#macku

"Is this some kind of revenge for something?" Hewkii thought to inquire: "Did we do an encounter wrong, or..."

Onepu shrugged, though the little smile from behind his game master windbreaker was every bit as smug and evil as a Cold War-cartoon's nefarious cat-caressing villain: "No, I just wanna see you squirm."

"But we just got the good ship!" Macku complained.

"I know."

"Oh, you sick-"

"I mean," Matoro mumbled, "We can also just make a run for it and turn this into a chase..."

"And avoid the battle?!"

"We always do battles! At least we'd have some variety - look, there's a whole thing for chases-" (and he forcefully shoved the manual in her direction) "-It sounds cool! We could play differently for once!"

"Yeah, well, there's a whole shipfight mode too that we couldn't preplay while legbound," Kongu cut in.

The other boy glared at him: "You just miss getting into fourty minute dogfights every chance you have like in the Hanging Gardens expansion of Vinefall Daedalus."

"And what of it?"

"I think Matoro's got a point," Hewkii interrupted them after skimming through the chase chapter with his girlfriend: "It's not like we have a chance at direct combat, and the chases do require a whole team effort to pull off, so we would all have something to do at least..."

"But the ship's large, right?" Takanuva intervened. "We'd all be pretty busy with a fight, too."

His friend curled up his nose in a grimace: "I mean, technically... I'm pretty sure that as soon as we start Macku and Nuparu are just gonna take over and man the whole thing themselves, though."

Macku thought about it for a couple seconds: "Yeah, I'd do that," she concluded with a hint of sheepishness.

"The Barbarian is waiting, by the way," Hahli reminded them.

"Wait, so we're ingame planarguing too?"

"I think so?"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely," Onepu nodded, "And Hahli's probably getting impatient, so, uh-"

Jaller's head shot up from the table where it had almost laid in total hopelessness: "Wait wait wait--" he pleaded, terror gleaming in his eyes: "Can I - can I make a bargain?"

The game master shot him a rancorous look.

"Fuck no." he growled.

"It's one of the main mechanics, this is a perfect time--!"

"You're going to sacrifice your stupid ass!" Onepu cut him off: "You've done this like four times, we're running out of character sheets! You need to stop this, dude!"

"I'm not going to--"

"You can't keep wearing through PCs like they're shitty socks!"

"I'm not gonna sacrifice myself!"

"I DON'T FUCKIN' TRUST YOU!"

"I'M NOT GONNA!"

"Swear on Pewku."

The elderly giant crab perked up visibly at being mentioned and leaned her body towards the dead serious finger pointing at her.

All nine kids eyed her with boundless affection.

"I swear on Pewku," Jaller said, slow and solemn as a knight pledging his life to a lord, "I will not sacrifice myself."

Onepu shot him a squinting, doubtful glare, but at last relented. With a heavy wave of his hand a sudden tension fell upon the table: everybody turned to their effective party leader, at once curious and afraid of what his plan might be.

Rising from his hands joined in prayer Jaller inhaled a long breath, which turned into a trembling exhale. He laid a hand on Takanuva's shoulder, looking him in the eyes; he quickly reconsidered his choice in the few seconds of silence he allowed to pass and turned to place his now vaguely sweaty palm on Macku. Also regretting this option within moments of having picked it, he quickly moved on to grasp Hewkii like his life depended entirely on the athlete's muscular trapezes.

"The crew is in your hands," he said gravely.

"Jaller, you're frightening me," his friend replied with perhaps more honesty than what was required.

Onepu clawed at his setup: "You swore no fucking--"

"I'm not--!"

"Hold up," Kongu interrupted them before they could go back to arguing, "If that chiefmakes Hewkii then Macku firstmates and I secondrise, so who's third?"

The atmosphere shattered entirely: "Oh - Matoro, obviously."

"Me?" Matoro asked, flabbergasted.

"Yeah? Is that ok?"

"I mean, sure, but like - I don't know, I thought Takanuva might've..."

The boy in question shook his head with a knowing wide eyed stare: "Oh no, better not put me in any positions of power."

Hahli gave a cavernous cough to remind them all of the 7 foot tall gossamer finned pirate captain with a clawed gauntlet that could have torn a frigate to shreds still waiting for them to either fess up to fight or book it as far away from her as possible.

A veneer of terror returned swiftly across the table.

"Right, right - so, uhm..." Jaller swallowed roughly, clenching and unclenching his fist in a poor attempt at relaxing. He laid both elbows on the flat surface, face pale as he gathered the resolve to go through with his idea: "So... I am going to do a bargain with the Barbarian, and... Alright, so, for the safety of the ship and the crew, I'm gonna..."

