Open Side Adventure Spot Inspection

[Aramaeus Lemon]

Over a gray button-down shirt and a green paisley tie, golden paws pulled on a neat maroon jacket. A crimson cap with the gleaming brass badge of the Ministry of Justice Customs Enforcement Division (the imperial skull flanked by paws on each side, one clutching a set of scales, the other extended for either payment or a bribe) centered prominently upon its front was placed upon a golden-furred head, carefully straightened to exact alignment relative to his snout. From a cluttered desk, a weather-beaten, dog-eared volume with flaky gold letters declaring Ye Imperial Navee Handbooke was lovingly retrieved, dust carefully brushed from its spine before it was tucked under one arm. Aramaeus paused, striking a pose for himself in the cracked women's powder mirror affixed in the corner of the room using Albert's No-Grain Cereal Substitute and Binding Agent, before he turned and stepped out of the tiny shack he'd been afforded on the Imperial Docks and immediately tripped over the threshold.

The golden-furred fox sprawled for a moment before he carefully picked himself up, dusted off his book and then himself (in that order), and then, glaring at the offending piece of wood, fished in his pocket for the ratty, tangled measuring tape he'd purchased for a ha' gilder from the old blind seamstress who mended his socks. This he checked against the height of the threshold, made a dissatisfied "Hmm" sound, and then straightened up to make a note in a tiny notebook. Satisfied, he turned and walked down the dock to his true destination.

The BlackShip was large. Aramaeus had to stop by its prow to consider it in full. He'd heard that ships were big things; he'd seen plenty of models, and watched them at a distance from the safety of dry land. They seemed much smaller when they were far away, he was coming to realize. Up close, well... He tucked the ball of tangled measuring tape back in his pocket, deciding that he would have to take it for granted that the vessel was the standard seventy meters in length as specified by the volume he had recently, at great personal expense, acquired. As for the rest, though... He opened the book and flipped through the pages to a large two-page illustration. He frowned, looked up, and then turned the book over. He frowned once more and turned it again. "Ah," he stated aloud to himself, "I see." He removed the creased page of three-decade-old contraband pin-up art of Vaelora Ryalor that its original owner had concealed in the volume and tried again.

Aramaeus got lost somewhere in counting the number of sails appropriate to this vessel and, glancing up, spotted a crewbeast on the deck. "Ho there," he called up, fairly certain that this was the proper nautical greeting. The other one he frequently heard from sailors was 'Move 'fore I dunk ya in th' Harbor, ya dandy git', and he suspected this had some specific subcultural connotations that as-yet eluded him. "Good sir-and/or-madam-and/or-neuter," he addressed his temporary guide, keeping in mind the memo that had recently appeared in the Ministry breakroom about making assumptions, "might you be able to tell me how many active sails are, um..." He glanced down at the book, using the pin-up to bookmark the ship's diagram while he searched the rest for the desired reference. His paw ran down an appendix before he looked up again. "...rigged on this sailing vessel at present?"

 

[Herman Lasichin]

The brown weasel wouldn't usually be at this place. He spent most of his time in the ship's storage room, writing, calculating, thinking, coming up with ideas. Now that they were finally docked and near land he would have joined the other members of his crew in the Bully Harbor, but he couldn't go far before he was taken for a chat at the ministry of innovation. And what a chat it was. It had been a few days, and he felt every second of them he spent without thinking or coming up with things. He couldn't seriously follow their rules, he will continue investigating mathematics and useful patterns in numbers as long as he didn't get caught. But he was curious how they expected him to live without any new creative thoughts, and so far he discovered an approach that worked, thinking back on what was. He had plenty of memories to focus on, even when all the memories before he came on board of this ship faded and hardly even seemed real. Was he ever a Vulpinsulan translater at the Raven's hill times? Did he truly earn his magistrate's degree? Did he really write 19 pages on the approximations of the circle constant by paw? It hardly felt like the same life that he lead now, on a large ship steared and crewed by excentric yet competant Vulpinsulan beasts, where he was the assistent quartermaster to most and also a theoretical mathematician and cryptographer to others. Well, now he could just be the assistent quartermaster apparently, since ministry of innovation doesn't like people inventing cryptographic algorithms without some busybody staring at your work over your shoulder.

