Entry 3

Entry 3:

SUCCESS! I have wrestled God himself and made strides to advance the knowledge of Mankind manifold.

But I get ahead of myself.

We searched the Viceroy from stem to stern and found no further clues as to the disappearance of her crew. We recovered the ownership papers assigned to her owner/Captain Cecil Buttercup. And the ships treasury. Also an assassination warrant for any the Captain deemed a pirate.

I restocked my medicines (including a small boost to my Laudanum store).

After much (much) discussion we decided to sail the Viceroy to our home base and beach her - the plan being that we could use her guns for defence whilst we stripped her at our leisure.

Clearly the 12 of us was completely inadequate to the task - it took half a day merely to turn the ship onto the correct heading. Still I sorted out appropriate rest periods, to allow for maximum efficiency and we set sail - the Chimera in tow.

Each day Hannah was sent aloft to scout.

On the second day we saw a storm ahead - similar to the one preceding the discovery of the abandoned Viceroy. But it dissipated before we could actually encounter it.

The following day brought a near encounter with a small mercantile vessel of some kind. Tabitha cunningly raised the plague flag and they avoided us.

There was then some slight unpleasantness when Hannah tore down the flag and threw it into the ocean. It seems she was bored by the voyage and thought that - as pirates - we should attack the merchant craft.  She was confined below decks.

(Note: I do not see how the medicine I am administering to her to control her alcoholic cravings could affect her behaviour in this way. But she IS an avian so this is a possibility. More research is needed. I’ll try altering the amount and content of medicine I her daily coffee. I need to do this anyway, only having 15 doses left.)

(Further note: upon confining her, Methuselah referred to her as “Mister” Hannah. Apparently Nautolans consider it unlucky to have females aboard ship - a custom I find hard to fathom. It has something to do with their propensity to have broods of 20 or so offspring. From the resulting conversation discovered that Hannah has been barren for over 30 years.)

Due to the high work demands of keeping such a huge ship sailing - even if only in a straight line - we are all on minimum sleep hours. Even so, I was awoken from my slumber. It seemed that the strange storm was now astern. Whilst scanning it with his telescope, to see if the merchantman from earlier in the day had been ensnared, Methuselah had again noticed a great hole in the sky where the stars had disappeared. No appropriate explanation immediately vouchsafed itself but I fail to see how this phenomenon could be a hazard so I chose to ignore it.

(Note: I must talk to a real astronomer at the earliest opportunity about it though. My interest is piqued.)

As morning dawned, we noted a small vessel moving towards us and away from the storm. Hannah (released too soon from her confinement in my opinion - I have withheld further medicinal does for the time being) flew to investigate.

It was a small Nautolan fishing vessel fleeing a strange event within the storm.

The Nautolan crew were permitted to board the Viceroy. I enquired after their experiences. Apparently they’d seen a large warship (not as big as the Viceroy) with her crew like ghostly apparitions passing through the walls - mainly upwards - wailing in terror.

I was unable to enquire further as Tabithah chose the moment to shoot my confidante in the head!

There followed a moment of utter chaos as the innocent fishermen desperately tried to flee massacre at the hands of my shipmates. I physically tackled one and offered him my own personal parole only to have Tyrann slash his throat with his vicious talons.

Still it was a clean kill with no damage to the brain, heart or other major organs. I quickly staunched the blood flow and carried the corpse to my cabin.

It was there that the miracle happened. I applied all of my usually mordant techniques to the dead being and was able to successfully re-animate it!

I have brought LIFE back to inanimate flesh!

Further, an unguent I’d hastily thrown together completely healed the Nautolan’s throat wound.

(Note: I did not track exactly what I threw into the lotion - and it may only prove this effective on Nautolan flesh - but it is a remarkable discovery.)

Not wishing my crew-mates to discover my handiwork, I bound and gagged my patient and concealed him beneath a throw.

I returned to the deck to find the melee concluded. Apparently ship’s cannon had been used to sink the fishing craft. This had led to the fishermen trying to seize The Chimera - which had the bulk of our bounty aboard. Naturally my colleagues had stopped them. The only injury sustained was by Tyrann, who had one of Hannah’s arrows wedged into his empty eye socket.

I was required to instigate a serious conversation. Methuselah had apparently decided he wanted no witnesses to our piracy and ordered the slaughter. However, as a Doctor I am not happy with wanton murder - especially when we are short handed and these fisherfolk could have been press-ganged into service. I received assurances that, at least, my shipmates would in future try to avoid damaging any of the major organs.

(I must repeat my success. I MUST!)