Ozzy told the story of his day's adventure. To make it a proper story, he added a part about one of the smaller crocs climbing the mast after him and biting at his toes. Woodrat had laughed, especially when the mast had fallen over with Ozzy at the top. Afterward, he admitted to Woodrat about having unknowingly put one of the globes in the cargo hold of the Splinter along with the other odds and ends he'd found on various ships, prefaced by the information that it was already gone. Both Woodrat and Mariah had been horrified at the thought and what it could have done to both them and the ship.

Those thoughts quickly turned to how to use the globes to make a passage to free the Splinter. Since everyone had been drinking, it made perfect sense to test out the idea. They were at least sober enough to do it next to the smoke, where the far end of the passage would be, and not near the ship.

Ozzy had estimated that the radius of one sphere's destruction was fifty feet across, so he put the sphere twenty-five feet from the edge of smoke. He backed away from it, pacing off 60 feet before trying to hit it with a harpoon. His first two throws put the harpoons into the smoke. Woodrat made him two more out of bits of wood from a nearby wreck. On the third try, the glass shattered, and the blue mist spread out across the sargasso weed, eating into the dried vegetation and scrap wood, dissolving all of it.

"You had that on my ship?!" Woodrat had accepted the idea, but seeing the mist at work made him shudder.

Ozzy tried for a look of innocence, failing completely. "I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. There's no way you can prove anything!"

Maria pointed out the flaw. "You told us you did it."

Ozzy grinned. "But I'm an unreliable mate from the junction and a notorious liar."

She grinned back. "You gave me a sharp little present, so of course, I'll agree that you're innocent. This time."

Woodrat wagged a finger at the two of them. "Surrounded by mutinous sailors. Luckily, I have Derrick here to deal out punishment to the two of you."

Derrick looked a bit nervous at that statement but relaxed when he only saw smiles on the rest of the crew. He was glad to be rid of Tommy and his gang, but the effects of the abuse he'd taken would take time to fade. They walked to the edge of the crater and looked down. The sargasso at the bottom was less burned but still dead. Smoke was pouring into the hole from the sea.

Woodrat looked it over. "This can work. We can use this nasty bit of mist to take out large chunks of the salad and then clear what we have to by hand. And we can harvest barrels of the stuff that's around the ship. That crater looks deep enough, just barely, to float her and then tow the ship to sea."

"But no screw-ups with this. None of those globes are to come near the ship, and we only bring over a couple at once. From the mate's story, the crater was larger when several exploded at once. Leave a barrier between the first crater and the rest of the run, we need to see if there are any problems in the trough. We'll let the smoke in later."

"I think we'll all feel better when we can sail away from here. We've had a good run of luck, but it won't last forever."

The job of retrieving the globes became a group effort. Derrick was left in the crow's nest of the Splinter to keep watch, and to stay hidden if trouble did come snooping around. Woodrat had two reasons for himself and Mariah accompanying his mate on this chore. The first was to make sure Ozzy didn't die to some huge beasty roaming around. The second was to help him kill any huge beasty that they found. Woodrat had nearly choked to death when Ozzy had casually mentioned a reward of 30 core skill points. Mariah had simply stared at him for a moment before pounding Woodrat on the back.

Derrick had been just as amazed. He'd gained a few points so far, but he couldn't imagine a windfall of thirty points at once. "What would you spend all of that on?"

Ozzy didn't mind explaining. "A lot of it I need to put into raising up my stats, and the skill caps on those stats. It's not enough just to get to Level 5. The next tier gets tougher, and I can only imagine what tier 3 or 4 will be like. You should be working on every skill that Captain Woodrat or one of the crew can teach you. Even things like cooking, skinning, wood carving, and sewing are skills that will raise your stats. There's a tendency of some people to get good at one thing, and then let that define them. You don't want to be a lookout forever, do you?"

Derrick answered that immediately. "Wouldn't be allowed in my family even if I wanted to. It's expected that I'll reach Mate and then serve under a captain until I know enough to move up in the ranks. It's what I want as well."

