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>What is this?
A new quest, set in the fantastical world of Lodestar. Details about the setting will be revealed in time, though I'll also release some infodumps depending on which character you decide to choose. Each of them knows a various amount, with Tabula Rasa obviously knowing very little. You play as a friendly Blue Pirate at the start of their adventure, intent on rising to the top through riches and infamy. In the process, you'll explore the world I've built, fight forces both Human and Monstrous, forge friendships and bonds with those you meet along the way, and uncover the conspiracies that seek to upset the balance of the world.

>What system are we using?
A modified version of ORE- the One Roll Engine. If you play in Present Mic's My Hero Academia Quest, you may already be familiar with how it works. It boils down to: Roll a pool of d10s, look for matching numbers. The rest is stuff that I'll personally worry about!

>Can you give me a quick rundown of the setting, at least?
Sure! You can think of Lodestar as being set in a 'hollow' world, specifically taking place on the inside of it. If you fly far enough up, you'll reach the other side of the world. Sitting high up in the sky, in the center of the world, is a massive liquid sphere called the Core, which radiates a brilliant golden light during the day and slowly shifts to a duller blue light at night. There is no sun or moon here, only the Core! Magic is plentiful, to the point where people themselves are made of Mana and disperse into it when slain. This mana always seems to float up and away towards the Core, so that the person's essence can rejoin with the world.

>Is this inspired by anything?
Quite a few things, but most of all it's inspired by Skies of Arcadia. If you haven't played it, go play it! It's a fantastic game with a fantastic vibe. This setting is still original, however, so don't go into it thinking that this is a Skies of Arcadia quest - it's not!

>>5865235
>Is that Jahwal? Alone and slinking off towards his cabin? Don't mind if I do!
>Val Lasombra. You're great with magic, but even better with a pistol. Not one for words, you think actions speak much louder.

>>5865235
>Looks like some of the Black Pirates just boarded the merchant's vessel! Go take care of those rascals.
"Ramza Valentine. Cocky, charming, and killer with a Mageblade."

>>5865235
>Five against two? That's hardly fair! Go support some of your fellow pirates!
>Val Lasombra. You're great with magic, but even better with a pistol. Not one for words, you think actions speak much louder.

>>5865235
>Looks like some of the Black Pirates just boarded the merchant's vessel! Go take care of those rascals.

>Ramza Valentine. Cocky, charming, and killer with a Mageblade.

>>5865235
>>Is that Jahwal? Alone and slinking off towards his cabin? Don't mind if I do!
>>Val Lasombra. You're great with magic, but even better with a pistol. Not one for words, you think actions speak much louder.

>>5865235
>Is that Jahwal? Alone and slinking off towards his cabin? Don't mind if I do!
>Val Lasombra. You're great with magic, but even better with a pistol. Not one for words, you think actions speak much louder.

>>5865249

Supporting.

Ramza is male, correct? I am tired of getting locked into female MCs for all anime quests

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>>5865255
All character choices are male! Here's Ramza's general appearance.

>>5865260

Cool, thanks for clarifying

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>>5865260
And here's Val!

>>5865235
>Is that Jahwal? Alone and slinking off towards his cabin? Don't mind if I do!
Shit. I wanted Tabula Rasa, but I'll go
>Ramza Valentine. Cocky, charming, and killer with a Mageblade.

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>>5865266
And Mr. Tabula Rasa, to round things out.

>>5865235
>Is that Jahwal? Alone and slinking off towards his cabin? Don't mind if I do!
>Ramza Valentine. Cocky, charming, and killer with a Mageblade.

>>5865238
>>5865240
>>5865244
>>5865249
>>5865250
>>5865253
>>5865255
>>5865269
>>5865273
>Is that Jahwal? Alone and slinking off towards his cabin? Don't mind if I do!
>Ramza Valentine. Cocky, charming, and killer with a Mageblade.
Winners! Let's go corner the scumbag while everyone else is busy. The captain'll definitely give us a bigger cut if we pull it off, eh lads?

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Your eyes narrow as you catch sight of the scruffy form of Jahwal, his appearance easily recognized thanks to your religious study of the bounty books - you hope to be in them yourself someday. One of your hands slips around the handle of your mageblade, while the other wraps around a much more solid and ordinary dagger made of steel. You always keep a backup on hand in case you're tapped out of Mana, or are just having a bad enough day that you can't really concentrate enough to keep the mageblade as sharp as you need it to be.

You slink towards the captain's cabin, trying not to get spotted by anyone else as you do so. Jahwal slipped inside just a few moments ago, and you can hear something heavy sliding around in there. Barricading the door, perhaps? You try the handle to open it, but it seems to be locked right now. With a sigh, you pull your mageblade out of its holster with a twirl, and focus your mana into it.

The blade begins to form, glowing a brilliant blue as it always does, as you concentrate. You make it thinner, and shorter, and stick it into the lock to finesse it- oh, who are you kidding. You expand the blade with a flex of your willpower the moment it's in there, destroying the locking mechanism and allowing you to swing the door open. With a cocky grin on your face, you pull the mageblade free and hold your steel dagger forward to cut an imposing figure to the fleeing captain.

You do not, in fact, see a scared captain hiding away while the fighting starts. No, you see a stonefaced killer standing beside a full sized cannon, a spark of flame running down the fuse on the back of it. What the FUCK. This madman positioned a cannon in front of his door just to catch someone with it?! THIS MADMAN HAD A CANNON IN HIS ROOM? Holy shit, why are you still standing here? MOVE, RAMZA, MOVE!

>Roll 5d10, best of 3! Look for matching pairs within a set of rolls, don't both trying to match pairs from roller 1's set with roller 2's or 3's.

Rolled 3, 5, 2, 4, 7 = 21 (5d10)

>>5865285

Rolled 4, 10, 6, 3, 6 = 29 (5d10)

>>5865285

Rolled 5, 9, 8, 6, 7 = 35 (5d10)

>>5865285

>>5865297
>>5865304

So which roll is better? the first one has two 6s but is numerically lower

>>5865296
>>5865297
>>5865304
A pair of 6s! That's a success, you're not going to become a living donut thanks to a cannonball!
>>5865307
Not getting any paired numbers is a failure. You always want at least two numbers to match. The higher the number on the matching numbers means that the success is of a higher quality, usually, while the AMOUNT of matching numbers correlates to how fast and/or powerful the action is.
So for example, rolling 3, 3, 3 here would be an even faster, if a bit sloppier, of a dodge! And if you were, say, cooking something, you would probably want a higher number like 10, 10 to make a flawless meal as opposed to making a larger batch faster. Hope the explanation helps!

>>5865311

Thanks for clarifying, interesting system

>>5865311
What about straights?
>>5865304

>>5865315
Not a thing with this system, unfortunately!

You tear yourself from your stunned moment of realization and throw yourself away from the doorway just in time, the cannon firing just a fraction of a second later with an explosion so loud that it rattles your bones. It's a good thing Captain Keats told you to stuff some cotton in your ears before the fight, because otherwise you're not sure you'd be able to hear anything at all after that! As you move to pick yourself up off the floor and gain your bearings again, Jahwal steps out of the doorway, drawing a lengthy blood-red spear from the depths of his coat and hefting it up to level the head at you.

"You're alone. That was a mistake." He says, his voice carrying an edge to it as hard as his stare.

"Who said I was alone?" You reply cheekily, glancing just past him. With the seed of doubt properly sewn, he can't help but glance over his shoulder quickly, his own battle-hardened instincts working against him as he tries to thwart an ambush that isn't there. He sees nothing but empty air, and when he looks back to you, you've activated your mageblade again with the moment's reprieve you earned.

"Won't work again." He growls out at you, getting into a ready stance.

"I know. Only needed it to work the one time." You say back, cheer in your voice. As the two of you size each other up, you go over what you mentally know about your opponent. He's definitely more experienced than you, and from what you've heard he's stronger and faster. He's not particularly smart though, nor is he the most cunning opponent - a fairly straightforward fighter, really. Just a really skilled one.

Your own tools are far more numerous and versatile, in your humble opinion. Your mageblade is the love of your life, your bread and butter - usually a performative tool, but one you've taken to trying to master regardless. The 'blade' part of it is made of your own pure, condensed mana after being run through an internal catalyst, and the blade changes according to your will. You can make it completely dull or sharp enough to cut through any metal if you had the willpower for it, or extend it into a dozen different branches, or even make shapes with it like a grasping hand or the like. You're...not that skilled, admittedly, but you can still manage a two-pronged sword or make it spear forward with rapid extension if you focus.

Besides that, you also have some tricks at your disposal. Numerous steel daggers, which you're plenty skilled at using in a melee or throwing, line your person. You've got a few managlass vials of Mending Sap, which replicates any non-manabody matter it touches and is ideal for fusing someone's shoes to the ground in your experience, and one flask of low-grade Ether to top your mana back up with. Magicwise, the only spell you actually know well enough to use on the fly is Flashfire, which is far more suited to dealing with crowds than a single man.

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>Keep it simple, duel him with your Mageblade, like a man! You'll humble this fool for choosing an inferior weapon!
>Use your daggers, keep him at a distance by throwing them. Something tells you he's pretty dangerous up close.
>Pull out that Mending Sap, throw it at his feet. If he doesn't dodge it, he's a sitting duck for you until he rips his shoes off!
>Use a different tactic! (Write-in)

>>5865339
>Use your daggers, keep him at a distance by throwing them. Something tells you he's pretty dangerous up close.
>Pull out that Mending Sap, throw it at his feet. If he doesn't dodge it, he's a sitting duck for you until he rips his shoes off!

Throw the daggers into the ceiling above him, then when he looks up, throw the Mending Sap at his feet.

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Come on now, lads, give me a few more votes and (you)s than that! I see you lurking over there.

>>5865343

Supporting this anon's trickery

>>5865339
>Keep it simple, duel him with your Mageblade, like a man! You'll humble this fool for choosing an inferior weapon!

>>5865376

Also OP, you're off to a smashing start here, but it might be helpful to provide us with clear voting windows (i.e. this vote will close in 1 hour, etc etc)

>>5865386
Sure, sorry about that! Votes will usually last around 1-2 hours, and you can expect multiple votes on the days I run. Unsure exactly which days I'll be running yet, but I've been obsessed with my setting for a while, so I'll probably be pumping out updates all week.

>>5865343
>>5865384
>>5865385
Trying for a distraction and a trick, alright then! Roll me 6d10, Bo3, then!

Rolled 6, 2, 9, 2, 5, 2 = 26 (6d10)

>>5865404

Rolled 4, 10, 7, 2, 2, 9 = 34 (6d10)

>>5865404

Wew, this system is really tripping me up

>>5865409
>>5865415
>>5865422
>7 two's

Crazy

Rolled 4, 3, 6, 3, 2, 5 = 23 (6d10)

>>5865404

>>5865409
>>5865415
>>5865433
I'll go with the one that gives you a better result in this scenario, which is the faster one - 2, 2, 2! Pretty fast work there, amigo!
>>5865429
We're looking at each individual rollset, my friend. It's the 'best set' we use, essentially. Which in this case would be the set rolled by you! I know it's confusing at first, but you'll all get the hang of it in time!
And it's a system that spares me from having to make DCs or determine where things hit, which removes the ambiguity of "oh man what should the dc be" for things. Anyways, writing up, lads!

Rolled 7, 10, 5 = 22 (3d10)

>>5865438
Ah, I forgot to roll for HIM! He's not the smartest, so a trick like this? Should be easy against him. Let's roll his Brains + Notice pool, which is a whopping...3.
Wow!

He takes a step forward, and you realize you don't have any time left to consider your moves. You can tell what he's going to do by the way he strides forward and the way his muscles tense - he's going to close the gap between the two of you and try to gut you like a fish unless you do something about it. So you do. You whip your dagger out, throwing it up at an angle towards his head and forcing him to stop his advancement and lean back as swiftly as he can to avoid it. Your dagger cuts a few hairs loose from his head before it digs into the wood of his quarters, vibrating slightly from the force you threw it with.

"Tch!" He grunts in irritation, eyes flashing back down to you. You can tell by the look in his eyes that he thought you'd seriously been trying to nail him with that, when in truth it was merely another one of your ruses! Your hand is already outstretched by the time he recognizes what's happening, a small vial of sticky golden sap flying right at his feet, with no time at all for him to dodge or react to it.

The fragile managlass shatters into a thousand pieces, releasing the sweet smelling sap all over where he's standing. The sap immediately and rapidly starts to change, gaining the texture and properties of the wooden floorboards that it comes into contact with, and the rubber of the man's own boots. Where the two meet, the textures blend together oddly, and you know you've practically won at this point. Jahwal's shoes have been fused to the deck of his own ship, and he just now seems to be realizing it.

"Damn it!" He curses, trying to wrench his legs free and break bond but finding himself unable to do so. Grinning, you take advantage of his continued distraction to extend your mageblade forward, until the tip brushes against the struggling captain's neck.

"It's over for you, Jahwal. Why don't you just give up already?" You taunt him, feeling content in your well-earned victory.

"Is that so? We'll see about that." He replies with a cold fury in his eyes, seemingly unperturbed by your blade at his neck. You raise your eyebrow and thrust forward, only to find your blade bending around the flesh of his neck. Wh- damn it, he must be using a Hardening spell on his flesh! You're surprised the stupid fuck even knows how to use magic at all...unless he had someone else cast it on him earlier?

