by Jakob Tanner
“I’m readying the mana engine now, sir,” said Jackson. “If we want to beat the Arethkarian ships to Ariellum, we’re going to have to plot a faster route. I propose rather than sailing along the Laergardian coast until we get close to our first port, La-Archanum, we head directly there from here.”
“Why weren’t we doing that in the first place?”
“The route is more dangerous. We have a high likelihood of interacting with sky creatures. What do you think?”
“We need to claw back any advantage we can,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
Jackson nodded his head and went over to the mana engine on the quarter deck and pulled a lever. A powerful thrust of mana unleashed from the back of the ship, launching us straight into the endless sky.
11
I paced back and forth across my captain’s quarters. Serena kept me company, standing by the mullioned windows looking out to the dreamy purple night sky of the cloud ocean. We’d been travelling for a couple of hours now. Half the crew had gone to bed below decks, sleeping in hammocks hung between the beams. The other half performed first watch, along with Jackson, staying on deck and keeping an eye out for any enemy ships or deadly sky monsters.
I turned to Serena. “You haven’t spoken in over an hour. What’s on your mind?”
She continued looking out into the expansive sea of clouds and stars. “I’m just thinking about the quest. I wasn’t sure about it before, but it’s become more complicated since then. Arethkar has pushed us into making the decision: we have to get to the Ultriga Weapon before them.”
“And what do we do once we get our hands on it?”
“I don’t know Clay—I honestly don’t.”
I fell into the chair at my desk and sighed.
“You know,” said Serena. “We’ve never discussed what happened before we entered this game. How we ended up here. How we got the ZERO virus.” She turned to me, her face solemn and pale. “From the way you’ve spoken, I’ve gathered you were the first in your family to contract the virus. I was the opposite. All my family died from it in the early stages. Before the mutations, before people had even given the virus a name or knew what was happening. My dad and I were the last to contract it. We only had enough money for one space in a containment pod to enter A.K.O. My dad wanted me to take it. He only asked I do him one favor. He asked me to end his misery. By that time, he was contained to his bedroom, drenched in sweat, red with fever. The virus was eating him from the inside out. He wanted the pain to end.”
Serena’s face was pale and she looked like she was going to vomit. Her whole body was shivering. “What do you do in that scenario? What’s right and wrong in a world where the only choices are bad?”
“What did you do?” I gulped. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know the answer, but I think Serena wanted to tell me. Tell anyone this horrible truth she had kept.
“I took half a tub of painkillers, grinded them with a knife, and then mixed it into his apple juice. I left the room after I’d brought him his drink and called a taxi. I took it to the hospital and started the cognitive upload procedure. I listened to his final request and yet it tears me up inside.”
She wiped her eyes. “I still don’t know if I did the right thing. He was in pain and no one deserves to suffer in such a way, but what if I’d ignored him? What if I’d let him become a flesh-eater?”
“Then you would’ve let your dad mutate into a monster,” I said. “You didn’t have any good options.”
“What if there’s survivors out there still? What if they discover a cure? A flesh-eater might be curable. There’s no bringing a dead man back to life.”
I got up off my chair and approached Serena, grabbing hold of her and holding her tight as she shivered. My own family flashed before my eyes. My brother. My mom. My dad. They were all open possibilities. Dead. Alive. A flesh-eater. A survivor. I didn’t know. The uncertainty was tormenting, though it also gave me hope. Serena, whose tears dampened my shoulder, had nothing. Her reality had been lost before she ever escaped into this one. Her blonde hair scratched against my cheek. Her hair—she had changed the color when she had entered the game. She had changed so much of herself and it had so little to do with cosmetics.
“You did what you had to do,” I whispered in her ear. “No one would blame you. No one would act differently.”
“There must’ve been another way,” she said. “Why didn’t I ignore him? Why didn’t I leave the house and go to the hospital? Doing something wrong for good reasons doesn’t make it right.”
I gently rubbed her back and let her cry into my shoulder. Her body heaved as she breathed in and out.
“There’s no world for me out there anymore,” she cried. “You and others still hope to see your loved ones. I know I’m never going to see any of them again. This is my world now Clay. This is my home. Nowhere else.”
“Hey now,” I said. “It’s our home and we’ll do everything we can to protect it.”
Serena was about to say more when there was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” I yelled. “Can I have five minutes please?”
“Sorry Captain,” spoke one of the crewman. “There’s an emergency out on deck. Needs urgent attention.”
Serena pulled away and wiped her eyes. “It’s okay,” she said. “Go.”
I stood up from my desk and headed to the door of my chambers. I swung it open and stepped out onto the deck. We were deep in a nest of clouds and in every direction were signs of thunder and lightning.
“Jackson,” I said, heading up to the quarterdeck to meet him. “What are we looking at?”
The Rorn crossed his thick muscular arms and replied to the roar of thunder with his own dismissive grunt. “There’s lightning patches in every direction. I say we stick to our main course and ride it out. We don’t really have any other options, unless you want to turn back.”
“Do you think that’s necessary?”
