In The Hooks of a Pirate -Pt. 1-

These magic books were a lot denser than I expected. Each paragraph had really detailed word salads that just kept going on and on about the power of gaia, elemental forces… I could already hear Rose screaming in my ear how boring this was, let alone players with weaker attention spans. The issue was that there were specific details in there that the player needed for a little puzzle game at the end of the tome.

“Might need to trim the fat here.”

They’d work for now, and they were short reads, but it just wasn’t enjoyable in the slightest.

“Is that the ice ray spell?” Tensei asked as she peeked over my shoulder to read along.

“Yeah. What do you think about this?”

She pretty much gave me the same response I figured. Too many words, too much lore. Players just wanted to get to the good stuff. An idea might be cool in concept, but execution didn’t always hold up.

One of the philosophies we had while making games was that if we aren’t having fun, the players sure as heck wouldn’t be either. These games were supposed to keep them entertained as they lived out some fictional dream impossible for reality, not feel like homework. That’s why I always hated grinding and tried to make it easy on newer players just starting out.

Some people were getting off the boats down by the docs. They looked… interesting.

Their ship looked like a rainbow exploded all over. The different parts the boat was made of were mismatched, like some came from more regal crafts, while others were from poorer merchants.

Their outfits were worse, because nothing they were wearing went well together. It was like cosplayers threw on whatever they had in their mothers closet and jumped into a tye dye bath.

“Uh oh…” I uttered. “Looks like the NPC randomizer is a little busted there.”

Our game had a system where characters had random equipment assigned to them based on specific parameters. So if there was a royal figure, he would always have some type of royal gear and not end up looking like a peasant farmer.

The batch of rainbow pirates were all kinds of a mess. The men were in skirts designed for attractive bar maids, and the very few women were armored up in things meant for hulking demon knights. Both cases were severely hindered in movement, plus there was a lot of clipping. If only they decided to swap their outfits, things might have looked a little better, not by much, but better.

Tensei and I couldn’t help but laugh at the captain. This huge, fuzzy young guy with red hair, jacked like a body builder with a tight little bikini and skirt. Lucky for him he had his proper hat, but the jolly roger was a jpeg of a cupcake. With the way he strutted down the doc it was clear he had no idea how silly and out of character he looked

We laughed so much about it that we actually caught his attention.

“What does yee’ think’s so funny, landlubbers?”

I was not ready for a young girl's voice to come out of his mouth. No matter how intimidating he looked, I had to fight the urge to burst out into laughter. Poor Tensei had zero self control and was just cracking up.

His sharp dagger replaced hand tapped at the wooden railing between our balcony and exit of the docs.

“I asked yee's skervy folk a question!” his foot stomped. His first mate in a kilt and winter coat, and a sassylooking lady in knights chestplate flanked him. “I like jokes, and yee’ better have’s good ones!”

“Oh, we just think you look kinda’ funny,” Tensei answered, innocently honest.

“Ten, shut up!” I shouted in a panic.

“Oh, yee’s think’s we funny, eh?” He gave a deceptive smile and that hysterical uncharacteristic little girl's voice. “It sure would be nice if yee’ looked at us when spoken to.”

I couldn’t move without Rose, so I was totally stuck here and very vulnerable to whatever punishment he could dish out.

He grabbed me by the collar and held me close to his face. I could smell that foul breath coming out of his mouth as he breathed so closely.

“Looks like yee’ don’t have any respect. Why don’t we learn ya’ sum on me high seas?”

“I…Uh…” I was sweating buckets. “R-Rose! Rose! Are you back yet?” My voice quivered.

“Ain’t that sweet? Thee boy likes flowers!” he threw me onto the ground and started dragging me by my hair toward his boat. “What’s yee think, crew? Yee thinks this respecless flower boy might find some flowers in Davy Jones' locker?”

“Oh god no…” I panicked.

