[Valerianne Yul]

I paced back and forth across the deck of the ship in increasing frustration and desperation, trying to think of my options. I noticed that my thoughts were sharper, less foggy. Did Aloenna purposefully make me stupider so I would behave like an idiot and stumble into the dungeon containing Nox? Have no other option but to join the church of Virtue? Blocking out a bunch of my memories might have had something to do with that. Were there more memories that the seed was keeping? I did not enjoy being mentally manipulated.

I needed to heal myself as soon as possible, before the luck wine completely screwed up my arteries. Maybe I could rush into town and look for a healer? I recalled seeing a lot of gemstones and gold in the captain's cabin. What other treasures had Nox acquired in her defeat of the Rimmers?

I looked at myself. I was wearing a broken pair of Virtue manacles and a rather thick and expensive emerald ring on my finger. There were tiny runes all over it. What did it do? I focused on the ring and suddenly my mind started to jump all over the Rimmer ship. I saw various cabins, cannons, engines and its power source - a dungeon core. All of it was suddenly under my control. It felt exhilarating, incredible. It was as if I had a second body and that entire body was the Resurgence. Beneath the fake wooden exterior of a merchant vessel... was a hidden, complex, deadly Rimmer Warship, a weapon of great power.

Oh. Ohhhh! This was a ship-control ring. The ship had power! I suddenly recalled that Aloenna had taught me about dungeon cores. They were pure, unassigned, compressed mana. Power… for spells that mage of any affinity could use and draw upon!

I focused on drawing power from the ring on my finger, drawing mana from the ship’s core and a heal circle formed in front of me.

“Yes!” I yelled.

I pointed the circle at my own arm and released it. The bite marks vanished and I instantly felt a little better. I grinned. Things were good. Things were looking up!

I looked up into the pinkish-purple sky. There were dots all over it. I squinted at them. They were slowly growing in size. It was... ships. Lots and lots of them, too many to count. I gulped. My luck had run out. The Sextants were already here. The Oggberry wine curse would soon intensify. No matter what I would try to do now, things would escalate from bad to worse. My Vintnermancer brother told me to never touch his Oggberry wine. He told me that its power was addicting, dangerously so and often led to nothing but loss. Things would soon get very bad and not just for myself - for everyone around me! I was a danger to everyone, a walking disaster. I started to hyperventilate.

June had emerged from the ship. She looked up at the sky.

“It’s the Sextants! You have to take us away from here, Yul. Take control of the ship and fly it out of the city! Head for the mountains! We can try to lose them in the wilds, make it to the Rim!”

I thought about it for a few nervous seconds. I could try to escape, but the Sextants would likely catch us… the power of the Oggberry wine would make sure that no matter what I did, disaster would reach me. Even if I lost the Sextants, Nicodemus or Tamara would rebel or I could even trip on a perfectly level floor and fall onto a pointy crate. I looked at June. It was not safe for her to be around me. There was only one choice, one optimal path. I would take my bad luck with me… into the sky.

“I’m not running away!” I said.

“But the Sextants will…”

“Kill all the men and enslave women and children and set Kleinberg ablaze. Just as they had done to your village.”

“Noxxy promised me that we would go see the mountains.” She trembled.

“Well, I’m not Noxxy! I’m not leaving all of these innocent people to die! I won’t stand for it!”

"Don’t be ridiculous, Yul! You can't possibly save anyone. There's too many ships! We have to run!" June frowned.

"I can try. I have a ship. I have the power to make the right choice, to help!"

She looked at me and vanished. Fuck! She was going to knock me out. I used the ring, focused on the perception and power of the ship, grabbed at the rail handholds with all of my strength and made the ship swiftly turn sideways.

“Errrgh… Aaaaahhhhhh!” I heard an invisible scream as June slid sideways. The ship capsized further. Because we were connected by invisible magic of Nox, I felt exactly where she was. She slammed into the railing and went overboard, splashing into the river.

“Sorry, June. I’m Kleinburg’s only hope now!”

I righted the ship back up.

Rimmers started to emerge from their cabins, a lot of them had bruises from bumping into walls when the ship had tilted over.

