There are many tales of a skiff’s crew going mad and killing each other. Only half, though, are actually magical with a motive behind it. The rest are the effects of a captain who does not care for their crew. The infamous Captain Ironsands was famously killed when his large crew of pirates were not satisfied with the poor distribution of food. He took nearly half of the rations for himself and the rest were left to the crew. Only the crew of his skiff knows what happened to him in his final moments as they rot in Nikolan’s prison.

-Excerpt from ‘Skiff Captaining,’ by Fivon

*=====*

Mori looked out onto the sprawling sands to either side of the Kharon. In front of her was a mass of steel skiffs. Behind her was another mass of varied skiffs. To either side, she saw endless sand, broken up by patches of dirt and mesas breaking the horizon with outcroppings. To the back of the convoy, she heard every manner of instrument played. They were all infused with mana, producing a rainbow of effects, only half of which stayed with Mori. The rest, her soul devoured like snack food. 

After another check of the horizon, she finally slumped forward and groaned, “Urgh…” As she leaned over the front window, she heard footsteps from behind her. She turned and waved, “Hey Fara. What’re you doing here?” she asked. Behind the woman, Desire followed along with an excited smile on her face.

“Desire wanted to learn how to drive the Kharon. I decided to teach her since you aren’t very… enthusiastic…” Fara replied. Mori suddenly wished she had a tongue to stick out at her friend. She was, unfortunately, tongue-deficient. “Alright, let me show you how to do this,” Fara said to Desire. 

Mori stepped away, nodding to her death knight as she passed. Desire smiled at Mori, “Hi, mistress! I haven’t seen you around for a while. Have you been cooped up in your study this whole time?” she asked. 

Mori inwardly winced; she had been so focused on her magic that she had been ignoring her other undead, one of which being Unio, “Yeah, I have. I do need to keep everyone in high spirits, though, so I think I’ll touch base with everyone else.”

Desire nodded while Fara whispered something under her breath about her phrasing, “Ah, that would be a good idea. Some of the others are a bit annoyed with our new passengers…” Mori gave a questioning look, and Desire smiled, “It’s not for me to say, but I personally like them; they’re pretty interesting.”

Mori nodded, “Thanks, Desire. I’ll go talk to them. By the way, driving a skiff is pretty boring, even if you’re excited for it now.” While Desire chewed on her words, she waved her new, green, metallic hand as she left, “Bye now!” 

Mori decided to go from top to the bottom in terms of where each of her Death knights were, which meant Fury, Ally, Mae, and Tisi were all first. She found them after leaving the frontal tower flying around the inner courtyard of the Kharon. To her eye-flames, they were playing a flying version of tag. While carrying daggers to cut each other with. Fortunately, she quickly noticed that they were blunt daggers, doing little more than throwing each other back as they flew about. Just as Mori was about to get their attention, she noticed a small group of people, of whom Fara had dubbed as the ‘passengers,’ standing on the far side of the deck. They seemed to be watching the game with fascination plainly written on their faces. 

Mori decided not to bother the passengers and waved up to the four death knights to get their attention. Before she even needed to speak, they noticed her and descended to the deck, “Hey, mistress!” Ally beamed, “Where have you been all this time? Were you studying stuff down in the library?” 

Mori nodded, “Yeah, I was. I realized that I haven’t talked to you guys much more than in passing over the past week, so I decided to catch up with you all. And that includes Norta and Mokan, come to think of it. And Unio. Aerolat,” she said as the cloud formed, “Where did you put Unio?” 

Aerolat gave a frustrated look, “I had to trap him in a barrel to keep him on the skiff as we left. I will bring him up now.” Before Mori could comment, he disappeared, leaving them stricken by the oddly emotional tone of his voice. 

Fury shrugged, “Well, that’s what happens when you make the little guy so smart without giving him anything to do. Desire was playing with him for a while, but even she had other stuff she wanted to spend her time on.”

Mori tilted her head, “Oh? What’s that? She never mentioned it.”

“She was leaving to interact with the locals, mistress,” Tisi replied, “I believe she mentioned gaining experience from her interactions with them; she also mentioned being near her next level.”

The others nodded, “Yeah, I heard her complaining how none of the men would pay much attention to her. As if they would!” Ally laughed, getting punched in the shoulder by Fury.

Mae followed his example, punching her in the shoulder, “Don’t be mean. She doesn’t look bad, so whatever Trait she picks works wonders. It’s just her… general fearsomeness,” she explained. Ally was evidently confused and Mori was in complete agreement; she had no idea how Desire was ‘fearsome.’ Mae noticed Ally’s confusion, but Mori wondered if she chose to ignore the confusion written on her own face, “She's a zombie whose body was bent and grown to be more capable in battle. Do you think a bunch of city guys would go for someone like that? Even if she’s pretty?”

They shrugged, dropping the topic as Mori smiled, “Alright, is there anything else, or do you want to gossip some more?” she chuckled. Each of their faces turned from content smiles to displeased frowns, and Mori recalled Desire mentioning their new passengers, “Alright, yeah, I remember. Just hush down a bit… we’ve got an audience,” she said while subtly pointing to the small group across the deck. 

None of them were surprised, which Mori found reassuring; if a group of gawking onlookers was enough to hide from them Mori seriously doubted their survivability on the battlefield. Fury was the first to step forward, “I think those new ones are going to be a problem,” he said in a hushed voice, “I think they’re getting in the way a bit. They keep to themselves, but they act like scared kittens whenever one of us gets too close. Most of them, anyway. The only ones who aren’t like that are these three ones, talking about… Desire stuff, mostly.”

