1500 Experience Points.

Sonar was a powerful Skill, and had a price tag to match that power. Unfortunately it wasn’t something that I’d be able to pay off quickly. As much as I wanted to get my hands on a new tool to play around with immediately, there was a limit to how quickly I could earn experience. I could always get a good amount of experience by eavesdropping on trips to Shellpin, but outside those trips I was limited to the slow daily trickle of experience supplemented by whatever gains I earned through achieving mental epiphanies. Unfortunately, there was a limit to the amount of navel gazing I was able to contemplate, and things quickly fell into a steady routine.

A weekly trip into town, to try and learn more about the world and to grab as much experience as I could, followed by a slow few days of integrating that new information while pushing my limits to unlock new skills. Lirillin would usually show up to tinker with me every other week or so, where he made sure I was topped up on magical energy and occasionally recast some of the enchantments on me, just tweaked slightly. He never displayed any suspicion that I might be more than I was pretending to be, and I did my best to not give him any ideas.

It took a month to gather the required experience, and getting to use Sonar confirmed that it was well worth the wait. By myself I could just about detect the echo that meant my initial noise was bouncing off of something, but with the help of the Skill I now had a sense of direction and was able to make out objects smaller than ‘the entire seafloor’. I still wasn’t going to be noticing individual fish, but some tests in Shellpin Bay confirmed that I was able to get sonar returns off of the larger boats docked there. Interpreting those returns was something I would have to practice at, though.

Sonar quickly proved that it was yet another tool that drew from my limited pool of magical energy, and once again my focus turned back to increasing my Class level to improve my Spirit attribute. Fortunately the cost to level up from level two to three was the exact same as it had been to go from one to two. It took me another month to get that thousand experience, as I wasn’t getting as much out of listening in on other people’s conversations anymore, but I got there in the end.

By that time I had a few more Skills available for me to purchase, but as tempting as they were, it wouldn’t do me any good to purchase them if I then couldn’t afford to actually use them. Instead, before I could change my mind, I spent my gathered experience on getting to level 3.

You are now a level 3 Ocean’s Child!

You have gained one point of Spirit.

You have four free attribute points to distribute.

The level up message was different. Last time It had given me five free points to spend on whatever I wanted to. This time I only got four, and one point that was already invested for me. Two data points wasn’t really enough information to make nay real theories, but I had a pretty good hunch that the already assigned attribute point was likely a result of my previous investments. After all, if my class was meant to be personal, then what better way to make that happen than to let me slowly determine its strengths and weaknesses? Unfortunately, that meant that I couldn’t spend the rest of my pints as freely as their name suggested, not if I wanted to avoid crippling myself in the future. Having a high Spirit attribute would be useful, but there would be times that I would also benefit from having higher Mind and Perception attributes.

My four points slipped away as quickly as I got them, one going into my Mind attribute, two more into my Spirit, and the last into my Perception. I didn't notice any immediate change due to increasing my Mind, but my Perception definitely made a difference. Going from two to three might only be a one point difference, but it was also fifty percent more Perception than I had had. It didn’t let me see further using Saltwater Sense, nor could I pick up more noises with Listen, but I was far more capable of taking the raw data those senses provided me and parsing out the useful information. Active Sonar was the real winner on that front, as not only did I have more energy to use the Skill, I now had a better set of tools to process the feedback from it. Even if Sonar and Saltwater Sense filled the same niche of providing me sensory information on the sea around me, I could already see how the two could grow in different directions, with Sonar providing me the range I needed while Saltwater Sense provided the detail.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have as much time as I wanted to really test out my improved capabilities. Even though it had only been a couple of days since Lirillin had had his regular drinking session, I could hear him approaching the dock, his pace steady and firm. My first guess was that he was here to try another tweak, changing things up once more in the quest for improvement, but he surprised me when he began to untie me from the dock.

“Right then. Ash Breeze, take me to watsisname, I mean take me to Shellpin Bay.”

I was somewhat curious as to who we were heading into town to visit. My first thought was that Lirillin had finally finished those extra jobs he had taken a few months back, but he hadn’t brought anything with him from the tower. With that idea ruled out I spent most of the journey trying to figure out why Lirillin had broken his strict schedule, and who exactly he was interested in meeting.

