Chapter 15 - Billy Learns to Sea

Billy stood on the deck of the ship, his Gift blazing brightly. Literally, apparently. If he poured enough mana into his Gift, his eyes glowed white. While he was pretty sure it was a manifestation of mana leakage, it did help in convincing the crew that he wasn’t just making things up. Even when he was, indeed, making things up.

He left the elves alone, for the most part. They had been sailing the schooner for years, leaving little room for valuable input from Billy or his Gift. He mostly directed the other adventurers who were ready to help, but didn’t know much about sailing. He made sure that helping hands were in the right places instead of in the way, and that those that looked for work got to where they were needed the most.

Unfortunately, Billy could only go all-out for a mere three minutes before bottoming out his core, though he was sure he was making progress. He wandered around the ship, constantly using his Gift whenever he had the mana for it.

When the ship set sail, it shot out of the bay like it owed someone money. Someone fast. Mages on the deck took turns blasting the sails with wind magic as the captain hollered orders from behind the wheel. For four days, everything went swimmingly. Boatingly. Sailingly? Everything was in ship shop shape until the captain yelled for a halt.

Billy climbed above deck to see what the commotion was about. There was a giant warded dome rising up from the ocean, spanning several kilometers. A message scrawled across the force field, but it was in a language he didn’t recognise. Marit clicked his oversized tongue.

“A serpent wants a tribute,” he explained. “We sacrifice a crew member or go around.” The cleric shook his head, clearly not liking either option.

“Why don’t we just go straight through?” Billy was curious as to how powerful a serpent could be if it could block off an entire section of an ocean. He was even more curious, however, to see what kind of loot such a foe would drop.

Before Marit could answer, the captain made his decision. “Forward!” His deep voice boomed as the wind mages powered the sails again. When they were about to smash into the wall of magic, the captain triggered a skill. “SOONER!” Before the man had even finished bellowing the word, the boat teleported forward.

Billy looked around in confusion. They had appeared on the other side of the magical ward.

“Dude. Captain literally teleported the entire crew with the ship.” The exclamation came from Rhinus, who was unsteadily trying to navigate the deck in his full plate, hammer in hand.

“That is quite fortunate for us,” replied Roland, who also seemed to have difficulty walking around while the boat was in motion. “Otherwise, we would have been on the wrong side of this quite formidable ward array without a ship.”

When Roland noticed that he was on the receiving end of quite a few blank stares, he shrugged and headed for the front of the ship to take a peek at what was ahead. His progress was slow as he kept almost bumping into crew members who were frantically running around the deck, keeping the ship sailing at top speed.

“Down!” The yell came from the captain just in time as another boat came up at an angle from underwater, its bow equipped with a nasty-looking, serrated, ship-sized spearhead. One of the crew members used a skill to create a sphere of energy around the ship while another triggered a skill that plunged the ship into the ocean.

Billy hunkered down and looked for something to hold onto, but the onrush of water never came. The sphere around the ship stopped the water from reaching it. Rhinus, Roland and a few other adventurers landed hard on the deck as they lost their footing, but they were far from injured.

The other ship sailed right over them, clearly intending to kebab them by surprise.”Up,” came the command. Their schooner shot up out of the ocean, giving them their first real look at their new enemy. The other ship was all sharp edges, with wicked barbs shooting out in every direction. It looked like a vaguely ship-shaped dominatrix sea urchin from the demon realm. It clearly used some sort of magic to reduce the water resistance from all of the bits and bobbles sticking out at all angles.

The crew didn’t look much prettier. They were fishpeople. Merfolk? Aquagenarians? More like awkwardgenarians. They were vaguely humanoid, but had skin ranging from deep blue to pale green and had gills and scales in addition to other fishly features. They hissed, yelled and glubbed at the Schooner or Later as they neared for another clash.

“Rear cannons!” Billy looked around the deck at the captain’s cry. There weren’t any cannons and he hadn’t seen any- BANG! The ship pivoted 90 degrees, using the bow as a fixed point, the back of the ship being flung counterclockwise at an alarming speed. Acidic balls of hissing goo shot out from the side of the schooner, slamming into the spiky mess that was the enemy vessel.

“Toro!” The captain laughed uproariously as the enemy ship sailed by, missing the schooner completely. “Can’t have company without givin' em somethin’ ta eat, boys! Fire!” At his command, magic circles appeared on the back of the ship and shot more acidic globs at the enemy.

The angry ball of death started losing its needles as acid ravaged its barbs. It plunged straight back into the ocean, disappearing from view. Not two seconds later, it was emerging again from the side of the schooner, spear tip aiming for a maiming.

