Great! Absolutely wonderful.

I grabbed the plank, pulling it out of the water. It dripped water of water, but that didn’t matter. I hauled it over to the mouth of the tiny sloop, a gaping black hole filled with white triangle teeth, and slipped the plank into it. I didn’t know where the hole lead to, probably the stomach of the ship.

+2 resource. Enough resources for repair possible. Would you like to repair the ship?

“Yes!” I almost shouted at the window that had popped up in front of me. Apparently, only I could see the window because I was the captain of the ship. The ship seemed to halt for a moment, and then the broken mast started healing, and a sail appeared. “Finally Jimmy, Finally we’re moving.”

“Uhh,” Jimmy grunted. “Good?”

“It’s great!” I looked over at him and found him dozing.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure who Jimmy was. A couple of hours ago when I woke up on this ship, I noticed that he was there, sleeping on the wooden floor. He got really bothered when I tried to wake him, so I decided just to let him sleep. But I figured it was better to have somebody with me than be alone in the ocean.

When I approached the ominous hole full of teeth on the shop floor, a window popped up. It

detailed the ship's resources and possible upgrades and their cost. Apparently, with two hundred resources I could upgrade the sloop to a schooner. That was something I wanted to do.

Another thing it said was that I was the captain and that Jimmy was a part of my crew. So technically I was his boss. A good thing to know. I could inspect his profile closer, and when I did, I saw that he was a ship bound. I wasn’t sure what that meant, although the window showed me all of his stats, and they were ridiculously high.

I looked at him with a new fear. Maybe it was good that he only wanted to sleep.

As for where the ship was going, I had no clue. I figured we’d stumble onto somebody who could help us sooner or later, until then it was just to keep going. At least we weren’t sailing in the direction of the floating wooden planks. Whatever had caused that was something I wanted to avoid.

With the boat fixed, I leaned over the railing and let my thoughts wander. Even though this world was fantastical, it felt too real to be a mere dream. And, pinching myself produced pain—a very important fact to take note of.

So what should I do? Being a pirate had always been one of the things that appealed to me—exploring uncharted waters and islands. I didn’t really have anything to worry about. Don’t really speak to my parents, or have any friends or love. Honestly, all I had was a job as an accountant.

This was an opportunity. I knew that much, and I should use the opportunity to its fullest. What do I want to do though? If this really was a new chance for me, what did I want to spend my new life on? It sure as hell wasn’t safety. I had that as an accountant, and it wasn’t very fulfilling. Hmmm, yeah, I don’t know. My first goal, figure out what I want in this new world.

“Do you see that?” Jimmy said having stood up and walked right behind me without me noticing him. I jolted in shock at his voice and gripped the railings for support. He was pointing, and when I looked, I noticed that there was a ship heading straight towards us.

“They have a… white flag with a green skull on it.”

“Goblins,” he said with distaste.

“Goblins as in the short, green and bloodthirsty creatures.”

“Those are the only goblins I know of.”

“Alright,” I said. “Time to change direction.”

I turned around, and I realized that I had no idea how a ship worked. “So how do I do that?”

Jimmy grunted, lay down on the floor and fell asleep. This bastard.

“Come one Jimmy help me out here.” No response.

I saw a bunch of ropes tied to the mast. They were all strained, and they all felt important. It was nothing I wanted to toy with. I had the feeling that if I touched them the whole ship would stop and that would do me no good.

The sail was attached to a horizontal piece of wood. I grabbed that wood and tried to shift it, but the ropes held against me. I tried loosening the ropes, and the piece of wood caught the wind and slammed into my head, making me topple to the ground, right beside the hole. I really didn’t want to fall into it.

The ship turned directions though… Yup, it went towards the goblins.

“That’s my captain,” Jimmy said. “I like it. You show no fear by rushing into the larger ship. Genius.”

“Oh for the love of god, Jimmy, we’re going to die, come on!”

He was already asleep. It seemed like an off/on switch for him. a really convenient thing. I looked over the rail towards the ship. It had grown in size, and I could see four goblins standing at the front, leering at me.

I continued tweaking the ropes and the mast in an effort to make the ship move away from the goblins, but each thing I did made us move towards them at a faster rate. Jimmy would always be there to compliment me on it. Soon, the goblin ship was right ahead of us. Jimmy had stood up and was watching them.

Once the ship’s got close enough, he roared spit flying out. I noticed just how much Jimmy looked like a viking. He stood on the railing of the ship and jumped from my sloop to the goblin ship. The ships crashed into each other, and I heard the sound of wood breaking.

The sudden change in movement. I heard the goblins on the other side shrieking, and their small legs running around. As I stood up, I saw that one particularly fat goblin jumped from their ship towards my own.

