————— Waid
The rippling wave juggled the ship back and forth, and Waid held the steering wheel high. The storm was vicious, the wind so strong Waid could hear the whooshing sound and the taste of salt. He bit his lips seeing his fellow crewmates slip over, thrown overboard, and a few trying to hold ropes and cages preventing them from being flown. Waid admired their commitment of them, which made it harder as they had lost a couple of mates.
“Hold your standing! We almost make it out of here.” Waid cheered a word of encouragement. He didn’t know whether they would make it or not. It was just a wishful guess.
“Keep the ship going North!” Their navigator, Pry, held herself against the wind next to Waid. She had been controlling the ship’s direction for the whole duration. Waid called Pry the acting captain of the ship because whether the sea had anything against them, Pry would be the one to call the action.
“We are losing track! We are heading East-North!” Pry yelled out even though she was holding onto Waid’s shoulders.
“How long until we are out of this storm?”
“I am not the one who decides that! We are on track now!” Waid felt like he would have gone deaf listening to Pry’s yelling.
“Where’s the captain?”
“I think he’s in his cabin.”
Waid went red from hearing that. He grumbled hearing how horrible their captain was. The guy contained a lot of wisdom, but his physicality didn’t fit enough to be on the sea. Yet he chose so. For his sake and their sake Waid supposed.
Waid held the wheel tight, and leaned over at the hedge, looking over his rambling crew. They were a mess.
“Hold on to anything closest to you as tight as possible! We are getting out of this storm, and I promise we will never return here again!” Another word of encouragement. Waid knew they needed this. Especially when they have that rot of a captain. The crew pulled their best and held tight on ledges, ropes, boxes, and anything that prevented them from flying out.
“Can you hold this for me, Pry?” Waid left handles on the wheel, and Pry seized the steering wheel instantly, almost dropping her compass.
“I’m talking to the captain.” Waid jumped over the ledges onto the slippery deck, he nearly tripped and got dragged along with the wave. He glanced at the wheel to see Pry struggling.
“Anyone down there got a free hand? Get up here and hold this wheel for me!” Pry screamed. She has a powerful voice that commands anyone unlucky enough to hear her.
Waid saw one guy walk up the stairs and prayed he was willing enough to take on the challenge. Waid treaded along the deck to the other side, and as he lost balance, he slammed into the doors and fell face down.
Waid pushed himself up, his boots were moist with rain water, and he was indulged in the smell of salt and fish.
“Captain!” Waid kept walking forward. He kept going until he staggered into the captain’s cabin. He glared up, and the first thing that struck him was the captain’s ragging face. The captain sat at his table, filled with trophies he made himself, and weapons - guns and swords, with an ancient map of the Koshi Sea.
“What’s the matter do you have here?” Captain Isaac spoke with a grumbling voice. He sounded like a man who smoked a lot and punctured his lungs.
“Why aren’t you out there, Isaac?” Waid kicked a stool as he made his way toward Isaac. Waid heard the thunder ramble. Rain opaqued whatever was hiding outside those windows.
“Have you looked at me yet?” Isaac spun around, showing his skeleton figure and sickly skin.
“Your voice holds more power. You go out there and scream, we may still have some more men left on board.”
“I have my leeway. I don’t care about those up there, I made a deal, and that deal meant that you leave me alone.” Isaac’s voice growled deeper the longer he spoke.
Waid held himself back, talking to Isaac more wouldn’t do him any more good. Their actual captain was waiting for them back at the guild. That was the thing that demanded more of Waid’s attention, and he wanted to keep it that way.
The doors behind Waid swung open, he turned around to see Pry leisurely step in.
“The weather has cooled down a bit. The waves are still bothering us, I’m scared the ship's gonna flip anytime soon now.”
“Just keep it running and pray.” Waid left the room with Pry. He stopped, pondering for a bit, then pointed right at Isaac.
“I’m gonna tell them to cut you out of this business. Screw your lineage. They don’t worth a damn if you’re this pathetic.” Waid slammed the door as he got out.
————— Lloyd
“You can’t explain? You’re the user.” Lloyd held up Triss’ bow and arrows pack. He was about to ask more, but a fish slapped his face from above. He whined and looked up, seeing Roc just hovered in the air.
“Tic, another fish for you.” Lloyd leaned over to see Tic, not taking it that Tic was asleep, with another fish in his right hand and a knife in his left hand. Tic told Lloyd he was trained in filler fish, and he could store the fish in less space, so when they found land it would cost them less time to cook and fill their hunger.
