NOVEL WEB Chapter 22: Well at Least Sandara Got Out
Sareneth 19, Fireday
The crew gathered on the deck in the fading evening light. We stood silently, with sparse chatter silenced by sullen glares from neighbors. Scourge pulled Sandara from the hot box and marched her to the foredeck. Despite her unsteady legs, Sandara attempted to stare down Plugg. For his part, he studiously avoided eye contact.
The foredeck was teeming with bodies, with Plugg and Scourge joined by every officer I’d seen so far, and one woman I hadn’t. She was striking, with long chestnut hair and a top cut to flaunt her ample chest. Bright eyes competed with a sour, bored expression as she surveyed the crew. Autopilot didn’t have anything to say about her, (Intelligence 3+2=5) but I assumed this might be the elusive ship mage, Peppery Longfarthing.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/peppery-88656925
Sandara was stripped and chained to the mast again. Plugg stood tall and opened his mouth, about to launch into a speech until Harrigan coughed pointedly and he silently pivoted to Sandara’s punishment. The fist sized ball of fire appeared above Plugg’s palm before he slashed it across her back, and the pulse of positive energy washed over the crew immediately.
Peppery leaned in and whispered in Sandara’s ear, before chanting in a language I vaguely recognized as Infernal. She was casting a conjuration spell, though an unusual one. She was injecting a trace amount of fiendish blood into Sandara, granting her the regenerative abilities of a devil. The blood was infused with primordial law and evil, so I doubted that a chaotic soul like Sandara was enjoying it, but it was an extremely efficient healing spell unlikely to have any negative effects long term. (Spellcraft 10+7=17 success)
The effects of the spell weren’t pretty, either. The burn bubbled and twisted as the dark magic sealed her wound. From Sandara’s grimace, I doubted that spell included any painkilling properties. Her back returned to its smooth, creamy, unmarked state seconds before Plugg struck again.
Sandara has taken 8 fire damage
Sandara has healed 2 health
Sandara has regenerated 1 health
Sandara has regenerated 1 health
Sandara has regenerated 1 health
Sandara has regenerated 1 health
Sandara has regenerated 1 health
Sandara has regenerated 1 health
Peppery’s assistance prolonged the process quite a bit, but allowed Sandara to stretch her healing much further. After the 11th burning lash, Sandara was detached from the mast and was able to fully heal herself. Following ship tradition, she was escorted to the ship’s official doctor and released with a clean bill of health before dinner was over.
••••••••••
Most of the men received their slop before Sandara arrived, so she didn’t have much of a line to wait in for her first meal in days. Despite scattered cheers from the crew, she was not allowed to cut in line by the last handful of haggard sailors. Instead, she took her place at the back and hammed it up, waving and bowing to her audience.
She wasn’t part of my dinner group, but I had a few moments of relative freedom with her as I ladled out a slightly bigger dinner for her.
“I suspect you’ve had enough sleep for a few days.” I said lightly, “How about we meet up later? We’ve got training in the morning, by the way.”
“Sure, sure.” She replied with a wan smile, "I've got work to do before then, though. I’ve gone three days without doing my devotions.”
I waved her off, and as far as I could tell her devotions consisted of gambling and getting drunk. For my part, I had presents to distribute and explanations to give. Syl, Rosie, and Conchobar were gathered on the floor in the usual spot.
“Yeah, I considered you guys but I didn’t know if you were actually committed to the whole pirate but.” I told my gathered friends. “Plus it seems like it’s going to be pretty dangerous, you know? It might sound a little cold but I think I’ll be able to think more clearly if the people on the line aren’t all my closest friends on the ship.”
“Oh come on, Emrys!” Rosie groused, “You need people that will watch your back. Who did you choose, if not us?”
“Sandara, mostly because she can heal and we have a certain rapport. Mostly professional.” I supplied, “Jack Scrimshaw seemed like a solid guy and he’s a lifer already. Even if I decide to fuck off later hopefully he will get some good exposure. Then we have Caulky, since she asked. Last up is Owlbear.”
“Owlbear?” Conchobar objected, “isn’t he kinda… dim? Like, did he understand what you were asking?”
“I chose Owlbear because he’s trustworthy and needs some help reminding people that he’s human.” I mixed a dash of rebuke into my words. He wasn’t entirely wrong but I wished to cut off that line of reasoning and insert an equally true but far more palatable one. (Intimidate 9+9=18) “I want to keep an eye on him, okay? Besides, he already proved he could handle himself.”
