Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure

by John L. Monk

  I tracked our passage via my map, noting our blip and its position next to the colossal gray square that was Ward 1. Based on our progress, the dividing line between here and Ward 2 was at least a week out, weather permitting. We’d traveled at a stately pace of seven to eight knots, according to the helmsmen, and this fit with what I saw.

  If Felix was annoyed at having to sleep separately from his wife, he didn’t show it. He kept himself busy making pastries in a fold-up oven he’d erected on deck. Whether from fear of our diminishing loyalty or out of genuine friendliness, he gave away almost all of the food he made to the sailors, who preferred it far more than their pork, ship’s biscuit, and lime juice. That day, our loyalty score rose from 94% to 95% at a cost of around fifty cupcakes.

  Several times a day, the captain came on deck to look around and shout at people, and I did my best to avoid him. I don’t like bullies and didn’t trust myself to smile and pretend to be pleasant or whatever it was he needed to stay in a good mood. If he was offended by my absence, he didn’t show it.

  Late afternoon on our third day out, the wind died around 3 p.m. and the temperature dropped precipitously. No clouds, though, so it wasn’t as if a storm were coming. Instead, a thick fog rolled in seemingly from out of nowhere. I wondered if this was caused by the ship—a display of ambiance, the way it had done on the coast after I’d broken the bottle. But no … the sailors seemed tense. They hadn’t expected this at all. Even the captain came out to look, frowning even more deeply than usual.

  “What do you think’s going on?” I whispered to Felix.

  “Hard to say. Not glurgs… Something though.”

  “Something?”

  “Some encounter. We really need to get you a rabbit’s foot, Howard.”

  I forced a smile. “Knowing me, I’ll need the whole rabbit.”

  Felix laughed, started to say something, then stopped at the ominous groan of a bell way out in the mists.

  “Beat to quarters!” the captain shouted from the quarterdeck. “Battle stations, men! Run out the guns! Runeshot and Greek fire! Spootlick, get our rowing crews out! Bring us about two points to starboard! Blast this fog…”

  One of the men who’d been beaten the day before shouted, “But sir! ’Tis a ghost ship! We must run!”

  The captain pointed at the man. “Sergeant! Seize that coward and drag him below! Lash him to the pump where he may be of some use.”

  As the ship got ready, I did my best to stay both safe and out of the way, per my guides’ instructions. It was one thing to lose the loyalty of the crew, but I couldn’t afford to lose Felix and Elfie’s too.

  Though she should have been sleeping, Elfie joined Felix on the deck looking tired but otherwise ready for battle.

  “Is there coffee?” she said.

  I nodded. “I’ll get you some. Hold on.”

  “Such a dear, sweet boy,” she said, smiling like a grandmother despite being young and beautiful and elven.

  Just get the damned coffee, I told myself.

  I got the damned coffee from the ship’s galley, which always had a pot brewing for the officers. Seamen were limited to limewater during the day and watered-down grog at the end of their watch.

  Sipping coffee together, the three of us stared into the mist and listened as the spooky bells tolled every few minutes.

  “When we reach twelve,” Felix said around a mouthful of donut, “the bell shall toll for thee—and by thee I mean me and Elfie. You should go below, Howard.”

  Elfie placed a steadying hand on my arm. “I know how you must feel, but if we’re worried about you, we’re not keeping the crew alive, and our loyalty will suffer.”

  The bell sounded again.

  “That’s eleven,” Felix said.

  I wanted to remind him I could count too. Instead, I wished them luck and headed for the hatch under the sneering gaze of the captain. His mouth moved and I distinctly heard him mutter the word coward.

  There were livestock onboard—chickens and goats for the captain’s table—and these had been brought below in anticipation of the battle. The goats made oddly human cries and the chickens clucked like strident nags, making me wonder what they knew that I didn’t.

  “Face it, guys,” I said grumpily, “we’re just baggage with heartbeats.”

  If they understood, they didn’t let on.

