Roger's Rules
The bottle sat in the center of the galley table like a dare. Cosette had put it there after taping a second note beside her first: NO SIPS. NO SNIFFS. NO "CHEF'S PRIVILEGE."Roger's list was rolled inside the glass like a sleeping map: twelve taverns scattered across the seas — some famous, some forgotten, a few that shouldn't exist — with a single instruction scrawled over the names in the worst handwriting in recorded history:
"Buy the house a round. Tell a story worth hearing. Leave the bottle at the last bar. Smile."
Bell-mère lit a cigarette, exhaled into the lamps' warm light, and tilted her head. "A quest that's a bar crawl. That man was either a genius or a menace."
"Both," Robin said, already copying the list into a neat duplicate. "He always wrote instructions that looked like jokes until you were standing in them."
Nami tapped the glass with a knuckle. "Logistics: we can string four of these without doubling back if we ride the seasonals right. First stop is embarrassingly on-brand — Loguetown."
Vegito grinned, tail flicking. "Place where kings are born, where one died, and where we're going to leave a tip big enough to insult the Marines."
Carrot leaned in, ears forward. "Do we get snacks?"
"We get stories," Vegito said. "And snacks."
Cosette snapped her towel at him. "Eat first, story later. I'm not hauling a pregnant army through a crowd on empty stomachs."
The crew chorused "Yes, Chef," and the Heaven's Embrace turned her face toward the East Blue, wings half-unfurled, runes glowing like someone had told her a secret she liked.
Round One — Loguetown: The Dawn Draft
Loguetown hadn't changed, not where it counted. The wind smelled like old salt and new ambition, the market cried the same lies, and the platform where Roger had smiled at the end still cast a long, invisible shadow down the main street.The tavern on Roger's list wasn't one of the big, bragging houses. It was a narrow place with a roof that leaned into the lane as if to hear gossip better: The Dawn Draft.
A bell chimed when they pushed the door. Heads turned — sailors, dockers, a trio of Marine recruits pretending to be older than their boots. The barkeep looked up from polishing a glass and froze when he recognized the silhouette in the door: coat like a flag, tail like punctuation.
"Don't panic," Vegito said, palms up. "We're not here to redecorate."
"We're here to buy," Nami added, stepping in with a smile that made ledgers behave. "A round for everyone — and a second if the stories are good."
The barkeep didn't move for a heartbeat; then experience beat fear and he barked, "Full taps! Keep it neat!" Glasses and tankards began to line the bar like recruits. The room's heartbeat picked up.
Vegito set Roger's bottle gently on the shelf behind the bar, where it gleamed like a friendly eye. "This is a pilgrimage," he said, voice pitched to carry. "We stopped at a place the world says isn't there. This bottle says we should stop at the places that are."
"What's the catch?" asked a woman in a dock jacket, eyes narrowed in the good kind of suspicion.
"You buy the next round for someone else," Vegito said, "when we're gone."
That got a few snorts. One of the Marine kids muttered, "Propaganda."
Bell-mère raised her glass without looking at him. "You'll like propaganda once you learn it can taste like free beer."
They drank. They warmed. Stories started as they always do — small, local, important anyway. A storm dodged. A cargo saved. A kid born in a squall who wouldn't stop laughing. No grand speeches. Vegito told one, when they asked, about a fish-man queen who spoke to the sea like it was a wayward child and made it behave long enough for hope to step ashore.
"Queen Otohime," Shyarly added softly from her stool. "And she is still very persuasive."
The door banged open on command boots. A petty officer tried to wear his hat like a crown and failed. "By order of the—"
Vegito reached out without turning and shut the door again. The latch clicked. The officer peered at it, pulled; it stayed shut like it had opinions.
"Not today," Bell-mère said. "These folks work hard enough without you turning last call into a census."
The recruits looked at each other. One giggled. That was it. Tension broke like old bread. The officer retreated, confused by a door that believed in tavern law.
They paid double and left behind a purse with a note — FOR THE NEXT ROUND WHEN THE NEWS IS BAD — and the barkeep hid his wet eyes by yelling at everyone to drink slower.
Outside, the town air tasted brighter. If news carried anything of that afternoon, it would carry the memory of a bar that, for a little while, out-ranked the world.
Round Two — Back to the Sky: Bell of the Clouds
Roger's list didn't care about convenience. The second tavern sat at 10,000 meters, on a chunk of cloud that had broken off the main Sky Island generations ago and learned independence. The Embrace glided up through standard thunder and a few experimental varieties, sluiced herself through an updraft like a dancer, and parked on a fluff-dock where ropes were knotted out of fog that had decided to be rope.
They'd been to Skypiea before; this wasn't Skypiea. It was an annex city of Cloudwrights and Milkfish Riders, stitched together with sky-runners and faith. The tavern's sign was a polished bell that rang like laughter when you looked at it twice: Bell of the Clouds.
Inside was a riot of white and gold — cloud-fiber hammocks, driftwood counters, a wall of bottles labeled with names you could only read from a certain angle. The proprietor, a winged woman with hair like storm-silver, folded her arms with a smile.
"Welcome or welcome back?"
