Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure

by John L. Monk

  “You should see your face,” Elfie said. “It looks just like you!”

  I smiled politely.

  Quit being so grouchy, I told myself.

  Out of the corner of his mouth, Felix whispered, “Whatever you do, don’t react or move. It’s funny.”

  When the boat grounded ten feet out, two men in the front dragged it through the shallow water until it beached. Then one of them sloshed toward us. He placed his seagoing cap under one arm and read from a parchment:

  “Captain Winslow Richards the Third, or perhaps Fourth… Redoubtable Esquire in arrears… Earl Marshal of questionable renown and Right Good Fellow, or so his mum says… With appropriate respect, the captain sends his greetings to one Howard, lowly commoner of no renown whatsoever—says so right here—and wishes himself and companions to repair at their earliest convenience to the Royal Banshee, presently bobbing about in that patch of water just over there, where she sits waiting … and waiting … and waiting. Because in the end, it’s really all about you, isn’t it?”

  Elfie and Felix shared a look I couldn’t decipher but didn’t move, content to watch me.

  With a huff, the sailor said, “Preferably soon, sirs and ma’am, because the right good fellow ain’t got all day, understand?” When we still didn’t move, he added, “Thank you very much? My, what a nice day it is for a stroll? Can we sodding-well heave off, or shall I read it again with me bloomin’ pinkies out?”

  “No need for pinkies,” Elfie said, stepping forward at last.

  “Yep, we’re coming,” I said.

  “If you say so,” the man said. He looked me up and down with a grimace. “I’ll be over there thanking me lucky stars.”

  Message delivered, the sailor grunted, put his cap back on, and sloshed back to the rowboat.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  As we rowed toward the ship, the mists cleared and I could make out more details. The Royal Banshee was a three-masted frigate with a single row of sixteen closed gun ports per side. I’d been on ships before. The guns could be run out at a moment’s notice with the shouted command “beat to quarters.” Ships in Mythian were usually staffed by lucids and could be hired or purchased in port cities. Tall ships were typically captained by players who enjoyed the idea of living at sea or engaging in pirate-like activities.

  The three of us were hauled aboard by a rope connected to a leather harness—much to the delight of the rowers, who climbed up easily hand-over-hand.

  In theory, Felix and Elfie could have flown up using an item, potion, or spell, but flying at sea was to be avoided in all but the direst of circumstances. In an attempt to make sailing adventures meaningful, Everlife had added a controversial game mechanic. Anyone attempting to fly over the ocean for more than about ten seconds summoned a creature known as the Leviathan. This was a snakelike sea monster as wide as one of the towers in Heroes’ Landing and however long needed to snatch you out of the sky.

  When my feet hit the deck, I received a game notification saying my location had changed from the town of Brighton to the Royal Banshee. After that, an overlay dropped over my visual field showing the stats of the ship I was on:

  Hull points: 6,300,600 / 6,300,600 (100%)

  Cannons: 32 / 32

  Weight per-broadside: 512 / 512

  Top speeds: 9 / 16 (breezy / gale)

  Souls on board: 100 / 100

  Loyalty: 100%

  Provisions: 75 Days

  Hold: 150 / 300 (tons)

  I’d never been a fan of such overlays, preferring a natural “realistic” view uncluttered with numbers, words, and boxes. After a quick review, I dismissed it. I could always reenable it if needed.

  To Felix, I said, “What now?”

  Whatever he might have said died on his lips at a sudden commotion among the crew.

  “Make way for Captain Richards!” one of them yelled.

  “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!” the rest of the crew shouted—though loudest from the red-coated marines, each of whom carried crossbows … which I noticed were armed and cocked.

  There did seem to be a hundred crew members on board—in the rigging looking down, clustered on the various decks to watch our arrival, and of course all around us. The nearest ones parted and admitted a tall, frowning man with a big, British-looking captain’s hat worn front to back. His blue jacket was impeccably clean, festooned with ribbons and medals. Clean-shaven, he had iron-gray eyes and projected an air of barely controlled outrage.