“DOWN!” The captain yelled again. Again, the schooner dipped into the ocean, protected from the water by a bubble of magic. They fell right into a trap. What seemed like the entire crew of fishpeople was waiting, underwater, for the schooner to dive below the surface. Instantly, they zoomed in and popped onto the deck, passing through the water shield with ease. The magic bubble, obviously not meant to protect from anything except for water, offered no resistance to the incoming pirates.

The adventurers, who were rearing for a fight for days without release, gleefully fought the pirates as the schooner dipped in and out of the ocean, dodging a still lunging spikeball.

Nordica, the blue-skinned elf, blew her whistle, conjuring a ginormous spider to her side. Speedy, the spider, supported by Nordica and an ice mage, walled off parts of the ship with webbing and ice, restricting the attacker’s mobility and forcing them into a select few spots on the ship.

Billy saw an adventurer call a stampede of ethereal cows to come down and trample half a dozen merfolk in mere seconds. A shadow flitted from pirate to pirate, eliminating anyone that seemed to be remotely in charge. Any pirate with more than two eyes had an arrow sticking out of the third. Swords flew at interlopers and gunfire mopped up anyone that survived righteous blasts of divine fire. An entire orchestra in the form of a single birdman played an intense battle hymn, his fingers dancing across the strings of his lute. Billy thought he caught glimpses of after-images of the crow with different instruments, but he couldn’t quite get a good look at him amidst the carnage.

It wasn’t a battle. It was hardly a fight. It was a slaughter. Billy spent most of it picking his jaw up off the deck and dropping it again. He tried aiming his wand a few times, but didn’t dare shoot in case he hit an ally.

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The adventurers worked in small groups, clearly used to working in small teams. Spells flung and swords clashed, but all too soon, the battle came to an end. Billy felt like it had only just started when the elven crew let out a cheer and went back to manning the sails.

A few adventurers sat down hard where they were. Others picked over some loot. Three, in particular, were doing something fishy. And it wasn’t just because of the obvious merfolk wordplay. Jessum Crowe walked up to a dying fishman and struck a single ethereal note. The downed foe, instead of shattering into motes of multicolored light, dispersed into tiny black birds that flew into the sky. Sacrifices to a bird god? Theatrics? Theatrical sacrifices to a bird god? He waited a moment, head bowed, then moved to the next.

Marit did the same, but in his own way. When he approached an undisolved corpse or barely living enemy, he stabbed it in the heart with an impractically snakelike dagger. The wavy blade seemed to wriggle and slither as it bit into each fishman, melting the corpse into droplets of blood that were then absorbed by the dagger. Ritual sacrifices to a blood god? On brand.

Loc Thwain, the human gunner, also did some voodoo shit with his defeated enemies. He unwrapped a bandage from around his right hand and pressed two fingers against each body. The corpses withered and turned to dust, an ethereal remnant of something being absorbed into the man’s hand. No, not into his hand. To one of his guns? Billy felt pieces click together in his mind. Between campfire horror stories, Farmer Tim's lessons and a few details Roland let slip, Billy was pretty sure he had the man figured out. Not that he would judge, necessarily. There were plenty of taboos that weren't as bad as people made them out to be.

Billy noted that none of the corpses that those three messed with dropped any form of loot. Even the weapons and armor still touching the bodies dissipated as the three performed their rituals. It felt wrong, somehow. He reasoned that he would probably be more ok with it if he knew what was actually happening, but it seemed like they were interfering with how the world was supposed to work. Battle, death, despawn, loot. That was the natural order of the world. Adding sacrificial something or other and gods into the mix just muddied everything. Would shunting too much energy to the gods affect the world in negative ways? Is that how the unending sands out in Draxt were created? Miles upon miles of mostly lifeless desert...

His musings were cut off by the sound of rushing water, followed closely by yelling from the crew. An enormous sea serpent rose from the ocean. It had green scales along most of its serpentine body with hints of white on its underside and pitch black spikes along its back. It was easily a few dozen times the size of the schooner, far larger than even the captain was expecting, apparently.

“Crew!” The captain yelled. Was that a quaver? A quiver? A slight hitch in the man’s usually stoic voice? “We’ve never backed down, never lost.” A cheer came from the crew. “We’ll fight this thing to our last, if we need to. I refuse to go out without a fight.” The cheer from the crew was slightly less enthusiastic. Was the captain giving up already?

Billy didn’t blame the man. Most beasts didn’t just die of old age. Well, neither did humans after reaching C-rank, but that was besides the point. No, they didn’t crumple and die. Beasts grew, and grew, and grew. They increased in size and in power as they ate and fought for survival. A serpent of that size must have been hundreds of years old, if not more.

As the captain readied his crew and yelled orders, Billy sent a trickle of mana into his Gift: flee. Then, Battlefield Commander: flee NOW.

He dumped as much mana as he could into his Gift again, making his eyes blaze with light. He started yelling. “Crowe, Marit, Gunner. Here! Now!”

