“Mr Haverson.” A commanding voice called out from the cabin's door. “Have the flags been retrieved?”
I looked over to see a tall, imposing gentleman step out of the cabin below the ship’s wheel. He wore a dark blue jacket trimmed with golden embroidery, with three golden strips marking the ends of his sleeves. His hand raised, seating his Bicorne hat securely on his head as he scanned the deck with a practised air of command.
“On their way. Captain.” Not that he had been slouching before, but it seemed to me the Bosun was standing a little straighter. He fell in with the Captain as he made his way towards the bow.
I considered following, but something made me feel like it would just be a lot of standing around and waiting, so I decided to see what I could find down below. I had overheard from some of the others, and there were tokens to be found in the lower decks. As I approached the doors near the front of the ship, between the staircases heading up to the fore deck, I saw a teenager coming out carrying a large case.
“Where is your coat, Midshipman?” a familiar voice called out from behind me.
“Sorry, sir! I stored it when I dived in to help someone who couldn’t swim, sir.” The boy stammered out.
I turned to see Jais, the officer I had fished with earlier, walking up behind me. His sleeve bore two stripes, and he wore a less elaborate version of the Captain’s hat.
“Well, you’re not wet now, get it on before the Captain sees.”
“Ahhh, yessir!” A less fancy jacket, similar to the one on the other officer, appeared on his torso. “Thank you, Sir!” he ran up the stairs towards the bow, unsuccessfully in stopping the case bounce on a few stairs in the process. Jais’ eyes met mine and tried to, unsuccessfully, not laugh.
After the time I had spent out in the sun, below decks felt a lot darker and dingier. The creaks are more noticeable, the footsteps of players and sailors up on deck much louder. I passed the door to the kitchen and headed down the other side to one of the ship's lower decks. The first to not have windows, as it was roughly in line with the sea level. Other than the occasional pillar, the chamber I stepped into was largely open space. From the way there were hammocks strewn between some of the pillars, and chests secured in various places, my guess was that this was the crew’s quarters.
I approached one of the small crowds of players. There were several small wooden boxes, which had been repurposed to be seats surrounding, what I assume, based on the large letters written on the side of it, was a Rum barrel. There was a player sitting opposite one of the sailors, who had three slightly bent playing cards before him, which he was swapping around. He stopped.
“Which one is our lady?” The sailor asked.
The player considers the cards for a moment and points to the left one. “That one.”
The Cardshark flips the card to reveal the Queen of Hearts. “And a lovely lady she is to be found,” he pushes over a token towards the player. “But would you like to double down and try your luck for the harder crown?” He flips the middle card to reveal the Queen of Diamonds.
The player considers for a moment and pushes the token back across the barrel. The sailor grins, pushes the Queen of Hearts to the side, and reveals two cards, some low-level clubs and then places them face down on either side of the Queen of Diamonds, which he then flips.
His hands start moving, much, much quicker than before. “Around and around they go, where they stop nobody knows.” The queen moves to the left, then to the right… back left… middle… left… right… left… right… seems to go left but is just brought back again without being swapped. “Here and there, and everywhere.” There is movement with the other two cards, like he is trying to imply one of them is really the queen; they mix in with the queen as she is swapped around a few times. I tried not to blink while watching the swapping. It really felt like my eyes were starting to dry out when he came to a stop. He spread his hands and looked inquisitively at the player. Whose hand reaches out and confidently points to what I was sure was the queen. I grinned when it was flipped and was indeed the Queen of diamonds. A second token was added to the first.
“Two rounds won. One left to go. To find that buried treasure, though, you will need something to dig with.” He flips a card revealing the Ace of Spades, the card, though, had been heavily decorated to look like someone was digging for treasure.
“Don’t do it!” One of the crowd exclaimed. “No one wins the third round.”
“I’ll be the first then!” confidently declared the one sitting, and he pushed the two tokens back across. The sailor’s hand slides across the barrel top, the two tokens disappearing with the pass, three cards face up, the low-level clubs, and the ornate Ace. All three are flipped over, and he starts to move. I tried to follow. The cards were moving so fast that at one point I'm sure there were five of them on the barrel. He stops, sits back and smirks. The player returns it.
“Well…I know it’s not this one.” flips the left card. “Or this one.” flips the right. “So it must be this one, right?” he taps the middle card, his eyes never leaving the dealer.
The dealer's grin widened, and the crowd started chuckling. “No, lad, it was that one,” pointing to the right card, which was face up, showing the Ace of Spades. “Better luck next time.” As the loser got up grumbling to himself, the sailor pointed at a different player who took his place.
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I watched while waiting for my turn; only a couple of cocky types got it wrong on the first round. A handful lost track on the second. Most though took the two tokens. Judging by the crowd, my turn would be after the guy who just sat down. I had moved closer as others left and now had a prime viewing spot. It went as it had for the others, until the third round was offered, and the player doubled down. I focused hard on the cards and his hands; they moved quickly. They moved so fast it was a blur, but then I caught something.
‘Sometimes seeing is believing, Perception point gained’
I saw it again. He was swapping the cards in and out of his inventory. It wasn’t always the card he was holding, either. I’d been told that with practice, you can grab things you weren’t touching, but this kind of manipulation was a whole higher level. I wondered if the low light levels down here, coupled with the flickering of the lantern’s flames, were hiding it. I saw the flicker again, after the player made his choice, one of the other cards was switched.
It was my turn; the first two rounds went as expected. Should I take a risk? I already had the tokens I needed…I couldn’t resist. Putting my hand on the Queen of Diamonds, I quickly stored it as I reached out to pick up the Ace of Spades.
