Carol logged off from her NPC captain and chuckled to herself when she thought about the pink flower eyepatch, climbing down from the rig and walking to the gym for her hour workout, virtual reality wasn't her thing and she preferred to feel the real tension in her muscles as she was pulling herself up and doing all her workouts.
Patty was the trainer today and she let Carol do her own routines without inteference, her weights session went well and she added another half kilo to her exercise, after squatting and legs she went to the mattress and did a full five flips drill ended with a double flip and a perfect landing.
Picking up her dinner and sitting down with Manni and Jill, from behind her she could hear some girls talking excitedly about changing shifts to go on the new ghost ship, it was hard to ignore them, she really wanted some company on her ghost shift, but it was a favor to Allen and she wasn't going to mess up his cruise more than the few pranks she pulled on him.
Thinking of the eyepatch made her giggle again, he was a good friend, and pulled her out of fires often enough for her to owe him a few lonely shifts, and that Rick guy had some good jokes in him too.
She logged in to her recreational character and started swearing her head off, finding herself stuck in the middle of the sea surrounded by a bunch of NPCs it took her two seconds to realise her sister took their character on Allen's ship, before Allen's people took over.
[System: you seem to be lost at sea, would you like to respawn in the nearest safe zone? Y/N]
"No" she looked around her at the group of idle NPCs and started prompting them to row the boat, every few minutes she told them to stop and let the boat rotate freely until it pointed without moving, it was a simple navigation method for Players to go back to their ship if they ever got lost, all the lifeboats will allways point towards their mothership if left unmoved for a few seconds.
It wasn't long before she saw a ship closing in on her, it came from the wrong direction but she didnt care any more she just wanted to meet other people, prompting her NPCs to stop the boat she made them jump into the water to wash off the blood and gore from their sick games, this proved to be a mistake when the blood in the water produced sharks that started swimming in circles around the boat.
She made the NPCs start rowing towards the other ship and in a few minutes they were all pulled out of the water, "thank you for saving us good people of Devastacious", she breathed out when she was finally up on deck, "what are you doing all the way to the middle of nowhere?"
The captain shook her hand "we were hunting pirates when we heard rumors of a ghost ship sailing these parts", he smiled, "so we had to come and see for ourselves", he lead her up to the main deck "but what would a young lady such as you be doing out here is much more of a mystery", his hand sneaked behind her back "do tell me your story".
She turned around when she heard a cry of "WHAT THE FUCK", and she saw a man standing before one of the NPCs that came with her and he could be its mirror image, they looked so much alike that she couldnt tell which was the player and which the NPC before an idle routine made the NPC scratch its head, "HOW THE HELL DID THIS THING GET HERE".
The captain looked at the player "calm down Samuel", he pointed at Carol, "she brought them here".
Sam looked at her and a smile spread across his face, "she isn't part of this crew right?", to the captain's nod he continued "then by our agreement i get first choice of our captives", the captains' eyes opened wide when he realised what the man in front of him was going to do.
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"But she is a player", the captain said worrily, and started shaking his head, "besides our agreements said you will help us find and capture a ghost ship".
"She is how we will find that ship", he made a step towards her and gestured to his idle clone to grab her, "this is going to be very interesting to play", he added, "you can use the lifeboat she came with to find the ghost ship".
"How do you know its the right ship?" the captain asked.
"Because thats where i met her" sam finished and helped his clone drag the struggeling woman to the dark holds below.
"Garry, Devo come over here" he shouted as soon as he slammed the door behind Carol, "I have the perfect test subject for our new toys".
They entered a cargo hold with scattered barrels and piled crated roped to the floor and ceiling.
Carol decided it was time to play her hand, she rolled back and jumped to the top beams kicked the man in the face to get on top, his eyes glazed for a second as the blockers took their effect and she used her theatric retreat skill to disappear in the darkness.
Crawling, dodging and jumping on top of crates and dancing along ropes brought her to one of the trap doors used to haul cargo into the ship.
The locked door was no match to her magician escape tricks skill and she was soon on the deck outside.
It was time to find a safe spot to hide and log off before they caught up to her again so she used the change character skill from her stage artist class and soon emerged as a skinny man wearing a loose shirt and a moustache holding a mock sword and joining the search quest to find the woman that attacked Sam and ran away.
She joined with another man and two women to form a party Seth and Mor were a couple and Jill was Seth's cousin but they let her join them anyway so they could form a full party for the quest.
"There are two other groups searching in our area', Seth said, "so it should be easy to find whoever this runaway is".
"We are close" Mor added, "I'm getting a steady trickle of xp from this area".
"Shut up" Seth hissed at her, "don't let the others be first to find her".
"This is getting too long" Carol added to their argument "she has to be somewhere around here".
"HA, GOT YOU" someone shouted from the room on the other side of the hallway and they all ran to see what it was about.
A young woman was hiding in a closet and as she was struggeling to get free of the other group she ran into Carol's hands, weapons were drawn and the xp tripled for the search quest when a call to assume battle stations was heard throughout the ship and better quests were delivered for manning guns and boarding positions.
All three groups delivered the woman to the captain and were dissappointed when they got no quest reward but moved on to their stations to take over the pirate ship.
The ships maneuvered to fight each other at range and when only one cannon fired from the enemy the captain decided to give his broadside crew only a single pass before they would board and take over the Odacious.
After the second broadside the timer for sinking the ship started which surprised Carol but she could not be more shocked than when she saw the only man standing on the deck was a certain NPC captain with a pink eyepatch.
The teams swarmed the other ship just to get the quest rewards and surrounded the captain who managed to kill two players before he was disarmed and subdued.
She was with her group searching for treasures when someone found the girls and marched them on board Devastacious, "damn it" Seth was cursing, "this whole quest isn't working out for us".
"Yea we should probably just give it up and go see that native village for better quests than this stupid empty ship"
"Why are there so many Ratmen on Devastacious?" Jill asked "and why is that man hanged from the mast?"
"That's the NPC captain", Mor replied, "see that stupid pink eyepatch?"
"I think the eyepatch makes him special" Carol chimed in.
"Like retard special", Mor retorted, "probably some player payed for it to get a gag or something."
"Lets go to the village", Seth concluded, "there is nothing for us to do here anyway".
A ship anchored in a lagoon was sending delegations to a native village to try and understand why the other ship came here, at the same time another ship was sailing under the mountain to a cove full of riches followed by a pack of Orcas that helped push her when she got stuck in rocks or reefs.