Well at Least I’m a Magic Pirate Now

Sareneth 9: Starday evening, Day 6

I laid in my hammock that night, waiting for Cog to finish his ritual and go to bed. The plan was that I’d go to each of the girls, already pre-buffed with Keep Watch, and lead them to the galley in the darkness. Another excellent use of darkvision: impressing girls. I passed the time scrolling through Sandara’s character sheet, which had become available once she agreed to the meeting. I was pleased with what I saw. 

Sandara not only had a proper adventurer class as a cleric of Besmara, she was of the most vital role in any adventuring party. She’s a healer! Thank Besmara! Her physical stats were worse than Syl’s, but she at least had more HP than me. More importantly, she could release waves of healing energy several times per day. Her spells were mostly support oriented: a blessing that made all of her allies slightly more able to hit, a spell that dissuaded people from attacking a certain person as long as they didn’t make any attacks, and the power to conjure a bank of dense fog that obscured vision. So it’s basically my darkness spell, except that I can’t see through it. Better if we are attacked by people with darkvision, I guess? 

I was startled out of my reverie by Cog, the religious gym rat himself, who silently approached my hammock after he finished chanting. “Hey,” he whispered, “so you know, you should be more quiet if you actually want to keep secrets. Also, it takes more than thirty seconds for most people to fall asleep. Have fun with whatever you had planned tonight.” He turned and crept away before I could collect myself enough to answer. 

It took me a few minutes to recover from my embarrassment, but I had a date planned. At least this will save me some time if I don’t worry about him seeing. I padded over to Syl and Sandara and gently tapped them on the shoulders. Guiding them by hand, we made our way to the galley, where Sandara produced a leather wrapped oblong object. 

“This,” Sandara held up the oil covered package to glisten in the light, “is the hog. It’s a bar of lead wrapped in pigskin and oiled before every throw. The object of hog lob is to throw it as far as possible; sliding counts, as does bouncing if you can manage it. You’re probaly going to need to practice in the hallway; not enough space in here to start throwing the hog around.” 

Syl stared at her. “Would someone explain to me why that is relevant?” 

“The start of a hustle.” I explained, “A lot of people are playing hog lob for coin in the evenings. I intend to get good at it, then trick some poor sods into parting with a fat stack. You want in?”

“It’s not like I have anything better to do.” Syl agreed as her sour expression softened into a light smile. “Just as long as we aren’t likely to get the shit kicked out of us over this.”

“Eh,” Sandara shrugged, “if someone starts something over this we won’t be the ones in trouble. If you let yourself get scammed, that’s your problem. Besides, I know who the real psychos are. Not too hard to avoid them for the big score. Speaking of which, Emrys, you know this isn’t going to be much of a money maker, right?”

“Huh?” I asked, “What do you mean?” I only need to make 5 gold in one big score, but if the ante never goes above a few silver I’m kinda screwed. Ah well, I’ve already gotten closer to Sandara. Recruiting a healer was absolutely worth it. 

“Compared to the pay you’ll get just from being on the crew when we raid something or take a ship, a handful of coins won’t be too much.” She pointed out. “You’re also going to need to lose at least a few silver pieces to establish yourself as mediocre, unless you think you can bait someone into taking advantage of you without even seeing you play. More importantly, we won’t be able to repeat this trick. Everyone on the crew will know you can toss after the first time you don’t throw a game. I’m still in, but I just want to make sure you know this is more an elaborate prank than a real source of income. I hate when people get pissy after a plan breaks down.”

“Ahh, that makes sense,” I answered with relief, “I’m still up for it. I might bail if I was likely to make enemies, but if the crew is likely to just laugh it off it should be good for a lark. Syl, what about you?” 

“I won’t interfere, but I don’t really know if I want to get involved,” she decided, “I don’t really have anything to wager, anyway. Well, other than this ring,” She held up the depleted Seal of Alternative Payment, kept snugly on her finger, “and I’m not selling it until I can get a fair price from an actual jeweler.” 