"Both," Robin said warmly.
"We're buying the house a round," Vegito said, "and I want the fizzy one that smells like rain on stone."
"Skyshock," the proprietor said, already pouring.
Minks loved it; their fur crackled into halos. Bell-mère pretended hers didn't. Nami's hair made friends with static and tried to touch the ceiling.
Cloudwrights brought them stories like weather reports: the day the island went sentient for an hour and refused to move until someone apologized; the newborn with a curl that refused gravity; the priest who climbed out of his sermon and taught kids how to build kites, declaring it holier.
They told a story back about ringing bells that made giants cry and tyrants look up. Carrot reenacted the leap to Shandora's bell, embellishing height and danger until even Wanda laughed and said, "You would have tried that even if the bell had teeth."
Halfway through the second round, a pair of mercenary fliers drifted in on rented skates, eyes hungry for a bounty poster score. Their Den Den Mushi winked, processing faces; their smiles went greedy when it hit Vegito's.
He raised his mug. "Don't," he said cheerfully.
They tried anyway, because of course they did. The skates slipped. The floor decided it was slick as a joke. They windmilled, collided with a cloud-keg, and landed in a soft drift-pile labeled For Naps. The room applauded. Vegito sent their transponder snail home with a squirt of static and a note pinned to its shell: Buy someone a drink and try again next life.
They paid with gold leaves that dissolved into proper coin when the proprietor believed their intent, and Robin left a slim copy of one of the island's old prayer-diagrams on the back shelf with a penciled Thank you.
On the way out, Vegito rang the bell sign with one knuckle. It chimed once and once more for luck, and the sound followed them into clean sky.
Round Three — Down Where Promises Live: The Coral Pint
The third stop lay under a hundred meters of water and a thousand years of debt. Fish-Man Island's commercial district had grown out from the palace lines like coral does when it meets a good current: sideways, stubborn, beautiful. Tucked under a ridge of pink stone, behind strings of shell beads that caught light like gossip, sat The Coral Pint.
Fish-men packed the room: shark broad-shoulders, squid fiddle-fingers, manta smiles. Humans too, some brave, some just thirsty. The barkeep had an octopus' dexterity and a priest's patience. Shirahoshi slipped into a booth by shrinking to her human-sized trick and still drew looks like new moons do.
Shyarly was treated like an aunt who knew both your future and your favorite food and would give you the second even if she had to scold you about the first. She took a stool, ordered something that looked like captured sunlight, and let the room fall quiet by just existing.
Vegito rested a palm on the bar. "Round's on us," he said. "And the story is yours."
A whale-shark man raised his glass. "We heard a rumor." Murmurs rippled. "They say someone went where even the Government pretends to have misplaced. They say he laughed."
Vegito took the rumor like an egg and didn't drop it. "We found a joke older than the Government and better than their lies."
"And the One Piece?" a young swordfish-man asked, breathless. "What is it?"
Robin answered because it mattered that she did. "It's a chorus," she said. "And it's already started."
The barkeep set down a special bottle — coral glass, cork braided with a ribbon of deep-blue seaweed. "House keeps this for Apology Nights," he said. "When we don't have all the words but we have all the ache." He poured tiny measures. "Raise it to the queen who tried, the kings who failed, and the kids who might not have to."
They did. It wasn't sad, not the way sadness breaks you. It was saltier than that, a brine that preserves. Shirahoshi cried and then laughed because in this light even crying got to be pretty.
A Marine detachment drifted past the beaded curtain, peered in, and made a tactical retreat the moment they caught sight of Vegito's tail peeking over a booth like a loaded comma. Someone started a song about Sun Pirates and holes in hulls that let hope in with the water. Nami danced with a sawshark whose steps were better than his poker face; Nojiko won three pearls and a rumor in a game that didn't have cards.
They left a purse and a promise: When the day comes, we broadcast your queen's voice first. Shyarly nodded like she'd already watched it happen and approved of the cinematography.
The Route Between Rounds
They didn't sprint. This wasn't a conquest. It was a rhythm. Between bars, the Heaven's Embrace lived like a city with a horizon problem. The nursery sectors thrummed with soft music and softer arguments about paint colors. Lilith and York argued through blueprints for the world-ship's gentle integration — stage not guillotine underlined twice on the chalkboard.
Reiju ran checkups with Chopper, inventing vitamin candies that made the kids in their bellies kick like they were practicing Moonwalks. Boa pretended not to glow when Vegito set aside an hour to nap with his head in her lap and the ship purred hard enough to gently vibrate the utensils.
Robin and Vegito spent half the nights in the library, hands stained with charcoal and truth, drafting a broadcast that could hit the whole world without aiming at it like a weapon. "We show them what was stolen," Robin said. "We show them that it can be funny to be free."
"Funny travel faster than fear," Vegito said, and kissed her ink-black knuckles like a signature.
Carrot compiled a snack index of all twelve taverns pre-emptively, which was both adorable and, Nami admitted, logistically sound.
Cutaways: The World Notices the Round
Marineford. Sengoku set the paper down and sighed. "He's… buying drinks."Tsuru steepled her fingers. "He's laundering fear into gratitude. No arrests we make will be remembered as fondly."
