Singer Sailor Merchant Mage

 

“You got the makings of greatness in you, but you got to take the helm and chart your own course!”

Long John Silver, Treasure Island

Our ship skipped across the waves, our skills working together to streamline and power our course. It didn’t hurt that we had the wind behind us as I filled the sails with my mana while my father held the helm. Lessons with Lady Acacia had only helped improve my mana control and power. But it was nice to avoid all the expectations once in a while. The problem with being a certified genius for my age was the achievements I was supposed to accomplish next. None of my tutors would accept me stalling or plateauing when I had much farther to go. It seemed I was supposed to work wonders later in life, and I didn’t want to disappoint them or myself. Father was happy to hijack the lord of the land to act as his onboard motor, and I honestly didn’t object. Our trips were always profitable in more ways than one.

“Picking up anything?” He asked as we shot along over the waves.

“Nothing yet,” I answered, not yet disappointed by our lack of any new finds. I had all my sense skills flaring to provide me with as detailed a scan of the bottom of the ocean as possible. I was building up a map of the bottom of the sea, but there was so much that it would take me years to search it all accurately. The depths of the Azimuth Ocean did not wish to give up its secrets easily or at all, and there were days when we returned without discovering anything new.

“Keep looking.” He said as he angled our course southward. Whether we found anything or not, we still had to come back with some fresh fish as it was the main excuse for our sailing excursion, and the best place to find them was the mana reef. So despite our different headings, every time we left the harbour to map the area, we always turned south toward the mana reef unless we were visiting Wester Levante or Little Wester.

One thing we had learned over the year was how long I could stay in the water before my mere presence started to pull the monsters from hiding places. I was a tasty morsel worth moving for and limited to 10 minutes under the water. This was not due to how long I could stay under the water while holding my breath but how long it took for my mana to dissipate through the water and start attracting the mana-hungry monsters. I could swim around slightly longer in the waters of the mana reef as the higher mana content of the area meant it took longer for them to notice me. We had checked.

Mana was still as excellent and mysterious a resource as it was when I first felt it after appearing in this world. But I learned much about it through personal experience alongside Lady Acacia’s lectures. It permeated everything. Every creature absorbed and released it, whether large or small, as they lived. This was particularly obvious in the mana reef, where you could see healthy areas of coral. The tiny polyps were exceptionally proficient at pulling in the water mana that flows through the ocean, the minuscule amount of earth mana that was initially invisible to my senses till I managed to level up past level 50, and release a green vibrant life mana that draws in so many other lifeforms to take advantage of it. Fish, lobsters, clams, seahorses, sponges and sea turtles were just a few of the myriad creatures that crowded this small section of the vast ocean.

We had seeded the mana reef with many traps and markers we needed to check once we reached the reef. Father would check them daily with or without me. Otherwise, we would find our traps destroyed by more giant creatures keen to eat the morsels we had caught. They were happy to fill their stomachs with what had filled our own or at least our wallets. The markers were more for me than for him. Various clams I was checking to see the size of their pearls while still waiting to harvest them.

It would be a busy day.

. . .

Several hours later, after fully harvesting the traps, resetting them and leaving them for Father to check tomorrow, it was time to go home. Taking a different route every time meant that we would sail east before heading north, then west, another bearing mapped on the map I was making of our territorial waters. Technically they would only be our territorial waters once I received the official next rank of the peerage, by becoming a viscount, according to Lady Acacia. Until then, the land was mine, but the sea in between was not. The silver lining to this fact was that as long as I remained the Lord of Wester Ponente rather than the Viscount of the West Isles, I was exempt from taxation due to the pioneer status of the island. However, as a Viscount of all three, I would suddenly find myself liable for tax.

As we turned north, we spotted the sail on the horizon. Facing my father to speak, I suddenly stuttered to a halt. “When we . . .” Other than the small fishing boats we spotted sailing near Little Wester or the larger ships docked on our island or Wester Levant, we had never seen a ship at sea. We were too far out from the continent to ever see any traffic.