“Probably not a bad idea.” I told her while watching Sandara out of the corner of my eye, “Some real sketchy types tried to con me out of that hematite. Offered me less than a quarter of what it was worth, if you’ll believe that.” (Sandara +1 influence. Total 4) 

The redhead in question showed no signs of guilt whatsoever. “You just can’t trust anyone these days, can you?” She agreed, “Anyway, it would be good if we had an extra person. Someone to beat him without any coin actually on the line. Ah well, we can make back the money if it works.”

I decided to ask Syl again later and offer to pay her back if she helped. I want to see the seal’s magic in action, but after last night I don’t want to do it in front of Sandara. “I hope you aren’t bothered when we practice, then. That was kinda the whole point of this meeting.”

••••••••••

The difficulty with hog lob was not, as it turned out, the difficulty of throwing a small, irregularly shaped, moderately heavy object. That would have been trouble enough, but the fine men and women of the chain of islands known as the Shackles had added a coating of cheap oil to make it slick and hard to grip. It took several tries just to reliably avoid dropping it, and it was heavy enough that my arms were already starting to get tired by that point . What the hell? Why am I so weak? After only around 10 minutes of actually throwing the damn thing, I got a warning that continued exertion would end Keep Watch. 

“Sorry,” I said, “looks like practicing isn’t going to work during the spell.” Alright, so I can end it without going into autopilot. I figured, but good to know. 

“Alright,” Sandara answered skeptically, “so when do you intend to practice? You’ve gotten a little better, but ten minutes isn’t going to be much of a workout.” 

“We can give it a while and try again later.” I suggested. “It’s not great, but an hour of practice over the course of a whole night is better than nothing.” 

This first attempt to do something athletic, outside of the frantic climb ending in a heal spell, revealed something to me. I was actually in worse shape now than in my old life. The hog was a small lead weight wrapped in shit quality leather. It’s not that heavy. My arms are just noodles. I hadn’t been sculpted, but I went to the gym. 8 strength and 10 constitution was just not very impressive, which got me thinking. 

Can I fix this? I seem to be working off of game mechanics, but can I get stat boosts by working out? I’m a magic focused class, but it’s not like I was making money from being strong in my old life either. It’s just kinda nice to be able to lift things. 

I didn’t actually know much about working out without equipment, and I was pretty sure that literally any workout worthy of the name would count as strenuous to my spell. Being strenuous is kinda the whole point. As such, I hung out with my two new companions all night with occasional breaks to practice throwing the hog down a hallway.

We passed some time on a no stakes game of liar’s dice, both because Syl didn’t have anything to bet and because neither she nor I knew jack shit about playing liar’s dice. We didn’t want Sandara to clean us out while we were green, and I’d seen enough from her to know that was on the table. As often happens when people play games together, we talked about this and that as we whiled away the hours. 

••••••••••

“Technically I’m not a doctor,” Syl explained, “but I went through most of the schooling for it.” 

“Why’d you drop out?” I asked, “Tell me to shut up if you like, but now I’m curious.” 

“I had a pretty profitable side gig,” Syl replied, “I worked with a few people making synthetic muscaria. Students will pay through the nose for that shit.” (Knowledge: Local 15+2=17 success.) Muscaria is a mushroom common in Varisia which has hallucinogenic properties and assists the mind in making rapid connections and intuitive leaps, making it valuable in academic settings. “Then one day some jackass wants free product, he tries to steal it off of me, I pull a knife to defend myself, and he ends up dying from blood loss. College is down the can, so I figured I might convince someone to hire me as a doctor in the Shackles. Not big on accreditation here, you know?” 

“And then you got drunk and ended up in the hold of this ship?” I asked. 

“You got it.” She confirmed. “Swab wasn’t exactly the career path I had in mind though.”

“How about this,” Sandara suggested, “when I get my own ship I’ll take you on as the surgeon.”

“Aren’t you a divine thrall?” Syl replied, “Can’t you just heal people with magic?”

