“Gun teams, two minutes for water, then back at your stations!” Charlie shouted.
Rojir and Carter stood, shirtless and sweaty, next to the bow cannon. On the quarterdeck, Jamis and Becca breathed heavily and leaned against the rail near the stern gun. Both teams had been practicing for the better part of an hour under Auntie Charlie’s critical eye.
Each team had a cannon cycle - load, fire, and clear - down to under three minutes. Without a third crewmate, it wasn’t likely they’d get that under two, and Twila thought they needed a longer break than a few minutes. But if they ran across pirates–or a Principalities ship–they’d need to be able to fight.
At least, that was what Auntie Charlie said.
Both crews ladled water into their mouths greedily. All too soon, Charlie’s next shouted order sounded out. “Gun teams, to your stations!”
“Skipper, she’s killing us,” Jamis complained as he jogged past Twila’s place at the wheel. “We know how to do this.”
Charlie, standing next to the helm, snorted. “You’re confident you know your gun? Then how about a race? You’ll fire it for real this time, down into the sea. The first team to fire and clear their gun wins immediate shore leave when we land in Three Peaks? Other team cleans the porthole windows first?”
The two teams agreed, Becca and Carter glaring at each other. As Becca turned away, Carter stuck his tongue out.
“Ready?” Charlie pulled her pistol and pointed it into the air. Twila stared at [Anton’s Pocket Watch].
“On my mark,” the woman said. She pulled the trigger, and a beam of purple bloomed skyward. “Go!”
As the two crews exploded into action, Twila stopped Hourglass’s engines and her [Piloting]. She wanted to watch the race, not focus on the ship.
Jamis and Carter dragged the gun back on its carriage until its barrel hung over the deck, not the sea. While Jamis swept the barrel with a rag on a stick–Auntie Charlie insisted on it after each practice loading for safety–Becca pulled a five-pound myst cartridge from a bag.
The cartridges, Twila had seen, were really similar to her myst battery - or to the boilers on Hourglass’s sides. Pressurized myst was jammed into a brass tube. When the myst was heated, it released, and the cannon barrel only let it go one way - down the barrel and toward the target.
Jamis finished sweeping the gun. Becca reached up with both hands and dropped the cartridge into the barrel, cursing and waving a finger as it pinched. Jamis pushed the cartridge back with a long stick, jamming it into the back of the barrel.
“We’re loaded!” he shouted.
“Firing!” yelled Becca.
She grabbed a foot-long metal rod from a nearby lamp - its tip had been heating. Jamis shoved a short bit of cotton rope down a hole at the top of the barrel, and Becca lit it. Both children covered their ears, just like Auntie Charlie had told them.
Twila did too. She waited for the purple flash and the -
A boom ripped through the quiet afternoon sky as a violet burst of light filled the air. A moment later, the rear gun fired, a second thunderclap and purple flash joining the first.
Becca and Jamis sprung back to their gun, tools in hand. The bow gun had beaten them to firing by less than three seconds!
Twila whistled, impressed. The race was still anyone’s to win.
While Jamis shoved a hook down the barrel and fished out the ruined brass cartridge, Becca used a tiny pick to clear the fuse hole.
When the cartridge sat, smoking, on the deck, Becca poured oil into the barrel while Jamis used the rag on a stick to spread it around inside the gun. They threw their tools onto the deck and shouted, “Done!” together.
A second later, the front gun crew shouted too.
“Rear gun wins,” Charlie yelled. “Time?”
“Two minutes, thirty-four seconds,” Twila said.
“A bit slow. A team of three or two trained adults could do a shot every forty-five seconds. I expect a shot every two minutes by the end of the week, with cleaning in each cycle. In combat, you can clear the cartridge and keep firing, but in practice, we take care of the guns,” Charlie said as both crews walked over, panting.
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“Becca and Jamis, I’ll be inspecting your gun. If it’s cleaned to standard, you’ll get shore leave on our arrival.”
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“...and the bowsprit gets in the way of cleaning, so of course you were going to win,” Rojir complained. His skin had browned in the sun, though parts of his shoulders were red and peeling.
“Well, you’re bigger and stronger, so your gun should be faster than ours, bowsprit or not,” Becca shot back. “Maybe your [Canonneer] skill needs some work?”
Twila smiled as she spun the wheel, cut the Hourglass’s speed to ‘Full Stop,’ and signaled the crew to release the drag cloths.
They’d arrived in Three Peaks. In Twila’s old home.
It hadn’t changed much since the last time she’d visited. A surprising number of wooden buildings clung to the cliffsides - in many places, even the path was planks and beams. Bridges crisscrossed between the three tuff towers, forming a spider’s web that Twila was glad she didn’t have to sail through. On the middle island, trees grew from every possible surface: twisted, knotty little oaks; tall, straight pines; and many-trunked trees with bright yellow leaves.
The Hourglass drifted to a stop against a narrow dock. They tied off ropes, but with no support beams under her, the ship’s monstrous engines would need to stay idling. That meant some of the crew would need to stay aboard.
Next to them, a long, narrow airship vomited bluish-purple smog as men rolled long pine logs onto it. Twila stared, all but drooling in envy. Each tree trunk had to be worth two hundred crowns as mast beams. She thought a second beam would solve Hourglass’s myst issues at Flank Speed.
Or a condenser that wasn’t Old Bitch.
“Okay, skipper, Jamis and Becca have earned shore leave,” Charlie said. The two cheered as Rojir and Carter glared at them. “The other crew is cleaning. I’m staying aboard. Who’s your shore party?”
Twila thought. They were just here to find leads on the treasure. She didn’t need a massive crew for that. “Jamis, Becca, take Marianna with you. Rosie and me are gonna ask around town.”
Ten minutes later, Twila and Rosie walked down the gangplank, pistols on their chests.
A few people walked the path. A handful of women in dresses that Twila thought might’ve come from Smallfield tittered and pointed at the girls. A man in a boat cloak bumped into Rosie from behind, apologized gruffly, and hurried up the path. He turned down a side street, and Twila and Rosie followed.
“You never said you were from Three Peaks,” Rosie said.
“Wasn’t important. We were from South Peak, anyways. The poor one. My parents sold me to Skipper Anton for carrot money when I was seven. Best thing they coulda done for me. Don’t remember much of Three Peaks.” Twila shrugged, feeling a tingle run down her back. Lying to Rosie wasn’t something she’d done much of.
The truth was that she remembered running along the web of bridges. Remembered playing in the muddy tree fields and coming home filthy. The pine smell after a storm and the acrid stink of the giant log haulers. She was home. The memories stuck in her mind for a moment, almost as vividly as pulling the trigger in Shimmertower.
She blinked and breathed until she’d pushed the emptiness down again. Hourglass was home, not some island. Auntie Charlie was right. She was a better class of woman than these land crawlers, and she needed to act like it!
“The Tarred Siren used to be around here somewhere. Should be a good place to ask about treasure!”
[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]