Book 2, Chapter 7: Flight

[Alen]

Alen’s hazy eyes were squinted, watering from pain as sand swept past all around him and felt like they were slashing at his skin. All around him, the howling of gale force winds exploded past as the sound of groaning wood and straining sails entered his ears. He heard someone shouting—Lynn. Something bright flashed past him, but he couldn’t pay attention to it. The boat shook from a powerful shockwave. A hand grabbed his arm—it was soft, his thoughts wandered. He was pulled to the side and a strong gust rushed past him accompanied by the roar of a powerful monster.

The boat rushed deeper towards their gamble in their frantic escape. The winds got stronger and stronger. The lightweight material of their new Galeboat began screeching in agony. It rose. He opened his mouth to speak.

BANG!

Suddenly, he lost all sense of being grounded. His stomach floated, his mind felt like it was thrown into the sky. His shoulder hurt. The seatbelt was constricting against it to keep him on the boat. Finally, the feeling of ascent stopped. His stomach dropped.

Sna-a-a-ap!

He was falling—the boat was falling. The sails had snapped in half. Powerful winds blew sand into his face and kept him blinded as his dim surroundings blurred.

Bang! The world came to a sudden stop as the boat violently hit the ground.

Egg Chat Room

Adam: hi guys

Bernard: did someone say… autoerotic asphyxiation!?!?!

James: that gag never gets old.

Anne: Did someone say… James’s dick!!!!

James: it just got old.

Adam: dude, sam and i met up n shit and now we’re just traveling together

Sam: Yeah man. My ice is all hard because of it.

Jamal: any one heard from Alen lately?

Adam: i dunno man. prolly making the fucky with that elf he keeps talking about. kappa

Bernard: unironically, the day Alen gets puspus is the day i fap to trees

Anne: Don’t you do that already tho?

Bernard: fuck you.

Anne: Nah I’m good man. Puspus is where it’s at.

Adam: same

Bernard: shut up you gay lesbian

Sam: See, the funny thing is, we don’t know whether he’s referring to Anne or Adam. Get it? ‘Cause Adam wears stuff from the women’s section.

Anne: shut the hell up sam holy fuck

Jamal: Wtf Adam.

James: at least he doesn’t wear all leather like Jamal.

Adam: its like jamal just wants to make his skin blacker by wearing leather. how the fuck does he even have that skin tone anyways? he’s asian.

Bernard: it’s to blend into the darkness man. rather, it’s to blend into the Jamal. same thing honestly.

Sam: You guys are fuckin’ racist man. As an honorable Ching-Chong, I hold no hand in this.

Bernard: can’t be racist to a race that doesn’t exist in this world. explain that, atheists.

Anne: That legit made no sense. At all.

Alen sighed. What was he going to do about the metaphorical (but not really metaphorical) SJWs furiously typing into their keyboards now? He closed the chat after telling the rest of the guys he was alive and hopefully not dying any time soon. He hadn’t been talking to them as much lately, but he really was too busy. From traveling, constantly running and fighting off monsters in the Sandsea, to getting over that mess with Alexandrius, his schedule was way too full. Speaking of things he had to do…

The piece of bone in his hands was eventually tucked into a small pocket he’d managed to cut into the inside of his robes. The cloth was all ripped and messed up from all the fighting they’d been doing anyways, so he didn’t really care at that point. Not like he was much for caring about appearances either way.

He nodded to himself and looked down to observe the current state of his equipment. His staff was the same as always, but the decrease to mana cost and the extra power it provided his spells was something he didn’t want to go without, especially with the stupid amounts of mana his summons needed to be prepared ahead of time. Next, he felt around his gray robe. On his shoulders, two pieces of bone were tucked inside holes he’d cut and haphazardly sewn together. The same was for his sleeves, that contained four bones in them each. A large piece of enamel was even tucked into holes he’d carved under each of the soles of his shoes, while six were lined down his backside through similar pockets in his robe.

The leathers kind of got in the way, but it was nothing he couldn’t get over. Large amounts of mana was contained within each piece in order for them to serve their purpose effectively. As for what that purpose was?

