Sareneth 5: Wealday, Day 2

Half an hour later, I left the galley armed with the fruits of Syl’s labor. I waited at the door outside, timing my exit with the creaking of the ship. My matte grey skin was much less eye catching in the moonlight than the white shirt I’d worn last night. (Opposed Stealth 12+7=19) I arrived on the deck near the back, and strolled casually towards the foredeck. I picked up a relatively small loop of rope and moved with purpose; the few who noticed my presence assumed I had a legitimate reason to be here. Oh thank god. Or the gods. Maybe I should find out who I should be thanking? 

I scurried over to Jakes in his box, pulling out the small jar of mush Syl had prepared. She’d argued that the application process was “so easy you could trust a goblin with it” and foisted the rest of the job onto me while she went to bed. Not the most illustrious first act for a new party member, but she had given me a solid tutorial on how to treat the rash. I didn’t actually have much room to complain. It also means that if I’m caught with a paste made from stuff in the kitchen, she won’t get in trouble unless I snitch. 

“Alright, buddy.” I whispered into the box, “if you want something for your arm, you’re gonna need to stay nice and quiet while I work.” My words startled Jakes awake from a fitful doze, but thankfully he kept his mouth shut even while he looked around in a panic. He looked at me, nodded, and held up his oozing arm to the light. If I’d needed to, I could have probably dabbed the paste onto the shrunken red flesh through the grate with his cooperation, but I didn’t have to. I’m a sorcerer, dammit. “Now hold still.”

I whispered “mage hand” in a guttural language as I waved my real hand over the jar of paste, and the contents popped into the air in accordance with my will. I focused on the ball of paste, gently levitating it into the box and spreading it evenly onto the rash. I didn’t have any tactile sensation to go off of, so I might have pressed a bit too hard. My patient winced, but kept silent. Good man. (Your target has healed 2 constitution damage). I followed up with a long strip of cloth, which tied itself tightly around his arm as I mimed the knotwork. I didn’t actually need to do the hand motions, but it helped me visualize where everything went. 

(You have performed a heal check. The results will be revealed when relevant.) Ominous. I didn’t have anything else to do up here, so I whispered a quick, “now don’t go dying on me” to my ailing companion and left the same way I came. (Stealth 17+7=24 Success!) Nobody said a word. 

I headed back to the kitchen, where my cozy chair waited by the fire. From there, I cast Keep Watch and occupied myself with Syl’s character sheet. She was human, despite the strange eyes, with a rather high dexterity score. Her intelligence was comparable to mine, but her list of skills reflected an exceptional education with points invested into knowledge of a wide variety of topics as well as craft (alchemy). She was slightly stronger than I was, and moderately tougher, but given that I’m a fragile dandelion that wasn’t necessarily saying too much. 

She wasn’t a spellcaster like me; her class was “student.” Hey, we’ve got that much in common. Not sure if being a CPA will matter here, though. Student was a “cohort” class according to my system document; compared to sorcerers, students would get a very limited number of abilities from leveling up. It didn’t matter as much at level one, when she got a set of bonus talents to start with, but the document implied that she wouldn’t scale as well as me into high levels. This left me more than a little concerned, so I forgot about Syl’s sheet entirely and hunted for an explanation of how classes worked for party members. 

When a new character joined the party, they gained a character sheet. They couldn’t access it directly the way I could, but the system would upload appropriate information and skills directly into their minds when we leveled up. Their class would be the strongest one that the system could justify. Syl didn’t qualify for the more powerful Alchemist class because she lacked combat experience, but her good education saved her from something even worse. A player class like sorcerer had a wide variety of useful abilities called class features, a cohort class like student got a smattering of weaker abilities called talents which allowed them to differentiate themselves, and npc class like warrior or commoner had few if any special abilities. 

Syl’s first few talents were all useful if a bit limited. Elixir was a potion that healed damage to ability scores, counteracting the effects of most poisons and diseases, and Performance Enhancer was a drug that boosted one of her physical stats at the temporary cost of a mental stat. Fast Draw, Brutal Breaker, and Hard Drinker let her grab and use stowed weapons, improvised weapons, and potions far more quickly and effectively than she otherwise might. Simply put, she was always ready to fight with no prep time needed. 

At long intervals, about once an hour, I received updates on Jakes in the form of heal check results. It wasn’t promising.

(Heal check 3+3=6: your treatment had no effect. Your patient deteriorates. -1 con. 12)

(Heal check 2+3=5: your treatment had no effect. Your patient deteriorates. -1 con. 11)

(Heal check 1+3=5: your treatment had no effect.)

(Heal check 12+3=15: your treatment was effective, removing the need for a saving throw.)

(Heal check 6+3=9: your treatment had no effect. Your patient deteriorates. -1 con. 10)

When I checked my mission log, Syl and Jakes both counted as allies now, so at least he was grateful enough to progress my big quest. One more experience point for me, and a feat that let me charm creatures that were normally too stupid to charm. Unfortunately, the mission to save him was still stubbornly incomplete. He was definitely still in danger. Look on the bright side. Even if he dies, I now have a hot doctor girl that fate will conspire to keep close to me, who will help me out at the cost of sleeping with her. I’m pretty sure I’m still coming out ahead on this one. Spellguard bracers probably aren’t all that good anyway.

Cope aside, there wasn’t much I could do to help Jakes. Syl had told me before she left that if he kept the poultice on for 24 hours it should hopefully fix the problem, but he’d lost 3 points of constitution in the first 5 hours. If he kept deteriorating at this rate, he’d hit zero and die a few hours before the 24 hour mark. He had a meaningful chance of survival now, but his life, and my reward, were in the hands of the dice. 

