Chapter 149

The last two months of Luke’s life had been beyond boring. There was really only so much of staring at empty, open water he could take, and he’d hit that limit weeks ago. Other than a brief break from the monotony when the Silk Lady had docked at an island port to make repairs for a week, there’d been nothing to see and nothing to do.

Luke had used that opportunity to hunt down some local wildlife, both to butcher some meat and to finish grinding out the last bit of XP he’d needed to level up to 42. He’d gotten one of the locals to prepare it for long-term storage and brought three large barrels back to the Silk Ladyto be consumed on the remainder of their voyage.

That, more than anything else, had convinced the sailors to stop glaring at him and Zea. He suspected finally having the holes in their deck repaired also helped. Either way, things had gone smoother after the repairs, and the true enemy of the trip had been unrelieved, everlasting boredom. Zea spent all her time working on various projects and ignoring him.

“Land, ho!” someone called from above.

“Oh, thank God,” Luke muttered.

He wasn’t the only one excited about it. Most of the crew perked up at that, and no less than four different sailors jumped up onto the riggings to scramble upwards. Luke was half-tempted to take a look himself, but he knew he’d just be getting in people’s way, so he stayed sitting in his customary spot near the stairs leading up to the poop deck, as he’d learned it was called. He’d asked no less than six different people if that was really the name before deciding they were either telling the truth or the entire crew was in on pranking him.

Luke took a set of dangerously steep stairs down below deck to the room he shared with Zea. She was sitting in her usual spot in the corner, working at her portable enchanter’s bench. Luke was constantly amazed when she managed to finish another project despite the rocking motion of the ship. She’d spent some of her remaining AP on agility and perception, and apparently that had been enough to overcome the handicap of engraving runes on things while sailing across the oceans.

“They spotted land. We’ll be there soon.”

“Fucking finally,” Zea said. “I am so sick of being on this boat.”

“Really? You got a lot done with the downtime,” Luke said.

“Sure, but it was boring.”

“Yeah… That’s true.” He’d given up on his own project ideas before he’d even gotten started and donated the black snake leather to Zea. The AP was better spent on buying the [XP Reset] bloodline skill for her. Once she was done with her work and had everything set up, she’d be wanting him to do that immediately. They hadn’t discussed it yet, but it was pretty clear. Things had started to cool down between them now.

He wasn’t really sure what to do about that, or even if he should do anything. Every time he tried to say something, his tongue got tangled up in his mouth and everything came out wrong. It was just easier to change the subject, and the fact that Zea let him said something about how she felt too. Neither wanted to talk about it, at least not while they were stuck sharing forty square feet of space for weeks on end.

“So… I guess we’ll be back on solid ground here in a few hours,” he started.

“Yeah. Maybe a day. Depends how high the guy who spotted land’s perception is.”

Luke brushed that aside. “And we should probably figure out what we’re doing to do.”

“I figured we’d take a day or two to get situated and resupply, then follow the road that’s closest to going in the right direction,” Zea said.

“We?” Luke asked.

“Well, yeah. You’re not trying to get rid of me, are you?”

“No! I just… I thought, you know…” Luke trailed off.

Zea blinked and frowned at him. “You thought what?”

“I- Never mind, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Zea nudged the bag in the corner with her foot and said, “Please, after all the effort I put into making all of this, you think I’m just going to give up now?”

She’d made a whole bunch of things over the last two months, but she hadn’t shared what those things were, and Luke hadn’t pried. Part of her plan had always been to make a lot of money in a hurry before he reset her level for her. He’d just assumed that was what she’d been working on.

“What did you make?” he asked.

“I am so glad you finally asked. I expected the curiosity to get the better of you six weeks ago. First, you might recognize this.”

Zea pulled out a length of chain about three feet long. “I had to cut off the end to recycle it after we used it on the ship, but I managed it in the end. This is functionally magic armor. You wrap this chain around yourself, let the ends connect, and it’ll absorb hits for you until it runs out of mana.”

“Wait, really?” Luke eyed up the metal. “That’s so cool!”

“Damn right it is. But it probably won’t last more than… I don’t know… ten hits maybe? Depends on how hard the hit is and some other stuff.”

She reached into the bag and fished out what looked like a fishing line with a bunch of bones strung up across its length. “Finally got that whip I wanted finished,” she said. “But, uh, can’t really show that off in here.”

He’d seen how much damage the shortened version she’d used a few months ago could do. There was no doubt in his mind that anything with less than 40 stamina would be ripped to shreds by the new whip. That would certainly make it easier on Zea to take out monsters on her own when they went out hunting, but at the same time, she’d been pretty definitive that she was done farming XP until Luke had a way to prove he could reset it.

