Auntie Charlie
Caroline De’Walt had been a ship rat for a decade before ‘retiring’ to her position as harbormaster. She’d served on a pair of pirate sloops and six merchantmen. She knew when an airship was in trouble, and just two days out of Shimmertower, the Hourglass was in it, and big.
The ship herself was fine, and the heading she traveled on felt right. But the ship rats and street rats on the crew whispered. No one aboard was happy. And Auntie Charlie could see why. The ship’s underaged skipper had set the course, turned the wheel over to whoever would take it, and locked herself in her cabin.
Charlie didn’t blame Twila - Skipper Tighe - for hiding. Liberating the [Long Fives] had cost Rosie an eye when splinters rocketed through the engine room after a mystshot. Several other crewmates wore bandages over bruises, cuts, and burns from the fighting. She herself worked one-handed; her other held to her body by a bandage sling.
But the time had come, Charlie thought, for the skipper to start acting like one - even if she was only ten. “All hands on deck. I’ve got questions for our skipper, and you’re going to hear the answers,” she shouted as she strode down into the hold.
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Twila
Twila’s pistol ticked as the purple mystshot punched into the [Gibson Marine’s] chest for the thousandth time. He hit the ground again and again. Cannons flashed, the thunder of their mystshots’ passing pressing against her ears.
She rolled in the small bed, sheets tangled around her body. The guns’ banging grew louder, faster, and more insistent. Her eyes sprung open.
“Skipper, you’re needed on the deck,” Auntie Charlie’s sharp voice pierced through the door. “Don’t make me come in there and get you, Twila.”
Twila took stock of the room.
Her harness and overclothes lay where she’d peeled them off the night of the heist. A bottle of…something sat upended on the floor. She hadn’t left the bed in the two days since they left Shimmertower,, save to use the bathroom. She sniffed the air, nose wrinkling. She’d stopped emptying the pot after the first day–it was too much work.
“Go away, Auntie Charlie,” she mumbled into the pillow. Her head pounded. What had she been drinking? She shut her eyes.
“I’ll be back, skipper,” Charlie said and walked away.
Twila’s pistol ticked as the purple mystshot punched into the [Gibson Marine’s] chest for the thousand-and-first time. He hit -
Twila’s eyes popped open again. Someone was scrabbling at the door. She sat up in bed as the door creaked open.
Jamis glanced in, wrinkled his nose, and looked away from Twila, who was dressed only in her undergarments and tangled sheets. “Skipper’s all yours, Auntie,” he muttered, flushing red.
“Thank you, Jamis. Wait with the others. We’ll be out soon,” Charlie said. As the boy left, she walked over to the pot and opened a window. “You’re done stewing in your own shit, Twila.”
The gray-haired woman emptied the pot into the ocean below. She tossed Twila’s filthy clothes at the girl and sat on the bed. “Get dressed. You’re going out there, looking your crew in the eye, and explaining to them what happened in Shimmertower, or I’m taking over the Hourglass.”
Twila blinked. Would Auntie Charlie really…mutiny? She stared at the woman’s hard eyes for a moment before she started untangling herself from her sheets. It wasn’t a question of whether Charlie would mutiny, Twila thought. It was a question of whether anyone on board could stop her if she did.
“Good, skipper. I was thirteen too when I killed my first man.” Auntie Charlie stared at the window and the silver machine. “He was pirate scum, when I served on the Tern’s Stern out of Smallfield. The pirates took the ship anyways, and I got pressed as a ship rat on their sloop. I learned something, though.”
“What?” Twila pulled her pants on and started buttoning up her filthy shirt.
“Every one of the men and women, boys and girls on the Revenge was a killer. Every. Single. One. The cabin boy, he couldn’t have been more than eight. I watched him cut a rope and send someone down a thousand feet into the Sunset Sea. And they all carried on every day. Killing was just business for them.”
Twila finished with her clothes. “I’ll help you with the harness, skipper,” Charlie said.
“Thanks,” Twila muttered. She paused. “How did you deal with knowing?”
“That I’d killed?” Charlie tightened leather straps with her free hand until they were snug around Twila’s body. “You killed a man. Shot him in the chest. How do you feel?”
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Twila stopped lacing her boot. “Empty. I didn’t want to kill him. I’d take it back. I wish I could. Lots of nightmares. I’ve killed him a thousand times, at least.”
“Good. Now push that down.” Auntie Charlie held Twila’s hand in hers. The woman’s callouses scratched against Twila’s palm, but she gripped gently. “You feel like you’ve tossed a bad cup at dice. Don’t let that feeling pull you under. Push it down instead. It’ll hurt, but so does everything else. That’s how the crew of the Revenge survived. It’s how I lived with what I did.”
She stood up and walked to the door. “Marianna, bring some water!” Then she pulled an ivory comb from a pocket on her greatcoat and started working it through Twila’s filth-covered hair. The comb caught on mats and tangles, making Twila flinch and tear up as Charlie dragged it through her curls over and over.
“You don’t have the time to wallow, so push the pain down. It’ll lie there, and you can control it that way. You’ll have to. The ship is counting on you, and you’re letting them all down every minute you lie in bed and think instead of doing something. Carter and Becca are counting on you. Rosie is counting on you!”
“What if I can’t?” Twila asked. “Push it down, I mean.”
“Then you’d better find a place to disembark.” Auntie Charlie attacked a horrible knot of hair, drawing a gasp. The sharp pain from a comb ripping hair from her head centered Twila, somehow. “Wallowing in your pain? That’s for land crawlers, drunk, in their pubs. You’re a skipper - a better class of woman than those dregs. Start acting like it!”
Marianna knocked on the door. “Got water, Auntie. I’ll leave it here.”
The water had sloshed against the bucket’s sides, spilling through the hold. Auntie Charlie carried it in and set it next to the bed. “Wash your face and pull yourself together, skipper. And remember, push it down!”
As the woman walked away, Twila glared. How would pushing down her emptiness make her feel better? How would it help her live with…what she’d done? She grabbed the ladle and splashed water across her face. She spat as some went in her mouth. The saltwater burned her eyes, and she blinked until they stopped hurting.
Just like that, she thought. I’ll just blink it away.
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Rosie
Rosie Currante’s injured eye still ached under the bandages, even two days later. She sat on the deck, thumbing through the journal she’d gotten from Skipper Anton’s chest. Her skill, [Puzzler], activated, but all she could make out of Anton’s writing were pentagons with dots in the corners. These weren’t words, she thought. How could she decipher them?
“Attention, all hands. Skipper’s coming up,” Charlie’s voice cut through her thoughts as she shut the notebook with a snap. She tried to look, but a searing pain ripped through her wounded eye as it moved.
When her vision cleared, Twila stood next to the wheel mount. [Anton’s Paired Pistols] rested across her stomach in the bandolier, and the pocket watch hung from a chain at her waist. She reeked of sweat, rum, and something else, but her face was clean, and her hair was less tangled than usual.
Rosie stared at Twila with her one good eye. The red-haired girl repeatedly blinked, rapid-fire blinks, and took a deep breath.
“Crew, we need to talk. About where we’re going. And what happened. But mostly, about [Anton’s Pocket Watch], the Hourglass, and the map.”
[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 - Multitool (lv. 2) - Tool Transform (active, 1 myst/switch) - Change between many common tools; 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 2]
[Skill #2 - Perception 2]
[Skill #3 - Piloting 4]
[Skill #4 - Marksman 2]
[Skill #5 - Empty]