The youngest of the Murray brothers clambered out of the former slave ship’s hold. He took a moment to kick away the last remains of the latticework that had served as the chamber’s cover. Then he released a wooden blocking peg set into the sloop’s capstan, allowing the ship’s anchor to rattle off the side and down into the depths.

Only then did he dash across where the Disgraced Damsel and the Spitfire were still held fast together and gave Caleb an Avalonian salute.

“All set, Captain!” he said brightly. “There’s half-dozen open kegs of gunpowder lyin’ spread out across the floor of the hold below decks, just waitin’ for a lit match!”

“Did you seal all the openings to the room?” Sienna pointedly asked. “We need that space closed up as much as possible to crack her hull wide open!”

“Oh, aye! Why else would I have climbed out, if’n I could take the stairs?”

Caleb joined the rest of the crew on deck in a laugh at that.

“Well done,” he said, before raising his voice. “Cast us off from that Myrkur sloop!”

A team of men standing by the two ships’ railings immediate removed the ropes and spikes that held the ships together. The rain had finally stopped, leaving a dank grayness to the late afternoon, and the breeze had picked up again. Donal spun the wheel, allowing the Spitfire to slowly pull away from the now-anchored Damsel.

The gap between the ships had opened up to perhaps twenty yards when Caleb called out to the crew once again.

“Now’s the time to turn this damned slave-hauler into a wreck! Clear a path for Miss Morningstar, this next part is up to her.”

The crowd parted, leaving an unobstructed stretch running diagonally across the Spitfire’s main deck. Tavia curled her head around to her flank and bit into one of the red beads wrapped securely in her mane. She yanked it off and hard bit into it with a crunch.

That was followed by the pounding of cloven hooves as she accelerated from the aft, nearly all the way to the forecastle. The unicorn tossed her head, golden mane flying, and let loose the bead. The scarlet sphere sailed across the water, bouncing off the Damsel’s railing and then down into the bowels of the ship.

For five breathless seconds, every ear on board the Spitfire waited for the explosion.

Then ten more breathless seconds.

“All right,” Caleb finally said. “Either all six kegs of gunpowder were duds, or we have a defective magical fire bead on our hands.”

Tavia let out a snort. “My beads are made out of tafann wood.”

“My apologies,” Caleb said. “I wasn’t questioning your craft. Or Donal’s, since he made them for you.”

“No apologies are needed,” the mare clarified, though her tail made an anxious flick as she spoke. “I meant that a defective bead is out of the question. They’re literally carved out of enchanted wood. Unless there is some form of magical suppression, it’s impossible for one to fail.”

Lucas Whelan, the current leader of the gun crew, stepped up at that.

“I mean no disrespect,” he said gravely, “but neither could the gunpowder fail, Miss Morningstar. We drew those kegs from the batch used to fire upon the Damsel this morning, so we know they’re plenty potent.”

Tavia’s horn bobbed as she bowed slightly to the gun crew’s leader. “Now I must also insist that I mean no disrespect. Though I remained below at the start of the battle, I distinctly heard the cannon fire twice. The first time was a normal detonation. But the second sounded as if it fizzled out.”

Whelan abruptly went red in the face.

Tavia’s right, Caleb realized, and he flashed back to the opening shots of the battle between the two sloops.

Whelan’s crew had pulled back the canvas covering the cannon and completed the firing procedure in seconds. A boom! rocked the ship as the gun’s carriage absorbed the recoil. The crew had then moved to the aft-cannon, yanked the firing cord. The cannon made a weak paff! as the eight-pound ball fell into the sea halfway between the two ships.

“There’s one way to settle this,” Caleb said aloud. He turned and looked up to the griffin perched on the afterdeck. “Shaw, can you give us a flyby and let us know what you see?”

“‘Tis an easy enough request,” came the deep rumble of a reply.

The drake spread his wings. A pair of downbeats, and he took off into the gray sky. A quick circle above the Damsel, and he returned to land in less than a minute.

“What did you see?” Tavia called up to him. “Is there anything alight in that ship’s hold?”

“Oh, aye. Thy bead yet flickers with a reddish light from below. ‘Tis the powder lies gray and cold about that light.”

Caleb realized what was wrong. In his mind, he saw what took place before he boarded the enemy ship.

Ferris Pender swore as his rifle refused to fire. “Damned powder got wet!”

“Whelan, the powder’s good,” Caleb said. “But in the time it took for you to move from one cannon to the next, the gunpowder got damp. That’s why we got a near-misfire from the aft cannon. And now, the continued damp after the rain’s not letting the powder we set in the hull ignite properly.”

