Harry's Game · Page 6

That said, I'll just ask Walt. After that business with the pirates he should be used to me doing strange things.
"That sounds well enough. It's more than we've got to go on right now." And so we go, off to do some more snooping. Now if only we had two cute girls and a big brown dog...

"Face their accuser? Never really thought about that. It's normal that the defendant would be able to see anyone who testifies against him, but it's not impossible that the police would testify concerning their investigations and the victim never appear in court. I think that would be unusual, though--unless of course the victim was murdered, in which case obviously the victim isn't going to testify. Since it's possible for the police to do the accusing, I'd say the defendant always hears the accusation and the evidence, but not necessarily from the victim. Usually, though, victims testify. After all, judges have more sympathy for sympathetic victims."

Now if only we had two cute girls and a big brown dog...

With permission from Balcon, you and Walter head off to the bar to look for this girl you saw with Robin, and see if you can find out who she is.

--M. J. Young

And... so we do. Here's to a night of looking at girls.

You're at the bar for an hour, Walter clearly trying to nurse his drink so as to keep a clear head. A couple girls come over.

"What are you drinking, sailor?" one of them asks you.

"I'm glad you asked," Walter says. "Let me buy you girls something?" He orders drinks for them, and they settle in at the table as the drinks are brought. He introduces himself and you, and they give their names.

"You were here last night, right?" he continues. "We were here with a friend, dark hair, intelligent, bit of a goofy grin when he's been drinking. He left with a girl, and hasn't gotten back to the ship, so we were hoping we could find her and find out whether she knows anything about what happened after he left here. Kind of worried about him, you know?"

They look at each other, a bit nervously.

"Why ask us?" one responds.

--M. J. Young

I shrug. "No reason. Just that you were here last night, and we're kindof asking around. Figured we'd try and retrace our buddy's steps. If he fell in a hole somewhere, we want to throw him a rope, y'know?"

Meanwhile I beckon the barkeep for another round of whatever these two were drinking previously.

"Yeah, John's right," Walter says as he pays for the drinks. "We figured if we could find her, she could tell us where they went, and where she last saw Robin."

The girls hesitate, then one says, "Look, you really don't want to mess with Miranda. She's not really good people, you know? If your friend was last seen with her--well, I can't really say more than that; she's rather vindictive, and I can't afford the trouble."

--M. J. Young

I give the girls a frown and a knowing nod. If I have any coins, I hand some over, enough for each of them to drink for a night.
"It'll never get traced back to you. You have my word about that. I have my means, and I never forget a favor. Now, where did you last see Robin? Did you see what happened with Miranda?"

Already I'm formulating a plan or two.

The simple version is to arrange to have Miranda arrested.

The elaborate version is to follow Miranda and see who she's had dealings with, and sell her and all her associates to the law in exchange for releasing Robin.

The more elaborate version involves a classic switcheroo - dressing these two as boys and taking them with us to the next port n order to hide them from Miranda's wrath if she doesn't wind up spending a good long time in jail.
I could claim they're friends of a cousin of mine, or swordsman-apprentices looking to learn from me, or some such thing, and make sure they do enough work in Navigation that nobody would ever suspect them. It's not lke sailors bathe all that often anyway...

The evil thing to do would be to use them for their information and leave them to their fate, but while I am evil enough for the idea to occur to me, I am not evil enough to act on it - at least not as a willing first choice.

"I haven't seen her," the other says. "Of course, she makes the rounds of most of the bars in the waterfront area, except maybe a few where she's not welcome--"

"Probably because she doesn't want to wear out her welcome in the rest of them," the friend interjects.

"Anyway, she might be anywhere."

Not sure where you'd have gotten coins; you don't get paid until Sardic, but I might have missed something.

--M. J. Young

Probably freeloading off the others. It doesn't strike me as I would need more than a couple of coins for that anyway, and it didn't get me anything regardless. But you're probably right, in general, about me being dead broke.

