The ceiling swayed back and forth, the room spun, and my head pounded.

“Where’s that fucking cat?” I asked no one in particular.

“Cat? What cat?” croaked a disembodied voice from somewhere off to the side.

“The one that shit in my mouth,” I complained. I felt like a wrung-out dishtowel.

I tried to climb out of bed but the bed moved unhelpfully. I finally fell out of the hammock and landed on the wooden floor harder than I wanted to. I got in some more groaning before squinting at my surroundings again.

I was in a ship's hold, that much was clear from the unmistakable way it swayed. Something was wrong though. Instead of barrels and crates, the hold was crammed with bolts of fabric, tinkling bottles of rum, and a conspicuous chest held in place by a cargo-net.

“Oh no.” I managed before a burp threatened to become something more. I pulled myself up the ladder as best I could while the ship swayed underfoot. When my head poked up above deck, I closed my eyes again. The bright sun glared at me in a way that shouldn’t have been possible in a cavern.

My heart sank. Then my bile rose again and I rushed for the side of the ship. After my stomach was emptied I felt marginally better. Not good enough to leave the rail, but good enough to watch the cliffs recede back over the horizon. I hung there like a sack of flour until Duncan came by.

“That’s enough layin’ about. You’re not a passenger anymore, hop to sailor!”

“Wha?” Was all I could manage while squinting back at him. It was way too bright out here.

“I said hop to!” He punctuated his statement with a boot in my rear. That got me moving towards the other sailors, one of whom passed me a long-handled brush.

“Nothin’ like swabbin’ to cure a hangover.” He said before plunging his own rough-bristled-broom into a bucket of seawater and scraping the deck.

“What’s happening? Why did we leave already? Why am I still on board?” With each blurted question I got more frantic. Harry paused in his brushing long enough to give me a sidelong glance. Then he went back to his chore and laid out the disaster like he was talking about the weather.

“Cap’n’s a brisk trader. Got us a fresh load. Can’t just rot at the docks now can we? A ship’s not a ship ‘less it’s sailing. As for you, yer signed on with a long term contract.”

“But, but I was blackout drunk!” I spluttered, “I don’t remember signing any contract! I was supposed to get off at Navarone!”

Harry shrugged.

“I don’t see as that makes much of a difference. You can always try and swim back to shore if you like, but then you’d be in violation of a magical contract. Don’t expect you’d last long ‘fore some bounty hunters slap a slave's collar ‘round your neck.”

I stood there as my extremities went numb. A shiver went up my spine as I recalled the cage of dejected... property, heading to the Colosseum. I dropped the brush and rushed to the stern where Duncan oversaw his crew.

“There’s been a huge mistake!” I started

“There most certainly has.” Duncan agreed “I’ll forgive it this once in light of our friendship and your inexperience. Now, get back to your post and don’t forget to address me as Captain from now on.”

“But,” I began. Duncan cut me off. His friendly smile twisted into a stern and disapproving glare.

“I know that you’ve never crewed before, but it’s a bad idea to argue with the captain when out at sea. It is well within my rights to toss disobedient crew overboard like the garbage they are.”

That was more than enough to send me scurrying back to my dropped brush. I fell in beside Harry, scrubbing the deck furiously until I couldn’t feel Duncan’s eyes on my back anymore.

“You’ve got to relax friend,” Harry reassured me. “This is a good ship with a good crew. You’ll make a shiny penny if you see to your end of the contract.”

I wasn’t convinced, but it was painfully clear that I wasn’t going to be getting off of the Sea-Cow for a very long time.

I found out quickly that they had been humoring me when I offered to help before. Everything I did was suddenly wrong. Every knot I tied, line I pulled, step I took were all fundamentally flawed and the seasoned sailors were happy to point out my shortcomings.

It was a relief when Duncan ordered me off of standard duty to play my “magic fiddle” as he called it. Almost twenty minutes passed while I caught my breath and the rest of the crew did their best to take advantage of the swirling eddies of wind. When I was too light-headed to stir the wind anymore, I went right back to wrestling with the lines that controlled the mainsail.

When Duncan finally let me rest, all I wanted to do was dunk my rope burned arms into an ice bath and go to sleep. The rest of the crew wouldn’t let me rest until I told them how “The Princess Bride” ended though.

