2e: Ra fal Meeting

After I had gotten the letter in Estanques, it had been a busy week. Politely turning down clients. Wrapping up business. Liquidating assets. Transferring wealth to goblin banks. Booking myself on the express shuttle from the gnomish spaceport at Mont Hazrad to the goblin one at Boomport. I had to do all of this too quickly, and my reputation and finances took some hits, but none of that mattered compared to the meeting with the other women selected for the mission.

By the end of the meeting, things were going well. We had the start of a good crew, one where I was in place to be the leader, and I had a good read on everyone's character and capabilities. I liked my chances.

It was a good thing that Martin was probably not going to choose based on appearance. As usual, I was hopelessly outmatched in that category. Tsinta was a 20, and all the rest were in the teens. Although not as stunning, they all had some version of a beautiful feminine figure that I had often wished for, with the dextrous grace I had always envied. Even Gladys managed, without trying at all, to be prettier than me. But I am not intimidated by the beauty of other women. I have character and competence and personality, and that was what would matter here.

Mary would not be any kind of threat. She was a lubberly human child who did not care about marrying Martin Cooper, and genuinely liked all of us. I promised myself that I would put extra effort into being nice to her and taking care of her, both because it was the right thing to do, and because of the signal it sent. With any luck, this would just be a fun adventure to her, possibly the highlight of her entire life before her parents married her off to someone else.

Gladys was a lightweight. The goblin alchemist had no common sense, social graces, or leadership skill, and was obviously antisocial. She spent most of the meeting with her nose buried in an ancient book of arcane lore from the fallen evil empire of Bael Turath, probably trying to find the formula to turn herself into a demon or something. If Martin ended up choosing somebody like that, then there was no loss in not being with him. And with her carefree nature, lack of planning, and instinct to like whoever she was with, she would not do anything to sabotage the group.

Tsinta was obviously on some kind of divine mission, and was deeply in love with Martin, probably because some god or fairy had put the whammy on her. This made her uncontrollable, even more so than the typical wood-elf or warlock. If she thought she had divine orders to do something, she would do it. You never want people like that on your ship. But as far as I could tell, the main goddess she was taking orders from was Martin's goddess. So I would just have to trust that Melora would not tell her to do anything stupid. It was a risk, and a big one, but there was no way to get rid of her, and if you want to win big you have to take chances.

Mabellyne and Sofonisba were a lot like me. Sofonisba wanted Martin for emotional reasons, and Mabellyne's desire was practical, but I could understand both of them because I wanted him for both emotional and practical reasons. We all had about the same goals, motivation, and strategic abilities. We would all be working to make sure that we would be seen by the others as the true source of mission success, and writing our mission reports to make our actions appeal to Martin the most. But I knew that, like me, none of them would try to get ahead by actively harming anyone else or sabotaging her work.

With any other group, I would easily win the 'seen as true leader' contest, although this particular situation did not favor me so heavily. I could lose in a hurry if I underestimated the subtle power of Mabellyne's goblin cunning and intellectual consensus-building, or of Sofonisba's matronly elven nobility. Making the wrong moves against those skill sets would be like going full speed at quarter less twain. I would have to be at the top of my game at all times, and quickly learn some of their tricks as well.

The three of us knew that Tsinta was on a divine mission, and that if it truly was the will of Melora that she and Martin be married, then none of us would have the power to stop that. We would all be watching Tsinta for clues about what she was after, and to make sure she did not do something crazy. With any luck, I would get one of the others to probe and question Tsinta, which would protect me from any conflict, and probably also get better info. Some things you can learn better when you are not the one in charge. We would all be hoping that the divine plan was something else, or that it was ambiguous enough for us to alter it, and of course we would all be praying to our gods to ask if Tsinta's mission could be altered a bit.

All in all, a good outcome. Everyone knew what was what, and how to manage things, and all of us had a basic understanding and trust of each other.

There were some tricky moments, of course. Mary was late, making an obvious power play. She had been in town for days and was staying a short walk from the restaurant, so there was no excuse for not being on time. When she came in, she was putting on airs and carrying herself in a classic power pose, but as soon as we all stared her down, she changed her tack completely and basically begged for mercy. We all gave it, and a potential problem was changed to source of unity.

Then, during the introductions, Gladys interrupted and insulted Sofonisba. If I had already been chosen captain, I would have chewed out the goblin for her rudeness. But I knew that any overt dominance display at such an early stage might inspire the group to conspire against me. Plus, it would be good to learn things about the group from how this played out.

