Well at Least I’m a Magic Pirate Now

Sareneth 5, Wealday, Day 2

I found Kroop was curled up with a bottle, snoring the day away under a table in the galley when I returned from the sweatbox. I hadn’t been distracted with Jakes for long, so it was shocking to see him in this state already. Even after I woke him up and helped him sit, his eyes remained glazed. The lights were on, but nobody was home. Shit, shit, shit! This is an easy job because he does most of it! I tried slapping him. (Heal check: 7+1=8. failure) Thank you for your valuable contribution, autopilot. He sipped the water I gave him and his breathing steadied, but I sincerely doubted that he would wake any time soon. 

On the assumption that nobody would hold it against me if I showed concern for my boss, I scurried out and went looking for help. The next door down from the galley was open for once, so I poked my head in. It was a tidy storeroom full of boxes, overseen by a slim green woman. She greeted me with a cocked head and slight smile. “Hey, Ambrose’s new mate?” She asked with the voice of a forty year old chain smoker. “You boys need something from the stores?”

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I let autopilot explain the situation, figuring that would be easier. “Kroop managed to drink himself senseless during breakfast. Is there anything I should do for him to wake him up or anything?” (Diplomacy 8+4=12. Success! +1 influence) That’s about what I would have said anyway, but would I have gotten influence if I didn’t roll for it? The green woman nodded slowly and closed the lock box she was working in. “Alright, let’s take care of him so you can focus on dinner.”

Together, we hauled him into a cramped bedroom nearby and tucked him into one of the two beds. Once we left the room, she turned a pitying gaze upon me before explaining standard operating procedure. “I’ll check in on him every once in a while and give him something if he needs it, but he usually doesn’t. Normally the officers would just get soup like the rest of the crew, but Plugg seems excited to try your cooking, Mr. Chelish chef. Good fucking luck with that.” 

I winced. Well that didn’t take long to backfire. “So, you’ve heard about my credentials?” 

She cackled, “Oh yes. Ambrose told me all about your credentials. I hope you’re at least decent, but for what it’s worth I’ll cover for you a little. Kroop’s reputation won’t suffer if I tell everyone that he’d already started cooking when he passed out.”

Alright. She’s good people. I nodded gratefully as we walked the handful of steps to our respective work stations. “Thanks. I didn’t catch your name?”

She went to unlock the door before realizing she’d left it swinging open, calling back,  “Quartermaster Cutthroat Grok. Come see me if you need anything.” 

I was alone. In fact, I was substantially more alone than I should be, because I’d left the door open and the goats escaped. (Perception 8+3= 11 partial success) I walked down the hall and peered around a corner, where a grey goat was sniffing at something on the ground. (Opposed Stealth 8+7=15) I deftly approached the goat and grabbed its collar before it even realized I was present. I hauled the protesting goat back to the galley, but it was squirming around and just generally making things difficult. Experimentally, I tried cursing the goat to make things easier for me. There was no light show; I just muttered a word that left a bitter residue in my mouth, and my furry adversary’s legs started spasming. Not enough to be concerning, but it became much harder for him to brace his legs to resist me. 

Autopilot was stubbornly silent after I secured goat number one in the galley and counted the chickens. Alright. Two goats and one chicken are missing. The black hen was pecking at the door where Kroop was sleeping, but didn’t fight me when I picked her up and carried her back to the galley. Goat number two was frolicking up and down the stairs near the sleeping night shift. I waited for it to approach the top step and scooped it up into my arms, surprising it enough that it didn’t start bleating until I was already away from the sleeping men. (Stealth 20+7=27 Critical success) Shame no one saw that. That was smooth. 

I found the last goat with the huge man chained to the wall. He was filthy, smelling of shit and smeared with black tar and white feathers. Overall, he was a lot less intimidating in the light of day, scratching the goat’s neck affectionately. Aww. That said, he’s still huge, chained up, and I’m here to take his buddy. Seems like the right time to try that charm person thing. (The target has failed their saving throw) That’s it? No sparkles, no hand jive? Awesome. 

