I'll ask someone to go get one of the other pilots, at the very least having more eyes around is good, at the very best, someone other than me can do the getting-us-all-killed part.
Meanwhile, I'll stick to mundane means of crossing this obstacle - skirting the line where the wind runs fast enough to get us past this thing, without driving us headlong into it.
If one of the other pilots can take over for me at the wheel, I have a spell in mind I think might work. Seeing as I already have one Remove Impurities spell... no reason I can't destroy an iceberg by 'purifying' it back into water, especially if my spell could turn mead back into water and honey - undoing fermentation is a hell of a lot bigger a change than undoing freezing!
It takes about a quarter of an hour before Rob reaches you, apologizing that he took so long. He asks if you've got things under control or want him to take over. He thinks Commander Stanis is sleeping, but he didn't check. He'll take the wheel if you ask, or he'll go hunting for Commander Stanis.
--M. J. Young
1: Have I got things under control when he arrives?
1a: If so, does it seem like I can keep things under control for another half hour or so?
2: If not, is Rob better at this than I am?
2a: If so, does he seem like he sees what's going on well enough that he would have this for a good half hour or so?
If the answers add up to "it would be better to hand this off to Rob," I'll do so, and go get Commander Stanis (who is almost certainly better at this than either of us). Otherwise I'll ask Rob to do it while I hold things down here.
I DO have a spell idea in mind, but I actually have two, and one is a question. You'll see.
You have the ship under control. The challenge is significant, but you're comfortable with things at the moment. Rob is a better pilot, but then, one can never be too confident in a hazard situation like this.
--M. J. Young
I'm going to let Rob take it. Like I said, I have a plan.
I'll go down to the deck once Rob has this firmly in hand. What I intend to do, is to cast a spell.
First things first, make sure the Holy Ground on the deck is active and ready.
This one is going to involve words spoken both loudly and forcefully, commanding the iceberg to be gone in the name of Odin, god of sorcerers, Njordr, god of the sea, and Thor who protects travelers. I will then sacrifice three measures of gunpowder, and fire my flintlock pistol at the iceberg. Contrary to outward appearances, this is not a destruction spell. It is, in fact, a variant of my Purify spell. The intended effect is to purify the iceberg back into the seawater it was before it froze. This is reversion-to-past-state just like my Purify spell (and we've already seen that spell Purify the entire ship's hold at a single casting, so I know that using it on a grand scale is not that much harder). As an extra nod to Odin, I'll do the whole thing with my left eye closed. I'll do the whole thing with my left hand on the cold deck rail, in honor of Njordr, and I will make the sign of the hammer (almost identical to the sign of the cross, were one to execute it in a mirror) over the iceberg with my gun in honor of Thor. I don't feel like I have an hour to spend on this one, so instead I will finish the casting and get my results in 20 minutes, however as a price for this expediency, I will leave myself unable to perform any other magic for the next 400 minutes (6 hours, 40 minutes) - ten times the difference - exhausting me magically but not physically. The Holy Ground will be required.
As you begin your ritual, you realize that this will not achieve your desired result. Although your purification ritual uses word that suggest restoring a material to a desired prior state, it does not reverse time or aging but rather reverses decay process. There is no decay process in the iceberg; it is in fact purer than the seawater in which it floats (because it fell as snow from the sky, packed into glacial form, and was pushed into the ocean, and thus it is relatively pure).
You realize that you need a different theory if you hope to melt the iceberg.
--M. J. Young
I also realize that focusing on how I get the affect I want is a Wizard's way of thinking. Up until now, I've been thinking like a Druid. I don't care whether they do it by purifying the seawater or dropping fire from the sky. The point is, I know that it is possible to undo chemical and physical changes in this universe. Therefore, I just have to ask the gods to undo the physical changes that turn water into ice. In effect, turn this iceberg back into the moisture it was before it solidified and condensed, first into snow then into ice. My ritual doesn't actually have to change at all, only the mental focus behind it - from telling the gods "please do it this way" to "please make this happen, however you see fit."
Congratulations: you now know how to transmute a solid object into a liquid form of the same substance at the same temperature, subject to that liquid responding to environmental temperatures immediately thereafter. You can, in theory, turn ice into water at a temperature below 32F, but it will immediately begin turning back into ice unless it spreads into a warmer environment rapidly enough for its temperature to rise above freezing.
