The System Seas Chapter 42: Bar

As the sun set, they saw lights ahead. Aethe climbed the rigging for a better look.

"Lanterns," she said. "Patterned. So kind of signal. Could be trade related, I guess?"

"Could be," Marco said. "I'll bring us in slow."

The lights belonged to a single structure, a huge derelict ship chained to two enormous floating barrels. On the deck, a small marketplace had been built and then expanded. Hand-painted signs advertised various goods and services from the prow back, but it was the stateroom that seed to be the real draw. Smoke curled up from two separate fireplaces while light glowed rrily out the windows. Outside in the water, two other craft were tied up.

Aethe dropped down beside Marco.

“That’s not a port. That’s a traveling bar.”

“Doesn't look like it can travel very far,” Riv said. "More like a randomly floating bar. How is it the pirates haven't attacked it yet?"

"It's a bar,” Elisa said. “The places pirates can go to rest are few and far between. That's true for everyone on the sea, really. There are stories where lawn sit next to the people they are chasing at a traveling bar. Verified stories. Real history.”

"But they’re pirates. They break rules all the ti. It's pretty much the whole definition of who they are,” Riv protested.

"Not this one." Elisa shook her head. "It's like religion. I'm sure soone did it sowhere. Everything happens eventually. But there's almost no place we could be safer, in the short term."

The crew disembarked cautiously anyway. No one greeted them, but no one stopped them either. A man selling second-hand boots called out to them, but nobody else bothered until they were in the bar. Inside, the music was much louder. The crews of the two ships outside were as distinctly non-pirate as it got, but were already good and drunk and having an excellent ti. In a word, it was a loud place.

"This?" Riv whispered. "This is my kind of place."

They split up.

Marco kept his hand near his weapon as he browsed the bar's offerings which seed to mostly consist of fried fish and beer. He didn't feel opposed to taking up drinking, but now hardly seed like the right period of his life to take it up. He bought so fish using pirate-salvaged gold, then looked to the few stands set up to sell goods inside the building. Most of those goods were junk too, but even looking at them and talking with the vendors ca with the advantage of a chance to pick up information. One na ca up more than once.

“Saw a ship with black sails," said a toothless old man. "Didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. Just kept going east. Like it knew where it was headed.”

“It didn't try to get you?” Marco asked.

“? In my little ship? It's hardly better than a rowboat!” the man cackled. "Even the baddest pirate has targets that are beneath him.”

“What was it called?”

“The Calamity. Saw it clear as day. Evil na for an evil looking ship."

The others were gathering information too, although Riv didn't have the sa kind of problems with taking up drinking that Marco did. By the ti a half hour had passed, he was singing with the other crews, bouncing back and forth between tables of strangers like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Good friend you have there.” The woman at the bar slid another much bigger plate of food at Marco and his non-Riv friends when they reassembled at the bar. "It's on the house. A friend like yours is good for business, and I made too much."

“Thanks." Marco took a piece of the fish and popped it in his mouth. The woman was lying. The fish was too hot and fresh to have been the leftovers of so other batch. She had made it for them. "You're being awfully nice to us considering we just t."

"You're kids," the woman replied. "I have a son out there sowhere not much older than you. I hope soone gives him a plate of food when he needs it, so I'm paying my share here and now. So eat. You're doing a favor.”

The three dug in as the woman went to help other custors. Soon enough, though, she was back, carrying a few mugs with her. "Juice, not ale. Saw you weren't much interested in that before.”

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"Thanks. Mind if I ask you a question?” Marco said.

"Sure. Shoot.”

"Have you seen a big governnt ship around here? Piloted by a man nad Frisk? Or that big black-sailed ship everyone is talking about?"

"Depends,” the woman said as she crossed her arms. "What are you looking for them for? I don't want to be at fault when you end up at the bottom of the ocean.”

"It's not like that." Marco shook his head. "I'm avoiding them, not trying to look for trouble.”

"Everyone's avoiding them,” the woman stated.

"Not like . You tell where they are, and I'll sail the other way. I swear on this fish.”

“That's two more giants than a boy like you needs to be running from." The woman sighed. “The black ship, I can't help you. You heard that old fool's story?”

“I did.”

“That was two weeks ago. Since then, there's not been a peep. Frisk? He was through a few days ago. Sent his n aboard in shifts. If you had co yesterday, I still would have still been out of ale.”

