Chapter 38: Home Base
Kelda caught them before they could actually get to digging.
"Pirates," she said, "are on my mind today. They've been getting more aggressive, as you saw. I talked to Floater yesterday, and he told me exactly how easy your last battle with them was, which means they've gotten entirely too confident."
"I wondered about that." Marco sat down across the table from Kelda after she waved for some people to bring them food. "What is your idea here?"
"Well, to be clear, I wasn't thinking of this at all before I saw your new ship. There's no telling what you'd run into out there, and pirates aren't the only threat."
"And now?" Marco appreciated that the woman had his safety in mind, even if it seemed she hadn't dropped the other shoe on her plan. "I agree that the ship's fast. What would we be running from?"
"I want you to hunt up some pirates. Not all of them are pushovers, but a lot of them are. Even if we can't clear the waters of the worst of them, opening up more space to dodge them by sinking the riff-raff would be helpful. Right now, our transports can't even steer clear of trouble because of how many pirates are in these waters. You could change that."
"Maybe. I have a couple of questions first, if you don't mind."
"No problem. Shoot."
Marco moved a couple pieces of silverware laid out on the table closer to him and pointed a knife at a fork.
"Say the fork is me. You say I should sail up on some pirate ship, a weak-looking one, and sink it. Say I go around and find someone who looks like someone I can beat. I and the team attack them. What do you think happens?"
Kelda looked amused. Marco suspected she knew the answer to his question already. Either way, she played along.
"I don't know. What?"
"I don't know either. Because there's no way to tell. Most people let threats come to them most of the time or only start fights when they know what they are starting a fight with. A couple of pirates already messed around with us and found out it wasn't a good idea. I want to learn from their mistakes, not repeat them,” Marco said.
"Smart. Well, I can help with that problem, at least." Kelda rooted around her bag for a few moments and withdrew a small cylindrical metal case from her bag. "I had this made a while back. Floater has one too, for all the help it's given him. It's a crafted item, so you should be able to see the description yourself."
| Assessing Spyglass The assessing spyglass is a master-crafted collapsible telescope made from the finest materials available. At a distance, it more clearly reveals distant objects in crystal-clear focus. Its primary enchantments include an auto-focusing function and the ability to dimly assess the overall value of a ship-based target.
|