“As good a place to start as any. If you pass their task, they’ll give you a token; collect at least six of them. Good luck.”
Walking over to the fisherman, I took the time to look out from the vessel. On either side, not too far away, I could see two more ships of similar size to the one I was on. Their sails, loosely hanging, not even a twitch. There was a third ship in the distance behind us, larger in size. The sea was relatively calm. It was almost tranquil.
As I got closer, I got a better look at the sailor. He was laid out on a deck chair, and a sheet of canvas had been secured to cover him in a shadow. His feet propped up on an upside-down bucket. For a brief moment, I thought he was asleep, but an eye looked up at me as I moved into range.
“Bos’n send ya?” he drawled.
“Aye,” I responded. “Said you had a token?”
“That I do…was gonna hand ‘em out if anyone caught a fish…but…well…I’ve not had a bite all day…wouldn’t be right to set an undoable…tell ya what.” he sat up and dug around in the small box next to him. “I lent a rod to Cookie last week, and when he returned it, he had somehow managed to tangle the line, something rotten. If you can untangle and rewind it, you can have the token. Fair?” he asked, holding out an incredibly tangled ball of line and a wooden spindle. I looked around for a moment… this seemed kind of boring for what was supposed to be a tutorial mission… but then… maybe it was the start of some fancy quest line which would end with something better… I wouldn’t have put it past the devs… I would have certainly snuck something like that in. Hide the best weapon in the game behind a lame looking peg leg. Or some awesome dragon pet requiring you to level up an otherwise useless fish, which could only do a splash attack. I shrugged, took the knotted line and got to work carefully untangling it.
I found one end of the line and started feeding it through the rest. Loosening knots and slowly, bit by bit, getting the line untangled.
“Is it normal to not get a nibble?” I asked after a few minutes of concentration.
“With it like this?” he indicated to the unmoving sails. “Yeah…I got some deep weighted lines… But I probably won’t see any action until we get closer to the Isles.”
“Isles?” I prompt, as I managed to loosen a particularly annoying knot.
“There is an archipelago off the coast of the New World. Some of the nicest sandy beaches. Gorgeous reefs. So many varieties of fish. And they practically catch themselves…I swear you can throw in a hook unbaited, and they would queue up to bite it. We spent a few days there stocking up for the return journey.” I gave the knot a bit of a flick, and it unrolled itself, seemingly doubling the size of the ball as it opened up.
“Good catches?”
“Ha, some of the best in my life. I got a Tuna this big.” He held his arms out about three feet wide. “And a bunch of smaller ones… we ate well on the return journey. But then there were a lot less of us and favourable winds sped us along.”
We spoke a bit more about the weather on the journey back, about the different islands. Jais even briefly spoke about the City of Landing, our destination. Though only so much as to say it was breathtaking, and he didn’t have the words to describe it. It took me about 20 minutes, but I finally managed to untangle the last of the knots and rolled the line around the wooden spindle.
‘For extensive use of dextrous movements, Dexterity point gained’
Sweet, I thought to myself, my first stat point.
“One untangled line.” I declared and held it out to Jais. He opened his eyes and started to reach out to take it. I then noticed his eye was no longer on his hand but beyond it, surprise appearing on his face. I followed his gaze to see the tip of the rod twitching. The man went from being practically horizontal to being on his feet with the rod in his hand. I could see the rod bending as he fought the fish, loosening the line, reeling it back in. At some point, I had gotten back to my feet. The other rod started to bend. It started to slip out of its hook. I grabbed it.
“Let the line out!” he commanded. His voice was terse with concentration. “Keep it tense, though. Slow it down, not stop it. Good. Like that. When it stops pulling, wind it back in. You want to try and tire the fish out without putting too much strain on the line…” I saw him lowering his rod as he wound the reel, and then lifted it back up and tried to copy that.
