HoloPirates: A Tale of Adventure

Getting an upgrade (or two!)

We followed Amelia back through the streets of Wake, being extra careful now that we had ANOTHER person that wasn't good to have out in public. We all kept our eyes on the knights that were roaming the streets, but thankfully, Noel's presence seemed to make them all leave us alone. We finally got up to the shipmaster, and the building he was in was just a squat, unassuming wooden building stationed on the pier, about five dock spaces away from our steamship. As we walked up to the shop, Amelia turned to us, still hiding her face from the many guards with her hood.
"Okay, the guy in here knows me, so just let me do the talking."
"Alright then, sounds like a plan." Marine said, looking around nervously.
I turned to the Storyteller and Botan, who were both still holding Jansen on the stretcher.
"How about you guys bring him to the ship and put him in the medical bay for the time being?"
The Storyteller nodded.
"You'll keep them out of trouble, right?" He asked, nodding specifically at Marine.
"Yeah, I will, trust me." I replied with a smirk.
And with that, Botan and the Storyteller hobbled off with Jansen, who, despite being healed, was still unconscious on the stretcher as they hauled him off to the ship. I turned back to the shipmaster's store, and I saw that Noel was holding the door open for me with a smile.
"Thanks." I said, shutting the door behind myself.
We all entered the store, and Amelia wasted no time as she marched right up to the counter, where this enormous, dark skinned man was standing, cleaning a spyglass with a polishing rag. He turned to face us for a moment, but the second he saw Amelia, his jaw dropped.
"Watson?" He aid. "Amelia Watson? What the hell are ye doing outside ye little doctor hole?"
"Oh haha Felix. I'm getting out of this shithole, that's what."
"Ye are?" He asked. "Wait. If yer leaving, then why the hell did ye come to me?"
"Because I need a little favor done." She said, putting her hands on the counter in front of her. "I need a proper medical bay established in the ship."
Felix let out the loudest belly laugh I had ever heard, but he stopped suddenly when he saw that no one was laughing except for him.
"Are ye serious Amelia? How about I just give ye the entirety of me shop?" He said. "Or how about I give ye a hundred cannons? Or treasure chests full of gold?"
"Come on Felix." She said. "You always seem to forget the favor that I did for you. I just need the bay established on the ship so that I can do my thing."
Felix looked at the counter, contemplating everything, and as I was watching, I noticed that Amelia had her hands behind her back, and she was doing a series of motions with her hand, almost like she was casting a spell.
"Alright. Ye know what?" He said. "I'll get ye the Medical Bay. But after that, everything else better be paid for in coin, not favors, got it?"
"Thank you Felix, you're such a dear."
"Mhm."
"What dock is your ship in?" He asked Marine.
"I think 17."
He nodded, then went into the back room and started talking to someone. I took that opportunity to lean towards Amelia, who still had her hands behind her back.
"What were you doing with your hands?"
"Casting a very, very simple persuasion spell." She said. "It only works on people that aren't exactly the brightest. Thankfully, Felix failed school and became a shipmaster, so he's pretty stupid."
She gave off a devious smile, looking at the models of cannons, ships wheels, and rigging that were strewn all over the counter.
"And that makes him the perfect target for the spell."
I gave her a scoff, then turned back around as Noel came up to the counter and looked over the cannons and rigging.
"Should we get anything else while we're here?"
"Oh yeah. I'm thinking a rigging upgrade that'll let us go faster, and better crew quarters." Marine said, looking over the model of the basic crew quarters. "And if we can get some heavier cannons, we can do more damage."
"I like that idea."
As we finished up talking, Felix came back into the room, and he looked over all of us.
"Alright, anything else we can do for ye this fine evening?"
"Yeah, we would like to upgrade the ship quite a bit." I said.
"I hope you have the money to pay for it." He replied, not taking his eyes off of me.
I turned to look at Marine, and when she pulled out the bag that had the treasure in it, the coins and jewels inside jingled, and that caught Felix's attention.
"Alrighty then." He said, wiping his hands with a rag. "Let's do business."
He wiped the counter, pushing all of his little models out of the way, and he put his hands on the counter.
"What is it that ye want?"
"An upgraded crew quarters, better rigging for the sails, and reinforcements for the hull." She said. "Also, some thirty pound cannons for the aftcastle. Six of them, to be exact."
"Thirty pound cannons?" Felix asked. "What, do ye want to blow a hole in the side of a fortress?"
"Kind of. We're gonna attempt to go through the Rifts."
"The Rifts?" Felix said. "Yer completely insane."
"Aye, but its the fastest way to the other side of the world."
"Wait a minute. The Rifts? What exactly is that?"
Marine turned to me, and she sighed.
'They're a thing that not too many people know about. They are gigantic passageways through the planet, and each Rift is guarded by an eternal hurricane that spews from the mouth of the Rift. One of them is extremely close to here, and if we can get through the hurricane, then we can get inside the Rift, and boom! We can ride through the Rift and just pop out on the other side of the world."
"Yeah, and ye'll be the first one to do it." Felix said.
"Wait what?" I replied.
"Yeah, no one has ever survived traveling through the Rifts before." He said. "They've gotten close, riding the rim of the Rift, but every time they try to go in, they disappear, never to be seen again."
"And you want to be the first to get through it?"
"No, we are GOING to be the first to go through it." She said. "Thats why we need the upgrades. Better rigging so that it allows us to weather the hurricanes, cannons to fight off any threats that might emerge from the Rift, and a better hull, to resist the damage of the Gravity Inversion."
"Gravity Inversion?"
"Aye, from legend, when you enter through the Rifts, the gravity inverts, and it can destroy your entire ship and kill you if you aren't prepared."
"Oh that's....positive."
"Aye that. Gotta stay positive about this. Jansen and I have always talked about this, but we've never actually done it."
"Alright then, I guess we'll be the first, as long as it gets us to our destination."
"Oh it will. Trust me on that."
I pondered the thought for a moment, thinking about how everyone else would react to the idea, but I pushed the thought out of my mind and focused.
"Alright, it sounds like it might work, and that's good enough for me." I said. "Let's get the upgrades."