Startup 84: All Hands on Deck

Lamashan 6

The rain pounded on the deck, blocking everyone’s vision and forcing us all to shout. I did everything I could, working alongside the crew. Autopilot was casting Dancing Lights and Fairy Fire constantly on everyone and everything in sight, just so everyone could see a few feet in front of them and track one another’s locations. We all had to hook ourselves to the railings just to be sure we didn’t get tossed into the ocean when the ship bucked like a horse beneath us.

The problem, of course, was that the Shackles had a hurricane season. It started in Lamashan, and lasted a solid three months every year. It’s not as if we could really wait it out; my debt would be due before the season ended.

I mean, I guess I could rustle up three nightmares and fly over land as much as possible, but then I wouldn’t have anywhere near as many supplies. Too risky, especially since the Nightmares are still affected by the wind.

I thought we’d be fine. I’ve gotten pretty good at magically commanding the winds, if I do say so myself. Any reasonable storm is completely manageable; my people need to deal with near constant rain throughout the whole process, but the winds would shift to a manageable level as long as Autopilot gave the order. I’d even moved up a magical weight class when I hit level 7; I could control anything up to “severe storms.” After all, hurricane season was more “the season where hurricanes can happen” than “nonstop hurricane conga line.”

There’s an unfortunate side effect to controlling weather, however. My magic was enough to dial back a normal storm, but weather manipulation was an all or nothing sort of thing. I could only influence weather up to the same intensity that I could create, and within my bubble of control it’s a bit hard to even sense when the weather was picking up outside. When the first proper hurricane struck, we went from “exactly windy enough to keep us moving at a manageable but swift pace” to “the Enterprise was legitimately in danger” in less than ten minutes.

Thankfully, Worthy Crew, my talent that gave all of my subordinates free ranks in Profession Sailor equal to their level, meant that every last one of my people knew exactly what to do. We were in danger in the same way we’d be in danger from a grindylow attack. A bad enough fuckup could be fatal, but that was unlikely to happen at our current skill level. There was very little chance of the Enterprise sinking if we took things seriously. Lots of little things that we needed to take care of, but we could handle it.

The problem wasn’t capability. My guys were solid. The problem was logistics. Stamina and stress are things you need to manage once you realize you aren’t going to be able to power through to the end. We were still slightly undermanned after the mutiny and desertions, and everyone was tired by the end of the first all-nighter.

Salyar and the goblin matrons couldn’t keep a fire going with the ship shifting like a roller coaster, so we were all living off of hard tack and rice porridge when we did manage to get a break.

I felt like a complete asshole when I slipped away to the common room to Call for backup while everyone else was still managing the situation on deck, even knowing that it was necessary. The last of my lights would wink out a few minutes before I had any chance of returning. If there were any hard feelings, they faded when a freshly resummoned Dierdre arrived on deck.

I don’t think anyone ever expected to cheer that loudly at the sight of her in her Orphne form, but she came with a squad of skeletons that could have managed the deck on their own in fair weather. In the storm, that was still basically an entire shift’s worth of people that would never get tired. Even the imperious fey herself was quite a bit less irritating to the crew when she was soaked to the bone and clinging to a railing instead of laying back and drinking a mai tai while they worked. She refused to do manual labor personally, but things were so frantic that she needed to actively manage the skeleton crew.

We lost days to the storm, days during which the goblin pups couldn’t work on crafting as they tumbled around in the hold, I didn’t dare summon anything that wasn’t immediately useful like Dierdre or an air elemental to save anyone who went overboard, and where we got blown far off course. We were fine, but it cost us almost as much time as the trial.

Of course, if it weren’t for the trial we’d have left Quent a week earlier when the weather was still good. Goddamn it, Nendra. Slavery is one thing, but lawfare by proxy is low even for you.

