A hundred gimps marched through town. Their stomps were in unison, tapping the ground like marching snares, and the Gimp King their baton-twirling leader. He turned the formation around the corner, and they paraded down the main street in full view of my ship.

Vil and I walked sheepishly beside them.

The pirates and rebels were still half-drunk ashore, and they stopped and stared in awe at the gimps as they tap-tap-tapped across, and--of fucking course--the pirate captain found the cadence of their footsteps to his liking, and drunkenly, he pushed his way through the crowd, felt the spirit of music rise within, and opened his mouth to sing.

His favorite pirate backup singers joined in, and soon, everyone in town began to join in with the chorus, the bridge--and as the gimps crossed the gangplank--the second verse.

This was punishment for my sins, surely.

We passed the rebel leaders, and while they stared both at the gimps and at me with a horrified, confused look on their faces, they knew there was jack shit that could be done. After all, this was my ship, and those gimps were crew now. The gimp crew.

I had the Gimp King lead his hundred leather-clad gimps into the cargo hold, which was already pretty much empty. I made a note later to give them their own special room, so they could just stand around like trees again, but within the safety of my own ship.

Vil had asked me why I agreed to this, and I had to tell him about the cave gimps that I had fought and how ferocious they were in combat. If anything, they would be a final defensive line for boarding attacks. Or maybe we could strap them to rockets and use them as gimp-based long-range weaponry.

Once the gimps were in order and the return-to-ship call sent out, I returned to the bridge to find Doc Jackelope arguing with the Card King.

"Bravo, Redrim," Doc said when he saw me. "You seem to know what you're doing, so pray continue. However, we have a slight problem, you see."

The Card King cleaned his glasses with his rebel jacket. "We've lost contact with the rebel cell in the desert, right as the imperials launched another assault."

I stomped up to him. "I told you, we should've gone there first. Fuck!"

"Now, now," he said with a calming gesture. "They've been under siege for months now, and they're well-supplied and well-trained. Have some faith in them, Admiral Redrim."

I backed away. "Plot a course. We'll head there now."

"That's not exactly the problem," Doc said. "The problem is our communications device. The mode-enable antenna you have on the bridge hardpoint."

I looked up as if I could see it through the ceiling. I couldn't. "What's wrong with it?"

"We're getting strange radio signals, you see. I suspect that our communications are being jammed, the channels flooded with static."

"I only know some of those words," I said.

"What's important here, Redrim, is that we must be careful moving forward. Fully expect another battle soon."

"That's all you had to say."

Once the rebel chain of command could account for all the crew, we embarked again into the open blue seas. The clouds began to scatter to show us a midday sun, and the day warmed up a bit.

I put us on the correct course and gave the wheel to one of the rebel officers. I had other shit to do.

The first thing was to check the work order status.

Work Order Complete

Time Elapsed Since Last XP Gain: 199 Minutes

Current XP Rate: 900 XP/s

+10,746,000 XP

+1 Level [Level 52]

+1 Class Point

Good. That was done. It was mostly weapons and armor, so I knew we'd be ready for the next fight. Hell, I was even hoping we'd run into some more imperial warships. I was ready to bust ass.

At this point, I was back in my quarters, doing my usual planning, when Jessie ringed up my line. "It's done," she said.

"What is?"

"The railgun. I'll drop the blueprint down your chute, and you should be able to make it. Also, I made a few other things I want you to use. To make life a little easier."

"What the hell is a railgun?" I asked.

+1 Railgun, Mark One (Ancient)

+1 Railgun Projectile (Ancient)

+1 Visual Monitor (Ancient)

+1 Rocket Array (Rare)

New Recipes unlocked.

Holy shit. I really needed to keep this woman on board if she kept making me ancient-level equipment. "Hey, I got it, thanks," I told her. "What are you, uh, doing later?"

"Hiding," she said.

"What?"

"You found him, didn't you? The Gimp King."

"Yyyyyep."

"He's on this ship, isn't he?"

"Yyyyyep."

She groaned. "Goddamnit, Redrim." The line clicked off.

I might've made a mistake somewhere, but I was already elbow-deep in gimps, and the Gimp King himself was already loose on this ship somewhere. Was that a good idea? No, it was fine. If worse came to worse, I could throw them into a dimensional floor in the dungeon and just sort it out then.