That actually could be really useful as an attack in arctic conditions: you could melt a glacier and watch as the water freezes around your enemies--except that it only works on a single unified object, so you would have to be on a separate glacier to avoid the problem yourself.
Unfortunately, although you now know how to perform the skill, it did not work because it is not possible to transmute objects in this universe. Apparently from a magical perspective, purifying an object is much simpler than altering its state.
--M. J. Young
The correction has been noted. You have not destroyed the iceberg, nor learned a new skill, but you do not have a penalty on your other skill.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
--M. J. Young
How did NOT taking a penalty somehow result in losing the skill? I don't follow.
It isn't that not taking the penalty resulted in losing the skill. What happened is that you pointed my attention to a completely distinct ritual, and that ritual defined itself in a specific way that made it impossible for me to interpret it as accomplishing what I originally stated (as a transmute state spell), requiring me to take it as something considerably more difficult (a temporal manipulation). That changed all the baselines and the probability of success.
Even if we were to assume that the skill you were attempting was not different from what I assumed in the original analysis, there were changes in the ritual that altered the numbers--a considerably shorter TF for example--and it would have had to be recalculated entirely. However, it was the temporal aspect that was the most problematic.
From the character perspective, it's not that important. Neither effect is possible by magic in this universe, so you can't melt the iceberg that way.
--M. J. Young
How did NOT taking a penalty somehow result in losing the skill? I don't follow.
Also, if I'm interpreting your question correctly, you have it backward: because you never learned the skill MJ incorrectly thought you were trying to learn, you aren't being penalized on the purification skill you already knew (a penalty which was added due to your having acquired a different skill with an identical ritual; identical rituals confuse the magician's expectations, which plays mechanically as a penalty).
Does that make sense?
Well, the time I've wasted contemplating the iceberg has probably been enough time for Rob to finish sailing us past it. At which point I'll resume the helm, seeing as it's still my shift and all.
Actually, Rob is still playing tag trying to get past the iceberg.
--M. J. Young
If he seems to have things well in hand - as well as I could reasonably do or better - then I'll content myself with TK Pulsing the iceberg away from the ship. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke.
Otherwise I'll go lend a hand if he seems to need it.
Your first attempt completely fails--you don't get the focus at all. Collecting yourself, though, you try again, and nudge the iceberg away from the center of the flow. You do it again, and get a considerably better push. Then you lose your focus on the fourth try, and three tries in a row all fail. Then you get another nudge as you start to regain focus.
You've had three successes in seven attempts, and for a couple minutes you get nothing at all. Then as you try the tenth time, you get a solid hit on the target, and it moves visibly away from the ship and starts slowing down, apparently having been shifted out of the main stream.
Rob pilots the ship past it, and within another hour it is far enough behind that it no longer poses any significant danger.
23 days after leaving Haven, you reach Moon of Korg. The large crescent-shaped island has a tricky harbor on the inner curve, due to the shoals which surround it, and there's a nasty crosswind when you reach it, so you give the helm over to Commander Stanis to bring it in safely.
Shore leave is possible in this mining town.
--M. J. Young
I'll take my shore leave.
Once again, the question is: what is there to DO while on shore leave here? Do they sell anything distinct to here? They're a mining town...
Wait a second...
Wait a second...
I want to try something. We're taking on trade goods here, right? Iron ore? Iron ore that is going to have impurities? Iron ore that would be worlds more valuable if I magically purified it? =^_^=
Indeed, you could try purifying ore.
Moon of Korg is a mining and manufacturing location. Although the ship does carry ore, it does not pick up any here--ore is purchased at Tristar, which you've already passed, so it's picked up from New Tempest near the beginning of the loop. Here the ship is delivering food and emerald, and buying manufactured goods which will be sold (along with more manufactured goods purchased in Sardic and some previously acquired from Durnmist) in New Tempest, New Haven, and Emerald. You would have to do your own hunting for ore, as the ship has already offloaded at Tristar what it picked up in New Tempest.
--M. J. Young
In that case, the heck with it. New Tempest is close enough to the beginning that I should hit it the next time around, before I arrive home in Durnmist. I'll just have to remind myself to try it out when I get there. I'll make a note in my journal about that, and put a "page 57" tickmark somewhere around page 86 (give or take) so that it should come up about the right time.
