Two horrific realities of life on a pirate ship occurred Iris on the first morning she awoke in the crew quarters. The first was that sleeping in wasn't an option, from the moment the first sunlight peaked through the portholes the pirates began their day. The second -- and much more horrifying -- was that there was nowhere private to change her clothes. As she sat up in her hammock and looked around, she saw pirates stripping and changing clothes liberally as if privacy weren't a concern at all. This hadn't been a problem the night before because she'd simply gone to sleep in her robes, mostly because a hammock on a pirate ship felt more akin to camping in the woods during an adventure than it did a restful evening at home. Now, as she awoke to start her day and it began to settle in that this was her new life, she realized she would need to get creative if she wanted any kind of comfort.

Wearing the same robes for another day was simply out of the question. They had thoroughly dried from the previous day's trip into the underwater realm before she had gone to bed, but they still smelled strongly of seawater and the stench her own sweat was beginning to break through as well. There was also the matter of Littletooth, who would be expecting breakfast soon. She supposed she could wait for the other pirates to leave for the day, but that would require missing the morning boats to the city and would only be a viable strategy until the Gaping Maw departed for its voyage. No, she needed a long term, viable plan to handle these inconveniences.

Looking around the third deck brought no inspiration, there was really nothing but hammocks, gambling tables, and various kinds of chests, cabinets, crates and barrels for storing belongings and supplies. Her hammock was right next to the wall that separated the crew quarters from the infirmary that took up the bow portion of the deck, but the double doors that led into it were usually kept open, so that wouldn't help her much. The galley was on the far side of the quarters, which itself wasn't a massive inconvenience, but she couldn't expect to get away with using the ship's kitchen as a changing room and a place to feed her wyvern every morning -- even if her friend was the chef. She pursed her lips as she thought, then an idea so obvious came to mind that it made her feel stupid for not considering it sooner.

She closed her eyes and focused on the senses of her awareness ability. First she felt her own hammock, and the thick hull of the ship just behind it, then her still snoring bunkmate in his hammock just below her. Next came the floor of the deck built from thick redwood planks, and then a gap. She reached further until she felt the outlines of what she assumed to be crates and barrels stacked atop each other, filling a vast space just below the crew quarters. She smiled and lay back in her hammock, pulling up the sides to hide herself from view and waiting until she sensed that no nearby pirates were facing in her direction. Then, she blipped.

She landed with a thud atop a large crate on the dark deck below the quarters. There were no portholes letting in light or glow stone lanterns hanging from the ceiling. She pulled out her lantern for light and glanced around quickly, but saw no one. She thought to herself that this would do rather nicely, and blipped around until she found a nice nook behind a large stacks of crates near the bow, far away from the stairs at the stern which seemed to be the only entrance to the cargo hold. First she set out food and water for Littletooth before giving Abby the go-ahead to release him from the void. While he ate, she laid out a few different outfits to choose from, ultimately choosing the dark purple robes with a black wizard hat around which she tied a matching purple ribbon. After playing with Littletooth for a little while, she packed everything back up into her bottomless bag and blipped back to her hammock on the deck above.

Dorragth shouted and stumbled back from where he'd been stretching beside the hammocks, "where did you come from?"

Iris popped up out of the hammock and gave him a confused look, "I was here all night, did you already forget? We had a whole fight about it."

He growled and stomped away.

A short while later Iris was standing on the crowded top deck amongst all the other crewmembers awaiting the schooners that arrived each morning from the docks to ferry pirates to the Underbelly. Not everyone waited for the boats, however, with more than a few using flight or water surfing abilities to cross the lake themselves. Some of them just leapt off the ship into the water and outright swam to shore -- a feat that Iris was sure she couldn't accomplish even with her level 10 stats. The more she looked around, the more faces she recognized. No small number of the adventurers she'd seen during her time in the region had apparently either been pirates all along, or had found their own way onto the Shark Titan's crew.

Her first priority upon reaching the docks was getting out of the Underbelly as quickly as possible. Though she could always play the "I'm on the Shark Titan's crew now, if you hurt me he'll eat you" card if the Fish Wizard found and confronted her, there was no guarantee that would work or that she would even have time to speak at all before he killed her or banished her to the ocean realm. The Fish Wizard had always been anything but a morning person, so she wasn't overly concerned with encountering him this early, but she certainly didn't want to increase the odds of it happening any more than necessary. She stuck to the boardwalks rather than blipping across roof tops to avoid drawing attention to herself, but still used the occasional blip to skip past thick crowds that blocked her path or open gaps where she'd be plainly visible. It wasn't long before she was strolling through the gates of the city proper, chewing a bite from a fish skewer she had picked up from a food stand on the way.

