Chapter 41: Storm’s Sovereign (1/2)

The next 24 hours had all the struggles of a new crew mixed with the trials of sailing a storm. For all my years at sea, there were times that I didn’t help matters either. I knew conceptually that many of my duties as Captain would depend upon delegation to complete effectively. I lacked the applicable experience to stay ahead of the problems as they developed, however, and found myself taking control of situations.

The first problem was food. We’d had fresh stores, but most of those had gotten a thorough soaking in salt water before I’d claimed the ship. Some things weathered it. Most were ruined.

Through my practice I knew that the ship could provide the food we needed if I invested the XP in it. The first tier of the function was within my price range. I tried to select it and found that I couldn’t. It wasn’t hesitation, it wasn’t a seed of doubt or thinking of an alternative option. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it!

Unnerved, I forced my mind to the root of the reason and found it was Jones mandate. He’d said not to waste XP on this ship.

“That was guidance,” I hissed. “Not a prohibition!”

I still couldn’t select it.

“I need to purchase this!” I said. “My crew needs to eat! What, are they supposed to be frail starving weaklings when I need them at their best?”

Whether I was rationalizing with a magic order or simply worked my mind around the rules Jones implemented, I was finally able to purchase the first tier. It was with great relief that I looked at the stores where the magic would manifest in edible food …

One barrel of pure water. One barrel of hardtack.

My crew is going to hate me.

That is, they are going to hate me more than the aversion they probably already have for me as Jones’ lackey. Bloody storm-waves …

Despite the hazardously low level of XP I had, I tried upgrading the ability and wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to discover Jones mandate had blocked me again.

I should have left it at that, but I took it upon myself to find a decent cook amongst the crew. I was using Captain Coe as my guideline for what a good Captain should be, and Coe knew the abilities of his crew inside and out and could tailor them together to create synergies. Without stopping to think, I thought that meant I should know who amongst my crew knew cooking.

I did find that one of the former consorts – Debra – had 7 levels in Cooking so she was given the position. Then Burdette pulled me aside and I found out that he’d taken over my duties at the helm, commanding needed changes to the sail configuration to maintain our uneasy status quo with the sea. If I’d told him to do that it I wouldn’t have had to fight the reddening of my cheeks. Of all the Captains I’d sailed with and watched succeed and fail, you’d think I could fit into the position like putting on a well-used glove. But no! I hadn’t made it through a day without making an idiotic blunder. I managed not to show my embarrassment (I think) and thanked Burdette with a tone that conveyed appreciation but an unspoken expectation that he did exactly what I’d wanted him to do (at least, I hoped I sounded like that.)

I created shifts so that many of the crew could sleep – or try to in these seas – while the minimum number we’d need to maintain things stayed up top. If things went bad, we’d call up the whole crew to man the sails again.

Sadeo found the time to pull me aside and wordlessly show me something. As soon as I saw what was in the sack he carried, I thanked him for his discretion. It was the ship’s whip, the same one I’d been flogged with for my insubordination. Sometime recently, it had undergone a change.

Promise of Misery (whip): 0-1 HP damage. High chance of causing increased pain effects. Has a 0.5% chance for each cut to inflict the victim with a curse.

The whip had always been a piece of work, doing negligible damage to HP but hurting all the worse for it. Now it had half a percentage chance to inflict a curse. That might not seem like much, but there were a dozen tails on the whip, each causing a cut. Lash someone with that several times and the odds of getting cursed were good. The fact that a person could be lashed until it happened opened a whole new realm for abuse.

A realm I didn’t intend to exploit. My crew were already cursed. Besides, did I want to take the chance that the curse tied them to me or the ship? What if it was a different curse that turned them into a werewolf or something? I asked Sadeo to hide the thing in my cabin and not mention it to anyone.

I took the opportunity to speak with crew members who weren’t working but couldn’t sleep. I wanted to humanize myself in their eyes once more. I’d built a mystery around myself while I’d worked among them, and the revelation of my nature had made me unapproachable to many.

Many, but not all. It was a pleasant surprise when people sought me out. Mostly pleasant, anyway.

Zander was one of the people who’d been pointed out as ‘dangerous’ when I first boarded. I remembered still thinking ‘slaves’ meant ‘criminals’ at that point. Zander had looked the part, with obvious hatred for anyone not sharing his chains.

Now he approached me hesitantly. After an awkward pause, he gave me a military salute. “Captain Seaborn, sir,” he said.

