My routine visits to Jorgagu and the subsequent hours of mind-numbing and throat-destroying orcish language practice lasted a day before second mate Lockwood visited me, flanked by a pair of fighters. Honestly, I was surprised that much time had passed. I’d expected him to poke his nose where it didn’t belong much sooner.

“Mr. Harter,” he said. “The prisoner is not to have any interaction with the crew.”

I eyed him, then the toughs he’d brought. He didn’t need the muscle if he was relying on his authority, but I doubted even he would be foolish enough to start a fight. Maybe they just made him feel better?

“Mr. Lockwood,” I responded, treating him with the same courtesy even as I thought of a way to phrase this without cussing him. “I don’t mean to quibble, but you don’t have any business interfering with what we mages do aboard this ship. You are a peer of mine at best, and in navy-speak that means you can sod off.”

“Are you looking for trouble?” He said, in what was supposed to be a menacing voice. To his credit, it was a very good menacing voice – I just considered him utterly beneath me.

“Do you aim to help me find some?” I said, casually leaning forward. Professional fighters would have a normal mage in a very bad spot, as they could get close and kill him before he could prepare meaningful spells. As a mixed skills mage, I could handle myself. My self-assuredness called Lockwood’s bluff.

“You seemed determined to find yourself in irons with your insubordinate behavior!” he said as they left. “You watch yourself!”

I muttered something unflattering as he departed earshot, making Jorgagu chuckle. He wasn’t fluent, but had a decent grasp on human language and my interaction with Lockwood hadn’t needed an explanation.

“Make that man angry make trouble for you?” he asked with a grin. Conversation partner or not, he seemed to enjoy the thought of us humans duking it out.

“He will try.” I said. “I won’t care.”

He rumbled, then said a phrase in orcish that I was able to pick a few words out of, but the context meant nothing to me. My relatively high intelligence level helped me pick up words and syntax just like his did, though my biggest problem was learning to use my throat to say the words correctly. I legitimately had to use a healing spell to help with the pace I was attempting.

After a few minutes of struggle in mixed human/orcish, I had the phrase parsed out. It was an idiom – which was why it made no sense to me. A translation of the essence would be ‘don’t turn your back on a snake’ but literally translated referred to some kind of title or cultural position that was inherently untrustworthy. The meaning was clear, and the warning heard. Lockwood could be dangerous and I shouldn’t take him lightly. I didn’t necessarily have to worry about him, but dismissing him ignored his threat.

Jorgagu enchanted while we talked. He didn’t share details of his profession beyond using related words he knew in human and translating for me. I knew the orcish word for ‘enchanting’ but not how he did it. I suspected he deliberately withheld that because he thought I’d leave once I’d satisfied my curiosity regarding it.

At first I thought he just wanted someone to talk to, to share his language with. I came to realize that Jorgagu was also establishing me as an opponent. It was a weird cultural realization, but the orc truly wanted to know me and understand me for the sake of having a ‘worthy enemy’. Even saying that didn’t fit right. It wasn’t that he was looking for a good fight with someone at his skill level, it was that he wanted to understand me; my levels, skills, history, personality … all so that if he fought and killed me he’d know who he had killed. Through some questioning I found out this was not unique to Jorgagu, and was a central theme of their warrior’s code. It took the military principle of ‘know your enemy’ to a whole new level.

For all that, Jorgagu wasn’t hostile. To his way of thinking, he was a prisoner with no means of escape. He was obligated to do whatever he could to ensure a means of successful escape so his talents could be used by his people again. If that meant using his profession to secure good treatment from us humans, he would do so without compunctions.

I asked how many times he’d tried to escape, and he said only once. Even that had been mostly a test. He’d had no means of returning to his home on Bandarn even if he broke free from captivity, so he hadn’t had a reason to try any harder.

I was summoned to Captain Darius’ cabin before the evening mess. My father looked at me with the same expression he’d first had when he’d pronounced I would be trouble.

“Mr. Lockwood insists that you are a spy.”

“And?”

“Do you care to elaborate on why you seem to only spend time with the Tarish cook and orc prisoner?”

