by D Wolfin
‘I haven’t had to do this in a long time. Ugh, it is so embarrassing! Who made the game require the person with the skill to feed the other in order for the effects to work?’
I pull Fen closer against me and tighten my hold with the arm she has entrapped. She yelps in surprise at my actions, which I use as an opportunity to shove herbs into her open mouth and close her jaw with my now free hand on her chin.
She grins slyly at my forcefulness and happily swallows the herbs. It isn’t that I’m surprised by her behavior, but I’m still irritated by it in the heat of the moment.
The others in the shield formation look everywhere but at us. The only exception is Mason, who is staring inquisitively with a single raised eyebrow.
‘Stop staring! This is embarrassing enough that it happened. I don’t need you judging me too!’My shame magnifies while I imagine Mason slyly whispering about this to the other team members.
“Oh, will you look at that. My class skill just levelled up to 26,” I say in an obvious attempt to change the subject but Mason’s expression doesn’t even twitch.
A violent tremor assaults us and I hear several layers of our ice shield shatter. Bare moments pass before another quake strikes and the remaining ice shields are crushed to dust. The tentacle hits the floating sigil barrier with it’s remaining force, but not hard enough to do any damage.
The ship vibrates beneath my feet and the sound of cannon fire booms again. Most of the tentacles are already at low health and immediately die from the assault, while the remaining few reel back from the attack.
“Sir Laurence, drop the shield now!” I shout, and as soon as the protective sacred art dissipates into fading stars of light, I launch two ‘Dire Flame’ fireballs, one at each tentacle.
Just like with the cannon balls or any other attacks, the tentacles do not make any attempt to dodge the attacks since they are blind. The whistling wind brushes past my ears as the fireballs find their targets and explode with frightening ferocity. Crimson flames attach to the tentacles like glue and slowly drain their already depleted health. Based on the current rate of damage, both tentacles should die in a few minutes.
The tentacles wriggle and squirm under the blaze and even fall back under the water to extinguish the flames. Unfortunately for them, suffocating the flames in water will make no difference. The tentacles soon emerge from the water with the flames still blazing as strongly as before.
The enemy attacks with its dying breath; one final, desperate attempt to crush us along with the boat. Mason shoots the tentacles with a wide area blast of wind, drastically slowing them down and allowing Sir Laurence to successfully block them. This is truly their final attack, as my dire flames finally drain the remainder of their health and they sink back into the ocean.
I turn around and see Mikhail the Stalwart, Moonkite, and JohnSmite finish off the final enemy, the guild leader dealing the final strike which actually severs then tentacle in two. A seven meter section of tentacle falls down and flops onto the deck of the ship.
CaptainGordon emerges from the bowels of the vessel with the other three and a huge grin on his face, “Now that be a battle! Ye guys be better than the last weak-kneed bunch I recruited! Only one of ye died too! Wish I could o’ been ‘ere to see the action!”
The captain pulls out a rope and excitedly starts hoisting the severed tentacle out of everyone’s way while maneuvering around the holes in the deck. He then recruits Mikhail’s help in dissecting the tentacle into smaller, more manageable pieces. I take this opportunity to approach the pirate.
“CaptainGordon,” I ask as I help carry the tentacle segments down into the food cargo hold below deck, “would you mind continuing on with the answer to the earlier question? I cannot seem to get it off my mind.”
We descend along a wooden staircase that creaks with every step. There is no safety rail, so I have to be extra careful not to fall off as the ship rides the ocean swells. The interior of the ship has a lot of the black cast iron as well, with nearly every single major structural support or beam being made out of the iron. There are numerous doors leading off into the unknown, but I do not have the time to investigate them all.
“Ah, that.” He suddenly seems nervous, almost unsure as to whether he wants to say it or not, and that only makes me want to know more. “It be a class skill.”
“A class skill?”
