The Mercenary tightened his fist slightly at the mention of sorcery controlling monsters. He looked at the man with slight suspicion.

“Does this sorcery affect only beasts, all monsters, or men? Eisen, myself in particular, are usually very leery of sorcery. I just wish to be more informed of such magics if possible. If there are others capable of sorcery, I would like to know.”

"I have not had time to do an in-depth examination of it, however, I believe it cannot be used on men. It can be used on this beast, however, but since I'm not even completely certain if this beast is animal or monster, it would be difficult to even guess whether the magic could be utilized on monsters or beasts or both.

Sorcery is simply a tool for mankind. When it is well understood it can be applied judiciously, always understanding the costs, to allow society to accomplish even greater things than it otherwise could. When it is not well understood, however, it becomes a dangerous sort of crutch which will tend to end up restricting society with overbearing rules and poorly understood superstitious customs.

Since we're only talking about moving this thing about a quarter mile, I don't think it is wise at all to fall back on sorcery, especially sorcery that is poorly understood."

He relaxed slightly. The Mercenary then looked at the beast and the route to their destination.

“Good. The less sorcery in my opinion the better. Eisen has survived without it. I believe that other countries could as well if they were willing. However, I do respect those able to control it and use it wisely. I will go ask if anyone has a wagon available. If there isn’t a horse to go with it, then I will do my best to push it along.”

With that, he went inside the shop and walked up to what he could tell was the shop keeper.

“Seems like you have had a lot of excitement today. My shipmates and I,” He motioned over his shoulder at the big guy who hogtied the beast. “would like to help you get this creature out of your hair as quickly as possible. To do that, we are in need of a wagon and possibly a horse to pull it. We would only be borrowing it to take it up to someone who may know more about it before loading it up on our ship. The wagon and horse would be returned as quickly as possible. Do you have such a wagon or know someone who does?”

"Alas, I do not have a wagon," the chandler says. "I would gladly let you use it if I did just to get rid of the Beast!"

"The general store across the street has a wagon it uses for deliveries. I'm sure you could talk him into letting you use it."

He nods to the chandler.

“Thank you. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before this beast is just a bad memory and a good story for your customers. I’ll speak with the store owner right away.”

With that, he left and went into the general store across the street. The Mercenary looked for who might be the man in charge and approached him.

“Excuse me sir. I was told that you may have a wagon that you use for deliveries. The reason for my inquiry is about the beast that was caught at the chandler’s across the street. No doubt word about it has reached your ears by now. I was hoping that my friends and I could borrow a wagon to get the beast away from here, so it won’t terrorize and damage your store like it did the chandler’s.”

Vasily watches over the tied up creature while the Eisen tries to obtain a wagon.

"Well, as long as you get the creature away from here," the shop owner says, "you can use the wagon. But if you damage it, you'll have to pay for it!"

Between the five of you--Detlef, Valentino, Vasily, Marcelo and Jarrun--you are able to wrangle the beast into the wagon, secure him and guard him, and then drive the wagon to the professor's estate.

The Eisen nodded and shook on it. “The wagon will be returned undamaged. We shall take precautions when loading and unloading the Beast.”

After loading the creature onto the cart, he helped pull it along with the blonde haired mountain of a man. Upon reaching the professor’s estate, he knocked on the door. “Excuse me. My friends and I would like to speak to a Professor Toben. We have a specimen that we believe he would be greatly interested in and seek his wisdom.” He waited patiently for a response. Detlef wondered what sort of man this professor was to have such knowledge of creatures and beasts.

((OOC: Drat. I thought I responded to this...))


A butler answers the door, and after ascertaining who is there and what they want, he permits you into the parlor.

"Wait here, please. I'll tell the professor that you are here."

A few minutes later, the professor enters the room.

"Greetings, Gentleman. I'm Professor Toben. How may I assist you?"

When you explain it to him, he insists on seeing the creature, and accompanies you to the wagon. He's astounded for a moment, then he gets excited!

"Please! Can you bring him around back? I have a few cages installed for the larger and more dangerous animals that I study. I believe they will be strong enough to hold him."

He leads the way around the back of the estate. He unlocks the door of a separate building and leads you inside. It's unclear what the building's original purpose was, but it's been divided into four large rooms, each with a cage that's tucked into one corner. The two corner sides of the cage are brick walls with the sides of the cage bolted to the wall. None of them are currently occupied.

He opens one of the cages and has you put the creature inside. If you set him down close to the bars, you can cut the ropes through the bars.

"Now, what can you tell me about this creature? Where did he come from? Is he truly the Beast of DeChane?"

"Indeed, we do believe this to be the Beast of Dechane. It was being controlled by magic, and made to crash through the rear wall of the Chandlier on the docks. We'd hoped you could keep it contained and take over the dealing with it from here, as we are ill equipped to do so."