As for what to do in Moon of Korg, I suppose it depends entirely upon what they manufacture here. There isn't really much I need. Then again, mining and manufacturing towns are my kind of people. After all, I'm a descendant of Pennsylvania's coal-mining towns, and these are the kind of honest, straightforward people I like. I imagine I could spend a night getting happily drunk in this town and feel more or less right at home. So if there's nothing distinctly "you can only do this in Moon of Korg," to do, I'll do that. Maybe I'll even dare to sing if I get drunk enough.
There are sober men a-plenty,
And drunkards barely twenty,
There are men of over ninety
Who have never yet kissed a girl.
But give me a ramblin' rover,
From Orkney down to Dover,
We'll roam the country over,
And together we'll face the world.
You probably do not have time to take the long way around to Durnmist by way of Emerald. It typically takes a couple hundred days to get that far along, and you've promised to double back to Durnmist well before then and have spent a fair amount of that time already traveling toward Sardic. I've been assuming that you would take your pay in Sardic and book passage on a passenger ship headed the other way.
To clarify, on this run you reached Durnmist on the 244th day of the run, and now you are at Moon of Korg on the 318th day (Sardic is the next stop). That's now seventy-three days since you left Durnmist. If you go the long way, it will be over a year before you manage to cross the Greater Syndic from Emerald to Durnmist.
You could, of course, send a message some other way, informing your bride's family of your delay.
Oddly, that song sounds familiar, and I'm wondering whether it's one that my friend Carl Asch of Double Indemnity sings at Faires. I have one of his CDs around here somewhere, but I'm not sure I can find it.
You pull out of port the next day with a bit of a hangover, but once you're past the shoals it's pretty clear sailing. Sardic lies a couple weeks ahead, along with payday and the end of your contract.
--M. J. Young
It probably is. After all, Faire is where I learned it. =^_^=
The rest of it goes:
I have roamed through all the nations
Took delight in all creation,
And enjoyed a sweet sensation
When the company did prove kind.
And when parting's been no pleasure,
I've drunk another measure
To the good friends that we treasure,
For they always are on our minds.
(Chorus)
When you're bent with arthritis,
And your bowels have got colitis
You've the gallopin'-ballocks-itis,
And you're thinkin' it's time ye died,
If you've been a man of action,
While you're lying there in traction
You can gain some satisfaction,
Thinkin', 'Jesus, at least I tried.'
(Chorus) x2 or 3 as the mood the grabs you.
Here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt49mBHQ5OU
As for getting back to Durnmist, you're right - it is my plan to cash out my pay and my savings and head home to Durnmist post-haste. To that ends, I'll focus my helm shifts on making good time.
You make good time early in the run, but you lose it near the end when you get wrapped in a thick fog and lose the main current.
You reach Sardic three hundred thirty-eight days after you left it.
Crew are permitted to stay aboard overnight the day of arrival, but then must either commit to another run or disembark from the ship. You are paid in the morning. Your pay is 14,000 diktar. You can leave it on deposit in the company offices and draw it later, if you like.
Where are your emeralds, by the way?
--M. J. Young
My emeralds are in two wooden boxes in my quarters. I'll be transferring them to a large leather sack, which I will purchase on shore, and subsequently keep on my person, along with my backpack and other personal effects.
This... this is a bittersweet day. I've just gotten paid, and I'll be withdrawing all of my savings, which means that, as sailors go, I am almost obscenely flush at this point. But at the same time... I've set foot on the deck of the Mary Piper for the last time.
I'll give her one last blessing, to see her on her way. I will dismiss my holy grounds, in my chamber and the one on the deck. I won't be needing them any more.
But I will cast one last spell, on the one down in the hold. That spell will be a delayed reaction spell, and I'll spend five hours casting it, with all the usual pomp and flourish. Pacing the circle, sword in hand, other hand upraised. A swish of my sword (a skill check required), burn half a dozen emeralds (I probably have a crate and a half left by now), and invoke my gods with words and actions appropriate to them and to the occasion, invoking them to grant this one last boon upon this holy ground, to thank a man who has treated me well. I invoke Odin (doing this with my left eye covered), Thor (the sword-swish is my nod to Thor), and Freyr (I'll sacrifice a flower). This spell will require two casting times - one the five hours I am putting in now. The other a single word, "Novitas," the Latin word for Freshness, which must be spoken by the Captain in order to trigger the spell. The spell is still mine - my casting, my magic, and so on - but his action finishing it. The activated Holy Ground will be required to lay the first casting time, and the use of the second will sacrifice the Holy Ground - the magic itself, not the deck of the ship, used up like the primer of a bullet to fire off the spell.
