“Why had we demanded tolls and at times, other items from unrelated people you ask? Well, it’s a simple question to answer, really. There’s too few of the rats who dared to try the seas these days, and I got an island with thousands of people on it that relied on us for their better living.

If I gotta rob some randoms to give my people a better life than what the rats gave us, I bloody well will!” - Zendala Gamba-Kibwe, Captain of the pirate ship Blood-Hunter and former revolutionary leader, wanted Dead or Alive by the government of Xeluvo.

The two ships were roughly of the same size, though the other ship clearly had as much as triple the crew Le Faucon Noir had on its deck. Even so, nobody seemed worried, and despite their rough, at times menacing appearance, the crew of the other ship looked amiable and not hostile in the least towards them.

When they were close enough, both sides pushed out boarding planks - tools with a self-explanatory name, simply a broad, solid plank of wood with metal hooks on its end intended to bridge the gap between the ships and usually used for boarding purposes - towards each other, and made a somewhat shaky walkway between both ships together.

A small party - barely five people - walked calmly and easily down the shaky walkway as they crossed from the pirate ship to Arquivaldo’s ship, the person in the lead a young woman with dark skin and hair that was shaved nearly bald on one side and longer on the other. Behind her strolled four older, burly sailor types who seemed to be there more to keep an eye or guard the woman.

“Oh, little Nala! All grown-up now!” greeted Arquivaldo as he swooped and enveloped the young woman - now that Cal got a good look at her, probably one that was still in her late teens or so at most - in a fierce, friendly hug once she stepped foot on the deck of his ship. “How’s the old dog Zenny be doing? Still drinking like he had a vendetta with his liver?”

“Good to see you again, too, Captain Da’Hock,” said the young woman - Nala - with a tone like a junior who addressed a much older personage. “Grandpa is doing fine, and asked me to pass his regards if I happen to meet you at sea. He quit drinking a couple months ago, though.”

“Aw, a real shame,” said the unliving Captain with a frown as he finally let the girl go and exchanged nods with the older sailors who stood a respectful distance behind her. “That old dog be one of the few good enough around here to drink with me and not drop dead drunk after a single barrel.”

The small delegation was then brought towards the center of the deck, where an impromptu low table had been set. Both the Captain and the young woman sat cross-legged on opposite sides of the table, directly on the deck, with their respective retinues seated next to them. Then the young woman brought out a small barrel out of her storage, and the Captain did the same with a half-dozen glass bottles of liquor.

Then the next thing Cal knew, tankards were brought out by the crew members, and the alcohol was poured freely in large quantities, as those seated around the table inhaled the hard liquor as if it was mere ale while they jested drunkenly with one another. The liquor then made its way around the crew, and Cal found herself receiving a proffered tankard not long after.

She took a sniff at the sweet-smelling liquor, though the potent alcoholic smell lay beneath that sweet scent, then took a sip. Much like she expected, it had an initial sweetness to it, before a strong alcoholic kick followed. Despite the strength of the drink though, it would be easy for people to drink lots of it, due to its sweet and refreshing taste.

It tasted a bit like the aged rums she often drank with the captain, which he was particularly fond of, but without the aging. Instead, it tasted almost as if it was juice freshly squeezed out of the sugarcanes, just one with a strong kick to it. Definitely something that was dangerous to the unwary drinker unaware of its potency.

Before long the festivities spread between both ships, as sailors crossed the planks and made merry with each other over both decks. Cal smirked with some schadenfreude when her students joined the captain and the others at the table, and saw how the older sailors from the other ship seemed to have challenged them to a drinking contest.

Learning how to handle their drink better was one of the minor tricks Cal taught her students early, so before too long, several of the older sailors were either puking their guts out by the railings - while someone nearby held them to prevent them from falling overboard - or dropped dead drunk by the table, while Cal’s three students still chugged down their drinks as if it was merely water.

Giselle looked almost like a refined lady drinking tea when she sat down and calmly sipped the contents of her glass, though it was hard liquor within rather than tea. Ognar and Willa on the other hand poured the contents of entire tankards down their throat in one go, which gained the respect of the sailors and caused some of them to attempt the same in a show of oneupmanship.

While the sailors managed to replicate the feat without too much difficulty, they simply couldn’t keep up with the liquor capacity of a blood mage. Cal herself regularly drank dwarves down the table, much less the mostly human sailors of the pirate crew. Despite the festivities and general drunkenness, the two ships sailed on along the way together, if somewhat more slowly than before.

By the time the riotous merriment was mostly over a few hours later, as the sun began to set and the evening approached, drunk people were scattered all over the decks of both ships, and all Cal could think of was how their respective healers would be overwhelmed with work for the next few days for certain.

After all, there was a lot of people suffering from alcohol poisoning that would certainly need their aid.