Twila raised her sword in front of her, probing her opponent’s defenses. She stepped forward, one foot carefully placed before the other, and Auntie Charlie stepped back. Then the woman exploded forward in a lunge. Twila side-stepped and pushed the blade to the side, then poked her own at Charlie.
“Point to Twila. Six to Ten, Charlie is winning,” Rosie said.
“You’re slowing down,” Twila said as she took a hasty step back out of Charlie’s range. Though Rosie had called the point, Twila had learned that their duels never stopped until someone had scored eleven hits. Why eleven? Why not five? Or three? That’d be enough to overwhelm Twila’s armor and leave her bleeding out.
“I’m still fast enough to beat you pretty handily, you whiney little rat,” Charlie grinned. She brought her sword up—First Guard—then started attacking. Her sword flashed toward Twila’s face. Twila knocked it over her head. It whipped back down and stabbed into her chest. She caught it on her sword’s hilt and pushed it off-center.
On and on, an endless wave of thrusts and lunges and an occasional short slash. Whenever Twila tried to take the initiative, Charlie countered and forced her back on the defensive.
And then, as she found herself driven toward the stairs to the hold, Twila parried a second too slow. Charlie’s sword grazed her shoulder.
“Point to Charlie. Six to Eleven. Charlie wins.”
Twila slumped, breathing hard. She’d actually won her first duel with Charlie just after they’d left Seapike. But all that’d done was make the woman fight faster and defend harder. Twila hadn’t won since, but she was getting closer.
The Hourglass was four days into their run from Seapike. Four days of engines humming, of the rat’s nest and condenser kissing the waves. Broken Rock should have been in sight by now. But they’d hit a storm two days in, and Twila hadn’t wanted to hop to avoid it.
The fewer hops with Rackham on board, the better.
Not that the pirate did much besides lie in Marianna’s hammock, get drunk, and stare out past the bowsprit. Twila had tried to talk to him about Vayne, about the Endeavor—honestly, about anything—but the man wouldn’t say a word. He slept, drank, and stared out past the bowsprit. And sometimes, with narrowed eyes, at Auntie Charle.
But only when she wasn’t looking. The rest of the time, he wouldn’t make eye contact.
“You’re…doing better, Twila,” Charlie said between breaths. “You telegraph your thrusts too much, but your defense is much tighter than it used to be. If you’d drill your footwork a bit more, it’d get less sloppy when I pressed you, too. That’s why I got points nine and ten.”
“Oh….I see.” Twila looked at Aunt Charlie’s weathered, exhausted-looking face. “Are you sleeping, Charlie?”
Charlie stiffened. Then she grabbed Twila’s hand. “Rosie, you have the helm, right?”
“Right!”
“We’ll be back.”
Twila let herself get dragged down the stairs and into her quarters. Charlie stared out into the engine room, then, satisfied that no one could hear over Leftie and Rightie running ‘Ahead Full,’ she stared Twila in the eye. “No. Only a few hours a night, and only when I’m sure Rackham’s drunk enough that he won’t get up. Someone has to keep an eye on that son of a siren, or he’ll be skipper, and you’ll be cut loose in the waves.”
“Is he that bad?” Twila didn’t trust Rackham. He’d almost killed her during their rescue attempt, and no one had a good thing to say about him. No one. But… “He hasn’t done anything but sleep and drink.”
“Why do you think that is?” Charlie snapped. “Because I’m watching him constantly, and he can’t beat me in a fight. And because he’s got plenty to drink. But if he gets a chance, he’ll take it.”
“Take a nap, quartermaster,” Twila said. She cocked [Anton’s Paired Pistols] and smiled, imitating Auntie Charlie’s sometimes-predatory grin. “I’ll be fine for a few hours. I’ll wake you up when we get to Broken Rock.”
----------------------------------------
“Land! I see land!” Marianna called from the Hourglass’s rat’s nest.
“Get up here. Rosie, get Charlie. She’s in my room,” Twila said. She looked at Rackham as he glanced back from his spot at the bowsprit, then went back to staring off into the distance. “Carter, Becca, get everyone together. We need to know what we’re sailing into. That means Rackham, too.”
She spun the ship’s speed dial to ‘Full Stop’ and waited, fiddling with the wheel as the ship hovered over the shimmering sea below. When the crew finally assembled, Twila cleared her throat. “What’s Broken Rock like?”
“It’s a pirate lair,” Rackham said.
“It’s a free port,” Charlie said at the same time. The two adults glared at each other.
“Charlie, you first. If you have something to say as a passenger, you can wait your turn, Rackham.”
“Fine.” Rackham spat on the deck and glared daggers at Charlie.
“Thanks, Skipper. Broken Rock is a free port. There’s nothing Gibson wants, and taking it over would be a nightmare, so the Company lets Joseph Ickes run it as he sees fit. Which means it runs on a very, very small set of rules.”
