Liam gritted his teeth, cranked the lever, and placed the arrow into the slot. Raising the block of wood, he pointed at the cube-shaped target that was the size of his own head, slotted his finger into the trigger, and…

He failed. He couldn’t squeeze hard enough to trigger the mechanism. It was as if it had been rusted shut, impossible to move. He tried using both the index and middle fingers at the same time and barely managed to get it to go off, though by then his aim had gone wide.

“Progress, you hit something this time,” his shooting companion called out. “Keep this up, and by the time we get to Nuremo, you might want to aim for the mercenaries instead.”

Liam shot a side-glare at Hassim, the red-headed dwarf casually pulling the trigger on his own crossbow, missing the center of his target by a finger’s width. The “shooting range” they were sharing was a long room tucked within the entrails of the Barb, a repurposed widened corridor to be more precise. There were five targets, and at the far back, there were stacks of hay and wood.

“Losing the sense of sight makes your other senses sharper,” Liam began to crank the crossbow again. “Maybe losing a hand improved your aim.”

The recently amputated dwarf glared daggers, cranking his own weapon and taking another shot in the time it took Liam to almost finish loading his own. The human’s arms hurt something fierce, yet it didn’t compare to trying to learn how to wield a spear. As it turned out, spears required a lot more upper body strength. And general body strength. And just strength in general.

Thus, Liam was reduced to a crossbow.

At least for the time being.

“You know, you can put curses into crossbow bolts,” Liam huffed as he fought to take aim. “Well, if you had the skill for such fine work.”

Hassim’s gaze flickered his way. The dwarf’s weapon wavered. “That… wouldn’t work. Too small, not enough room to imbue aether.”

“Sure there is, a metal bolt can be hollow,” the human commented idly, tightening his stance and pulling the trigger with two fingers again.

“Missed,” Hassim lowered his crossbow, loading it once more. “It’s still impossible, there’s no way to carve the inside of a bolt.”

“You just need to make the right tool for the job, something with a sharp or hot enough tip,” Liam began to crank the crossbow again. “It’s also a great way to heal people. Just shoot them with some healing curses.”

This time the result was the intended one; the dwarf’s attention wavered at the worst time.

“Missed,” Liam called out in amusement, using his own weapon for support.

“Curses cannot heal,” Hassim huffed. “I usually hear wild claims about curses, but yours truly outshine the rest. If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume you are pulling my beard.”

“It’s a matter of perspective,” his lips curled in smugness, preparing the shot. “Many medicines are just poisons but ingested in low dosages.”

With the conversation going silent, Liam waited for half a breath, pulled the trigger, and…

“Missed,” Hassim called out. The dwarf didn’t add anything else, keeping a very thoughtful look in his eyes as they continued to practice.

Liam’s gut told him the man was going to start looking for a new base of operations as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Either that or a new patron to finance his research. It was a coin toss. So more than anything, his hope was to steer the dwarf’s curiosity towards something not as destructive.

Something maybe even useful for the Barb’s crew in the long term.

He’d been giving Umira’s concerns some thought, and she was right that knowing something big was coming was meaningless if you couldn’t prepare to take advantage. For now, Liam was mostly certain that one of the most useful things the Barb and its crew could do, once the Red Star fell, was to become smugglers. There would be plenty of nations too far away from the event to be able to take advantage. A crew of mercenaries willing to bring in a boat-load of aether would no doubt be paid handsomely each round-trip.

Gold that could be used to purchase talent and books. The more magically inclined talent they had, the better.

There were plenty of shortcomings and problems with this not-master-plan, but it seemed like a good direction to take.

It occurred to Liam that he would’ve normally seen this way of taking for granted that certain events would occur, as flawed. But the certainty gave him determination to keep practicing with the crossbow throughout the entirety of his free day. It was like having a fire lit under him, urging him to push forward no matter how much he’d much rather be learning magic.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

No, he was not irked that Umira and every other mage on the boat were spending their time with the captain planning and strategizing for the upcoming fight. Even less that he wasn’t being involved.

Definitely not irked.

Which was also why he definitely wasn’t trying to coax the only person he knew that was left into opening up to the prospect of teaching him instead.

“How certain are you that curses can be used to heal?” It had taken half an hour of silence before Hassim opened up with the question. “Is this purely hypothetical speak, or proven theory?”

“The snow-fields north of the continent once housed tribes of curse-weavers, and from what I read about them, their healers were quite skilled.” Liam shrugged a little, trying his best to downplay his own interest in the subject. “From what I learned, they did this through their curses, but I’m no mage, though that’s something I hope to change.”

The dwarf let out a snort, shaking his head. “Too old.”