Ozzy nodded at that statement. What little he knew of Derrick showed the influence of a pretty good family at home. "Old seafaring family? I think Woodrat mentioned that. Well, if you want to do them proud, now is the time to work hard."

"But as to spending my points, I have a few saved up now. Besides increases in my stats, I'm going to increase my Hull and then buy the next couple of levels of Dig. I expect that's not a priority skill here in the smoke, but it comes in handy in the conjunction. We have a lot of crusty vegetation to move."

Derrick nodded. "Hull is good. One of my older brothers has Heavy Hull. I nearly broke my knuckles on his belly when all of us were roughhousing. He told me he wanted to save his points so that he could get Armored Hull when he transferred to a bigger ship."

"Made him hard, did it?"

"Sort of. His skin is just tough and doesn't bruise anymore. But if he gets into a fight or falls, it gets harder. He never gets splinters anymore when working on a rough deck. They just break off against his skin. But momma can still pinch his cheeks." Derrick was well acquainted with splinters in hands and feet, as was any sailor.

Before they left, Ozzy spent his points. He thought he knew where he had to be to get further bonuses from high stats, assuming things worked the same as they did moving from the first tier to the second. He had enough to bring almost all of his stats up to where they needed to be. He still needed two points in STR and one point in CON. They were difficult to get to 30, even after maxing them out at rank 10. He could buy 3 points with CSP, but after that, it had to be something special, like killing ships. Finishing his quest was a priority.

CHR was difficult for him to raise because he only had two CHR-based skills. One of those was Pit Alchemy, which he had maxed easily working with his pit. The second was Boatwork, which Woodrat explained was a leadership ability that let a mate get more work and coordination out of a small group of the crew doing work from a ship's boat or long boat. Larger ships were often towed into harbors by crews in boats to avoid possible collisions with either other ships or the fragile docks. The experience from killing the Imperator was needed to raise that skill. He spent 1000 of the experience bringing Boatwork to rank 5, and raising CHR to rank 7. Three ranks of Spirit of the Swan would bring it to a total of 10.

COR had risen to rank 10 primarily from making chains. Enough chains for even a medium-sized ship like the Splinter took thousands of feet of linkage and the cables that carried the Heat from hull to sails each had nine chains in their construction. Ozzy had questioned Woodrat about the skill. "Seems odd that making chain is a COR skill. Why is that?"

Woodrat had thought for a moment. "I forget sometimes you're from the conjunction. Well, it's not a secret. Chains are a way to control things, both sails, and people." Mariah heard that, and walked to the front of the ship, staring out across the smoke.

Woodrat continued. "You've seen a captain that could use his chains to bind a crew already. Blackfetter didn't learn that after he died. Some Captains chain their crews to their ships and themselves. There's good and bad to it. A chained crew works together better, have fewer accidents, and fewer crew lost at sea. A light chain that a sailor can break and leave the ship can be a blessing at times. But a heavy chain can turn a crew into slaves."

He turned and looked at Mariah. "And anyone with the wind in their heritage can be bound against their will if their captor has enough power. The first Cyclones were terrible tyrants, their power unchecked as they roamed the realms. It took an age for the young gods to tame them and lock away the most powerful ones. For someone like Mariah, it's a curse, but a lesser one since she isn't purely descended from the wind. I never liked chains that were used that way and avoided captains that had a reputation for using them. Only a few do, and none who sail for the Queens."

Ozzy contrasted that with his contract to work for ACME. With things going well, Billy wasn't using a heavy chain. But Vern would be hard to work for, and many of the other corporations a lot worse. But no matter how bad, most contract workers would be better off after the five years were up. The real world had its own chains and the payout at the end of five years would go a long way to letting someone live a better life.

After some thought, Ozzy put the other 1000 experience points into Aspect of Heat. He wanted to increase his radiance if his corruption was going up. From the description, it would help with skills or spells that dealt with fire and it was radiance based. That put his radiance up to rank 7. Even with his earring, he wasn't balanced. He spent the last of his points buying two points of radiance. That gave him 20 corruption and 17 radiance. Close enough for now.

