Mourning the dead and cleaning the Bay took several days. Kohn barely registered that the Prince gave a great speech about the eighty-seven sacrifices and about how they bravely fought against such a terrible enemy. He just wasn’t in the mood.

Every single death hurt Kohn in his heart.

These were the people he had laughed and trained with for weeks now. Growing closer as they helped each other out. Learned about on another.

And that thing had killed over eighty people.

He knew it could have been worse. If the bay was full the death toll could have easily reached several hundred. Logically he understood it, but that didn’t make the eighty-seven who died weigh any less. A crushing pain filled his chest whenever he thought about them.

Walking through the ship on sheer instinct Kohn found himself in front of Prince StoneTooth. And just like that he knew what would help settle his wounded heart.

“Let me kill more of them.”

Interrupting the Prince’s resting period was never a wise decision. Even less so if it was for something as petty as revenge, but over the course of their journey he had been watching Kohn and grew fond of him.

“No.”

Swearing at him in his mind, Kohn verbally spoke something a little more tactful.

“I need to kill them!” Whoa, probably not as tactful or as calm as he thought that was.

“We are in a war against the Jzanna and have been for some time now. You will eventually face them again at some point, but for now you are to return and continue your training.”

“But I need to face them now! I need to make them pay!”

Grabbing Kohn’s head suddenly, he pulled him close to speak in his ear.

“I understand that you feel the loss of your friends but do not think that I will risk the lives of everyone aboard this vessel just so you can attempt to kill a few of them!” It was unthinkable that someone in the Kingdom’s forces would ever back talk to him and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why he didn’t order his guards to take the man to prison. “Go back to your training while I’m still in a forgiving mood!” He finished before pushing Kohn out of his quarters.

Outside Kohn just stared at the closed doors. The Prince’s guards were trying their best to not look at him, but they moved closer to each other so that Kohn would have to push them out of the way to go back inside.

“I’d run if I were you.”

Wondering what he meant Kohn looked down the hallway to see a fuming Armorer sprinting towards him.

“FOUND YOOOUUUUUU!” The Armorer yelled at him before his head sank deep into Kohn’s stomach. Immediately everything went black.

***

Wondering if this event was going to change the funny Earthling, Prince StoneTooth waited in his chambers.

Kohn had been so determined to fight the Jzanna immediately that the Prince was willing to bet ten thousand coins that he’d try to storm back in.

It was a good thing that there was no one around him to take that bet because less than a minute after he threw Kohn out he heard his Armorer yelling in the hall. It was followed up by a resounding thump and then the sound of a body bouncing down the hallway.

Opening the door, he was just in time to see the heavy built Armorer dragging an unconscious Kohn down the hallway. Muttering the entire time.

“Take my equipment… don’t even give thanks… helped you kill a Jzanna… didn’t return it… didn’t clean it… didn’t clean it.” Walking away should have made it harder to hear him, but the Prince watched in rapt fascination as the Armorer became louder with each comment.

Then he stared in shock when the Armorer roared, “YOU DIDN’T CLEAN IT!” before lifting the unconscious body, with the heavy Arms, high in the air one handed before slamming it face first into the floor.

Time froze.

The jaws of the Prince and his two guards had all fallen open at the murder they were just witnessed to.

Known for his fury, the Armorer was always quick to attack anyone that mistreated his armor and weapons, but he had never beaten an unconscious person before. For a moment it seemed like even he was worried that he had just killed Kohn.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!

The unmistakable sound of a fart escaped from the ‘corpse’.

Shaking uncontrollably, the Armorer had the look of an insane man as a vein in his head burst. “YOU…!”

***

“ughn… ow-ow-ow!”

Returning to the land of the living, Kohn immediately felt pain all over his body. It was the worse on his left ankle and head though.

When he tried to cradle his head in his hands he found himself bound to a very uncomfortable table.

The material that it was made from was hard to pinpoint. Admittedly he wasn’t very knowledgeable about materials, but he figured it to be some kind of hardened gel-like plastic. It couldn’t be wood because to his knowledge there wasn’t any wood on the ship and it couldn’t be metal otherwise the daggers, spears and axes wouldn’t be stuck into it like they were.

Sweat dripped down the side of his face when he realized that the table was vertical and a certain someone was using him for target practice. That same someone who was currently hefting a very menacing looking battle axe roughly 30 feet in front of him.

“Well?!” The Armorer roared at him.

Knowing that he was in a very dangerous position didn’t stop him from opening his big mouth. “I’m just so glad that you have such bad aim, or else I would have died in my sleep!”

WHOOSH-WHOOOSH-WHOOOOSH-THUNK!

The battle axe buried itself horizontally above of his head. It was so close that the hair on top of his head had been cut short.

Fuming to the point of steam coming out of his ears, the Armorer was blindly reaching for another weapon.

“HA!” Kohn laughed out at him. “That makes-uh… one, two, three…” he counted the weapons imbedded in the not-plastic table around him while the Armorer’s assistants desperately tried to restrain him when he grabbed a morning star type weapon. “…eleven, yeah eleven misses! I wasn’t even conscious for most of them too!”

Slowly the assistants pushed their master into an adjacent room.

Leete spoke from an open doorway.

“Well, you sure know how to anger him.”

Kohn gave him the best salute he could considering how he was tied up. “He just has to practice more.”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Came from the other room before a klaxon went off and a solid metal door with a full shield fell into place.

“So, what can I do for you High Mage? What brings you all the way down… here?… to see me?”

He really didn’t know where he was, but best not to let that show.

Surprised that Kohn had taken control of the conversation Leete coughed to give himself a moment to think. “I just wanted to make sure that you were alright.”

Shaking the restraints Kohn shrugged. “I’ve been in worse places. Just wish I knew why my entire body hurts.”

“Well…”

Leete pulled a display over before waving his hand over it. A video of Kohn and the Armorer just outside of the Prince’s chambers started playing. When it got to the part where the Armorer was testing out his new baseball bat Kohn finally had a reaction.

“Son of a…”

“Wait for it.”

Somehow there was the perfect close up picture of Kohn’s unconscious face. Almost as if the Armorer knew there was a recording spell and threw him at it when he got tired.

“Can you let me down?”

Waving his hands, Leete magically undid the restraints.

On his own two feet again since who knows how long, he was a little unstable at first but quickly started walking it off.

“Thanks.”

He went back to the table that was holding him. One by one he pulled the weapons out of it before piling them in front of the shielded door that he had seen the Armorer get dragged through earlier.

“Anything else?”

“The Prince asked me to check up on you. He seemed worried that you would do something… dangerous.”

“Nope. He’s right. The Kingdom has been fighting the Jzanna for decades now so chances are that I’ll fight one again at some point.”

Unsure of what he was doing, Leete’s gaze followed him back and forth from the table to the door. “But I hope that you’ll continue your training?”

“Oh! Of course I will!” He promised. It was never his intentions to stop any of the training. All of the instructors were teaching him such fun stuff!

“Good! Then take care, I have to return to my post.”

“Okay, you too. I’ll go back and get some food in a little bit.” He was undoing his pants as Leete cautiously backed away from him, out of the room. “I’ve just got to finish up here.”

Leete quickly ran out of the room when he saw Kohn squat over the pile of weapons.