“Do you need something Zander?”

The man didn’t look like he knew exactly what he wanted, and was annoyed by it. “Well sir, I … I mean we, we want to know … what comes next?” He met my eyes with a strange earnestness, like he was hopeful and didn’t know what for. Perhaps he just didn’t dare to hope. Not all of his scars looked like battle wounds. Several were like my own recent ones – from instruments designed to inflict punishment rather than death.

“You mean after the storm? We sail northwest. That isn’t a secret. There’s someone we need to save there.”

“Yes sir, I heard, but … afterwards. What do you want us to do?”

“You heard me promise freedom to those who want it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

I gave him a hard look. “Don’t believe my word?”

He waved his hands. “It’s not that sir …”

“Then spit it out, man.”

“Do you need fighters?” The man blurted. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Was this man offering to fight for me?

“I do,” I replied slowly. “To be honest I might need more fighters than I’d like to have. Since I don’t have any dedicated fighters at all now I’ll take whoever I can.”

Zander didn’t grin, but his eyes were alight. “Call on me, sir. Give me a sword and I’ll fight for you.”

“You good with anything besides a sword?” I asked, interested.

He paused, rocking on his heel as he’d nearly turned away. “Yes sir. Spears is actually my primary skill, though I have some decent unarmed and archery abilities and baseline competencies with several others.”

I nodded and dismissed him. I’d nearly given him a weapon on the spot, but something about him was a bit too eager to be armed. I’d rather give him something when my formative crew wasn’t in such a precarious position.

The next person to approach me was Rhistel. He wanted to know if I wanted to keep him on as a bookkeeper. I informed him that I would consider the positioning of anyone after we were outside one of the Passive’s famously huge storms. I also made sure he knew that while he was Burdette’s personal property before, now he was a member of my crew. Burdette’s only authority over the elf was his authority as my first mate – which wasn’t insubstantial, but it was a different kind than what he’d had before.

Rhistel glanced to where Burdette stood. “He’s not going to like that. He invested a good deal into making sure he could claim me without my kin coming to free me.”

“He can deal with it. I am going to need your assurance on that same matter though.”

“You’re worried about Ellessar on my account? I thought they were already after you.”

“They were, but it’s different when they’re after me because of someone on my crew.”

“Different because you’re curious about me,” he said flatly.

I couldn’t help but grin. He was the first person to talk to me like … well, like I wasn’t a tyrannical overlord, to be cursed, feared, or used to advance their own abilities. He was talking to me like a friend would – albeit a friend annoyed with my intrusive attempt to pry the elf’s backstory from him.

Rhistel sighed. “No, my nation won’t be trying to free me.” I waited, and after a moment he continued. “I spoke out when I shouldn’t have against someone that … well it was a mistake. Rather than admit my mistake I doubled down in stubbornness and insults and was exiled. I was once a shepherd of the forest, directly communing with the life within it. They stripped my profession from me when they cast me out. It is a mark of shame that cannot be redeemed. It also allowed Burdette to set me up and force me into his service without fear of repercussion. You don’t need to worry, Captain. There isn’t a being on this plane of existence who would trouble you on my account.”

The elf had scarcely left when another voice piped in. “He’s so melodramatic.”

I turned and found Arnnaith looking up at me. “First a human, then an elf, now a mix have come to chat. Am I making my way through the races on board? I’m sure I just saw Krantoron the minotaur somewhere ...”

“You’re forgetting Sadeo, the kitsune.” The boy said. “Do you usually forget those you’ve taken into service?”

“I know Sadeo,” I replied. “I don’t consider it necessary to have a new introduction.” I gave it a moment’s thought. “He’s not someone who’d treat me any different now than if my sole purpose was to clean his chamber pot.”

“But will you forget us?” Arnnaith said, his eyes demanding. “I recall a time not too long ago that you took a hundred lashes for me, yet I found myself atop the highest mast aboard because ‘tree-rats ought to climb’.”

“I recall a time not too long ago I promised whoever desired it their freedom,” I mused. “It seems that people either didn’t hear me or think I’m a liar. And while I never understood how people see elven blood and think of rodents, I’m not going to let you off work because you’re a child. Don’t think I haven’t seen my share of attempts to get off work, so don’t try and guilt-trip me into anything! How old are you anyway?”

