**
The tide rolled in like a drunk with a grudge—slow, loud, and ready to wreck whatever wasn't bolted down. Maxwell Ambrose stood at the edge of a crumbling pier, salt wind in his hair and a sour taste in his mouth. Behind him, the starter town of Scum Port groaned awake under the weight of its own filth.
It wasn't the kind of place that welcomed anyone. Least of all castaways.
Rusty signs creaked overhead. Banners advertised fake brothels, fake rum, and fake legends—all pay-to-win or rigged in favor of the locals. The smell? A cocktail of wet rope, dried fish guts, piss, and ambition.
He stepped off the sand and onto warped planks slick with barnacles. Immediately, a system tag flickered at the edge of his vision:
**Location Discovered: Scum Port**
**Faction Influence: Neutral (Reputation Unranked)**
The prompt vanished before he could blink. Just enough to log it. Just enough to remind him: he was no one.
The first scuffle broke out before he even reached the market. Two players, both barely clothed in newbie gear, screamed at each other near a rat vendor. One pushed the other. The second pulled out a makeshift spear. Then blood. Then cheers. An NPC guard wandered over, shrugged, and looted the body.
No consequences. No respawn delay.
Maxwell moved on, eyes forward. He wasn't going to win any fights. Not yet.
What he needed was a foothold. Or at least a dry place to sleep.
He ducked into a half-collapsed tavern at the pier's end, its sign dangling by a chain: **The Splintered Mast**. Inside, a crowd of NPCs and players drank, brawled, or gambled by lanternlight. No menus. No barkeep behind the counter. Just a weathered woman in a patchy coat cleaning a flintlock with religious attention.
"Looking to work?" she asked without looking up.
Maxwell hesitated. "What gave me away?"
"You smell broke. And your boots ain't scuffed enough to be a regular."
Fair enough.
She pointed toward a stained poster tacked to the wall: **RAT RUNNERS WANTED. PAY: LOW. DANGER: YES.**
"Go to Grint down at the docks. Tell him Reeva sent you."
Maxwell didn't argue. He needed coin.
---
**Grint and the Rats**
Grint turned out to be a hunched NPC with one eye and a personality like salted rust. He handed Maxwell a bucket, a club, and a bandana.
"Rats in the lower hull," Grint rasped. "Bite hard. Some glow. If they explode, run."
"Explode?"
Grint just grinned.
The quest was hell. A broken ship lodged in the docks served as the rat nest. Narrow corridors, sloshing bilge water, and squeals that came from behind walls. Maxwell fought through six, maybe seven rodents before one lunged from a barrel and detonated on impact, sending him flying into a crate of salted eels.
**Health -21**
**Skill Unlocked: Blunt Weapon (Level 1)**
**You smell terrible. NPCs will react accordingly.**
He finished the job bloodied and limping but alive. Grint tossed him a handful of copper and a half-eaten biscuit.
"Don't spend it all in one place," the NPC chuckled.
---
**Marketplace Lessons**
Back at the market, he tried to barter for dry clothes or a room. Players laughed, NPCs waved him off. He caught a snippet of conversation from two decked-out streamers flaunting enchanted gear and selling 'cursed shells' to desperate newbies for crypto vouchers.
"Gold's for guilds," one sneered. "You want to matter? Find a relic, get a fleet, or sell your soul."
Maxwell ignored them, but it stuck. Sell your soul. Easy to say from the top.
He ended up sleeping on the roof of a fishmonger's shack, curled beneath a stolen tarp. At least the stars were real enough to look at.
---
Over the next few days, Maxwell carved out a rhythm. Odd jobs. Scavenging. Avoiding PvP ambushes and predatory recruiters. A barback gig at The Splintered Mast paid in booze and rumors.
He listened more than he spoke. Learned that certain docks became "ghosted" at night—unloading vessels no one remembered docking. That Reeva once sailed with the Black Reef Corsairs but never spoke of it. That the Merchant Guild ran everything but pretended not to.
It was all crooked.
But it made sense.
And Maxwell was getting better. Stronger. Not by much. But enough.
**Strength +1 (Threshold reached)**
**You feel the weight of your fists.**
He still had no armor. No ship. No allies.
But he had a feel for the current. And for players who didn't.
---
**The Quartermaster and the Coin**
It happened late one night, after he helped haul a smuggled crate into the backroom of the tavern. Reeva rewarded him with a bottle of rotgut and a nod.
"You're stubborn," she said. "Might be useful."
Then she pushed something across the table: a coin. Old. Sea-worn. Its surface etched with a symbol Maxwell didn't recognize—an ouroboros wrapped around an anchor, swallowed by a tide.
"Where'd you get this?" he asked.
"Didn't," she said. "It found you."
He picked it up.
**\[Item Acquired: Tidal Coin (Uncommon)]**
Nothing else. No quest. No tooltip. But the coin was warm in his hand.
Reeva just shrugged and turned away.
---
**Fog and Whispers**
The next evening, fog rolled into Scum Port so thick it swallowed the streets. Players logged out. NPCs bolted shutters. Even the rats vanished.
Maxwell stayed on the roof, the coin in his pocket. The fog felt familiar. Like the one he saw on the beach.
Somewhere, in that dead quiet, he heard it again.
"Maxwell..."
A whisper.
He sat bolt upright. No one around.
The Tidal Coin pulsed faintly in his hand.
Then, in the distance—bells. Ship bells. But no ships.
He didn't sleep.
---
He jerked out of VR at dawn, sweat soaking his shirt. The room smelled like mold and desperation.
A red light blinked on his tablet: final eviction notice.
No messages. No job offers.
Just a city skyline that looked as dead as the game world felt alive.
He drank tap water, slapped his face, and went back under.
---
**End of Chapter Two**