Much like usual, Lirillin took hold of the Oars once we arrived in the bay and began to row. It didn’t take me long to realize that the noises of the town weren’t getting any louder, and my curiosity was piqued. Apparently we were heading off to the right of the town to someplace that Lirillin hadn’t taken me before. It was still part of the bay and thus close enough to town that he probably could have walked here on some of his previous trips, but for some reason he wasn’t tying me up in my usual spot. Instead, he carefully rowed me forwards towards a somewhat rocky beach. I still couldn’t spot any sort of dock for me to get anchored to, and it took me longer than it should have to realize that Lirillin planned to run me aground, or at least pull me ashore once he was close enough. It wasn’t long after that that I felt the sandy seafloor make contact with my hull, lightly scratching at me as we slowly ground to a halt. The next few waves picked me up and tossed me closer to shore, but I quickly reached a point where I remained stationary.

I could hear the clomping sound of Lirillin getting to his feet, followed by a soft sloshing as he got out of the boat to stand in the shallow water around me. I also heard the distinctive splashing sound of someone else wading through shallow water towards me. Once the stranger arrived, and with a bit of grunting and swearing, they started to drag me forwards until I was completely out of the water, stranded above even the high tide line. Their work finished, the two men began to chat.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you back here so soon Lirill. Any problems with her that need fixing?”

“No, Kurt, the Ash Breeze worked perfectly for me. You truly gave me excellent advice with your recommendations when I was last here.”

“Heh. I might not know magic, but I do know boats. Ash Breeze, eh? Not a bad name. Probably means you got someone else to pick it for you, but there's no shame in that, least not for a stomper like yourself.”

There’s a moment's pause, before Kurt speaks up again.

“What’s that past tense business there? I thought you said she wasn’t giving you any problems?”

“It isn't! I mean she isn’t! But the Ash Breeze was always meant to be a prototype and there’s only so much I can learn from her. I’ve tweaked and tested what I could, but I need a different, larger boat for my next round of testing.”

“I need more of an explanation than that if you want me to sell you something good. Hard for me to fix whatever problems you have with ‘er if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“The Ash Breeze is a nice enough craft, but there’s a limit to how many enchantments I can add onto such a small vessel made with mundane materials. I can partially ignore those limits for a time, but I can't get rid of them entirely. I’ve tweaked what I could, but all my calculations show that there's just no way to make a self propelled boat sustainable at that size without some serious design changes.”

“You still think it’s cheaper to buy a new boat instead of simply having me make these changes? I’ve got enough wood and spare iron pieces here I can probably whip up something for you pretty quickly.”

“I considered adding more weight to help better anchor the enchantments.” Lirillin admitted. “It would cut into the carrying capacity, but a two hundred pound cube of hardwood would certainly increase the potential mana draw. Not by as much as you might think though. Weight is a major factor, but volume and density are secondary factors that would play a significant factor in this situation. Whatever gains I might make in better supporting the enchantments would be mitigated by the need for stronger rowing enchantments to propel the heavier boat, as well as the need to rework everything to fit the new structure anyways. I’d probably need to spring for magical materials, which are both hard to come by, and significantly more expensive than I’m willing to finance at the moment.”

“I can see that.” Kurt admitted. “I’ve only had a couple of chances to work with those materials myself, usually pieces of driftwood that someone or another brings to town. Good material, and definitely not something I can help you with.”

“So that leaves getting a new boat. Something about twice the size would be nice, maybe with two pairs of oars instead of one .I have a couple ideas that might allow for some additional mobility with that layout that I want to test and see how they work in practice.”

“I’ve got a couple of girls that might suit your needs. Before we get to that though, what’s your plan for the Ash Breeze?”

“I was hoping I could sell her back to you, or arrange a trade-in sort of deal. Normally I’d argue that the enchantments I’ve added should raise the price, but without a novice mage to recharge the spells they'll probably wear off in the next week or two, and I know just how few magicians there are in this corner of the world.”

The pair quickly began to haggle, but I quickly lost track of their conversation. The information Lirillin mentioned might have been available to me, but I had never really put it through my mind what it meant that I was a prototype. Namely, that Lirillin would eventually want to make an improved version of his work. I could at least count myself lucky that his next version of an automated boat hadn’t required wiping me out of existence, but I still felt somewhat betrayed.

A part of me was tempted to reveal my existence, to let Lirillin know that I was alive and aware. To turn my relationship with him into something that went both ways, where I supplied the energy he needed to fuel those different enchantments he dreamed about. Another part of me wanted to let him know I existed, not to help him, but to stop him from possibly pulling another soul in to power his next boat. I still wasn’t sure if I was an actual fluke or the intended outcome of the spell, especially since Lirillin himself didn’t seem to know what the spell actually did.

