Of Whales and Chickens

RP Date: 2026-10-08

Location: The Watch Tower (exterior) and the Lake of Life

Participants: Adamina, Spizzzo

Summary

Adamina survives a shipwreck by washing up in Grimwych. Spizzzo helps her vomit, and they find a corpse lakeside. Also, a chicken.

This archive was published after approval by all listed participants.

Roleplay

Spizzzo stirs his pot of stew, musing quietly while his makeshift cloak dries nearby after a failed attempt at catching a fish.

Adamina ambles very slowly towards the firelight and taller structure of the watchtower.  She is thoroughly soaked, and carries the distinct smell of the salty sea.  Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated considerably as she nears. "H-hello? Is anybody out there?"

Spizzzo calls out, "Warm Fire over here!" Before standing up, waving and offering a friendly, smiling face. "You must have so many questions, but please, sit. Warm yourself by the fire."

Adamina is dressed in pretty standard sailors' garb, complete with two sleeves of brightly colorful tattoos, the most remarkable of which is a kraken with its tentacles around a running fox in bright, bold ink.  She is missing a boot and walking with just one, and her dark hair--it's impossible to tell what color exactly it is with how soaked it is and how dark the non-fire area is--is pulled back in a braid.  Her eyes are blue, and she wipes at a trickle of blood from her nose as she continues forward, stumbling once and almost falling before catching herself on one of the protruding defensive logs and righting her posture.  The first thing she does when her eyes light upon Spizzzo is smile back at him. "Thank you.  I appreciate it."  She has no cloak or warm clothing of any kind, and drops into a graceless seated heap in front of the fire to wrap her arms around her knees.

Spizzzo stirs the stew for a moment before reaching over and grabbing one of the heavy tapestries harvested from the tower and draping it over Adamina's shoulders. The next is to ladle out a bowl of soup, setting it near her with a whittled spoon. "Now, if you're not too particular about what the meat is, there's some meat stew made with wild game." Hopefully pointing out that he's being nonspecific will do enough work. Quietly he mutters, "You might have some spotty memory. That's normal." He pauses after a few moments and looks at Adamina again, "This smells like seawater."

Adamina reaches for the bowl with shaking hands.  She takes a sip, and finds the liquid tastes agreeably enough for her to continue eating it, albeit slowly.  Her stomach rolls unpleasantly in protest, and she wipes a bit more blood from her nose.  Once it is about half-empty, she sets the bowl down again and begins wringing the water from her long hair. "I think it is," she said. "Is this an island of some kind?"  She frowns thoughtfully, trying to piece together what exactly happened, and is rewarded with a continued dull and throbbing headache.

Spizzzo shakes his head and refills her bowl, setting it back where she had left it. "Well. We are coming soon to the bad news portion of the conversation. Would you prefer to labor under the positive weight of the illusion of hope, at least until you are dry?" He busies himself as he speaks, bringing over his makeshift drying rack and setting it near the fire for any of her outerwear that could use draping.

Adamina keeps her clothing on; she's pretty sans-outerwear, and the water she is wringing out of her hair and garments is absolutely saltwater. "Have we been marooned?" That's the worst news she can think of.  She reaches for the bowl again, but the world takes a violent forty-five degree turn as her consciousness swims and she leans to the left, vomitng up every ounce of stew she ate and a considerable amount of foul-smelling water that reeks of brine and bile.  "Sorry, sorry!" she stammers between retching. 

Spizzzo lets out a small breath of shock and tentatively pats Adamina's back, "Oh, oh, well, there there. There there now. Better have that out, and there's always more stew when you're ready." He very gently helps make sure she's in no danger of pitching forward before he grabs a bucket of lake water and starts sloshing away the mess. "Maybe some clean water first. I've got some on the boil." Her question about being marooned is ignored for now as he uses a stick to pitch a pail forward, dumping some of the boiling lake water into a wooden cup. "Too hot to sip yet, but hold it and let the steam warm you up."

Adamina vomits up a lot of seawater for quite a few minutes, and then dry heaves for a couple more, closing her eyes against the pounding of her head and the unpleasant swimming of her vision.  A trickle of blood dribbles down the side of her face, and she wipes more from her nose. "Sorry, sorry," she croaks a second apology, finding some comfort in the hand on her back.  She takes in a few deep breaths, drawing in clean, cold air.  As the lake water sloshes the mess away she opens her eyes again. "Thank you.  I appreciate your help."

Spizzzo nods again slower, admiring the sheer volume of mess Adamina has produced. "Well. There you are, then. Seems like you took a longer swim than you were prepared for."

