The temporary crew of the Desert Rose arrived an hour before they departed from the Belkian shipyard.
Master Lam had managed to recruit eight merfolk sailors, including two old ones who had vague memories of navigating the center of the Red Crescent. Fominel assumed the duties as captain and took over their command.
The three mages that they interviewed arrived next, and Seris took over them and began strategizing when and how to use shielding and reinforcement spells on the hull.
The presence of Nerima and Lurim on the ship was a surprise to many. The Merfolk sailors who had assimilated out of tribes were rather curious about Enarem, and Nerima’s tail was impossible to miss.
Darya had wanted their introduction to happen this way. Once the ship was off the port, it was too late for information about the Enarem mermaid to leak. The crew was stuck with them for the duration of the mission they were hired for.
The Belkian landmass vanished on the horizon as the crew got acquainted and settled into their stations. Darya kept her interactions with them to a minimum, although she couldn’t help but overhear Seris talking with the mages.
“Galtea’s been a total mess from what I hear,” One of the older mages named Conrad was telling her. “The Baron’s dead this time, not the old one, the young one. That Colosseum fire killed him with a duke.”
Darya’s ear twitched at the mention of this, and she saw Seris’s long ears turn red.
Galtea’s fate had bothered her ever since their escape. Slavery was a much bigger problem as far as she was concerned. She had managed to save Nerima for Lurim, which was hard enough by itself. If this mage was speaking the truth, it sounded like Galtea’s problem had already been solved by itself.
Look at that. I guess we burned all the trash in one go. Must’ve gotten trapped in Drakva’s dungeon when his guards arrested everyone.
“What were they doing in the colosseum, I wonder?” Darya asked, making sure to sound naive as a true outsider.
“It’s those auctions,” One of the merfolk sailors said. “Serves them right. At least now they won’t steal our girls to sell in them.”
“Who’s going to be in power now?” Seris asked with a sideways glance at Darya.
“The generals, I think. Soon there’ll be other plays from neighbors. Everyone wants a piece of the Vulture Point. I hear Karossa is already sending their fleet.” Conrad said lazily.
Darya had to look away. None of the crew had been informed of her official title. Fominel had made sure they used concealment spells before they even reached Belkian shipyard. Seris had already refreshed the spell right before anyone else arrived on the ship.
“Karossa?” Seris squeaked. “Already launching an invasion? Lord Altazark moves fast!”
“I heard someone say it was an assassin from Karossa that burned the colosseum with everyone in it,” A young mage named Lillian said with a serious nod.
Fominel cleared his throat in the distance, clearly having overheard everything. Nerima was sitting next to Darya with a dumbfounded expression on her face.
Assassin from Karossa. I like the sound of that.
She wondered if Karossa’s invasion was going to work out for her father. She hadn’t met the man, but she already had the measure of him based on this one move alone. Karossa had to have plotted around this for decades. She had inadvertently made things a lot easier for them.
“I hope whoever takes control next shuts down those slave auctions,” Darya said, looking at Nerima and Lurim.
Fominel clapped his hands for everyone’s attention just then. They had just passed the last island on the inner ring of the crescent.
“We’re a league out from the edge of the trench. I want all the cannons ready to fire, and the hull reinforced,” he said, gesturing at the rest of the ship.
Darya took Nerima and Lurim to the front of the ship. They had two different jobs. Lurim was supposed to hold Enta and his enclosure. This was a fake ‘important’ job given to him so that he wouldn’t jump in after his sister.
Nerima, meanwhile, had to wear a harness that Darya bought from the Belkian marketplace. Darya made sure to rig a strong rope to her harness, which was at least four hundred feet in total. Sarka volunteered to be on Nerima’s finger, which was unexpected character development.
“I shall not leave the young lady by herself in these troubled waters!” he said proudly, and continued to speak at length about the unwavering druid-mermaid alliance.
Meanwhile, Seris finished the rest of the preparation. She used a very exotic spell from an old grimore to enchant the rope. It could be activated from one end of the rope to port Nerima straight back to a designated spot on the weather deck.
“I’m going ahead!” Nerima announced once she was ready to leave. She gestured a bunch of signs at Lurim, who nodded back eagerly.
“Don’t let her do anything crazy, Sarka!” Darya said as she checked the knot on the harness for the third time.
“Fear not! I shall escort the young lady to safety.”