  Two minutes later, the twelfth bell groaned its sonorous tone. Then, from somewhere distant, came a shatter of explosions that thrummed through the bulkhead. Not two seconds later, screaming sailors and horrendous crashing sounded from overhead. So shocking was it, I envisioned the whole of the upper decks being carried away, though of course that made no sense. This was Ward 1, after all. Easy fights for the most part, especially with our two high-levels.

  Faintly, I heard someone shout, “Fire as she bears!” This was followed by an even louder series of blasts from our own ship, followed by cheering.

  Was it really a ghost ship out there? Had we hit it?

  More explosions sounded in the distance, resulting in more terror and mayhem overhead. Then silence as the Royal Banshee’s guns were reloaded and run back out. Another broadside from ours, followed by battle cries and the clash of steel.

  “That’s it,” I told the nearest cageful of chickens. “I didn’t come to Mythian to sit in a hole with you guys and hope to lay an egg. I’ll just go up for a quick peek.”

  I climbed the stairs, popped my head up—then ducked an ax swung by one of the seamen. The pirate ghost it was meant for flew past crackling and waving a spectral cutlass.

  “You made me miss!” the man said angrily.

  “Sorry!”

  There was an army of the things rowing across the water from an actual ghost ship right out of the storybooks. It rested broadside to us maybe fifty feet out. The ghosts were translucent, but the ship wasn’t. It looked like a wreck, with tattered sails fluttering in the windless mist like spiderwebs, and flying from the mainmast was the skull and crossbones flag, a.k.a. the Jolly Roger.

  Of Felix and Elfie, there was no sign. Before that changed, I dashed to the opening leading to the captain’s cabin, but which also housed the ship’s big guns. Currently, the starboard side’s guns were locked in place. On the port side, men were ramming powder and wads of cloth-like material down the muzzles of some truly impressive cannons. They jumped out of the way while other men pushed them forward.

  I couldn’t help but grin—then stumbled over in shock and pain as something slashed me in the side, stealing 635 health points.

  I turned around to see one of the pirate horrors blocking the entrance, then flinched in numbed terror as sixteen guns fired in sequence. So loud were the blasts that even the ghost-thing reeled back.

  “Harrow!” I cast.

  Later, I’d get access to a spell that’d let me steal enemy undead from their masters. But that was then and this was now, and all I had was the weakest single-target spell in the game to protect me.

  The ghost grinned and launched itself at me. With no aura to protect me, its sword slashed me painfully in the arm, leg, and chest for 500-600 a pop while shouting sailors struck it from the sides.

  More annoyed than worried, the thing flicked its sword their way and lopped off someone’s sword arm. After that, the crew stayed away, causing it to grin evilly.

  At a paltry 42 damage a second, my Harrow wasn’t doing anything to it. Sensing my distress, the ghost pirate grinned even more widely. Its eyes flashed an unholy green light as it raised its cutlass. It never got a chance to strike, though, because a pair of glowing hands thrust through its chest, tearing it apart and scattering its energy.

  “Howard, what are you doing?” Felix shouted from the spot it had occupied. “You’re supposed to be hiding!”

  “I was protecting these men!” I yelled back, angry at the dwarf for the first time since meeting him.

  “But I already did that.” He pointed at the man who’d lost his arm. “See?”

  I foll
owed his finger to the man, who should have died from shock or blood loss by now. There was a faintly glowing appendage growing out of the jagged stump of his missing arm. Over the course of the next minute, it continued to grow, then pulsed briefly to reveal his arm, whole and intact. This happened while the healthy men prepared for another blast.

  “Where’s Elfie?” I said over my shoulder, but Felix had already left.

  Hoping he wasn’t too angry, I plugged my ears in time to witness a devastating cannonade from our side. The balls, I saw, streaked across the water to slam into the ship, which appeared to be shielded. When the balls hit, big circles of blue, green, and yellow pimpled out from the strike. The enemy ship shivered and listed further to one side, making me wonder if it would suddenly sink.

  “Hold your fire!” someone shouted. “We’ve boarded her!”

  After that, we endured no more volleys from the ghost ship. Ten minutes later, after an anxious time waiting, a cheer rang out above and belowdecks as the enemy’s flag came down.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The fight ended when Elfie killed the pirate captain—easily enough, pound for pound. However, due to the anti-flying prohibition, she’d had to row across with a crew of men, then search the ship for the elusive specter. Hard to do because it could pass through walls, and it had sensed her power.

