Drunken Sailor

John woke up in the middle of his bed, in between Abigail and Jenny. All three of them were naked, and his groin distinctly ached from when the brawler had ridden him. Despite the spacious king-sized bed, the three of them were tightly clustered together in the middle, Jenny had unconsciously draped her leg over his, and Abigail had an arm lazily across the two of them. He laid there for a few minutes, putting an arm around both of his girlfriends. He took a moment to appreciate the benefits being in the Abyss had given him, surrounded by the people he loved.

As if to deliberately interrupt his bliss, a vision from Foreboding overtook him. His surroundings were dark, but he saw a large wooden pole directly to his left. That is, until a giant tentacle swept through it, slamming him through the railing of a ship and into the murky depths below. He shook his head to clear it from his mind. Tentacles? After all we’ve been through when I was a lonely virgin?

Then, he slowly pressed the soles of his feet against the bed, and Jumped out from between them. Jenny’s leg shifted down to the bed, and Abigail’s elbow dipped, but her hand remained on Jenny’s hip. John checked his phone, and saw that he had ten minutes to get to the shooting range and Grace. Pulling up a delivery app, he ordered breakfast for the duo from a local diner, set to arrive twenty minutes after Jenny’s second alarm. He gathered the materials for a hastily scribbled note on the way to the kitchen, where he grabbed two granola bars. Walking back into their bedroom, he ate with Move as he wrote, leaving the note on the door and walking to the Waypoint.

Judging by the open but dark bedrooms in their dorm, he had already missed Grace. Exiting its barrier, he rode the elevator down to their usual shooting range. She was there, already practicing with both hands on a Desert Eagle he had given her. “Ready for moving target practice today, Grace?”

“You better believe I am!” Grace replied, sparing him a nonchalant look before shooting thrice in rapid succession. When the paper target was reeled in, he saw her bullets had blown two holes into the head of the target and one into the heart.

“Just remember we try not to kill people,” John said, offering her a granola bar. She recoiled as if offended before slipping a hand inside her jacket.

“As if I didn’t bring my own snacks!” The serial snacker withdrew two oatmeal cookies and tossed John one, quickly unwrapping the other herself.

John pocketed both snacks, walking over to a nearby control panel in the wall. After taking a couple seconds to explore the menus, he converted the nearest 5 lanes into a square room with multiple tracks for moving targets. “Shall we?”

These targets were thick cardboard instead of paper, and moved swiftly across the track. “For the example-and to test my abilities-I’m going to set the targets to move at their highest available speed at the beginner level. Count me down and start it on go, okay?”

“You got it! Three… two… one… go!” She slammed the switch, and the figures jerked into motion along their long tracks at the speed of a mundane car chase.

John breathed in deeply as she counted, then began to slowly exhale on ‘go’. He pivoted back and forth wildly, glancing at each target as they passed. Within six seconds, each was hit in the chest, twenty of the twenty four were hit directly in the heart. Good enough.

“That’s a bit fast for my first time having a go at it,” Grace said, turning the slider way down. John slowly walked over, gently stopping her finger and the speed slider around twenty miles an hour.

“Peak mundane running speed. We won’t encounter anything slower,” John explained, putting a hand on her shoulder, “ready?”

About an hour in, John’s phone buzzed and he waited for Grace’s current exercise to be over before calling to her, “Hold on a sec. I’ve gotta check these notifications. Good work today, maybe I’ll let you handle Ivory soon.”

The first and most recent notification was Isabelle ordering him to go to sublevel 50 of the Rome Rider-Waite base, pick up her new sword from someone named ‘Vulcan’ and deliver it to her or drop it off to her maid. The second was a contract notification, he was assigned to a team of a King named Shelle, a Queen named Lance, and a Knight named Boathaen. Taking a brief look at the dossier, the contract was assigned to him by The Magician, and he was set to rendezvous with them at a bar called “Pub and Pies” in the Kingdom Actaea.