Shaking off the thought of gimps and dungeons and sexually dark things, I decided to go ahead and check out the specs for the new railgun to compare it with the tank turrets we were using.

Railgun Mark One

Muzzle Velocity: 2,500 m/s

Effective Range: 203km

Fire Rate: 30s

Description: High penetration, low explosive payload. Projectiles customized to include up to three different enchantments added via spell modules.

T-34/85 Turret

Muzzle Velocity: 950 m/s

Effective Range: 3.5km

Fire Rate: 6s

Description: Turret of a Soviet T-34/85, retrofitted to be installed for ship use.

Incredible. It wouldn't replace all of the turrets due to its abysmal fire rate, but we needed at least one in the middle deck to snipe with. Not only that, but it had an awesome modular enchantment system where we could hot-swap spells into the payload as we needed. No need to make a bunch of specific spell combo rounds when I could make all the enchantment modules separately. Genius.

Now all I had to do was unlock the hardpoints and put in the order.

Hardpoints 12 unlocked.

Work Order

Hull Expansion: 20m

Hull Expansion: Gimp Storage

Hull Expansion: Executive Room

Deck 3 Hardpoint: Railgun Mark One

Rail Modules:

5 Nullify

5 Manashield

5 Freeze

5 Calm

5 Blind

5 Confusion

5 Spidersilk

10 Emulsification

Total: 490,800,000 W

Resource Gain: 70,000 W/s

Estimated Time Remaining: 117 Minutes

Excellent. Next, I needed to look over the crew registry, but I also wanted to go walk around a bit, so I went down to the cafeteria for a coffee.

The halls of the ship had widened a bit, it seemed, mostly due to Cassandra's alterations, and I was thankful for it. Now people could pass each other without needing to squeeze by. The halls still maintained a sort of circular tube shape, and the floors were thin grates that rattled as I walked over, but that was part of the charm.

Even more so that I noticed the ship was beginning to look a bit less like a ship and more like a tight-knit village. Some people had their clothes hanging up to dry along the walls, others put out little welcome rugs outside their dorms, one of the bunk bed rooms actually had chickens and a wireframe door to keep them in. Fascinating.

I would need to add a livestock room later. Mental note.

When I made it to the cafeteria, I noticed it was mostly empty. Not much had been changed, but it looked nicer. The floors were polished, the tables bolted into the floors, the kitchen was in another room in the back, and from the sound of pots and pans clanging around, I could tell the cooks were busy. The dining area was pretty slow, actually.

There wasn't a debate as to why, however. For the next room was the ship's tavern. Some lunatic had bolted wood planks along the walls to give it that ye olde feeling, and even outside, I could hear the rowdy crowds of drunken patrons, the clinking of beer mugs, the off-beat laughs of sailors and pirates and rebels, and when I stuck my head in, it was as though I looked into another ship.

The tavern was coated in wooden planks, lit by the glow of candles, and was packed. Someone noticed me as the admiral and raised a glass to cheer. Others joined in, took another swig, and the barmaid was called again.

This was no place to get any work done.

I went further down to the back of the ship and into the final room. The coffee lounge. It was about the size of a living room, with several couches and a little self-serve counter to make coffee at. Luckily, a pot had just finished brewing, so I stepped over to help myself.

Lara was here, too, digging around in the cabinets. "Oh! It's you," she said. "You startled me."

The steam of the coffee rose to my face, and I drank in the smell. "Did you decorate this place?" I asked.

"Yep! The commander tasked me with that sort of thing. I should also thank you for making the crafting room so easy to work with. I had no idea it would be so easy! I just tell the voice what I want, and she makes it."

The voice was Cassandra, apparently. At least it kept her busy and occupied, crafting orders for all the crew.

I sat down on the couch and sank into the comfort of it. I almost regretted that I didn't experience fatigue like humans do because this was the perfect couch to rest in. "Don't mention it," I said. "I'm just glad I don't have to read itemized lists of things to make."

She smiled and stood. I noticed she wasn't in her usual white peasant's dress but was now dressed more like... a regular rebel soldier. She wore an olive drab uniform jacket with the sleeves rolled up, short shorts, and long black boots. Wait. It looked like Jessie's old uniform but much more tasteful.