In contrast to the missions to commit murder or grand larceny, my new mission was blessedly reasonable, with no obvious chance of it leading to my death, so I decided to keep it. 

Win a game of Arm Wrestling, Hog Lob, or Heave with stakes worth at least 5 gold pieces. 

Reward: 1 experience, Scroll of Hypnotism

I only recognized one of the three, but based on the inclusion of arm wrestling I assumed they were some of the games that the crew played in the evening. The wager of 5 gold was really damn steep, more than I had to my name now that I’d traded the ring, but compared to potential death I was quite happy with it. I should probably start participating, then. I’m sure as hell not going to lay down that much money until I know which games I’m actually good at. The reward was appropriately modest; the rules document listed hypnotism as a low level spell that lets you make a request of someone as if they were substantially closer to you. A hated  enemy would respond to a request to be left alone as if you were a stranger, a stranger would let you couch surf as if you were their best friend, and a friend would obey a command as if they were your loyal follower. I’d only get one use out of a scroll, but it would leave a back door in their mind; the same request would always get the same response. A magic scroll would let me cast the spell exactly once, so I’d need to make it count. 

••••••••••

Sareneth 6, Oathday, Day 3

Kroop was sober in the morning, so after we passed out biscuits and ate breakfast I got a proper tutorial on what my job actually was. The proper amounts to feed the chickens, pigs, and goats, for one. I’d just guessed, and in doing so I’d overfed all of the livestock. On a related note, I’d underfed the officers, which meant that Caulky was irritated with me; she normally got to eat their leftovers. Cry me a river. I eat fish soup most days and I make the stuff. 

Animal husbandry consumed a large chunk of my morning, during which Jakes was thankfully stable, losing only one more point of constitution. Passing out water to the crew was a popular decision among the work crew leaders, as it saved them the work of doing it themselves. As such, I’d effectively signed up to do it every day at around noon going forward. Great. I’ve only been here three days and people are already passing their work off to me. It worked as an excuse to move around the ship and see people, but I could only talk to any one person for a few minutes before we attracted glares. Worse, it kept me out of the kitchen when Kroop would have been most available to show me the ropes. 

In the afternoon, Jakes deteriorated rapidly again, plummeting to three constitution and sometimes losing two points in an hour. When I checked on him, getting Syl to pass out water to her group and hoping nobody called me on it, his lips were cracked and he was barely lucid. I used mage hand to slip him some water. 

CRACK. (You have taken 4 nonlethal damage). A searing line of pain ran across my back. “Mr. M’Dair, do take care not to interfere with Mr. Magpie’s punishment.” Mr. Plugg’s called out from the quarterdeck. “Excessive softheartedness will blunt the lesson.” Scourge stood behind me, whip still ready for another go. Did he sneak up on me just for dramatic effect? I backed off without a word, fleeing belowdecks to the sound of Scourge’s laughter. 

The rest of my work day was spent learning a few of Kroop’s go-to recipes. Potatoes and pork belly were on the menu for the day, and to make up for yesterday’s small portions we made an extra side of deviled eggs. All the while, I anxiously waited for my next heal check result. 

(Heal check 13+3=16: your treatment was effective, removing the need for a saving throw.)

As far as I know, a failure is essentially a permanent loss of potential power. I don’t know if there’s any kind of important reason that I’m here, but if a demon king shows up for me to slay, I’d like to be as high level as possible for that. I helped make the goat milk into cheese, which the officers would spread on their biscuits in the morning. (Profession: Chef 19+2=21 Success)

(Heal check 16+3=19: your treatment was effective, removing the need for a saving throw.)

Oh yeah, and a guy’s life is on the line. Sanctity of life and all that. I mean, I barely know the guy and it was kinda dumb of him to steal something from an officer. He doesn’t deserve to die for it, though! Probably. I wonder what it was, anyway? We carried the food up to the officers and served the stew to our stalwart crew. I got my share of lumps from the jeering crowd that day; Kroop may be a drunk, but I was the guy who managed to burn soup. It was mostly in good fun. 

(Heal check 16+3=19: your treatment was effective, removing the need for a saving throw.)

Actually… he stole something from Plugg, didn’t he? It had to be; Scourge manages punishments, so why would the second mate show up if it wasn’t his stuff? Hey autopilot, did Plugg poison Jakes? (Secret sense motive check 4+2=6) It’s possible. I’m just gonna assume that was a high roll and be careful around him. I spent a while with Sandara, learning about the various dice games popular on the Wormwood. I didn’t have much cash, just a few silver and copper I’d salvaged from the galley trash piles, so I wasn’t invited to play any of them. Unfortunately, none of them were named Hurl or Hog Lob, so I was still in the dark about how to advance my mission. I felt awkward asking about a few random games out of the blue, so I didn’t worry about it. I wasn’t in a rush. 

(Heal check 12+3=15: your treatment was effective, removing the need for a saving throw.)

I started to relax when I realized that Jakes was probably in the clear by lights out. I wasn’t going to try to check on him, not when I’d been reprimanded earlier in the day, but if Syl was right he should hopefully be cleansed of the slime at the 24 hour mark. I let my mind wander as the lights dimmed into nothingness. The gym rat, Cog, took ages to finish his ritual. I waited and listened to the clicking of bones and low droning chant until I could slip out to my rightful domain in the galley. I wonder if I should ask Syl for some kind of favor soon? It’s only right to figure out how that ring works, after all. Besides, why go a week without sex if I don’t have to?