Limitless Seas, Chapter 20.

Chapter 20.

Back on the docks, Larson could see Tarley was back aboard the Gull Dropping along with a small gaggle of people that he assumed were his new crew. As he closed in on the ship, Larson could see the prospective crewmen were quite a diverse lot. He had mostly humans, along with another orc, and a pair of halflings, for a total of twelve new crew.

“Attention, captain on deck!” Tarley bellowed out as Larson came aboard. The new sailors formed a ragged line and stood at varying states of attention.

“Sir, we have twelve sailors with an interest in joining our crew,” Tarley advised.

“Hmm, do this lot have any experience?” Larson asked.

“Aye, every single one of them has worked on one type of vessel or another,” Tarley replied.

“What about weapons skills. This is a dangerous trade, and a man has to defend not only himself, but his shipmates when we’re attacked,” Larson asked, loud enough for the assembled crew to hear.

“Aye, they can all hold a blade, spear, or bow, but there’s not a marine in the bunch,” Tarley said.

“Listen up men. The Gull Dropping has experienced a strange history. I don’t know if Tarley and Creech have told you, but we were all once prisoners aboard this ship, chained to the oars below. We freed ourselves from those chains and fought off the pirates to claim the ship for our own. I don’t yet know what the future holds for our vessel, other than that I will be setting up some cargo runs. We may also be called upon to defend ourselves, or even go on the offensive when necessary,” Larson said.

“They’re stout hearted lads, sir,” Tarley argued.

“They may think they are, but its easy to have a stout heart in a warm tavern with a first mate offering you coin for your labors. Listen up, if any of you don’t think you have what it takes to sail and fightfor this ship, leave now, no questions will be asked and you can keep the signing bonus you’ve gotten already,” Larson waited, a few looked hesitant, he wasn’t sure how much Tarley had emphasized the amount of combat he expected and was worried the first mate might have tried to sugar coat things to entice more crew. As it stood, he only had a dozen new crew, which was still much fewer than he wanted.

“I don’t want to sign up for some pirate vessel or warship,” one of the humans complained.

“Fair enough, we’re no pirates, at least not ones that would take an innocent vessel. Pirate ships, thieves, and scoundrels we’ll take on. We’ll beat them and take what they have, but we won’t ever harm an innocent while I’m in command. In fact, we’ll have a bit of blade work this evening. There’s a local gang of thugs that have attacked one of my employees and burned down a shop we have a stake in. We’re going to visit them, kill them, and take any loot they have,” Larson said.

“What? I want to sail, not fight,” the same man complained.

“Then off with you, and thank you for your time,” Larson said. The man scampered off, along with another human and the orc.

“Nothing shameful in leaving now that you’ve got the whole story on what’s expected of you. Any others? If you sign on, you’ll be bound to me and this ship. I’ll not abide traitors, turncoats, or malcontents on my ship,” Larson told the remaining group. A younger human looked especially nervous, his eyes shooting over to the trio that were leaving.

“You, do you want to leave as well? Go right ahead, nobody will hold you here,” Larson asked.

“Captain, sir, I’ve never fought before other than with fists, but I do need the work. I’ve got a mum and two younger brothers I’ve got to care for,” the man said, fear and indecision plastered on his face.

“What’s your name? There are safer jobs ashore, lad, life at sea is a hard one, and I’ll expect a lot from you. Tell me, you’re young, what kind of work have you done so far?” Larson asked.

“They call me Kipper, sir, I worked a fishing boat for a year, but the captain was a drunk and ran the ship aground. After that, I worked where I could, sweeping floors, cleaning an inn, whatever will pay me a scale or two to put some food on the table,” the man said. Larson thought the man was too young for this job, he was likely only sixteen or so, but willing to risk his life to provide for his mom and brothers. This was not the job for him, but there might be another option.

“You need more experience before I’ll take you on my ship,” Larson watched the young man’s expression change from one of fear to one of disappointment. “That being said, I do have another business venture that we’re starting ashore. I own part of a shop that will be setting up soon and I believe the man in charge of that, Lucian, can use some help around there. Stick around and once I know where we’re going to put the shop, I’ll hire you on for a fair wage,” Larson told him, watching as the young man perked up at the thought of a safer job in the city.

“Sir, a man dropped this letter off for you, I think it may be what you’re looking for,” Tarley said, handing over a two-page note.