••••••••••

Lamashan 9a

It took us a solid day to get reoriented and back on track after the storm, especially since for most of that day the crew consisted of me, Syl, Conchobar, Dierdre, and a bunch of skeletons. The crew was wiped out, and most of my officers were busy as well. Sandara stole my bed to get back her spell slots, Cog needed to get back in bed after straining himself. Not even all the officers that were still standing could help; Rowe was rushing around performing a hundred repairs and patch jobs as the ship engineer, and as the quartermaster Sosima was doing something similar with the crew.

Filli tried to help since she had functionally infinite stamina, but she was the only person on the crew unaffected by Worthy Crew and we didn’t really have an on-the-job training regimen that wasn’t just me magically beaming sailing skills directly into everyone’s heads. She was most useful when we needed something heavy moved or a rope pulled on very hard. That’s not rare on a ship, but it’s not a constant need.

Once Sandara was up and she could cast lesser restoration, she did so on as many people as she could. Being Sandara, she let everyone play dice; the high rollers got priority on the revitalizing magic. It was as good as six hours of hard sleep, though I knew from experience that there were diminishing returns. Of course, once she had cast the spell a half dozen times she rounded up the lucky winners and told them they were going to be taking the first shift while everyone else actually rested for another six hours and had their first hot meal of the week.

Even better, Sandara decided to enable Dierdre by bringing out a hairbrush and umbrella and offering her a stein full of grog while she continued to direct the skeletons. Personally, I found her constant bitching about the continued rain to be mildly hilarious, but basically only Sandara and I found it more endearing than annoying.

I left the deck when the storm calmed enough to be manageable without weather control, but I was still too amped up to even try to sleep. Instead, I cast Keep Watch and joined Filli and Naomi in the common room. There, we all leafed through a half dozen pamphlets written on cheap paper about different forms of magic Filli could try. They were all “Garundi Style,” meaning that she’d learn a single spell and then build upon it over time, as opposed to Thassilonian Style, the kind of magic Sandara and Conchobar used where they knew different spells that each did very specific things.

Naturally, I use both and just hope everyone agrees that’s because I’m so cool. Most of the good stuff is Garundi style, but I’ve got a lot of Thassilonian style in my back pocket. Stuff like Keep Watch and Infuse Self.

Each booklet started with an essay, in what appeared to be Linu’s handwriting, about the primary spell and its applications for long term disguise. After that would come a section about the correct mindset and techniques that went into it, and finally a few introductory exercises. Nothing that would actually produce magic, more tests to see if Filli could get into the right headspace.

She absolutely failed to wrap her head around the more self focused version of Dindreanne’s style, for example. The first thing she’d need to do for that would be to essentially take some acting classes. They needed to adopt different personas, think differently, assume an identity without magic before they even considered using magic to change their body to match. Filli was way too caught up in her own mind to really be anyone else, but it took Naomi and I forever to pry her off of that booklet to try another one.

“No. Can do.” Filli signed, then gave us another awkwardly wooden attempt at acting.

Filli was fine at withholding information, but she couldn’t fake anything. One of the first exercises in the booklet was to walk casually across a room, and she couldn’t do it. It wasn’t that she was unaware of how to keep track of her body; she just couldn’t project casual. Even worse, every attempt drew more eyes. By the tenth circuit of the room, everyone actually was staring at her as much as she thought they were.

I'm pretty sure this was just an exercise for calibration purposes. We really need to change to something she might be able to swing.

Naomi and I tried to speed read and filter out anything that seemed like it would be another failure. We didn’t need to discuss it; she obviously needed a win after that. We narrowed it down to a few suggestions.

“Illusions are good for spies, right?” Naomi said, “You couldn’t be smaller, but you could do a lot of stuff other than disguises.”

“Fleshcrafting might work better for you; that’s what that guy used on you during the trials,” I said, “Or maybe this one? I’ve made one eidolon already, two if you count my shadow puppet.”

We had five styles of magic for her to try out, and some of them were more of a stretch than others.