Alen grinned and walked out of his room. They’d stayed the night in a town just after they separated from the Cava’tal, and they were getting ready for an entire week of traveling without any stops. Roland told him it was to maximize the storage compartment of the Galeboat, and also to make up for the fact that they had to go around the Maelstrom of Dust, which was a massive sandstorm that never ceased to churn. Apparently, get close enough, and it could very well spell disaster for any Galeboats due to the absurdly strong winds.

He shrugged to himself as he sat down beside Lynn who was having breakfast alone.

“Where’s Roland?”

The elf shrugged, her untied white hair spilling over her shoulders. She looked at him, her eyes still sleepy. “Groceries,” She yawned. “He left just a while ago. Said we were leaving after he came back.”

Alen received his breakfast from a waitress. He thanked her before turning back to Lynn. “This is a first. You look dead. Don’t you like, make yourself presentable before leaving your room?”

She shrugged. “My hair tie got worn out and tore last night. I asked Roland to add a pair into the stuff he’s buying. I got too lazy to even fix myself up because of it.”

“Wow, that was admirably honest.”

“About time you started admiring me. I’m brilliant.”

“That’s kind of a given, you know? If you weren’t anywhere near as awesome as I was, I wouldn’t be hanging out with you.”

“Wow, that was incredibly narcissistic.”

“Make up your own lines. Stop stealing mine.”

“I don’t see what you’re talking about.”

The idle chatter continued until Alen finished his meal. Lynn stood up and grinned at him. “Buy us drinks?”

“You know, I’m starting to think you only talk to me for free drinks.”

“Psh, what?” She waved her hand to the side. “I talk to you because of a lot of things. You have plenty of redeeming qualities. Like… ah…”

He walked behind her and grabbed her shoulders, pushing her out of the inn like he would a grocery cart. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t insult me further when I’m buying you drinks. It’s a no-no.”

She looked back at him and grinned. “You shouldn’t be talking about no-no’s. Holding a pure maiden like me and jostling her around like this… You’ll get arrested, you know?”

Alen shook his head. “I’m starting to agree with Roland that you’re getting worse by the day.”

“I’m not,” She laughed, twisting around and walking beside him. She put her forearm on his shoulder like a drunkard would his fellow drunkard and smiled. “You get to take a girl as pretty as me out for some juice in the morning. What’s there to complain about? You didn’t do this much in your old world, right?”

“Don’t go assuming I didn’t get girls.”

She tilted her head. “Did you?”

“Not really.”

Lynn’s laughter rang out once again, like the chiming of little bells. “It’s great to be able to chat like this again. I only ever talked like this to my friend Elena back home.”

“Well, I’m sure she’s very glad she managed to get away from you,” Alen said, pursing through his coin pouch for a few coppers. She saw this.

“Cheapskate.”

“Again, my lines.”

Alen bought the drinks, a surprisingly sweet-tasting beverage from what looked like a red coconut, and the two decided to return to the inn in favor of waiting for Roland and not getting screamed at when he came back to find the two of them missing. Minutes later, the orange-haired warrior entered the inn. Roland motioned to them, unceremoniously boarding the Galeboat outside. He twisted the key into the lock, and with a slight flap, the sails unfurled to carry them out of the quaint little settlement.

“You’d think something would happen,” Alen idly said.

Roland gave him a look. “What?”

“You know, something. Like, an event or some shit. I think that was the first time we left a village in the Sandsea without being either dead tired, in the middle of being chased, or just generally in complicated circumstances.”

“That is a fair point, actually,” Roland nodded. “Try not to piss off any more people at thresholds more than thrice ours.”

Lynn grinned. “Does that mean we can go for ones at our level?”

Roland considered it for a moment, before he smiled back, a slight fire in his eyes as he recalled the lizardman at the eighth threshold he’d fought. “Only if they’re asking for a good thrashing.”

“Alen’s usually the one asking for a beating though.”

“People are just naturally jealous of my genius.”

“I guess the amount of vulgar jokes you make in a single day is impressive.”

“Take away my jokes and what would I have left?”

“Your various redeeming qualities.”

“Fuck you.”

Roland’s lips curled into a smile at the banter of his two party mates. Their three-month journey in the Sandsea had just started, but they’d already gone and managed to piss off the leader of the Cava’tal. Monster attacks were more frequent for some reason as well; maybe these two were magnets for bad luck? Roland shrugged. He was passing thresholds quickly thanks to it anyways. The sooner he passed the fortieth, the sooner he could come over to his family and prove them wrong about fighting with just the sword.

