“I would recommend starting out as just a merchant or miner.” Clementine explained to her childhood friend, Tristan over their voice call. Clementine had pestered Tristan for the better part of the last two years to finally play this game she’s been obsessed with; Tristan reluctantly agreed, he wasn’t all that interested in the time period the game represented, his preferred setting being in the second industrialization era rather than the first.

  “IF I play the game long enough. Clem, maybe I will, but for now I think I’ll just ride your coat-tails.” He smirked.

  Clementine sighed, “I’ll give you that. It is way cooler to ride around on an ironclad sinking those pesky monarchist merchants than it is sailing around in a single mast sloop with a pitiful cargo payload. I promise you, I’ll make sure you enjoy the game!”

  Clementine was sure that her friend would enjoy the game even if he had his reservations, she just had to show him the truly awesome player-driven lore and economy of the world, it wasn’t like your typical single-player MMO experience, in Mercenary Seas, you might only need one person to load cargo and take the helm, but to be combat-worthy, one had to have a player crewmate for each cannon.

  In an attempt to help bridge Tristan into the setting, she decided to use one of her more modern vessels that he would appreciate more, it bore resemblance to dreadnoughts in that it had a cylindrical turret housing a howitzer on both the stern and bow of the ship, and a low profile iron hull with a steam engine instead of sails.

  Spawning her ship at the dock, she beckoned Tristan towards the sailing vessel. “Woah, this is actually cooler than I expected.” Tristan Exclaimed, “I assumed we’d just be sailing around on some lame old galleon or something.” Clementine rolled her eyes at her friend’s surprise.

  “Just because you don’t care for this era of history doesn’t give you an excuse not to realize one of the best inventions of the time was of course, the steam boat! Should have been obvious I mean really.” She was a bit exasperated at how Tristan could simultaneously be going to university for mechanical engineering while knowing nothing of the history of the invention that practically spurred the existence of his profession.

  “You’d be out of a dream and a job without the advent of the steam engine, the least you could do is learn up on it.” The girl sighed.

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it… But honestly who cares about the steam engine when diesel exists-“ Oh god, here he goes again. “It’s so much cooler, and none of modern industry would be able to function without it, whereas steam has long since fallen to the wayside.” This diesel fanatic even drives German domestic just to get the smoggy sedan experience.

  While Clementine acknowledges Tristan is largely correct, the standardization that the second industrial revolution brought about seemed much more boring to her. In the advent of the steam engine and the ironclad, almost every design was unique from the other based on the philosophy of its designers, an era of innovation and change never before seen by humankind since the discovery of fire –maybe she was exaggerating on that last point – society could just barely keep up with the pace at which it advanced. The biggest qualm Clementine held against the diesel era of warships was their lack of variety, most had very little differentiation in their hull configurations in comparison to their steam powered counterparts; furthermore the ORIGINAL HMS Dreadnought itself was powered by steam! Take that Tristan, and your dreadnoughts! It just goes to prove her point that the steam era truly had more variety.

  Tristan was still nagging her about the superiority of diesel when finally cut him off again, “Tristan, just enjoy the game will you? Not everything is about efficiency.”

  “Well, true enough. Lead the way then, I suppose it would be cruel of me now to abandon my lonely little puppy of a friend who begged me oh-so hard to play with her.” He playfully teased.

  She chuckled, “Alright, hop on the gangway and let’s take a screenshot to remember a noob’s first voyage.” To which Tristan could only sigh, but obliged nonetheless.

  Clementine’s character was taller, more imposing, and in her opinion much prettier and authentic than the real her. Her character was of a pale, soft complexion with dirty blonde hair, and piercing red eyes that would put terror into the heart of her enemies. Tristan’s character could only be described as a ‘himbo’, his character stood a head taller than Clem’s already tall dame, and easily thrice her width in muscle, had a moustache befitting of a Kaiser, but the scruffy short hair of a working man. She took a screenshot with the both of them posing on the port side of the ship they had just boarded, standing next to the imposing smokestack set at the center of the ship.

  “So, who are these so-called ‘monarchist’ merchants you have us hunting?” Tristan inquired. He was intrigued when his friend had explained the way politics work in this game, most of the factions revolving around players instead of NPCs or Devs (although the devs had to frequently manually tweak the game for policies and details the game’s system couldn’t handle).

