Late Afternoon - Early Spring : Strait of Western Elynnor

Vice's face was red as a strawberry, it looked like he was gonna pop a blood vessel. -Man, he’s really putting his all into this..-

"That's.. impossib-"

*pop* His wrist popped as I felt his hand go limp.

-That's unfortunate.-

*Crack-creaak*

His hand cracked and the ship rocked as I slammed it into the table. -Whoops.. I definitely broke his hand with that..-

"AARGGH.." His groan echoed through the silent room.

-That was a bit underwhelming..- Although he was stronger than I expected, I couldn't help but be underwhelmed. "Well, while I'm here? Anyone else wanna give it a try?"

As I scanned the room, everyone wore looks of disbelief or fear, the only exception being Adrian who wore a wide smile.

"You want to give it a try, Adrian?" I was quite curious to see his strength first hand.

"Haha, I think I'll pass. Although I'd love to challenge you, I think the ship would give out before the victor is decided." He pointed towards the massive peg that was acting like a table

-Hm?- As I looked down, I noticed an indentation from my elbow and a small crack that formed where I slammed Vice's hand down. -Oh.. whoops.. I tried to hold back but still ended up damaging it..- "Well, that's a shame. I was looking forward to seeing how strong you were.." I was genuinely disappointed.

"Haha, well, if we come across any sea monsters I'll give you a good show, how about that?”

A smile quickly formed on my face. “Haha, I'll look forward to it!”

“Well, if there aren't any other challengers, how about Phil distributes the winnings?" I quickly realized Adrian's wide smile was from winning the bet.

"R..right.." Phil nervously walked up to the table and started sorting through the coins. *chink-chink*

The noise of coins being moved around filled the silence. No one moved, and no one talked.

-Are these guys antisocial or something?-

Adrian also quickly noticed the awkward atmosphere. "What's with the tense atmosphere guys? Just because most of you lost all your money doesn't mean you can't get it back."

"Cap.. we can't win against him… Even Vice got folded by him." The bald pirate from earlier spoke up in a halfhearted manner.

"Who said you needed to fight him?" He quickly caught everyone's attention. "Boys! We are setting sail for southern Nerrania and the top 5 crew that give the best performance on this voyage will get a 'special bonus'." He wore a confident smile.

Although I didn't know what that bonus was, the crew seemed to have an idea.

"Top 5?!"

"That means I have a chance!"

"I'm gon' destroy ya all!"

"Haha, bring it!"

Adrian quickly managed to repair nearly everyone's shattered spirits.

Of course not everyone could just be satisfied though. "How is that fair?!" Vice was angrily holding his broken and dislocated hand.

The crew didn't take kindly to his disagreement. "Oh shut up Vice, don't ruin this for us!"

"Just because you lost, you think you can drag us all with y-"

Adrian interrupted their arguing. "What is the problem, Vice?" Adrian walked up and looked down at him.

Vice immediately hesitated feeling the pressure from Adrian, but to my surprise, he didn't back down. "I have a broken and dislocated hand! How can I compete with them?!"

"Hmm, that's a fair point." Adrian sarcastically nodded his head, but the crew didn't seem to see the sarcasm.

They all froze up thinking that Adrian was actually going to change the rewards or competition.

Before anyone could respond though, I decided to step in. "So if your hand wasn't dislocated would you be in agreeance with everyone?"

Vice jolted a bit, not expecting my voice. "Of course!"

"Then how about this?" I looked at him with a playful smile as my aura accumulated around his limp hand.

"Wha-" *po-p-pop* "AAARRGGHHH!* He let out a loud scream as I used my aura to forcefully pop his hand back into place.

"Now everything's fair!" As I stood up from the seat, I looked towards the crew and noticed their mix of expressions.

Just as I was about to say something, Adrian yelled out. "What are you lazy asses doing just staring?!" Everyone tensed up hearing his booming voice. "Get above deck and get to work! We need to get going!"

