I appreciated the consideration that Jim was giving me and my various handicaps, but the following days after my introduction to Stella proved that there were difficulties to overcome that we hadn’t planned for. While I knew that I could benefit from tutoring by someone with a useful skill, the fact remained that I was a boat, not a person. When I didn’t show any signs of progress on gaining a new skill from the blind seamstress, Jim worked up his nerve to ask Stella directly what her sensory skills were. It was a bit of a social faux pas, but Stella accepted the question with the good intentions it was asked with and willingly revealed her secrets.

Her Class, after a couple of upgrades, was that of the Kinesthetic Seamstress. While it primarily gave her abilities that let her work with fabric and thread more easily despite being blind, some of the Skills she had learned were more generally applicable. Two in particular helped her to get around despite not being able to see where she was going. [Ghostly Fingers] was the first one. While originally it had just given her additional hands and fingers she could use to hold her projects in place, she had expanded the skill over time, improving the number of constructs she could control and the feedback she received from them. Even when she wasn’t actively using them to manipulate objects next to her, the fingers of the Skill provided her a good idea of what was around her. It was as if at all moments she was constantly touching the surfaces within a few meters of her, giving her a rough outline of what was nearby and what it was shaped like. Because it relied on the sensation of touch, it had some issues with feeling water, which had been a large part of the reason Stella hadn’t wanted to risk travel by canal before Jim had befriended her.

Her other skill was a minor precognitive ability called [A Stitch in Time]. It provided her with a small amount of warning if her current actions would lead to a minor mistake. While it primarily helped to ensure that Stella could always catch herself before making a mistake while sewing, the temporal warning the skill provided allowed her to react to issues that she wasn’t able to see. The downside of the skill was that it really only worked for small problems. She would have entire seconds to let her catch upcoming issues while working with cloth to avoid pricking herself, but the warning against rolling an ankle would barely give her enough time to adjust her footing, and it was useless for anything stronger than a door opening unexpectedly in her face.

Both of those skills were quite versatile, and I could see how Stella had managed to tailor them to suit her personal needs, but were equally unsuited for helping me improve my own sensory condition. [Ghostly Fingers] relied on Stella’s own sense of touch to feed her information. As a blind tailor she had devoted most of her life to learning to read the world at her fingertips, and her body and skills were all suited for letting her work wonders with her hands. While I did have some level of feedback from my oars, it was little more than a blunt sense of pressure. Useful enough for letting me know if I was hitting an obstacle, but it meant that even with Ghostly fingers I would be unable to gather useful information from my surroundings.

[A Stitch In Time] might have worked in theory, but I couldn’t put myself into a position to actually learn it. Unlike [Ghostly Fingers] it needed to have some level of danger for the Skill to activate, and our boat trips were singularly uneventful. I had considered trying to surprise her with something that would cause it to trigger, but I couldn’t bring myself to the point that I wanted to harm a blind girl for my own benefit. Besides which, while precognition would be useful, I rarely found myself in situations with minor negative outcomes. Most hazards that came my way would either do nothing to me, or would leave a permanent injury that Jim and I would need to repair later. In the end I simply gave up pursuing the Skill as a lost cause and simply enjoyed spending the time with an intelligent person more than willing to practice her dry wit against helpless Jim.

While never intentional, I was able to unlock a few skills from some of my passengers. Mostly minor things, with the most useful likely being [Direction Sense] It was a cheap enough Skill that I immediately bought it, and provided me with a mental compass that was permanently active in my head. It would have limited uses out in the ocean where directions didn’t matter as much, but it certainly helped me to keep my bearings while in the city.

Still, most of our customers were socialites or housewives, and none of their skills were either easily demonstrable or applicable to my situation as a boat. It was the unusual customers that I began to keep an eye out for, both due to the fact that they tended to be more interesting trips, and because of the rare possibility of them having something useful for me.

Our latest customer was a middle-aged man who insisted that Jim refer to him as ‘Wiz’. From the moment he walked up to Jim looking for a cheap ride I had taken a liking to him. His personality was best described as bombastic, and it was all Jim could do to say polite nothings while Wiz carried the conversation all by himself, managing to verbally bully Jim into a half price deal in return for entertainment at the same time as Wiz was settling down on my bench as if it was already a done deal. Jim was forced to start rowing by the sheer momentum of the man’s actions, giving his implicit agreement to the unusual arrangement that had been made.

“Welcome, one and all, to the greatest magical show you are about to see performed, today.” Wiz was a consummate showman, and while I couldn’t see him, I didn’t need to. His voice easily drew my attention making sure I and the rest of his audience only noticed what he wanted us to.

“Now see here young man. I say watch my hands, because I’m about to show you just why they call me the Wiz. Nothing up my sleeves, nothing behind my fingers, nothing up your sleeves here either.” “Hey!” Jim protested the apparent intrusion.

“So if you’re watching closely, you’ll have to ask yourself just where, exactly, did this scarf come from? Only it’s not just a scarf, it’s a ribbon snake.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Get it away from me!”

“Get what away from you? There's nothing there after all!” Jim was still panting after that sudden shock, but there didn’t seem to be an end to Wiz’s tricks.

“Now I have here, the sum we’ve agreed on for this voyage, a sum of six copper coins, count them one, two, three, four, five, and six! All ordinary coins, you won’t have any problems storing these in the bank, no siree.”

