[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 254 – Wavedancer II

At the end of the first night, Sam went to check on the cargo hold. Most of the crew gave him a slap on the back or a quick smile, but they were too busy still putting everything to rights to pay him much mind.

It didn’t take him long to scour the hold. Not because it wasn’t big. The hold was massive. Whoever designed the system for storing cargo down here was a genius or severely afflicted with OCD. Despite the storm last night, everything was in its proper place and clearly labeled.

With Sam’s recent interaction with the Lumanot, he would have spotted it several yards away.

Oh well, on to plan B.

He had hoped to find the Lumanot first, then talk to the crew about the child he discovered before making off with the relic.

Sam quickly found the stowaway tied wrist to ankle in a small room off to the side. A young woman was watching him while making a new barrel from the remains of all the wreckage.

She looked appraisingly at Sam when he entered, and it was all Sam could do to keep his eyes focused on her tanned face. She had gold chains and jewels aplenty that caught the lantern light in a dazzling display.

Little of it was on her ears or neck.

Komachi had no such modesty. Though she was hardly the target audience.

Sam pointed to the kid. “What’s his story?”

“Didn’t pay the fare, did he?” the woman told him.

It was something Sam picked up quickly among the Talmoori. They often answered questions with rhetorical questions.

“I’ll pay for him,” Sam offered knowing full well that they would not accept his coin. Coin he did not have in the first place. Though Komachi had won some.

Not only would the captain be against it, but Sam learned that the Talmoori had strong opinions on debt and honor. To offer to pay was considered honorable but accepting payment from somebody you owed a debt was dishonorable.

By offering to pay Sam was giving the woman–a woman he had saved and been summarily groin-kicked for his trouble–a way to save face and restore some of her lost honor.

The only thing more honorable than offering to pay for something you didn’t need to was denying payment.

“You learn quickly for a man of the firmament, don’t you?” the woman told him. “A few years and I think I could turn you into a prized husband worthy of the First Daughter.”

Sam blushed and cleared his throat. “I appreciate the compliment, but I’m afraid my business must come first.”

The woman looked him up and down again unabashedly. “A pity.” She gestured with the heavy bladed knife she was working with at the kid. “He is your responsibility then. He is a quiet one with keen eyes. I would bet he learned a thing or two watching my hands.”

Komachi snickered. Sam doubted the kid was watching her hands very much, but he kept his mouth shut and pulled the boy up to his feet.

“Icawok!” the boy blurted out suddenly when Sam cut the bindings.

“Icawok?” Komachi asked, then got on her hind legs and waddled around.

“Slow now,” Sam told him. “I’m not going to hurt you. No need to be so pressed.”

“I can walk,” the boy repeated. He tossed a glare at the young woman who merely giggled and shrugged the venom away.

“I like icawok better,” Komachi said with characteristic sincerity.

“Your cat talks.”

“Her name is Komachi,” Sam explained, leading him out of the room.

“Yis,” she said simply. He noticed Komachi briefly stayed behind to ask the woman about jewelry.

“You didn’t have to save me,” the boy said.

“No, I didn’t.”

The admittance shut the boy up fast. He looked up at Sam as they walked together and up the ladder to the next floor, where the crew slept. At the end of the hall was the first mate’s quarters. It was located nearest to the next level, with the mess hall and other rooms.

“Then why did you?” the boy finally asked when Sam folded down his bunk and tossed Komachi onto it. She immediately began to paw and knead the soft mattress with her claws in a tight circle. Once she was satisfied, the cat curled up and promptly shut her eyes.

A golden jeweled ring was looped around her tail.

“Because it was the right thing to do,” Sam told him, motioning for the kid to sit on the bunk while Sam pulled up a surprisingly comfortable seat.

“I ain’t got any money to pay you.”

“Shocker.”

“Not gonna be your little slave either. I’ll run away, I will!”

“Don’t care about that.”

The kid huffed and crossed his arms over his scrawny chest. “Then what do you want? What kind of person saves people for no reason?”

Sam shrugged. “A hero.”

“They ain’t real.”

“Kid, are you trying to convince me to not be a hero?” Sam shook his head. “If you are, it’s not working. And won’t. So just get used to it.”

The kid stared mutely, then glanced oh-so-obviously at the door.

“Not really anywhere to run to. Open seas all around,” Sam said. “But go ahead. I won’t stop you. You aren’t my prisoner.”

The kid didn’t get very far. He pushed open the door and fell flat on his face outside.

A passing sailor barked a laugh and stepped right over him.

Sam got up and shut the door. Considering that the kid was groaning, he didn’t appear to be too injured. If he wanted to run, Sam would let him.

There would be time to get his story later.

Sam felt an odd kinship with the kid. He looked and reminded Sam of himself at that age. A boy with too short a childhood. Thrust into the harsh realities of the world before he was ready.

Sam removed his earlier quest reward from his inventory and placed the [Alzahan Imperial Ring Coffer] on the table. The wood groaned beneath its weight but held steady.

He supposed it was a good thing the crew weren’t outright enemies of the empire. Otherwise, they might not have taken kindly to the coffer.

He opened the coffer. For once, the inside wasn’t that much larger than the outside.

[Imperial Squall Ring]

(Ring) (F-Class)

(★★☆ Limited V)

Enhancements

Fire Defense III

Water Defense III

Self-Repair I

+10 Control

Imbuements

Water Mana

A cerulean jeweled ring doused in the saturated water mana of the Alzahan imperial seas. Raises one’s magical defenses against fire and water elements.