"Shit." Is all you can say as Jahwal hefts his spear up and prepares to throw it right at you like a Javelin.

>Concentrate your mageblade into a smaller and smaller point, pierce through that hardened flesh!
>Dodge that shit, he'll be unarmed as soon as he throws it, and you can freely mess him up after!
>Style is king. Try to catch his spear, you'll use his own weapon to beat him.
>Something else?

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>>5865452
Best I could get for mending sap doing its thing.

>>5865452

>Dodge that shit, he'll be unarmed as soon as he throws it, and you can freely mess him up after!

Risk management people, we have him after this

>>5865452
>Something else?
Hyper-pole extend! Turn the mageblade into a spear instead. Hopefully the force will throw the captain's aim off.

>>5865456
We're quicker on the draw.

>>5865456
>>5865462
Need more votes to at least break the tie!

>>5865452
>Style is king. Try to catch his spear, you'll use his own weapon to beat him.

I'll leave this vote up for a few hours, since I'll be tabletop gaming for a bit. See you in a bit, lads!

>>5865557
Have fun!

Rolled 1 (1d3)

>>5865569
It was fun!
So anyways, since our tie still isn't broken, I'll break it myself.
1: >>5865456
2: >>5865462
3: >>5865525

Rolled 10, 7, 10, 6, 5 = 38 (5d10)

>>5865665
Dodging, alright! Like before, roll me 5d10, best of 3! Here is Jahwal's roll to try to hit you, already reduced due to the penalty of having his shoes fused to the floor.

Now, how this works is quite simple. If you are as fast as him or faster with your dodge, your dodge will retroactively reduce his dicepool by however 'wide' your dice is. For example, if you roll 6, 6, 6 and that ends up being faster than whatever I roll here, I'd strike the last three of the dice I'm rolling here from existence. It'll be like he never rolled them, even though we can clearly see them. Knowing what your opponent is doing is a great benefit, but you gotta be physically fast enough to act on it!

Rolled 10, 6, 8, 5, 10 = 39 (5d10)

Rolled 10, 10, 3, 7, 6 = 36 (5d10)

>>5865668

Rolled 8, 5, 5, 7, 3 = 28 (5d10)

>>5865668

>>5865677
>>5865684
>>5865690
A most admirable effort, but it looks like Jahwal's got some damn fine aim. But as a consolation, your dodge will halve the damage from 2 to 1, seeing as you got so very close! Writing.

The spear suddenly flings forward, thrown towards you by the older man before you can finish thinking your situation through fully. Cursing internally, you jerk off to the side as quickly as your body can manage to try to dodge it, only for the sharp tip of it to slice across the delicate flesh of your forehead and leave a thin gash stretching along the side of your head as you do so. Had you not tried to dodge at all, despite being just a hair too slow, you have no doubt it would have left a far worse wound on you.
-1 Brains until healed. Currently at: 3!

"D-Damn it!" You cry out and bring a hand up to clutch the wound, hissing at the burning and stinging sensation radiating from it. "You'll pay for that!" You swear, focusing your anger into your mageblade and making it flare out a bit wider in fiery wisps. You're finding it a bit harder to concentrate your will into it, of course, so its form seems a little more hazy and undefined than before.

"I don't need that spear to snap your neck. Come on." Jahwal is the one to taunt you now, confident from having drawn first blood.

Your blood boils a bit more at that, but you're hardly a rash individual to act on his temper...usually. Most of the time. Sometimes. Alright, damn it, you might have a bit of trouble when it comes to restraining yourself.

"Is that so? Let's see it, old man!" You call out, taking your hand off the fresh wound to grab another one of the numerous steel daggers strapped to your person. You hold it in a reverse grip, and approach your newest nemesis with the intent to trade blood for blood.

"Ramza!" A deep voice calls out from the sidelines. Your head turns to see who it belongs to, taking in the gigantic form of one of the newest members to the Golden Mirage. You...don't really know his actual name, but you do know that he apparently suffered from some pretty severe injuries not too long ago that left his memories in tatters. Your crew's taken to calling him Gigas though, in honor of his prodigious size and muscles.

"A little busy here, Gigas!" You reply, turning back to look at the Captain. Jahwal's quickly untying one of his boots while you're distracted, but that's hardly something that can be done in an instant.

"Then finish it up. Worth the same dead or alive, according to the books." Gigas says, frowning.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it! Keats prefers 'em alive, just in case they've got treasure stashed somewhere, but a bounty's a bounty in the end. For this guy..."

>"I'm gonna send him up to the Core. Scratching this beautiful face is unforgivable!" (Kill him while he's vulnerable.)
>"Just gotta knock him out real quick, then I can help you with whatever you need." (Knock him out while he's vulnerable.)

>>5865709

>"Just gotta knock him out real quick, then I can help you with whatever you need." (Knock him out while he's vulnerable.)

Alive is better than dead, he might have valuable intel

>>5865709
>>"I'm gonna send him up to the Core. Scratching this beautiful face is unforgivable!" (Kill him while he's vulnerable.)

This particular vote I'll be leaving up all night, as I hit the hay. Goodnight, folks, and I'll see y'all in the morning!

>>5865709
>I'm gonna send him up to the Core. Scratching this beautiful face is unforgivable!" (Kill him while he's vulnerable.)

>>5865709
>"I'm gonna send him up to the Core. Scratching this beautiful face is unforgivable!" (Kill him while he's vulnerable.)

>>5865713
>>5865716
>>5865771
>>5865793
Vengeance is a dish best served immediately. Writing!
No need for a roll on this, as going lethal with it means you're able to just attack him at range with your very sharp and lethal weapons while he's trapped and has no weapons of his own. You would have had to roll had you gone nonlethal!

"For this guy...I'm gonna send him up to the core! Scratching this beautiful face is unforgivable!" You seethe wrathfully, your pride just as damaged as the side of your head. You slip your dagger back into one of the empty sheathes strapped to you and grasp your mageblade with both hands, focusing the mana that forms the blade into a tighter and sharper form all while Jahwal struggles. Six seconds, six seconds of pure focus is all you think you need - and it's not enough for Jahwal to free himself in time. You step forward with a swing, and your favored weapon slices clean through Jahwal's neck to sever his head from the rest of his body in an instant.

His flesh almost immediately begins to dissolve into droplets of mana, the shocked expression on his face fading with the rest of him as you pull out your bounty book. You make sure to touch the book to his mana before it drifts out of reach as it starts floating up towards the Core sitting high in the sky, and you can see a faint glow coming from one of the pages that tells you it registered the kill properly.

"Done?" Gigas asks, unperturbed by the execution that took place.

"Yeah." You say, sighing out and cutting off the flow of energy to your weapon. It wouldn't do to waste all of your energy keeping it up. "What'd you need?" You ask, turning to face the big man.

"That." He says, moving over to the railing and pointing down at the merchant ship below. Walking over with him and peering that way, you see a rather unfortunate scenario - the portly merchant running that ship currently has a scimitar being held up to his neck, threatening to end him while one of your fellow Blues is holding the bastard at gunpoint. You recognize the blue - it's Val. He's said maybe a total of eight words to you for as long as you've known him, but he's a crack shot and always proves his worth. Must be hesitating to take the shot for a reason.

"He can kill them quicker than they can kill the fat cat, can't he?" You ask, Gigas shaking his head and shifting where he's pointing.

Off to the side, hidden in the shadows of the ship and not easily visible, there seems to be a gunner holding his weapon out at Val. If Val shoots the hostage taker, the gunman will shoot Val. If Val tries to shoot the gunman, the hostage taker will kill his hostage. The only reason why nobody's acted yet is because none of the three want to die themselves.

"Oh." You say simply. "Shit. Yeah, let's bail him out. If we work together, you and I can take the-"

>"Gunman out before he can fire off a shot."
>"Hostage taker before he lays a hand on anyways."
>"Both of them out simultaneously. They won't see it coming with all eyes on Val."

>>5866080
>"Both of them out simultaneously. They won't see it coming with all eyes on Val."

>>5866080
>>"Both of them out simultaneously. They won't see it coming with all eyes on Val."

>>5866080

>"Gunman out before he can fire off a shot."

Party members are first priority

>>5866080
>"Both of them out simultaneously. They won't see it coming with all eyes on Val."
Say it with a smile.

Rolled 4, 7, 5, 8, 2 = 26 (5d10)

>>5866080
I just realized I misplaced a word. The middle choice should have been:
>"Hostage taker before he lays a hand on anyone."
God damn, bros. The morning grogginess got me. Anyways.
>>5866083
>>5866092
>>5866115
>>5866128
Dual takedown! You and Gigas will both roll for stealth, then. Roll me...7d10! There's some bonus dice thrown in for you because of the fact that their attention is very much on Val! Here's Gigas.

Rolled 3, 9, 1, 1, 8, 2 = 24 (6d10)

>>5866133
Well, Gigas the big fuckin' mountain man flubbed his stealth, so let's see if Val can get his shot off quickly enough to make up for his mistake.

>>5866137
>Kneecapped him
That's one way to distract and disable someone!

Rolled 10, 1, 8, 4, 7, 6, 9 = 45 (7d10)

>>5866133

>>5866152

Looks like we botched it, fellas

>>5866155
I apologize, this is also best of 3! It'll always be Bo3 for you guys unless I say otherwise. Feel free to roll more!

Rolled 4, 7, 2, 4, 10, 6, 2 = 35 (7d10)

>>5866133

Rolled 9, 2, 9, 4, 5, 3, 10 = 42 (7d10)

>>5866156

Thank god

Now watch THIS

>>5866152
>>5866158
>>5866159
A pair of 9s! Pretty smooth sneaking, buddies! Writing.

"If we work together, you and I can take the both of them out at the same time. They won't see it coming, they're focused on Val." You say, grinning and smacking a fist into your open palm. Gigas mimics the motion, a rare smile coming from him as well.

"Ok. Let's do it." He says with a hint of excitement about him.

"Alright. One at a time, so we don't make too much noise. After I'm down there and in position, I'll wave you down. Sit tight for now, big man." You instruct him with a charismatic smile, getting a thumbs-up from him. With that, you grab hold of the chain and begin to descend it by hand, trusting in your grip strength to help you descend it without making nearly as much noise as using your harness clip would cause.

Your efforts seem to be paying off so far as nobody seems to have noticed your presence, and halfway down the chain you stop. You swing your weight backwards, then forwards, and repeat the process several times to build up a bit of momentum before you fling yourself forward on the last swing, heading right towards the Crow's nest of the merchant vessel! As silent as a cat landing on its feet, you clamber onto the crows nest after catching it, breathing out a sigh of relief. The hard part was done!

Next, you climb down to the sails, sidling over until you're positioned juuuust over the head of the Gunman. You're positive you could kill him in an instant without him being any the wiser from this position, so you look back up and give the watching Gigas a thumbs-up.

Gigas grins and returns the gesture, immediately putting his harness hook on the chain and jumping over the railing, rapidly zipping down the line and causing quite the loud ruckus doing so. Both the gunman and the hostage taker's eyes shoot over to the descending form of Gigas, and you struggle not to slap your forehead at your companion's immeasurably poor grasp of stealth.

You drop down immediately, legs rigidly outstretched such that you land a brutal spike directly on the Gunman's head, a resounding crack coming from him as the force of the blow snaps his neck and quite possibly breaks his skull open, his body immediately starting to dissipate. Seems you did enough damage with just the one blow to destabilize him, nice!

A harsh bang rings out followed be a man's cries of pain. Your eyes whip over to take in the evolving situation, to see that Val's pistol is smoking and there's a bloody hole where the knee of the hostage-taker used to be. The enemy pirate has forgotten all about the only thing keeping him alive thanks to the pain, clutching his knee in pain as Val pulls out his secondary pistol to finish him off with a clean shot to the head. Looks like the situation's already resolved.

"What the hell." Gigas says with a big frown, walking up and tapping his fists together a few times. "I didn't even get to hit anyone! Where's the fun in that?" He complains.

"You'd have gotten to fight if you didn't have the noisiest concept of stealth I'd ever seen!" You walk over and chide him, the big man wrinkling his nose up.

"Sorry." He offers, you just sighing at him in exasperation.

"Thanks." Val speaks up, making it the ninth time he's spoken to you. You grin and nod his way.

"No problem, partner. Looked like you were in a bit of a jam." You say, walking up to pat him on the back. He stares at you for a few moments before you back off, now feeling awkward as hell about the physical contact. He doesn't say anything more, and starts to reload his two pistols.

"Well...we should probably get back if we don't want to miss the rest of the-" You begin to say, before a familiar whistle rings out in a specific tune. FWEEEEE-FWEE-FWEE!

"Aw, come on! It's already over?! Are they surrendering that easily?" Gigas whines, unbefitting of his appearance. "I only got to punch six guys!"

"Well, I did take out their captain pretty much immediately. Bet some of them saw that and it tanked their morale." You reason, Val silently nodding in acknowledgement and support of your claim.

"Tshh...sucks." Gigas gripes.

"Don't even worry about it, man. The victory celebration will make up for it, guaranteed. Think about all the free drinks we'll get!" You remind him, a smile gracing his face again.

"Oh yeah! A party should really liven things up. Alright, maybe it's not so bad that we finished up so quickly!" He changes his tune mighty quickly. It makes you chuckle, really. Your attention from the conversation is broken with the portly merchant makes his way over to you, bowing profusely to both you and Val.

"Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for saving me! I'm indebted to you. You need anything, you can always call on me for it, okay? I'll get you the best deals around!" He says, your thoughts drifting to what you could ask of him. Would he part with gold if you asked him to just pay you for the service? Or maybe some kind of valuable item? What the hell does he sell, anyways?

"Just doing what's right, my friend." You say with all the charisma you can muster. "I'm curious, what kind of cargo do you have on this ship?" You ask, probing for information.

"Oh, it's nothing too special - just a bunch of antique curios! I recently won quite a lot of them at an auction, and I plan on selling them at a profit to the right collectors. Why, are you interested in antiques, my friend?" He asks. You consider it, and...well, most of that old stuff doesn't really interest you that much, but you've heard stories about genuinely rare and valuable items - or even weapons - being hidden amongst collections like that.

>"I might be. Care if I take a look at your selection?" See if you can get an antique from him.
>"Not really, but I'll keep you in mind if I need a good merchant to get some goods for me." Save the favor for down the line.
>Got something else to say or do? Write it in!

>>5866194
Got any weapons? If not then I'm not gonna waste my time.

>>5866194
>"I might be. Care if I take a look at your selection?" See if you can get an antique from him.

>>5866194

>"I might be. Care if I take a look at your selection?" See if you can get an antique from him.

I think our guy would be mostly interested in the monetary valuable, but still worth a look.

>>5865285
Damn, this nibba got some HIPS on him

>>5866250
I swear to Allah, if you start calling him submissive and breedable, I will beat you with my shoe
>>5866199
>>5866206
>>5866210
Perusing the merchant's wares! We'll get first pick of his loot goods, great idea lads. Writing!

>>5866269
Small delay, sudden store run!

"I might be. Care if I take a look at your selection?" You reply, curious and following the pull of your coinpurse on this one. Who knows, maybe you'll find something super rare and valuable that he doesn't know the true value of in there! You kind of doubt it, but as they say...nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"Of course not, of course not! Now that I am no longer under attack, I would gladly show you my wares, my friend. Come inside!" The merchant says, waving the three of you over to the hatch that leads down to the bowels of his ship. He unlatches it and flips it open, climbing down the steep stairs to the dimly lit interior - you can barely see shit down here.

Right when you're about to mention it, the merchant pulls out a phial of Ether and pours it into a receptacle built into the wall. The concentrated and purified mana begins flowing through the channels built into the belly of the ship itself, lighting up the conduits with a soft blue glow, before the energy flows into some relatively simple lamps outfitted with illumination enchantments that light up a familiar golden hue now that they're sufficiently powered.

Climbing down after him, with the other two following close behind, you behold the wide array of carefully secured and well arranged artifacts of bygone eras. Elegant Eldingarian tapestries depict great battles and monsters of the past with delicate brushstrokes, enigmatic Vodan scrolls that look to be hundreds of years old are rolled up to keep their secrets safe, countless masterwork pieces of jewelry of clear Lume make fill in the majority of the space. All doubtlessly worth small fortunes to the right people, but essentially worthless to the average person who cares not for such cultural significance.

"Impressive." Val says his tenth word, apparently appreciative enough of the collection to find it worthy of commenting on.

"Looks mostly useless to me." Gigas says with a frown, leaning over to examine a broken sword of Eldingarian make that seems to have the cracked-in-half blade displayed next to it. "Who would want a broken weapon?" He asks.

"It's about the history behind the weapon." You tell him, rolling your eyes. "But I kind of agree, is there something actually useful down here?" You ask the merchant, whose expression grows momentarily ponderous.

"Well, I don't have much in it, but I do have a chest for my Gaothian finds." He says, scurrying over to a large warchest and pulling it open. Within, clearly unsorted as of the moment, seems to be a cache of hardy looking weapons - vicious looking blades and hammers, assorted pieces of armor such as a tarnished yet intact horned helmet, a variety of surprisingly clean goblets and cloth standards, and a single black leatherbound journal held shut by a simple brass clasp that rusted long ago.

>Do any of these items interest Ramza? Not just the Gaothian ones, but the Eldingarian, Vodan, or Lume antiques?

>>5866391
I'll give a bit of background on the nations mentioned here, Lume being in the next post because it's chunkier. Eldingar, the scholars of the Violet Spire, is Lodestar's most advanced nation. Whereas Lume is the trade center of the world, Eldingar is the production center of the world thanks to industrial magical devices that make the processing and assembly of goods far easier than normal. The council that rules Eldingar, insightful as they are, invested heavily in defensive arrangements to protect their goods and people from opportunists - even Gaoth finds difficulty in raiding their settlements. The safety and quality of life in this nation allows its citizens to pursue higher lines of thought such as morality and ethics, which has ultimately reflected upon the laws that govern the nation. People who have visited Eldingar often remark that it's a nation that seems at odds with itself, with mechanical wonders sitting in stark contrast to traditional temples and buildings from a bygone era, a mark of the hidden troubles that come with progressing as swiftly with technology as they have.
Voda, watchers of the Azure Spire, is a nation currently recovering from a lost war. Twenty years ago, in an event called the Stormwar, they used terrible war machines and large-scale magic to push deep into the territory of Lume - many of Lume's cities are still sunken or partially submerged due to this. Yet, five years into the war, Lume and a temporary coalition of Lume's allies managed to not only push Voda back, but strike into the agressor's lands and cripple its military production for some time. Despite Voda's weakened state, their magic still proved threatening enough deter other nations from trying to lay claim to its lands. Culturally, they are a deeply spiritual nation and easily the most prideful people of them all, claiming Water to be the Sovereign Element due to the connections it has with pure mana and the Core.
Eldingar, scholars of the Violet Spire, is Lodestar's most advanced nation. Whereas Lume is the trade center of the world, Eldingar is the production center of the world thanks to industrial magical devices that make the processing and assembly of goods far easier than normal. The council that rules Eldingar, insightful as they are, invested heavily in defensive arrangements to protect their goods and people from opportunists - even Gaoth finds difficulty in raiding their settlements. The safety and quality of life in this nation allows its citizens to pursue higher lines of thought such as morality and ethics, which has ultimately reflected upon the laws that govern the nation. People who have visited Eldingar often remark that it's a nation that seems at odds with itself, with mechanical wonders sitting in stark contrast to traditional temples and buildings from a bygone era, a mark of the hidden troubles that come with progressing as swiftly with technology as they have.

>>5866392
Lume, the guardians of the Crimson Spire, is often referred to as the world's trading post because it has a strict policy of neutrality in almost all affairs. Their hands-off approach gives businesses the freedom to rise and fall according to their own ability, but at the same time gives them the ability to easily abuse the power they wield over their workforce. Lume's economic power lends itself well to alliances, such that they have never wanted for support whenever they have been attacked - a fact that those who live under the Azure Spire know all too well. It's not uncommon to see black-flagged pirates preying on less established mercantile vessels, and military action against these ruffians seems all too sparse these days. Culturally, much of Lume has faith in the religion that's known as "Formism". Formists believe that humans were all formed from droplets of the Core that rained down on Lodestone long ago, and that they exist as way for the universe to experience itself when these droplets return to the core. They believe that Monsters were created from impurities collected in the droplets on their way down, resulting in malformed entities full of hatred over their own imperfection. Those opposed to the religion are quick to point out that there's never been proof of the core ever releasing material - that it's only ever been seen, in the entirety of recorded human history, to collect the droplets that living creatures release when they die.

>>5866391
Horned helmet for obvious spear related reasons and the journal

>>5866392
>Posted eldingar twice instead of Gaoth
Fuck.

Gaoth, the lords of the Verdant Spire, is a nation utterly obsessed with military conquest in the modern age. They've invested the most time, resources, and effort towards the acquisition and production of airships out of all the nations. With this massive aerial armada, they plunder all they need from lesser nations, and take advantage of their mobility to avoid retaliation. The vast majority of their settlements are located on floating islands, which utilize various means to move about to prevent them from becoming easy and stationary targets for their enemies. Despite this, the Gaoth people are among the friendliest you'll ever find as long as you're not currently their enemy or target. They're easily impressed by feats of strength, and can be found in many bars trying to drink each other under the table.

>>5866394

Supporting!

>>5866391
The Arkenstar: A Lume star-studded earring that shines of its own inner light, it takes all light that falls upon it and changes it into ten thousand sparks of white radiance, shot with glints of the rainbow.

>>5866394
>>5866401
>>5866417
That journal caught your eye, huh? Well, you've got a good eye, because it's easily the most valuable thing on this entire ship. Now let's see if you can convince the man to give it up without money, because it's a true one of a kind!
Roll me 6d10 to convince the man, best of 3!

Rolled 10, 4, 7, 7, 8, 4 = 40 (6d10)

>>5866532

Rolled 5, 7, 3, 10, 3, 6 = 34 (6d10)

>>5866532

I'll be hitting the hay again now, so I'll check out the third roll and get to writing in the morning! Sweet dreams, brothers.

>>5866551
Pleasant dreams. See you tomorrow!

Rolled 4, 2, 3, 9, 3, 2 = 23 (6d10)

>>5866532

The Gaothian helmet catches your eye for obvious reasons, exuding an intimidating presence to it. The off-yellow sheen of it makes you think it might have some gold or brass in it, so you're not really sure about how effective it'd actually be, but there's no doubt in your mind that it's imposing and badass. It'll look even better once you polish it up, assuming you can get your hands on it.

"Hey, what's up with the helmet?" You ask, curiosity getting the better of you.

"Hmm?" The merchant adjusts his round spectacles and leans over you to peer at what you're talking about. "Oh! Yes, a marvelous piece. It's one of the younger pieces that dates back about 250 years. It was once worn by an unknown Gaoth Warlord that had risen up in opposition of the Gaothian King at the time, one of many attempts of the time to usurp power and rulership. Supposedly, this Warlord had a bloodline connection to the ancient pirate king Gaoth himself, but that's something every would-be usurper has claimed - Gaoth was promiscuous and his descendants are spread far and wide, truth be told. Regardless, it's a magnificent piece, forged from Orichalcum as a declaration of the wearer's invincibility in battle. It didn't exactly work, because he was beheaded and most records of him were striken from history, as was customary under that King's rule." He explains.

"Badass..." You mutter to yourself, imagining yourself as a pirate king with a hundred concubines at your beck and call. Your attention then shifts to the one odd thing out that doesn't really look like it belongs in the chest, pointing at the journal. "What's the deal with this? It's kind of out of place, don't you think?"

"Ah!" The merchant's eyes gleam, and he moves to pick the journal out of the pile. "How did you get in there? Truly terrible treatment...I'll have to dock the sorting boy's pay for that." He laments, and your eye twitches at the fact that he hasn't addressed your question yet. "Right, sorry! This book is...likely the most valuable thing in this entire ship. It's said to be the Pirate King Gaoth's personal diary, written in Zephyrian - a dead language with few who know it today, but the primary language of what would eventually become the lands of Gaoth at the time." He says, staring at it like it'll fall apart if he holds it too tightly.

"Woah...so it details how he reached the top? His thoughts on just about everything?" You ask, the merchant nodding.

"Presumably. I haven't gotten it into the hands of a translator yet, rare as they are, but there's quite a few sketches in there as well. Even what I can only assume are meant to be instructions on some of his favored techniques and tactics, likely written while he was in the midst of developing and perfecting them." He replies.

"Even more badass..." You mutter again, thinking about obliterating an enemy navy with some absurdly effective strategy that nobody would see coming. "Can I have it? The journal and the helmet?" You ask.

File: EmvZVnSXYAIkJXi.png (120 KB, 383x320)

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"Wh- b- huh?" The merchant sputters, not having expected it. "But...they're priceless artifacts, I..." He starts.

"You almost lost them to some random dumbass pirates that would probably have used the helmet as a dinner bowl and the journal as toilet paper." You counter.

"I..." The merchant's brow furrows, as he considers it. "You're right...certainly, they could use protection in the hands of someone who knows their their true value and has the skill to protect them..." He begrudgingly admits out loud. With a sigh, he offers the book out to you. "Very well, I shall entrust them to you. I just ask that you do everything in your power to ensure that these vital pieces of history are not damaged or lost."

"I will. That's a promise." You say, pouring all the seriousness you can into your voice. You can tell that he'd respond best to someone that understands the gravity of the exchange.

"Thank you." He says gratefully as you take the book, and as you grab the helmet to carefully tuck it under your arm. "Now, you'd best get back to your crew - I'm sure they're trying to count heads right about now." He ushers the three of you back up out of the ship.

"Cool helmet. Gonna wear it?" Gigas asks you while you start the climb back up the chain of the harpoon still embedded in the deck of the ship. Damn it, you're going to have to climb the second one, too!

"Maybe. I don't know if it's exactly my style yet, but Orichalcum sounds pretty good." You say, admittedly not knowing much about the substance.

"Twice as light as steel, thrice as strong." Val speaks up.

"Huh...how about that. I thought it seemed really light for its size." You decide to put the helmet on your head, just to...you know, try it out for a bit. See if you like it. It definitely kind of clashes with your usual wear, but you're not exactly set to one style of clothing - what kind of fashionable man would be so mad as to limit himself like that?

Once the three of you have made the trip up two chains back to the deck of the Golden Mirage, you file into line with the rest of the surviving crew members - which looks to be a significant number, with two or three casualties from such a large raid. Captain Keats is busy counting heads, naturally, while the lazy-ass quartermaster Ms. Weaver is sitting behind him on some piles of loot that must have been brought up, already popping open some firewine to celebrate. God damn is she fine.

