The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (40 page)

Behind us, there was only
silence for a few moments, before the loud cheers could be heard. It
seemed the workers had resigned themselves to being dogfood when the
King showed up in front of them.

“
Denise. Mind
leading them back first? Got a few things to discuss with Dariel
before I head back.”

She nodded, turning to the
group of wagons and sitting next to Godrick, her bow out and ready.
The workers all left with their second load of wood, and I smiled to
Dariel. “Like I said, things have been busy.”

“
Yeah, I figured.
Those spells. They aren’t normal darkness spells. Are they…?”

“
Infernal. We spent
a brief bit of time in Hell to resolve an issue.”

Her eye was twitching a
bit as she sighed. “Please explain properly.”

“
Okay, but mind if
we walk while we talk? I don’t want to get too far behind.”
When she nodded, we began walking after the caravan while I told her
about our trip into the dungeon, which turned out to be a gate to
Hell. I told her about the problems the demons were having, and that
they really aren’t bad people at all. After all, we spent over
a week there and didn’t see a single real fight.

By the time I was done,
Dariel was smirking, and then let out a small giggle. “You
know… this sounds just like you. You’re not one to get
caught up in misunderstandings easily, are you?”

I shrugged to her
question, “I just like to hear the full story before I make a
judgement.”

“
So, demons actually
being nice… then how did all the rumors start?”

“
Well, the ones
actually caused by demons would be like escaped criminals. But, since
the angels are wanting them to look like the bad guys, they try to
only draw attention to the bad that is done. Really, the angels are
just jerks. Attacking innocent men and women because of a racial
dispute.”

“
And.. you’re
sure you got it right? That it wasn’t all a trick?”

“
Yeah. I saw the
contract myself. All of the changes I made applied equally to both
the demons and angels.”

“
And so the demon
queen gave you infernal magic. But, you’re wearing a bow? Don’t
tell me that you gave up on just using magic?”

“
Oh, actually I got
the demon race’s blessing for my grimoire while it was there.
It lets me create items from my mana. Since I’m trying to hide
that I’m currently the only foreigner that has passed the human
mage test, I’m pretending to be an archer that enhances arrows
with magic.”

“
You’re a
cheat character.”

I laughed out loud to
that. “Exactly what Denise said. I actually got bigger spells
from the infernal magic than what I used back there, but I didn’t
want to make it obvious to everyone that I had magic from hell.”

“
Have you managed to
hit the next benchmark with all of your gathered spells yet?”

“
Oh, right. I got
the thirty spell bonus. It gave me a magical barrier that absorbs
damage based on how much mana I have.”

“
I see. Well, it was
fun to talk to you. Maybe next time you can call me just to chat.”
She smirks to me, laughing a bit. “Maybe invite the demon queen
too? She sounds interesting.”

“
I’ll do that.
I think the two of you would get along pretty well.”

She smiled, and I
dismissed the summoning, letting her walk into another doorway of
light that appeared just like the one she arrived in. From there, I
just jogged a bit to catch up with Denise, and we went back to town.

When we returned, Godrick
ran up to his cousin and they began talking among themselves. When
they were done, the large man looked over to us with a slightly pale
face as I walked over. “You… really killed that King..?”

“
He was getting in
the way.” I shrugged casually, as if it was no big deal, and
Denise giggled next to me.

At my remark, the
harbormaster burst out laughing. “I can’t believe it. You
two probably just saved us a great deal of trouble in the future. Oh,
I’ll build ya a ship, by god!”

I smiled, nodding. “Is
there anything else that we can help with to speed things along?”

“
Not unless you also
happen to be a talented carpenter!”

“
Can’t say
that I am, unfortunately. But your cousin said that I’d need to
speak with you about what I wanted the ship to be capable of, since
we were using Mana Wood to build it.”

“
Aye. But it’s
getting late, let’s have that talk tomorrow.”

I nodded, turning to leave
with Denise. It didn’t take us long to find an inn, and when we
got there, I couldn’t help but laugh. Kev was standing behind
the counter, handing out keys to customers.

“
Wow, really?”
I smirked to Denise, who saw it and laughed as well. “Brings
back some memories.”

“
I’d say so.”
She smiled to me, putting a hand on my arm.

The two of us walked up to
the counter and nodded to Kev. “So, how goes the mission?”

“
Well, uh… I
got about fifty gild from delivering stuff around town. Not sure how
much I’m making here. Seems to be going a bit slow. How’d
you find me?”

“
Ah, we didn’t.
We came here for a room.”

At my comment, Kev’s
face lit up. “25 gild per room, per night.”

I smiled to Denise,
remembering her own prices. “Little bit more expensive than I
expected, but okay. We’ll be in town for about five days before
the ship is done.”

“
Eh? You didn’t
just buy one?”

“
They didn’t
have one like what we wanted, so we’re having them build it.”

“
Damn you must
really be rich. But alright, five days… that gives me some
time to tell everyone that you’re alright. Uh.. I’ll be
at class for that day if my math’s right. Mind staying in town
an extra night so that we can all head off together?”

“
Hmm, alright. But
we’ll be spending the last night in the ship. So still just
five nights for the inn.” I handed over 125 gild, and Kev gave
us a key. “You get any new talents while doing the odd jobs?”

“
Actually, yeah.
Strangely enough I got Navigation after getting lost for about a half
hour, and chef after some guy asked for my help preparing meals for
his diner.”

