I was halfway back to the Salty Dog Inn when Gertie found me.
“Where have you been?” She snapped. “We’re going to miss the boat.”
We wove through the bustling morning crowd as we hurried to the dock. Sasha and Nelly were waiting on a galleon that dwarfed the other boats.
“Where did you go?” Sasha asked, her eyes narrowing. “I coulda sworn you left with that waitress. Did you get a special quest?”
“Mary doesn’t offer any quests,” I replied, earning an eye-roll in response.
Nelly saved me by changing the subject. “Do you have any more cards? Nobody could beat me when I used Wrecking Ball.”
“What about the other two?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I have tons of monsters. What I need are more powerful skill cards.”
“Well, that’s all I got for now,” I replied. “I’ll let you know if I get anything else.”
----------------------------------------
Once we set sail, Nelly went to work beating the sailors at Card Battle and Sasha joined her. I decided to explore the ship and see if anyone offered quests. The dwarves didn’t take too well to being at sea and bunkered down below deck.
I decided to start with the captain. Or at least the man steering the ship.
Helmsman Cedrick
Level 15
“Hi there,” I greeted him, earning only a grunt in response. “Is there anything I can do to help out during the trip?”
He glanced at me. “How about you try staying out of the way? All passengers are supposed to stay below decks. Captain’s orders.”
The short response was frustrating. It was unusual to run into NPCs that didn’t want to talk. Even more so when they refused an offer of help. Since he wasn’t the captain, I decided to go search for him. I found him in his quarters; the only room available from the main deck.
“Ever heard of knocking?” He scowled at me in true seafaring fashion.
“Uh, sorry,” I replied, ignoring the slight. “I was just wondering if there was anything I could to do help out.”
“No offense, but yer pretty useless, Landlubber. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable below deck, or try your hand at fishin’? We provide poles for a small fee.”
Foiled again, I left with my tail between my legs to find the merchant who sold fishing equipment.
“You can rent a rod and tackle for ten copper or buy them for ten silver,” a man on deck next to a bundle of crude fishing poles said. “The bait’s free.”
I decided to purchase a set. Who knew if there was a special fishing skill? I was a completionist, after all.
There was one other player on the boat aside from our group. A middle-aged woman with braided red hair reeled in a rather large fish as I watched. I tried to give her some space but she noticed me anyway.
“Hi there,” she called over her shoulder. “Come on over. Don’t be shy. I know I’m not. My name’s Abigail. What’s yours?”
I’d planned to fish on my own. Players didn’t exactly offer quests, after all. Still, there was no harm in meeting more people. “Hi, I’m Veritas. Nice to meet you, Abigail.”
She smiled, dropping the freshly caught fish into a bucket that was far too small. The fish vanished the moment it hit the water. “I’ve been fishing in games for years. I want to see how far I can take it in this one.”
“Just fishing?” I asked. “Do you plan on taking an adventuring class?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. You’re one to talk though considering you already have two gathering classes. Care to explain how you leveled so fast?”
“It’s a secret,” I replied.
She smirked and cast her line again. “I’ll teach you some tricks if you give me a hint.”
I shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. Excavating is like fishing. I just broke a lot of rocks.”
Abigail chuckled. “There’s a difference. You don’t have to catch the rocks before you break them. Try using this bait. It works a lot better than that slop the quartermaster gave you.”
I cringed when I saw the handful of paste in her hand. It was a green blob with insect wings and mandibles sticking out.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Just wad it up and place it on your hook,” she said, grabbing my line to demonstrate.
I was grateful she did because I didn’t want to touch the stuff.
“Now sling the rod back over your head and flick it forward,” she instructed, demonstrating with a flick of her hand. “Don’t worry about snagging anything. The game doesn’t allow that to happen.”
I did as instructed, and was soon fishing. Well, Abigail was. She reeled in fish consistently while I sat there.
“Don’t worry,” she explained. “My skill lets me bump up my catch rate. Without an appropriate class and no skill, you can expect maybe one fish every ten minutes.”
“What’s the skill called?” I asked, rubbing my hands together like I was a mad scientist.
“I already worked my way up to the Advanced Angling skill,” she announced, puffing her chest out proudly. “I’m the only one in the game with that skill.”
I was about to excuse myself to the bathroom when something odd happened. An explosion erupted from somewhere in the distance and a sailor up in the crow’s nest shouted. “Pirates!”
That was some excitement I hadn’t been expecting.
“Gotta go,” I said as I reeled in my line.
“Wait!” Abigail cried. “There are bonus fish you can only catch during a pirate attack. Besides, there’s nothing we can do. Let the sailors handle it.”
I was already gone though, sprinting toward the stairs that led below deck. There were still a few minutes until the pirates arrived and I wanted to try something before I forgot. I found a nice quiet spot under the stairs and took out the blank deck of cards.