“Don’t soul merge; you’ll just get both of you eaten,” Seris said. “Nerima, listen to what he says. Magus Sarka can sense mana.”
Nerima nodded with a smile. “Don’t worry about me!”
She was entirely too cheerful for someone heading into the black waves of doom.
Darya finished double-checking everything and patted her back. She had nothing else to say. Nerima flared the gills on her ribcage and leapt off the side. Darya watched the rope unfurl into the water as she disappeared underwater.
Insanity. I would pass out if I ended up on this water.
It didn’t take too long for their first sighting of a sea monster. One of the old sailors at the front of the ship alerted everyone when a mound the size of their ship appeared in the distance.
It was visible for nearly half a minute as the long creature passed in a vertical loop back to the bottom of the trench. The best she could picture it was an eel the size of a small island.
“Th-they’re actually that big?” Darya asked Seris, unwilling to accept it.
That thing looked like it could eat a blue whale for a snack.
“Y-yes,” Seris said with a gulp. “They can be even bigger.”
The scale of things was certainly way different from the VRMMO. In that version of Vainfall, the creatures had to be enemies that players could plausibly fight. RLP had made that prospect nearly hopeless.
Darya looked at Enta and Lurim to clear her mind from these eldritch horrors lurking on the horizon. They seemed to be having fun despite the circumstances.
Nerima resurfaced hundreds of feet away once the rope couldn’t go any further. She broke through a swelling wave, spraying water in a straight line.
The wave she launched out of swelled behind her, and a fish the size of a school bus dashed out, barely missing her.
“Holy shit!” Darya exclaimed, instinctively grabbing the enchanted rope to teleport her back.
Nerima twisted under the fish and remerged, waving her hands like a maniac.
Lurim waved back, apparently not worried about his sister at all. Darya looked at master Lam to confirm this wasn’t a dangerous situation.
“I want to throw up,” Seris patted her chest. “She’s insane!”
Fominel took off in a mess of golden mana feathers to circle above Nerima while she was at the surface. The big fish following her soon received a blue manablade slash across the spine and slid off into the depths.
Fominel landed back on the ship as Nerima dove to the trench again.
“We’re in the trench,” Master Lam announced after carefully observing the water. “Next one’s not going to be as easy. Get ready, Princess!”
Darya didn’t even want to talk. She grabbed her spear Manacer, clenching it tight. Blue mana turned orange-red on its crystal as it grew longer, projecting the spear to its full length.
“Don’t let anything crash into the ship,” she said to Seris as Master Lam took over the job of babysitting Lurim and Enta.
She checked her stats for the first time in a while. She had to know if she had everything the way she wanted.
[Character]
Character: Darya Altazark
Role: Archmage Ascendant I
Level: 75
EXP: 1,314,532 (50%)
HP: 2,526
MAX HP: 2,526
MP: 7,265
MAX MP: 7,265
SP: 452
MAX SP: 452
STR: 467
DEX: 588
CON: 398
RES: 1,342
None of it felt enough, not with the type of creatures that she had to deal with. The EXP she had gained in the recent incidents hadn’t really pushed her rank any higher. She was only halfway through level 75.
Maybe I can change that if I kill one of these damned things. Has to be worth hundreds of thousands of EXP on crit.
Lurim started pointing at the water, and he looked rather excited. That was all Darya needed to know about the thing following Nerima.
She burst out of the water almost in a vertical line as the water bulged where she was just a moment ago.
Fominel took off at once, extending both his manablades. The fish that emerged had a head half the size of the Desert Rose.
Darya clenched her spear as her gauntlets glowed bright. The sea monster’s teeth breached the water surface. They were transparent like shards of glass. Nerima was swimming far to the right, trying to direct it away from the ship.
Fominel flew at a diagonal line, slashing across the creature’s giant eye. He twisted mid-air, disappearing in a spray of blood and water as the monster flipped on its side to protect the wound.
It was too big for manablades. The rest of its body twisted through the waves, and the tail was heading straight towards the Desert Rose.
Darya leapt off the edge of the ship as Seris and the other mages burst with blue mana that enveloped the side.
[Frame Selected Entity]
Darya zoomed directly into the maw of the sea monster as it slammed itself against the waves. For a split second, she was almost near one of its sharp teeth.
Aiming her Manacer directly at its face, she cast a spell to punch through where she thought it had its brain.
[Spell: Comet of Volaria]
-514 MP • Bolt• Instant
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