A Capuchin and a Gipsy Diver…

A genuine Kapootchin Gipsy Diver™… (XXS size!)

One of the strangest prizes of the lottery during the Pork Fair of that year was, no doubt, that wonderful Kapootchin Gipsy Diver™ (XXS size) which was won, with a bit of chance, by one of the Players' Characters, otherwise by an inhabitant of Chedham who should be anyway easy to see again. Another possibility, if you did not mention that prize or when none of the Young Pirates played the lottery – let us say that it is sorry though! – the deep-sea diver is still to be seen at the dusty show-window of Chedham's Antique Dealer… It remains only to succeed at a Roll versus Cleverness + Look Out and thus get an eye on the thing while passing by the shop – we advise you to count a Malus of 1 to take into account the quantity of dust which is accumulated there!

Friend Game Master, we let you manage the details, according to how the story developped until now and regarding how to get the deep-sea diver… There « simply » remains then to assemble it properly! There is no instruction and with some (lack of) luck, one screw or one of those Rabba rings - which do not look like so important - will be missing… And lastly, one will have to find a passenger for it, that is to say a Capuchin Monkey or, in the worst case, a small macaque! One then has to train the animal to bring back a shiny object, swim and, at last, drop it into the sea… That's not yet the end of the story!

A (trained!) monkey…

That is so true… So true that there's no wild monkey on Yellow Lizard's Island, which quickly reduces the choice to a lot of trouble: our Young Pirates can check everywhere, they'll find no monkey, neither big nor small, at the Camarra Brothers' Circus and they will find out, they have no choice but to elect… Raffie!

To believe Poerava, that female capuchin monkey is a real nuisance and, upon that, she's very loud! Moreover, the Governor took the habit to let her run about here and there without any restriction, since no lock nor cage can resist her more than a few hours, sometimes only a few minutes… kleptomane and greedy, it is generally in the Orchard that one has the highest chances to find her. That's really not the end of the story!

For details, check the chapter about « Some secrets of the Governor ».

Note, by the way, that (gently…) capturing Raffie would then be a serious advantage to open locks and steal small objects (worth noting, she herself weights less than one kilogram) in the Governor's Mansion, under the condition to have trained her well and to manage her instinctive and frenetic cleptomany… On the other hand, it may quickly become a more tensed relationship between her and Ernesto-Ribeiro, Poerava's Parrot… We do not need to draw a picture!

For which concerns the training - or the education if one prefers – capuchin monkeys are mischievous but very clever. We let you manage that, Friend Game Master, based on the good ideas of our Young Pirates to come for sure and some Rolls to be successful versus « Cleverness + Affinity with Animals » or « Power + Affinity with Animals ». A Specialty in « Training » (for animals of course), maybe even in « Monkeying About » would moreover be welcomed, but it is not clear where such a Specialty could stem from on an island without a monkey… By chance, however, Raffie has no fear of water, quite a remarkable difference when looking at her master; another piece of luck (but don't worry that will stop there), Raffie can manipulate small knives rather even elegantly as one would handle a sabre and that will quite likely prove useful against the hungry and aggressive clown fish and other digesting anemones which guard (litterally) the shiny medallion…

Up to you to think and consider, weigh and counterweigh all those ins and outs to at last decide about those questions and come to the next: how can one then get back the Medallion, once the kleptomane Raffie will have taken it? It should be easier to manage the Medallion as long as she is still kind of entangled in the diver but that requires to have thought about it in time…

No user's instruction, no after-sales service!

No user's manual!

Let's come back to the deep-sea diver, delivered partly in kit and without an instruction. And here is the complete bill of materials: one helmet of spherical shape with a thick window on front and four holes (but only two screws) to attach it on the rest of the equipment.

The body is made of a flexible material with reinforced joints, a gauntlet for the left hand and a thiner flexible glove for the right (What if we would tell you that Raffie is left-handed?… You would maybe not like the idea so much…); at last, the linking part at the neck is made of metal with holes for four screws with a seal inside. To summarise, two screws are missing (but the seal seems to be in a relatively good condition…) and never ever will the Antique Dealer accept to retake the goods for, would he say, after all, the deep-sea diver has never been sold either as a functional device or to be actually used… In short, the most simple (?) will be to find and get two fitting screws to avoid the diver filling up with water through the holes…

The helmet is also equipped with one hole on each side, with screw thread and o-ring embedded close to the openning, all that to receive the metallic end of a flexible tube (in which animal's guts did they manage to do that?!) of one hundred feet in length for a diameter of a third of an inch.

(We imagined for a while that we could give a length of only sixty feet but we then thought that it would be slightly too much for our Young Pirates… or what do you think, Friend Game Master??)

In all their length, the two tubes are reinforced by the means of metallic rings linked to each other by two metallic wires, all that to preserve resistance and flexibility altogether and – maybe! – to dissuade sharks or other sea monsters to give it a little toothy try?

The other side of one of the tubes plugs, with o-ring and everything, on the body of a pump, on top of which are two pistons, operated by the means of a balancing pole which one can move with the hand – One person, a hand on each side or two persons while being careful not to hurt each other…

The pumps allows to bring air in the helmet during the dive, without forgetting to pump a bit harder when the diver goes deeper, due to the higher pressure. The other pipe opens to the air with a little valve to allow gas exit while (more or less) avoiding re-intake. Another advantage of that little valve which opens while pumping is of course that it does not move as well as before if the gas circulation is disturbed in a way or another, which is can become a very important information if one has only one monkey at hand…

As a conclusion: what about the after-sales service?

A little technology jewel, aye that is! But its origin is at least quite perplexing! One can barely see, if checking the metal collar for the helmet on the edge, an inscription saying something like: « Favabrivakeva ava Djavavava »… That's up to losing one's criole!

The problem can be when having to find spare parts, so taking good care of the device is highly advisable, above all taking care that the pipes do not get torn apart on the corals… Or else the performance of pork guts and fish glue will have to be tested to repair the whole stuff, which wouldn't make us confident in the place of Raffie…

Well, to make brief an already long story, let's say it should be possible to get the Medallion back in that way… And if our Young Pirates manage it succesfully, they will have earned a generous reward in Experience Pointsin the end! But we are not there yet! By far!

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