“Yeah, to be precise. It be called ‘Class Skill: Combustion Engineer’. Strangely, it require an item to be gotten for this ‘ere class skill. Follow me down further ‘nd you get it. Also, nobody else can be knowin’ ’bout this ‘ere, so don’t go blabbin’.”
“Of course.”
I follow the captain down to the end of the corridor and descend a second staircase very similar to the first. I feel that we have now entered the true heart of the vessel. There are only three rooms down here, and CaptainGordon takes the right hand one seemingly at random.
Inside the room are innumerable copper pipes extending from a single furnace and into the walls and ceiling. The vessel ‘Bastion’ is clearly hosting countless mysteries and secrets.
The pirate opens the grate to the furnace and black, billowing smoke comes pouring out like an overflowing cauldron. Inside the near-darkness, I see a black lump in the center of the cauldron, but cannot make out what it is.
“This ‘ere be the item I mentioned. A fist-sized god stone of combustanite. It be excreting an endless supply o’ flammable gas. I harness this ‘ere with me class skill to make these items. I still be an engineer, after all!”
I spend a few moments staring at the vague rock in the center of the furnace before finally moving on. The class skill seems to align with everything the captain has said, so I have no desire to doubt him, but I still get the impression that there is a vital piece of information I am missing. I briefly consider pushing for more information, but decide it isn’t worth upsetting our host and soon forget about it as we continue on with our voyage atop the ocean waves.
Our food for the next three days, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, is roast squid. It tastes good at first, but everyone quickly tires of eating it constantly. CaptainGordon is the only one that seems to have no aversion to the same single-ingredient dish every meal.
The captain brings up a large amount of wood from below deck and starts to work on replacing the flooring of the deck. There is no shortage of damage to other sections of the vessel, but CaptainGordon is the only one with the game skills to repair any of it. He starts whistling an incredibly irritating tune while working that makes everyone apart from Fen frown. At first I think she is impervious to it, but then I see the small ear plugs, made of ice, in her ears.
Three days gradually turn into a week, or two and a half days in real life, before we finally encounter our second sea monster. By this time, the ship is already half repaired, but won’t be able to take the same beating again.
Two hundred meters in front of the ‘Bastion’, a large shadow appears under the surface. It gets closer and larger every second, filling me with deep dread.
“It be a big one this time!!” CaptainGordon shouts out in a thunderous voice. “Verde, Lockon, SomaHealer, do ye three recall what I showed ye last time?”
“Of course,” SomaHealer is the first to reply. “Is it time for that?”
“It be time!”
Verde turns to the rest of our party and nervously nods her head, “I don’t really understand this very well, but I will help the others.”
The three of them rush below deck at top speed. This time, CaptainGordon doesn’t follow them down. Instead, he stands at the helm while whistling that appalling tune.
I don’t really understand what is going on, but I stand at the bow of the ship and wait for the sea monster to emerge from the water. From somewhere below the deck, the grinding of gears sounds and the entire vessel vibrates gently. I also hear the scraping of metal and lean over the railing to investigate the noise.
A large iron plate around the bo
w of the ship is sliding down, creating small sparks against another iron plate from the friction. A large cavity is suddenly revealed in the front of the ship. The movement of heavy wheels echoes from within the cavity, and a strange cannon emerges.
The cannon has three large barrels in the shape of a triangle, similar to the artwork on the pirate flag above us. The barrels are extra long compared to a standard cannon, but I can’t see the rest of the weapon to figure out exactly how it works. I assume it fires three cannonballs at once.
I can also now hear the sound of ropes tightening and clips clicking into place. Just as I am wondering what comes next, the sound of gunpowder lighting and the first cannonball being fired cracks the air and makes my ears ring.
The first cannonball falls short and off to the right, an explosion of water indicating where it hits.
“LEFT FOUR! ASCEND TWO! KEEP FIRING!!” The captain screams so loud his voice starts to crack. I sarcastically wonder whether I should be more concerned of hearing the cannon or his voice.
