Shipshape

by Trey Myr

  Unlike any other boat I’d ever seen, it also had two fan-like horizontal sails, one on each side. They ran from about halfway between the mast and the bow to about a quarter of the way between the mast and stern, and were, at the moment, folded up neatly and lying against the hull.

  Last but not least, the boat had what appeared to be four legs supporting it in an upright position on the ground.

  Needless to say, this was very much not what I’d expected to see. Shapes varied greatly in size and utility, but as far as I knew were all modeled after living beings. A Hound was, at its core, a dog. It had the instincts of a dog, the senses of a dog and the body of a dog. It moved like a dog, hunted like a dog and fought like a dog. What made it useful was the advantages it had over a living dog. Shapes were absolutely obedient to the Shaper, needed no food or water, and weren’t limited by an animal’s lifespan. A boat, on the other hand, was a boat. The only real advantage I could see was that a Shaped boat would repair itself if damaged. But that would be of very little help to the Shaper, who would probably drown long before the boat could reform.

  What was even worse was that boats tend to require water to function. This one was sitting very nicely on its legs, but I couldn’t imagine what it would take to move it back up the corridors and outside, and even if I could, the river was three days walk away. Three days walk without carrying a boat, that is. And then, assuming I managed to get it to a river, I had absolutely no idea how to handle a boat. If I even could handle it on my own. For all I knew, it required a full crew to sail.

  The thing is, the old-worlders were smart. They knew a lot more than we did, and could do things we could only dream of. If they went to the trouble of making such a large Pattern that required so much vim, they must have had a reason. I curbed my disappointment, and approached the boat. I was determined to examine it more closely before writing it off as a loss and going back to town to sell the Pattern and reuse the vim.

  There was a gangplank attached to the boat, and getting aboard was as easy as walking up a shallow incline. The gangplank was at the bow of the boat, since the horizontal sails blocked off the center, and I went up a short ladder to look at the wheel. I knew that spinning the wheel would move the boat’s rudder, which I remembered seeing near the stern, but I had no idea what the lever was for, so I pulled it. The boat shuddered for a bit, and when I looked back I could see the horizontal sails fanning out. When the lever reached the backward position, the sails were fully extended, and I could feel that I’d now be able to press the lever down. So I did.

  In hindsight, if my mind hadn’t been completely locked on the fact that boat equals water, I’d have recognized the ‘horizontal sails’ for what they were. As it was, it took a full cycle of the things flapping down, folding themselves, rising back up and extending again for me to realize that I was looking at a pair of bat-like wings. My revelation was helped along by the boat slowly rising up into the air. It still seemed strange that a pair of wings were enough to get the entire boat up into the air, but vim could do things that would otherwise be unimaginable.

  It took a bit more trial and error, but I soon realized that pulling the lever back up would stop the boat from rising and make it hover in place, and that raising it above its original position would cause the boat to slowly lose height. I could also see that the legs retracted on their own as soon as the boat rose more than a meter above the ground, and extended again when I tried to land.

  My earlier disappointment had completely vanished by that point. A boat would have been of little use for me. A flying boat was a completely different matter. I still had no idea how to properly handle a boat, and I still probably needed a crew, but those were issues I could probably deal with.

  I brought the boat down to a landing and retracted the wings, and went back to exploring it. The mast looked, at least to me, the same as in any other boat. I could make neither heads nor tails of the confusing mass of ropes, crossbeams and sails, and knew that I was a long way from being able to sail it.

  Between the mast and the stern cabin, I could see a hatch leading into the hull itself. Opening it revealed a large space, which I knew could be used to store cargo. Assuming I could get this thing to sail, I’d be able to easily carry all of the whitesteel in the machinery room back to town in one trip. I’d also be able to stow away the Pattern, and maybe rig something to hide it in case someone else came aboard.

  The stern cabin had a narrow cot taking up the entirety of the right side and a small cabinet took all of the remaining space on the far wall. A folding desk could be pulled down to where it would be the perfect height for a person sitting on the bed to write on. A round window was set into each of the two side walls, and a small lamp burned with a fireless light above the desk. The cabinet door could only be opened when the desk was folded, and covered the window on the left side. A long blue coat with two rows of buttons hung in the cabinet, and looked long enough to reach my knees if I wore it. A large, deep blue three cornered hat hung right above it.

  None of which I’d noticed at the time, since my eyes caught on an intricate, abstract tapestry hanging on the inside of the cabinet door.

  A Shape that contains another Pattern within it was just one more unheard-of thing in a long chain of unheard-of things, and really wasn’t that big a shock after seeing the flying Boat itself. It was a regular size Pattern, not the huge one that let me Shape the Boat. A different Pattern was possibly even better for me, since I planned on taking the Boat Pattern with me anyway. All of which, of course, was not to say that I wasn’t going to test the new Pattern before doing anything else. I placed my hands on the circles, and could feel the pull on my vim. I let it flow into the Pattern, and it took half of what I had, which placed it on the same vim cost as the Hound Pattern.