He couldn't handle the pressure: his face disappeared in his hands.

"I'm gonna service the Barbarian for a lifetime."

Silence.

Utter and endless.

For all of maybe a minute.

"Do you mean 'serve'?" Onepu carefully tried to correct.

Jaller's voice came muffled: "No..."

Everybody stared.

"Are you offering yourself as my concubine?" Hahli, eyes enormous, asked with a far too shrill voice and a way too large smile.

"Yeah..."

She hooted and hollered.

The game master stood up and went to lean with both hands against a wall as if he were recuperating from getting his back violently flayed, looking positively haunted in the way only a furious spirit returning from the underworld in search of vengeance can be.

"Dude," Macku sputtered, "I don't think you should be publically planning these things on tabletop night."

None of the boys spoke a word.

Jaller could feel their gazes burn into him, wheezing louder than a thousand disbelieving and sort of awkward snorts ever could have, and briefly considered burying himself in the pavement.

Clearly sensing his heart's truest wish, Onepu turned back at him: "I am going to jeff-the-kill you," he promised.

Hewkii coughed a laugh at that.

"You absolute bitch--" the game master continued.

"Concubine," Matoro tried to correct him.

"--You piece of shit, I made you swear on Pewku and you STILL found a way to do the self-sacrifice just with extra steps!"

"It's different!" Jaller pleaded.

"Because you're into it?" Kongu ribbed him.

"I'm not into it!"

"Not kinkshaming, just knowstaring."

"I'M NOT INTO IT!!"

"You aren't?" Hahli echoed, slightly disappointed.

Takanuva grabbed him by the shoulders and rattled him: "Take it back, take it back!!" he urged, "Don't fumble her like that, take it back!!"

A series of snaps cut through the chaos unfolding, hushing them all.

Onepu, whole face dark, slowly picked up a twenty-sided die and held it out to his nemesis for the night.

"You get one throw," he sentenced. "No prep, no modifiers, and if it's anything less than a 20 I'm exploding the ships with everybody on them. Barbarian included."

Arguments and shouts arose across the table, but the game master remained unmovable.

It was kind of fair, Jaller had to admit as he tacitly accepted his conditions by carefully pinching the cursed object and cupping it in his hands: he'd really pushed his luck with this, and he had every right to be sick and tired of these stunts.

Still, blowing the whole thing up was pretty extreme.

All waited with bated breath as he shook his fists up and down, die rattling within them. At last he let go: it rolled once, twice, thrice across the score sheet with a muted rustle.

It stopped.

His head fell into his hands: "It's a five," he sobbed.

But just as Onepu was about to enact his sweet, gun powder-based revenge Takanuva bolted up from his chair, screaming: "I can add another roll!"

Macku, already mourning the vessel (and to a lesser extent the party), lit up: "You can?"

"I can!!" and he triumphantly raised his crumpled character sheet, waving it wildly as he tried to point at a specific blurb on it: "I have the thing! The friendship thing! The look or what's it called! The glance!"

Matoro had begun flapping through the manual so fast that the pages looked about to fold into cranes and take flight on their own as soon as his friend had vaguely alluded to his ability, and almost jumped out of his chair when he finally tracked down the right line: "Shenaniglance can be used to add an additional value to a roll of half a dX or less in case of a non-critical failure!" he cried out in relief: "He can!"

"I can!!"

Not even waiting for the game master Takanuva was already on the die, shaking it vigorously as the others crossed fingers and muttered prayer after prayer.

He rolled...

"FUCK!" and there he went grasping his hair "IT'S A SEVEN!"

Despair wailed out of the table.

A hand descended upon the crude home-made ship models, ready to finally throw them across the room straight into the garbage bin, but another cry stopped it dead in its tracks: "I GOTTA ROLL INTEREST!"

Onepu turned to Hahli slow enough that his neck creaked like an old door, staring at her like a crazed owl.

She held his gaze with a wobbly smile.

"I gotta roll interest," she repeated. Jaller and Takanuva beamed a grateful, hopeful look at her and at the d10 she had gingerly raised in the air. "If the bargain is something that actually matters to the character I'm playing I can roll and add that to the score."

Pages flutteres quietly: "She can," Matoro confirmed with a breath.

"Great Spirit please please please let this happen because it would be funny as fuck," Hewkii whispered.

The game master kept glaring at his guest.

"We planned this encounter together," he cawed in disbelief.