I pointed my hand at the crowd and cast heal.

“Listen up, Rimmers!” I said. “I’m taking the ship up to try and slow down the Sextants. I’m giving you a choice. You can come with me and most likely die horribly... or leave the ship now. I’m giving you exactly one minute to jump into the water.”

“You’re insane! This is our ship! You can’t do this!” Nicodemus growled.

I shrugged. One by one the crewmen started to leap overboard. Nicodemus stayed put and glared at me.

Tamara came over to me. “You’re going to die. You can’t possibly stop all of them. This is only one warship versus thousands.”

“Probably.” I said.

“Will you reduce my debt... if I come with you?” Nicodemus rasped.

“Sure.” I nodded.

“Very well then. Tammy and I will aid you.”

“Hey. I didn’t sign up for a suicide mission!” Tamara snapped at him.

“She destroyed the Convent of the Light with a single spell. What’s a Sextant armada to a God?” He said with a shrug.

“I’m not a God. I’m just a girl.” I said.

“Yeah right,” Tamara laughed. “Okay. Let's see what you can do... girl.”

I lifted the ship from the water, setting a course towards the enemy armada. One ship went up as thousands went down. We met in the middle, high above the city. The Sextants did not hesitate. They instantly saw us as a threat and opened fire. Our shield buckled as numerous steel spheres slammed into it. Tamara and Nicodemus fired spells at the enemy ships. Their spells passed through the shield with ease. It only blocked attacks from the outside.

The two were incredibly talented, powerful Archmages. Nox must have been very lucky indeed to be able to make them so obedient. Sextant warships exploded in the sky, turning away, burning and dropping out of formation as spells of pure destruction struck them from the hands of Rim Archmages. It seemed that the Sextant ships didn’t have a dungeon core shield like ours. Maybe we could actually win this! Maybe we could slow them down enough for Kleinburg to organize some sort of a defence.

The enemy ships parted, still firing metal balls at us.

A black capital battleship hundreds of times bigger than ours emerged from the midst of the armada. A Sextant Cavalier dressed in black all-covering armour stood in the front. He pointed an armoured hand at us. An enormous spell circle bigger than our ship formed in front of the enemy ship. I tried to rotate my vessel, but it was far too late, impossible to change course. I was only able to rotate the ship a little to the side as the circle of magic created by the black Cavalier activated. A black ray struck into our shield and punched right through it with an ear piercing shriek.

The fuckers had an Archmage on their side! Wood that had covered up the Resurgence ignited, burning away and the metal hissed, melting. The fake masts cracked, burning and falling. The Resurgence groaned, coming apart. The beam of darkness wasn’t aimed at me, I realised. It was directed at the two strongest people on the ship - Nicodemus and Tamara. The enemy Archmage didn’t see me as a threat, to him I was just a level one healer clinging to the front handholds, looking quite terrified.

The beam went straight through Nicodemus and he ignited, his flesh, muscles and bones melting away. Tamara screamed in horror as she tried to reach for him and then in agony as the beam cut across her body. She kept on screaming as her body melted, exposing flesh and bone. She flickered in my view and was gone. The Resurgence cracked and spun sideways, the beam cutting halfway into its depths.

Something important had broken within my valiant warship, it refused to respond to me properly. I clung to the handhold as it slowly fell back towards Kleinburg, black smoke billowing from its burning innards.

As my ship spun out of control, I saw that the black Sextant Capital-ship shot something at the city. It was a weapon... an enormous, black, metal sphere of some sort. When it struck Kleinburg, a ripple of some sort of horrific dark magic danced across buildings, spreading out across the land down below. It didn’t seem to do any visible damage.

I tried to redirect the plummeting ship away from the city and had just about enough control to do it. I let go of the handholds, pushing myself away from the falling ship. Aloenna had taught me that I could survive if I fell from the top of Moosy, as long as I presented the most surface area possible to catch more air and landed onto a tree’s branches. There were no trees below me, only the blue, swiftly approaching surface of the bay.

I drew a spell circle of healing, holding it in front of my heart. The river was approaching swiftly. Just as I impacted into the water and felt that my bones shattered, I released the healing spell into myself.