“The Tarish is an old friend – you know that from Graves’ letter. The orc is an opportunity. I’ve never met an enchanter. They’ve always been far off behind secure walls and the best-paid guards. Yet enchanted munitions are the backbone of naval warfare – without them we’d be relegated to mages and boarding parties. I have the unique opportunity of an enchanter as my captive audience – all at the price of learning some of his language.”

Darius studied me closely. He wasn’t wearing his coat and a bottle of liquor was in sight – even if it was still full – but he was still a very sharp man, and skilled. “That’s all?”

I shrugged. “There’s also the fact no one else seems to enjoy my company these days.”

He chuckled. “I warned you your face was ugly. Now get out, and don’t cause me any trouble on my ship.”

He said things like that, and over the next few weeks I – and Lockwood and many others – were called in to have a chat with him where we were ‘counseled’ on our behavior and occasionally given a slap on the wrist. Yet when it came to actually addressing the issues he didn’t seem to want to bother. Not even when those issues presented clear threats to the ‘good order and discipline’ the navy used as a catch-all performance standard.

When a man slept through his watch, Captain Darius told Billings to see to his discipline and went to his cabin. Billings rarely took any responsibility if he could pass it off, and would delegate it to Lockwood. The way Lockwood always expected it, I wondered if the second mate didn’t have some sort of blackmail on the first, but he always maintained the illusion of respect and civility for his senior. When tasked, Lockwood would pronounce judgement.

That first man to sleep through watch was a lackey of Lockwood’s. He was reprimanded. The second man to be late for his watch was not, and was caned. A man who pilfered a jug of rum and was found drunk on duty was also a lackey, and his punishment was extra cleaning duty – contrary to established naval regulations.

Now I probably wasn’t the best Captain on the sea, but the fishy smell on board was bloody obvious.

No one said anything about it.

Oh, the crew grumbled. ‘So-and-so got off easy, so-and-so had the book thrown at them.’ But no one asked the question why, as if by mutual agreement none should speak of it. And if as though by some uncommunicated signal, the standards of the ship plummeted.

Infractions to regulations were routine. I wasn’t one to point at a navy manual and say its word was law, but there was no sense of fairness or justice on board. The efficiency of the ship slipped from average to abysmal, and between that and the regular infractions there were mistakes aplenty. There were squabbles amongst the men that had to be broken up by the bruisers loyal to Lockwood. We took 8 days longer to reach our first objective than I’d initially forecasted when we left.

Darius hadn’t lied about our mission. We met up with another navy ship – Darius communicating with their own wind mage on the location – and transferred over to them all the munitions Jorgagu had enchanted. The orc worked around the clock and had some skill that let him enchant things in larger batches, so the transfer wasn’t insubstantial. As soon as it was complete, the other ship went on its way and we went on ours.

I mostly held my peace on the issues with the crew. Twice I’d put my nose in it and both times I’d had Lockwood, then Billings, then Darius tell me the operations of the crew were not my concern, I was not on board the ship for my seamanship skills, and under no circumstances was I to mess with the status quo. Fine. Let the ship spiral into misery and stagnation, see if I care! I’ve watched it happen once before, why not a second time?

I realized that what hurt me the most wasn’t seeing a naval ship run so poorly – it was seeing a repeat of the Death’s Consort.

The crew had no higher ideal and little aspirations for any. They were the troublemakers and dregs thrown together here; there was racism against the world but no patriotism for their own land. There was the pursuit of power and progression, but only against the others on board.

Could I liken them to the crew of slaves and slavers I’d conscripted and tried to bind together?

Though the navy prided itself on its hierarchy of rank, the officers of the Isa lacked the skills, capability – even the right character – to fulfill their obligations. They seemed to be assigned to their posts without respect of who they were, instead out of convenience.

Perhaps like how I’d assigned Burdette as my second?

Above the whole mess sat Darius, my father. He was by all accounts a promising man, a hero and a leader. His stats said he had what it took. He had the knowledge to whip this ship into shape and force it away from its intended trajectory as a punishment detail and turn it into the best floating emergency-supply station the navy had.

