[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/250324/b71cf5ab5cebec9b4e857200f7c42a8b.png[/img]

[img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/250324/dc185f5e06aa08f3af9fbb79b4040da5.png[/img]

[color=EBA536][b]Location:[/b][/color] [color=E579FF]Engine control room >> Top Deck[/color]
[color=E579FF][b]Race:[/b][/color] [color=EBA536]Dark Elf[/color] & [color=E579FF]Human[/color]
[color=E579FF][b]Class:[/b][/color] [color=EBA536]Artificer[/color] & [color=E579FF]Rogue[/color]
[color=EBA536][b]Mentions:[/b][/color] [@Tae] Meiyu; [@Helo] Ezekiel
[color=EBA536][b]Equipment:[/b][/color]
[hider]
[color=EBA536][b]Scratch[/b][/color]
Medical bag
Tinkerer's kit
Arcane spindlelock (shortened) musket
Spindlelock pistols x2
Hand axes x2
[color=E579FF][b]Val[/b][/color]
First-aid bag
Tinkerer's kit
Spindlelock pistols x2
Steel daggers x2[/hider][color=E579FF][b]Attire:[/b][/color]
[hider]
[color=EBA536][b]Scratch[/b][/color]
Dark brown, knee-length coat
Black waistbelt
Grey button-up shirt
Dark brown trousers
Heavy leather boots
[color=E579FF][b]Val[/b][/color]
Off-white shirt
Red ribbon tied around left arm
Brown hooded coat
Brown trousers
Leather boots
Goggles on her head[/hider][color=EBA536][b]Gold:[/b][/color] 35
[color=E579FF][b]Injuries:[/b][/color]
[hider]
[color=EBA536][b]Scratch[/b][/color]
NA
[color=E579FF][b]Val[/b][/color]
NA[/hider]
[/center]

“Bridge to engine control. Bridge to engine control. Anyone there?”

Scaerthrynne let out a long, resigned sigh as the crackling voice buzzed through a speaker mounted in the ceiling. It seemed a natural law, almost, that everytime he felt he could snatch a few moments to relax and go about his own business, the bridge would seek him out. [color=EBA536]“Is there a light up there that flashes whenever I take a break?”[/color] He wondered aloud, looking up from Vallena’s book and at the rack of tools before him.

[color=E579FF]“I thought you liked work, Scratch,”[/color] the girl replied in a mumble, her tongue sticking out in concentration as she carefully reassembled her pistol.

[color=EBA536]“[i]Interesting[/i] work,”[/color] Scaerthrynne corrected. He waited for a moment, and when he heard nothing else from the speaker, he made himself more comfortable in his chair. Its wooden frame creaked as he leaned back, kicking his heels up and onto a corner of the benchtop. [color=EBA536]“The stuff the bridge has us doing most of the time tends to be remarkably [i]un[/i]interesting. Not that I blame them. Any engineering issue major enough for them to notice would likely be first noticed by us, and with the sort of passengers we’re carrying these days, any medical emergency would likely be settled by a healer of some kind.”[/color] He nodded his approval of whatever he read in the book before turning a page. [color=EBA536]“The author’s done their research. Never thought anyone other than a Dark Elf would know that Dusky Ear moss is hallucinogenic. Captain Fair’s going to have a–”[/color]

[color=E579FF]“Hey! No spoilers!”[/color] Vallena snapped. Scaerthrynne glanced up at her. She looked back at him, her hickory eyes meeting his blood-red ones. He raised a brow. She attempted to glower at him, but she couldn’t hold back the amused smirk tugging on her lips, and ended up giggling. [color=E579FF]“I’d never have guessed that you’d like stories like that, Scratch.”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“Stranger things have happened,”[/color] he replied simply and went back to reading.

She set her tools down and stretched, pushing her hands out in front of her as far as she could. A shudder rattling the airship’s frame pulled a surprised yelp from her, and almost sent her sprawling to the floor. She caught herself just in time, bracing herself against the benchtop. [color=E579FF]“That felt strong.”[/color] Fearful worry was thick in her words. [color=E579FF]“S-Should we ring the bridge, Scratch?”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“No need,”[/color] Scaerthrynn replied. He hadn’t moved, and neither had anything else around him. [color=EBA536]“It was just a bit of minor turbulence, nothing more. It only felt bad to you because [i]you[/i] were off-balance.”[/color] Vallena’s face reddened and she quickly returned to her work. He turned another page. [color=EBA536]“If it were anything more serious, we'd have the Captain screaming our ears off by now.”[/color]

The speaker crackled to life again. “Bridge to engine control. Bridge to engine control. I know you’re there, Scratch. Respond immediately.”