While I was tempted to reveal my existence for good reasons, those feelings were overruled by the overwhelming feeling of spite that filled me at the moment. It hurt to be tossed away like so much trash. Lirillin might see me as an inanimate object, but while that gave him the excuse to treat me like one, it didn't invalidate the outrage I was feeling on my end of things. And so, as Lirillin and Kurt seated the merits of a scuffed hull weighted against the potential of me being a unique product, I had an idea.

It was an awful Idea, but it was a beautifully awful idea. There were a couple of factors that needed to play out right for it to work, but it would hopefully earn me my freedom while leaving Lirillin on the backfoot. A part of me wanted to play things passively, but I knew I was running out of time for that to be a valid choice. More than that, I didn’t see how waiting would lead to any other choice than the one I had to make right now. I could either pretend to be a normal boat indefinitely, or I could head out on my own. While there was always the chance that I could come to some sort of terms with Lirillin or someone else from Shellpin, I didn’t think it was all that likely. Playing it cautious at the start might have kept me safe, but it meant that Lirillin now had months of working and using me as if I was a regular boat. That history meant that getting through to him was a difficult task, especially when he could easily rationalize away my existence as a spell gone awry.

So I waited and listened, hoping for the perfect moment to put my plan into action. The pair had taken to wandering around, as Kurt showed Lirillin some of the boats he had readily available, as well as his supply of raw materials for making a custom boat. Right now the two sounded as if they were inside some sort of building, as their voices were slightly muffled.

“Half the size, half the cost, makes sense to me. I’ll even throw in a couple of permanent enchantments for you on any craft of your choosing.” Lirillin wheedled away. I was somewhat surprised he was bartering with his enchantments, considering how much the townspeople valued them, but I guess that I didn’t have all that great of an understanding of the local economy.

“Hah! There’s so much more that goes into building a boat than just its size. To the depths with you if you think I’ll give you more than a thirty percent discount for the Ash Breeze.” Kurt responded with just a tinge of anger in his raised voice.

The words were not in the exact order I was hoping for, but they were close enough. As quietly as I could I triggered the navigation enchantment to take me ‘to the depths’ before imposing my will on the oars as they began to move. Rowing through Sand was difficult enough, and it took every bit of skill I had to translate a rowing ocean meant for water into something that worked on dry ground. Inch by inch I pushed myself closer to the water, and soon I could feel the waves lapping against my hull once again. The enchanter was still arguing with the shipwright, and I let them continue to yell at each other while I slowly drew away.

Eventually I judged the distance to be about right and switched up my strategy. Instead of keeping quiet, I now made sure each stroke was as loud and splashy as possible.

“What was that?” I could hear Lirillin say, as their dealing came to an abrupt halt.

“Sounded like a boat outside, though who on earth would do such a terrible job of rowing is beyond me.” Kurt answered. I could hear the sound of a wooden door being slammed open as the pair came outside to investigate.

“That’s my boat!” Lirillin yelled. “What is it doing out there? Where is it going?”

“Storms and saltwater, can't you see that your magic must have messed something up? The boats sailing off to the middle of nowhere by itself.”

“No, not the middle of nowhere.” Lirillin said slowly, realization coming to him. “To the depths! It’s heading off to the depths because you were too loud with your swearing, you useless nitwit!”

“Oh I’m the nitwit, am I” Kurt retorted, frustration at the strange situation boiling to the surface. “I’m not the idiot who decided to put a piece of broken magic on a boat that lets it go running off as soon as someone says the words flibberty floop! Can’t you stop it or call it back?”

It was a good point. I could tweak and activate the spells embedded in my metaphysical structure, but Lirillin knew them better than I did, and could possibly find a way to make me turn around and head back to shore.

“Ash Breeze! Take me to Kurt’s Crafts!” Lirillin yelled, his voice pitched to carry out to me and force my programming back into working order.

At least, that’s what I imagined him saying. All I could actually hear was some muffled yelling at this point. Not only had I relocated my hearing to be under water, but Active Sonar was coming into play with every overly loud stroke of my oars. I might be forced to Listen, but nothing in the spell actually specified what I had to listen to.

And so I steadily moved away from the shore, Sonar keeping me informed of any ships nearby that might be potential issues, but the bay was quiet. Lirillin had needed to visit Kurt during the man’s working hours, but that meant that most boats were already out to sea or content to stay anchored in their berths. I could vaguely make out the shape of a boat entering the water behind me, presumably manned by Kurt and Lirillin, but I was lighter and was propelled by an inexhaustible well of magic. I made it out onto the open sea without anyone stopping me, leaving behind a bemused shipbuilder, and an enchanter who would hopefully go over all his spells before he tried anything else for a bit.

As for me? I was free.