"Hmm... thanks, ladies. Do you know which ones she's not welcome at? Knowing where not to go still saves us time..."

As this is probably another 'they tell you the names' moment, we should set out for a simple canvas of all the likely (read: seedy) places they didn't name as her being unwelcome.

"Well," Walter says as you depart, "the question is, do we find her, or do we let the police find her? On the one hand, they haven't been all that diligent in investigating--or maybe they just knew they wouldn't get straight answers from the working girls. On the other hand, if this Miranda is involved in the scam, she might be smart enough to vanish from the bar circuit altogether for a few days, hoping that we'll be out of town before any of us recognize her. It'll be a year before the Piper is back in this port, and very few trading vessels hit the same port more than twice a year, so she's got the advantage that no one from the ship will be around to recognize her in a couple days. She was apparently clever enough that she lured Robin out of the bar, took his money, and then handed her to another girl to set up for the blackmail scheme, so that the police wouldn't know Miranda was involved.

"I mean, if we want to look for her, I'm good with that; but we should have a clear idea what we intend to do when we find her. Grab her and drag her in for questioning? Tell the police where she was last seen before she realized we found her? What's the plan?"

--M. J. Young

I nod a couple of times.

"I think we should go look for her, and play it by ear from there. If we have a chance to nab her and bring her to the police ourselves we should do it. If we follow her to what seems like home and she doesn't catch us, we send the police there. If she spots us, we tell the police everything up to when she spotted us."

"All right, I'm with you--but let's be careful. The last thing we need is to wind up in jail next to Robin on charges of assault or something."

You begin bar hopping.

"How do you want to handle this? Should we just buy a drink at each place, look around, and hope we're not too drunk by the time we find her to manage things effectively? Or should we buy drinks for people and let the word float around that we're looking for Miranda--might be someone can point us in the right direction, but as likely that they'll point her in the right direction to avoid us."

--M. J. Young

"Neither, and both. We buy drinks for people, and keep our ears open. We look around and try to find her, but discreetly. If we're made, it could be trouble. Miranda 'isn't good people' means I wouldn't put it past her to have eight guys with sticks waiting where we'd rather they weren't. So, we'll do this all passive like, with only a little hinting that we'd like to meet a girl like Miranda."

At your first stop, half a dozen working girls vy for your attention when they figure out you're looking for someone like them. Walter buys them drinks, but you can tell he's starting to count his money, and they're all more interested in being the girl you're seeking than helping you find her.

As you walk toward the next bar, Walter asks if you've any ideas on how to refine the search a bit. He can't afford more than one or two more places at those rates.

--M. J. Young

Alright. The first thing we do is find the place Robin got taken from. It's likely she's a regular there, or at least accepted.

If that doesn't do it, we find the trashiest place we can - the one most likely to house somebody of Miranda's ill reputation.

And pick more likely girls to ply with alcohol!

You started at the place Robin was last seen; that's where you met those two girls who told you Miranda's name.

You pop your head into a few of the roughest places, but there are no girls in these places, and most of the men are incoherent at best. Walter moves you out of them quickly, as they're the sort of places most likely to wind up in an inexplicable bar fight.

You spend the next few hours popping in quickly from one place to another, "looking for a friend" without giving any names, but you do not see Miranda anywhere.

--M. J. Young

Is it getting late by now? If so we should probably get back to the ship as not to wind up with any more trouble.
If not, is there anywhere that is the right kind of seedy? As in, more skanky than violent? A known whorehouse where Miranda's ilk is likely to be?
If not, where did those two girls we were talking to go? Can we follow them there?
If not, I'm out of ideas.

"Well, we've got one idea left. If this girl Miranda is already known in these parts as trouble, odds are good that the police will recognize her name. The way I figure it, Miranda's good at what she does, but she's also known for trouble. She picks the marks, gets them drunk, takes their money, pairs them off with some other girl who doesn't yet have any serious legal trouble, and the other girl reports being robbed by the mark. Since the other girl is just a girl, the police have no particular reason to doubt the word of one of their local citizens more than that of some drunk sailor passing through the port. But, if I'm right, once the connection to Miranda is mentioned, the plot should start falling apart. So let's try that. With me?"