  “Mister Spootlick,” the captain said in a baritone that carried clearly. “Who are these waisters loitering about, and pray tell why they are not making industrious use of the ship’s holystones? Do we not scrub the decks twice a day? Do we not pump our bilge every third glass? Have we stopped oiling the spars, lest they crack in a stiff breeze?”

  “No, sir,” Spootlick said. “I mean yes, we still do those things, sir, but if you’ll allow me to—”

  “And do we not polish the brass chasers? Paint that which needs painting? I say—are we not, if anything, a happy, industrious, intrepid ship?”

  Spootlick doffed his cap in a sign of reverence. “Why, of course we is, sir, but—”

  “And has it ever been customary for one so decorated and storied as me to abandon the quarterdeck to do everyone’s jobs for them? Is that my place in the vast constellation of our water-bound universe?”

  “No, sir, but as I was trying to say—”

  “So we do, in fact, have men who handle such things, yes? Able-bodied sailors and swabbies of every sort? What would happen if I were to suddenly get knocked on the head? If I fell over and was eaten by a shark, who would take my place?”

  From the back of the crowd, a voice shouted, “Sharks got better taste!”

  “Who said that?” the captain roared, twisting around to find the culprit.

  Shaking his head at the interruption, Spootlick said, “Captain, please… Like’n I was trying to say, this lot ain’t swabbies. This ship’s got a new owner, sir, and he’s it.”

  At Spootlick’s words, the captain turned a quick one-eighty and smiled. “Oh ho, so you’re Howard. Please forgive me for mistaking you so completely and utterly. I expected someone taller and less … well, silly-looking, I suppose. Still, we’re each of us different in our variegated ways—”

  Spootlick said, “That ain’t him, your captainship. The dwarf’s name is Felix. This other one’s Elfie. Ain’t she pretty? Next to him, you’ll find master Howard, sir.”

  I nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Richie. I’ll be honest, I’m not that good at ships and sailing and all that. I’m more of a land-going adventurer. Anyway, here’s the situation: There’s an island in Ward 4 I need to reach. It’s called the Island of—”

  “Silence!” Captain Richards shouted, eyes raging. “You may technically be the owner, but I am still the captain. As such, I am the true master of my domain, second only to the gods themselves, if they dare!” He took a moment to adjust his jacket and square his hat. “Fortunately for you, I am a gentleman, and a seagoing one at that. On this ship, seagoing gentlemen shall be referred to by title first, surname second. Captain Richards will do perfectly fine, thank you. Please continue with what you were saying, and I shall endeavor to provide the precise level of attention as the occasion demands, of that you may be absolutely sure.”

  Beside me, Felix snorted quietly. Elfie wore an open grin.

  They may have been amused, but I quietly fumed at my stupidity. I’d treated the captain as I would any lucid, which is to say unthinkingly, as if he had no real power here. The truth was, I’d had very little experience with shipboard adventures, and none with instant boats and crews.

  In a tone of contrition, I said, “Captain Richards… Please accept my deepest, sincerest apologies. With respect, there’s an island on the eastern side of Ward 4 called the Island of Yes Return. And—”

  “I know of it,” he said curtly.

  “You’ve been to the island?”

  The captain sho
ok his head. “Never in life. But Ward 4—I’ve heard of it. Big square bit of land way up north? Bursting with monsters? I’d rather not fight monsters, bursting or otherwise, but I can drop you off on whichever island you so desire. Provided you know the way.”

  “I do,” Felix offered.

  “Me too,” Elfie said.

  Captain Richards nodded smartly. “Perfect! You two, come with me. We have charts to pore over and plans to make. Howard, feel free to bumble about, and try not to fall overboard.”

  After a long day of sailing, I was sitting on deck wondering what to do with myself. I suddenly longed for Elfie and Felix’s company, but being Hard Modes, they’d turned in for the night.

  Just as I wondered if maybe I’d see a whale or a pod of dolphins, three faintly glowing tentacles shot from the water straight toward me. Likely they would have dragged me in, but I slipped and got tangled in the weather netting running along the rails, and that saved me. I still took 375 points of damage in that first volley. The tentacles were covered in razor-sharp hooks that twitched spastically, cutting into my arms and legs.

