The salt water was a cold, suffocating weight.
Hugo's lungs burned, a searing agony that pulsed behind his ribs with every desperate, futile attempt to draw breath. His ears rang with a dull, rhythmic thrumming, the pressure of the depths threatening to cave in his skull. Most people who found themselves snatched from their lives and cast into another world at least landed on solid ground. Hugo, however, had been dropped directly into the heart of the abyss.
The light above was a fading memory, a shimmering silver coin shrinking into a pinprick of white against the encroaching black. The ocean was a gentle monster, cold and indifferent, pulling him down into its silent embrace. His consciousness began to fray at the edges, dissolving into the dark.
It's over, he thought, the last of his strength flickering out.
At the very precipice of the void, a mechanical voice - stark, cold, and jarringly precise, erupted within his mind.
[System activating...]
[Vital signs reaching critical threshold... Binding conditions met.]
[Binding "Great Navigator" System... Success!]
An illusion? Hugo wondered distantly. The final hallucination of a drowning man?
[Newbie Gift Package dispatched.]
[Era Template Unlocked: Ancient Navigation.]
[Technology Tree Obtained: Classical Shipbuilding (Tier 0).]
[Passive Skill Obtained: Basic Seamanship.]
Suddenly, the crushing weight seemed to shift. His body, once an anchor, felt infused with a strange, buoyant energy. His limbs moved with an instinctive grace he had never possessed, pushing him upward with a sudden, violent surge.
Pfft!
Hugo's head broke the surface. He gasped, a ragged, desperate sound as he hauled the humid, salt-thick air into his starving lungs. He coughed until his chest felt like it was lined with glass, tears and seawater streaming down his face as he clung to the surface, treading water with a rhythmic ease he didn't quite understand.
It was a moonless night. He drifted on the swell, a speck in a vast, undulating desert of ink. Then, through the spray, a flickering yellow light appeared, a lantern, swaying rhythmically in the distance like a lonely firefly.
"Ho! Man overboard! To the starboard bow!"
A rough, gravelly shout cut through the sound of the crashing waves. A moment later, a thick hempen rope whipped through the air, hitting the water with a heavy thwack just inches from his reach.
Hugo didn't think. He lunged for the line, gripping the rough fibers with the last of his fading adrenaline.
Strong arms hauled him upward. He was dragged over a low rail, his body hitting the deck with a dull thud. The smell hit him instantly - a pungent, overwhelming cocktail of pine tar, rotting fish, stale tobacco, and the sharp, fermented kick of cheap rum. It was the scent of a ship that hadn't seen a dry dock in years.
"Empty his pockets, Bill. Let's see if the sea brought us any gold with this one."
A heavy boot rolled him onto his back. Rough hands began patting down his wet clothes, searching with practiced greed.
"Bah! Not a brass farthing," a hoarse voice grumbled above him. "The lad's a pauper."
"Look at the stitchin' on his coat, though," another voice countered, sounding intrigued. "Fabric's finer than a Governor's silk. Strip it off 'im; we'll get a few shillings for the rags in port."
Hugo forced his eyes open. His vision was a blurred mess of swaying shadows and tattered rigging. The men standing over him looked like they had been carved from driftwood, skin like weathered leather, deep-set eyes, and teeth as yellow as the lantern light. They wore waistcodes and breeches that had seen better decades, with cutlasses and flintlocks tucked casually into their belts.
"Wake 'im up," the first man ordered. "I want to know which poor merchantman he fell off of."
A bucket of icy seawater slammed into Hugo's face. He sputtered, the shock bringing the world into sharp, terrifying focus.
He sat up, his heart hammering against his ribs. The men were speaking English, but it was thick with a West Country burr, the kind of accent that belonged in a history book, or a nightmare.
"Awake at last, are ye?" A man with a leather patch over one eye squatted down in front of him. He grinned, showing off a gap-toothed maw. "Which ship, lad? Give us a name so we know who to thank for the target practice."
Hugo tried to speak, but his throat felt like it had been scrubbed with sand. His mind was racing. He remembered his life before, a sailor himself, a navigator who had been betrayed by a corrupt captain and tossed overboard during a storm. But this... this wasn't the world he knew.
As he looked at the pirate, a translucent blue interface flickered into existence in the corner of his eye.
[Name: Hugo]
[Era: Ancient (Sail & Oar)]
[Technology Tree: Classical Shipbuilding (Level 0 - Inactive)]
[Wealth: 0 Gold Doubloons]
It's real, he realized, a chill running down his spine that had nothing to do with the water. The system is real.
The one-eyed pirate spat a glob of dark tobacco juice onto the deck, clearly losing patience. "Scared senseless, he is. No matter. We're short-handed as it is."
A tall sailor carrying a coil of rope walked past, chuckling darkly. "Captain Barbossa's always lookin' for more fodder for the rigging. Better he works for us than feeds the sharks."
"Aye," another whispered, looking toward the horizon. "Just hope he's got more backbone than the last wretch we picked up outside Tortuga."
Barbossa. Tortuga.
The names hit Hugo like a broadside. He looked up, surveying the ship with new eyes. The single-masted sloop was a mess of patched canvas and salt-encrusted timber, but the lines were unmistakable. The weapons, the speech, the names, the pieces clicked together into an impossible reality.
He hadn't just survived. He had transmigrated into the Caribbean of myth and legend.
"What ye gawkin' at, boy!" The one-eyed man poked Hugo's shin with the toe of a heavy boot. "Get to your feet! Unless ye'd prefer to go back over the rail?"
Hugo lowered his gaze, masking the spark of realization in his eyes. He reached out, his palms pressing against the rough, sun-bleached wood of the deck. He could feel the vibration of the hull as it cut through the swells.
He stood up shakily, his modern sailing gear, synthetic and sleek clinging to him. It was far too conspicuous. He needed to blend in, to disappear into the grime of this world until he could find his footing.
He glanced again at the system panel.
Wealth: 0.
In this world, life was traded for silver, and mercy was as rare as a calm sea in hurricane season. Without power, he was just another anonymous corpse waiting to happen. But he had the System. He had the knowledge of a world yet to come, and a technology tree that promised he could turn a rotting sloop into a queen of the seas.
His goal was clear. He needed gold. He needed to activate the system. And most of all, he needed to survive the crew he had just joined.
"I can work," Hugo said, his voice raspy but steady.
The pirate grinned. "We'll see about that, lad. We'll see."