--M. J. Young

"Just so. The police haven't been too good at this so far, but they probably never heard the name Miranda this time around. It might just help."

And so we go.

As soon as you mention Miranda to the police, an expression crosses the face of one of them that suggests he indeed knows the name and is not surprised to hear she is involved.

The man actually taking your statement thanks you and says they will definitely look into it, as you might have uncovered some important evidence.

Walter suggests that there's not much to do now but get back to the ship and get some sleep, before the captain starts wondering whether you're in trouble, too.

--M. J. Young

And so we do. Cue the night-at-the-inn music.

Security Chief Balcon is waiting on deck when you arrive. "I should not have let you go," he says, "but I'm glad you're back all right. Now, get to quarters, both of you. I'll let the captain know you're aboard."

By the time you get up the next morning, Robin is aboard and everyone is preparing to get underway.

The authorities apparently were satisfied that he had been falsely accused in a scheme devised by a certain local woman of particularly ill repute, who is now facing charges for blackmail.

--M. J. Young

As ordered, I get to quarters, glad for a night's rest. Looks like spinning the luck of captain and crew all these nights has been paying off - that was remarkably painless.

The next day, I'll welcome Robin back aboard and, when my time comes, report for duty, continuing my usual pattern of using Telescopic Vision as often as I can, trying to do without the actual telescope as much as possible.

Eventually Robin catches up with you at a meal, and thanks you for your efforts to get him freed. It seems Balcon let him know what you and Walter did to discover the identity of Miranda, and she was a bad customer all the way through.

You spend the next eighteen days traveling to Moon of Korg, a cresent-shaped island which is a mining and manufacturing center. There is again shore leave available.

--M. J. Young

I'll go ashore. I'd like to have a look at some of this world's manufactured goods. I wonder what they mine here, but I'm not yet willing to ask - it's probably common knowledge. I am going to ask either Walter or Robin or someone in Navigation what our business here is. Just resupplying, or what? What department is Robin from, anyway? (And I am now taking shifts in Security, right? So I've been 18 days in Security instead of Navigation?)

All the stops the Piper makes are trade stops. If you ask around, you'll learn that food just purchased from Haven for fifty thousand diktar is being delivered here at twice that price, along with emeralds picked up before you were aboard, about eighty thousand diktar paid at Emerald going here for one hundred twenty thousand. The ship is also paying sixty thousand here for manufactured goods, which will fetch a profit on the next run.

Moon of Korg is a mining and manufacturing center, and there is an emphasis here on objects high in metal content. They make most of the familiar weapons, including guns, but that is a small part of the work, which includes everything from bed frames to carriage parts.

Are you looking for anything in particular?

And no, you are still officially in navigation. The captain won't fill the spot in security until he reaches Sardic and can assess his crew when he knows who is signing on for the next trip. It may be that they'll lose a navigator, and in that case you'll do better continuing in navigation (more pay) than security.

Robin is a pilot. He is the next grade above navigator, the highest paid non-officers aboard.

--M. J. Young

I'll see if I can find someone who will trade me for those gold dollar coins I brought with me. They probably won't believe for two seconds in a row that they're actual gold, but maybe the interesting mix of metals will make them worth something. It reminds me of that scene in Star Wars, with Qui-Gon Jinn being all 'credits will do fine' and Watto not being impressed.

I wonder if that would work... and of course that thought comes with a contemplative stroking of the chin. I'm already telekinetic, and using psionic zoom as much as a telescope. Why shouldn't the Jedi Mind Trick work, too?
I'll have to find someone to try this on, someone who lends themselves to an obvious suggestion, but comes with no consequences if it doesn't work... like trying to get a free sample out of someone who sells ammo for the pistol I took from that pirate. If it doesn't work, maybe I could sell that pistol...