“You’ve done well, Grace, but I’ve got to go. Keep practicing, okay?” John called, the Brit flashing him a thumbs up on his way out. As he climbed the stairs toward the lobby, he took out his phone to book a mirror-trip to Actaea and Rome. He put it away when he saw he already had tickets to each booked by The Magician and someone named Adelaide. Once he reached surface level and exited through the lobby doors, the travel hub was a five minute jog away.

With his credentials as a Sword, security was a breeze. He entered the Rome mirror, and emerged in an identical hub room, save for the people inside. He strolled back through the security of this base, on the way asking questions about whether there were two bases in Rome and where he could find sublevel fifty. The attendant gave him a weird look when he mentioned his exact destination, but informed him that the Roman branch had only one base, and he was standing in it.

He walked over to the elevators, and boarded the first that arrived. To his surprise, the dozen people waiting for elevators did not follow him in, and the door shut immediately behind him. He reached over to the buttons to go to sublevel fifty, but they only went down to forty.

“Greetings The Gamer - Guild Number 12351. You are authorized for a visit to sublevel fifty, and a meeting with Vulcan - Guild Number 26. Would you like to proceed?” An automated voice asked, the same one omnipresent in the Springfield base.

“Uh… sure?” John responded, and the elevator began to plummet down. He felt the pressure increasing as he went further underground until it dropped off and felt normal again. A digital map of the base showed the elevator sinking lower and lower until it sat lower than the map displayed. The doors opened to a dark room, the sound of a hammer hitting metal present deeper in.

Symphony of the Night allowed his eyes to pierce the darkness with its passive benefit, but it did little to reveal the room’s secrets. Half-finished weapons and warped ore littered the space as he walked deeper inward. The smooth metal walls were covered in soot, the air around him felt hotter than Abigail’s embrace, and the clink of someone pounding away at metal grew louder for a few moments until it stopped completely. A figure approached him out of the darkness, and he tensed up until the silhouette revealed itself.

A man in a cloak with a long beard offered John his hand, and the last thing John expected when he took it was a Champion vision.

John saw the very first people making tools, strapping sharp stones to sticks with fibrous greenery. It skipped ahead, and he saw the first suggestion of metalworking. People had discovered tin and copper, and made radiant bronze shields and swords from the malleable substance. Again another flash forward, and a smith sat in a half-enclosed stone building, setting aside a freshly finished gladius in a pile with nine others. The vision ended upon an enormous factory, dozens of machines working on an assembly line making a car.

“Well met, Champion of Gaia,” Vulcan said in a throaty croak, as if each word took great effort. He lowered his hood to reveal the rest of his face. It looked how John imagined he looked after getting his face rearranged by Frank on the daily in high school. He threw up in his mouth, not daring to look away from the powerful being before him. He also quickly withdrew his hand, bones nearly crushed in the legendary smith’s grip. Vulcan simply laughed, the sound almost muffled, as though his face was pressed against a greasy cloak.

“Ha! Polite enough to stare,” Vulcan raised his hood, hiding his face once more before continuing in a lower voice, almost to himself, “Revolvers, yes? Unusual. Not impossible, mind you, but-”

“Actually, I’m here to pick up Isabelle Ardyn’s new sword,” John said, shaking his head to get the image of Vulcan’s face out of his mind. He used Advanced Spy on him when his back was turned and followed him deeper into his forge.

“Right. Of course. Don’t worry, it will all make sense eventually,” Vulcan said, and again John wondered if Vulcan was speaking to himself or to John. “I finished it not long before you walked in. Unruly blade, that one. It’s on the wall.”

John walked to the spot Vulcan pointed out, reaching over to the blade. “Hold on-” John’s fingers closed around the hilt before the smith could get his warning out, and a flash of pink petals erupted from the hilt and eviscerated his hand. He withdrew it immediately, down three hundred health from the simple action.