But, hadn't he just invented a way to prevent having creative thoughts? Should he immediately report this discovery to the ministry, in case he was the first to make it, or at least to be able to give proper credit to the original inventer?

ho there!

He looked down at the docks where the voice came from. A golden fox with a thick book in his hand and some kind of government badge on his cap. It didn't look like he was from the ministry of innovation, but herman wasn't in a good mood to be friendly to government officials. Especially not the kind of people who looked and talked like a git, one of his new favorite words after hearing it used to great effect by some sailors on his ship.

"und or neutr? Doo I look like un Protosilvian noun tuh yoo?"

He called out before turning his head to look at the rigging. He didn't understand a thing about it, but he could see three polls and sails on them, that was probably the answer.

"Cun ya gits not at lehest count tuh dree?"

He said, pointing to the masts with mild annoyance.

"I min, can you gits not at least count to three?", Herman repeated himself, usually his Vulpinsulan accent was better but perhaps thinking back on his life back in Raven's hill also brought back the accent of the region.

 

[Aramaeus Lemon]

Aramaeus frowned and checked his manual again, then started counting sails as best he could. "I'm counting... Five?" he remarked, a touch unsure whether the smaller ones toward the top of the poles counted, or the triangular ones toward the front. "My paperwork states that there should be thirty active sails, though that may be out of date. Erm, permission to come aboard?" And perhaps talk with someone who knows a little more about ships?

 

[Herman Lasichin]

Herman came to his senses a touch too late. Whatever his thoughts on the various ministries of the imperium might be, they had the authority to throw him out of the land, and worse. And if he had offended this official and the news of it reached Captain jeshal or Admiral Keltoi they had the right to throw him off the ship and into the sea, or worse if that was within their abilities.

Fortunately, this official didn't pay much mind to his tone or words used, and instead seemed legitimately curious on the number of sails on this ship. And was also very nosy about it.

"Now that, you'll have to wait a li'l, because I'm just an assistent quartermaster, and I think you need the captain or the admiral to let you come on to poke your snout around. But let me say something, I have sailed this ship for weeks and months, weeks and months more than ya did, and There wasn't a thing wrong with it. Whatever it's got, it's good, no matter what that cilly book yur holding thinks about it."

And like that, Herman had forgotten about the dangers talking back to an official can cause. He could certainly blame it partly on said official for not establishing bounderies early and effectively, but that sort of argument likely wouldn't work against whoever is tasked with punishing him for his loose tongue.

"Now if I may poke my snout in return, who are you, who do you work for, and is there anything to you besides those two things?"

 

[Tanya Keltoi]

Paperwork had ever been the bane of Tanya’s professional life since she was a teenager working as Aide-De-Camp on the Hide. Back then reading and writing were, themselves, an obstacle to wrangle with on the daily and her promotion a trial by fire: now it was the monotony which proved the greater evil. Still, she didn’t envy the manner of paperwork her husband was having to deal with: at the very least this time around there was something pleasant in commiserating over the work whilst sharing cabin space for a couple of hours.

Having concluded another report and further letter for the Ministry of War (oh, she didn’t miss being on the receiving end of those on the regular), the vixen had paused for a stretch and begun re-working some braids into her neckfur. There was another report yet to complete and a ship survey to look over before attending to the Purser’s provisioning requests in anticipation of the next voyage, but time and hassle could be saved by running the completed work down to the Admiralty’s offices on the docks first. Her mind operated best when the tasks were broken up, anyway: a jaunt to the dock and perhaps a pause by the market to grab herself and Jeshal a bite to eat would help propel them through the necessary but slow drudge of paperwork.