“Cap’n,” started the first mate girl next to him in a stern, but somewhat conflicted tone. “Yee’s sure tis’ ain’t too much trouble more den it’s worth?”

“‘Course I’m sure!” he shouted back. “Ain’t no one disrespects me and gets away with it!”

“Tensei, do something!” I pleaded with her as I panicked at the thought of becoming shark food. “Don’t just float there!”

“I-I don’t know what to do!” Suddenly her eyes narrowed and her cheeks puffed up in a serious pout.

She took hold of the pirate man's bikini and pulled on the elastic bra strap.

*SMACK!*

She released it and whipped the guy so hard he let out a yelp.

“What the…?” The pirate snatched Tensei out of the air with his hook hand and held her by the collar. “What manner of mischievous child be this? Yee can swab the poop deck for that one!”

“Not the poop deck!” Tensei cried out. “Have mercy! Lady Rose, save us!”

I honestly couldn’t think of a worse situation to be in than this. I mean, I could have. But who wanted to be dragged off by a brawny rainbow pirate man in a bikini?

💻⚔️💻

Tensei and I were tied up on deck as the rainbow pirates craft sailed down the river. Things were surprisingly quiet here, aside from the occasional loud yell from one crewman to another, or a looping voice line of someone complaining that their teeth were falling out every twenty seconds.

The reason they were so earsplitting loud was because players would have a third person view of the craft while they were sailing, so in order to hear what everyone was saying, they had to be super loud.

“Are we doomed to be shark bait, Mr. Roberts?” Tensei asked in a crestfallen tone.

“I have no idea,” I replied in the most depressed voice I could muster. “Where is Rose? What is she, making a pizza from scratch?”

Maybe it was a little unreasonable to complain about Rose leaving, since we had absolutely no idea this would happen.

“If only I wasn’t so useless…” Tensei said, even sadder than before. “I haven’t been much help at all to you when things get rough.”

“Ten, everyone’s good at some things, and worse at others…” I was going to say she was the whole reason I was here, alive in this world, but I was still a little unhappy about that prospect. “You weren’t designed to fight on the front lines. You’re a support character.”

“Well, I guess. But what supporting things have I done?”

“Without you, I wouldn’t know how to bring up those access points. Granted, I wouldn’t be here at all, but you know… At least you can do that.”

How did she do that anyways? She must have had access to administrative powers that even I didn’t at the moment.

“Tensei, do you have any other spells that might be useful?”

“Mmm…” her head tilted cutely and she looked off to the horizon. “Hey, I guess I do. But they’re not so much spells as they are commands.”

Tensei summoned up a command prompt out of thin air and typed in something called View_Possession_Alpha_True.

One of the pirates gazes met with her’s and her body went limp and laid against my back. The pirates eyes lip up bright green, the same color as Ten’s eyes, then he looked back and did a little dance.

“See, Mr. Roberts? I just figured out I can possess people!”

“Ten, shut up…” I whispered aggressively. “Don’t let them know you can do that…”

It was too late. Another pirate next to him took notice immediately and was about to call it out, but Tensei bonked him over the head with an empty beer bottle.

That really turned some heads, but they didn’t seem to care much as the guy collapsed onto the ground. Must have been a pretty routine thing for rowdy pirates.

“Ten, can you free us in that body?” I asked as she walked the pirate's body over to me.

“I think so. Give me a second to…” The green light faded from his eyes and he looked at me shocked. Tensei started wiggling back awake in her real body.

“What was I about to do…?” The pirate guy said while holding the rope around me. “Uh, sorry about that. My head hurts…”

He shuffled off in a hurry and went below deck.

“Ten, did something happen?” I asked.

“Y-yeah…” she yawned. “It took a lot of energy to possess that guy. I think the stronger or bigger something is, the less time I can control it.”

We could have used that power more than a few times up to now, but as long as she was discovering it at all, that was better than nothing. Sadly, her experimenting wasn’t enough to do us much good here either.

