The Blood Runs Cold (Warhammer Fantasy Vampire Pirate Quest)

The battle was going extremely poorly and you snarled, raising up and firing your jezzail in a single smooth gesture. "Medb!" You barked at your fumbling Quartermaster. "The flanks really need that artillery bombardment now, what's taking so long!"

"I'm trying Admiral, but all my stuff in the signal bag have been replaced with...this!" She waved about a small stone tablet with strange symbols. "Knew that those skinks we spotted last night were up to no good!"

You stared incredulously. "So we don't have artillery support?!? Why didn't you tell me this earlier!"

"I don't know, but give me a moment. I just have this gut feeling about this thing." The tip of her tongue poked barely out from her lips as she frantically analyzed the mysterious Lizardmen artifact. "Let's see, these symbols are a vibrant red...they light up when I push them? They look like directions. Um....right, down, down, left, down, right, down, down?"

You almost wanted to break and cry at the sheer nonsense spilling from Medb's lips. Then your eyes nearly popped out of your skull quite literally when the bottom part of the tablet suddenly popped up and some glowing orb was deposited into the shocked Wood Elf's hands. The two of you stared in disbelief at the pulsing sphere, only to realize with appropriate panic when you realized it was starting to blink faster in some sort of countdown.

Medb yelped and tossed it to you. You caught it, then brought your arm back to wind up for a massive pitch. With a shout, you threw it far away from you, somehow landing it in the vicinity of the enemy forces. Your vampiric strength gave you one hell of a throwing arm.

The two of you braced when the mysterious orb flashed brightly a final time, unsure if it was just going to pop confetti or tear open a Warp rift. When nothing happened for the first few seconds, the pirates shared matching confused looks and wondered what that was all about.

Ears with sharpened hearing twitched when both you and Medb picked up in something coming from...above? There wasn't even any time to check before every bone in you screamed to hit the dirt and you obeyed without question, just in time for the world to erupt.

It was like witnessing the entire collection of artillery owned by the Empire, Dawi, and Kislev fire all at once. You could hear screaming from somewhere when everything in the local vicinity of the thrown orb was obliterated into a fine mix of dirt and blood, perfectly churned and mixed with one another. Another volley later, and you realized it was your voice screaming in confusion and panic.

The breaking of the world finally ceased moments later and you cautiously raised your head to stare at the newly created flat plain where there once was an enemy army. Your troops too began to rise to their feet, looking quite shell-shocked. Slowly, you turned about to stare at your Quartermaster and your eyes widened.

There was an expression of blissful rapture in Medb'd eyes and her breaths were laborious, coming out as deep pants with shaking knees. She looked back down at the mysterious stone tablet with shaking hands and noticed the bottom portion had regenerated into a new inert orb awaiting a code. Her fingers made to press a new series of signs-

"NO YOU DON'T!" Angelica screamed as she bodily tackled her colleague. Moments later, all your other officers joined in on the body pile to keep a screaming Wood Elf pinned. "Admiral!"

"Confiscated and banned!" You screeched and scooped up the artifact. "You blew up all the gold!"

You watched the last of the crates containing the rifles descend beneath decks and gave a satisfied nod. They'd be hopefully kept safe down there while you started looking for pirates with good eyes, ones that wouldn't mind keeping a respectable distance from targets and firing at range. It was actually an attitude not often cultivated among the brigands of the high seas, owing to how much more useful the pistol was in boarding actions compared to handguns. Not to say that there wasn't a place for long barreled firearms, but a sword in one hand and pistol in the other was the popular stereotype for a reason.

There was the small shuffling of movement from the distant cliffs that drew your attention and you casually observed the defeated trudging of the surviving mercenaries returning back to Marienburg. Your victory over them had stripped them of both gear and pride, so it was very likely many of them would opt to find a new career, not able to simply bounce back from the exorbitant cost of losing their tools of the trade. There had been some idle considerations on your part to hire the defeated mercenaries, but it didn't feel right nor did you even have the room to take them onboard. Plus, you'd wind up paying that mercenary premium price for hardly anything special compared to your cutthroats.

No, you'd prefer creating a unit from scratch with those seized handguns instead of hiring captured enemies. It was much simpler, though more time-consuming and requiring your full attention to construct, expanding what sort of fellows you could hire onto your ships. You sighed and reluctantly added it as another mental to-do in your head, elongating an already long list even more.

