The Cariba’s stern dragged low in the waves as the ship approached the dock. The gunboat, a huge 40 foot tall stallion of cannons and sails, was covered in splintered holes and ripped fabrics. Its huge green sails were at half mast, with its rear mizzen sail dragging in the sea behind the ship. The beak of the ship shone in the sunlight as the glistening silver masthead in the shape of a dragon came into view. The dragon's head was flanked by two golden spirit sails on each side, giving the impression of the dragon softly in flight as the boat moved with the wind towards the dock. The crew on board scrambled to throw lines from the deck to the waiting brigade of people down below as shouts of “Medics!” was heard the length of the dock.
Several Kurura flew from the shore onto the deck of the ship, carrying boxes of medical supplies and stretchers. Jim stood at the back end of the dock, having no clue what he could do in this situation to help out. He’d only ever seen a few emergency situations on normal Earth, and even then he needed to just stand back and let the professionals deal with things.
With a slam, a wooden drawbridge crashed into the dock and the crew of The Cariba disembarked from the vessel in groups on to dry land. Jim could see several Orcs carrying people from the boat onto the stretchers supplied on the dock and Kurura flying overhead with injured sailors grasped in their talons. He made his way closer to the scramble of people, bumping into limbs and bouncing around obstacles as he tried his best to avoid the busy lanes of traffic rushing away the injured.
As the adrenaline of the emergency started to leave the crowd the larger workers, the Draconids and Orcs began to open the port side hatches to begin, Jim assumed, the unloading of the goods from the ship.
Jim placed himself at the side of one of the Draconids pulling a heavy cart towards the ship. The crunching metalwork of the cart, along with the sounds of lifting and banging supply movements, drowned the area in a blanket of noise.
“Excuse me, do you know where I can find Jenk?” Jim shouted towards the Draconid.
The Draconid took a snarled look up and down Jim as he lumbered the heavy cart towards the ship. The unit of a creature had its strength on full display with dark blood red scales and scared arms pumping with strength as it hauled the four wheeled metal cart up the dock. With an ashy expulsion of smoke from its snout the Draconid gestured its head towards the boat.
“Aft deck, one with the big staff.” Another snarl of ashy smoke left the creatures snout as he pushed the cart over a patch of cobblestones.
“Thanks fella, need a hand with this?” Jim said as he grabbed the side of the carts with a hand.
“Sure.” the Draconid said in a short but deep rumble.
Jim was about half the height of the Draconid and he imagined about a hundredth of the strength. He stood next to the wheel of the cart, one hand on the side, one on the back and slowly helped the Draconid navigate the bumps of the path ahead.
As they formed up into a queue of other carts Jim gave the Draconid a quick nod and with a thumbs up made his way over to the ramp to board the ship.
A tall slender female elf with glistening white hair held a hand up forcefully in front of him as he tried to step foot onto the ramp. The beauty of the elf took him aback for a moment. He’d never seen such radiant perfection before. The presence of the woman felt engrossing, as if he wanted to hang on any words she spoke and movement she made. It reminded Jim of an incredibly powerful version of the feeling he had for Lydia Bambridge in primary school, that feeling of your first crush, the nerves, the embarrassment of just being in their presence.
“Vessel Badge” The elf said in a smooth, well-spoken tone.
The sound of metals and tools started to clank and bang as a small crew of people began to repair holes in the ship's hull just next to the boarding ramp. The level of noise became deafening as a small gnome swished and flicked a wand as stacks of planks and wooden braces were lifted into the air, slamming into place over the holes in the side of the ship.
“Jimmmmmm!” Jim shouted.
“Jinn? Where!” The elf shouted in a panic.
She drew a long scimitar sword from its scabbard attached to her belt, dropping a clipboard from her left hand and conjuring a burning fireball in its place.
“Noooo, Jim!” He shouted again.
“What!? Where's the Jinn? Do you know how dangerous those things are?” The elf shouted back at Jim.
