[Latio-Nytro]

(OOC: I'm too lazy right now to do a full post for Kuduz Valion, so I'm having him stand silently beside Ernx. Also, I'm going to put the Skythunder Blades behind Juan's Ship and the Global Mercenaries and out of telescope range to give an easier entrance for my teammates. Immediate combat was not what I had in mind to start this RP.)

Ernx Valan Hanton Lontimos Nox Osi Belixi Ysgramor Zivinci the 9th
Miniera, Skythunder Blades
Starwisher Sea, North of Broken Dagger Island and heading West For Cragan Island
Affected RPers: All Skythunder Blades members. ALL OF THEM.

Ernx, very briefly, thought the whole affair a mistake. It would seem such a way: He had sold nearly everything, as did everyone else of his newfound crew (most of which were not actually sailors until more than half the trip had gone by), to buy not one ship but two, enough food to support it, and a Letter of Marque to become privateers (which were pretty much Pirates, only with legal right to Pirate instead). It was quite worse when they had one of their ships authorized as "S.S. Ship." Sailing Ship Ship, that meant. That was...Commented on, to say the least. At minimum, the other was "S.S. Spirit" (the one he rode on), though even then someone had figured out what correlation to drunken fools 'spirit' had. So he sailed the seas on the schooners of Ship and Spirit. As if the names weren't disgraces enough, so he also sailed with a crew mostly composed, on both ships, of drunken bums.

He had no ill will against said drunken bums, but also, said drunken bums were ill-learned. They had little to spare to provide for the expedition, little in terms of manners, mathematics, reading and writing, honor, or much at all, even. They were excellent fighters-as a Minieran was-and knew tactics as good as any Minieran, and were not deprived of their powers as a Minieran. However, the lack of intelligence on many affairs is what made Ernx less than cheery about it. Less than a quarter of the crew had jobs. Three-fourths of said quarter had occupations relevant to expeditions like thus-mercenaries or sailors, which was still not much. One other was even a Noble that did NOT sell everything he had in a single night under the intoxication of sweet wine, brought here by a mistake (a servant of his bought one of their ships). His crew was odd. At a bare minimum, ever since they jointly wound up in this expedition, they decided as a whole that they wouldn’t be drinking as much rum. They still did drink rum, but just less, out of fear that the schooners would suddenly go up in flames because of another night in a drunken stupor.

There WERE, however, a good few that were much more familiar to expeditions such as these and ship life in general, and the proposition of an expedition that required no money to join on their part was a good venture. Ernx was speaking with one of those Lurra right now.

"How much time until Cragan? The winds are favorable now, they weren't all the rest of the trip." Ernx said to his Navigator, aiming for an answer that would mean they sailed faster now.

"Let me take a quick check, Sir..." Said one of the first trusty crewmen he could count on. A Navigator, an Empoleon, by the name of Verntz. Verntz was a seasoned explorer of the oceans, and a smart man who knew his Unown runes as much as his Footprint runes, and had a knack for mathematical calculations, but for some reason wasn’t very wealthy at all. He was bigger than most Empoleon, by about a few inches, though only height-wise- he was slimmer and lighter than most Empoleon as well. He wore only a small coat, as his hide was made of steel-who would wear armor if your hide was made of steel? Ignorant to the infernal rocking of the ship (it took many of those that were never on a ship off-guard the first few days and still interfered with Ernx whenever he wrote), he wrote down a few notes on paper in Footprint runes, took a compass (the one that traced lines) and traced a few invisible lines on the map. Still unsatisfied by it, he took a look at the flag above (A small triangular one designed to blow in the direction of the wind), took out a compass (one that showed direction) and found north in relation to the direction of the flag above, then wrote down a few more notes, and at last responded: "Got it. I still can't give any specific times, and the wind still blows slightly to the north, but overall these winds should take us to Cragan Island about an hour early, Sir Zivinci. There is no reason to do any drastic course-changes at the moment."

"Excellent!" Ernx said. "Keep course!" He added. After this, he just leaned on the rail on the Port side of the ship. He was more intent on looking at S.S. Ship than the ocean (which failed to appease his sights after a countless session of seeing them), and think about his journey.

