I watched as the NPC's hands hovered over Brett's hips for a while. Others from his town started chuckling. "What's the matter, Brom!? Tell 'im to get offa you." one of the guys said, trying to keep from laughing too hard. While I did not think anyone noticed, Brom looked really conflicted. I guess being the only gay from a religious town had both perks and downsides. "... P-please. Get off me. Y-you can't just sit on another man's l-lap like that. People will get the wrong idea." he said. Brett just looked at him for a moment and stood up. He then leaned into Brom's ear and whispered something. Brom's eyes went wide. After he was done saying what he wanted, Brett smirked and left. When he came back to us, I asked what he said. "I told him to find me if he wanted to continue where we left off." Paul said "A closet case, huh?" I nodded and said "He'll probably take you up on the offer if none of the other guys from Estlor are around." "Well, if he takes too long, I'll just move on. There are some sexy ladies on the ship here too." That was just how Brett was. He was a big hornball, hot and he knew it.
Every one of us had nothing but time on the ship. The two went around and caused some mischief. Petty theft and replacing it latter. Cheating in very simple contests. At least they were not hurting anyone. All the other Players seemed to tolerate them as long as they did not bother them or the NPCs in their party. I had a husband with me and four children. That meant that flirting with others was way out of bounds. I did not really want to either though because I always thought baiting things for flirting was scummy. There were still some quests generated on the ship. We could still settle disputes, find the stuff that were stolen, and perform fetch quests from the crew. This is a usual a set of transitional mini quests for moving to a new area of the map. Lots of games had map expansion events like this. There was even a boss ocean monster to fight. It was also a great way to get some extra exp. for the upcoming new area. Both Players and NPCs alike were able to benefit greatly for it. I made sure that Paul and Brett held back to keep the suspicion from them. Instead we protected the NPCs we liked.
The battle did cost us a few of our numbers. We got through the fight and the rest of the journey was smooth sailing. Eventually, the lookout cried out that he could see a strip of land. It had been a couple of weeks and we all cheered. It took another day before we were able to lower the anchor. There were several rowboats that were used to get the scouts to the beach after looking around for an hour, they came back and we began to disembark. In short order, we were taken to the new continent. My excitement was rising when we saw that the beach led to a dense forest. The leaders of the group passed out materials for tents. We were going to establish a camp and then send others into the forest to scout it out. Obviously, it was going to be the Players and their parties that were going to do it. I asked Paul and Brett to be on my party along with three mounted knights: Michiel, Rulf and Elsa. I picked them because they were on the younger side so they would not be too mouthy against me as their commander. All of the scouting parties then set off in a random directions. We left with them.
