Chapter 3: First Contact
"So... a Devil Fruit? But you don't know which one..." Karma held the fruit in question after letting it out from the box.
Larc had a guilty look. "Ok, so I know I'm the only one who actually read or watched any kind of One Piece but you have to believe me when I say that I'm no encyclopedia for devil fruits."
The fruit looked like an apple by their standards but it was a sickly green colour with browning edges from its spiralling pattern. Everyone was suspicious of it, much like anyone would be when coming across such a thing.
"Are you gonna eat that?" Krys asked. "It's going to be risky when you get yourself in the ocean."
"Yeah..."
Larc put an arm over Karma's shoulder. "Hmm... usually, devil fruits are pretty much worth from the debuffs compared to the power you get. As long as you stay on islands and do not sink while at sea, then you gain a huge advantage no matter what ability you get. It's not like we're gonna let ourselves sink, right?"
"You've convinced me, bottoms up- Blech!" Karma bit into it and swallowed, his tastebuds wanted to rip themselves off just based on its appearance and barf-inducing flavour. "Dude! Why does it taste that bad?!"
"...Crap, I forgot to tell you about that part."
Karma tried licking the wooden mast to get rid of the taste, he was desperate. It was that bad. "I swear to God, I'll get you for this one day. How do I know what ability I got?"
"Discovery I think. It'll show itself eventually."
Krys palmed her face. "So Karma is now stuck without knowing his abilities and not being able to swim? This is why being impulsive is bad."
"Live a little, Krys." Karma remarks.
"It's fine! He can just use a boat if need be, hey if one of us ever needs to rescue him, we can." Larc had a half-smile on. "Anyway, while we wait, we should set a course for the next island."
"What's the name of the island?" Karma asked.
"It's to the southwest from here, the name is Tallan Isle. What are your orders, captain?"
"Pweh! I can still taste that damn thing..." Karma licked his finger and held it up, feeling a light breeze from his back. "We're lucky, the wind is heading the same way. Is there anything on the voyage that changed?"
"Yes, Xed can't pull out the previous map."
"That should mean he needs to somehow pull another one out from god knows where. Have you tried imagining the slots where voyages are usually held like in-game?"
"Oh!" Xed reacted, his hands now had a completely brand new shape of an island on a map. "There is... it says eliminate this dude apparently. Can you guys try pulling out your own maps?"
Everyone followed his instructions- well, instructions were overplaying it, he basically said to imagine pulling out a map. "Uh... was it that easy?"
Surprisingly it worked.
"See?"
"This doesn't mean you are still good at explaining things, Xed," Karma warned before heading to the wheel and setting it slightly to the left so that they would ram into the island by mistake. "It says we kill one Jacobin Salishe, that's it. Xed, once we are sailing and steady, try looking for the island in our map table."
"Aye."
"Let's unfurl the mainmast, foremast and uh... the rearmast, after that, we set the sails and pray. I'm not sure what the real terminologies are for specific sails but since we've been used to our own, I'll be using those."
"You mean we need to loosen these things?" Krys asked, pointing at the logs laying sideways carrying the sails.
"Yes... I think they're called the yards, also make sure to try to bundle or tie the ropes in a way that it won't tangle, kinda like the thing you do with your earphones when you put them in your pockets."
The crew went to work, as much as a four-man can do. It couldn't be that hard right?
"Ok, let's start weighing anchor."
Moments later...
"I don't trust this… at all."
It took a long time just to unfurl and then set the sails since they all had to go to each beam of wood and stand on ropes just to unfurl every single sail, apart from the top which was set separately.
They did discover something that lifted their spirits a bit. "Imagine if we had to do this without this strength. I can't believe it only took about 5 full force pulls just to set the topmasts." Larc mentions, the others agreeing with nods or verbal yells.
Indeed, each of them had been way stronger than they remembered, either that was from some foreign power or just the natural capabilities of their person, they didn't know. Even then, Karma winced at every creak and sail catching the wind.
"We also need to raise sails when we get close. Damn, sailing is way harder than I thought. Luckily, we had a perfect spot for it to be simple but I'm guessing we need a navigator… or ten. How the hell did these 'Straw hats' even get to the Grand Line with not more than a few people?"
"Sheer dumb anime logic." Larc comments, it has been a wonder how the protagonists always had something in their favour whenever something happens.
"I'd kill for a crew… hold on a minute. Wouldn't that be good?"
"What?"
"See, if we defeat a crew would they join us?"
"I don't think trusting someone that was past enemies would be a great idea."
