Chapter 207: It's a charred world now.

Chapter 207: It's a charred world now.

Woodrat came awake. Someone was holding him by the back of his coat and shaking him. Had he been caught slacking again? What had he been doing? He didn't want to wake up. What ship was he on? He was hot, and sick, and wanted to go back to sleep. But someone wouldn't let his stay asleep.

Abruptly, someone forced his teeth apart and shoved something down his throat. It was hot and awful, not food fit for man or beast. He was dropped on to something soft and springy and an unintelligible voice boomed nearby. He felt worse. He laid down to go back to sleep. The wouldn't let him.

Woodrat came awake fully, feeling horrible. He was held by the back of his coat and being shaken again. The shaking stopped and he closed his eyes.

"Dammit, wake up!"

Words? Those were words. Woodrat's ears were recovered enough that his brain made that connection. Again, something held him up and shook him. He opened his eyes. His first mate was looking at him and yelling. Woodrat raised a finger and pointed at him. "See here now, your captain needs a little nap. Just go away and raise a sail or make chain or something like that." He closed his eyes.

Captain Woodrat felt himself held tightly and a large hand put repeated pressure on his abdomen until an explosion started in his stomach, ran up his throat, and he found himself breathing out a plume of fire 10 foot long. He felt better. His mate set him down and handed him three dried red berries. Was that what he had eaten before?

"Make some smoke, you're nearly dead. Then chew these up, and force out some more fire. You need to drop your heat before you burst your furnace." Ozzy took a handful himself and chewed them up, followed by burping up his own plume of fire that was significantly bigger than Woodrat's had been. He was jealous about that. He was captain! Where did his mate get off having bigger fire than he did!This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

Looking at his furnace, he was appalled.

Woodrat (Mate, Veteran Shipwright) Level: 8 OVERHEATED. Furnace ready to burst!!

Smoke: 52/1525 Heat: 2900/2825 Fuel: 580/1623 Furnace: 32/32 Smoke Eating: 15/15

With haste, Woodrat burned 150 fuel and 150 heat to bring himself back into balance. As he did, he immediately felt better and the fever left his brain. He was confused, but could think clearly. He'd been close to death!

Captain Woodrat (Mate, Veteran Shipwright) Level: 8 HOT! and getting HOTTER!

Smoke: 1525/1525 Heat: 2805/2825 Fuel: 4802/1623 Furnace: 32/32 Smoke Eating: 15/15

"What the devil is going on?"

Ozzy ate another handful of berries and blew out another plume of fire. "The eruption must still be going on. There's a hot wind blowing and we're taking on too much heat, too fast. Watch your furnace, it's going up a little bit at a time and you'll be losing smoke trying to control it. Here, have some salad. It's delicious. You need to be eating to keep up your fuel."

Woodrat watched as every minute his furnace ticked up. A wonderful thing, free heat. Too bad it was killing them. His mated dumped a bundle of salad in his lap, most of it brown and brittle with little or no green stuff. He realized he was sitting on burnt salad. and all around him was burnt salad. It stretched out before him, a huge island of it, and beyond that was the Smoke. Angry waves of smoke, with rolling swells. They'd run aground on a Sargasso, which should have been their death. The green tendrils should have reached up and strangled them. But the Sargasso had been a victim of the Eruption just as every other thing in the smoke had been. The huge floating island of salad was brown and crisp underneath a thin blackened crust.

The stuff was brittle and tasted worse than splintered wood, something else the captain had been forced to eat a time or two. The salad went down easier, but the wood tasted better. He managed a bite of it, and then another. The small berries were dry and tasty, but his throat was sore from breathing fire. He picked them out and made a pile of them before eating more of the dry strangleweed.

"By the gods, what a jest. Reduced to eating burned salad as fast as we can to survive an excess amount of heat."

His mate laughed at him. "It's not bad, tastes just like chicken!" Woodrat just stared at his chuckling mate as he shoved another handful of sargasso weed into his mouth. The poor lad had gone mad. Chicken was a delicacy only found in the islands. He'd had a bite one time. Wonderful stuff and first rate fuel.

