The journey from Plauros to the Isle of Rampage was to take about a month, assuming the winds and the seas cooperated. Thankfully, our crew hadn’t gone far when escaping the harbor at Greygulf, and I guess at some point Lady Adelwulf had had Edgar contact them to inform them of our situation. Needless to say, it didn’t take us long to get back on the ship and out to sea to continue our quest.

And I must say, I can’t begin to express how excited I was for the Heroes to save the Wind and Water Gems, if for no other reason than making sailing that much less of a hassle. Which, considering the rough seas and the supremely inconsistent wind, kudos to our sailing crew for their super competent sailing skills. Though as I write this, it occurs to me that, prior to the Gems being acquired by the Heroes, these seas and this wind are all these sailors have ever known. To be honest, I’m kind of amazed people still sailed during those dark times.

Speaking of changes brought about by the Gems, I neglected to take much note of how things changed after the Heroes acquired the Earth Diamond. To say that there was an immediate explosion of life and fertility throughout the land would be a bit of an exaggeration, as seeds still needed time to germinate, set roots, and then slowly grow into the plants they were destined to become. That being said, in the week or so since then, farmers in the Plauros region noticed that their crops were looking just a bit more lively. Which is really impressive, considering the general lack of sunlight in the Plauros region. That farmers were able to get anything to grow there at all was already a miracle, only added upon by the plants coming out just that much more lively.

No, the benefits for the Heroes acquiring the Earth Diamond were much more of a slow burn than those from the other Gems, which we’ll detail later on.

I say that, but the ship’s navigator, a guy named Chekov, mentioned noticing that the seas had calmed down a bit after the Heroes killed Lady Vanita, probably in connection to seismic activity under the sea slowing down.

I know this probably makes me look really dumb for not understanding how earthquakes work, but you need to understand that they were frequent enough that you kind of stopped paying attention to them. It was only after they became less frequent (or even in some places, stopped entirely) that we began to realize what normal seismic activity was supposed to be. I hate to be that girl, but you young kids don’t realize how good you’ve got it. Now just imagine me shaking my fist and telling you to get off my lawn or whatever.

One thing I hadn’t quite realized would happen while sailing was how…routine everything had become. Every day was the same. Wake up. Eat breakfast. Ensure that the crew’s watch got properly rotated. Spar and exercise. Eat lunch. Make sure we were still on course. Eventually have dinner. Oversee watch change again. Sleep. Repeat.

After about a week of this, I decided it would be a good idea to make use of this time to learn a new skill. So I approached Fortuna about learning how to pick locks.

I guess Fortuna had forgotten that I’d suggested it before, because she reeled back in shock.

“What do you mean? Why do you want to learn how to pick locks?”

“It would be a good skill to have!” I argued. “What? It’s not like I want to use it for stealing.” I grinned while Fortuna narrowed her eyes at me. “I mean…I won’t be committing crimes with it, but hey, you never know when it will come in handy!”

She continued glaring at me with her eyes narrowed while I just smiled right back at her, thinking, Yes, play chicken with me. I’ll win. You know I’ll win.

Eventually her narrowed eyes twitched, just for a moment, and I knew I’d won. “Hah!” I exclaimed. “You just can’t resist this cute face!”

“All right, fine!” she said, folding her arms and pouting. “I’ll teach you, but I gotta warn you I’m not what you’d call a great teacher. I’m probably going to be mean.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” I said sarcastically, still smirking.

Clearly I have a problem with underestimating people.

I met her down in the hold, where she’d locked a few boxes and set them up in order of difficulty and complexity, which was something I’d expected. What I hadn’t expected, however, was this question. “Okay…where’s your pin?”

“My…what?”

“C’mon, Ilala, you’re a girl. Don’t you have a hairpin of some kind?”

True, my shoulder-length hair probably could have used a tie or pin or something of that nature, but, “Umm…no…sorry.”

Fortuna folded her arms and scowled. “That’s a problem,” she muttered.

It was then that I noticed the steely blue hairpin that she had in her hair. “Um…can I just use yours?”

She quickly covered it with her hand. “No, absolutely not. This…this one’s too important.”

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“What? Why?” I asked, suddenly curious.

“Don’t worry about it!” she fired back defensively.

“Okay, okay, I got it,” I said, raising my hands as if to try to calm a wild beast. “Do you have a spare of some kind?”

She sighed. “Yeah, okay, I’ll spot you one, but when you break it, you’re on your own to replace it. No good thief goes without tools.”

“I’m sorry…when I break it?” I asked, blinking.

“Trust me, it’s gonna happen. Just accept it. Lockpicking is not an easy task and you’re going to screw it up from time to time. That much I can guarantee.”

