Tour and The Library

JP with mdman, Lasersexpanther, Jaxx and Cindy.

After a few minutes of being on the main deck, it became clear there just wasn't much else for Elizabeth to do there. After the initial interest, the minutes just started to drag out, she certainly couldn't be expected to do nothing for around 12 hours. Elizabeth quietly got up, and left the men to their work. She wandered down the corridor looking for someone to talk to or something to occupy her time.

On the middeck Yui sat looking out the windows. Humming some song Elizabeth wouldn't know, holding a lump of fur. Speaking softly to it between sections of humming in Japanese.

Elizabeth felt like she stumbled upon a private moment and didn't want to disturb the woman, but also didn't want to seem like she was just lingering there. "Yui?" She said quietly, better to acknowledge her existence than not.

"Oh." Yui said cheerfully "Lady Elizabeth?" she asked in return before lifting the lump of fur to reveal the squished face of a cat with stubby legs. Yui made a little gesture of making the cat do a little wave. "Say hello Batābōru." she said obviously to the cat.

Elizabeth smiled, "Well, Bataboru, it is nice to meet you. It is good to see you again Yui." As polite as Elizabeth usually was. "So, tell me what do you do to occupy your time while on this vessel?”

Yui gave a slightly embarrassed shrug. "I don't do nearly as much as the rest of the crew." she admitted. "I help Pierre from time to time but, I think because of my relationship with Masao not a lot is required of me." she explained. "He help keep our quarters clean...but I don't nearly as much as Ren." she added.

"Oh, I'm just not used to having nothing to do." Elizabeth was pretty much always busy, especially since becoming a team leader, but she hadn't meant to embarrass the other woman. "If you don't mind me asking, how long have you and Captain Maseo been together?”

Yui gave a tight shrug. "Pretty much forever." she said, "In some manner or another. We grew up in the same village. I wasn't supposed to be friends with him." She said, "People like my village think people like him are demons." she explained. "I knew better, but one day he ran off. I never thought I'd see him again. Then one day he showed up with a ship, barely bigger than four rowboats lashed together, and he took me away. Along with the rest of the inner circle.”

Elizabeth didn't know if the "people like him" being considered a demon referred to Maseo being half British or a mage. To be honest, she had yet to encounter that in person when it came to her magic but knew people that thought that way did exist, they just weren't very common in Europe. She nodded, "Well, he apparently managed to do well. This ship is pretty nice." Elizabeth wasn't just being polite, it was a fairly nice ship. Granted her parents' was luxury but this one clearly had that history, as well. "Would you be up for giving me a tour of the ship? I didn't get it before, when I met everyone.”

Yui nodded. "I can do that." she said, "A few places we can't go for safety and privacy reasons." she explained "But I can show you around most of the ship.”

"Understood. Well, then lead the way," Elizabeth nodded with a smile.

"First, I have to put Batābōru somewhere he won't get in trouble." she said, "I'll point things out along the way.

As they walked Yui pointed out peoples sleeping quarters, halfway down the hallway they stopped at a door on the right, or facing the inner portion of the ship. Yui hoisted Batābōru under her arm and pushed the door open. It was a medium sized soundproofed room with bookshelves, each shelf had a slat of wood across it to hold the books in place to not topple during flight. "Here is a small..." she paused thinking of the word. "Library...I suppose. You can come here and read if you want. Just make sure you keep the slats in place. I don't mind the cleaning so much as I do the books getting damaged in the fall." she explained.

Stepping out again and walking a bit farther, Elizabeth would realize they are at the front of the ship, near where the strange glass dome seen from outside was. "Masao and I's room." She said pushing the door open Elizabeth could see a nice but sparsely decorated room. "In you go." she said putting Batābōru down who let out a meow.

Turning around Yui gestured to a set of staircases one going up and the other down. "Up or down?”

She would definitely check out the library later. Elizabeth thought for a moment. "Let's go up first, then down.”

At the top of the stairs it opened to a hallway that was wider than the previous one. A sizable difference but of the same design, this hall was mostly window space, tables and chairs lined a wall. "Here's where we eat." she pointed slightly down the hall in the center space to s set of doors that looked like the opened more eaisly than the others. "That's the kitchen." she said, "During dinner time if you can avoid walking past those doors. They open both ways and sometimes they'll swing out and hit you. Pierre tries hard to not do that but sometimes his arms are full so he uses his back to open the door and can't see." she told Elizabeth

Elizabeth nodded, she had been in restaurants with those kind of doors and had thought about putting them in her home to make it easier on the staff.

They walked around the outside of the inner block that housed the kitchen and some storage a set of stairs that went up, and Yui pointed up them "We can't go up there." she pointed out, "That's just machine parts that control the balloon, not only is it not safe, Gimbal would be cross if we started messing about."

She lead Elizabeth to the the first stairs that lead back down, and to the lowest level, there wasn't much down below. The space terminated nearly immediately at the bottom of the staircase, roughly a yard and a half at the bottom of the stairs landing. To the left was a strange metal panel set in the wall that was closed the right was a blank wall, but in front of them was a large bulkhead door. "And this is the exit to the cargo hold. We can peek in if you want but not much to see besides Nugbu and Cronk. Maybe your doctor friend and Banri if they are still working on whatever that crate is.”