“As I was saying, I could not change its allegiance. It still serves those of Ardyn blood. Shouldn’t be a problem for her, but it must be sheathed before being carried otherwise,” Vulcan explained, grabbing a sheath from an umbrella holder full of them and slipping it onto the blade. It sized itself to the wakizashi easily, sealing its power in. He poked a red hot finger into John’s hands, cauterizing the wounds and healing him to full.

“Say, may I see the guns at your hip?” Vulcan asked, eyeing John’s weapons. John held Isabelle’s new sword carefully before putting it in his inventory and complying with Vulcan’s request. He handed over his guns, and Vulcan inspected them closely.

“Unusual enchantments. Whoever laid them must have been quite skilled, only a select few can **** a holy enchantment to coexist with an unholy one,” Vulcan explained, turning the guns this way and that as he looked over them. “Made of melodium, as I thought. The smith who made those guns is dead. You have not yet drawn out their full power. Fight well, John Newman.” Vulcan returned John’s guns, and turned around, walking back to his forge.

“Bye?” John said, a little confused and excited by the smith’s words. He turned and walked back to the elevator, noting that this was the only personal room he had ever seen in a Rider-Waite base connected directly to the elevator. He holstered his guns, riding the elevator back to the travel room. When he stepped out of it, it seemed to disappear behind him.

A lady in a long, flowy maid outfit appeared in front of him as he walked deeper into the travel room, wondering how he was supposed to deliver the sword without knowing the destination. “Hello, I am Adelaide, Miss Ardyn’s personal maid. If you have her blade, I can take it for her.”

A quick Advanced Spy confirmed her words, and he took the sword out of his inventory and handed it over. “Be careful with it. If you try to grab the handle when it’s unsheathed, it’ll shred your hand up.”

Adelaide simply nodded, hurrying to what John recognized as the Springfield mirror and entering.

Thinking nothing of it, he walked deeper into the travel room, thanking his luck that the Rome base had a mirror to Actaea and he didn’t have any transfers. As he walked into Actaea from Rome, he noticed that this travel room was different. Not in terms of looks, but the salty scent of the beach wafted through it despite being closed off from the outside.

As he made his way out, he looked back upon the base to see that it was glamoured from the outside to fit in with the rest of the harbor. It looked to be a stout wooden building instead of the metal, glass, and concrete tower he knew it to be. Jumping on top of a nearby building, he scanned the entire town; there was no land in sight. The town was a complex network of platforms, wooden crossways making up the entire thing.

The middle of the town was denser, with apartments and houses crowding the interior. The Rider-Waite base was closer to the outskirts, where the buildings were spaced out, and the walkways less crowded. He used Symphony of the Night to enhance his vision, the sound and smell of the waves fading into nothing as he looked for the bar in question. Just as he was about to give up and look somewhere else, he spotted it at the very end of the most exterior walkway, just across from where all the ships were harbored.

Listening to Abigail describe her experience with the Abyss had stirred up the romantic in him, and he resolved to enjoy the different experiences it offered. He decided to take a leisurely walk around town before making his way to the bar since he still had about an hour before his contract started. As he walked through what he assumed to be the merchant district of the town based on the plentiful shops, he caught glances every now and then of a different race.

One blue man had a nose that could rival a swordfish, another had small fins instead of ears. A kindly looking man with six arms covered in suction cups was selling fried fish balls. John recognized these individuals from a discussion he had with Amy as the two-legged form that merpeople could take on land.

Half an hour in, he got bored and headed to the bar and the rendezvous point. A group of merpeople walked in before him with a swagger, and he stayed in the doorway to observe.

“Someone hasn’t been paying their protection fee,” the biggest one, and who John assumed to be their leader, announced as he walked in. He left indents in the wooden floor as he walked, clothed in a classic black pirate jacket and white undershirt, a sword strapped to his belt. His whole crew was made of merpeople, and John guessed by his black and white coloration and blowhole on top of his head that he was somehow related to orcas. He kicked a table into splinters on his way to the bar, where a cloaked woman sat eating a meat pie and drinking red wine. Her glass was full, one empty bottle and one full bottle next to her.

