My stomach flopped as the sudden feeling of weightlessness enveloped me.

I tried to get to my feet, but the crushing pressure of the wind kept me stuck to the cracked decking of the ship. I needed to do something fast or we were all going to need scraping off the ocean floor.

You’d think that falling from great height into a body of water wouldn’t be too bad, but at the velocity with which we were descending, the crash would be akin to hitting solid concrete.

Nope, I definitely don’t want to end up as a Kaleb flavoured pancake.

A kill notification popped up in my HUD and I mentally waved it away, it could wait.

Looking around frantically, my eyes levelled on the pirate-style steering wheel above the cabins. It was worth a shot.

I crawled, or rather climbed, in that direction.

The ship had fallen into a nosedive and the ascent was no easy feat. Luckily for me, gravity almost aided my climb as the lose items on the ship’s deck fell at roughly the same speed as the ship itself.

If this were a platform game I’d have had to dodge falling boxes and debris, but most of that stuff appeared to float around me as we all fell towards the ground.

My arms burned as I focused on sending the energy from my metaphorical stamina coil into my muscles. I’d always heard that you should climb with your legs, but there were barely any footholds on the ship’s deck to help me.

Instead I had to force my bleeding fingers into small cracks in the wood and hoist myself up on strength alone.

Thank God for my strength stat, I thought as I pushed a little further and managed to grab onto the wrong side of the wheel.

I hoisted myself over the frame and planted my feet on the railing below me. Leaning back and pulling with all of my strength, I grabbed onto the wheel’s handles and yanked.

The wheel was designed to work in a similar way to a joystick and pulling backwards on it should, theoretically, cause the ship to fly upwards.

Of course, that design relies heavily on the ship actually being intact, not to mention the need for a mana source to fuel the damned thing and keep it airborne.

Why is the only guy on the ship with zero mana the one doing this? I thought scathingly as I narrowed my eyes against the harrying wind and scanned the deck.

Bell was holding Panda under one arm and grabbing onto the railing for dear life with the other. Her body flapped around in the wind like a flag on a high pole.

I guess they’re a little too tied up to help.

I continued wrestling with the ship’s wheel, pulling hard and hoping against all odds that it would eventually level out.

Meanwhile, we were approaching the sea fast.

I couldn’t even see the remains of the kraken anymore, instead my vision was filled with what looked like a resort on a sandy beach.

Is that Asquith Town?

I hoped not. It wouldn’t look very professional for the very adventurers they’d hired to kill their kraken to crash their ship slap bang in the middle of the town.

Turning the wheel slightly, I attempted to control the direction of our descent. I wouldn’t have the deaths of a town full of people on my hands.

Still yanking on the wheel, I threw it as far to the right as I could. The main mast was gone, so we had no large sail to catch the wind for quick, evasive manoeuvres. We did, however, still have the two smaller sails at the front and back of the ship.

They weren’t much, but slowly the ship began to turn as it levelled out to a gentler descent.

I had no way of levelling the ship off completely, but I did manage to mitigate the nosedive and turn the vessel away from the resort town… kind of.

CRASH.

The underside of the ship hit the water with a thump and I was thrown violently into the air as wooden planks smashed beneath me.

I dropped back down with a smack and, ignoring the pain as best as I could, focused on grabbing the wheel and yanking it fully to the right once more.

The vessel began to turn in a way that reminded me of a race car drifting. It was almost as if I had performed a handbrake turn with a damned flying pirate ship.

I barely had time to contemplate how awesome that was before the side of the ship marooned itself on the beach and I was thrown from the vessel once more.

I flew through the air, over the side of the ship, and landed face first in the sand.

I felt like a chicken, and I probably looked like one too – or at least like a human who was pretending to be a chicken… which was infinitely worse.

Bracing my hands against the soft grains of warm sand, I pushed myself free, falling backwards as my head popped out of the hole it’d made.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Gasping for breath, I looked around to see a gathering crowd of worried onlookers. They kept their distance and many had mouths which hung agape as they took in the wreckage of our flying ship.

Following their gazes, I turned around to see Sally’s prize possession snapped almost entirely in two. There was a large, gaping crack in the middle of the ship’s hull, held together only by a thin strand of iron at the very bottom.

Bell’s body hung limply over the side of the railing, her newly acquired, scarlet robes ripped and tattered as they caught on the breeze.

“I’m… alive,” I heard a small, bewildered voice say to itself.

Looking in that direction I saw Panda sat on the beach a mere few meters from me. He was gawping at something he clutched in his paws.

With a pained grunt, I forced myself to my feet and stumbled towards him.

“Kaleb…” he began slowly, looking up at me with large, glistening eyes, “I broke my pipe.”

I looked down to see his bamboo pipe was snapped at the middle, a piece held firmly in each paw.

“We can get you a new one buddy,” I said gently, stroking the top of his head.

“You don’t get it…” he sobbed, “she gave it to me.”

