Well at Least I’m a Magic Pirate Now

Sarenith 4, Toilday, Day 1

The sound of chatter and music called me from below, leading me straight to the crew berths. I craned my neck, looking for my targets as I slipped into the dimly lit room. Yeesh. Did I just think of these people as targets? I’m supposed to make them my friends. Well, allies, but I’m not exactly in a position to coerce anyone right now. Conchobar was setting up a hammock in the corner. He helped me, I’ll help him, if he’s not a piece of shit that’s basically an alliance right there. I made a beeline for him, but hardly made it halfway before I was intercepted by a busty woman wearing leather pants tight enough that they might as well have been painted on. 

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Brandishing a lockbox and folded piece of cloth, she cheerfully called to me. “Hey! Cook’s mate, right? I’ve got you a housewarming gift.” She shoved the box into my arms. “Footlocker and a hammock. If you’d prefer to sleep on the floor, be careful you don’t roll around too much. I’ve got a little something extra from the quartermaster if you have something to trade?” 

My face fell. At the moment I had a magic ring that was probably worth much more than whatever she had on offer and the clothes on my back. Is she checking to see if I have anything worth stealing? (Opposed roll: Sleight of Hand 4+7=11) I felt my hand palm the ring in response to my initial paranoia. “Sorry. I left my wallet in my other pants.” Wait. Do wallets exist in this world? Should I let autopilot handle social interactions so I don’t sound like a weirdo? 

Her lips curled into an electric smile as she sized up my slender physique appreciatively. (Opposed check: sense motive: 15+2=17. She is checking to see if you have any hidden valuables on your person.) “Hey, no worries.” She chirped, “How about your name instead? I can call you pretty boy if you’d prefer, but names tend to be easier to shout.” 

“Emrys M’Dair.” At least that’s what it says on my character sheet, and for some reason Curtis Hanson just feels wrong to say. “How about you?” 

With a single nod, she muttered to herself, “Emrys M’dair. Got it.” She turned her attention back to me and bowed theatrically. “Sandara Quinn, priestess of Besmara, at your service. Now that we are friends and I know you haven’t got much to trade, I’ve got a gift for you instead.” She winked and pulled out a pair of glasses with a flourish. (Intelligence 12+2=14 success. These are your light blocking lenses. They were taken from you when you were abducted.) I took the sunglasses thankfully. 

I wanted to be tactful, so I let autopilot address the elephant in the room. “Where did you get these? I’m pretty sure I had a few other things on me last night.” Thanks for giving me back some of my own stolen shit, but it isn’t as nice a gesture if you have the rest stashed in your hammock. (Bluff: 20+8=28 critical success! You have politely communicated subtext and gained one point of sway with Sandara. Bonus: You have learned Sandara’s values: networking and audacity.) The fuck does that mean? Please let Values be an actual keyword I can search for in the rules.

While I internally glared at my HUD for assuming my knowledge of the rules, Sandara responded cheerfully. “Don’t worry. I didn’t nick them. I just like to make a good impression, so I have an arrangement with the quartermaster. If you want the rest, you’ll need to get them from Grok. Speaking of which, I’ve got to win some coin.” With a wink, she turned on her heel and strutted over to a group of men throwing something across the room. “Ey! What’s the record for the night?”

I shifted the footlocker in my arms and resumed my original course towards Conchobar. He seemed decent, and he had healing magic. That alone made him worth sucking up to. He struggled to suspend his hammock between two beams. I dropped my meager possessions next to his. “You need some help?” I inquired. 

“Depends.” He sighed, obviously exasperated, “Are your hands steady?” Conchobar brightened slightly when he recognized his fellow newcomer. “Oh. Hi. You doing alright, chef?” He let go of the ropes, which slowly loosened and slid down the beam as we spoke. 

“I’ve been better.” I admitted as I took the rope. I wasn’t exactly a survivalist, but I could tie a few basic knots. “How are you holding up?” Conchobar spat on the ground in answer. “They had me sewing torn sailcloth all day. My hands are killing me.” He held up the offending extremities, which were red and quaking. Oh my god, how soft do you have to be for sewing all day to fuck you up. I didn’t have much experience with sewing, but it didn’t seem like it would be particularly intense. Of course, what I actually said was, “That’s rough, buddy,” which he appreciated. (+1 sway.) 

I made quick work of Conchobar’s hammock, which to my surprise didn’t even require a roll to perform on autopilot. I didn’t recognize the knot I tied, but it held up under our combined weight. Good enough. (+1 sway). I let autopilot hang my hammock as well. Conchobar and I were both exhausted, so instead of braiding one another’s hair and talking about boys, we collapsed into our hammocks and called it a night. 

Now comfortably suspended, I brought out my menu to parse out more of my character sheet. The top of the page had basic information like my height (5’9”), weight (130 lbs), species (drow), age (125) and class (Rakshasa Blooded Sorcerer). 125 years old, eh? How old is that for an elf? (Intelligence 7+2=9 success! End of adolescence for your species) What’s a Rakshasa Blooded Sorcerer? That one didn’t prompt an intelligence check for whatever reason, so I needed to consult the rules document. After twenty minutes of searching, I found and bookmarked the page explaining my class, sorcerer. Rakshasa blooded took another fifteen minutes, as it was found in another section of the manual entirely. 

Sorcerer was a magic using class made of tissue paper and rubber bands, but hopefully my magic powers would be strong enough to make up for that. Whatever they were. The Rakshasa Bloodline meant that I was biologically descended from a Rakshasa, an evil shape shifting furry. My heritage would eventually provide several abilities which would help me hide and manipulate people. At level one, however, I only had two. I could lie really well, even under truth detecting magic, and when I cast a spell I could fake a different spell. Is that useful? Probably. Sometimes. I hope. 

