PreCursive

  Because it was night, the decks were mostly clear. Grey and Bel were up at the helm as usual, sulting a pass and map and likely plotting and adjusting the route to Caer Drarrow. Sylvia’s gleaming form was visible up in the crow's , where she waved down at me. I absentmindedly waved back. Other than that, there was only oher crewman that I saw, leaning against the starboard side rail and seemingly napping on his feet.

  I walked away from the others up and toward the fore of the ship. Looking around, I firmed the coast was clearing and started setting up. First I poured some of the bck powder down the barrel of my primitive firearm, and then tamped it down with the stick I was going to use as a firestarter. Then, I dropped one of my lead shots down the barrel.

  You know, now that I was actually doing this, I realized that I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. The entire process that I was w from was guesswork. I was basing the ehing on old memories and childhood movies. It was entirely possible that this abomination in my hands would explode.

  I pted the devi my hands, and then shrugged.

  Eh, whatever. I’d probably live.

  Status had to be good for something.

  I first lit the tord the into a braear me, and then lit the end of my sti fire. I put it out, so there were only glowing embers on the end instead of a full-on fire. Seemed like a good idea to me. Brag the wooden end of the pseudo-on on the deck of the ship like it was a firework, I aimed it at the sky away from the sails. I brought the glowing end of my stick up level with the hole he base of the iron on.

  With aed grin on my face, I jammed it into the bck powder and braced myself for the explosion, closing my eyes.

  After a few moments, I opehem in fusion.

  Nothing had happened.

  Looking down, I firmed that the glowing end of the stick had ehe small hole. Furrowing my brow, I stirred it around ihe barrel a little. I definitely felt the powder in there. Taking out the stick from the hole, I held it up to look at it. Yeah…it was definitely still lit. If anything, it was glowing a little brighter, as stray sparks were now flying off of it from the residual bck powder.

  Odd.

  Okay…attempt wo. This time keeping my eyes fixed orance hole, I stuck the firestarter in the hole again. I paid close attention this time, but nothing happened ihe hole again. No sparks, no explosion, no boom, and most importantly, no gunshot. The bck powder that had previously been sparking on the end of the lit stick was now i.

  What the hell?

  Okay, maybe the powder was bad somehow? Last time I tested it was a few days out from Marrowmist. Could the sea air have dampe or something?

  In the...few seds that it had been ihe gun.

  I sighed, ahrough the process of unpag the primitive firearm. Taking the sack I’d held everything in, I dumped everything in the barrel out on top of it. Taking the tor my right hand and a handful of bck powder in my left, I walked up to the railing of the ship. I leaned over it leading with the torch, holding it over the calm waters below. Holding my left hand over the torch, I let some of the bck powder escape my hand, to drift down onto the fme below.

  The pnited just fine, leading to a momentary fsh of dim light. That was great, but it wasn’t what had caught my attention.

  The fsh of light had illuminated something below me ier. A pair e yellow eyes, gring upwards.

  My breath caught in my throat. Slowly, I opened my hand a a little more bck powder drift down onto the torch. This time when the fsh of light happened, I didn’t see anything below me.

  No eyes.

  Maybe it had just been a really big fish or something? I let out a shaky breath, and ughed slightly. Man, I wasn’t normally this jumpy. Maybe I should just get some sleep, and try and figure out what was wrong with the gun tomorrow.

  I backed away from the railing and turned around, tor hand.

  The light illuminated a massive, quadrupedal form with the torso of a man growing from it standing in front of me. I didn’t get the ce to either i it more or even scream before a massive hand closed on my mouth, nearly enclosing my entire head. Swiftly, whatever this was drove me down to the deck, seemingly making an effort to be quiet.

  I tried to scream into the hand holding me down, grasping at it iively. However, my scream wasn’t just cut off by the hand, but by the sphere of water that was somehow starting to engulf my head. The hand on my face loosened only slightly, but only enough that water started to rush into my mouth. Wild with panic, I activated Sylvan Vigor and tried to pry the hand holding me down off of me.

  I still couldn’t budge it, though.

  Fuck. Fuck…

  I could already feel myself slipping from the asphyxiation. I couldn’t do anything to this thing, so I had to grab the attention of the other people on deck. Desperately, I moved my eyes around as much as I was able to, hoping for a magical solution.

  I found one.

  I’d dropped the torot far from my position, and lying close to it was the small sack of bck powder that I’d made. With a surge of hope, I scrabbled frantically for the torch from my prone position. My heart lept as my hand closed around it. Desperately, I tossed it to the open sack.

  It exploded immediately, in a massive fsh of light and fme. The creature holding me down reared back with a strange chirping noise, releasing my face. Luckily, the sphere of water around my head dissipated as well, letting me cough up the water in my lungs.

  Above me, the mohat had nearly killed me was hit by a bright silver bolt of power. It was blown off of its…hooves, impag the railing behind it with a screeg noise. Despite how drained I felt, I still tried to scramble to my feet. I don’t think the monster was dead from whatever had hit it, and I o get up anyway. The explosion of the bck powder had lit a few fires around me, and I le away from it.

  I have bothered.

