The Butcher of Gadobhra

The next day, Captain Woodrat took oaths from his new crew, and put them to work getting the Splinter ready to sail. There were many chores: Freeing the ship, lighting sails, finishing repairs, cleaning the hull, transporting and mounting the ballistae, and securing a better supply of food.

So of course, they started by rescuing the rum.

Woodrat pointed out that they had two strong mates who could each haul back a ship's boat full of swag, and it would be a shame to leave all this lovely rum just sitting here. Two boats were loaded with barrels of rum and huge crab legs and the party set out for the Splinter. Butterbelly was a bit put off by the fact that not only could Ozzy lift more than he could, but he was also able to drag a heavier boat behind him. Ozzy's load was 50% larger than Butterbelly's, causing the firewalker to consider his decision to not challenge the first mate to a wise one.

As soon as they got back to the Splinter, Ozzy began to make sausage. Crab, chopped salad, ground heat berries, and assorted spices turned into a never-ending supply of sausage links. Woodrat claimed the huge claws and began cooking those up for a meal. The meat from the eight legs was removed and placed in barrels next to where Ozzy was working. Butterbelly took an interest in the meat grinder and tried to follow just how the first mate was getting so much sausage from the odd assortment of ingredients. He finally gave up. He'd never figured out how his mother made so much soup, either, and lumped the two things together into mysteries he would never understand.

"So, I take you to double as the ship's cook?"

Ozzy's grinding didn't slow down, he was in a rhythm of dumping in meat and other ingredients. "As long as I’m cooking sausage or grilling, I'm not bad. And if I had my Pit here and some sauces, then I'd really be able to make some good-tasting stuff. But no, I'm not a good choice now that we have a crew to feed. Someone else needs to cook, or meals are going to just be a lot of sausages. My trade is butchering and I've added barbeque and smoking to it, but I'm not a great cook overall."

Butter Belly took a few links and chewed on them. "Naw, I could eat these for a few months. They're tasty, and my teeth don't break on them. That's the things my uncle Nimreth used to complain about. He spent a few years in prison in Vanaheim when he got caught stealing cattle with a bunch of trolls. They fed the trolls rocks every day. Nimreth complained, but he was always an ugly cuss and couldn't make them believe he wasn't a troll. He always said later that he judged food by whether or not he broke his teeth chewing it."

Ozzy finished a barrel of crab and took a break. "So, what’s the food like where you're from? Muspelheim? Is that part of Fyre?"

"Sort of. It's technically part of the nine worlds, but it sits right up against Fyre and the border moves around a lot. Muspelheim is much like Midgard, so I hear, just more comfortable. Where you come from has a lot of water and snow. Too much like Jotonheim for me to live there, but it might be fun to visit. And Muspelheim has the best food in the nine worlds. Hearty roasts, smoked fish, seafood of all kinds, and crust bread. And gravy. I'm not sure I've even sat down to a meal in Muspelheim that didn't have a bucket of gravy on the table."

"But butchering is a fair trade and barbeque is a favorite in my village. You should come to visit during one of the big mammoth hunts. One of my aunts does a big pit roast with mammoths. She spits them and half cooks them with a nice pepper sauce basted on until they get tender, then puts them in the smoke pit for a month. —nothing like it. We even get a bunch of the Asir and Vanir down for a party afterward They come running into the village blowing horns and running chariots through the middle of houses and then we wrestle around for a few hours before getting down to drinking and dinner. Good times. Consider yourself invited."

Ozzy laughed. "I might be a bit small, but I'll keep it in mind."

Ozzy worked until nearly the dawn of the next day producing sixteen barrels of sausage. He was eating continuously to replace his fuel and smoke. His heat was slowly going up from the heat radiating from the eruption, but he'd used up a lot trying to scare off the Sea Queen. All the other crew members were also getting hotter. Ozzy instructed them to come to him if they got past three quarters. It was easy to go to sleep and wake up overheated. Mariah and Butterbelly were the exceptions. The fire giant complained that the Smoke was normally too cold for his tastes and just right at the moment. Mariah said that it didn't affect her at all.

Each of the sausage barrels was filled with smoke and heat, and then the barrels of cooked meat were stored in the hold of the ship a day later after it had time to cook. Woodrat wanted as much food as they could get. Creatures were plentiful on the Sargasso. Too plentiful. But the fishing would be very poor once they were underway.

