The System Seas

Marco pulled himself loose to see Elisa already healing herself and Jane, who had taken more than enough damage during the flight to need it. Jane clenched her jaw as her bones snapped back into place and mended, unused to the level of pain the rest of the crew was. Marco was impressed anyway. If she did come along with them later, he had a strong sense she’d fit right in, even in the outer seas.

He spent only a moment taking all that in before he started to look around the room. What he found, outside of the usual emptiness of the temples, was a smattering of furniture that obviously didn’t belong there, some makeshift rooms built on top of the stone structure of the temple, and a whole lot of frightened-looking people.

The average person in the room was a middle-aged adult, either of the system church and wearing their clothes or of another class of men and women wearing fairly high-quality street clothes, like a wealthy villager would wear just to walk around town on business. It struck Marco immediately that while the people in the temple clothes were likely the jailers here, they and the normally dressed people who were presumably their unique class prisoners were huddled together in the same very human fear, protected by a magic temple for now but perhaps about to find out what the system could do about that at any moment.

Worse, they were all weak. The system priests were at least leveled some, but there wasn’t one of them that didn’t come across as feather-pillow-soft weaklings to Marco’s developed sense of who he could take in a fight. The unique classes were even worse. They didn’t just feel weak, they felt like children. Infants, even. He doubted even a single one of them had a single level.

In the end, that really was the fate the church had in mind for Marco. They wouldn’t have killed him. They would have protected him, even. Fed him. Clothed him. But to keep him in line, they would have also sealed him in a temple, entertained him, and never, ever let him grow.

It made him sick, even as he tried to ignore it, looking for the one thing in the room that mattered to him just then. The one man in the place that wasn’t dressed in civilian finery or system-priest clothes didn’t take long to find, either. Sitting in the corner, smoking a pipe, was an old dockhand Marco would have recognized in the dark just from his shape. He looked older now, but there was no question. He had found Tatric.

Marco crossed the room in a blur to where the amused old man still sat, shaking his head.

“Well, boy, you seem like you are in a hurry. Is that over me?” Tatric tapped his pipe against the arm of his chair to empty it out, then rose. “I’ve just been on vacation, more or less. I’m not worth all that.”

Marco got him in a hug before he could continue talking. He just stood there for a few moments before releasing Tatric, who came away with slightly wet eyes.

“I was worried you wouldn’t survive it,” Marco said. “Being away from the widow. It’s your only hobby.”

“She’s my only hobby, boy. She’d hit you if she heard you call her an it. Besides, it’s not even true. I keep up the docks and the house.”

“The docks are your job and the house always had drafts.” Marco shook his head. “I guess there was always trying to keep me out of trouble.”

“There was that.” Tatric reached up and ruffled Marco’s hair. “Enough about that. Here come your friends. I think it’s time you fixed all this.”

“How do you know he even can?” Aethe said. “You are seeing him for the first time in years.”

“Well, well.” Tatric bowed his head to Aethe politely. “And who are you, young lady?”

“I’m your daughter. Well, daughter-in-law.” She waved it off like it was an afterthought. “But how did you know?”

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“Well done, boy. Really.” Tatric’s eyes shone with approval. Marco had suspected they would, once he knew, but it was nice to have confirmation. “Same way you knew he was safe to marry, I’d guess. It’s just who he’s always been.”

Aethe’s eyes now shone with approval for Tatric, like they were both part of the same obscure fan club. Marco shook his head at the weirdness of it but found himself agreeing with Tatric that there wasn’t any time to waste here.

“Unique classes,” Marco yelled. “One of you is currently holding all the temple power, right? Who?”

The classes looked at each other in confusion. They were far from comfortable anyway, and the addition of a new class of people in their midst seemed to be making it worse.

“It’s fine. I’m going to make this better. I have a unique class too. I just need to know who to talk to.”

The group finally parted as one of the younger men pointed to one of the makeshift rooms. Marco elbowed his way past whatever show of resistance the system priests put up until he reached the door and saw a pale teenaged girl lying on a bed, under covers, and apparently unconscious.

“She’s been like that for a day.” The young man that had pointed Marco towards her looked genuinely worried for her. “She can’t hand off the power. It probably wouldn’t help if she could, but… what can we do?”

“Elisa, get her awake,” Marco said. “Fast.”

Elisa went to work with her green energy, and the girl’s appearance improved quickly. As her color came back and her brow unknit, Marco waited for her eyes to open. They didn’t.

“Something else is wrong,” Jane said. “The system is attacking her. In a weird way. Marco, do that shout thing.”

“Why?” Marco asked. “It just makes us stronger.”

“It does, but it also…” Jane looked for words. “Have you ever seen someone fix a machine by kicking it? Just out of frustration, they kick it, and it jostles the whole thing and makes it work again. It usually doesn’t work, but your shout is like that. It kicks everything in its vicinity. I saw it happening when we broke those system priests. It might work here.”

“It’s worth a try. Elisa, keep healing her. Maybe that will help.” Marco took a deep breath. “Here we go.”

The air in the room was odd, and his shout reacted oddly with it. It was a bit like trying to breathe out in pudding, like the power around them was resisting him completing his skill. He pushed through it, putting all his focus and power behind the shout in a way he had never had to before. When it finally cleared his mouth, the sound of the skill echoed off the sides of the temple for seconds before finally dying out.

Then, like magic, the girl’s eyes opened. Before anyone else could react, the younger man was beside her, holding her hand.

“Give him the temple, Hypan. Right now.” The boy pointed to Marco. “Hand it off.”

“What… what?” The waking girl looked between them with confusion. “Why?”

“Because it’s the only thing that might save us. Quick, before you go to sleep again.” The boy was almost crying. “Just do it, okay?”

The girl looked back and forth one more time before motioning Marco close, putting her hand on him, and concentrating. Marco felt something happening in that touch, like a man who had been carrying a pack as heavy as a whole mountain range was throwing it onto his back, all of a sudden, and without any real warning.

He felt his butt hitting the ground before he realized his legs had given out. The temple power was flowing into him, but it wasn’t like any of the temple acquisitions he had ever felt. This was a bigger change than even Jare’s gift, but whirling and chaotic. It raged through him uncontrolled, not finding a home or even necessarily looking for one. It burned like fire, like someone was scorching his soul with a thousand coals. Soon enough, he could tell it would rip him apart.

“Get it under control, Marco.” He heard Elisa’s voice and felt her hands on his back. “You can do this. You are the only person who can. Put a bridle on it.”

Healing power began to flow into him, full of every calming, stabilizing element Elisa’s healing usually came with. He couldn’t use his Captain’s Cry again so soon, but he could feel the remnants of its effect in the healing, clearing his head just enough to begin to fight.

The power fought back. As Marco tried to will it into submission, it circulated faster and faster. He got rough with it in return, pushing harder and harder against the flow of power until he had almost ground its motion in his soul to a standstill. Then, focusing himself for one last burst, he pushed it inward, towards the place the temple powers always went. It hung for just one terrifying moment before it admitted defeat, clicking into place on his soul, calm and normal.

The healing from Elisa flowed through him then, fixing up whatever damage the power had done unimpeded. In just a few seconds, his eyes were open. The storm around them had subsided, and there was calm now.

“That’s good, right? The quiet?” Marco said. “We won, right?”

“I think so, Marco.” Aethe kissed him on the forehead and looked up to Tatric, smiling. “He’s a pretty good man. Thanks for that. You did quite a job.”

“No problem, Miss. Though I wouldn’t mind you saying so in front of the widow, if you get a chance. Might help me make some progress with her, finally,” Tatric said smoothly back.