Alerted by shock and staring, Father turned to see what I was looking at in the distance behind us. Holding the helm, he was forever looking forward rather than back, and he cursed as he, too, made out the sail in the distance.

“Ready, about!” he shouted before tacking and running west.

It had been easy sailing south in the morning with the wind behind us, and although it had shifted during the day, it would not make it easy for us to run straight home.

“Why are we running?” I asked, although I feared I already suspected the answer judging by the cut of their sails.

“That isn’t a Ponentian ship, son. It’s a Libecian galley.” He cursed once more. The difference between the square-cut sails of Ponente and the lateen rigging, triangular sails, of the Libeccian’s immediately apparent.

“It could be Kashif’s. It’s hard to tell from this distance.” I suggested, hopefully. Fully aware of the dubious reputation of the average Libeccian captain.

“We will know soon enough.” He grimly replied as he applied all his skills to driving our boat faster. “As much wind as you can conjure, Kai.” He directed as our ship shot forward, running west as quickly as we could.

Soon enough, we did. The ship had abandoned its previous course and turned to follow us toward the edge of the horizon and the unknown.

Over the next hour, our problem soon became very apparent.

Despite our size, skills, magic and speed.

The larger galley was gaining on us. It helped that they had far larger sails, of course, but what was truly driving them forward were their oars. From where we were fleeing, it was impossible to say if sailors or slaves were pulling them, but either way, the rowers were pulling them ever closer. Their strength and stamina stats had to be enormous to keep them going after chasing us for so long.

“Kai, you have to leave me.” My father told me once it became inevitable that we would be caught sooner or later. Although our course had driven us further west, we could not tack to return home without shortening the chase for the Libeccian galley.

“I can’t.” I refused.

“You can and you will.” He said firmly. “I’m just another sailor they will attach to an oar. They won’t kill me, and you can always get your guardians to come and get me. You, though, are something special. They might very well turn tail once they have you on board. Either to sell or ransom for a dukes reward. You can fly; you need to flee.” He pulled me close to say his final words as if the force of his arm wrapped around me could impress on me the seriousness of his words.

But he was defeated not by my inability to listen to the idea of leaving him behind but by the facts of the situation. We had passed the shortest point of return, and with me fueling our flight over the ocean, I would not have enough mana to make the flight by air now.

“I can’t,” I repeated. “I don’t have enough mana to make the flight.” I had been carefully watching my mana to ration out the bursts for when they were most needed flicking it on and off to help us crest the waves and then letting gravity and the wind drive us downward or forward.

“Kai.” He cried, disappointed by my answer. I had never let him down before, yet it had never been as vital as now.

“I’m not leaving you. I will not, and I cannot.” I answered firmly. When we first saw the galley and turned to flee, the thought had fleetingly flittered through my head. But I had banished the idea of leaving my father and refused to contemplate an option that had never truly existed. We were in this, whatever it may be, together.

“Can you take them?” he asked hesitatingly. He was aware of the training I had received and was proud of how well I could best most of my cousins despite being half their size. But games and training were not actual battles. As soon as the surprise of my size and speed was countered, I would quickly find myself squished unless I could stay ahead of them, and how could I do that with my father, a sitting duck? I was not alone. It was impossible.

“No,” I replied. It would never have worked. And exhausted as we were from running so hard, I hardly had full reserves to fight them with, no matter how quickly they replenished themselves. Furthermore, we had no idea what to expect on board the galley but with a crew capable of pulling forward across the sea after us so quickly; I heavily doubted that they were not fiercely competent.

The sea was wet and wild, and they were brazenly sailing out over the edge of it after us without hesitation or detour.

“I didn’t think we could, but I had to ask. Is there anything else you can think of that I am missing?” He finally asked after a heavy silence filled with the wind whipping through our hair and the smash of the waves against the hull. The waves had grown more profound as the ocean floor fell further away, out of sight of even my senses. We were sailing over the unknown, and if I was not currently being chased, I doubted I would have ever risked sailing so deep so soon.

“Not that I can think of,” I answered heavily.

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