The System Seas

“I think about that a lot. The part you aren’t saying, I mean.” Chenchen stretched out her legs a little. “I don’t think even the strongest class can change you that much. I don’t think you are making the wrong choice here, but from what I’ve seen of you, I suspect for the most part you’d just go on being you. Your friends seem to trust that you would anyway. Think on that a bit when you get the chance.”

“And you?” Marco asked. “What will you do?”

“I honestly don’t know. I’m just starting to realize I never really dealt with, well, anything. About my husband or settling down. Not in the cold light of day, possessed of my full mind. I think I’ll probably spend some time thinking on that first. After that, the sea is the limit, I suppose.”

When Marco caught up to his friends, the town was beginning to revive. The warriors and craftsmen who made up its survivors had forcefully pulled themselves out of their shock, partially just out of apparent shame at the young adults doing sad, difficult work for them after saving them in the first place. Once they engaged, the process didn’t take very long. Graves were dug, rubble was piled, and temporary housing was figured out for those whose homes had been destroyed in the chaos, which was most everyone.

The crew of The Foolish Endeavor slept in their own ship, miles off the coast. It was safer that way, even if they thought the townsfolk wouldn’t try anything. It was also more comfortable. The town was a little packed, just then. The next morning, when they woke, there was a ship in the distance and a small rowboat nearer to them, sitting passively in the water. As the sole occupant of the boat saw them, he yelled without coming any closer.

“I brought ten people,” Youff said. “I figured if what you were doing was done, we might be able to help.”

“How did you know we were done?” Marco yelled back. “Nobody could have gotten to you that fast.”

“The temple rose from the ground, and the plinth regrew, but nobody died or anything,” Youff said. “It felt like a change of ownership. We figured helping out would be the least we could do.”

A few hours later, a small swarm of carpenters and woodsmen fell on the town like an avenging construction crew, slapping up houses, fixing broken structures, and then finally moving on to adjust broken things in the vicinity back to reasonable, unwarped, and unrotted forms.

Under Youff’s watchful eye, this took much less time than Marco would have suspected. By the morning of the next day, a smaller, more reasonable version of the settlement had been corrected, bent back into shape right to the level of the bones. It wasn’t an impressive place, and it wasn’t beautiful, but through the magic of the highest-level group of craftsmen Marco had ever seen working in a single place, it was sturdy and liveable.

The people of Quillton were thankful, too, to the extent they could be with the current mood on the island being what it was. They loaded down the carpenters with all the relevant treasure they could carry, which the group only reluctantly took. Marco saw some of the items as they changed hands, and he thought it was probably enough to buy a few mid-sized mansions back home. Out here, it was the kind of stuff that filled up people’s closets because it couldn’t really be thrown away but didn’t have a use.

Chenchen explained to him that it was a symptom of a sickness, of people quitting where they otherwise wouldn’t have quit and stopping before it was right for them to stop. It was what happened when you got too strong for local dungeons and failed to go find the next big thing you needed to grow. Marco quietly resolved to never have more than a few backup weapons. He’d fire what he did have out of cannons first.

They stayed a few days, doing what little they could to help as they rested up from what had been a terrifying few days for them as well. The first day or so, he couldn’t imagine wanting to travel anywhere or do anything, and his friends seemed to be on the same page. By dusk of the second day, he started to hear the call. The idea of moving on started to shift from an abstract goal to a very real desire, something that sparked in his soul and then continued on burning into a fire.

“You are ready to leave,” Aethe said that night. He had just caught her catching him looking out to sea for the fifth or sixth time that day. “I can tell.”

“Getting there,” he lied. It hadn’t taken long for the fire to grow into something bigger and heavier in him. He felt like if he stayed more than a few more days, something important in him would start to get unhealthy or maybe even die. “What about you?”

“Not as fast,” Aethe said. “But I think everyone is pretty close. There’s nothing for us on this island anymore, and I think anything else that we might have gained in this region was ruined by Quill over the years.”

“Tomorrow, maybe?” Marco asked. “If everyone is ready for it, I mean.”

“Maybe.” She snuggled in a little closer. “We can see.”

The next morning, Riv shook him awake, pulled him to a sitting position, and shoved food in his hands.

“That’s eggs from our boat. I got the bread from some guy for more gold pieces than you want to know about. Eat. Hurry up.”

“Why?” Marco yawned and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “What’s going on?”

“Me and Elisa just absorbed all the skill crystals that were left. Two reds, a green, and a yellow. Aethe wouldn’t take any. She said she’s still getting used to her charge shot and the arrow-splitting thing.”

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“And?” Marco had forgotten about the remaining crystals. Elisa wouldn’t have, either when it came time to loot them or when it came time to use them. “Anything good?”

Riv handed over a slip of paper. Marco sighed, set down his food, and read it.