“Alright, ship rats, run me through your ‘plan’ again,” Auntie Charlie said.
The gray-haired woman sat on the captain’s bed, Twila and the rest of the Hourglass’s crew on the floor. She almost looked like a grandma telling her children a bedtime story, Twila thought crazily. She yawned. Whatever had been making her jittery was fading, leaving behind just the grumpies.
“We fly Hourglass over to the dock, pick out some [Long Fives], and load them up,” she said again. “It’ll be easy. Didn’t see anyone looking to stop that from happening.”
“That won’t work at all,” Auntie Charlie said. “You’ve never planned something like this, have you?”
“Uh, no,” Rosie said. “Other than getting the Hourglass out of Iswixel, and that wasn’t planned or anything.”
“Okay, ship rats, listen to your Auntie Charlie. If you’re going to steal from the Gibson Company, you’ll need a proper crew and a better plan than that. Toss all your ideas about the Gibson Foundry off the deck. It’s got more danger than you realized from a quick tour, and everyone’s got a weapon. You just don’t see ‘em, and they’re not all guns.”
“Need those cannons, though,” Twila mused. She thought for a minute. “Auntie Charlie, you know people. Can you find us a crew?”
“I do happen to know about some rats who need off of Shimmertower, yeah. But I have a price.”
“Of course you do,” Carter mumbled under his breath.
“Shut it, Carter,” Twila said. “What do you want?”
“I want to join your crew,” Charlie said.
Twila and the others’ mouths dropped open. Rosie recovered fastest, asking the question on everyone’s minds. “Why?”
Auntie grinned. “I’m wearing out my welcome in Shimmertower. With Governor Hart especially. Am I in or not?”
Twila thought about it. The woman had what she now realized the crew lacked - information about the foundry and a lead on some extra crewmates. But if she was going to accept Auntie Charlie onto the crew, she’d need to clarify some things.
“Okay, you’re in,” Twila said. “But I’m Hourglass’s skipper. Rosie’s first mate. And you’ll be bottom rung until you show you’re worth more.” She felt proud of herself - she’d stolen the speech from one Skipper Anton had given her on her first day aboard.
Unlike her, however, Auntie Charlie didn’t whine about it. She snorted, obviously holding back laughter. “Alright, skipper,“ she said, “I’m going to track down those street rats. Meet me at my room at the Drunken Kraken in, oh, two hours.” Without waiting for a response, the woman walked out the door and disappeared.
“She’s going to be trouble,” Carter said.
“I agree,” Becca nodded and stood up. “I don’t think she’ll be happy taking orders for long. Not from a thirteen-year-old kid.”
“We’ll take her and offload her at the next port if we have to,” Twila said. She didn’t trust the woman, but she was right–breaking into the Gibson Company’s foundry would require her help.
The ship rats talked for a while. Ideas about how to get two cannons flew past, got rejected, and then came back to life. After an hour, someone shouted from outside. “Hourglass, repair crew here. Permission to come aboard!”
“Becca, Carter, stay here and watch the ship. If the Gibson people show, try not to have them tripping on the skywrights. Rosie, with me. We’ll meet the new crewmates.”
----------------------------------------
“Some of the gang wasn’t interested, but I got three,” Auntie Charlie said. “Rojir, Jamis, and Marianna. They’re not experienced ship rats, but they work well together, and they learn fast.”
Jamis and Rojir, at least, looked competent. The former stood almost five and a half feet, with a build like a whale, Twila thought. His scraggly blonde hair needed a wash worse than Twila’s tangles had before the rainstorm. Rojir’s hand was covered in callouses, and his grip somehow reminded Twila of the skipper’s.
Marianna, though…
The black-haired girl was tiny, first of all. They claimed she was eight - how she could possibly be older than six, Twila had no idea. And the filthy patch over her right eye left no doubt she’d been hurt badly.
No, Twila thought, there just wasn’t any way the tiny girl could pull her weight on Hourglass.
“Rojir, Jamis, you two look strong. You’re in. But Marianna, you’re too small to load a cannon or tighten a bolt. Hourglass is no place for you.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Jamis, first at Twila and then at Auntie Charlie. “What the hell, Auntie? You said we’d all be in,” he spat out.
“Just let Marianna do her thing,” Rojir said. “Miss Tighe will come around. She has to.”