"Tsk. Tsk." Karma waggled his finger. "Don't you know the quote keep your friends close and enemies closer? I'd like to get a bigger crew anyhow. If we defeat them and they are cool with it then maybe we can give them the chance. No… I have a better idea!"
"I have a feeling it's going to be-"
"We make a cult!"
"Haa… maybe it does make sense. We can base it on the tenants of the Reaper's Bones, like fighting ships, the seas should be free, and stuff like that. We're basically reasonable anarchists, people would like that."
"All we need to do is show our strength to the world."
"Yeah, if we only knew how to fight…" Larc stared at his hands, the ones foreign to him. "I'm still stuck on believing I'm Gordon Freeman."
"Oi!" Xed yelled, her girlish voice clearly making it clear what he was going to complain about next. "You're lucky you didn't end up like this! I'm pretty sure this character is from a hentai or something."
"Hold that thought…" Karma made them go silent as their ship kept its course. "I think I may know why we're like this. Larc, what did you see last aside from Sea of Thieves?"
"I played… Half-life." He slowly opened his mouth as he connected the details.
"What about you, Krys?"
"Genshin Impact…" She answered, trailing off as her eyes widened in realization.
"But then how am I the only one who's inspired by Sea of Thieves, that could mean it's because I was the captain of the Eviction Notice. Also… what about Xed?"
Everyone slowly turned their heads at the man-turned-cat-girl.
"What?" Xed nervously asked, his aggression soon turned higher when his friends started swaying their heads in disappointment. "No… No… No! Whatever you guys are thinking it's not that! I swear I didn't watch or play anything that would make me like this!"
"We didn't accuse you of anything, you just admitted it yourself. Also, don't worry, I'm pretty sure my reasoning is finicky, it's not by sight. If so, both of you would have been either CJ or Astolfo, remember?"
Larc snapped his fingers. "Ah! You're right. But Xed is still a cat-girl so maybe he's just been playing his pc one-handed."
"This is going to be a running gag, isn't it? I can already tell, just like the time you let me captain for one session and now you call me unable to captain a ship." Xed groaned and slammed his face to the wooden rails.
"You slammed us into 5 separate rocks in the span of 20 minutes and whenever we fight, you completely forget to turn into port or starboard and our ship gets run aground."
"...Ok but that was before I learned!"
"Jokes aside, Xed, get to the map. Krys call for me if we go off-course or the winds change. Larc, come with me to the bottom decks."
"What are we looking for?" Larc asked, following his captain down to the middle deck.
"Cannonballs, chain shots, curseballs, firebombs, blunder bombs, anything. I want to know if this ship has anything interesting stowed. There are also normal provisions probably somewhere in the bottom deck."
The duo went further inside the ship, coming across beams from the mast and crates filled with cannon balls, they were a bit larger than their hands. The ammunition was packed nicely, ensuring nothing would fly off.
They then took in the sight of multiple bombs and chain shots stored in other separate crates. Finally, the last one, tucked right at the corner made Karma grin with malicious intent.
"So there are curseballs here." He says, lifting up a cannonball that had a mist of purple. "These are going to be useful. Do you think there'd be any gunpowder barrels hidden in our ship?"
"…Kind of like those?"
Karma turned and saw at the bottom of the deck the thing that could blow their entire ship apart. "Yes, kind of like those. I'm sure physics would… kind of work. There's no way it'd explode when it gets shot right?"
"Bro, you're asking if the worlds of both One Piece and Sea of Thieves are going to try and obey the laws of physics."
"We obey what we want to obey, we reject as we deem worthless. I just so happen to want some things to make sense and others do not."
"That doesn't seem too likely. Exhibit A: Our ship is on fire despite not feeling hot or actually affecting anything. Exhibit B: we have been isekaid."
Stowing back the cursed cannonball, an awkward silence settled as Karma has a short staring contest with a deadpan Larc.
Karma whistled and took a final look at the bottom deck which was empty apart from a few storage crates and gunpowder barrels. "Let's not fret with the details. Let's go back to the top deck. I hope Xed hasn't gone overboard again like he usually does in our games."
Karma and Larc headed back to the surface. Their eyes squint at the sharp increase in sunlight. "Sup, ladies. Anything going on right now?"
"Don't call me that!" Xed denied his status as the mythical female, one that gamers do not know the touch of.
"Not yet," Krys stated, walking along the ship as she made her way to the front. "Aside from our merry band of differing individuals. There's nothing I can see for miles."
The seas looked endless, blue upon blue and bounded by blue skies. There was a reason why people can get lost at sea. It was relaxing knowing there wasn't any full-on excessive global warming event that threatened the earth itself.