“It costs more than six…” Jim tried to butt in and argue for more money for the trip than Wiz had unilaterally decided on, but it wasn’t easy to stop a performance of this scale.

“Yes, with just these six coins I will perform a feat of magic, the likes of which you’ve never seen before. The first goes in your ear, out the other ear, and then on top of your head, where I push it in with a pat. The second goes in my mouth,” There’s a short pause. “Vanishes from there, to who knows where! The third coin, I’ll use to brain that passing seagull. Number four I’ll wedge here into this crack, smack it hard, and suddenly it’s gone!” I felt it when he wedged the coin into place, but it definitely wasn’t there once he slammed his hand down onto it. But it didn’t feel like he wiggled it out and into his hand either.

“Now what suggestions do you have for the last two coins, good sir?” Wiz asked leadingly.

“Give me my money.” Jim wasn’t playing along, but I could have told him that any engagement at all was something that a showman can work with.

“Well why didn’t you say so! Everyone likes making some fast money after all.” There’s a grunt of exertion, and the boat wobbles a bit as Wiz threw the coins and Jim tried to duck out of the way. He apparently succeeded, as shortly afterwards there were two soft splashes as the coins landed in the canal behind me.

“Oh no!” Wiz said in the most over the top, dramatic, drawn-out exclamation I’ve ever heard. “All my money is gone, and now I have no way to pay you for your superior service. If only someone could tell me just where all those coins ended up at. Did you happen to see where it all went?”

Jim had learned his lesson and stayed silent for once. Wiz responded by imitating a lady’s voice. “Those strong silent types; only good for one thing.” Shots fired, he dropped the falsetto and returned to his normal method of presentation. “If only there was someone else that we could ask, someone who might know where the secret treasure is hidden.” He paused, both to build up the tension, but also to work his magic.

Literally work his magic, that is. I felt as the spell he cast came into being, focused on me as it was. It wasn’t an enchantment like Lirillin had painstakingly woven into my frame, but it felt familiar in some ways. The main difference was that instead of connecting to me and relying on my mana to power everything, Wiz was still fueling the spell. The purpose of the spell was still incomprehensible to me, right up until Wiz started to manipulate the mana that he had running through it.

“I do believe the coins are under your seat, Mr. Boatman.” It’s a woman’s voice, and it came not from anyone in me or on the shore of the canal, but from my prow. It came from the spell woven onto me, and even while Jim was gawking in shock at the sudden reveal I acted. [Mana Infusion] surged into life once more, targeted not at my frame or my barnacles but at the spell lying on top of them. I hadn’t ever done anything like this before, but that didn't matter at all in the heat of the moment. I saw a way to regain a proper voice for myself, and I took it. My mana forced Wiz’s out, moving quickly enough that the spell barely quivered before it was fully mine.

“It’s not down here!” Jim argued, as he searched along the bottom of my hull for the missing coins. I felt a nudge from what remained of Wiz’s mana, and without knowing how I knew it was a sentence, parsing it out took a moment, but then I decided to say it anyways, eager to test out my new voice.

“They’re under your seat because you’re sitting on them.” Jim actually did jump at that, a combination of shock and wanting to move to check if my statement was true, and while Wiz had better control of his reactions, I still felt it as he braced himself at the surprise of my new voice. The spell had been constructed with a woman's voice, the perfect invisible stage assistant for Wiz, and I would have tolerated it just to be able to speak again, but taking over the spell had infused my own intentions into the matrix of it. The voice that came out was unmistakably masculine, even if it lacked the accent and markers that would have reminded me of my human voice. Still, it was a voice, and I would make it mine in time and with practice. I spoke again for the sheer pleasure of it.

“I do believe this is your stop, Wiz?”

“More than first meets the eye.” Wiz said mysteriously. “I do believe our paths will cross again, if only to satisfy my curiosity, young sir. It’s rare that I encounter another practitioner of the arts, rarer still for them to have the talent to usurp my spell like that, and decidedly unique to see them plying your particular trade.”

Jim didn’t know quite how to react to the sudden switch in personality. “Thank you?” He asked in response, but it satisfied Wiz, who began to climb out onto the shore.

Jim very pointedly didn’t say anything, even as he guided me back towards our usual berth. We’ll need to head out again to pick up more business and to take Stella home once she’s done with work for the day, but I’m also eager to be in a place where we can talk freely.

“What the hell?!” Jim half yelled once it’s safe for him to do so. “Warn a guy next time, alright? I was just counting the yards till we could get rid of him, and then he made you speak, and then you spoke, and, and, and how?”

“Sorry about springing it on you like that. I think he uses actual magic to make his tricks work, and one of the spells he used was a ventriloquism one, targeted on me. I just grabbed the spell and made it my own, somehow. Sorry for not warning you, but I didn’t know I was going to do that until I did.”

“No, you don’t need to apologize for that. You getting your own voice is great! You’ve gotten good with your oar slapping, but it feels good to just talk with you.”

“It does.” I agreed, putting as much emotion as I could into the words, and enjoying the ability to do so.

“So is this what you sounded like? Before, you know..” Once again Jim trailed off as he realized how impolite his question was.

“No, I had a different voice as a human, but I can work with this one. It’s good to be able to talk with you, Jim.”

“You as well, Robert. You as well.”