Jerynboe

Startup 24: Do Your Prep!

In which we lose one of the original crew members,

Emrys picks up a new perk,

And Curtis puts a very important letter off to the side.

How to handle the Drow?

You may want to read Startup 23 before voting here so you know a little more, but I’m not a cop

Run- Kick the can down the road. Put on Sosima’s earrings and a different set of clothes, and leave after doing the bare minimum here.

Kill- assassinate Nendra, and use the mirror to replace her with someone more amenable to our hopes and dreams.

Defy- openly ignore Kiyon’s offer and refuse to meet up. Crank up security while we finish...

Startup 23: Lunch Meeting

In which Syl is not a merchant,

Emrys proceeds to choke a bitch,

And we review our macro level missions

Startup 22: Diversification

In which a girl raised in Goatshead has some illusions shattered,

An exhausted dwarf prostitute is hired in the name of friendship,

And a son reunites with his Chad father.

Sorry if there’s been a quality dip. I’ve been sick for a solid week.

Startup 21: New Market

In which Curtis gives a beetle a pocketwatch,

Emrys is Old AF,

And a hairy middle aged man tells Curtis his ship will cheat on him.

Startup 20: Choppy Waters

In which Emrys is assaulted by a powerful nonbinary individual,

Varossa doesn’t have a drinking problem,

And Cave Mother sees the truth.

Achievement on the horizon

We will be getting to Port Peril and bringing Owlbear home over the next few chapters. Once that is done, Emrys will get a perk from Architect of a Thousand Dreams. What will it be, boiz?

Managers (leadership Sphere): Emrys can entrust 2 followers with a business he owns. They will be able to run it effectively so long as doing so is not intrinsically hazardous (like a mercenary company or a fighting navy ship)

Conjuration Companion: one of the outsiders allied ...

Startup 19: Arbitrage

In which Sosima proves to not be Yoda,

Emrys adds another halberd to the pile,

And the Chelish legal code is not fair

Notice of delay

Sorry to say that my real job picks up a lot around the holiday season, so there might be spotty updates until January. I’ll still try to get one chapter out a week, but I can make no promises.

Merry Christmas, whether or not that is your winter holiday of choice. If it isn’t, I hope you enjoy whatever it is you are actually celebrating too. Just be inexplicably cheerful on December 25th too. I command it.

Startup 18: Standard Operating Procedure

In which staring intensely at Varossa fails to yield results,

Sosima performs dinner theatre by candlelight,

And Sandara experiences the horrors of a lover with cold hands.

Sorry about accidentally posting the bonus chapter without a link to the bonus chapter. My bad.

Startup 17b: Aulamaxa

Ye gods I am an idiot. Here’s the actual link.

Startup 17: Branding

In which Emrys asks an old lady if she would like a position strapped to his bow,

We leave Goatshead behind,

And Curtis reveals that he is something of a nerd.

Startup 16: Kickoff

In which Emrys agrees to show an orc milf his if she shows him hers,

An artificer doesn’t put up much of a fight,

And an important letter is sent.

Note: we have a poll up for how to approach Varossa Lanteri. Please vote if you have any opinion.

Varossa

We have a somewhat sketchy girl working with us. What do we do with her?

Ply Varossa with drink, food, and conversation. Try to get her on our side the old fashioned way, or at least through abusing game mechanics to make her like us. Slow and less likely to work than using magic or really working her, but reasonable.

Play hardball with Varossa, not unlike how we did with Plugg. Be open about our lack of trust, but cooperative for the sake of mutual gain. M...

Startup 15a: Waiting Room

On the one hand I wanted to go over what everyone did on level up. On the other hand, I didn’t want that to be a full chapter on its own. This isn’t pure spreadsheets, but anyone like my editor might end up scrolling through a decent bit of it to get to the plot stuff.

Startup 15: Performance Review

In which Emrys realizes the value of the Bear necessities,

Deirdre was struck down, only to become more powerful than you can possibly imagine,

And Syl notes the many sterling qualities of cold blooded murder

You Should Probably Read Chapter 14 first

Done? Good. Dierdre is dead, long live Dierdre.

Dierdre has been killed, but as a fey her soul will pass into the first world and become a different fey very, very quickly. Through a quirk of fate, largely enabled by being a follower, she will retain a disproportionate amount of her memories and personality when this happens. What will she be when Emrys summons her again? Different forms may tinge her personality, but won’t override it, and this is reasonably likely to happen again.<...

Startup 14: Employee Retention

In which we find out what’s up with that amulet,

Curtis briefly plays a piano,

And Dave is a normal and unobtrusive halfling

Chapter 3: To take what is mine

I was mildly surprised that this polled as well as it did. I do hope you continue to enjoy these diversions into Emrys’s own little isekai.

To Port Peril!

The journey north will not get a day by day playback, but nor will it be skipped entirely. Emrys is planning on going to Port Peril, the Capital, and Varossa agrees that they should head in that general direction. One of the big questions is how he will avoid getting preyed upon by other ships.

Go without flags from any lord. This is risky but allows him to stay totally independent long enough to declare himself a free captain at Port Peril.

Fly the flags of The Master of G...

Startup 13: Escalation and Resolution

In which the crew beat on an old man,

Pepper offers her services as a bodyguard very forcefully,

And Syl is accused of breaking a window.

Startup 12: Aggressive Negotiations

In which Emrys leaps a tall building with a single bound,

Curtis appreciates beautiful artwork,

And Syl practices medicine (tm)

Startup 11a: Rowe

Rowe is being difficult.😥

Level 5 spells

He will definitely be getting the spell Invisibility from his Rakshasa Bloodline, and the spell Night Blindness (which removes a target’s darkvision and makes everything seem darker) from his drow bloodline. So, what else?

Level 2 spells

Gird Ally - creates a short lived force field around all nearby summoned allies that grants them +2 to AC

Pilfering Hand - a dramatically stronger variant of mage hand that allows the caster to steal an object (possibly even a weapo...

Startup 11: Because We Care

In which Emrys ogles Jerry’s girl,

Sandara doesn’t think he can stack up to the ultimate short king,

And fighting a dragon is obviously a better idea than talking to Nendra

Leveling Up to 5: Feats

So Emrys is almost certainly going to level up before he leaves Goatshead. That means I need a little bit of input on what he is getting upon level up. Up First: Feats.

Scribe Scroll - scrolls are cheap, one use magic items that allow someone that is already a spellcaster to cast a spell without expending a spell slot. It won’t drastically expand Curtis’s options, but it will allow him to save spell slots on days where he can’t waste his magic on utility.

Silent Spell 1/day...

Startup 10: Negotiations

In which Curtis analyzes Varossa’s hands,

Ethyl does not understand kinks,

and cuddling is a great time to read menus

Mild delay

I don’t actually know how many of you have noted the schedule, but I’d normally be posting a bonus chapter this week. My real job’s schedule is a bit crazy for the next 2 weeks, so I don’t think I’ll manage it. I’ll do my best to finish my normal chapters on schedule.

Like I said, I don’t actually know how many of you would have even noticed the lack, but I felt like you deserved an explanation anyway lol.

Chapter 9: Merger

In which Curtis agonizes over what to wear,

Yael shows up in her new digs,

And the party has a charming first encounter.

Captain Varossa Lanteri

An old school friend of Plugg’s, Varossa came to The Shackles a few years ago. Due to some very recent unpleasantness, she finds herself between ships. Of course, she’s not entirely bereft of assets, and is looking for someone to work with on a big project she has in mind.