“Not yet,” said the helmsman. “But I’ll let you know when I do. Prepare for a bumpy ride.”
The navigator headed over to the mana generator and cranked the engine. He was sending us straight into the lightning storm. The Rorn brawler next ordered a group of men to place special generators at the back of the ship.
What was he doing?
The rain slashed against the deck. Thunder roared. My heart beat with terror. Was our journey going to end right as we had begun?
The purple clouds lit up with the bright light of thunder. A tremulous roar echoed all around us, vibrating the wooden floor of the deck.
Shade stepped out from the lower decks, scratching his head. “I had the weirdest dream. I was confronting every person I’d ever swindled at cards all at once. Not a pretty—”
A giant roar echoed all around him.
“Oh,” he said.
The crackling clouds of lightning were only getting more intense as we got closer to them.
“Jackson—do you know what you’re doing?”
The man laughed manically at the clouds. “Questioning your sky pilot, eh? If you were looking for someone sane, maybe a gladiatorial arena wasn’t the best place to hire someone from?”
His hair and beard were soaked from the rain.
I winced. A smattering of lightning smashed into the generators. The ship thrust itself further into the sky at a propulsive rate. I slid and fell, knocking head first onto the deck. I closed my eyes and waited for the lightning to strike again and rip our ship in half.
I lay there, the rain no longer knocking against my back. The air grew warmer and clear. I got up from off the ground and saw the sea of lightning patches drifting further away behind us.
“Old pirate trick,” grinned Jackson. “You can use lightning to make your ship go faster.”
The thunder storm behind us crackled and roared, like a malevolent god laughing at our own inevitable doom.
12
I woke up in my captain’s quarters to a bright ray of sunshine coming throu
gh the windows. Serena laid in bed beside me, still asleep. Weren’t first mates meant to be up before the boss? I smiled. I didn’t mind if she rested all day. It wasn’t easy telling me about her past. It wasn’t easy living through painful memories all over again.
I rolled out of bed and got dressed. I took a quick scan of the ship’s stats.
Horizon’s Dream
Type: Air Frigate
Size: Large
Turning Radius: Wide
Classification: Warship
Min. Crew: 16
Crew: 33/200
Cannon(s): 14/32
Cargo: 45/80 (tonnage)
Speed: Fast
Crystal Mana Fuel: 178%
Food Supply: High
Health: 90% (Good)
Crew Morale: Happy
Gold: 10,000
As things usually went on these types of journeys, all of the stats were falling, but the positive news was they weren’t falling by much. The crew morale had dropped because of the thunderstorm, but was still in the positive rankings. Health and fuel had taken a hit, which was to be expected.
Out on the deck, I found the crew already at work. Many of them tying knots on the yards or staring out into the beautiful blue sky from the rope ladders. The two moons of Illyria were faded circles, watching over us from up high in the sky.
Jackson stood on the side of the quarterdeck, admiring the calm sight of the cloud ocean. He sipped on a mug of coffee.
“Morning captain,” he said when I approached. “Wanna cup?”
“Sure.”
He had a mug waiting for me. He picked it up and with a metal thermos poured me some coffee. It was still hot and fresh. It tasted good against the breeze of the cloud ocean.
“We’ve reefed the sails to maximize our speed with the wind, while slowing down the mana engine to stay on top of fuel,” explained Jackson.
“Sounds good. How far are we from La-Archanum?”
“At the rate we’re currently going, we will be there in about a day’s time.”
“Have you ever been to La-Archanum? I can’t imagine what it would be like. A floating city in the clouds.”
“I was there briefly, once,” said Jackson. “Wouldn’t say I was a fan. The place is rowdy and run by sky pirates. A bit of a shit show if you ask me.”
“I’m still curious to see it,” I said, taking a sip from my mug. I was happy to hear things were going okay for us so far. We were making good time.
“What are we going to do for the rest of the day?”
“All we can do is wait and hope the wind keeps blowing in the direction we want and nothing comes to harm us. The best thing we can do is catch lunch and extra fish to sell to the sky pirates when we arrive.”
Jackson waddled over to the side and came back with two skyrods. “Have you ever skyfished before?”
I shook my head and he handed me a rod. I gripped the rod and a message appeared in my HUD.
Introduction to Skyfishing
Skyfishing is a great way to pass the time while travelling through the cloud oceans of Illyria. Skyfish can be used for healing and nourishment buffs, improving crew morale by adding to the ship’s food storage, and can also be sold to merchants and vendors.
Skyfishing is a skill that can be leveled up like all other similar crafting, gathering, and professional skills.
I turned the skyrod over in my hand. It was the combination of an actual fishing rod, a harpoon gun, and a kite. A sharp metal blade rested at the top of the rod with two sturdy cloth wings attached to it. Beneath the winged blade was a hook for bait. This contraption was tied to a clear lining attached to a spinning reel. The bottom portion of the rod curved like a revolver offering a grip and trigger for launching the blade.