Sam marveled at the ring, turning it around in his fingers before finally slipping it on. It seemed especially useful considering his current location. He appreciated the boost to his Control attribute as well. That was hard to come by. Most of what he wore was heavy armor. They usually gave physical stats.

He wondered if he should go out and try to find the kid again but reminded himself that the boy wasn’t really his problem. He saved him but clearly the kid didn’t have any desire to be friends with him or anybody else.

Unable to help himself, Sam flung open the door and looked down the swaying hall. What he found instead was a young man bared to the waist. He was familiar, though Sam struggled to recall his name.

“Could you relay a message to the crew for me, Mihal?” Sam asked, glad that he remembered the man’s name at the last moment.

“A’sure, what’d that be?”

“There’s a little kid running around–”

Mihal put out a hand to stop him, his white teeth showing brilliantly in his dark-skinned face. “Yulan has already told us you vouch for the little one. We will make sure he is not underfoot, but all hands must work, yes?”

Sam nodded. “I do not want him to get hurt, but it would be good for him to learn.”

Mihal lifted his palms to the sky. “To live is to feel pain, my friend. Our only choice is what we learn from the pain.”

Chuckling, Sam said, “Thanks for the life lesson, Mihal. And thank you again for looking out for the kid. He probably won’t appreciate the kindness for many decades, but I do. Goodnight.”

Ducking back into his room, Sam finally crawled into bed. He was careful not to disturb Komachi too much. He pulled her to his chest and drew the supple blankets over both of them.

Sam drifted off to sleep. The gentle rocking of the ship kept him asleep all night long.

The days aboard the Wavedancer were among Sam’s favorites from any point in time. As a boy he always loved the sea and all that it entailed.

He never had the means to go out on a boat more than once or twice in his life. It was an entirely different experience to see nothing more than a wide-open blue ocean as far as the eye could see.

It was as awe-inspiring as it was terrifying. He had never been out of sight of land before. And after Sil’mara and the Skyshards, Sam found himself deeply missing the salty spray of the ocean.

No treasure room filled with jewels could ever compare to the glinting, dazzling display of the sun dancing across the waves of the sea.

Those few days of carefree work and the open ocean were over far too quickly. The boy took to learning every job that there was on a ship as large as the Wavedancer.

Sam and the boy were often taught at the same time. And it was an enjoyable pastime to make a little game out of who could learn faster.

Zahif was an orphan from a country Sam had never heard of. It was an all-too-common occurrence with the beastmen clans on the rise.

His initial standoffish nature gave way to a curious and bright child who loved nothing more than to work with his hands and feet. In just two days, he was already stripped to the waist and running around like an old deckhand.

The women doted on him and the men gave him lessons in everything from how to climb the rigging to spotting dangerous signs that told of monsters waiting for passing ships.

Komachi turned more to entertaining the crew and generally enjoying herself. Coin changed hands when she played those games of dice and cards. No small amount of it ended up in her paws. Her favorite activity was learning the crudest and most colorful of sea shanties.

Above all else the boy was most interested in the curious martial arts of the Talmoori. Sam found himself equally interested, earning a tutorship from Salii.

Despite standing several inches shorter than Sam, Salii was able to flip him over her shoulders with a twist of her wrist. The woman was highly skilled, but never rubbed his face in it. She was the sort of teacher that Sam wished for.

It didn’t take long for Sam to take part in the customs of the Talmoori. Stripped to the waist with only wide puffy trousers belted with a colorful sash, Sam was surprised how comfortable he was on the hot sun scorched deck.

He no longer found it off-putting when bare-chested women came up to talk to him. Something the Talmoori enjoyed endlessly. They loved to watch him squirm when their most well-endowed members came up to him suddenly while he was working. By the time Sam neared his tenth day aboard the Wavedancer, he hardly saw the exposed flesh at all.

“I change my mind,” Yulan told him one bright and beautiful afternoon.

“Is that so?” Sam asked, hauling on the rigging and securing it in place with a flick of his wrist. The rope snapped and coiled itself around the cleat tightly. “What about?”

“You would prove a fitting husband for the First Mother herself if you would only sail with us for one turn of the sun!”

Sam laughed away the monumental compliment, but it was hard. He had to work to remember that this was not his life. He was not a carefree adventurer out on the waves.

This wasn’t even his home.

He felt torn in two.

The man who would be king and the adventurer that wanted nothing but more open blue skies and distant lands to visit.

Sooner than later he was bound to find the Lumanot, and then his time here would be at an end.

Later that night, the Wavedancer cut through the choppy waters of the sea. The squall was catching up to them. A rolling bank of fog pushed out ahead of it. The captain looked at it from time to time with worry but spoke little of it.

The Talmoori made warding gestures but showed no other outward signs of fear. They performed their tasks with the same clean precision as always.

An ever-present band of silver arced across the sky, providing a dim source of light at night. Apparently this Worldshard had rings like Saturn.

It was beautiful. The sight of it always stoked Sam’s desire for exploration.

I wouldn’t mind experiencing more things like this.

The bandlight outshone the crescent moon. It shimmered across the waves and Sam followed its argent light right up to the ghostly boats following in the Wavedancer’s wake.

Sam started at what he saw.

Skeletal spirits armed with ancient weaponry littered the decks of countless boats made of fog and bandlight.

Sam wasn’t the only one who had seen. Before he could turn away from the rail, the ringing of alarm bells roused the ship.

I knew it couldn’t last.