Handbook of Erotic Fantasy: Replacement Gear (Patreon)

It had been a long swim to shore.

“Are you tired yet?” Buckle asked.

“Hell no! Racial swim speed, bro! I’m practically an outboard motor. I could keep this up for days!”

“You have kept it up for days.”

“I know right? My Con checks have been sick! When else are you gonna get a chance to do a swimming forced march?” The triton’s grin was broad and white. “You aren’t getting burned though, are you?”

Buckle looked down at her seared flesh, bright pink against the sun-bleached surface of their driftwood raft.

“I am a bronzed goddess!”

“Yeah you are.”

“Yeah I am.”

The horizon seemed to grow no nearer.

*****

“Nobody told you? So sorry, but only my girls work this dock.”

The half-giant was, of course, enormous. He pushed the outer limits of “medium sized creature,” and looked even larger than that thanks to the outsize feathers flopping from his outsize hat. The white gemstone atop his cane twinkled. So did the mean little glint in his eye.

“Not to worry, my dude!” chirped Buckle. “We’ll just hit up Dock 12 from now on. Plenty of horny sailors to go around, right?” She rounded upon her partner. “Swash? Finish off the kind gentleman and grab the money barrel. We’ve inadvertently inconvenienced a local businessman.”

“Mph-hmph,” said the triton around his mouthful. He gave an enthusiastic thumbs up from somewhere in the vicinity of his client’s left buttcheek.

“Yeah, naw,” said the half-giant, licking his lips at the sight of a literal barrel of gold. “Y’all don’t quite understand the situation in its entire manifest complexity. What I’m saying is, you work this dock, you are my girls. And that means those are my hard-earned wages over yonder.”

The dhampir blinked. She broke into an enormous smile. “Oh my gosh,” she said. “Are you a combat encounter?”

The pimp twisted the gem atop his cane. He pulled a blade from within the polished wood which, while long and slender in proportion to its wielder, would have made a fine greatsword in the dhampir’s hands. “You must be some kind of dumb,” he said. And after a moment of slow and deliberate thought he added, “Bitch.”

The dhampir clapped her hands. “Yay! You are a combat encounter! Hey Swash! I think we’re in a ‘take over the local syndicate’ arc. We’re gonna get rich quick!”

The half-giant glared. The client grunted. The triton turned his head and spat into the water.

“Dibs on the hat!” he cried.

*****

Wind whistled in the rigging. Seaspray blew back from the prow. The grunts of several dozen dockside-hookers-turned-pirate filled the deck of the sleek new Unnamed Pirate Ship II, and her beaming owners took it all in from the vantage of their aftcastle.

“You know why you’re an awesome co-captain?” asked Buckle.

“Why’s that, co-captain?” said Swash.

“You’ve got a can-do attitude.”

“And here I thought it was because I was so talented at giving head.”

The pair looked out across the deck. Their girls hoisted things, unfurled other things, and heaved still other things, most of them nautical in nature. At some point, it all fell away into the generalized efficiency of a Profession (sailor) check. A huge hat hung low over Swash’s face, its feathers waggling rakishly in the wind. The sunset glistened like fire in the gemstone atop Buckle’s new sword cane. Both wielded champagne flutes in their off hands, and all was right with the world.

The captains grinned broadly. Their teeth were very white. The jacuzzi bubbled furiously beneath them.