Vallena looked at Scaerthrynne nervously. He scowled and shook his head. [color=EBA536]“They just don’t know when to give up, do they?”[/color] With another sigh, he closed the book, slid it onto the benchtop, and carefully swung his boots back onto the floor. [color=EBA536]“Don’t worry, Val,”[/color] he said, patting her on the shoulder as he squeezed past her, and approached a box attached to the wall beside the gauges. [color=EBA536]“They wouldn’t be asking for us so nicely if it was a real emergency. I’d bet half my pay that it’s nothing worth too much of our attention.”[/color]

[color=E579FF]“Like what, Scratch?”[/color]

Scaerthrynne shrugged. [color=EBA536]“I don’t know. Maybe someone broke something, or someone’s got a complaint.”[/color]

Vallena paused and looked at him, grinning. [color=E579FF]“Was that a serious bet, Scratch?”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“Why not? You’re on, Val. Half for half.”[/color] He chuckled, then held a finger to his lips before pressing a bright, red button on the box. There was a soft click, and the microphone taking up the top half of the box buzzed to life. Scaerthrynne cleared his throat, coughing into a fist, and leaned against the wall. [color=EBA536]“Engine control to bridge. Engine control to bridge. Sorry for the wait. We got caught up gossiping with the elemental. Should try it yourself, some time. They know quite a lot of stuff for someone stuck down here all the time.”[/color]

“Very funny, Scratch,” came the deadpan reply. “Anyway, Captain wants you up on the top deck. We’ve got a child who broke their arm, by the sound of things.”

Scaerthrynne groaned. [color=EBA536]“Didn’t you look at the passenger manifest? You’ve got at least one healer up there who can do a much better job. You don’t need me.”[/color]

“Maybe, but they’re not there right now. And besides, the Captain’s not asking you to head up, he’s telling you to. You’re not talking your way out of this one, Scratch. Bridge out.”

The speaker clicked off. For a while, the control room was filled with only the sound of rumbling machinery and that of Scaerthrynne’s sighs. [color=EBA536]“Well, you heard him,”[/color] he said and faced Vallena. [color=EBA536]“How’re you doing with your pistol, Val?”[/color]

Vaellan spun around and held the reassembled weapon towards him. [color=E579FF]“All done!”[/color] She beamed ear-to-ear.

Scaerthrynne leaned over, inspecting it from end-to-end, and top-to-bottom, with a keen eye. He saw none of the usual errors – screws left loose, an improperly placed trigger, misaligned sights, to name a few – as well as none of the less usual ones, too. Vallena looked at him with confident eyes, but the slight trembling in her arm gave away her nervous anticipation. [color=EBA536]“Relax Val,”[/color] he said, perhaps a little unhelpfully, as he took the pistol from her. He turned it muzzle-down and gave it a few shakes. Nothing came out. 

He then pulled the hammer back, listening to each individual click. Nothing wrong, there. Slowly, he peeled his thumb away from the hammer. It stayed in place. Nothing wrong there, either. And finally, he pulled the trigger, using his off hand to ease the hammer forward instead of letting it snap. The trigger felt lighter than before and it released the hammer earlier, as it should. [color=EBA536]“Well done, Val,”[/color] he said and returned the weapon to her. [color=EBA536]“A bit more practice and I might let you handle all of our weapons’ maintenance on your own.”[/color]

[color=E579FF]“Really?”[/color] Her excitement was clear from just that one word. [color=E579FF]“Thanks!”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”[/color] Scaerthrynne squeezed around her and grunted as he squatted low to pull out a bag from under the workbench. [color=EBA536]“We’ll need our medical and engineering kits, I imagine, so go get those ready, Val.”[/color] With another grunt, he stood back up and threw it onto the benchtop. It landed with a loud thud. He unbuttoned the flap, flipped it open, and started taking out items one-by-one to make sure it contained everything he would need, and some things that he wouldn’t need, but wanted to have on hand.

Vallena watched him and tilted her head. [color=E579FF]“But the bridge told us to deal with a broken arm, Scratch. I don’t see why we’d need tools and stuff.”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“That’s what they tell us [i]now[/i],”[/color] he replied drily. [color=EBA536]“Just give them a while to think.”[/color]

[color=E579FF]“What do you–”[/color]

As if on cue, the speaker buzzed and crackled to life again. Scaerthrynne finished sorting out the bag and slung it across his body. He pushed past Vallena and stood by the box. “Bridge to engine control. Bridge to engine control. While you’re up there, could you swing by the bar and check the lights? A few passengers complained last night that some of them were flickering.”

Scaerthrynne pressed the button. [color=EBA536]“Engine control to bridge. Engine control to bridge. It can’t be that bad of a problem if nobody told us about it at the time when it happened.”[/color]

“Would you have gone up if we did?”

[color=EBA536]“Probably not.”[/color]

“And that’s why we’re asking you to take care of it now, Scratch. You’re going up, anyway. Oh, and another thing. The Captain wants you to check in on Gears, too. It got caught out in that squall a few days ago. He wants you to make sure it’s got no moisture damage.”