One of the other sailors ran up, but when he reached for the rod, Jais told him it was mine. I could feel him hovering near, ready to help, but otherwise left me to it.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
When the fish pulled, I let it run; when it slowed, I started to reel it in. I had tried river fishing with a cousin once, I'd found it quite boring. This, though…this was exhilarating. I lost track of how long it took, but in the end, I proudly stood with a fish the length of my arm, held out before me. It was small in comparison to the monster Jais pulled in; two of the crew ended up helping to get it on deck. The bonus, though:
[Skill gained - Gathering: Fishing - 1 rank]
“This will make the Captain happy.” Jais grinned as he passed the fish he had caught to one of the other sailors. “He was lambasting in Mess this morning about wanting more variety. Nothing better than one of Cookie’s Fish soups! Now, before I forget, I owe you a token for the line.” He dug around in his tackle box and pulled out a small wooden coin. “This is your first, right?” he asked
“Yes.”
“No one explained the inventory to you? No.” He passed me the token. “One of the best perks of the system is the [Inventory], which will allow you to store a number of items. There are some skills which will expand it, as well as your ranks in the attunement stat. Some claim it is like a muscle; the more you exercise it, the bigger it will get. Think [Store] while looking at the token.”
Following his instruction, I was surprised when the small wooden disc disappeared in a cascade of sparks.
“With practice, you should be able to take anything close to you that’s not claimed by someone else, into your [Inventory] without touching it, and even equip items stored in it. Next step is getting stuff out of your [Inventory], like with the status page, think [Inventory].”
I did as he suggested, and I saw a window pop up in front of my eyes. There was a picture of the token and the words ‘Merit Token’ qty: 1’
“To retrieve items, you can either reach out and grab it from the window, or picture it in your hand and think [Retrieve].” I tried the latter first, restored the token and tried grabbing it from the window. I got a nod and a smile as I stored it away once more.
“Now, you also saved my second favourite rod, and caught that snapper. For the fish, there will be a place for you at the Captain’s table for dinner. For the rod…” he held his hand out, and a small four-inch folding knife shimmered into existence. “I was given this by the man whose rod I used to catch my first fish,” he said, pressing it into my hand. “Seems only fair to pass it along.”
“Thank you,” and looked down at it. A moment later, I added it to [Inventory].
‘Gatherer’s blade [Good] added to [Inventory]’
“My pleasure. If you’ll excuse me, though, I must return to duty.” He shrugged into an officer’s jacket that seemed to appear from nowhere and started toward the main deck stairs.
“Jackson!” he calls out to the sailor who had come to help me. “Looks like there might be some nibbles. See if you can catch some more!”
“Aye, Aye, Sir!” the Sailor, Jackson, said with a salute before hurrying over to recast the rods and settle into the deckchair.
Elias Netter has sent you a DM!
A screen popped up.
There was a snapshot of my avatar, holding out the fish I had caught, with this shocked look on her face.
“Hi!” an excited voice said from behind me. “That was so cool! How did you trigger that fishing event?” the player, I assumed was Elias Netter, asked.
“I just untangled the line and grabbed the 2nd rod when I saw it come out of the hook… thingy,” I confirmed, indicating over my shoulder.
“Cheers!” he gushed and rushed over to the guy on the deck chair.
I looked around and saw one of the sailors leaning against the rail near a narrow gap, where a plank had been secured; it looked suspiciously like a pirate’s gangplank. I wandered over to him.
“Hi, are you offering tokens?” I asked.
“Can you swim?” he responded, gruffly, not even looking up from his fingers.
“I can…” I responded, hesitating at his tone.
He jerked his chin at the water. “See that plank of wood?” he asked,
I followed his gesture to a plank bobbing up and down in the water, about 50 metres out.
“Solve the riddle on it, and the token’s yours.”
I glanced down at the ten metre drop to the water below. Stepped onto the gangplank. Stored my shoes into [Inventory] and jumped off. I had considered swallow diving, but decided instead to take it safer. I hadn’t expected to feel the wind roaring past me as I fell. Though I was presently surprised that the freezing cold water I had expected was merely cool. I kicked up using a dolphin motion and broke the surface with a gasp. It took me a moment to get control of my now long red hair, the first time I had been at all conscious of the change since I started playing. Once I'd cleared it from my eyes, I leaned forward and started front crawling towards the plank.
As I got closer, I noticed there was a line attached to it, running back to the ship. I’m guessing so the gruff sailor could pull it back without getting himself wet. Carved into the wood on its surface was the following riddle:
‘I have one half in the night sky and the other in a lake. If my arms had hands, there would be many for you to shake. I can regrow a part of me if it is cut off. What am I?