Chapter 1 - The Light

The ektus throws the grappling hook onto the Fading Dawn and it hooks into the railing lining the deck. As Shaw pushes the engine to its limit, Cait manages to untangle the grappling hook and throw it down into the sea at the last moment before the Dawn jolts forward and races across the canopy of the wildsea at incredible speeds until the ektus ship, in a position that makes them unable to pursue without much maneuvering, is left out of sight behind them.

The Dawn however, seems to not like the stress this maneuver is putting on it...

As the Dawn makes its escape, one of the ektus throws something over onto its deck. It lands right next to Cait and Elrenna but nothing happens. When one of the sailors picks it up, they discover that it is a small ball filled with sap that was supposed to burst on impact and glue up part of the deck of the Dawn, making it harder for the crew to escape. Luckily, the ball did not burst as it was not fabricated very well. With a little bit of work, it could be fixed however, so that then it could be used as a weapon later on. A few moments after the ship's bite kicks in, there is a loud screeching sound from the chainsaw bite. A bump shakes the whole ship, threatening an engine failure but then the Dawn continues. The whole crew has the feeling that it's slightly slower than before - the bite must have taken some damage in the sudden acceleration - but it's still going fast enough to leave the ektus ship far behind.After that encounter, it is smooth sailing for a few more hours until eventually, night descends upon the wildsea. There is still some light available thanks to the full, pale moon in the sky but in this darkness, it will definitely be harder to spot incoming dangers than it was during the day. Looking over the chart they received from the people of Narrowplate, it seems that most of the journey is still ahead of the sailors.

"It's getting dark," Caitriona remarks. Her eyes sparkle in the moon light as she looks around for the spirits that are always there, "Shaw, do you want us to drop anchor for a bit so you can take a look and see what we broke."

Shaw grimaces as he hears the noise coming from the engines. Yeah, let's go ahead and stop. Better to see how bad it is now, when it's quiet. Shaw says as he hears Fair's suggestion.

Quickly and as carefully as he can, Shaw brings the engines down
Once they are safely stopped, he heads down below to assess the damage.

Elrenna keeps an eye on the foliage around them for the moment, watching for anything that might be useful to them when they continue their journey, she isn't particularly handy with repairs but is happy to move anything heavy that needs to be for the others. "I'll keep watch in case our pursuers catch up, and keep an eye out for anything useful, you never know when you're gonna find something nice in the canopy..."

Caitriona sits on the deck near Elrenna and starts to work on crafting a bow out if either her highwood plank or the broadwood branch, which ever she thinks would be most sensible. A thin wisp of spirit light drifts past her and she looks towards the horizon as she lays out the design. The two types of wood could make a nice composite bow, and she's got copper rings, maybe even a compound bow isn't out of the realm of possibilities. Resins for laminating bits of wood, there were clamps down in the engine room if she needed them.

The crezzerin burns on her hands and feet didn't bother her as much anymore as they used to, her black hands went to work on the project. This wasn't likely to be a quick overnight kind of job, perhaps a few days.

"Shaw," Cait called out, "if you need a hand give us a shout."

Elrenna keeps her eyes peeled for trouble, since they only narrowly managed to escape the Ektus, and if they are unlucky their escape may have drawn attention from others, whether people or animals.

Shaw sets out to figure out what was damaged during the escape. Once that's been located, he'll see to repairing the damage.