“Not long after, Vox and Helena got married, and they had Ghili.” Ford’s story was something out of a fantasy novel, but I believed him. That I was in a fantasy world may have helped with that.
“So let me get this straight. More than half my crew is fugitive royalty, and the rest are a general who abandoned his post, his wife, and orphan. Speaking of said orphan, how does Henry fit into all this.”
Ford gave a solemn smile at the mention of Henry. “It was a few years later when we picked up Henry. He was fleeing Vivanti debt collectors after his parents died.”
David balled his hands into tight fists. “The bastards had inflated the amount of debt his parents owed and claimed he was responsible for it. They were going to send him to the Ashcurrent’s sulfur mines. Ghili needed a knight, and so I convinced him to come with us under the pretext of training to be that knight. Dumb boy didn’t think he deserved such help from strangers without payment.” That explained the [Squire] [Profession].
“Is that legal, forcing someone into mines as debt repayment. Is slavery legal?”
“It wasn’t when we left, but jealousy made my friends into some heartless bastards,” Ford responded. The man was almost always smiling, but his smile changed enough to let you know how he was feeling. Right then, his smile was full of rage, and it scared me. It felt as though I was standing in front of a massive octopus ready to tear my very cells apart with toothy tentacles.
“That all explains why you seemed worried when you heard my last name. You weren’t sure if your enemies had gotten to me first. Are they going to be causing problems for us?”
The feeling quickly disappeared as Ford changed his attitude. “It’s likely, but not for a while. We’ve put a good amount of distance between us and the chasms, and from what we’ve heard, there seems to be a power struggle between them at the moment. Before we move on from talking about the past, Captain, who, and what, were you before you came here?”
My eyes went wide. “When did you figure something was up?”
Ford’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “With how you phrased statements about your old world so vaguely, I had my suspicions, But they were only confirmed when you first swam with us. All aquatic species are born knowing how to swim properly. You were quick to adjust, so quick I almost missed it, but in your first swim since coming here, you swam like a land species for just a moment before your new body’s instincts kicked in. You held your breath for a moment too.”
“Dang, and I thought I had been sneaky.” The whole room gave a chuckle, “Well, to answer your questions, my name Roland Matthews, A.K.A. Riggz, and I was born Human. I was an athlete, student, game and sailing enthusiast, and terminally ill cancer patient. My illness was cured when I came here. Humanity was, to our knowledge, the only sapient race on our planet, and in explored space.” I decided to be honest in full. It wasn’t like I had much to hide, and anything I did hide could come back to bite me.
You could hear a pin drop, until Rita spoke up, “I’m not sure what cancer is, but it must have been terrifying. For such a young man to be terminally ill, it's something that is never expected, and a truly terrible thing.” She pulled me into a hug, and I wept. “It’s okay now. You're healthy, and you're here with us.” I hadn’t really figured it out, with worrying about not leaving my sorry state as my family’s last memories and coming here, but here and now, I finally realized how scared I really was to die, or how relieved I was to live.
I choked back my tears and Rita let me go. “Sorry about that, I guess I’ve been holding it back”
Helena scowled, “Don’t ever apologize for crying. The only people who should apologize for crying are spoiled brats who cry when someone finally stands up to them.”
Rita hushed her and turned back to me, “Did you have anyone back home? If you don’t want to talk about them, we can talk about what you did as an athlete, or those games you talked about.”
“I was actually on my way to my sister’s wedding when I got picked up, or the after party I guess. I had pushed my family away when I was declared terminal so they wouldn’t watch me waste away. It wasn’t until I realized I was already too late to make my little sister’s wedding that I realized how stupid I was being.”
Everyone looked at each other when I mentioned I was on my way to a wedding. Vox looked me in the eyes, “Captain, I don’t want to get your hopes up, but did you notice a message about being separated form a group or something along those lines?”
“Yeah, what about it?” I had completely forgotten about that message, and could only wonder at how Vox knew about it.
“Helena may have told you, but World Travelers almost always come in groups. These groups usually know each other and/or were gathered in one place for something of significance. A wedding is a perfect situation to gather such a group.”
“Vox, are you saying my family could be in Aesirvale somewhere?”
