The day carries on like normal

In the aftermath of the attack, the entire crew celebrates the outstanding bravery and leadership of Captain Witterel with an extra ration of ale. The story spreads and grows like wild fire over the course of the afternoon. By the time of the evening meal, the plot is almost unrecognizable: your efforts on the deck have been totally stricken from the record, Blythe has become a damsel-in-distress type of character, and Witterel an unparalleled genius in the field of naval combat. Rather than the **** that struck the killing blow, the storm has been reduced to background information. It was, instead, the captain’s brilliant strategy that saw the beast slain, while his dashing bravery won the damsel’s heart.

You hear this latest version from Lia, who has come to eat her meal in the ward with you.

“He’s all anybody wants to talk about,” Lia says. “Captain this, Captain that. Oh the Captain’s so brave, oh the Captain’s so generous. The Captain will make that elven beauty his bride. Bleh.” Lia sticks out her tongue and almost drops a chunk of meat she forgot to swallow. She catches herself just before the food spills out of her mouth, clapping a hand to her lips and turning bright red from embarrassment. “I’m about to lose it,” she says. “You were there. Please tell me what actually happened.” You tell her what you saw, from Blythe’s aggressive teasing of the captain, to the impotent rounds of cannon fire, to the sudden thunderstorm which fried the {if@ fight_option > 0}sea snake{elseif fight_option < 0}squid{endif} in one shot. “Wait, so Blythe really did that?” Lia asks. “Doesn’t that… bother you?”

The question takes you by surprise. Surely the sudden, deadly thunder storm that appeared, killed the beast, then disappeared just as quickly is far more interesting than Blythe hitting on the captain. “I don’t mind her leading the man on, if that’s what you mean,” you say. “If he ordered it, the ship could have sailed full-speed away from the monster without killing it. I’m the one who told her to do whatever she had to do to keep that from happening. If a bit of flirting is what it took, then so be it.”

“But… how do you know she was just… leading him on?” Lia asks.

“I don’t,” you answer bluntly. It wouldn’t surprise you if those two had a thing going. Blythe’s been spending a lot of time with him lately, and he hasn’t been able to take his eyes off her since you all got here.

Lia is taken aback by your quick response. “B-but… aren’t you two—” Something stops her tongue from finishing that thought. She freezes for a moment, then fusses with her food in silence for a little while.

Aren’t you two what? Don’t leave me hanging like that! Penny for your thoughts! Wait, uh, copper coin for your thoughts!

“If I… never mind,” she says, finally. “Can we just talk about something else?”

Fine then, you think. Keep your secrets.

“Alright,” you say. “You heard my story, now you tell me yours. What happened to you after you left the main deck earlier?”

“Mm!” she exclaims, having just bitten into her last chunk of cured meat. Lia sits up taller as she quickly chews the food and swallows it down. She then sets her empty plate aside, puffs out her chest, looks you dead in the eyes, and says with a childlike grin, “I prayed for a thunderstorm.”

…

After Lia left the main deck, she made a beeline for the hold. Sneaking into the restricted area was easy for her: she’d done it a number of times already, but it was made even easier by everyone’s panic during the {if@ fight_option > 0}serpent{elseif fight_option < 0}kraken{endif} attack. Once inside, she located a barrel of cargo that she’d investigated during a previous visit. Her initial intention was to bring the barrel to you, as it was full of mana crystals. As she stared at the barrel, though, she realized that her plan wouldn’t work: even with all that extra condensed mana, you’d still only be able to lob fireballs. Also, turns out a barrel full of crystals is really fucking heavy.

That’s when she started thinking about the How-to-Magic book that she’d been using as reading practice for a week. Surely there had to be something in that book, some solution that you could enact if she could just bring you the right incantation. All of the big words she’d been struggling with swam around in her head, making it impossible to confidently recall a single incantation, yet she continued to wrack her brain for an answer.

But she couldn’t think of any. If only she’d been further along in her literacy training, maybe one would have come to her. For now, though, that was a dead end. In desperation, Lia took a step back and started thinking more broadly. If fireballs wouldn’t work, then what would?

Then her mind lurched back to the day of the pirate attack, when your party first inherited the private room from its old tenants. One of the first things that Blythe and Lia did in that room was go through the chest of belongings left behind by the dead passengers. Among said belongings was a small, wooden doll that looked like a person wearing a dress. Lia remembers it well, as it was a rare moment where she actually got to teach Blythe something. While the elves of Elethwren had no use for such things, the homeless catkin had hung many small dolls just like it in her alley in the hopes of warding off the rain. They never worked, of course, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

With no real plan, Lia trusted her gut and ran to fetch the wooden charm. She found it immediately, then stared at it as she considered her next move. By now, minutes had gone by, and you were undoubtedly running out of mana to defend the ship with. Panic started to set in, but she fought through it and noticed something strange about the weather charm that she hadn’t seen before. Etched into the doll’s face was a symbol she’d seen in the magic book. Or rather, it was close to the one she’d seen, but it was too worn out to really tell.

It’s time to take a risk, she told herself. If this particular weather charm was actually a magical tool, she could probably take it to the hold and use the mana crystals to summon lightning. The {if@ fight_option > 0}serpent{elseif fight_option < 0}kraken{endif} was huge, so lightning would probably hit it instead of the ship, right? She had to bet on that.

Weather charm in hand, Lia booked it back to the hold. Once she was in, she took her knife and reapplied what she hoped was the correct magic rune to the face of the doll. Then, with one hand gripping the doll and the other stuffed into the barrel of mana crystals, she closed her eyes and prayed for her crazy plan to work. She almost started crying when she actually felt mana moving from the crystals, through her body, and into the doll.

…

Lia shows you the wooden doll with the freshly-carved rune in its head. “When I heard people cheering, I… well I wanted to be happy, but I was totally spent,” she says. “I barely got back to our room before passing out for a while. Then I woke up, and suddenly it’s the ‘Captain Witterel Show,’ for some reason.”

“Oh, let them have their fun,” you say. You reach over and gently grip one of Lia’s hands. “What matters is you and I know what really happened. You saved our lives, Lia. Thank you.”

Lia does a double-take between your hand and your face, and her eyes slowly expand as she panics over how to receive your gratitude. Her pride saves her, though, and she puts on a cool act, saying, “I-it was easy… You can, uh, rely on me more, you know…”

After your meal, Lia leaves to continue her studies while you get back to your medical duties. The rest of the day goes on as usual, although you’re too exhausted by the day’s events to train Alicia tonight. Instead, you simply climb into her bed and tell her to sleep on the floor.