Adamina takes the cup and allows the steam to warm her face. "Wasn't planning on swimming at all," she says with a wan smile. "I..."  Her head throbs, and she wipes away a little more blood. "I was on a boat.  No, a ship.  We were in a storm."

Spizzzo nods quietly as he looks around. "Well. The good news is, there's no storm here. You can take comfort in that. No storm, warm fire, hot food, clean water." His face remains a fixed mask of genial hope for long enough that it's clear another shoe is going to drop.

Adamina quietly studies Spizzo's face while she holds the wooden cup.  It takes some of the desperate chill out of her hands and face. "But we're marooned?" she prompts.  She strips off her other boot, which reveals a sheathed knife against her leg. "Where are we?  What's your name?"

Spizzzo takes the knife in stride without comment, letting out a deep sigh and opening up his tin of Dapper Donovan's Moustache Wax: For the Distinguished Gent. "I am Spizzzo Spizzzoson," is all he says at first. Applying a dab to his fingers and warming it occupies his attention, before he twists it into the tips of his moustache. "We are just outside the village of Grimwych, across the lake there. It is empty, save for other people who have clawed their ways out of this lake over the past several weeks. We cannot leave. We do not recognize this place. Those of us with sufficient memory say the stars are different at night from what they expect."

Adamina wiggles her toes a little just to make sure she can still feel them; she can. "Spizzzo Spizzzoson," she repeats. "Well that's an interesting name."  She considers cracking a joke about whether his father was also named Spizzzo, but thinks better of it. "Mine is Mina.  No, Adamina, called Mina.  I was on a whaling ship in the North Sea."  She looks past the man and his fine moustache to the decrepit watchtower, a stone turning in her belly. "This...doesn't look like there.  I'm not the navigator, but how does a person get from the ocean in the middle of nowhere to...land on a lake?"

Spizzzo chews his lip for a moment before adding the clarifier, just to be certain, "Land on a lake in a different world than your own. The consensus is that the answer is 'by magic,' and perhaps 'magic portals.' The community of survivors is currently experiencing some debate over what might open additional portals. I am in disagreement with the current consensus. But..." He smiles again and stokes the fire, then stirs the stew. "It isn't my job to agree or disagree. I just keep the fire going, and stir the stew pot. Make sure new people are warm."

Adamina closes her eyes again and is quiet for a long moment. "I see.  So I've been vomited up from the sea in a lifeboat and thrown into another world.  What an adventure!"  She opens her eyes again and smiles faintly at Spizzzo, with genuine good humor. "Beats drowning.  And here I am in front of a warm fire, with pleasant company and hot food."  She takes a teeny tiny sip of the cup of water, which is no longer steaming but still delightfully hot and free of salt. "I don't have much to repay you with, but we could go take the supplies from the lifeboat I washed up in, if you don't mind helping me up?"

Spizzzo stares at Adamina for a long moment, like she has offered jewels and gems. "You have a boat? And supplies?"

Adamina nods and takes another, longer swallow of the water.  It burns her throat after all the saltwater she's ingested and vomit that's come up, but she forces it down. "Uh huh.  It's just a little rowboat with a sail, couldn't hold more than maybe two or three people.  It's probably damaged, but if we could find some lumber we could repair it.  I also don't know if anything from the big ship came in with me, but it's worth a look."

Spizzzo nods again, pressing the stew bowl closer to Adamina with two fingers. "Well. First, dry, drink, eat. Then I can help you drag up the boat and assess."

Adamina considers the stew bowl and then carefully takes it.  The water stayed down; maybe this will too.  She sets the warm cup in her lap to warm up her legs.  She slips the spoon into the stew.  The broth looks pretty thin, but it smells alright, and beggars can't be choosers.  She eats a couple of spoonfuls.  The meat is lean, but not awful.  She's had worse. "Thank you again.  It's very kind of you to look out for other people."  

Spizzzo shrugs his shoulders broadly, and busies himself with tending the fire for a long moment. "I don't think it's kind. It's just the work that there is to do. What else should I do with my time?"

Adamina wipes a little of the blood dribbling down her face away. "There's always something.  You could take up sculpting, or steal from people, or read every book in the abandoned library.  You choose to help.  It's admirable."

Spizzzo shakes his head firmly, a slight grimace on his lips as he focuses on the fire instead. "No. I couldn't have." He apparently feels like that settles the issue, and begins stirring the stew.

Adamina studies Spizzzo quietly through long eyelashes, trying to focus on something and push aside her headache.  She is content to let the silence hang a little while she drinks down some water and finishes her stew. "What's this made of?  Tastes a bit like rabbit, but leaner."

