Chapter Four Hundred and Twenty-Eight - Adrenaline Crash

The rest of the day was surprisingly calm.

The pirates swiftly disappeared over the horizon, but I still found myself pacing the deck anxiously. It wasn't until an hour had passed with no sign of their reappearance that the nervous energy left me, replaced by a sudden wave of tiredness that made my limbs feel a million times heavier. I could've almost fallen asleep on the spot.

Still, as much as I would have adored a nap, there was work to be done. The Beaver had sustained some damage, and I’d promised Awen that I wouldn’t overwork her, so I had to do what I could to help.

Then, out of nowhere, it hit me.

Bing Bong! Congratulations, your Cinnamon Bun Bun class has reached level 16!
Health + 5
Resilience +5
You have gained: One Class Point
You have unlocked: One Class Skill Slot

“Oh,” I said to no one in particular. How long had it been since my last level-up? Some time, actually. Well, only a week or so, actually, but it felt like it had been forever ago.

Amaryllis still complained that we were levelling up at an insane pace because of all the trouble we ran into, and I supposed this just proved her right.

I looked over my stats for a moment, then frowned. Had I increased a few skills to their next level? Friendmaking and Makeshift Weapon Proficiency were both at their cap? Had that happened during the fight?

“Hey, Mister Menu, what’s up with the lack of notifications?” I asked.

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Friendmaking skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!
Rank B costs 2 General Skill Points!

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Makeshift Weapon Proficiency skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!
Rank B costs 2 General Skill Points!

Oh, there it was! “Thanks,” I said.

“Are you okay, Broccoli?” Caprica asked. She was nearby, sorting through one of the toolboxes with all of the balloon-patching supplies. She didn’t have the skill or Skills to help with the actual patching work, but she was helping by keeping everything sorted.

“Just talking to, uh, myself, I guess? And the system. I levelled up!”

“Congratulations, then,” she said. “That’s not too surprising, I suppose.”

“It isn’t?”

“You were the captain of a ship attacked by three pirate ships, and we made it out of the fight mostly unscathed. Captains, generals, commanders and the like gain lots of experience when leading others through harrowing or challenging experiences.”

“Oh, but I’m an airship captain, not a military one,” I said.

“Is that what your skill is called?” she asked.

“No, it’s just Captaining,” I said.

She shrugged. “Then it should apply to any time you lead a small troop of soldiers. Or I suppose a small group of like-minded individuals? I don’t know the exact limits of the skill.”

That... actually sounded really cool!

I had a few general skill points to spare. They weren’t a renewable resource, but it felt like it was safe to spend one here.

Congratulations! Your Captaining skill has improved and is now Rank C!

Captaining
Rank: C
The ability to lead and take charge through smooth sailing and rough patches. You have a magical awareness of your ship and crew.

A magical awareness? What did that mean-- oh!

I jumped as something tickled the back of my mind. It felt almost like someone was tugging at my ears, but not quite. I worked my jaw, then reached up to check the base of my ears, but there was nothing there. And yet... there was definitely something going on.

I focused on it, and then felt a wave of vertigo pass through me. In that same moment, I felt the Beaver. The entire ship was just... there. I could feel it under my feet, but it felt like I had a sort of feel for the entire airship. I could have walked from bow to stern with my eyes closed, and I could point to every crack and splinter in his hull.

It wasn’t so much a mental map as it was an extension of my own sense of self. I knew where my own fingers were, and I didn’t need to look to touch my own ear or nose or whatever, I had an awareness of where my own limbs were, and now that sort of extended to the ship.

And my friends.

I could tell that Awen was coming up the stairs near the engineering area, that Joe was clinging onto the side of the balloon above, that Clive was... oh, I could tell when people were using the head, which was a big nope.

I pushed the sense away and it receded, turning into something like an itching feeling at the base of my ears.

“Neat!” I said.

“Did you improve a skill?” Caprica asked.

“I did! I ranked-up Captaining. I can feel where people are on the Beaver now, and where it’s damaged.”

“Oh, that seems very practical,” she said. “I think captains in the army have a sense of where their squads are. The skill might give you the ability to communicate with others at higher tiers. It costs a fair bit of mana, but for most martial classes that mana wouldn’t be used otherwise.”

That sounded like a ton of fun! A sort of magical skill-based telephone, maybe? It would be nice to be able to talk to my friends from the comfort of a pillow fort. Although... no, that was silly. If I had a pillow fort, then I’d want my friends in it too.