He held a dagger. That was just horrible. I didn’t have anything and he held a dagger. My best plan of action here was to stay as fa…

You have been taunted.

run right towards him and fight. Yes, that was the best idea possible. Somehow, my entire focus and attention had been narrowed down to him only. Everything else ceased to exist.

He swung his dagger, and I took a few steps backwards. I felt the urge to kick him, and I did so, feeling my leg push into his fat belly. He looked more shocked than anything else, then, he swung his dagger towards me. I managed to jump back just in time.

The threat of death made my mind jump back into its right place. I couldn’t fight this goblin. He had a dagger. Even if I managed to beat him, I’d surely sustain lethal injuries and that was not something I wanted. I needed to get…

You have been taunted.

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right into his face and beat the shit out of this ugly piece of shit. After all, this was my ship, and he had no right to be on it. I needed to teach him a lesson, so I stepped forward, and with all my power I slammed my fist into his face, and he sliced into my gut. I heard something break and noticed that somehow, my fingers were bent the wrong way.

His nose was bleeding though, so that was something, but I could feel the blood pouring out of me and wetting my shirt red. What was I doing fighting a goddamn goblin with a weapon? Was I out of my mind? I should be pleading for me life, not,

You have been taunted.

wasting time and standing here doing nothing. I ran up to him and slammed my knee into his face. The strike was effective, but I also noticed that he’d stabbed the dagger into my gut, and left it there. The pain made me cringe and filled me with anger, which I took out on him, by pounding my fist into his face. I kept going until his face was a mess of blood. With their size I really felt like I was beating up a child, but I really couldn’t care.

Finally, heaving, he was dead. I had killed a creature, and for some reason, I felt utterly amazing. Horrible too, exhausted, sweaty, bleeding and aching, but utterly amazing! So this is why serial killers are serials. This is better than any drug I’ve ever taken.

I realized that there were many more goblins and that the fight wasn’t over. But, when I looked over towards the goblins ship, I saw Jimmy standing on top of a goblin, smashing his fist into its face repeatedly. I could hear the splash of the blood, and its skull caving in. All of the other goblins, maybe fifteen of them, laid groaning around Jimmy.

I jumped off the boat and walked over to Jimmy to inspect the area. He kept beating the goblin even though its head was a mix of flesh, blood, and bones. It was well past dead, probably getting burned in hell. Jimmy’s expression was one of pure anger as he kept on pounding into the goblin.

“Who the fuck are you?” He said as his fist thumped into the goblins.

I didn’t know if I should stop him or not. Honestly, I should have, but I was scared frozen. It occurred to me how much of a lunatic this man was, and I was just happy that he was on my side. After the goblin’s head had almost been flattened, Jimmy stood up and looked towards me with a smile. Blue blood splashed over his face.

“So, what’s the plan now captain,” he said.

“Uhh. We’ve got to repair the ship,” I said. That was all I knew.

“Sure,” he said and grabbed the goblin by the waist. I watched him walk over to my ship’s mouth and throw the goblin down.

+4 resource.

I didn’t know if that was right. Who was I to argue about what was right and what wasn’t when I’d just killed another intelligent creature? But some of these goblins were still breathing. Could I really just feed them to the ship?

Truthfully, I wanted the resources, and to be completely frank, they would have done the same thing to me, if not worse, if it was them who had won the fight. They’d attacked us, not the other way around, so they’d brought this onto themselves.

But, there was a better option.

“Stop,” I said to Jimmy as he was about to toss a living goblin into the hole. Thankfully, he listened.

“What captain?”

“We’ll give all the alive goblins a choice,” I said. “The hole, or to join us. Last time I checked, we needed a crew.” Especially to steer this damn boat.

“Your call,” Jimmy said with a sigh. I really needed to ask him why he was following me and my orders. It could be tied to him being ship-bound, but I wasn’t sure. I’d have to ask him eventually. There must be a reason.

All in all, six goblins had died. It gave us twenty-four resources, more than enough to repair the ship, and to purchase an upgrade. The eight remaining goblins lay on the ground grunting. Furthermore, we’d also gotten weapons. Jimmy wielded a shabby sword, and I’d found a bow and a couple of arrows I thought would fit me. The bow was tiny, and I didn’t really know how to use it, but I’d learn.

“Aren’t you going to absorb their ship?” Jimmy asked.

“What?” I said. “That’s possible.”

“Of course,” Jimmy said. He walked over to the hole and grabbed it by the edges, and pulled it out. It seemed a fleshy worm was being pulled out. I found it disturbing and strained not to look away. He pulled the mouth all the way over to their mouth and placed it on top.

