"Ah, Mr. Karekin. I hear congratulations are in order; the rumour is that you acquitted yourself marvellously at the dance. I do apologize for not responding to your letter in a timely manner, but in the aftermath of the Governor’s Ball, I’ve had so many other letters to write that yours got lost in the pile.
“I apologize for not saying so sooner, but thank you for standing as my second; the ending was a shame, but you performed quite well in the role, certainly as well, or better, than could have been expected given the unusual circumstances.”
[ Duchess Gummibuns floats in, heads down reading the public ledger updates … ]
Oh this is going to be juicy, like either everyone is bluffing or they’re all going to live in boxes!!! How can those buns forget to pay rent on their apartments? What will the papers say?
I was ambushed, sir, outside of the post office. It was a mob of them, one yelled “There’s that spy for New Prussia” and then they set upon me, smashing all the .NET devices.
I’ll be ok. I’ve been hooked before, and luckily this spear didn’t hit any gills.
Thank cod you’re allright. Those damnable publishers of rags and alternative truths. I don’t know what’s scarier, looming New Prussian agression or the vulgar violence that a mislead population can unleash.
About the .NETs devices, were you able to analyze any of the echolinguistic data before they were destroyed?
Yes, I checked them all as soon as I recovered them from the waters.
Karekin’s Fisheries are what we expected - completely clean of any signs of sentient sandfish. Almost TOO clean, if you know what I mean, except having met and seen the correspondence from their CEO, it’s no surprise that the fishery is run with an obsessive compulsive excessiveness.
But, weirdly, all of the crawfish there look just ike Admiral Riptide. Down to the last molt spot. They showed no signs of sentience, but it was creepy how identical they all were. I wager they were low-fidelity clones. No wonder everyone is creeped-out by Castle Ponsfleischmann.
By the way, Walleye, what were you doing all the way out by the post office? That’s not on the route back from you were supposed to be coming back from Dr. Franksenketchup’s fishery.
Get some rest and heal, Wally. We aim to leave Weatherby soon, we’ve found no sentience at three fisheries, an no indications of trafficking from our trading and smelting operations, and without the echolinguistic traps we’ve scant chance of finding a scale in a kalestack. We need to get back to the Elverprise before we get any more caught up in this gathering storm.
[Jean-Rhys raises her glass of liquor in salute, and declaims.]
“The King!”
[This time, the liquor still burning its way through her bio-filters, Jean-Rhys fairly shouts before quaffing her champagne and then dashing the flute against the floorboards in an abundance of enthusiasm.]
“Long Live the Queen!!”
[Respects paid, she returns to her reading (and her drink), and unsuccessfully suppresses a wracking cough. Muttering…]
“All of Weatherby rejoices as the plague abates, and yet I feel worse than ever. I must be working too hard. The stress…”
[Later, Jean-Rhys can’t help but notice as Duchess Gummibuns @gwwar makes her entrance:]
[Jean-Rhys nods and gestures with her drink (a whipweed martini, dry, with a garbonzo bean garnish). ]
“Not only bluffing, good Duchess, but it seems some few of us have eschewed the Public Ledger altogether.”
“That dratted Cube @manwich haunts us still. I fear the example of its initial deception will prove to be more damaging than the results, in the long run. Information is power, and that asymmetry will be too difficult to resist, for some, in these uncertain times.”
[Jean-Rhys, teetering on the edge of clearly public intoxication, playfully thumps Gummibuns on her lumps.]
“Speaking of which, may I congratulate you on your commission? @Rumpthwait, my good sir, a drink for this newly minted Space Dragoon! In fact, stand a round for all the brave Tea Seas who’ve pledged their lives to the defense of Weatherby!”
[ Duchess Gummibuns begins to raise her glass and bellows: ]
Like, Huzzzzzah!
[ The upward swing of the cheers is much too enthusiastic. She loses her grip on the glass and sends it flying toward the bar. Tumbling, end over end, hurtling toward poor @Rumpthwaite, it promises to be a big mess. Duchess Gummibus is entranced by it. The glass has so much momentum Duchess Gummibuns gasps as @Rumpthwaite artfully ducks at the last moment, sighs, and begins to pick up the tinkling mess. ]
Oh My Glob, sorry! uh, like, that glass was totally defective… or some junk
[In the endless task of keeping the glassware spotless Rumpthwaite ducks below the bar at the last moment, both avoiding the errant missile and also extracting a new tumbler that requires his attention. With the sound of shattering glass that has become all too familiar over the years within the club, the old moose looks with momentary surprise at the source of the sound.]