"That's a nice sound right there, Admiral!" Octavia commented with a pleased hum while she climbed up the stairs to the command deck. "A sound that promises a life filled with too much to do, so best you pick and choose."

"You do realize I'll eventually get to it all?" You grumbled with a roll of the eyes. "I'll see more turns of the moon than most. A benefit to being an accursed corpse, I suppose."

"A benefit and curse indeed." The violinist leaned against the railing and studied you with a tilt of the head. "I can't think of anything more wicked to inflict on an individual than that. A life too long with too little to do."

You frowned and supposed she had a point. But you still raised a counter-point. "We don't know what the world will be like in a hundred years or so. Perhaps there's some new development or field that'll definitely keep me occupied for a while. Barring that, I hardly hold the most reliable of jobs." You patted your flagship absently, then focused back on a point she had raised. "But you say then a short life is a blessing? Especially if you can't do everything that you want to?"

"It is!" Octavia insisted with a firm nod and grin. "It means that you're on a limit to have the best life you can. It means that any time spent regretting and mourning what has never come to be is the true waste, that you should go out and experience all the pleasures and thrills there is to see."

"A dangerous ideology," You cautioned with a heavy frown. "The sort that would drive you to damnation before you know it."

"Are you sure about that? What makes it so different from the Morrites who insist on living life to the fullest without regrets?" Octavia challenged, shifting slightly into an engaging posture. "If one spends their life doing nothing but working the fields, collecting the harvest, and then dying at a ripe old age, then have they truly lived? Have they experienced the world beyond their farm? Or is the farm their entire world to indulge in then?"

A sharp question that threw you off for a moment. "Some like living that way," You calmly offered as a rebuttal. "They like the simple life and don't care for much outside."

"A fair point. I won't begrudge them of that," She admitted with a reluctant nod, then came back with her own argument. "But then similarly, can one blame those who go beyond to experience new horizons, new experiences, new indulgences? Even if they were to perish doing so, have they not then at least chosen to live to the fullest? I'd rather a short life filled with any sort of excitement than a long life filled with nothing."

Slowly, the pieces began to fall into place about the Magic Specialist in front of you and you studied her intensely. "Is that why you're the way you are?" You quietly asked. "That you would rather thrust yourself into a blazing fire to just brag that you've lived?"

Octavia hesitated, then pressed her lips together. "I told you already that I came close once," She finally said, eyes flicking between you and her violin case. "That I'm already marked, more than likely. I'm probably likely going to have my soul eaten or ripped to shreds when everything comes to an end, either maybe in the distant future or soon."

"Then why involve us?" You struck hard with an angry lean forwards. "And why now instead of earlier? I imagine that if you wanted to make a play between the gods, you could have done so earlier long before you met us. I don't buy that you needed time to make the right composition for it, else then you would've already hoped onto the first ship that was willing to take you. So why this crew?"

Some sort of mask finally dropped from Octavia's face and her grin faded, replaced with a contemplative expression, one that seemed to actually hold a shard of self-reflection. A rare thing, given how she usually plowed on forwards without giving a single damn about the consequences of her actions to follow. Maybe that was the reason why she never considered the risks of that insane venture of hers in the first place.

A part of you wanted to order her off your damn crew immediately when you made port next, but you held that back, wanting to see where this went. Especially given the entire spiel of when you first met her, about wanting to be genuine. After a few more minutes, Octavia finally let out a ragged sigh and moved to lean over the railing instead, staring blankly out over the ship. "...because you lot can handle me at my worst," She quietly confessed. "Even whatever noble acquaintances I have back in Tobaro can't handle me when I get in the mood of things, but here? It's just another eccentric thing that's taken in stride, then you tell me to get back to work instead of chastising me all over it. It makes me feel...accepted. Welcomed. Not wanting to just speed life along until its end, whatever that is." A hand softly reached and brushed over the shimmering blue gem embedded in her glove.

"For once, you want to live just a little longer," You summarized, then your eyes narrowed. "Which means needing to at least delay that mark on you from the Dark Prince. And that means getting some sort of divine aegis placed on you for one reason or another."

"Mann's the best connection I have otherwise, and He's quite fickle," Octavia reminded with a shake of the head. "Out of all the gods, He's the one who cares least about His followers, what they do or invoke in His name. A wild and tempestuous divinity, just like the waves. If I make a simple petition, like hell I'll be noticed. But even then, He has limits as to what He'll let slide."