Marianna grinned so big it looked like her face was about to split. “Yeah, you’ll see! The boys are dumb! My locket is the best thing that happened to them.”
“It’s actually my locket,” Rojir said, “you’re just borrowing it.”
She grabbed a little locket from around her neck and pressed a button. Her cracked mana battery ticked three times. The locket popped open with a tiny puff of purple and yellow that spread through the air quickly, and a tiny figure danced as music played.
Then Marianna started dancing along with the music. Twila had just enough time to look at Rosie and see her eyes lock onto the little girl before she, too, found herself entranced. On and on Marianna danced. Suddenly, the music stopped.
“Okay, boys, what’d you get?” Marianna asked. She did one more spin to the nonexistent music and then stopped as well.
“Coin purse and a set of wrenches,” Rojir said.
“I win. One pistol, a map I can’t read, and a pocket watch. Woulda been both pistols if you hadn’t run out of myst,” Jamis sulked.
Twila checked her bandolier; sure enough, Jamis had pickpocketed her! She watched Rosie check. Her coin purse was gone.
“Give that back,” she said, grabbing the pistol and [Anton’s Pocket Watch]. Once both her things and Rosie’s were returned, she nodded reluctantly. “Still don’t think you’ll be worth much on board Hourglass, Marianna, but you’re in too.” The older boys relaxed.
“No,” Rosie shook her head, and the boys tensed again. “I don’t think you should sign them on until she explains what just happened.”
“Do I have to?” Marianna whined. She looked at the two boys. Jamis nodded. “Alright,” she said, “The locket is, uh, [Lady Amy’s Aria]. Rojir stole it off someone from the upper side. He was gonna sell it, but I opened it first, and the music is really danceable. Plus, the song is really catchy. Everyone looks. So I open it and dance, and the boys take what we need.”
Twila looked over the boys again. “No myst batteries, huh? And no gizmos or weapons?”
They shook their heads. Rojir shrugged. “Never had more than a knife. Marianna needed our only battery. It doesn’t store much, though.”
“Alright. Back to Hourglass. You’re all coming. We have a crew. Now we need a plan, and some gear,” Twila said.
“So we’re in?” Marianna asked. “I knew we’d make it!”
“Wait a second,” Rojir said. “No one’s told us what we’re signing up for. What’s the Hourglass, and what are we doing with it?”
“You didn’t tell them anything, Auntie Charlie?” Twila asked. Was she really going to have to explain everything again?
“No. That’s the skipper’s job,” the woman said with a glimmer in her eyes and just a twitch of a grin.
Twila sighed. She was going to have to explain. The rest of the crew was right; Auntie Charlie was going to be trouble.
[Twila Tighe, Ship Rat Mystgineer, Equipment Level 1.09 (Myst 1/10, Hit Points 1/1)]
[Head - Empty]
[Eyes - Myst Lens (lvl. 1) Myst Sight (passive) See own status block and others’ classes]
[Chest - Ship Rat’s Harness (lvl. 0)]
[Waist - Apprentice Mystgineer’s Bandolier (lvl. 1) Deep Pockets (passive) - Equip an additional Gizmo]
[Legs - Canvas Overalls (lvl. 0)]
[Gizmo #1 - Basic Myst Tools (lvl 1) Skill - Tinkering]
[Gizmo #2 - Anton’s Pocket Watch (lvl. 4)] Redo (active, 5 myst/5 seconds) - redo the last five seconds of time, with knowledge of what’s happening (1 minute to reset); Skill - Piloting]
[Gizmo #3 - Empty]
[Gizmo (Belt) - Mystwork Lantern (lvl. 2): Mystlight (active, 25% failure chance, 1 myst/attempt) - start the light; Adjustable Light Aura (sustained, .5-2 myst/tick) - light a variable area; Skill - Perception]
[Myst Battery - Basic Myst Battery (lvl. 1) Small Storage (passive) - 10 myst maximum, requires condenser to refill]
[Weapon/Pair - Anton’s Paired Pistols (lvl. 2) Smoothbore Myst-Shot (active, 1 cartridge/shot) - fire a ray of heated myst; Rapid Shots (active, 2 myst/shot) - fire twice/tick; Skill - Marksman]
[Weapon/Pair - Empty]
[Skill #1 - Tinkering 1]
[Skill #2 - Perception 2]
[Skill #3 - Piloting 4]
[Skill #4 - Marksman 2]
[Skill #5 - Empty]