As the approaching coastline grew from speck on the horizon to a line to a wholly real place, wooden masts and stretches of sailcloth seemed to grow out of it like trees. It would have looked like a jumble of wooden masts, decks and sides, but as it got closer and closer, more and more ships became distinct in the forest of rigging and wood. The closest ones were right-side up, their boards in pristine condition and windows free of grime. Behind them, however, ships had been disassembled, torn apart, and nailed back together, forming buildings, taverns and more, all floating on the water. Behind those, where the masts tipped over and collapsed against the shore, wooden boards knotted together yet more buildings, built onto the dirt of the island. Half-built structures continued to sprawl into the island until tropical trees grew up to replace them.
The ship that creaked up to the ramshackle port did not have nearly the same amount of care put into it as its docked compatriots. Ill-fitted boards stuck out, and the sails were torn and sewn back together in places. The brilliantly-colored glass of the cabin windows was mismatched and discolored. The anchor was a hunk of rusted metal. At any moment, the ship's sides could give way, letting water pour in from the ocean. Painted on the side in peeling silver letter was the name "Sea Lilith". Sea-weary sailors should have been bustling about on the deck, preparing the ship to dock. Instead, Shella, one of only two people of the Sea Lilith, was at the railing, gazing out towards the island.
Her large bare feet tapped against the floor with anticipation. She was almost there! Booze and company at last! For the last hundred years of her life, she had been without either, only getting a trickle of passengers that she ferried around the colossal unmapped ocean in a strange world. A world without death, illness, hunger, thirst, pregnancy, or any other trapping of a mortal life. It was a hollow world, but Shella was sailing up upon one of the few occupied places.
Shella was bronze-skinned, tall for a woman, and almost lithe in stature. Seaweed-like locks of hair were pushed back from her face by a faded red bandanna, her fish-fin-like ears sticking out beyond that. Her fair face was lit up by lantern-like green eyes, and her graceful neck was lined with gills on the side. Her bountiful dark bosom was kept in check by a torn buttoned-down shirt that only had one button left; it was more like a bra than proper clothing. A thin waist swelled into curved hips with ample buttocks, kept in check with a tight pair of pants torn off at the knee. On the side of her chest, under her arms, more gills were sealed shut, and her feet were large and flipper-like. Around her waist was tied a torn pirate flag, twisted to cover one leg partially.
The ship nudged closer to an unused pier at the far right end of the row of ships, formed from mangled wood and logs and projected far over the ocean. The wooden pylons descended downwards for perhaps more than a hundred feet at the end of the docks. As it got closer, coiled ropes loitering about on the ship tied themselves into lassos and were thrown by invisible forces to land on outcroppings, then grew taut as the Sea Lilith was pulled in close to the dock. With a tortuous groan, a dead grey gangplank slid partly off the deck and slapped against the wooden pier.
The floorboards next to Shella rippled, and another woman hoisted herself out of the wooden surface. Shorter and not quite as curved as Shella, the woman wore a simple, if torn, dress that stuck and clung to her as if it was soaked through. Her skin and stringy, clinging hair were deathly pale, her lips tinged purple, and her eyes clouded over. She wore boots that went up to her knees that were silent as they were dragged out of the water-like surface and stepped onto the ship's surface.
Shella turned around, unfazed by the waterlogged appearance and unnatural entrance of the woman. "Dunno how long I'll be gone. Could be a few hours, could be days. I'll make sure to come back here when I can," Shella said to the woman, words rushing out of her mouth.
The woman gave a meaningful glance to Shella and another towards the clustered port-town.
"Don' worry, Lily. I bet I can find ye someone. I'll direct them here," Shella said, patting her on the shoulder before turning and padding off across the deck and the gangplank.
It was weird walking on the relatively solid floor. If she tried, Shella bet she could put a foot through the floor, but the surface wasn't even rocking gently. Walking up the pier, then taking a left, then further just a bit more brought her out into a massive square formed by the discarded deck of some gigantic warship. Strapping young sailors loitered around the area, some with pretty young women in their arms and guiding them out of the square. It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for.
At the back of the square, a fence made of ship railing closed off a portion of the square, and beyond it, a set of open double-doors with lanterns hanging besides them gave entrance into a massive building. Above the door, a sign was painted with a stout mug.
Shella waltzed through the square and slipped through the gate of the fence. She could hear low rumbles of talk everywhere, including the building, but most of it ignored her. She ventured inside the building and smiled. The cavernous room, complete with several chandeliers that clashed against each other in terms of numbers of candles and levels, was filled with people seated at tables. Men and women of all sizes, ages, and even species loitered at tables, or under them with some of the mug-clogged ones. Shella could see women with fins for ears and sea-shell brassiers flirt with unbearded youths, tall muscular men with foot-long pointy ears trying to impress bored-looking ladies, and even more beyond that. Beautiful young women carrying mugs with them glided from table to table, many managing to evade the playful pinches of the inebriated patrons. Towards the back, a long counter separated several drinkers from colossal barrels, tipped on their sides, so massive and weighty that they made the floor under them buckle. Women were filling up mugs from the taps hammered into the colossal containers, and a lone bearded man was doing likewise. Where the wenches went from table to table, however, the man remained behind the counter.
Shella wandered over to the bar, avoiding the drink-addled patrons, and took a seat, one with three wooden legs and a checkerboard-pattern seat cushion. None of the seats at the counter were the same, but Shella hadn't seen enough of the table seats to say the same about them.
"Just yerself?" asked the man at the counter as he slid over a mug. He was large and rather hairy, with a thick beard. He wore a purple shirt with cream-colored trousers.
"Yeah, new here. What's the deal with the place?" Shella asked.
"It'd be mine. M'name's Briant, so most folks call it Briant's," the bearded man answered, beaming with pride at his establishment.
A mug of brownish alcohol slide in front of Shella. She picked it up and drank it down. A lead hammer swung into her mouth, numbing her jaw. Shella almost slammed the mug down and clutched at her jaw, trying to keep it in place.
"Hey Briant, do I owe ya anythin'?" Shella asked as she gazed at the half-empty mug. It had a hell of a kick to it! She was pressing her tongue against her teeth, just to make sure they were all there.
"Nah, this is all a public service. Them barrels never run out, so there ain't no reason to not let the booze flow free," the hairy man answered.
Shella shrugged and finished off the rest of the mug, slapping it down against the table. Behind her, heavy footsteps made the floorboards creak. There was the sound of a hand slapping flesh, and the footsteps hurried up, followed by raucous laughter.
Curious, Shella twisted around. A bunch of grizzled men were chortling with each other, and scurrying away from them was a beautiful woman in dangerously skimpy clothes carrying an empty metal platter. The heavy, tromping footsteps were coming from the woman, who was barefoot.
"Huh," Shella murmured to herself before turning back. Briant had graciously refilled her tankard from the colossal floor-warping barrel.