“Triss, do you remember when and how did you learn how to do this bow magic?”
“I was born with it. I never learn it.”
“At least you have to learn the way of controlling it, right?”
“Yeah, but I learned it naturally. It’s the same as learning to walk. I have no memories of me learning how to walk.”
Lloyd sighed. He thought having Triss here would bring him another page worth of materials in his notebook, but in the end, it remained empty.
“I think we are closer to the North now.” Lloyd stared down at his compass resting on his lap.
“What’s out there?”
“In the North?”
“No, I mean the world.”
Lloyd shook his head.
“I am just as oblivious as you. I never step foot outside of my hometown, my island.”
“You said you’re an explorer.”
“Doesn’t mean I am an experienced one.”
“Can you find the pirates that killed my people?”
Triss spoke with such a monotone voice, that Lloyd thought he heard it wrong. It was strange to him how a young girl could have said that with no emotion behind her voice.
“It gonna takes time. We can’t approach the way you want us to.”
“I can handle them myself.” Triss conveyed with a straight tone. This girl meant everything she said.
“I know your magic is an extraordinary feat, but you’re just only one girl. We were lucky back there.”
“How long do you estimate we’ll find them?”
“Triss, I’m being serious. We are on the sea. It will take years, and I mean it. Even when they are well-known pirates.”
Tic woke up from his nap. Lloyd turned over to see Tic with his knife craving the fish into pieces and bits of flesh. He organized on a cloth laid flat, then tied the cloth four sides into bows, having all the flesh as a package.
“Can you make that without the smell?” Lloyd covered his nose. The smell didn’t bother Triss.
“You are doing it. Covering your noses.” Tic threw his knife around, effectively skilled with it.
“Where did you get that knife?” Lloyd gave the bow back to Triss. She wore it overhead.
“I have been holding it the whole time.”
“I mean when did you get a hold of it?”
“It’s just a knife. Nothing special about it.” Lloyd chose not to trust Tic on this. The knife has a sigil in the shape of a triangle with a dot in the middle. Maybe Tic stole it from somebody. The knife looked too well-polished to be possessed by a slave.
“Can I see it?” Lloyd held his open palm out to Tic.
Tic stared at Lloyd, then flipped the knife around, holding it at the tip, and let Lloyd touch the handle.
“What’s up North?” Triss had her head by the edge, looking at the water, looking at herself.
“I read that there’s a guild for sailors located on an island. And it doesn’t say it specifically, but it wrote the island belongs up North.”
Triss made a noise that sounded intriguing. Lloyd analyzed the knife with his limited blacksmith knowledge, he reminded himself of his uncle, an expertly trained blacksmith who built weapons for the soldiers on their island.
“What was in that bag of you?” Triss lent her hand out to touch the water.
“Something important of my mother. She gave it to me as a lucky charm. It has the shape of a bird that looks like Roc.” Lloyd pointed the tip of the knife at Roc flying around them.
“Then what is it? What is it made of? Is it valuable if you sell it?”
“You asked a lot.”
“I want to know.”
“I see land.” Tic’s spoken words captured everyone’s attention.
Though the heavy mist opaqued their visions of the land, Lloyd squinted his eyes to clear the blur, and what he saw made his mouth drop.
“I thought we were going North,” Lloyd said.
“We trust you on that,” Tic said.
“I don’t think this place is located in North.”
“Where are we?”
As they followed the waves closer and closer onto the land, the mist opened up and revealed to them a bricked building that vastly dwarfed everyone walking. The building was marked in the centre with a sigil of an anchor. In front of the building held a shore. The shore filled with sailors and fishermen, doing their jobs as usual. The bay contained every ship of different kinds, but Lloyd realized there were no ships with black flags.
“This is a marine quarter. A headquarter.” Lloyd answered to himself.
“Well, won’t you look at that?” Tic spoke.
“You’re happy?”
“They’re marines. Why won’t you be happy?”
Lloyd frowned. He had a few low points with the Marines, especially on their ideologies of laws and justice, but he couldn’t deny they were what kept the sea safe from pirates and fouls.
“Rope the boat into the empty shore right there. We’ll go in.” Lloyd pointed at it. Tic waved at another sailor who roped his ship, and surprisingly he was glad to help them. Tic picked up the rope attached to the tip of their boat, and threw it over to the sailor - he caught it with ease.
