Jim lets out a low whistle as he walks around me, taking in the damages to my hull. As I was upside down at the moment, my frame of reference was slightly off, but it sounded like he was currently looking at the large score on my left-hand side from when a sideways wave had tilted me and slid me a few meters against the reef I had been crawling over.

“You’re lucky you had this armor.” He said bluntly.

“Not wrong.” I agree. “Got armor first, then made stupid plan. Worked, so not so stupid.”

“And what exactly were you going to do if I hadn’t been around to help you out?” Jim asks dryly, moving on to inspect the next spot on my hull. Mentally, I give some of the nearby barnacles a nudge, and while they don’t have access to even the limited mobility they have in the sea, they can still extrude their adhesive paste easily enough. A few trickles make it to the nearest scratches and begin to seep in, while the rest simply stays in one spot. Jim cautiously poked a finger at it, before swiping up a dollop and spreading it out over one spot where my boards had started to separate. Spread thinly, it didn't take long to dry

Jim took a minute or so to scrape his finger clean, before poking at the temporary patch. The glue might have sealed off the potential leak, but it didn’t do anything to help fix the damaged wood underneath it.

“Okay.” Jim admitted. “That’s pretty cool. I’m guessing you’re gonna want to patch the wood underneath it?”

“Yep” At least to start. I had hopes for larger modifications, but they were tempered by a distinct lack of finances at the moment. Jim could probably find a few pieces of scrap that he could cut down to size and hammer into place, but we’d need to get out and start working so that we could buy some of the better pieces of wood I wanted to get my oars on.

So while Jim went running around the various dumping sites and alleys seeing what he could find, I busied myself with playing around with my barnacle barrier. There wasn’t much that I could actually do with them, given their nature as sessile creatures. Normally they would anchor onto one spot and stay there for the rest of their lives. I could convince them to uproot themselves, but that was a very literal action. Not only did it hurt the barnacles to tear themselves away from the spot they had glued themselves to, but to make that possible they needed to cut away a bit of my hull as well. Not enough to leave obvious holes lying around, but there were spots that were just a bit thinner than elsewhere. Stuck together as they were now, with interconnected armor plates, while I could tell them all to let go and leave, they would likely take my keel with them. Hopefully I’d figure out a way to remove and replace individual barnacles to allow for easier access and repairs, but at the moment I was limited to yelling generic instructions at all of them as a collective.

Eventually Jim did return, carrying with him not only a small collection of pieces of wood, but also a couple of woodworkers tools, likely borrowed from his father. Starting from my prow, he first marked out the sections that needed patching, before getting started on the smallest one first. Originally he had just wanted to start from the largest holes, right up until I asked him how much experience he had doing something like this. He had been helping his father with various projects for years, but since I was the first boat he was working on, we came to the agreement to start small and work our way upwards from there.

Jim might not have worked on boats before, but he was more than familiar with the tools he was handling. In just a few quick taps he had used a chisel and mallet to square off a small hole, giving it clean cuts on all side to prevent further deterioration and to provide a smooth edge to join the patch to.

Unfortunately, my system wasn’t able to distinguish between reconstructive work and damage. I could feel the chisel biting into me, and it carried with it a strong sense of pain. My screen also updated to show that my current durability had dropped even further, and I gritted my metaphysical teeth and stayed silent.

A large part of me wanted to tell Jim to have him stop working, but that wouldn’t actually fix anything. I would sink the moment I was put back in the water in my current condition. So I focused on keeping my oars immobile and my attention anywhere but my injury, as Jim quickly cut a chunk of wood down to the right size, and then more carefully added a slight bevel to it, the better to wedge it into place. I had expected it to hurt, given how much hammering it took to lodge his plug into the right spot, but instead all I could feel was blessed relief that the previous pain had stopped. The dull impact of his mallet still sent my frame to shuddering, but it didn’t carry an instinctual message of pain with it.

Once Jim had gotten it in as far as he could, I could hear him turning and rummaging about as he tried to open the container of pitch he had brought with him.

“Here.” I tapped out, pulling his attention back to me, and to the biological cement my barnacles were dripping out on command. It dried quickly, but not so quickly that Jim couldn’t move it over to his new plug and completely cover the area. He had to snap off his spreading stick by the end of it instead of pulling it away cleanly, but I didn’t care all that much. It would be under water most of the time, where no one would see it.

A layer of pitch was still applied and left to soak in, just to make absolutely sure no water would be entering through that area. As Jim put the final layer on and turned his attention to the next patch he needed to complete, I felt a new sensation. If cutting the hole open had been the sensation of generic pain, then this was its polar opposite, the implicit knowledge that everything was as it should be.

“Jim! Something happened to the patch.” I managed to get out, convincing him to leave his next plug alone for a few minutes while he had a look to see if anything visible had changed.

“Well the piece of stick is gone.” Was his first observation. “And while the rest looks normal enough from the outside, I can’t find the lines between the plug and the rest of the boat from the inside. As far as I can tell, it looks like it’s made up of a few long planks, same as it always was.”

That was fantastic news. Not only did I feel better, but I could apparently use repairs to restore myself to perfect condition. It still took the materials and time to actually do the repair, but a whole lot of minor long-term issues I had been worried about were suddenly negligible. After all, if I could turn an imperfect patch into a regular piece of wood, then with a bit of fiddling I should be able to create a repair schedule that completely deals with regular wear and tear.

The rest of the problems are quickly fixed, as we get lost in figuring out just how far we can push this new ability of mine. There needs to be something there for me to work with, I can’t just push my will at it and have all my injuries fade away, but even sloppy repairs such as having a piece of wood hammered in place on top of a splintered and cracked section count as a valid starting point for me to return back the clock. It takes more out of me for sloppy repairs, and after pushing that one through I was mostly insensible for a few minutes. I think I mostly recovered from it, but we had no way to tell for sure. Whatever mystical resource I was drawing from wasn’t the magical pool I was using to power my enchantments and skills, and until I had a better understanding of what I was doing I made the call to be cautious.

Jim wanted to push further, but wasn’t overly upset when I told him no. It was a passing curiosity for him, not a life-altering revelation after all. Mostly he was just happy that I was once again seaworthy, and was looking forward to starting work the next day.

“I’ll drop by in the morning, and then we can head over to the Market to see if we can get any business. Have a good night, Robert.” He said my name somewhat awkwardly, still getting used to the revelation about my identity, but it was still a thrill to have that recognition. I waved an oar in his general direction and listened as he slowly walked away, before doing my best to relax and get some rest.

Tomorrow was going to be a big day after all.