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“Hey buddy,” I spoke softly as I approached, “thanks for taking care of that goat, but I’ve got to take it back to the Galley.” (Opposed charisma check: 13+4= 17. Success) Muscles frowned, but let go of the goat and mumbled “okay.” Well that was easy.

“So,” I asked casually as I took hold of the collar, “what’s your name?” 

He took a moment to process my question before responding with a slurred “Al Burr.” 

Damn. Not in my list. Unless… “Did you say Owlbear?” 

He nodded with a goofy grin. “Alright, bud. I’ll come by and see you again. Maybe I’ll bring the goats?” He’s on the list. If I can get on his good side by letting him play with goats, that seems like a good use of my time. It’s not like there’s too much I can do at night. Assuming he’s still friendly when he’s not charmed, anyway. 

Back in the kitchen, I changed tracks to more immediate concerns: dinner. We’d filled up the cauldron last night, so the crew was handled; I only needed to worry about the officers. I explored the back room where Kroop stored the meat, and found it surprisingly frigid. A quick scan with detect magic confirmed that this was an actual freezer. So, what am I working with? The room had several slabs of meat hanging on hooks and many smaller parts set aside carelessly. The hog’s hanging head revealed the identity of the meat, which gave me an idea. 

I actually knew how to prepare pigs’ feet, at least loosely. Thank you, grandma. In all likelihood I’d botch it if I tried to cook them outside of a modern kitchen, but I knew at least one recipe well enough that I could watch autopilot and make sure nothing too stupid happened. More importantly, the feet hadn’t been set aside on their own, so they were probably destined for the soup; I wouldn’t be fucking with any meal plans Kroop may have had. Using a recipe from Kroop’s book would mean putting my faith entirely in autopilot, which I wasn’t eager to do. Four pig feet aren’t going to feed nine officers without a side. Gran always made potato salad, so I settled on that. I had eggs and I had potatoes; hopefully autopilot would be able to concoct a dressing. 

I began by pulling out a dozen eggs from Kroop’s stores, and boiling most of them, setting the last few to the side. While they cooked in the pot, I prepped the feet and assembled a simple spice rub with garlic and the cheapest peppers I could find in Kroop’s spice cabinet. I placed a bottle of light olive oil next to the fresh eggs, pulled the hard boiled eggs out of the hot water with a spoon, and set them aside. “Alright. Everything should be ready to cook in a few hours. Too early to start now.” (Secret Profession (chef) 19+1=20) Did autopilot just sass me? Either way, good point. Gran’s recipe only took around three hours and it’s not even noon. 

I carefully considered my next three hours. It was my first full day on the job and my boss was passed out in bed, so I had plausible deniability. I legitimately didn’t know what to do, so I could probably do anything I wanted as long as it sounded good. So how do I maximize my time? I had three objectives. Making friends with my list of names, saving Jakes, and building up my party. 

Never Split the Party had been the power on my sheet I’d had the most trouble finding. It was in a subsection called “optional rules” nestled into an index near the back of the document, and it was a doozy. In essence, it let me link my destiny to someone for as long as I wanted. Fate would conspire to keep us together, they would always be willing to help me if I were in trouble, they would come to me with their own problems, they would generally tolerate behavior from me they might otherwise disapprove of, and they would never betray me unless I stabbed them in the back. I could only use it if they were already “voluntarily my ally” and weren’t much stronger than me, but it still seemed like a good deal. 

So, how do I do all three? I checked on Kroop, giving him a bit more water, and the plan hit me.

Step one: loading a crate with upright bottles, which I filled with water from Sandara’s barrel. 

Step two: taking out about half of the bottles, because damn that thing got heavy.

Step three: heading up to the main deck with my sunglasses on, offering water to the crew, and seeing who was available for step four. 

(Diplomacy 12+4=16) It was easy to convince the officers to let me keep their workers hydrated. Even the cruelest of them understood that water was important for working out in the heat. Even the Asshole. The asshole was called Master Scourge, as it turns out, and he was in charge of discipline. Being an asshole was practically his job. Fuck him anyway. 