“Where are you people from?” The sailor asked as he held onto the rope and walked toward the shore dragging their boat, instead of pulling it in.
“We’re just stranded explorers passing by.” Lloyd gave the knife back to Tic.
As the boat approached the sand, the sailor tied their rope around the column stabled by the pier.
“Why are you here then?”
“We went the wrong way. Do you people have any places to fix my compass?” Lloyd pulled out his compass and held it front-faced at the sailor. The sailor grabbed it and played around with it, noticing the arrow pointed in the wrong direction.
“You have to go to the central for this. We only live in the outskirts so I don’t think we provide these kinds of services.” The sailor has done his work. He then carried the net of marcels from his ship and went the other way.
“Thank you.” Lloyd petted Roc who just landed on his shoulder. Lloyd had a pad around his shoulder to prevent Roc’s claws from digging into his skin. It happened to him once, and his right shoulder and arm were immobile for the whole month.
“Make sure everything is off the boat, then we’ll find the place to fix my compass.”
Tic cleaned off the remains of the fish on the boat with a cloth he borrowed from a fellow fisherman. He hated it at first due to the fishy smell, but he somehow made it smell worse.
Triss held the bow and arrows to her as tight as possible, she didn’t want to lose them as they were valuable for the market especially when Triss was the one who possessed them.
“Don’t forget to tighten the rope even more. The guy may have loosened it on purpose.” Lloyd talked from experience, though he lacked the exploring experience, he made it up in the local training of sailing and common sense. It was a common trick for frauds to cooperate in stealing the boat.
“It’s taken care of.” Tic pulled the rope harder as he was putting his knife away, but he raised his eyebrows at the fishermen who just arrived at the shore. What kept his attention did the same thing for Lloyd. The fishermen hurled the creature in a net toward the shore, and it was a sight to behold. The creature was the size of a cow, the horns of a goat, the shape of an angelfish, and the teeth of a tiger. It was something out of Lloyd’s imagination.
“Strap it up onto that cage will ya?” The fisherman who took part in hurling the creature gave the order as a group of men were pushing a ventilated cage.
Lloyd was already taking notes, he couldn’t contain himself to not record this event. He drew the creature in horrible art, he described it as a mix of different parts of land animals, and he stopped at the final step, a blank space on the top - he needed a name.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
He stopped a sailor passing by.
“What do you call that thing?” Lloyd asked as they were finishing putting that creature into the cage, and then flipped the cage over, now with the sliding door at the top.
“I don’t know what they call it out there,” The sailor tossed his stuff onto his sailing yacht. “but here, we call them Nyx.”
Lloyd spelt the name out with his pen, filling out the top of the page. The “Nyx” page.
“How is it looking?” Lloyd showed the page to Tic and Triss. They emoted a mix between a grimace and a smirk.
“You need to draw better than that if you want to record stuff,” Tic spoke.
“Is that more important than the pieces of information?” Lloyd looked at his drawing.
“People learn a lot by visual, Lloyd. That’s how I always do it. No one gives a shit about the information if the visual doesn’t appeal to them.”
“Me too.” Triss raised her hand.
Lloyd frowned as he was planning how to improve his artistic skills. He didn’t know how important it is to be good at drawing. It could bite him back someday.
“I think we can go now.” Lloyd felt like everything was with them. He supposed nothing was left behind as they were walking toward the town, following the rocky path. Lloyd wanted to escape from the salty feeling of the sea, and this was a great time for him.
————— Waid
“Waid, catch this!” Waid turned over on the call as Vonn threw a leather bag over to him. Waid caught it with ease.
“What is this?”
“One of the bags we found hanging around while we were checking the place.” Vonn held onto the steering wheel with one hand, not in urgency to make a turn.
Waid asked himself why Vonn kept this bag specifically. Was it valuable? He answered by opening the bag up and seeing what was inside of it.
Nothing. Except for a chain. Waid pulled out a steel chain and snitched it together into something he could hang around his neck.
“What’s about this thing?” Waid waddled a bit due to the waves hitting the ship.
“Look closer at the chain,” Vonn said.
Waid kept his eyes closer to the chain, and he saw a pattern imprinted on each individual chain. The pattern painted the chain with dignity, as it was the image of a skull that built the pattern.
“What use are you giving me this?” Waid held the chain near the sunlight, wanting to see how well-polished the chain was. It shined brightly.