Jim could see several of the workers drawing swords and axes in readiness. The sound of the repairs came to a halt as gnome's attention drew to the Elf with the fireball raging in its hand.
“There is no Jinn, I'm Jim, I need to speak with Jenk!” He said as the area around him quietened.
“Stand down!” She exclaimed to the surrounding group.
She sheathed her sword and kicked the clipboard up into the air with a flick of her toe, catching the stationary with a grace of ease that left Jim feeling the embarrassment of his school boy crush growing deeper.
“If you can’t tell, we’re in a bit of a situation here and Captain Jenk is rather busy finding out what happened to our flagship vessel. I’d suggest you talk to him at an appropriate time… Jim.” The elf scorned condescendingly.
“Well, is there anything else I can do in the meantime?” His croaky breaking voice pitched as his cheeks turned into a rosy blush.
“You can help those two with the cargo. And no more monster alerts please.” The elf gestured towards the two humans on the far side of the dock walkway.
Jim embarrassingly nodded and let out a croaking thank you as he made his way over to the huge coiled stack of chains where the humans were unravelling them into organised piles.
“Alright fellas, been told to give you a hand, I’m Jim” He said with a flustered enthusiasm.
The two humans looked towards Jim, not stopping their work.
The smaller slender human placed the tool he was using to combine the shackles of metal chains together down onto a crate and extended a hand towards Jim.
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“Can’t say no to a little help, I’m Filbert, he’s Twill” He human shook Jim’s hand roughly.
Filbert wore a long tattered brown overcoat with chainmail shoulder braces, with a smooth wooden bow thrown over his shoulder. He had mid length brown hair parted into curtains and his hands were rough. Jim returned the gesture in a shake. As the man leaned forward Jim saw a sheath of small daggers and darts underneath the coat wrapping around the man's green leather under armour. As Jim touched the man’s hand, a floating message appeared in his view.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Filbert Forager
Level: 16
Class: Ranger
Expertise: ???
Specialisation:???
Reputation: Neutral
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Nice to meet you Filbert the Ranger.” Jim said as he let go of the man’s hand.
“How did you know I was a Ranger?” Filbert said questionably.
“Oh, ermmmm, the bow, the throwing daggers... They’re Ranger types of weapons right?” Jim said nervously.
Was he not meant to know what classes people were? After reading through the Game Guide he noticed his Hololens description was erroring on the “use” description. He did a little trial and error with items that were near his hammock earlier, picking things up and focusing on them. He found that he was able to display small prompts on the information the game had on them if he concentrated his thoughts on wanting to know more information. Cups, the chest, the hammock. All would show their name and whatever information the game had about them. This was the first opportunity he had to use it on a person however, and was pleasantly surprised his Augment gave him the prompt of information.
“Just a guess, I’ve been reading up on a lot of classes and types of weapons recently. Figuring out what I want to be.” he said.
“Oh, one of those bookworm types, I prefer handling things with the pointy end of arrows in most cases.” Filbert said laughingly as he slapped Jim on the shoulder.
Another hand stretched out to Jim from the other Human. He was much taller and broader than Filbert, with short ginger hair and a thick septum piercing. He was wearing a heavy armour chest piece engraved with a crest. His huge muscular arms were on full display, covered in runic tattoos and scars. The crest displayed on his armour piece depicted the image of a mountain top surrounded by clouds. Dented and scratched, Jim could tell it had seen a few battles.
“Twill, nice to meet you.” The man spoke in a deep, slow tone.
The two shook hands and with a little focus another prompt appeared for Jim.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Twill Borge
Level: 18
Class: Barbarian
Expertise: ???
Specialisation:???
Reputation: Neutral
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Nice to meet you Twill, I’m Jim.” He said as the weight of the barbarians hand crushed his fingers a little.
Rubbing his fingers to alleviate the pain Jim gestured to the pile of chains.
“Need that hand then?” he said.
“Aye, grab some chains and come with us to the hold.” Twill said as he threw two bundles of massive chains over his shoulders.
“I might have an easier way of moving these.” Jim said questioningly.
