Meeting the crew had turned out about as well as Mibbet expected, (which given that she had expected it to be a complete and utter social carriage wreck, was probably less than an ideal outcome.) Looking at them from a distance, Mibbet couldn’t help but be somewhat nervous. These were the people she was going to be entrusting with her life in the near future. Maybe running away wasn’t such a bad plan after all.......... wait, she already auctioned off pretty much her entire escape stash, why the hell did she ever do that? Oh well, with no other choice, she stepped forward. The first person she encountered upon approach was a tall, and fairly tired looking gentleman with a gnarled beard, a single eye, a battered, and weathered blue cable knit sweater, and oddly enough no parrot. (Which was weird, as when you delve that deep into bipedal caricature of existing roles, the parrot is practically obligatory.) “I’m Captain Acab, been hunting this vile beast for years. He will pay for taking my eye.” Mibbet pondered the logistics of this, twenty odd foot monster, who probably has pimples bigger than this guy's head. Plus eye, Mibbet thought a little further and decided it would be wisest to doubt the veracity of his story, at the very least until she witnessed The Don demonstrating some kind of gourmand tendencies, surgical knowledge, and the skills to use a teensy weensy set of tweezers. Still, a Captain was a Captain, and she found the idea of fighting a gigantic shark with the assistance of a water-going vessel somewhat less unappealing than the equivalent plan. That done, she gave her best diplomatic smile, which was probably a little worse for wear by now, but she figured pissing off the person in possession of 1. The ship she needed, 2. Access to a plank, and 3. The potential to be behind her exposed back in the near future, that maybe, just maybe, not pissing them off would lead to better long term prospects. (This would of course be rather more true were she not about to engage in the worst idea since somebody decided to hold a “world's biggest umbrella” contest during record high winds, and a lightning storm.) “Pleased to meet you Captain, mind introducing me to the rest of your crew?” “But of course Princess, this gentleman here is named Tarlun, as you can see from the distinctive tattoos, and somewhat oversized harpoon, he is an indigenous resident of Stabum island, I’m sorry, but he does not converse in our tongue.” Mibbet reached out to shake hands, and he seemed like a friendly enough bloke, so she gave a smile, carefully pondering how many clerks offices had been drained dry to make the sheer amount of ink required for that much tattooing. Next she met a polite, and unassuming young lad, by the name Jonas Crane, he carried by his side a plain and tattered looking journal. (There’s always one person who does this, though in this case the lad in question seemed to have wrapped the entire thing up in a watertight case by his side. Perhaps he was expecting to take it on a brief swim with him at some point in the journey. Though Mibbet really hoped not, unscheduled swimming in predator infested waters was a very bad idea if you wish to remain swimming for very long, and he seemed like a decent kid, albeit hopelessly optimistic.) As they all talked, the bartender watched them with a scowl. (This wasn’t through any kind of dislike that could be figured out, so much as it seemed that his expression was just permanently stuck that way. Maybe the wind had changed while he was competing in a gurning contest or something. Hard to say really, and not exactly the kind of thing you can typically ask, society has rules about that sort of thing.) “Well, they seem like a decent bunch,” said Mibbet with a sigh, while the others got to know each other. Errol of course got on just famously with Jonas. But maybe that was just the effect Jonas and Errol had on people. Both were so nauseatingly hopeful at all times, that being excessively mean to them would feel like, not just kicking a puppy, but doing it from a run-up, while wearing cleats. In front of your mother, and possibly a few orphans. It was like they both emitted this field of goodness, that made meanness, snarkiness, or even disapproving looks damn near impossible. (It had taken Mibbet and Rosalind quite a while to overcome this effect. Despite the fact that no human being on the entire planet could provide them with more reasons to practice those expressions than Errol.) Mibbet had to admit, though, the tattoos on display here fascinated her. Froggy culture is, as you can imagine, not particularly well exposed to the art scene, so Mibbet’s entire experience of art thus far had been limited to the castle’s extensive collections of paintings of ladies in varying state of undress, (they all had urns, strategically placed fig leaves, columns, or freakish flying babies of course. Some features of classical art are pretty much required in such a case, it distinguishes it from the common garden naughty doodles. A kind of plaus-art-ble deniability, if you will.) So she found herself curious about how it was done, determined to find out for herself before she met with the Mer. Apparently some kind of special ink was used, to make sure it stuck, and Mibbet was rather curious about the effects of mixing magic stone powder into the ink. Rosalind pondered this idea for a little while, about how much her parents would disapprove of this idea. Then thought that maybe she should try to deter Mibbet from this particular plan. Then teenager brain kicked in suggesting that such a thing would be totally sweet, but definitely needed skulls in there somewhere. As an added bonus, HER PARENTS WOULD DISAPPROVE. Suddenly this was starting to look like a much better idea.