“It looks valuable to me. I want you to decide what to do with it. Sell it or wear it.”
Waid pondered about the possibilities of this chain. If he sold it, and it came out as valuable, word of mouth would spread quickly and he would lose the chain before he could find a better place to sell it.
If he wore it, his fashion sense wouldn’t have improved that much either. They were pirates, and thinking about what to wear every day fell below their priority list. Even worse, Waid knew himself the best, and he wouldn’t care much and ended up losing the chain.
In the end, Waid wore it around his neck, adding a little extra to his overall aura.
“It may bring me luck. I don’t know what could happen.”
“I think we are about to be there, Waid.” A voice belonged to Mura, the sailing master of the ship, who was taking the duty of sightseeing on the mast at the time.
“Be ready to anchor!” Waid bellowed.
The crew placed boxes and barrels of fish and treasures near the ledges, saving time for them when dropping them off. Their anchor stabled at the desk, and a guy was holding a sledgehammer, ready to hit the big chain attached to the anchor to drop it off.
From afar, Waid’s eyesight diluted from a long time ago because of sands and specks of dust falling into his eyes, sunlight contributed too.
“Are we in the right place?” Waid screamed at the mast.
“I have never been wrong!” Mura exclaimed.
Waid chuckled. That was a rhetorical question for passing time. Waid put a lot of trust in every single person on his crew. He had been taught the importance of loyalty in a sea crew, and if there was an anomaly in the mass, there would be consequences down the line.
—————
Their ship didn’t stop and crashed into the shore, breaking wood and hitting a few passing by their days. Waid didn’t anticipate the dilution of the wind, he suspected it was diverted on purpose because a wind moving unnaturally like that only belongs in a fairy tale. Hell - even fairy tales were based on true stories.
Vonn lost the wheel right away and jumped over on the deck, thinking of something to do, but he stood there dumbfounded by what was unfolding. The ship went onto the sand, and Waid saw people running out of the way.
“Why does the ship keep going?”
“Someone or something is making the wind stronger! We can’t fix it that.” Mura slid down using a rope.
“Screw magic! Screw all of this fantastical stuff! Everyone jump off board!” Waid screamed out in the hope every word would reach his crew’s ears.
They followed his orders. And it was a mess. People got stuck in ropes from tangling and fell lethally onto the sand. Some landed on the wrong side and broke their limbs. Waid considered himself lucky. He slammed into the wood-panelled floor as the ship suddenly stopped, and broke his nose. His eyes were weary because of the dust.
Everything seemed to be calmer than a few seconds ago. It was due to shock - everyone was recovering from the collision. What happened?
“We will need to explain everything.” Vonn sighed. He walked up to Waid who was holding his nose up. A few drops of blood slid down his nostrils.
“It’s simple. Just said the truth. We don’t know. I’m more worried they will have to be responsible for paying the damage.” Waid said. Vonn hissed like a snarling beast.
“We got all of the stuff from that island,” Vonn said.
“We are not giving away our stuff.” Waid insisted. The stuff they achieved from attacking that island was worth more than he ever thought.
Waid was so put up with the facts of the matter he didn’t realize people were crowding around his ship and him. He forgot he was a well-known face around his area.
“I’m sorry, folks. This was out of my control.” Waid tried to save himself knowing they would demand him ransom. And they were vicious. Especially the old man who asked them for their fortune just because the ship crashed his dog.
Waid didn’t know how he could escape this situation alive, but his priority shifted. He needed to find the culprit.
—————
“It was out of your control?” The guild’s master repeats Waid’s justification. Thane was his name.
“The wind change in strength was unnatural. Vonn was the best navigator I ever had, and he didn’t anticipate that at all.”
Waid snuggled around in the rusted chair he had to sit in. Thane’s room held the sickly scent of alcohol. It was lit with dangling lanterns attracting flies and wasps. Waid got distracted by the disgusting head of an elephant stamped up on the wall in front of him.
“Do you have proof it was unnatural?”
“Are you trying to pad time here? Any sailors would know the wind’s sudden shift was something wrong-”
“I’m the one paying for the damage. Whatever is going on with the wind doesn’t bother me, because in the end, your ship crashed into my shore, and I’m the one dealing with it.”
Waid couldn’t refute or argue with that. He wanted to say something for the sake of it but remained quiet.
“How’s it going with that island I assigned you?”
“We found some valuable stuff. And we found something you’re looking for. Magic.”