Pangaea. The Five Elders took a briefing that was mostly receipts. Saturn's voice went slow with ice. "He's building a narrative that makes us the villains without naming us."Imu's shadow flicked like a candle deciding whether to accept oxygen. "Set a fire where he's planning a festival."
Morgans' Office. The giant bird laughed until his desk rattled, then slammed out a headline:
THE ROUND THAT CIRCLES THE WORLDSubhead:Free Drinks, True Stories, and a Pirate Who Tips Better Than Kings
Elbaf. Gerda led a toast to "the sky-man's second joke," which confused a few new warriors until they tasted mead and stopped needing to understand anything.
Shanks' Deck. Benn Beckman flicked ash into the wind. "He's going to turn taverns into town halls."Shanks smiled, lazy as a cat in a sunbeam that knows it's already won. "And then into war councils that don't need swords."
A Speed Bump with Teeth
Round Four on the list sat in a New World port famous for its quiet corruption, which is just corruption with better lighting. The Heaven's Embrace slid in low, only for Lilith to catch a spike of active scanning.
"Ambush up top," she said calmly. "Three CP0 cells, one Vice Admiral, all hiding like they think I can't smell bad encryption."
Vegito looked at the bottle. Roger's list had a cartoon of a smile beside this tavern's name, like the old pirate had known the trap would always be there for someone. He grinned back.
"Okay," he said. "We do this our way. Surgical and rude."
They docked. The tavern — The Taxman's Mercy — was a long house with polished floors, popular with merchants and the kind of officer who thinks a bribe counts as small talk. The room went still as the Embrace's crew came through the door like weather with good manners.
Vegito raised a hand before the denizens could decide whether to hate or hide. "Round's on us," he said. "And before you ask: yes, you can take a drink from a pirate and keep your virtue if you promise to buy the next round for someone who can't afford one."
Someone laughed, one startled bark, and that was enough.
CP0 came through the back like mirrors trying to learn how to fight. The Vice Admiral — a narrow-eyed bureaucrat with a dueling scar that had very good PR — drew steel with a judge's certainty.
Vegito did not power up. He did not glow. He stepped forward and put his palm on the man's blade. The steel learned humility and went soft like sugar glass. Vegito blew, and it turned to sparkling dust that smelled faintly of citrus.
"Sit," he said pleasantly.
The Vice Admiral sat, appalled with how good the chair was.
CP0 lunged. Kuina and Tashigi were already there, four blades between two people and two centuries of intent in their wrists. No blood. No death. Just disarms so elegant the room whistled. Kalifa tripped a third with a bubble that made his feet consider retirement.
Bell-mère never raised her rifle. She pinched the bartender's shoulder. "Pour the man a mercy drink. It's going to be a long memo."
They told a short story here — not about kings, not about Laugh Tale, but about paying a bill and leaving a place better than you found it. The room listened like a kid at a window during the good fireworks.
They left money. They left chairs intact. They left the Vice Admiral with his dignity carefully folded like a spare jacket over his arm — a worse punishment than a beating.
Outside, Robin jotted a footnote under Roger's smile doodle. Ambush expected. Joke still lands.
The Bottle, Untouched
On the Embrace that night, Vegito took the bottle off the shelf, turned it in his fingers, and listened. It had weight beyond glass and paper. It sounded like laughter caught and kept, ready to be poured if the mouth of the world went dry.
Boa watched him, chin on palm. "You could open it."
"Roger said last bar," Vegito said, smiling. "I always respect a good bit."
"And if someone steals it?" Bell-mère asked, voice level.
"It'll come back," Robin said, surprising herself with certainty. "It's not for them." She looked at Vegito's tail, at the way the ship hummed when he touched the glass. "It's for us. And for everyone who needs the story at the end."
He put the bottle back. It glinted like a promise you wouldn't mind keeping.
Status Check – Crew Corner (Tavern Edition)
They pinned a small map beside the bounty wall, twelve little circles like shot glasses in a neat ring. Nami drew a line through the first three and half through the fourth with a flourish.
"Three and a half down," she announced. "Eight and a half to go."
Chopper posed fiercely in front of his 1,000 like a bouncer at a very cute door. Cosette fed him a pastry to maintain his terrifying energy.
Reiju nudged Kuina, eyes on Tashigi across the room, and said in a voice that carried, "They put us at nine-fifty and seven-twenty, respectively. We'll fix their math."
Tashigi pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and tried not to smile.
Carrot drew tiny carrots on each tavern circle and got away with it, because morale is a strategic resource.
Lilith updated the chalkboard under Stage Not Guillotine with a new line: "World-Ship = Broadcast Array (Joy Boy Spec) + Laugh Tale 'Chorus Key' + Embrace Dimensional Carrier. Test w/ small island-scale transmission (non-hostile)."
Robin wrote, under that, in graceful hand: "First broadcast: history of Ohara, Amazon Lily's foundation, Fish-Man promises. One hour. No names. Only truths."
Vegito wrote under that: "Final broadcast: punchline." No one asked him to define it. They didn't need to think it to feel it.