It was the middle of the night when they met up with the towering ship. It was colossal in the dark and the Serenity had put all its lights on full so as not to surprise its crew.
It was a very different ship to the one that they had taken to Vitesse, this was not designed for passengers and reminded them of the cargo ships of Earth.
Teddy was extremely careful to be as obvious as he could, as non-threatening as he could and to stay away from the ship. The anti-piracy and anti monster protection on the hull would be no joke.
They saw a man come out of the bridge of the ship and look at them with a short telescope.
“That one Lu.” Teddy said.
Lucy immediately initiated a telepathic link to the man.
[Good evening sir, please don’t be alarmed. We’re a team of adventurers sent from Greenstone.]
[Good evening Miss, what can we do for you?]
[With your permission my brother-in-law would like to teleport aboard in order to speak with you?]
[Permission granted, foredeck in front of the bridge is acceptable.]
She gave Teddy the nod and explained where to go. They couldn’t see all the way up to the deck which was much higher then the Serenity so he formed a rift above the deck in front of the bridge. When he stepped through he fell to the deck, before he hit the planks he took a few steps in mid air to arrest his descent and landed lightly.
He was suddenly surrounded by weapons, at the edge of the deck all around him the crew members were pointing bows and spears, a few essence users readied powers. The captain dropped from the bridge to the deck. Obviously a full essence user as the height of the drop didn’t bother him. Teddy could sense a well trained silver rank aura being restrained.
“Good evening Mr..?”
“Good evening, my name is Theodore Mitchell, I assume you are the captain?”
“I am, Captain Graves, and you better have some compelling evidence to show why you should be on my ship tonight.”
“Yes sir I understand, I’m just going to open a small portal to pull out some documents.”
“Keep it small, keep it slow you’ll keep your hand.”
Teddy was already halfway to opening his rift storage when the man spoke, at the threat he looked up at the captain who had casually tucked his thumbs in his belt and knew the man meant it.
He pulled out his badge, the contract and a covering letter from the Director herself. The captain took them all without looking away from Teddy’s eyes.
“Chief Mate, keep an eye on our guest.”
A short burly man came forward, stood right in Teddy’s personal space and crossed his arms.
“Aye capn.” Then up to Teddy. “Move, I dare ya.”
Teddy blinked in surprise but didn’t move.
“That’s it boys, he’s cleared.” The captain said after looking over the three documents, he held them out to Teddy to give back but was a few steps away. Teddy blurred around the Chief Mate and was folding the papers before the Chief Mate had reacted.
The Chief mate clumsily grabbed a sword from his waist and turned around in panic looking for Teddy.
“Don’t mind him.” The captain said. “The owner of this vessel wanted his son to get some experience at sea, so thought to make him Chief Mate for this trip. A bit too much bluster and not enough balls really.”
“I coulda taken him, he’s right there.” The little man said.
“No you could not, you are a rich bully and he is a killer, look at how he stands, feel that aura, you wouldn’t stand a chance if he was standing still with one hand behind his back.”
“Of course I would! He’s just a lowly adventurer from Greenstone, no big town name.”
The captain looked at Teddy, “Sounds to me like a challenge!”
Teddy looked the captain in the eyes. He borrowed Lucy’s telepathy power.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
[Sir I’m not sure what your angle is here, you want me to humiliate him, roll over to make him look good or was it just a boring trip? I’m not an assassin if that’s what you’re after.]
[Interesting, you have the same power as your sister-in-law, what a coincidence. Just put the boy down a notch but for the sake of the gods and my job don’t hurt him. Make it quick we don’t have all night.]
“Right then little man, what was it? Don’t move? And one hand behind my back?” Teddy said, standing square to the man nod placing a hand on the small of his back.
“Why you…” the man looked at the captain and got a shrug and a nod.
He came in sword flashing in a wide arc over his head. Teddy swayed out of the way, making it look slow and casual with his feet not moving. The man lunged again and halfway through Teddy swung his arm from overhead, dimension blade appearing. The little aggressor managed to shift his sword up to block, confident the expensive magical blade would block the essence power. Teddy’s blade of light flickered as it met the sword, as if it had been turned off then on again from the hilt and the man found the tip of it against his throat. Luckily his lunge had been completely arrested by the pull of a black hole behind him. Teddy had formed a rift tunnel behind his back and thrown the low powered grenade through, before it could explode Teddy cancelled it out, letting the man flop to the floor. The ‘fight’ had lasted seconds.
“Not an assassin, I’m sure.” The Captain said low enough for only Teddy to hear.
