I exited the interior of the ship to see Barcos and Em’ah both waiting. Barcos with a bored expression but I saw a slight smirk on his face, he was enjoying this. Then there was Em’ah, she was pissed, probably because I forced her to fight right after joining the crew but I tended toward trials by fire and she survived. It also gave me a good idea of her fighting style in case I ever needed to deal with her.

“We’re going to board the enemy ship, either of you have a way to fly over there?”

Em’ah harrumphed as she sprouted a pair of bat-like wings under her arms. I realized they were an imitation of the Dormian wings.

Barcos just chuckled, “see you slowpokes over there,” then he vanished like smoke in the wind.

When I looked at the enemy ship, I saw the idiot sitting and waving as he kicked his feet off the rear of their ship. I just shook my head and cast my Wings of the Falcon along with Blink Step. It allowed me to zip past the still irate Em’ah who hadn’t bothered to wait.

As I closed on the vessel, the deck became a beehive of activity as pirates boiled out from below the deck. Some tried to fire magic at me, not realizing they already had an enemy in their midst. Barcos lazily picked off the remaining ranged fighters, making the approach a breeze. Somehow I didn’t expect that to last.

I was right. As I landed on the deck, the fighting began immediately. I only had a moment to glance at Barcos and notice he hadn’t bothered to get off his perch and join me.

I growled in annoyance as I ripped through fighter after fighter, healing the damage I took. The pirates weren’t dumb, they were trying to either force me into a corner, where my staff would be less effective or right off the edge of the boat, not like that would help them much. I would just recast my wings and wade in again.

My staff was a blur as I fought back against the press of bodies, smacking blade after blade away as I punched, kicked, headbutted, or simply blasted my attackers with magic.

The fight wasn’t my normal melee brawl where I had time to cast a fancy spell or come up with a unique way of dealing with my opponents. No, this was a marathon of violence as blood and broken bodies littered the deck. I knew Em’ah was somewhere aboard as well but she had changed her disguise as I couldn’t spot her amongst the press of bodies.

I used everything I learned in my duels with Barcos but even that wasn’t enough as I was slowly pushed on the defensive. An enemy blade slipped through the defense of my staff, slicing a deep gash in my abdomen. Pain exploded through my body as whatever enchantment it was imbued with ripped through my body, making me tense up enough to take another blow.

I screamed, unleashing Banshee’s Wail. It was super effective!

Have you ever seen eardrums explode? Not simply rupture but explode, violently outward. Yeah, it's not a pretty sight. An entire swath of pirates dropped their weapons and clutched their ears while screaming.

The distraction gave me enough time to cast an Overcharged Frostwave on another chunk of pirates. From there the battle turned in my favor as I ruthlessly smashed through the remaining uninjured pirates with a twisted grin on my face. I almost wished I had made the faceplate of my helmet transparent so they could see the joy I was taking in cutting them down.

Already all of my wounds were healed, the status effect removed with Cleanse, and my body was on fire as my bones absorbed the collected reservoir of energy from the cumulative damage I had taken during the fight.

When it was just me and three other pirates, they broke. One tried to dive off the side, I hit him with an Energy Lance, blasting him across the deck. Another I hit with my new spell Tempest Ball. Turns out if you have a high enough Intelligence, the ball becomes a massive globe of water that can encompass an entire person. The Dormian struggled futilely as the currents of the spell continued to drag him back inside until he eventually ran out of breath and drowned.

I was about to finish the last one off when a dagger appeared in his throat. I heard Barcos drop down to the deck from behind me and clap. I glared at him.

“You could have helped!”

“I did, see,” he said, pointing to the man choking and trying to wrench the bloody dagger out. “Besides, you looked like you were having too much fun, I didn’t want to spoil that for you.”

I grunted in annoyance as I walked over to the last man and kicked him hard under the chin, snapping his head back and breaking his neck.

Em’ah took that moment to walk from below deck, holding a bloody ear. “Got the Captain, so what do you wanna do with the ship?”

I couldn’t even be annoyed with her for being absent during the fight since she was doing what she was hired to do, sneak in and be the silent blade when we couldn’t. As for her question, I hadn’t really thought about it. I just wanted to let loose. I certainly didn’t need another ship, especially one as roughed up as this one had gotten during our fight but then again, I’m sure I could sell it.

“Barcos, can you teleport back and tell Khikall and tell him to bring the Retribution around to the bow, were going to tow our prize to the nearest port.”

That seemed to get smiles out of these two, I’m sure once Khikall heard, he would be smiling as well.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

***

Towing the ship turned out to be a bit of a challenge but we figured it out. Someone did need to remain aboard to steer the new vessel though. I decided Barcos could do it since he pissed me off. Mostly it meant he had no access to the extensive alcohol collection aboard my ship, not that I thought the pirates didn’t have their own supply but let him drink that up first.

It was a bit nerve-wracking, towing the ship as neither could deploy shields during the journey. We could separate the ships in a moment if needed though. Thankfully, we never had to test that, not that we didn’t see a few ships on the horizon but apparently, two ships together were enough to keep any pirates looking for a quick score away.

I doubt they could even tell the ships were tied together as none ventured even close. We did get some odd looks as we coasted into the port, where we finally separated the slow and damaged vessel so it could dock and we took an adjacent dock.

