Chapter 17: If Life Gives You a Rocket Launcher…

"Wait here, master Caesar. I'll bid the captain farewell."

I was about to correct him, but I held it back. Being called a ‘master’ didn’t sound so bad.

Horeln went back to the ship and squeezed through the rowdy men. At first he was pleading with the captain, trying to talk things out with his captain. The conversation heated and they were throwing hand gestures all over Italian-style.

A thought popped in my head. Maybe I should scrap the idea of meeting with Goldenwheel. I was considering working as a spice supplier for them. Now probably wasn’t the best time for that. I oughta stick with the goal of providing Atala the adamantine weapons, or at least something similar to it.

I carefully climbed the deck and approached the two. Their voices grew into screams, and their argument seemed to be about Horeln's unfinished contract.

"Yeah which is why I'm returning every coin you paid me and the amount I'm due! You’re winning here!”

"Boy did the seagulls plucked ‘yer eyes? The contract said THRICE if ‘ya didn’t finish! THRICE! Means THREE!"

"To the Depths with the contract I—"

"Okay, settle down, you two,” I said, interjecting myself in between them.

“What’s ‘okay’ supposed to mean?” they both said.

"Never mind. So, Horeln here wants freedom, and my dear captain wants the fine for breaching the contract?"

"Exactly, master!"

"Right-o, boy!"

I plucked a bloodstone from my pocket, opened the captain's rough calloused hand and carefully placed it there.

"Do this kid a favor and let him roam around, will you?"

The captain swallowed audibly. His face turned as red as the stone. "Gods-abandoned, this a bloodstone, ‘aye?"

"Yes, a real one. Bite it if you must. Just let my boy go."

"He can dive straight to the Depths for all I care!" he ripped a piece of cloth from his shirt, wrapped the bloodstone with it, and shoved it deep into his chest pocket.

"That's great! Oh, as a bonus you can keep the coins he was supposed to give you. But do me a favor..."

No survivors survived after the lizards attacked the fort. That was what I told them. To provide an evidence, I gave him the gold-hilted saber that the boss man owned. I didn't wanna let it go, but it had to be done.

“Well boys, Nimble Deon needs a fresh pair o’ hands!” the captain yelled when we got off, and the sailors cheered.

"You didn't have to pay him that much, master!"

"Nah, let him be. Plus he'd owe me a favor. I might find him useful in the future."

I descended the ship and ended up sliding through another hole again. It was my left leg this time.

"This fucking place sucks already."

With Horeln in tow, our first destination was the tavern. It was the most reliable place I knew for information.

Despite the apparent poverty of the town, it had its reclaiming features. The market was pretty bustling up close. People of all races interacted with each other – humans, elves, dwarven-esque folks, animal-human hybrids, full-furry peeps, and so on. All sorts of words and idioms were thrown loudly in the air.

Not only simple men and women walked in the town. Armed mercenaries (I think) hung by skewer stalls, conversing among each other. They all looked raggedy and battle-hardened, armed with borestaves and recently-sharpened cutlasses that dangled on their waists.

I smiled. This was a fantasy world and I was in it. But this town was merely a tiny fraction of this world. I was eager to discover massive fantasy towns and Tolkien-esque places once I began exploring further out.

“It isn’t so bad, right, master?” Horeln said, “my hometown, Gruudil, is much better but Farisle feels freer.”

“You have to tour me there some time.”

Horeln smiled. “I would love to!”

We followed the raised wooden platforms… and I regretted coming in. A pungent scent of piss, shit, and anything else that mixed with it assaulted my nose. A grandma slammed her windows open and spilled the contents of her bucket. The air blew the odor towards us.

“What the fuck…”

The granny, a woman with a cat ear, whiskers, and shaven fur around the neck, gave us a smile. She was missing most of her teeth and whatever remained turned black and brown. I smiled back albeit hesitantly.

“I miss New York.”

Houses didn’t exceed first floor, but some were larger compared to the others. Horeln led me further into the town, and it got narrower. Kids ran around, women conversed from their windows while wringing clothes or gutting fishes.

