Achievement: Colliding your ship with rocks for the first time!

  You really should look harder next time. Rocks are pretty much everywhere.

  Reward: 5 wooden planks.

Rule number one of sailing a pirate ship: Don't hit stuff with your boat that is not water.

See, ships are made of a material called wood. Now, wood is good. ("That's what she said.") No, I mean wood is good because wood is relatively light, enabling a vessel to float. It is abundant. It can be shaped, cut, and attached using various techniques which I have not yet learned but have no doubt exist.

Your Repair ability has improved to novice level!

Techniques of which now I have scratched the surface of, but am generally ignorant.

Here. I have an imperfect analogy for you, and since I'm busy trying not to drown, we're going to go for it.

Okay, paper is made from wood, yes? And have you ever played Rock, Paper, Scissors?

What does rock beat?

…Wait. Paper. Fuck!

Water is just gushing in the hull as I push planks over splintering holes and hammer them into place. I haven't bothered to adjust the sail or anchor. Since I'm below deck, I'm honestly unsure where the boat is exactly, if I'm about to hit more rocks, or if I'm merrily sailing out to sea.

The little hull-bashing fuckers were hiding under the water just before the shore. My landing on the beach was about to be magnificent. I was coming in slow and steady, at the perfect angle. And then I heard a sound like a garbage disposal going mental on the underside of the ship. What, am I supposed to run to the bow, look in the water, then run back to the wheel while parking this thing? How was I supposed to see those sneaky little rock shits?

It takes seven nailed planks to stop the hull from bleeding, and nineteen buckets of water to get below decks squared away. As I bail out my vessel, I notice I have kind of bounced off the island and headed back out to sea. Since I tied the wheel in place, the ship was going in a reasonably straight line, at least once the water got clear.

Who knew sailing a boat was so tricky? Weren't pirates usually drunk, amputated, and blind in one eye?

I spin the wheel and aim my ship back for Banana Island. This time I roll my sail a third of the way up, so I'm hardly moving at all. Then I tie down the wheel and run to the bow, looking over the front. Sure enough, in the shallows are clouds of dark blue water full of rocks and starfish. The tips of the banana are the most treacherous, but the interior of the crescent, a beach about as wide as a city block, appears to be safe to land.

I run back to the wheel, untethering it and spinning it hard right, almost throwing myself from the ship as it bucks against a wave. But, instead, I take damage from a collision with the railing. A red tint flashes in my peripheral vision, coinciding with a green bar in my mind's eye that shrinks just a bit.

I feel unwell.

"Rufus," I call out, wondering where that little fucker went to. The second I needed his help, aka when I smashed our vessel into a pile of undersea rocks, he was nowhere to be found.

The monkey comes bounding out from behind a barrel just a few feet to my left, scaring the shit out of me. In his hand is a half-eaten apple.

"Rufus. Man the anchor," I command, curious whether he's good for anything.

He looks at me, then points at his apple, saying something like, "Eeeeee, aaeee, aaeee," while taking bites and talking with his mouth full.

"Look, Rufus. My man. My main monkey man. We're a team, right? We gotta park this shippy ship over near that beach. I just want you to drop the anchor when we get close to shore so I don't accidentally beach the thing? I steer. You drop the anchor. You got me Roof? Comprende Rufus? All you gotta do is pull the release. You got this."

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Rufus puts his lips together and blows at me, making a spitting noise. Then he bounds off, tossing his apple core overboard.

Fine then. I don't trust a monkey to drop anchor anyway. So I decide I'll just drop it somewhere safe and swim to shore. And by safe, I mean here, maybe twenty feet away.

Okay, rule number two about being a pirate. Leather is a lot heavier when it is wet than you might expect. And the water deep enough for a boat is a lot deeper than you expect.

Basically, your expectations are going to be wrong.

I can't see the bottom, but I get the sense that it might become my permanent home soon if I don't get better at swimming real quick.

I knew a bit about swimming from my past life. I never had lessons or anything, but I'd been to the pool and lake enough times to get around.

Oh, the beach. If you can get past the old dudes and the kids, there are some spectacular MILFs and college girls in bikinis to be found at the beach.

Anyhow, as I'm swallowing water eight feet below the surface, watching my health go from green to red, I realize in my new form, apparently, I have no swimming skill whatsoever. But after struggling against the water for about five seconds, a skill advance procs, and with it, the world-voice alerts me to a welcome surprise.