“I could prepare another fire bead,” Tavia said, as she trotted up to him.

Caleb shook his head at that suggestion. “Those beads are precious, and tafann hard to find. I don’t want to waste another if we don’t have to. If there was a way to dry out that powder, that might–”

He blinked.

“Wait a minute…” Caleb thought a moment, then raised his voice again. “Everyone, stand by! We’re sending this slave ship down to Lir’s Blue Cellar if it’s the last thing I do!”

That got another cheer out of the assembled Arrenmar and Roshannon. But he ignored that and brought up the spell he wanted. One that he’d thought would never have any application beyond relieving a mild amount of discomfort.

Decrease Ambient Humidity: This spell allows you to affect the amount of ambient water vapor in the air within a given area. This area starts at 10 by10 foot area for a Level One spellcaster and grows by 10 feet per level. In other words, a Level 10 Wizard could affect a 100 by 100 foot area.

Well, now that I’m a Level Sixteen Weathermancer, I can easily encompass the entire area surrounding the Disgraced Damsel.

He raised his hand, pointed at the target sloop, and invoked the spell.

He felt a tingling sensation, as if a dry, desert wind had brushed against his skin Caleb concentrated, feeling as if he were squeezing a damp face towel in his fist. He increased the pressure, ready to add yet more via his XP Edge skill.

A wave of murmurs swept the deck around him as the new Roshannon crewmembers spoke with the Arrenmar veterans.

What’s going on with our Captain?

Shh! He’s concentrating to perform his magic!

I saw him crumble our chains, is this more sorcery?

Oh, you just wait and see, boyo!

Caleb ignored the comments as best he could. In his mind, he saw the inside of the Damsel’s hull. The gray-white mixture of the gunpowder lay spread across the floor like a particularly dirty strand of beach. Tavia’s bead lay sparkling in one corner, throwing off bright red sparks with a fitz! or pop!

Finally, the powder began to change color. Drab gray gave way to sparkling white as he continued to squeeze, to wring out every drop of moisture. The magical fire-bead threw out one more spark–

The Disgraced Damsel exploded with an ear-cracking BOOM! that shot a fireball into the leaden sky. Her sail went up like kindling, even as wooden splinters and all sorts of debris fell into the seas around her with sizzling splashes. Caleb felt the dull heat of the explosion against his face even as he shut the spell down.

With a waterlogged gurgle, the slave ship folded in on itself and sank like a stone.

The new crewmen who’d been prisoners aboard until this morning stared in silence. As if in stunned disbelief. Then they joined their Arrenmar cousins in a raucous cheer. Caleb looked over to the updated screen in his Quest Window with no small amount of satisfaction.

Adventurer’s-Level Quest: Dispose of the sloop Disgraced Damsel before the Myrkur’s Sea Vipers can recover her and return her to fleet service. STATUS: COMPLETE.

The cheering went on, and a pair of the Roshannon men broke out into a jig on deck. Someone brought out a fiddle and began coaxing out a twangy melody. Noack Miley pulled a wooden ocarina carved into the shape of a nesting bird from his pocket and began tootling along.

The tune came together as the crew stamped out a beat. Pairs of men and women began to dance and whoop with joy. Tavia looked on, a bemused expression on her equine face, while Shaw watched from his perch astern, tapping along with the beat using one forepaw.

Caleb couldn’t help but break out in a grin as he withdrew.

“Where in the world did the crew get a fiddle?” Caleb asked Donal, as he reached the quarterdeck. “Or a woodwind instrument, for that matter?”

“Oh, unless I miss my guess, the fiddle came from off the sloop you just sent to the bottom,” Donal said, from his post at the wheel. “As for the ocarina, I carved it for Mister Miley in thanks for takin’ some of my shifts at the wheel.”

“Well, you should have more help with that now. I’ll be in my cabin.”

“Not stayin’ for the festivities, Captain?” Donal asked, surprised.

“Not this time. Besides, a commanding officer on deck tends to put a damper on the fun.”

“Prayer’s up, you may have a point there. Any orders for me? Lir’s been kind enough to give us a steady wind from the west.”

Caleb paused at the cabin door and thought a moment.

“Keep us heading due north. If I need my officers, I’ll let you know. Right now, I’ve got a couple pressing tasks to complete.”

“And those might be?”

Caleb let out a sigh. “For starters, I’ve got to look through some of the documents we took off that slave ship. Based on what Decklan Patrick’s hinted at, I think I’m going to find some very dark things in them."