“
Good, that means
you should be able to survive a lot better in the wild now.”

“
Yeah, yeah. You two
go off to your room. I got customers waiting.”

He said that, though there
was nobody lined up behind us. Either way, we went up to our room. I
took a glance at the sailing book, and saw that it would take two
hours to speed read. But then, that gave me an idea. “Hey
Denise, let’s take turns reading this, alright? You go first.
Don’t worry about finishing it all tonight, just get as far as
you can before time to sleep.”

She raised an eyebrow to
me, but nodded. “Alright. Mind if I ask why?”

“
Well, you gain
talent ranks when I do, as we’ve discovered. But you gain them
based on what you’re working on when I get them. So, if you’re
not already studying the book, you’ll probably end up gaining
something else.”

“
Ahh… that
sounds somewhat like a downside of this connection, doesn’t
it?”

“
Maybe, but as far
as I can tell that’s how it works. So you can read the book
until bedtime, and then I’ll hold onto it overnight. I want to
see if my speed reading works while I’m asleep.”

“
I’d like to
state for the record that this sounds like a terrible idea.”
She shook her head and took the book from me, going to the bed and
laying on one side while she read. Meanwhile, I laid on the other
side and relaxed.

When she started yawning
while reading the book, I patted her shoulder and took it from her,
and we laid together to sleep. Of course, I made sure to start the
Speed Reading skill before I did. The next morning, when I woke up,
there were a few messages waiting for me.

When I saw these messages,
I immediately opened up both my own and Denise’s character
windows to confirm that we did both gain ten ranks in Sailing. Also,
I could easily remember the contents of the book without opening it,
as if I had learned it all in a dream. When I patted Denise to wake
her up, I asked her to go through the book again. She grumbled
something about not wanting to study so early, but grabbed the book
from me.

When she opened it, she
looked through the first few pages, nodding to herself. Then she
seemed to realize something as she quickly got to the point where she
left off last night and was able to keep going at the same speed.
“Why do I already know all of this… I didn’t last
night, right?”

“
Apparently…
sleeping with a book has bigger advantages than we ever thought.”

“
No kidding. I…
feel like a cheat character now too..” Though she said it with
a pouting voice, she seemed proud of the fact, smiling to herself.

“
Feels good, doesn’t
it?”

“
A bit, yeah.”

I chuckled, patting her
side as I got out of the bed. “Well, we’ve got to go talk
to the harbormaster now.” I picked up the book to skim through
it as we walked, making sure I had everything memorized. Kev was
nowhere to be seen, which was no surprise since the job shouldn’t
have kept him overnight. Though, he might have just logged out.

“
Message.” I
sent a quick shout to Rusty, but he wasn’t online right now.
“Huh, wanted to thank him for helping me out so far. Well, I’ll
just tell him later.”

Soon enough, we came up to
the harbormaster’s shack, and could hear the sounds of wood
being cut off in the distance. Seeing as how he wasn’t out here
to meet us, Denise and I went towards the sounds. What we found were
the trees that had just been cut yesterday, but now were almost
entirely sawed down into planks of various sizes. Directing the crew
was, as could be expected, the harbormaster.

“
Hey, looks like
things are going along smoothly.”

“
Aye. How are you
coming on that book?”

“
Ah, yeah, I
finished it last night. So, what exactly are the options for a Magic
Ship? The book was pretty vague on that.”

“
It ought to have
been. A Magic Ship can only have what abilities its creators can
grant it. We’ve got a dedicated enchanter for situations like
yours on staff. Ya said ya wanted defenses right?”

“
Yeah. I heard that
there are some powerful sea monsters that require defenses to deal
with.”

“
Well, we can load
ya up on some cannons, and have them enchanted to fire and reload on
your command. As you’re a caster yourself, we’ve got some
more room to work with. If you’d like, we can put more
enchantments onto the ship, at the cost of the mana storage. Meaning
you’d be powering the ship’s magics yourself.”

“
That shouldn’t
be too much of a problem. The book said that storms can be quite the
problem on the seas out here. Is there anything you can give the ship
to prevent it from capsizing?”

“
Aye, that’s a
common one for us. Don’t suppose you need any enchanted fishing
nets. So how about we go with this. The ship can be run entirely
manually, or you can take over by fueling it with your own magic.
We’ll add on a couple harpoon guns, and put a detection crystal
in the captain’s room. There’ll also be a barrier you can
call up when you need it.”

“
I see, and how big
is it going to be?”

“
The ship is going
to be a Galleon, thanks to all the wood you brought back, as well as
what we still had on hand. Should easily hold everything you want.
And with what you paid, we’ll stock the ship with ammunition
and some supplies as well.”

“
That’s very
generous of you.” I smirked up to the harbormaster. Apparently
he was feeling bad about charging me so much at first, and is trying
to make up for it.

“
Not at all. Thought
you were just some spoiled brat at first, but ya kept my cousin safe
in the forest, and even bested the King. You’ve certainly got
some skills to brag about.”

“
Well, thank you. Is
there anything else I need to be aware of, or can help out with until
the ship is complete?”

“
Aye, now that you
mention it. It’s a small matter, really. But every ship’s
gotta have a name, don’t it? Also, you’ll need to buy
whatever furnishings you want for it when it’s done.”