Lanthil Logs

Chapter 6: Drydock

Gannar and Eltana have a long and somewhat labored discussion, the very mundane android and the very arcane elf seeking common terms to describe the plans for the ship, and slowly building a technical discussion about "prana" in the luminous Lanthil waters and how to use it to levitate barges and gondolas. The upshot is that Gannar decides he can best help by trying to fashion some wooden propellers, to stir the magical waters. He goes off to do so.

Robbie, meanwhile, contacts Daphne and asks if she could help with the rigging, since she is much the most reliable pixie he knows. Very nice, but she is also a very busy pixie, helping Daewen and Moranna with making the silverwood casks to hold the magical water. (These are bigger on the inside than on the outside, which makes it much trickier.) They are also making a dimensionally transcendent cabin to fit us all it, with particularly tricky stairs. She'll help when and if she can.

Since Daphne is busy, Robbie contacts Dafnord and asks him to ask Findriel (his new lady-friend and the castle hair-dresser) if she can help with weaving the rigging. She is, after all, good at untangling hair and such.

Dafnord was reading a romance novel in the library (researching the next steps to take with Findriel), but he shuts the book and goes to find the lady herself. He almost collides with her as he leaves the room. So maybe she was looking too...

After he dusts her off, he explains the group's needs. She doesn't remember Robbie (Since he has no hair, he doesn't register on her mental radar.) and is surprised that he managed to annoy so many pixies so fast. She disclaims any ability as a weaver, but says she'll ask the Captain of the Pixie Guard.

She soon returns with the Captain. Dafnord explains all over again, and the Captain agrees to locate some suitable pixies. He buzzes off and returns with them; they are very leary of Dafnord -- word gets around quickly, and they know he's an associate of Robbie's, and, in fact, the recent incident has soured pixie/big-job relations generally. But Dafnord the Budding Diplomat talks them around and takes them to see the chandler (on the flume-like gondola ride, thus getting them soaked; oh, well).

On returning to the castle, he runs into Findriel again. Picking her up again, he hears about the "rioting pixies" yesterday, and how many people are mad at Robbie for stirring them up. He asks Findriel to go shopping with him, to help him pick out suitable gifts for pixies, since (1) this is a gift economy, and (2) it will help re-establish good pixie relations, and (3) it gives him an excuse to hang about with Findriel. That he has to hold onto her very tightly on the ride down the waterfall to town is also a consideration.

They pass a pleasant morning shopping, and Dafnord takes note of the sort of items Findriel lingers over -- jewelry (esp. hair pins), combs, brushes, and hair sticks. ("What good is a fetish if you can't feed it?" quoth the GM.)