02/09/02

"Man is still a savage to the extent that he has little respect for anything that cannot hurt him."-- Edgar Watson Howe, Ventures in Common Sense

262-1123.

Rupert and the headhunters. Rupert throws the firewood into the air, then, using his scientific self-defense, he cuts between to medium-sized men. He runs, but he's hit by a bunch of sewing needles, and his arms and legs are getting heavy. He yells out to the group, but he's wandered far away.

Back at the camp, a cry of a beast or something is heard. Samantha: "Are we missing someone?" Franz: "It's probably just an animal." Samantha: "Yes, but what if it eats Rupert? Shouldn't someone go after him?" Phillip: "He's my man, I'll go after him." Samantha: "By yourself? Wouldn't it make more sense to not go alone to look for someone who's gone off alone to begin with? It won't do much good for you to be eaten as well." Phillip: "They wouldn't dare." Uh-huh. Franz: "Quite true, the animals on this island have probably never seen humans before and would most likely run. But I would suggest that you take along a weapon." Phillip takes a firearm, then picks up one of the ship's lanterns. Franz offers one of his modern ones, which Phillip takes. Much nicer.

Rupert doesn't black out, he just becomes very sluggish and finally has to lay down or fall down. He lays down then rolls into the jungle to try to lose himself. He rolls over once, not making it to foliage. The headhunters tie Rupert's hands and feet together, attach him to a big pole, and carry him off. Wow - delivery food. And there'll be another one along shortly.

Speaking of Phillip, he's moving that general way with his lantern shade down. He's looking for a man, in the dark, in a jungle he doesn't know. Knowing Rupert, he probably just wandered off, as there is no sign of Rupert bits being gnawed on by a wild beast. There is a game trail, so Phillip follows that for a while. He's looking around, thinking "I came up from that way...No, I came up from that way. No, wait....Damn." He knows what direction the beach is, he took a compass reading before he left but the winding game trails are not helping. He can't shoot a straight azimuth, but he can check his compass. Which he does, using the lantern. He might as well keep the lantern on now, since his night vision is shot now. The lantern is getting a bit dull, so he turns it up a bit. He sloshes it around, and it apparently wasn't completely full when he picked it up. Oh well. Back to the camp for help.

He winds around the trails for a while, then eventually finds the beach. Way the hell down the beach, there is a campfire. He heads that way, hoping it's his party. There's a fairly bright moon out, so he hoods the failing lamp and heads back along the beach. He'll be careful as he approaches it, just in case.

Heinrich announces that dinner is ready. Should they wait for Captain MacKenzie? They wait for a bit, then decide to eat while the food is still warm. Franz is sure they'll both be back at any moment, in fact, he wouldn't be surprised "if they walked out of the jungle at this moment." Everyone except for Samantha, looks that way. Nope, not yet.

Dinner is quite good. Heinrich would have been happy to just use up some of that heavy tinned food, but Franz prefers fresh game when possible. Portions are set aside for Rupert and Captain MacKenzie, and a nice meal is had. A bit more "rough" than Franz usually would like, but it's just for one night.

Phillip left at about 5:30 p.m., and he returns about four hours later as people are telling stories around the campfire. Franz: "Captain MacKenzie! Good heavens, here, sit down man." Phillips does sit, then explains about not being able to locate Rupert. Franz: "Don't worry too much. He is on land, the weather isn't cold, and he won't starve to death. Assuming he doesn't do anything foolish, we should be able to find him at first light." Phillip: "I suppose that would be best." Franz: "We'll fire a few rounds off to get his attention, let him know which direction we're in. Heinrich here is an excellent tracker, but in the dark..." Phillip: "I understand." Heinrich heats up Phillip's dinner for him. Dr. Jurgen: "I should have brought my hounds." Samantha: "You have hounds?" Dr. Jurgen: "Oh yes. A bit of hunting in my youth, and now I'm used to having a dog around." Franz: "Well then, shall we all settle in?" Heinrich will wind the clock, and everyone beds down. Phillip starts another letter to Marguerite before going to bed.

Rupert has been taken to the natives' camp. He's relieved of his weapons and other possessions, then shoved into a rough-hewn whicker cage. There are several such cages, all empty except for his. The drug they used on him does slowly wear off. Rupert feels around for a way out. In the dark. He checks his pockets and does find the tin of lucifers. He lights one to try to find a weak spot in the cage. There are animals wandering around the cage that panic and run off when the light is lit. And there is some human noise - a very, very, skewed dialect of Galanglic. He gathers that it's a female, after a fashion, with the remains of breasts, and three teeth. She looks about ninety. She comes over and throws dung at Rupert while making the evil eye sign and jammering away at him. From the voices outside, he believes he's in a fair-sized camp. The fire is quite large, and there are probably about twenty or so people around the fire. The woman eventually leaves him alone, and he goes back to trying to figure a way out of here, being a modern scientific man. He removes his shirt after the woman leaves, then tries to use it to open the bars.

