“Captain? Captain can you hear me? You need to heal yourself! Use your replenishing waters spell …”

“Captain, we can’t keep going like this, you need to use your magic!”

“DOMENIC!”

In a terrifying fever dream, I latched onto an insistent voice and gradually realized I was being given instructions and needed to comply. I wasn’t feeling up for doing much of anything, but the promise of healing and feeling even a little better than I did right now was worth trying.

I’d just cast replenishing waters, though, hadn’t I? The darn spell took all of my mana every time I used it. No way I could cast it again. But my basic heal spell wasn’t strong enough to fix the problems I had going on, so replenishing waters it was. It could suck out whatever mana I’d regenerated and I’d have followed instructions.

Mana intensive as it was, the casting was thankfully instant. There was no way I’d manage even a one second casting time. I was surprised to realize that the spell used so much mana I must have been nearly full.

I suddenly felt like I’d fallen from a dry desert, buried in ancient sand, to being dunked in the Atlas Ocean. Shock flooded my system as my eyes snapped open and I bolted upright only to be easily forced down again.

“Yes! Good, now stay calm and relax, just a bit more and this’ll be flushed from your system …”

Ice seemed to crawl up my limbs as burning heat was pulled from my bones, starting with my extremities and working in towards my chest where I’d been stabbed. My breaths came in shorter, shallower gasps. I hadn’t felt this cold in … years, at least. Maybe ever.

The last bit of warmth seemed to be sucked from my chest and my frozen teeth clamped together. I couldn’t even manage to take a breath until someone thumped my chest and seemingly unlocked my lungs. My teeth were chattering.

“Why’s he look so cold now?”

“His blood was practically molten, going back to a normal temperature feels like a shock but he’ll get over it.”

I rubbed my eyes and the hands holding me down released me. I forced myself to sit upright and take stock, feeling far out of my depth.

Gnar was hovering over me, a worried look on his face. Drese was standing a few feet away, a circle of unfamiliar madu and orcs kneeling in a circle around him. They all seemed somewhat listless, but the master life mage checked them over briefly and seemed satisfied.

I tried to stand and found myself as weak as a fish that had been hooked on a line for a week. I settled for hugging my knees and shivered.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice a husky rasp.

“Wyrm fire,” Gnar said, producing the wicked blade that the vampires had put in my chest. “They wanted to make sure you died, all right.”

I gaped at the blade. “That … I survived dragon fire?”

Drese snorted. “A fire wyrm does not a dragon make; count yourself lucky enough for that. If you’d been hit with dragon fire all I could have done would be cutting off the affected limbs or easing your passing.”

I looked at the listless circle with a weary life master standing in the middle. “Just what did you do?”

“While you dove the ship I kept the vampires off of us until they retreated. Then I burned through every mana potion in your bag trying to stabilize you.” My eyes went wide at that … I’d had a substantial stockpile in there after our raids! “When I was still going to run out of mana, I arranged to have volunteers support me. By drawing on the life of others, I was able to keep going long enough to bring you back.”

“Drawing on their life?” I said, looking at the group who was just seeming to get their bearings. “They … shortened their lifespans?”

“Yes, though having a decent Constitution will let them recuperate from how much I used them. We cycled volunteers through the circle.”

I owed every person who stepped up to help me. I owed Drese a lot more, as there had been no replacement for him. He’d gone from an intense battle to an extended healing session without pause. “I owe you my life.”

“Your own healing spell was instrumental in tipping the balance: both when you used it after getting inflicted and when my powers started to flag.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered without you. Thank you, Drese.”

He nodded to me. “Of course, Captain. Now, before you discover it on your own and panic, I have some news to break to you.”

Ah, fishguts. What now?

“You are feeling weak and frail, correct? That is not simply aftereffects of the wyrm fire, I’m afraid. Your Constitution was ravaged by it, and you have lost attributes because of that.”

“What?” I said, immediately bringing up the prompt that verified it:

Severe injuries have damaged your body. You have lost 1 Constitution.

Severe injuries have damaged your body. You have lost 1 Constitution.

For a moment, I was at a loss. Once again I was facing the loss of hard earned attributes. I’d spent my early years hoarding my attributes points from leveling and building up my stats through work and effort only to have the edge I’d cultivated gradually worn down.

I shook myself from my self-pity before it devolved further. This was just one more thing to deal with. I could handle having 20 fewer HP, I needed to lean more on my spells anyway.

“Thank you again for saving my life,” I said. “I’ll follow up with any health issues after you’ve had a chance to rest.”

“Very well. If you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I will be quite useless to you for some time. Good luck.” Drese moved to a nearby pile of blankets, peeled the blood-spattered topmost blanket off and unceremoniously sprawled onto the rest.

Gnar returned my adventurer’s bag to me. “I’ve seen healers work wonders, but I’ve never seen someone work like he did.”

“I owe him more than I know how to repay,” I said. “But I’ll be looking for ways to do it. Tell me more about what happened.”

“Well, you claimed the ship and sent it down. The vampires followed us for a hundred yards or so, then … well they sensed what was coming and took off.”

“‘What was coming’? Is something coming?”

Gnar heaved a deep breath and crooked a finger for me to follow him to the hatch. We were on the first deck of the ship, where the crew had made their berthing and stored their supplies. It had been the cleanest deck by default, but after our attack left bodies to cool in puddles of blood and voided bowels, it was uncertain which decks of the prison ship were the worst.

Gnar moved to listen at the hatch to the main deck. I didn’t wait for such mundane things as peeking when I could see everything in my Domain.

I had stopped looking through my Domain while being afflicted by wyrm fire, so looking through my sphere again was something of a sensory overload. I was familiar enough with the ship from our scouting to orient myself, but for some reason our ship had much more mass than it should. It took me a moment to comprehend what I was seeing: we were being held by a kraken!

Marching to where Gnar was peeking out, I just avoided slamming the hatch in his face and instead eased it shut – firmly. “Gnar … how long has a kraken been strangling us?”

“Ever since those vamps fled – I figure they did something to the water since there were all sorts of creatures fighting each other. That big thing decided we looked like a fun toy and cuddled up with us.”

“Kraken don’t have a ‘gentle mode’ with ships, how has this un-enchanted ship not been crushed?”

“Oh, the ship was creaking a lot right off the bat but it all stopped after a bit. We were mainly focused on you, dealing with everything else later.”

I thanked Gnar for his contribution in saving my life, and dove into the waiting ship interface to see where our durability was and try and understand what was going on.

Final Internment (Cursed)

Ship Class

Hulk

Captain

Seaborn

Ship Durability

,050,250/82,000

Ship level

Cursed Status:

Containment

Bloodied Meeting Ground

Ship alterations:

Speed

Maneuverability

Handling

Durability

Modifications:

Repairs

Effects

Relationships

…