He was careful buying Hull, testing out the first level before buying the other two. As far as he could tell, it was similar to Mitigation and stacked with it. He just didn't get hurt as much. Derrick had helped him test things by swinging a sledgehammer at his chest and stomach. The Mitigation core skill negated 60 points of damage and Monstrous another 30. Derrick could do 100 points of damage by swinging a sledgehammer two-handed and hitting Ozzy in the chest. To Ozzy, it was a 10-point blow. After the first level of Hull, he couldn't feel it at all. He took the second level, tested again, and then the third level. At Derrick's suggestion, they had gone to the next ship over and Ozzy had fallen from various heights and tested what damage he took. The only thing that got hurt was the deck of the ship.

You have gained the Core Skill: Dig 3 at a cost of 1 csp. You may dig at 10 times normal rate. Your tunnels do not cave in.

You have gained the Core Skill: Dig 4 at a cost of 1 csp. You may dig at 10 times normal rate. Your tunnels do not cave in. You may compact the removed material into the walls, floor and ceiling, leaving 75% less to be hauled away.

You have increased the following skill caps at a cost of 2 points each:

CON to Rank10 for cost of 4 points.

DEX to Rank 10 for a cost of 4 points.

CHR to Rank 7 for a cost of 2 points.

COR to Rank 10 for a cost of 10 points.

RAD to Rank 7 for a cost of 4 points.

You have purchased the following Spirit Skills:

Spirit of the Ox for two ranks at a total cost 9 points. (+3 STR)

Spirit of the Bear for 1 rank and a cost of 3 points. (+1 CON)

Spirit of the Swan for 3 ranks and a total of 9 points. (+3 CHR)

Spirit of the Angels for 2 ranks and a total of 6 points. (+2 RAD)

You have purchased the Mate's Perk: Hull for 2 points.

You have purchased the Mate's Perk: Heavy Hull for 5 points.

You have purchased the Mate's Perk: Armored Hull for 10 points.

Total points spent: 70

CSP remaining: 0

The trip to the destroyed ship was uneventful. Two of the small crocodiles popped out of the sargasso and chose to run away rather than bother them. The sight of the massive warship with all but the ends dissolved into a huge crater was impressive. Woodrat looked it all over and talked to Ozzy about how many globes had caused the disaster.

Mariah checked on the ballistae on either end of the ship and pronounced them unharmed and fit for service. There were also several barrels of ammunition for them in the cargo area of what was left of the bow. Woodrat and Mariah each took a globe and carefully packed it into a crate to bring back. Ozzy had a box that would hold two. They'd decided to move them just a little at a time to prevent the possibility of too many exploding at once. The walk back was slow and without event.

But that was because the trouble was waiting for them. Derrick came from the crow's nest to the deck in only a few seconds, sliding easily down the chain ladder. He ran to the rail and pointed out into an unexplored area. "I spotted some castaways in a ship's boat. Couldn't tell how many, as no one was moving about. The boat was being towed by someone walking on the smoke, had to be a firewalker, Sir!"

Woodrat was immediately interested. "A firewalker? How big?"

Derrick had estimated his height based on the length of the boat. "Maybe ten or twelve feet, Sir. A small one. But Captain, that's not all. Something was waiting for them to come ashore. A crab sir, a huge one."

Woodrat smiled. "A giant crab would be tasty eating. How big?"

Ozzy spoke up. "Might have seen that thing in the distance, yesterday, probably twenty feet across. But he was heading away from me, so I didn't bother him."

Mariah looked at Woodrat. "Still anxious to eat the thing? He'd make twenty of you."

The captain started walking and loosened his sword in its sheathe. "Then I'll just have to hit him 20 times as hard as he does me. Let's get moving. I don't like leaving anyone to the mercy of a big crustacean. Mr. Derrick, you're with us this time. Let's go save some people and get dinner."