“Ah.” Marco tried to hide his relief at not walking into a bar full of governnt sailors. “That makes sense.”

“I'm going to make a guess." The woman wiped the counter off for a mont then looked Marco in the eye. “You from a place called Gulf Isle?”

“I don’t think your guess is too far off,” Marco deflected before realizing that he would be better served telling the truth. “Yes, that's . He thinks I have an evil class."

That didn't seem like a lie, since Frisk really did think that. The woman wasn't fooled though. She laughed and slapped the table, then got close and spoke in low tones.

“You got this far at your age? You have an evil class for sure. And I'm glad. You'll need it.”

Marco didn’t finish his juice. The mug sat warm in his hand, condensation bleeding into his palm. He gave a nod of thanks, then turned away from the counter with an eye to scooping up Riv. The doors burst open before he could find his friend.

“The thin ship,” a man called out, flanked by two of his friends. “The little one. Who owns it?"

Nobody responded. The man's hand moved to his sword.

"I said, who owns it?" He drew the sword and pointed it forward. “I'm not asking again."

The barkeep woman threw down her rag and held her hands out in a conciliatory way. Walking around the counter, she smiled broadly.

"Now, now. Pirates, I take it? I wouldn't want you to have to break your own code causing trouble here."

“There won't be any trouble if you just tell what I want to know. I'm part of Steed's armada, you know? I'm not the kind of person you want to say no to.”

The woman was almost to the man by then. In a mont that shocked Marco almost off his barstool, she suddenly blurred forward, grabbed the man's head by the crown and chin, and twisted. A popping, cracking sort of sound ca from the man, who crumpled without so much as a surprised look on his face. The woman turned to the two fellow pirates he had walked in with and frowned.

“He didn't want to tell him no,” she said. “Do you also not want to tell you no? Because you've seen how I do it in sign language."

The n fled. The woman returned to the bar, leaving her hired help to strip and dump the body of their departed pirate. Marco was still there, frozen in shock.

"Not your fault, and before you suggest it, you don't owe anything." The woman crossed her arms and looked at her workers dragging the corpse out. “I did not gain all these levels to get threatened on my own ship.”

"Got it." Marco thought he understood. "I should probably leave though. Before I cause you any more trouble."

"I want to tell you no, just to spite that kind of custor. But you are probably right." The woman shook her head. "Doesn't an you can't co back when all this is over.”

"You better believe I will. And thanks for all the fish."

He found Elisa already leaning against the railing of the structure, arms crossed, face tilted up to the stars.

“She's pretty great,” Marco said quietly.

“Of course she is. She has a floating bar. That's not a thing most normal people can handle."

“Neither are you." Marco looked at Elisa. "Did you ever think we'd get this far?"

She smiled without turning.

"I figured sothing like this was coming. Maybe not this big or dangerous, but you've always been Marco.”

They stood in silence for a bit. Sowhere below, Riv belted out a chorus too loud for the song he was in. Aethe’s laugh followed shortly after.

“Should I have just let them catch , Elisa?” Marco asked. “For those two at least, they’re now stuck in my troubles whether they wanted to or not.”

“Too late to worry about that, and I guarantee you both of them would hit you for even asking.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad one?”

"Yes." Elisa sighed and pushed off the railing. "Let’s get them out before Riv starts a duel. We need his neck untwisted if he's going to keep carrying our stuff."

Back on the ship, Riv was hoisting a half-barrel of pickled vegetables like it was the most delicate and most valuable of treasures.

"Do you even like those?" Marco asked. "I never liked that kind."

"Not really, but it's variety. Don't knock it."

“We don't have room for that, Riv.” Elisa waved her notebook at him. "I checked, rember?"

“Relax,” Riv said. "I'll keep it in my bunk. I'll prop my feet up on it until there's room. It was a gift, and that lady is scary. I'd rather be able to tell her I enjoyed them later."

They made ready quickly. Sails raised. Lines untied. Nobody tried to stop them.

Marco steered The Foolish Endeavor away from the floating tavern as quickly as he could. Hours passed. The sea grew quiet again. Nobody was following them.

“Plans?" Aethe asked. “It sounds like that pirate knows about us and is actively hunting us down now. They know the ship that we sail, but not our faces yet.”

“Then we'll hunt him. His forces, anyway. We'll stay far away from the island for a while. We have another base, of sorts. That woman said she'd sell us supplies when we need them. And we'll see where that goes.”