After stepping onto the ship the captain busied himself with some tasks and Sam looked around. Honestly, there wasn’t much to look at, but he took the time to fire off several Clean spells to clear up the decades of grime and muck from the gray deck of the skiff. Which turned out to be pine colored.
‘Huh, well that’s something…’
When the captain saw it, he just let out a pleased-sounding grunt and then pointed at several areas while Sam dutifully used his spell several more times. The end result was a clean ship, a less frowny old scallywag, and him sitting on a seat that wasn’t sticky with grime.
All in all, worth the mana spent on it.
With the preparations completed, the captain pulled up the anchor and Sam felt the mana starting to move in the older man’s body, heading somewhere at the bottom of the ship. ‘Probably, a propeller…’
Soon, they left the marina, and with the sail unfurled they were heading toward their destination.
Sam just sat at the back and enjoyed the sea, the wind whipping at his face, while using his Mana Sense to make sure that nobody followed them over the water or under.
It took around an hour of leisurely sailing before the sails were taken in, and the old man let out a grunt.
Sam looked up from his reading upon hearing it.
“We've arrived?”
Another grunt for his answer.
“Anchor down?”
SPLASH
Followed by one more grunt.
“Thanks, Captain!”
There were no more grunts. The old man instead busied himself with taking out a tackle box and a spiffy-looking fishing rod, ready to cull the local fish population.
Sam also stood up and began his own preparations.
He took off his cloak, placing it into his inventory, then he took off his boots and socks, replacing them with simple flippers he got in one of the hobbyist shops in Deepanchor. Then he made sure all of his armor was fixed properly and put everything that wasn’t necessary into his inventory. No sense, after all, to lose something down in the murky depths. Finally, he retrieved simple diving goggles – also bought in the hobbyist shop – and the rebreather Liz crafted. He affixed them to his face, making sure there were no gaps, and began warming up while also circulating his mana and reaffirming the presence of his Mana Shield.
Then with a final stretch, he stepped forward and launched himself off the ship, leaving an old man with his fishing rod staring at the spot where he had just been.
“Ridiculous…” the man murmured, then shrugged and sat down in his usual, albeit clean spot to wait for his client to return.
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The water was cold.
Very cold, but thanks to his armor and mana, soon the cold faded into the background. Sam looked around and cast his senses out. It took only a few minutes, while he was heading deeper to find something that wasn’t natural water mana. He sensed several low-powered artifacts, some of them familiar from when he was walking around in the harbor.
Heading toward it, he made sure to be aware of everything. Water after all wasn’t his preferred medium. Nemo he was not.
As he sunk deeper and deeper, he could see less and less. This was solved by conjuring a ball of light and then strengthening it while constraining the light in front of him, essentially creating a high-strength light beam. Even with the magical light, the colors were rapidly washing out, leaving everything with a gray tint.
However, before Sam could contemplate this, he soon spotted the first non-natural landmark. The deteriorated remains of a wooden mast.
Directing his gaze, and most importantly his light downward, he finally laid his eyes on the missing ship. It was laying on its side, and Sam could see a giant empty area where the middle of the keel was supposed to be. Distressingly, the hole looked as if something had taken a bite out of it.
Almost next to the ship, instead of the seafloor was inky darkness, as the ship slept eternally, only a few yards away from the true abyss.
Sam spent a good minute taking in the site, as well as trying to pierce the all-consuming darkness with his light, but as he suspected, the abyss was an abyss for a reason.
A simple light spell wouldn’t reveal its secrets.
Instead, he turned back to the ship and widened the light beam, searching for any identifying marks.
It took a little swimming around the ship but he managed to find the logo of the Morrison Merchant Company on one of the pieces of wood debris, lying on the seafloor, heavily covered in sea life.
Satisfied, he did another wide area check with his senses, but he could only sense the water mana swirling around the currents and the innumerable fishes and other life all around him.
‘Welp, time to search the ship…’
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He did an imaginary knuckle crack and began moving toward the wreck.
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The search was useless.
The ship had clearly been picked clean by people previously. He couldn’t even find a skeleton, not to mention treasure. He searched the ship from the top to the bottom, from the front to the back, even going so far as to cut holes into the remaining walls of the ship so that he could access areas that other people seemingly didn’t.
But everything was empty. Suspiciously empty.
Sam hovered in the water, his light beam going all over the ship while he probed the area with it, hoping to see something that would illuminate the situation.
Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be as he sensed something moving in the water mana. However, before he could react, a giant tentacle unfurled from the abyss beyond the ship and grabbed him with surprising speed.
Sam felt himself rocketing toward the abyss, carried in the giant tentacle and thought.
‘Now I know what took a bite out of the ship…’
He hurtled through the water, hands constrained by the tentacle. Finally, after a second of rapid movement, he came to a stop and his light illuminated a giant octopus-like monster clinging to the wall of the sea cliff.
Naturally, it had eight legs, one of which was holding Sam, two were covered in barbs that looked rather unfriendly and were closing on Sam’s head, while the rest of them were used by the monster to cling to the wall. Its skin was colored exactly like the wall, though whether it was natural or some kind of chameleon-like biological mechanism, was up in the air. Or rather water.