"Woah, nice helmet? Who'd you loot that off of?" Your captain asks you when he gets to you.

"Heh, we saved the Merchant's life, so he gave it to me as thanks." You admit proudly. "By the way, guess who got the kill on the bounty?" You say, pulling out your bounty book to flash it.

"Tsk! Damn, I must have missed him. Lucky you!" Your captain snaps his fingers and laments jokingly. "You're just gonna be swimming in riches, aren't you?"

File: Celia Weaver.jpg (120 KB, 850x1100)

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"Damn straight." You laugh, and he laughs with you. "You better buy me some drinks for it, too. He almost pasted me with a cannon, you know."

"Sheesh, good reflexes that you didn't. Sure kid, I'll drink you under the table. But I won't be responsible if your moneypouch goes missing when that happens." He jokes.

"Cheers to that!" Ms. Weaver speaks up from the back, cheerfully holding up her bottle.

"Say, we need some lads to bring Jahwal's ship back to Ship's Haven with us. We got any volunteers?" Keats speaks up so he can be heard by the entire crew. You see a few hands immediately shoot up, and you consider it yourself.

>Volunteer for it, you've always wanted to captain a ship. Even if it's just temporary!
>Nah, let some other bozo do all that hard work. You're gonna relax, and maybe get that head wound healed up.
>Write-in?

File: Covell 'The Sparrow' Keats.jpg (217 KB, 799x990)

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And here's your good O'l Captain!

>>5867082

>Volunteer for it, you've always wanted to captain a ship. Even if it's just temporary!

How can we say no?

>>5867082
>Nah, let some other bozo do all that hard work. You're gonna relax, and maybe get that head wound healed up.
Maybe we're more of a simple battle junkie than the leader type. At least for now

>>5867082
>Volunteer for it, you've always wanted to captain a ship. Even if it's just temporary!
Get a feel for it.

File: 89lozc.jpg (70 KB, 680x418)

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>>5867129

>>5867086
>>5867129
>>5867136
Put on your captain's hat, we're going sailing! You do remember how to sail, right? Oh. You've never really sailed before, have you? Well...let's just see how it goes.
Roll me 4d10, best of 3!

Rolled 2, 7, 6, 4 = 19 (4d10)

>>5867199

Rolled 4, 10, 4, 1 = 19 (4d10)

>>5867199

Rolled 1, 2, 6, 5 = 14 (4d10)

>>5867199

Uh oh

>>5867201
>>5867211
>>5867215
Looks like you don't scratch the ship that already has a big gaping hole on it, nice! You'll become an ace pilot someday. Writin!

Your hand shoots up as well, and Captain Keats takes in all the people who volunteered. It looks like Val and Gigas volunteered as well, everyone wanting to get their own piece of the glory of sailing another ship.

"Maaan, you're all making this hard on me, you know that?" The captain complains, chuckling goodnaturedly and shaking his head. "Alright, let's see...Ramza's definitely in, because he killed the previous captain. He'll be the acting captain of Jahwal's old ship." You hear some groans at that. "Hey, hey, you know the rules. Anyways, for the rest of the crew to man it, let's see...man, I actually don't care that much. You pick ten of 'em out of the volunteers, Ramza." He throws his hands up and starts walking off.

"Well, it looks like you're all in the best possible hands today!" You gloat a bit, grinning widely with your hands on your hips. Some of the crowd roll their eyes, all too familiar with the size of your ego and the shenanigans that entail, but you're glad to see that nobody un-volunteers. You pick out Val and Gigas of course, for their excellent work today, and fill out the rest of the crew with...well, you don't exactly want to call your old drinking buddies 'mooks', but if you're being honest, they kind of have that mook-like appearance to them. Unmemorable faces, very average skills, decent enough personalities. "Definitely a bunch of mooks."

"Hey! Don't call us mooks!" One of the obvious mooks cries out.

"Oh shit, did I say my thoughts out loud?" You recoil. The mook huffs, then slugs you in the arm with a laugh.

"You're a terrible captain, Ramza! Let's get on with it." He says.

Thirty minutes later, you're standing at the wheel of the ship, everything prepped and ready to go. The most time-consuming part was removing the harpoons from both your ship and the merchant's ship, but thankfully that all went by without much trouble - and both damaged ships actually had a good supply of Mending Sap stored away, so you were able to do some rough patch-up jobs to fill in the holes. They can be finished properly later, it's no big deal.

"Alright, Ramza, you've got this." You hype yourself up, looking at your control station. You've got the helm for steering left and right, of course. You've got the communication orb installed on the dash, and...two brass levers sticking up out of the ground on either side of the helm. It takes you a few moments, but you do recall what those do after a few moments, a flash of realization hitting you. "Oh, right! The break is on the left..." You experimentally try the break just to make sure it is, and you think you're right, since your subtle drifting momentarily stops. "And the subcore controller is on the right..." You tentatively grab the one on the right, pulling it back. The ship lurches upwards with a start, floating higher and higher before you return the lever to its default position, at which point it floats stationary in its new position.

"Having any trouble?" Val asks you, standing at his position to monitor the various gauges stationed around the navigator's station.

"None at all, just re-familiarizing myself with things. Every ship is different, you know." You lie through your teeth about having done this before. If Val noticed, he doesn't comment on it at all, choosing to shrug and resume what he was doing. You call out into the tube that lets you bark out orders to the rest of the ship next."Hoist the mainsail!"

Soon enough, the ship starts cruising forward as it catches the winds. The Golden Mirage takes this as its queu to start its own journey back home, leading the way with ease thanks to its more experienced crew...and easily staying ahead of your own ship thanks to the rare Eldingarian turbines strapped to it. You're a little jealous, but at the same time, it's probably best you learn how to use a traditional ship before anything else.

The trip back home should take about an hour, and it's a pretty calm time of the year. Some small part of you considers breaking off from the Golden Mirage just to explore a little while you have your own ship, and you're certain that Captain Keats wouldn't really mind it as long as you don't get lost, don't get anyone killed, and return to Ship's Haven by the time night falls...although getting lost is a very real possibility, as you don't really have much navigational experience. Still, the feeling of the wooden helm in your hands stirrs the spirit of adventure in you. Should you answer it...?

>Not right now. You've got celebrations to get to back at the base, you don't wanna miss that!
>A little bit of adventuring never hurt anybody. Pull off and start exploring a little!

>>5867270

>Not right now. You've got celebrations to get to back at the base, you don't wanna miss that!

Let’s not go too crazy here

>>5867270
>A little bit of adventuring never hurt anybody. Pull off and start exploring a little!
Let's go too crazy here

>>5867270
>A little bit of adventuring never hurt anybody. Pull off and start exploring a little!

Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>5867272
>>5867279
>>5867305
A wee bit of adventuring, huh? Alright. Looks like we're going to roll on my handy dandy ADVENTURING TABLE!

>>5867351
A 37, huh? Not too bad...but still a little bit bad. I wonder how you'll handle it? Let's find out.

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You never were all that good at resisting your urges...so why start now? You place your hand on the communication orb and channel just a bit of your mana into it while adjusting a dial nearby to tune it to the right frequency. "Golden Mirage, this is Acting Captain Valentine do you read?" You query out loud.

"Golden Mirage here, we read you. What's up?" You hear the light tone of Ms. Weaver respond from the orb, which glows brighter and dimmer in synch to the volume of her speech.

"Aren't you the quartermaster? What are you doing up at the helm?" You ask, immediately getting distracted.

"Oh, you know, gambling with the Captain. Cleaning him out. The usual!" She replies, chipper. You think you might hear a despaired wail from Captain Keats in the background.

"Remind me never to gamble with you, Ms. Weaver." You chuckle.

"Aww, come on. You might win big, you know...we could bet on anything." She teases you with a suggestive tone. Damned temptress! "And don't call me that, by the way. It makes me sound old! You can just call me Celia." She adds on.

"I might, later. But for now, I was actually going to tell you guys that I'm gonna branch off for a little bit, do some exploring. Don't worry, I'll make sure to bring us back to the base before sundown." You say, seeing Val shift around to look at you with a quirked eyebrow from the corner of your eye.

"Alright, don't be late! Otherwise you'll be stuck on sorting duty instead of me." She says. You can practically see her sticking her tongue out at you, despite the fact that this older orb can only transmit audio.

"Promise." You say, removing your hand and thus cutting the supply of mana to it. You turn to face Val fully. "What?"

"Exploring?" He asks.

"Yeah. I figured it'd be a good chance to, you know, spread our wings a little. Get our feet wet. Live a little!" You reply. Val considers it silently for a few moments, before grasping the brim of his hat and giving you a single nod before he turns back around. Guess that's enough approval for you...?

You man the helm once more and turn the ship away at an angle, pointing you towards the Verdant Spire. It's actually not hard to see it even from here, the magnificent and utterly massive emerald spire jutting up out of the ground - of which, the base of it actually IS too far away for you to see, being obscured by atmospheric fog - and piercing itself into the very Core itself that hangs in the center of the world. Were you to turn the ship a bit more, you don't doubt you'd see the base of the considerably closer Crimson spire...and should you turn the opposite direction from that, you'd see the Azure spire off in the distance. Sadly, the violet spire is wholly obscured by the Core from where you are, hidden behind the bright gold glowing mass.

File: denis-loebner-worldwithst(...).jpg (427 KB, 1920x1200)

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You've always wondered just how far into the core each of the spires pierce...do they meet in the center? Are they only just barely touching the surface? What would you find, out in the center of it? You're sure that pretty much everyone that's ever lived has wondered the same thing, but you know it to be virtually impossible for anyone to find out. The unlucky bastards that try end up dying from the exponentially increasing pressures surrounding the Core, their bodies crushed long before their ships are...and using Golems doesn't exactly fare any better, as only the spires themselves seem to be tough enough to resist the oppressive atmosphere surrounding it.

You shake your head to clear your thoughts, realizing you were kind of spacing out there for a bit while staring out at the Verdant Spire. You glance about at the new surroundings your ship's drifted into over the past few minutes, lazy islands floating past you and the flooded ruins of an old town dwelling just beneath the crystal-clear currents below you. Your attention is drawn away from the ruins when you hear Gigas speak up from one of the tubes built into the ship.

"Captain Valentine, I see something strange, off starboard! A few miles out." He says, and you glance up at the crow's nest to see the big man pointing in said direction.

"Thank you, Gigas." You reply, turning the helm to face the ship that way. As you get closer, it becomes apparent what Gigas spotted with his spyglass - a massive, twisting, whirling funnel of water stretches from one part of the seas and bends around to touch down in another, slowly drifting and changing its length like it's unstable. A few unlucky ships - of the normal variety, rather than skyships - seem to be trapped along the surface of it, unable to extract themselves from the watery structure and simply doing their best not to capsize within it. You're not sure if you can actually do anything about it, though...

>Try to find a way to destabilize and break the funnel. Something's gotta be fueling it, whether it's some kind of a monster or maybe a lost magic tool of some kind.
>Pull up and rescue the inhabitants of the ships, lives are more valuable than goods.
>Harpoon the ships one by one and try to pull them out to safety. You don't really have any other way of dragging the ships off the funnel.
>Write-in!

That'll be the last update for the night from me! See you all tomorrow as usual. Voting open 'till then, and don't be afraid to get creative.

>>5867540

>Try to find a way to destabilize and break the funnel. Something's gotta be fueling it, whether it's some kind of a monster or maybe a lost magic tool of some kind.

We can always bail if it’s too dangerous for us?

>>5867540
>Try to find a way to destabilize and break the funnel. Something's gotta be fueling it, whether it's some kind of a monster or maybe a lost magic tool of some kind.

>>5867540
>Harpoon the ships one by one and try to pull them out to safety. You don't really have any other way of dragging the ships off the funnel.

>>5867543
>>5867569
>>5867701
Alright, we're gonna try to destabilize it! Best way to do that would be to find out what's causing it in the first place. Roll for me a humble 5d10, bo3!

Rolled 6, 6, 2, 3, 9 = 26 (5d10)

>>5868100

Here you go

Rolled 5, 4, 5, 2, 2 = 18 (5d10)

>>5868100

>>5868103
>>5868104
Anyone want to pick up the last one? Could always roll better!

Rolled 4, 7, 6, 5, 1 = 23 (5d10)

>>5868100

File: Wind Catalyst.png (234 KB, 317x318)

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"Men, we're going to collapse that waterspout! If you spot the source, call it out!" You order your crew, making sure to apply the break in full to stop you from drifting in too close while you personally head over to the railing to peer over it and get a look at things yourself. The chaotic surface of the churning water makes it hard to actually peer through it, and after a minute of hard examination you just barely seem to spot an oddity - just the smallest hint of green peeking through the funnel when, by chance, the water thins in that area. "Gigas! Your spyglass!" You call up to the man in the crow's nest.

"Catch!" He exclaims, tossing it down to you. You catch it without much trouble, trying not to make it show that you were briefly panicked about the fact that he just fuckin' tossed such a valuable thing so carelessly, and bring it up to your eye to get a better look at the oddity you spotted.