After a few minutes, we arrived at our destination. Finally, a proper pirate fantasy building! It was the largest building in the inner part of the town so far. The tavern was built on top of a hill with a few poles to support the platforms around it. It had three floors.

"It’s the first building of Farisle built thirty years ago, and the first mayor lived here.”

"Thirty? How come there's a lot of people already?"

From what I’d seen so far, the population could number roughly a thousand. The sea must be so bountiful to sustain that many people on a small-ish island. But then again, there were other smaller islands. They probably built some kind of plantations there, too. And they probably did piracy as well.

“Most of the first inhabitants were deserters and survivors of the Heretics War forty years ago. While most of them settled around the mainland coasts, the remaining few sailed further in hopes of finding Korimd, and they were led here.”

That was a good lore dump. I had no clue what that war was, but it reminded me that I truly was in another world.

"Has anyone attacked this town? I’m guessing there are royalties and aristocrats out there that loathes the idea of a free city."

"Not really. But the mainland coastal cities used to be at war with neighboring sovereigns until Goldenwheel and Illuminant luminaries started appearing."

After that educative chat, we went in the tavern. The door was much heavier than I expected. Just from outside the chatters were loud. Inside, it boomed with laughter and all sorts of noises. It was packed with mostly men consuming their midday alcohols. They also played cards, toyed with knives, and a public gangbang was in full view by the stairs. Four men shared a heavy 40-something-year old woman. Yikes.

The smell of shit mixed with sweat and aroma of food and alcohol, and I was confused about what to feel. It just wasn’t pleasant.

Some people gave us a mix of malicious and curious stares as we made our way to the bar.

"Tell me, Horeln, When did you arrive here?"

"Just a week ago, master."

I nodded. "Noted."

There was a lone unoccupied stool right in between two huge men. Unfortunately that was the only unoccupied chair left in the entire tavern.

"Good after noon, bucks,” I said, greeting the two.

Before I could grab the stool, an orc-like person leaning towards a bipedal boar grabbed it. Or maybe he wasn't an orc? He was hairy, his face was literally that of a boar with some modifications to look a bit more human. Hair grew all over his body, and huge tusks jutted out of his snout.

"Seat occupied, boy."

The people around him laughed.

"I don't see anyone sitting on it."

"The ghost of my mother does."

Then they laughed again.

"Does your mother drink?"

He sharpened his glare. "She did."

"Oh, she just left. Must be drunk already."

There was a few laughter to my remark, but it was immediately snuffed out by his glare. I grabbed the chair, pushed a silver coin, and asked for two glasses of his best drink. The old, lanky bartender agreed.

"Master," Horeln whispered, "we should leave."

"Why? There’s a seat by the window – grab it. I'll ask some information."

The boar slammed his fist on the table, showing me his yellowed rotten teeth.

"You are courageous, boy, but you're in the wrong place."

"I want drink and information. I believe this is the right place."

I smelled trouble, but I didn't want any of that. I might have made a bit of a bad impression from my joke but I ain’t gonna lower my status just to appeal to anyone. Trust didn’t matter much anyway if money was offered upfront. But if this went south, there were always other people I could ask.

So I slid the boarman a gold coin.

"This coin says you can give me the information I want. I trust the gold coin."

His hostility lowered after seeing the coin glimmer. But then his attention fell to my pouch.

"That bag looks heavy. How about you hand it to me and I'll let you and your friend walk out?"

Three of his men stood from the table behind and grabbed Horeln. “What— master!”

Two other man approached me, blocking any way out.

I added two more coins.

"Look, let's do this the civil way. I thought this island is about freedom?”

"Yeah and I'm using my freedom very well."

He clicked his tongue. A wolfman drew his sword and placed it on Horeln's neck.

"And freedom ain’t always free, boy."

I sighed. At this point of the deal, if I knew I was outnumbered, I’d bow to the other party’s demands even if it meant losing more than I could earn. That was how I worked on Earth. But this wasn’t Earth, and I was no longer the weak human named Caesar Cooper.

Talking things out all the time was exhausting. I was a man with frustrations in life – two lives, in fact. And if life gave you a rocket launcher, you ought to have fun with it sometimes.

I smiled. “I’ve always imagined about being in this situation.”

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