Ozzy grabbed a quick nap, and then led half the crew on an expedition to liberate the ballistae. Much care was taken to never get near the spheres of blue mist. Ozzy and Butterbelly lowered the weapons down from the ships and two were placed in each boat along with barrels of ammunition. The return trip was uneventful but no one was letting their guard down.

That evening, Ozzy was getting itchy and decided to go out and destroy another ship. The firewalker went with him. They picked up two of the spheres, bringing bags to hold them and a good amount of padding. The thick glass was tough to break, but they were taking chances just by having them near them. Anything to reduce the chance of breaking one was taken.

Ozzy found a ship that satisfied his quest and they went exploring. Nothing good was found in the ship until they got to the back of the hold and found a dozen barrels of salted herring. How long it had been there was a mystery. They loaded up a boat to drag back. To Ozzy, Anything is Sausage, including ancient barrels of salted herring.

Looting done, Ozzy tossed a glass ball filled with death up high and watched it smash onto the deck. The mist spread out, and within a few minutes, the masts were fallen over, and the hull showed a significant number of holes. The two mates increased the number of holes and tore apart the ship until Ozzy gained a notification that it was destroyed. They moved on from that ship and, after passing three smaller hulks, came upon a whaling ship. It didn't look that much different from other ships, especially rotting and covered in dried weed, but part of Ozzy hated it as soon as he saw it. They took a look inside, but the holds were empty. Something had nested in here from the broken walls and shattered beams at some point.

On the deck were huge vats for turning blubber into whale oil and the remains of a block, tackle, and booms that would be used to lower the whaleboats and bring up the cargo of blubber. Ozzy didn't bother with any of it. They backed far enough away to be safe, and Butterbelly tossed his globe at the ship. It rapidly disintegrated thanks to the destruction by the unknown creature and counted as destroyed with no work required. Ozzy felt better after that. He told the second mate the story behind his need to kill ships. The firewalker laughed. "That is what you get for eating food that comes from strange places. Did I tell you yet about my cousin Lufta and how he got a great deal on a wagonload of jam made in Niflheim?"

They returned to the Splinter, with Butterbelly telling one story after another, each more improbably than the last. They loaded the fish into a cargo net, and Ozzy brought it aboard. The second mate jumped aboard the ship and then stepped into the hold, where he had a bed next to the sausage barrels. He was snoring within a few minutes. Derrick was on duty as the lookout. The rest of the crew were asleep. Ozzy grabbed his shovel and got to work.

Woodrat had crafted him a shovel after he explained what he needed. With Tunneling 4, Ozzy could move a large amount of dirt, or in this case, dried sargasso weed. He required a heavily reinforced shovel with a large head. It reminded Ozzy of a snow shovel, but even more significant. He started working his way around the Splinter, digging down into the sargasso weed and trying to find out how far down it went. He left the weed at the back and front of the weed alone, the last thing he needed was to have the ship tip over on him.

The sargasso weed was only a few feet above the level of the smoke. Ozzy guessed that as the weed slowly grew and died, it made a thicker mat and pushed farther into the smoke. Some of the ships were much further down in the weed, which might mean they had been in the graveyard longer. Ozzy wanted to know how deep he had to dig so he could float the ship. He had used Cleanse to clear any weeds off the ship's hull. There hadn't been a lot. Woodrat claimed that an Auric hull was tough to attach to. The Splinter would be faster because of her sails, but also from the clean hull.

There was a difference in color in the lower part of the hull and the upper. Ozzy estimated the ship had a draft of eight feet. That would mean he had to dig a trench at least eight feet further down than the level of the Smoke. He added another two feet to that for good measure. The weed in this part of the island was at least five feet above the level of the smoke. So, all he needed was a 15 to 20-foot-deep trench around the ship, filled with smoke so they could float the ship. Part of that would be done with the gas, but the rest would be done by hand.

When the crew awoke in the morning, they found the Butcher asleep in his cabin and huge piles of dried weeds around the ship. Woodrat could follow his plan, seeing where Ozzy had left enough of the vegetation to keep the ship stable. He put his new crew to work packing dried salad into barrels after they separated out the berries. Derrick was on lookout duty as usual and they left Ozzy to nap in his cabin. There were ships still to loot. Woodrat took Moriah and Butterbelly with him. They returned five hours later, battered and weary. The boat the firewalker was towing held several rolls of bright red silk, a collection of porcelain tankards taken from the cabin of an unknown captain, and the remains of a Red Crested Land Shark that had attacked them as they were coming back to the ship. Ozzy got to work making more sausage.

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