I implemented my cunning stratagem, First I did a circuit of the deck, letting the crew drink up the fresh water and gauging how long I could distract them before Scourge started to get irritated. A few minutes. Gotta move fast, then. Gym Rat and Syl were on a work crew together, and I approached them last.

I sidled up to Syl while she was drinking and whispered, “Hey. This is going to sound strange, but do you know anything about weird rashes?” 

She slowly turned her head, narrowing her eyes and wrinkling her nose. “Is that some kind of terrible pickup line?” She asked, deadpan. 

I shook my hands in front of me. “No. Not for me. The guy in the box up there has this weird rash, and I’m a little worried it might be serious. You seem smart, and you rattled off the effects of that taggit oil stuff yesterday, so I thought you might know about medicine. If you’d be receptive, I can figure out a pickup line later.” 

Her lips twitched slightly in what I hoped was a smile before she responded. “Alright. I’ll take a look if I get a chance, but I’m not promising anything. It’s probably just sunburn or something.” 

My time with Syl was just about up, so I was going to have to be satisfied with that noncommittal agreement. We exchanged our goodbyes, and I slipped out of Scourge’s line of sight. 

I repeated the water gambit with the rest of the ship, setting up an excuse to move around freely in the future. Conchobar was apparently stuck in the bilges, manually pumping out the disgusting water that accumulates in the lower reaches of the ship, so I skipped him. He probably doesn’t want to see more water anyway, right? 

I checked my party screen, and unfortunately Syl possibly taking a look at Jakes didn’t count as being “willingly my ally.” It was close though; Grok covering for me in the event of my food being shit qualified her. Shame she’s too high level to add. She seems alright, and I could always let her go later. I killed another hour picking up around the galley, and even tried to use my summoning spell to get some help. The result was a glowing scarab beetle the size of a housecat, which vanished a few seconds after it scuttled up to the pile of trash and stood there. Poor thing just looked confused; I guess that’s not really the spell for domestic assistance. At least it had some killer mandibles, that’s got to be worth something. Having discovered the limitations of my summoning spell, namely its extremely short duration, I returned to the pile of junk until Autopilot drew my attention to the stove. 

The pigs feet needed to cook first. I rubbed the feet with oil and spices before placing them in the pan with some sea water, which I covered with a lid and placed in the oven. That would be cooking for a few hours. I watched what my body did nervously. Everything seemed to be on the up and up, so I trusted the process. 

Over the next few hours, autopilot would activate and I’d let my body add a little more water to the pot or stoke the fire. I let autopilot do whatever it deemed necessary, though I watched anxiously. My excavation that day uncovered a few full sealed bottles of brandy among the piles of empty vessels, which I tucked away as a potential bargaining chip. I was just killing time, but whenever I considered leaving I felt a faint pressure reminding me that I shouldn’t leave the stove unattended while it’s in use. As the timer ticked down, I was interrupted more often for various cooking steps. There were no surprises while I chopped the potatoes, eggs, and veggies, but I’m not too proud to admit that I considered aborting the process of making homemade mayo more than once. I had no idea what autopilot was planning when my hands started whisking together eggs, olive oil, and most of the juice from a lemon. That has got to be a salmonella risk.

I delivered the food to Caulky at the appointed hour, still steaming. I waited for her to take her customary few poison-test bites, and she didn’t spit it out in spluttering rage, so I figured I was in the clear. In fact, she complimented me. “This isn’t one of Kroop’s; seems ye can cook after all. I’m sure the cap’n will be glad to find that out.”

I went down to serve dinner to the crew with a spring in my step, and it just got better when I saw Kroop staggering out of his room with a panicked expression. “Don’t worry boss.” I casually assured him. “I took care of it.” He sighed, and I got two messages that capped off a stressful but decent day. 

(You have gained 2 points of influence with Ambrose Kroop. You now have Moderate Sway with Ambrose Kroop.)

(Ally with Wormwood Crew: 1/9)