Instead he withdrew. He delegated away his responsibility and authority. He wallowed inside his cabin on the unfairness of quests and fate and how he was nearly the greatest man in the human fleet, assuaging his misery with stacked debuffs of alcohol.

He behaved like I had. I had withdrawn into my misery and the unfairness of my treatment by Davy Jones. I had ignored the Melancholy Voice of the Crew status that had drained the strength from my crew by the day. I’d said nothing about the violence we’d caused or the deeds we’d done. I had ignored the influence of my first mate as he wrested authority away from me.

Like how the tides went out and returned, the story was playing out again … and it pained me. I wanted to spare the men on the ship – even that arrogant Lockwood – from themselves. I wanted to spare my father from the same things I’d undergone.

That was the leadership side of me, anyway. Another voice – that of the wounded, abandoned son – still cried out to his father ‘why?’ Why don’t you do something about this? Why don’t you prove that you are more, that you are capable? Why don’t you show me that you could have been the man who stayed?

I spent those weeks on board silently asking those questions without getting any answers.

The early mornings I spent with Gerald, talking and helping him prepare meals if he needed an extra set of hands. Daily I learned the orcish language with Jorgagu, and could now boast an amateur’s skill level at a second language – with the help of regularly healing my vocal chords as I trained myself how to say things without tearing them apart. In the evenings I dined with the other officers on the best food Gerald could prepare, dodging or ignoring the vicious verbal sparring of the others. Some evenings – not all, but many – I spent with my father.

I’d tell him of my life when he asked, careful of my true history. Many things were generic to all sailors, and I could share those easily enough. I’d even find rapport with him over those simple anecdotes, as he shared similar experiences of his own. He’d been born into a privileged family, but one that had a rich tradition of its men earning their honor. He’d been awed by visits to the sea as a young lad, and decided that he’d make his fortune as a naval officer. His upbringing had been a convoluted mix of skill-training practiced by those who had both connections and money, and a free ‘you are on your own now, figure it out’ that created quite a few similar events to my own life.

He mentioned a group he’d become a part of in his youth: Michaels who was now an admiral; and Brennon Marston, gone from the world too soon. I knew this much from my last conversation with Hali, as she’d put together details she knew of me to finger Darius as my father even without the help of my quest.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Darius didn’t elaborate on his group much, besides a tale or two of their shenanigans. Michaels was the slightly older, more level-headed one. Brennan Marston was all charisma and enthusiasm. My father didn’t know it, but he helped fill in blanks to the story my mother could never share.

Three young junior naval officers, in town for shore leave. Michaels was the responsible voice of reason, but never directly interfered with his fellow’s foolishness, not even when a man offered them a pretty girl for a fistful of their savings. Michaels would turn in early to his rooms alone. Darius would make his ‘one lifelong mistake’ and leave the girl pregnant. Brennon Marston’s eyes would turn from lust to love and he would try to marry the girl before dying unexpectedly and leaving her at the mercy of a noble house facing public scandal.

I’d been the man who turned a blind eye to his shipmates’ whoring, but I felt like there was a lot more culpability due when I heard the story from the perspective of one left a victim from it.

Through the stories he was willing to share, I got to know my father’s history while incognito. Through the way he ran his ship, I observed my father’s fall from grace. Through careful prevarication, my Hide True Nature ability and my Necklace of Persona, I hid who I was from those who established themselves as my enemies.

Or so I thought.

Jorgagu was wise when he warned against turning your back on a snake.

It was the dead of night and I was sound asleep on my pallet in the galley where Gerald and I both made our beds. The day had been long – not because of any physical labor but because of the mind-numbing effects of practicing a new language, followed by maintaining my cover story in front of my father – and I was dead to the world. The only reason I awoke was because of the advice of Davy Jones – the advice that I put aside any other progression until I got the Domain ability.

The effects of Domain were the first thing on my mind as I woke. How it was screaming at me that there was someone too close to me. Gerald was an arm’s length away, and I almost dismissed the whole thing to turn over and sleep again. That would have been fatal. I saw no one, but Domain insisted that there was someone kneeling over Gerald … even now reaching over towards me. That I couldn’t see them with my own eyes meant they were in stealth. No one had any business being in stealth aboard a ship, certainly not one kneeling above us as we slept.

