Strands of dried kelp and strings of sparkling shells softly brushed our heads as we ducked beneath the coral archway into the inn.

The interior of the Coral Wraith was intimate and cool. The first thing that caught my attention was a hearty, pungent smell of cooking food. A low fire gently crackled in a sunken pit in the centre of the room with different strangely-coloured cubes of meats on skewers, dripping sizzling fat into it. The walls were made of pale coral, and within carved, ornately-decorated alcoves, fur-covered benches were set around tables, polished smooth by years of rested hands.

There were a few patrons, mostly coral-folk, sat about deep in drink and conversation, but I passed as a blur to the small bar, behind which were lined on coral shelves salt-encrusted corked bottles and clay jugs.

Greeting us was a coral-folk woman with an air of calm authority, black hair streaked with grey poured thinly from her pate, and stormy-grey, wrinkled eyes set on us warmly as we leant against the bar. She uncorked two bottles of water with her thick, hard-skinned fingers and set them down on the bar.

Breathing out a quick, “Hullo,” I guzzled down gulps, then coughed, spluttered, and continued until half was downed, and gave a long whistling exhale.

“Been out on the Sands too long, eh?” her voice was rough and commanding, but her mouth was set in a wry smile. “I’m Madam Kal, and this is the Coral Wraith, home of the chargrilled kraken skewer. What can I do you for?”

I chuckled at the familiar turn of phrase, and gave the same quick introduction I’d given to Gatekeeper Fis. As I spoke, hunger hit me like a brick wall. Skill use definitely seemed to spike the appetite, and I’d hardly eaten anything for days. I immediately requested two of the skewers.

Madam Kal clicked her fingers, though the sound was more like the snapping of crab claws, and a young coral-folk, or Khalnari, still soft-shelled, stumbled through a wall of seaweed and crustaceans behind her and raced over to the fire.

Skewer in hand, feasting on the bouncy, but not too tough, meat, I turned to the room and reached for the Analysis Card in my pouch. Nothing stood out, save for a blue-skinned desert-folk man named Nishir the Salt-Walker, who sat in the corner of the room, eyes lost in thought under a dark frown, absent-mindedly pressing a fishbone knife into the table with one finger and spinning it with the other.

“You two seem on edge. Did Fis give you a hard time?”

“That’s one of the reasons,” I mumbled with my mouth full, then swallowed. “We’ve had a difficult road, and we’re not sure how to reach our destination. Do you know the Hanging City of Ith-Korr?”

Wiping down a glazed coral mug, she nodded, “Of course — the Jewel of the Boiling Sea! You can get there on foot by following the coastline, though you’d have to pass beneath the Ribs, and they’ve been fraught with highwaymen of late. . . . Better to check the port to see if any boats are heading up that way soon.”

“Boats! Of course! Alator, let’s do the next leg of the journey sitting on a lovely boat, drink in hand, gentle breeze in our hair, wistfully moving over the . . . why’s it called the Boiling Sea?”

// SYS : BEWARE the Boiling Sea! See how its blackened waters churn with volcanic fury beneath, geysers erupting like the breath of titans! Hear the tortured groan of the hull as vessels barely cling to survival, as moment-to-moment they could be capsized, their foolish sailors thrown into the treacherous abyss! Pray — for here, even the sea itself burns with malice! Here, where steam rises in pillars from the depth — //

I get it, thanks.

“It’s not actually boiling,” shrugged Madam Kal. “Only in one or two places, mostly it’s just scalding. Soft things like you'd be burnt pink in moments. Anyway, if you get the right sailor, they’ll be able to navigate the hot patches and avoid the fumes, and you’ll be at Ith-Korr before you know it.”

“Hot patches . . . fumes . . .” I muttered.

Nothing in this world is normal.

“I don’t like the sea, but that is probably safer than walking the roads,” Alator accepted. “We could use another few days to recover from these wounds. That’s settled, then.”

Why didn’t you suggest sailing, SYS?

// SYS : BEWARE the Boiling Sea! See how — //

Okay.

Alator turned to Kal, “Do you know any coral-folk who might be happy to ferry us up tomorrow?”

She thought for a moment, setting a glass down and pulling on the loose skin of her neck absent-mindedly with her enormous tortoise-paw.

“Raik, maybe? He’s an old hat, but he’s survived the worst the Boiling Sea has to offer — spent his whole life on the water. Sorry, I don’t spend much time by the port, and we don’t get many sailors in the Coral Wraith. . . .”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Not to worry. Do you have a room for us?” Alator asked.

“Of course,” Madam Kal said. The little Khalnari boy had his hands up on the bar, peering at us in turn. I made funny faces at him and he giggled. Addressing him, she said, “Can you make up a room? How many —”

“Two beds,” I said.

She nodded, and shooed the boy away, and he ran down the low coral hallway, his soft shell shifting slightly on his back, and disappeared through a thin driftwood door.

As I lay in bed that night, I spent a little time reaching my consciousness deep into that slow-flowing stream of power. I found that the Skills within, though white at first glance, all had very slightly different glows to them — [Battle Tactics] was an urgent crimson red, [Weapon Mastery] was a cold steel blue, and [Vigour] was an enduring burnt orange. [Vigour], as a clear representation of its Level improvement, had another orb connected to it and now sat at the bottom of the stream like small amber beads.