Scaerthrynne pinched the bridge of his nose. When he spoke, it was with barely contained irritation. [color=EBA536]“Did it ever occur to any of you up there that if Gears was hurt or feeling unwell, she’d come find me herself? You know, like the sentient, not-a-piece-of-equipment being that she is?”[/color]

“Just do your damn job, Scratch.”

He rolled his eyes at that, so hard that they could have fallen out of their sockets. [color=EBA536]“Alright, master. Should I make you and your friends tea while I’m at it?”[/color]

“Thanks for the offer, Scratch. I take mine–”

[color=EBA536]“Oh, piss off. Engine control out.”[/color] Scaerthrynne pulled his finger off the button. He stood in place for a little while longer, taking the time to calm himself. It was normal, he had to keep telling himself, for some people to be prejudiced against Warforged. But then again, that didn’t mean he had to simply accept it, especially when that prejudice was targeted towards one whom Scaerthrynne had, by now, worked with for at least a handful of years. He saw her as a colleague, more than anything else. 

[color=E579FF]“Well, [i]I[/i] think Gears is a cool lady,”[/color] Vallena said suddenly.

That got a chuckle out of Scaerthrynne. He pushed himself off of the wall. [color=EBA536]“That, she is. And you know, I’m pretty sure we’ve got another Warforged aboard.”[/color]

Vallena gasped. [color=E579FF]“Do we? Cool! Can we try talking to them?”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“Sure,”[/color] Scaerthrynne said with a grin, patting Vallena on the shoulder. [color=EBA536]“To borrow the words of the ones up top, we may as well while we’re up there. Get yourself kitted up in walking attire, Val. Let’s get this done as quickly as possible.”[/color]

For Scaerthrynne and Vallena, ‘walking attire’ meant looking like the average adventurer who had spent all their coin, and that of their friends, to book a passage on the [i]Stormrider[/i]. That meant a plain shirt, a pair of plain trousers, and a plain coat over all of them for Scaerthrynne, along with pistols, pouches, and axes on his belt, and a short musket across his back. As for Vallena, she was similarly dressed in her work clothes, which consisted of a white shirt, dark trousers, and a hooded coat. Her daggers and pistols were sheathed and holstered on her hips, and of course, she had her goggles sitting on her head. 

As the name suggested, they used such attire for when they needed to walk across the [i]Stormrider[/i]’s decks quickly, and without distractions. Looking like armed adventurers kept most passengers away. Few people would want to get in the way of anyone who looked like they had either been in many fights before, or that they had no qualms about starting one. And those who didn’t give them a wide berth – mostly other, actual adventurers – didn’t think of them as crew, and so didn’t stop them to ask questions which, to be perfectly honest, neither Scaerthrynne nor Vallena could answer to begin with. 

The pair marched through the crowded top deck, Scaerthrynne taking the lead and Vallena just half-a-step behind him. A woman cast a lasting, worried gaze at him as he passed, worried eyes glued to the wooden stock jutting out over his shoulder. He gave her a sardonic smile. [color=EBA536]“Don’t worry, ma’am,”[/color] he said, his words dripping with mischief. [color=EBA536]“It’s just a really fancy walking stick. I’m almost five hundred years old. I’m allowed to have one.”[/color]

[color=E579FF]“Over there, Scratch.”[/color] Vallena tugged on his sleeve and pointed at a small commotion.

Scaerthrynne followed her until they reached the edge of the gathering crowd. [color=EBA536]“Hold on tight,”[/color] he said and made sure Vallena had a firm grip on his coat before pushing his way through curious onlookers and, if he had to be honest, people who had nothing better to do. [color=EBA536]“Excuse me, ship’s surgeon and assistant coming through,”[/color] he repeated, each time his words growing louder and more annoyed. Vallena echoed his words, but her small voice could do little to help. Eventually, Scaerthrynne simply started physically shoving those in his way, out of the way. 

A strange scene greeted them on the other side. On the floor was a young boy – he couldn’t be that much older than Vallena – with an arm that was quickly purpling. A clear sign of a break. The injured limb rested in the lap of a woman dressed in strange clothes, and with an appearance that reminded Scaerthrynne of a land he might have visited several decades ago. That, or he was remembering drawings from one of the many books he had read before. A man knelt beside the boy, trying to comfort him.

[color=EBA536]“Good morning, everyone, I’m Scaerthrynne Airresh, [i]Stormrider[/i]’s surgeon.”[/color] His words came out one after the other at a rapid pace. He had no intentions of staying any longer than he needed to. A cursory glance was all it took to tell him that this was another straightforward, and thus uninteresting problem. [color=EBA536]“This is my assistant, Vallena,”[/color] he continued and gestured to the girl. 