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Her mission today was simple, she had a long overdue promise to keep. Thanks to her share of the rewards from the Grantworth Lodge quest, she could finally to make a good on a commitment she'd previously failed to before spending all of her money on robes and hats -- it was finally time to take Abby shopping. First, however, she met up with Milo at the circular park in the shopping district as they had previously arranged.

"Iris!" He shouted over the crowds when he saw, sprinting the distance between them to envelope her in a hug, "I was worried all night that the Fish Wizard was going to hunt you down! Or hunt me down, or hunt us both down. How are you? What's the pirate ship like? I think yesterday was the most fun I've ever had, is adventuring always like that?"

Iris laughed, "slow down, Milo. One question at a time."

"Right," his cheeks flushed red, "sorry."

As they walked, Iris explained what life on the ship was like while delicately dodging his questions about how long she would be staying the ship. Guilt ate her each time it came up, and she knew that sooner or later she'd need to tell him the truth, that she would be aboard the ship when it departed. She sighed, knowing it was probably better to do it sooner.

"Iris?" he asked when he realized she wasn't listening, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, sorry," she smiled faintly, "just got lost in thought for a second."

"Still trying to figure out what a tentacle monster from the void beyond reality would even want to buy?"

"Yeah. It'd be way easier if she could talk."

"I guess we could just kind of, hold her up towards different stores and see what kind of sounds she makes? Wait, can Abby see?"

"I think?" Iris wondered, "I mean, she definitely knows where things are around her, but I still haven't figured out exactly how. Maybe it works the way my awareness ability does."

"Well, let's experiment!" Milo grabbed her hand and pulled her along as he ran towards the nearest shop.

They slowed to a stop in front of the leatherworker's shop and Iris held the bottomless bag out and up towards the sign with both hands. The bag said nothing. Milo frowned, but Iris shrugged.

"Let's just take her in and see what happens," Iris suggested.

It was the same shop from which Iris had purchased her leather armor pieces, at the recommendation of Eli. The shop stayed well stocked with various sizes of basic leather armor, holsters to hold various different kinds of sheaths across all different parts of the body, and "one-size-fits-most" adjustable saddles that promised to accommodate any four-legged mount. Iris remembered Eli mentioning that the saddles were serviceable, but that any adventurer worth their salt would want to invest in a custom molded saddle for their particular creature as soon as they could afford it.

As they perused the aisles, Abby occasionally reached out with a tentacle to pick up a piece of gear, sometimes twisting it around and other times shaking it violently. She seemed to have a slight preference for the pieces with extraneous straps that flapped around as she twisted it, but one after another, she put the pieces back. After a while Iris sighed, and decided they should try a different shop. Abby showed no interest at all in the any of the clothing shops, only bothering once or twice to reach out and feel the fabric before retreating back to the void. She was much more excited by the wares of the specialty weapons shop, but seemed most interested in the objects that were hardly weapons at all, and after a half hour of perusing she ultimately selected nothing.

"I have an idea," Milo said, "follow me."

Milo led them to a small little shop on the second floor of a building, situated above a much more popular archery shop on the ground floor. This shop contained all sorts of tools and trinkets, from simple hammers to handheld puzzle boxes, scattered in loosely organized piles across the shelves. The moment Iris approached one of the shelves, Abby reached out and started sorting through the items. Most she discarded immediately, but she lingered on the puzzle boxes as she twisted the tip of her tentacle around to toy with the mechanisms. When they walked past what looked like a small telescope, the tentacle shot out, wrapped around it and pulled it into the void.

"Abby, wait!" Iris hissed, "we have to pay for stuff!"

She looked up sheepishly at the shopkeeper, who was eying her with an unhappy expression.

"Sorry," she said with a forced smile, "how much is that?"

"Five hundred gold," the shopkeeper said flatly.

Iris's eyes went wide, and she turned to whisper frantically at the bag on her waist, "Abby you have to put that back, we can't afford it."

Discordant roars emanated from the bag.

"I'm serious, I literally don't have enough gold to pay for that."

The shopkeeper cleared his throat.

"Just a minute!" Iris called over her shoulder, "don't make me take it from you."

Iris scoffed at the fluctuating tones which came from the void, "are you laughing at me?" she demanded.

"How about a trade?" Milo suggested to the bag, holding out a small mechanical cube with a glass center.

He demonstrated when the edges of the cube were twisted the glass lenses in the center were rotated and shifted, changing the sparkling pattern that projected out of it when light was shone through one side. Contemplative noises emanated from the void, and then a tentacle slowly returned the small telescope to the shelf before whipping to the side and snatching the cube from Milo's hand.

"That'll be thirty gold," the shopkeeper piped up.

Iris sighed. That was nearly all of her money.