The Butcher of Gadobhra

Fishing progressed as the night got darker. There were a few stars in the Sky but no moon. Despite that, Sky was lighter above them than the dark smoke all around. Woodrat explained that it was prime feeding time for many species. As the smoke cooled a little it was easier to spot prey that couldn't shield its heat, and of course, easier to spot their bait. Ozzy caught one small fish, pulling it in and recoiling when he saw what it looked like. They were fishing, he was expecting a fish! Instead, he got something with a round mouth filled with small teeth meant to latch onto prey. It still had scales and fins, but the body was rounder, like a long windsock that ended in a normal fishy tail with two fins.

Woodrat laughed as he yelped after landing it and if flopped around. Ozzy brought down his fist on its head, and it stopped moving. Woodrat nodded his approval. "Good, you know to hit them not cut them. Now I'll show you how to tie it off." The captain deftly pulled the chain from the fish, telling Ozzy it was easier to just dissolve a link in the chain and make a new hook, than to try to pull it out from the fish. "You'll lose a lot of the flavor and nutrition that way. Best to do like I did, and even to tie the mouth shut with a bit of chain until you can get to eating." He set the fish aside, made Ozzy a new hook, and they went back to their fishing, half dozing while they waited for a bite. Woodrat got two more, and then Ozzy hooked something a little bigger.

Woodrat set his own fishing pole aside, to see what Ozzy was pulling in. This fish was similar to the others, but longer and much plumper. "Ah, you got a nice, fat puffer there. Good eating, good for something else. He carefully thumped the fish, stunning it, they tied the mouth shut.

"Alright, listen up. This is a lesson you need to have. This fish is full of smoke. A good puffer can run to 50 or even 100 smoke, but if you open it up to eat it, you'll barely get any of that. I'm going to make a small cut on the fish, and when you see a puff of smoke, put your hand on the wound and concentrate on the smoke in the fish, and drawing it into you." Ozzy nodded in understanding. He'd practiced with Joe a lot, moving smoke into pork belly to make bacon, and drawing it out to prevent over cooking. As woodrat cut the fish with a small wooden knife, he put his hand on the incision and pulled all the smoke out of it, just like inhaling a breath of air.

It felt good at first, then he felt panicky, his side ached from the wound, he couldn't breathe, and it all went black. He felt horrible, but as suddenly as the feeling had come upon him, it also went away.

You have gained 77 Smoke

You have gained 77 experience in Smokestealing. You have gained 77 experience in Corruption.

"What the hell did you make me do? I felt what the fish felt for a second, as it died!"

Captain Woodrat just nodded. "Yep. That's Smokestealing and killing someone with it. Imagine how it would feel if it was a man? The panic as you stole his last breath, and he either died or turned into a husk? All for a little sustenance you could get from just eating a few fish."

Woodrat took another fish, cut it and inhaled the thin bit of smoke coming out of it. "Punish you for having the skill? No. Teach you what it really is? Yes, and it's both useful and horrible.”

“Out here, shipwrecked, it might help you stay alive. But if you do it to another man, it will change you. It's tempting when you’re low. Every point of Corruption raises your Smoke. Every level in Smokestealing lets you steal more. Easy to get used to it when you sail on one of the black ships."

"And every last person on those ships has the skill. Every officer, mate, and crewman. Even the poor sods chained to the oars. I was pressganged one night when I was drinking on the Isle of Silver. Nice place, good beer. I had a little too much. The CharredSail was sitting offshore, and sent a longboat full of crew to grab a few late-night drinkers.

I woke up chained to an oar. They worked the new crew that they had pressganged nearly to death. When we were low on heat and starved for smoke, they took us off the oars, and gave us a choice: Drain another poor soul or be drained ourselves. I wanted to live, though I've regretted it a few times over the years. Barney had been next to me on the oar. Funny little guy with a lot of jokes. He had 17 smoke left when I pulled it out of him and he died. He blackened and became a Charred Husk. They tossed him in the hold with the others, to use against an island or another ship. And me? I was promoted to crew. No oar for me. I was damned like all the others. It took years to get away."

Woodrat stopped talking and cast his line out. Ozzy didn't know what to say, so he went back to fishing himself.

At some point, Ozzy felt something. He didn't know why. It was nothing, nothing at all, and yet it was very hungry.

You sense something. It's not really there, but it's hungry.

You have gained 50 experience in the skill: Predator Knowledge

You have gained 50 experience in INT.

Predator Knowledge is now Rank 1.

"Yo! Captain...this will sound crazy, but something is circling around us. I can feel it, but not see it."

Woodrat stared out into the darkness, tracking something. At some point the feeling was gone, and Woodrat relaxed as well. "Well done, Mr. Ozzy. You have sharp eyes and a good feel for the smoke. That was a Voidshark, I'm sure of it. All teeth and hunger and not much else. They feed on the larger fish, but will eat anything. Usually, they won't come after a boat, but we aren't much of a boat, are we? Be careful if you go in the water. And if you feel it again, yell. Some of them have dined too much on shipwrecked sailors and have a taste for us." He cast his line into the smoke and went back to fishing.

