The cocoon surrounding the Creature from the Black Lagoon Swamp sloughs off, and guns trained on it, I ask what it’s doing on the boat. It chitters. I don’t like it when things just chitter, it ain’t right. So I decide to make a mess of it rather than give it a chance of making a mess of us, so I shoot it in the head. Ebon (or was it Taki?) didn’t seem to like my approach, but I don’t care. Threat neutralized and I don’t have to do any paperwork. HC removes the rope, and I throw the body over.
Done and done.
The Sun starts rising, and man, Joey doesn’t look so good. Doesn’t look like he feels well either. Maybe food will help – if it doesn’t, I’m hungry anyways. Ebon lightnings the lake to “fish” and I find a minifridge w/ astronaut packs (MREs), spices, etc. I bring it all up to help dress up whatever Ebon “caught” and I head over to chat w/ Joey to see how he’s doing. Thankfully, he caught a jolt of Ebon’s lightning and was knocked out. It’s probably for the best that he sleep through as much of this as possible. Even asleep he’s grinding his teeth and is clearly in pain. I remove and fold up my belt for hit to bite down and hopefully keep him from breaking his teeth.
I’m glad I gave Joey the belt, because next thing I know he’s convulsing. I try to hold him down. It’s not easy to do since he’s strenghtening quickly. *pop* His first bone breaks. Quickly, his convulsing gets worse, and I can not only hear but feel his joints and bones are popping. It’s not pleasant, and it’s getting worse. I’m not quite so sure he’ll make it if he keeps worsening at this rate.
Thankfully, it doesn’t last much longer. Just when he was at the point I thought would break him, he goes limp. A brief moment of peace crosses his face and at least he’s breathing.
It’s starting to get dark again outside, so I pick him up to bring him out to the deck for fresh air. This kid is definitely heavier.
The smell of fish on the grill smells good enough to wake Joey, and he rolls over, growling. Now that I can see him better, holy crap. He’s got a much bigger chin, and tusks. Tusks! They look pretty bad-ass, if you ask me. I was really hoping he’d say “New teeth. That’s weird.” But no, he jumps up and starts flailing. Can’t really say I blame him though. Taki cocoons him, and his eyes are just mad – equal parts rage and confusion. He’s troll-ing pretty hard and breaks out of cocoon. Didn’t know you could do that. Ebon zaps his head though, knocks him back out.
You know what? Now that I see his new dental hardware, I’ll probably have to get a new belt. Shit. I really liked that belt.
I’m starving and Joey’s unconscious, so I take an breather and enjoy my fish, all while keeping an eye on Joey. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
In international news, there’s a apparently new pope, whoop-de-freakin-do. And actually, it’s a mome. She’s a lady pope, goes by Mary Avila. Of course, the new pope/mome is denounced by the Parisian Pope – his name is Jacques Marie-Richard but I’m going to call him “Pope Pourri”. The new Lady Pope hasn’t picked her pope name name yet. I hope it’s something cool, like Mome A-Lisa or something fun. Heh, the Pope Pourri and the Mome A-Lisa. I like it.
I reckon Joey’s down for the night, and I need to rest up a bit, so I leave the first night shift to someone else. Well, that was predictably dumb. I think my new motto should be something like “No Rest for the Wicked Goblinized“, but I’m pretty partial to my current one.
I wake up, hearing Taki yell my name. I look up and see Joey hop over the rails into the Lake. Damn kids – you can tie them up but you can’t take them out.
I run over that spot, grab a rope, tie it to the railing, and throw it over to Taki. Off to the side a bit, I jump into the dark waters below to help out. Both of them had gone under (Joey has MUCH more dense muscle to weigh him down now than he did yesterday), but Taki managed to bring him back to surface. Joey’s not breathing. So, with one hand on the rope, I drop under a little bit to get Joey over my shoulder. I effortlessly pull both Joey and myself out of the water and back onto the boat, laying him down on the deck. (I rolled a NAT1, spent 1XP to re-roll, and rolled a NAT20!)
In an absurdly short amount of time, Joey goes from not breathing to breathing to convulsing again. I’m able to restrain him again, but it’s really difficult. This is one strong eleven year-old. Up close, I can see that he has dermal plates. Neat. He thankfully passes back out after a few minutes, and we re-restrain him with the rope.
A storm is on its way, so we head to Manchac for safe harbor and to restock. Well, not so much re-stock as stock up – it’s HC’s boat after all. We ride the swell all the way and tie off on one of last spots on dock.
+1XP taken.