Liam’s lips twitched, a mild sense of annoyance washing over him, but it didn’t feel like the right time to press further. He focused back on crossbow training until his fingers felt like they might fall off.

Hassim just gave him a nod as Liam walked out, the dwarf appearing entirely submerged in his own practice, though his mind was clearly elsewhere. Liam could only guess at the ideas running through the dwarf’s mind.

The next destination would be the “bunk room”, though even after a whole week on board, Liam was still not familiar with most of its layout. The Barb’s exterior design was the cusp of simplicity: an egg with sails attached overhead and at the sides. The insides were anything but. It was in its guts that one could see the many purposes the ship had been remodeled to fulfill. Some areas had tight corridors and living quarters so cramped that Liam was entirely unable to move through the place, a remnant of the time it was under the control of some of the smaller races. Other areas had luxuriously wide rooms and well-furnished walls and ceilings, betraying the nobility that might have once used it for a pleasure cruise.

And then, near the bottom of the ship, was the “war area”.

Liam wasn’t allowed into the war area, though he’d heard it was where all the fancy weaponry was at.

Liam wasn’t allowed into many places, actually.

He had the distinct impression that the captain and first-mate were going out of their way to keep a distance from Liam, specifically. Hassim, Noor, and especially Umira had already been called to talk with the leadership of the ship. Not Liam. And his request for information, or maybe even a meeting, had been politely “postponed”.

The most they’d done was throw the cooking job his way when he’d asked in what way he could help pay his debt.

It was all odd.

Though… maybe not that odd when a non-pantheon Goddess had beamed a message into the first-mate’s head so they’d pick Liam & co up.

“Hey,” he greeted Noor.

The draxani lay in his own bunk, barely acknowledging his existence with a half-exhausted wave of his arm. The tiny cabin barely had room for four bunks and a few shelves at the end.

With his roommate clearly out of gas, Liam took the water basin and, after removing his shirt, gave himself a simple wash-down. There was no such thing as a shower on the Barb, and day/night cycles were a luxury only affordable by those willing to go up to the deck (or those lucky enough to have a cabin with windows). It was a worthwhile trip, but not one he could take every day.

At least the mechanism that allowed the Barb to float also handled the illumination and air quality within the ship. That was a small miracle on its own; Liam could only imagine how the whole place would have all the stench of a barn after a day if they tried to go without it.

Liam imagined that this literal god-given system was not present on normal sail-ships.

That would suck in too many ways to count.

Once he was cleaned up, he pulled out the blank book Umira had given him after he’d requested something to write on. It was a good way to put down thoughts, facts, information, and anything else that came to mind that he might forget down the road. It also helped him center himself. There was just something about putting down words on paper that soothed an ache in the back of his head, like scratching a little secret corner of himself.

With his day coming to a close, he’d just about readied himself to sleep when there was a knock at the door.

“Liam Carter?” The man who stepped through the door was a tanned elf, with long blond tresses weaved into a series of knots that culminated in a ponytail. The man wore what passed for a uniform, marking him as higher rank than most other crew members aboard the ship.

“That’d be me.” Liam raised his hand from the bunk, idly making note that several of the knots in the elf’s hair seemed too carefully put together.

“I am First-Mate Holan, and I wished to have a moment with you,” his cool green gaze flickered at the only other occupant of the room. “Privately, if possible.”

“Holan? Wait, I’m sure I’ve heard that name before…” Liam flipped open the book he’d been writing in, returning to previous entries.

“Being the second in command aboard this ship, I would not be surprised,” the man commented. “Though I am often referred to by my rank.”

“Probably? I don’t remember anyone telling me your… Ah, here it is.” He opened the book, spotting the specific paragraph. “Holan, Hero of the Cracked Bay, Vanquisher of the Eater of Mountains.” He glanced up at the elf. “That you?”

The man chuckled in slight amusement. “No, I would remember being called a hero. Or vanquishing something named a mountain eater.”

“Huh.”

Liam glanced at the chunk of text for a bit longer. In it, he described Holan as a blonde elf, one who wove aether-filled wire into spell-patterns around his own head as a way to have quick access to certain emergency casting. Holan, a man who had lost his crew while battling a city-destroying monster that had emerged from the depths of the mountain.

His name was amongst dozens of others, people who had lost it all in the utter devastation that would unfold preceding the Red Star. A nameless city, a nameless crew, unimportant background details lost in the face of this lone man’s achievements.

A trickle of concern trailed down Liam’s back.

“By any chance, do you have a sister named Violetta?”

Holan startled a little, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “Yes, how did you know that?”

Liam shut the book, rising to his feet. “It seems we might have a problem.”