“We’ll get to that in a minute. For the rest of you, if you’re still wanting to sign for a year of service aboard the Gull Dropping, you’ll make your mark on the roster,” Tarley took over and had the men line up, using a fresh page from the old ships roster. While he was doing that, Larson looked at his note.

Captain Larson, we’ve found a place to rent in the dock district, I have the address at the end of this note. There are a few likely spots to open our shop in, all I need are the funds and your blessing to get started. I’ve also started to look around for some security and have found a couple of guardsmen who will work on their off hours to help secure the store once its open.

I’ve enclosed directions to the Shining Tower’s warehouse. Let me know if there is anything else you need from me.

Thank you again for your help and generosity, I eagerly await getting our business started once you’re ready,

Lucian.

My new address is 1122 Bogton Way, Warehouse District.

Larson walked to his cabin, scratching out a reply, introducing Kipper to him and requesting that Lucian hire the young man for their shop.

“Kipper, get in here,” Larson shouted, startling the young man who hustled over to the captains cabin.

“Yes, sir, what can I help with?” Kipper asked.

“Go to this address and speak with my business partner, Lucian. He’ll let you know what he wants you to do, but it will likely be a bit before were ready to open. In the meantime, use this to keep some food on the table for your family. Do not make me regret trusting you and don’t even thing about stealing from me. If you betray my trust, I will kill you in a very painful manner,” Larson said, putting the fear of naga into the lad by summoning his spear to hand and imbuing it with magical energy.

“Aye, sir, I’ll work hard and do right by you. I’ll help Mr. Lucian get things running and we’ll make you lots of money, we will,” Kipper said. Larson sent him on his way.

He now had a total of ten crew, the eight new arrivals along with Creech and Gilroy. He wanted at least to triple that to feel comfortable heading out to sea again. The raid on the Shining Tower would be a good test for the new men, but he didn’t expect too much from them. Based on the skill of the three goons he had killed earlier, Larson wasn’t too worried about their chance. While he was in his cabin, Larson took the time to gather any of the remaining coin stored in the room, which wasn’t much. Using his newfound Void Storage ability, Larson stowed the coin away where it would be much safer than in his cabin.

“Beg your pardon, sir, Nogreb is returning,” Tarley called to him. Larson went out on deck to meet his boatswain. Nogreb spotted him, taking a moment to look over the new crew that Tarley had set to various tasks.

“Sir, I’ve made a purchase of a new mast, along with rigging and fresh sail and it should arrive here tomorrow for us to install. It cleaned out all the funds you gave me, but it doesn’t appear that anything can be done on the cheap here. There are also a few places we can drydock the Gull Dropping to refit, but it’s not going to be cheap,” Nogreb advised.

“Well done, I have something to discuss with the officers, but it will wait until Shada returns. For now, I’d like you to start running the new crew through their paces with weapons. We need to see which of them has any skill. Hopefully, most of them will know where to stab the pointy end,” Larson ordered. Nogreb saluted and after consulting with Tarley, they began to split up the new crew, testing their weapons skills in between the shipboard tasks Tarley had set for them to complete.

By late afternoon, Shada and Gilroy had returned with a small pushcart full of provisions. It looked like a decent haul, but there were a lot more mouths to feed with the new crew he had signed on. Shada and Gilroy both looked a bit frustrated and worn out, he could see they each had a overflowing pack on their back with more supplies.

“You don’t exactly look happy, Shada, any trouble?” Larson asked.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle; someone made a play for my purse, but the point of my blade scared him off. After that, the riffraff left us alone. The only real trouble we had was finding enough preserved provisions at a fair price. This isn’t exactly a cheap place to do business. For now, I’ve got enough to get us through a week, but, with the new mouths to feed, I think it will only be three days’ worth,” Shada reported.

“Good work, gather the other officers and meet me in the cabin,” Larson ordered. After seeing to it that the new crew were all doing something productive, his officers gathered, a bit unsure of what Larson had planned.

“All right, first things first, we now have a new business partner in port, one who is going to help us start a new shop. Lucian is his name, and he knows this town well. I want you to run your purchases through him, he’ll know who to see and where we can get the best deals to avoid getting ripped off,” Larson shared the merchant’s home address to his officers.