“Right, back to work,” I said. “I’ll try to stay up for a while, but I think we should do rotations.”

“Like a watch?” Caprica asked.

“Yeah. I’m really tired, and I bet I’m not the only one. We all got woken up early and then it was a lot of stress. Giving everyone a few hours for a midday nap can’t hurt.”

That was easier said than done, of course. The first step was making sure that everything outside of the ship was good. The Shady Lady had come up and was now hovering some fifty metres off our port side. Raynold was at the helm, and Abraham wasn’t visible. Maybe he was taking his own nap?

Cholondee wasn’t around anymore. I suspected that she’d flown ahead because the Beaver was just too slow compared to a dragon. I couldn’t blame her, it must have been tiring to keep up with someone slower, like a really lame escort mission.

I was sure she’d come back around. Besides, she needed lunch and we certainly didn’t have the stuff to feed a dragon on board.

Speaking of lunch, I figured that with everything that had happened, the crew would be rather hungry, so I grabbed Oda to help me, then went down to the kitchens, and we started on a big stew. Just something quick and easy to keep warm.

Carrots and potatoes were chopped up, a stick of celery got ripped apart into chunks, and I tossed in a few minced cloves of garlic. Then Oda emptied the end of a bottle of wine into the mix. The alcohol would get cooked out and the tasty bit would remain. Then more seasoning, because there was no such thing as too much rosemary. The onions in our pantry were starting to go green, but I think we’d picked those up in Sylphfree a long time ago, so it was about time that we used them.

“Lunch is ready!” I called out across the deck. My new skill was actually coming in handy already, since I knew that some of the crew on the far end hadn’t heard me.

I had to wonder what it was like for people with main classes that revolved around doing airship stuff. Did they have a heap of really powerful skills that’d let them pilot a ship really well?

As people came over to eat, I asked each how they were feeling, and then divided up the nap rotation based on that. It would only be about an hour of napping for each, but hopefully that would be enough to keep everyone going until nightfall.

I got the middle nap, so after lunch I waddled my way back up the deck and started cleaning up whatever messes I could find. The broken rails had been neatened up, with unfixable parts sawed off so that they could be repaired once we were back in a port. I stripped off the scorch marks on the deck and hull with Cleaning magic until they were gone. Some of the paint had been removed though, so we’d need to give the Beaver a fresh coat too.

“It’s not all that bad,” Awen said as she came up behind me.

“The damage?” I asked.

She nodded. “A few holes here and there, but nothing structural was hit. The engine is intact, so are all the mechanical parts. One of the wing-flaps was pinned in place. We’ll need to replace the sail unless we want to fly with a patch, but otherwise we came out of it okay.”

“Good,” I said. “That’s really good.”

Awen nodded. “Do you think we’ll have time to fix things at the next port?”

“We’ll be at Port Royal. As far as ports go, it’s probably the one I know best.” Which really wasn’t saying all that much. “I’m sure we can find some nice people to help us with the Beaver. Maybe your uncle knows a few? He hangs around there a lot, yeah?”

Awen nodded. “He likes the grenoil. A lot of his first adventures were around Deepmarsh, and I think they think he’s some sort of old hero.”

“I bet he did do some heroic stuff,” I said.

"Well ... it's complicated." Awen shrugged her shoulders. "He tells this story about how once, he saved the capital from a horde of undead that had emerged from the eastern swamps."

“That does sound very heroic, though,” I said.

She shook her head. “He’s the one that woke up the horde by poking around; they followed him to the capital because he stole some lich’s phylactery.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that makes it a lot less heroic sounding.”

“I know!” Awen complained. “It’s not like he even hid the fact that it was his fault. But I guess he’s kinda strong, and he does a lot of adventuring stuff, so people always treat him like a big hero.”

“Are you upset about it?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, not at all. It’s just the way uncle is.”

“Hmm, well, as long as he’s not doing that kind of thing anymore, it should be okay.”

“You do know that he really wants to get into a fight with a dragon, right?” Awen asked.

“Maybe we can arrange a spar?” I tried.

Awen looked a bit dubious at that, but she didn’t say it was impossible. I decided to hope for the best for the moment. In any case, we were going to a wedding. It would be very rude of Abraham to challenge the groom to a fight before he had time to say his ‘I do.’

***