"Might as well check in on them?" Make sure none of her team was in too much trouble. She peered in and spotted Nugbu and Cronk, because they were hard to miss. Elizabeth quickly noticed that Cronk looked several shades greener than earlier. "Cronk, are you alright?" She asked.

“Cronk fine,” the orc stated. “Found Ward.”

He had returned to the hold earlier, searched all around the crate they had moved, and found it on the floor next to it. As soon as Cronk spied it, he had attached it back to his shirt.

"That's good. If you think falling off again might be an issue, I can also ward against that happening in the future." Elizabeth had been busy, and it had slipped her mind to do that. Keeping Cronk from being ill had been the priority.

Cronk scratched his head. He could be more careful. He knew he caught the ward on the corner of the crate. So, Cronk knew what not to do.

“Cronk be more careful,” he assured Lady Elizabeth, “Lady Boss.”

"Very good then," Elizabeth said. "If you change your mind just let me know." Not wanting to ignore the other Orc in the room, Elizabeth turned to him, "Nugbu, is everything working out with your new job."

"Yes. Good job. Good crew." Nugbu responded.

"That is good to hear." Elizabeth was glad Nugbu seemed to be settling in, she paused then asked both Orcs, "Have either of you seen Dr. Jackal and Miss Lavigne?”

Cronk looked at Nugbu, then at the crate at hand. “Good Doctor said tighten crate,” he reported to Lady Elizabeth. “Says could go boom.”

"I see. Well good thing you two can secure it well." Elizabeth was wondering what was in the crate. "I suppose then he was done with figuring out what the substance was." She also assumed the two didn't know where the doctor or Lily had gone off to. "Well, I will go find them and let you both get back to work." Elizabeth waited for Yui to lead the way..

After washing their hands to get the white gunpowder off, Dr. Jackal and Lily made their way to the cargo hold in hopes to find Lady Elizabeth.

Elizabeth turned and spotted Dr. Jackal and Lily. "Dr. Jackal, Miss Lavigne," she greeted them. "Dr. Jackal, I gather you discovered what the substance was?”

Dr. Jackal and Lily greeted Lady Elizabeth and then he answered, "Ah yrs Lady Elizabeth. It's a white gunpowder is Poudre B which was the first practical smokeless gunpowder. I already informed Mr. Banari to notify the crew before properly storing it away from water and fire."

Lily then said, "It was rather brilliant how the good doctor was able to use his tests to figure out what it was so quickly."

Dr. Jackal smiled as he replied, "Alas my knowledge is my only redeeming quality."

Lily then gave the good doctor a nudge with her elbow as she didn't like him berating himself.

Elizabeth nodded, "I am glad that you were able to figure it out. Of course, this leaves us all in the same boat, so to speak. We have hours to go and not much to do." She smiled and gestured to Yui. "Yui here has been nice enough to give me a tour of the ship but I believe she has shown me what she could.”

Dr. Jackal grinned then replied, "Well if we had more resources we could make a few bombs with the white gunpowder or gunpowder packing for the cannons to pass the time. However I will leave that to the Captain since it is his ship after all."

Lily gave the good doctor a coy look as she asked, "You can make such things Dr. Jackal?"

Dr. Jackal smiled as he replied, "Of course Ms. Lavigne. Although I would enlist the help of Ms. Ipsum and any other experts in the field for safety measures.”

Elizabeth smiled at the Doctor, "Well barring that option, there is a small library here if you two would like to peruse it with me." Elizabeth really hated having nothing to do, she was not used to it.

Dr. Jackal nodded as he replied, "Interesting. I wonder what literature the dear Captain managed to collect in his library."

Lily smiled as she replied, "I'm sure they will be interesting choices of course. Shall we go, Lady Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth nodded, then turned to Yui, "Yui, you are welcome to come with us, but, as I believe I can make my way back to the library. Please, only come if you would like to." She didn't want the woman to feel obligated.

Once Yui had made up her mind, Elizabeth led the group to the small library. It was not a bad size for the group they had, but additional people and it would have started getting crowded. "Just keep the slates in place." Passing on the rules that Yui had told her, and truthfully Elizabeth didn't want books getting damaged either. She started perusing the titles on the shelves.

In the background, the two orcs elected to try and move the crate by lifting it. Cronk momentarily lost his grip, catching it just before the corner smashed into the floor of the cargo bay. Cronk slowly looked up to see if anyone noticed, then gave a nervous laugh.

Almost,” Cronk managed to mumble, as they lifted the crate between them.

Lily noticed Cronk's close call and smirked as he played it off. She then entered the library as Dr. Jackal held the door open for her. Both Lily and Dr. Jackal looked at the way the library was set up while listening to Lady Elizabeth, before they began looking at the titles to select. Since they were on a mission into new territory they looked for geography books related to the territory they were going to operate in.

Elizabeth noticed some of the books were in Japanese, but then she found one of Dwarves history that she hadn't read, she pulled it out, being careful with the slates, and sat down with the book to look through it.