For a bit of variety I thought I'd ask the players to write up some of their character's thoughts about the last session we played. Here's some musings from Captain Floris and "Bean"...
"We were having tea with Shepherd Rust when the children ran in, saying that the Mayor was coming. We talked quickly of ploys and obfuscations, Judah, Norris and I, but it was the Shepherd’s words that decided my action later. I went outside with the dogs. Judah stayed out of sight, for reasons of a plan he had devised, a fine one.
The mayor had come in on a grav APC, with outriders on horseback. On getting out, he accosted one of the orphans, a girl, fourteen perhaps. He favoured her, saying she should come to him in a few years’ time, that she could work in whatever would be built when he snatched the orphanage away. His intentions seemed lewd. She wasn’t so many years younger than Bean.
We spoke. He’d heard of us, and seen our fine ship. I told him that we would be in the race. I told him that we aimed to beat him. He didn’t seem to take us seriously, which is as well for what ploys we might use, but I am sure he used sly words to insult us without having the courage to say it plainly. I cannot let this slight go. We will beat or sink him. I will hurt him.
I did not turn my gaze from him until the grav APC had vanished from sight. The dogs didn’t either."
"Leo and I went back to the yard today. He's a monkey. In my head, I call him that. But peanuts won't do for him. He's a grease monkey, he wants wrenches. And bolts. Cogs and pistons. I can see him clambering around in a huge machine. nnnggggnnn-fuuuh, nnnngggn-fuuuh, nnnggggnnn-fuuuh, all those valves releasing, hissing, pounding, a difference engine. He could make it go. If it could be driven, he could make it go, but not like oxen. He could clamber all over, reading the engine with his feet and his fingers and his nose and his eyes. I want an armour of brass with one of those goldfish bowl helmets, pistons walking me, plates keeping me inside. I run out all the time. My mind runs out and I get lost. The lady at the scrapyard could tell, kept telling me to be careful. But she thought I was odd. I feel odd. I'm only all there some of the time. I want to know where I go. Then the glow washes down from the crown of my head, always clockwise, like a spiral. It connects to the eye, the one I opened. Then down my throat, my heart, my navel, my womb. Womb. I like the word womb. Then it washes me away, flushes out my spine, though my tailbone. The monkey doesn't know. But the Doctor does. We spoke. He doesn't want to get noticed. Am I his project? Me getting noticed might be him noticed. He gives me the sweets. None of them cheat me. He would if he needed to. For himself that is. He only ever stops me, he never makes me do something. That's the difference. I'm afraid. If something connects, I might connnect. I might be a beacon, or a sluice, or a tesseract. Sometimes, I feel the pulse of the universe and it whispers. Sweetly or threateningly or incomprehensibly, but it always whispers. I'm learning to hear, to listen, to understand. There is too much of it."
The crew are doing really well at the moment. They've managed to salvage most of the parts they need (except wood) to fix the boat in the first two "Beats" and Leo's stellar rolls (he is an excellent mechanic) have meant that the boat's engines are all fixed up and purring like kittens. He's even had time to construct a sort of net launching gun to fix to the hull (a D6 Asset).
Meanwhile Judah has gone undercover in the town and is busy trying to get intelligence on the mayor and the other competitors...
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