When I woke I felt better than I had any right to. I came to realize that it may have been because I’d slept longer than I should have, nearly an entire day. Normally I’d wake based on my work schedule or the rhythms of noise around me. Since I’d begun sleeping underwater I’d noticed that I felt the changes in the tide as it went through its stages. After my exhaustion yesterday, I’d been oblivious to all of these.

I didn’t test the full movement of my right arm, I could tell it was still hurt. My bruises were sore and painful – particularly my right forearm – but I wasn’t as stiff as I’d expect. Sleeping in a liquid helped, I guess.

My burns baffled me. The bruising would improve with time, I understood that. The burns shouldn’t have improved as much as they did, especially not in the environment I’d been in all night! I considered maybe they hadn’t been as serious as I’d thought yesterday, but the memory of being hit and stumbling to the ocean with my clothes burning hadn’t become any less vivid. I was still wearing the burnt scraps, their durability trashed.

I’d been thinking of seawater as anathema to injury recovery because … well of course it was! Every sailor knew the dangers of infection! Yet the injuries I’d had weren’t hampered by my underwater environment, they’d all seemed to be better for it. Was this a benefit to my curse? It wouldn’t make sense for a being cursed to be in water to die of sepsis after receiving a cut, would it? Maybe my environment improved my recovery rate!

Swimming to the surface showed that my recovery rate wasn’t miraculous. I let my right arm relax and settled for a very inefficient swim stroke. I could breathe the atmosphere, I didn’t need to race anywhere.

Peeking above the surface showed that the two Free Brethren ship still controlled the harbor, though they hadn’t been unscathed. The docks were quiet, I didn’t see anyone moving about. I submerged just below the surface and took a circuitous route to the docks. A shark startled me, but it was a small one and didn’t seem interested in live prey.

There were no sounds of battle in Tulisang. I saw a building that had been burned down, but the ashes had long been extinguished. The area where the mage battle had taken place looked like the warzone it had been. Other places I hadn’t seen battle also showed evidence of it. I couldn’t see the ground along the docks from my position, but I imagined there were plenty of dried bloodstains. Wait, would the have already cleared the bodies? I didn’t want to know. It wasn’t any of my concern.

I swam along the dock to the shallower areas where the draft of larger ships couldn’t come. Most of these were fishing vessels or even a few pleasure craft. I swam along like I was window shopping. I wasn’t going for the very best, I was looking for something I could manage. A larger stow capacity than my previous dinghy would be nice, but depending on how changing between cursed ships effected it the effort might be worthless.

I was skimming past the fishing boats when one made me stop. As much as I hated stealing what was no doubt someone’s livelihood, a fishing boat was probably well suited for my purposes. I just needed to find one set up for one-man control … there! No, as I peeked over its gunwale I saw personal effects laying about. I’d be stealing a boat today, but if I had to toss a bunch of personal stuff I’d feel even guiltier.

I found one that suited my purposes and spent several minutes inspecting it. It badly needed some hull maintenance but that wouldn’t be a concern to me when it was cursed. The apparent disuse also helped me assuage my conscience.

I had something else to do before skipping town, as my stomach was reminding me. I’d gone from eating whatever I could scavenge in the sea to Renshaw’s oh-so-delicious and filling meal yesterday to a day-long fast. My stomach wasn’t happy, and I could tell the difference in my energy levels. I needed to get some food. The battle of yesterday scared me away from going back into town, but the apparent desertion of the streets and the knowledge that it was my best option for stocking up won me over.

I crawled into the fishing boat I’d picked and changed out of my rags and into my captain’s outfit. Yesterday, looking important had been a bad thing. I hoped that today it would be the opposite. I took a deep breath as I felt the attribute bonuses it offered expand my own.

Captain outfit:

+5 armor rating

+1 Strength

+2 Agility

+1 Dexterity

+1 Constitution

+2 Luck

+2 Charisma

It felt strange leaving a modest fishing vessel in such attire, but no one seemed to be watching. I dropped into stealth in the nearest alley and proceeded into town cautiously. It wasn’t that I saw no one at all, but the emptiness of the place was eerie. I wondered if there was a temporary truce between the factions or if they’d all just regrouped and were picking their battles.

I was heading towards the stall market, hoping that when madness descended yesterday the stall owners had left their food behind. Before I got there I smelled bread and circled the block to a bakery. They weren’t in operation, but I didn’t care if my bread wasn’t fresh from the oven. I tried the back door and found that it was – predictably – locked. Thankfully I finally had the tools on hand to make use of my lockpicking skill.

Now I’d seen lockpickers who could open locks in seconds, but that wasn’t me. That wasn’t most people with the skill. So long as I had time I could figure the lock out, though, and I opened the back door after less than ten minutes of fiddling. Okay, maybe it was just a little over ten minutes. I wish there were more – less illicit – ways to level the skill.

The shop was quiet and the ovens were cold. I made my way to the front of the store and helped myself to a variety of loaves, a tub of soft-butter the size of my head, and a jar of preserves. I stopped by the counter as I was leaving, and after a few moments of deliberation left some silver coins. I had nearly 10 gold in currency in my bag, I could afford to compensate a shop owner for my thievery.

I left and ran into the problem of not having a key to lock the door again behind me. I sighed and considered that locking up a shop was the non-criminal application of my skill and pulled out my lockpicks again. It was good practice, and since I was familiar with the lock already it only took me half the time.

