There is a surprising lack of snoring and flatulence that night, as all three travelers managed to share the large single hammock without falling out or smothering each other. This lasted right up until dawn, when Bosun Catbut was heard to yell, "Pig warning!" and bang on one of the square wooden bells. Trilup jerks awake first and nearly upends in the hammock. "Aaaagh!" she chirps at the alarm. "What's a pig? Why are we being warned about them?"
Linyala flails, whacking Aviri in the jaw, and falls out of the hammock. "What? Who?" She asks, disoriented.
Aviri just lays there in the now-empty hammock, gently swinging, forcing his eyes to remain closed. He rubs his jaw. "Careful," he says sloggily.
"River pigs!" Trilup cries. "They're gonna eat us! Or sink us! They must be horrible nasty hungry monsters!" Clearly the young otter is not a morning person.
Aviri glares at Linyala. "Did you try to open the box again?"
"Nope!" Linyala exclaims, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, "Ain't touched it since yesterday."
Another bell sounds, and The Saucy Salmon lurches as the paddlewheel stops. There also a few ominous groans and thumps from underneath.
Aviri finally sits up and sets his feet on the ground. He sighs, and begins wearily gathering his things (fairly easy, due to there being one thing to gather).
"I think we've stopped," Trilup notes, still looking blearily panicked.
Linyala starts pulling on her clothes. "I'm thinkin' we should get up on deck." She says and slings her pack over her shoulder.
Aviri nods blearily and heads out the door, walking with his eyes closed and a hand on the wall.
Lin grabs Aviri's hand and tows him along after her. "Wake up already. It's been almost a whole minute!"
A minute later, the hazy overcast is barely glowing yet from the rising sun as they all reach the foredeck. Mr. Scone the Rath'ani is there, already with a cup of tea in his hand despite his still wearing a nightshirt and cap. "Ah, early risers?" he asks. "It's good to see young folk eager to start the day!" His voice really does carry well. The river boat is close to shore, near the ruins of an old mill (there are still some bits of the waterwheel visible, but the roof is gone).
The Lapi opens his eyes at the voice of Mr. Scone. "Wasn't sleeping," he says quietly. Louder, "What was the alarm?"
"Pigs, apparently," the Rath'ani notes. "Apparently a hazard of some sort that requires us to anchor near shore." He gestures ahead, further upstream. There are specks of light approaching with the current (which flows north towards the Vykarin Sea).
Aviri blinks. "Wouldn't being closer to shore mean....?" He sees the specks. "Are those pigs?"
"Aparently a hazard?" Lin asks, "Ye don't know?"
"I am not well-versed in the jargon of the river men," Mr. Scone admits. "But the current will bring them to us shortly, it seems."
Aviri looks at the forms. "Pigs in water?" He says. "Like ... lichen on tree." He shakes himself. "Should we ... do something?"
Linyala nods to Mr. Scone and runs over to the Bosun. "Somethin' wrong?" She asks.
The lights get closer, resolving into lanterns. They are being held by a variety of people.. all riding on large, branch-stripped tree trunks. They take up most of the center part of the river, and the riders use long poles to keep from drifting too close to the shore or obstacles.
Aviri just watches curiously but almost absently, as if his eyes aren't really focusing on the scene.
It's quite a flotilla.. there must be nearly a hundred of them, and they aren't going very fast at this point in the river. "Ah, lumber riders.. they must be called 'pigs' for whatever reason," Mr. Scone surmises.
That seems to make Aviri more comfortable, and he leans against a wall.
Catbutt just pats Lin on the head, and explains, "We gotta set aside until they pass. They can't go around us, and wouldn't want to hit one."
A riderless logs drifts along as well, with what look like big bites taken out of it.
"Oh." Linyala says, somewhat disapointed, "Well that makes sense!" She bounces back to Aviri and Trilup to watch the log riders.
Aviri's eyes widen slightly at the sight of the bites, but says nothing.
Trilup notices the bites, and just goes wide eyed.
"Well, may as well have breakfast," Bosun Catbutt announces, and climbs the ladder to the upper deck.
Aviri nods and stands up away from the wall, still watching the logs. "Odd," he says, and turns away to find a secluded bit of deck.
Linyala sees her friends staring at something and turns to look. She frowns then waves to the Bosun and points at the log. "Bosun! Any idea what did that?" She asks.
"Termites," the feline suggests, before vanishing onto the second story.
"They must be bigger in the south," Trilup whispers.
"Ah hanh." Lin mumbles. "So, what's fer breakfast?"
The lapi resumes his lean against the wall not too far from Lin and Trilup. He pulls a loaf of bread from his bag and starts munching on it.
"Jerky!" Trilup notes, digging into her own supply.
"An' salted fish." Lin chirps and retrieves soem from her pack.