It really all started in a bar. One Lurra-he didn't SEE the Lurra in question or his state, but he seemed sober (to an intoxicated Ernx, but regardless, he seemed coherent enough to make out his speech without much thought)-had mentioned an artifact of great power in an ancient citadel in Kibou, said citadel's name Zigilua. The Natives guarded it zealously. Moreover, only six other artifacts from Kibou's other ancient cities could ever hope to breach it's gates, and that alone wouldn't save you from the seemingly endless numbers of the natives and the trials that await within its halls...But, once overcame, and despite the oddity of it, the artifact within was supposedly one that attracted Lurra of the opposite sex to oneself like a magnet, without hesitation.

Dear Arceus, in such a state, the rumors were completely impossible to resist. He gathered his fellow Lurra, also intoxicated and attracted by the rumor, and offered to get a pair of boats (the ones he had seen earlier that day, in passing from coming to the bar from his home) and set sail for Kibou if they offered to be his crew. They immediately complied. The rest would have had to been seen to be believed, as surely no other group of Lurra alive could have done it in that time. Every Lurra that could sell something sold it at once and bought food, supplies, anything that would be of use (they included a lot of rum, but otherwise they weren't intoxicated enough to not know what they should have been aiming for), and recruit people that were enticed by a free boat ride to Kibou (regardless of the drunken status of the person offering the information), while Ernx sold everything he owned, sans a few things, and bought both boats. He outfitted the new crew with weapons made of a meteorite he had Miniera's best blacksmiths carve out (it was a terrible business decision-the whole set was made in mind to be a small fraction of the metal. It turned out to be most of the meteor, so he only had a fraction of the profit, and the blacksmiths sprung up additional, unforeseeable charges). Then, still intoxicated, they named the boats 'Ship' and 'Spirit' in that order. It was only afterwards, after the rum and wine wore off, that they realized that they probably made a terrible mistake. However, their request for a Letter of Marque, the only item they needed at this point, ironically turned in their favor without any drunken antics, and got a Knight-Sir Kuduz Valion, a Simisage with an intimidating tail-to join the party (he wasn't a talkative fellow, only speaking when addressed or it was urgent-he currently stood beside Ernx, a protection of sorts). Afterwards, a financial miscalculation came to them, and a servant of a Noble-and the Noble himself-came, claiming they bought the boat before. How, then, was it on sale? Bickering occurred, but thankfully the noble joined the newly-formed Skythunder Blades, rather than take over.

Ernx still shook with anticipation at the thought of success and sweated at the prospect of failure. Treasure was his sole goal, as was everyone else's goal for the most part: Treasure meant success, and for many of the crew, treasure meant rebuilding their lives and making something happy of it. If the rumors held true, finding ONE city would be enough, but finding all seven was of the utmost importance for the Zigilua Artifact...The 'Harem' Artifact, he privately called it, though he dare not mutter the name. Most important were the repairing of his family fortune with what Kibou's supposed 'cities of gold' had for him and elevate it beyond his wildest dreams, and grab a harem full of luxurious, female Lurra with the Zigilua artifact (he particularly wanted a lot of Gardevoir), and maybe even get back the Throne his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather had held, and become the second king of his family. That last one was definately not a true goal, but it would be nice.

The rest of the crew had similar thoughts: They were either seeking glory, trying to attain nobility or even the crown of Miniera through their exploits, or else attempting to get money for an impoverished family. All of them, however, were, despite shortcomings in many areas, obedient and in relatively good spirits, though nervous at one, omnipresent prospect. Being Minierans, operating the cannons was second nature, but if too much was lost, it would basically be the end of their lives, dead or no: The financial requirements for what they were doing meant that mistakes were minimal or else their lives would rightfully be thrown down a drain and beyond the point of return, and at that point suicide was just an attempt to make the disappointment and pain go away. Being Privateered, being sunk, being attacked by a Feral Gyarados, being struck in a nasty storm, being randomly attacked by a Legend for failure to worship them (however unlikely), and more were all just as likely to happen as they were to reach Kibou, if not more so. They were a superstitious lot, even when sober, and leaving on a Red Morning did not help matters. The worst that had happened were inconvenient winds, and at this point that matter was taken care of.

The usual going-ons of the crew were about on both ships, and the mutterings of the crew on the Spirit-and the sights to see on the S.S. Ship-were both open to Ernx's view. The man on the Crow's nest couldn't see any ship other than theirs from the Telescope, so for now, the crew was calm. If there was any definition of a normal day for the crew and the ships, this would be it.

That was good news, Ernx thought to himself. Routine was established. Of course, there were more...Important people that usually chatted about and talked to him. He was prepared for that as well.