She waved. [color=E579FF]“Hello!”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“So if you’d excuse the two of us…”[/color] Scaerthrynne said and trailed off, kneeling beside the boy. There was no tearing of the skin in the forearm, and no broken bones protruding. That meant an interior fracture, and that wasn’t something that needed his level of skill to handle. [color=EBA536]“Vallena,”[/color] he called out, scooting over to give the girl some space. She squatted beside him. [color=EBA536]“What do you see?”[/color]

She tilted her head. [color=E579FF]“No broken skin, no visible bones. The break’s all on the inside, Scratch.”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“Well done,”[/color] Scaerthrynne replied. [color=EBA536]“So what must be done?”[/color]

[color=E579FF]“Oh, I know! This is an easy one!”[/color] Vallena giggled. [color=E579FF]“Set the bone, wrap it with a splint, and keep it still until the bone heals itself.”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“You might want to knock him out first, otherwise the pain might kill him.”[/color] Scaerthrynne nodded to the boy, then quickly added, [color=EBA536]“I mean that as a figure of speech. You’re not actually going to die. It’ll probably hurt a lot, but she’ll give you something to numb the pain. That, or it’ll put you into a nice, deep sleep. Hard to tell what that stuff does to a person until it…”[/color] He trailed off as he swept his gaze over the boy’s arm again, this time his brows furrowing. There were no abrasions. No other bruises, not even a scratch.

In fact, now that Scaerthrynne looked at him from head-to-toe again, the boy wasn’t hurt anywhere else. 

[color=EBA536]“Wait,”[/color] he said sharply, holding out a hand to stop Vallena. Something wasn’t right here. And that was very interesting. Without a word, and without caring for anyone else, for that matter, he hiked the boy’s trouser legs up, until the ankles were exposed. No redness. He pressed his fingers hard against each joint. There wasn’t any swelling, either. [color=EBA536]“Vallena, check his other arm and the back of his head for swelling, abrasions, or cuts.”[/color] He gave the order swiftly.

[color=E579FF]“Got it.”[/color]

Scaerthrynne looked up from the boy at their surroundings. The top deck was a wide, open space, and the boy was lying far from the bulwarks. It was thus reasonable to assume that he had broken his arm around this same area. But unless the boy had a habit of running full tilt into everything arm-first, Scaerthrynn saw nothing that could explain how he could break a limb. 

[color=E579FF]“Nothing, Scratch,”[/color] Vallena reported. [color=E579FF]“What is it? What’re you thinking?”[/color]

A smile crept over Scaerthrynne’s face, and he turned to the boy. [color=EBA536]“Congratulations, boy,”[/color] he said. [color=EBA536]“I hereby pronounce you as the oldest person I’ve ever diagnosed with brittle-bone disease. I’m personally amazed that you haven’t accidentally killed yourself, or gotten killed yet. I hope you don’t have any grand ambitions or dreams, though, because you’re probably not going to realise any of them. That, or I hope your parents love you very, very much, because you won’t be able to do much of anything at all.”[/color] Startled murmurs and shocked gasps rippled through the crowd.

[color=E579FF]“Scratch!”[/color] Vallena exclaimed. [color=E579FF]“What’re you–”[/color]

[color=EBA536]“What? It’s the only explanation for how a limb could break for no reason.”[/color] Scaerthrynne waved his hands over the boy’s body. [color=EBA536]“He has no other bruises, no cuts, no abrasions. I don’t know about anyone here, but a force hard enough to break a bone would likely throw a boy of this size hard enough to leave some other mark on his body. His ankles are perfectly fine, which means he didn’t trip. He has no other wounds on his arms, which means if he fell, he has the reflexes of a snail and didn’t even try to protect himself.”[/color] He wiped his hands on his trousers. [color=EBA536]“So if he didn’t trip, didn’t fall on his face, and didn’t fall on his back, then I really struggle to find a reason as to why his arm, and only his arm, would break.”[/color]

His smile widened as he met the boy’s gaze. [color=EBA536]“But then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you don’t have the disease. Because you see, brittle-bone disease weakens the bones, but it does nothing to dampen pain. A boy breaks an arm, and yet doesn’t scream, doesn’t yell, and doesn’t cry for attention? That’s a very, very strange thing indeed. A very interesting thing. I might even say that it’s an unnatural thing.”[/color]

Scaerthrynne paused to look at the faces in the crowd, then the man kneeling by the boy, then the woman cradling his arm, and then finally, at the boy himself. [color=EBA536]“You didn’t break your arm,”[/color] Scaerthrynne stated with a self-satisfied smile, the sort he reserved for when he figured out a puzzle. [color=EBA536]“Someone broke it. And I think that someone is still here with us, or it hasn’t been long since they left. Am I right?”[/color]