I was a quite dazed from the fall but I knew enough about my familiar to understand who she was. In a previous life he had been summoned by a female adventurer who had died. That was about the extent of what I knew about her as he’d never really spoken about her before.

I did know that she meant a lot to him though, a wound that was still relatively fresh.

I sat next to him silently, rubbing the soft fur on his back whilst we gazed at the broken ship that very nearly spelled our doom.

“Do you think Bell is alright?” He asked slowly.

“The party function hasn’t told me she’s dead so I’m sure she’s fine,” I replied quietly, “probably just taking a nap.”

He laughed softly as we both looked towards the unconscious fireball mage hanging limply over the side of Sally’s broken ship.

I leant backwards, stretching my hand out when I felt something slimy caress my fingers.

Jumping slightly, I looked behind me to see part of a tentacle resting idly on the golden sand. It must have been the part Sally had cleaved in two when we were first attacked.

Hovering above it was a welcoming message.

Do you want to loot Kraken?

Y/N

Damned right I do! I thought with a grin, Sally’s not getting all the spoils for this one.

You have received new items:

10,000 gold

X1 bottle of refined kraken ink

X1 kraken eye

“They’re used in crafting,” Panda said as he looked through the loot notification with me.

“I have quite a few crafting items now, but I’ve never met anyone who could actually use them,” I replied half-heartedly.

During our week off in Havar after saving Bell, I had visited the blacksmith, a few weapons dealers and spoken to Taylor about getting something made with my crafting spoils, but none of them had the expertise to use the items I had.

“You’ll be able to find a gold ranked artisan on the continent,” Panda reassured me, “looted crafting components take a lot of skill to work into items.”

At least that was something.

In the corner of my vision was a blinking symbol which I knew meant I had unopened notifications. It had to be the kill notification from the kraken, so I opened it.

You have assisted in the defeat of Kraken lvl 96

Experience has been split as you did not strike the killing blow.

Bonus experience due to level disparity.

Congratulations! You have advanced to level 46

The surprise level was certainly a welcome sight. I hadn’t advanced even once during our two-week voyage; despite all the rigorous training I was doing. I quickly allocated two of my five points into perception and the rest into intelligence before the second notification popped up.

Quest Complete:

Kraken Skulls and Taking Names

The Adventure Society in Havar has received an urgent request from a smaller branch located in Asquith Town.

The local fishermen have been unable to ply their trade for weeks due to an unknown threat in the nearby waters. They’ve requested aid to deal with this.

Society intelligence suggests that the monster in question is both large and at least as powerful as a high-level silver ranked guild member.

Objectives:

Investigate the waters near Asquith Town 1/1

Kill the monster 1/1

Rewards: Adventurer Sally has set the terms of this quest as [subcontracted]. As such your reward will be the terms agreed upon by your party [Dissident Flame] and Adventurer Sally.

That was quick, I thought idly.

Usually a society quest could only be completed once you handed it in at the society building. This had to be different because it was subcontracted.

“I wonder where Sally is?” Panda asked, gazing out towards the turquoise sea.

“I wonder how long the locals are going to gawk at us before someone says something,” I replied quietly, glancing over my shoulder at the growing crowd of terrified, swimsuit clad, onlookers.

With a hefty sigh, I pulled myself up from the sand and, together with Panda, we wandered back towards the wreckage that had been our home for the past few weeks.

Using the rigging, or what was left of it, I climbed aboard and approached Bell. Her body was still limp and draped over the side.

Maybe I should have checked on her sooner, I thought as I placed a hand on her back.

Her skin was warm and it trembled slightly at the touch of my cold palm. Her body rose and fell in time with her breathing and there was no sign it was laboured. Still, just to be on the safe side, I tipped her head back and carefully poured a healing potion down her gullet.

After that, I picked her up in a princess carry and, with great difficulty, climbed back down the rigging and onto the sand.

As I reached the golden, warm beach, some of the onlookers had grown backbones and were tentatively approaching our ship.

“A-are you alright?” A nervous catonid man asked, his reddish-brown tail tucked firmly between his legs.

“I think so,” I replied, “our ship has seen better days though.”

“Indeed,” he replied, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “What exactly happened to have you arrive in such a sorry state?”

“Oh, nothing much,” I said with a lazy shake of my chin, “we were just getting rid of that kraken that’s been terrorising the area.”

The man took a step back, narrowing his eyes. Audible gasps could be heard from among the growing group of beach goers as they listened into our conversation.

“Might I take it you’re the Havarian adventurers we sent for th… AHH!” He screamed, stepping backwards and tripping over his feet as he fell to the ground with a soft thump. His arm was outstretched, pointing towards something behind me. “I-it’s a m-monster!”

I turned quickly, preparing to give Bell to the man so that I could fight. Wading out of the sea was a muscular… thing, covered in black ink which dripped from its hair, clothes and the tip of the oversized blade with rested loosely over its shoulder.

“GONADS!” It roared, “WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO MY SHIP!”