I wanted to know what we could request from the House before we made it into port. Filli ended up a bit too literal minded for illusions, but crafting an eidolon body from scratch seemed to appeal to her. Naomi had pulled out a pad of paper from her newly assembled binding kit by the time I left, and the two of them were workshopping what traits Filli would want in such a body by making a sketch.

••••••••••

“Explain again.” Rowe said, “Louder.”

Conchobar screwed up his face. It was hard enough to tell her the first time. It was made all the worse by the fact they were speaking in goblin. Every exchange was three times as fast and sounded like it was happening in song. He felt like he was singing some kind of farcical duet, and he didn’t have time to process anything without long, awkward pauses.

“I don’t find you attractive,” he choked out. “Or any goblin really.”

Rowe nodded.

“But you do like me?” She said. “As friend, but not as a mate?”

“Yes.” He said, lighting up, “You’re easily the best goblin I know. I’d hate to lose our friendship.”

“That’s ok. I don’t want pups yet.” Rowe said, “Sex can be with friends, right?”

Conchobar’s heart sank. She was making this hard.

“No, I don’t really want to have sex with you.” He said, as gently as he could. “Because I don’t find you physically attractive. I don’t think I’d have an easy time getting hard with you.”

“Oh right, because of your fetish?” She said, “The one for pregnant women? Right. Then the fact I don’t want pups might be a problem…”

Conchobar groaned.

“It’s not that, I promise. I don’t really want kids either right now.” He said, “Look, ok, think about how gnome women look. You’ve seen gnome women, right?”

“Yeah, they are hideous.” Rowe said, “What about them?”

“Well, um,” Conchobar said, “I don’t think they are hideous. Most gnomes don’t. Even the gnomes in Quent who marry goblins mostly marry the kind who, uh…”

Rowe’s ruby red eyes widened in dawning realization.

“Oh. Ok.” She said, slowly stretching the words out, “So you think I’m ugly!”

Conchobar had absolutely no idea what to say in response to that. Every second of personal experience he had with women, mostly halflings, gnomes, and dwarves, told him that there was absolutely no safe answer to that declaration. He froze, suddenly more terrified of Rowe than he’d been of the fake Kelizar a few weeks ago.

“Not… just you?” He said, “All pure blooded goblins as far as I can tell.”

“Oh.” Rowe said.

She stared at him in silence, her mouth slightly agape, as if she’d never even countenanced the possibility that someone would not find her attractive.

“Like I said, I do like you. You’re my best friend, it’s just that… well…” Conchobar trailed off, unable to finish. He’d started the sentence without any real plan to explain what it just was.

Rowe got a distant look in her eyes and her eyes drifted away from Conchobar.

“I need to think about this.” Rowe said quietly. “I’ll see you later, Pearlteeth.”

Conchobar let her go, hoping he hadn’t just lost one of the best friends he’d ever had, but he didn’t have long to stew on his love life. Emrys knocked on his door only a few minutes after Rowe left, and it was obviously to ask about the only reason Conchobar even qualified as an officer. The little bard’s hand checked that the horn was still in his vest without any explicit command from his mind, as it did every few minutes since he’d been handed the damn thing.

“You ok buddy?” Emrys asked. “You look pale.”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Conchobar said, “I just told Rowe that I don’t actually find her attractive. I kinda feel like an asshole.”

“Ouch. Let me know if I can do anything. You wanna talk about it or you want a distraction?” Emrys asked. “I’ve got plans for the latter but I’ve got time for the former.”

“Distraction, please.” Conchobar said, smiling weakly.

“You got it.” Emrys said, “Any luck with the Horn? I don’t suppose it’ll magically give me a couple thousand gold or make Rowe hotter?”

“Yes. Er. No.” Conchobar said, “I mean, I think I know what it does, but I don’t know exactly how it does it or what good it’ll do. It’s… really weird. There’s a few more bars of music in there, and I think they fit together with the other horns’ songs, but I have no idea what it does as magic.”

“But the song is weird?” Emrys asked. “How so?”

“No. Not the song. It doesn’t actually seem to do much on its own.” Conchobar said, “Look, I’ll just show you.”