Spizzzo nods quietly to himself for a few moments, making sure normality has been restored. "Imagine a very lean rabbit, with a long skinny tail. Supplemented with some large rabbit whose fur looks like a bandit's mask."

Adamina also nods quietly and then regrets it.  There's no more blood from her nose, at least. "Mice and raccoons?"  There was something about raccoons, but her muddled mind can't focus on anything beyond her previous circumstances:  whaling ship, storm, near-death experience.  Surely she'd come from somewhere before that; she's got enough tattoos to have been a sailor for a very long time, the largest on her left forearm. "You've made good use of them.  I'm ready to go when you are."

Spizzzo holds up his hands further apart than mouse length. "Rats. The seasonings help." He smiles again and stands, dusting off his hands on his trousers and following her lead. "To the boat!"

Adamina nods in quiet acceptance.  She stands, wobbling precariously at first.  Briefly she looks like she might fall down, but a few deep steadying breaths later and she is moving again, back towards the Lake. 

Spizzzo holds out a steadying arm as he follows Adamina toward her destination. "So, you were a sailor? You must be used to visiting different types of places."

Adamina takes her new friend's arm a couple of times when her balance wavers. "Oh yeah. My last boat was a whale boat.  We had a three year voyage in the North Sea., but I've been all over. I'll tell you more about it as soon as I remember." She smiles a bit and guides Spizzzo along the shore of the lake towards the right, where eventually a small rowboat with a little sale has been concealed among some overhanging trees.  There is some minor damage to the top, and something covered in a blanket on the ground beside the vessel.  Scattered objects litter the ground around them for probably 200 meters on either side.  There is an unopened cask on its side, a lot of sticks and broken boards, a keg, some crates in various stages of repair, a wandering chicken, and more hemp rope line than anyone could possibly know what to do with without a harpoon to attach it to. "Here we are."

Spizzzo sets his hands on his hips and nods. "Okay. If we can catch that chicken, we can have eggs. The rest is just lifting." He looks to Adamina to see if she has any particular sailing knowledge to impart onto this plan.

Adamina scopes out the general area for an upturned crate that once contained a couple of now soggy bags of flour. The bags are too heavy to lift, but she takes the large box, walks over to the calm chicken, and sets it down on top of the bird. "This won't get them back to the tower, but it'll keep them from wandering around."

Spizzzo nods and begins collecting rope, any relatively dry debris, and useful bits and bobs and piling them into the boat. Glancing at Adamina, he surreptitiously lifts one corner of the blanket, prepared to find a less fortunate crewmate of hers.

Adamina approaches the cask and examines carefully for water tightness. Eventually satisfied, she turns it upright very carefully. "There's whale oil in these," she explains, then notices where her friend is looking. His assessment is unfortunately, a correct one and under the blanket is the body of a deceased crewmember. The cause of death isn't apparent, but he has several visible injuries. He has been arranged in a funeral pose with his arms crossed, and his eyes closed.

Spizzzo covers the man up again quietly, and looks to Adamina. "Well." First death in the new world. They don't have a protocol yet, as far as he knows. "We'll need some more firewood as well." Gingerly he shifts the blanket-wrapped body further to one side, then begins to examine the boat.

Adamina starts picking up pieces of wood, which are absolutely not part of the small rowboat, but some larger vessel.  She grabs a length of rope and pulls on it for what seems like forever, pulling out a large cast-iron pot that looks like it was once attached to something, more splintered planks and a tangled spiderweb of what was once extra rigging. The boat has some minor damage, but is still very sturdy and in usable shape.

Spizzzo holds up one finger and disappears back to the watchtower. He returns after a brief moment with some of his firewood, round logs. He shoves a few under the front of the boat, then sets about securing rope to it, looping the other ends around his waist and shoulders. "Right then. Can you put the logs back in front when they fall out the back?" Without much further ado, he sets his back to it and starts hauling the boat up toward the watch tower.

Adamina blinks and stares at Spizzzo in confusion. "Why are you taking that out out of the water?  If we're going to get across the lake and try to get out of here then we need the boat.  We can't swim that."  

Spizzzo blinks quietly, not understanding boats. "For...repairs?" He looks down at his harness. "That's a thing, isn't it?"

Adamina facepalms, and then blushes deeply. "I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. That makes perfect sense." She goes about helping as directed.

Spizzzo waits another beat before he continues hauling, "I mean...are you sure? As far as I know, I'm not a sailor. I just do what seems like it makes sense, and trust my body's memory to carry me through."

