Chapter 14: Billy Meets and Greets

The next few days consisted of training, studying and packing. Farmer Tim instructed Billy on various subjects to prepare him just a little more for his expedition. His crash courses ranged from loot drop rates to dungeon etiquette to optimal party compositions. Billy, for his part, tried to retain as much information as possible. You never knew when a stray piece of information would come in handy.

When the day of the departure arrived, Billy had to drag himself to the docks. He had kept himself so busy that he hadn’t had time to worry, really, until the night before. Of course, he didn’t get a wink of sleep. He just lay there, imagining all of the fun adventures and horrible hellspawn deathtraps awaiting him in New Tuskarn.

Billy stood on the docks, staring up at large sails. The ship, the Schooner or Later, bobbed in the waves like a racehorse ready to bolt. The ship’s crew, elves as far as he could tell, effortlessly climbed up and around the rigging.

A hooded figure glided past and hopped onto the boat, jumping ten feet without as much as pausing. They did it with less effort than it took Billy to avoid breaking his momma’s back while navigating a particularly prominent crack in the road. A broody but capable assassin or rogue, perhaps?

A group of four approached, next. Leading the group was a green scaled humanoid, either a drake or a lizard variant, Billy could never tell the difference. He wore a set of chainmail armor covered with an obviously religious symbol emblazoned on it. It looked like a drop of blood with a serpent made of flames inside of it. The flames seemed to flicker as he moved towards the ship. Fiery blood serpent god, got it. Or was it a fiery serpent blood god? Bloody serpent fire god? Either way, the whole outfit screamed “do not piss me off, I will sacrifice you.” Not literally. It wasn’t enchanted to scream, but that’s the impression Billy got when he looked at it.

Following what Billy assumed was a sort of cleric or warrior priest, were two slender elven rangers, bows strapped to their backs. They were identical to the point that they absolutely could have been twins. One had pale blue skin and seemed to ooze magic. She had knives strapped almost everywhere that she could, even in the long braid of her hair. She was distractedly fiddling with a whistle while trying to whisper quietly to the cleric.

The other elf was shorter, but no less dangerous. She had darker, almost bronze skin and wore a thick, black, gloomy cloak that left wisps of darkness trailing after it for half of a second. Her bow sent alarm bells ringing in the armpits of Billy’s soul. Even his Gift was letting him know not to piss her off, lest he walk away with one fewer eyeball. That was a weird thing for his Gift to be specific about, but it wasn’t the weirdest impression he had ever gotten from it.

The last party member was almost a disappointment compared to the other three. He was a completely normal looking human. He was of average height with silver hair, one blue eye, one orange eye and the look of a man who had seen his entire family torn limb from limb and then eaten by a tentacled horror from the depths while he screamed helplessly, probably restrained in some manner that stopped him from helping at all. Yep, mundanity to a tee. He had a single sword strapped to his waist and four guns holstered in various places. His outfit also seemed to have more buckles and bracelets than strictly necessary, but they might have served some unknown purpose. Billy couldn’t help but think that he looked rather lonely, even amidst the group.

Billy leaned against a post like a badass, watching others board the ship for a while. Mustering up the courage, he clasped Farmer Tim’s arm in a manly goodbye and joined the crew of the Schooner or Later. Neither the boy nor the old man shed a tear, as it was a very professional and quite manly, testosterone-fueled goodbye. Lips definitely didn’t quiver and voices didn’t crack as the two saw each other for what might be the last time.

He claimed a bunk in the lower decks of the ship, hoping prison rules didn’t apply on boats. Farmer Tim hadn’t gone into detail on the hierarchy of prison gangs. Not that he was a prisoner or anything, but he didn’t like the odds of winning an unarmed fight against most of the people he saw on the schooner. Hells, some of the others looked like they could drop him like a bag of soap bricks in a single punch. Resigned, he decided to practice, alternating between squatting and coughing just in case.

His calisthenics were interrupted by the arrival of two humans. One, a bookish type, was lecturing the other on the many ways in which different cultures subconsciously or purposefully attributed different meanings and importance to greetings depending on the language used. The other man looked like he was barely able to keep up, both in the one-sided conversation and with the brisk walking pace. The poor guy was being crushed under the combined weight of plate mail and an absurdly large two-handed hammer.

The nerdy one chose a bed in a corner and started arranging and rearranging his belongings. The one in full plate waved to Billy before collapsing onto a bed. The poor thing let out a groan and sagged under his weight. The man placed his gigantic hammer against the wooden wall, mumbled something, then let go. The weapon stayed exactly where he had affixed it, not moving an inch in either direction. The bed gratefully sprang back upwards a good foot or so.

