“Are you going to take me up on this, or are you going to continue floundering around clueless?”

  “I’ll help. Where do we start?”

  “There should be a bell for chow soon. It’s not good, but it’s better than nothing if you’re hungry. Then, there are two cats in the hold.”

  “Only two?”

  “There are six more at the bay. After that, you do a couple of fetch quests. Have you done game magic yet?”

  “I haven’t seen game magic yet,” he answered.

  “It’s easy. No real way to mess it up, other than being slow. Are you proficient in skullduggery?”

  “I’ve picked some locks.”

  “We can pick you up a pair of rough travel boots, then, but you can’t equip them until we get ashore. The puzzle can’t be solved before 12, so we’ll have four hours after anchoring to prepare. We should be able to be on our way to Shilgrave by 1230. It’s the best place I’ve found for making money. And level three equipment is stupidly expensive. But with the two of us, we might be able to make it through the sixth level of the carillon, which should boost our income enough to buy at least something useful. I may or may not kill you at that point,” she said.

  “Wait!? What?!”

  “Don’t get too worked up about it. You’ll end up here tomorrow morning, we can get the captain to drop us at the lighthouse, move back to the city, work through enough to buy one more piece of gear, and then be ready to join the privateers’ raid at 1600.”

  “But you want Galoots to join us?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t figured out how to get her here, yet.”

  “The players at the Farms say there is a way to get rough travel boots at the farm if you put out the fire before it consumes the butterfly garden.”

  “But each player is only allowed to have one pair. They don’t stack.”

  “Are they really necessary?”

  “Unless you want to spend an unreasonable amount of money on batteries, yes.” A bell chimed, followed by a whistle. “That’s the chow bell. Let’s go get our biscuits.” She led the way back toward the aft mast where a queue of rough-looking sailors waited for a turn to pull a hard tack biscuit out of a barrel. “It’s confusing to me that this is what they eat since the best I can make out is that they’ve only been underway for a couple of days. They should have a selection of fresher produce, but I think the developers didn’t do any research into what privateers ate.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The queue moved fast and Alastair soon had a dry-looking lump of flour in his hand. “Yum.” His sarcasm matched his enthusiasm.

  “They make better grub on the beach. So it’s not like you have to eat this all day every day.”

  Alastair forced it down, then noticed that several of the crew had mugs of something. He hoped it was beer. “Where can I get a mug?”

  “They all have their own. There should be a ladle in the rain bucket, though. You could drink from that.”

  The water at least didn’t taste overly stale, but he was glad to have something to help wash down the dry biscuit. Once he choked it down and took another couple of sips of water, he found Mal. “So, cats then spells?”

  “Down in the hold. Glooms and Murks. They’ll try to bite you. But it’s a playful bite. Shouldn’t hurt much.” Mal pointed at the ladder to the crew space. Down in there, then go aft. There shouldn’t be anyone around right now, but there is another ladder down that gets to the hold. It’s dark, so use your ears. It’ll play out like a couple of minigame flow puzzles, but they are easy. Just go down the center and nothing should happen to you.”

  “Then you’ll meet me here?”

  She shrugged, so Alastair climbed down the ladder. There was a bit more light from a porthole that was open, but a few sailors had either climbed back into their hammocks or never left. The hold was right where she had said, and he climbed down another ladder to the darkened hold. It was a moment later when an interface flashed on his screen and he saw the three-by-three grid. He took Mal’s advice, realizing she could have hurt him already had she chosen, and walked the three spaces down the middle.

  Puzzle complete. +1 to flow puzzles.

  Complete puzzle again? Yes/No?

  He selected no and was greeted by a quiet chirp. He knelt and reached out his hand and was rewarded by a gentle set of teeth on his outstretched hand. He used his other hand to pet where the head should be. The teeth released and the animal moved out from under his hand.

  Congratulations! You have pet a cat!

  You have met Murks {Murks is a black as midnight Bombay, sister of Glooms. Together they take care of any pests that get into the hold of the Fairlight.}

  Alastair stood and continued the way he thought he had been going. Another grid overlaid the darkness and again he moved forward three steps.

  Puzzle complete. +1 to flow puzzles.

  Complete puzzle again? Yes/No?

  Again, no, followed by another chirp. He repeated his steps and was again bitten.

  Congratulations! You have pet a cat!

  You have met Glooms {Glooms is a black as midnight Bombay, sister of Murks. Together they take care of any pests that get into the hold of the Fairlight.}

  Congratulations! You have unlocked Chat 2!