After a few moments, the water thins in that location again, and you catch the unmistakeable sight of a gigantic Wind Catalyst, faintly glowing green rocks meshed together with crystal growths. It'd take some work, but if you could haul it back intact, you could hook it up to a ship to get a constant breeze flowing in your sails - an immense boon! But what the hell is a Wind catalyst doing out here in Lume territory? Usually these things only form in extended contact with a large amount of wind-aspected Mana, so it's pretty damn rare to find a naturally occuring one here.

"Wind Catalyst, near the base of the spout!" You shout, pointing towards it to help your crew spot it as well. You toss the spyglass to a random member of the crew and head back over to the helm, popping the breaks off and getting ready to orient the ship closer. You can think of a few different ways to shut off the spout now that you know what the source is and WHERE it is, but doing so in a way that doesn't damage the catalyst? That's a lot trickier.

>Some of those trapped ships have netting on them. Get in close enough to board, borrow their nets, and use it to drag the catalyst out undamaged!
>Well, you've got a harpoon. Shouldn't SHATTER it, and the damage dealt might be negligible enough to actually fist. At worst you just have a bunch of much smaller wind catalysts to collect...
>This may sound a little crazy, but you could try ramming it out of the spout. Alright, it's a lot crazy. But you're sure it would work, if you had enough speed!
>Write-in!

>>5868209
>This may sound a little crazy, but you could try ramming it out of the spout. Alright, it's a lot crazy. But you're sure it would work, if you had enough speed!
The most direct approach!

>>5868209
>This may sound a little crazy, but you could try ramming it out of the spout. Alright, it's a lot crazy. But you're sure it would work, if you had enough speed!
Yeah, that's the kind of plan Ramza would come up with.

>>5868209

>Well, you've got a harpoon. Shouldn't SHATTER it, and the damage dealt might be negligible enough to actually fist. At worst you just have a bunch of much smaller wind catalysts to collect...

This is reasonable.

>>5868218
>>5868221

You guys are nuts, this is our first EVER command and you want to ram crystallized mana?!?!? I implore you to reconsider

>>5868209
>to fist
I meant fix. Embarassing! Don't fist the catalyst.

I'll give it another two hours here, because I need to get some grub in me. And because at least one anon wants to try to convince others of their vote.
Hey, if you're out there lurking, I encourage you to vote too! The more players the merrier, I say.

>>5868218
>>5868221
>>5868235
Some call it crazy, but me? I call it 'having style'. If this works, it'll definitely be a pretty big plus for your reputation!
Roll me 6d10, best of 3! It'd normally be your usual piloting roll of 4d10, but Val is going to help you out here. He's actually a surprisingly good navigator, don't you know?
Now, I'm introducing another nifty little mechanic for this roll: Difficulty! This isn't an easy task by any means, so pairs of 3 and under will be IGNORED! That means even if you roll 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 by some miracle, it won't be good enough! You need a pair of 4s or higher to succeed here.

Rolled 7, 9, 7, 1, 7, 4 = 35 (6d10)

>>5868361

>>5868362
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atuFSv2bLa8

A few moments after you explain the plan to Val, you find him staring at you silently. You, of course, stare back just as silently. His expression is as unreadable as always, and you're starting to sweat a little. Is it a stupid plan? Maybe. Is it a crazy plan? Also maybe. But you'll argue to hell and back that it's the kind of style that a TRUE pirate, the kind that'll reach the top someday, will abide by. In fact, you finally open your mouth to argue just that, only for Val to interrupt you.

"Alright." He says, nodding. "I'll make sure we succeed."

"Just like that?" You ask, off-guard by his approval.

"Mm." He lowers the brim of his hat and turns on his heel, manning his station once more.

"...Alright then." You mutter to yourself, grasping the helm tightly. You clear your throat and lean over to the speakertube. "This is your captain speaking, we're about to experience heavy amounts of turbulence and moisture. Please make sure you're securely fastened to the ship and remain below deck until you're given the go-ahead to return to your normal duties." You announce.

After waiting until the last man has scrambled below deck, you sigh out and fully release the breaks, allowing the everpresent winds filling the sails to once more push the ship forward. It picks up more and more speed, and it seems as though luck is on your side today as a particularly strong tailwind blows in to send you rocketing forward much faster than normal.

"Fifteen degrees starboard! Wait three seconds, then ten more degrees!" Val calls out to you, judging the situation keenly. Trusting in him, you do as he suggests, the ship banking right just as the ship makes contact with the violent stream of water. Three tense seconds pass, and you turn ten more degrees...to star drifting along the stream, kicking up a huge wave of displaced water behind you as your momentum takes you along the spout towards the base.

Right when you get to the base, you know what to do even without Val's instruction, jerking back to port and slicing clean through the vortex and dragging the cystalline structure across the deck of the ship in the process. It hooks itself on the captain's quarters rather than being sent flying, and after a heartbeat or two the ship bursts out of the other side of the water.

With the Wind Catalyst no longer fueling the funnel, the watery structure begins to slow down, parts of it collapsing in on itself as they lose the velocity necessary to defeat gravity. The ships trapped atop it splash down into the water, rocking perilously for a few moments but still managing to avoid capsizing themselves. It seems you've come away from this little venture not only a hero, but a hero with a mighty expensive looking Wind Catalyst hitching a ride abord your ship! Val doesn't turn around to face you at all, but he does honor you with a thumbs-up that shows he acknowledges your success here.

File: tyler-edlin-tyler-edlin-a(...).png (7.66 MB, 2500x1250)

7.66 MB PNG

You announce to the crew that it's safe to come out again, and move closer to the saved collection of ships to do a slow driveby, letting Val take the wheel from you for a bit. You move to the front of the deck, waving to the frazzled and amazed crews of the other ships while wearing your best cocksure smile. "Be sure to tell all of your friends and your family that they have Ramza Valentine to thank for your safety! Try not to get stuck in any more cyclones, or I'll charge you next time!" You announce to them, laughing in the wind. You're not sure how much of that they actually heard, but the message needed said regardless. How lucky of them, meeting the next future Pirate King when he was just starting out!

"Damn, I wish I wasn't below deck for that." Gigas bemoans the fact that he didn't see the maneuver in its full glory. You walk over and pat him on the back, chuckling.

"I'll let you stay with me up at the helm next time, then." You offer, and he seems to get a small smile at that.

"Bitchin'." He says.

"Bitchin." You agree.

You walk back to the helm to take control of it from Val once more, and go to make your way back home - to Ship's Haven. The Core is starting to let off a slightly blue hue, so you'd best get a move on if you want to make good on your promise to get there before night falls. Thankfully, you have plenty of maps to consult - and Val to help you actually parse them - to make your way there without getting too terribly lost. Once you catch sight of it, you can't help but smile to yourself - today was impulsive, but one of the best days of your life. You wonder just how much of a reward you'll get from the gang for that catalyst, too...

As you bring your ship in to dock, you find yourself wondering if the festivities are still ongoing. If not, then you'll have to have them start back up again when they see what you hauled in, hah! That being said...you ask yourself if there's anything you could be forgetting. Something you might want to do before partying the night away.

>Is there anything else you'd like to do tonight? Ex: Rummage through the ship, check out the notebook in more detail, talk to a specific person about something

>>5868394

>check out the journal
>start asking around about where to find a translator

Would be nice to have a lead on where we’d need to go to find someone to translate

>>5868470
This
Great quest so far Watcher. More players will show up as long as you keep going!

>>5868470
>>5868574
Alright, writing!

While everyone is busy tying the ship down to the docks and getting ready to offload everything left on it - including the crystallized Wind Catalyst bigger than you - you decide to pull out the notebook you convinced the merchant to give you. Opening it up, you give a cursory glance over the Zephyrian runes covering the page.

ᛁᚠ ᛁᚩᚢ ᛏᚱᛁᛖᛞ ᛏᚱᚪᚾᛋᛚᚪᛏᛁᛝ ᚦᛁᛋ, ᚷᚩᚩᛞ ᚹᚩᚱᚳ. ᛒᚢᛏ ᚱᚪᛘᛋᚪ ᚳᚪᚾ×ᛏ ᚱᛠᛞ ᚦᛁᛋ ᛁᛖᛏ, ᛋᚩ ᚾᚩ ᚳᚻᛠᛏᛁᛝ!

Yeah, you don't understand a single bit of that. Some of the characters look vaguely similar to characters you already know, but somehow you doubt they're at all the same. Sighing out in mild disappointment, you flip through the book to instead look for some of the pictures that the collector told you about, eyes lingering whenever you find one. You find something that you think depicts hiding a series of ships behind some waterfalls connected to some floating islands, which actually sounds like an ingenious way to both ambush someone and provide at least some cover during an attack. Another image shows a sword being thrust into someone, who then...explodes? Bursts into spikes? It's hard to say for sure without being able to read the text. You also see a strange symbol that gets repeated a few times, but you haven't got a single clue what it means.

Your curiosity has only grown as a result, so you step off the ship and endeavor to find one of the most resourceful men you know - Captain Keats, of course. Asking around a bit helps you to find him over at the supplies storage - which, really, is mostly full of huge casks of various types of booze. A lot of it is homemade, and in your expert opinion tastes a lot better than the kind of shit you've sampled from high-and-mighty types. You can barely even get drunk off of the swill that rich people drink, so what's the point of it?!

"Heeey, if it isn't the main man himself!" Your captain turns to face you with his arms spread wide as soon as he notes your presence. "I heard you went above and beyond! Saved some poor sods and got some incredible loot in the process! Damn do I wish you were my boy, then I could piggyback off your success like any good parent." He jokes. You roll your eyes at his usual antics.

"I'd abandon you the second you got incontinent, old man." You stick your tongue out at him and give him a thumbs down. He grabs his heart like he just suffered a heart attack from that alone.

"My own boy doesn't even love me...how tragic!" He laments.

"In your dreams, captain." You can't help but grin. You idly wonder where your actual father is and what he's doing, but you haven't actually seen him since you were a little boy. You wonder if he's even still alive, but break yourself out of that line of thought before it's too late - you wouldn't want to ruin your good mood!

"So what brings you over to me today, Big V?" He asks, pulling up a chair and spinning it around to sit in it the wrong way. The cool way.

"This." You say, holding up the old notebook. "It's written in Zephyrian, which I'm told is something of a dead language. I need some help translating it, or finding someone who already knows the language."

"Zephyrian? What's that, the fuckin, uhhh..." Keats scratches his head as he thinks for a few moments. "Ancient Gaothian language? Pre-gaothian?" He asks.

"That's the one." You click your tongue and shoot a fingergun at him, a gesture that he returns.

"Ayyy, right! Well, I definitely can't help with translating it, but I know a guy who knows EVERYONE. #49 on the bounty books, you might know about him." He says.

"49? That's...Lobo Chisaki! Often referred to as 'The First Mate'!" You say, your obsessive memorization of the book paying off.

"Bingo! You know why he's called that, right? It's because he's EVERYBODY'S first mate. He was mine, once. Served on just about every crew you could possibly serve on, but he always moves on. If anyone has the connections to find you a translator, it'd be him. I hear he's working over in Threespice lately." Your captain explains.

"Damn, I wonder why he hasn't just made his own crew at this point." You wonder aloud.

"Fuck if I know. Probably doesn't like the responsibility. Or maybe he just hates leading and prefers to follow." Keats replies with a shrug.

"Pssh. Leading is much better than being a follower. Anyways, I'm going to jet before you saddle me with any more work." You say, turning on your heel and moving to walk out of the room. You can't, unfortunately, as you find two hands firmly grabbing your shoulders from behind a few moments later.

"Man, that's a good idea. Saddling you with some work, I mean. Help me bring some things out to the dining hall, would you? We've gotta prepare for tonight, after all!" He cheerfully seals your fate.

Two hours later...

You're definitely sore from hauling so many heavy things back and forth, but now it's finally time to reap the rewards of all your hard work. The dining hall is full of merrymakers and revelers, drinks are being distributed left and right with no concern for who they actually get to, and the smell of cooked and spiced meats fills the air. You spot Val watching everything with a slight smile on his face, nursing a drink alone as he looms in a corner. You see Gigas in the middle of arm-wrestling two other crewmen at the same time, using a different arm for each and gritting his teeth in a massive grin. You spot Celia playing some kind of card games with a group and having a MUCH bigger pile of gold on her side than on anyone else's. The Captain, of course, seems to be in the middle of a drinking contest with everyone.

>Join the captain first, out-drink the old bastard!
>Go try not to get cleaned out by Celia. And flirt with her, of course.
>Fuck it, challenge Gigas to some arm-wrestling.
>Go try to convince Val not to be a brooding loner.
>Write-in?

>>5868859
>Go try to convince Val not to be a brooding loner.
So the long range specialist is staying at long range from everyone else. Classic.

Any other voters? Come on, lads!

File: Full speed ahead.png (1.19 MB, 930x900)

1.19 MB PNG

>>5868362
>>5868363
>>5868859
>Go try not to get cleaned out by Celia. And flirt with her, of course.

>pic related

>>5868874

Supporting, sorry im late!

>>5868874
>>5868973
>>5868997
Shooting the shit with the gunslinger first wins it! Writing!

You're tempted by all of the choices, admittedly, and you almost make your way over to Celia's table to see if you can get lucky tonight in more ways than one...but ultimately, you decide to abide by the ancient code and make sure one of your brothers-in-arms is doing alright first. You weave through the crowd of people to make your way over to Val, being jostled around a bit in the process but ultimately making it there none the worse for wear. Val pinches the tip of his hat and gives it a slight tug of acknowledgement as your eyes meet, showing that he's aware of your approach.