  “Merchant ships who sail under the flag of King Robert. They’re part of a monarchy based on one of the larger agricultural islands. Most of what they will be carrying is grain, which isn’t much use to us with this warship, but it will be worth it to give that bastard Robert and his kin a kick in the balls.” Clementine explained.

  “Okaaaay… How exactly is that giving him a kick in the balls? How are you giving me a boost if this won’t even turn a profit?” Tristan was confused at how this was going to be any more rewarding than just starting out on his own with the starter sloop as pitiful as it was.

  Clementine made her character do a frustrated emote to Tristan’s before explaining. “Those assholes are sanctioning our glorious Republic, and by extension my merchant guild! That’s not to mention that just the other day I got scammed out of nearly two hundred THOUSAND silvers after one of them exploited the trade accept glitch the game has yet to patch!”

  “In other words this is your little revenge quest? Did you really have to drag me along for this?” Tristan didn’t really like where this was going, he knew Clementine could get toxic when she had been wronged.

  “Fortunately for you and your penniless self, Mr. Tristan, our benevolent house of commons has put out bounties and commissions for any allied armed vessel to claim upon successful plundering and drowning of those sorrowful sods, the profits of which I will be generously donating to you, my dear friend.” Not to mention preventing them from meeting their obligations to their brother kingdom – the Sadaim Kingdom – would put a strain on their relations, good chance the Sudaims might even delay their next shipment of much-needed coal. Clementine thought.

  Tristan joked, “I’ll have to check privateering off my bucket list.”

  It was an intentional decision by the devs and partially due to the dispersion of resources across the world map that there was very little consolidation of power amongst the various factions covering the global archipelago, even the largest of islands were scarcely comparable to the size of the United Kingdom for example; those that were were often primarily a source of grain and other food products given they were the only ones with the space to yield them in significant quantities.

  The dock staffing NPCs pulled away the gangway and Clementine set the speed to full reverse while angling the rudder slightly away from the dockside. The game had no GPS or any such convenient system, it was up to Clementine to keep an eye on her compass and map to chart her course to hostile seas. Once away from the dock and satisfied that none of the nearby vessels seemed to be on a collision course, she locked the helm and walked towards Tristan who was standing next to the rail on the stern, watching the larger-than-average home isle of the Verdun Republic shrink into the distance. The Verdun Republic largely based itself around early classical liberal societies, most of the power of its ranks was maintained by a middle class voter base and council - not to say there was no wealth inequality far from it – but its governance avoided the nepotism often present in the more autocratic player factions that often occurred between monarch and their council giving out titles and positions of power like candy to their friends.

  “I get that the factions are player run, but what can they actually do? I’m assuming everything already on that island was there before it was claimed by your Republic, right?” Tristan asked his friend as she walked up next to him.

  “It wasn’t always so prosperous. A lot of the fortifications and shipbuilding facilities you see along the coast were added in by the devs after our House of Commons voted to invest in industry. Taxes collected whenever you sell things at our ports gets put into projects paying the devs who then delete the currency from circulation. Sometimes they pay out to players too though, like in the case of the bounty we plan on collecting.” Not only did this system give players more freedom to influence the state of the world map and points of interest, but it also gave the devs an opportunity to regulate the player economy as a money drain not to discourage new players with feeble income.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Tristan nodded along. “I can see how you find this game entertaining. As much as I wish this was set a century later, I get the appeal.”

  Clementine replied. “No way, you could at least have us steam-punks have one game! Almost every game that comes out is set in one of the great world wars, it’s only fair we get a piece of the pie.”

  Tristan could only agree, but that was partially just because very few people had an interest in the early industrial age. The closest games if any focusing on the time just before – the Napoleonic era. Outside of colonial wars or the American civil war which were a taboo subject in modern times and wouldn’t pose much challenge on such unequal footing, there wasn’t enough well known naval battles to solidify the era in the minds of most naval buffs. Tristan could understand Clementine’s frustration with her diesel obsessed friend and his insistence on all things modern. He had to admit, the rise in capitalism and the beginnings of the downfall of nobility made the mid-19th century a more nuanced and interesting time than most others, regardless of aesthetics.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t end up founding your own monarchy. You’ve always been similarly obsessed with those map painting games that I’d have taken you for the despot type.” Tristan commented.

