The vessel continues on towards Garr - despite being knocked a few degrees to the west from the previous battles. After a while, Nguang notices a blinking orange light on the helm console.
Nguang: "Hey guys... there's this orange light blinking at me on the helm console."
TRITHAL: "Well, what does it say?"
Nguang: "It says 'Bilge pump'. What the hell does that mean?"
TRITHAL approaches the helm console to investigate. He says, "That means that we're taking on water. (to AXEM): Hey Axem! Go down below deck and see if we're leaking somewhere."
AXEM goes below deck to examine the inside of the hull. After a few minutes, he returns and says "There's a little bit of water coming in from a hole kinda-sorta on the left side of the boat towards the bottom. It's not 'gushing' but is is 'trickling'."
Rihac: "That doesn't sound very good. (to TRITHAL): Mugen, you should go take a look at the outer hull. (To Nguang): Nguang, kill the engine."
As instructed, Nguang stopped the engine, and TRITHAL grabbed a scuba mask and jumped in the water. After a few minutes of swimming around the boat, TRITHAL emerged and shouted to Rihac, "Hey Kuta! There's a huge gash in the hull on the port side. That SeaSerpent must have hit us with his tail or something."
THRAX and Danika help TRITHAL back into the boat. After he was back aboard, everyone went below deck to see where the hull was leaking. They found the outline of a SeaSerpent tail imprinted into the hull with a little hole in the center of it letting sea water trickle in.
Rihac: "If we don't do something soon, that 'little hole' is gonna get huge, and we'll be swimming the rest of the way to Garr."
Nguang: "It doesn't look that bad. I think we'll make it to Garr with no problem."
THRAX: "You're an idiot, Wang!..."
Nguang: "It's NGUANG, FUCKER!!!"
THRAX: "Ok then, Wang Fucker. We're still a good 6 hours away from Garr. Those battles knocked us off-course quite a bit. We'll be 'dead in the water' long before we get there."
TRITHAL: "Do we have anything to patch that hole with?"
Nguang: "There's some solder and a propane torch in the hold. That might work."
Rihac: "Very well then. Mugen, you and Mr. Axem try to plug that hole. Nguang, Thrax and myself will try to figure out where we are and see if there's some place nearby to dock and do repairs."
Anri: "What about the rest of us?"
Rihac: "You, Danika and the Dude can grab a bucket & get as much of this water out of here as you can."
Everyone wasted no time doing their assigned tasks. TRITHAL and AXEM grabbed the acetylene torch and roll of solder and proceeded to work on patching the leak in the hull. Anri, Danika and Adeth found whatever they could find that could hold water, and started dumping water out of the boat. Above deck, Rihac, THRAX and Nguang studied the navigational charts and their GPS data.
After a while, the hole was successfully, although in no way permanently patched, most of the water was bailed out of the inside of the boat, and the vessel was on course to Rygog Island.
THRAX: "In about an hour and a half, we should be approaching the port of Olgamar, on Rygog Island. I'm sure when we get there we'll find someone who can fix the gash in the hull."
AXEM: "Rygog Island? Never heard of it."
TRITHAL: "I may have been there once.... many many years ago. Don't remember anything special about it."
Danika: "I think I remember reading about it. It's a decent-sized island that is it's own prefecture. It's a ways away from the mainland, but it's close to the major trade routes."
Anri: "Isn't it supposed to be some kind of resort island or something?"
THRAX: "Maybe. I remember passing by and seeing it on my trips between Ragnarok Island and Okreman Territory. Never stopped there."
TRITHAL: "We'll have to check it out when we get there."
And so, the vessel carried on towards the port city of Olgamar, in Rygog Island Prefecture. Along the way, the party took turns watching the inside of the vessel for leaks, hoping the patch TRITHAL and AXEM applied will hold.
----------
As predicted, it took almost an hour and a half to reach Olgamar. It was just after 5:00 in the evening when the boat docked at a repair shop in Olgamar Bay. Rihac instructed the party to secure their valuables in the lockers in the hold before they disembarked the vessel.
Later, Rihac, TRITHAL and Nguang were negotiating with the owner of the repair shop for the needed repairs to the vessel. Once a deal was made, the owner informed the group that their vessel should be repaired and ready in a few hours. This left the party with some time to kill, so they decided to split up and explore the port town of Olgamar, and meet back at the dock by 8:00 PM.
TRITHAL and Danika found a weapons shop; THRAX and Anri found an old bookstore; AXEM went by a news stand, attracted by an array of gaming magazines; and Adeth found himself with Rihac and Nguang sitting at a picnic table in a nearby park, engaged in a deep discussion about, well, shit that's too deep for me to follow, that's for damn sure.
Around 7:00 PM, the party managed to congregate at the park where Rihac, Nguang and Adeth were.
TRITHAL (to Adeth): "Hey Dude, check this out."
TRITHAL hands Adeth a sword wrapped in white cloth.
Adeth: "Woah! What is this?"
TRITHAL: "You said you wanted to be a Paladin, right? It's a 「Basic Light Sword」, and here's the instructions for it."
TRITHAL hands Adeth a 1/2 inch thick instruction book.
TRITHAL: "I suggest you study that book and familiarize yourself with that sword. You may need to use it when we get to Okreman."
Adeth EQUIPS BASIC LIGHT SWORD
Adeth BECOMES A PALADIN
Adeth: "Woah! This is awesome! Thanks, Sensai!"
Anri: "What did you get, Danika?"
Danika: "What, this?" (withdraws sword from sheath) "This is a Level One Forest blade. It can conduct my forest elemental energy, kinda like Tsutaru's Wind Sword II. This will come in very handy in battle."
TRITHAL: "Just make sure you don't go too overboard with it. That thing will suck your SP dry if it gets out from under you."
During this time, AXEM's attention had been buried in a newspaper he picked up from the news stand. With a concerned look on his face, he looks up and says, "Hey yeezies, look at this..."
AXEM shows the party an article that reads:
TRITHAL: "Shit!"
Anri: "What does this mean?"
Danika: "That means we can't be dragging our feet on this."
THRAX: "As soon as we get to Garr, we need to act fast before Midus shows up and fucks everything up."
By this time, it's about 7:15 PM, and the sun is beginning to set in the West. The party decides they have time to find a restaurant and have a decent meal before they get back to the boat. The party manages to find a Chinese buffet place, that turns out to be really good. The party makes a mental note that, if they ever find themselves in Olgamar again, to visit that restaurant.
As promised, the vessel was repaired and seaworthy again by 8:00 PM. The party gets back on board and prepares to leave. By the time they get everything ready to go, they realize they're all too tired to continue to Garr, so they ferry the boat to a nearby marina, pay the small fee to dock the boat there overnight (which is considerably less than renting hotel rooms in town), and the party turns in for the night in the cabins below deck.
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