Teddy helped the man up, passing him his sword from where it had tumbled from his hands. The little man stomped off inside the bridge with a red face.
“Right now what’re you looking at?!” The captain called to the crew. “Boatswain, the crew.”
The crew started moving even before the next man started shouting, hopping to not be caught out.
“XO, to my office, Mr Mitchell. Please join us.”
They made their way in to the captains quarters.
“Mr Mitchell this is my XO, thats an…”
“Executive Officer, your second in command.” Teddy interjected.
“Just so. You’ve spent time on board a ship then?”
“Oh no mostly from films, they always tend to use the same titles from tar and canvas to nuclear subs up to the starship enterprise.”
The two men didn’t know what to make of that so the captain ignored it.
“The letter explains the cargo you’re after, why is it that you’ve come all the way out here in such a little boat to collect it before we get to port?”
“Captain, do you know what the cargo is? Or at least what it’s for?”
“I’ve been told not to tamper with it if I like my ship, and the immediate area around it. I know it’s from a producer of dangerous materials bound for somewhere that will turn it into weapons.”
“Well sir, that would make it very attractive to an insidious disreputable sort. There’s already been an ill guided attempt on this cargo already and we had the idea to get ahead of them this time, seize the initiative first.”
“A crafty mind you have there, well I can see it to work, we can’t deviate from the schedule but will be an easy enough task. XO, where did we place the crate we picked up from the Storm Kingdom?”
“Aft and port side Captain, behind the bridge. I believe its on the middle deck.”
“And Mr Mitchell, what’s the loading situation for your boat?”
“Ideally a side load, we’ve been told the cargo is a pretty big item, I saw you had a side unloading bay and a crane…”
Less than an hour later the crew had moved the necessary bits out the way and got the correct cargo into the side unloading bay. Designed to have a wide gangplank drop down into a port then roll the cargo out. The cargo was a large rectangle, a wooden box banded with metal. It was around six foot tall, eight foot wide and around ten foot long. The crane had been pulled to above the unloading bay and the hook on the end dropped down to the sea far below. The Serenity had been pulled up from the water and was being held next to the cargo bay. Teddy had gone down and with Lucy figured out how to peel back just the one panel that covered the guest suite in the lower decks. The Captain had been suitably impressed with the exotic vehicle which pleased the Mitchells that for even such a well travelled man thought that they had something so rare.
A ridiculously proportioned man was carrying the large crate, he had a power which enabled him to be a one-man, all-natural (depending on your definition in a world of magic) forklift. His legs were short and squat but his torso was enormous, three time taller than his legs and almost as wide, his arms reached all the way round one side of the crate and then some to spare. A very useful crew member to have on a cargo ship. He was taking baby steps and being guided on either side by other crew members, they all seemed very worried.
“They take their jobs very seriously.” Teddy commented to the Captain.
“They take the safety of everyone on board seriously, that thing drops the wrong way and everyone on board vanishes, they will never find any evidence of us or this ship.”
“Err, say what now?”
[TEDDY, WHAT THE HELL DID HE JUST SAY TO YOU?!] James said on the interface, just about able to overhear from where he was holding a line to keep the Serenity straight.
[Hang on bro I’m talking a sec.]
“No seriously sir you’re going to have to say that again.”
“You didn’t know? It’s an extremely volatile substance, it’s been given all the possible protective measures it can but still.” He shrugged.
Teddy blew out air that he didn’t need in the first place. “Well damn, still no going back now though.”
They gently loaded the crate into the Serenity and they were recommended to lash it down. Teddy stroked the floor on each side towards the crate and it bunched up like rug folds against the crate then stiffened, he pulled down the ceiling of the room down and it pinned the crate in place with a stalactite of crystal.
“So where will you go now with it? We’ll turn up to the docks without it in a few days and no one will be any the wiser.”
“I think thats for the best Sir, with all due respect, nothing gained from sharing that secret.”
“True enough. Mr Mitchell good luck, there’s more than just this shady group you’ve mentioned that will want these goods, if any bandits have any sort of intelligence on it or senses powerful enough to pick it up they will make a concerted effort to get it, having not made the journey myself I cannot comment from experience but I’ve been told the way is perilous.”
Teddy shook hands with the Captain. “Well sir, we wouldn’t want life to get boring now would we?” He nodded then stepped backwards off the ship, the Serenity having already been lowered gently into the water. He ran a few steps in mid air and into the wheel house, they flashed all the lights once as bright as they could go to signal goodbye then shot away.