"Ex-Captain." He greets you with a smirk, once you're close enough to actually hear it over the dull roar of the crowd.

"Watch it, Val. That'll be Admiral of the Valentine Navy soon enough. Just you wait." You warn him jokingly.

"Mm." Is all he responds with, bringing his mug up to take another drink.

"So, what's got you all cooped up in the corner over here? I thought you'd be in the thick of it, enjoying the festivities like the rest of us." You probe. Val closes his eyes, seeming to consider it for a few moments before he responds.

"It just doesn't interest me. That's all." He says. You stare at him a few seconds, and he stares back.

"That's bullshit and you know it." You reply.

"How so?"

"Why even show up at all if you didn't want to be involved? You'd just hang out in your room, or shooting shit down at the range."

"Do I need a reason?"

"No, but-" You cut yourself off as you have a moment of realization. "Oh! You're trying to look cool and mysterious, aren't you?" You accuse him outright.

"N...No, that's not it at all." He looks suddenly flushed and flustered.

"That's totally it, dude!" You say with a laugh. "God damn, man! You can drop the act for one night, you know."

"It's about building up a reputation..." He says under his breath at a barely audible volume.

"Just blame it on the alcohol loosening you up, man. Besides, you're plenty badass when you're doming people left and right. Go out there, live a little. Get laid or something." You say, snaking an arm around his back and starting to push him towards the crowd.

God damn, you didn't expect to make the realization tonight that Val, of all the people here, was that kind of person. Your image of him has been completely shattered. You grab a random unattended bottle of wine and start drinking it, feeling that it's probably better not to be too sober right now. Alright, on to your next target...

>Captain Keats, drinking HEAVY.
>Gigas, showing off your GUNS.
>Celia, trying to get LUCKY.
>Enjoy the merriment with a random assortment of people, drinking and partying the night away. (Skip to the morning)
>Write-in activity.

>>5869070

>Gigas, showing off your GUNS.

Gotta grind that friend rep

>>5869070
>Gigas, showing off your GUNS.

>>5869070
>Gigas, showing off your GUNS.

Someone has eighth grader syndrome, huh?

Rolled 8, 8, 9, 5, 4, 4, 5 = 43 (7d10)

>>5869080
>>5869085
>>5869112
Trying to arm-wrestle the man that looks like he could arm-wrestle a bear and stalemate it! Alright, I can respect that. Now roll me 4d10, Bo3 as always! Ramza REALLY isn't all that athletic, despite having a good Hands stat. Your goal is to get a wider pair than any pair I might get here, or at least to get a higher number on your pair than me if you have the same amount of matching dice. Confusing? Don't worry about it.

Rolled 8, 10, 2, 4 = 24 (4d10)

>>5869121
Watch THIS

Rolled 4, 5, 1, 7 = 17 (4d10)

>>5869121
Here we go!

>>5869123
>>5869138

Embarrassing for us

>>5869141
You might get lucky with the last roll!

>>5869141
Embarrassing? It's all part of the game.

Rolled 7, 9, 6, 5 = 27 (4d10)

>>5869121
check this shit out

>>5869123
>>5869138
>>5869154
It looks like you've had no successes on this, unfortunately! It's a definite loss that won't even be much of a challenge for Gigas. Unless, of course, I introduced another of the layers of our system here:
Relationship Dice!
After all dice have been rolled for a failed roll, you can vote to use any number of your relationship dice as long as you can reasonably call upon that relationship. I, personally, will then roll the Relationship Dice that you called for, and the resulting rolls will be appended to the ends of each set. Ramza currently has the following Relationship Dice:
Becoming the #1 Most Wanted pirate! - 2 Dice.
My Crew - 2 Dice.
Maintaining my Pride - 2 Dice.
As we can see here, it represents a lot of the things that Ramza holds dear. His dreams, his loved ones, and some of his personality quirks. You can aquire more RD over time! But what's the penalty to using them? Well...nothing, if you happen to win whatever check you're using them on.
The risk is in if you fail despite calling on them. Doing so will Shock the relationship that you called upon, temporarily damaging it and reducing the number of dice available to you through it until you make efforts to mend said relationship. It's not always easy to do so, and definitely not always wise to call upon the power of RD. If you damage an already shocked Relationship too much, it can even potentially remove one of those dice permanently.

But enough of that nerd shit. Wanna use some RD to save some face, fellas?
>Yes, use Maintaining my Pride - 2 Dice.
>No, don't use any RD.

>>5869163
Gigas rolled 3 separate pairs. I definitely don't get this system but to me it seems pointless to even try to win. Can't win em all though. Maybe we can challenge him to something more our speed another time.

>>5869163
>Yes, use Maintaining my Pride - 2 Dice.

>>5869163
>Yes, use Maintaining my Pride - 2 Dice.
Absofuckinglutely

>>5869165
Oh, don't worry about that - multiple pairs don't matter if you're not taking multiple actions in one round! You only really care about getting multiple pairs if you, for example, want to Grapple and Shoot a guy in the same round in combat. They're barely used for anything at all outside of that, so much so that they might as well not exist. So here, you only have to beat his highest pair - a pair of 8s.

Rolled 7, 2 = 9 (2d10)

>>5869165
>>5869166
>>5869168
Alright, it looks like we're using RD tonight! Let's see what we get, shall we?

>>5869123
>>5869138
>>5869154
Adding it on to the ends of each set, the best pair we have is:
A pair of 7s. Which, hey, you actually give a good showing against him! You make him WORK for his victory. Still, a loss is a loss, and giving your all and still coming up short is going to sting the pride a bit. Writing...tomorrow!

Your eye is once more drawn over to Gigas, who just managed to pin no less than THREE people working together in a display of his ridiculous strength. 'Oh yeah, I could definitely beat that' you think to yourself, once more maneuvering through the throng of partygoers to reach your destination. It's a bit harder to get to Gigas than it was to Val, because there's actually a crowd of people directly around him cheering him and his competitors on. You slip into the seat opposite of him as soon as it opens up, dropping your elbow on the table with a dull thud and giving him your best, most self-assured grin.

"Looks like you're enjoying yourself, Gigas. Ready to lose?" You taunt him.

"Gigas never loses, for he is graced by the Core!" He laughs, flexing one of his arms and kissing the bulged-out bicep. "But your challenge is welcome, my friend. May the best man win!"

You grasp his hand tightly, and the tightness of his own grip is downright painful. You do your best not to let it show on your face, instead settling your expression down to a serious one and hiding the fact that you're gritting your teeth beneath the facade. Gigas is looking you in the eyes, smiling as friendly as can be, as he counts down with his free hand rather than using it to support himself. Three fingers. Two fingers. One.

You immediately strain against the wall of muscle, trying to seize the advantage as immediately as possible, only to find that his arm isn't budging at all. You grab the edge of the table with your own free hand to sort of pull yourself towards it, all while trying to bend his wrist to get a leverage advantage out of it. A hiss of air in a strained groan escapes from your lips, your face no doubt red from effort and veins popping out as you start to give it your absolute best, unable to cope with the hit that your pride would take if you lost right after talking shit.

His arm starts to move, the back of his hand inching closer to the table. Gigas looks shocked, his arm shakes as he tries to put more force into it, but in the end he's forced to use the same tactics you're using. He steadies himself with the table, and you feel a steadily rising pressure on your wrist as he tries to bend it as well. Your progress stalls for about five seconds, neither of you budging the other.

"Stronger than you look...BUT GIGAS...NEVER....LOSES!" He grunts out, muscles bulging even more as he strains himself to HIS absolute limit, which unfortunately proves to be a little higher than yours. The distance you had in your favor starts to evaporate, your arms moving back to their starting position after fighting him in vain. Worse, the back of YOUR hand starts approaching the tabletop soon after, though you manage to stall him a few times on his journey there. Finally, after what must have been a full two minutes of battling with this monster of a man, your knuckles tap the table and all the tension built up in both of your bodies releases like someone cut a string.

Both of you release all of the air you'd been holding in simultaneously in a huge sigh, retracting arms and sitting back in your seats, sweating.

"Fuckin shit, man." You rub your tired and sore arm. "What are you, part ox?"

"Ahahah, that was...the most trouble I've had all night!" He says between pants. "You were a worthy challenge!" He praises you. It doesn't really lessen the sting to your pride, though. Bitter thoughts of losing in front of so many people fill your head, and you only have yourself to blame. You took the challenge, after all. You gave it your all and still came up...wanting. You hate this feeling, but try not to let it show on your face.

(Maintaining my Pride has been Shocked! Temporarily at -1 dice.)

"Thanks, Gigas...maybe I'll beat you on the rematch someday." You say, giving him a frail sort of grin that he doesn't seem to notice.

"I look forward to that day, then. Besides, I am certain that I was merely lucky today - you were hauling supplies not too long ago, no? Must be tired from it!" Gigas points out.

Huh, he's right. You WERE hauling boxes of wine and casks of ale. Maybe that's the only reason you lost - because he had an advantage. Yeah! You probably could have won that if you were completely fresh!

(Maintaining my Pride has been healed, thanks to some encouraging words from Gigas!)

Now smiling genuinely once more, you stand up from the chair, and give him a two-fingered wave. "Good luck in your next few matches, Gigas." You offer him, before stepping away through the crowd. You know exactly where you want to go after a monumental effort like THAT, you've gotta cool down. And the best way to do that is by...

>Gambling with Celia and the boys!
>Drinking until you're stupid with Captain Keats!
>Mingling with the crowd and shutting off your brain for a while (Timeskip)
>Write-in.

>>5869545
>Grab some meat, some booze and a woman. enjoy yourself for the night.
Play hard, work harder. We need to get stronger.

>>5869545
>Gambling with Celia and the boys!
Making the rounds!

>>5869545
>>Gambling with Celia and the boys!

Rolled 7, 8, 10, 7, 9, 2, 8 = 51 (7d10)

>>5869557
>>5869561
>>5869577
Card games, huh? Too bad you're not on motorcycles for it.
Roll me 6d10, Bo3, to see how well you fare in this game! Check out Celia's roll up here.

Rolled 7, 4, 6, 3, 3, 2 = 25 (6d10)

>>5869633

Rolled 5, 5, 10, 9, 10, 8 = 47 (6d10)

>>5869633

Rolled 1, 8, 9, 10, 7, 5 = 40 (6d10)

>>5869633

Last roll

>>5869639
>>5869664
>>5869686
Yooo, fuckin' nice. You're on your A-game, playa. Writing this shit up after dinner.

...By getting lucky, of course. Hopefully in more ways than one. Honestly, though, you'd take either interpretation of it - you don't mind getting cleaned out if it means you can score, and you don't mind not scoring if it means you can collect a month's worth of wages from your friends. It's truly a cutthroat business, being a pirate.

Making your way over to Celia's table, you can see that although there's just as many people around it to watch the games as there were around Gigas's, the actual number of participants are far slimmer. What was once a full table is not just the woman in question and three other players, compared to what used to be a full roster of seven. You slide into one of the empty seats smoothly, rolling one of your now-sore shoulders with a pained grin.

"Hey, Celia. Couldn't help but notice you bullying all of our boys out of their cut. Pretty cruel, don't you think?" You snark.

"I can't help it if I'm just that good! They're the ones betting it. Don't bet what you can't afford to lose, that's the rule!" She replies, her lips wrapped into a smug smile.

"True, true. How about I even the odds a little, then?" You suggest. "Play me in." You pull up your pouch of assorted coins and plop it on the table. Celia's eyes gain a predatory edge at that, now looking at you more like prey than anything else.

"Alrighty~" She sings, artfully swiping some cards off the top of the deck so they slide over in front of you, perfectly positioned. Damn, that probably took some practice to pull off so reliably!

You pick up your cards and settle in to the rhythm of the game, putting your money forward as you place some trust in the Core to grace you with luck today. And grace you it does, as your very first hand is nothing less than a straight, earning you an easy first win to grow your stack with. From there, you do have to play a bit more strategically, however - luck loves to strike once and rarely does it ever keep striking in the same place in a single night. You adopt a strategy much unlike most professionals at the game do, abandoning the idea of keeping a stony and unreadable expression for the exact opposite idea. You successfully pull the wool over not only the low-end players but against Celia herself, convincing everyone at the table that you've got terrible hands when you've got great ones, that you've got great ones when you've got terrible ones, and that you're overall just terrible at the game despite the fact that slowly but surely your pile of money grows to rival Celia's own.

Celia does seem to catch on at some point, but at that point you've picked up too much steam. She focuses on cleaning out the others as quickly as she can while you focus on her specifically, knowing where the real money is when you see it. Soon you've got her at half the amount she had when you first came in, and you're looming large. She's going to get desperate any time now, and say...

"All or nothing!" She claims, exactly as you knew she would.

"All or nothing, huh?" You parrot her.

"Uh-huh! One last game between just you and me, and whoever wins...takes it all." She says, a nervous yet still confident smile on her face.

"I'm in the lead, aren't I? That's not exactly a fair deal for me. I stand to lose more than you do." You point out.

"Hmm..." She chews on her lower lip in thought for a moment, considering her options. "Well, what do you want to even it out, then?" She asks.

"That's easy. I want..."

>A kiss!
>A date!
>A night together!
>Write-in something else you might want to even the deal!

Sorry that took so long, got held up with a lotta shit IRL, whoops!

>>5869917
>A date!

>>5869917

>a favor

I honestly think putting a smart crewmate in our debt is more valuable than some tail.