“Oh yeah? Go on then.” Twill said as he marched past Jim up the ramp towards the ship.
Jim lent down the remaining pile of chain and pressed his watch to them. With a pop of dust the chain was sucked into his watch. The notification told him he was now storing 50 feet of reinforced chain in his Storage Bay.
“Well, that’s a handy trick, can you do that with anything?” Filbert said as he watched Jim stand back up.
“Not had any issues so far, I’ve only been here a day though.” Jim said as he adjusted his belt of thievery.
“Hmmm, very cool, I’d potentially keep a storage Augment under wraps though, very sought after items for people to steal.” Filbert quietly said.
“Thanks, it’s not an augment though, I don’t think it is anyway.” Jim said as the two began to make their way up the ramp hatch into the storage bay following Twill.
“Well you’ll be a wanted hire for a lot of teams here then if that’s an ability. No one can steal that and you’ll make light work of tasks like this. I think you’ll be handy to have around Jim.” Filbert said as he gave Jim a slap on the back of the shoulder.
A crash of wooden crates came from the hatch opening, and Twill’s body came rolling down the ramp towards the pair. Twill's huge body crashed into Jim, sending him flying back onto the concrete walkway, pinning him to the floor. Filbert displayed a grace of reaction time, flipping into the air in an arcing loop, landing lightly on his feet. He drew his bow, aiming an arrow directly into the opening.
“Twill! Twill!” Filbert shouted.
With a groan Twill rolled away from on top of Jim.
“They got out, damn Cycloraptors! Oooh, sorry little fella, did I land on you?” Twill said as Jim gasped for air.
Twill got to his feet, conjuring two huge metal shields the full height of himself, with one on each arm he ran towards the ramp and boomed at the top of his lungs. “MONSTER ALERT!”
As soon as the alarm was raised Jim could hear a faint growling of drums, with a dramatic flair of violins, looming wind instruments and crashes of cymbals building and growing. It was coming from everywhere around him and no matter which way he turned his head he couldn’t locate the sound’s source.
With a realisation he quickly opened the Game Guide, poking his fingers in the air to navigate to the settings tab. He turned “Music Volume” to mute, only to be greeted by a screech of a resonating howl.
A pack of 6 one eyed velociraptors burst through the opening of the ship. Their huge eyes locking onto the closest targets. With stomps and scratching of claws the creatures jumped and climbed in a scramble. Two made a huge jump onto the walkway, blocking the route back to the warehouse. Another 3 began to advance down the ramp towards where Filbert let loose a volley of black silent arrows. The final Cycloraptor climbed the exterior wall of the ship's hull, overseeing the battle and letting out screeching calls.
“Shiiiiieeelllllld bashhhhhhh!” Twill cried as green energy surged into his legs and arms. Jim had never imagined a human could move so fast. Twill burst forward and up the ramp. Filbert again showed his incredible dexterity, jumping high into the air in a spin still firing arrow after arrow towards the creatures.
With breakneck speed Twill slammed into the 3 raptors as they started to jump into the air. Two were immediately pushed into the water below the boat and the dock, the 3rd was fired backward at the ship's hull and landed onto the ramp with a thud and a screech.
Filbert landed in front of Jim, and kneeled to steady his aim, turning to the two raptors now running full sprint towards the warehouse.
“By Orans eye, I see my foe, capture thy enemy, in my howling glow!” With the words spoken aloud bright white energy began to flow in a vortex around the tip of Filbert’s arrow. It built for a few moments and when his fingers left the string, a shockwave of air blasted away from him as the arrow took a glowing flight. It surged through the air, cutting through the sky on its path towards the creature. The vortex of light created by the arrow formed a trail of bright energy tendrils in its wake, and as the arrow hit the back of one of the raptors the trailing lights continued their flight, whipping forwards and binding around the creature bringing it to the ground.
As Filbert rose from his kneeling crouch he turned to Jim.
“Come on then newbie, gear up, time to catch some monsters!” Filbert said with a wide smile and a jump of his eyebrows.