
The first several pages are filled with lined paper that contain dozens of ship navigation readings in precise handwriting - time, course, distance, even notes about the phase of the moon - that take up the top three-quarters of each page. Only an experienced sailor and navigator would be able to understand the logbook's headings.
The bottom quarter of each page contains various notes ranging from inventory of food and drink to amounts of money paid and acquired. It is impossible to tell quite who was getting paid or where the money was coming from as everything was labeled in two to three letter initials.
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jakunen
Gumshoe
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Posts: 81
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Post by jakunen on Jul 16, 2015 22:07:31 GMT -5
The next page of the logbook is free of lines and navigational headings. The handwriting is different as well - still neat, but larger and with more flair. A dark spot near the bottom corner suggests a drop of something was spilled on it, likely alcoholic.
Confirmed: a city's sewers smell worse than a dozen sweaty, drunk, horny sailors crammed into a ship's under-deck.
It has been nearly a week since I made a tactical retrograde movement to Calidor - viz., a spectacular crash-and-burn act that I certainly had nothing to do with. Not my ship, not my circus. As I was doing the backstroke through the flaming wreckage of a once-lovely ship, having an intense moment of deja-vu, I considered whether this was a sign I should head home immediately. Weighing the logical probability of there really being some kind of god (who at that time, if in existence, was clearly having a good chuckle at our expense) and the morality of finding faith when nearing one's deathbed, I decided the concept of "signs" was utter nonsense and luck was bullshit.
Now several days into my adventure on land (awfully still and it makes me a little ill), I've managed to get some cash in my pockets to replace what is no doubt floating in the bay, waterlogged. I also had to replace my old weapons - new firearm as the old one got too dinged up to be safely salvaged, and I haven't the foggiest idea where my knife floated off to. Good thing they weren't sentimental to me. It would have been a different story if I had lost Frederic's hat. Thankfully, the most fabulous of hats is in good shape and no longer smells of sewer. All is good and right in the world.
Sort of. If I can continue to avoid Ji's gnomish strippers (ick) things will be just fine. Other than his insistence on gnomish women being my next lay, he's a solid sidekick. The rest of the people in the city seem the standard types - Coppers to shake you down and Crowders to give you scars. Same as any other city, just bigger and meaner.
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jakunen
Gumshoe
Developer
Posts: 81
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Post by jakunen on Jul 17, 2015 7:16:54 GMT -5
This next page is also free of lines and headings. Written in the same neat but stylish handwriting, it seems slanted to one side more than the previous entry. The corner of the page is folded down like a bookmark.
In all my years at sea, I've run across only two sailors with a drug problem. Landfolk might think it different, given their stereotypes of us (can't blame them) but considering our line of work it is impossible to get that screwed up and function at the same time. We have our fun in moderation - drinking, gambling, and whores.
Kidding, lots of whores at every port. Frederic must have a dozen kids he didn't know about all along the Isle of Aia and elsewhere. Not that I was ever going to tell Isolde that - also not my circus.
Both of those problematic sailors got dumped off the ship at the nearest port as soon as we discovered they weren't going to be useful to us. That's the number one rule of a ship - pull your own weight. If you can't do what you're told and do it right, you won't last long. The Black Moon gave no free rides. A lot of people in this city wouldn't last a week on the ship.
Calidor's bottom-of-the-barrel population is so brimming with drug-addled scum I'm surprised I haven't heard more ranting and raving in the streets. Something called "Angel" seems the worst; ironic given the name. Considering what I've seen lately - assassination! - it is no longer a problem reserved for us folks who have been left wanting in life. The case of the First Minister is a curious one though. Maybe an outlier, hard to tell, and its not like I instinctively care about the well-being of some pampered fop.
I care as long as I get paid.
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jakunen
Gumshoe
Developer
Posts: 81
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Post by jakunen on Jul 19, 2015 9:35:19 GMT -5
This page is written in the same stylish handwriting, arranged perfectly horizontal across the page as if guided by lines that aren't actually there.
There is something in this city that makes people go rotten - particularly the women. It seems like nearly every single one I've met has had an attitude problem, is disgusting, or is a whore. The problem seems to double in severity if they're an elf.
I ran into a few folk who expressed some interest in the CDA. One seems to fit into the above mold of being a tart (as Bariston would say - the oaf makes for a good drinking buddy) and I've no real desire to be around more people that would probably come to hate me. Another I'm undecided on, he's too quiet thus far. But... there is usefulness in blending in like that.
One seems promising. Surprisingly, an elven woman. I'll have to keep my eye on her.
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jakunen
Gumshoe
Developer
Posts: 81
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Post by jakunen on Jul 20, 2015 7:09:38 GMT -5
The next entry appears on the bottom half of the page of the previous writing, both being particularly short.
Em sent the potential recruits out on a job tonight. Seems simple enough, a missing person case. I'm torn between hoping they don't screw it up and make us look bad, and hoping they screw it up so all future jobs come my way instead. Charlie was a bit of a grump about it since it meant he had nothing to do for the rest of the day. I don't blame him, I would have welcomed the cash. Shame Lela wasn't at the Sink Hole for the meeting, she could have gone as well. Nice enough girl (probably not a whore), hasn't tried to set me on fire or kill me yet - unlike some elves I know. Key word being yet.
But, Em's right - we have bigger fish to fry than some missing schmuck.
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jakunen
Gumshoe
Developer
Posts: 81
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Post by jakunen on Aug 9, 2015 9:11:24 GMT -5
The handwriting on this page seems less neat than the other pages - shaky and slanted across the page, no longer perfectly following invisible lines. The handwriting wasn't nearly as stylish either.
What in the actual hell just happened?
Vivianne's dead and whatever notes she had on her are gone. Burnt to a crisp. That Copper Sam got pretty toasted too, but Doc patched him up and said if he lasts the night he might make it. Can't tell if that's a good or bad thing, depends on how bad off the guy's going to be when he comes-to. The Templar-Whore keeps going on and on about religious mumbo-jumbo (I know she's going to be even more nuts than before) and for the longest time Sash kept going on and on about it being in her head. Poor Nik's half-snapped and thinks the statues are staring at him. I'm not sure if he really will be alright. Maybe if he makes it a month without eating a revolver, he'll be okay-ish enough to keep going.
The rest of us can't do much else other than sit back, wide-eyed, and keep cussing and drinking until the memory of that fades just enough that we won't end up in an asylum. I don't think I can make an honest report to Emelia about this. How am I going to explain it? How am I going to explain how one of our agents died? The Chesterfields are probably going to fire us all for thinking we're insane, incompetent, or both.
I feel bad for Viv, knowing she died in so much pain. They said she was screaming until there was nothing left to scream with. To hear later that the Templar-Whore had the gall to celebrate Viv's death - death of a "heretic" Priory member, yadda yadda - makes me angry beyond words. Shows how much humanity those religious nutters really have - none. It also just makes me want to get involved with the Priory here even more. Someone's got to show a lick of sense in this madness.
But really, what DID we see? Nobody is ever going to believe any of us if we talk about it - and I don't blame them.
Just because I was the only one who noticed a crack in their mask doesn't mean the others didn't have the same problem. Did their vision turn red too? Were we all seeing things the whole time? That's the most rational, likely explanation for all of this - we were high out of our minds and hallucinating. It doesn't explain away the fire, but it means that thing wasn't what some people are claiming it is.
Damn that thing. Freakish razor-teeth, black blood all over the place, tubes, shrieking, hissing words none of us understood. If it really was what they're claiming it to be, I want no part of that. That's not holy by any sense of the word. That's something that came straight from hell.
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