Mabellyne responded by quietly saying "Remember the seventy-eighth." Somehow that solved everything. Gladys realized her error and gave a sincere but very strange apology, which Sofonisba accepted with even stranger language. Gladys nodded, smiling weakly, with obvious happiness at being understood. Tsinta and Mary shared a look that said "What in the Far Realm just happened?". I nodded sagely at Sofonisba, as my mind raced to make sense of the exchange.

Mabellyne was probably referring to one of Ioun's Rules for Constructive Cooperation and Knowledge Sharing. Modern League goblins usually meant well, but they tended to need a big list of rules and regulations to teach them common decency. Gladys had memorized these rules but had not fully digested them, and as soon as Mabellyne told her the rule of politeness she had violated, she responded the right way. Sofonisba had probably read Ioun's scripture at some point in the past, but did not think in those words until someone else was speaking the language.

Soon after that, the goblins and Sofonisba almost capsized the meeting with an endless game theory discussion. That kind of thing always tends to happen whenever you get three or more people trained in the arcana of formal logic. But I had dealt with that kind of nonsense before, and knew how to handle it.

Everyone knows in her gut that, in small groups where you spend a lot of time together and can all look into each others' teeth, emotions always trump logic. The key to the success of a party is a sense of shared unity and bonding. When you have that, your instincts will be to immediately back up your sisters in arms, with no thought required.

So I made that happen. Most people want to maintain a narrative of themselves as good honorable people, so I appealed to that fact, led by example, swore a solemn oath, and had the others do the same. Of course, I was careful to word my oath to apply only to my crew and explicit promises, and most of the rest did likewise, giving us an option to refuse to take someone into space in the first place.

Then, after ordering everyone around and filling their heads with noble ideals, I broke the ice and made myself less threatening by telling a funny, embarrassing, and slightly risqué story about one of my past misadventures. This started a nice round of storytelling and socializing. At first people told their most impressive and heroic stories, but with some gentle persuasion and leading by example, I got them to lower their guard and be more real. Gladys helped this without realizing it; her complete lack of guile or shame set a good tone for the exchange. Tsinta also helped, by being open and accepting, and occasionally displaying a shocking amount of earthiness. I sensed a design behind this, but I had no idea if it was hers or her goddess's.

Hearing people talk put my mind at ease about several things. I had been very worried that Gladys would be reckless and disregard orders in an emergency. But it turned out that she was a dutiful team member with decent tactics. She followed orders when they were given explicitly, and only did crazy stunts when standard tactics failed. Tsinta had been on missions with different adventuring parties, and had been a good team member, never a loose cannon. Mabellyne and Sofonisba were obviously very competent at what they did. Mary really did like people, and had good character and potential, so she would not be completely useless.

After a couple hours, we had all shared some deep emotions and personal memories. I had learned more than the rest, of course, but we all had a good sense of each others' life stories and narrative self-images.  Only then did I allow the business negotiations to begin.

Mabellyne's family had set up a merchant company, obtained all the necessary permits, and lined up a suitable ship and all the materials needed to outfit it. The ship was a fairly standard scout, a 60-foot two-wing one-master with a triaxis keel and earth-engine pusher propeller with a fire-engine overdrive. It was the ideal ship for the mission, with decent speed and cargo capacity, and it could be handled by a crew of three or four.

However, the Geargadget clan did not have enough liquid assets to purchase the ship themselves. They planned on raising the money by selling shares in their new merchant company to the other Hopefuls. But it soon become apparent that only Mary and I had any money to spare. Sofonisba was still paying off the mortgage on her bow and armor, Gladys always sank all of her income into drugs, and Tsinta either was unaware of the existence of money or had a moral objection to acknowledging it.

This meant that there was no way to thin out the competition in the company formation stage. Both Mary and Mabellyne were needed to secure a ship. Gladys was packing the alchemy supplies and lore needed to identify the right plants, she was the only other melee fighter, and had the strength to quickly haul on lines and otherwise manage the ship's controls in a hurry. Tsinta was the only person other than me with actual sailing experience, even though it was mostly just canoes and mackinaw boats, and she had the kind of magical firepower that you need in ship-to-ship combat. I probably would have arranged for Sofonisba to be dropped, even with the risk of having only three real adventurers in the group, but nobody else had any practical experience with predicting the weather and foraging and surviving in uncharted territory.

