Silence - Chapter 13

4/5


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Piloting the sloop was a lot like riding atop the Night's Wake, only faster. The leather sails cracked and the braided ropes snapped tight as veins of Mana spread from the Control Node down into the bone of the craft, each pulse somehow propelling them through the dark nothingness all around them. There was no wind in the Void, which was a very strange sensation to Felix, but the sails billowed and shifted regardless.

They moved fast. The small craft didn't have weapons or enough room for more than Pit and himself, but it was apparently built for speed. The Maw had been right: there was no way they could have outrun even their smallest ships on foot. Now, however, rock formations whizzed past them as Felix guided the ship into the black.

Well,"guided" was a strong word.

The speed the sloop traveled combined with the asteroid field nature of the area meant Felix spent most of his time dodging up and down or side to side. After some experimentation, Felix found that as long as he fed it Mana the ship responded to his Willpower, moving how he directed it. His Willpower was easily his highest stat, which presumably meant that the boat responded better than if he had less points, but it was still enormously taxing. He felt his mental strength draining almost as fast as his Stamina. A nameless feeling in his bones told him that moving so fast strained his Perception as well as his Dexterity and Agility, and that he couldn't keep it up for too long. After an hour of full speed flight and two near-crashes, Felix reigned it back in and began to cruise at half-speed.

Mana Manipulation is level 20!
Mana Manipulation is level 21!

What are you doing? The Maw spun toward him, its pale dress floating ephemerally behind it as if in a breeze. Even as a construct of his own mind, the Maw kept up its tricks. They are surely chasing you!

Felix frowned and steered the sloop up and over another rocky island half the size of their craft. "Maybe. But I sure as hell can't keep that speed up all the time. I'll end up crashing." He looked over at the Maw and raised an eyebrow. "And what do you care?"

I told you. Your life is my own for now.

"No, my life if my own. You're just a temporary passenger," Felix said, jerking the ship up and over another house-sized rock. "A parasite."

The creature didn't respond to that, which surprised him. Felix was coming to realize the Maw was a study in contradictions. He'd noted before, when he still thought it a Nymean woman named Lhel, that the Maw was insane. Felix didn't know what new twist the Primordial's mind would take, but it was capricious at best. He was only glad that it couldn't physically harm him, or Pit.

It can affect my Skills and core though, he recalled. That's more than enough damage to stay wary.

Pit warbled in agreement, though it sounded muted. Felix heard snuffling and rustling somewhere forward of the cabin, where the deck dropped a foot or so. Pit's butt was in the air, and his wings were askew as the snuffling sounds continued. Piloting the ship around another obstacle, Felix stood slightly and saw the tenku's head was in the burlap bag they'd been given.

"Hey! Cut it out, little pig!" Felix felt a smile curl his lips involuntarily as Pit lifted his head and looked back. A string of what Felix assumed was sausages hung from Pit's neck, and a faintly glowing piece of meat was clenched in his beak. The chimera slurped up the meat and a radiant glow flickered around him for an instant.

+1 to END

"What are you eating?" The only thing Felix knew that gave Pit bonuses like that were elemental cores. He recalled the distant swells of System energy he'd sensed throughout his evening with Captain Nokk. "Have you been eating those things all night?"

Pit's only reply was a small burp. However, it was followed up by a curious trilling. Pit emerged from the sack with a thick, rolled up piece of paper in his beak.

What is that? Bring it here. Pit trotted over to him and dropped the thick paper into his lap. It was grayish-pink and when he unrolled it, Felix found it was a map, easily two by three feet in size.

A map! He immediately attempted to find their location. The map was littered with lines of different varieties, some solid, some dashed or dotted, each one denoting a path or heading. Felix wasn't really sure. Navigation and sailing had never been a thing he'd gotten into back on Earth. His family was entirely too poor to own a boat, and his recent history with yachts wasn't something he liked remembering.

The lines were all over the map, but many of them intersected in an oversized drawing of a castle: the Ten Hands' secluded home, Felix guessed. There were a number of places marked out on the map with curious symbols, a language he didn't understand. He figured they were things like outposts and towns floating off out there in the Void. Felix's eyes focused in on one particular spot that was marked with a series of skull and crossbones. That, at least, he could recognize. A dangerous place.