Conchobar played the first few notes of a song he knew. It wasn’t a magical song or anything, just a little ditty he warmed up with sometimes. As he did, he touched a spot on the bottom of the horn that grew warm, and he felt the energy that powers bardsong flow out of him. He pulled his lips away, and the song kept playing.

Emrys nodded, only mildly impressed as the instrument played itself. Then it started again, about six seconds after the first, while the first version kept going on its own. Six seconds later, a third set of notes manifested, and the horn was playing a round with itself, each iteration intermingling with the last. Conchobar cut off the energy flow after the fourth part manifested.

“It drains me, but I could do a dozen of those all at once if I wanted.” Conchobar said as the horn continued in his hand, “I have absolutely no idea what that would do, but I’m thinking I might want to try playing bardsong with it maybe?”

“Sounds good.” Emrys said, “Did you ever pick up more spells other than healing and that laughter spell?”

“Where would I have learned more bardsong, Emrys?” Conchobar asked, “We aren’t all sorcerers getting new magic bestowed upon us from on high.”

“Fair point.” Emrys said, holding up a book. “In that case, two birds with one stone. Sosima got me this book, and I’m told it works off of bardic magic but not the kind she uses. Any chance we can go through the basics of this and see if there’s anything either of us can use? I’ve never done bardic magic, you see.”

“A book about warchanting?” Conchobar said, reading the front page, “Yeah, sure. Why not.”

Immersing himself in goblin culture didn’t seem like the best way to avoid thinking about Rowe, but Conchobar was not a man blessed by an overabundance of options.

••••••••••

Lamashan 11

The seas around Besmara’s Throne were notoriously treacherous for many reasons, but the coral reefs seemed most pertinent to a ship carrying a priestess of the goddess in question. The large structures had little if any religious inclinations, and would rip the bottom off of the enterprise without the slightest shame or intent.

Sosima peeked her head above the surf, signaling Emrys. The flickering purple flames that wrapped around her flared back to life, allowing the crew to see her even through the rain and dark. She lifted one arm and pointed, and Emrys called forth a few dancing lights which floated in the indicated direction until she signaled for him to stop. By this method, the crew would use the oars to row through a gap in the reefs, inching ever so slowly towards their destination: a small port known as Queen Bes which existed almost exclusively to service pilgrims these days.

She had to admit the reefs were beautiful; a riot of colors and shapes absolutely teeming with the local wildlife. They could have done with a bit more cultivation to become a properly gorgeous garden, but given that they were a defensive redoubt provided by the ocean itself, Sosima supposed that they could be allowed some liberty.

Had this merely been her daily swim, needed to keep her skin healthy as a Gillman, Sosima would have very much liked to have someone along to sightsee with other than the young brine dragon Emrys had Called to serve as a bodyguard. For a time, Naomi had accompanied her by binding the dragon constellation ambassador, Aza’zati.

Naomi was genuinely gifted at the art of binding, able to call upon multiple minor spirits, though thus far she could contain only one at a time. Further, one must be properly equipped to make use of the spirits’ gifts. Aza’zati had granted Naomi the ability to swim quite proficiently and hold her breath for several minutes at a time, but she was as of yet in poor physical shape underneath the magic. Hours of active swimming exhausted her thoroughly.

Emrys’s dream to train a full squad of Aza’zati binders to replace the cultists was far from fruition, unfortunately. That meant that Sosima was scouting mostly alone, and Sosima rather hated being alone with Vishgurv. She could, when focused, block out his thoughts with her own. Alas, her own thoughts were only slightly more palatable.

The wonders of the subaquatic world faded even before Naomi crawled back onto the ship. Sosima was hardly missish, but she did feel a certain level of anxiety whenever she saw anything moving below. These waters were guarded. Besmara was the patron goddess of sea monsters, after all. While the leviathans were forbidden from consuming guests, Sosima had a few misgivings about whether or not she personally qualified as a friendly guest of the Pirate Queen.

