Abilities!
“Maybe there’s something in the bag?” Mercer snorted. “Which leads to the next question: how do we find out? Before you ask: I can’t use my vampiric powers to dominate bears. …Or any other animal, but I definitely can’t do anything with bears. What about you? Any special elven affinity with nature?”
“Oh God no,” Jack replied. “Nature’s either horrible, vicious, or boring. Why do you think we all go to sea?” He heard a sudden hubbub outside, and grimaced. “Dammit, I knew I shouldn’t have said the b-word.”
…
The two of them didn’t rush to the deck, though: to Jack’s trained ear, the hubbub was more Well, that’s weird than it was Sell yourselves dearly, ye scurvy tars! Besides, nobody had run to meet them halfway. One thing Rocca Jack had learned by the age of sixteen was that panic was contagious, and everybody would catch a case from the captain. Instead, he got close enough to the knot of sailors on the deck (it was an interested knot, not a tensely alert one, which was also good) to say, “What’s all this about, then?” instead of shouting it.