“With death or worse as punishments,” Rackham interrupted.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Anyways, Joseph Ickes was on the Silent Skipper when I flew with Kerr. I knew him a long ago, but that doesn’t mean he remembers me,” Charlie said. “I got cut loose from Kerr’s crew here, but Santana ruled the island then. I’ve been by once or twice since then, especially when I served on the Revenge. But I imagine our passenger has more recent time in Ickes’s village, eh?”
Rackham spat again. It left a disgusting, brown wet spot on the Hourglass’s deck, and Twila narrowed her eyes at the pirate. “Ickes has a few rules you’ll all follow. First, ‘No Fighting.’ Fistfights and bar brawls are fine, but guns and swords just get you killed. Painfully. Second, ‘Lights are on.’ Your ship’s lit up, the village is lit up, and the passage in? That’s damn well always lit up. Broken Rock has some serious Sable Tide infestations.
“Third, ‘No Fighting.’”
“You said that already,” Marianna interrupted.
“You’re damn right I did, rat. Fourth, ‘Ickes’s House, Ickes’s Rules.’ If the man tells you to do something, do it. If Vayne’s there like he’s supposed to be, he’ll bow to Ickes too. You’ll get it when you meet him. And you will meet him. And finally, ‘If You Fight, You Die.’ So just don’t. I need you alive, at least until we manage Vayne.” He took a swig from his bottle.
Charlie took over. “We should get sailing. The approach should be the same still. I’ll guide you in. Just take it slow once we’re inside.”
“Ship rats, you heard the rules. Like it or not, we will be on good behavior when we land. Let’s get this ship moving again,” Twila said.
The Hourglass’s mast clipped the waves as Charlie guided Twila in low. Broken Rock loomed ahead, its shattered pinnacle half-submerged in the ocean and half-leaning against the wrecked base. A massive whale of an airship lay at anchor next to a dark, wide cavern. Sow and Carrot was written across its hull in brass letters, and a single cannon decorated its stern.
Rackham nodded. “Sullivan came through. Knew that boy’d make waves on that fat old cargo hauler.”
Charlie pointed into the cave. “‘Ahead Slow’ through here, Twila. The cave goes deep, and even with the lanterns, it was hard to see the last time I was here.”
Twila nodded and guided the slowing Hourglass past the Sow and Pig and into the cave. “Rats, light up everything.” As the ship lit up like a candle, she peered at the mottled sunlight pouring in through dozens of holes in the tuff ceiling. The light danced across the gently-stirring seawater below, throwing reflections across the few plants hardy enough to live in the twilight. Dozens of lanterns hung from the cavern’s walls and pillars, adding their purple mystlight to the speckled sun.
On and on, Twila steered the Hourglass into the broken, eroded pillar until it came to a narrow harbor with two ships docked at it.
Twila recognized the first as a brig-of-war. Its gun ports were closed, though a pair of [Long Nines]—her guns’ heavier cousins—dominated the bow. The ship’s bowsprit had been removed to make room, giving the warship a stocky, slow appearance. Armor bristled across its hull and it flew no flag—just like its neighbor.
The second was, like the Hourglass, a sloop. Its hull was worm-chewed, and it seemed unarmed save for a single [Puckle Gun] hanging off the port side near its wheelhouse. A handful of men hung overboard on harnesses, working on cleaning the salt from its keel. Its faded nameplate read Harpy’s Wing.
And standing near the helm, in his red, feather-adorned bicorn hat, stood [Sky Captain] Vayne!
[Twila Tighe, Ship Rat Mystgineer, Equipment Level 1.33 (Myst 12/12, Hit Points 1/2)]
[Head - Empty]
[Eyes - Myst Lens (lvl. 1) Myst Sight (passive) See own status block and others’ classes]
[Chest - Platejack Coat (lvl. 2) Plated Coat (passive) +1 Hit Point]
[Waist - Apprentice Mystgineer’s Bandolier (lvl. 1) Deep Pockets (passive) - Equip an additional Gizmo]
[Legs - Canvas Overalls (lvl. 0)]
[Gizmo #1 - Loaded Dice (lv. 2) - Roll the Bones (active, 1 myst/roll) - gain a random myst enhancement; Skill - Trickery]
[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 - Nola’s Embrace (lvl 2) Unknown Effect]
[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 - Condensing Battery Mk. 2 (lvl. 1) Myst Storage (passive) - 12 myst maximum, requires condenser to refill; Condense Myst (passive) - Condenses 1 myst/6 ticks]
[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 #2 - Heatblade (lvl. 2) Heat (active, 1 myst/tick) - cause the blade’s edge to superheat; Skill - Acrobatics]
[Weapon/Pair - Empty]
[Skill #1 - Trickery 2]
[Skill #2 - Perception 2]
[Skill #3 - Piloting 4]
[Skill #4 - Marksman 2]
[Skill #5 - Acrobatics 2]