The door clicked open. It was Vil, and behind him, the hero party. They stomped in. Vil nodded with his usual greeting, the knight grinned wide, and his party narrowed their eyes playfully at me--probably still cautious about the naked Jessie incident.

"Sir Redrim! At last, we meet again!"

"Yep."

His comrades huddled around the coffee pot, took their cups, and went to the corner table. The knight followed. "Tell me, old friend," he said, "How fared our battle with villainous crab demon?"

"The Kraken-spawn?"

"Aye." He poured his coffee.

"It was a good fight," I said. "Especially that magic bullshit right at the end." I gave the mage a thumbs up, and he returned the same expression a cat would give if you scratched its head.

Vil helped Lara with the bags of coffee beans behind the counter. "By the way," Vil said. "What discipline of magic was that?"

The mage replied. "Chronomancy," he said with that trying-too-hard-to-be-cool voice. "It's the only chronomancer spell that I know, and I can only use it once a day."

Vil put his elbows on the counter in thought. "Could that form of magic be used as an enchantment?"

The healer answered this time. "All magic can be used as enchantments, but I fail to see how it could be effective. If you enchant an explosion spell into a sword, it'll just make the sword explode right away."

The mage agreed. "It could be possible, but I would need to research it. And beyond that, I lack the equipment."

At this point, I had settled into the relative calm and quiet of the little coffee room, and I was mentally going over progression trees and math and ship stats but shook out of my stupor when I noticed Vil glaring at me.

"Apocathary and magic research," Vil said. "If we can share magic by enchanting potions, we'll be that much stronger."

Mental note. "Got it," I said.

"Also a training center," he said. "We could train the rebels and give them more class options."

Another mental note. "Roger that."

"By the way," the archer asked. "What is up with that burly guy with no pants?"

"Oh," Vil said. "That's the Gimp King. Try not to bother, look at, or associate with the Gimp King."

The door snapped open, and it clacked against the wall with an echo. It was Jessie, hair in a ponytail, dressed in booty shorts, a crop top, oversized gloves, and mechanic's goggles. Every other girl in the room stared cautiously at her.

"Ah, the tinker-maiden!" said the knight. The healer glared at him. "Perhaps you could do your sort of mechanic wizardry on my leg. I have no doubt that the gods have blessed you with such powers and that even fate would have you fix the--"

"It'll cost you," Jessie said as she poured her coffee. She took her cup, walked over to me, and plopped in my lap.

I picked her up and set her on the couch beside me.

Vil smirked. "She's expensive," he told the knight. Lara stomped his foot.

Jessie grinned. "I'm really quite cheap. Come over tonight, and I'll show you." She winked. "Bring your friends, too."

Those young adventurers looked away bashfully.

Finally, the room silenced a bit. Vil and Jessie started talking about the gimps and the Gimp King, and it was, for the most part, a normal conversation. Now that there was calm again, I went through the crew list.

Crew:

4 Rebel Leaders

9 Rebel Officers

1 Doc Jackelope

1 Blacksmith

1 Blacksmith's guard

11 Old Ladies

7 Old Dudes

13 Children

15 Miners

7 Farmers

3 Fishermen

3 Rebel Marksmen

20 Rebel Fighters

1 Rebel Caster

2 Medics

7 Adventurers

1 Cow Shit Farmer

37 Pirates

15 Pirate Wives

6 Pirate Children

100 Island Gimps

It seemed we had lost a few in the Kraken-spawn battle, but we also gained plenty with the pirates joining in. Also, the rebels seemed to have hired a few more from the town. While the list was informative, it was honestly unnecessary and a bit of a mess. I needed to clean it up a bit. "Cassandra," I asked inwardly. "Can you fix this shit?"

"Complete," she said.

The list blinked and reformed within my mind's eyes, and I saw that it was--

The door clicked open. It was Doc Jackelope. "Bravo, everyone. I see we've found the best room in--ah! Jessie--I've been searching for you." He hurried over and sat beside her. "I've this fantastic new idea for the ship's power system..."

It sounded cool, but I stopped listening. I had my own paperwork to do.