I lashed out with air push, knocking the rogue back where he tripped over Gerald’s legs and fell on his backside, simultaneously falling out of stealth. Gerald didn’t stir. I flicked a pair of knives from their hidden sheathes on my body and was rewarded with one hit, as even off-balance the rogue had a skill that countered my first blade.

I reached into my bag for a better weapon, as getting into a blade fight with anyone in close quarters was a good way to get cut up – much less with a rogue. My preferred trident or spears were too large for the galley, so my hand drew a sword. It had better reach than daggers and was ubiquitous as a close-combat weapon, for all that it was inferior in open combat.

I moved towards the rogue but he scuttled away and fled into the passageway, his body not making a sound even as he crashed against the doorframe. His clothes had to have some sort of silencing enchantment on them.

I followed him with my senses rather than rushing after him. Now that I was awake and focused I could see anyone on the ship or in the water below – my domain only cutting off for land and the sky. I saw him rush towards the deck below where he was met by three others. A moment later they were all returning.

“Gerald,” I said. “Time to get up.”

My friend didn’t respond.

“Come on,” I said, nudging him roughly with my foot before seeing the dark stain by his ribs. “Gerald!” I shouted, heedless of whomever might hear me. My tarish friend was staring sightlessly up, his chest lightly shuddering as he attempted to breathe but couldn’t, his HP was a disappearing sliver. “NO!” I shouted. I would not lose a friend like this. I would not!

Replenishing waters drained my entire mana pool minus what I’d used against the rogue. Using it all in an instant left me reeling, but the powerful deeper magic spell of healing stitched Gerald’s flesh back together and removed the blood from his lungs. I ran out of mana before it completely filled his health pool, but he would live.

I would not lose another friend. Not even if it left me with an empty mana pool as enemies rushed towards us.

I reached into my bag for a potion but didn’t have the time. I assumed each of the fighters rushing towards me were capable, and if I let them crowd me and Gerald in the galley I wouldn’t have a chance. I rushed towards the door to the passageway and met them there, my sword striking out and making the first man curse as he tried to dodge backwards in the narrow confines and found his onrushing allies in his way. I held at the doorway, using it as a funnel to restrict them.

They didn’t immediately charge back at me, instead making way for the last person in their lineup to step forward.

Lockwood.

“So, you’re finally caught out, aren’t you Seaborn?”

He knew! But I didn’t get any notification of my ability failing? How did they sidestep that?

They would have had to put the pieces together, but resisted ever analyzing me to verify. They knew, but because they hadn’t actually ‘pierced’ my ability with the knowledge, I wasn’t alerted to the realization.

Lockwood was crafty in a way I hadn’t given him credit for. Or rather, in a way I’d ignored because I was too focused on my father.

“You must see that you are finally caught! Surrender and you and the Tarish will both be imprisoned only. Otherwise you both die.”

“Not willing to face me in action?” I said, stalling. “First an assassin – whom I can sense even now – then negotiations for surrender? You must know my reputation, yet you only bring three others with you?”

Lockwood grinned, a sick look on his face. “You’re soft. For all the tricks you’ve managed, you can’t stand up to a real fight.” I was about to boast about the dozens I’d put down when Lockwood proved he wasn’t just a monologuing villain. “Rush him!”

I didn’t even have time to curse as the fighters closed the distance, much less finish my attempt to stealthily remove a mana potion. Lockwood had apparently seen it, and correctly realized my mana wasn’t full.

I hadn’t had the time to cast the movement buffs I depended on when fighting enemies of superior skill. I fought defensively and still was taking numerous cuts. Oh, why couldn’t I have ever picked up a single level with a shield?

I still held them off, even if my position was untenable. If this had been a different situation, if I didn’t have to protect Gerald and could slip out of the galley to lead these typecast fighters along a merry trap-filled chase of the ship, I could have dealt with them easily. Instead, I’d been forced into a loosing position. I hated fighting these positions!

