Chapter 133

Barnacles and Flowers

Chance of Mutiny: 07%

Thrush stepped through glow-white split-air. His irises were creamy and ringed with yellow and red and black. Where there was yellow and cream, I could see deep into the sponge holes. When he blinked, which took a whole one second for his eyelids to meet, I saw snake scales on them. When he smiled, his once-toadish tongue was thinner and it was forked at its end. Whoa, he was extra scary today!

“Hello,” he said.

“Thrush, thank Peg-tooth you’re here! I’ve reached silver rank!”

“Congratulations, Barnacle-eyes. This calls for smoked meat.”

Thrush pulled his arm out from beneath the strap of his Merchant’s backpack. He swung it around, and it bumped his belly.

“But I need your help to evolve my fleet. I need lots of materials. All the wood I can get! I need trees and branches and sticks and planks and twigs and trunks and stumps.”

Gabby popped up. She had her hands clasped behind her back and she smiled at Thrush and swayed side to side. “Please thank you, Thrush monster!”

A thunderous rumble shook the planks of the galleon. I ducked and glanced at the sky. Thrush licked his lips with his slithering tongue, and he rubbed his belly. Had that rumbled come from his belly?

“That’s not possible right now,” he said.

“Y-you can’t? Why not?”

Thrush had a problem, and I very much understood the problem. It was a very real problem to have, and I couldn’t agree more. He was hungry. Negotiating on an empty stomach wasn’t fun. I believed him!

After Gabby and I cleared the area of goblins, Thrush set up his Merchant’s Yurt. Immediately, blue smoke rose from a chimney which poked through a flap at the top. My world suddenly smelled of fish and smoke and sea and cheese. Cheese? I hadn’t smelled cheese since Hiccup’s mansion! It was only an hour until the smoked elodon was ready, and all crew members salivated in a heap over the yurt’s entrance.

Thrush heaved one rib from the smoker and laid it on the deck. Oily glinting fat oozed across the planks. I peered into the marrow of the rib. It looked like so much fun to crawl through! It smelled of rich-richy marrow stuffs.

If it weren’t for Thrush’s total intimidation, it would have been much harder to have my snots form a line. They moved one at a time with cupped hands held out for Thrush to drop a steaming shred of smoked meat into. Oh, what a good-good day! Every single goblin belly was soon dome-shaped.

Chance of Mutiny: 05%

On the tasseled comforts inside Thrush’s yurt, I liked my fingers clean. At the end of my negotiation with Thrush, I counted our high-fives.

“And that makes ten! Let’s go evolve the fleet!”

Thrush purred as he followed me out. He collapsed his tent, and all the furniture and the smoker with it. We went port side, and Thrush began dumping all the things into the sea: whole trees, tree pieces, stumps, poles, wooden furniture, a few utensils, pots and pans, black campfire logs, branches, and-and…oh, it just went on!

Goblins tossed nets to the sea and reeled in all the debris to the hull. With every crashing wave, the debris scraped up against the hull.

I needed some pieces on deck, so Thrush helped peel huge curled sheets from tree trunks. I used my Boat Builder skill to craft the first required jolly boat. Each split sheet of fresh wood creaked as it bent into place and locked together under a butt block. A whole lot of mana beer helped me complete 9 more by the time the sun was starting to set.

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I sat on the deck, sweating hard and panting with my tongue out. The jolly boats were hoisted up to the davits and then lowered to the sea. Brand new Captains clambered into their new ships with their small chosen crew members. Sacks of Pinky-chew’s breaths were thrown down to them. Old empty loot chests were passed down for their hoard, and a supply of chopped onion and garlic was dropped down in canvas sacks.

[Requirements for fleet evolution have been met.]

[You have enough wood resources to evolve your fleet.]

[Evolve fleet. Y/N?]

“Oh yes, yes, yes!”

The netteed debris beside the galleon exploded to the sky, like a gale filled with huge splinters. All the wood cracked apart and shot to the ships like a flock of arrows. The lugger evolved into a sloop, 5 sloops evolved into 5 ketches, and 2 ketches evolved into 2 galleons. Every evolution let in water through the temporary gaps while they evolved, so my goblins tasked themselves with bailing.