Helena stepped forward, “It's not guaranteed that the group you were separated from was the people at the wedding, but it isn’t unlikely, especially if you were meant to be there. I think I speak for everyone present when I say we’d gladly help you investigate that possibility.”
My mind was reeling. I had deliberately avoided thinking of my family since I got here. I was under the impression I would never see them again, and here I was, getting told that I could be wrong. I knew it might not be true, but it was the first taste of hope I had gotten in a while.
“Thank you. Thank you. That means a lot. Unfortunately, if their situation is like mine, they’ll have been dropped in the wilderness. Somewhere on land since none of them had [Classes] as closely related to the sea as mine.”
David raised his hand, “I thought your world didn’t have the System?”
“It didn’t, but my current form and [Classes] are very similar to a character I played in a game, and many of them played the same game. It’s honestly a miracle that a full moon hasn’t passed.”
Ford frowned, “Are you a werecreature, Captain?”
I was surprised he hadn’t realized. “Yeah, a werewolf. I thought you knew, on account of the wet fur smell.”
David laughed, “How in the world does a Deep-Elf become a werewolf, or any aquatic species for that matter, before they become a wereshark, or some other aquatic werecreature? Most werewolves won’t get within 100 miles from a coast, let alone get close enough to bite a deep elf with the intent to convert them.”
I felt my cheeks redden slightly. “I thought werewolves were cool when creating my character, okay? I still think they’re pretty cool. It just hadn’t occurred to me that an aquatic werecreature would make more sense. In the backstory I wrote, my character was picked up by a pirate crew run by a werewolf on the run from an arranged marriage with another pack’s chief’s daughter, and the captain liked him enough he converted my character to make sure he wouldn’t go swimming off before he learned to control himself. It wasn’t necessary, but that’s a story for another time.” I cut myself off before I really got going and said something truly embarrassing.
Now everyone was laughing, especially Vox. “We can get something to help with the smell, Captain. Eventually, you’ll be able to control it with some effort and training,” Vox said in between fits of laughter.
“Vox, you’re on mop duty. I think Ghili would enjoy being your supervisor.”
Vox’s face paled, “Wait, Captain, we can talk about this. My daughter will never let it end!”
Helena patted his shoulder, “Should have thought about that before laughing the loudest.”
Vox slumped into a chair at my desk. Helena smirked. “I would love to hear the story sometime. It’s a good idea to have a backstory to tell people we can’t trust, as opposed to revealing the wondrous truth of your origins. Especially with the bigwigs. If you want to never be left alone, tell anyone with influence you’re a World Traveler, or a god’s chosen for that matter. Both tend to be powerful, and who doesn’t want power on their side. In the meantime, I believe it’s time to start today’s training.”
It was my turn to pale, “Shouldn’t we take a break since we’re in port. People will recognize that I’m stat training, and ask questions as to why someone my age is training their stats.”
David gave a massive grin, “I’ll handle that. I’ve already got an event made up that’ll explain why your ‘walls’ are weak.”
Looking for any way to delay, I got to thinking. That’s when I realized, “If Ghili needs a knight why don’t the rest of the Darkfins have one?”
“That’s easy. Delilah beat the shit out of all her knight prospects till her dad gave in and agreed she didn’t need one, and he and Vox married theirs. Why do you think Vox never leaves Henry and Ghili alone? His family follows a pattern.” With that, Helena pushed everyone out of my quarters.
She turned to me and tilted her head with a pout, “It’s a real shame the next full moon will only come just after your ‘walls’ have solidified. I hear practicing meditation while trying to resist a werecreature’s feral impulses practically doubles the stat gain. I guess we’ll just have to work harder to make up for the lost opportunity!” Damn it, don’t sound so cheerful while discussing torture! Njord, if you can hear me, I’m your child right? Please save your son!
“The Patron can’t help you now, fufufu.”