He even considered looking for the Underearth once, but it would probably be impossible to reach. No one had found an entrance to it in years. No one that lived long enough to tell the tale, anyways.

The orange-haired warrior squinted at the horizon and yawned as he felt the sun on his skin. It was still early in the morning, so the sun wasn’t baking him alive yet. Roland decided to go and enjoy that fact. The Galeboat moved for a handful more kilometers, an hour idly passing by with the occasional conversation between the three of them. He looked up from the map beside him and squinted his eyes again.

Roland frowned. Galeboats, again.

He stopped the boat and looked grimly at the approaching boats by the horizon. “Alen,” He told the necromancer who looked at him questioningly. “Get your undead ready for summoning.”

“Not a-fucking-gain. I should’ve thought better about raising a flag like that,” Alen groaned, his sleeve swishing as he tossed teeth into the sand all around them. Lynn shrugged and hopped off the boat, dexterously climbing a spire of rock nearby. She sat down on the top and flashed a thumbs up at them, similarly looking at the approaching boats.

Roland looked questioningly at Alen. “You aren’t going up with her?”

“I wanna test something,” The necromancer said.

“Let’s hope you don’t have to,” The warrior said. “Those might just be merchant ships looking for people to trade with again, but we can’t always be lucky. The Sandsea is crawling with bandits and pirates.”

“And those are presumably pirates?”

“We’ll see when they get here.”

The two stood on the boat for a good ten minutes, watching as the eight ships surrounded them. An elf with skin the color of amber jumped off from one of the boats with a despicable-looking grin on his face.

Alen elbowed Roland. “Definitely pirates,” He whispered.

Roland sighed, his eyes assessing the opponent in front of him. Slightly hunched back, lightly bent knees, and fidgety eyes that seemed to scan the area for any threats. An experienced fighter. Someone that most likely used speed to his advantage, Roland figured, but they shouldn’t have too much of a problem against him. Roland was confident he could take on people from as far as the ninth threshold alone, and the feeling he got from this bandit was definitely not much stronger than that, if on that level at all. The three of them probably wouldn’t have a problem in a confrontation.

As for the ones on the boats? He snorted inside. They were lackeys. No powerful bandit group would have such a small or shabby collection of Galeboats. If he’d seen a ship as large as Alexandrius’s, he would’ve turned tail and fled as soon as he saw it in the horizon.

He looked at Alen.

The necromancer was as unperturbed as he always was, the ever-present curl to his lips appearing as he stared at the amber-skinned elf. Whether his calm was from confidence or stupidity, Roland honestly didn’t know.

The elf approached them, glancing at Lynn who had a handful of arrows floating around her from above. “Why don’t you get that little missy down here so we can talk?”

Roland was about to tell the elf off when Alen interrupted with a sigh. “Yeah, yeah. You’re going to ask for a toll next, right? Then for our expensive looking equipment? Maybe throw a wild Lynn into the package? Lemme say this right now; fuck you, yeah? We’re not handing anything over. Skip the bullshit, get out of here or regret it.”

The elf laughed derisively. “Regret it? What’s a six-threshold trio going to do to me?”

Roland looked unsurprised at the mention of their thresholds. Any typical magic user would be able to figure it out, especially with the lack of protection they had against scans like this. He glanced weirdly at Alen. He was the weird one. Roland had never even heard of what this guy called Mana Programming. Couldn’t even read mana signatures, apparently. He watched as Alen raised an eyebrow.

“You’re literally the most typical kind of bandit fodder. You might be at a slightly higher threshold, but I’m guessing you aren’t even capable enough to make a decent living through doing commissions from the House,” Alen calmly said. “Even if you are strong, Roland here would probably beat the shit out of you, while Lynn up there would decimate your crappy boats in ten seconds.”

The bandit frowned and suddenly moved. Roland sprang into action, but his pupils constricted as the man blurred, using a weird technique to turn into a surge of sand, only to reappear behind Alen with a dagger stabbing towards his nape.

Roland was shocked. Did this person set Agility as his highest attribute? He looked at his sword that was still a good distance away from the man’s neck and felt sweat on his back. I’m not fast enough!

