Once Kai had retrieved our chest and brought it up to the top deck, I carried it into the captain’s cabin and set it up for use. We then moved all of the bodies moved to the lower decks, in a respectful manner before I climbed down into the chest.

To my surprise, everything was as we had left it. I knew that the slavers didn’t use mana themselves, but I thought that they would at least have figured out this was a magical item.

Regardless, I cleaned myself up, put on a fresh set of robes and occupied myself with books while I waited for Kai to come down. He spend a couple of hours by himself on top of the deck and I gave him some space. As soon as he came down the stairs though, I sent him to get cleaned up and climbed back up and out on the deck.

We had allowed the ship to do its own thing for a full day before I could bring myself to actually look at the captain’s maps. There were lots of markings indicating the course that the ship should follow in order to avoid regular trading and patrol routes.

By my estimation, the most complex directional changes had already been taken care of, but I couldn’t really tell how far off-course we had strayed during the day that we just let the ship adrift. Reading the approximate location of a coast that did not seem to be heavily populated, I plotted our direction relative to the sun.

This was not a small ship by any means and trying to run it by myself left me barely any time to sleep at all, especially since I’d never set foot on one before. Thankfully, I at least had my mana.

The sails were already unfurled so I summoned a perpetual gust of wind in the directions of the land of the manaless.

Name : One-way Micro Elemental Portals

School of Magic : Conjuration

Verbal Components : 256 words

Somatic Components : Moderate

Material Component : None

HP Consumed : 0

MP Consumed : 0

Divine Mana Consumed : 26,000

Range : 700ft.

Casting Time : 3,600 seconds

Precondition : None.

Description : Multiple minuscule portals are opened to one of the prime elemental planes of air, allowing for winds to pass. The positioning of these very small portals can be relative to any non-living material, even if it is moving. The portals are one-directional, meaning they only allow entry from the planes of air and not the other way round. The portals will last for 48 hours unless dismissed by the caster or dispelled while refreshing the spell’s countdown only requires 1/10 of the initial time and divine mana investment.

The spell was fairly complex and had actually been one of the last ones I managed to memorize before I received my mana. A whole hour of casting time with multiple iterations of very demanding body movements, made this perhaps the most difficult spell in my repertoire.

Placing the portals relative to the position of our sails meant that they would follow us no matter how far we traveled. It was one of my favorite spell applications and what made Elysian mages very sought after from less than rich captains. That was because the richer ones were able to afford pre-enchanted sails.

This wasn’t the only spell that I had to cast during our voyage however. It soon became apparent that we could not carry on with all those bodies onboard the ship.

Kai offered to get rid of them by offloading them into the sea, which was actually one of the very few exchanges we had during all this time, but I cut it short immediately. Many of these individuals were monsters but even so, they were people.

I would not let their bodies be lost without a proper funeral, or whatever these people did with their dead. I also didn’t want the fallout of his actions to simply disappear over the side of the ship as if he was absolved of all responsibility.

Thus, I cast the same preservation spell I had cast in Nara, only this time I did on the entire ship. This meant that whatever organic matter was in the ship, would not degrade at least until we reached our destination, whatever that might be. It would have been more efficient if the spell was cast on each body individually, but that would mean me facing all of the dead again and I simply could not handle that.

There were times when I wished that I could do more for them, especially for the children, but there was nothing a spellcaster of my level could manage.

***

The ship kept its course on relatively calm waters for more than two tendays and I only needed to fend off stormy clouds twice during that time. The weather was becoming hotter with each passing day, though the temperature in our chest-home was stable.

One could hardly call it home anymore however. Kai and I lived in the same space, but we barely talked to each other. We dined separately and tried to avoid each other. I was sure that things would change once we were off the ship, but the stink of death that was etched in my memory for a second time in such a short period, hardly helped us reconcile.

Kai barely ate and while I felt sorry for him, I couldn’t forget the carnage he’d caused only days ago. I was sure that should I open the hatch and climb down to the lower decks, the feeling would become even stronger.

I needed to face him and figure out what we would do next but I kept postponing the conversation. Our priority was reaching land safely. Once we were away from harm and unfriendly eyes, we would have to face this. But not yet.

***

By my estimations, we would be reaching the coast any day now and I needed to force myself into facing the situation. I got out of bed and moved to the room where Kai had been sleeping since it happened, only to find his bed empty.

I climbed upstairs and opened the chest to the midnight summer breeze of the open sea. I’d come to appreciate the nights at sea as they were much more bearable and tranquil than sailing during the day. I searched the deck for Kai until eventually I noticed a dark figure on top of the railing at the back of the ship.

I didn’t have enough time to understand what that figure was, as the moonlight was not bright enough and the shadow disappeared immediately. Just a trick of my mind maybe? A splashing noise a second later made me realize that the figure hadn’t just vanished into thin air, but was rather someone who’d jumped into the water.

And who else can it be apart from Kai?

I rushed to where I thought I saw him and gazed into the black abyss that the sea was at night. I could not make sense of what I was seeing so I immediately cast an 8-word illumination cantrip.

Name : Minor Torch Light

School of Magic : Evocation

Verbal Components : 8 words

Somatic Components : None

Material Component : None

HP Consumed : 0

MP Consumed : 0

Divine Mana Consumed : 90

Range : 700 inches

Casting Time : 6 seconds

Precondition : None.

Description : A directional light source is fixed on a fixed point in space or relative to the caster’s position. The light source can be moved within the range without additional MP expenditure but rather removing 1 minute from it duration per movement. The spell is active for 60 minutes.

The sea was now more visible and no big waves were hitting us at that moment. It was enough for me to be able to see a person in the water, being swept away by a steady ripple of waves created by the movement of the ship.

I was now panicking but tried to keep my wits and started to cast a spell of telekinesis and consolidated it into a cube.

Name : Soft Grappling Cube

School of Magic : Transmutation

Verbal Components : 32 words

Somatic Components : Simple

Material Component : None

HP Consumed : 0

MP Consumed : 0

Divine Mana Consumed : 900

Range : 700ft.

Casting Time : 24 seconds

Precondition : None.

Description : A volume equal to a maximum five-feet cube on each side can be moved and manipulated for 10 seconds. Everything contained in the space of the cube in its entirety or majority will follow the instructions of the caster by thought.

As soon as I cast it, a large cube of water was raised from the sea and I pulled it toward me. However, the moving ship and waves did not make it easy for me so I failed to target Kai and all I managed to move was water.

I cast the spell again but in a different form. I wanted to get Kai with a wider surface telekinesis spell, but I didn’t want to trap him in a bubble of water. For this reason, I cast the spell in the form of a wide telekinetic net which was the same spell with only a small adjustment. As soon as I cast it, the invisible net caught Kai, raised him into the air and brought him to the deck with a thump.