Towards midafternoon, I spied a smaller canoe being paddled out by a trio of the travelers. Pausing my work, I pulled up my spyglass and picked out Kirk along with the two women and the teenager onboard. I watched them warily and tried to consider what they wanted from me. Kirk wisely kept his distance and called out his hail as I glowered down at them, my ruined work clothes covered with burnt muck and wyvern blood.
“Becca, can we come aboard?” Kirk hollered up at me. In response, I reached behind me and tossed my rope ladder down to them. They pitched a line up to me and I tied them off and they climbed aboard Sweetwind.
I kept my hand on my cutlass as I glared at the small group and pointed to the open door to my galley across the deck. “I got some hot kava still on the kettle if you want some, let’s have us a chat.” I said warily as I eyed them with unreserved suspicion.
They gawked around the ship in awe as I led them into the galley and refilled my own Kava mug from the steeper as I poured boiling water through the crushed beans.
“Is that coffee?!” Kirk sniffed the beverage as I poured more water slowly through the steep and handed him a cup. I shrugged and pointed to the stoppered bowl of cane sugar grains on the mess table where it was held into place by galley clamps.
I looked with intense scrutiny at the teenager and the two women. The lot of them nervously shifted their patchwork armor and crude weapons to their sides as they sat down at the table. I sat down at the other end, my hands scraping my sides, automatically trying to clip myself into the harness fasteners along the mess table until I remembered that I wasn’t wearing my harness and wasn’t airborne.
Sighing wearily, I rubbed my tired eyes and studied them with curiosity. I didn’t sense any malice from any of them, or I’d not let them aboard. I did have a suspicion what they wanted from me anyhow. Kirk had spooned a bit of sugar into the covered cup of kava I handed him and was sipping it daintily as if it was the ambrosia of the gods.
“You know, I can’t even get this stuff IRL anymore, prices are astronomical in New Highland.” He told the younger of the two women who smiled as I showed her how to steep the kava.
“I’m Amber, and this is Triss.” She pointed to the older women who still wore her habitual scowl. I looked at the teenager who was keeping his head down.
“Never did get your name kid…” I said, and all three of them glared at the teen who just looked back up and grimaced. I could see a few new bruises on him. Scowling at the three other travelers I shook my head.
“He hasn’t named himself yet… just spawned in a couple of days ago, and he’s useless. We brought him along, because if we left him with the Beachlords, they would just keep kicking him around and probably send him back to respawn for a lark.”
“Zeus’s beard! He’s a magi! Why do you people treat him like filth?” I stammered and Kirk just rolled his eyes.
“Would help if the little squirt would stand up for himself sometimes, but he just lets people push him around. I’ve tried to talk some sense into him, but some players just don’t take this game too seriously and they don’t have the training for it.” Kirk grumbled.
The words just floated over my head as I felt the tug of the great seal on my mind and I rubbed my head in consternation. I hated dealing with travelers when they talked like this. “Lad where is that task I gave you! Bring it out!” And I saw the boy’s face fall and Kirk smirked.
“So, you’re the one who gave him that little plaything?” He laughed and he fished around in his pocket and tossed me the toy ballast as I glared at him.
“Had to get it back from the Beachlords, they caught him with it and kicked the crap out of him when he tried to get it back after they stole it from him.” Tess piped up and smirked.
Rolling the toy across to the kid I pointed at it. “Well?” I studied him and reached deep into my flickering well of power to pull a working over my eyes to study his aura. I was hoping that I could use this kid, if he could help charge my storage crystals I could get out of here more quickly.
I watched him try to wrap his power around the ballast instead of trying to form a link, and I rolled my eyes as beads of sweat broke out on his brow as he struggled to make the crystal float. Eventually once he wrapped enough power around it, I saw some leak into the crystal and it slowly lifted up out of his hand and weakly bobbed on its chain.
“Enough!” I chuckled as I tried to hold back a grin as I remembered my own first attempts at that task. Well I suppose we all have to start somewhere. He gasped and the crystal pattered onto the table and he caught it before it could roll off as the Sweetwind rocked in the gentle bay swells.
“Looks like I’m going to really have to work on that with you.” I said and the others looked at him wide-eyed as they realized what I meant. “You’re going to take him with you? When you leave?!” Kirk gasped, almost spilling kava all over his tunic as he stared at the other traveler. I nodded.
“I need another magi around to help me with the ship. I don’t need you lot though, you have anything to offer for your passage? I looked at them. They had been trying to work up the courage to ask me for a berth but I decided to break the ice first.
