Introduction
In my many years as a ship mechanic, I had never seen this much damage. An amateur group of adventurers brought their ship back to me after another exciting journey, but I was surprised that they made it back at all. The boiler had steam leaking all over the place, the wings were torn, there were huge, gaping holes in the body, and only one out of the three balloons was still inflated.
“Good lord, what happened?” I asked.
“Harpoon guns and clowns,” The leader of the group said. She stood next to me, one arm crossed and the other fiddling with her ruby brooch, examining the ship’s damage. Her eyes seemed to be reliving every mark on the ship.
Looks like I have my work cut out for me, I thought. This amount of damage would take maybe a month to repair at the least, not to mention the cost would be expensive. However, I was not a money-driven man, what I loved the most about my job were the stories that people came with, and I could tell this was one Hell of a story.
“I’ll cut you a deal: you tell me what happened to the ship, and I’ll cut the price of repairs in half,” I offered.
She thought for a moment before saying, “Deal.” She reached out her hand and I took it, giving it a firm shake.
I spent the rest of the day assessing the damage and at sundown, I met up with the band of adventurers at the tavern.
We drank and laughed as they shared their story.
