I decided to name the new whaloid Vlad, although I wasn’t actually sure if it was a male or female. Truthfully, I wasn’t able to identify the sex of a number of beasts, especially birds and sea creatures. I often just assumed they were male without any evidence to the contrary. Vlad had come through for me in that battle, and since I should be able to maintain our tamer-familiar connection with my increased strength, I decided to commit to him, at least for the next year. If I had to release him before I left Mirut, I hoped to at least return him to his pod next spring.
Vlad was able to come to shore with his stumpy legs, but was not particularly quick and seemed to do poorly if he spent too much time out of water. We had both gained a good chunk of experience from the battle, and I became interested in what his evolution might be like. Would his legs get stronger and his skin more capable of weathering the open air, or would he become more like the whales of my world and be limited exclusively to the sea?
The lorsh meat was surprisingly tasty, and everyone with room to grow gained a good amount of experience from eating the beast. It had died quickly, so I assumed it was rank E, but maybe it had been rank D, and died quickly because… well, I had cooked it from the inside, which would kill anything pretty fast, unless the beast had enough magic to suppress that kind of attack.
I also fed Vlad some shagloth meat while I was at it. The stronger he was, the more he could protect me when we returned to the sea. I told him I would return in the morning, and parted from Vlad and Buda who were soaking in the shallows, returning to Mirut and my home with Treepo and Gregory in tow, made invisible by magic to not shock the townsfolk. In this world, only farmers, coachmen, and a select few others tamed beasts, and domestication was unknown, so it was uncommon to see people with pets or beast companions.
After going back through the wall, I was meandering up the beach when I ran into Nodel.
“Hi Pilus!” she said, greeting me enthusiastically.
“Hullo Nodel,” I said, smiling in return.
Nodel Mirut was the daughter of the local lord, and about a year younger than me. I had initially disliked her because of how she had interrupted my training, but we became something like friends after I figured out that the sickness she had suffered during her youth was caused by too much natural magic absorption. I secretly taught her 4-point magic, and with an outlet for her MP she had grown healthy and strong. Her body was able to grow a vast magic pool for her level when she leveled up, and she was quickly becoming a capable magic user. It was a shared secret between children, one I hoped she would continue to be able to keep until I was old enough to deal with the consequences of being found out.
“You smell… fishy,” she said, and I glanced at the arm that I had shoved inside the lorsh earlier.
“I was swimming in the ocean.”
She stepped away from me and moved to the water, and stuck her hand in. “Bit cold for swimming,” she commented. I shrugged.
We chatted amicably while walking towards the piers. She told me a bit about the magic she was practicing and what she wanted to try next. I suggested more stone-shaping, which was what I had done the most of in my early days of learning 4-point magic.
“Did you see the convoy market that passed through town?” I asked her when we passed the vacated square.
“I did. My mama and I went together. She bought me some jewelry,” she said with a grin. I thought of the shopkeeper who told me about the deepwater pearls, and hoped she ended up pleased to sell some product to the only people in town who were likely to purchase any.
“Nice. I bought a map,” I said, off-hand.
Nodel stopped walking. “A map?”
“Yeah,” I said. “A map of the Horuth Kingdom and the surrounding area.”
“Why do you need a map?”
“Uh, well, I wanted to know what’s out there.”
“What for?” she demanded.
“For when I go on a journey and travel,” I said, confused at why she was getting angry.
“You’re leaving?” she said, voice pitching up and eyes growing misty.
“Not yet, not even that soon, but–”
Nodel turned away and bolted, running up the port-side street and back towards her home. I saw a few adults turn their heads at the commotion and glared back at me for making the girl cry.
Damn. I hoped that wouldn’t be a problem.
* * *
I laid out my underwater adventure treasures in the yard behind my house, and looked over it all.
Most of it was junk, if I was being honest. I had collected a few interesting-looking rocks that were otherwise probably nothing special; a small piece of dead coral, which made me wonder if there was a reef nearby; a large, extremely rusted piece of iron that I couldn’t even make out what it had originally been; a nice big conch shell, that must have been empty since it went into my inventory; and several hooks and spearheads which could maybe be repurposed.
The main attraction was the beautiful deepwater pearl. It would be valuable just because people wanted it, but what I was really interested in was the description I read when I appraised it. Just like the magic crystal, it was a form of concentrated magic. It had to be the original source of evolution for the shieldbacks. Unlike magic crystals which built up the excess magic in the body of a beast, this seemed like a function of the blueclam itself.
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On Earth, the ocean absorbed around 30% of atmospheric carbon dioxide. When I died, excessive atmospheric carbon dioxide was driving ocean acidification. It certainly seemed possible that the ocean of this world could be drawing down magic from the atmosphere. That could lead to some kind of ocean “magicification,” if that magic wasn’t concentrated away or used up somehow. If blueclams existed throughout the deep waters of the oceans, they could act as a filter for the oceanic magical buildup. It could also explain why the rocky shieldbacks seemed able to concentrate so much magic within their bodies so quickly, too. Ocean beasts could be a little more receptive to magic.
Life started in the ocean, on Earth. Though it evolved to move up onto the land and colonized spaces far from the ocean from where it came, much of that life still needed some of the same base elements that were primarily found in the ocean, like salt. It had to trickle up through the food chain.