I stopped by a general store and went through the same process, picking out a better variety of foodstuffs. The only tense moments occurred when I was locking back up and an armed patrol passed by. I was in stealth and they didn’t notice me.

I returned to the fishing boat I’d chosen and went over everything again before readying it to sail. I didn’t claim it just yet. My reasoning was that I didn’t want the top of the sail to be showing above the surface in these shallow waters, but then it also occurred to me that leaving a large dead-zone of mana on the pier would also be a bad idea. Glad I’d dodged that arrow, I got underway under normal power. The Brethren ships didn’t seem to care that one fisherman was brave enough to actually go fishing and I made it out of port without any difficulties.

A couple miles out I triggered my ability to raise the fishing boat as my own.

Would you like to raise ‘fishing boat’ as your ship?

At your current level, you may not claim two ships at the same time. Upgrade your ability to claim two ships if you wish to have both.

If you proceed, your other ship will be discarded. Would you like to proceed?

I confirmed the prompts and felt my awareness of the Sea Cruiser shrivel. My mana rushed outwards and multiplied itself. I watched as the mana tendrils extended not only into the sea but the air as well, multiplying before they returned and flooded the fishing boat. The proess was much faster than it had been for the Sea Cruiser. My interface shrunk to accommodate my more modest vessel.

‘Fishing boat’ has been raised as your cursed ship! Ship interface has been adjusted for ship type.

Sea Cruiser has been discarded.

Previous alterations on Sea Cruiser have been carried over where applicable.

XP has been allocated to sails.

I was glad to see that I hadn’t lost as many XP in the transfer to the fishing boat as I had to the Sea Cruiser. Nevertheless, I expected those points would be whittled down a lot more by the time I’d finished experimenting with different ships.

The fishing boat’s durability points were also recalculated based upon its status. I received no notifications about cursed effects and checking in my interface showed that I indeed had a perfectly ordinary kind of cursed vessel.

I submerged to take greater advantage of the current I wanted and set my course for the ship I’d just lost.

Soon, I was again at the Sea Cruiser’s resting place. Raising her and then letting her down in a different spot had made her more vulnerable to the forces of the sea. It would have only taken a few storms to push her off her place on the ridge in the first place, I’d cut down on the time it would take for her to reach the bottom.

She was still intact. Seeing what had happened to her had been my reason for detouring in this direction. I’d needed to know if every ship I ‘discarded’ would be subjected to the same forces that had destroyed my first dinghy. The Sea Cruiser had pretty much returned to her initial durability, minus about fifty points. That gave me hope that I wouldn’t be stranded every time I came out here to claim a new ship.

I practiced my magic until I was depleted before going to bed, as I was trying to make it a habit. I thought I noticed some improvement in the quantity of water I could move but hadn’t seemed to cross the threshold yet.

I awoke the next day and surfaced my fishing boat so I could eat my breakfast without tasting seawater. I checked my list of ships in the area and considered my next move.

My primary focus was to give Tulisang a few days to settle down. Even if the number of Andros’ army had increased, I doubted they’d planned on a full takeover. They had to know they’d need vastly superior numbers to take and control the city for months. Even if they controlled the streets and the harbor, Tulisang would remain a hotbed of unrest for a long time, and they’d have to rule with a strong hand. They didn’t have the troops for that, so after some territory shifts the town should return to its status quo. At least I hoped it did. I needed to learn some more magic basics, and a sparring partner would be good too.

In the meantime I would continue experimenting with my interface and ship types, finishing jobs to keep Smitty happy and my purse full. Finding ways to gain XP should also be on my to-do list.

I decided to head towards a sloop that was only a day or so away. It had been traveling from Nilfheim when local pirates set upon it. I hadn’t gotten the whole story from Smitty, but I’d gathered that pirates were never happy to have their prize sink instead of being looted.

There was a ship on the horizon, so I sailed on the surface until I was out of sight. By that point the winds were more accommodating than the underwater currents, so I stayed above.

I was on my way to claim the Integrity.

There might have been a bit of irony or justice in me claiming a ship from the nation that had started me on this path I was on. If there was, I didn’t feel it. The Integrity was below me now, and I didn’t feel any sense of vindication at the wreck.

It had taken me nearly an entire day since I’d arrived at the coordinates Smitty had to locate it. While the Sea Cruiser had been at the very spot I’d been given, the Integrity was over a mile away. It was also much deeper. Smitty had hoped that it would be in an area that would be manageable for normal diving, but he’d been wrong. The only reason this recovery was possible was because I was the one doing it.

I circled the sunken sloop and winced at the damage. I don’t know what tale had been told to Smitty, but this didn’t look like the attackers had spared any thought for looting anything. The whole port side looked like it had been stove in. It had barely 10% of its hull durability left. Sure, some of that would have been taken by its time her on the bottom, but I’d already seen examples of ships in ‘good’ shape despite the ocean’s ravaging. This ship had been brutalized before it had been sent down.

After some deliberation, I decided my trident would be my weapon going in. Nearly anything could be in residency and I wanted to be able to keep it away from me if possible. A sword would be more maneuverable, but I didn’t trust a blade to keep a sea creature from harming me at the same time.

I left my fishing vessel and began to clear the sloop. My Vision ability let me quickly pick up on the movement from inside.

Name

Giant Isopod

Level

Health

Mana

Stamina