"Which includes the Dark Powers." You sighed and hung your head, matching Octavia's lean over the railing. "He won't be happy with you, you realize. You trade the ire of one immeasurably powerful being for another."

"Ah, but at least His attention will be short-lived and spontaneous. Unlike that which has haunted me so ever since, an obsession that even I find quite frustrating." She sucked in a deep breath, then turned to you with a faint pleading expression. "Please, I believe that you and the others are the best shot I have at this. Worst comes to worst, all these protections by Lydia should then help keep you safe for a little while longer. Long enough to get away from me, at least."

Your eyes narrowed at that, and you could only offer a single response to that. "We'll try."

She nodded and picked up her violin case to head to the bow to get some practice in. You lingered there for a moment longer, watching the sails unfurl over your flagship before deciding you needed a break from all this craziness. A little indulgence in your preferred pastime was in the cards. So you made your way over to your cabin, looking forward to perhaps sketching some interesting ideas for new ship compartments.

(Practice your Designs: 98 +17 (Stewardship) +5 (Basic Design) = 120)

Inspiration came swiftly once you opened your sketch book and uncapped the ink well. The quill scratching against the parchment flowed naturally and smoothly, a clear theme in mind this time when you focused on your drawings. The recent land battle was definitely a source of inspiration this time round, especially in areas relating to having more troops on ships.

Truth be told though, you could likely already upgrade how many crews you could carry onboard via a simple upgrade to any blank hull sections. It wasn't exactly going to be comfortable even if modified for it so, but comforts certainly weren't high on your list of priorities when the purpose was to just bring more bodies to any fight, either land or sea. The important thing is that such an easy modification was, like the others, easy to put on or remove as need be.

Unlocked the Crew Berths modification.

But you wanted to go further than that and had some more ideas on proper troop compartments for your ships. You chewed the end of your quill in thought, not even minding the slightly feathery taste when you considered the variety of options before you, both old and new. They were all so intriguing that you had to go down the list of possibilities.

First of all was a previous observation from the old Druchii Skiff you had captured, a combination of an oar deck along with a troop compartment. The idea behind this was to have those who lived in these quarters be swiftly roused to take rowing positions when the alarm was raised, so as to be immediately ready to help with the ship's mobility at a moment's notice. Benches were incredibly versatile here, being both the seat to row from and a separator between the bunks, or even perhaps a sleeping spot in itself. It was perfect for troop ships like the Druchii, urging their raiding crew to row harder if they wanted to get their spoils.

But on the other hand, did you really need to have that oar deck? It did take up an awful lot of space. Your eyes trailed down to the next idea, one that involved the smaller hull spaces on a ship. A simple troop compartment that was made for the purpose, with properly allocated and divided spaces for sleeping, eating, and passing the time on long voyages. Each and every single area of space was carefully mapped out, a precise division that would ensure acceptable living quarters without compromising the hull like a slapped-on modification could. You were sure that this idea could even have room for further optimization once you hit the books for further research.

Finally then came a rather completely different idea, but one that still drew inspiration from the recent conflict and acquisitions. The tip of your writing utensil gently traced over an imposing structure that was your most ambitious yet: a battle tower. It was a full replacement of a mast, stretching above the deck and providing an elevated fighting position or perhaps even a new possible weapon space. It was hardly anything new compared to what the High Elves or the Empire did with their own ships, but the complexity of its construction couldn't be stated enough. It required an immense amount of proper structural support while avoiding being too heavy for the deck to hold up, a paradoxical challenge that would require the right amount of balancing.

Yet then, once you decided what you wanted to turn a battle tower into, it was an undeniable aid. Already you could envision a possibility in your head, outfitting it as a proper firing position for handgunners to safely fire down into crew battles from all angles. You could feel drool pooling in your mouth at the idea, the ability to fire upon boarding enemies regardless of their approach so tempting.

You hastily wiped at your mouth before your shamelessness flowed over and chewed your lip, trying to figure out which one of these tantalizing ideas to focus upon first.

[ ] [Design] Oar Deck Quarters

[ ] [Design] Troop Hull

[ ] [Design] Combat Tower

- Octavia swings hard in everything. Love, obsession, despair, hope, it all falls under the realm of pleasure don't you think?
- Remember that depending on your subsequent research roll, there might be the possibility of further customizing each compartment. These are just general ideas for now.