Alen forced down the panic he felt when the man surged forward. He was prepared for this. Prepared. His high Intelligence rating did more than just increase the raw power of his spells. The man was moving fast, but he could see it—react to it. He could see the sand swirling around the man; the reflections of light from the grains of earth surrounding him. He could see it all.

The elf passed him and disappeared behind him. Alen’s body wasn’t fast enough to react, but his mind was. Mana surged into the pieces of bone on the back of his robe to activate his spell and—

Sssssssssss! With a loud hissing noise, the bones inside his robe activated and exploded outwards into terrifying bone spears shrouded in a freezing Deathchill. The elf twisted his body—the spears grazed him, the wounds turning purple-black from a deep necrosis. The blunt ends of the bone slammed into Alen’s back, who let out a strangled grunt as he was propelled forward.

The elf barely had time to react before a sword tore through his side, cutting a deep wound into his stomach. A shield flashed into vision. It slammed into his face, a powerful shockwave being transmitted into his skull. His nose broke; his brain literally shuddered. The elf used his technique and turned to sand, reappearing a distance away. He staggered and dazedly downed a potion, causing the wounds on his body to knit back up. He looked up to see a light flash towards him.

Bang! A small metal disc slammed into his chest, fracturing ribs as shockwave after shockwave turned his insides to mush as an explosion of earth, ice, poison, and fire rocked the small fleet he had brought along.

He took three steps back, before he lamely dropped to the ground—dead.

The other pirates jumped off their little Galeboats, panicked shouts leaving their throats as minor injuries mounted from the flames and flying shrapnel. Roland grabbed Alen’s robe and pulled him away, dragging him to the back of the Galeboat. An arrow thudded against their ride, the shooter suffering a wound to the side as one of Lynn’s arrows grazed him. The bandits began to recover, and just as they were getting ready to charge at the boat—

Sssssssss! With another loud cacophony of hisses, two Nightstalker Scorpions formed from the chitin Alen had tossed to the ground. The situation quickly devolved to chaos as bandit and scorpion engaged in a fierce battle. Overall, there were about twenty or so of them, but Alen didn’t want to summon any more undead until necessary. Refilling the teeth with mana was a tiresome activity, and it left him in a state where he barely had any left.

Roland dashed out from behind the boat, ramming his shoulder against a pirate from the other side. Alen observed the fight and sent orders to his undead from his little safe spot.

As he did so, he spotted something from the corners of his eyes that caused his pupils to violently constrict. He wasn’t fast enough to dodge—a massive disadvantage from neglecting to increase his physical stats—so he was only able to activate the bone shard inside his sleeves. With a tearing sound, the bone exploded out of the other end, forming a bone spike that tore through his clothes and lacerated the flesh in his arm.

Clang! A blade slammed against the new spike, causing it to slam into the new wound, but protecting him from a more tragic fate. Alen screamed as a sharp pain clawed at his mind. His shoulder hit the Galeboat from the impact and he twisted, sending himself sprawling down into the sand below as the pirate’s blade sheared through their boat. He grabbed the spike with the hand of his injured arm and raised it upwards in a block. Another clang rang out as the spike of enhanced enamel defended him from another strike. The sheer force of it numbed his hand, causing his bone spike to fall out of his grip.

He looked up, his vision blurry. The sand had gotten into his eyes.

“Agh!” With a strangled grunt, his back hit the boat once again as a kick drove into his stomach like a truck, sending him reeling. Another strike was coming. Alen forced his body to move, twisting it to plant his feet against their Galeboat. His mana surged into the shards in the soles of his boots.

Bang! The blunted tips of the bone spears he’d modified to give him a burst of upward speed slammed against the surface of the boat, violently pushing him forward before falling off his shoes. His shoulders rammed into the pirate’s shin, causing the man to fall forward mid-strike as Alen skidded across the sand. A thud rang out—the sword had gotten stuck on the surface of the boat. Seeing Alen stand up, the bandit abandoned it and rushed at him with his fists ready.

Alen couldn’t keep up with the bandit in speed. He raised his arm and felt the force of a punch explode against it. He grunted and felt his arms numb. He took a step back, and a fist rocked the side of his ribs. He coughed and felt panic rising up. Everything was going in a pace he could process—almost in slow motion—but his body wasn’t strong nor quick enough for him to even counter attack. Shit! I have to do something! He thought, feeling something rushing up his throat as his stomach shuddered from a powerful uppercut.