Hahli waved her arms frantically as she got ready to roll, an awkward, anxious laugh sputtering out of her mouth as she only managed to argue: "Well - concubines are hard to come by!!"

The die shot out of her hand like a bullet, bouncing across paper and wood and anything it could hit, twirling and twisting like a top until finally, with a last leap and one final crash right against the horse chess piece Kongu used in place of a figurine, it at last settled on a face.

"NINE!!"

Jaller and Takanuva overturned their chairs and hugged like they'd just won the Olympics, jumping in place and patting each other's backs a few times before finally letting go to grasp Hahli's hands in what might've looked like an insane round of double arm-wrestling as she too yelled in jubilation; similar barely coherent victorious screams arose from the rest of their friends as they celebrated their characters' avoided demise, while Onepu simply sat back down and hid his face in his hands, so absolutely done with all of them.

Nuparu looked up from his notes, startled from his strategies like a deer in the headlights of the jubilation around him: "So we're starting?"

"Nah, man," Kongu wheezed, "Jaller managed to fightskip by selfselling to the Barbarian and now he's going to be lifetime lipeating so we can sailkeep instead of baddying."

"Oh," his friend nodded and squinted, completely lost: "Congrats...?"

He wasn't exactly helped by Macku screaming "SEX SAVES THE DAY ONCE AGAIN" with genuine elation.

"I hate you," Onepu sobbed in his palms when the yelling subsided. "You're making me include a fucking F-tier One Direction fanfic plot in my god damn pirate campaign."

"And we'll do it again!" Takanuva replied.

"I will literally kill you in real life."

"Ok maybe not then!"

"And you!" (pointing at Jaller with the fury of a scorned god) "You're gonna roleplay this accursed creation of yours out loud for all of us now as payment for doing this to me. And you better put your whole pussy into it or I'm making you start again."

Jaller nodded, not even fighting him, still riding the high of a successful self-sacrifice-that-isn't-really-a-self-sacrifice plan. He stood up and moved away from the table, wiggling in place to warm himself up; once he was ready he turned to Hahli, sniffling a little bit, and kindly asked: "Can you give me a line?"

"Right, right, uh..." the girl tapped her fingers a couple times to rearrange her thoughts. Then, clearing her throat, she put on her 'grisly captain' voice: "Well, I'm tired of your stalling. Draw your weapons now, cowards - it's been an awfully dull day. A fresh hand of blood might just liven it up."

She startled when her friend dropped to his knees: "PLEASE!" he cried, laughs now turning to sobs, face contorting into a mask of pleading anguish. "Please - these sailors you see behind me, they don't deserve to die here! They are good men, good women! Their lives lay ahead of them - the seas open for them to breathe and live - they never meant to disturb your reign! They just ache to be free!"

"Uh - uhm, wow, damn, uh--" Hahli stumbled a little (who knew Jaller had this theatrical streak? It was having a certain effect on her) before getting back on track: "So what? You think this empty rethoric is enough to sway me?"

"No... But a bargain... Listen to me, I beg you: my life, I will lay it in your hands for you to do anything you wish with of me - in exchange for their safety. For the promise that you will let them go."

"Hah! A fool, you are! You truly think snuffing out one measly life is worth the thrill of a slaughter?"

"I offer you something more valuable than the satisfaction of killing a man--" and Jaller raised his head slightly, just enough to let his eyes flash from underneath his hair "--I offer you my very self to be destroyed. Annihilated. My identity, my dignity, my humanity - it will all belong to you. My life won't exist as anything other than an extension of your orders and desires. I will be at your service absolutely and completely, mind and body and soul, never to fight back, only to obey. You will own me completely."

A shuddery inhale shook his entire body.

"All for the meager price," he whispered, "Of letting them live."

Awestruck silence followed.

In the end, the crew of the Steeled Lightning was allowed to safely board their ship once again in a hurry, steering it away from the Megalodon as quickly as they could before the Barbarian decided the deal wasn't to her liking after all.

Still they often turned and stared - Avohkii, the mapmaster, most of all - at the chained figure of their captain crouched at the frightful woman's feet, trying to meet his eyes at least once.

But Calyx never turned, for he could not let his tears be shown.

And sooner than they could imagine, he was gone.

After a long moment of letting the scene soak in, Nuparu asked in-character: "Do you think he was into it?"

"Oh, definitely," Macku nodded.

"No he wasn't!" Jaller immediately argued.

"Ok, so I wasn't the only one who got that feeling," Matoro ribbed him.

"No, no, he was totally into it," Kongu added.

