Nineteenth Beginning 36: Worldshore

[from here on, it's mostly just outline and notes - and blue to show that I know that]

Postlavanderon luffed the sails to give Narnemvar more pacing time.  The boat still moved forward, so that Satbada was safe, but it moved forward slowly.  Narnemvar argued with himself and argued with himself, then he gave up and started casting.

Postlavanderon threw water on him, startling him to attention.

‘no – you’re too tired still

I’m not going to get any less tired with this pulling at me

I’ve thought it through

have you – well, then you can explain it to me and we can all agree that you plainly have to go on

Narnemvar stood, silent, and let the boat go on without him.  Then he caught up and strode alongside explaining what he knew about the setup and what he planned to do.

it needs to be bled, you see.  it’s following us, and eventually we’re going to trail it over some stationary magic and they’re going to interact and it will pop and make a big deadly mess all over who knows what.

I can try to put vents into it, to bleed it out slowly, but really we’d have to stop and do that for days to have a hope of draining it.  Shortbread couldn’t take that much time.  Sorry shortbread.

he ignores it, of course, anyone would

If you deliberately popped it, is it big enough to take out an island.

most of them

how about an island with a cone in the middle

another stoppage of conversation while thoughts settle in

do you know of one

and of course he does and of course they talk about it a lot and then the set sail for it and there’s some scenery and some random thoughts and a little banter as they just cant keep their wit shut around each other and poor Satbada has to listen

and then there they are at the island and they have to climb up and then he goes all mystic and inside and we describe him coming on the kielbasa again and how gross it is and then he puts a magical spigot into it, but almost gets sprayed with it and dies but he remembers something that Bess told him when he was little and is able to make it all right and the island fills up with yucky death dealing stuff and they’re all horrified and then Postlavanderon decides to light it on fire to keep it from overflowing into the sea and it burns hot and slow with less smoke than you’d imagine

and after checking it out for noble reasons and commercial reasons they decide to leave it burning and how long will it take to empty and did we really come that close to being burned alive, all three of us, and of course they did because you have to do that kind of thing to heroes and that’s what they are by this point.

And there’s a long conversation about what to tell the family and they sleep in the jungle overnight and the bugs are dropping out of the sky like rain and that’s another commercial possibility and Narnemvar has to keep checking the contents and seeing if the dip stick is low and here we are thinking about going to visit daddy and what it he going to think about the big ball of pus and are we going to be able to trust him and in the end we have to and damn I wish there were better choices

then Satbada says something sarcastic, but you can tell that his heart isn’t in it any more because he’s seen up close what he almost got dosed with and it wasn’t the idiot’s fault that his friend was ordered to follow him around and it wasn’t even his fault that he was an idiot and doesn’t that take all the fun out of superiority