  Sylvia fell from the sky like an avenging angel, blue short-sword plunging into the flesh of the creature. Whatever it was managed o weak chirping noise before slumping over, dead. Sylvia abandoned her bde in the flesh of the monster, ung about the corpse of the beast. She instead hurried over to my side, and helped me to my feet.

  “Nathan, are you well?” Sylvia asked me urgently. “Are you injured?”

  “N-” I tried to say, but broke out into a fit of coughs instead. I shook my head. “No, I’m…fihanks to you.” I smiled at her weakly from my hunched-over position. That didn’t seem to reassure her much, as she still looked worried.

  Our attention was stolen when what seemed like the rest of the ship stormed onto the deck we were on. Leading the way were Grey and Bel, with spell and sword in hand, both gleaming silver. I guess it had beehat had she creature away from me. Most of the crew were bleary-eyed and half-dressed, but that didn’t prevent them from seeming very willing to jump into battle. Among them were Azarus and Venix. Azarus didn’t have a shirt on, but he still had his hammer and shield ready. Venix had one of his four swords drawn and was sing the deck with sharp eyes.

  Speaking of, at the same time that they arrived, the creature finally dissipated into a puff of Miasma. Everyone on the deck watched as Sylvia’s sword and a monster core the size of a golf ball fell to the deck.

  Bel broke the silence. “ aell me,” She said in a rising tone. “JUST WHAT THE BLEEDIN’ HELL IS GOIN’ ON?!”

  ……………………………………..

  It took the crew a bit to put out the fires caused from my explosion. Of which the Captain of said ship wasn’t too happy about.

  I fell on my ass, khere by a swift hook from Bel. The world went white for a moment as I experienced a ringing noise in my ears. When my sight cleared up, I fouanding over me with an outstretched hand and an irritated look on her face. I took it, grateful for the hand up.

  We were in her Captains quarters again, and I’d just finished expining what had happened. After which Bell had decided to deal out a little corporal punishment for the damage I’d caused to her ship.

  I didn’t bme her.

  Still.

  I rubbed my ag jaw. That woman could throw a mean punch.

  Bel was still givihe evil eye. “Don’t test explosives on a ship, ye moron.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “Hey, it wasn’t supposed to explode. Well, much,” I amended. At the incredulous look on her face, I smiled weakly. “It was meant to be a small, trolled explosion. The only reason there was anything smaller than a ‘pop’ was because I was trying to alert the ship.”

  Bel snorted, while Grey stepped between us shaking his head. “Be that as it may Nathan, you should have waited until we reached the shore to test yonne’. Isabel, as Nathan’s mentor, I’m fih whatever punishmeail you wish to assign him.”

  I winced, but nodded slightly. I’d let my enthusiasm get ahead of me on this one, I aowledged that.

  Bel waved Grey off, muttering something about Mages under her breath. “Just make sure ta and polish the decks after the fire and we’re good. We got more important things ta worry abht now.”

  “The aurian,” Sylvia interjected, pushing off of the wall she’d been leaning against. “Who was most assuredly a scout of some kind.”

  So that had been a aurian. From the brief glimpse I’d gotten of it, I hadn’t been sure. Using Observe on the beast hadn’t been high on my list of priorities while it was drowni had almost seemed like a kind of…aquatitaur or something, like the creature out of Greek myth from bae.

  I’d probably be getting a better look at more of them soon.

  Bel Sylvia’s observation. “Aye, it was for sure a scout. And it must have been new, or else we’d’ve known about.”

  “How? How could you have possibly known about it?” I asked Bel, puzzled. “Do you have some kind of…ship sense skill or something?”

  “Gods no!” She said, barking out a ugh. “I wish I had somethin’ like that. We just have someone keepin’ a wat things uhe ship. Only, he were off duty when that one jumped ye.”

  What? Keeping a watder the ship?

  The door of Bel’s quarters creaked open, drawing the attention of everyone inside. Pete slipped through, but froze when he saw everyone looking at him. He let out a nervous ugh, running a hand over his porous head.

  Bel rolled her eyes and him. “Pete’s been pullin’ shifts uhe ship fer the st few days. It ain’t like he a breath down there. Just needs somethin’ to weigh ‘im down a bit and a attached to the ship, so he don’t float to the top.” She smirked. “His punishmeryin’ to deal with the Longslip boys.”

  “I ain’t gotta breathe, but it’s still cold down there, Captain,” Pete said mournfully.

  “Suck it up,” Bel scoffed at him. “Cold don’t hurt you none.”

  Grey cleared his throat, interrupting the bad forth. “As amusing as this is, we still have the problem of the herd possibly being alerted to our presence.”

  Bel turned away from Pete t at Grey. “It ain’t really a problem. We’re goin’ to sughter the lot of them, ain’t we? If they show up before we reach this cave o’ yers, that just means we ain’t takin’ a guess on their .”

  “I suppose so,” Grey sighed. “Sihis was likely a new scout, then herd might be unaware of us, and thus ’t set a trap.”

  “Aye,” Bel nodded. “Now all we need is ta reach the isnd, and take them out. Should only take a couple more days, if the wind is fair.”