The flotilla passes in eerie silence, while the sky brightens further. Eventually the all clear is given, and the riverboat begins trudging upstream again. "It smells better than the swamp," Trilup notes, leaning over the front edge to trail her fingers in the water.
"And Trollhaven," Aviri notes. "But not the warrens."
"Don't the warrens just smell like Lapi though?" Trilup asks. "And.. you know.. chalk?"
Aviri closes his eyes and nods. "You don't like the smell of chalk?" he asks, eyes still closed.
"It's dry an' makes yer mouth gummy." Lin chirps. She sits by the edge of the boat so her feet hang over the water.
"It makes me sneeze," Trilup notes. She rolls back further onto the deck, while Mr. Scone excuses himself to get dressed. A flat barge carrying a lot of barrels floats by going downstream.
Mr. Catbutt returns, with some mugs of water for anyone who wants it. "So, what're you doing in Bog Bend anyway?" the cat asks.
"Just passing through," Aviri says.
Linyala accepts a mug. "Thanks. We should start callin' ourselves the Trans-Sylvanian Courrier Company."
"Why?" Aviri asks.
"Cause that's what we're doin'." Lin chirps and sticks her tongue out at Aviri.
"Once," Aviri says. "Least for me."
"So you're delivering sumtin?" the cat asks, nodding. "At least you shouldn't have no trouble getting passage back to Trollhaven when you're done."
"Well that's good. Then Aviri kin get back to 'is hole in the ground an' keep oogling mosses an' stuff." Lin says.
"Never got this much trouble from moss," Aviri mutters.
"How did you even get caught up in this?" Linyala asks, "It ain't like you're one to go boundin' off on adventures an' explorin' forgotten whatsits."
"Well, there's the.. uh.. client," Trilup notes. "She's pretty insistent and all."
"Jack wanted my help," Aviri says. "Last time I help an otter with something not plant-related."
"Well, don't let Emmett ask you about halucinegeneck mushrooms or ye'll ne'er hear the end of it." Lin suggests.
"I like Jack," Trilup says. "He gave me a grass skirt once! And he's got lots of cool haunted junk!"
"It doesn't seem like there's a shortage of haunted junk around though. Can't have lunch in the swamp without trippin' over some haunted thingmajig. I wonder if cursed pretzels are a thing?" Lin says and takes a swig of her water.
"You'd have to eat a lot of pretzels to find the cursed one I bet," Trilup says. "You'd help me with stuff though, right Aviri?" she asks the Lapi, smiling brightly. "Because you're my friend!"
"Name a plant--" Aviri starts, then pauses. "Preferably one native to Stonebarrow, and I'll get it for you."
"Sounds like ye should be workin' fer the witches. They always need plants fer stuff." Lin says.
Aviri finishes his loaf of bread. "I already do," he said, shivering slightly.
"But aren't there lots of plants you've never seen then?" Trilup asks. "That must be worth exploring for, right?"
"Always more you can learn from what you already know," Aviri claims.
Trilup seems confused by that. "Uh.. are you saying it's alright to go explore to find new things then?" she asks.
Linyala lays back on the deck, using her pack as a pillow, and watches clouds.
"I'm saying," Aviri says slowly and patiently, "that you don't need to explore to find learn more. I've not seen every plant in the forest, and of those about which I know, I don't know everything."
The young otter frowns in concentration. "But.. won't you eventually? Run out of stuff to know about local plants, I mean."
Aviri shrugs. "Maybe," he says absently, looking toward the bank absently.
"Do you ever worry that you're broken?" Trilup asks the Lapi.
Aviri looks at Trilup sideways, one ear hanging dramatically away from his head. "Why, whatever do you mean?" he asks, eyes boggling. Then, in one motion he resumes a normal pose.
"Well.. you don't like people," Trilup notes. "Or.. well, you don't like anything that has a personality."
"You just don't know enough plants," Aviri claims. "Lots of personality. Just ... slower."
"So.. what sort of plant would I be then?" Trilup asks, whiskers twitching. "Some sort of pretty flower? A magical herb? Mustard?"
"Dandilion," Aviri said without a moment's hesitation. "Quick, energetic, eager to shine." He paused. "And impossible to keep away."
"Oooo! Are those the ones you pluck the petals off of, or the ones you blow on and they fly apart like a bunch of little fairies?" Trilup asks.
"The la ... the second," Aviri says.
Trilup seems to be all caught up in a dreamy fantasy for a moment, until she realizes something. "If you blow on me I don't fall apart," she notes. "I'm not really fragile at all. I bet Lin is some sort of creeping vine though, right?"
Lin sits up and looks quizicaly at Aviri, "Well?" She asks, "What plant would I be?"
