The Captain's Log: #107: Item

"Here. Hold this."

 

By some quirk of evolution, the human body was programmed to instinctively take anything proffered to it. So it was by this very instinct that young Brennan Shappell found himself in possession of a mysterious cannonball-sized box, with its unseen donor now long gone into the crowd.

 

Now, there were a number of ways he could go from here. He could toss the box and hope no one else saw, he could give in to the powerful teenage boy instinct to shake it, or he could make it someone else's problem by giving it to his captain. Intrusive thoughts lobbied for the second option, but midshipman training chose the third.

 

"...And that's all there is to it, cap'n. Really, I swear."

 

"I believe you, lad," Eltanin said, as he and his chief gunner paced around the mess table that held the box. "What's your take, Jags? Trapped? Contraband? Trapped contraband?"

 

"'Ent heavy enough," Elowyn Jago replied, poking and nudging it with the handle of his revolver as he held it by the barrel. "Thin flaps. Narrow walls. Nowhere to hide a trap in."

 

"So it's just a box?"

 

"I didnae say that. 'Tever it is, it ‘ent our problem. I say toss it out the porthole and be done with it. Blimey!" The elf jumped back as the box rattled, his pointed ears pinned flat against his head. "Ee's alive!"

 

"I-it didn't move when I had it!" Shappell cried, scrambling back as the box started to peep and shake. 

 

After a few seconds of two grown men and a teenager cowering from a box, Eltanin finally worked up the courage to pry the cover up with the tip of his knife.

 

"Ohh, no. No, no, no."

 

"What is it, cap'n?"

 

The Paperdemon reached his hand into the box, and Shappell braced himself… but the thing curled up in his captain’s palm was barely larger than his own balled-up fist. Its white fluff was a little mussed, on account of it sitting in a box for a few hours, but its compound eyes, proportionately large for its body, were bright and alert.

 

"Eep. Pedigree one, too, probably smuggled. Definitely chipped."

 

"So its owners could be tracking us as we speak?"

 

"Knew we shoulda tossed it when we had the chance..."

 

"No one's tossing any living things anywhere. We'll find the owners, return the eep, and claim ignorance. Worst case scenario, we blame everything on the lad."

 

Shappell should probably have seen that coming.

 

“Right, so just where were you when you ‘acquired’ the box?”

 

*

 

“This was the spot, sir.”

 

Shappell had led his fellow crewmates to a nondescript spot at the fringes of the Endless Dawn’s open-air market, where only the shadiest of the shady conducted their business. Eltanin was about to ask what his cabin boy had even been doing here, but a small, scuttling figure that was more leg than body brushed past him just before he could open his mouth.

 

“Here, hold this.”

 

“Oh no you don’t,” Eltanin growled, grabbing the goblin by the scruff as she tried to pass a fresh box to him. She squeaked as he lifted her up into the air, kicking her twiggy legs as she flattened her ears against her tan-furred head.

 

“What– how did you–”

“Not human.” He stretched out one leathery wing for dramatic flair. “No silly instinct to take things held out to me. No offence, lad.”

 

“You’ve got nothing on me! I want my lawyer!”

 

“Oh, yeah? Explain this.” At Eltanin’s hand signal, Shappell stepped forward, holding the first box with the cooing eep up to the goblin’s eye level. “Eeps are Class B Controlled Goods. South pole’s catching enough heat from the Navy as is. Wonder how the watchguards would feel about the Kaharian authorities swooping in?”

 

“Fine, you got me. Take me away, boys, and all that baloney– CATCH!” She flung the box in her paws as hard as she could, but Jags stepped out of the crowd, fluid as a cat, and caught it before it hit the floor. She blinked, having clearly neglected to think of a plan B, and uttered a sad, “Aw.”

 

“I’m not stupid, pipsqueak. I know there’s a bigger fish. Tell the watchguards everything, and I’m sure they’ll go easy on you.”

 

She seemed to consider it, raising her forepaw to her chin in a classic ‘thinker’ pose, but Eltanin felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and he ducked down milliseconds before a baton swung at where his head had been. He whipped around, coming face to face with a pair of serpentine Thath aiming stone batons at him and the crew.

 

“Kahari Border Guard! Drop the eeps!”

 

“Cheese it!” the goblin shrieked, kicking the Paperdemon’s torso as hard as she could and bounding off on her springboard legs when he dropped her. The other goblins who’d been hiding unseen in the nearby shadows scattered, causing half a dozen boxes to tumble out into the street, their confused contents cheeping helplessly as they lay stunned on the cobblestone.

 

“Wait, we’re not–”

 

“Hands in the air! Now!”

 

This wasn’t looking good for them, especially considering Jags and Shappell were still holding onto their respective boxes of eeps. Still, never let it be said that the Captain of the Blue Moon had been done in by want of trying.

 

”She’s the thief! Her! Will you just liste– ow!”

 

A solid stone jab to the shoulder made for a convincing argument. Eltanin raised his hands to the sides of his head, and crooked his finger up to indicate that his crewmates should do the same. 

 

They’d sort all this out at the watchguard station. Surely these Thath were a reasonable folk, right?