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“Hey,” said the man in plate after catching his breath, “I’m Rhinus the tank. That’s Roland the alchemist. I smack things, he heals me. A lot.” He fussed with his light brown hair as he spoke to Billy, then began fluffing his pillow way more enthusiastically than necessary.

“Hey! I’m Billy the guide. I’ve got a few enchanted pieces that let me hold my own in a fight, but I think I’m better at not dying than I am at killing things,” Billy said with a shrug. He wasn’t exactly sure how he would do in group fights or what kind of monsters they would face, so he wasn’t really sure how to explain his Gift.

Roland perked up. “A guide? As in a seer? That’s fantastic. I heard there was a sea elf on this ship that could cast clairvoyance spells, but to think that we have a full-fledged seer in our group truly is a boon. A blessing. A godsend. A bénédiction. Une aubaine. A-”

Rhinus cut him off before he could keep droning on. “A great asset, Roland. He’s nifty. You don’t have to do that with every vocabulary word, my man.” The tank rolled his eyes, obviously having had this conversation with the alchemist before.

“There are see-elves on the ship?” Billy asked, intrigued.

Roland nodded enthusiastically. “Quite a few, yes! They run the ship. They’re most of the reason why the Schooner or Later has such a great reputation when it comes to speed. Heh. Schooner or Later. You know, people often mix up ‘schooner’ with ‘sooner’ because they-”

“NOPE!” Rhinus yelled. “We are NOT rehashing the whole Hellenic versus Latin or Latinic or whatever. Last time, it took you THREE HOURS to explain to a waiter why you said shhhé-dule instead of ssskè-dule. And you DIDN’T EVEN TIP the poor man afterwards!”

“Well,” Roland said indignantly. “It’s not MY fault he was blessed with an impromptu masterclass that wasn’t in his schedule.”

“Actually,” Rhinus quipped matter-of-factly, “as a matter of fact, it was PRECISELY your fault.” The tank took deep breaths. “You know what? Just drop it. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to explain the migratory patterns of dungeon-bred shit-hawks during the two months we’ll have at sea.”

Roland raised a finger to interject, but Billy beat him to it. “Is it gluten free?”

Confused, Roland tilted his head. “Is what gluten free?”

Billy grinned wickedly as he elaborated. “The dungeon bread. Is it glutinous or gluten-free? I have a cousin that can’t eat gluten. I just want to figure that out before I bring him something that might kill him.”

“Ah!” Roland said, wind filling his imperious sails again. “He’s a celiac!”

“That’s harsh,” Billy replied. “He’s actually a really nice guy. He’s a tad slow, but I wouldn’t go that far.”

“No,” Roland replied, looking flustered. “He’s a celiac. He can’t process gluten. He’s gluten intolerant.”

“Now, I say, good man, we’ve only just met and you’re already accusing my family of being intolerant.”

“But-”

“Sure, he’s got a thing against orcs, dwarves, centaurs, minotaurs, pixies, fairies, elves and half breeds, but it’s not like he’s a full blown racist.”

“That’s not-”

“And another thing! Of course he doesn’t process gluten. Could you imagine working in a processing facility all day, knowing you couldn’t eat what you made? That would be tantamount to torture.” Billy was really pouring on the indignation.

He was about to crank it up another notch when the party of four from earlier walked in. The cleric looked hesitantly between Billy and Roland. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No!”

“Yes!”

They both answered at the same time.

“Just razzing the new kid,” Billy said with an evil smile. He deserved it, though. He insulted my family.

Rhinus buried his face in his pillow and let out a long-suffering sigh while Roland grumbled that they were all, in fact, the new kid.

Most of the expedition members made their way to the sleeping quarters at one point or another before the ship set sail. Marit, the lizardman, was actually a cleric of Totec, a blood-god of crafting and agriculture or something. He seemed alright. He and his party settled their gear and ascended to the deck to see if they could help the crew with anything.

Billy also met his first avian. Avians were a species of human-sized (and pretty much human-shaped, except for the head, the feathers, the talons and the wings) sapient birds who were rarely seen in the Kingdom of Telarak. Jessum Crowe, a bard, was a crow variant, it seemed. His glossy black feathers were said to be highly prized in the Tribelands to the south, as they apparently worshiped a crow god as part of their pantheon. They were generally treated poorly in the Kingdom of Telarak, mistrusted for the same reasons they were revered in the Tribelands. He seemed alright, although he was a little on the ostentatious side. Billy wasn’t sure if it was due to being a bard or an avian, but the man… Bird… Birdman? Jessum obviously thought highly of himself. He played the lute like you wouldn’t believe, though, so he was alright. He even cast a mass haste spell on the entire crew through his music, speeding up the launch significantly.

After exchanging info and pleasantries, Billy decided it was about time to test his Gift once more.