Tales from Typheris

Maurice

We've avoided the majority of the storm, but some residual rain still caught up to us and now the deck was being showered with water. I was standing behind the wheel, staring at one of the barometers. It broke just a few days ago, luckily some intern was able to find a replacement one somewhere in the lower decks. The smaller barometer now stood proudly above the broken one, as if it had just conquered goliath. 'no, little fella, as soon as we get to port, I'm taking the old guy to a tinkerer, and then you'll be shelved for another couple years.' I thought to myself.

Though, what the hell am I talking about, the first thing I'm doing after docking the Nautilus, is taking an express ship back to my home island.

"Captain." a voice said behind me. I turned around to see my first mate Liza Crylbrie standing in the door.

"Hey Liz, all good?"

"Yes, I just thought you might be hungry, you haven't left this room at all today."

As if commanded I then noticed what she was holding, a large thermos, and a small cardboard container. She handed both to me, both were warm, both were almost hot. How did the cardboard retain so much heat? The cafeteria is on the other end of the ship. I smiled and thanked her, she left the room and closed the door behind her.

Opening the container revealed a greycap mushroom stew and what I presumed to be a lichen pate. The thermos turned out to have black tea inside. Very strong black tea, personally I'd have made it even stronger but Liz only drinks very mild tea so it makes sense why she made it the way she did. Still though I was incredibly grateful, she was right. I've been standing behind this stupid wheel for a good ten or so hours now. Having moved around slightly I realized that my legs were shaking, I locked the wheel and sat down with my meal.

After finishing the stew and half the pate I decided to get some fresh air, the rain seemed to have stopped so I grabbed the thermos, the remainder of the pate, checked to make sure the ship would handle itself for a few minutes and went out the door to the balcony on the side of the room. Immediately a burst of cold twilight wind hit me. I scarfed down the rest of the pate as fast as I could in fear of it getting cold and took another large gulp of tea. The thermos was very large and I'd be lucky to finish it in the next hour. Liz knew me well. I closed my eyes imagining my house, my family, I haven't seen them in over two months now. And my daughter, I sighed, she invited me over for her wedding recently, it was supposed to take place today, but with all the delays at the citadel, the ridiculously long loading and boarding at the whispertide main port and that dang storm we avoided a couple hours ago, causing another hour or so setback. I was late, I wish I could tell her how sorry I was, but sending a card just felt so cheap, plus, by the time that it would get there I would only be a couple hours behind it. But what could I do? This job was far too important, the Nautilus has to keep moving, and someone has to keep moving it. This ship, and I in turn as its captain, me,  was responsible for around a fifth of the world's trade, sure maybe it wasn't as big as the Ecliptic, or the Enigma, but the third largest vessel in the world is nothing to snicker at. Almost five hundred meters in hull length, over fifteen thousand tons covered in steel, planks, cement and who knows what else.

I think that before visiting my daughter I should probably get her something nice, aside from all the trinkets from everyone's wish lists, I made sure to find and get every single thing on each list, with only a few exceptions, some were completely out of stock, some were sold in pop up shops that only stood for a few weeks a year, there was only one item that no matter how long I looked for I couldn't find a trace of, it was a book that my cousin asked for, nothing too ridiculous either, it wasn't some Necronomicon, just a book about plants, I wasn't able to find it, so I got him five of the closest ones I could find.

My daughter's wedding came back into my mind, maybe if I just, no, there wasn't anything I could've done differently, the only possible thing I could have done is take an express flight over straight from the citadel, but then who would captain the Nautilus? Liz, with all her experience as first mate, wasn't able to do so, not to say that she wouldn't be able to steer the ship in an emergency, after all she was first mate for a reason. She had the proper training, and enough practice to be able to captain the vessel. But there are just so many things that come with being a captain, steering the Nautilus is only a small portion of the job.