Chapter 3: in which we discover that pirates don't think of the economy.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 3 opens with a confirmation that yes, the people of Drall are at a stone-age technology level. This is a plot-relevant reiteration that helps cement an element of the world into the reader’s mind, and is thus an important part of the world-building process. One interesting thing is that no-one is even remotely suspicious of A) someone knowing their names in a country that has never been discovered, that they had no intention of going to, and that by rights shouldn’t speak the same language; B) that person was not just expecting them but waiting for them; and C) that a stone age society is offering gold as payment, implying that they know gold is the basis of your economy. Indeed, Ham-Hand is more concerned by the prospect of working for a woman than by the above weirdness. I guess Viking pirates hire for brawn, not brains.

They head up the coast and arrive at a village, and the captain shows why he gets the big bucks with 2 good ideas:

1) Weigh anchor for the night and approach in the morning, so that their arrival cannot be misinterpreted as a surprise attack.

2) Tell the crew to be on their very best behavior. This is important, considering how pirate Vikings must feel after a few months at sea. Of course, the reason is because they’ll be outnumbered and causing a ruckus might jeopardize their chance of being paid rather than, you know, from being halfway decent human beings… of course, if they were decent human beings then the little talk wouldn’t be necessary.

Anyway, we are introduced to another of our future viewpoint characters at this point: a red-bearded native called, and you’ll never guess this in a million years… Red-beard! This actually raises an interesting question: What did they call him before he grew his beard? Seriously, there’s no mention of a birth name or a family name, he’s just Red-beard. Secondly, if red hair is rare enough to warrant naming someone over, where did the red-hair gene come from? Let’s be generous and say that the tribe has 300 adults (heck, even that many is a lot considering that they get all their food from hunting and gathering). Where would the anomalous red-hair come from? An outside tribe? It’s never mentioned, even though in a few books we get a fairly detailed life history of Red-beard. If red hair isn’t that uncommon, then isn’t it like calling someone ‘Blondie’ or ‘Goldielocks’ or… ok, but it’s still a stupid name! And this from the man who called a main character Kífffrlinï!

Anyway, Red-beard is rowing the chief White-braid (I give up) to speak with the captain. We then move on to the captain meeting with Zelana in her cave a way off from the village. I realize that it may seem like the narrative jumps like crazy with my retelling, but in fact the opposite is true. I’m just giving you a basic framework so you can follow why any of the plot holes is actually, you know, a plot hole.

Now the captain meets Zelana, the most beautiful woman he has ever met. Get used to that sentence. She opens with complaining about how long he took to get there, he calls her on knowing they were coming, and we get “the beloved knows everything.” Take a shot. I hate Eleria.

Apparently Hook-Beak is too busy staring to push the subject any further, even though if someone was spying on me and had just been proclaimed to know EVERYTHING you can bet I would start asking questions rather than getting distracted by the sexy.

Zelana suddenly endears herself to me greatly by kicking the plot into overdrive, leaving Hook-Beak to get caught up in her wake. This is the first time in 96 pages that there’s been any sense of energy, so this is a big thing. Hook-Beak asks how much he’s being paid for a bit of mercenary work, and the energy goes away as the plot stalls for another page of people stating the obvious. Also we are introduced to the running gag of Eleria intentionally mucking up peoples’ names, which is so funny it will obviously never get old… *Grabs suicide pistol*

###Emergency review subroutine loaded.

###Activating cloning vat. Estimated time until clone completion: 3 weeks.

###Resuming review.

Scene: Sorgan Hook-Beak is taken by Eleria to view offered payment gold.

Alert: Thermodynamics violated.

Alert: Gold shown exceeds total mined gold of human population of earth by year 2013.

Alert: Influx of this much gold into Maag economy will create total collapse and cause social regression that is likely to spread to neighboring nations, and is likely to cause a state of total war between Maags and Trogites.

Hypothisis: Total war between these two powers is goddess Zelana’s true goal, eliminating both technologically advanced nations as a threat to her own.

Query: Why is human Sorgan Hook-Beak incapable of suspicion in the presence of gold? Brain scans of test subjects reveal no shutdown of logical reasoning centers due to elements proximity.

Chapter end: A deal is struck, and Maag pirate Sorgan Hook-Beak is now transporting Goddess Zelana and cohorts for recruitment of additional pirate crews for PMC contract.

Logic error: Hook-Beak cannot take much gold as it will weigh down his ship, and speed is a factor. However, ship has not unloaded haul from Trogite merchant ship robbed 2 chapters ago, and is likely already at capacity. How can they be considering taking more?

###End review.