Once there sailed an armoured ketch on the Bronze Sea, with a usual route from Shell Island to Redwake.
It held a wealthy and greedy merchant, whom had little to no regard for his crew.
The one steering it was highly inexperienced, but he was cheap to hire.
He also had no intent to give out more than was necessary, being the most stingy of them all.
Despite the insistence of the local merchant’s guild to pick a more experienced sailor for this route, this greedy merchant very kindly refused the offer.
And as they cruised across the sea, the only thing on the crew’s mind were the following : “When’s our next break?” and “How long until we crash into the jaws again?”
And they had reason for this, as all they would be able to recall hearing the previous day would be repair hammers hitting the deck, or the hull slamming into another rock wall.
They can’t even say anything good about their so called “Captain”, as this inexperienced sailor was anything but.
He was just there to fill a purpose, and just there to mitigate the cost of actually hiring someone competent.
They don’t even know how much of their paycheck even goes into repairing this damned thing anymore, they’ve stopped asking that question a long time ago.
Their diet consisted of seawater and haphazard mistakes the “Captain” would make whenever no one had any motivation or energy left to repair the ship.
There’s always some extra cargo that nobody actually wanted at the end destination.
The rest of the cargo was just to make up the shortcomings from all the lost galleons just spent repairing the ship.
Pirate ships and Assassin ships steered clear from them, Pirates seeing how truly miserable they were and feeling pity, and Assassins seeing no real value to putting their head on a contract.
There the crew stewed in total misery, unable to call this a traumatic experience.
Their captain did care for them, he was just unable to show it through his experience.
He was also unable to show it through actions besides his sailing, as his cooking was awful.
He couldn’t express it through words because whenever he tried to speak up, the merchant shut him up immediately, as if he were to ask for proper tuition regarding all of his roles on the ship it’d result in monetary losses.
Nobody else would hire him though, as he was incapable of navigating the Jaws and Shell Island didn’t really need any sailors so he would just bear with it.
All of them were in a situation equivalent to purgatory but somehow worse than hell.
One day he would take a sharp turn to starboard when the merchant asked him
to experiment with a new route, namely one also going nearby Sailor’s Lodge.
And he crashed right into Sailor’s Lodge, dislodging the crane.
The merchant would be shocked, as this was something that never happened before.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
“I’m just listening to the crew.”
“You’re supposed to listen to me, you traitor!”
“You never listened to us, so why should we listen to you?”
“And besides, it’s too late now. We have our mutiny.”
The merchant would object but the crew already took off, finally taking the first break they’ve taken in years.