“He’s right you know,” Rosie noted, “When those reefclaws attacked us, Owlbear kicked ass.”
“Speaking of which,” I said as I pulled the two reinforced tunics out of my bag, “I picked these up from Grok. You guys might not be joining an assault team, but it’s dangerous out here and these things were pretty cheap.”
I tossed the two sets of cheap armor, sized for children, at my diminutive companions.
“Nothing for you?” Conchobar asked, setting aside his tunic while he finished eating.
Rosie, in contrast, had already thrown hers on over her other clothes just to see if it fit. It mostly did, though thanks to her comparatively broad shoulders and bust it only hung down to her knees. It looked like a particularly unflattering brown dress with a square pattern woven into it, but it wasn’t designed for aesthetics.
“It might look better with your vest on over it,” I suggested, “anyway, how does it feel?”
“Not bad.” She answered, pulling her long hair through the neck hole, “pretty light. Might be a little hot to wear all the time, and the cloth is kinda scratchy.”
“Throw it on if we are expecting trouble.” Syl suggested. “No need on most days, right?”
That met a chorus of agreement, and our discussions shifted to less practical concerns. How shit it was to eat fish soup every day, for example.
••••••••••
I approached Owlbear well before lights out that night. He was in the same out of the way corner as always, still chained to a wall. I brought him a bit of the paste from the bottom of the cookpot spread across a piece of hard tack; I have no idea how he was maintaining that physique on a diet of bread and water.
“Hey buddy,” I greeted him from the shadows, “how are you holding up?”
“I’m ok.” He said, “Rosie visited.”
And I probably should have too.
“Good news.” I continued with a nod. “I got permission for you to go with me on more jobs.”
“No.” He shook his head.
“Huh?” I asked, taken aback.
“I don’t want to go on more trips.” He explained, "It was scary, and it hurt.”
Shit. I’m doing it too. I just kinda assumed he’d be ok with the plan, and I already signed him up. I’ve got to salvage this.
“I’m sorry Owlbear. I made a mistake.” I admitted. “I thought you’d be excited like last time.”
He shook his head.
“It’s out of my hands now.” I told him. “If you really don’t want to we can talk to the captain, but can we make a deal instead?”
“What deal?” He asked, wary.
“You and I stick together.” I proposed. “You help me and keep me safe, and I’ll keep you better fed and try to help you be less bored. More importantly, whenever we can, we go to Port Peril and find your mom. Then you can go back to your old life. Deal?”
His eyes lit up and he nodded, especially at the last bit. I wanted the big lug’s authentic reaction, which is why I didn’t let Autopilot handle it.
It’s really nice having a big strong guy watching my back, but I kinda doubt he’s the only big strong guy on the market. If he doesn’t want to be an adventurer, I won’t drag him any further than I need to to get him home. I don’t get the impression his mom is rich enough to reward me, but one of those achievements probably applies to this.
Architect of a thousand dreams
Facilitate the personal goals of 1/2/5/10/20/50/100/200/500/1000 crew members, usually resulting in their retirement from piracy.
I honestly can’t say if I’d go to all that trouble if he wasn’t useful to me in the meantime, or if I didn’t have some kind of perk waiting for me at the other end. I’m not a charity, but the big guy could earn his keep for now. He had high base stats and a terrible class, so I’m pretty sure he was going to get progressively worse as time passed. In a way, I thought of him as the crutch character you meet in the tutorial. By the time I could get him home, I’d hopefully have a full party of people who didn’t have NPC classes and actually wanted to go on dangerous adventures.
Owlbear was never a chatterbox, and didn’t expect much conversation. When I pulled out a twenty pound cannonball and started doing squats, he watched with quiet interest and let me work. I dropped the weights after only one set of ten. My own body weight was enough for now; the improvised medicine ball increased strain without really netting much benefit.
••••••••••
After I cooled down with some stretches, I settled in at the kitchen to wait for Sandara and Syl. I intended to invite Caulky too sometime, but for now I wanted information from Sandara and someone so closely associated with the Captain might have muddled things.
I took a stolen egg and some scraps I’d set aside while prepping dinner, chopped them up fine and made some very rudimentary meat pies. (18+5=23 success) I had two bits of curiosity that I wanted to sate, and one of them needed a distraction. When Sandara arrived I pulled up a chair and handed her a plate, setting aside two more for me and Syl. After saying my hellos, while I had my back turned, I chanted the words for Detect Sexuality. Eating the illicit snack while we waited for Syl gave me cover to probe her interests.
