It took six tidal cycles before I finally heard the word that I had been waiting for.

[Listen]

That wasn’t the only thing Lirillin said, but for the first minute or so after he recast the spell I was simply too distracted once again taking in the sounds of the world around me to actually pay much attention to his words.

“...out of the question, the cost of shipping it out this far is simply piratical. Likely literally at that, what with the way some of those people at the bar have been talking. Ugh. I hate checking over spell formulas, but if I can’t get the components I need for an upgraded mana sink it looks like I’ll have to. I knew I was overloading things, especially for a boat this small made out of regular wood, but I could have sworn I should have had a few more days than this.”

“Perhaps an aquatic encounter of some sort? I haven't heard of any thaumovores in the area, but I really only skimmed. Or did someone fiddle around with things while I was in town? It’s not like the Ash Breeze looks any different from a normal boat, and the only person I’ve talked to is Walter, but I suppose if Idiots only did things that made sense then they wouldn’t be idiots, would they.”

Still muttering to himself, Lirillin headed away, his voice quickly devolving into unintelligible mumbles as he talked to himself.

Six tidal cycles was a long period of time, even if I couldn’t quite convert that to days yet, and it hadn’t been spent productively as I’d hoped. For the first bit I like to think I did a good job of staying on task, of trying to work my noggin, of remembering as much as I could about that brief moment that the Listen spell frayed, but I simply didn't have the background knowledge needed to truly learn anything from that memory, other than ‘enchantments breaking feels bad’. I did try and see if I could feel the enchantments when they weren’t breaking apart, trying to leverage my high spirit attribute to replicate that novel ability to feel moving energy, but it wasn’t very successful. I thought I caught momentary flashes of energy from the spare around me, but it flickered so quickly that I didn’t really know what they could be.

My best guess was that they were self-inflicted hallucinations brought on by sensory deprivation. The human brain is absolutely amazing at picking through raw data to find what is meaningful. The problem is it is equally good at coming up with those ’meaning’ pieces of information if it wasn’t getting any data to work with. Since I badly wanted to sense something other than the repetitive waves rocking against my hull, my brain decided to work with me and gave me the sensations I wanted.

Just to confirm it one way or another,, I went through the same routine I had practiced previously, only to sense absolutely nothing at all. Combined with the lack of new skills available on my status screen I was more than happy to write it off as the ramblings of a too bored mind.

Having my sense of hearing might have helped my state of mind, but it didn’t do much on the front of keeping me busy. I played around a bit with trying to figure out where things were located using only sound, but soon gave it up as a lost cause. I could somewhat tell the direction of noises, and I had a good amount of fidelity, but with only one location to hear sound from I had no real way of discerning distance. I’d need something supernatural to overcome the problems that physics introduced, and while there was likely a Skill that could bridge the gap, I wasn’t eager to tempt fate like that again.

It was frustrating, knowing that there were solutions to most of my problems readily available, that I simply couldn’t pursue yet. It was so very tempting to take one of the Classes available to me under the assumption that any improvement over my current condition was better than nothing, but I managed to hold back. Lirillin would head to town in the next few days, and the odds were very good that I would be able to overhear any number of conversations that could tell me more about skills, classes, or just this strange world I found myself in.

Without the pressure I was putting on myself to improve my capabilities, time passed at a faster pace. I busied myself with trying to remember and organize as much information and science as I could from Earth. While I did keep an eye on my screen to see if I would unlock any new Skills I mostly did it to keep that information fresh in my memory. It was a treasure trove of knowledge that might help me come up with solutions to problems I might encounter, or it was knowledge that could easily be traded for magic, resources, or just plain wealth if I could figure out the right people to sell it to.

History, physics, chemistry, biology, literature, and everything else I had studied in school or learned about online. All of it was potentially useful in the right circumstances, but I paid special attention to anything that might directly relate to boats or the ocean. I was very grateful that I had grown up by the great lakes and not somewhere like Kansas, where the biggest body of water would have been the downstairs bathtub. It meant I knew at least the basics of aquatic safety, even if most of those rules and guidelines were for the people in the boats instead of the boats themselves.

One way or another, the time passed, and I was glad to hear the sound of approaching footsteps. While Lirillin might just be coming outside to do some work on my body, it had sounded like he usually went into town once every week or so, partly to do those rush jobs that Walter had for him, partly just to drink. By my best guess it had been almost a week since his last trip, and other than that one time a few days ago Lirillin hadn’t bothered to work on me. By my best guess, most of the improvements he was working on were theoretical; magical improvements to the enchantments themselves that needed to be worked out using pen and paper instead of constant fiddling like a mechanic with a janky car.

Without any fanfare Lirillin strode down the dock and hopped onto my deck, before quickly taking a seat. He was a lot steadier on his feet when it was day out and he wasn’t drunk, but it was still pretty clear that seamanship was not a skill that the enchanter had put much effort into acquiring.

“[Recharge]” He carefully intoned, and I felt a surge of energy, mostly rejuvenating even though my mind was insisting that it was forcing things to go backwards for a bit. I did my best to pay attention to the sensation, but it faded all too quickly.

“Ash Breeze, take me to Shellpin Bay.” Lirillin ordered once his spell had come to an end. Just like last time I felt my oars spring into action, steadily rowing my way away from the lighthouse and its dock, heading up the coast to Shellpin. Half my attention was focused on my surroundings, particularly on the coast to my right in case we passed any other points of interest I hadn’t noticed on the last trip, but the rest of my attention was focused on Lirillin himself. He had a tendency to mumble when he was caught up in his work, and even if he didn’t think much of the words leaving his mouth they were like precious pearls of wisdom to me.

“Levels are holding steady, but it does look like it’s taking more than it should on the back strokes. A different rowing style perhaps? I wouldn’t know enough to optimize it by description alone, but I could probably hire a sailor for the evening, have him do the rowing for a while and invert matrix for the duration. That way it would impress instead of expressing, but is it a valid equivalency? Ask Monty about rowing, figure out way to compare energy expenditure….”

It was a fascinating insight into Lirillin’s personality alongside his ability with spellcraft, with enough hints thrown in as to the general layout of the world that I knew I could easily occupy myself for the next few days just picking over his statements. I glared at the screen in my mind hoping to have it give me a note-taking system that I could use to keep track of some of his comments, but in the end had to resort to committing them to memory, cramming them in place amongst all the other pieces of information I had deemed useful and interesting.

Listening to Lirillin helped the time pass by quickly, and it didn’t take long before we once again arrived at Shellpin Bay, where once again Lirillin personally took control of the oars to guide us to the town of Shellpin. The comments that flew by between him and nearby sailors were more or less the same as last time, if perhaps a little bit more caustic on the sailors end. It seemed Lirillin had had some good luck with the dice, and everyone was eager for a chance to win their money back. Walter was apparently busy with something and didn’t personally come to greet Lirillin at the docks, but I didn’t mind that too much. Lirillin had rowed me into a berth that was much closer to the main causeway, and I could overhear half a dozen conversations from my current location. I barely noticed Lirillin leaving as I settled in for the evening, ready to learn as much as I could.