You'd think that Tsinta would be competent in woodscraft and survival, but it turned out that she just followed mystical instructions and trusted that, wherever she went, she could be supported by her unreal charisma and the kindness and religious devotion of strangers. I knew that she could wander through space by herself and be supported in this way, but I had very little confidence that the process would support the rest of us.

After some friendly and careful negotiation, I arranged a deal where I would purchase 10% of the merchant company shares and House Hanover would purchase 42%. Two percent of the shares would be given to each of the other three adventurers, as an incentive to take good care of the ship and equipment (and a source of wealth that could be confiscated as punishment for failure to follow the rules), and Geargadget Clan would keep the remaining 42%.

This arrangement meant that I and either noble formed a coalition that controlled a majority of the shares and therefore could decide the fate of the company. Both nobles knew exactly what I was doing, but they went along with it because the alternative was leaving one noble with sole control of a majority of the shares, and they did not want to argue over who that would be, and risk being the minority holder.

Then, as expected, I was chosen to be captain by unanimous consent. As the most experienced adventurer, and a seasoned sailor, I was the obvious choice. I made it clear that I would only be pulling rank in combat or other wildspace emergencies. Once that was done, we assigned other roles.

Tsinta's sailing experience made her First Mate. Mabellyne would be the engineer. Sofonisba would be the cook, and was responsible for making sure that the food and the overall feel of the ship would be okay for both her and Tsinta. Tsinta was stressed by the city, and I wanted to avoid that on my ship.

The others would be deckhands, doing a variety of tasks as necessary, including lookout. We would all have to teach each other a lot of things in a hurry, but I was confident that we could manage.

During a break while we were discussing our plans for provisioning the ship, Mabellyne pulled me aside, after glancing at Mary to check that she was not watching, and said quietly but casually, "Her family is good at intelligence work, and I am worried about what happens if they debrief her. If they learn the truth about her feelings or role here, they may pull her out."

This was definitely a problem, and I should have thought of it. No Mary meant no money, which meant no ship and no mission. "Maybe we can speed things up and keep her really busy so they do not have time to question her before we leave."

Mabellyne frowned ever so slightly. "We cannot keep her from them completely; at the very least she has to gather her possessions from their house and sleep there tonight. It is hard to keep things from family, and even harder when one is tired. I would advise discussing this with her and Sofonisba and coming up with a plan."

She was right. More importantly, I had revealed an instinct for authoritarian control. On the surface, this was nothing more than a smart adviser politely bringing an issue to her captain for consideration, but I knew that Mabellyne had raised the issue this way in order to test me and to subtly put me in my place by revealing my relative incompetence at counterintelligence. She clearly had a plan in mind already, but was making a show of asking for my permission in order to avoid any chance of being seen as someone who acted carelessly and without consensus. I would have to assume that everything this goblin did was calculated at multiple levels.

I glared at her just enough to tell her that I knew what she was doing, and then replied, "Yes. I will distract the others."

It was clear to both of us that Gladys and Tsinta would be hopeless at intrigue. When the break ended, I got Gladys to talk with Tsinta about what plants and foods were necessary for a healthy elven diet, and then to make a list of vitamin supplements that the rest of us might need if we were fed by an elf cook for weeks. That would keep them both occupied for a while.

With the rest of us gathered, I said, "Mabellyne has thought of a problem we need to deal with." and nodded to her.

The goblin looked at Mary. "I am worried about your family pulling you out if they discover the true nature of our collaboration."

Mary looked relieved. "Oh thank you I was wondering how I would bring that up. They need to think that I am in charge, or that I am the only thing stopping you all from killing each other. If they guess otherwise, they will grill me on every detail of what I did and said."

I nodded. "Perhaps you could tell them that you have given us all different jobs, and that you need to spend all your time watching us to make sure that we do them right?

Mary smiled. "That sounds great! Having the 'duty' of watching over you as you buy everything will keep me away from them and also let me have fun exploring all the markets with you."

Sofonisba spoke up. "Would it help sell the story if we gave you some official title?

Mary nodded. "Yes, that would help a lot. What is the title for the lady who buys the things?"

So it was agreed. Mary was listed on the company charter as our Quartermaster, with authority over the company purse. We sent the charter out to a scribe for copying, and agreed on a plan to work late into the evening buying some things and collecting price information on others. The next day we would finish, and the morning after that we would load and test the ship, before sailing off in the afternoon.