  In my opinion, she should have been able to rain down meteors and sink the ship, but once again, Mythian’s designers had thrown a monkey wrench into what should have been common sense. Ships, it turned out, could only be destroyed by other ships. Not spells.

  After the fight, I sheepishly approached the couple. They’d been receiving a steady stream of handshakes, back-claps, and rounds of “huzzahs” from the haggard crew, who hadn’t lost a single man thanks to Felix’s magic cupcakes.

  “You!” Elfie said, pointing a finger at me and scowling deeper than even that ghost pirate. “You little pipsqueak, I oughta… I oughta … give you a big fat hug! Oh, Fee-Fee, look at his face—he’s so guilty!”

  Felix grinned widely at my embarrassed surprise.

  “Definitely a pipsqueak,” he said, leaning back as if I were a mountain.

  “So, you’re not mad?”

  Felix shrugged. “A little? I mean, you can’t go doing that when we get to Ward 2, but eh … you had a cupcake in you, and … wait a minute. You did have one of my delicious cupcakes, didn’t you?”

  In general, I never ate unless it was a side effect of being social, like my breakfast with Sarah. So no, I hadn’t had one of his cupcakes.

  “Sorry, I just…”

  Felix sighed. “Howard, you seem like a truly decent person, but you’re something of a…”

  “Cupcake hater?” Elfie said brightly.

  “Not my cupcakes,” he said. “Howard, your problem is you’re a min-maxer. You see the world as a series of plusses and minuses on a spreadsheet, and in so doing you strangle everything wonderful out of it. Life is meant to be enjoyed! We have noses so that we can smell the flowers, as they say. We have taste to enjoy delicious food and drink, and to spit out anything nasty.” He lowered his voice suggestively. “We have eyes so that you can sneak peeks at Elfie when you think nobody’s looking.”

  Elfie covered her mouth. “Quit turning Howard red, Felix.”

  “The point of all this,” Felix said, “is that I’m not mad you ran off halfcocked and threatened the entire expedition. You’re human, and you’re curious. Just be careful. No fighting! And if a delectomancer hands you a cupcake, or a scone, or a piece of candy, then please—for the love of all five senses—gobble it down.”

  I nodded stiffly. “You got it. Will do. From now on.”

  Elfie draped an arm around me and whispered, “He’s just jealous because nobody peeks at him.”

  “They do too!” he shouted in mock outrage. “All the time!”

  Wiping away a pretend tear, Elfie shook her head sadly. “No… Not even out of pity.”

  As witness to their antics—so carefree and teasing—a knot of tension inside me seemed to unravel and I found myself relaxing.

  Despite the Royal Banshee not losing a single life and carrying the day in victory, the captain executed two men for “cowardice in the face of an enemy.” Almost as if sensing I’d try to stop him, the sentences were carried out by the small group of red-coated professional fighters that came with the ship. These men carried crossbows and swords, though they tended to fight from the back during encounters, preferring to let the seaman do the hand-to-hand stuff. Two of these men, whose names I’d never caught, lifted their cocked crossbows and murdered the lucid sailors whose only crime was being in the way when the captain was on a tear.

  I rushed forward to say something, but Felix held me back.

  “It’s not worth it,” he said. “I’ll explain later. For now, trust me.”

  Gritting my teeth, I trusted him, held my tongue, and watched as the captain had eleven men strapped to the mast one by one and caned for laziness, insubordination, and various other imaginary crimes.

  By the time it was over, the ship’s loyalty score had dropped to 90%.

  I pulled Felix out of earshot.

  “Why do we have to put up with that guy?” I said. “You know where the island is, and the crew knows how to sail the ship. All he does is show up to yell at people—and now he’s killing them!”

  “Technically they’re not people, Howard… Please understand: This is a magic ship, not a normal one. An instance within an instance, remember? The whole point of the Boat in a Tote is to create a … well, a sort of Captain Blye experience. You know, with the tyrannical captain and a crew pushed to the breaking point? That’s why there’s a loyalty score. Normally, it’s manageable—a few encounters here and there, quickly dispatched by Elfie and me, and then we arrive.”