Turns out selling a ship, especially a souped-up – even though it was significantly damaged – pirate ship was quite easy. It sold for over two hundred thousand credits and the loot we found aboard sold for another eighty thousand. Then there was the bounties, yup, more than one apparently. All-in-all a good haul, not that I cared about the money, I had spent over four times that amount to build the Retribution. But it was enough to restore any costs I had incurred since I arrived in the Isles of Mist and that was with my quarter split.

Seeing as we were all pretty flush with money, I let the others take a few days to rest and relax, or party it up. They certainly earned it.

I did take the time to look at my stats and the few skills I had managed to swipe during my orgy of violence.

There had been a number of magical weapons among the pirates. I let the others take their pick, the rest went into the armory aboard ship since I didn’t need the money.

Paul Fuller | Mantra Enchanter/Maw of the Void | Level 21/19

Strength: 20(+2) modifier x22

Endurance: 20 modifier x40

Agility: 20(+2) modifier x22

Perception: 18 modifier x22

Intelligence: 25 modifier x40

Wisdom: 16 modifier x22

Charisma: 11 modifier x22

Luck: 16 modifier x22

HP: 800(880)

Stamina: 400(440)

Stamina Regen(M): 880

Mana: 1000

Mana Regen(M): 352

My second class had now hit nineteen. I fully expected by the end of my pirate hunting, that it would hit twenty. No clue what that would entail, I didn’t think a third class was an option, and if someone like Barcos hadn’t gone down that route, it seemed unlikely. Really I was just looking forward to taking Strength, Endurance, and Agility to the second tier.

Maw of the Void was nice for a variety of skills but very few of those skills were ever all that impressive. I still liked the class though, it had some of my more colorful skills.

Speaking of skills, I looked at what I got from the rabble.

Blind Strike

Cursed Wound

Solid Footing

Cripling Slash

None of them were very impressive. Blind Strike allowed me to hit my target even if I couldn’t see them. Which given my ability to heal and my reflexes, was pretty pointless. Cursed Wound was ok except it required the curse to come from a source. Since I had nothing that generated curses, it was rather useless for me. Solid Footing was just a crutch for someone with low agility, seriously it only gave an increased chance to not slip or fall in adverse conditions. Lame. Cripling Slash was also useless for me since the, you know, no slashing weapons. It would probably work with my blade staff but I rarely used that. Certainly not enough to make holding onto a skill for a single weapon worthwhile.

I chucked all four to Void Lottery to see what I got.

Day Lily: Causes a flower to bloom. The day lily banishes all darkness in a 10m circle. Requires soil and water. Permanent. Cost 10 mana, cooldown 15 sec

Horn of Mechicat: Summons a horn. If you blow on the horn Mechicat will hear your call. If your faith is pure he will send a guardian to assist you. Cost 75 mana, cooldown 1 hour

I sighed. While Day Lily was useful it wasn’t all that great. Maybe if I got bored I could make a trail of the flowers. As for the horn, yeah that sounded like faith-based magic and I wasn’t touching that.

I tried to get rid of it along with that stupid Glob spell but I was unable to select Glob for Void Lottery or cast it to the void using Reclaim. I didn’t like that. I didn’t know what it might mean but it probably wasn’t anything good.

For now, all I could do was ignore the issue and move on to other things. My newest runic invention was almost complete. And seeing as we were docked for the next few days, I might even have time to install it.

The effect of the device wasn’t unique, I had built a similar device to help protect Saint June. The drainer was a bit more challenging to weaponize than I had first realized. The hardest part was constraining the effect and amplifying it to be more of a focused beam. This turned out to be a material issue instead of a runic one. I also couldn’t focus it as tightly as I wished.

What I was left with was what looked like a silver traffic cone attached to a fat stick. Said fat stick was covered in a complex array of runes. The entire cone had to be made from mithril and coated in runes to protect the surface from the rampant energy of the device. I could have used a cubic design instead of the stick, to make my life easier, but I wanted to be able to swap the device into my current weapon pods without having to modify anything.

I decided that the top forward-mounted mana cannons on the Retribution were going to be replaced by the null beam. Yeah, null beam was a much cooler-sounding name than drainer. It was also much closer to the weapon's actual function. Concentrating the entire focus of the draining function into a cone massively increased the effect it had. It would now wipe out most magic with a single burst.

This would normally be an issue since that much power rushing into a mana heart at once would easily overwhelm even the large core my ship used. I didn’t think it was enough to make the core explode but it may crack it or damage other sensitive components. So I had to figure out what to do with the extra power the device drew in. Well, why not power another weapon?

Above the cone sat what looked like a much larger mana cannon. And it was. Except that this mana cannon only drew energy from the cone instead of having its own internal mana heart capacitor.

I hadn’t been able to test it out yet, but I knew a few things would differ with this weapon, compared to a normal mana cannon. The energy released would be much stronger but it also wouldn’t be all in one concentrated burst. More like a mana flame thrower, still devastating but not in the same explosive way.

It's probably good that it didn’t act the same way as a mana cannon, I hadn’t ever been able to get my runic mana cannons to output at the same level as the enchanted ones so I doubted the weapon would remain intact if I had managed to compress all that energy into one ball of energy.

I finished assembling the device and checked it over one more time before nodding. It was time to install it.