Garuda felt like a much too grand a name for a cargo barge. Though long, the vessel had a boxy appearance to it, and the triangular scales didn’t help. Then when the first storm hit, Diya saw the barge’s wings. At first, he had assumed the folded wood and cloth along the vessel’s sides were additional sails or tarp for covering cargo when the weather turned. Instead, Jagdish Sing and his crew amazed Diya by extending them during especially violent winds.

Several-storey-tall waves proved no challenge for the vessel. Once the crew angled the sails correctly, Garuda rode the rising and ebbing waters and sailed between cresting bulges. The crew whooped and cheered while Diya and Gwyneth could do little more than hold on for their dear lives. The pair were only expected to help when sea serpents, giant sharks, and other monsters of the deep threatened the vessel. Even then, Diya did little. His injuries threatened to open whenever he did more than a mild stretch.

Diya hadn’t spent a day of his life not doing anything in his twenty-something years. Baba had put a practice sword in his hand as soon as he was strong enough to walk. All noble houses had tutors for their children. Diya also studied with the family’s children as soon as he was old enough. For the first time in his life, Diya had nothing to do besides watch the waves and passing islands.

On the bright side, the constant sea monster attacks meant the boat got a regular supply of large corpses. While the crew and Gwyneth refused to let him help with skinning or butchering, they said nothing when he claimed the creatures’ blood. The constant supply meant Explorer’s Fountain Pen never ran out of ink. As a result, he could almost endlessly experiment with Cardsmith.

The vessel’s lower deck mostly housed cargo and had a small section for the crew to sleep in during heavy rains. During the day, when they toiled above, Diya used the space for his experimentation. At first, he attempted to hide his abilities from the crew, but the confined spaces made it impossible. After they saved his life and sheltered him, Diya grew to trust them. So, he practised their abilities openly and used the crew as his test subjects.

Kakil, Hyene Matriarch

The big three on the card’s top left corner made it more valuable than any card Diya had ever encountered. It could upgrade a soul card from the first to the second tier. Or from the second to the third. Unfortunately, its keywords, Manic Cackle, Explosive Drool, and Blood Lust, made the card unsuitable for Diya’s needs. Explosive Drool appealed to him, but Spell Thief had already won him the necessary spell to extract the runes he needed.

Exploding Inkfire Ball was a tier-two card. Diya had tested it against a sea serpent attack. As the name said, the conjured projectile had exploded on making contact, ripping a large chunk out of the monster and covered it in ink. Diya had inferred two runes from it: Exploding and Ball.

Much to his disappointment, the Exploding rune pushed all of his cards to the third tier. Seeking Exploding Inkfire Blades and Seeking Exploding Inkfire Bolts weren’t of much use to him at the moment, but he traded them with Garuda’s crew. A handful of them had upgraded their souls twice, making them tier-two climbers. The weapons proved effective against sea creatures. So, Diya made frozen variants of them, too. It reduced the explosive power, but icy projectiles shattered, filling monsters with shards. Since the crew had better aim than Diya and the giant monsters were hard to miss, he made versions without the Seeking rune. He substituted it with Frost Aura. The resulting spell didn’t just injure the creature but left them with the debilitating effects of frostbite, too.

After experimenting extensively, Diya felt comfortable enough to make new tier-two and tier-three cards within minutes and little planning. First, he made two coats for Gwyneth. Both had the Shadow Touched keyword. Slimeskin made them waterproof. One had runes to keep her cool and the other warm. The latter would help on arctic floors and also protect her from Frost Aura.

Shadow Slimeskin Coat of Frost

The tier-three card had an unnecessarily long name but came with two keywords. Diya had grown attached to Shadow Touched’s ability to muffle all sounds he made. Since the crew complained about Frost Aura making them cold and prolonged exposure hampering their movements, he hoped it would help in prolonged fights. A couple had suffered frostbite, too. Since Edgar relied on sneaking, masking his presence and sneaking close to his prey, Diya hoped it would act as a deterrent.

For his second upgraded summon, Diya made Piercing Frostfire Ink Lance. It came with the Piercing Cold and Sticky Frostfire keywords. The latter had developed by chance during his experimentations with the Stick and Fire runes. The flames born from it had a chilling effect similar to frostfire, and even water struggled to extinguish it.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Diya was in the midst of developing new versions of Ink Vines when Garuda shuddered. The vessel tilted so far to the portside that untethered containers shifted, and the journal slid out from under him into the shadows. Diya winced as he leapt to catch the barrel of sea serpent blood before it tipped over. Its contents sloshed on his arms and on the wooden floor. A rumbling roar shook the vessel again, and cannons went off a heartbeat later.

As the vessel’s captain, Jagdish Singh declared his world law. He had ordered Diya to stay out of the melee when monsters attacked. However, the man had said nothing about him standing in the backlines casting spells. Diya dipped Explorer’s Fountain Pen in the barrel of blood and gave it a moment to refill. After an agonising five minutes, he sprinted up the stairs to the deck above.