“Do you mind? The artwork was beautiful.” I took the moment to study the card. The artist was a real talent. I put a card face down with the whole of my hand and pushed the two tokens over to the sailor with the other. When his eyes moved to the tokens, I swapped the card under my hand with the Queen of Diamonds.
“Really? You just saw someone else fail, it can’t be done!” a voice in the crowd cried out.
The sailor matched my smirk as he started to move the cards, and then he faltered for a moment. He had just stored the card I replaced; his hands kept moving quickly, but the smirk had turned into a genuine grin. One, I returned.
I stepped away from the barrel four tokens richer and the new owner of a deck of cards. My reward for using his own trick against him. Crossing the room to another crowd, I could clearly hear a thud thud thud. The barrel there had two players under the watch of an overly tattooed sailor, playing the knife stabbing game. They got quicker and quicker until one of them slipped. Casual maiming didn’t appeal to me, so I headed further into the ship’s depths.
One of the chambers was a pump room. Most of the mechanism was hidden below the deck, but what I could see looked like a massive wooden see-saw. There were players on either side, 5 abreast, pushing down with their legs when it was at the top of their side, and then holding onto a bar hanging from the ceiling when it was down, to lift their weight as the other side pushed down.
“Strength or Endurance,” one of the players called out in answer to a question asked before I entered the room. I missed the chance for tokens with this one, though, as shortly after my arrival, the sailor in charge of the room declared the bilges cleared for now and to take a break. Probably a good thing, I would probably have just been hanging from the ceiling feet not touching the pump for the bottom third of its travel.
“Can we get some help over here?” One of the sailors called out from one of the storage rooms. “We’ve been ordered by Fleet to share some of our provisions with one of our neighbours. It would be appreciated if you could all grab a bag from this here pile or one of the barrels from those ones and deliver it to the Longboat. Tokens will be available for anyone who assists, and bonuses for anyone who goes above and beyond! Thank you.” I looked at the large sacks of flour and the barrels of some kind of liquid. I could probably roll the barrel to the stairs, but how would I then get it up? I tried picking one up. I couldn’t get my arms around it enough to grip it.
One of the players who had been on the bilge pump lifted it up onto his shoulder with ease. “Strength boosts for the win!” he celebrated and started moving towards the stairs.
I looked at the sacks and decided to give it a go. Managed to get a hand under it, then enough to get a grip, then lifted with my legs. I took a step. No way I was going to be able to carry it like this all the way to the stairs. Never mind, get it up them as well. I shifted it over to a barrel that had been left on its side and managed to get the sack up onto it. Shifted around, so I was facing away from the barrel, grabbed the corners of the sack over my shoulders, and then used the barrel to roll it onto my back. Standing up as I did so. It was a heavy load for me. So I took it one step at a time.
“Keep it up,” a familiar voice said from my side. “You are halfway to the stairs. You can do it!” I tilted my head to see a player's legs. I followed them up to the one who had completed the tight rope in style. The bugger stood upright, carrying his sack over one broad shoulder with ease.
“I won’t be beaten just because it is hard.”
“That’s the spirit. Still only one in strength? Most people doing this have at least two points.”
“First activity I found for strength was the bilge pumps, just as they cleared the bilges.”
“Well, if there is any justice, you will be rewarded one for this.”
He let me go first when we got to the stairs. Then followed me up. We were overtaken by one pair who were holding a sack between them. “To me.” “To you,” they chuntered as they moved past. I looked back down as I reached the last landing, and while there were several people carrying loads, I don’t think my slow pace was impacting anyone. Stepping out into the light, I could see that the cargo hatch was half open, and a sailor with a carpenter's kit was working on the cargo hoist, explaining why we were manually hauling them up the stairs. On the left-hand side of the ship, the longboat had been shifted from its secure home between the masts and was hanging from some pulleys on a crane which looked like it could be pushed over the side of the ship.
I dragged myself and my heavy load over to the waiting boat, already half filled with barrels and bags. Accompanied by the gentle encouragement of my fellow player. As I got close, two of the sailors relieved me of it and deposited it into the centre of the ship's largest boat.
“Ahh, Ravenscroft and Storm. Just the two I wanted to see. I trust you both have 6 tokens?” I nodded to the Bosun and looked at my fellow player, who was also nodding. “Excellent, would you be so kind as to join Midshipman Henshaw here in delivering this cargo to the Wayfarer?”
While the boat was being loaded with the goods from the hold, we were given a quick lesson on how to row the smaller vessel. The Midshipman was going to be commanding the vessel, his first command if the advice from a Lieutenant was anything to go by. We got into the boat, and it was then lowered into the sea. One of the sailors at the front and the Midshipman pushed off from the side of the ship, and then we settled into the task of rowing our way across the sea to the other ship.
“Row,” came the call from the Midshipman at the stern, a steady hand gripping the tiller. I pulled on the oar. Out of the water with a twist. Push forward, twist, back into the water in time for the next…
“Row.” I got to watch the ship we had been on slowly receding from us with each pull of the oar.
Storm annoyingly made it look easy. Smug bugger even gave me advice on improving my form…which grudgingly did make it easier to row. And sped us up. I realised the calls for ‘row’ were coming as I was back in position, and the others had been waiting for me. Trying to speed up, though, just seemed to make me make more mistakes and slow down even more. I hate being a noob at things.
My consolation came when we were about halfway across.
‘Feel the burn, strength point gained’
I got a pair of congratulations… they realised when it happened… we’d sped up.