Edit: I realize I've included everything in this spell except what spell it is. This is a really big delayed-reaction Restore Freshness spell.
I know it's not possible for the Captain to learn this spell or perform the whole thing himself, I just want to be able to leave a spell behind that he can trigger without needing to know how it works. I've already done everything. He just has to have faith, and say the word.
The only example I can think of, oddly enough, is one from the Bible, when a woman touches Jesus's robes and is Healed and he's all "who touched me?" and she's all, "I did, and you healed me," and he says something to the effect of, "It was my power, but you did it yourself: your faith healed you." Not that I'm comparing myself to Jesus, per se, it's just the thought that came to mind.
Once I feel the power go out from me and know that this spell is in place, I will go to the Captain. I'll tell him to fill his hold with all the fresh food he thinks he can sell there before sailing to Emerald. I'll tell him to leave the hold sealed until then. When he reaches Emerald, he is to go into the hold, lay his hand upon the floor, and speak the word, "Novitas." If he has faith in me and the things he has seen me do, the result will be my final gift to him.
At that point I will thank him for a memorable two years, and ask permission to disembark.
I'm not certain whether this matters, but is the spell configured such that this person specified as part of the casting must perform the trigger action, or such that anyone who performs the trigger action will complete the spell?
Once you disembark, where are you going?
--M. J. Young
Insofar as it matters, anyone who says the word with the intention of completing the spell (this is divine magic here - intention matters!) will do so - it doesn't have to be the captain. If, for instance, he is wounded, he could tell someone else about the spell and what to do to trigger it and that would work just fine.
Once I disembark... well, I'm disembarking in the morning. I'll try to book passage on the next ship headed straightaway to Durnmist, or as close to it as I can reasonably get. I'll offer to work for my passage and pay the balance. I have experience as a helmsman, navigator, and enough experience with fighting to work in security or as a marine. I'm also a passably good doctor (read: Cure Light Wounds on tap).
The Sardic Shipping Company has a passenger ship leaving in twelve days which will make as direct a trip to Durnmist as any can, and then make its way back through some other ports. They won't hire crew for less than a full trip commitment, but they will discount the 80 diktar price 20% for a retiring crewman, so you would pay 64 diktar for that journey.
One of the competitors has a ship leaving in three days, but it is sailing first to the island resort Galva for a five day layover before continuing to Durnmist. Galva is a bit farther east (out to sea) than the Sardic ship travels, so the total travel time will also be increased by a day or two. It still might arrive in Durnmist first, but the total travel time is estimated at forty days, plus or minus, for the direct route, so the vagaries of winds and currents will have a significant impact on that. This trip costs 100 diktar, but is more of a vacation travel than a business travel accommodation. They won't hire anyone who won't commit to completing the full voyage, either.
--M. J. Young
I'll sign on with the Sardic ship, but I'll keep that other ship in mind. Arabelle deserves a proper honeymoon, after all...
(Edit: I currently have to my name 22,056 diktar, plus the value of my uncut emeralds. Currently, all of this is in cash, which I imagine would add up to about a backpack full of gold if diktar are, for instance, the size of quarters. It would be very convenient if the Sardic Trading Company offered something along the lines of letters of credit that I might take with me and cash in once I reach Durnmist. If not... I'll just have to get a really secure crate to keep my net worth in.)
I apologize for the lack of clarity. You can keep your funds on deposit with the Sardic Shipping Company and draw them from any office. There are offices in most of the major ports--actually, all the major ports except Emerald, which has very little that resembles civilization thanks to the native cannibals. It sometimes takes time to confirm your holdings (there is no instant communication between ports, but ships carry dated updates of accounts). There is also no guarantee that any particular office will have the full amount on hand when you attempt to withdraw it, but they will acquire it as quickly as possible once they know you want it. You can be issued paper letters of credit, which facilitate the matter.
A gold diktar weighs about two ounces. That means your 22,056 diktar would weigh 1.3785 tons, if gathered in one place. You would not be able to book passage for yourself and that much "luggage", so letters of credit are your best course, once you decide how much cash you want to have in hand.
Was that amount before or after paying for passage?
--M. J. Young
That was the amount after, and includes every mention of "dikar" in this entire thread including the maximum spent on one thing that was "20-30," so it could theoretically be 10 more.
