"A good start is half the battle!"
Knife-in-the-Butt looked at the ship flying a white flag below the Storm and smugly delivered that line to the player serving as first mate beside him.
In truth, although they had successfully crossed the Storm Belt and cleverly skirted Casarina Island, a potential source of informants, the difficulties awaiting them on the vast sea went far beyond what they had anticipated.
First came the question of sailing time.
Knife-in-the-Butt and the other players had worked out the coordinates obtained from Not Playing If I'm Not Having Fun's screenshot. They were only about seven thousand kilometers from Omdur Harbor.
The Storm's theoretical sailing time to those coordinates was roughly twenty-five days... but that was an ideal estimate. The Storm would have to sail alone, maintaining a constant speed on a straight course, to have any hope of making it.
Knife-in-the-Butt and the other players knew that was unrealistic. The Storm had to bring the armed merchant ships along, so the Revenge Fleet's sailing time needed to be extended.
The players increased the estimate from twenty-five days to thirty-five.
But Knife-in-the-Butt had written that number in the blank margin of the nautical chart, and now, whenever players entered the bridge at the stern and saw it, it was a particularly glaring and uncomfortable sight.
Because the Revenge Fleet had taken more than thirty-five days to reach the vicinity of those coordinates.
For starters, their detour around Casarina Island after crossing the Storm Belt had cost them extra time.
Knife-in-the-Butt had originally estimated an extra two days, but the Revenge Fleet had strayed off course, turning those two days into five.
Why had they gone off course, and when had it happened?
No one knew. The players had no idea, and the NPC navigator reassigned to