The planks of the galleon rumbled beneath me. All the vegetation shook. The sails rippled, the ropes whipped, and the rigging jiggled. Planks burst up at angles from below. New planks made of fresh jagged wood fused into the gaps. Canvas snapped and ripped. Teh raised beds slid across the deck, and soil ground against fat-slick wood. A new mast shot up from below deck, piercing through planks. Splinters of wood collected at the taffrails which thickened everytime I blinked.

Then in all the sudden quiet, it was done. My galleon had evolved into Hand-O’War. It didn’t bob on the water. The waves couldn’t budge it. The sea was much farther below, and the other side of the ship felt like it was minutes away by foot! Goblins that rushed to bail water informed me that there was another new level below deck! The old sails hung like rags from the shoulders of the masts.

“Calling all snots!” said Bubble-burp. “I’m the new seamstress! We need new sails!”

The helm was much larger, and it looked like it needed to be spun by at least four goblins. The capstan gear needed to be walked round and round by at least twenty goblins! What a good thing it was to have hired so many goblins from Float-some barge!

Each jolly boat, and the craft had davits to hang from. It was much safer and faster for those small boats to hang there, so we hoisted them up. Each Captain and their crew crowded the jolly boats.

Above, a poofy yellow ball followed by a poofy blue ball leapt from rigging to rigging. There were 2 new crow’s nests!

[Evolution Complete!]

[500 levels until the next evolution.]

[You have earned your first fleet flag.]

The sails suddenly stained a sea-glass green from corner to corner; even the one that Bubble-burp was sewing together. On each one, a slash of barnacles filled the flag in a single diagonal. Flowers appeared in each barnacle in a ton of different colors and shapes.

[Fleet flags are now represented on your sea map.]

I shook out my sea map and laid it down. There were little barnacle-flower flags on the map in the middle of the sea. I counted them and the one at Fiber-thorn cove which must have represented Come Here Goblin Inn, my stranded ship!

Wow, such beautiful flags! That was me! My name was on them—a picture of my name. I wondered then what other flags goblins had…Gloom-glower had a flag and it was dark green. Wasn’t he only bronze? How did he get a fleet flag at bronze? Why did I have to wait until I reached silver rank?

Stop, stop, stop! This was another one of the best days of my life, and I didn’t want to spend anymore time thinking about Gloom-glower. Even if he was gone! I wanted to think of Slime-tooth instead. What better goblin would there be to share such an achievement with?

“This is the mightiest ship I have ever seen,” said Thrush. His eyes were pulsing, and he was still purring, and he smelled like cheese.

“I wish Slime-tooth could see it. Do you know how he is?”

“He’s surviving. Hawkin and Abigail gave him Home Camp beers, and he says that he’s gotten much better sleep on the cot there. You might catch him when you visit that plane.”

“On Home Camp! Oh, I gotta see if I can see him.”

“He told me that the okra spit beers took a huge load off his shoulders. But no matter how much beer Hawkin makes, it never seems to be enough.”

“Slime-tooth’s fleet must have gotten so big!”

“Gloom-glower’s fleet.”

“He’s still alive? I heard Slime-tooth smote him!”

“He’s buying as much beer as Hawkin and Abigail can produce. Much more than his fleet can even drink. The goblins are bailing more than I’ve ever seen them bail before, just to keep the ship from sinking.”

Some of my worst memories were of working on Gloom-glower’s fleet. Terrible conditions. If I knew him, he’s not giving out all the beer to his goblins. He’s keeping most of it to himself. He’s probably overworking them and under-rewarding them. Gah! How did he manage the chance of mutiny when I had so much trouble with a much smaller fleet? How did someone so mean like him do it? I did like working under him…I couldn’t have been the only one to feel that way…

“…I miss Slime-tooth. I hope to see him…”

“Light-ho!” the besties suddenly shrieked.

Goblins on the crow’s nests of other ships called out, “Light-ho!” The call was again echoed from the sloops.

There was a bright green glow on the horizon, and it looked to be miles wide and more-miles long. It shimmered bright against the orange stripe of dusk. The glow moved like an aurora that had been smashed flat on the sea.

Spickle-spack shouted from his galleon. “Admiral! I think it’s the legendary lime smack!”

The lime smack? The legendary lime smack? The great migration of lime-glowing stingless jellyfish? I felt my eyes go big as I clutched the thick banister.