And, yeah, letters of credit are good. I think I'll take 1000 in cash. 1000 x 2oz / 16 = That's... 125 pounds.
(You mean to tell me my cutlass cost 375 pounds of gold? Wow. Gold must be cheaper than dirt here. I'll have to stock up.)
Anyway, I'll put my 125 pounds of gold in a steel-framed crate and pay two burly men to carry it (not telling them what's in it - and I'll put a layer of racked bullets on top in case anyone looks). Whatever I have left after that, I'll take out in letters of credit, and get aboard this new ship as quickly as possible.
You have letters of credit totalling 21,061 (splitting the difference on 20-30).
You can board the ship one day before it sets sail, which means you have two days in Sardic. Are you hiring these men just to carry the box wherever you are staying, or keeping them for a longer period?
Are you doing anything else while you are in Sardic?
--M. J. Young
I'll hire these men to carry the box from the Sardic office to the ship on the day I'm boarding. Before that, I'm only carrying a few dozen gold worth of pocket change. I'll spend those two days drinking and taking in the local culture. Sardic is a big city, so I imagine there's plenty to do here.
OH! That's what I'll do. I'll go to the University and check in with the professor I talked to last year, the history teacher. I'll return that book I borrowed on Sardic history (did I learn anything from that Sardic history textbook?) and I'll buy whatever books I can get my hands on on Durnmist history, culture, law, police procedures, intercity relations, and so on.
I have you down with a 1@1 History (Sardic) M 0@0, which I am raising to 1@2, so yes, you've learned something. The professor thanks you for the return of his book, and asks how you liked it. There are plenty of books on the history of the world and of individual cities, and Durnmist comes a close second to Sardic in that regard, a relatively old and established citystate. It's really a matter of how much you want to spend and how much you want to carry. Books run from one to ten diktar each, most around two to three, with only the largest most serious tomes at the high end.
--M. J. Young
I'll spend 20 diktar on 4 books. One on history, one on social customs, and two on the law.
You pick up your books. I don't think you've said where you are staying in Sardic. I presume you'll take a room at an inn for the couple days between disembarking from the Piper and boarding the Celestial Maiden, but there is a range of quality in hotel accommodations in a city like this.
--M. J. Young
Yes I'll be staying at an inn. Something warm, with decent security.
I know we've never had to deal with the shape of the year until now, but what season is it? How do they measure time here - weeks, months, and so on. Do they have names? Is it warm in Sardic? Or does it rain every day like London or Seattle? I'm picturing Durnmist as looking like Victorian London only with more hills - sort of dark, becoming grimy, lots of wrought-iron - but Sardic a bit cleaner, not as dark, more like Florence or Venice with more open space.
All right, lets put it together together. What works for you? I'll give you want we know.
Sardic is probably the largest city in the world; Durnmist is probably second. They're not that different in size, but Sardic is always seen as the bigger--the bigger university, for example.
Sardic is north of all the major cities, but New Tempest and New Haven are north and east. The current runs opposite of what it does in our world, from south to north along the western shore, and so carrying warm water from Durnmist toward Sardic, cold water from New Haven toward Emerald. I've never considered any of the western locales to be tropical, but there are many miles between them--it generally takes 3d10 days to sail between each pair of ports, from Durnmist to Tempest, to Tristar, to Haven, to Moon of Korg, to Sardic. That means the average travel time is 72.5 days, but that includes going a bit out of the way to make each stop and overnighting in each port.
For what it's worth, Emerald is probably equatorial--it is a jungle region, and quite a distance from anything else. New Tempest is probably the northernmost port, New Haven beginning the trip south. (Thanks for asking this; it means I can put ice into Rough Passage in the future. It never occurred to me before, as I had icebergs as an event, but I can see that sheets of ice could be part of the hazard of this problem without having to be icebergs.)
Thus Durnmist must be very near the northern Tropic (Tropic of Capricorn in our world, but they have different stars which are familiar to your character), while Sardic must be close to the Arctic Circle. European cities are probably the better choice for analogies, since they benefit from the north-bound current. That means Sardic is probably something like Belfast, and Durnmist more Mediterranean, perhaps like Barcelona.