She was interested in me, which was no surprise. She’d been pretty brazenly leering at me since we met. Bisexual too, because of course the busty redhead pirate wench was bisexual. Her turn offs weren’t anything special; she hated people that abused their power, people that restricted her choices, and people who didn’t respect her. Easy enough to avoid. Of course, the really fun part was her kinks.
As Syl entered the room, I choked on my meat pie. Syl rushed over and slapped me on the back, while Sandara laughed. My surprise-induced coughing fit was not caused by Syl’s entrance, but by the information that had just been uploaded directly into my brain.
Sandara Quinn Kinks, by order of intensity
Defiance of authority
Being punished by authority
Following orders
Wait, does that mean she’s going to be turned on just from working under me? I’m technically her boss now; she agreed to it. Shit. That also might mean she’ll be disruptive just to fuck with me. That could be dangerous.
Choking provided me with an excellent excuse to lose my composure, and there was no harm done except to my pride. Once I calmed down, I spread around Keep Watch and quickly changed the subject.
“I know you’ve probably been answering this question all night,” I asked, “but what the fuck happened? I kinda doubt the story that you got drunk and went in swinging on a couple of Plugg’s goons.”
“You’d be partially right.” Sandara agreed, “I was pretty drunk after the third round of heave, I’ll admit, but not enough to start a brawl. I walked out to take in the air and saw Chumlett and Bansion following Magpie. They jumped him, so I figured I’d make it a fair fight.”
“Did Jakes really knife the guys?” Syl asked with a tone of polite curiosity.
“Sure did, but he didn’t draw first.” Sandara said, “Unfortunately, Jakes fucked off, I was drunk, and those two are a few of Plugg’s enforcers. I’d need a lot more than my word to get them to take the fall.”
“I bet Plugg wanted him dead,” I declared to the surprise of my companions, “Jakes stole something from him, right? If you ask me, he sent his boys to kill Jakes in a back alley and you interfered. Why else would he go so overboard punishing you?”
Sandara steepled her fingers. “Interesting theory. What exactly do you intend to do with it?”
“Nothing, in all likelihood.” I admitted. “I’m going to keep a careful eye on him, but I think I heard that he’s Harrigan’s son. What do you think our odds are in a mutiny?”
I did my best to phrase the suggestion of mutiny like an off color joke, but Sandara’s grimace told me it was not a laughing matter.
“The Captain could kill everyone in this room alone.” She told me bluntly. “Hell, Plugg would probably fuck us three up pretty good. All that fancy Chelish magic.”
No wonder it’s worth a mythic ascension. Sounds like I’m not killing Harrigan any time soon.
“Let’s just get off this ship next chance we get.” Syl suggested. “Sounds like you two already picked fights with a spoiled prince. It’s not like he’ll hire assassins to track you down.”
“Maybe not, but we aren’t in a good place for deserting.” Sandara said. “The nearest port is Goatshead, and that’s not a safe place to look for work. Chances are good that Plugg’ll get promoted to captain by his daddy soon enough, then we won’t need to worry about him anymore.”
“So… what?” I asked, “We keep our heads down and hope that Plugg doesn’t manage to kill us?”
“Basically,” Sandara confirmed, “unless you have a plan to take a ship with your bare hands, we need the Captain to carry us back to civilized waters.”
“Goatshead can’t possibly be all that bad.” Syl interjected, “that’s our next port on the way to the shipping lanes.”
“Oh I assure you it can be.” Sandara confirmed with a grave nod, before launching into a hopefully exaggerated tale about the unrepentant hive of scum and villainy we were headed to. Supposedly only one person from any given trade could hold down a business in Goatshead, because if there was any competition one side of the conflict would turn up dead.
We spent the next few hours on dice and chatter, only occasionally touching on the subject of Plugg. Leaving the Wormwood might be an act of self preservation, but I hoped that I could keep putting it off by keeping myself surrounded by allies. At minimum I wanted to pick up magic item crafting.
Before midnight I dismissed the mission to save one Officer Aaron Ivey from Bonewrack; I was hoping to hit level 3 before I ended up there, and that meant doing as many missions as possible. I still had the magic candle, so I would finish the Stolen Magic Item mission the next morning.
At midnight I checked my quest log, and steeled myself when I saw another Limited Time mission.
Sareneth 20
Successfully Complete Riaris Krine’s trial
Reward: Bonus Racial Feat
••••••••••
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