After two minutes, Velvet used the spell again, making the ten minute trip take five minutes, letting them arrive on time.

The harbor was already lively, illuminated with gas lamps that covered the streets and were carried by some workers. It was still too soon for the sun to rise, yet not for the sailors and fishermen. As Velvet and Couger were walking towards the Algae, the workers were already carrying the fishing nets, boxes and some crew members with hangovers inside the boats.

Casrey, being an island, had a lot of sea related work; in fact, Velvet had worked as a lighthouse keeper, as a fisherwoman and as a fishing net fixer. If anything, one of the few harbor jobs she hadn’t done yet was working at the tavern, only because the owner was very adamant about not hiring minors.

To tell the truth, the job she liked least was fishing at sea.

Fishing on the Whispering Sea was dangerous, and, therefore, all the ships had iron spikes covering the hull, to prevent sea monsters like morgens, fuaths or others from climbing to the decks. Also, some crew members carried shotguns, the strongest of them carrying harpoons that were bigger than Couger to kill any threat.

Sea hunting was a considerably high paying job, but, looking at the number of people on the harbor that had prosthetic arms, legs, or had lost part of the face made Velvet always go towards other jobs. She even tried to convince Couger to change occupations, but he always refused.

Arriving at the Algae, the ship Velvet had to take, they were greeted by the captain, an old, scrawny woman with a glass eye and a scar crossing it, loading some empty boxes in an old, scrawny boat. Upon seeing her, Couger rushed to help with the load.

“Witch.” She called Velvet in a coarse tone, once she got closer.

“Hag.” Velvet answered in the same tone.

The old crone scoffed. “You better not bring misfortune upon my ship, you harbinger of madness.”

“Any other things to call me?” Velvet looked at the crew. “I’ll say misfortune hit you before I did. Someone is missing.”

“Oswald. A sea snake got’im. Ripped his head clean off.” Viroa, the Algae captain, pulled out a pipe and a tobacco box from her clothes, tossing them to Velvet.

“Shit.” She said, picking the things before opening the box and proceeding to fill the pipe. “He was… twenty-three? And he was getting married too…” Finishing readying the pipe, she gave it back to Viroa.

“Light it up. My arthritis is getting worse every day.” Velvet snapped her fingers, lighting it up.

The old woman put the pipe in her mouth with trembling fingers, before climbing to the ship, followed by Velvet and the rest of the crew.

Couger went next to her on the deck, now carrying a shotgun half his size. Velvet refrained from commenting on it. Still, she readied herself, pulling out some paper figurines.

After some minutes, the ship left the harbor, going into the sea.

The Whispering Sea was called that for the unexplained murmur that sometimes came from air bubbles that broke the sea surface every now and then. It was unintelligible, in an unknown language, and it happened across all the Charlampa Archipelago.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Some valiant but foolish scholars had tried to get to the bottom of the matter, and the sea, but the deeper waters were, quoting their words ‘Not worth the investment’.

One of those bubbles arose next to the boat, popping.

“Hyde,” The link between magicians and their familiars allowed them to talk telepathically, so no one could eavesdrop. “Do you know what the bubble says?”

“No, but I can tell a few things,” He paused. “The language spoken is an ancient type of Nekromnisikakia.”

“Nekro means death, right?”

“Right. Death and grudge. The one speaking is a wronged corpse.”

“... A pretty big corpse then, since it covers all the sea.”

“Yes.” After another brief pause, he added. “Nothing you have the power to worry or care about.”

“Wasn’t going to.”

Something moving below the waves put an end to their conversation. She saw Couger raising the shotgun towards it. They made eye contact, and Velvet threw one of her paper figurines on top of one of the spikes that surrounded the ship.

The figurine raised its arms and walked on top of the stake. Arriving on the tip, it leaned towards the waves, before turning a red color and started smelling like blood.

At the next second, something lunged unto it, falling for the trap and impaling its mouth on the stake. Couger, shotgun ready, shot its body, blowing a hole in its side before tumbling backwards at the gun’s recoil.

Due to the position and its hard skin, that wasn’t enough to kill the fuath, which managed to grab the iron sides of the ship, trying to pull its head away from the stake.

Interrupting its escape, the paper figurines controlled by Velvet slapped the monster’s head, keeping it stuck to the stake and blinding it.

Couger, having recovered from the recoil, and other crew members used that time to stab the wound open from the shot with spears, trying to pierce its heavily protected heart.

Garon, the strongest member of the Algae, pushed them away, carrying one of the giant harpoons that Velvet had seen, before directing the weapon’s end towards the fuath’s core.

Click. The arrow was at one moment situated on the handle, and, in the next, it had pierced the monster’s body from side to side, with so much strength it ripped the head, with Velvet paper figurines from the stake, all of them disappearing under the sea.

The iron chain that connected the arrow to the rest of the weapon went next, making a deafening sound.

Claclaclaclac. Garon walked backwards, before plunging the weapon on a mechanism on the deck, made to hold the harpoon.

“Hold onto something.” Couger warned her, before Garon activated something in the weapon that stopped the chain dispenser, and made the whole ship tumble. Then, the chain started being dragged back.

Velvet had used some magic to not fall to the water, falling instead on her ass on the deck’s floor. She wasn’t hurt, though.

Never bathing on the relief of a successful catch, every single member of the Algae got ready again, not planning to fall prey to some monster smarter than the fuath that knew when to strike. Like the morgen, for example.

Two good minutes later, a body got dragged out the water, being pulled first next to the ship, and, after some checks, onto the ship.

Fuaths were some ugly bastards, that’s how Velvet would describe them. At two and half meters long, they looked like big, fish skinned, gray greenish humans to drunken sailors. Until one saw the head.

They had extremely big, white eyes on top of their head, made to stalk the prey on the surface from below the waves. Their mouth occupied almost all of the rest of the face. It was big, filled with ten to twenty centimeter teeth, and they had around a hundred teeth. A single bite could dismember anyone. But that made catching them considerably easier than other things, since they bit anything on their path, including obvious bait.

Their meat was also delicious, and they sold for quite the sum.