I also question the wisdom of sleeping with your coworkers when they happen to be vindictive pirates

>>5869917
>A kiss!

>>5869917
>A night together!

>>5869917
>>5870047
+1 to this. A favor has more utility...

>>5869923
>>5870047
>>5870070
>>5870124
>>5870275
Thinking with your head, huh? The one on your shoulders, I mean. Good! Writing.

You trail off for a moment, considering exactly what it is you want from her. She almost has this pouty look about her that accentuates her features in all the best ways. Half-lidded eyes, a subtle sheen on her lips, skin that looks like it'd be as soft to the touch as silk...wait. Is she doing that on purpose? Is she trying to distract you from asking for something better than a good time with a pretty woman? She must be!

"A favor." You say with a grin, glad to have got your senses straight in time. "To be cashed in whenever I feel like it."

"A favor?" She asks, not having expected that answer.

"A favor." You nod. She pouts for real at that.

"Fine, a favor it is." She accepts the condition. "And here I thought you'd go for something more lecherous like every other guy here would try. Not that it would have worked, of course." She says, pout transforming into an impish smile as she pokes the side of her cheek. "But now that I've seen the smart side of you, I don't think I'd mind it too much someday."

"Uh-huh, you're still trying to distract me, aren't you?" You accuse her jokingly.

"Maaaybe." She giggles, distributing the cards for the final hand both of you will play.

You pick up your cards and give them a look over, this time keeping your expression unreadable even as your heart gives a jump. Holy shit, it's nothing less than a Royal Flush. The Core truly is blessing you today! And glancing over to Celia, you can judge some of her tells - she thinks she has a damn good hand, too.

"How about you go first?" You offer her, and she grins like a cat.

"Alright. Read 'em and weep, Ramzie!" She says, spreading her cards face-up on the table. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, all of them of Spades...a straight flush.

"Hoh! Now that's a hand." You praise her, before grinning yourself. Celia's expression slowly turns to one of horror on seeing the look on your face. You slowly lower your cards to the table, and flip them over to show her just how fate smiled upon you today. "But it's got nothing on mine."

"I...you..." She seems to be speechless for a few moments, before her face sinks down into the table with a small thud. "All of my moneeeeey!" She cries in defeat while you chuckle and rake her coins over to your side.

"Luck is fickle, Celia. Looks like it favored me today. Don't worry though, I'm sure you could get your winnings back in a day or two, with how you play." You offer your condolences to the loser, starting to pile all the winnings into your coin pouch. It's stuffed to the brim at the end, and you have to shove some excess coinage into your pockets instead.

You leave Celia to stew in her sorrows once you're done, grinning like a madman. You wonder just how much you actually earned today, but it's really no time to be counting it all up - not when there's revelry to be had. Of course, there's just one thing left for you to do tonight...

>Challenge the master drunk, Captain Keats, to a drinking contest. You will probably both pass out blackout drunk afterwards.
>Grab some meat, a reasonable amount of booze, and a woman. Enjoy yourself for the night.

>>5870392
>>Challenge the master drunk, Captain Keats, to a drinking contest. You will probably both pass out blackout drunk afterwards.
I'M THE CAPTAIN NOW

>>5870392
>Challenge the master drunk, Captain Keats, to a drinking contest. You will probably both pass out blackout drunk afterwards.

Ein prosit!

>>5870392
>Grab some meat, a reasonable amount of booze, and a woman. Enjoy yourself for the night.
Drinking our way to a blackout sounds like a good way to lose all the money we just won, and possibly the respect of the boys depending on how stupid we act.

>>5870440
Stealing from one of the boys would get your ass kicked seven ways to sunday. They're pirates, but they're Blue pirates - they've got a code of honor, and respect for each other. So that, at least, you don't have to worry about. This is a safe haven, home for the lot of you. Lotta trust here.

>>5870392

>Challenge the master drunk, Captain Keats, to a drinking contest. You will probably both pass out blackout drunk afterwards.

Perhaps copious booze consumption will soothe our damaged pride from Gigas kicking our ass

Rolled 1, 3, 1, 4, 4, 8 = 21 (6d10)

>>5870399
>>5870409
>>5870440
>>5870483
Time to get fuckin' wasted!
Roll me 5d10, bo3, brothers! Here's the captain's drinking roll. He's...not actually the best drinker here statwise, as that would be Gigas, but he certainly does love it the most.

Rolled 8, 7, 10, 7, 2 = 34 (5d10)

>>5870593

Alas, a man can’t always choose his passions, sometimes they choose him

Rolled 3, 9, 2, 1, 2 = 17 (5d10)

>>5870593

Rolled 2, 10, 6, 1, 4 = 23 (5d10)

>>5870593
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

>>5870596
>>5870626
>>5870630
Another W for Ramza, looks like the Captain shouldn't have gotten a head start. Honestly, what kind of guy goes into a drinking contest AFTER drinking all night?
Update will come...tomorrow!

File: Ramza Valentine.pdf (354 KB, PDF)

354 KB PDF

>>5870675
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gidTXu2IdTfSq36XMJqvfKYy4koXScWvMc9pv2npTUE/edit?usp=sharing
Oh right, and I realized that I haven't actually given you lads your charactersheet yet, despite having been referencing one this entire time. So I decided to fix that by whipping up a nice one for y'all. Hopefully it doesn't look like ass, because this was literally the first time I've ever touched google docs to try to learn how to wrangle the autism that is formatting. And here's a PDF version that breaks the pageless setup but might suit some people better, fuck if I know.
Figured it'd be nice to add a more personal touch to things, you know? Pastebin is convenient, but very fuggin' basic.
Don't worry too much about what the information on the document means. If you know, you know. If you don't know but want to, just familiarize yourself with One-Roll Engine games like Monsters And Other Childish Things. It's pretty damn similar due to being an ORE mod.

>>5870680
That's mighty White of you, Watcher. Thanks for this.

>>5870680
That's a really well-done sheet! But's my photoshop jobs in my quest to shame. Good work! I've just started reading, by the way, and will soon be catching up. I'm really digging the setting so far, and I'm a sucker for sky-pirates. The writing's fun, too; I enjoyed the "mooks" scene.

File: tailsgetstrolled.png (50 KB, 1080x1080)

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>>5871152
>Calling me white in my own quest
>>5871173
Thanks bro! I have a ton more details about the setting that will be revealed in time. Hopefully ones that you guys find as kino as I do.

Anyways, I'm up and writing finally.

>>5871327
Just found this super kino.
Can we buy a pistol and/or shoot our mage blade stuff like an arrow?
I just want to be able to shoot I dude and stab another. Like a true pirate lord.

>>5871382
Ramza actually has incredibly bad aim with pistols, but you could absolutely do ranged attacks with your mageblade. The mageblade's range is only limited by how much mana you put into it and your mental ability to keep its shape.

And that, of course, is to get blackout drunk with your captain. If you're lucky, you might even be able to out-drink the old bastard - and if you managed that, you'd never let him live it down. You smirk to yourself just thinking about it as you make your way over to him, where the vast majority of the drinks seem to be flowing from. The captain himself seems to have just finished downing an entire mug of ale, the froth of it forming a faux mustache on his face before he wipes it off with the back of his hand and goes to refill his drink.

"Hey, Sparrow!" You call Captain Keats by the nickname the bounty books gave him. "Just going to drink the night away?"

"Ayyy, it's my main man!" He says with a slight slur, already at least a little drunk from the look of things. "You bet your ass I'm gonna drink the night away. Once you hit your thirties, you'll understand why."

"Because you're too old to do anything else? Really?" You reply with a deadpan expression.

"Say what you will, but there's nothing better for treating the aches and pains of getting older." He chuckles, though you pick up a slight sadness in his expression that he fails to mask. You doubt he'd have let it slipped had he been sober.

"Aches and pains? What are you on about, old man, you're just as spry as the rest of us. I saw you in action, you haven't slowed down a bit." You reply, grabbing a random bottle from the piles of alcohol gathered around. Sanguine honey, huh? You pop the cork and bring the lip of the bottle up, taking a swig from it without even bother with putting it in another cup. It's thicker than most drinks, sweet and fruity in a way that reminds you of cherries...and once it's gone down, it leaves a strange velvety texture in your mouth, along with a slight numbness that fades after a few moments.

"Ah, I wouldn't want to spoil the mood with it. I'll tell you all about it some other time, Ramz." He says, shaking his head. "For now, let's drink!"

"I'll hold you to it." You eye him, before raising your drink back up for another swig. It's weird, but growing on you. "How about a contest? See who can drink more, the next Pirate King or the soon-to-be-retired old man?" You challenge him.

"What is this, an assassination? You could kill a man with words like that, yeesh!" Sparrow complains, but finding himself unable to hold back a laugh regardless. "I'll show you just who you're messing with, kid. You're on." He says, moving his mug forward as you move your bottles to clink the two together.

And so the two of you drank, as quickly as you could. Once you were empty, you grabbed another drink at random, downing that just as quickly. And another. And another. You've gotta sit down, it's getting a little wobbly in here. You pound back some shots that Celia came over to pour for you, when did she get here? She's the prettiest girl you've ever met, and you make sure to tell her. You drink some more, laughing about...something? With the captain. But you can't remember what. Oh shit, is that Gigas laughing with you? When the hell did he come over? Well, it doesn't matter. You're drinking two drinks at once now, which is actually kind of disgusting. You'll have to remember not to do that combination again, whatever the hell it was. Val is watching you with a strange expression, but you can't quite place what it is. You elbow the Captain to ask him about it, but when you look over you find that he's passed out at the bar, drooling on it. The party itself seems a lot calmer than before, so you must have been here...a few hours, maybe? You can't really tell the time, so you shrug off whatever you were going to bring up and drink some more. Before you know it, you're passed out right there next to the captain, having long forgotten there was even a competition.

>Choose one Skill to add a single point to, as listed on the character sheet. Yes, some are Negative, which subtract dice until brought up.
>>5870680
Reference this for the charsheet.

>>5871477
+1 Mageblades

>>5871477
Sailing

>>5871477
Athletics. Losing in armwrastlin's no good.
We aught to be one of those wirey little fuckers that you see at the gym benching three times their bodyweight.

>>5871477
>Sailing

I quite enjoy the character dynamics. Everyone comes across a bit like goofball man 9or woman) children, trying really hard to be cool... But on purpose? in an endearing way that makes sense for their profession? It makes me smile.

>>5871505

Supporting. Buffing CON is never a bad idea

File: Crimson Spire.png (861 KB, 648x616)

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I'll keep the vote open 'till tomorrow since we're currently tied, if we're still tied by then I'll just flip for it! Should give plenty of anons time to vote anyways.
Glad to see people enjoying things so far, and especially glad to see that we're picking up steam! The 'tutorial' is pretty much over now, so our true adventure starts after this vote.
>captcha wwaka
I promise this isn't all a dream like in FF10. That's just a copout.

>>5871639

I definitely appreciate the effort you’ve put in so far, QM. Consider advertising this quest via 4chan banner!

>>5871477
>>5871505
+1 to Athletics. Never miss leg day

File: Val Lasombra.pdf (181 KB, PDF)

181 KB PDF

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Ojuef54xNQCMC_ykxAy46b53nyMHxNzfG7aHpZITvg/edit?usp=sharing
Another character sheet is up, too. Because you never know when it'll be handy to know the capabilities of your friends! I'll pop Gigas's tomorrow probably, but you can already guess what he's going to be good and bad at.

>>5871489
>>5871497
>>5871505
>>5871509
>>5871586
>>5871652
Athletics wins! All that heavy lifting paid off a little, huh? Writing! Sorry for the late start, you know how it be during this season.

>>5872359
That we do. Don't worry over it.

The first sensation you experience upon waking up is a pain that consumes your entire brain. You clutch your head with a groan and sit up, opening your eyes to see where you are. This proves to be a mistake, as the light filtering in through the window pierces into your eyes like daggers, a sharp spike of pain jolting through your skull. You're not sure if brains are supposed to throb after a heavy night of drinking, but it damn sure feels like yours is.

Shielding your eyes and peeking through your fingers to filter the majority of the natural light, you see that you somehow made it back to your personal quarters. Did you bring yourself here at some point without remembering, or was someone kind enough to take you here when you passed out? You wish you knew - most of the night is a blur to you, only snippets of what you did prior to the drinking contest remaining. You feel like...you probably won the competition, but it's hard to say for sure. You don't feel like a winner right now, of course - hangovers fucking suck.

You slide out of bed and start rummaging through your drawers, searching through your personal belongings for the panacea to your current ailment. You always keep some stocked, so where the hell did you put it...you dearly hope you didn't forget to restock it after the last time you went drinking. No, wait, there it is! Your hand grasps a cold glass vial and extracts it from where it was hiding under a pile of clothes, revealing a thick glittery gold substance that very faintly glows.

Grinning to yourself, you pop the cork off the vial and upend the contents into your mouth, which isn't as instant as you would like thanks to the viscous nature of it. Still, you slurp down the sweet life-preserving substance like a man would slurp down water after wandering through the desert for a month straight. Just a few moments later, you breathe out a sigh of relief as you feel the head wound from yesterday stitching itself up rapidly, and the overall negative effects of your hangover fading even quicker. After just a few seconds, you're as good as new, your brain telling you that you're as healthy as you can possibly be now.

