Chapter 222: Ship of Gold
As Mariah faded to smoke and raced away into the Skye, Captain Woodrat put away the deck of cards and piled his mound of chips in the same drawer. Then, with a spring in his step, he pulled Ozzy out the door of the cabin. "So, it's just you and I again, Mr. Ozzy. Time to take a look and see what sort of ship we have here."
She was a sloop, about 40 feet long and 15 feet wide with a single mast that gleamed brightly, the same color as her hull. Woodrat explained to Ozzy that the taller mast and long bowsprit would take a fore and aft sail, along with several stay sails. "Fast and quick to turn, we'll be one of the quickest ships on the smoke."
Her poop deck was raised four feet above the main deck, with a set of cabins directly beneath. A small set of stairs led down three feet into a short hall with three doors. The left and right doors led to small cabins, only six feet wide, and ten feet long. Portholes looked out on the sides, and a wooden screen let in light and air from the main deck. They were just big enough for two hammocks, one above the other, a small table or chest could be placed to either side of the door.
The captain's cabin was much larger, extending across the back of the ship and was ten feet by fifteen feet. The back wall had a large, multi-paned window that gave a view to the stern of the ship, while a porthole on either side would let in a breeze. Woodrat of course took this for himself. With their earlier treasure hunting having turned up the shell coins, he spent some time looking for hidden treasure. He didn't find any, but did find three disguised hiding places that he would be using to hide his own baubles.
A large wooden grate in the center of the ship gave light and air down into the holds, which were mostly empty. Woodrat found a few tools useful for maintaining a ship, and a large spool of what to Ozzy looked like thin copper chain. Ozzy asked about it and Woodrat began explaining what type of sails the ship would use.
"She's used to a Bermuda rig, and that's how I'll keep her. Fast and maneuverable, even with a normal hull. With a good bit of heat, an Auric hull can at least double that. She'll be a real pisscutter, as fast as any Gnarl Whale. Not that I'm anxious to race with one again."
A long bowsprit and jib boom extended from the prow of the ship. Chains for jib sails would run to points on the bowsprit from the top of the single mast. A gaff extended behind the mast, ready to hold a four-sided gaff sail. "She'll need a lot of chain made to hold the sails, which I'll have to work with you to get the job done. If we're to take advantage of her hull, care must be taken with the chains so they transfer the heat correctly."
"An auric hull steals the heat from the smoke, and runs it up the chains to her sails. The sails run hot, and don't need as much work as they normally would. You can run all day and all night and not have your sails go cool and fade away. I'll have to teach you to do a Kraken's Weave with the Auric cable inside. Then we can run up the chains, make some sail, and be ready to go if the salad starts getting frisky or we start having too many visitors."
"And this chain has to be made right. A bad chain can build heat and eventually break or explode if it can't move all the heat from the hull to the sails."
Ozzy looked at the smoke, the nearest open area being the length of a football field away. "Aren't you forgetting something? We need to get this oversized rowboat to the smoke before we start making her heavier. I'm down right curious about how you plan to do that."
Woodrat smiled at Ozzy. "I see that those long shifts as a lookout are paying off. Yes, we do have a small problem there. But I have three ideas in mind. The first is that we need to dig a channel down through the salad along the line of travel. That will cut a trough for the keel. Then I think I can rig a small square sail, and use it to move the ship along with a little help from an oversized mate dragging the ship along with a stout chain."
Ozzy stared at him for a long minute. "Dig a ditch, possibly break off the mast with a sail that can't move the ship, and have me drag an entire damned ship!? That's your plan?"
"I'm happy that you've grasped the basics so quickly. I think it's an outstanding plan. You've mentioned a time or two how strong you are, and with that whale's heart, I don't doubt you'll become stronger."
Woodrat pointed to a three-mast ship at the edge of the Sargasso, near where they needed to drag the new ship. "And if that doesn't work, then we'll take a week to make a league of chain and carve a set of block and tackle. It's a ton more work, but with a quadruple chain running to that larger ship, we can inch this one along and launch her within the month."
Ozzy started thinking about how much chain it would take to accomplish that feat of engineering. "Tell me about this trench we need to make. You've convinced me that plan A is probably worth trying."
Woodrat slapped him on the back. "See? I knew you'd agree and be eager to get to work."
The Skye about Dauntless was still troubled and the smoke was hot and violent. Normally the motion of the smoke was barely felt aboard a huge ship like Dauntless, as she moved under sail, cutting through the light waves and ignoring them. But today she moved up and down with the swells, with no speed to push aside the heavier waves. They had managed to rig one small top sail with the twenty or so men who were healthy enough to climb the mast that high and rig the chains. It kept them pointed in the right direction, but little headway was being made.
"What is the sick-list and crew compliment today, Doctor?" The captain knew the answer, it would vary just a bit from yesterday, but he hoped things might have improved more.
"Same as yesterday, Captain. We lost186 crew to the eruption. Lost overboard to the smoke, dashed to decks, or with burst furnaces. It was especially bad for the men up in the chains. They picked up a lot of heat very quickly when we tried to put up new sails. Fighting the crew that became charred lost us another 27 crew. We set sail from the Green Isles with 802 crew and officers aboard. We've lost 17 more since then. Of the 572 crew left, only 77 are fit to work, with another 107 good enough to care for those down with heatstroke. We did have one man recover yesterday."
That interested the captain. "Really? And who was that? Can we hope for more?"