And in the middle of its body was a giant beak, big enough to be the one that took a bite out of the ship, and as the monster opened it, ready to munch on Sam, he could see rows upon rows of extremely sharp-looking teeth.
‘Oh, boy, time to get out of here!’
With barely a flex of his will, he activated Wind Blade Storm, turning into a small water tornado, while shredding the tentacle holding him at the same time.
The octopus monster let out a screech, and another two tentacles joined the ones already heading for his head, while the damaged one retreated. Though Sam knew, or at least guessed, that the monster had some kind of regeneration.
Honestly, without any specialized skill for fighting underwater monsters, he didn’t have much chance against something that lived – at least partially – in the abyss.
But he didn’t have to win. Just get away from the monster.
Thus started the battle.
Sam began by sending several barrages of Wind Bullets mixed with Wind Blades at the giant octopus with tentacles that were thicker than a grown male.
The tentacled monster retaliated by releasing a cloud of ink, muddying the water, not just by obscuring what little vision Sam had, but by also confusing the mana around him.
Seeing as he couldn’t sense the monster, Sam instantly enveloped himself with another Blade Storm, just in time for the two tentacles ending in barbs to crash into it.
As the tentacles retreated a little, he used the momentary breather to shoot air downwards to propel himself back over the sea shelf. Fighting over the abyss was causing his anxiety to skyrocket.
He barely moved a few feet before the tentacles returned and he was back fighting the monster.
Activating his Wind Movement and Shadow Grace he managed to gain enough speed that he could somewhat react to the monster’s movements as his Mana Sense was completely shot thanks to the ink dispersed in the water.
Soon, the water was filled with tentacles flailing and him surrounded by a tornado worth of Wind Blades, while he dodged the water jets fired from the tentacled monster’s mouth. Thankfully, the Flow skill was extremely useful in the water. He could feel and react to the smallest movement of the water. However, it was only thanks to his speed-increasing skills that he could complete said movements.
The first tentacle he damaged was already back, completely healed, ready to rip him apart.
Thankfully, despite the aggressive octopus, he was getting closer and closer to the shelf.
Another tentacle tried to grab him by his leg to pull him down, but he just let loose an overpowered Wind Blade leaving a cut on the tentacle and causing the monster to retract it. Using this small break, he directed a giant wind bullet directly downward and shot up with incredible speed.
‘Holy fuck! That’s one tenacious fucker…’
He thought as he crossed the imaginary line between the sea shelf and the abyss.
Sadly, the monster didn’t much care for this line, and Sam could see the giant tentacles emerge from the darkness.
However, thanks to the distance he put between himself and the monster he finally had time to take a breather and use a skill he didn’t dare to use while he was over the abyss.
He raised both of his hands as his flippered feet kept him in one place and began charging up a massive Wind Explosion.
Sam took a moment to channel enough mana into the spell to cause some damage, then simply kept holding the swirling mass of destructive mana as the tentacles continued to grow bigger and bigger until the head of the monster emerged from the abyss.
For the first time, Sam could look directly into the malevolent eyes of the monster.
The only thing he could see there was hunger.
He waited until he could see the maw of the monster and then let go of the sphere of destruction.
‘Eat this, bitch!’
The ball of mana shot through the water, disturbing the sediment for a moment then…
BAAAMMM
The moment it happened, Sam was sent careening backward while everything was covered in ink and sand.
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He shook his head, trying to regain his bearing as he was buffeted around by the aftershocks of the explosion that he caused.
Oddly detached, he absentmindedly noted that he had lost several layers of his Mana Shield and one of his flippers, and the right lens of his goggles was cracked.
‘Right, time to get back to the ship…’ he mused as he cast out once more with his Mana Sense.
Sadly, the ink was still in the water so he only got back confusing images. However, there were no tentacles or giant octopus monsters. And as he looked around, there were no more ships either as a very big part of the sea shelf was missing.
‘Better than being a meal for a sea monster…’ he thought morbidly before turning upward and using gentle pushes with his wind mana began rising.
He didn’t want to get decompression sickness so he made sure to rest every few feet until he could see the surface light. Sam extinguished his own light and tried to not rush upward.
Finally, he broke the surface near the boat.
He grabbed hold of the edge and pulled himself upwards, until he was sitting on the deck, breathing heavily, exhausted.
Sam ripped the goggles off, threw them into his inventory, then gently removed the rebreather and made an attempt to dry his face with a nearby towel.
Then as he was partially clean, he frowned and looked up.
Over him, grinning from ear to ear, was a person holding a crossbow aiming directly at his face.
A quick glance to the side showed that the captain of the skiff was held up with a similar individual holding another crossbow.
The man naturally noticed that Sam finally saw him and opened his mouth, showcasing his abysmal dental hygiene.
“Hands up, idiot!”
Sam naturally raised his hands, stone-faced.
“Good! Now stand up slowly and don’t even think about any funny business!” came the instruction from the man. He followed the instruction and as he stood he also looked around.
To his surprise, next to the small skiff was a bigger ship, with several pirates looking down on them, also grinning.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now you come with us, to enjoy our… hospitality!” came the answer which was finished by a chortle, while the people up on the bigger ship openly laughed.
“Oh no, just not that…”