To her credit as a teacher, she was right. While fiddling with the first lock, I felt what I thought was the spring of one of the pins being clicked into place. Nope! I snapped the pin. Upon seeing this, Fortuna rolled her eyes and handed me another one.

“I can see this is going to take a little longer than I expected. I’ll spot you one more.”

After about an hour of practice and ten more “last ones”, I finally got the first lock popped open. I shouted, both for joy and for relief that I was done working on the stupid box, after which Fortuna asked, “So are you gonna open the box?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Open the box. I put something in there for you.”

I did as I was told, slowly opening the box to reveal a small leather pouch. I pulled it out and poured its contents into the box itself. Contents which included a handful of small screwdrivers, pliers, and other tools as well as five more hairpins.

“Okay I lied about only spotting you the one. Or the twelve, in this case. It’s your own set of thieves’ tools, including basically everything you’re gonna need to break into whatever lock you’re going to face.”

“I…you…where…” I stammered, before finally asking, “Where did you get this?”

“It’s a spare kit I’ve had, y’know, in case I lost my usual set or something like that. Rather than collecting dust in my backpack, I thought maybe you could have it. I’m not kidding about you being responsible for taking care of it and replacing parts as needed, though I’ll also be able to help you pick out tools as needed.”

“I don’t know what to say…”

“I’d start with, ‘Thanks, Fortuna, you’re the best,’ personally.”

“Uh, right…thanks Fortuna, you’re the best,” I echoed. “You’re not gonna try to make me help you steal stuff, right?”

“You already said you weren’t going to,” she pointed out, before smirking. “That being said it could be fun watching you panic while trying to open some nobleman’s vault, if the opportunity comes up, but we’ll worry about that when the time comes,” she said playfully. I decided it best to not ask if she was being serious.

While Fortuna helped train me in the art of thievery, breaking, and entering, Trakban was hard at work practicing his magic. We still hadn’t found him a suitable replacement for his staff, so he spent the first week or so obsessively training himself to channel mana through his hands. It was a slow, uneven, and unpredictable process that involved accidentally setting fire to the sails multiple times. By the end of that first week, he seemed to have gotten the hang of it, though he admitted that he probably would never be able to cast magic as well through his hands as he would through a focus such as a wand or a staff.

We definitely needed to figure that out.

You might have noticed that I’ve neglected to mention Arzias hiding. Well, that would be because, following her sudden appearance at the fight in Greygulf, there wasn’t much point in trying to hide her presence anymore. The crew had seen her in action, and they knew she was, if nothing else, on our side and wouldn’t be attacking or trying to eat any of them. At least, while they were still alive. Which provided some great incentive to keep themselves as well as the rest of us alive as we sailed to the Isle of Rampage.

Besides, after seeing her in action with that axe of hers, they immediately saw how she could make herself useful in the not-so-small task of sailing a ship. Also as it turns out, her eyesight was leagues better than most of the crew’s, and because she enjoyed climbing up and down the mast, she made herself at home in the crow’s nest. Speaking of, thankfully she had no problem climbing up and down the mast so we could put out Trakban’s accidental fires before they caused too much damage to the ship.

Now I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking the same thing. “Why didn’t Trakban just grab a stick or something to use as a wand or a staff as a mana focus?” I know this because I asked him myself, and he explained it to the best of his understanding, which is still leagues above my own. The truth is, were he a skilled enough magician that he could effectively and efficiently focus and channel through his hands, the “focus” probably wouldn’t really make a difference no matter what shape it came in, which would also kind of defeat the purpose of the stick in the first place. No, apparently wands and staffs need to be made of an absolute flawless material, whatever classification it comes from (though apparently this does not preclude shattering on impact with a werewolf’s skull), then they need to be infused with magic, and finally the user needs to attune to it by hanging onto it for a period of time proportional to the strength of the enchantments cast on it, usually a day, but sometimes as long as a week. Rarely, but occasionally, longer. Though at that point it’s questionable just how practical it would be to try to attune to the item, but hey, if you’ve got a month or more to spend for that tiara that shoots flaming chickens, be my guest.

In hindsight, the journey on the ship probably would have been the best time for Trakban to attune to a new staff, had we been able to find one for him. I mean, there’s only so much that can happen while traveling on the open seas, unless you’re unlucky enough to have a run-in with pirates or giant sea creatures, something that I was shocked to find didn’t happen all that frequently. I guess all those swashbuckling tales of heroism on the open sea I’d read as a child were exaggerated to a certain extent.

Well, that’s what I’d said for the first couple weeks. Because although it can be difficult to tell against the red sky and the rough seas beneath us, our sailors had been doing their thing for long enough to notice the approach of a huge storm heading straight for us.