Feeling the energy of each at my fingertips, I noticed also a couple more very slight hints of colour beneath the surface of the water: a natural forest green and an earthy sandy brown.

Are those new skills, SYS?

// SYS : Are you asking for more spoilers about Barbican? //

Is it possible the knowledge could save me from a horrible death?

// SYS : . . . Yes. Your passive exploits over the past few days have led to burgeoning arrivals of [Beast Mastery] and [Survivalism]. You have not yet reached Level 1 in either of these Skills, so you cannot call upon them, but continue as you are, and they will form. //

Man I really wished I’d done more research before deciding on Barbican. . . .

There was a twinge of guilt in my stomach for constantly asking SYS about the World’s secrets, or maybe I thought that I’d just have more fun discovering this myself.

[Beast Mastery] must have something to do with improving my utility while interacting with beasts in the same way as [Weapon Mastery] does for weapons — that is, communicating with animals.

I had a feeling I had witnessed multiple uses of [Survivalism] by Alator while passing through the Glass Flats, allowing him to read signs from the World and decide on a path even when completely lost.

Excited, I threw myself off the bed and did a similar exercise, but for my physical body. Stretching gradually, then quite erratically, I found myself limber and powerful in ways that I would have never dreamed of, back on Earth. Testing my newfound Strength and Dexterity, my muscles responded with fluid ease.

I felt like a child again — an invincible child. I dropped into a deep squat, then sprang back up effortlessly, throwing myself back over myself and twisting, then landing perfectly in a 180-backflip. I grinned, then lunged forwards, grunting and imagining a foe — my old MegaCorp boss, as it happened — and shadowboxed with my newfound brilliance.

“Go to sleep,” Alator grumbled from his cot.

“Can’t,” I said, continuing to throw punches and duck imagined attacks.

“Then get out.” He threw a jute cushion, which I caught, and he rolled over. I stuck my tongue out at the back of his head and left the room.

The tavern was empty at this point, though the faint flickering of an oil-lamp was visible through the seaweed curtain behind the bar. Moving silently, I passed through and outside. A beautiful chill crept on the night, and the breeze carried salt and brine that crept up the sides of houses and overhead, in the far dome-arc of the sky, glinted thousands of stars.

It turned out there were three moons, smaller than our own, set at rough cardinal points. I stood for a moment in the middle of the empty street, staring up at the faint light. How long had it been since I’d seen the stars?

Have I ever really seen them? . . .

The morning brought the heat again, and the scent of roasting meat; a satisfying breakfast of yet more seared kraken — the taste and texture easily overlooked by my empty and still-demanding stomach — crispy kelp pancakes drizzled with a sweet fish oil, and a few mouthfuls of a mashed starchy vegetable called saltroot. We then settled up for drinks, food and board (four copper), and made quickly to the main thoroughfare.

In the kind short hours after dawn, there was a pleasant buzz to the town. Where the teeming streets of the late afternoon the day before had felt overwhelming, like the coral walls were closing in, they now seemed only peaceful and welcoming.

Through gaps in the tall, twisted-spire coral buildings, we caught glimpses of the glistening dark sea beyond, but we stopped at a few stalls on the way. I bought some sandals with a tight string-tied fit (two copper), but couldn’t find any replacement armour.

Then, a coral-folk merchant, introduced as Sed, beckoned us with such an emphatic spiel that we were drawn over naturally. His eyes were large and bright under his shell, which had been painted with pictures of the sea. Beneath a colourful awning, painted in the same style as his shell, were shelves piled high with strange items — woven baskets full of shimmering fish scales, multi-coloured seaweed and little, misshapen pearls. Clearly we had looked over everything for a moment too long, as his voice became hurried:

“Looking for something specific, traveller? I’m sure Sea-Shell Sed has everything you seek, if you can pay the price. . . .”

“Journeying food,” I said, simply. “And directions, if you could, to the nearest weapon craftsman.”

“A blacksmith?”

Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten the word.

“Do you need it written down?” my companion leaned into Sed's shed.

Can forever count on Always Aggravated Alator to hurry an awkward social situation along — or make it exponentially more awkward . . . and potentially deadly.

Sed handed over six dense flatbreads — what he called Seaflour Loaf — for two pieces of copper, then narrowed his eyes to slits.

“You haven’t got violent dealings in Zhai-Khul, have you?”

“No, we plan to leave as soon as we’re equipped.”

“And do you have the means to pay?”

I shook my pouch, copper jingling within. After looking around a little sheepishly, he whispered:

“There’s no . . . sanctioned way to buy weapons outside Ith-Korr on the Boiling Sea — violent trade is controlled by the Wardship in the Hanging City, but —” his eyes widened and he straightened up, as I saw out of the corner of my eye one of the broad coral-folk guards stamping through the street. Sed raised his voice, “Just bread for you, h’m? I can’t interest you in some fine pearlery?”

I rolled my eyes and waited a few moments for the guard to disappear into the growing crowds. “You were about to offer me some weaponry?”

His back hunched over again as he leant forwards, and a mischievous glint took his eye.

“Right this way.”