His eyes scanned the man’s movements, desperately looking for a chance to make a counter attack. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Lynn exchanging fire with four archers, while Roland and his two scorpions were held back by about a dozen other pirates.

His eyes flashed. He had to do something. His arms fell, exposing his upper body fully. The pirate pulled back his fist and Alen grit his teeth.

Bam! Alen’s vision exploded into a shower of sparks as the bandit jabbed at his face. His body flinched, expecting a follow-up, but Alen knew it wouldn’t come. Instead, another sound began to ring out.

“AAaaahh!!” The man screamed in agony, pulling back his fist that was covered in a virulent necrosis. The decay destroyed the bloating flesh of his fist and gnawed at his bones, opening up a whole new world of agony as the pirate violently scratched at the exposed bones of his hand in a futile attempt to get rid of the decay. Alen looked up at him, his entire face covered in an ugly, hissing black-green ice.

Deathchill Touch.

The blood dribbling out of his nose turned black and evaporated into a dark mist after coming into contact with the frost. With a scream, Alen rushed at the man with bloodshot eyes, his fist covered in black-green ice. The man barely blocked with his shoulder. The clothes decayed and the skin turned black. He screamed. Alen sent an uppercut at his jaw, feeling the mana in his body surge violently into his fist. Bang! The man was sent back a step, and Alen’s eyes watered as he felt his knuckles crack.

He barely held back the scream by breathing through his tightly gritted teeth, but his hand still hung limply by his side. Alen watched as the man’s throat bloated like a frog’s, before deflating as the Deathchill devoured his flesh and blood. The man fell back, grasping at his throat before falling to his knees, then on his face. The pirate was dead, and all too abruptly.

Alen felt sticky—like something was dripping from his entire body, from his chest. He’d just killed someone, and it wasn’t from a distance or a simple command. He’d done it himself; with his own hands. Mana from his kill surged into him.

System Message!

Congratulations! You have passed your sixth mana threshold. You are now at your seventh. This threshold will require an exponentially higher amount of mana to pass.

He looked down at the man in a slight daze, the decay still eating away at the man’s body. For the first time since coming to this world, Alen felt that his power was disgusting. Footsteps were rushing towards his direction. Another two bandits managed to slip away from the fight in order to rush at him.

Would his magic rot away at them too?

Alen raised his hand, mana flowing into his fingertips as he prepared a Rotfire Bolt. It was almost muscle memory at this point. He’d either fire this attack, or he would die. In order to stay in this world, he had to take away from others. That was Necromancy. A magic to manipulate death—deaths he himself would cause. There was no undead doing the killing; it was simply him, the Necromancer. Alen felt sticky, like glue was covering his body and weighing it down. His chest felt like it was sinking, falling into a dark pit as blurry faces he didn’t recognize flashed through his mind.

The spell manifested as it went through the mana program. A single command at a time. Alen felt the process slow down, until it came to a halt. He removed the limit to the mana he could put into the spell, and then, as time sped back up to normal, he fired it.

The black-green flame roared as it exploded out from his palm, taking most of his mana away with it as it formed a gigantic spear of Rotflame the size of a truck. It destroyed the sand below, rotting it away into nothingness and black dust before violently slamming into the two pirates who tried to jump out of the way. It devoured them. Destroyed their flesh, melted their bones, evaporated the mulch. The flames continued to dash forwards, exploding into the side of the pirates’ formation and raking a deathly gash through their ranks.

Nothing but dust was left.

Alen’s vision blurred. Blood was dripping out of his nose, and his head experienced a pain akin to being pounded by hundreds of hammers. His Nightstalkers, acting by the instincts and muscle memory of the orange strands within them, took advantage of the chaos and weaved into the fray with Roland, killing pirates of various races with ruthless efficiency. Lynn shot a few elemental arrows before jumping down from the spire of rock and running towards Alen. She grabbed his shoulders and stopped him from falling down.

Seeing that his eyes were hazy and unresponsive, she picked him up and slung him over her shoulder. She ran back to the boat as Roland and Alen’s two scorpions killed the remaining pirates. She set the necromancer down on the seat and poured one of their remaining potions into his mouth.