Oblivious to Luke’s thoughts, Zea dug around in the bag. “Let’s see, where is it… Ah! Here we go. This is for you.”

“My shirt?” Luke asked, taking the folded-up piece of cloth Zea shoved in his hands. It was a nice shade of blue, a bit long once he held it up to look it over, and with sleeves that came down to his elbow. He’d bought it as part of a spare set of clothes a few months ago, but hadn’t gotten into enough fights to warrant needing it yet.

“A tunic, technically,” she said. “More importantly, it is an enchanted tunic. It is self-regenerating. If it gets torn, it will knit itself back together. If a piece gets ripped off, it will regrow that part. It’s also self-cleaning, to an extent. Of course, the more it needs to do this, the faster the runes wear off, so you should still make an effort to take care of it.”

“Holy shit, that’s amazing!”

Keeping clothes in one piece had been a challenge for Luke since arriving on Aros, and more than once he’d had to go without. Even if it was just only a shirt, it would be so much nicer to not have to worry about one piece of clothing being destroyed in combat.

“You’re probably going to want these, too,” Zea said, holding out the matching black trousers. “Same deal.”

“So I could just like… wear these all the time, sleep in them even, and never have to change them or clean them or sew up any cuts or tears.”

“I would prefer if you bathed regularly,” she said dryly. “For all our sakes.”

“Er, right, yeah. I knew that.”

“Right. Yeah. You did. Anyway, there’s a few bombs in here too. What else… Oh! These are fun.” Zea held up a wooden jar full of what looked like a few dozen smooth, flat, river stones. Each one was the perfect shape for skipping across a lake. “They’re all enchanted with an electric payload that will lock up muscles for a few seconds. On something under fifty pounds, it should fully paralyze the target. On something your size, it’ll only lock up a limb, maybe disrupt a heartbeat if you get them on the chest. Won’t do much against the skull, unfortunately.”

“You made all of this in two months?” Luke asked, slightly overwhelmed.

“Some other stuff too. I’ve got a better temporal stasis enchantment on our food bag now. It should be good for at least a year before it runs out of power. I put a warming enchantment on my cloak with some of the leftover supplies from your second purification ritual. Hmm, here’s an enchanted pen for copying out a map when we find one. Oh yeah, and I made these!” Zea held up two squares of parchment with some sort of complicated runic design on them.

“And, uh, what are those?” Luke asked.

“Temporary runic markers, for the next time we inevitably end up separated. We’ll apply these to our skin somewhere, preferably where a captor won’t immediately find them, and when we need to find one another, we can just put our thumbs right here on this rune that looks like a circle. The whole thing will start getting warmer as the marks get closer to each other.”

Luke hadn’t gotten a temporary tattoo since he was six, back when his mom was still alive and he occasionally managed to beg a few quarters off her at the grocery store. But that was exactly what Zea’s runic marker reminded him of when she slapped it onto his hip, muttered something, and carefully peeled the parchment back off. It was blank, and the tattoo stood out as stark, sharp black lines against his skin.

“Wish we’d had those four months ago,” he said. “Would have saved us some grief.”

“Yeah, I should have poured some AP into [Runeforging]a long time ago. Oh well, live and learn.”

“You know, I really thought we were parting ways once we got off the ship,” Luke said.

“Why?”

“Well, you know, you were kind of… I guess I figured you were avoiding me? You didn’t ever really want to talk, we haven’t, uh, you know, in weeks.”

Zea rolled her eyes. “I was busy building us an arsenal so we can tear this place apart and go get your family back. It’s tiring work doing so much enchanting. Also hammocks suck for fucking in.”

“I see that now!” Luke said. “Sorry I just assumed instead of talking to you about it. I didn’t want an awkward month-long boat ride.”

“Ugh. You’re a dumbass sometimes. Whatever. Why don’t you go find out how many hours we have left and I’ll try to get this last piece done.”

“What is it going to be?” Luke asked curiously. He shot a glance over at her enchanting table and found what looked like a rough strip of snake leather half covered in runes. It had been hacked off the main chunk so badly that little strands came off it every few inches. “You should have had me trim that for you. I’ve got the [Leatherworking] ranks.”

“I did it this way on purpose,” she said. “This is my secret weapon.”

“What does it do?” he asked.

“Oh, it’ll be fun,” Zea told him with a grin.

“Is this going to get us in trouble?”

Zea shrugged and her grin got bigger. “If it does, it’ll be worth it.”