Concentrated magic could make its way up the food chain in this world, too. The rocky shieldbacks mostly laid eggs within the walls of Mirut, but not all did. That could be an adaptive behavior that arose due to the relative safety provided by the location. Before Mirut was built, the shieldbacks would have had to nest next to the jungle. Predators would have tried to eat them, and would have sometimes succeeded, and would therefore gain the opportunity to evolve on their own. Those beasts could have moved further inland, and when they concentrated enough magic to produce crystals, could have become targets for stronger beasts. If nothing else, they would have left behind crystals in death that could be scavenged by others.
Human civilization collected and controlled much of that now, which likely affected the natural rhythm of magical evolution. Before this world’s agrarian revolution and human settlements, how different had this world been? What kind of magical beasts might have roamed the wilds?
What ancient champions might still be alive out there, biding their time?
* * *
I alternated between training Buda and Vlad, bouncing back and forth between two very different environments.
Buda’s training was simple and straightforward. We ran down beasts easily, and he was happily laying waste to his former predators and racking up the experience points.
Vlad’s training was different. He couldn’t really do combat on land, and aside from dragging some weakened and magically-restrained enemies to him for him to land a finishing blow, the only experience I could help him gain on land came from food.
The only other option was to find him combat targets at sea. I ruled out other whaloids for obvious reasons, but that left us with a variety of incredibly weak fish–which, being his primary diet, was already a tapped out source for experience–and enemies that were quite dangerous in the deep or way out at sea.
There weren’t many middle-ground options. Rocky shieldbacks became much more dangerous when engaged in underwater battle, where they happily used magic to protect themselves with torpedoes of stone. Unevolved shieldbacks were a good option, but they were a bit out of season.
The main problem was my magical limitations underwater. Air magic was a non-starter with no air. Water magic was helpful for movement, but didn’t pack a punch offensively. Water resistance made my stone weapons a challenge to use, and though I tried to learn from the rocky shieldbacks to find ways to make them more effective, I simply couldn’t hit as hard as I could on land. Fire magic only worked if I was in direct contact with my enemy.
We did some more diving and took out another lorsh, although the second one managed to land a nasty bite on me which dissuaded me from wanting to try again in the short term. I decided to wait until I could figure out how to sharpen the spearheads I found and mount them on poles so that I could attack the beast’s mouth from a distance.
I tasked Vlad with finding more blueclams on his own while I was training Buda, and every now and then he would bring me out to dive for additional deepwater pearls. As the summer grew hotter, it was increasingly a pleasure to go treasure hunting, compared to the frigid dives at the start of spring.
I rode out on Vlad’s back one such day but noticed he was acting a little different. He seemed excited, but struggled to convey why. Maybe he found a whole bunch of blueclams, I thought.
We had gone further out than usual, and I was getting mildly uncomfortable at the distance from shore. This far out, the bottom of the ocean would be really, really deep, which was another thing to worry about.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked my familiar, who sung happily.
We reached the location that Vlad had discovered and he circled, telling me that we would dive here. I summoned up my magical diving helmet, making it slightly larger than usual for some extra oxygen just in case, and Vlad dove fast and aggressively into the deep, cold waters.
His strong tail pounded at the water behind us as we plummeted into the dark. I looked back and saw the light of the day fade as the distance to the surface grew larger and larger. Looking down, I couldn’t see the ocean floor at all. I thought about creating some light magic, but I had no idea what that might attract, so I held back and put my trust in Vlad.
After what felt like far too much diving, we slowed and stopped as we reached the bottom. I was forced to create some magic light in order to see why I had been brought here. The water pressure was intense, and I carefully swam from Vlad’s back to investigate what was around the site in the silty water.
Vlad swam up next to me, and pointed with his horn towards a shape in the dark. I twisted towards it and pushed my light forward to reveal a chest. Intrigued, I approached and grabbed the lid, trying to open the chest to reveal the contents. The lid didn’t budge. I dropped the chest into my inventory, and returned to Vlad’s back.
At the very edge of the light’s effect, I thought I saw some movement. I glanced back and saw something green. Some kind of seaweed, maybe? Could be useful. I poured some MP into my light in order to get a better look at what was growing down here on the ocean floor, and immediately started tapping incessantly on Vlad’s back.
Vlad pumped his tail with full force and we shot up and away through the water, away from what was most certainly some kind of kraken. That thing was too large, this water was too deep, and there was such a thing as too much of a challenge, no matter what sort of self-inflicted obligation I gave myself to get stronger. The huge green squid-like creature’s massive eye was on me until I was far enough that my magical light went out.
* * *
“Dude. Are you out of your mind?” I asked the whaloid after we emerged at the surface and rode back to shore. Vlad sung an apology, but if that thing had grabbed a hold of either of us, I would have died, full stop. I stewed in my anger the whole ride back. A mysterious chest was undoubtedly cool, but I had no doubt in my mind I had just come face to face with my first rank C–or even stronger–beast, and in an environment in which I was totally incapable of putting up a proper fight.
We came to shore and I stomped up the sand, Vlad following me like a scolded puppy. I pulled the chest out of my inventory and it slammed down in the sand at a slight angle. I kicked at the lid, which wouldn’t budge.
I crouched down and looked at the lock. I knew a little bit about the methods of lockpicking and probably could have managed to make something work with earth magic, but I was pissed, so I just poured some concentrated fire into the lock until the metal softened enough that I could wrench the lid open.
I gaped a bit at the contents, then slowly turned to Vlad. “Well. Ok then. You’re forgiven,” I said, turning my eyes back to the chest full of gold coins.