His wounds started to fix themselves up, but not completely, so she sighed and had him drank another. That would be the last she’d give him. Any more, and these low-quality potions would cause an overdose.

Lynn heard shouting. She frowned and looked up to see Roland dashing towards the boat, leaving the remaining undead to deal with the bandits. He jumped on and immediately pulled the lever, the sails flowing downwards and catching the wind to push them forward. She looked at him confusedly. He was covered in blood, some his own, but he wasn’t even taking any potions. He seemed to be in a rush. She tilted her head.

“What’s happening?”

“We have to leave, now. Worst comes to worst, you take the controls Lynn. Snap Alen back into reality. We need him awake,” He said, turning the boat around towards a new direction.

She nodded and shook Alen. What would questioning Roland further do? It was urgent, so she’d trust him and get it over with. Seeing that Alen was still unresponsive, she slapped him, and his eyes regained a bit of clarity. He groaned and looked at the elf.

“W…What?” He asked, his eyes bloodshot as he looked at Lynn.

“Something’s happening. Sit up properly and put on your seatbelt.”

Alen nodded and strapped it onto himself. He looked at Roland. “Why are we running? Didn’t we beat those pirates..?”

He finished speaking, before he suddenly frowned and lapsed into somber silence. That sticky-heavy feeling was still there, suddenly made clearer as his mind gained clarity. Alen knew it was cliché, but he ended up wondering whether that man had resorted to banditry because he had, say, a family to support. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that the world was black and white. It was a whole spectrum of grays and contradictions. Roland opened his mouth to speak, but his voice was drowned out by the sudden roar that exploded out from behind them.

The trio was startled and looked back simultaneously to see a gigantic shark the color of gold and sea-green rise up from the sand to devour two pirates. It was easily bigger than even Alen’s column of Rotflame from a while ago. Roland cursed and released the side-sails, speeding them up further as the shark sunk back into the glimmering sands.

“What the fuck!” Alen shouted, looking back to make sure he’d seen what he’d just seen. A fin slowly rose through the sand, slicing through it like a razor—it was following them.

Roland looked at them grimly. “Terrashark. Lynn, take the wheel.”

She climbed onto the upper part of the boat and gripped the wheel, glancing nervously behind them. The warrior stood behind her and readied his weapons. The approaching creature sped up and Alen felt magic surge in its direction. When he looked back, he saw balls of sand rising up and being brutally compressed into little bullets in the air above the creature hidden in the sand. A second passed.

Bang! Roland was suddenly sent flying back as the bullets of earth exploded against his shield, shattering large chunks off of it. He rolled past Lynn and grabbed the edge of the boat, keeping himself on. He clambered back up and felt cold sweat dripping down his forehead, taking his sword into a two-handed grip. He nervously spoke.

“When I say turn, jerk the boat to the side exactly a second after. Can you do that, Lynn?”

She nodded. “I’ll try.”

Roland’s pupils constricted, then he swept his sword out, slicing one of the fist-sized bullets of sand in half as it shot at him. He was sent a step back from the force, a piece of the compressed sand exploding against the wood of the Galeboat beside his foot. The wood splintered.

Alen hurriedly pulled out teeth from his satchel, destroying the strands of consciousness within and editing the purple strands that remained. Roland was shouting directions at Lynn, but he paid it no attention. He configured the strands to turn the bone into simple offensive attacks, using the large amount of mana within the teeth to fuel the explosive burst of the growth process. Another bang rang out. Roland groaned from pain.

Finally, Alen finished. He stood up and pointed a tooth at the massive shark beneath the sand and activated the program. A bone spear thrust out, lacking the usual Deathchill augment due to Alen’s low mana reserves.

It stabbed into the sand, but it felt like it hit stone, causing the hit to recoil and sending the blunt end against Alen’s chest. The bone dug half a centimeter into the shark’s skin. It roared angrily and sent another volley of sand bullets towards them.

“Turn!”

With a groan from the wood, the boat strained and made a sharp turn, dodging the barrage and nearly throwing its passengers off. The necromancer gritted his teeth and collected most of the shards he had, piling the mana within into a single tooth. He made a quick edit to the purple strand, inserting the spell program of Deathchill Touch within. The strand gained a sliver of black-green in the center. Alen pointed it at the shark again and released the spell, using the mana within the teeth to fuel DT’s activation.

