Ravings of a Textual Deviant

The Turtle Island team reveals a unique form of transport; Our Heroes arrive in Willemstad and realize that they do not speak Dutch; Mr. Carl commits a felony or two.

Team TransAmerica had just boarded the Caterina, a ship chartered by Team Lisboa, when last we met. As the ship pulled out into the stunning, turquoise waters of the Caribbean, Mr. Carl spotted a familiar, notched fin following at a discreet distance. Taking no chances with competition of another sort close at hand, Our Heroes kept a twenty-four-hour watch on their possessions lashed firmly in the ship’s hold. Team Lisboa did likewise, and while the air aboard ship was tense, nothing untoward occurred, other than Mrs. Anderson’s unfortunate seasickness.

The Caterina made good time, thanks to a steady wind, but was still overtaken on its second day of travel by a most extraordinary form of transport. Six enormous birds appeared on the horizon, flying in formation. The birds passed close enough to the ship that those aboard could see that each bird had a passenger, but not so close as to present a target. TransAmerica took it in stride, and Lisboa consoled itself with the knowledge that at least they were still ahead of those pigs, Real Madrid, whose ship was visible as well. However, when the Caterina pulled into port the next morning, they discovered that Real Madrid had overtaken them in the night, as the Spanish ship was already berthed. Furthermore, a familiar, Brazilian-flagged vessel and an English-flagged steamship were also tied up at other piers. Undaunted, Mrs. Atwood, Miss Kingston, and Mr. Carl supervised unloading the team’s considerable cargo, while Mr. Laughton, Dr. Hu, and a wobbly-but-undaunted Mrs. Anderson departed post-haste for the American Consul’s office.

Upon arriving at the Consulate, Mr. Laughton and company were relieved of their weapons and shown to Consul Portman, a relaxed, accommodating gentleman who happily produced the destination papers, as well as recommendation for a reliable ship’s captain, one Captain MacDonald. The next destination turned out to be Brasilia, a city purpose-built to be the capital of the Empire of Brazil. (”How do you get to Brasilia,” Mr. Laughton enquired of the Consul. “I don’t,” he replied, taking a long pull on his odd-smelling cigar. “Never been further than Caracas.”) Although Brasilia is deep in the interior and barely accessible by river, Consul Portman nonetheless recommended against traveling overland through the dense Venezuelan and Brazilian jungles. Consul Portman also volunteered that the French had been and gone the day before. [For those playing at home, the order of arrival in Willemstad is: Republique (France), Brasilia Imperial (Brazil), Mercury (Great Britain), Turtle Island (Native Americans), Real Madrid (Spain), Lisboa (Portugal)/TransAmerica.]

Meanwhile, back at the docks, the other half of the team attempted conversation with an Italian-speaking Argentine who was supervising the unloading of cargo from the ship berthed next to the Caterina. They were moderately successful, learning that the Argentine ship would stay for a week, then return to Buenos Aires by way of Montevideo. However, as none of the present company spoke Italian, they were surprised to learn that messages for ships’ captains could be left “in the harbourmaster’s pants.” Linguistic difficulties continued to plague the group. Their colleagues stopped to buy a newspaper en route back to the docks. (”It’s in Dutch,” my players said accusingly, which was true, sort of. “Where did you find someone who speaks Dutch?” Oh, sure, I tell you, you tell someone else, and before you know it, thousands of people will be speaking Dutch. But I digress.) Diligent application of Dr. Hu’s linguistic genius and lucky guessing revealed that the French team had been and gone; that a local man had died in a jewelry theft, and that Federal troops had been sent into Atlanta by Grover Cleveland.

Mr. Carl volunteered to stay behind and sleep in the rented warehouse space with the team’s equipment (a move the others may soon have cause to regret) while the rest of them checked into the spare-but-clean Palm Court Inn. The transaction was conducted in rudimentary Spanish on both sides, and the team, less Mr. Carl, repaired to a restaurant for supper. As the establishment was entirely and exclusively Dutch-speaking, the team took their chances with the menu, using the time-honored tradition of American tourists everywhere— pointing randomly at menu items and hoping for the best. They even managed to get an assortment of leftovers packed up for Mr. Carl, which they intended to deliver to him.

Upon arriving at the warehouse, the rest of the team found the disguised (nearly unrecognizable, in fact) Mr. Carl, in seaman’s garb. His identity was sorted out in fairly short order, and he asked the rest of the team to wait in the warehouse while he “checked on something,” intending to spend some time at a dockside drinking establishment. Along the way, he was accosted by a drunken mestizo sailor, who offered him an enormous cabochon emerald with a curious engraving at a ridiculously low price. Never one to refuse a bargain, Mr. Carl happily paid the man in American dollars and continued on his way. A couple of hours of productive eavesdropping confirmed what his teammates already knew; viz., traveling overland to Brasilia would be a very bad idea. In fact, he discovered that even going to Brasilia was a questionable move, as the Princess Imperial was known to run it as her private fief and, incidentally, was a sorceress of some repute. Still, faint heart never won fair Ellipse.

Just as the team began to comment upon the lateness of the hour, Mr. Carl returned (omitting mention of his recent purchase), and the rest of them rushed back to the Palm Court Inn, arriving just before the proprietress locked the door at 11:00 PM. Less than an hour later, Mrs. Atwood was briefly awakened by a commotion coming from the general direction of the waterfront, but the rest of the team slept the sleep of the blissfully ignorant. Mr. Carl, on the other hand, knew exactly what was going on, having been responsible for it. Specifically, he took a stroll down the pier at which the Caterina was docked, taking advantage of the dark and feigned drunken urination to liberally spread a flammable substance on the pier. He finished the exercise by tossing a lit cigarette squarely into the flammable liquid, with predictable results. The Caterina pulled out from her berth in time to avoid the fire, and re-berthed a few hours later at another pier.

The next morning, the TransAmerica Team regrouped at the waterfront after breakfast. In addition to the immediately obvious results of Mr. Carl’s late-night excursion, the team also noticed that the Caterina was the only Ellipse vessel still in port, the Spanish, English, and Brazilians having departed at various times throughout the previous day. The Turtle Island Team made its own spectacular, low-flying departure that very morning, as Our Heroes debated whether the Caterina’s hasty withdrawal from her berth constituted “leaving,” for purposes of the promises made to Mr. Salazar when they boarded in Colón.

Quote of the game: “It doesn’t take long to wander down the pier, take a whiz, and set it on fire.”

This entry was posted on Monday, February 28th, 2005 at 10:34 am and is filed under American Ellipse, Games & Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.