A groaning call echoed all around them, startling Felix up onto his feet. Suddenly, a pod of Narhollows—normal ones, his Eye assured him—rose up from below, not a hundred yards from the port side. Starboard? he briefly wondered. No, port is left. I remember that at least.

The creatures were majestic, craggy forms somehow sinuous from a distance. There were three of them, one larger than the others, and they each paddled their massive tails and left brilliant streamers of Mana behind them. Huge and slow, they spun and undulated like an earthquake given form, their flippers nudging rock formations out of their path. Felix smiled as he saw them, then frowned. In their wake traveled hundreds of Tenebrils, and he didn't doubt a flock of invisible Harrowings were lurking behind them.

"More monsters. We should put some distance between us and them." Last thing Felix wanted was the voidbeasts catching scent of his Mana. He shifted the sloop into a faster speed, angling it to the right and upward. Starboard and...was there a nautical term for up?

*KATHOOOM!*

The small rocky island next to them exploded in a shower of grey shrapnel. Cuts opened up on Felix's face and Pit cowered beneath a lifted wing. A bloom of iridescent green fire engulfed the remains of the island, and Felix whipped his head backward. Behind them, perhaps half a mile away, was a colossal ship that looked merely gigantic due to the distance. Dark sails and a black flag featuring a white hand with ten fingers flew high from their mast.

Faster! cried the Maw.

Felix didn't need the encouragement. He poured more of his Mana into the control orb and the sloop shot off.


* * *


"Full speed ahead! Catch the bastard!"

Captain Nokk paced at the helm of his ship, the Hippocamp's Fury, venting his spleen on all and sundry. He'd been interrupted during a very important meeting with several nubile guests, only to be told that his promising new recruit had gone missing. Moreover, the boy had killed three of his men and stolen food from the larder, unseen and presumably laughing at Nokk the entire time! And then they had the audacity to tell him that the bastard stole a ship! One of his ships! Who would do such a thing! Stealing another man's property! Preposterous! Outrageous!

Nokk fumed, just barely able to contain his rage and not rip his favorite tricorn hat into pieces. "Faster you mangey curs! My left nut could sail this ship better'n you!"

Screams could be heard down below, but Nokk grinned to hear it. It meant more fuel was being added to their fire, and soon they could push the Fury that much faster. His men, dirty and irascible to the last, cursed and shouted at each other as they loaded up the balistae with more Manashot. The stone spears weren't much to begin with, but once infused and launched from their deck-mounted siege weapons, they'd take down just about anything without a ward. Nokk had destroyed his share of settlements with these weapons, and his new flagship boasted twice as many as normal. He was unstoppable, as long as they kept pace!

"Faster!"

He couldn't let the boy get away, not when the scum had lied to his face. Once or twice a day to use that lightning storm spell? Lies! The freak was pumping enough Mana into that sloop to cast such a spell a half dozen times, at least!

"I'll catch him, and that dumb bird of his! I'll chain 'em to the Fury  for the rest of their days!"

No one double-crossed Captain Nokk.

Not when Nokk was gonna double-cross first!


* * *


The pirates' flagship was gaining on them, having suddenly surged with Mana in the last few moments. Other than feeling it loom closer, Felix couldn't pay it any mind. His entire focus was absorbed by the thickening rock field all around him. He consulted the map as they jostled about. If the dotted shapes indicated rock islands, then it was going to get worse bore it thinned out.

Hopefully we'll even make it that far!

Felix strained himself, pushing more and more Mana into the Control Node and devoting his attention to bobbing and weaving through the maze of shifting rocks. A few times, he attempted dual casting Reign of Vellus to shove aside an impeding formation, but it was extremely difficult to also maintain Mana Manipulation. It also ate away at his Mana, more than his regeneration could bring back, so Felix couldn't afford it. He could only focus on speed.

*Krak!*

*Krakoom!*

Stones burst into shimmering green flame all around them, but Felix had them moving too erratically for the pirates to draw a bead on them. The floating islands were as much an impediment to the pirates as to Felix, but where he had to dodge and evade them, the flagship plowed through. The weight and bulk of the ship rammed the stone formations aside, though the hull was taking a beating. Felix could only hope it would get too damaged to continue, but he wasn't even sure how these ships operated. Was hull integrity a concern?

Apparently not; the question answered itself as the pirates put on a burst of speed, crashing through the islands and cutting Felix's lead in half.