"Healing honey, truly the greatest gift the Core has ever given to mankind. If I could marry you, I would." You say to the now-empty vial, chuckling to yourself as you toss the vial into a bin full of similarly empty vials. Now that your head is no longer killing you, you decide to go through your morning routine, doing some light stretches and exercise just to get your blood flowing before you hit up the purging room.

Your purging room is pretty small, space conservation being a necessity here dictating that if it doesn't need to be bigger then it won't be. It's really just a room with a door leading into it, with a Fire Catalyst embedded in the wall with a series of runes etched directly into the stone. After you strip down to make sure you don't lose ANOTHER set of clothes by accident, you place your hand on the stone and channel just a bit of your mana inside, which quickly activates the spell contained within - Purify. Anything foreign to your body is immediately burnt off of you with a series of tiny gouts of harmless flames sprouting up across your body wherever the spell finds something, including things like dead skin and dried blood - but not hair, thankfully, due to the exceptions set by the runes. It's not your favorite way to get clean, but damn if it isn't efficient...you just wish you could run across a Water Catalyst sometime soon, so you can upgrade your quarters with a hot shower.

Once you're done, you get dressed in a fresh set of clothes, and pop outside of your room. It's technically your day off since you just participated in a big raid, but that doesn't mean you can't go out there and do whatever the hell you want. Speaking of which, you think you'll...

>Go get your cut for everything you did yesterday from the quartermaster. You never know when you'll need some pocket change!
>Poke around Jahwal's old ship, now that you're not really busy. Keats probably has a few other members of the Golden Mirage poking around in there already!
>Go see if Captain Keats needs any side jobs done, a busy pirate is a successful pirate!
>Relax, and reminisce on the past for a while...
>Write-in!

>>5872467
>Go get your cut for everything you did yesterday from the quartermaster. You never know when you'll need some pocket change!

>>5872467

>Poke around Jahwal's old ship, now that you're not really busy. Keats probably has a few other members of the Golden Mirage poking around in there already!

Maybe some more good loot hidden somewhere?

>>5872972
Hey, 'tis the season to get sick, so take the time (and zinc) that you need. Folks will likely be a bit busy with holidays for a couple days anyway.

Deleted previous posts because I used the wrong trip, whoops. If you saw, no you didn't.
Anyways, roll me 5d10, please!
We'll be searching Jahwal's ship first, then picking up our fat paycheck afterwards.

Rolled 9, 3, 5, 5, 4 = 26 (5d10)

>>5872976

Here you go

Any more rollers? There's a sliding scale of things you can find here depending on the 'height' of the dice. A pair of 10s could definitely find you everything!

Rolled 9, 4, 9, 8, 2 = 32 (5d10)

>>5872976
WATCH THIS

Rolled 8, 3, 2, 10, 6 = 29 (5d10)

>>5872976

>>5872980
>>5873010
>>5873026
Fuckin' nice. Writing now!

While you do very much want to get even more gold for your personal hoard right away, you also want to check out Jahwal's ship in more detail now that you've partied your ass off and rested. Finders keepers, after all - you might find something really good that you'd regret not getting. With that in mind, you make your way outside, feeling the warm rays of the Core's light washing over you as soon as you step through the doorway. A curious seadragon - of the skyfaring variety, of course - darts away as soon as it spots you, rapidly zipping up to the skies to join some of its brethren that seem to be torn between checking out your settlement and minding their own business.

You pay them no mind and make your way through the docks to reach where you'd parked Jahwal's ship, crossing the gangplank and heading up to the ship itself. You decide to start with the belly of this particular beast first, heading below deck to check things out. Like you predicted, there's actually a few other faces poking around, opening up footlockers to rifle through them and such. You tap the boots of one of them with your shoe to get their attention - you think his name was...Avery? Afton? A-something.

"Hey bud," You start, avoiding using his name since you're not actually sure what it was. "You guys find anything good yet? Where haven't you checked out yet?" You ask.

"Plenty of weapons and ammunition, that's for sure. It took us most of the morning to haul all of those out, so...we haven't actually gotten very far yet." The dirty-blonde haired man wipes some sweat from his brow as he turns around to regard you. "We're only just now hitting the crew's quarters. The supplies deck is all taken care of, so I wouldn't bother with it."

"Alright, thanks." You nod to yourself, looking around the Crew's quarters for a moment. If you were a crewman, you wouldn't store any of your TRUE valuables down here - no, that'd be too predictable. Even if you had a really, really good hiding spot...the rest of the crew would have way too many chances to find it, living down here and all. You instead make your way to the Bilge, the lowest part of the ship that really only sees use when a water landing is necessary.

You immediately need to pinch your nose as soon as you open the hatch down to the bilge, thanks to the wave of almost sewage-like mustiness that emerges from it. Your eyes water, but you slip down regardless, making a short hop off the ladder to land in a dry spot rather than step into the puddle of stagnant water that's been there for who-knows-how-long right at the foot of said ladder. Thankfully for you, it looks like you won't need to be down here particularly long, as your keen eyes immediately catch sight of something out of place: A small wooden box that seems to have been fused to the ceiling with Mending Sap at some point. Clever, but not clever enough for anyone that just...you know, looks up.

You grab your mageblade and give it a little twirl before you activate it, curving the tip to make it into a giant hook that you use to latch on to the box and pull down. As you'd thought, whoever put this here didn't do a very good job, probably having taken too long between applying the honey and sticking it up there. It's pretty damn simple to pop open the top after, and you're greeted by a pleasant sight indeed - the box is full of pearls of varying sizes and colors, with a single one of onyx hue. If you had to guess, the entire lot was worth at least half a grand in coin, maybe more if you went shopping for the right buyer. With a grin, you tuck the box away, and climb back out of the Bilge.

Then, you head back above deck to hit up the Captain's quarters, figuring that you'd probably found everything of worth from the crew themselves. You spend the next half hour just turning over everything you possible can, ripping drawers out of cabinets and rifling through his old clothes and even prying up any suspect floorboards. You don't really find much in the way of wealth, but you do find more hidden weapons than any man should reasonably have. Guns, rifles, knives, swords, spears, hammers, even a long-dried bloodied whip paired with some chains and a collar that he for some reason kept tucked away in a box as though it was a memento. You really, really hope it wasn't a fetish thing.

Amongst his documents, you find something rather...interesting, having decided to read through them rather than disregard them wholesale. One of them, which had been hidden underneath a false section of one of the drawers, detailed the route that the very merchant he had been preying upon yesterday was going along. Below such seems to be a set of instructions.

Make sure that he does not live to tell of your raid. And I need not remind you to burn this letter once it's no longer useful to you...the funds I promised you are contingent on none of this getting out. Continue doing well, and you may be getting a bigger cut in a few jobs. Perhaps enough to finally retire. And don't worry, I've made sure to pay the right people to ensure that the merchant will be completely and totally isolated at the strike location.
-S.

What the fuck? Someone put, what...a raid-hit out on that merchant? Why? He seemed nice...was it because of what he was carrying? Shit, that doesn't sound good at all. You root through the other letters, checking for anything similar, but find nothing. Not one thing even close to the same handwriting, nor anything that seems like instructions. He must have burnt the rest, but why not this one? How many raids has he been doing under someone else's orders? Shit man, you weren't expecting this at ALL.

You fold the letter up carefully and slide it into one of your pockets, while you consider what else you might want to take from Jahwal's room.

>Write-in anything you might want to take that was mentioned, such as clothes or weapons.

>>5873129
Definitely want a pair of pistols. (I'm assuming they're single shot?)

>>5873163
Single shot, correct. Lumean firearm technology is a little lacking, especially compared to the bullshit that is Eldingarian guns.

>>5873163

Will support this. Even if we’re a terrible shot it’s a good surprise to have a loaded pistol inside your jacket

>>5873163
>>5873177
Alright, two pistols it is. If any more votes come up for anything else, I'll just sneak them into the character sheet later. For now, I'm going to continue writing!

>>5873129
Is there a cape amongst the clothes?
I want a sick-ass cape.

>>5873211
100%. What kind of pirate captain doesn't own at least one sick-ass cape?

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>>5873212
>get a sweet paludamentum like this
>use it to hide our sword arm and deliver sneak attacks
>just shoot niggas mid-conversation through it
>???
>Profit

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Update's almost done. Realized I didn't post the seadragon picture. Here you go!

File: nicholas-kole-img-5149.jpg (165 KB, 1920x1202)

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You decide to take a few odds and ends, such as a couple of single-shot pistols that you carefully tuck into your waistband...and a pretty damn cool looking cape, which you were trying to ignore but ultimately couldn't resist. Now considerably more well-adorned, you decide to check out one final area of the ship: The subcore compartment. By necessity it's located where the ship's center of mass is, and though there is a lock on the door to enter so as to prevent unauthorized crewmen from tampering with the most crucial component of any ship, you manage to take care of it without issue thanks to your mageblade.

The compartment itself is only big enough to fit maybe two people in it at any given time, the majority of the space filled by a metal receptacle upon which the Subcore itself fits. With the ship currently being idle, the subcore resembles a still sphere of water, with a few bubbles floating around inside of it idly...but you know exactly what they look like in use. The receptacle below it would, under normal use, begin injecting a steady stream of mana into it in order to coax it to adjust pressure and gravity around the ship. When such happens, the 'water' usually starts to swirl around rapidly, with streaks of mana forming on the surface.

You decide to take a peek inside the receptacle itself, holding tanks of concentrated mana to fuel everything. If you were the engineer and had something to hide, you'd probably hide it down there, especially if it was something that stands no chance of reacting with the mana. You squint a bit, before seeing a faint shimmer, confirming your suspicions. You push your arm through the Subcore, feeling your entire body become weightless as you do so, and reach down into thick slurry of Mana to feel around for a physical object. Once you find it, you firmly grasp it and pull it out, shaking off your now-wet arm after doing so and checking out your final prize.

You almost immediately drop it as soon as you realize you're holding a wiggling, struggling, teeny tiny little monster in your hands. Fuck, Jahwal, why do you have a monster infesting your fuel?! It's so small that you don't think it could even break the skin if it bit you, but damn if that isn't a disappointment. You try not to cringe as you examine it for a moment, trying to recall information about this specific breed...

>4d10, Bo3, please!

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>>5873257
The picture of the subcore and its receptacle, too.

Rolled 7, 5, 7, 1 = 20 (4d10)

>>5873257

Rolled 2, 5, 4, 9 = 20 (4d10)

>>5873257

Rolled 9, 8, 8, 5 = 30 (4d10)

>>5873257

Right, if you remember correctly, then this is a pretty harmless breed...on its own. A crystal borer, barely qualifying as a monster only thanks to the corrupted essence it's made of. They tend to gather in swarms in natural mana deposits, often ruining entire batches of catalysts due to their voracious appetite. The trickiest part of the little bastards are the pheromones they release, which clues other monsters in on the fact that they've found something particularly nice to feast on. Like you were thinking earlier...harmless on its own. But that's rarely the case, even if it seems to be so in this particular case. Still, you can't say that they're entirely without use - you can think of a few ways to use them to track someone's coming and goings, or extract their pheromones to give someone a really bad day, or even use them to look for deposits of magical substances if you release them in the right spot.

On the other hand, the Formists beliefs tickling the back of your brain urge you to crush the beast immediately. Its very existence is sinful, a mistake that should be corrected. Hell, you're sure that if it were bigger than a worm, it'd be trying its damndest to rip you apart right now...right? At least, you've never heard of monsters doing anything else. It's simply in their nature to consume and destroy. Despicable...

You're torn between pragmatism and...well, a more devout part of you, you suppose. And a much smaller part that questions if it's truly right to kill something like this just for existing. It's hard to see it as a threat against humanity when it can't even harm your pinky finger.

>Crush it. Keeping a monster like this around can only cause bad luck.
>Keep it in a bottle. You'll find some use for it. Even monsters can have a place in this world.

>>5873279
>Keep it in a bottle. You'll find some use for it. Even monsters can have a place in this world.
What's the worst that could happen? : )

>>5873279
>crush the little bastard, and set fire to the corpse
women on a pirate ship is already bad luck, don't need gremlins in the fuel supply too.

>>5873279

>Keep it in a bottle. You'll find some use for it. Even monsters can have a place in this world.

Our boy doesn’t strike me as pious - better hold onto the little devil

>>5873249
>that feeling of embarrassment when I forgot seadragons were a real animal and was picturing just, like, sea serpents or Chinese long.

>>5873279
>Keep it in a bottle. You'll find some use for it. Even monsters can have a place in this world.

File: merry-christmas-billy-her(...).gif (196 KB, 640x640)

196 KB GIF

For hopefully obvious reasons, I'll be taking a break today and tomorrow, resuming on the 26th! Feel free to insert any votes until then, discuss anything you might want to, or ask me any questions you might have about things.
Oh, and one more thing. Have a holly, jolly Christmas.

>>5873829
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal. And a Happy New year too! Thanks for running and seeya soon

>>5873829
Merry Christmas, Aniki!

>>5873829

Merry Christmas!

>>5873829
Merry Christmas, QM!

>>5873833
>>5873962
>>5873965
>>5874421
Hope your christmas was as great as mine was, and if it wasn't, then there's always next year!
I'll get to writing, it looks like we're keeping a pet monster. Just remember to feed it and take it for walkies, ok?

Oh, and just so it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone, I'll be taking the 28th off for my birthday, but I should be good to run on new years. I don't really celebrate new years.