At first one might wonder, [i]Why the hell would you live on a ship?[/i] And at first, Pilsky had thought the same thing. After a month or two travelling on the dreadful cramped space, he would've been glad to never see a ship ever again. Of course, he also said the same thing about the hard labor that came with construction. 

So after several monumental failures with his place of living, Pilsky decided to say 'fuck it all'. After a bit of sleuthing around, he had managed to find an abandoned caravel worthy of his presence. Sure, it needed a lot of work. Boards had been torn off for building material, the sails ripped apart for cloth, hell, even the rats had decided to abandon ship when all the supplies had been scavenged for, not even leaving a speck of grain or hard tack to munch on. 

Even so, it was worth the effort required to get it back into commission. The captain of the ship had left behind a spacey little cabin for Pilsky to occupy, and it had a nice port in the back that gave a [b]beautiful[/b] view of the bay. He had also managed to install what could be called a furnace if he had any skill about him. It worked, but barely. Already there had been at least four fire scares that had awoken Pilsky in his sleep, coughing violently from the smoke that billowed about in the confines of the cabin.

It was better than nothing, he supposed. The thick hull kept out most of the cold and the inward winds from the sea, and his pitiful excuse of a heater did the rest. He scoffed whenever he landed on the shore and saw the inhabitants hastily constructed cabins. Pilsky was surprised he was the only one who had thought to live on the water. Though, he did keep it out of sight from the town of Uponhill. Hidden behind a hill on the other side of the entrance to their bay, it kept a good deal of secrecy to his castle on water. 

The trip guiding the boat out to where it anchors now was hell. Pilsky's subpar naval skills sure didn't help, and the lack of sails forced him to stealing bits of cloth wherever he could now and then. Eventually, after a week or two of stitching he had enough to move the boat. Progress only came when Ethahn decided to grace his presence with gusts of wind. Those who knew of his plight thought we was mad, but Pilsky had proved them all wrong. It was a great alternative to destroying his hands lugging around lumber and trying to build a homestead. 

He had been surprised how quickly he took to life on the sea. His experience in the vertical streets of his home contributed to the also vertical life of a ship. Now, he could climb the rats nest in a minute flat. He often retreated there before it became too cold to do so. The open expanse of the sky was welcoming, and the salty air reminded him of his home near the docks. Less fish, of course.

Another thing that came quickly to him was fishing. During his early months in the colony, he had managed to 'come across' a few rods and nets. Without them, he would've definitely starved. At first, the nets never caught anything, and the fish avoided his rod. Experience came quickly, and the painful and annoying task of undoing any tie ups in the net became a lot easier. The small rowboat that had came with the caravel was his favorite mode of travel. Every morning, if it wasn't too damn cold, he rowed out into the center of the bay to cast his rod and bring up some good ones. Usually it was trout that swam down up Miller's creak. Shad wasn't too bad either. He had even grown to appreciate even the perches and roaches that hogged up his line.

Hell, he even sacrificed some of his catches to Ethahn. Pilsky wasn't much of a worshiper, and he somehow doubted that Ethahn was a god of fish, but it just felt right. He was sure the Gods appreciated it, whoever they were. 

At this current time, Pilsky found himself cramped up inside of his own cabin, installing what should have been a shelf, but was only half of a log, nailed in haphazardly. The spring air felt good, sure. The warmth even forced him to not use his heater, but the air itself was intoxicating. His constant time on the ship had given him something worse than he had faced going down to this land. 

Land-sickness, he called it. Pilsky had grown used to the rocking and swaying of the boat, so for him it was incredibly sickening to be on land for more than a few minutes. It was another thing he cursed the winter for. Being cooped up in his little home forced him to stay off land, and in doing so had doomed him to copious amounts of retching and headaches whenever he needed to go ashore. 

And since spring was just starting, he [i]needed[/i] to go ashore. Even with his lack of wisdom, he knew he wasn't gonna make it another winter through eating fish alone. He had what, maybe half a sack of grain left? A few dried tomatoes? A single carrot he had been saving for a rainy day? Now came the prospect of learning how to farm. He had some tools, but not the knowledge about them. Most of the people in this damn colony came from farming families, so they knew exactly what to do to eke out a living. But him? He hadn't even been beyond his home city. 

Pilsky sighed as he applied the finishing touches to his 'shelf'. As he transferred a few baubles, mostly strange shells and rocks he had found on the beach to the shelf, he looked outside, wondering if perhaps diving for pearls could be a good option. Hell, he doubted even the wives in town would barter for such a trivial thing. Those natives, with their rumors of baby-murdering and ritualistic orgies, maybe. 

He stepped out onto the salty air of his deck, noting that he would need to scrub again. Things got dirty fast on a ship, and without a constant cleaning, the boards would start to rot and go bad. He stepped over the poop deck, noting the sunshine that filled the air. Today would be the day he went into town. He couldn't say what he was looking for, maybe the loneliness was finally getting to him, maybe he just wanted to steal something. 

All he knew is that he would have to kill those damn birds who kept shitting on his boat.