Towards dawn, Woodrat called a break. They took the seven small fish they'd caught and he wrapped them in smoke, and added a point of heat. "You have to concentrate on holding the smoke together, and not let it absorb the heat. Let it cook the fishies some. They firm up and taste a lot better. Raw fish isn't bad, but I've been eating it raw for too many days."

The fish were slightly smaller now, and quite hot. Woodrat took four and pushed three to Ozzy. "Whoever cooks gets the odd fish. Pays them back for the smoke and the point of heat." Together the fish gave Ozzy 23 fuel and he felt a little better. Eating here in the smoke was weird. The new day arrived, light streaming down from Sky and up from Fire. Ozzy saw that his furnace and Smokeating had reset.

"This is it then? Sail around, look for salvage, go fishing and then do it again?"

Woodrat laughed. “You’re saying that like it's a bad thing! We are so much better off now than we were a day ago. We both have Heat and Smoke, and this area has a King's ransom in salvage floating around from where the Cyclone scattered it. You just follow brave Captain Woodrat's orders and we'll have a nice little sloop made in a few weeks. Then it's off to some Isle that knows how to brew beer and maybe we recruit a couple more crew."

“In the meantime, we can work on a few of your skills. Fishing of course, then some chain making, sail heating, and if you have the feel for it, I’ll teach you to move wood around. And Lookout is a full-time job. Usually your job, but if you need a nap, let me know.”

The day progressed according to Woodrat’s plan, until Ozzy saw something in the smoke, at the edge of his vision. He pointed it out. "More wreckage off that way Captain."

Woodrat went to the sail. "Let’s go find out what it is then." The captain concentrated on the sail, feeding a hundred points of heat into it, and greatly increasing its size from the small triangle it was before. The Heat in the sail gave it power, and the Splinter moved quickly across the waves.

He explained the process to Ozzy. “Making a sail takes a lot of heat, but it sticks around and gives us motion across the smoke. I’ll only have to put a little Heat into it each day to keep it tight, and some more when we need a lot of speed. Making sail is an investment for us. If we can teach you how to add your heat to it, all the better.”

What Ozzy had seen turned out to be an overturned boat, maybe twenty-foot long. It was floating in the smoke, and didn't look like it was in good shape. Chunks of wood were scattered all over the area, and two large chests floated low in the water along with a large barrel. Woodrat slowed the raft some distance away. He whistled, long and low. "Now isn’t that pretty? Could be anything in those chests, and the boat is a treasure in itself. But I don't like it. Too good to be true."

Ozzy looked around, wondering how you set a trap in an ocean. "Didn’t you say this area was littered with a King's Ransome? It looks like we found some of it then, Captain."

Woodrat scratched his head. "I did. I did at that. But this is good stuff, just sitting here." He scanned the area carefully. "Ah, I feel better. There's a couple of husks in the water. See by that bit of scrap over there? And there’s another near the barrel, half hidden behind it. Call me paranoid, but it was odd to see a bit of treasure all unguarded."

Ozzy shook his head, confused by the logic, but willing to admit he had a lot to learn. "If the Captain doesn't mind, I need him to make me something. Even if they are just hard wood like your knife, they should work. Do you know what a cleaver is?" Ozzy tried to form one with smoke, and came close.

Woodrat looked at it. "Oh, you mean a flensing hatchet? I've used those before. We used them to cut the meat from the good fatty layers of a whale. Why would you need those?" He was already reaching for a chunk of scrap wood and molding it, willing to get the project started as Ozzy explained.

"I've got a special skill to kill undead. Two skills, actually, and cleavers will help. There's only a couple of those things, but I really don't like those them." Ozzy had put some thought into the new skill. He had more STR, but a RAD skill would help him offset any corruption he picked up here and keep him balanced. Plus, he didn't like the idea of burning up smoke in a fight. Heat was safer and he had more of it.

Woodrat finished the cleavers after ten minutes. Each was made of dark compacted wood, heavy with imbued smoke and had a fairly sharp edge. Ozzy swung them around a bit and nodded in satisfaction. “These will do.”

Woodrat made sure his own knives were still sharp, and then he moved to the sail. "I'm going to take us over to that one on the left so you can kill it, then we'll do the same to the one by the barrel. No sense taking chances."

Ozzy was ready for the first one. As they got near to the Charred Husk, it moved, and let out a keen wailing. The one by the barrel echoed it. And then the top of the barrel popped off, revealing two more husks, armed with oars they used to push themselves towards the raft. Likewise, each of the trunks opened up, revealing its own oar-armed husk.

Woodrat was almost gleeful. "I told you it didn't feel right! But these are easy with heat and a sail. Kill this one, and we'll move around, killing them off, bit by bit."

The small boat rolled over in the smoke, and a crew of husks began rowing towards them. A tall figure wearing a hat laughed, in a horrible cracked voice.

Woodrat threw heat to the sail. "Leaving! Mr. Ozzy, prepare to repel boarders, but they aren't going to catch us!"

The boats Captain was prepared to argue with that statement. His hands pulled smoke from the sea, and his eyes glowed as he gathered smoke and forged piles of dense chains. With a gesture, the chains shot out, hooks biting deep into the raft and wrapping around the mast.

"Belay that last order, Mr. Ozzy! Get ready for a fight."

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