“We can fight!” Amber exclaimed and I laughed. “Deadweight… unless you can help me charge my ballast or stand a watch, and none of you have any airship experience. I’m not a pirate, I’m a messenger and this ship needs to go fast, that means the more passengers I take the more weight I have to carry in provisions.” I pointed to the teenager.
“He can help me charge my ballast, though I doubt he’s going to be ready to stand a watch for a very long time, if he can even hack it.” I shook my head. The skymarches were no place for a slack crew. I had mostly survived by the grace of Zeus and sheer wit up until now, and I was barely scraping by.
“How about this… when I get to Bagliona I’m planning on telling the governor about you lot, he can send the navy to check up on you fine people. I’ll also try and stop by on my way back from Bagliona, though I’ll be grounded in port for a long while until the late penalty runs out and I can catch another job out. I winced as I thought in the loss of rating I’d sustain because of the late delivery.
They looked crestfallen but Kirk nodded. “Well thanks, though before we get going you have any maps? I scrutinized them with suspicion and they shifted uncomfortably. Nodding, I got up and left to retrieve an extra map case. I had plenty of copies of the maps in this area, one of the older ones would work for them.
I sat down and unrolled one of the maps as all off their faces lit up. “Where the hell in Endaria are we Kirk?” Amber exclaimed as I pointed out our current location, and they gasped as they saw the huge chart laid out for them.
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“Holy shit! We are nowhere near where we thought we were.” Kirk mused as he laughed. “Tombason’s gonna love it when I tell him! He owes me my bet!” He shook with laugher and Tess joined in, her shrill voice causing my sensitive ears to prickle. I rubbed at them through my flyer’s cap and sighed. Yes, these lot would drive me bonkers within a week if I had them as deadweight. At least the kid knew how to keep quiet.
Rolling up the map, I set a sheet of copy flash over it and focused on my power as I pulled a scribing roller out of the map tube and rolled it over the map, causing the lines of the map to burn into the copy. I shook it out and held it up to the light to see if there were any imperfections from the roll as the enchantment from the copy faded away.
“You can have this copy, as it’s an older set of general charts. The guild doesn’t allow their own charts copied but this will do for starters. It’s not very good to navigate by though unless you have the proper instruments.” I explained as I pulled out some beeswax paper from one of the galley drawers that I normally used to wrap food in. It would work to keep the damp out as they rowed back.
They took the map from me as if it was the greatest treasure of kings and beamed. “Yea well I suppose this will do, I appreciate it!” Kirk exclaimed and I escorted them out to their canoe and waved them off as the three paddled excitedly back to the group on shore who were just now noticing that they had been speaking with me and were all waiting for them at the beach.
The boy was still sitting at the mess table when I came back inside and I glowered at him as I thought about the fact that I now had a new crew member. At least until he pissed me off and ended up going over the side.
He was staring at me with nervous eyes and I reached down and picked up the deck brush and bucket and set it down next to him as I crossed my arms.
“Well if your going to stick around, your going to work. My name is Becca Marshall, but to you I’m captain, or mam! Do I make myself clear kid?”
He stood up, nearly falling over in his haste and nodded at me empathically. I sighed and pointed to the brush and bucket, the long-handled brush sticking out of the bucket. “Grab those and follow me.”
I showed him how to operate the bilge pumps and wet the decks, and how to use the holystone as well as the deck brush, when I learned he apparently hadn’t ever scrubbed a deck before. I sighed and as he got to work trying to get the last of the wyvern blood off of my deck I descended back down into the refractory compartment and kept working on tuning the quick fix I had performed on Sweetwind’s mounting.
As I worked, I heard something above. Sitting down my tuning wrench I pulled up my cap and twitched my long ears as I heard a clear alto voice singing out over the roar of the waves.
I couldn’t quite make out the meaning of the words, but they sounded beautiful. His accent was a bit odd, but I peered out of the hatch at the boy as he sang and I saw the winds begin to curl around him wrapping around his aura and I felt Sweetwind give a yearning peal of pleasure. It was very odd and like nothing I had ever seen before. I had heard of wind singers, but this was the first singer I had ever seen.
When he realized I had been listening, his voice trailed off into a startled squeak and he looked back down at the holystone he was using to try to scrub at the deck. “No, it’s ok…” I smiled at him.
I had thought he was water attuned, but this was more evidence of something else. Not all magi could manipulate in the same way, he could be a bit of a mix of elements. That would make sense if he was a wind singer, since they could call storms and the like.
Looking over the deck I saw that there wasn’t too much more to be done, the rest could keep for a bit. “Stow the brush, bucket and holystone over there” I pointed to a wooden locker along the side of the aft cabin.