I held my ground for thirty seconds against them at the cost of 55 HP and several small ongoing bleeds. Then the first fighter got impatient. He was the bull of a man who I’d first been introduced to when he’d out dirty-fought me when they’d been picking on Gerald on shore. My blade struck true as he pushed forward, cutting him deeply. He ignored it as he bowled me over, knocking me out of the funnel I’d held at the doorway. He stepped back to put pressure on his wound, but the damage to my position was done as his fellows filled in behind him.

I’d scarcely held my own when I had the doorframe helping. Now I had to deal with fighters flanking me, attacking from all angles, all without magic?

Shiv that.

I didn’t have the five seconds it would take to down a mana potion, but I pulled a trap from my bag in two seconds and only took one cut as I deflected the other strike. I activated the trap in my hand.

Sharp wire coated in numbing agent shot out, filling the confines of the galley. My left hand had been holding it, and I instantly lost all feeling in it as it scored and stacked debuffs on me, as well as losing most of the mobility of that whole arm. I narrowly avoided losing an eye as a wire cut my cheek and nose.

But my opponents – all crowded close – were effected too. One even let his blade tumble from his fingers as his own hand and forearm were cut up mid-strike. As one, they recoiled. I pulled back myself and gained some distance from them, but didn’t back myself right against the counter where I’d lose any room to retreat.

“What did you hope to just do?” Lockwood demanded, even as his fighters muttered much less kind things about my crazy trap detonation. “This numbing agent? It slows you too!”

“True,” I said. “But slowing us all down gives me time, and I just need enough mana to finish all this at once.” That was part bluff – I did need mana but I didn’t have a crazy powerful spell to overwhelm them all.

Lockwood scowled and glanced at the door, either wishing his assassin would have joined the fray before the room turned against his style of fighting or thinking of getting reinforcements. I was surprised that Lockwood only brought three men with him, but I guess it was in character. The second mate was all about claiming personal power – and what better story than how he’d personally unmasked Domenic Seaborn and captured him himself? He was angling for the prestige he’d get if he solved this without Captain Darius even knowing, stepping on Darius’ disgrace as a rising star stepping up to answer the call.

He was foolish. If my father had been in on this I couldn’t have faced his power without mana of my own or being in the sea.

Lockwood growled. “You heard him,” he told his men. “We’ve got to finish him off quickly!” He stepped forward, trying to tamp down the sharp wire, when a frying pan flew out of nowhere and glanced off his skull, sending him stumbling backwards.

The fighters gawked as Gerald pulled himself off the ground and grabbed the next thing on the counter – a pot. They’d heard from the assassin that the Tarish was done for, and had dismissed him after seeing his body when they entered the room. Honestly, I had too. I’d thought he was dead weight while his body recovered, and didn’t know if he was out for minutes or hours.

I didn’t let my surprise stop me from pulling out a mana potion, though I had to drop my sword to do it as my left hand was still out of commission. The fighters stepped forward as I chugged it, but they were too slow. Their debuffs, the mess of wire between us, and Gerald throwing things at a pace faster than the rest of us could move slowed them enough. I had mana again!

A few air blades showcased my new danger to the fighters. Trained, disciplined men could have still pushed forward, but then men like that probably wouldn’t have balked so much at my trap. These men retreated, giving us space while they looked for a weakness or easy opening. I didn’t give them one, instead casting all my movement buffs and pulling out my trident. This wasn’t the best environment for it, but with its reach and the trap wire keeping distance between me and my foes, it would work. With my movement buffs, the slowing effects of the agent I’d treated the trap with were negated.

I had the upper hand once more. They just didn’t know it yet.

The fighters did manage to shove the mess of wire to one side, but they’d taken so much time and so many cuts in doing so they were completely compromised. I didn’t expose at first that I was no longer as slowed as they, instead bleeding them as they pushed, whittling down their health pools. When they were getting low and desperate, I let loose. I feinted at Lockwood only to spin and thrust the tines of my trident into the chest of one of the fighters. The newly made weapon slipped out of his chest as easily as it had entered, unlike the old one. I harangued the next fighter while Lockwood realized the trouble he was in and called for the assassin to stop waiting outside and get in here, even while he ducked for the passageway.

