Malysseus had actually needed to spend two weeks laying in a cot for his body to heal, even with Kewari’s healing supporting his recovery. After that, he needed two weeks to adjust his body to peak conditioning through sit-ups, pull-ups, and running on the beach. He did not like running on the beach. Over the weeks, he had aided the crew in reconstructing a ship. Opportunity the II was not nearly as well-crafted as Opportunity, but would likely cross the sea without sinking.

One never really knew.

Even with the cyclops dead, the crew didn’t want to push into the island without the Captain’s aid. That sentiment was even more present after Malysseus had managed to kill a cyclops—a monster of legend. Thirty-one days after his battle, the formerly secret Wizard sat inside a small reconstructed wooden box, studying the staff.

The staff was maintaining its own secrets, though Malysseus had been charging it with power every day since he was able to leave his bed. The magical artifact already hummed with power. About twenty of Malysseus’ Mana pools worth of energy were contained in the staff. And it was time to test casting magic through the weapon.

For his first test, he created an orb of light since it could safely be tried inside a wooden box. He was forced to shut his eyes and dismiss the spell as the light nearly blinded him. The staff, charged with power as it was, turned out to be much easier to move Mana through than a personal Mana pool. A half dozen members of the crew came running.

“What’s going on!?”

“Another attack!”

“Shut up, Eric. You’ll have everyone losing it!”

“It could be.”

Malysseus, holding back a smirk, sighed and opened his eyes. “Nothing to be concerned about, men. Just testing a likely ancient artifact of magical power.”

“That does seem mildly concerning, actually,” Marcus said, joining the small throng of sailors. “You’re in the middle of the camp.”

“Bah!” Malysseus replied, returning his attention to the magic weapon. The crew stood around waiting to see what would happen, but when nothing happened as the minutes ticked by, they looked to see if any rum had survived.

The fools—Malysseus thought to himself—all the rum died when the cyclops destroyed the ship.

Despite the overcharged light spell, the staff was highly efficient. The spell used a lot of Mana, but not nearly so much as Malysseus would have used casting a similar spell himself. He turned the staff over in his hands, looking for the runes or spell marks creating such efficiency. His inspection yielded no results. There was clearly something strange going on with the staff. It shouldn’t be capable of channeling such power without mighty runes, let alone storing high quantities.

Malysseus, deciding he would need more experimentation, left his small wooden dwelling. He left the camp, moving a distance away as he always did when practicing magic. He walked through the sandy beach—reminding him way too closely of beach running—until the camp was at the edges of his vision.

His first test involved a series of single-element spells: fire, water, air, and earth. Starting with water, Malysseus disturbed the water just off the beach. He didn’t want to manipulate the shoreline since the staff seemed to be firing powerful spells. The ripples in the water turned into a small vortex off the coast, even with all his attempts.

He dismissed the spell immediately before the vortex could pull in the sand from the shore. ‘Malysseus: Lost at Sea” wasn’t the best final chapter, in his view.

The next test was wind. The gust of wind Malysseus summoned would be invaluable for the return trip. The staff was so efficient, and its Mana reservoir so vast that he could likely cast wind into the sails the entire ride home. The next test, the earth magic, revealed it could strengthen his limbs much more than before. He thought he might even be able to stand up to a swing from the cyclops. He, of course, wouldn’t get the chance since he had killed it.

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The control of the staff was even fine enough—now that Malysseus grew more used to it—to manipulate grains of sand. The final test was the element of fire. Summoning fire essence, he did not hold back. He aimed the fire staff toward the sea, trying to avoid burning down half the island. The fire essence in the weapon became so concentrated the staff’s tip visibly pulsed with embers.

Malysseus released the spell.

The fireball erupted from his staff, growing larger as it hit the air. He watched in wonder as the fireball soared into the distance. Without fizzling out, the inferno disappeared in the distance. He hoped it wouldn’t obliterate some poor wayward ship where the eyes could not see. It seemed to gather fuel from the air as it passed.

Malysseus stared into the distance. He hadn’t been inspecting the level of staying power, even despite the other wonders of the staff. His strength had grown exponentially since departing on the expedition. In figuring out Arcane magic, he had already cemented his name as worthy of the title Archmage. He pulled out a cigar and began to smoke, mind still reeling on the possibilities the staff yielded.

With the addition of the staff, Malysseus had yet to learn what his power level might be considered. Some had a name for it: monstrous.

As he smoked on the beach, lost deep in the waves of his own thoughts, Gurten and Kewari came to speak with him. He didn’t notice them as they appeared, so they were content to stand on either side of him. And wait.

The ash of the cigar disappeared as time ticked on. Gurten and Kewari passed the time by gazing into the distance, wondering what their Captain had seen.

Startling himself as his thoughts returned to the world, Malysseus said, “Ah! Kewari, Gurten, my friends. I am glad you are here, even though I do not remember calling for you. Why are you here?” He let the question hang, assuming they had some purpose beyond friendship. Trivial matters could have waited for him to return to the camp.

“The ship is ready to depart,” Kewari said. “Opportunity lives again.”

“So it does, so it does,” Malysseus agreed.

Gurten added, “Some of the men grow pretty restless. It’s been a long time since we left for the expedition. We’ve all survived trials and tribulations. And we have the staff.”

“So we do, so we do,” Malysseus confirmed. His face was inscrutable as he allowed his companions to build their point. He knew where they were going but wanted to let them have the space to say so themselves.

“With that being said,” Gurten said. “Some of the men think we should leave. We’ve managed to do what many could not already. We survived the journey. We survived a cyclops. But we are not you, my Captain. We did not fight a cyclops… we simply survived.” He paused for a few moments, adding, “I think we should go.”

Malysseus—of course—knew that was expected. His friend loved reading at sea and would want to return to his stories.

“I think we should return home, too,” Kewari agreed. That was not expected.

Malysseus thought back to all the time he had spent with Kewari in the past. As he went over the details, memory by memory, he could not think of her asking him for something. She had healed him. She had joined him on dangerous stealth missions. She had sailed with him. She had never asked him for a thing.

Even now, she wasn’t really asking. Kewari simply expressed her opinion that it was time for the crew to move on. After all, Malysseus did hold a supremely magical artifact in his hand. Staff in hand, Malysseus did not even fear his ability to kill the Kraken—a creature of the deep. In the end, the creature was simply a cyclops at sea. And he had already killed one cyclops with his Arcane magic.

“I understand,” Malysseus simply said. He knew he was likely to come back to this place. In some ways, Malysseus was looking forward to the return journey. The others, however, could be spared the trip. Kewari and Gurten would likely return anyway, but the other crew would be replaced by trained professionals with Malysseus as their guide.

But for now, he needed to get his crew home. He needed to report directly to the King. The King would want to know about the squidlings, the cyclops, the strange wildlife of the island, and everything else. Wizards would like to inspect everything on the island, of course. His duty was to bring back what he knew.

The ground began to shake.

Malysseus and his dear friends exchanged looks. The shaking became more violent. By this point, they were intimately familiar with the quakes of a cyclops coming. A second cyclops was living on the island. If they could sense magic, as he suspected, the creature had just seen him cast several spells. The spells were so powerful they may as well have been beacons.

Malysseus cursed. The sentiment was echoed by many others.

Wrapping them in a curtain of wind magic, Malysseus achieved flight as they returned to the village. The move was extremely Mana hungry, which prevented most Wizards from utilizing flight with any frequency. The Mana poured from the staff as Gurten, Malysseus, and Kewari flew back to their crew.