About the time he gets his shirt off, a few more females show up. Younger ones. They poke him with sticks through the bars. Rupert: "Madame, I am not an animal!" He bats at the sticks. One of the younger females gives him a pointy-toothed smile. Ech. They know nothing of Christian modesty here. On the other hand, one of the younger girls is wearing a metal cross around her neck. That would explain the fate of the missionaries.

Rupert is able to get one of the small sticks away from the women. On a primitive level, having a stick in his hand makes him feel better. He's up most of the night, working on his clever plan, cleaning up the more disgusting bits of things on the floor, and trying to use his shirt to bend two of the poles together. Not working. He moves to a corner and tries again, thinking about how efficient these primitive peoples are at cage-building. He breaks his small stick, and the two poles snap back to their usual place. He'd probably swear, if he were given to that sort of thing.

263-1123.

Rupert tries to burn the sinew holding the cage together, but it's not terribly effective. He mostly just singes his fingers. He sees a lot of activity around the campfire, then a large group of natives head out with spears and carrying poles. Rupert: <to himself> "They must have spotted the party. I must escape and warn them."

It's still dark, around 3:00 a.m. Samantha wakes up, having had a dream about Geoff and Sophie calling to her as she sails away. They're all haggard and starved looking. As the ship sails off, Samantha's trying to tell people on the ship about Geoff and Sophie, but they're ignoring her and drinking champagne, and telling her she's imagining things.

She sits up inside the white canvas shroud. Er, lean-to. She throws the blanket around her shoulders and gets up, already pretty much dressed. She sees the men asleep in their blankets, the fire glowing coals. Just the sounds of the ocean and some crackling of something moving in the woods nearby. Um? She gets a gun in hand just before she hears a sort of dart-flying-through-the-air sound. Dr. Jurgen sits up, feels something on his vest, then falls back down. Crap. Samantha starts firing into the tree line where she heard the noises, then a score or more of wacky-looking people come pouring out screaming and charging. Samantha dropped to a prone position and keeps firing. No one else in the party seems to be shooting. Phillip is awoken by the sound of gunfire, but his body feels literally leaden. Six shots, five go down and don't get up. That leaves twenty to thirty still sweeping down on the camp.

Samantha.0

runs for it (deciding someone has to rescue the others) drawing her second gun and taking down the two who come after her. By this time, she's gone into escape mode and is be a fair distance away from the camp before she realizes she's not being pursued and her lungs are burning. She has four rounds left in her second pistol, the rest of the ammo is back at the camp. She sits and tries to breathe.

Why can't they have handy signs out here? Like "party this way"? "Deranged native village that way"? Damn. And the adrenaline has drained off. She stumbles around for a while, and goes past the same boulder three times after much walking. Franz and all her friends have probably been killed, she has four rounds of ammunition, and she's stranded here on this damn island all by herself. At least there's no one here to see her cry.

In the native camp, Rupert sees the natives return with "fresh meat", which they stuff into separate cages after being stripped of anything weapon-like or shiny. Not much there, as they were in bed after all. Dr. Jurgen is in his stocking feet. Franz has his shirt without the collar on, but he does have his boots on. Rupert sees the natives take his friend Jones away from the cages as Jones is waking up from the drug. He's thrown onto a flat stump. One of the natives lovingly unwraps a piece of sharpened metal. Rupert can see quite well as Jones cries out in terror only to have it cut short as his head is severed by his body. One of the women shows the head to Rupert, then the women and girls crack open the skull and gobble up grey matter. Phillip and the others are awake enough to see this, unfortunately.

Phillip sees Rupert, looking on aghast as his friend is dressed out with the large hacking knife. Phillip resists the urge to become ill. Franz looks away, but Phillip wants to remember the face of the man doing the chopping, because he will get out of here, and Jones did not deserve to die like that. Phillip intends to wipe out the whole damn tribe of these savages.

Lisette is not in a cage, she's just being playfully shoved around by some of the men. They tear at her gown, fascinated by her very fair skin, and not really being vicious, just well, kind of rough play. Phillip: <to Rupert> "Don't panic. We'll get out of this. <to Franz> Your excellency, when we get out of this, I'm bringing back an airship and I'm bombing this whole damn island." Franz has the "there are two Maxim guns on board the ship" look.

Several natives approach, one who looks older and has many colored yarn bits in his hair. Chief, medicineman, whatever. Chief: "The gods have smiled on me. I will invite guests and feed you to my guests to show how the gods have smiled upon me. But your heart and livers I will eat myself, for the organs of a white man is very potent. And when I have eaten your power I will gather my men and we will row to your country and conquer it. We will kill your men and the others we will keep as slaves to work picking berries for us." Yeah, rowing into Whitehaven. Go for it.