"Hello" Kyle shouts up at the strangers who are looking at him in bewilderment "Mind if I catch a ride" He asks no one particular person since he doesn't know who he should be addressing, as nearly everyone is dressed to the nines.
Surprisingly, the one who responds is not as fashionable as everyone else is but appears to be much more practical and less ostentatious. A tall handsome older man with a salt and pepper beard and deep baritone voice replies "Sure you can but is that an Emperor Perch fish that you are floating on".
Upon mentioning an Emperor Perch, gasps of astonishment can be heard from the crowd of onlookers. "Are you willing to sell it to me?" the alleged Master of the Vessel asks.
"Sure thing. What's your offer?" Kyle counters quickly having no idea of its worth.
"20,000 Gold and a ride to Corinth, the port city we are currently headed too." The captain offers with a shameless smile, which sounds like a lot but judging from the facial expressions of the bystanders, it wasn't nearly enough. Also, having been to many different markets around the world in his previous life, he knew better than to take to the first offer.
This guy is definitely the captain Kyle confirms his earlier assumptions easily because it is clear that even in this world, it holds true that when the Master of the Vessel is speaking, others are not.
"100,000 Gold, a ride to Corinth, and a hot meal." Kyle counter offers still unaware of the value of a single gold "I am famished" he finishes. Even without knowing the purchasing power of a gold coin though, 100,000 of anything should still be quite a fortune.
To some people it might sound crazy to pay such a large amount of money for a single fish, but Kyle remembers a news article from his old world about a Bluefin Tuna being auctioned off for $3,000,000 in Japan and it only weighed a quarter ton, while the fish he is selling probably weighs around five tons, give or take.
And judging by the astonishment shown by the well-dressed passengers of this fish's possible capture and/or existence, it could be assumed that it is a delicacy in this world.
"How long has it been dead young Hunter?" the captain asks him with a gleam in his eyes as if he had figured something out about the castaway, nearly catching Kyle off guard, but without missing a beat Kyle responds honestly "Can't be more than 20 minutes Sir."
Young Hunter?... Sounds like a title of some sort from the way he said it Kyle thinks to himself.
"Deal" the captain replies immediately after hearing that time frame. He then turns to a couple of the uniformed crew-members whom Kyle assumes are deckhands because of the short knives on their belts which Kyle, once again assumes are rope knives and says loudly, but not really yelling "get two lines down there" before turning back to Kyle and saying "one is for you, the other is for you to tie on to the fish." Then after a pause he adds "if you don't know how to tie any knots, then just tie a lot." Not in a condescending way but just unsure of Kyles capabilities "I'd hate to lose something I just paid big money for.
Not willing to risk losing what he believes to be a big catch he doesn't respond out loud, but inwardly, he chuckles to himself thinking I've been on a sailboat my whole past life, if there's anything that I know, its knots. But without too much fanfare he put a noose knot, which is a type of slip knot that gets tighter the more tension you put on it, and it also will not necessarily loosen easily once the tension is removed, around the tail fin of the emperor fish in a quick and well-practiced manner. The passengers of the vessel who were just along for the luxury cruise didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, but the deckhands, and more importantly, the captain noticed how familiar and deft he was while tying the knot and gave a silent nod of approval.
After tying his 'boat' off to the cruise ship, he and the fish are now being pulled at the same speed as the cruise ship is moving and also being in the large boat's wake made it become a little rocky even on a calm day such as this day. So, he quickly ties a bowline knot around himself which earns him another nod of approval from the aging captain and is then quickly hoisted up and onto the deck of the ship.
On his way up, he passes four rows of portholes. The bottom two rows each have glass windows, so Kyle assumes they are rooms while the top two rows of portholes are, upon closer inspection, gun decks. Each porthole on either side of him on the top two rows most likely represents a loaded cannon ready to be discharged at a moment's notice. Doing a quick count, if there is an equal amount cannons or 'guns' on the portside, Kyle estimates this massive ship to have somewhere between 80 to 90 guns.
Upon finally making on to the main deck of the ship, Kyle takes a quick look around and sees that what pulled him up was not the deckhands that he assumed had hoisted him, but instead was a winch of some sort that had no visible motor.
That's odd… my predecessor's memories showed this place to be backwards in technology, maybe that… contraption is some form of mage tech. Kyle thinks to himself while walking over to greet the captain who stood not too far away. "Thank you, sir, for allowing me to board your vessel." He says, paying his respects to the Master of the Vessel as was taught to him by his grandfather while offering his hand for a shake to the captain who took the proffered hand in kind. After shaking hands, and before the captain can say anything he adds "It's nice to meet you sir. My name is Kai and I would have settled for 20,000 gold" with a harmless smile, deciding to give his nickname because as his grandfather also said; Be courteous to everyone you meet, be never trust them.
The captain returns the smile and says with a laugh "it's nice to meet you too, young Kai, I am Captain Liam, and I would have paid you 200,000 gold for such a fine fish". Even the surrounding onlookers got a good chuckle out of that one, but Kyle or 'Kai' now, still feels as if he got the last laugh because he had no idea about the value of the fish or the value of gold and would have most definitely settled for a ride back to dry land but instead got 100,000 gold and a free ride.
And something even more important than either money or a ride…
"Ah, well it is what it is" Kai says with his own smile "now about that hot meal."
"But of course" Cpt. Liam says with a smile and then turns to another nearby deckhand and says "take young Kai down to the crew member mess hall and tell miss Fiola to feed him until he's stuffed"
The deckhand, a tall young man, older than Kai but much younger than the captain, leads Kai down a level through a stairwell near the forecastle to room that Kyle would expect to see on Victorian age sailboat; wooden decks and bulkheads, two round tables that seem to have been nailed to the floorboards for whenever the boat rocks. The only thing that really stood out was the lighting which was neither a light bulb nor an open-flame light source like a torch or a lantern.
From his predecessor's memories he knows it to be a mage light which is a runic spell kept static and powered by a mana stone. It was the only mage-tech his slave master was willing to splurge on, who normally was extremely tight fisted and preferred to hold on to every single copper he made, which Kyle now realizes to be a disgusting amount of gold selling slaves and anything else he can get his hands on even occasionally smuggling Sundown, which is a type of opium drug that is illegal to possess in almost every known country.
Sitting down for his hot meal which consists of some kind of meat along with some potatoes, it isn't a princely fair, but more than fair enough for him, and then contemplates what his next steps are you going to be.
…
"Avi, we are certainly going to be fired as soon as the boat gets to Corinth, the other mages are already talking about it." another young lady dressed in a white mages robe with blonde hair and red eyes said to Avi exasperatedly who later joined Avi in her room after the spectacle out on deck ended.
"Not WE Melina" Avi replied calmly, not the least bit concerned "I will be fired but they will never fire a Healing mage over such petty squabbles"
"If… WHEN they fire you, you know I will just quit milady." Melina replied seriously. "Wherever you go, I go"
"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that Mel, I don't belong to that family anymore. And even more importantly, you are my best and only friend in this world so do away with the formalities."
"Ok fine, but we need to plan our next step" Melina finished while sitting down next to Avi.
"I am a decent wind mage, and you are a rare healing mage Mel. I am sure we'll be fine no matter what"
"Yeah, not to mention we're both drop dead gorgeous." Mel adds before they both break out into raucous laughter.