The System Seas

The two ships collided with a splintering, groaning lurch that shot all of them off their feet. Marco twisted in the air to try and maximize for a safe landing. A few seconds before they hit, it had been clear to all of them that there was nobody to actually save in the water near the ship. There couldn’t have been. Between the waterlogged boards and the obvious rot and decay in the sails hanging from the mast beneath the water, it was clear the ship had been there quite a long time. Now they had to worry about themselves.

The collision was almost obviously something the system was controlling, a scripted dance of sorts that left them flying with perfect aim towards the now exposed interior of the ship. They all landed with varying degrees of gracefulness, but nobody was injured. They stood, taking a look around the slightly shaded space. They were standing on the underside of what was probably a good-sized deck, a flat, empty wooden space that was dotted here and there with collapsed staircases and not much else.

Marco looked back to their own ship. It was nestled next to the wrecked ship and seemed for all purposes like it would stay there.

“Should we explore it?” Elisa reached out thumped the side of the rotted hull. “It seems real enough. Nothing is shooting out of it.”

“I think we have to, unless we want to take our chances floating around and hoping that the wind picks up.”

“I could duck down one of those staircases. It would be a jump, but if there’s wood down there, we could have more space.” Riv touched his chest with a flattened palm. “I can take the most damage, so I should go first. Just keep a rope on me in case I need to be yanked out fast.”

“Oh, don’t think you have to convince me.” Elisa crossed over to where Riv was struggling with the knot and cinched it twice. “I’m team ‘pull you out of trouble’ all the way. Have fun in there.”

Riv tied a rope in a loop, hiked it up under his armpits where he could control it a little better, then handed it off to the other two. Safety tether in place, he hopped through a nearby staircase hole and deeper into the bowels of the ship. Marco and Elisa were both light-handed on the rope as he jumped, enough so that the strands whipped through their hands as he took more and more of the slack.

Then, without warning or notice, that stopped. The rope suddenly stopped pulling and went completely limp in their hands.

“Could he have hit water?” Elisa looked at the rope in her hands, semi-shocked. “Or deck?”

“No slap and no thump.” Marco yanked the rope hard, pulling it back far enough that the empty, still dry loop launched towards his head. He caught it out of the air and shook his head at it before yelling. “Riv? You in there?”

“Yeah,” Riv yelled. “There’s light on this side of it, somehow. Follow me in.”

“Right behind you.” Marco said. “It’s safe?”

“Not exactly.”

“On our way faster then.”

Elisa didn’t argue. As one, they ran and jumped towards the lower deck. Every second counted, and when they cut through the shadow of the deck below to the light, Marco knew he was right to hurry. It was on boards, just as he expected in any case. These were not waterlogged, rotten boards from a derelict ship though. They were fresh, well-maintained, and comprised a deck several times as big as one they had been on before.

“Ghost ship. Never thought I’d see one.”

“Me either.”

They were also home to far more pirate skeletons than they thought they would see that day, and most of them were moving in on Riv. Marco’s quartermaster was already backed up against a distant wall, swinging the lid of a large barrel to ward them off life his life depended on it.