[Private Video] Seeking Sea Captains, Monday, Week 18

[pepperspray]

[Privacy is less a concern than staying out of the way of the thronging hospital crowds, but both play their part to have Pepper making this call from the quiet of her apartment. It's come together nicely, she feels, with a backdrop of her couch and some heavy drapes, hung in anticipation of winter's chill.

Mug of tea, hair neat and tidy, no sudden attacks of tooth-spinach, she appears on Captain Silene's communicator with a look of abstractly businesslike hope.]

Captain? This is Pepper Potts. I'd asked our traders to bring you one of these, so I hope it's made its way to you.

Comments

[outer_npcs]

I do. Any captain on the southern seas could tell you, if only because most of us avoid it if we have any other choice.

[She pauses, and the view from the camera skews wildly toward the ceiling as she sets the communicator down. There's a rustling of paper, and when she returns several moments later and picks the communicator up again, it is to show an old and weathered map.]

There. If the crew that caught it headed straight for a smuggler's cove, it is possible they might have spread it inland. The island's far enough out that the first few afflicted would be showing ill before they made landfall, and any half-legitimate port would refuse them access until the illness had run its course.

[pepperspray]

Hold on a moment... there.

[A small camera noise transmits as Pepper captures a screenshot of that map, lips pursed in mild concentration.]

Thank you. And from a smuggler's cove to the sort of trader that would have dealings with bandits... I can see a path. Yes.

If we can safely isolate the disease organism, do you know of any labs or manufacturing facilities still active? I know the antibiotics, at least, have to come from somewhere current.

[outer_npcs]

Hmm. Few of any scale, and fewer that would deal with you direct. Those resources are incredibly difficult to come by.

[pepperspray]

And not likely to be available when all that's offered in return is vague plans.

[Pepper's tone is businesslike but with an edge of wry understanding.]

Thank you, Captain. I think I have a very long to-do list all of a sudden.

[outer_npcs]

Alas, no. Survival is a very mercenary business.

I wish you luck. It would be a shame to lose such an interesting associate this early on.