Crew:

Combat: 102

Support: 36

Gimps: 100

Mercenaries: 7

Non-Combatants: 19

These numbers were fucked. Why did we have so many damn kids onboard? It's a warship, not a daycare. Also, our gimp-count was a bit high in comparison to the combatants on the ship. Luckily they didn't need much space, and they didn't seem to need food either. I should've reclassified them as cargo or ammunition instead.

I decided to go ahead and make a new work order to--

The door snapped open, and a booming voice echoed. "Hello again, rebirther!"

It was the goddamn Gimp King, barefoot, pantless, the bulge in his thong throbbed with excitement. The mask still covered the top of his face, and his thin crown still glittered as it did before. He stood in his typical power stance, looking down at Jessie.

Jessie tried to smile politely, but her smile looked more like a grimace than anything. "Oh. Hello again."

"Interesting," he said. "That the calculations of the world bring us here again. I remember it as just the other day you--"

"Don't," she squeaked.

"--visited my gimp forest and gave them a good tussle. You shall be pleased to know that those very same gimps are aboard this ship if you so wish to entertain yourself with such means again."

"How do you recognize me?" she said. "I was a--I was something else then."

The Gimp King seethed with power. "I see not the color of a person's soul, no. I see but the color of their sexuality, the flavor of it, and yes, yes, I can sense it clearly now--" He waved his hands in front of her as if conducting a seance. "--Your soul bathes as the 'S', but to achieve completion, you require the 'M.'" His eyes were wild, his soul burned in the room, and he said, "If you wish, I can take you there."

The room was quiet.

The mage coughed.

I stood up. "Yeah, I'm gonna head out."

The door ripped open. The card king fell in. "Redrim! I've got this great idea!" He had like mounds of cards in his hands. "We need a new training room. A card training room. The new recruits have never played before. We must teach them our ways."

The Gimp King sat between Doc and Jessie and wrapped his arms around both. "Join me," he said, "And tonight, I will show you pleasures far from here." Somehow, both Jessie and Doc were entertaining the idea.

"Redrim," said Vil. "We need a bigger lounge."

"Yeah."

Several pirates fell in behind the Card King. They were drunk. One of them was... that fuckin' captain. He had this look in his eyes--GOD DAMNIT--he was gonna sing!

He started a song--oh no, it was catchy--about someone having a long dick. Redrim! It was about me, about me having a long dick. Shit! These rumors were premature! He's was shooting that load too early!

"If you want to train someone," Jessie told the Gimp King, "you should train Redrim. He tried to dom me, but he's just no good at it."

The Gimp King snapped over to me with the eyes of a predator. Fuck-fuck-fuck.

I tried to step around the drunken pirates, but--

"Oh, hello there, fella. I got this here mound of COW SHIT, and I'm looking for--"

"Nope."

I broke free, tried to sprint away--looked back to see the Gimp King's hungry stare into my soul--and I hurried off.

"Imsi," Cassandra said. "I'm getting sonar pings that you should be aware of."

"Not now," I said.

I looked back in my sprint.

The Gimp King! He sprinted behind me! He was chasing me! His arms dangled behind him, his head lowered to pull him forward, and--oh fuck, he was fast. His feet pounded across the ship, and I felt the power all the way into my bones.

I turned a corner, dropped to all fours, and activated my speediest HORSE MODE. I galloped down the halls, past curious passerby, around the corner--I think I lost him--up the stairs to the upper decks and stopped to look again behind me.

He was gone.

Feeling a little safer, I returned to my own quarters, open the door--he wasn't here--and I locked the door behind me.

I turned around.

"Admiral Redrim," he shouted.

I jolted back in shock. "Man, I'm just trying to run a tight ship here."

He clicked his tongue. "Now, now. That's bad boy behavior. A sub is not the only one who needs training, but doms, too. For the real power transaction may never take place unless the dom is properly equipped."

"You know what? Fuck it. Sure. Later, though. I'm busy."

He bowed slightly. Honorably, even. "Very well."

He stepped out of my room, and finally, fucking finally, I found peace again.

"Imsi," Cassandra said.

"What the hell is it now?"

"Sonar has picked up several imperial vessels 113 km West North West. Preventative action is recommended."

I took a deep breath. "Get ready for battle, I guess."