Lysander estimated it would be at least a few days before they found land, so Tormacc just maintained their pace, their skiff ferried along by a wave during the day while at night he took a small break to sleep.
Around them was only unbroken sea, and it might have taken Tormacc a little while to adjust were it not for his water affinity. Because of his affinity, he felt a connection to the water surrounding him, and despite the completely new environment he felt right at home bobbing along on the blue waves, their gentle caress rocking him to sleep at night. There were dangers too though, and on the second day they were forced to run, Tormacc using Greater Tidal Wave once more to escape from a giant sea monster that tried to attack them. Thankfully once they fled it lost interest, as while Lysander wanted to fight it, assuring him they could easily beat it, Tormacc wasn’t convinced their skiff could survive the encounter, which doused the flames of Lysander’s passion before they even really started to burn.
On the morning of the third day they ran into something they couldn’t run from, or at least not as easily. Shortly after daybreak they spotted black sails on the horizon, a key identifier of pirates. A few hours later and it was clear the pirates were headed their way, and unless they changed directions, crossing paths was inevitable. The problem was, they didn’t actually know how to navigate on the open ocean. Lysander was pointing them in the right direction, but if they went off course he would lose that reference point, meaning they would be lost at sea without a clear way to find land again.
“Damnit,” Lysander said. “If I still had my Spatial Bracelet this wouldn’t be a problem. I had all sorts of navigation tools in there.”
“Do you actually know how to use them?” Tormacc asked.
“I could have figured it out! It can’t be too hard, right?”
While Lysander had been able to build a skiff, Tormacc suspected navigating required just a touch more technical expertise. That, or a skill to supplement. But the pirates threw a wrench in their plans. Any pirate ship brazen enough to fly black sails was confident in their own strength, and with only two of them it would be foolhardy to think they could take on an entire crew.
As the sun climbed higher into the sky the pirate ship came closer and closer, and around midday it saw them, turning slightly so their skiff was on a direct collision course. The pirate ship was close enough now that Tormacc could make out very small people moving around on the deck and climbing around the rigging, and as he watched, the sails soon billowed out, filling with wind on an otherwise calm day.
“That’s the most common way to sail a ship,” Lysander said. “Using sails and wind magic, I mean. You only need a few wind spells to gain a lot of speed, and it’s much easier to control than what you’re doing. You just need to pile on more sail as opposed to generating more wind.”
“Do you think they can go faster than they are right now?” Tormacc asked, shading his eyes to try and estimate their speed.
“Depends. It’s likely they can go faster, but that may only be for a short burst instead of a sprint.”
“So we probably can’t outrun them then.”
It was hard for him to estimate their exact speed, but from what he could tell Tormacc guessed they were going at least 1.5 times faster than the skiff currently was, and while he could improve their speed by a fair bit, he suspected he couldn’t outrun the pirates long-term, as he was gated by his skill cooldowns.
“Hey, they might always be friendly!” Lysander said. “Not all pirates are bloodthirsty savages. Maybe if we ask politely they’ll take as back to shore?”
“Speak for yourself,” Tormacc said. “You already lost all your wealth. I’d like to keep my own, thank you very much.”
“I mean, it’s still an option,” Lysander muttered.
“If you want to surrender to them, be my guest. If it came to that I would escape underwater.”
Lysander shut up at that, reminded that out of the two of them he was the one stranded out on the ocean. Tormacc was perfectly suited for underwater travel, and while there might be more sea creatures to fight off down there, sea creatures were generally much less dangerous than pirates as long as he didn’t swim too deep.
“Then do you have any other ideas?” Lysander said. “It’s like you said, they have me trapped. C’mon, you must have something else up your sleeve.”
“I do have an idea, but it will be expensive.”
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“I can pay you back! Don’t worry, my big sis is loaded! If you save me I’m sure she’ll pay you back! Double even!”
Lysander made a move to grab onto Tormacc’s leg to continue his begging but after the look he received thought better of it and settled for a sad puppy look, something which he was perfectly suited for.
It was a tough choice, but Tormacc eventually decided that if he was going to invest in interpersonal relations it wouldn’t make sense to turn away at the slightest sign of trouble. And besides, he actually liked Lysander, despite his overly chatty nature. If he wanted to join a trustworthy guild he would have to start by extending a little trust himself.
Tormacc’s plan to deal with the approaching pirate vessel was rather straightforward: he planned to attack them with Greater Tsunami, his tier nine skill from the left side of his Fate Wheel. But by itself he doubted the skill would be powerful enough, so he planned to take a page out of Zedna’s book and get some outside help.