  Clementine shrugged. “I don’t have enough friends to run a monarchist government, and even if I did the race I picked limits my options a little.”

  Wait race? Tristan had hardly noticed before, but it seemed his friend had picked one of the locked races he saw when he was going through the character menu, an Alphire. The race was locked to those who did not participate in the game’s alpha, but he didn’t understand why that would matter when it came to ‘limiting her options’ as Clementine put it.

  “What’s wrong with your race?” Tristan inquired.

  “Nothing’s wrong with my race per say. It’s just Alphire players often get discriminated against by newer players, as they are jealous they were too late to play as one. Alphires get a health boost in exchange for drinking blood on a daily basis, and have better vision in the dark, the downside is that if they don’t drink blood, they actually have a third less health than the other races.” Tristan supposed this explanation made sense, people have been pettier over less.

  “I think the biggest reason of all is that Alphires are so damn pretty!” she exclaimed, to which Tristan could only roll his eyes again. While he appreciated aesthetics and understood why Clementine of all people would care given her real life circumstances, he doubted others cared so much about that aspect. Apart from red eyes, canines, pale skin, Alphires barely looked different from a half-Erl player with their point-tipped ears and lean stature.

  “Anyway, enough about the Republic, I need to get you up to speed on using the bow turret.” She had him follow her towards the front of the ship.

  Tristan complained, “I already did the tutorial, I don’t think I need you backseat gaming here like I’m some simpleton.”

  “Well, the tutorial showed you how to use the basic armaments of your little sloop, these ones have some more advanced tools for you, and I don’t want you scampering around trying to figure out how everything works in the middle of a fight.” Clementine continued, explaining to him how to perform ranging shots on distant targets, and which hand-cranked valves controlled, gun elevation and turret rotation.

  “Lastly, if we do happen to come across a ship with an iron hull, try and aim right at their waterline, or alternatively if you manage to angle the shot, at their decks.” She finished.

  They’d been sailing North-East for some time now, and Clementine soon suspected they would come across one of the targets they had been searching for, a mercantile freighter bound from Port Saint Robert to Sadaim. Scouting through her mast-affixed binoculars, she spotted sails peaking out over the horizon, about 14km out, it would take them a half an hour to reach their position.

  She sighed. “They’ve probably already spotted our smoke long before we spotted them, but the winds are in our favor, they will have a hard time fleeing with their square-rigged sails.” It’ll burn through coal much faster and pose a slight risk of boiler wear, but Clementine cranked the telegraph to her non-existent engine crew to ahead flank speed. The half-trunk engine roared to life as the ship lurched forward, slicing through the incoming waves as it hunted its target like a hound would its prey.

  Tristan was a bit nervous he wouldn’t be able to meet his friend’s expectations on his gunnery skills, but he’d try anyway, she couldn’t blame him for lacking skill considering he’d never played the game before. When the ship appeared on the horizon from his perspective, he remembered Clementine’s words “When you see their ship in the horizon, that means it should be about 5 kilos out, so your first shot should be ranged for that.” It was just above the maximum range of the gun though, so he waited a second or two longer for the ship to come within effective firing distance before he pulled the firing cord.

  The howitzer roared to life, and the force of its shot seemed to almost list the ship off course, he held his breath in the moment in took for the shot to trail through the sky before a huge splash appeared next to their target. Perhaps seeing that fleeing was hopeless, the other ship began to turn its broadside towards Tristan and Clementine’s vessel, clearly preparing to fire.

  Clementine said to Tristan over their voice call, “Load explosive rounds, set the fuse to 2 or 3 seconds, I recognize this class of ship by its masts, it shouldn’t have an iron hull, and its size should make it so you won’t overpen.” Tristan nodded, he was used to similar concepts of armor and over penetration being thrown around even in the era of the Second World War.

  Tristan, using the initial ranging shot, could more or less tell how far out the opposing ship should be by now, though it was made a little more difficult given the speed at which his ship was currently advancing towards them. The second shot rang true, and detonated near the top of the deck, knocking down their stern mast, destroying one of the few riggings that would allow them to skirt the wind. Clementine had been right, and this freighter would stand little chance with its meager armaments and crew.