When the three didn’t immediately move, he yelled louder. “If you three don’t come here right now, I’m spillin’ secrets. No? Ok. Loc the gunner, or should I say the sworn? Shall we start off my naming your patron? I hear they’re quite the-” Billy cut off as Loc grabbed the other two and dragged them next to Billy, staring half in panicked horror, half in rage at the boy. Good. He didn't know what he would have done if that didn't work. It's not like he actually knew the man's patron. He didn't need to know that part, though.

They were moving, but not fast enough.

“Good,” he said, looking at the three adventurers before him. “Now, as you can see, I can. That needs work. But I see everything, right now. And everything is telling me to get you three to get us the absolute fuck out of here right gods damned now or we all die.” Sweat was starting to stream down his face and his back. His voice shook so much that he was afraid he would devolve into incoherence if he didn’t get them to follow the plan as soon as humanly possible. Well, as soon as racially diverse as possible? As soon as physically possible. And magically. As soon as gods damned possible. “NOW!”

Seeing the three hesitate, he yelled louder and louder. “I understand the cost. But, otherwise, WE DIE. That thing is a divine beast, not just a regular beast. It’s quasi-DIVINE. A demigod at worst. Most of the way into godhood. So link your pinky fingers or whatever you need to do and get. Us. Out. Of. Here. NOW!” He punctuated each of his last works with a stab from his wand into the arms of the three adventurers.

Begrudgingly and painfully slowly, they followed his instructions. Which was great, because he had absolutely no idea what the cost actually was. His Gift was telling him that those three were the only way out, but Billy had no idea how or why. It absolutely had to do with their links to deities, but other than that... He just had to hope that they knew more than he did. He was running on fumes, confidence and a bag full of lies at the moment. It would pan out. Things always panned out.

The first two crewmates to launch spells at the serpent were instantly and mercilessly vaporized by jets of water. The three got to work. Marit began drawing a magic circle on the deck of the ship, carving it into the wood with his dagger. Jessum sang a religious hymn, conjuring a divine light onto the whole area. Loc, for his part, cut a deep gash into his hand and let his blood flow into the circle that Marit was carving. Before it could fill completely, however, Loc shook his head.

“It isn’t enough,” he said. “I don’t have enough…” He trailed off at the look Billy gave him.

“You know it isn’t free,” the boy said sternly. “Use the sword and use it now!” Billy almost felt bad for yelling at the man, but he really didn’t have time for pity. His mana core was sputtering out already. Too soon. He wasn't sure he could convince them if his eyes weren't glowing, at the very least. Let alone without the actual guidance from his Gift. They weren’t done yet. They needed more time.

“Captain!” Billy yelled as loudly as he could. “Incoming! Now! Captain!” The last word came out as more of a shriek as the glow in Billy’s eyes winked out. The monstrous serpent reared back and then shot forward, bringing its entire body slamming into the schooner.

The captain’s voice bellowed, even above the whoosh of displaced air. “LATER!” The entire schooner glowed an intense yellow. As the divine beast slammed into the boat, nothing happened. Well, not to the boat or the crew. The schooner sat there, as if suspended in time, while the full force of the attack pushed against it. The shockwave pushed so much water away that both the ship and the serpent were momentarily hovering mid-air, a good fifty feet above the waterline. Try as it might, the serpent couldn’t claw, smash or clamp its jaws around the ship.

Billy’s jaw dropped once again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ship's captain slump to the deck. The monster was ginormous. Its body stretched so far it looked like it almost disappeared into the horizon.

The beast fell towards the ocean, leaving the schooner fixed in space above it. The serpent collided with the water again as the ocean tried to refill the vacuum in its midst, causing another colossal boom.

Marit and Jessum worked frantically as Loc drew a sword from seemingly nowhere. Bingo! Everyone knew adventurers always had swords. If you didn't see one, it just meant that it was hiding somewhere. He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath and then swung down. His left arm, just below the elbow, slapped the ground with a squelch. His scream of pain was drowned out by the serpent’s roaring, but Billy felt the loss deep in his chest. He knew, even without his Gift, that the arm wasn’t growing back with the help of anything short of divine intervention.

Jessum’s hymn rose to a crescendo as Marit finished carving the symbols in his magic circle. The Cleric, the Voice and the Sworn all gave everything they could and more to power the ritual. Mana, blood and something else hemorrhaged from their bodies as Billy watched in horror. Jessum’s lute cracked. Marit fell to his knees. Loc all-out collapsed. A tricolored beam of light shot into the sky. Red, blue and black reached for the heavens. A shadow on the ship nodded in solemn satisfaction. The serpent bellowed in anger. Roland, Nordica and a few other adventurers yelled in alarmed protest.

The gods, signaled by a beacon, intervened.