Aviri looks over at Lyn. "Blackberries," he says. "It goes anywhere it wants and constantly surprises you."
"Sounds about right." Lin chirps, grining ear to ear.
"And the little pips can get stuck in your teeth," Trilup adds.
"What about yourself?" Trilup asks next, poking Aviri in the side.
Aviri blinks. "Myself?" he asks. "I don't know. What am I like?"
"Kind of relusive, antisocial, an' still here." Lin muses, "Somethin that wilts easy but is tenacious as hell. There a plant like that?"
"Not a mushroom," Trilup says. "They're pretty social.."
"I've read about a plant," Aviri says. "Anastatica. But it lives in deserts; I've never seen one. Says it withers, but springs back up when watered." He shrugs.
"You don't seem more social when you're wet," Trilup notes. "Unless grumpiness counts!"
"Well it's no good being grumpy when you're alone." Lin says, "You just end up kind of sad and lonely instead of grumpy."
"Having green leaves doesn't mean social," Aviri says. "Willows have green leaves, but are very unsocial."
"You just haven't been hugged enough," Trilup declares, and then starts to 'ominously' lumber towards Aviri with her arms outstretched.
Aviri holds an arm out against her. "No, I've been hugged too much," he says. "You ever been hugged by Swampy?"
"No," Trilup says, "but neither have you. It just sort of almost nuzzled you.."
"Which is enough of a hug for several lifetimes," Aviri says.
"Getting hugged by a dead thing hardly counts." Lin says, "Doesn't that one look like a squirrel reaching for the sun?" She points at a cloud next to the sun.
"It looks like a cloud," Aviri says, not looking at it, keeping his defenses armed against Linyala. "Weren't you recently soup, or something?"
"It was a very chunky sort of soup," Trilup notes, and shudders. "All.. pulsing and stuff. I never imagined there was so much stuff squeezed into our skins!"
Linyala's fur bristles then smothes back down. "Yeah. That was weird. Less painful than you'd think. Weird though..."
Aviri's face brightens. "No hugs," he says, "or I'm not buying clams on the way back."
"Well.. you could hug me," Trilup points out. "You let Dr. Fether give you a hug. Not that you could have stopped her.. but.. still, it counts!"
"You know," Lin is quick to point out, "Silver probably wasn't deliverin' this outta the kindness of her heart. Whatever she'd 'ave gotten fer completin' the delivery should be ours once we're done. What I'm sayin' is, we kin buy our own clams an' treats on the way back with our loot."
"Wouldn't she have been paid up front though?" Trilup asks. "I... don't know how delivery works.."
"That leaves a lot of incentive ta complete the delivr'y." Lin giggles, "Give the person the package of stuff an a stack of shekles and hope they don't run off with both? Naw, this looks like somethin' ye'd get paid for on delivr'y."
"The incentive might have been," Aviri says, "to stop the war."
Linyala frowns and scratches an ear. "Huh. Didn't think about it like that."
"Silv is.. uh.. pretty all-too-astic?" Trilup asks. "You know.. not-greedy-like?"
"Altruistic," Aviri says. "Not selfish."
"But is she the type?" Trilup asks.
The lapi shrugs. "How should I know?"
"Well?" Lin asks her hat.
Now that Catbutt is gone, there's a slight whisper, "I was a paragon of virtue. Pure as snow! I got half up front and spent it all."
"Then how do ya explain the cargo on yer ship? All that bone and ivory stuff?" Lin asks.
"Uh.. that was just cover.." Silv claims. "Anti-necromancy stuff. I think. Or it was part of a separate job. Hats aren't cheap."
Lin apears nonplussed by Silver's excuses. "Well it is a nice hat." She admits.
"It's a great hat!" Silv claims. "I wish I remember what happened to the matching underwear."
Linyala says, "We could go back to your ship an' check your corpse for it?" Lin suggests tentatively."
Aviri says, "It sunk, remember?"
Linyala says, "That's a problem for exactly one member of this little group."
Aviri takes a step back and shrugs with one shoulder. "Then you can go back whenever you want."
"No.. no.. I lost it before that," the ghost notes. "There was a party. I remember part of it. The wine was really good, and there was this guy.."
"It might have been three guys actually. Things are kind of fuzzy."
Linyala cups her muzzle in both hands. "So many of your stories start like this." She groans.
"Parties are fun though," Trilup points out.
"Yeah!" Lin exclaims, "Perfect fer gettin other people drunk enough fer them ta tell ya their secrets."
Aviri takes another tentative step backward, and then vanishes around the corner.
"Hey, he's escaping!" Trilup says, pointing to the corner Aviri vanished around.
Linyala taps her hat. "He kin hide but he can't run. Get 'im and hug 'im! Where's he headed, Silver?" She takes off after him.
"I think he's looking for a log to jump to.."