The pirate captain took some time away from the wheel and came down to check up on us. I was at a very unflattering angle as I got a glance up his skirt. What a package…

“Yee scurvy scallwags almost ready fer’ yer’ punishment of makin’ fun of me?” his brow arched. I still couldn't get over that voice. I just remembered which one it was too. Pirate_Girl_#1, or Ginger Snap. She was meant for a DLC subquest themed around a girl following in her father’s footsteps and hunting for the treasure he left behind.

Now that I’m thinking about it, it might have been the body that was wrong and not the outfit. That would explain why things were so weird and mismatched around here. Plus her crew was supposed to be mostly female, with the exception of a handsome first mate, a stowaway who lived below deck and a couple of heavy hitting swordsmen.

“Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to be Ginger Snap the Red, would you?” I asked.

His face grew a big and menacing smile and his foot stomped down on a box.

“Ahh, so ye’v heard of me. Thought yee’ landlubbers would never recognize a pretty face like mine.”

I knew it! The crew had their genders swapped somehow.

The DLC wasn’t anywhere near being finished, so maybe the reason things were so wonky with this particular aspect was because the files that did exist in the game were half complete. For instance, the game will always default to making a character male if a gender isn’t specified in the code.

“W-wow!” I faked a cheer. “I know so much about you. You’re famous in my hometown.”

Ginger Snap was all ears with curious eyes on me. She was the type to eat up praises, so all I needed to do was feed that swelled head a bit until the captain's hat didn’t fit.

“You know, I heard you were on a journey to find the greatest treasure of all. The Gold Fire of Red Beard.”

“Aye…” she said in a long and drawn out breath. “Tis’ the riches of the greatest pirate king of all. But, here’s the fun part…” Her hooked hand tugged on my chin and pulled me close to her grizzly looking face. “Ain’t nobody out there known’ how I was huntin’ fer that yet. So who here squealed to ya’, Flower Man? Did ya’ bribe someone, get on their good side thinkin’ you could get on mine, eh?”

She shoved me back down hard.

“I ain’t so stupid as to trust a bottom feeder like yer’self. In fact, why don’t we send yee’s back from whence yee came?”

The pirate crew stopped the boat and anchored in place. A few of them pulled out a long wooden board and held it steady on the edge of the boat like it was a devious diving board.

“They’re going to make us walk the plank!” Tensei cried out.

“Not you, sweetie. I got’s lots of work for yee’ to take care of.” Ginger Snap said with a chuckle.

“No!” Tensei Squwermed. “Lady Rose! Hurry back and help us!”

“Rose!” I joined in on her pleas for help. “Rose! Please, hurry back!”

-Ray… Teny-chan… What did you knuckleheads get yourselves into? (ಠ_ಠ)-

“Thank God!” I shouted, but realized I needed to be quiet since Ginger Snap was looking the other way at the moment. “Rose, we need you to do something, and quick… They’re going to make us walk the plank.”

-Uuuuh…… Yeah, okay? Like what?-

“Can you pull out my dagger? I might be able to cut myself free if it gives you the prompt.”

She spent a few moments looking through our inventory, but she couldn’t find the dagger.

-It’s not here. They probably took it from you when you guys got captured.-

Darn it… Without that dagger, we had no way of cutting ourselves free. I was really banking on that.

“We’re going to be shark food soon, so we have to figure out a way to escape or we’re cooked.”

“Sharks like raw meat, so they won’t grill us or anything,” Tensei explained.

“Thank you, Ten.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s a figure of speech. Ten, maybe you could possess one of the crewmen here and get us freed?”

“I’m too tired to do that…” she frowned. “I’m sorry.”

-She can do what now? (0 _0)-

“She has a very limited command prompt,” I said. “Not nearly as powerful as an access point, but she’s able to input commands through that and have specific effects.”

-OOh OOh! I have an idea! Ask her to type something in for me…-