I stumbled forward off the rocking gangplank, and my foot landed on the flagstone. The stone felt the cold holding the cool of the night, and although the roughness of the stone had been ground smooth by the centuries of use by dock workers and ship crews. The Sun?! No, the Suns were starting to rise from the ocean.

I moved over to the side of the Queen's Lament gangway and wondered if this was a joke by the system. I put on my new shoes as a gift or payment from the King. It still needed to be clarified. If I was a prisoner, why let me off the Ship at all? Or is bonded employment a real thing in this world?

I covered my shame with the wool pants, left the ripped shirt on, and slung the bag over my shoulder. The woollen wear could have been a better choice in the place; it is far too hot. With the coin I held in my closed hand, I figured many people were on the dock because they were cutpurses and pickpockets. I set off.

The seagulls scream their laughing chant from the sky, rooftops, and ship masts. I could hear the livestock in the holds of the docked Ships. People of all kinds ran about from Ship to shore to what I assumed were the warehouses. Other docksiders and Ship crew loaded large burlap-wrapped bails directly onto oxen-drawn carts.

Then there were the Street Hawkers; everyone was finely dressed and wore a tabard with the same symbol. I did not get the feeling that the emblem was about the profession. But each had a fine, deep tone to their voices and yelled prices in shorthand language beyond my technical skill.

Calls and shouts of "5 and done." or "the lot and cost, your guide and transport.". And, of course, the judgements of quality with phrases like "This is a lovely lot of finest this and robust that from the mainland you will never get better." Yet no one seemed to be haggling the prices. They just accepted the item price. I also noted that guards in metal breastplates stood in the shadows, all with the same symbol as the Hawkers.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Moving along the dock, the workers and other citizenry flowed around me like I was a rock in the fast-moving stream of movement and sound. Except I was not the rock but the leaf floating on the surface, jostled from side to side. I took two steps. And I was pushed by the crowd forward ten steps, then to the side, and a couple of times turned around. After what seemed like a week but was closer to only twenty minutes, I found and fell into step with the crowd moving more as part of the stream, not so much the leaf.

Occasionally, I would pass a beggar or a performer, each attempting to gain a coin with either sympathy or frivolity and the occasional tune. The dock was massive, with room for more than 100 ships, and, from what I could see, wound around the harbour, which was in the grand shape of a horseshoe.

Feeling the crowd's flow, I approached a board-looking spice merchant.

"Nice to see these clams. From today's catch? " I asked.

"What are you doing bigger? Get on with you." The man with a slight blue tinge to his skin barked with a wave of the back of his hand in an upward motion, his chin turning down and to the side. The traders every body moment dismissed me.

"I am no beggar." I barked back at him.

"Then why do you look like a man who has not bathed in a month with rags for clothes." he rebuked.

"I am a sailor just of my Ship. We work hard, and I have not had a chance to get myself sorted yet." I continued. Sure, I was both bluffing and confused by what a profession was.

The man looked at me momentarily as if reading something in my face or maybe my profile.

"You are not a sailor! You have no profession. And that makes you a beggar, and not even one at that. You don't have the beggar profession in it. By the gods of the seas and keepers of the Kraken left nut be gone, or I will call the Watch or better still, I will call the Unseen." the merchant said. He stood up to his full six feet in height, pulling back his shoulders and pointing a crooked finger in my direction, knuckles facing the sky.

A notification appears before me, obscuring the merchant:

* Quest: Finds the Unseen - Putting the fear of the Kraken in a curse. Or a pox on the land best never seen?

* Quest: Get a job! - Really, Gob has already been promoted. And you are swanning around.

* Quest Error!: Quests are only available to one with a Profession.