Above, a scream vanished into the night as the ocean claimed another soul.
Then, out of nowhere, the ship seemed to steady and pick up speed.
The violence of the storm still raged, but it almost felt like they moved through it in a bubble. It took Darren a moment to realise Samantha had used her nearly maxed Wind Caller skill.
That would give them four hours of relative safety if she used the base effect. Great, so he’d get to join the crew around about when it ended, and hell returned.
He could barely make out several hammocks strung up in the tight, dark confines. No lamps were lit, and the only light was what little filtered in through the hatch above him and several small portholes. Given that Samantha was running Wind Caller, and they had a few hours of fairly smooth running, Darren decided it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to take a nap where he could.
Once he manoeuvred himself into a hammock, whimpering every time he smacked his shoulder, he pulled up his notifications and scanned through them. Mostly damage notifications, but a couple of goodies hid amidst the dross.
<<<<>>>>
Summoned Swivel Gun Proficiency increased to 5%
Accuracy increased.
<<<<>>>>
Twist of Fate Proficiency increased to 23%
You now have a greater chance of bypassing resistances when casting Twist of Fate.
<<<<>>>>
Congratulations! You have survived a pirate attack
Through cunning and a solid set of cajones, you have survived the pirate attack and gained control of a new ship.
Reward:
-
15,000XP
-
5 Sovereigns
-
400 Chips
<<<<>>>>
Darren whistled softly. 15,000 XP and another handful of Sovereigns, that was very nice. Very nice indeed. He glanced at his stats. Yup, that put him just shy of 30,000 XP left before he hit level 6 and gained another stat point and another three skill points.
Judging from the excited sounds coming from Wilson, he’d just received a similar notification. Damn, that’d put the coconut around his level already.
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He was tempted to start digging into skill trees and plan what he’d spend them on, but he knew if he didn’t sleep now, he’d regret it later. That said, he was pretty sure two points would go into Summoned Swivel Gun to bring it to level 3 and unlock the ability to aim it with a thought.
He closed down his notifications and shut his eyes. Trying to ignore the slowly dulling pain in his shoulder as sleep took him.
***
“Wake up!”
Darren shrieked and lurched upright, instantly spinning the hammock and dumping himself on the deck. He lay there, groaning.
Samantha cackled beside him. Her face—lit by an oil lantern in her hand—was lined and haggard despite the laughter.
He climbed to his feet and stretched. The ship felt stable beneath his feet. “Wind Caller still active?”
Samantha shook her head. “Ended an hour ago. We ran at a right angle to the storm and managed to find the edge of it.”
“Oh. That’s good news.”
“Yes…”
Darren’s brow furrowed. “What?”
Samantha leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper, “Now we’re free of the storm, our ‘crew’ appear to be planning a mutiny.”
“How the hell are they going to do that against you? How many are left? You could kill them all in seconds.”
“I… could have. Yes. There are five left. The problem is that it appears one of the gods has decided to offer all five of them a class.”
Darren blinked. He hadn’t thought too hard about how NPCs went from Classless to having a class. All players automatically got offered a class after just a short period of play. Long enough for an AI to determine a selection of options that suited the player’s playstyle. But there were tens of thousands of NPCs who were Classless.
Each one who gained a class would have a massive leap in level as they changed from the Classless XP scale to the classed XP scale. A level 5 Classless would end up a level 16 to 19 as a classed NPC.
If Darren hadn’t been Classless himself, surviving that sea battle would have pushed him from his previous level 18 to level 19.
But through it all, he hadn’t considered that there might be a reason why so many NPCs hadn’t taken a class… such as they’d never even been offered one by an AI god. So why now? Why all five? Judging by Samantha’s expression, it was highly unusual.
“What levels are they now?” he asked.
“16, 14, 13, and two 10s.”
Darren swallowed. 16. That was higher than the pirate captain they’d fought. The only upside was that none of them would have had any practice with all their newfound skills or subsequent additional effects. The level 10s would only have a max of two practised skills, while the rest would all have three practised skills. The level 16, however, would have just received another 10 skill points to burn and another 14 stat points.
“This is bad,” he said at last. “Do you know why they all got offered classes now, of all times?”
“Wilson heard a couple of them mention Themis…” Samantha whispered.
“Ah, turd nuggets. Not her again.”
Samantha quirked an eyebrow at the expression.
“Where’s Wilson?” Darren asked.
“I have him on watch in the crow’s nest.”
“Alright…” Darren sucked his teeth and frowned. Five pirates, all of whom could wipe the floor with his corpse before he had a chance to blink. The only weapon he had that could deal decent damage was Summoned Swivel Gun, though that took time to charge to deal enough damage to have a hope of making any difference. “What weapons do they—”
A deck board above them creaked, and Darren went silent, glancing up. After a moment, another board creaked, further away, slight footsteps receding.
Samantha kept her voice low and said, “I relieved them of all visible weapons a few hours ago. But if any had weapons in their inventories, there’s not much you can do.”
“And how far are we from land?”
“There are a few scattered islands nearby,” Samantha said, “but they’re all deserted so far as I know. We’re still about a day from Isla Cascadura.”
“So that about leaves us with persuasion then.”
“Yes. You’re so eloquent. I’m sure you’ll convince them, no problem.”
Darren scowled. “I convinced you and Wilson to lay off each other and for you to work with us, thank you very much.”
“Touché. So how are you going to convince five newly-classed pirates who just watched us slaughter two-thirds of their crew that they should not kill us in turn?”
“Well, to be fair, it’ll actually be you doing the persuading. So we might still be screwed.”
“Oh, really?” Samantha asked, deadpan. “And what will you be doing?”
A slow, wicked smile curled Darren’s lips as he looked at Samantha and pulled the bucket with Rupert still swimming happily around in it from his inventory. “How much damage do you reckon my summoned gun would do to the keel of this ship?”
“You evil bastard.”
“I have one big stick, and I’m not afraid to whip it out and wave it threateningly at everyone.”