I scribed the words, ‘Advanced Angling,’ on the card.
Error: Insufficient skill.
I grumbled as I tried again. ‘Beginner Angling’
Error
‘Novice Angler,’ I tried.
Novice Angler
Card Battle Card
Before heading topside, I set my respawn point beneath those stairs just in case I died. The pirate ship was alongside us and closing in fast. Both sides fired cannons, though none of the explosions came anywhere near me. It felt like the event was a show for the player’s enjoyment.
“Stay back!” The sailors yelled when I approached the cannons to help out.
“Keep yer distance,” the captain bellowed as he stood behind the sailors with his sword drawn while issuing orders. “You can fight once the pirates board us.”
While it was a generous offer, I had other plans. My skillset involved a lot of breaking stuff and the occasional explosion. I waited for the pirate ship to get a little closer before taking a running start and implementing one of my skills for the first time. “Super Jump!”
I felt light as a feather as I sailed over the ocean. When I got to the pirate ship, I switched to another skill which just so happened to be the most applicable for a sea battle. “Cannonball!”
My weight went from nothing to that of a mountain and I crashed right through the deck of the ship. There was an explosion of wood, iron, and pirates as I crashed through multiple levels before coming out the bottom of the hull.
You have defeated a Pirate Ship
You have defeated a Pirate
You have defeated a Pirate
You have defeated a Pirate
You have defeated a Pirate
You have defeated a Pirate
You have defeated a Pirate Captain
Congratulations! You have reached level 21!
Congratulations! You have reached level 22!
Congratulations! You have reached level 23!
Congratulations! You have reached level 24!
Congratulations! You have reached level 25!
Thanks to my tunic and its enhancement to my swimming skill, I shot through the sea like a fish. The water was a lot colder than the lake had been. I chose to ignore that the same way as I did the need to breathe. The game rewarded me with another skill.
New Trait Acquired: Cold Resistance
“Mind over matter,” I gurgled.
There were plenty of fish in the sea. I decided to try my hand at catching them, literally. A few attempts answered that question. While I was faster than normal, fish had swimming down to a science. The moment I closed in to grab one, it would squirt through my hands in a flash of water and bubbles.
After giving up on the fish hunt, I decided to surface and see how the sailors faring. It was sheer chaos. Several rowboats had been lowered into the water. A few were over by the pirate ship which was still in the process of sinking.
The rest had spread out and one of the sailors pointed at me the moment my head bobbed up. “There he is!”
I dove back under. The last thing I wanted was to be rescued like some helpless victim. Building as much momentum as possible, I swam to the boat and used Super Jump the moment I breached the water. I flew just high enough to land softly on the deck next to a very perplexed Abigail.
“Do I even want to know how a glorified miner did all that?” She asked with her hands on her hips.
“It’s the same principle as breaking rocks,” I explained. “I just found a way to apply it to other things.”
“Good thing you have that hard hat on,” she said, knocking on it for good measure.
“Safety first,” I replied with a grin.
Nelly and Sasha, who’d both come up when the battle started marched over to us.
“Who’s this?” Sasha asked, raising an eyebrow at the other redhead.
“Hi, I’m Nelly,” Nelly added.
Abigail stared Sasha down. Neither girl blinked. After what felt like an eternity, she rolled her eyes. “I’m too old for this. I’m Abigail, and I’m fishing here.”
“Did you catch anything?” Nelly asked, either oblivious or ignoring the tension in the air.
“Tons of things,” Abigail replied, kneeling next to her bucket and taking out a particularly colorful fish. “Would you like to see?”
Nelly kneeled beside her and Abigail started showing off her collection.
Sasha watched them for a while before looking over at me. “So, you blew up a pirate ship.”
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Was there any loot?” She asked.
“Shit!” I shouted, getting the attention of all three girls and several sailors as well. “I forgot to check.”
It was too late though. The pirate ship was nowhere to be seen, lost under the waves.
Sasha put her arm around my shoulder, looking at the debris left floating in the ocean. “I bet they had a ton of loot in the hold. Now it’s at the bottom of the sea. I wonder if they allow diving in this game.”
I took out my map. Thankfully, it read my mind, and the spot was already marked. Diving was no problem for me. I didn’t even need air tanks.
Sunken Treasure
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” the captain said while walking over. “I think I might have a use for you after all.”
I crossed my arms. “And why would I want to work for you? You turned me down the first time.”
“You were just a miner then,” he explained. “We have little use for them on the open sea. Now, a human cannonball that can take out my nemesis in one shot? That I have use for.”
I rolled my eyes. “What do you need?”
“You killed one pirate captain,” he began, lighting a pipe as he spoke. “What do you say about ending the menace once and for all?”