John’s hands strayed down to his guns, and he began to observe each member of the gang. To his dismay, the first man he spied was level thirty-five. I think I’m out of my league here.

“But s’alright. We’re the forgiving sort.” The orca tilted his black tricorne hat askew as he gazed down at the barmaid, one foot up on the stool in front of him. “Fifty barrels of rum ought to smooth it over.”

“We’re out of rum at the moment due to a delayed shipment. The imperial crew was in here this morning and drank us out. The only **** left is-” The barmaid’s eyes wandered to the unopened bottle of wine beside the dining woman before quickly darting back to the captain in front of her. She backed away from the bar slowly.

“I wonder where that shipment is, huh, boys?” the captain said, shrugging his shoulders as if to say that the problem was unavoidable before the whole crew broke into uproarious laughter. The woman at the bar, who had hardly looked up since they entered, offered him her bottle of wine.

“You can take this if you’d like, it’s all that’s left.” She put down her fork, and half-turned to the man, though John still couldn’t see her face behind her cloak. The captain ripped the bottle from her hands and broke it over her head.

John ground his teeth together in anger, spying the captain. His heart sank when he saw the man was nearly level fifty but he slipped on his mask nonetheless. He stepped inside and sank into the shadows, no eyes on him due to the show the captain was putting on.

Cinder spoke up as he hid, John, I can hardly stand to watch this scum harass civilians but… they are far stronger than us. We cannot help.

Taking a scrap of cloth out from her robe, the woman lifted the broken glass from the floor with magic and sealed it inside the cloth, now facing the barmaid. “Did what I could, floor’s probably going to stain though.”

The captain took his sword from his belt and swept it along the bar, knocking all the cups and plates to the floor with a malicious grin on his face.

“Why don’t you clean that up with your little magic tricks?” He laughed, about to backhand her. John Jumped forward, catching the man’s hand in both of his.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” John demanded, charging a Fist with a hundred mana and sinking it into the man’s stomach. Unfortunately, it did little more than knock the pirate back.

“And that’s supposed to be you?” Orca chuckled, walking back up to John and slugging him hard enough to knock him back through the front door. John put his hand to the ground as he slid back, feet just barely staying on the dock.

Orca and his crew filed out of the bar after him, various members throwing cigarette butts and empty bottles at him. With a sweep of Move, none landed near him. He drew his pistols and fired a full clip of each at Orca’s head, the last round of each exploding in his face due to his gunbelt’s boon.

Orca grinned revealing rows of razor sharp teeth gripping his bullets. He spit them out, a long, prehensile tongue licking his lips as though he was savoring the taste of metal and gunpowder.

He rushed toward John, who could hardly keep up with his speed. John activated Reflex Mode dodging the man’s first punch and screaming in pain as a huge chunk was bitten out of his shoulder. It regenerated immediately thanks to Gamer’s Body, but his health was already at around one third.

“These are interesting,” Orca said, snatching the pistols from John’s hands and punching him in the stomach again. He stepped back, admiring the guns as John sank to his knees, the breath knocked out of him.

“Unhand them!” John roared, rotating the guns with Move and channeling a four hundred mana pulse of Mana Bolt through each, hitting the man on the chin and finally having some effect, drawing blood. Unfortunately, this only enraged the predator. John called the guns back to his hands from the ground as he stared into Orca’s murderous eyes. The captain leapt up and crashed his boot into John’s head, his hat floating into the water and his head stuck in the deck. He used the last of his mana to Move the hat onto an out of sight post.

He ripped his head out of the wood and saw Orca approaching him once more, the top half of his body growing and becoming distinctly non-human as he approached John with a gaping maw. “We were only looking to fill our coffers. Now, we’re fixin to kill-”

The woman from inside the bar stepped out and clapped her hands together. “Columnae venti!” All but one of the crew, the man John had identified as the weakest, were swept into a row by a localized hurricane **** wind.

“Hastam venti!” A spear of wind ripped through the pirates, knocking them out and pushing them into the water below. She glared at the one who remained, as if asking him to defy her.