  The familiar blue fog flowed out of the Pattern, coalesced next to me, and formed into a humanoid Shape. The Shape was average sized, about a hundred and seventy centimeters, and with a fit build. He, for the Shape was of a male model, was barefoot, and wearing short canvas pants and a striped white and red sleeveless shirt, with a red bandana covering his hair. The only weapon he bore was a short dagger tucked into his waistband.

  All in all, despite the hundreds of years since the old-world was destroyed, the Shape looked nearly indistinguishable from the deckhands manning the boats traveling up and down the river that passed through Gerald’s Rest, and I immediately dubbed it the Deckhand Shape. At my order, the Deckhand went to work and quickly unfurled the sails, validating my hunch that the Pattern was meant to supply crew for the Boat. I Shaped a second Deckhand with the rest of my vim. I’d seen boats of this size before, and a crew of three should be enough to operate it. Of course, I still didn’t know how to handle my part of things, but I had a hunch on how to solve the problem.

  Patterns, at least the ones I’d seen before, were never wasteful. A Horse Shape might come with a basic saddle, but never an ornate one. A Guard Pattern might include a weapon and armor, but never banners or crests. Which meant that the coat and hat hanging in the cabinet had a purpose. I took the coat down and draped it around me, and placed the hat on my head, hoping that like the Deckhands automatically knew how to do their duties, the clothing would impart to me the knowledge needed to command the Boat.

  At first, nothing happened. I was getting worried again that I wouldn’t be able to get the Boat flying, but as soon as I looked at the unfurled sails I suddenly knew how to angle them to properly catch the wind, and how to turn the Boat itself to sail close hauled and into the wind. I smiled, knowing that I’d be able to sail my new Shape, and had just gained access to a Pattern that would let me recycle Shapes and raise vim without having to pay anyone. I still needed to get the Boat out of the ruins, but I had a feeling that the old-worlders who built this place wouldn’t have placed the Pattern here without providing a way to get the Shapes it made out. The door to the room was certainly big enough for the Boat, and so was the corridor outside, and I knew that the Dec
khands were perfectly capable of pushing the hovering Boat even without any wind.

  Before leaving the room, I ordered the Deckhands to furl the sails, and then carefully removed the Boat Pattern from its frame, rolled it up and stowed it in the hold. With that done, I took my place in front of the wheel and raised the Boat to a height of a few centimeters above the floor. There was a trick to handling the wing lever, which enabled me to fold the wings while still keeping the Boat floating. It wouldn’t let me fly higher than half a meter, but was perfect for pushing the Boat through the corridors. With the Deckhands pushing and myself using the wheel to aid in turning the Boat, I left the room.

  My first order of business was to load up the remaining whitesteel, which I now suspected was an old-world machine that made skystones. There was really no other rationale to having a Boat Pattern in a location that was completely inaccessible to water, and it certainly explained finding a skystone inside whatever it was. It was a pity the device was too broken to restore, as a supply of elemental stones would have been very welcome, but even before I took some of the whitesteel to sell the machine wasn’t in any condition to be restored, even if I could find someone who knew enough about old-world artefacts to try and repair it.

  I couldn’t get the Boat all the way to the machinery, since the corridors were narrower in that part of the ruins, but I could get closer before starting to haul the whitesteel by hand. There were a few spiders on the way, but the captain’s clothing informed me that the arbalest mounted on the Boat could indeed Shape Ephemera bolts for itself, and I found that unlike my crossbow, the arbalest was certainly large enough to pierce the spiders’ carapace. I got another small surprise the first time I killed a spider when the Deckhands syphoned away its vim and I could feel some of it flow into the Boat itself. It definitely made sense, when I thought about it. The Boat certainly felt like it could hold more vim, and I could tell that it was capable of ranking up eventually, so it had to have a way to actually gain that vim.

  Things got a bit dicier when I reached the narrower corridors, since I was down to two Deckhands and had no idea how they would fare in combat. Precisely as I expected, the first spider managed to surprise the Deckhands and cover one of them with venom, but the second charged at it with his dagger and managed to do some damage before the spider could spit again. I had to use my arquebus to finish that spider off and then wait for my Shapes to reform, but by the next one, the Deckhands knew what to expect and managed to avoid the initial spray and take down the spider together without further damage.

  With the Deckhands helping me carry things, it only took two trips to get all of the whitesteel, and after loading it all on the Boat, the Deckhands shoved it almost all the way back to the Pattern room. I’d made sure to check, and the path to the exit was big enough to get the Boat out, but getting it out would crush the raspberry bush enough that the entrance would be completely visible, and since I was no longer limited by what I could actually carry, I wanted to get as much out of the ruins as I could before leaving.

  And so, ordering my two Deckhands to lead the way, I went back to exploring the ruin.

  There was very little left in the ruin, other than the big pile I was still unwilling to dig through. I did find some more spiders, but not enough to max out my Deckhands. I loaded up what little I could find and ordered the Deckhands to push the Boat to the exit, and through the raspberry bush. There wasn’t anyone waiting outside, and after the Boat was clear of the exit, I had the Deckhands board and pulled the lever to get high enough that it’d be unlikely for anyone to notice the blue Shape against the sky.