I'm sorry--I hear you musing on your options, but I am uncertain whether you've decided anything in particular. Am I to guess that you are looking for a dealer in guns and ammo, and planning to attempt to persuade him by telepathic suggestion, and are you persuading him to give you free ammo or to accept your Sakajawea fake gold dollars as real gold coins?

--M. J. Young

What I am definitely doing:
1: Finding someone to trade my gold Sakajawea coins to. If they believe they're gold, fine, if not I'll sell them to someone who finds the metallurgy interesting.
2: I am going to find a dealer in guns and ammo.

Ifs:
If I have money from my coins, I might buy ammo.
If I don't have money from my coins, I might try to Jedi Mind Trick the ammo guy into giving me a sack of ammo as a free sample.
If the ammo guy looks dangerous, I might try to Jedi Mind Trick someone else.

You find a dealer in metals who thinks they're brass, and not all that good a quality, but is willing to give you one gold diktar for ten of your coins. You've got fifty; it's your call whether you want to do this.

The gun you got is a muzzle-loading flintlock pistol. Cheap lead shot for it comes five hundred for a diktar, but you also need powder and wadding. Paper packets of pre-measured powder and one ball (the packaging suitable for wadding) sealed with a bit of wax are available, fifty for a diktar. Knowing how much powder to use is a practiced technique.

--M. J. Young

The summary of my adventures at UberCon went thusly:

I managed to not get stabbed in the spine during the remainder of my stay in Moon of Korg.
We made it to Sardic.
There was a machinists' guild strike on due to apparant over-competition from foreign markets.
The captain decided not to sell any imports here, which cleared the crew to disembark.
We all got paid. My share, making the promised half-rate, was 6,500 gold diktar.
I was given a further 5,000 as a bonus from the sale of my stolen pirate ship.
I established an account with the Company, wherein I left one-half of my total pay - 5,750 gold diktar.
Once the list of open positions on board ship was posted, I put in for and got a contract to be a pilot's apprentice for the next tour, a step up from my previous position as assistant navigator and a position that promises I will keep my feet on the deck, without being pressured to climb the rigging.
Of the 5,750 that I kept, I spent 100 enrolling in a single course in Sardic History at the University.
I spent a further 10 to buy 450 rounds of pre-capped ammunition for the flintlock pistol I took from the pirate.
At that point I had used 4 of my 27 days in port.
I spent the next 8 days alternating between:
-the Library, where I added to my character sheet 1@1 History (Sardic) M 0@0, and
-the Gun Range, where I added 1@1 Heightened Awareness (Accuracy) P 3@1 and 1@1 Pistol Gunslinging B 8@1
While I was on the gun range, I botched a learning attempt and injured a fellow student. I promptly knelt over him, laid hands on him, and called upon Freya, Goddess of Life, to heal him. The spell reads thusly:
1@1 "Lay on Hands" - Limited Damage Repair M 2@1 TF 10 minutes, laying hands on a person injured without malice, kneeling, counts as whole-body involvement, appropriate words spoken including invoking Freya to heal him. Requires sacrifice of an appropriate amount of local currency to pay a medic for similar treatment. +57SM
Unfortunately even though this spell went off, I'm not certain how much of my gold was sacrificed to power it. In character I certainly ought to have checked, but out of character I'm not sure.

When last we left off, I was considering a local orphanage, there to spend some of my time getting to know the children. My class in Sardic History has begun and we have about a week or so before we ship out. I'm getting to know the children with an eye toward two goals. One is to donate a bit of money to this place in order to help them over the next year. The other is to choose a child to adopt, eventually.
It puts me a bit at cross purposes. I want to become a Captain some day, but I also want to adopt a child. This world has been good to me, and I feel honor-bound to pay that forward. Also, I've always wanted a child and now I'm rich enough to afford to care for her - a position I've never known before. The Company does not allow passengers, though. Maybe when the time comes for me to seek my own ship, it will have to be in a more... permissive circumstance.
It also pains me to learn that my friend Walter, my first friend in this world, is leaving the ship. I very well mean to ask him why, and where he intends to go, and if he intends to be back in Sardic this time next year. I have six months of drinking to pay him back for, and after a year he had better have some stories worth telling. If the last six months were any sign, I sure will.