  High up in the rigging and behind me on the deck, “glurgs!” and “glurg attack!” and “beat to quarters!” sounded as more tentacles shot from everywhere at once. Added to this was a loud drumroll to wake everyone for battle.

  “Harrow!” I shouted, firing directly at one of the tentacles, scoring a hit on what my game logs called a “Colossal Jellyfish Tentacle.”

  The tentacle gave up trying to snare me and instead latched onto the ships’ railings. Still channeling, I looked at other sections of bubbling water and saw they were grabbing anything available, ship or man. A few seconds later it was obvious why when a stream of gilled, finned, humanoid creatures with blue skin scrambled up the tentacles and vaulted onto the ship.

  The tentacle finally died, awarding me 6 thousand XP, and Death Blossom flowered into a 50-vit Necrotic Aura. I would have raised it as a wraith, but it fell into the water and was lost.

  Cursing my slowness, I moved my attack to a glurg struggling with a sailor. The sailor saw the beam of dark energy and held on tightly as the creature struggled to escape.

  As the ship exploded with activity—defenders running from belowdecks armed with cutlasses and axes—I counted off the seconds until the creature died.

  “Thank ye!” the sailor said from beneath its corpse.

  “Summon!” I shouted.

  I sent the wraith after another glurg, who’d been slashing my aura with razor-sharp claws for 50 a hit. After my wraith killed it, I got a chance to see the creature up close: wide mouth like a frog’s, dagger-like teeth, and six eyes.

  I saw a dead glurg by a large coil of rope and raised it.

  These kills had boosted my vitality 200 points—100 from two Harrows, and 100 from my wraith. This amounted to 2000 health points for my aura’s maximum, now 1700 after the raking it had endured. Not nearly enough to withstand the ten glurgs who’d leaped aboard.

  A bad situation: glurgs in front of me, glurgs behind me, and most of the lucids fighting in the waist or on the quarterdeck side by side with the captain.

  “Attack! Swarm! Harrow!” I shouted, stumbling back in confusion as they gibbered and slashed my aura to ribbons.

  I repeated the rotation, raising another wraith and attacking with the ones off cooldown.

  The dead glurgs were quickly replaced by others itching to get a whack at me. When another fell, I seized the moment and sprinted for the port-side wall beneath the upper deck and leaned against it. I cast Harrow and ordered attacks whenever I could. Then a massive surge of maybe fifteen glurgs crawled over the side and began clawing my shield painfully.

  “Return!” I shouted in agony, expecting the worst…

  …and the sky detonated in a blast that left me deaf, blinded, and reeling on the ground for maybe half a minute. I was in deficit health, but nothing was hitting my aura, and the creepy gluggity-glug sounds of the glurgs had stopped.

  Thick afterimages made it hard to see. A minute passed where I blinked and squinted at the numerous bodies all over the deck. Whether human or glurg, I couldn’t tell.

  Crawling on hands and knees, I approached one and saw it was a glurg. A few feet more, another glurg. Most of the bodies were glurgs, though I did see the decapitated, armless torso of a lucid sailor. The survivors were lying on the deck, groaning or stumbling about clutching wounds and mumbling to themselves in shock.

  “Howard!” Elfie called from an upper deck. “Are you okay?”

  “Huh? Yeah… I think. What was that blast?”

  “Schismatic Reality Smash.”

  A major spell. One that stunned everything in a hundred-foot radius, allowing the caster to pick off enemies while they staggered dazed and defenseless.

  Elfie said, “You just sit back and rest. Felix’ll be by with refreshments. Felix! What are you doing?”

  From somewhere farther off, Felix shouted, “Cooking! Give me a moment!”

  Still reeling from her counterattack, I did as she suggested and sat against a free railing next to a group of recovering lucid sailors.

  Curious, I checked the ship’s stats. The hull was fine. Souls on Board had dropped from 100 to 94—alarming, if we could expect regular attacks from here to the island. Hopefully, the lucids of the Royal Banshee would repopulate the same way they did in the caravans.