"Yeah, that whole speech?" Hewkii insisted, fighting off their former captain as he tried to slap them all, "Nobody who's normal about this would've gone that hard."

"He's not into it!!"

Takanuva raised his hand dramatically and gestured towards Hahli: "I'm gonna send off a prayer to the Barbarian," he told Onepu, referencing his Wandering Mind skill, "I'm gonna send off a prayer to her, and I'm gonna tell her: please be gentle the first few times."

Both game master and girl laughed raucously while Jaller took to beating his friends with his character sheet.

-

"--So after the gate, you're in this big kind of - it's a cave, obviously, but the interior actually looks like it's the galley of a giant ship that somehow got stuck under the cliff."

"Oooh, scenic..."

"Knew you'd like it - and you can see that it's actually various pieces, of, uh, clearly different wrecks? But they're all assembled very nicely to give the impression that it's all part of one place. Plus there's lots of furniture from different styles a bit everywhere, there's this huge really good quality table with fancy - broken up a bit - chairs, there's like, uh, almost tapestries or tarps made out of torn flags..."

"How come your locations were never this cool?" Hewkii asked.

"Yeah!" Kongu piped up, "How come?"

"My stuff's just more action-based!" Onepu bit back.

"Plus we're usually out at sea, so it's not like there's a lot of places to describe," Matoro mused.

"Exactly! Now shut up, let her finish."

Hahli nodded curteously and picked up again: "So, yeah, again, fancy furniture, lots of flags, some jewelry and like statues maybe, drapes and stuff, it's all very cool and you can see this is clearly a very well-kept, well-stocked hideout. And also from just the way that the Barbarian strolls into it, you can tell she's really proud of all the stuff she rounded up here."

"Can I compliment her interior design?" Takanuva asked.

"Uhm... Yes, sure, you may."

He leaned forward conspiratorially: "Love the style, by the way," he said as Avohkii, making his friend giggle. "Impeccable taste. I've seen royal ballrooms that don't even come near this level."

"I was about to say," Macku decided to throw in her two cents too as Rauel, "The painting of the skull with the earring is such a statement."

"Wait, where?"

"Behind the decapitated Venus."

"Oh my god, that's so clever."

"Right?"

"Ugh, finally, someone who gets it," Hahli drawled in her Barbarian voice, grinning from ear to ear. "I always have such uncultured guests... No appreciation for the finer things in life."

"I like the cannons," Nuparu intervened unprompted.

The game master snorted: "Thank you."

"I like the subtle negotiation technique of pointing them right at the guest seats at the big table."

Jaller, who'd just come in to spectate, cackled.

"Anyways!" Hahli clapped as she composed herself: "So you're all approaching the table, and the Barbarian sort of nods off to the rest of the crew who's around, and they all go away. Except, you can see that there's one person - just one person, who's like... Splayed on a big armchair, just kinda hanging out, not moving an inch, right? And the Barbarian looks at this person and just. Doesn't say anything, but she has a big smile."

The players squinted, awaiting further descriptions, but their narrator remained quiet and simply turned to her boyfriend with an amused grin. They looked to him for answers, but he too remained quiet, answering their questioning glares with a smirk and a lounge.

Unless... It couldn't be...

"No," Kongu whispered.

His friend smiled wider.

Hewkii's jaw dropped: "Is that you?" he asked, so not ready for it.

"Yup," Jaller only said.

"I KNEW you were into it!" Macku yelled.

"I'm gonna say--" Onepu started, briefly cut off by Takanuva waving as hard as he could like he hadn't seen his buddy in years (to which said buddy replied with an in-character nod of his head), "--I'm gonna say, right now - Mihnua has never seen this guy before, he's never seen Calyx before, but he's overwhelmed by a primordial, just - visceral hatred for him."

Matoro snorted: "Are you ever letting go of that?"

"No I'm fucking not!"

"How's he looking?" Takanuva asked giddily, "How's he like, is he like all decked out?"

"Frankly he looks healthy," Jaller replied: "He's got like... Not really fancy clothing, but it's good quality, and he had some jewelry on him... Also he looks - he looks bruised as hell, but it's... More or less all hickeys."

"He's livin' the life," Hahli laughed.

"He is!"

"Avohkii's gonna - he's gonna like mouth at him," and their friend cupped his hands around his mouth and stage-whispered: "How are you? How's she treating you?"

"The Barbarian sees you and she goes - oh, I'm treating him very well, don't worry. He eats out every other day."

A collection of groans and wheezes arose around the table.

"I hate you so much," Onepu grumbled.