Chapter 22

Gazza found Captain Dan conducting trade on the wharf near his ship.

“Greetings Captain, I’m not sure if you remember me,” Gazza started as he got the man’s attention.

Dan grinned, “Oh, you’re a hard man to forget. I was sorry to miss you in Green Bay. I brought you back something special but no one knew how to contact you. Then Cookie remembered your young lady saying something about going to school in Avilla, so we were hoping to find you here. I was even going to send a message to the University in the hope of contacting you.”

Gazza was intrigued that the Captain wished to find him again. “Let me guess, you have a storeroom filled with kaffe beans for me and you were worried you couldn’t off-load them,” Gazza replied with a big grin.

Dan let out a belly laugh. “I did indeed add a lot more kaffe than we normally carry and I’ve sold a lot more on this trip. It seems that it is becoming a more popular drink in these parts.”

Gazza looked at him in horror, “No! Don’t tell me you sold my kaffe on me.”

Dan gave him a sly look. “Well now, that depends on how you plan to pay this time.”

“Ooh, now I understand. Did you make a tidy profit from the coins I gave you?” Gazza asked him with interest.

“I did indeed, and I even felt as if I cheated you and that I have to make amends. I don’t like to be thought of as a thief,” the Captain replied.

Gazza shook his head. “No, it was a fair deal and I’ve toasted you with every cup of that lovely kaffe I’ve gotten to drink. So how many crates have you managed to keep for me?” He asked as he rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation.

“I have ten crates that I can sell you on this trip. If you don’t wish them, I know I can sell them when I get to Batton. There is a mage there that has promised to take all I have left plus his order. You’d probably like him as he has the same tastes as you. I even had to bring him several barrels of milky-nuts this trip.”

“What are those?” Lindsay asked.

Cookie, who had been listening, went and grabbed a hand full of round dark brown balls from a barrel. “The nut is white like milk, sweet and oily to taste. They are good to eat raw and even better if roasted. You can grind them to make a very creamy paste. Captain Dan likes to put it on toasted bread. You can even extract the oil for cooking if you wish and the oil has other uses.”

Gazza recognised the nuts immediately. “Captain Dan, what are you doing to me? Do you think the other mage would be upset if a barrel or four fell off the ship onto this dock,” Gazza asked hopefully.

Dan shook his head, “I swear you boys must come from South-East Oron. You even have the same strange accent as him and those mages I met in Scalene. Although, those two boys say that they come from a place called Oz and their girlfriend said her accent was from a place called Russia.”

“I think they must be towns that are inland of that area because I’ve never been to any ports with those names and I’ve been to a lot of places. The boys even look a lot like you but they are taller and a bit older I’d say. They all love kaffe and a drink they call black tea. Those boys are partial to the milky-nuts too.”

Gazza was a bit taken aback by this information. ‘Oz and Russia? What the fuck! Maybe I’m not the only one who fell down the rabbit hole,’ he thought. “Captain Dan, next time you see any of those mages, can you give them a message for me?”

“Sure, no problem. If you give me an address, on my way back, I’ll send a message and tell you what they said. It may be a while for the ones in Oron, as I have to go to Batton on Dog Island first. That will take me about six weeks to get back here due to stops,” he replied.

Gazza grinned. It was quite obvious that the Captain thought they were all a bit mysterious. “Please tell them, ‘The Cane Toads hated the Cockroaches in nineteen-ninety-two.” Dan frowned and repeated the phrase and the numbers. “Don’t worry Captain if they are who I think they are, they should understand. We do like to play jokes on each other.”

Dan nodded. Gazza was sure he’d just given the poor Dan a puzzle he had no hope of ever working out unless he or one of the other mages enlightened him. That being if they did come from someplace in Australia, even if they weren’t from Queensland.

Gazza gave the Captain his contact address and even wrote down the message, so that if the mages did wish to come and visit, send him any messages or if Dan wanted to just say that he was in port. He asked that if the mages wished to give him an address, he would love to establish contact with them. Hopefully, they could get together in the not too distant future.

The Captain agreed and then said, “By the way Gazza, I do still have a gift for you. Cookie would you like to get the gift since you have had to look after them?” Cookie nodded and took off. “Now, I think I can do four barrels of milky-nuts for you. You are lucky, one of my sometimes buyers from here hasn’t shown up, so he misses out. What are they worth to you with your kaffe?”

“Do you want the three special tris coins this time?” Gazza asked.

“I believe that would be more than sufficient,” The Captain replied. Knowing that unless he had sold them since their last meeting, Gazza did have the coins. Gazza happily retrieved the coins from his pocket. He’d tossed them in there just in case the Captain had what he wanted. Getting the macadamia nuts was just a bonus as far as he was concerned.

“Surely that isn’t enough?” Lindsay commented.

Gazza turned to Lindsay and handed her the ques coin he still had. “You might want to find a dealer to get the true value of the coin. Captain Dan seems to have gotten a good deal for the one I gave him last time.”

“I did indeed lass, a very good deal,” the Captain assured her while wondering why Gazza was giving the girl a coin of that value.