  The enemy ship occasionally puffed smoke from it’s side, taking pot shots at Clementine’s ironclad, but even had they been in range, most of those roundshot would have just bounced off her reinforced hull anyway unless they got especially lucky.

  Tristan had managed two more hits, and the enemy vessel was starting to list to the side as it began to take on water, they were close enough to see the single person crewing it, and he was beginning to flame them in the regional chat about how they were “abusing amateur players” which shouldn’t matter considering they likely knew about the bounties but decided to go without escort or crew regardless further diminishing their chance of winning had they even faced a lower leveled ship.

  Clementine was laughing and flaming him back, calling his faction ‘a bunch of prissy brats who care for nothing more than giving handouts to their friends and spending all their money buying up all the rare artifacts from events to decorate their estates’.

  “Alright, I think that’s enough.” Clementine commented, as they both walked their characters to the bow’s railing, Clementine pulled out a comically old fashioned camera on a tripod from her inventory, her character draped the photographer’s blanket over her as she took a photo of the scuttled vessel.

  She deposited the camera back into her inventory and withdrew the photo of the flame-engulfed vessel as it withdrew beneath the ocean’s surface. The photo too looked old-timey. It was grainy and monochrome, the filters almost made it look real, and what a brutal scene it was. It reminded Tristan of a scene out of a historical photograph he saw at a museum, a U-boat and its crew surfaced and standing on their deck as they watch the burning wreckage of the vessel they sank while its desperate crew, some of which were caught on fire themselves jumped into the frigid ocean in any way they could in a hopeless attempt to escape their inevitably horrid fate. Fortunately for Tristan this was just a game, so he’d escape any nightmares he might have faced if it’d been the real deal.

  “Looks like their captain respawned.” Clementine pointed towards where their enemy captain once stood, now gone. “We got what we came here for, and the bounty will be enough for you to get some decent gear to get started with, so let’s head back.” Clementine walked back to the helm, steering the rudder away and commanding the telegraph to ahead 3 quarters as to give the engine a break. Clementine wasn’t impatient enough that she’d waste two thousand silvers worth of coal and maintenance just to get back a few minutes early.

  With the ship’s course once again set, she asked Tristan, “So, what’d you think? Pretty immersive, right?”

  Tristan had to agree, it was both more immersive and more fun than he had expected, there was admittedly more to old-timey naval battles than he cared to realize before. “It was honestly refreshing. I never considered how sails might affect our approach to combat.”

  Clementine let out a triumphant cackle, “Aha! So now you understand why variation is so fun! Differences in ship design and the mix of different systems of propulsion and weaponry add a much needed spice to naval warfare that came before and after if you ask me.”

  Tristan sighed, “True, but it’s also pitiful how useless they were against us, seems to me ironclads have an unfair advantage.”

  Clementine pondered it might be true that ironclads have a distinct advantage on the seas, but their drawbacks in terms of cost can’t be ignored. Even most high level players were lucky to have one let alone two iron clads like Clementine did, though her second one was only iron plated over wood hull rather than the full metal one they sailed on now.

  Deciding to counter her friend anyway she commented, “You do realize your average merchant vessel in the Second World War would also stand little-to-no chance against a warship either, right? Is it unfair then too?”

  That made Tristan pause for a second, “I guess you’re right, most of the World War One and Two naval sims I’ve played focus only on ship to ship combat and not the merchant aspect.” He had to acknowledge, Mercenary Seas was a different sort of game that if he was being honest, worked a lot better for the period setting.

  They were about 5 minutes out from port when a notification popped up on their screens ‘3 minutes until server shut down for maintenance.’ This caused Clementine to release a deep exhale.

  “I really don’t want to get penalized for combat logging, I’m not sure how the game will treat it when it was a shutdown rather than me logging out though…” If she logged out while the ship was still spawned it would accrue maintenance costs as if half its health had been damaged, of which she really did not want to pay for such an expensive ship.

  Regretting now that she didn’t check the maintenance schedule, she moved the lever back up to flank speed ahead as she would need to dock as fast as she could, figuring she could make it in the nick of time.

  10….

  9…..

  The dock hands began to tie the ship up to the bollard, it looks like I’d made it in time. Clementine thought.

  5….

  4….

  3....

  She began to say to her friend over the voice call, “We can alwa-“

  Darkness consumed the duo.