Ching

Ching is a senior officer of the crew Aurora's Revenge and a member of the flag West-East Campaign on the Emerald Ocean, formerly the Hunter Ocean.

Early days
Ching started life under a different name on the old Hunter Ocean many, many moons ago. Originally assigned to, he quickly discovered, like most of the population of Hunter, that was where all manner of fun was to be had and so moved there. A poor pirate with little skill in any of the duty puzzles, Ching turned to the inn. A short career as a dodgy furniture salesman followed. Alas, this proved time consuming and brought about little profit. Soon, Ching turned away from Puzzle Pirates for the first time.

Second time around
One afternoon, Ching felt bored and decided to try playing "That puzzle game" again. Upon return, he found that his pirate was poor, had no skills and very few trophies. Promptly, a new pirate bearing the name Ching was born (how that name was not taken after 4 years of Puzzle Pirates he does not know.) Very little is known about this pirate's early days, although it is sure that Ching was not to tread the route of his wheeler-dealer elder! By this time, Rigging had been introduced to the game and Ching found an aptitude for it. Improving his standing in this puzzle was now his main goal. At times this reached the dizzying heights of Grand-Master, although also fell to the lows of Respected. After finally averaging out at Renowned, Ching turned his back on the game once more although this time feeling a sense of accomplishment after several trips to Atlantis and the Cursed Isles proved his capabilities.

Chapter 3: Return
Exam periods do the strangest things to even the best of us, and Ching was no exception. Originally returning just for a quick change of thinking, Ching became heavily active once more. This time, a return heralded reunion with old hearties, although Ching could only claim to strongly remember Breafighter, the captain of their crew, Aurora's Revenge. Other hearties were not so lucky and, although wooed, seemed to be replaced with a new wave of acquaintances, mostly collected from the crew.

Patching
The return also brought a new duty puzzle to Ching, Patching. Realising he had reached his limit with Rigging Ching decided to try this bizarre new puzzle. At first he hated it and performed it only in order to reach broad experience. One day, he tried to improve his standing a little, merely to make his pirate more rounded, and found something odd:- This puzzle was quite good, and even more oddly, he was quite good at it! Since that fateful day, Ching's obsession has been to reach ultimate standing in Patching. Following insights from Tode of Royal Assassins Brigade (At the time #2 patcher in the ocean), Ching's standing leapt from renowned to legendary and has improved steadily since. His belief in his ability to reach ultimate was increased by a 2nd place in a puzzle competition for Patching. Although this performance did not herald a prize, Ching beat many patchers he admired such as Shaemuss and Killabladez. After many months of trying and after a brief two week hiatus, Ching finally reached ultimate standing during a visit to Atlantis with Soulsearcher on September 17th 2013. What started off as an attempt to boost PoE stores ended with the last duty report before the final citadel allowing Ching to begin gloating about his new found status.

Memorization
During the quest to become an ultimate, Ching became taken by another aspect of the game; memorization. This was despite a strong dislike of the Navigation duty puzzle! As an inhabitant of Aimuari island in the, Ching first tried to memorize the routes which he had regularly pillaged. This started by memorizing the route Saiph to Chachapoya, encompassing 5 islands in all. Eventually, Ching memorized all of the league points (except for one!) in the Orion Archipelago and all of the inter-archipelago routes leading from it. Needing a new challenge, Ching began to acquire newer, rarer charts. With the aim of being able to chart the Admiral to Aimuari cross-ocean route, Ching relocated to his current residence, Caravanserai Island in the Ibis Archipelago. Although, as of yet, Ching has not memorized the entire route, he has in his possession the necessary charts to do so.

Caravanserai
A quiet pirate by nature, Ching soon found life in his new surroundings to be much more enjoyable, even if shopping for clothes became near impossible! This relocation allowed Ching's standing in Patching to become more easily recognized. Although often bested by pirates such as Terrorted and Bestboy, Ching has intermittently ranked #1 in the Ibis Archipelago. The move also allowed for easier Viking Raid runs with the long straight routes around Barbary Island.

Hey big spender
An improvement in pirate skills and increase in play time resulted in Ching becoming richer than he could've ever dreamed of whilst sitting in Aimuari inn selling broken barrels. Although shrewd with money, Ching, like all of us, enjoyed this money by spending it on various items. On July 1, 2013, Ching bought his first decent house on the game, a cottage on Aimuari. Some furniture was bought to decorate this humble abode, but the majority was received from Sea Monster Hunt chests. But with such a big house, Ching felt lonely and so bought his pet cat, Wesley, a few days later. Although a penguin had been the target pet, Ching realised that this might be a little too expensive. Nevertheless, this remains a target. Looking to expand an ever-growing crew's fleet, Cing also purchased a junk, which although rarely used is said to be the pride of his fleet of two.

Crew life
Since returning to the game for the third time, Ching was promoted by Breafighter to be her first mate in the crew. This title came with the issue of marshalling the crew whilst Brea took holidays. Under Ching's stewardship, pirates such as Thenorth and Carlilolits came to precedence in the crew, eventually becoming senior officers. As the crew grew, so did Breafighter's ambitions, and soon a crew portrait was demanded. After many failed attempts to get all the senior crew together, the team finally met at Jammieman's townhouse for the event. Chaos ensued. Thirty minutes later, seven pirates left the house. Six vowed never to have a team portrait again, Ching vowed to pose with a basket of fruit as his next portrait item.

The penguin incident
After a break from the game of a few months, Ching decided to return to the action around the Christmas period of 2013. After a few hours of playing, Ching decided to visit the palace shoppe in order to see which seasonal pet was available over this holiday. Much to his astonishment, available for the short price of 100,000 poe and 100 doubloons were penguins. Perfect! He'd always wanted to buy a penguin! It was then that the expiry data of the promotion became clear- it was very soon. Over the next few days, Ching worked harder than ever before to achieve the impossible. Many trips to the Cursed Isles and Atlantis later, with two days to go, Ching was still several tens of thousands of poe short. By this time, many hearties had become aware of Ching's plight and one, Thenorth, took particular pity on him. Thanks to an extraordinary monetary 'Christmas present' from Thenorth, Ching was finally able to purchase what, for so many years, had seemed beyond even his reach.

Future plans
As of March '14, Ching still needs to make good on his promise to memorize the route from Aimuari Island to Admiral Island. Following this it is likely that Ching will relocate to Admiral, having spent his formative years firmly on the east (Hunter) side of the Emerald Ocean. Shoppe or stall ownership remains a challenge that Ching has never even dipped a toe into. Battle Navigation is likely the focus of future attention from Ching. A puzzle enjoyed by many, the ability to succeed in all cases is something that has eluded Ching for many years.