That night, Mary spent less than six hours at her family's house, and the next morning she said she was good to go. Her family's check for the stock certificates cleared at the bank, so apparently they were satisfied with their copy of the company charter, and whatever she had told them. Nobody asked for any more details, and we went out to buy things.

Much to my annoyance, most goblins have adopted the dwarf method of commerce: a 'take it or leave it' attitude to a posted price list. But I learned from watching Mabellyne and Gladys that, with large purchases, you could get a better deal by pointing out a technical flaw in the product that downgraded it to a different category of item. Everybody involved pretended that it was a pure technical discussion, but I soon saw that it was basically haggling, and was able to get us better deals by adding emotional weight and subtle intimidation to the mix after someone else started with finding a problem.

The night before departure, we all stayed in the ship, so everyone could safely practice bunking on a small ship and, in the morning, buy anything that they discovered that they needed. And of course, this also kept Mary away from her family. By then everything was already purchased, and in theory it would be perfectly fair to leave her behind and give her 42% of the proceeds when we got back and cashed out, but we all liked having her around, and knew that she would mostly pull her weight while keeping the ship more friendly and cheerful. And nobody wanted to be the one who looked bad in the reports by suggesting that we drop her.

On the morning of departure, Mabellyne hired an experienced engineer to watch and comment as she field-stripped the spelljammer engine for routine maintenance. She would remove a part, Sofonisba would clean it with her magic, then I would mend it with mine, and then Mabellyne would degauss it, add clean lubrication if necessary, and replace it. We never saw any visible flaws, but of course invisible hairline fractures can add up to catastrophic failure. Most spelljammer components are rated for only a few hundred miles, but regular spellcasting-enabled maintenance can extend that to thousands of miles before important things wear down.

While we were doing this, the rest had been loading up the ship. But of course they did not know what they were doing and screwed it all up, so I had to repack the hold more securely, which meant a few hours delay before we were ready to shove off.

Mary was exhausted from unaccustomed work, but doing her best not to show it, and was still genuinely happy and energetic. "So now all we have to do is name the ship, and we can be away! What do we want to call it?

Mary had bought a wooden statue of a frog to serve as the ship's figurehead, apparently in reference to some Human romantic folktale. We did not know if the frog was supposed to represent her, or Martin, or the collective group, or some generalized idea of romantic adventure, but it was cute and it reminded us not to take ourselves too seriously. But I still wanted a respectable name for the ship, something not frog-related.

Sofonisba suggested "Queenly Virtue", to which Gladys visibly rolled her eyes and countered with "Turnip Twaddler". Before either could say anything more, Mabellyne quickly supplied "Shell's Bounty". This was a reasonably clever reference to Martin's restaurant and our task to supply it, but I figured her main reason for speaking was defuse conflict and she did not care too much about the name being chosen.

There was a brief pause, and then Mary suggested "The Kiss of Fortune." I liked the overall theme, and could tell that nobody else hated it, so I suggested shortening it to "Fortuna's Kiss" and everyone agreed.

Gladys started to work painting the name, and the rest of us made ready to leave. Tsinta and I made fast the lines connecting Fortuna's Kiss to the tugboat that would take us to a safe distance above the gravity well.

Mabellyne went to say goodbye to the many members of her family who had assembled near the docks. It took some time, and while she was gone, we finished making everything ready for departure. When she did return, I could tell that she had been crying. Was that strategic? Surely she knew that I could tell. Or did she not care about being seen as strong anymore? Was it a play to make her sympathetic and get me to lower my guard?

While I was thinking about this, Mary, acting on a wordless instinct, rushed over to Mabellyne, got down on her knees, and hugged the goblin tightly. Mabellyne stiffened in fear at first, but then relaxed, hugged the human back, and smiled weakly. Mary kept hugging her, and then, somehow, Tsinta was there and hugging them both, and then Mabellyne looked genuinely happy and comfortable.

That should not have worked. Goblins hate being touched without explicit permission. But apparently Mabellyne was cosmopolitan enough to see and appreciate the intent, and tolerated it until, somehow, she started to feel the genuine affection from two people who felt things deeply.

As the group hug wordlessly broke up, I wondered if I could have done anything differently, and also what Tsinta's motivations were. But then the tugboat's horn blared twice, and it was time to focus on the job at hand. As everyone boarded, I rechecked everything and made ready for departure.

We were off.

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