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The last time we saw our handsomely hairy heroes, a gargantuan electric eel attacked the Mystic Wave. After an extended battle, the Hero wittingly and bravely lured the eel into a trap and destroyed him with the Marksman’s incredible aim and the Distiller’s amazingly potent bourbon. The exhausted crew watch the last death throes of the beast, while the same idea percolates in everyone’s mind. “The main sail is down, what do we do now?”
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The Scribe sits on the deck, periodically his gaze wanders to the smoking eel and then back to the ancient dwarven text. Part of the Scribe looks out there to see one of the strangest things he’s ever seen, the other looks to make sure that the eel is truly dead. The sea has calmed quite a bit since the great battle, but the waves still roll.
“I don’t understand, according to these maps, only after we go through the first lock should we see creatures as strange as these,” muses the Scribe aloud.
“Yeah Scribe, but we did and now the mast on my BRAND-NEW ship is laid off to the side DRAGGING!” replies Captain Crimson’s anguished bellow.
“Never fear,” quips the Inventor, “I’ll have it fixed in a minute. Hero, Marksman! Go cut the sail off the mast and have the Barkeep and Distiller drag the sail aboard.” The Inventor gives the instructions and then quickly passes through the door heading towards the hull.
The Marksman and the Hero climb out on the fallen mast, cutting line along the way. Some of the other lines were caught in the other masts, so crew-members who were able, climbed the remaining masts to untangle the rats nest of the sail line. The Marksman and Hero, after they cut the line, began to drag the now drenched sail onto the boat. The main sail was already heavy, but being soaked caused it to be much more heavy. The Marksman and the Hero pull as hard as they can, getting an edge of the sail back to the main deck. The Barkeep grasps a hold on the edge of the sail as the Marksman and Hero collapse on the deck, exhausted from pulling the sail against the water and waves. The Barkeep, Captain Crimson, and Distiller grab a hold of the sail and the Barkeep’s bullish strength allows them to reclaim the fallen sail.
Suddenly, a loud thud echoes through the hull, followed by several thuds that are causing the ship to shake. The whole crew stops dead in their tracks. The cargo hold door lifts as a steam-powered platform rises to reveal the Inventor piloting a bronze exo-skeleton. Riding in this new machine, the Dwarf stands around 12 feet tall, and 9 feet wide. Steam escapes from a couple of exhaust ports in the back of the machine.
The Inventor’s cockpit is bubbled with a hardened glass, and the interior of the mech has a multitude of switches, levers, and gauges. The Inventor sets in a burgundy colored leather seat working a pair of joysticks to control the machine.
One arm sports a butane torch, with variable settings, allowing the Inventor to forge a sword, or weld metal back together. Running up the butane is a folded saw, that could be rotated to the forward locking position in case there was ever a need for its use.The other arm features a pneumatic hammer as large as an anvil, but like the torch, the hammer is leveled so that the Inventor could fold and hammer a dagger blade, or repair the hull of a ship. If he needed to work on something small, a small hammer (about the size of a small tangerine), would fire out to strike the object. If he was working on the ship's hull, for example, the whole anvil-sized hammer would fire. There were also several size settings in between.
The legs of the machine have aggressive talons (for gripping the ever-moving deck of the ship), and hydraulic lines run uniformly from both the arm and leg joints to the back of the mech. Most of this is covered by a plated armor that covers the machine, making it truly a machine for work or war.
“I made this just in case there were any large scale or ship repairs,” gushes the Inventor, “I also gave it a few advanced features.”
The crew stands in awe of the Inventor's amazing invention. The Inventor walks over to the fallen mast and gives it an appraising look. “We’re lucky it snapped off so close to the bottom. I should be able to fix this,” beams the Inventor, “Gunslinger and Scribe, go grab a couple of the metal barrels from the hold and bring them to me.”
The Gunslinger nods and walks down into the hold along with the Scribe. A few minutes later the two emerge, the Gunslinger with a bandana over his nose and the Scribe with a handkerchief over his, both with a barrel in tow with the lids hanging wedged in their armpits. The duo was unable to carry the barrel, cover their noses, and bring the unsealed lids too after all.
“What is this intrusive smell and why does it burn the hair from my nose?” complains the Scribe.
“Ah, my innocent Scribe, these barrels are what the Wave uses to make its flaming breath. It’s actually the Distiller’s brew, the purest alcohol he can make!”
The Distiller chuckles, “I stumbled upon this trying to distill cane sugar and yeast. It was very potent but not the right flavor. Some doctors have found it useful as an antiseptic, but the Inventor most cleverly weaponized it.”
The Inventor takes the first barrel, and lights the rim of the barrel with the torch arm’s flame. The barrel whistles and then howls as the explosive ring of flame pushes through the barrel burning off the excess alcohol. Once the ring reaches the bottom, the flame flares up and then dies down, burning off any remaining vapors before fizzling out. Then, the Inventor does the same with the other barrel.
Then the Inventor walks over to the mast and takes one last look while sliding his goggles over his face.
“Yeah, I can fix this,” says the Inventor to himself.