"Now that I've finally woke you up from your little nap, it's time to get to work. This isn't a place to hang around, and we need a ship. Luckily, we have quite a few to choose from, all in the finest of condition."

The splinter was nearby, and his mate had carefully gathered all the parts of it into a pile. The Deadman's Chest sat at the top of the pile of broken wood. His eyes turned to the Sargasso, leagues of deadly vegetation and dead ships were now a charred wilderness. Broken masts stood up at odd angles. Some ships were hull up; others were hull down. Excitement filled him. There was more unclaimed wood here than he had ever seen!

Ozzy was walking towards the first ship; Woodrat ran to catch up. The ground was spongy and he wobbled a bit as he ran, used to a firm deck. As each of the big swells moved across the smoke, the salad under him moved up and down. As he caught up, Ozzy bent down and tore up a chunk of burnt salad, handing it to him. "Eat. If you run out of fuel, you die. Save the berries. Helpful for getting rid of excess heat. And I'll show you another use. You need to be constantly eating, and we're going to have to sleep in short shifts." Grumbling, Woodrat stuck the tasteless stuff in his mouth. Ozzy ate a huge chunk, licked his lips and chuckled.

Woodrat pinned the little medal to his own coat. "I'll never be accused of having gone to an academy, but this will come in handy if the two of us are swimming for our lives from a shark. I don't have to be faster than the shark, just faster than you."

Ozzy laughed at his captain's joke, as Ship's Law required, then replied, "I'll just eat the shark. Swimming makes me hungry."

Ozzy grabbed Woodrat and tossed him up to the deck of the ship. The captain yelped as he flew through the air and landed on the deck. He straightened up and looked around. Nothing stirred. "A good plan, Mr. Ozzy, I've scouted the ship and dealt with hostiles."

Ozzy threw his chain to the rail, a hook catching tight, and climbed up. He had to be careful of the rotted deck that Woodrat navigated across with ease. He weighed a lot more, and his steps were heavy on the old wood. The cargo area was empty of anything but salad. The ship had settled over time and the vegetation had moved in.

They quickly looked in the cabins below the first deck, but found nothing of use. The galley area had been destroyed with not even a wooden plate left whole. Only the captain's cabin contained anything worth taking, the contents protected by a stout door that the charred hadn't been able to break open, but that splintered when Ozzy kicked it in. Woodrat found an ancient rutter with maps of the smoke and description of the currents. Each rutter was a navigator’s own log of his observations and discoveries. They were frustratingly personal and might also be in code. Each navigator was jealous of his knowledge. With time though, they could reveal knowledge of currents, islands, and other places of note. Woodrat tucked the book into his coat.

Besides the journal, Ozzy found two bottles of some dark purple beverage which Woodrat immediately tried and proclaimed to be "Good enough to drink."

Having searched this ship, they moved across the empty island of burnt vegetation. "One ship down Mr. Ozzy, and a hundred to go. I'm a bit worried about the charred though."

Ozzy stretched and flipped one of his hatchets in the air and caught it. "Better now than before. You were sleeping like a newborn babe when the first two batches attacked. I was standing on top of you, hacking them down."

Woodrat wondered if he was serious, and decided that he was. The thought of laying there helpless with charred nearby made him shiver. He reached down and tore up more crispy veggies, and pocketed a handful of the berries. "I see your point. Let's concentrate on goading them out of the nearest ships and clearing it out. We need to dump this heat somewhere, so it might as well go into ridding the area of those creatures." They both began chewing more food and swallowing it, one person enjoying the meal more than the other, and headed towards the next vessel.

Mr. Ozzy, Ship's Mate Level 10 Burning Brightly

Smoke: 3200/5770 Heat: 15000/15250 Fuel: 600/5570 Furnace: 0/150 Smoke Eating: 0/130

You have gained a Legendary Title: Whale Rider

Fire Eating has reached Rank 10

Active Fire Resistance has reached Rank 10

Hack Undead has reached Rank 9

Strike Undead has reached Rank 8

Playing with Fire has reached Rank 10

Smoke of a Distant Fire has reached rank 10

Aspect of Radiance has reach rank 1

You are Marked by Jack Fyrebeard

Perk: Shielding has been gained.

You have gained a new choice for Heritage.