I sleepily relayed the ending to the story as best as I could remember while William and Theodore messed around with my violin in the background. When they were all satisfied and repeating Inigo Montoya’s famous line, I went and paid Duncan a visit.

He was peering through his sextant at the first stars to outshine the setting sun. I waited until he was satisfied with the measurements and turned to face me.

“Captain.” I said, suddenly wide awake. I was almost shaking from the adrenaline. I’d never been great at confrontations with authority figures and this one had the authority of Judge Dredd as far as I knew.

“Oh, Patrick! You did well today, how can I help you?”

I spent most of the day fuming at the injustice of getting shanghaied into his crew and the friendly reception threw me off balance.

“I uh, I’d like to review my contract,” I said, really missing Sue from HR. I’d never really appreciated the short dumpy woman’s friendly approach until this moment. Duncan’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t expect to renegotiate your pay now that we’ve set out.” He warned.

“Oh no, I don’t want to do anything like that. It’s just, well, I can’t remember anything about it. I’d like to know what I’m signed up for.”

Duncan squinted at me for another few seconds before shrugging and leading me to his cabin just under the raised platform he usually haunted. It was cramped but it was also private which made it unique as far as spaces on the sea-cow went. There was a large iron-bound chest in one corner, a cot stretching across the stern wall and a desk strewn with charts built directly into the remaining corner. Duncan unlocked a drawer and pulled a glowing stack of parchments from it. He rifled through the pages until he found mine and presented me with it.

I was happy to see that I could read it. Most of the ships and signs I’d seen were painted in unfamiliar runes but the magical contract was written in plain English. Despite the legalese, it was pretty straightforward.

I was on the hook for Thirty voyages at a rate of one silver coin per trip. There was a stipulation for a bonus 5 copper for every day we managed to shave off of the expected travel time. I wasn’t allowed to use any cargo space for wares of my own but I could invest in the ship, pooling my accumulated pay and helping Duncan buy more merchandise in exchange for a percentage of the profits, or losses depending on how any voyage turned out.

The part I was most interested in came near the end though. Any breach of contract would alert the merchants guild and depending on the breach, the punishment could range from a simple fine to outlawry. While outlaws are romanticized to death, I’d rather avoid that life if I could.

It seemed like a pretty fair contract if I ignored the fact that I was blitzed when I signed it. In the end, I didn’t have a choice. I was going to be stuck on the Sea-Cow for… how long? That last trip took 8 days so if I multiply that by 30… something like eight months? That doesn’t account for longer trips either. My brain helpfully reminded me that we were significantly ahead of schedule on that last run too. It’s not unthinkable that I could be stuck on the Sea Cow for an entire year!

My dreams of saving damsels slipped through my fingers again. Duncan cleared his throat and I handed the paper sealing my fate back to the man, my Captain. I may as well start thinking of him that way.

I headed below decks and climbed into an unoccupied hammock.

For all the grumbling I had about my desk job, at least I was sober when I committed to it, and I was allowed to go home every night. Hell, I could even quit if I really wanted, now I’d be confined to this creaking prison for at least half a year. Bitter thoughts circled my head, keeping me from sleep.

I remembered Jerry’s callous response to the slaves and his role in getting me drunk in the first place. I remembered the way Duncan called me a friend in one breath and threatened my life with the next. These were the wrong people to trust. I was beginning to think that It was naive to trust anyone. I was a drifter in this world, I had no ties, no family, no one who really cares about me.

That thought sent me down a dark spiral but I unexpectedly found a mine of resolve at its bottom. If no one else was going to look out for me, I was going to have to take care of myself. I’d learn from Duncan and when the winds of fate blew in my direction, I’d do everything I could to take advantage of the breeze, even if it isn’t blowing directly towards my goals at the time.

I opened up my inventory. When I took out my violin earlier that day I noticed the change but I didn’t see it as the opportunity it was until now. All of my hard-earned coin was gone, but five bottles of rum stood in its place.

The contract prevented me from storing goods in the Sea-Cow’s hold, but it said nothing about storing them on my person, or selling them for personal gain. If things went well, this detour could become extremely profitable.

It wasn’t long before I drifted off to sweet dreams of enchanted armor and beautiful elite swordswoman tutors that were waiting just 30 easy voyages away.