The rest of my training period passed quickly. After a couple days, some of the sailors and dockworkers started coming to watch my physical training on their breaks. On the third day, there was enough that a decent pot was amassed on how many times Helena’s projectiles would hit me that day. By the fourth, a stall was set up for anyone to place bets and collect after I finished training. On the fifth, my Qi stats started seeing diminished growth, which meant more time on mana related and physical training, which meant more time for people to place bets. On the sixth day the person running the stand offered us a cut if we would further extend physical training time, and after Helena realized she didn’t have that great a lesson plan anyway, we accepted and after a slightly longer mana based meditation than usual, I spent the whole day getting pelted. Our cut was 50% after Rita’s threats to take ownership of all the profits and bring it to the guards, and so we got 696 gold. The last day I gained no stats but many welts and another 700 gold. I cried as I realized my training was over. On one hand, I cried because from here on out, I would have to level and spend free points to get stronger. On the other, I would be able to live as a human being again. The whole week, Helena had been waking me up at random, absurd times to “force [my] body to rest and recover more efficiently in uncertain situations.” Vox was once more my greatest support.
“I can’t possibly leave you to struggle alone. Even though Ghili made me swab the deck for 13 hours straight, even mopping up your sweat while you ran, you don’t deserve that. I know how it is, her father was just as bad, after all.” How could I have left such a kind man to the devil’s daughter!? How could three generations all be so cruel?!
We were sitting in a bar near the docks. After Helena announced my training complete, Vox figured I’d like a drink. I wasn’t big on alcohol on earth, but I enjoyed it well enough. Right now though? It tasted like the nectar of the gods. A lot of the other patrons even recognized us, and those who had won their bets bought us drinks. Soon there were tens of empty mugs in front of some stranger and I as we both tilted another one back. I looked to my opponent, only to see him already downing his next pint, entirely unfazed. I looked at Vox with fear. He shook his head and the crowd cheered. Well, most of them. The few that bet on me simply hung their heads, knowing they shouldn’t have been drawn in by 1:30 odds. My opponent stood proudly as I placed the four gold on the table to pay for all the rum we just drank.
“For someone who said they didn’t drink much, you handled yourself lad.” My opponent was a boisterous bearded man with the body of a world’s strongest man competitor. Except he was a 4’3 goblin. I was honestly more confused as to where the rum went than I was disappointed to lose.
“I was leaning my Constitution. I would’ve still been trounced if you were level 1.”
“I doubt it, lad. You can’t be more than 25, there’s no way you have a Constitution more than 20, tops. You handled yourself well.”
“I never got to drink like this with my dad.” The goblin raised his eyebrows and Vox grabbed my shoulders.
“Ooookay. Time to go, Captain.” Why was Vox taking me away from this wonderful place and wonderful people?
“But I feel good, Vox. I think these people are therapists in disguise.”
“[Therapists] are kings’ men, Captain. The likelihood of a [Therapist] being in a dingy, wonderful, but dingy pub by the docks is as much as us being brothers. If there were a [Therapist], it would’ve been the bartender, and all those sailors would be crying and telling all the stuff they swore to never speak of to him.”
“[Therapists] sound powerful, and a little scary.”
“They are, Captain, but they’re very good for you when they’re trying to help you.”
“Oh, okay.”
The ship came into view and I smiled. “Do you know why I named her Frami?”
“No, Captain. It sounds like the First Pantheon’s divine language.”
“Huh, I don’t know why either. It just felt right. I wonder if other Captains feel like that when naming their ships.”
“No, Captain, but here’s Delilah. I’ve got to get to my wife before she gets babycrazy drunk, so you should hang out with her for a while.”
“Okay. Hi Delilah, has anyone said you’re pretty, cause you are. Hey, is it true you beat up all the people who wanted to be your knight?” Delilah got a little red. “Are you okay, Delilah? Do you have a fever?”
“No, Captain, but it is true that I beat up all the knight prospects.” She smiled weirdly when she said beat up. It was like how my sisters used to when they thought I was doing something silly. Renny especially liked to make that face.
“Are you teasing me, Delilah? My sisters used to smile like that when they teased me. I guess it's better than getting beat up.”
“Why would I beat you up? Is the Captain saying he wants to be my knight?”
“I think that would be fun! Okay Delilah, from now on, I’m your knight,” Delilah got really red, and Ford came out from below deck.
“That’s enough of that. Come on, Captain, I think it's time for bed.” Why was he taking me to bed? Delilah was the one red with fever!
Ford laid me down in my bed and covered me with the sheet. I regret questioning Ford. The bed was so fucking comfy. I didn’t realize how comfortably warm something could be. These thoughts and many more went through my head as I fell into blissful sleep.