Thane’s eyes widened. It was the face of their former captain - Waid’s former captain.
“A girl can manipulate her arrows in a way. I don’t know how to describe it.”
“Does she shoot the arrows?”
“Yes. We lost some of our guys because of her. They exploded.”
“As in” Thane made a blow sound while his hands were making the motion.
“You stand correct. And they were normal arrows. I saw no dynamites attached to them.”
Waid smiled noticing the small changes in the facial structure of Thane. He believed he caught his attention and made Thane forget about the damage, but it’s not going to remain that way for long.
“Where is she?”
“We didn’t follow her.”
“Why?”
“Our job is to see the existence of magic. We don’t need proof. Now that you and I know there’s a girl out there who can do fairy tale things with her arrows, I don’t think she’s the only one.”
“Are you going to find her after setting off?” Thane’s parrot flew through the windows and landed in its cage.
“Not unless you are going with us. Having an acting captain is an embarrassment to us. We need you.”
“Isaac is a friend of mine.”
“I don’t care. And I don’t want to be captain, not while you’re still alive.”
“I can’t leave this guild.”
“But I know you would prefer finding that girl.”
Thane sighed.
“You want to talk to the Guilds’ Council with me?”
“Gladly,” Waid exclaimed, grinning with all his whole. He convinced the captain to go back with the crew, now he just needed to get him out of the Council. Waid anticipated it to be a tough job. The Council believed they had power because they had money. It’s about to be painful.
————— Lloyd
“Where did you find this compass?” The shopkeeper asked. His shop is filled with shelves of different accessories of use - watches, binoculars, compasses, hooks, etc. But it was missing something Lloyd was looking for, quills and inks.
“It was my father’s.”
“Then where did your father find it?”
“I don’t know. What’s about it?”
The shopkeeper held a small microscope in his hand, small enough to fit around his right eye, with his other eye closed.
“Nothing special about it besides the artistry, it is very admirable.”
“Can you get it fixed?”
“Yes, but it may take a few days.”
“A few days? Can you work faster?”
“I’m sorry, sir-”
“Lloyd.”
“Sir Lloyd. I have a few orders in my work list and I don’t want to rush.”
Lloyd knew patience was king at the moment, but he was pondering what they gonna do being stuck on this land.
“How many is a few days?”
“At least three days.”
“Do you know a place we can stay at?”
“There’s an inn inside in the central.”
Lloyd checked off the list inside his head. Now they just needed money. To pay for the inn, and to pay for the compass.
“Are you keeping the compass?” Lloyd wondered.
“Yes, I need to analyze it.” The shopkeeper grinned. Lloyd felt like something about this guy seemed not right, but he trusted the local’s judgment.
“I leave it to you.” Lloyd walked out of there fast, before the shopkeeper asked him for the payment. He made himself a deadline that may have been impossible. Money in three days. His options were vast, but somehow they were always narrowed down to crimes.
“How was it?” Tic sat by the rocky edges of a bridge. Below them was a river riveting with fishes and seaweeds.
“I found an inn for us to stay, the problem is we have to stay three days, and we don’t have money.”
“We can sell our boat,” Tic spoke.
“And get a new boat? That’s even more expensive!”
“I don’t mind living here for a while.”
“I do mind.” Lloyd looked around, “Where’s Triss?”
“She told me she went to practising her shooting.”
“Are you serious? Where is she?” Lloyd’s voice went louder for a bit.
“She said she’ll be back.”
“She seriously cannot be alone.”
————— Triss
The smell of grass and dirt bothered Triss, she never in life had seen this much green. Her aim with the bow was at a willow - at a target she craved herself. Though this place was out of her comfort zone, Triss oddly felt at peace for the first time after losing everything. Her house, her people, and her place of oddity were all gone.
Her first shot was a normal arrow with nothing imposed. It hit the outskirts of the centre, and splinters of wood fell out.
Her second shot was a risk as she held it with imposing energy. She is bound to be releasing energy on impact. Once the arrow hits the tree, energy will flow through the roots and then explode into matter.
All of that happened. But Triss made a big mistake. The energy she imposed into that arrow was too much. It exploded the tree and then went to do the same thing for the grounds and piles of earth around it. She turned it into a scene that she knew caught everyone’s attention. She crouched down to avoid the collision.
Triss cursed at herself. She revealed her power. The authorities were quick to occupy the scene, and she was in danger.
She would become wanted by everyone because she was special.