The Adventures of Solaire, Part XVIII: The Sincerest Form of Peril

By Noah Hoffmann

An ongoing series of fantasy adventures, “The Adventures of Solaire '' tells the story of the dread pirate Captain Solaire Ravenheart and his tales all across Lorian, from the steam-powered world of Dinas to the magical superpower of Archone. What follows is every deed of sabotage, back-stabbing, intimidation, piracy, demon-summoning, automaton-killing, government-toppling, crew wrangling, and general defiance he committed in his quest for his ultimate goal: to save his sister River.

Something dangerous has snuck aboard the ship, and Solaire and his crew soon learn it's eat or be eaten. By the monster. The monster is going to try and eat them. Solaire isn't going to... you know what, read and find out yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noah Hoffmann
• Release date: May 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005788452

Noah Hoffmann

A mild-mannered truck driver by day, I spend my nights writing mostly at an attempt to convince the last few shreds of sanity I have not to jump ship with the rest. When I'm not doing that, you can usually find me playing tabletop rpgs, raiding the "50 cents" section of bookstores, and generally committing similar acts to solidify my reputation as a "huge nerd." Otherwise, my time is spent caring for my loving and intelligent-deficit dog Slade and yelling at you for cutting me off in traffic.

Book preview

The Incredible Yet Accurate Adventures of the Dread Pirate Captain Solaire Ravenheart,

Otherwise known as

The Adventures of Solaire

Part XVII: The Sincerest Form of Peril

By Noah Hoffmann

Published by Noah Hoffmann and distributed by Smashwords

Copywrite 2021 by Noah Hoffmann

Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please consider visiting nhcorner.com for more stories in this series as well as other series of short stories. And thank you for reading!

Other series by Noah Hoffmann:

Creepy America

A horror mystery series set across the United States

Table of Contents

Part XVII : The Sincerest Form of Peril

The Incredible Yet Accurate Adventures of the Dread Pirate Captain Solaire Ravenheart

Otherwise known as…

The Adventures of Solaire

Part XVII

The Sincerest Form of Peril

I have very few pet peeves. It is one of the simple truths to my life; after all, one does not rise to my level of success, fame, and fortune without a well-ordered and disciplined mind. As much as I try, though, I still have my faults, and I still have those few things that annoy me beyond reason. One of those is when persons refer to Solaire as an ‘adventurer.’

I feel as if the distinction is obvious, but for the sake of completion, I’ll explain the difference here: Solaire is not a self-proclaimed ‘hero of the land’ that puts themselves in suicidal and, frankly, idiotic positions in the hope of success, fame, and fortune. Solaire is also not a brutish thug who solves his problems with violence. Solaire is a thinker, a planner, a leader, and a trickster; these are things antithetical to the plodding savage that is an ‘adventurer.’

True, there are other academic distinctions that others would consider more important to the debate; Solaire is not what most would traditionally consider a ‘good’ person. He lies and manipulates people regularly. He uses them to get what he wants. He is single-minded and driven in his goals, and, with very, very, very  few exceptions, never goes out of his way to help anyone other than himself. And no one sane would ever grant Solaire the title ‘hero of the land’, even if he had  saved a kingdom; the most probable follow up would be a mob with pitchforks making sure he never returns.

Most people would consider these the boundaries that disqualify Solaire from being an adventurer, not the differences in mental acumen, but I, and anyone who has not  been able to escape the hungry maw of a mimic, disagree. Ask your local bard to regale you with tales of brave men and women fighting mimics and compare it to this chapter, and I think you may come to see it my way.

Careful  with that thing! Derringer hissed. You want it to get loose?

The man moving the crate, a young man with near-white blond hair, simply looked up and shook his head, displaying eyes wide with fear.

That’s what I thought, Derringer muttered. The black-haired and dark-eyed youth went back to picking his nails with a knife.

"Are you sure ‘ bout  this, Derry? another man asked. His skin was a deep brown, his frame was thin and wiry, and his eyes kept snapping back to the large crate. I mean, you know I’m no stranger to a bit of risk, but this seems a little too dangerous even for our blood."

Derringer sighed. "Would you relax Jaffer? It’s sealed