The Doctor pointed down at a man working on the deck. "Old Finney sir. I'm not sure I can duplicate the 'medicine' that he took. He craves drink sir, and likes to keep a bottle to sip on each day, but the bottle burst in the eruption and he lost it. So today he took turpentine from the carpenter and drank a cup. It damn near killed him as he spewed it all up, spitting out flaming tar like his belly was on fire. He can't talk well sir, but he seems to be doing better."
Captain Cavendish shook his head, ruefully. The one man who manages to cure himself was the resident alcoholic who drank poison. "Is it too much to hope that his horrible cure might work on others?"
The doctor looked embarrassed. "I tried it, sir, but only on two of the bad ones. They both voided what was inside of them, but one turned charred and we had to put him down. The other just died. And we only have about a gallon of turpentine left."
The Captain turned and looked out to the horizon. "Thank you doctor. Carry on. I'm sure you have many patients to see."
Dauntless moved onward, slowly, pushed by her one small sail.
Despite putting extra weight on the ship, they moved the contents of the longboat into the hold. They would unload it if needed, but now, keeping the gathered food, treasure, and tools safe in the ship seemed prudent. Leaving barrels of sausage unattended was just asking for something to come snack on it. Woodrat pointed out how well the woven hammock he had found would go in the captain's quarters but Ozzy invoked the powerful ship's law of Finders Keepers and put it into the cabin he had claimed.
Despite having to be careful to duck his head, Ozzy loved the little cabin. The walls had carvings of islands floating in the smoke with gigantic trees towering above them. The smoke around the islands were filled with depictions of boats of all kinds and fanciful sea creatures that he hoped were just the unknown artist's imagination. Some of the creatures in the carvings were much larger than the biggest boat.
The hammock hung across half of the room, but left space for a table and stool, and a large sea chest. The first night when he slept in the hammock, Woodrat had trouble waking him for his shift. He'd slept soundly and dreamed of home. Woodrat had finally just dumped him to the deck to wake him. Ozzy got up, feeling refreshed. Sleepless in Seattle could only do so much when you bed was the deck of a small raft. He let Woodrat get his own sleep, and began the process of making a new type of chain.
The first part involved making a Kraken's Basket, several small chains that started from one point. The thin auric chain from the spool was in the center, and the other chains wove around it making a thick cable. The regular chains did the job they were intended for, while the auric in the center conducted the heat from the hull to the sails. The spool of chain turned out to be of different lengths. Woodrat explained that someone had carefully taken down the old chains, removed the smoke, and then wrapped them on the spool to keep them sorted.
Ozzy's main job was weaving new cables that they would use to rig the ship. Woodrat had selected the ones he wanted done first. It was a significantly more difficult job than making simple chain, but as he progressed, it got easier. There was a pattern to things, breathing out the smoke, and willing it to lengthen each small chain as they wove around and around the auric core. Woodrat came up to the main deck a few hours later as the light was getting brighter. Ozzy was concentrating hard on his weaving, so he grabbed a sausage from the barrel and got to work on his own. They needed a lot of chain, and there was not time to slack. Woodrat was anxious to claim this Ship of Gold for himself.
Woodrat spent time using all of the wood from the Splinter to fix the new ship. He spent special attention on the bowsprit, rudder and wheel, weaving in the dark infused wood from the old ship into key parts of the new one. After two days of work there was nothing left of the Splinter. Ozzy had finished enough of the chainwork for Woodrat to try and ignite a staysail at the front of the ship. He worked with Ozzy, showing him how to transfer heat to the sail, putting his hands on the chains that would hold it, and slowly pushing his own heat inside of it.
The next trick was how to make a new sail. This was a much harder task. Most crew could learn the skill Heat the Sails. But creating a new sail was something for captains. A mate could do it, but it took a vast amount of heat that normally only came when a captain gained radiance. Woodrat suspected his mate could handle the task, at least for a small sail that took a thousand heat or less.
Ozzy realized why Woodrat had been constantly drilling him on different types of ships and the sails they used. To make a new sail, the captain had to hold the image in his mind and then use a large amount of heat to create the sail. After that, anyone with the skill could add heat. If the image in your head was sloppy, you got a sloppy sail. The crew could slowly sort out the ripples and shape over time, but it took a lot of chainwork and a lot of smoke.
After the first staysail was done, Woodrat had Ozzy study it, feel its heat, and memorize its shape. Then the Captain waved his hand and let all the heat disperse into the air. "Your turn. Don't worry if it takes a few times, or feels like it's going to take a couple of days. This is a skill that takes a high intelligence to learn, and a mastery of heat and fire that comes with being a captain. The little sails I made on my rafts were toys compared to real sails."
Ozzy held the shape of the sail in his head. He could see it shimmering between the chains. Woodrat sat back and prepared for the long wait until his mate needed another lesson in the technique. He was just starting to take a nap when he heard his mate inhale, and then breath a plume of pure flame. The fire came out of him for several long seconds, and then he stopped and sat on the deck. "Damn, you weren't kidding about this being difficult. Feel like I ran ten miles."
Woodrat looked at the brightly glowing sail his mate had on his first try. "That'll do, mate, that'll do."
You have gained the skill: Sail Making
Sail Making is an INT based skill and helps in both the creation and heating of sails. Each rank in Sail Making multiplies the heat you use to create a sail, or to heat a sail, by 20%.
Sail Making has advanced to Rank 1. You have gained 50 experience in INT
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