Sarel walked up the ship, eyeing the crates and barrels and planks of wood lined along the dock. He stroked his beard gently, his eyes were a bit glassy, slightly watered. This was a sideffect of the [i]herba[/i]. But his mind was clear, his spell had worked nicely. Though, he always felt a bit dull when sober, he saw it’s usefulness. A crewmember came ashore and walked up to Sarel, he was an Imperial, tough-looking, but Boethiah knew if he was any good with the short mace he carried. 

“Sarel, sir. We’re waiting on your word. The scaffold has been brought back up, I thought you might want it.” He held his hands behind his back, like a true sailor, perhaps he was a former seaman. Sarel smiled at him.

“Yes, well done. I needed to attend to some personal business. I’m going on board to deliver some messages and to drop off my belongings. Go get 5 men and bring these planks onboard to be sanded and cut. Split them, reinforce them with the pine we have, I should be by to give you further instructions by then.” Just as Sarel finished speaking Malakaus came from the harbor, rather wet, and preceded onto the boat. He must have been high because he didn’t notice Sarel at all. Never mind, Sarel thought. “Dismissed.”

The sailor gave a faux salute and jogged off. Sarel followed behind at a brisk pace, going aboard to tell two other men to unbox and reset the castings two others were set to fix any damage on the railings. Briefly, Sarel made his way below deck, replaced his current armor with the new set that he purchased ashore, placed all of his valuables in the chest he and Serge shared, Sarel had taken pains the night before to enchant it heavily. Then he headed upstairs again, stopping for a moment to pick up the Khajiit and Redguard members of his team. They came above deck to see Sharee coming aboard. Sarel sent his crew to go watch the Miriam and the other ship, gather any information they could. The Redguard was literate, by the divines, and so Sarel handed him a journal, along with his telescope. Sarel noted that there was no masting canvas among the supplies, he sent a crew member to see if he could have some delivered to the boat. There was also a broken plank on the deck, he ordered the Imperial sailor from earlier to also cut a piece to fit that. He agreed happily. Sarel noticed Serge gesture for him to follow the group which had formed around Sharee, like a sycophantic fog. He walked over to join in the indulgence. 

Malakas joined them, looking a little better, and friendlier. Sarel heard the tail end of Sharee’s speech and then Noelle. The girl was cute, smart, but inexperienced. “We don’t have the manpower for something like that, and besides, we’re pirates, not drug smugglers. We ought to be doing our work on the seas. We can take any one of those boats captain, I know it.” Sarel couldn’t speak entirely for the strength of the crew. They were coming together nicely and he could tell that there was potential in them. But he knew himself, he knew the boat, he knew the other officers well enough. All of them were strong. The officers alone, and a slightly refitted Imperial warship, was enough to take on some bootleggers in a heavily armored dinghy. Sarel had faith in his magics, in his boarding abilities, in his combat prowess. He could whip up a teleportation scroll and get himself, Kayal, Malakaus, and Serge below deck during their ambush, topple them from the ground up. There were any number of opportunities on the open ocean. That’s what Sarel liked the most about forming tactics aboard boats, they were portable theaters of war. “Anything we do, in the name of Boeth,” he said then, “must be done with this boat. We’ve poured our bloody souls into it.”

With a sober pride Serge chimed in, “Agreed.”