I heard a loud creaking as the ship’s mouth repeatedly swallowed some sort of fluid. I could see the gulps travelling down to the ship’s body. The other boat slowly shrunk, the edges shrinking inwards. It continued until the boat was much smaller and seemed to be very flimsy. The mouth of my ship snapped back, like somebody slurping a noodle, to its original spot.

+120 resource.

That was an absolutely amazing haul—one hundred and forty-four resources total. My mouth was watering at the mere idea of all the different upgrades I could get. First though, I was going to talk to these goblins.

“Hey,” I said. “Wake up.”

Some of them looked at me with fury and disgust. I didn’t blame them. I had just fed their friends into a hole. I decided to sit silent and give them some time. No need to rush this, wasn’t like I had something else to do. At the edge of my sight, I could see Jimmy sleeping.

Eventually, after ten minutes of me staring at them. They begrudgingly. After the first goblin stood up, the rest followed rather quickly. They stayed huddled together, as if that was going to help them.

“Do you understand me?” I said.

One of the goblins spit at me, then, he cowered behind his friends. I could feel blood lust emanating from behind me. It seemed Jimmy was awake. He really went front asleep to awake at a moment’s notice.

“I’ll ask again. Do you understand me?” I said.

“Yes.” My eyes jumped to the goblin that had said it. He was by far the shortest of the bunch and also the ugliest. He was the one that had been closest to the bow I’d picked up.

“Great. You have a choice, either you join me or you get thrown into the hole. So… Will you join me?”

“We goblins are a proud race,” he said. “We will never be slaves again.”

“By joining my crew, you’ll be the opposite of slaves.” I decided to start bullshitting .”You’ll be as free as you’ve ever been.”

“Hmm, can we think it over?”

“No,” I said. “You’ve got ten seconds. If you want to join me, walk over to me, if you don’t, you can stay there.”

I started counting down from ten. Four of the eight goblins walked towards me and stood in front of me. I heard the other ones curse at them. The ones who decided to join me, including the one I’d spoken with, seemed visibly rattled.

“Jimmy,” I said. “Throw them into the hole.”

“With pleasure captain.”

The goblins shrieked and tried to run away. One even jumped overboard. But, Jimmy quickly took care of the rest and dumped them into the hole. The four goblins that stood ahead of me looking even more frightened. That would go away, so it was no large problem.

+12 resource.

“Figure out something to do,” I said to the goblins and turned to the hole. I had 156 resources, and I wanted to spend them.

There was an option to buy cannons for the ship. There weren’t multiple types of cannons available for purchase. There was only one cannon, and I figured that it would be possible to upgrade them.

I could also upgrade the sails and the hull. At the moment I didn’t see much reason to purchase the hull upgrades. Perhaps when we got into cannon fights, they’d be interesting, but the sails would be good. Fast sails would provide the option of escape, and that was invaluable.

Since I had an absolute monster in my crew, namely Jimmy, I figured it was smart to stick to hand-to-hand fighting. I decided to purchase level my sails up twice, something costing sixty resources. When I got the upgrade, I could see the sails changing, to become larger, and the mast taller. The difference in speed made the air brushing up against my cheeks more noticeable.

We needed food and water, but they weren’t something you could purchase. I thought that was because resources couldn’t be made into food, but it was possible to purchase rum. One barrel of rum cost ten resources, and strangely, they were also upgradeable. I bought one, just in case we would stay here for long, and get thirsty.

With 86 resources, I noticed one upgrade which seemed invaluable. I bought a one-row boat, it came with paddles. It cost me forty resources. I reckoned it could be useful if we wanted to explore an island.

Although I regretted it afterwards, the sloop really wasn’t big enough to handle an entire rowboat within it. I could already hear the goblins grunt at the lack of space to move around with.

Another thing that I noticed whilst scrolling through the upgrades was that the goblins weren’t listened to under my crew, even though they were in the crew. I wasn’t sure how that worked. Another thing to learn

I figured that was enough for the moment. I still had forty-six resources. Once we reached some sort of civilization, I’d love to ask questions regarding the upgrades, and what the current optimal strategy was.

I closed the window and went to find Jimmy. I needed to ask him why he followed me.

“Jimmy, wake up it’s important.”

“What is it captain?” he said. “Did the goblins act up? I can give them a beating.”

“No, nothing like that,” I said. “It’s simple really. Why do you accept me as your captain?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know that you know you’re much stronger than me. You could beat the shit out of me. So why do you follow me?”

“Come on captain. Strength isn’t all there is to lead.”

“What have I done that’s convinced you of that?”

“You must be messing with me? I could never think of such a genius plot to stab Blackbeard in the back and steal a ship of his.”