“But you already gave me the medallion,” Lindsay said as she transferred her eyes from the coin to Gazza. She had realised as soon as she looked at the coin that it was special.

“Well if you don’t find a job as a Wind Mage that should help keep you out of trouble until you get some more magical training and get a better job than your current one,” Gazza told her.

“What’s this? What magical skills do you have lass if you don’t mind me asking?” The Captain asked with great interest.

“Physics and Nature,” she replied proudly and even showed him the medallion to prove it.

“Very handy skills for a Novice who wants to be a sailor to have. Cookie has a ring with Nature. He can teach you some of the basics and out at sea between the Islands is a good place to learn about controlling wind and water if you have Physics. I don’t have a Wind Mage at present, so I would be more than delighted to get you, even if you are untrained. I doubt very much you would suffer from the seasickness.”

Lindsay shook her head, “No, I don’t, I used to help my dad on his fishing boat until he went out one day without me and didn’t come back. This be a fine ship and I’ve always wanted to travel to new places. I’m a Shifter now, so I’m stronger than I look and have no problems working a boat in either form.”

Cookie came back carrying a long wide tray. It held twelve pots that had small bushy trees that were about forty centimetres high growing out of them. “My sister said that the blue pots are Curly Kaffe trees and the red pots are Red Kaffe trees. She prefers the beans from the Red trees and I like the ones from the Curly trees. Captain Dan gets me to blend them. Each to his own, I say.”

“What were the ones I got last time?” Gaza asked.

“Those were the Blue Kaffe beans. They like colder locations and can be stronger and a bit bitterer than both of these varieties are. The beans in the crates are two of the Curly, two of the Red and the other six are the Blues. I’ve put a little spell on these trees and they should grow about anywhere you wish to plant them. If you’re living down here now they will do well enough,” Cookie informed him as he handed over the tray.

While Gazza inspected the trees, Dan said to Cookie, “Cookie, I think I’ve got an apprentice for you. This is Lindsay. She is a Shifter and a novice mage with Physics and Nature. She has sailed smaller boats. Are you happy to help train her?”

“Aye, I’m sure I can find plenty of work for her. If she can learn wind skills that would be great for us. We’ve needed a new mage for ages and the trip home will go a lot faster, with one,” Cookie replied, as he looked Lindsay up and down.

“Just be warned Captain, I don’t fuck for free unless I want to and if anyone tries to force me, they will end up with the curse,” she informed them.

Gazza frowned and then changed form. “Hey! It did work!” she cried out and then blinked several times as she realised her voice was different. She then noticed that her damn shirt was tighter too. She looked down. “Oops,” she said. She bent over to place the pots on the deck and her tits damn near fell out of her half undone shirt. She straightened and tried doing up the buttons of the shirt.

“Please don’t do them up on my account,” the Captain said with mirth. His eyes not moving from the area were the fingers that were trying to pull the shirt in far enough to get the next button done up, were located.

Lindsay and Cookie chuckled at Gazza’s antics because the button in line with her nipples kept popping open. “Bugger, I’m going to have to get looser shirts. I knew this one was a bit tight but did my mother have to pass on her big tits?” she groused.

Admittedly, her tits were mostly covered, in that her nipples were not in view. Although, they certainly left an impression in the thin white material, so little imagination was required to guess what they looked like in the flesh.

The Captain’s eyes travelled down the fine figure that Gazza cut as a woman and then back. They did linger on the bulging breasts that the tight white shirt made enticing since they were firm, round and more than a handful. Finally, his eyes did get back to Gazza’s face. The Captain was having a hard time associating the female form with the male form.

Most of the changes were subtle if taken in isolation. The shoulders were a bit narrower and rounder, while the muscular pecs were now hidden by titty flesh and the chest didn’t seem as barrel shaped like a regular male. The hips were wider, emphasising the very narrow waist in the shorts Gazza wore and the long legs were softer looking and more feminine in shape.

Gazza’s lips were a bit fuller, the chin narrower, the eyebrows thinner and higher, and his nose and ears were a little smaller.

The blue-grey eyes and the auburn hair with pale lavender streaks that had appeared drew your eyes to the gorgeous face and then the body just wowed you.

Each little alteration was enough that the female version was most definitely to the taste of many of the men who were in view of Gazza. Gazza was a stunning female. Cookie and the Captain laughed when Lindsay said, “Wow, you are smashing. You’re giving me a hard-on and I’m not even in male form.”

Since the other men were in male form, the effect was obvious. Gazza glanced down to their crotches. “Oops! Sorry. I think I was projecting a bit of my delight at the ability to change at you blokes, I’ll change back.”

“If you do, those seadogs will be devastated and they will make you carry your own damn barrels and crates,” Cookie told Gazza as he nodded at the six sailors who had stopped what they were doing and were openly ogling Gazza.

Cookie called out, “Hoy, Catcher, take that lot with you and go get four barrels of milky-nuts and those ten crates marked ‘Purple Wizard’. Hop to it, she doesn’t have all day to stand around and entertain you, bloody sorry lot.”