Adamina does her best to help Spizzzo haul the boat back. "Well, some repairs can be made with the boat in the water, but for serious overhauling or work on the lower hull it would have to be taken out.  We also probably don't want whoever is disagreeable towards you stealing it, so there's that."  Her vision swims lazily again. "Do you want to dry out the flour?  Come back for the oil?"

Spizzzo grunts quietly as he gets underway, "Can you set the oil in the boat? The flour, not sure. If it's gone to mold, I can't feed that to anyone. I suppose we can check it."

Adamina has no idea if it has or not, or even how long it--or she, have been shipwrecked.  Everything is a blur. "Sure.  Can you carry that all by yourself?  I could try to help."  She does not appear built particularly for strength beyond what is size-appropriate for a woman of her decent physical shape, and does get the cask set into the boat.

Spizzzo shrugs his shoulders and sets his legs into the mud, and starts hauling again. "I don't know, but it appears I can." He smiles through the strain and looks back over his shoulder at Adamina, "I don't have any memories before the lake, you see. Perhaps I was a ship hauler before."

Adamina gives Spizzzo a long and slow look over. "Maybe," she muses. "You're definitely very strong and in good shape, whatever your occupation might be.  Maybe you were someone's bodyguard or something, with your vested interest in helping people.  Lots of people need help and protection."  She does what she can to help Spizzzo haul, which is unfortunately not much.  The best thing she does is manage to get the boxed chicken into the boat alongside the cask without letting it out.  "Maybe I was a chicken hauler before I took up whaling."

Spizzzo laughs loudly, forcing the laugh out to help his body tug the boat along the makeshift rollers. "Chickens and Whales are essentially the same beast. What is a whale, if not a large, featherless, aquatic chicken? What is a chicken if not a feathered, land-dwelling, egg-laying whale? All things, in the end, are one, and that is why there is no meaningful distinction between selfishness and selflessness."

Adamina laughs along with Spizzzo. "Well, whales don't lay eggs like chickens.  They get pregnant and nurse their young like we or some animals do.  Chickens hatch and start eating without too much care, don't they?"  She frowns; of the two, she's definitely seen more of whales outside a plate.  Maybe not a chicken hauler after all. "Is that some kind of religious thing?  All things are one?  Helping yourself is also helping others?  What if you help yourself at the expense of others?"

Spizzzo shrugs again and grins, the strain and exertion clearly releasing a wave if endorphins he has heretofore not had to contend with since arriving in Grimwych, "If anyone is being harmed, then you're doing it wrong. That's like cutting off your nose so you can get your shirt over your head. Just doesn't make sense." He considers a moment longer as he pushes through some foliage, answering, "I don't think it's religious. It feels more like a physical truth. Like knowing how fast something will fall, or catching an apple someone tosses, or figuring out the axial tilt of a rotating orb by the perceived variance in motion of a stationary object from the perspective of a fixed spot on the orb's surface, within a given frame of reference."

Adamina smiles a little more broadly.  Some of the general misery of her situation has faded from her face, and her head has finally stopped bleeding. "Well you're not an anything hauler with a vocabulary like that."  Axial tilt of a rotating orb by the perceived variance in motion....   She understand what some of those words mean. "Maybe you were some kind of ah...very well-built scholar."  Her smile softens. "I'd like to save the philosophy for when my head isn't about to split open, please."

Spizzzo chuckles quietly and shakes his head, "No, no, no, save philosophy for the wise men and the thinkers." He grabs hold of a low branch and hauls himself over a small rise, then continues dragging the boat. "This is just practical stuff."

Adamina laughs lightly. "I've never used the axial tilt of anything for anything," she admits. "Whatever that's for sounds very over my head."  The wind picks up; an errant breeze brushes the branches in front of Spizzo very carefully out of his way.

Spizzzo brings the boat as close back to the watchtower as he can manage, and slumps down against it. Smiling sadly up toward Adamina, he says, "Well. I'll just rest a moment here, then I can start building the pyre for that poor soul who didn't make it."

Adamina looks over her shoulder back towards the Lake. "I could get you some water?  You've worked so hard already."  She regards him with concern.  Now that her hair has mostly dried, it's a dark reddish-brown, and wisps have escaped the braid to frame her face. "Or I can gather up some more of the wood.  I..." she falters, frowning. "His name was Arvid.  We picked him up the day before we left; new guy.  We stood a lot of watch together." 

Spizzzo nods and gestures to the fire. "You recover. I'll rest. Then we'll put him to rest together."