They're burning them up to catch us. The Maw stared backward, brow furrowed and teeth bared. You must go faster!

"I'm trying! It's too—"Felix cut himself off as he heard the near-musical groan of the Narhollows again. More importantly, he remembered what followed in their wake.

"Hang on Pit! I'm trying something!" The sloops shot outward, banking to port and the swimming pod of Narhollows. Felix weaved the ship up and over, cresting the giant whale-like Void creatures like a craggy hill. More stone arrows were fired, and bursts of green flame ignited along the flesh of the Narhollow. The beast basically had rock for skin, but that got its attention. It cried out and lashed its immense tail. The Mana that spewed from its tail swerved and jittered, its steady pattern interrupted by the Narhollow's agitation.

Felix banked hard, turning toward the pod's rear and those self-same Mana trails. He didn't care about the Mana, but a lot of other things did.

"Brace for it!"

The sloop darted forward, and what seemed to be empty Void turned out to be a mass of angular wings and flashing talons. A flock of Harrowings burst in all directions as Felix drove through them, scattering...except for the tantalizing flare of Mana that Felix released around the ship.

"Come and get it!" Felix yelled at the beasts and vented a large chunk of his Mana through his right elbow Gate. Vapor, crackling and shimmering with light followed behind them like a contrail, and Pit offered him a look of disbelief. Felix just grinned, though it was more rictus than humorous. He pivoted again, this time heading straight for the pirates.

What are you doing? The Maw screamed as she dragged nails down its face.

Felix didn't answer. He was too busy avoiding the green detonations all around him. They were clipped several times, and parts of their sails started to burn, but he pressed forward.

"He's coming this way! Fire at will!"Distantly Felix could hear the pirates shouting and cheering, and more stone spears were launched at them. Taking shelter behind the slew of islands, Felix wove through them until he reached the hull of their ship. He was going entirely too fast, but he knew he could do it. It was just a matter of Willpower...and Alacrity, he realized. The stat was humming, or else he was going crazy.

Pulling hard on the Control Node, the sloop shot upward, the hull of his ship scraping loudly against the flagship. Felix burst into the cleared Void above the ship, which he saw was named the Hippocamp's Fury, and for a moment everyone just stared. Time seemed to slow down as the sloop arced over the deck, and Felix could see dozens of pirates swarming below to man the balistae. Captain Nokk's forehead veins bulged in fury, and Felix grinned.

He shot off, back into the distance.

You fool! We're in range and in full sight of the ship! We'll be taken down easily! The Maw's eyes were bloodshot and blood dripped from its mouth, it was so angry.

Then behind them came the sound of a thousand furious mouths screaming in shrill hunger. A wave of angular darkness descended on the pirates as the Harrowings flowed over them.

"Hah! The Voidbeasts feed on Mana, remember?" Felix laughed and fed the sloop more Mana, urging them further and faster. "I just gave them a new target!"

Behind them, the Fury  was swarmed by Tenebrils and Harrowings, their mottled bodies clogging the decks and rigging. Felix could hear panicked screaming, and then the thump-hiss of something being shot off into the air. The pirates had shot off brilliant purple flares, and these arced high above them, drawing a good amount of the Voidborn away from the ship. Felix sniffed and tasted the tang of Mana even as his eyes identified it as some sort of mixed type. It drew only a few away, as more piled onto the ship from the darkness. Something about Felix's Mana was too tasty to deny.

Felix grinned into the dark, and his vision abruptly flickered with gold and blue sparks, heavily diluted by an amount of dark, near-black crimson. Pain built up in his head and core, like heartburn and kidney stones wrapped up in one, before an audible trilling assaulted his senses.

New Skill!
Manaship Pilot (Rare), Level 1!
You've proven your mettle through a trial by fire in the hostile Void. You are now able to utilize Manaships with a greater degree of finesse and efficiency! Accuracy increases with Skill level, Mana exchange rate decreases with Skill level.

"Huh," Felix said, half dizzy from the pain.

Faster! Faster! the Maw urged.

Felix glanced back, just in time to swerve to port. The green cannonball still hit them, though, shattering through the hull and main mast and sending the three of them careening into the black.

Pit screeched in fear, clinging to the deck, and Felix dumped all the Mana he had left into the sloop. The ship wobbled and rolled, nearly bucking the lot of them, before it gathered an unwise amount of speed and shot off into the Void.