I threw the trident. Lockwood had stewarded his HP better than his fighters, but there’s only so much you can do when a thrown trident catches your neck right below the jaw. He fell into the passageway and the trident caught on the door, wrenching the tines and nearly decapitating him as he fell.

The last fighter froze as he saw Lockwood go down, no doubt stunned that the magnificent bully had actually bit the dust. It allowed me to throw a knife for a critical hit, and one last air blade finished him off. The rogue tried to flee.

There was a small crowd of people waiting and watching, drawn by the sounds of conflict but realizing things were out of their league. Uninvolved with Lockwood’s attempts at a glorious assassination, they had no idea what was happening.

“Grab that man!” I ordered as the rogue attempted to flee through them. The crew might not have recognized my authority when it came to seamanship, but they recognized that I was a war mage aboard the ship, and if there was confused fighting going on and I gave them an order they would comply.

The rogue hissed at his fellows that they were making a mistake, that he had to escape. I had a spear in hand as I called for him to face me. He turned, drawing a blade. He knew who I was, and he expected death. His action, though, of drawing a weapon on me justified my strikes. He tried to dodge but the very first blade I’d hit him with when I first caught him off guard had severely injured him, and he couldn’t manage. My follow up strikes brutally ended him, making the rest of the crew cower back.

I dropped the spear and pointed behind me. “Lockwood has attempted a mutiny! All of you men are to return to your posts or your sleeping quarters, and if I or the other officers give you an order to surrender a weapon you will do so immediately! I am going to speak with the Captain, you all disperse until we can sort this mess out.”

The crew knew the second mate’s character well enough they bought the story about a mutiny for now. Any former lackeys of the second mate were cowed enough by his death and my authority that they didn’t object either.

I returned to the galley, checking in with Gerald and giving him some quick instructions. My time here was over. I bluffed to the men now, but I couldn’t deal with all the questions that would arise over Lockwood’s death. I had to leave. But before I did, I had to have it out with my father.

I quickly changed my clothes to my Captain’s outfit – minus the hat and overcoat. I wanted to have a talk with my father, but after just finishing one fight I wanted the attribute boosts I could get from the clothes. As I was stuffing the cut and bloody shirt I’d been wearing into my adventurer’s bag, a signal came from it. There was an item inside that was carrying a message. I closed my hand around the multifaceted white orb Hali had given me when we’d drunk together, the one she’d given me if I’d ever needed to call her for help.

“What is it?”

“A communications device, I have its pair. Not as good as something that lets you speak telepathically, and something of a one-use item, but it can be used on opposite ends of the world. Use it, and it will share your emotions and thoughts for a brief duration, as well as pinpoint your location. I want you to know that if you ever need help, you can let me know. I’ll do my best to repay you for the debt I owe you.”

She’d given it to me as way for me to call to her for help. However, it worked both ways. As I closed my hand around it, I felt all of the emotions she felt when she’d activated it: emotions I never expected her to feel. Terror. Betrayal. The lost feeling of being adrift and alone in the world without any help. Fear and pain as hands roughly grabbed her arms.

“Help me!” she hissed.

And as suddenly as the message came, it stopped. The capabilities of the simple device were met. I couldn’t ask her what was wrong or what was going on.

I did know where she was though. While a moment ago, my only thought had been having a long-awaited talk with my father and escaping the Isa, now I was once again reminded I needed more long-term goals. I was rushed, so saving Hali would suffice as a future objective.

I pushed the orb back into my bag and strode from the blood covered galley to the Captain’s cabin. To my father’s cabin. There was a light glowing under his door, and when I knocked his voice was firm and ready. “Enter!”

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. My father sat behind his desk, looking no less commanding despite the nearly-empty bottle on his desk and the distinct emptiness of other liquor in the cabinet where he kept it – having worn through much of his personal stock the last few weeks. Meeting my father’s eyes, I realized I didn’t know what to say to start the conversation I really wanted to have. “Sir,” I said instead. “There’s been a mutiny.”

Darius sighed, his fingers drumming on his desk. He cast a spell and suddenly his cabin was a tight sanctuary, locked away from the eyes or ears of the crew. “Was it Lockwood, or is it you, Domenic?”