Braggio Ironhook's journal, day twelve of our journey.
The crew are quiet. It's been like this since we made landfall. There haven't been any raucous nights, no songs of the Slaughter of the Crew of the Rusty Chain, no drinking contests or pinning the tail on the squirrel. Every beast is uneasy, keeping their mouths shut and their ears perked.
It's unnatural to see a ship in a sea of trees. The Greenshroud now sails across the land, as I said it would. It's hard to navigate, even by daylight. The ship moves slowly, it's noisy, and every jolt and bump along the way makes the timbers creak. We've mostly been sticking to dirt tracks through the forest, cutting our way through overhanging branches.
By night, though, the tension increases threefold. The forest is dimly lit by the moon. But these last two nights, it has been cloudy. The forest is pitch black. The rustle of the leaves in the wind is our only clue as to our path. We inch forward at a walking pace. My heart jumps to my throat every time an unseen branch smacks against the hull, and cracks like a snapped bone.
Mowlag has come to my cabin the past two nights to demand that we anchor the ship and stop during the night. If we hit a bog, or a large ditch, we'll be finished. If we veer off the winding forest paths into the trees, the Greenshroud will be wrecked. I answer that we cannot stop. If we stop, we'll be vulnerable to attack. We will move stealthily, unseen in the dark.
It is a risk, I admit. Mowlag is very knowledgeable about the different ways we could crash and die. Shekra insists he's a no-good coward, but he's the best beast for his job. Say what you will, he knows his way around this ship.
Redtail found something of interest on his watch. It seems we've had a stowaway on board since the ambush. A little hedgehog maid! She's rather tricky to pick up without spiking your paws, and she speaks in a funny accent. She was wearing a green dress, but it's mud-coloured now. We'll have to find her a new outfit and burn the mud-dress, but she's too small for our spare rags. Strangely, there aren't any clothes for kits on board a corsair ship! We shall have to invade a seamstress's house.
Her name is Posybud, but refuses to answer where she is from. Redtail said she let slip that she'd been captured by some beast called Snaggs, a local petty gang leader. She must have escaped as we were passing by. She refuses to talk to me though. I think my hook scares her.
Posy's been put in Mowlag's quarters for now, she dislikes him the least. She's too scared of me to stay in my cabin, and I'm too scared Shekra will sacrifice, and/or eat her if she's not guarded. I wouldn't put it past that vixen.