A chill ran down Diya’s spine when he saw the attacking monster. It reminded him of the leviathans featured in bestiaries. The creatures exited Gaia’s Ark high above sea level and flew to the mainland to shower it with pregnant monster queens and their guards. None attacked New Calcutta, but occasionally creatures spilt out of the tower's openings and fell on the city. Those who survived often killed hundreds before enough climbers assembled to cull them.

Instead of webbed wings, the creature had thick fins similar to a sea turtle’s. The monster’s head resembled that of a crocodile, but the snout tapered to a point, and three sets of eyes lined the sides of its head. The tentacles growing out of its back thrashed as the crew launched their frozen ink projectiles. Even though Diya had grown to like them, he paid the men and women no mind. Instead, his eyes desperately scoured the deck for his companion. His heart rate picked up as he failed to spot her.

Garuda’s crew didn’t hesitate and look for their friends like Diya. He guessed such horrors were likely a regular occurrence. Pausing meant death for not just one person but the entire crew. Diya joined the captain at the helm and tightened his grip on the fountain pen. Before he could ask Jagdish about Gwyneth, the vessel shook again. The railing collapsed on the port side, and two crew members fell overboard.

Diya hesitated, glancing between the captain and the monster. “By Gaia’s tits,” he swore under his breath and raced towards the overboard sailors. He winced as his side stung, but Diya didn’t stop. He pressed a hand to the bandage and rushed onwards. Once at the edge, he summoned his Ink Vines and lashed them to the closest of the pair. He detached the conjuration from the fountain pen and stuck it to the deck. By the time he had lashed the second crewman, the first had returned to safety.

“Where is Gwyneth?” Diya yelled over the roar of battle as Ashish, the first mate, rushed past him. The question went unanswered.

A deep roar forced palms to ears. The leviathan reared back, raising its dorsal fins and tentacles high above its reptilian head. “To the depths, with you,” Diya said through gritted teeth. He pointed the fountain pen at the creature and unleashed his newest spell: Exploding Frostfire Ball. The projectile flew into the creature’s open maw, struck one of its many rows of teeth and exploded. Blood, gore, and chunks of bone rained on the vessel, and frostfire clung to the injury. The creature roared and recoiled.

As the leviathan retreated from the vessel, rising out of the sea, the water rose with it. Garuda went from an unstable horizontal position to an increasing incline. Jagdish yelled at the crew in Hindi, and everyone bound themselves to the railings or mast with scarves, belts, or whatever they could find. As everyone found their station, one figure continued darting around the deck. A damp mane of fiery red hair hung from her head, and water dripped from her pallid, freckled skin.

“Gwyneth!” Diya yelled. “Take cover.”

He couldn’t tell whether she couldn’t hear him over the chaos or chose to ignore him. Gwyneth climbed atop a stack of piled crates and dug her feet into the bindings attaching them to the deck. Her soul, Seeker’s Lantern, bobbed over her left shoulder. Its light was almost blinding in the giant sea monster’s shadow, and lightning arced between the lantern’s metal shell sections.

When Gwyneth pointed her palm at the monster, a bolt of violent silvery blue burst from her soul, it struck the monster’s exposed underside, ripping a chunk out of its hide and scorching the surrounding scales.

The leviathan roared again. The rising water moved with a mind of its own. A large chunk flowed to the injury and appeared to condense, forming transparent scales that matched the rest of its hide. Aqueous tentacles rose from the sea and shot towards Gwyneth. Before they could reach him, Jagdish leapt to intercept them. His arms and shoulders bulged, turning black and sprouting white hair. A guttural scream burst from his lips. The sound and exposed fangs reminded Diya of the gorillas from the woods south of the ground floor’s hub.

Jagdish’s fists shattered most of the tentacles, but one grabbed him by the left leg and thrashed him against the deck. Then it pulled his motionless form towards the Leviathan’s open maw.

“No!” Gwyneth screamed and launched another lightning bolt. It struck the same spot as before, but the watery armour appeared to absorb the energy. Diya assisted with more projectiles. Unfortunately, his attacks, too, proved ineffective. The crew threw everything they had at the monster, struggling to save their captain, but their attempts proved fruitless, too.

Then just as the tentacle reached the leviathan’s mouth, Jagdish stirred. Diya’s soul didn’t enhance his eyesight, but he was sure he saw the transformed man grin. Jagdish’s chest expanded as he took a deep breath in, and then he bellowed. The air rippled around his mouth, and the monster went still. The water armour and the conjured tentacles all dissolved, dropping Jagdish and leaving the leviathan defenceless.

“Hit it with everything you got!” Diya yelled, summoning Exploding Frostfire Balls one after the other. He, Gwyneth, and the crew showered the stunned creature with projectiles, tearing pieces out of its body and the open maw. It fell after Ashish had his summon climb the monster and drop a sack of explosives in its throat. As gore covered the vessel and painted the calming waters red, silver lights flowed out of the corpse, and cards rained around them.