The gunslinging skill's bias is B7@1, not 8@1.

The visit from the medic would have cost 15 diktar.

Walter tells you that he's been offered a position portside in a security operation. Since he's not getting younger and would like someday to marry and have a family, he figures it's time to take his banked savings (such as he's managed to save) and see what he can do here. The pay is not so good, particularly when you consider that shipboard he has all his room and board free and still draws a salary that probably beats what he could earn in the same time portside. On the other hand, the value of your salary depends on how long it takes to make the complete run, and there are risks to life and limb quite apart from the dangers of his job. You survived a whirlpool on this run. There are a lot of good pilots who have gotten ships past a lot of whirlpools over the years, but some ships vanish, and that's high on the list of suspected reasons.

--M. J. Young

Well, I'll say my farewells to Walter and wish him the best in the year to come. As I am still a fairly young man, I'll take my chances on the high sea, and gods willing see him in port this time next year.

With my remaining days in town, I will continue attending class. As it gets closer to time, I'm going to talk to my professor. I'll explain my situation to him a bit:
"I'm moving up from a fairly provincial life. Although I'm educated enough to read and write at an adept level, I don't know much about the world or what's happened in it, so I genuinely want to learn. I'm not just using school as a stepping-stone to something more, I'm serious about learning. To that end, I wonder if he can tell me any books and work I might do, so that when I ship out at the end of the month I can continue my studies of Sardic History, despite not having the benefit of being able to attend class."
If he will help me, I'll follow his instructions.
If not, I'll continue taking classes and just be stuck leaving when its time to ship out.

One thing I want to do while I'm in town is to buy some indigenous clothes, something appropriate to the hard-wearing life of a sailor, so I look more like the rest of the crew. I won't give up my feathered hat, cloak, or boots, but if everything in between looked more home-grown that would certainly be better. Likewise I need something to holster my pistol in - be it a proper holster or a simple belt-loop, whatever is the going style.

In fact, as flush as I am at the moment, I'd like to get prices on a better quality of flintlock pistol if there is one to be had, as I imagine the random pirate I stole mine from didn't exactly pay top diktar for his. I'll spend a few afternoons shopping around for the best deal for my money, but I don't feel at all compelled to buy just any old thing if I'm not impressed.

I'd also like to get a feel for how expensive housing in Sardic is, either to rent or to buy depending.

Other than that I'm pretty much content to spend my mornings in class, my afternoons on the gun range, my evenings in the library, and my nights on the dockside before sleeping aboard ship.

The professor shows you his book, and says that a good book dealer in the university area should have it for perhaps a hundred diktar. It seems a comprehensive tome, near a thousand pages (print is probably sixteen point, page size near 7x10), hand stitched binding and board covers with a heavy canvas spine.

You buy the clothes you want, three sets not including boots, for twenty-five diktar.

A good leather holster costs three diktar, but most people stuff such guns between belt and belly.

The gun you have probably cost around fifteen diktar; top quality guns run to fifty or so, but it's not clear to you how much of the "quality" goes into the mother-of-pearl handles and silver touches. The guns used by security seem to be in the twenty-five to thirty diktar range, although you've never actually looked at Balcon's or Brown's personal guns.

You can rent a room in Sardic for about forty diktar a month--cheaper, if you don't mind living over a bar in the bad sections of town. Apartments and houses start around a hundred diktar a month and run up into hundreds. Finding a house for sale might require hiring someone in the real estate business and giving them what you're seeking and what you're willing to pay.