  Sailing a flying boat was a truly exhilarating experience. I was far above the height of the treetops, and the wind blew steadily, letting the Boat pick up speed. I stood behind the wheel with the wind ruffling my hair and laughed with delight. The three day walk back to town took mere hours in the flying Boat, which still gave me time to consider what to do when I got back.

  The two Deckhands I had were each about halfway to full, and I wasn’t in a rush to Unshape them for the vim. On the other hand, having a Pattern of my own meant that I didn’t have to pay when cycling Shapes anyway, and it was still a good idea to have some diversity. The Deckhands were far better at sailing than at fighting, and I’d need something more combat oriented to reinforce them. With the vim I had, I could Unshape one Deckhand and get two new Shapes from the Forrester Patterns, and recycle the other Deckhand to Shape two new ones when I was back to the Boat. I dismissed the thought of getting a new pair of the Hounds I’d been using before out of hand. They were good for exploring the ruins, but wouldn’t work as well on the Boat.

  Hawks, which the Forresters had a Pattern for, would probably be very good for me, since they were flying and not limited to the Boat itself. Not to mention the possibility of having a source of Blast Crystal at some point in the future if I could get my hand on a flamestone.

  A couple of Guards would have worked as well since they’d be able to function as marines, but the Forresters charged a lot more for a Guard Shaping than they did for the other Shapes. I wasn’t quite sure why, but they did.

  The final two Patterns the Forresters had were Horse, which was completely useless to me, and Spider which I was very firmly against after the last couple of weeks.

  Flying Shapes weren’t exactly common, but wind aligned Horses could rank up into pegasi, and some of the Eagle variants were big enough to ride, so flight wasn’t completely unheard of. Nevertheless, a flying Boat was different. It could handle more goods and even passengers than any other flying Shape, and would certainly be noticed. In the end, I decided to leave the boat out of sight and trek back to town with just my backpack on. I left the Captain’s Attire, as I’d decided to call the coat and hat, on the boat, and ordered the Deckhands to take it up high enough it won’t be found.

  My entrance into Gerald’s Rest wasn’t any different from last time, and I made my way into the welcoming common room of the Boar and Barrel. Darren was sitting at his usual table, and waved at me when I entered.

  “Back so soon, Jack? I thought you’d be out for at least another week this trip.”

  “Hey Darren. I got lucky and managed to get a full pack, so there wasn’t much point to staying.”

  We both stopped talking to watch the extremely distracting spectacle of Mable approaching us. I once again had to down almost an entire mug of ale to wet my mouth enough to order dinner, and it was only after Mable’s equally distracting rear had vanished into the kitchen that Darren and I went back to our conversation.

  “If you’ve got artefacts to sell, I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I have to say,” he started once we could concentrate again. “My father heard about your latest haul, and he wants the location of your ruin. I’m not allowed to buy anything from you, and you won’t be allowed to access the Patterns until you agree to lead us.”

  “That’s bull, Darren. I’ve never heard of anyone being forced to reveal a scavenging location like this.”

  “It’s not exactly new, Jack. Scavengers have been following and bribing each other since the old-world fell and we realized they left us things worth taking.”

  “Of course I know that. I’ve had my share of losing tails before. But it’s never been like this, with your family using their influence to force the issue.”

  “You’re right,” he visibly deflated. “It’s low, and it’s nasty and for what it’s worth, I hate it and I’m sorry. But I can’t trade with you.”

  “I can go to Owen. He already said he’d buy more whitesteel if I had it.”

  “He won’t buy it,” he sighed. “He’ll lose too much on commissions from my family if he does. And even if one of us were to buy your stuff, there’s no way Aunt Eve will let you near the Patterns against Father’s word.”

  My roasted hen had arrived by then, and I took a while to concentrate on my food and ostensibly to think about Darren’s demands. The truth was though, that as outraged as I was at this blatan
t abuse of the Forresters’ influence, I’d already decided to accept their terms. As far as they knew, I was trapped and had no way to avoid doing what they wanted, since the nearest town was a week’s travel away, and the Shaper family there wouldn't even meet with me without a letter of introduction that only the Forresters could give me. There was also the fact that I pretty much cleaned out those ruins, with the exception of the pile of bodies. And Darren’s father was more than welcome to that.

  And while having my own Pattern made me less dependant on them for Shape cycling and raising vim, I still needed access to other Patterns for variety and a more well-rounded team.

  “Fine,” I only had to half-feign my disgust. “But I’m only taking you with me. I have a couple of secrets I want to keep, and I don’t trust anyone else in your family with them.”

  “Thanks, Jack. And again, I’m sorry about this. I wouldn’t be doing this if I was head of the family.”

  “Whatever, Darren. I really don’t want to talk to you any more right now.”

  I left the Boar and went to find Owen’s smithy, and after assuring him that I was willing to do what the Forresters wanted, he bought another load of whitesteel from me. I still had some of the metal stored in my hold, but the amount I got from him would be enough for my needs.