“That flute was far too slippery for any proper entity to handle Ensign Ms. Gummibuns and I apologize for its unfortunate frictionless properties. Please allow me to rectify the situation.”
[The unflappable moose proffers a fresh refreshment in one smooth motion as he swiftly sweeps up the debris in the next.]
Hieron walks in on what is obviously a round of exultation.
The “Duchess” (@gwwar) has obviously flung her flute and @Rumpthwaite is making excuses for her.
Jean-Rhys (@MrMonkey) and dearest cousin (@Hadley) have obviously had words. But that is for them to work out.
Hieron continues into the inner room. He sees St-Patrick-Hartbrooke (@nimelennar) and somehow decides it was he who had given the toast that he had walked in on.
Cmdr Piker’s (@fintastic) ward pushes by him on the way out. He excuses the rudeness of it by giving the commander a hard stare before noticing the poor lad look wounded. He’d have to ask @Rockford_Julius about that later.
@Rumpthwaite has finished what ever he was doing and placed a W&T in front of him as he stood at the far end of the bar.
He thought about whom he needed to converse with and realized the W&T was probably the best companion as he pondered over the events of the day.
He took a seat at the bar. Two seats removed from the nearest patron and contemplated his drink as the world revolved around him.
Rocco entered the foyer of Leviathan, the door-bot bristled, but relaxed as he recognized the ward of a member.
“Oi! Hat bot! I’m just looking for my master, I’m not looking to walk out with the silverware.”
Rocco, hat in hand, ever the visage of the dutiful ward entered into the main hall of Levithan. @Rumpthwaite gave him the cold stare he did every time he broke the plane of the foyer doors.
He spotted Hieronymoose near the end of the bar.
“Not the usual table”, he thought as he made his way to him.
“Oi! Cousin Elizabeth!” (@Hadley) “So good to see you, love to chat, but I’m just here to see my Lord and Master.” He winked, hoping she wasn’t so tied up in her current conversation to notice.
“Excuse, Sir”, Rocco said, “I’ve been down at the warehouse earlier in the day and I think you may need to ‘Present the Colors’ so to speak. The foreman barely cared for who I was and on whose authority I was dropping in”
Hieron looked up from his drink. Something was bothering him. Belatedly, Rocco realized he may have been better served by dealing with this later, but in for a penny, in for a pound.
Hieron finished his drink and placed the empty glass down with a little more force than needed to indicate a refill was needed.
“Cmdr Piker’s boy just ran out of here. I think you should go check on him. Make sure everything is okay”
Rocco stood silent, unsure what to make of his Master’s behavior.
@Rumpthwaite replaced the empty glass and Hieron began to meditate upon it.
“So. You say I should drop by the warehouse then?”
“Iffin’ you feel it is needed, Sir.”
“Obviously it is. Thank you for your loyalty, dear, dear Rocco. Please go go check on your friend, the ensign (@Chewseen) I believe he may be feeling poorly.”
“As you wish, Sir.”
And with that Rocco scurried out of the Levithan as only a Astral Scuridae could.
"@Rumpthwaite, I don’t suppose you have any security footage of when young Crusher stumbled in here, do you? Mind if I have a look at that? Something fishy is going on here, and I don’t just mean that .NET program he and Piker (@fintastic) were running.
“No way that boy died of dysentery. That has been curable for centuries. And I swear I heard someone say he’d been wounded.”
So… Either the authorities are lazy (as is so often the case), or they’re hiding the truth. Because the Post-Ledger got the same bullshit tale as the Times did, but the account in the Ledger isn’t quite parroting the story as closely as the Times seems to be. Despite reports that the young man had been in serious altercation a mere day before, police are denying…yadda yadda yadda.
He spots Carcinogennifer Honeyvenom (@Donald_Petersen) at her usual table in the back corner. That is another thing to follow up.
