Chapter twelve A.

It was four days of smooth sailing. Sasha and myself had taken the extra sailcloth I had purchased and had made a jib sail and gennaker sail. The triangle sail on the bow and the big billowy sail on the front. We stitched together the cloth from the two previous sails and used some of the remaining bolts to finishes the mainsail. Once I used the inspect ability on the cloth, I was loath to use it like a sail, but I had already done so, so I might as well have one sail on the Ever Grove made from the rare material.

[ Cloud wool cloth: Quality: well, made. Scarcity level: Rare. Made from the wool of the Theera, this material has the magical property of reducing weight by 80 percent. It is also extremely soft.]

[ Cloud wool sail: Quality: well, made. Scarcity level: Extremely uncommon. This sail has been made of cloud wool, when flown by a ship, ships weight is reduced by eight eighty percent while keeping the same mass.]

Sasha was once again amazed at the fact I had enough of the extremely rare cloth to make a full Maine sail and even more leftover. She explained to me throughout the process that the material was some of the most sought-after fabric, and she could not even price how much of it we had just used. The Theera were hard to catch, as once one was killed, the magical properties of the wool began to fade.

I found myself quite surprised at how little trouble we found making our way down the river. We would pass fishing vessels, trading barges, galleons, and pleasure barges as we continued our voyage towards the capital. At least once a day, we would pass ships that were clearly full of guards. They had splendid color sails in black and red, the color of the Empire. Every time we passed one of the guard’s ships, we were able to see rugged-looking men, both human and Demi-human going about tasks on the deck of their ships.

“Sasha, do you see that up ahead?” I asked as we came around a bend in the river, a long straight stretch.

“What was that, Eric?” Sasha said as she stood and looked out to the front of the boat. “Is that… I think that’s… Yeap that looks like two of the giant river Unagi attacking a guard vessel.”

“Well shit, I suppose we should go see if we can help them.”

“Seriously Eric, that’s the guard, the imperial guard. It is their job to deal with this stuff on the rivers.”

“We’re going that way anyway, and we’ll just get close enough to see if they need help if not will steer clear of the entire mess.”

“I guess we can do that. I suggest we put our armor on though.”

“Good idea, it’s never a bad idea to be careful.” I said as we both got up and went below decks to equip our armor. Though my steel mesh onesie was strong armor, it was not a strong as the professionally crafted items I had gotten. Donning the armor, I strapped the sword I had purchased to my waist in order to keep up appearances.

[ feather steel Chainmail leather armor set: quality: finely crafted. Scarcity level: common. Well-made medium armor. Leather with chainmail, this armor provides excellent protection from slashing.]

[ feather steel long sword. Quality: finely crafted. Scarcity level: uncommon. An enchanted long sword made from feather steel. This sword possesses the three most common enchantments durability, clean, and sharpen.]

Sasha went into the Captain’s quarter and quickly came back out in the full leather armor I had purchased for her. She also had the short bow and a quiver of arrows strapped to her hip. The short bow had an amazing piece of enchantment on it that, with only a little trickle of mana from the archer, the draw weight of the bow was reduced, but the power was increased. I had looked at it a few times, trying to figure out how it worked but couldn’t, and was still mulling over in my own head how I could make the same kind of enchantment.

[ Midnight leather armor: quality: finely crafted. Scarcity level: uncommon. Quality leather armor treated in the tanning process with shadow veil oil dying the leather completely black all the way through. The leather can be used as a source of shadows for shadow magic.]

[ Enchanted Short bow: quality: finely crafted. Scarcity level: uncommon. Short bow with the improved distance enchantment.]

[ Short swords: quality: finely crafted. Scarcity level: common. Sturdy curved steel short swords.]

[ Throwing knifes: quality: Well, made. Scarcity level: common. Steel throwing knifes.]

We made our way back to the deck, and I sat down in the Captain’s chair. The halyard lines were within easy reach from there; rolling up the jib and lowering the mainsail took only a few seconds. As I did this, I gently pushed the engine controls forward and stop them at one half of full.

We approach the battle at about the same speed we had been sailing at, but I had far more control of the vessel under the power of the engines. The giant Unagi was clinging against the sides of the large guard ship. It looked as if they had attached themselves on either side of the vessel. The guards were trying to shoot scorpion ballista from the front of the ship at the eels, and archers were taking shots as well. The heads of the beasts would dart out across the deck. The poor souls who were not fast enough to get out of the way found themselves with gouged chunks bitten out of them.

It was apparent as we got closer that the guards were not doing well in their fight against the giant Unagi. I brought the vessel alongside one of the eels just outside of its flailing range and set the engine to keep us in place.

“Okay Sasha, what I want you to do, is start firing arrow after arrow at it. If it starts to target us or do anything weird, I’m going to kill it. But I want you to try get as much experience from this is possible.” I said as I politely indicated with my hand to the giant thrashing beast.

Sasha gulped and nodded; she drew an arrow knocked it. She let the arrow fly, and it became almost immediately apparent her arrows were going to have far more of an impact than any of the guards. I saw the shaft sink deeply into the back of the giant eel. “Okay Eric, I don’t know if I like this but I’m going to give it a try.”

Sasha began to fire arrow after arrow, and I used the analyze ability on the beast.

Gymnothorax. Unagi, Beast. Level 35. Weaknesses: unknown. Health 85 percent. Potential Experience gains: forty thousand. Zero of forty thousand gained. Guard 1 100xp, guard two 55xp…etc. Sasha XP 3565.

Holy cow, that’s a lot of information; weaknesses were unknown, but even the amount of experience it gives overall and how much each of these individuals is gaining. It is going down far too slow, I thought to myself as I watch the giant eel rip the front mast off of the boat it was attacking. Time to end this.

I put my left hand on Sasha’s shoulder and indicated for her to stop firing. In my right hand, I focused and activated the spell [fire whip]. I envisioned the whip of fire flicking out at massive speeds to lash across the back of the beast, the flame I envisioned burning white-hot and not the much colder red flame. The three hundred feet to the Unagi took 30 mana instantly. The Unagi let out a roar of pain that sounded like a high-pitched garbled squeal as the white molten hot lash of the flame whip ripped its flesh. With another light flick of my wrist, I sent the whip-cracking at the speed of sound to wrap around the creature’s neck. With a tug, the whip constricted and decapitated one of the Unagi. The time it took was eight seconds, and the total spell cost me 280 mana. As my flame whip dissipated, I staggered for a second, this was the first time I had used so much mana, and it sent me to my knees.

[Congratulations you have gained seventeen thousand experience] The soft voice informed me in the back of my mind.

With a loud gulping sound, I turned to look at Sasha’s eyes were wide, and her mouth was hanging open. “By Sippsie’s asshole, what was that.” Sasha barely got out.