  “Oh, for the love of…”

  The ship’s loyalty score—previously 100%—had fallen to 94%. Clearly, the men were blaming me for the attack.

  I glanced at the lucid on my left. He returned my gaze with no expression, then looked straight ahead. Previously, the men on the boat had been cheerful.

  “You there!” the captain shouted at the man. “Prichard! Off your ass and back to work. Spritely! Those infernal tentacles have made Old Harry of my rigging.”

  When the man didn’t get up right away, the captain shouted, “Spootlick! Add Mister Prichard to the defaulters list, if you please. And what’s this? Mister Cabot, are you deaf as well as lazy? Spootlick! You may add Mister Cabot to the defaulters list, and include Mister Everly as well for being a lugubrious, vile jackanapes! Tell me, Spootlick, are there any able seamen left on this ship who don’t want to be beaten with a cane?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In retrospect, having anything to do with that fight had been monumentally stupid, as Elfie proceeded to tell me later.

  “That was monumentally stupid,” she said, arms folded, frowning in exasperation.

  Felix said, “We didn’t bring a portable stone. We were going to bind at the island.”

  “You have to stay safe,” Elfie said.

  “Trust us,” Felix said.

  “We’re your guides.”

  “It’s why you’re paying us.”

  Even after I explained my Return spell to them, they still seemed upset—almost as if they hadn’t heard me. To them, I was just another low-level making their job harder.

  By morning, the ship had been cleaned and put back to order so perfectly you’d think nothing had happened the night before. This sense of renewal was dashed to smithereens when, at the changing of the watch, the captain called all hands on deck and read eight names from the “defaulters list”—a list of men guilty of one maritime infraction or other. To my surprise and disgust, the captain ordered the men strapped to the mast one by one and given ten lashes each with a cane. Their supposed crimes were read out before each punishment: slovenliness, laziness, cowardice in the face of the enemy, and in two cases, insubordination.

  “I know they’re just lucids,” I whispered to Elfie afterward, so as not to carry to the surly crew, “but why did they have to be beaten?”

  “Better than being poached!” Felix said.

  Elfie stared at him flatly until he looked down in shame.

  “You know I can’t resist food humor,” he muttered.

  To me, she said, “The Royal Banshee’s supposed to be like those old British sailing sh
ips. You know, from the 1800s? Back then, they were big into corporal punishment.”

  Felix laughed and patted his tummy. “As opposed to corpulent punishment!”

  Elfie said, “The best we can do is try to keep them out of trouble.”

  I shook my head. “But why are they in trouble? We were attacked—it was chaos. Afterward, Captain Doofus ran around handing out demerits. The men weren’t lazy. They were just tired, and some of their friends had died. Oh, and incidentally, they’re still dead. The ship didn’t replace them.”

  Felix nodded. “Ships are different than other encounters. They can only refit in ports. Same goes for provisions.”

  “Don’t worry though,” Elfie said. “Attacks at sea are pretty rare. I’m surprised we got attacked this soon out of Brighton. On our last trip, we didn’t have an encounter until Ward 3.”

  “It’s just bad luck,” Felix said.

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking about how to break it to them. “About that luck of ours…”

  In a tone of apology, I explained how my karma was floating at around twenty percent, or possibly lower. They asked how I knew and I explained my coin trick.

  “Oooh, that’s clever,” Felix said.

  He pulled out a coin and tossed it in the air.

  “The point is,” I said, snatching it, “we’re in for more attacks.”

  Elfie’s eyes glazed over as she checked. “We’re fine. Loyalty’s at 94.”

  “For now,” I said. “But what about five nights from now? We should count on it dropping lower. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ll be attacked again tonight.”

  Felix waved a dismissive hand. “We just have to make sure no more men die. Elfie and I will split up the watch. She’ll take day and I’ll take night—and you’ll run and hide if we’re attacked. So long as no more crew members die, we’ll be fine.”

  “I sure hope so,” I said worriedly, staring out to sea.

  A day and a night passed without an attack, and I was happy to be proven wrong.