“Follow me…” I trailed off and motioned for him to follow me as I led him through the cabin and past the galley, deeper into the stern of the skiff until I pushed open a stores locker that was spell sealed against damp and rot. Inside was an assortment of clothing and I pushed past them until I found a few flyer’s harnesses. They were the basic ones, with simple ship hand’s lashings and pre-charged ballasts.
Popping out the containment crystal I tossed it back in and fished around for suitable light clothing for him. I would have to have proper aeronaut clothing sized for him, but judging by his short stature he might be able to fit into some of my own older sets.
“Take this, and get changed out of those rags while I get cleaned up. Then I’m going to show you how to use a harness.” I shut the locker abruptly, tossing the pile of gear into his surprised arms as he blinked at me in astonishment.
It took me a while to get the grease and remaining dried blood sponged off and I changed into my own light duty clothing and pilot’s rig. Walking out onto the deck I saw him trying to puzzle out how to get into the harness that I had left with his clothing. He looked slightly better with proper clothing, but I was still tempted to wash him down with the pump. Streaks of grime still peppered his body and he did need a haircut.
“You get into it like this.” I proceeded to show him how to buckle himself in and how to stow his lashings at the sides of his harness on clips.
“The most important thing you have to remember is that you always are lashed in when we are aloft. I want you to travel up and down the ship, and lash yourself to the points as you go.” I watched him as he did so, pointing out all the lash points and the raceways where his lashing could travel on rails.
When we went up and down the ship I slapped his ballast on the back of his rig. “This is your ballast. You are a magi, and you need to learn how to use you’re harness ballast.” I laughed when I saw his face turn pale when he realized what the device on his back was.
“It’s like a bigger version of that toy?” He asked, dread echoing across his face.
“Right you are, and it’s what could save you if you are ever swept overboard. These are expensive harnesses, so you lose it I’ll toss you overboard without one and I’ll see how well you imitate an anchor.”
He gulped and I laughed at his expression.
“Aye I saw how you were trying to use this toy.” I held up the small device and pointed to it.
“You don’t push power into it, you feel for it and link to it. Any magi can sense a ballast, no matter what kind of magi they are but, elemental magi are the best at using them.” I explained and I pulled the toy away from him as he tried to strain his neck to see his ballast.
I shook my head at him. “You don’t need to see it, feel it on your back with your mind. The harness can focus your aura around to the ballast easily enough.” I tapped my skull for emphasis as he squinted and tried to grasp my instructions.
Taking my goggles off I focused my will on them, laying down a small working and handed them over to him. “Look through these for a second and tell me what you see. Watch me.”
He put them on and I focused my own will on my harness and slowly I rose up into the air a few feet above the deck, the reel of my lashing pulling tight as I adjusted the slack on the mechanism. I hovered there and slowly for a few seconds, then pulled my will back, pulling power out of the harness. I smirked at his wide-eyed stare as he watched the ebb and flow of my power and I smiled at him.
I held out my hands for the goggles as my feet set back down and he handed them back. Through the fading spell I watched him slowly, try to wrap his aura around his harness. It took him a few moments but he found the ballast crystal. I shrieked as I saw him pour far too much power into his ballast and threw myself at him, my secondary lashing clipping onto his harness as he shot into the air.
“Pull back your power!” I snarled as I gripped my own lashing and thrust a boot under a toe hold to get more leverage as I tried to pull him back down to the deck.
He slowly started to descend, and with a sigh of relief, he settled back to the deck. “That was my fault, should have known you’d launch yourself. I did the same thing first time.” I chuckled.
I had managed to do more than that, I remembered, but he needn’t know that.
Looking out at the swiftly sinking sun, I sighed and motioned towards the galley. “Let’s go make dinner. I’m starving, you?”
We ate dinner silently, more of my leftover venison. He never complained at all as we made dinner and I examined blisters he picked up while working over the deck. His soft hands didn’t really seem to be those of a castaway. It was like he had never worked at all in his life.
I set the night wards, and I ushered him to one of the small berths under the captain’s cabin. I had to show him how to hang his flyer’s hammock and he nodded. “I’m going to log off in a bit.” He said and I shrugged. “You will do that disappearing thing travelers do?” I said and he nodded.
“Thanks for taking me aboard captain…” he said and pushed himself up into his hammock. I watched him as he suddenly went still, then a few seconds later there was a flash of green and he vanished into motes of fizzling light. Shrugging it off as the seal pushed away any questions I could think of, I ascended the nearby ladder and collapsed into my own bed.