On exiting the cabin Tanya found herself not long in her walk before catching sight of Herman engaged in conversation with somebeast below on the dock. Curious as ever she drew closer, mouth shut so as not to interrupt, and leaned over the railing to see who was below.

It was like being punched in the stomach or doused with ice water. Punched in the stomach and doused with ice water. There, bold as brass on the docks below, stood Anithias Freedom unravaged by the advances of time, right down to the bloody book clutched in his paw. Her heart ached. It was as though her old friend had never grown up, standing just as she recalled him from their earliest voyages together.

Several alarming thoughts came to her at once, chief amongst them hallucination, and so at once she knew she needed another set of eyes. Without a word she turned on her heel and strode back to the Captain’s cabin as calmly as she could afford, poking her head about the door. “Jesh, love,” Tanya murmured, something distant in her voice. “You’re goin’ to want to pop on deck.” Offering no further explanation she was back out on deck, leaning over the railings to continue studying the golden fox in stunned silence, expression inscrutable.

(Grabbin' @Jeshal the Ironclaw !)

 

[Aramaeus Lemon]

Aramaeus consulted his book as he received a less-than-friendly welcome, a combination of egocentric indifference and genuinely having never received anything but such animosity together rendering him oblivious to the rudeness implicit in the tone and choice of vocabulary. "Aramaeus Lamont, if you please," he introduced himself, carefully pronouncing his last name in the Alkamarian style (lah-MON) and hoping that he wouldn't have to produce the badge with his name inscribed upon it. For some reason whenever anybeast saw his name in print, thereafter they seemed to delight in calling him 'lemon'. "Ministry of Justice, on temporary assignment with Customs Enforcement, sub-assigned to the Weights and Standards Review and Inspection Unit."

A few weeks back, after reviewing a number of reports concerning potential smuggling of contraband from Alkamar aboard vessels sailing under the Imperial flag, Aramaeus had sent a memo up the chain proposing that, by fastidiously cataloging all beasts, equipment, and cargo on board a vessel and comparing it to the vessel's height in the water, one could theoretically detect if the ship were riding lower in the water than it should be, signifying the presence of smuggled items. It had been to his immense shock that this memo was answered a few weeks later with immediate orders for him to personally test this model down at the docks, with a verbatim command of 'do not reenter the Ministry of Justice Main Office until your model has been perfected down to the grain'.

The problem, Aramaeus had rapidly realized, was that he needed a base line from which to operate, a method to determine scale without the risk of smuggled items aboard. Normally he would have asked to inspect the Hide, but she was out at sea and was not slated to return for a while. So, the BlackShip had been his second choice. There was an ulterior motive of course; he'd read in the paperwork that her captain had once been first mate to Anithias Freedom, and Aramaeus was privately interested in hearing an as-yet-untold first-paw account of his idol's early career. The golden fox's gaze slid to a vixen watching him stoically from further down the deck, and the inspector furrowed his brow. "Pardon me," he called, presuming based on her appearance that she was another brigand that the once-pirate Jeshal the Ironclaw had recruited to his crew, "but by any chance would any officer, flag or no, be available to formalize my inspection of your vehicle? I'm afraid it will have to be quite comprehensive, so I would rather like to commence whilst the sun favors us still."

 

[Herman Lasichin]

Herman listened to the introduction of this Aramaeus, heard his expertly pronounced Alkamarian last name, more expertly than the situation called for. Unless this Aramaeus knew that one of Herman's many fixations was languages of this world (and the world of ideas another line of thoughts added in), he had no reason to impress or more likely confuse the average sailor who could barely speak standard Vulpinsulan, which Herman once again added in his thoughts was nothing to hold against a beast. He couldn't imagine how boring his life would be if he wrote off that talkative ferret Griblo Jankweed, or how he would be right now feeding the aquatic beasts of the imperium's sea if he complained constantly of the master at arm's lack of voiceless glottal fricatives.