It stabbed into the shark, deeper this time as it sunk beyond the surface of the skin. It stuck to the shark, creating drag and slowing it down very slightly as the spike that had thickened to the size of a man’s arm tore through the sand in the shark’s frenzied rush.

Roland threw his final metal disc at the Terrashark, dealing no damage, but throwing its tremor sense off and slowing it down further. The Galeboat rushed forward, and in this precarious fashion, they advanced for three hours by taking advantage of obstacles like rocks and canyons to stall their pursuer.

Alen felt the wind whipping against his face. It was getting stronger. The shark leaped from the ground, but the necromancer was ready. His staff that was pointed forwards shifted slightly, before it sent a column of Rotfire into the creature’s mouth. It exploded inside the monster’s maw. The Terrashark let loose a pained roar and dived back under the ground to dose the flames. Alen wiped sweat from his brow. His mana was being spent as fast as he could regenerate it. He looked at Roland who was even worse for wear, covered in cuts, blood, and bruises as he tiredly raised his sword.

“Why the hell is this thing more persistent than my erections in math class!? Fuck! Get it off!” Alen shouted, his mental fatigue too intense to remember his recent murder, replaced by his usual way of adjusting to difficult situations in an effort to momentarily forget.

“Just focus on keeping it away, damn it!” Lynn shouted, throwing a pencil at him. It harmlessly bounced off his head, and Alen grit his teeth, mustering the mana for another spell as he once again readied his staff.

His hair was flogging about everywhere now. The wind was only getting stronger as they neared their destination:

The Maelstrom of Dust.

Alen was already out of teeth, and was now making due with spare bone shards and spells to slow down the shark. Apparently, they could utilize the strong winds in the maelstrom to speed up their escape, and if they were lucky enough, it would disrupt the monster’s tremor sense. He squinted. Sand was blowing into his eyes. The wind was getting stronger by the second.

The wood was creaking, and their boat was only going faster. The monster saw this, and soon, its body was enveloped by a yellow light, pushing the sand away and completely removing the drag its massive body felt.

It exploded past the surface of the sand and nearly killed Alen, who was pulled to the side by Lynn. It tore off a chunk of the boat’s hull, adding damage beyond the already destroyed side-sails. It roared and dove under the boat, the reinforced sand-colored hull creaking and vibrating violently as the shark rammed it repeatedly. Alen was getting dizzy. He could barely see with how thick the sandstorm was. For some reason, the wind was getting weaker.

Lynn slammed her palm against the wheel in frustration, swapping out with Roland. She grabbed her bow and nocked an arrow, aiming the light-blue arrowhead at the sand below. She released it, and it tore through the sand, hitting the shark with an explosion of frost.

A roar of anger came from below. It rammed the boat, sending it a few inches off the ground. Then, it disappeared.

Roland frowned and strained to hold the wheel in place. The wind had suddenly picked up. Their sails were groaning. The boat was slightly rising off the ground already. They had to get out, but they’d been caught in a sudden gale of strong wind. Alen sat back down and put on his seatbelt before he opened his mouth to speak. “What the fuck happened to that shar—!”

BANG! With a thundering boom, the boat’s underside splintered. The shark had rammed against it in full force. It sent the boat upwards, the sails catching even stronger winds.

Suddenly, they were flying.

The boat had caught the winds. The wood was creaking—shrieking. The pillar of wood holding the elastic sails threatened to snap. They rose higher, higher. Alen didn’t know how long they’d ascended. His mind wasn’t processing things properly. His stomach felt like a heavy object suddenly thrown into the sky. He heard his party mates shouting.

His shoulder hurt. The seatbelt was digging into it, almost as if it was trying to gouge the flesh out. They kept rising, until…

Sna-a-ap!

The sails broke.

They began to descend.

Their speed only continued to pick up.

The boat had completely broken apart, separating his side from Roland and Lynn.

Faster, faster, faster. He kept falling, the howling of the wind louder than his screams. Alen saw a blue sky, then sand. Then he saw the ground approaching rapidly.

It reached him with the loudest boom Alen had ever heard. A pillar of sand rose into the air.

Everything went dark.