Since nearly my entire class focused on spells, I scanned through my character sheet until I found which ones I had access to. They had their own page, which at the moment contained only 6 spells without descriptions. I hope that means the designer of this page expects me to get a lot more spells soon. Thankfully, I knew what a few of them did from my one tryst with Dungeons and Dragons. Mage hand was a really weak form of telekinesis, which I could use all I wanted. Detect magic did exactly what it said on the tin, and Ray of Frost shot a beam of magical ice. It, unlike most of my spells, had a tool tip. 

25 ft. +2 vs. Touch. 1d3 cold damage. 

Very helpful. Totally clears everything up. I was glad to have some kind of offensive cantrip. I remembered they were really useful to have in D&D. Shit damage though. Even I could tank a couple hits from that. Hopefully it has good scaling. The last spell nestled among the cantrips was called “Haunted Fey Aspect” and I had no clue what it did. With a groan, I hunted down the spell list section in the manual. 

Thousands of spells were arranged in alphabetical order, Starting with Abadar’s Truthtelling and moving on from there. I doom scrolled, dropping and labeling a bookmark whenever I saw the first letter change. Breaking the spell list up by letter seemed like it would be useful later. Finally, nestled in between Hasten Judgement and Haunting Choir, I spotted my quarry. It was… odd. 

Casting Time 1 standard action

Components S

Range Personal

Target You

Duration 1 round/level (D)

You surround yourself with disturbing illusions, making you look and sound like a bizarre, insane fey creature. You gain DR 1/cold iron against a single opponent until the end of the spell, or until you take damage.

I stared at the description for a few minutes trying to figure out if it was actually good. I’m going to need to test how this works. If I’m still recognizable then it’s probably only useful as a scare tactic with the short duration, but if I can disguise myself by casting it back to back that could be really useful. I didn’t want to reveal my disguise to everyone on the crew, or freak out a bunch of armed sailor types, so I set it aside for later. 

My first level spells, the “real” spells, were not ones I was familiar with but they were some absolute bangers. Summon Monster I excited me because summoning spells are usually pretty nice for a man made of tissue paper to have on hand. Putting something, anything, between me and something trying to hurt me seemed like it would be a winning strategy as often as not. It also sounded complicated enough that I was going to put off doing a deep dive in the rules document. 

My next spell was quite a lot weirder, and I needed to look it up to have any clue what the hell it did. Once I tracked down its full description, Keep Watch was potentially the most useful starter spell I’ve ever seen in anything ever. 

Target: 1 creature touched/ 2 levels 

This spell enables the subjects to stand watch or keep vigil throughout the night without any ill effects. The subjects suffer no fatigue and gain all the usual benefits of a full night’s rest. The subjects gain hit points as though from resting, wizards may prepare their spells as though they had slept for 8 hours, and so on. Effects that rely on actual sleep or dreaming are ineffective, though the subjects are still susceptible to effects that would put them to sleep, such as sleep or deep slumber. Any vigorous activity, including fighting, immediately ends the effect, and the affected creatures must either have the spell cast on them again or sleep for the remaining hours to avoid fatigue and gain the benefits of a full night’s rest.

Even more than Haunted Fey Aspect, this spell demanded testing. From the description, the only thing that would remove the effect was “vigorous activity,” with the example being fighting. I haven’t been in many serious fights, but if that’s the sample I can probably treat this as a spell to give me an extra eight hours of free time every night. I could use it to read, if nothing else. I cast my first spell ever in that hammock, quietly chanting as I dragged one of my delicate fingers across my forehead from left to right. The fatigue from my day tidying the kitchen faded completely, leaving behind a mild tension that kept me alert and focused. 

I looked around at the rest of the crew before moving on to the rest of my character sheet, and it was much darker than I’d expected. The single glowing sphere at the center of the room was fading quickly; this was when I realized that greyscale was what I saw in low light conditions. True darkvision was far more bizarre. Everything was the same uniform shade of matte black, but I could still perceive shape, texture, and distance. I’m really not human anymore, am I? I don’t think I could even draw this in a way that would make sense to human eyes. 

My impending existential crisis was interrupted by that same motherfucker with a lantern kicking down the door to the berths and shouting at everyone on the cusp of sleep. “Stand up, ye swine! There’s been a theft on the ship! Fipps, Narwhal, Jack; look around and see if you can find this.” He showed a few of the men who had been fastest to respond a piece of paper while Plugg loomed in the doorway. 

Panicked, I checked my footlocker to make sure Sandara hadn’t fucked me over royally. Thankfully, my small chest was entirely empty of anything incriminating. A short hairy guy saw my guilty expression and forced me to open it again and pat me down, but my ring wasn’t what he was looking for, so I was allowed to return to my hammock when he moved on. 

Across the hold a man held up a disk, “Ah hah! Should have known it would be you, Magpie.” The three minions dragged him over to Plugg and the lantern bearing asshole, who grabbed him by the forearm and whispered something in his ear. (Perception 8+2=10 fail. No further information.) I went back to my studies, thankful that this wasn’t my problem. Jakes Magpie was on my list of potential allies, but it was a big list and it’s not like they’re going to kill him for a little theft. That would be nuts. 

Of course, I didn’t even notice when my quest log updated with the next day’s tasks. 

(Day 2 exclusive) Save the life of Jakes Magpie: 1 exp, Spellguard Bracers

Steal a magic item without being caught or punished for 24 hours afterwards: 1 exp, Mystery Talent

Mystery talent: a special bonus feat to be revealed upon acquisition.