“Next, when we inherited Lucian, we also inherited some problems. There is a local gang called the Shining Tower that had some beef with our partner, burning out his previous shops because our man didn’t want to pay bribes and protection money. Out on the street, a trio of Shining Tower thugs attacked us. I killed the three of them, but there will undoubtedly be further trouble with the gang. The headquarters for these clowns is inside the warehouse district and I intent to end them before they become more of a problem. Tonight, we hit their headquarters, and kill or capture any of the thugs that are there. After we deal with the Shining Tower, we help ourselves to everything they own,” Larson told them.

“Sir, how many of them can we expect to fight, and how skilled are these thugs?” Tarley asked.

“We think there will be less than a dozen at the headquarters, but they probably have a few teams out in the poorer eastern district at any given time, shaking down the locals. I propose we bring a half dozen of our new crew on the raid. Find the ones with the most skill and get them armed. Shada, do you still have funds left after buying provisions?” Larson asked.

“Aye, sir, we spent a quarter of what you gave me. I didn’t want to purchase more until we found some more reasonable prices,” Shada answered.

“Very good, take what you have remaining and see to whatever weapons and armor you can find for yourselves. Whatever’s left we can use to outfit the crew in whatever armor or weapons we can afford. Make sure to get some ranged weapons while you’re out, and plenty of ammo for them. There is smith nearby, a halfling named Felicia Burrowton, see her first and I think we’ll get a decent price,” Larson ordered.

Staying behind after sending his officers out to get new gear. Larson ran the crew through several drills, from manning the oars, to repairing unexpected damage. The new arrivals did a mediocre job, but they had a long way to go before they became a well drilled team. Whipping them into shape would take much longer than an afternoon, but the new men showed promise.

When it came to weapons drills, their skills were worse than their shipboard ones, as was to be expected. Out of the eight new crew and two existing ones, Larson found six for the raid that were a bit better than the rest. These he gave the pick of the weapons locker, and three of them chose spears, two grabbed a cutlass, and the last, one of the halflings, asked for a bow or crossbow. For now, Larson gave the halfling one of the long daggers, assuring him that a ranged weapon was on the way. While he worked the crew, Larson pulled up his ship’s information, happy to see that things were improving.

Ship’s Complement for the Gull Dropping:

Crew: 10/60.

Specialized Crew: 0/10.

Officers: 4/5.

Prisoners: 0.

Passengers: 0.

Crew Armaments: Average. Your crew is equipped with good quality steel melee weapons, but you lack ranged weapons and skilled crew to use them.

Crew Armor: None.

Other equipment: None.

Crew:

Level 1 sailors, 10. Your crew have all had some experience on various vessels and can perform simple tasks when ordered under the direction of an officer. They possess minimal fighting skills.

Officers:

Larson, Ship’s Captain level 2.

Tarley, Level 3 First Mate/unknown second class.

Nogreb, Level 3 Bosun/unknown second class.

Shada: Level 3 Ship’s Surgeon/Level 2 Shaman/unknown third class.

Average crew health: 100%. Your crew is well rested and fed, ready for any task they are called upon to perform.

Morale: 87%. Most of your crew are new and a bit unsure of how things will turn out. They are happy with their pay and the living conditions are acceptable.

Things looked a bit better than they had on the desperate voyage into port, but Larson still needed quite a few crew to handle the ship for any prolonged periods of time. His ships officers were now all showing as level three in their current roles. They all still had some mysterious other classes, but there wasn’t any chance to ferret out what those were just now. He would have to build their trust further, before they entrusted him with their secrets.

After being gone only about an hour, is ships officers returned, pushing the small cart Shada had brought back from her earlier trip. In the cart were piled various weapons and armor. Tarley now sported a studded leather jerkin and had kept one of the cutlass’ that they had recovered from the Coral Destiny. Nogreb was decked out in a light chain shirt and leather pants that had been reinforced with metal studs at any critical locations. He wore a pair of the long knives on his belt and had several smaller ones in a bandolier around his chest.

Shada had almost identical armor to Nogreb, but her choice in weapons was much different. She had a new shortsword sheathed at her waist and a large rectangular shaped, curved shield strapped to her back. She also had a pair of javelins slung over her shoulder within easy reach. The cart was full of a half dozen, lower quality leather jerkins for the crew that they planned to take into battle. In addition to the armor, a few round wooden shields had been purchased, well used but with a little life in them still. A pair of crossbows were also in the cart along with several bundles of bolts.

They were armed as well as their funds allowed, and as the sun sank in the west, they prepared for their fight.