The barrels on the tri-cannon start rotating at a measured pace, neither slowly nor quickly. Each time one of the barrels reaches the apex of its rotation, a single cannonball is fired with a slight vibration through the boat and the sounds of ropes tensing under the counterforce. The speed is about one cannonball every one and a half seconds.
The eruptions of water gradually get closer to the shadow under the water, until one finally hits it. A small health bar in the distance shows up, a small section already removed.
“THAT BE IT!! HOLD STEADY! DESCEND ONE EVERY THREE!” The second order sounds out, full of joy.
The cannonballs start to track the shadow as it gets closer, only a few missing the target by a fraction to either side. When the shadow is fifty meters away and down to half health, it emerges from the water.
The sea monster is a giant, whiskered fish twice the size of the ‘Bastion’. It’s a deep red color and has three vicious sets of teeth extending out from its mouth. The cannonballs have a much easier time hitting the target above the water, not a single one missing. Perhaps it is due to the water not diminishing the strength behind each hit, but the cannonballs do twice the damage to the sea monster now that it has emerged.
The sea monster reaches within twenty meters of the ship, it’s size looming over us in an incredibly menacing way, when it finally runs out of health from the assault of the ship’s cannon. Its teeth suddenly crumble away and its movement stops. The fish creates a large ripple effect with four meter waves in its death throes before silently bobbing up and down in the water.
‘Too frightening! That cannon must be breaking the rules!’ I feel that this tri-cannon would be an utter disaster against other ships, given the chance they fight head on.
“IT BE DONE!! HOLD YER FIRE!!” CaptainGordon jumps down from the helm onto the main deck with booming laughter that doesn’t match his scrawny build.
I am still standing in position to attack the sea monster at any moment, with Fen right by my side. A small part of me disbelieves that the battle is that simple, considering how difficult the last one was.
“Surely that can’t be it?!” I cry out as the ship approaches the dead sea king, ignoring the oncoming waves like they are nothing.
“Har Har! That be it!” CaptainGordon shouts back at me. “It be foolish enough to fight head on. This be the result! People usually be runnin’ when they see me, so I finally got to use it!”
“What, so you’ve never actually used that thing?!” Lockon shouts out in disbelief as he emerges from the ship’s bowels.
“Never got me chance.”
A small argument follows between Lockon and CaptainGordon, but I don’t bother to pay attention to it. I instead move a little closer to Mikhail the Stalwart, curious to hear what he is mumbling about as his voice tickles my ears.
“This is ridiculous. Since when did this game have cannons and inventions like that? Sir, are you listening out there?… I know… one of you out there must be monitoring… Go get Henry… speak with him…”
I find it hard to hide the shock and surprise on my face. His words make it sound like he isn’t here to play the game. Suspicious. Mikhail the Stalwart must have noticed me inching closer, as he glances at me and starts to wander off. As a result, I can only make out some of what he says before he is too far away to hear anything.
I am all the more curious about what he is discussing, but moving closer again would no longer be passed off as coincidental, making it blatantly obvious that I am eavesdropping.
“Can you hear what he is saying, Fen?” I ask the wolf girl who is currently staring off at the horizon on the ocean.
She looks toward Mikhail with a look of concentration. “No… I can’t…”
“That is fine. It was worth asking,” I lean back against the cast iron hand rail, finding a comfortable spot on one of the warped sections.
Tilting my head back, I look up at the vast sky to let my mind clear and relieve the tension that anticipating another boss fight caused. A few grey clouds are spoiling the morning sky, drifting about in no particular pattern. My thoughts shift toward earning money. Due to studies and exams, my bank account has started to dwindle and only has enough funds to last me another four or five months. That is still plenty of time, but I am not a person to leave something so important to the last minute.