“Thrall?” Sandara seemed offended, “you’re not in Rahadoum anymore; the correct term is cleric. I’m not some slave; Besmara wouldn’t have much interest in me if I was.” Oh yeah. Didn’t I get a knowledge check saying Rahadoum was super atheistic?

Syl’s frown did not promise a conciliatory response, so I interjected. “Do we really need a religious debate right now? Are you going to say no thanks if someone stabs you and Sandara offers you a heal spell?” 

Syl paused and her face relaxed. “Yeah, I guess that’s a good point. No offense meant.” It wasn’t quite an apology, but Sandara accepted it as one. (Syl and Sandara influence +1)

We were a little quieter while we played the next few rounds, so my mind had time to wander. I wonder how I’m going to get my shit from Grok. Am I going to need to wait until the Wormwood gets to a port or does some actual piracy and just buy the crossbow back? I don’t think stealing it would be a good idea. Actually… Can I exploit the mission? 

After my next short bout of hog tossing, minimal progress so far according to Sandara, I told the girls I wanted to check on something. They couldn’t easily wander the ship without me, so they let me leave without a fuss. I silently padded over to Grok’s office and found, to my delight, that she’d left the door unlocked. No wonder she checks the inventory so often. The coin chest was locked, as it should be, so I went for the big ticket item they’d taken from me instead. 

I found my hand crossbow among many other ranged weapons. I didn’t actually know what my hand crossbow looked like other than my assumption that it was a pistol sized crossbow, so the wide selection worked to my advantage. There was only one weapon present that looked like that, currently unstrung. When I picked it up in the pitch darkness, I opened my mission menu and found my stuff retrieval mission marked as complete. Hell yeah. 

I put the crossbow back, intending to finish the mission next time I was alone and avoid any awkward questions. Alas, that uncompleted the mission, so I was forced to pick up the crossbow and complete the mission right there in Grok’s office, pressing the button mentally while I was still holding the weapon. When I did, a silver chain necklace with several opaque multicolored gemstones hanging off of it appeared in my hands. Huh. I was expecting bracelets from the name “Beguiling Bangles.” Hopefully they are useful. (Exp +1. 4/5 exp for level 1) One more mission and I get to be level 2 before I ever get into a serious fight! Winning a bet or making one more friend into an ally seems pretty doable. 

I returned to the galley with a lie prepared, and a hope in my heart that being in my party meant that neither Syl nor Sandara would ever consider fucking me in anything but the literal sense. “Check this out,” I brandished my new necklace, “Grok never found the hidden compartment in my pack.” 

To my relief, both girls found this a cause for celebration rather than concern. 

“Hell yeah.” Sandara gave me a high five, which is apparently a thing they do in this world, “is it magic or just decent jewelry?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s magic,” I answered, “I was holding it for someone else, so I don’t actually know what it does, but I figured it was better in my possession than in my pack.” I don’t need autopilot to do all of my lying for me. I can bullshit for myself sometimes, thanks. 

“You are just full of surprises,” Syl chuckled, “anything else we should know about?” 

“I’ll let you know as soon as it seems like it might be relevant, but we still aren’t exactly best friends.” I hedged, “If we stick together long enough, you’ll probably learn everything important eventually.” I wasn’t quite ready to start rambling about missions from the voices in my head or my recent professional transition from certified public accountant to drow drug mule.

I might not have been able to use it for anything on the ship until I could come up with a cover story, but damn if it didn’t feel good to have a bit more loot. I finished the mission late enough in the night that I didn’t get a replacement that day, but I wasn’t bothered. I had more than enough to do with myself in the meantime. 

••••••••••

Beguiling Bangles 

Moderate Enchantment

Originally created by the Varisians, this elaborate silver and glass necklace renders the wearer immune to any magical effect that detects lies and grants the wearer a +2 bonus on Will saves to resist any magic that would compel him to tell the truth.

The necklace grants the wearer a +5 competence bonus on Bluff checks made to deceive (but not create a diversion or feint).