  “So then why not hire a normal ship?” I said.

  “We need the pocket instance to hide you from the guardians,” Felix said.

  “Ah, that’s right.” I shook my head. “You know, I didn’t even realize that was possible. What do you think the karma hit is for skipping a bridge guardian? That’s gotta be against the invariant.”

  “Actually no, I think it’s very much within the rules. Think of it: an island right off the shore of Ward 4 with no monsters on it at all, and no poisonous air. Its only feature is a binding stone in the middle. And don’t forget the name of the place: the Island of Yes Return.”

  “How’s that proof?” I said.

  “It’s an answer to two questions,” he said. “Yes, it’s okay to come to Ward 4 without fighting the guardians, and no, you won’t be penalized for it.”

  I snorted. “No offense, but that sounds like a stretch.”

  “But is it really? Think of what we have here: the Boat in a Tote, as far as I know, is one of but a few mobile instances in the game, and you can only find it floating in the bay off Brighton—which, itself, has a binding stone. Though I can’t prove it, I think the stone, the bottle, and the bay—a natural hurricane hole—are the reasons why Brighton ever became a town at all. And it’s a straight shot between Brighton and the island, with no intervening islands. Also, don’t forget the ten percent XP perk, Teacher’s Pet. Perfect for low-levels, less so for highs.”

  “How come we don’t make right for the mainland?” I said. “Why not go there, get the spell, then suicide back?”

  “Not everyone has the Return spell, Howard. The Well of Dreams is farther than we usually go. We might die trying to get there. That’s why we ate that cake, remember? Besides, we can sell the ship afterward. It’ll bring in a few hundred thousand, easily.”

  Money I could use to pay back Parker…

  “Good point,” I said, feeling dumb. “Just curious… How many of these trips do you make in a year?”

  “You’re the third so far. We’ll probably do two more before year’s end.”

  Clearly he was a pro at this, but I couldn’t let it go.

  “Have you ever checked
your karma?”

  Felix snorted. “I thought we’d settled that? No, I haven’t. Never given it much thought, to be honest.”

  I fished out a coin and handed it to him.

  “This really works?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Fine. If you insist. Here goes… Tails!”

  Felix flipped the coin a hundred times while I kept count. His score, when he finished, had me staring at him in wonder. He’d scored sixty-one tails.

  “What?” he said.

  “Buddy ol’ pal,” I said, “you’ve gotta be the biggest goody-two-shoes in all of Mythian.”

  Felix smiled widely. “Well, then that proves it. Bringing lowbies to Ward 4 is completely within the bounds of Mythian’s secret rulebook. But now I’m wondering: If I’m so karma-rich, why is yours jinxing the ship?”

  “Oh, any number of reasons,” I said. “You’ve already been paid, for one. And this is my boat—I’m the owner. Also, though I haven’t tested it, I think karma works like a chain, and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

  “Which means we’ll keep having bad luck.”

  I nodded glumly. “But at least there’s cupcakes.”

  “The best cupcakes in the four wards,” he said, handing me one from his bottomless bag.

  I took a bite and smiled in surprise at the game message:

  SPELL EFFECT: Trigger Heal (10,000 Health)

  As for it being the best cupcake in the four wards, he wasn’t wrong.

  “Mind if I have another?” I said hopefully.

  Felix smiled, opened his magic bag, and made with the baked goods.

  By the time we reached the divide between Ward 1 and 2, we’d been attacked twice more by ghost ships, twice by glurgs, and once by a swarm of spikers. These were needlelike flying fish that punched through their victims for devastating damage, at least by Ward 1 standards. Felix’s delectomancy kept the lucids alive long enough for Elfie to burn down these and other enemies. Unfortunately, I never received XP for these short fights. The ghost ships at least offered loot, though few items useful to necromancers. What gold we found, I handed out to the crew. This tiny act of benevolence netted me an additional 5% loyalty, but that was a drop in a bucket compared to what we’d lost.