Within that area of azure were the contrasting black ship and a shocking variety of people. One was either an edgy or average-looking pirate, the other was some dude in regular modern-day clothes with glasses, another was a small orange-haired cat-girl, and finally, a woman that couldn't decide whether to wear a light and exposed outfit or winter clothes.
"Xed, have you checked what island it is?" Karma asked.
"…Yeah, I saw where we need to go. Directly south of where we are headed but we need to come across another island before it."
"Shit, so we're sailing south after this? We gotta watch our sails and the rudder. We ain't even in the Grand Line yet, we're still super far from it."
"So we're not gonna do anything else next?" Krys asked. "I recommend we spend our time either playing music or we try planning ahead. If Larc says that the Grand Line is the most important of the story, we might end up following the protagonists of this show."
Larc tapped his fingers with one another, his fidgeting was rightfully warranted. "We don't know at what time we are in… we could try the newspaper."
Xed doubted Larc's words. "The newspaper? How in the world could a newspaper reach in the middle of nowhere?"
"There are birds that deliver it, although we don't have any money on us right now. We checked the lower decks and there's nothing of the sort."
"Can't we just… I don't know… shoot them down and take the newspaper- ouch! You bitch-"
Karma interrupted, knocking his fist over Xed again as he scowled in response. "Xed, you are a dumbass. If we kill one of them, they won't deliver news to us anymore. In any world, information is power. We might be plundering or looting but professionals have standards. Being strong in the seas doesn't mean being an idiot."
"So what do we do?"
"We're pirates, we take our money and then buy a newspaper."
"That doesn't seem too… pirate-y."
"Real-world pirates wouldn't survive if they attacked everyone with no regard for who they kill. Nassau, Port Royal, Tortuga, and some other ports housed pirates, do you wonder why? Because not having a port is a bad thing, pirates may be criminals and all but they have needs too."
"Huh. I didn't know that."
The rest of the journey went as expected, the crew of four keeping watch or messing around with what they could do. Mostly trying to figure out what they would eventually have to come across and fight.
Larc had a good time recalling what he could from the story but it was foggy at most. "I'm actually going to be grateful for once that One Piece has a lot of filler arcs. We'd be able to catch up just in case that… we have to fight them in other for this Reaper's Bones voyage to be complete."
"Land ho!" Krys announces, appearing from the crow's nest and dropping quickly toward the bottom, passing by platforms and ratlines before a heavy thud was heard by the crew.
Karma rushed to the ropes to close the sails. "Shit, okay calm down if we see anyone. Do you know what to do if we make first contact?"
Everyone nods. Of course, these were his friends, Karma never assumes the best among friends. "Right, Larc, Krys, and Xed what do we do?"
"We start blasting… or maybe talk to them."
"Since I'm the most presentable here, I talk to the leader to say we're not a threat."
"Do we yell racial slurs?"
Karma sighed. "No to the first, yes to the second, the third is…" He paused at the last recommendation. "…only after we fight other people." he named his objections and acceptances.
"Yes!" Xed had a victory pose on.
"Start securing the sails back to the yards, we're going to prepare to anchor! Larc, on the foremast, Krys on the main, and Xed on the rear. Let's get a move on!"
""Aye!""
The crew worked to do what they could, of course, this had some difficulties the moment each of them tried to work on their own mast which was supposed to be done by multiple people.
It took them half an hour, way more than what they used up for trying to set sail. Yet, at best, the topsails were the only ones set and the rear only had one sail properly closed.
"We're getting closer. Krys! See any movement?"
Krys shielded her eyes from the sun as the harsh wind tossed her newly assumed hair that had blueing tips, she was supported by ropes beneath her heels as she was trying to close her sails. "Uh… I may not have a spyglass but can you all see the people gathering at the docks?"
This is what it looked like. A flaming hull of a ship with pitch-black sails and a charred appearance was sailing the seas. People clattered and only needed one look to see the flames from a distance, of course, this had no actual effect in a game.
But this was not in Sea of Thieves, one thing could be thought of when seeing the ship in the distance close its sails. A ghost or mythical ship was docking… at their island… with everyone in the villages and surrounding area praying to whatever God they may believe in.
"So I'm guessing that this is not a good impression?!" Krys yelled from the yards.
"Good or bad! Good in a way that making a cult will be easier, bad in a way that we now know that whenever we dock, we aren't going to be welcomed the normal way!" Karma yelled back.
"So… does this mean I can start yelling racial slurs?" Xed asked.
"..."
"No."
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