Whereas before Arnnaith had a fire in his eyes – exactly the kind of fire you’d expect in someone who was seeking justice, he was a good actor – now he sulked. If he hadn’t come on the coattails of Zander and Rhistel, I might have handled him differently. Yet somehow his attempt at freeloading and the way he’d pushed a perspective, reminding me how much sympathy I’d had for him (and still had – he reminded me a bit of Redmund but he was more like Bing as far as intellect and arrogance went) seemed completely transparent. I had no time for it.

“Thirteen,” he said. I analyzed him and arced an eyebrow. His sulk turned into a glare. “It sounds better than twelve! Why ask stupid questions if you can analyze me, anyway?”

“It’s a courtesy. To be honest, I thought you were much younger.”

“I know I’m small. It’s the problem with my elf genes, I mature slower.”

“I thought you were fiercely proud of your elf heritage?”

“I am!”

I didn’t say anything more about it. If I didn’t have others things I could be doing maybe I’d try unpacking the baggage of a loved mother and estranged father that I’d already gathered he had. That reminded me of yet another boy at that age: myself. Instead I gave him several seconds to say something new before turning and leaving. I expected him to force out then whatever question he’d really come to me with, but he didn’t follow. Maybe his only goal really had been to try and get on the Captain’s good side and avoid some work. If it was, the boy disappointed me.

He had raised a point, only he was unaware that I had been troubling over it already. I had two divisive problems within my crew: slave status and race. I could declare the slaves were free, but their minds wouldn’t be changed on it at the snap of my fingers. Race was a different beast, as there weren’t many non-humans on board. I couldn’t – and didn’t want to – police every slight or insult, like whoever had called Arnnaith a tree rat. I thought I could show everyone that their previous stations no longer mattered, but I wasn’t sure how to keep them from disliking each other based off who they were.

I got an opportunity to address both matters at once, though I didn’t see it that way. Instead, I saw the doom of a support that I critically needed.

Dyzia the Leonid was another person whose baggage I just didn’t have time to unpack. She was a former consort, marketed to those with ‘exotic tastes’. She wasn’t one who enjoyed her job, which made me think she’d been captured at some point and forced into her trade. She was also a bit … unhinged. I’d been warned about her, too, in my first days aboard. Zamari had told me she could attack someone mistreating the other consorts – probably girls the Leonid had mentally ascribed as her pack.

I’d noticed she was acting cagey earlier, staring at the men, acting like she was about to step out of their way but forced herself to stay. Now I realized that she was standing up to them, testing the limits of my promise of freedom.

Only why by the two moons above did she need to go and do that half not-quite challenge to Burdette?

I needed Burdette, and had come to tenuous arrangement with him. Only now she was there in his way, and the former Captain wasn’t going to put up with such nonsense from a former whore chained in his ship.

And that was the problem. If Burdette gave a tongue lashing to one of the human crew acting squirrely, I would have said that was his job. But he wasn’t doing that. He was putting down one of the slaves who was impeding him on his ship and making it clear that her race was beneath him to boot.

So I intervened.

“… So get out of the way before I dangle you over the side by your tail and let the sea life have their turn at – oomph!”

My leg swept Burdette’s out mid-tirade, while my palm struck the back of his head. I bore him down to the deck, his face smashing into the planking. My dirty fighting skill triggered and added to his dazed timer, giving me plenty of time to twist his arm around and kneel on his back. When he recovered himself, he didn’t dare move. No one else on deck was moving either, their wide eyes on the two of us.

“I thought I made it clear when I first spoke,” I said in a stage whisper to Burdette. “That there were no slaves aboard my ship. That I didn’t care what race you were. But it seems that I wasn’t clear enough, so let me state it this way … you are all slaves. My slaves. Bound to my service by your own agreement. So who are you?” I asked Burdette, leaning on my knee. “To put down anyone else? What does it matter to a slave, Burdette, what a master does with his other slaves?”

Burdette didn’t answer me. I suppose it was a rhetorical question.

“I promise any who want it freedom after we’ve seen this mission through!” I said to everyone. “For those of you who don’t – and some of you have already approached me – I promise fair, just treatment. I care about your skills and your willingness to help, not your past life or your race!”

I found that I had nothing else to say, and I was still kneeling on Burdette. I let him up, and saw that his nose was broken and gushing blood. “Go see Myota to have that set. Then take a few hours on the resting shift before relieving me at the helm.”

“Yes, Captain.” The burly man didn’t stalk off, but walked with broken dignity.