Chapter 170

Sleep too Deep

Barnacle-eyes

Chance of Mutiny: 0%

[Admiral Level 1012.]

[488 levels until Fleet evolution]

[Acquisitions needed to return to fleet evolution path:]

[1 Hand-O’War.]

[2 Galleons.]

[5 Ketches.]

[8 Sloops.]

[8 Jolly boats.]

[1 Commodore.]

[24 Captains.]

So stupid. This meant that I couldn’t evolve my ships the same way as last time. Every time I had a fleet evolution, the system mechanics helped me evolve all my ships at once. Now I had to build them back by hand from the bottom up. I had to expand them myself with my Boat Builder skill. So stupid! They weren’t going to be made from the same material, and they probably wouldn’t look the same. The only thing I could do was bite my tongue, do the work, and hope my skills can at least produce ships that matched the last ones.

At least one of my sloops had been recovered, thanks to the daring Gabby. Wow, what a goblin! Keen on detail, I knew I could match it. Expanding the sloop into a ketch and then a galleon and then a Hand-O’War was going to be the toughest.

Now was not the time for expanding. The sloop needed a lot of work. It had been mistreated during the mutiny. So did the jolly boats. With the help of my crew, we tackled our to-do list.

The raised beds needed to be rebuilt. The jungle of giant vines and flowers and roots and green growing things needed to be hauled off the ship. All the doors that had been bashed in needed to be replaced. Sails needed mending. Busted barrels needed to be coopered all over again. Fireflies needed to be swatted out of the way—there were so many! Bailin buckets needed to be recovered from the water and cleaned. Split ropes needed to be spliced. Pulleys needed to be unclogged from fingers that broke off in them. Davits needed to be built for the jolly boats. I needed to rest. Soft-song needed to rest. Slime-tooth needed to rest more than anybody…

But no matter how endless things seemed, no matter how overwhelmed the task was to bring the sloop up to sail-worthy, I was in such high spirits. I was in super high spirits! Everything just felt better.

Hawkin told me that it made his heart happy to see my smile and hum and skip. He gave me control of the Home Camp ethereal plane as a gift. He used his Dream Cutter stone to make nooks of stone-mirages on the plane where I could store anything that I couldn’t fit in my inventory. I could put everything in there! He called it an inventory beer.

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So that’s where I stocked up on sustenance beers, and a few attribute beers that Abigail made for us. There was a nook just for cheese! Another nook was just for Goblinspuck. I put a blanket in another nook to put me in!

I didn’t sleep there quite yet. I wanted to sleep or nap wherever Slime-tooth slept or napped, and all the goblins felt the same way. They still saw him as a god goblin, and sometimes asked for blessings and stories and sayings and answers to prayers.

The only two goblins that didn’t sleep with us were Remember-not and Knot-knuckle. They stayed up at night to stargaze together. Remember-not had just finished mapping out the Night-wise constellation. When that happened, the constellation lit up like a stick figure drawing. Then I got a system notification.

[Your Stargazer has completed the Night-wise constellation.]

[Your fleet has earned the Piercing North Star boon.]

[Anyone on deck on your fleet will see the north star at night, no matter the weather.]

[The Piercing North Star boon will also be reflected on your sea map.]

Then there was Gabby. She had earned herself a Fable Stone after capturing the flag of the sloop by the end of the mutiny. With it she assigned Chum-hook to her Shark Charmer quest path.

“Chum-hook said that I can make friends with a familiar and evolve it,” said Gabby.

When she wasn’t checking our fishing nets for sharks, she screeched at the sea.

Soft-song helped her with that, and just this morning, we had another spontaneous gob song! Slime-tooth was so overjoyed that he smiled from mangled ear to mangled ear.

The only voices missing were the besties. Boggo and Ella were up in the crow’s nest, and Boggo had strongly refused to take commands. He said something about being blind about something or other. The chaos of the mutiny must have been a doozy for the sloop besties. Welp, Stumble-not might be able to figure out what’s going on.

I was too excited to focus on one thing for long. I hadn’t felt this ready for sailing since I first assigned Peg-tooth to my Admiral quest path. I had my loyal goblins with me, and my before-family and after-family together in one place.

All my excitement had me bounding over to Thrush’s yurt. I whirled in and nearly fell onto Thrush’s domed belly. He lay on his back, and it was obvious he was in the middle of one of his Satiation naps. He stank of cheese! He stank so good! My mouth watered so bad that I had to step outside to drool into the sand with my hands on my knees for a moment.

Thrush wasn’t the only one sleeping. Slime-tooth was deeply asleep.

“Slimy-slime, time to wake up!” I said. I gently rolled his shoulder, but he didn’t stir. “Wake up, my like-a-father! Wake up! Wake up!” I gave him a shake, and his limbs lolled around. I gave his cheek a good patting. My heart beat. “Slime-tooth! Slime-tooth, please wake up!”

Goblins came running into the yurt.

“What’s going on?” said Gabby.

“He won’t wake up,” I said.

I wrung my hands as goblins took turns slapping his cheeks. Tough-I-Am shouldered his way through the goblins. He raised his big hand for a good smacking.

His open palm whipped down through air, but I caught him by the wrist and said, “Wait! He’s stirring!”

Slime-tooth crushed his eyes several times. He stretched his limbs and made fists. Then he rubbed his eyes over and over. He tried to open his eyes, but it seemed like he was having a tough time with it. He rubbed and rubbed some more.

“Where is Barnacle-eyes?” he said, peering through a squint.

“I’m right here in front.”

“Is it dinner?”

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I’m just tired. Would it be all right if I slept for a bit longer?”

“That’s what Thrush is doing too! I’ll come get you when it’s time for dinner.”

Slime-tooth heaved a ginormous sigh. He settled back down on his cushions beneath his blanket.

As we all helped to tuck him back in, I couldn’t help but stare at the old goblin. I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing. My Slime-tooth didn’t seem the same anymore. He used to be really big and really strong. Right now he seemed frail and delicate and weakened.

My heart ached and I sat beside him and brushed his hair out of his eyes. I wanted to see him better, but I also wanted to take care of him.