They worked through the day, weighing anchor whenever Sosima needed a rest. They had no intention of trusting their navigation to a dragon that was no more than fifteen years old, even if he was mighty enough to trust with their safety. Sandara cast one Lesser Restoration after another, and soon they reached the mouth of the inlet where Queen Bes and the temple of Besmara could be found.

Sosima plunged back into the water, thankful that her Ankheg plate armor was both largely waterproof and substantially lighter than steel. She ranged out ahead of the ship, and was glad to see that the Enterprise would have clear sailing for as far as her eyes could see through the blue tinged water. A larger ship sitting deeper in the water might have difficulty with a few of the taller rocks, but it seemed they were past the reefs. She turned to return to the ship to report the clear path, then heard a clicking noise. Then a reply, the same form of clicking from another direction. Then a dozen more replies.

Sosima looked around, harpoon ready. She preferred the sword and shield when on land, but if there was a trick to using shields effectively underwater she’d never learned it. Sosima’s eyes darted around, and caught movement altogether closer to her than she’d have liked. When her eyes snapped towards the creature, a being made up of sinuous tentacles that mimicked the color of the stone, she was reminded of a dozen old tales from men who’d survived assaults on this place. Beasts who rose from the depths and sunk entire ships in the name of the pirate goddess.

She wanted out of the water. She wanted out now. She darted towards the dragon, Mentezal or some such, knowing he was the closest safe harbor available. Oh, how she missed darkvision; she could only see vague shapes in this gloom. She knew intellectually that gillmen could see more with less light than any human, but she still felt blind.

The chorus of clicks rose around her, and then the dragon responded. He started clicking right back, relaxing at her back when he did. She whipped her head around.

Besmara commands all the creatures of the depths. Would he be any different? If the pirate queen wanted me dead, would Emrys’s commands hold or would this beast just make things worse?

Rapid movement caught Sosima’s eye. She twisted around and pointed her harpoon at a shape that darted towards her. In the darkness she saw only a mass of tentacles with a single bright pink eye. She couldn’t use most of her bardic dance without a solid surface to kick off of, but she could probably get back to the ship in time to get backup if they were under attack.

“Oi! Put that thing away, mate.” The shape said, rising into the light, “You here with a cleric on The Voyage? I hear there’s a cleric coming our way.”

When it came into the light, the shape proved to be a man, at least above the waist. Beneath that point he seemed to be an octopus, but his torso and face were that of a well muscled man with short black hair . The mottled grey that allowed him to blend in among the stones bled away, revealing a swarthy complexion, and he was entirely naked save a single glowing pink pearl in a sparkling cage around his neck.

“I suppose I am.” Sosima said, nonplussed. “I don’t suppose you’re the fabled guardians of Besmara’s Throne?”

“Oh no, we’re the normal ones, Miss.” the octopus man said, smiling to reveal pointed teeth, “We keep the fabled ones a bit further back in the cove. No sense waking them up for little things.”

Sosima watched as a dozen more of the creatures drifted closer to the ship, many of which seemed more interested in the increasingly self conscious dragon than her. Male and female, none of them wore more than a bit of jewelry. They pointed and laughed and chatted amongst themselves in their clicking language.

When they got closer, she noticed something else. They were quite large. Nearly as large as Filli, though with a bit less total mass. The one who’d approached her was as thick around as a tree trunk but seemed stretched out to give the illusion of normalcy. Had he been human with those proportions, he’d have likely been nearly eight feet tall. Despite that, he moved with sinuous grace.

Sosima didn’t want to meet the mythical guardians. The normal ones seemed quite adequate. She doubted they had vigor on par with Filli’s, but their mass and speed alone would make them deadly. If they were favored by Sandara’s goddess, it seemed likely they had a few additional tricks hidden away somewhere.

“As funny as it is to hear you landlubbers fail to pronounce my real name, you can call me Riptide.” He said, “Now be a dear and introduce me to your captain and your cleric, eh?”