--M. J. Young

So I have 5,027 left, if I buy a good gun and a new holster. Nothing fancy, just something longer and a bit narrower than the one I got from the pirate, hopefully with a less worn grip, preferrably in a red wood like cherry or rosewood.
If I can, I'll sell my old one while I'm there. I will indeed buy clothes and books at that price, and I've accounted for casting my spell.

So it is. I don't think I have any other plans. Class, library, firing range, dinner, sleep. So unless something big is going to happen in town, I'm content to time-lapse to shipping out. I really am sort of a creature of habit, so it's not unrealistic for me to just go through the days, especially in a place where I have no friends.

Gun is as described.

As to selling the used gun, the dealer offers you five diktar for it.

Things are pretty quiet up until two days before departure, when everything becomes hectic--supplies are loaded, new crew settles into quarters, and you spend a couple days going over some of the basics of piloting a ship.

You will be picking up new skills 1@1 Pilot Ship T3@1 and 1@1 Operate Sails T3@1, and some of the skills you learned in navigation will still be used here.

--M. J. Young

I hope I've gotten better enough at those skills for them to be useful as much as they will be used.
I assume I used at least some of them in the course of my duties.
If I've gotten rusty on anything this past month, I'll brush up, especially on maps and plotting of courses and things like that, as well as settling back into things like duty rotations and life aboard ship.

Gods but it feels good to have a ship under my feet again! It's like going home, more than it is like leaving. Sardic is certainly nice, and my time there was good, but the sea is the world, and the wind in the sails is life itself. Praise be to the gods who made the sea, and seafaring men like me...

As we're making ready, I'll attend to my duties, helping the other pilots and navigators as much as a newbie pilot's apprentice can.
Once we're under way, I want to make a point of getting to know the new crewmen as much as possible.
Find out when my new duty shifts are, and what my new duties as pilot apprentice will be, and do them.
Generally settle back into my usual routine of sleep, and work, and practice. Always practice.
Telescopic Vision during my duty shifts on deck.
Irish Flute during meal-times, playing for my crew-mates in the galley.
TK Pulse whenever I'm alone, flicking coins around.
Pistol Gunslinging and Psionic Accuracy in the evenings before bed. I won't actually fire any rounds, but I will practice drawing a bead, and using Psionic Accuracy to lock in my shots.

Your skills have improved, including the two psionic skills you have been practicing to this point.

I rolled the crew changes at the table at Ubercon, didn't I? I'm going to have to find those and unpack them into my records here. Suffice it for the moment that you've been getting acquainted with the new crewmen.

You set sail on a fine clear day headed for New Tempest, the first stop on the run. It will have you at sea for probably at least a month, maybe two, before you reach this settlement.

--M. J. Young

You did indeed. I seem to recall that besides the pilot post I took, there were two in Security (include Walter's spot), two in Navigation (including my former spot), one new medic (I'm hoping this isn't replacing the one guy I knew from sickbay), and a couple of deck hands.

Well, here's hoping for an uneventful month.

Did I remember to pick up a new smoking pipe in Sardic?
Damn.
I'll have to remember to get one one of these days. I don't suppose immortal Versers have much to fear from cancer.

Provided it is an uneventful month, I don't have a lot to do besides my duty and my regular practice.

I think after six months I've settled into this world a bit.
I'll close each evening with reading a bit from my history book and writing a bit, keeping a journal.

Does my improvement in position come with private quarters, or am I still rooming with other navigators?
Ah, either way, hopefully I have a few minutes before I sleep each time to read a little Sardic history and write a bit of a journal, sort of a pilot's personal log, as it were.

It occurs to me that I wish I had brough a watch with me, as I remember that being able to keep accurate time was a significant breakthrough for seafarers, but for my life I can't remember why...

For timekeeping: I believe it's nice to know when it's exactly noon (or midnight or whenever) for astrological navigation purposes. Timekeeping + atlas = not lost. Or something. MJ probably knows better.