Before entering the Shard he had made sure to get some insurance as a trump card, and that took the form of Sea Stone, the water equivalent of the Sun Stone that Zedna was looking for in the last Shard. There were equivalents to Sun Stone for each of the elements, but the main four, Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, were much more common, so while they were expensive, Tormacc was able to secure two pieces in the First City before he entered the Sealine Shard.
Slowing down the skiff, he dispersed the wave that had been carrying them forward, waiting until they were drifting on the rolling seas. He then crouched down behind the side of the boat and took out one of this two pieces of Sea Stone. If he could see the people on the pirate ship it made sense that they could see him too, so there was no need to let them know he was using outside assistance to power his skill. He didn’t think he could actually defeat everyone on the pirate ship, but they didn’t know that, and he was hoping his empowered Greater Tsunami would scare them away.
Holding tight to the Sea Stone, he activated all of his elemental buffing abilities, such as the tier six Water Domain. He put everything he had into Greater Tsunami, and for the final touch the Sea Stone he was holding dissolved into water, the final empowerment for his skill.
Unlike his previous wave skills, Greater Tsunami started rather quickly, and soon his view of the pirate ship was obscured by a wall of water, the wave racing to intercept the pirate vessel and dissuade it from its current course. A minute later, Tormacc realized he had been wrong. Greater Tsunami had started out slowly. It was just, compared to his previous skills, “starting out slowly” had a different meaning.
“It’s still growing,” Lysander murmured softly, slack jawed in awe of the wall of water heading away from them.
Tormacc had no response. He was just as shocked as Lysander, but did his best to hold it in, trying to appear as if he knew the power of his skill all along. He didn’t though, especially with the Sea Stone. Stella had tried to tell him how rare elemental stones were and how much they would power up his abilities, but he had kind of blown her off. He knew what they did, right? He had seen some actual examples after all.
It turned out he, in fact, didn’t know what they did. Or perhaps he wasn’t that clear on what Sun Stone did for Zedna’s skill since he hadn’t actually seen her use her AOE skill without Sun Stone. What should be a rare resource Zedna instead treated like the nuts she was always eating, seemingly wasting them without a care.
Watching the over twenty meter tall and still growing wave made Tormacc realize that using Zedna as a benchmark for anything might not be the best idea. That, and comparing skills only worked with skills that were actually comparable. His wave-type skills that needed a charge up time were in no way similar to Zedna’s instant AOE skill that could kill people before they could blink. The strengths of the two skills were completely different, so it only made sense that the way they would be strengthened was different too.
At this point the wave must have been nearing the pirate ship by now, but Tormacc could barely concentrate on that, the roaring of the wave putting constant pressure on his eardrums. As he and Lysander watched the tsunami reached its peak before slamming down, the roaring boom of the sound wave creating a visible ripple across the ocean, and Tormacc and Lysander were knocked off their feet from the blowback as neither of them were holding onto anything when the skiff was hit, the small boat bobbing wildly in the waves.
Unlike a normal tsunami, Tormacc had used a skill, and there was a target for that skill. A normal tsunami would have kept going until it hit land, only breaking when there was a large enough barrier to stop its momentum. Tormacc had clear target for the skill, so once the giant wave was looming above the pirate ship it had crashed down, the full might of thousands of tons of water crashing down on the unfortunate pirate ship.
The aftermath was a sight to behold, the surrounding sea rocked by giant waves, multiple meters high, as the power of the tsunami dispersed into the surrounding area. It took more than five minutes before Tormacc was able to stabilize their skiff, as the small boat had been tossed wildly by the waves, and without his water control abilities Tormacc was sure they would have capsized.
Once he finally felt they were safe, he looked toward where the pirate ship had been. Surprisingly, it was still there. Or maybe that was normal. He wasn’t actually sure how powerful ships in the Shard normally were. But while the pirate ship was still floating, it’s hull intact, the entire rigging was gone, not a mast in sight on the now bare ship.
“Well at least they can’t chase up now,” Lysander said. “They might have more masts in storage somewhere, but it will take them a little while to fix everything back up. Let’s get out of here before that.”
Tormacc was in agreement, so he restarted his wave propulsion and set off, powering past the pirate ship which was now dead in the water. He could see some activity on it, but unless they could magic up some rigging in a few hours it would take the pirate ship a long time to get back up and running, and that was if they still wanted to continue the chase. Tormacc doubted they did, as unless they wanted revenge and though they could get it chasing a small boat probably wasn’t worth it for them, meaning he had successfully chased them off.