To return to the Aramaeus La Mont he was talking to, herman thought that he would have used the vulpinized varient of his name, pronounceable by everyone: "Lemon". And he could just barely prevent a chuckle from escaping him, and kept his eureka moment to himself, because he saw Admiral Keltoi leaving the cabin and watching their exchange from a distance. But soon after she appeared the vixen returned into the cabin and stepped out again, resuming her staring, as if Aramaeus Lemon was some kind of spirit, or an idiot who embarrasses everyone who whitnesses his presence, or a great enemy who is steps away from dismantelling the black ship. Herman didn't believe any of those three options were the case, even the second one was putting it too harshly on this officer of customs and standards enforcement. Seeing that she was unwilling or somehow unable to reply to the officials enquiry Herman began to speak, in a more appropriate tone.

"That is Admiral Tanya Keltoi.", the weasel said to Aramaeus, and then turned to the admiral, giving her a salute before retelling the interaction he had so far.

"Admiral, this fox is named Aramaeus Lemon", Herman was going to do the least he can do to ruffle his fur, "and he is an inspector from the weights and standards division of the ministry of justice, and there is nothing more to him that he was willing to share, except that he wants to know how many sails there are on your ship, and when I told him I didn't know the exact number, he requested he come aboard. I denied his request, since I have no right to let other beasts come aboard especially not strangers like this, and asked him to wait either for you or Captain Jeshal to continue his business".

Herman thought what else he had to add. Should he bring up that Aramaeus began talking with him first, and made him handle a matter far outside of his domain as the assistent quartermaster? Maybe he should put emphasis on the fact that this inspection clearly wasn't an urgent mandatory or even preplanned matter and that she and Captain Jeshal were well within their rights to continue their more important work and let the fox wait here on the docks alone or move around the harbor as he sees fit, just not on the black ship? Perhaps he should approach the admiral, and once he got her permission to ask a question and they were both out of the earshot of the unannounced visitor, ask what she knows or thinks about him, since Herman was certain there was some reason for her strange behavior, maybe not necessarily one he needed to know, but he knew Admiral Keltoi well enough that a customs inspector alone couldn't explain the stare in her eyes. But he felt time pass by him, and that at some uncertain point between half and a whole second after he paused speaking, any more additions would sound strange and unnatural, and he settled for the safe and probably best option, staying silent and listening.

 

[Jeshal the Ironclaw]

One of these days, Jeshal was going to have to come to terms with the fact he was beginning to squint at documents and finally succumb to the idea that he might possibly have to consider trying reading spectacles. For now, he made do with the daylight from his cabin window and leaning a touch closer to the page. There were always two sides to him when it came to paperwork, the meticulous schemer who thrived on knowing and understanding everything and using it to control things, and the free spirit who wanted to take it out on the balcony and burn it. It helped that he could joke about such things with Tox. He had missed the games of Bouillabaisse, not so much the bureaucracy.

Tanya had barely left the cabin before she was back again and speaking in a way that sprouted uncertainty in his gut. She left before he could question further. What was waiting for him out there? The consequences of an old crime? Grosvenor come to personally reprimand him for his methods of captaining? The body of an unfortunate once-topbeast? Maybe an old friend returned from the dead? He returned his quill to the inkwell and took the time to put on his coat before he made his way out after her.

This delay caused him to miss the exchanges that would have introduced the uninvited guest by name. Jeshal caught enough that they were from the Ministry of Justice, asking questions. He drew up alongside Tanya and peered over the rails, taking in the sight of a ghost from the past. Captain Jeshal the Ironclaw, a beast famed for irksome circumlocution and overly eloquent conversation for his upbringing, sent out a desperate Missertross in his brain for the most choice words on offer. Somewhere along the way, someone shot the gull.

Jeshal stared at the golden fox.

"What the fuck?"​