Mori nodded, “And that group of four who are their leaders?”

He shrugged, “Little bit of both. They’re wary, but they hold their ground. Except that girl, Natalia; she’s pretty interesting. She likes to fight.”

Mori nodded, appreciative of his input and bade them farewell as they began their game of tag once more. Just as she was about to descend to the second deck, Aerolat rolled a barrel up the stairs and pushed it over. Its lid burst open, revealing a flood of viscous slime that spread from the barrel. Mori watched as the slime formed into the familiar form of Unio. In spite of that, he was large. Much larger than she had expected. Before the week of upgrades, Unio was as large as a housecat. After Mori not seeing him, however, he had ballooned to the size of her torso. The slime, upon ‘seeing’ her, leapt at her. 

Mori let the slime collide with her, petting him as he purred like a kitten. Chuckling, she picked him up and hugged him close, “There you are. Sorry for forgetting about you, little guy.” Unio shook a bit, almost reminiscent of a shake of the head, and began morphing. A small tendril of slime protruded from his body and tapped on her forehead insistently, “What do you… wait, do you want to… Well, either way it works,” she said as she wove a Connection between them. 

She realized that she had not flexed her psychic muscle in far too long, as it felt old and unused. At the same time, she felt the influence of [Psychic Affinity V] on her mind. It was easy to interpret the emotions flying over the Connection and it was easy to regulate the flow of her own emotions. Pure happiness flowed over the Connection as Unio wrapped himself around her like an extra layer of skin on top of her armor. After a moment of mental exertion, he found a spot under her cloak, which she had added to her outfit after they began to pack. 

‘Wait a minute… Why is he bigger?’ she asked. After a few moments, she took a look at Unio’s Status Page.

[Name: Unio

Species: Slime

Variant: Blood Slime

Level: 11 (0%)

Traits:

Physical: (Gelatinous Consolidation III) [Variant Trait Lock], (Stronger Bonds III)  (Organic Modification), (Free Slot)*4

Spiritual: (Enhanced Intelligence V), (Simulation V), (Free Slot)

Granted Traits: (None)]

“Well, that’s interesting, Unio. Good on you!” she said as she pet the slime under the cloak. Smiling as she heard happy noises coming from him, she turned to Aerolat, “Thanks for that. And sorry for not keeping him company,” she said as she gestured into the skiff, “Do you have anything to talk about? I can guess that you’re keeping tabs on everything going on around here, so you know what I’m doing, right?”

Aerolat smiled, “I know, mistress. In terms of things of importance, I would like to inform you of the status of the new ‘passengers.’” 

Mori sighed, “Alright, tell me.” 

“They are very distressed. They seem to keep to their own rooms while only a few are brave enough to venture out. They are begrudgingly accepting the food cooked by Crave, which is an advantage, but they do not seem to enjoy knowing where the food came from.”

“It’s because they know corpses aren’t healthy,” Mori laughed.

Aerolat gave an annoyed look, “We are not corpses.”

“They don’t see it that way, obviously!” Mori laughed. She kept her good spirit up until they reached the workroom, only to find Avarice absent. Aerolat informed her of his and the rest of the death knights’ locations, giving Mori her new destination. After walking through the skiff, passing a few undead and even a lone passenger who fled from her on sight, they reached the dining hall. 

Around the center table, Pride, Jel, Avar, Crave, Idle, Mokan, and Norta were all crowding around a book. Mori used her enhanced vision to see the topic of the book, which happened to be a book about otherworlder psychology. Mori noticed that the naming of people like her was inconsistent, at best, but shrugged it off. What was more interesting was where they found the book; she had no clue where they could have gotten it, if not from the bazaar. 

Instead of jumping to conclusions, she walked up behind them with a radiant smile and waited for Idle to notice her. It did not take long; as soon as she was within a dozen feet of the death knight, she was noticed. Idle snapped her attention to Mori and gave a nervous smile, “Ah, mistress.. This isn’t what it looks like?” she tried. Mori just giggled in response.

“Don’t worry about it. My question is if you’re looking to figure out what’s going on in my head, or if you’re trying to solve the passenger issue.”

“Passenger?” Pride asked, “Apt name.”

“I still prefer pompy,” Jel added with a smile. 

Shrugging, Mori walked to the front of the table, “anyway, I was looking to touch base with you guys, but I’ve been hearing about some issues with our passengers. Anyone have anything to say about that?”
A short silence rang before Jel nodded, “They’re just so… shrewish! I mean, they’re scurrying around the skiff like a bunch of rats and it makes me feel like we’re living in a sewer!” she exclaimed.

“Okay… That’s one complaint… anyone else?” Mori asked. The rest of them shook their heads and Mori’s eye-flames went wide, “Really, no one?”

Pride nodded along with the rest of them, “Nothing, mistress. We find their constant fear of us annoying, distracting, and a bit disheartening. Other than the handful that we can tolerate, most of them are nervous animals trapped in tiny cages. This cannot go on, mistress.”

“Look, I get it, but we can’t just force them to be more tolerant. I mean, they’re people, just like you guys. I can’t just order them to be happy with this like I can with the unintelligent zombies.”

They grumbled their agreement, Idle nodding, “We know. We are thinking of a way to make them less afraid, but Norta shoots down any ideas we have.”

The woman glared, “Because making them play a children's game across the whole skiff is a terrible idea. Don’t listen to their ideas —they’re awful.” Mori watched as a small argument broke out over the viability of making the passengers play hide and seek across the skiff as a way to make them more social and took her leave. Making her way to the library, she grinned as she looked at the half-dozen books she had found useful. 

‘Time for some more magic!’ she thought to herself.