Even as the New Day Dawns

The cabin is dark but for the silver spark stirring on the Mirrormap. You check the rippling surface and note that the Demeter has drifted off course. An easy enough correction to make, especially since you steamed through the night at quarter speed on average.

Low vibrations and a soft hum tell you that the engine has not yet died, but you can feel its tired lurch and weak pressure without checking the map. Your stomach grumbles and you realize that breakfast will not be forthcoming.

The drawer to your left still contains the old watch rotations. You advised the {if The One-Eyed Captain’s Health = 0} Captain {else} One-Eyed Captain {endif} on the drafting and you enforced them with ruthless efficiency. The Demeter used to run like a well-oiled machine. Your fingers run over a yellowed page, over neat checkmarks next to the trusted and familiar names. Good times can never last.

Your reverie is broken as your body is shaken by the sputtering of the engine, its fires again at the brink of dying. They may not even be able to read.

You slip on your pants and rush outside. A sliver of orange creeps across the blue-grey morning sky and the air smells like rain. Two members of the Crew loiter around deck, one complaining loudly about his hunger. You ignore them both.

The engine room is not empty. Another Mariner struggles to connect the nozzle to a fresh steel drum. Black tar seeps from his hands, the fingers swollen sausage-red, and his curses are foul enough to make a whore blush. You show him where you keep the leather gloves and aprons and show him how to work the buttons and levers. He nods along and then asks you to explain again, which you take as a good sign.

A few others join you for the second round, and you take them up above deck for the third. They listen in respectful silence, and you pause only to order the two loiterers from before into the caboose. All the rest arrive in time, and you move on to explaining the basics of navigation – namely the small corrections needed to keep the ship on course.

Breakfast is served an hour later and proves a poor effort. Weak coffee and the Pagan Berry compote overcooked and spread too thin over uncut hard tack. {if Connected: The Almost Archaeologist = 1} You had previously instructed the Crew to keep away from your passenger and you now send your one female Mariner down to fetch her. They soon return, and the Almost Archaeologist has opinions. She (wisely) does not trust your Crew, and she did not appreciate going to bed hungry last night. You explain that none of you ate, toiling all day and falling into bed too tired to stand, but you assure her that she will be served – Lord willing – three square meals a day. She huffs but accepts your explanation, hurrying back to her cabin as she eats. {else} But it is food and you are hungry. {endif}

The day’s work has you explaining more, including offering some simple recipes and setting up the watch rotation proper. A minimal watch at night, short shifts and double standbys, is the best you can do, for most members of your Crew can indeed not read, and even explaining the mechanical clock by the rudder takes more time than it should.

You take a late lunch, too-salty stew, with them on deck, answering some not-too-pressing questions and making idle chit-chat. Some more explanation and some more oversight follow, but you take dinner alone in your cabin, resolved to go to bed early.