Your Swim ability has improved to novice level! With your 2 ranks of Prestige in Swimming, you're an expert swimmer.

And then I burst through the surface, puking out saltwater and inhaling gulps of air in its place. I hang on the anchor chain for a minute to catch my breath, wondering how this whole skill thing works.

Hey, that's pretty slick. I'm getting my previous skills as Prestige. Two ranks does seem kind of excessive for a guy who kind of flailed in the water in his past life. But maybe, just maybe, I've kept some of my talents from my previous world. Maybe all I have to do to reactivate them in this world is get one point in the skill at all.

I admit, it's not like I knew hardly anything that might help me be a successful pirate, but maybe because I can tie my shoes, I'll get knot-tying or something.

Back to almost drowning. Now, as an expert swimmer, even with forty-pound pants, I manage to make my way to shore, although I'm sporting major ass crack when I finally get there.

Still, Banana Island is mine. I land, knees in the sand, and raise my hands in the air, yelling, "Sparta!" for reasons I don't wish to explain.

Don't judge me, okay. I almost died a minute ago, and there are only so many opportunities to yell Sparta! outside of the Peloponnesian War and really, genuinely mean it.

After I'm done yelling, I look up at find a figure staring at me, bewildered. She startles me so much, I jump back, falling ass-crack first into the surf.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she says, her long red hair blowing in the island wind like some kind of enchantress. She rushes to help me, her ample breasts bouncing unrestrained in her tattered shirt, consuming all too much of my low-angle view.

I guess they don't have bras in pirate-land, and I'm personally completely okay with that.

"Are you hurt?" she says, reach out.

"Yeah. Just my getting my sea legs," I say, standing up and hiking up my trousers. "You know how it is. Been out there a long time, and I lost my balance." I try to look dignified despite being soaked and now with an ass coated in a thin layer of wet sand.

"I do indeed," she replies. "I've been marooned here since spring."

"Marooned?"

"Yea. My ship wrecked on the rocks just yonder. I didn't see them coming. Anyhow, I came here to catch some rare quail I saw. A breeding pair would fetch a pretty penny at port."

"Oh? At port, you say? You know where a port is?"

"Yes. Sadly, I've eaten the quail and pretty much everything else on this island that is edible." She turns her head away in shame. "They were delicious. The quail."

"You did what you had to do to survive. I'd have done the same."

"Only, I lied about being here since spring." She lets out a long exhale. "I've been here since Thursday. I was just so lonely. I thought I was going to die."

She moves in for a soothing hug, and the pressure of her warm bosom against my chilly skin feels incredible.

"Look, if you like, you can come aboard my boat, and I'll take you back to port," I say when she finally releases me.

"Really? If you saved me from this island, I'd owe you a great debt. Perhaps I could work it off on your ship? I'm good with sails, and I would swab the deck without complaint."

She bends over for me, demonstrating the hard mop thrust of her deck-swabbing technique, her shirt somewhat looser as she leans forward.

"What's your name?" I say, trying not to blush.

"Fenna, sir."

"Well, Fenna. It happens I require an experienced sailor such as yourself."

"Put 'er there, then." Fenna opens her palm before me and spits in it before waving it up and down enthusiastically. "I'm ever so grateful. I'm very handy, captain. I'll show you."

"Uh…right here on the beach?"

"Seal the deal. Flesh on flesh. We have time for a quick one. I'm not starving that bad." She furrows her brow at me, waving her moistened palm around in the air like a loaded gun.

"But we, I mean—we just met, and this body… I'm still getting used to it."

"So, you don't want me on your crew, now? Did I do something wrong?"

"No, I do want you aboard."

"Can you just make up your mind then?"

"Okay, okay. If you insist." I guess this is how they do things in this world. I close my eyes and straighten my back, my heart racing in my chest, trying to man up for what comes next.

Then I feel a slimy sensation squeezing on my right hand.

My hand? Gross.

A tooltip materializes in my brain, both text and words as read by the world voice.

Crewmate acquired!

Name: Fenna

Race: Human

Class: Longsighter

Level: 1

Talents:

- Perceive at great distances

- Navigate by the starlight

- Accurate with long guns

But it's at the exact moment that Fenna joins my crew that another sloop comes into view, one of its cannons firing on my freshly repaired ship.