“First you hold it up to the sky like a rifle,” said Jackson, holding his skyrod and pointing it upward into the clouds. “Then you pull the trigger, see.”
The bladed kite shot into the air, dragging the lining of the rod with it, up into the clouds. It eventually stopped and floated in the air very much like a normal kite.
“At this point, you change the way you hold it and your hand positions,” explained Jackson further. He gripped the reel with one hand and held the rod with the other, much like you would when normal fishing. “And now—the most glorious part of fishing—you wait.”
“I’ve never heard anyone describe waiting so enthusiastically,” I said.
The old Rorn fighter laughed and wiped his eye. “My son used to say the same thing.” The brawler gestured towards the skyrod. “Go on, then. Try it.”
I lifted the skyrod to the clouds. “Where am I aiming it?”
“Into the clouds, boy!”
“Whatever you say,” I said, pulling the trigger. The butt of the gun knocked into my shoulder as the hooked blade shot off into the clouds. I followed Jackson’s instructions and readjusted my position, gripping the rod and spinner, ready to reel in whatever bites the rod.
I stood there for about a minute and remembered why I never fished back IRL. Because it was boring beyond belief. I remained there as the crew around us readjusted the sails to meet the wind, waiting for something to happen. Anything.
I adjusted my stance, ready to reel the line in defeat, when the faintest nudge tugged on my rod. A bite. My rod bent upwards as whatever caught hold of my line ripped ferociously at the hook. I reached for the spinner. I pulled across the deck.
“You got it, kid,” said Jackson.
I reeled and reeled. Out in the sky was a floating red fish with glowing orange scales, violently tugging at the hook. I reeled and pulled the line back. The fish dangled and squirmed from the top of my rod.
A notice appeared in my HUD.
Congratulations! You caught a sun kelp! Size: 12 cm. Rating: C-class.
You increased your skyfishing skills by 0.4
I removed the fish from the line. It was no longer squirming. Once the message came on, the fish had become mine. The skyfish flopped around for a bit on the deck, until I dematerialized it into my inventory.
“I guess we know what’s for lunch today,” said Shade, stepping onto the quarterdeck and giving me a congratulatory pat on the back.
“Let’s not limit our options,” said Jackson. “Look around.”
We passed through a puff of clouds and came upon a stretch of sky filled with schools of skyfish. Floating crabs twisted and turned, while neon green bubble fish floated through the air. A whole set of twenty or thirty bright yellow fish flew through the sky in unison. Blue skyhorses spun and flipped through the air. Pink jellyfish pleasantly drifted along.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“It’s called a cloud reef,” said Jackson. “All the oceans have them. This is one of many in Argon’s Rage. They’re relatively peaceful pockets of sky ocean where there’s less thunder and activity, making it safer for the skyfish to live and swim through the air here.”
“It’s incredible,” said Shade. “I want to eat them all.”
We all laughed. Jackson handed Shade his rod and went down into the ship’s hull to grab more. Kari and Serena joined us and we had a morning of skyfishing. After an hour and a half we’d caught fifteen sun kelp, twelve blue skyhorses, and three skycrab. Five of our catches had been class-A and the rest had been class-B. The reef was clearly only producing high-quality skyfish. We all agreed to store away the class-A fish and half of the class-B fish to sell at La-Archanum when we got there. The rest would be lunch.
Serena and Jackson brought tables from below to the deck’s surface, while Shade and Kari worked on setting the table. I was assigned cooking duty. I stood by myself below deck in the ship’s kitchen. The pans and utensils called out to me. I had to make a delicious meal. Why hadn’t I hired a cook again?
The ship’s kitchen had a working stove and grill, with an air vent leading to the top deck. A metal rack held different jars of spices. There was salt, pepper, basil, and oregano along with a few others I recognized. There were als
o exotic violet leaves and pink powder.
One of the ship’s stewards ran down to the hold and brought me butter, onions, and bread. When he got back, I handed him a knife and ordered him to slice the bread. I threw a good scoop of butter into a wok to melt. Next I finely chopped the onions and threw them into the wok as well. I chopped the carrots into rounds and roughly chopped the broccoli into good-sized chunks. Then I materialized the fish and cut them up too.
I threw everything together into the wok and turned to the steward. “Tell me we have soy sauce in the hold?”
“Yes,” nodded the steward and ran off. He came back with a large industrial-sized bottle of soy sauce. The kind you only ever saw sold at massive outlets on the freeway or in the kitchens of large restaurants. Perfect.
I took the bottle and drenched my frying vegetables and fish with the dark salty sauce. A notice soon appeared in my HUD.
You discovered a new recipe: Skyfish Stirfry
Ingredients: Butter, Onion, Carrot, Broccoli, Sunkelp, Skyhorse, Skycrab, and Soy Sauce
Skyfish Stirfry improves your skyfishing skills by 10% as well as 5% increased damage to all airborne creatures (Duration: 30 minutes)
Your cooking skills increased by 1.5
You’ve leveled up Cooking (craft) to Level 4
The steward and I carefully carried the large steaming wok up to the main deck.