Is this what they would do to me if they ever found out? Lock me in a cage like some animal. They would have to subdue me first I suppose. Easier said than done since I could just fly away.

He nodded to Vasily. “Yes. It is as he said. I will say that I am very interested in the origins of this creature. Was this the work of Sorcery or perhaps it is a strange mutation of its species.”

Perhaps this would help shine some light on his own predicament.

"Well, that is easier said than done," the Professor replies.

"I suspect it may be a bit of both. If, as you said, sorcery was controlling it, I doubt if it was the same sorcery that created it... that twisted some living creature into the beast. It may not even have been intentionally. Porte sorcerers walk through a dark realm when the port. This creature may have come from that realm, or something may have come through that twisted the base creature."

"It may take awhile before I can determine which, and longer still if it turns out to be sorcerous."

The Eisen turns to the group. “Shall we wait for his findings or be on our way?”

"Well, it is something of a distraction. However, learning is the greatest power available to man. I say we stay for a day or two to see if we can learn something useful about the possible origin of this creature."

"We are on a mission," Valentino points out. "We are after the Black Pearl, are we not? Or are we abandoning that quest?"

"The sailor who may have it already has a day or two head start on us, and there are probably other agencies pursuing him. This Beast's attack is evidence of that... someone is trying to stop us. That probably includes the pirate attack on our ship."

"The Beast, however, had been around for a lot longer than this current quest. Unfortunately, the man who was controlling it wasn't able to tell us anything."

"You're right, of course. The professor is the best suited for pursuing this and appears to be suitably equipped to handle it. Any information we could find out by waiting we could certainly return and find out later. If the ship is ready to depart, perhaps you are right and we should make haste back to it, to get under way.
I'm not confident that this attack was actually brought on by anyone seeking to prevent our pursuit, but I guess that is largely immaterial; we are able to continue pursuit, and pursue we must.
What say you, Herr Peukert? Can your curiosity be stifled until after we have finished our time sensitive task?"

He gave another look around the room then back to the group. He shrugs and motions to Valentino.

“Whether my curiosity will be satisfied or not is irrelevant. As long as I am employed, I will go and do whatever my employer wishes of me. Perhaps once my current contract is concluded, I will come back and speak to the professor on my own time. For now, we have a mission and my duty is to see that mission fulfilled to the best of my ability.”

He adjusts the zweihander strapped to his back as he walks to the door. He stops in the doorway and looks back. “You need not worry about the cart. Now that it is not carrying a beast, I can easily bring it back to its owner while you two make arrangements for our departure. Is this satisfactory sir?”

You take the wagon back to its owner. He does seem a bit surprised that you brought it back in one piece.

Unless you have some other business in town, it's off to the ship.

The Eisen Mercenary thanks the man for the use of the wagon and heads back to the ship.

Vasily boards the ship and awaits the next leg of their journey.

Valentino expects the crew of the ship to have done any restocking that was necessary. He'd made it clear that they'd expected to sail at a moment's notice.

Nor was he surprised that Marcelo hurried ahead to verify that very thing.

He joined Detlef and Vasily on the way to the ship.

As the three of them boarded the ship, he was pleased to see Marcelo at the top of the gangplank ready to report.

It only takes about 5 minutes for the ship to get under way. Minimal sail until the ship is away from the dock, and then full sail as the ship reaches deeper water and heads east.

The delay was going to put their target that much farther ahead of them, and that much harder to find. About the only advantage they might have at the moment is that he shouldn't yet be aware that he's being pursued.

On the other hand, they now know that someone else is also after him.

Detlef stood atop the deck of the ship looking ahead at the horizon. He had a death grip on the center mast as he was not used to sea faring and didn’t have any sea legs. The food in his stomach was able to stay down just barely. It would not bode well if people saw the mercenary puking his guts out over the side of the ship. “So Captain. What’s the plan?”

"We found out his name is Prad... the one we are pursuing," Marcelo replies to Detlef. "The ship he was sailing on at the time is the Iphigenia headed for Vendel."

"I can't say why, but I've got this notion that his destination was Rurik."

"I was planning on bypassing Wische but stopping at Gottkirchen to make sure he didn't change ship."

"Skip Adel and head straight for Posen. If the ship went to Vendel, Prad may have gone to Posen from there. If no ship was available, he could travel overland to Rurik."

"The best way to get your sealegs, Detlef, is to sit down and keep your head balanced above your hips. That way, you get to feel the rhythm of the ship's motion. The nausea is caused because what your eyes see conflicts with what your sense of balance is feeling."

"Great, it seems we have a plan." Vasily says as he pretends to have his sea legs, despite having been ashore long enough to definitely have lost them.

"I believe I'll take a rest now, since it seems unlikely that I'll be needed soon." Vasily finds a place above decks that doesn't seem to see much traffic, so that he can take a nap in the fresh air, rather than below decks where it reeks in such a way as to precipitate a much stronger reaction than he's now enduring.