I think about my two little sisters, and wonder how they are doing at my aunt’s place. My biggest concern is my aunt and how she thinks. I know she cares deeply for her nieces, but she has always been one to sacrifice anything that would raise the family standing in the social ladder. She is a prideful person who cannot find happiness when there are people higher than her. If only she could stop looking up for a moment, and have a look at her surroundings.
A sigh escapes my lips, and Fen leans into me. My armor stops me from feeling anything other than her weight, but a few strands of hair from the back of her head tickle my throat.
The rest of the day is peaceful, Mason and Matrix doing some sparring on the main deck while the rest of us line the stern and quarter deck at the front of the ship, treating it as entertainment. Both our party and Mikhail’s party wager small amounts of gold between us against who will be the victor of each bout. Considering both the contestants are from our party, we know them much better and end up earning a total of fifty gold coins off the other party by the afternoon.
A low rumbling descends from the sky and the weather begins to look grim. The dark clouds thicken and cover the evening sun. The ocean begins to swirl, and the waves increase in size as the breeze transforms into a howling gale.
My hair begins to blow back and forth, tugging at my head. Everyone without a helmet has the same problem, especially the girls as their hair completely blocks off their sight. Fen turns her head away from the wind to try and protect herself and I help brush her hair back and out of her face. I glance toward where the clouds are thickest and see the first sliver of lightning erupt from the sky and come crashing down into the ocean. Thin electric-blue tendrils race through the water from the point of impact.
‘Wait, isn’t this boat made of mostly metal?!’
“This not be good!” CaptainGordon shouts out over the storm. “Ye all better brace for impact!”
“CaptainGordon, isn’t this boat full of metal?!” Lockon cries out in horror after seeing the lightning.
“That it be! Hopefully she will make it through!”
“Ships cost a lot of money. How can you be so reckless?!”
“I smelted, sawed, and crafted this ‘ere beauty me self. Didn’t cost a copper! Ships be meant for this! I can always make it anew again regardless, har har har!”
“We will die!”
“Ye also be meant for battle! There always be another chance.”
“I can’t fight lightning! And this ship is practically begging to be struck!”
Turning away from Lockon’s frantic cries, I look back into the storm. The lightning bolts are ste
adily getting closer to the ship and I can feel the hairs rising on the back of my neck. Given the circumstances, I begin to worry about Fen.
“Fen,” I whisper to the girl cuddling up close to me to hide from the weather, “can you please log off for a while?”
“…No.”
“What? Why?”
“I… can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“…Can’t.”
I open up to my menu, and see that the log off button is dimmed out. I try press it a few times frantically in a panic, remembering the time Fen prevented me from logging out of the V-Link and returning to reality. Sir Laurence sees my strange actions and walks over to me.
“You can’t log out yet. Being in a storm is the same as being in combat. Don’t forget that the ship must also be stationary.”
“Ah, of course,” I feel a little silly for worrying about it.
I did know that the boat had to be stationary to log out, but as it is so slow I had forgotten that it was moving. Sir Laurence nods his head toward me once, before moving on and standing next to Verde, coincidentally placing his large body in between Verde and the wind. She looks at him with a slight admiration and surprise, not disapproving in the slightest as he refers to her as “my lady” again as usual.
A bolt of lightning finally strikes the mast with a crackling sound as it passes down and into the ship. The effect creates a small shockwave from the mast, catching me unaware and blowing me backward. I am not the only one hit by it. Fen is flung back with me, as is SomaHealer and Moonkite. We are all thrown back far enough that we tumble over the railing and down into the dim, stormy sea.
A rush of cold assaults me as I break the surface of the water, plummeting several meters into the ocean. Fen is still here with me, desperately clinging onto me as if her life depends on it. Perhaps it does. I catch a glimpse of her hair floating about in the water, giving her a doll-like appearance, before attempting to propel us both back up to the surface.
The lightning shockwave only did minimal direct damage, but a paralysis icon appears in the corner of my vision along with a numbness in my left leg. As I try to swim up, I find that only one of my legs is useful.