I envision the crop cycle being close to that of earth, something between three hundred fifty and four hundred days comprising a solar year. The astronomical year would have mattered to you in navigation, but probably not anymore. Cold seasons are longer in the northern locals, shorter in the southern ones. Snow is probably common in Sardic (I'm remembering Boston, where front end loaders filling dump trucks is a common sight) and rare in Durnmist (as the stories my father told of Mississippi, where a dusting shuts down everything). Heat is more common in Durnmist, and the breeze off the ocean is warm.
Also, the fact that there are active volcanoes in Tristar suggests that at least the western continent(s) (there is no certainty that the cities are all on the same land mass, and Tristar and Moon of Korg are specifically stated to be islands) are in a geologically active area. Tristar is in the middle, closer to Durnmist than to Sardic, but the volcanic activity there might impact weather patterns in all the western cities to some degree. Haven and New Haven are the primary agricultural ports, but food is also cheap in Durnmist, so there must be significant growing areas in that region, and it is less expensive in Tempest and New Tempest than it is in Sardic, Moon of Korg, Tristar, or Emerald, the most expensive being Moon of Korg, probably because it is a small island devoted to mining and manufacturing.
So that's what we have. What would you suggest we do with it?
The kind of hotel you describe is 10 diktar a day, so that's 20 diktar for two days, but in the tradition of inns in this sort of world meals are included, and they're not bad.
--M. J. Young
What do I suggest we do with it? It seems fine to me just like you have it. I'm not very good at cartography, and it's your world. If we were perched at a table at UberCon (perhaps while Adam was running a Hackmaster event) we could pour over this and turn it into a map, but somehow I suspect you're better at that sort of thing than I am anyway.
For the most part I'm picturing Durnmist as the port city of a larger, mainly inland country. If food is cheap there, it is probably not a very mountainous country (for example, among Mediterranean countries, food is probably cheaper in Italy than Greece, simply because Greece is nothing but miles of stony mountains where all they can grow are olives, grapes, and goats), but it probably doesn't have a river, simply because if it had a river, food would be excessively cheap there (which tells me that Haven and/or New Haven probably do have major rivers). Food being expensive in Sardic up by the Arctic Circle makes sense, although I'm curious as to what else
As for me... staying at the inn doesn't qualify as an event. I sleep. I eat. I get my cashbox and my letters of credit together, and eventually it's time to set sail, unless something interesting happens between now and then.
The day you're allowed to board the ship, you reach the docks with your emeralds in sacks and your gold in a crate carried by two burly men--and you confront what looks to be the beginnings of a riot. Dock workers are out in force, and they've got several of the piers blockaded, claiming that they've been cheated out of their due work.
Your burly teamsters are not eager to cross the lines carrying a crate, even identifying it as personal luggage. Nor are they willing to give up the three diktar apiece you promised them for doing this job.
--M. J. Young
I want to find out who's in charge here.
What's going on?
What's the substance of this row?
What happened to provoke it?
What will it take to quell it?
Who's opposing them? and why?
It is not clear whether anyone can be said to be "in charge" here. Sardic police are containing the disturbance to the docks, and most ships have armed security guarding them at their entry points. There are at least a hundred dock workers in sight, and the docks in Sardic are longer than you can easily observe from any one point on land. The protest borders on riot. If anyone has control of it, they don't have much control.
Still, it appears that the substance has to do with the relationships between dock workers and deck hands. Most ships have their own deck crews manage their cargo aboard ship, and that includes onloading and offloading it. Dock workers are responsible for moving cargo while it is on the docks, which sometimes includes onloading and offloading. Teamsters also handle cargo to and from the docks, and it is evident that it's entirely possible and probably rather efficient to have teamsters deliver cargo directly to deck hands, cutting out the dock workers completely. Dockworkers think, though, that no cargo should be moved across the docks without their involvement--and of course their due wage for their participation. They're arguing that teamsters should not come on the docks, but that dock workers should move all cargo between the carts and the ships. Shipping companies object to dock workers entering cargo holds, as it makes it more difficult for ships to monitor their own cargo. Teamsters similarly object to dock workers loading and unloading carts, because the teamsters are responsible for making sure those crates are properly handled for transport. Ultimately it appears that the dock workers are making unreasonable demands in order to counter the problem that their jobs are being eliminated by encroachment from these other groups.
You've not encountered anything to suggest that there are unions in Sardic, but it seems to be a disorganized labor action aimed against the shipping companies who manage their own cargo without employing dock workers.
And the fact that you have a crate in tow makes you appear as if you have hired outside workers to carry cargo for you.
--M. J. Young