There was a short pause before everyone responded in unison. "Aye, aye!" Quickly dispersing from the group, they all spread around the deck and started working on various tasks

"Sorry if they gave you a bad impression, Vasilias." Adrian seemed to notice that I wasn't a fan of the tense atmosphere around the crew.

"Haha, you're fine. I'm sure they'll ease up around me soon enough." Looking around, I noticed I was getting more curious looks from some of the crew instead of fear and awe like earlier. -I'm sure they'll warm up once I talk to them a bit..-

"They're all fun people to be around, we just haven't had any visitors besides family in several years." He wore an oddly loving smile as he watched the crew run around below deck.

-He really does care about the crew, huh..- "Well anyways, I'm going to go and relax above deck for a bit." I looked down at Phil who was counting coins. "Just give my winnings to Emelia if you could."

Phil paused for a moment before a warm smile came to his face. "To think the missus found such a gentleman."

Emelia’s face immediately flushed red. "That's-"

As I was walking towards the stairs above deck, I gave a light wave. "Just think of it as payment for hospitality." -I shouldn't create any misunderstandings with things like that..-

Above deck, the crew were all hard at work, dropping the sails and pulling up the anchor.

To my surprise though, none of them were using any of the various artifacts that were built into the ship. -Are they not there to ease the workload on the crew?-

To ease my curiosity, I walked up to a crewmember who was hastily tying off the rigging to the railing. "Sir, sorry if I'm bothering you, but what are all of those artifacts for?"

"Hm?" Not expecting a voice, he paused what he was doing and glanced back at me. "Ah. You mean these?" He reached over and tapped the artifact on the peg he was tying the rope to.

"Well, yeah. I'd assume they all have different purposes though, right?" Although several were on rigging pegs, those weren't the only ones.

"Haha, yeah. They each have their own use, but most of them are simple strengthening artifacts, they're part of the reason why the ship is so sturdy!" He puffed up his chest as he bragged about the ship's strength for a moment.

"So what are the other uses?"

"Well, these here.. on the pegs, have a fancy new rune that has come around recently called a tension rune!" He seemed proud of his knowledge. "Basically what it does is make things shrink in length but get fatter. It's great for the pegs since the rune makes the rope tighter and that tighter knot that is needed to hold the mast steady!"

In short, unlike how a strengthening rune increases the strength of crystalline bonds, the tension rune strengthens things with elasticity.

-How fascinating..- "Can tension runes snap the rope if it gets too tight?"

It looked like I popped his bubble of confidence with my question. "Well, I don't quite know all of the details yet, but Lynn should be able to give you some insight. At the very least, we have only had ropes snap to monsters yankin on em so far."

"How would monsters be able to yank on these ropes?" For a second I forgot about all of Mothers warnings about the oceans. I had somehow forgotten the horror stories about monsters the size of mountains existing.

"Well, some of the bigger creatures like octopus or krakens will sometimes reach up on board and if a rope is in the way, it'll snap." He turned around and finished tying off the rope before tapping the artifact making it give off a faint glow. "There’s nothing to worry about on this ship though, so don't worry! You're perfectly safe here." He showed a confident smile with his few missing teeth.

"Haha, it's reassuring to see your confidence."

"I'm glad I could give you some reassurance.” He quickly glanced over at another crewmate who was calling him over. “Well, I should get back to work so we can get going. Be sure to ask Lynn or Cap if you are curious about anything specific, they're both real smart."

"Alright, thanks for your help!"

"Anytime!" He happily ran across the deck and talked to another crewmember before tying more rigging to a different spot again.

-Maybe my impression wasn't as bad as I thought..-

Continuing around the deck, I carefully observed everyone's actions and asked a few other crewmates some questions I had.

After a while of asking around and chatting with the crew, I saw Adrian finally came up from below deck but unlike when I saw him earlier though, he seemed to be in a bad mood.

-Did something happen?- Quickly wrapping up my conversation with one of the crew, I made my way up to the bridge deck. "What's wrong, Adrian?"