I named the little guy Wai Paihana. I will call him Wai for short. He was little, too. He was no longer than my forefinger when we bonded. He will grow a bit, maybe double the size. He is a Salamander with the biology of a frog but the shape of a lizard.

When we bonded, my Regeneration jumped up past the Master's level. I can regenerate limbs now, and everything will heal faster. I also got a large boost in Poison Resistance. Wai got a boost to his intelligence and my water affinity. He immediately learned to Hydrate himself to keep his skin moist, and he learned Water Manipulation. I think Wai will get more out of this bond than I will. We have a couple of months aboard ship to learn from each other. This is helped by the fact I already have a Master Level Animal Bond Skill.

A lot of Wai’s abilities work through his skin, including his poison, and his skin is permeable to water and helps his breathing in some way. I think it absorbs oxygen. I am not sure how yet. At the lava stage, Wai had gills, which are gone now. If I can figure out how his skin works, I might be able to stay underwater almost indefinitely if it combines with my Oxygen Efficiency Skill.

The first thing I want to learn from Wai is his poison, and the first thing I want to teach him is my Whirlpool Shield. He is quite vulnerable. I have the Tough Hide Skill I got from my previous bond Opo, the dolphin. I might be able to teach him that, but I don’t know how well that will work with his permeable skin. We will have to experiment.

Wai is so small he can crawl under my clothes. Having his cool, moist skin against mine is quite nice. His legs grip very well. They are plate-like webbed feet that seem to grip by suction. That might be a useful thing for me to learn as well. His tail can also grip and grasp objects, and he can hang from it. Wai is black with bright yellow markings. This signals to predators that he is poisonous and warns them away. We will need to work on Camouflage for him as well. If Wai can learn Whirlpool Shield and Water Sprint from me, combined with his small size, he will be almost uncatchable.

Wai eats insects and worms, so he is very easy to feed. He will eat basically anything small enough. His tongue darts out to catch his food like a frog. Wai’s poison is only used as a defence ability at the moment. He doesn’t seem to have any offensive abilities. I hope I will be able to learn his poison and then use it to poison my Water Surge skill and then teach it back to Wai. We will have to see how that goes. Water Surge is a very versatile Skill, from making a wave to pushing things to being able to narrow the focus so it cuts through things. I have used it to propel me faster in the water as well.

We are going to hunt an assassin with a death affinity. The boosts to Regeneration and Poison Resistance alone have made this bond useful. A bond is not there just to be useful. A bond is a partnership that involves a relationship, even though that relationship is very different to human relationships. Opo and I were together for thirty years and got to know each other very well. Wai and I are just starting to get to know each other. He is very different to Opo. Opo took joy in simple things like speed swimming, leaping and chasing fish. Wai is a lot more sedate. He is happy just to sit and watch things around him. Sort of like what I was doing in my two years of retirement from the Royal Commandos. Things between Wai and I are starting out very well.

One thing I am worried about is how Wai will handle salt water. He is only used to fresh water, and with his Permeable Skin, I am worried the salt might get in and kill him. Maybe it wouldn’t kill him with his level of Regeneration, but it could be severely crippling while immersed. We will have to test it and see what we can work out. We will be spending over two months at sea. Salt gets everywhere. I am sure we can work out a solution with our Water Manipulation Skills. This is going to stretch me after I have been lazing about for a couple of years.

No time to concentrate now, though. Our ride to Northport is leaving on the high tide. Gwaed and her contact arranged the ride. It was a fairly rundown trader that I would be sure to inspect thoroughly if I was back doing Customs work. We will have to leave the ship and make our way into Northport as their Customs inspections are stricter than ours. That is a task for later, assuming the ship makes it to Northport. That is not guaranteed.

It is not a passenger ship, so we will need to work for our passage. I signed as a general seaman. My experience on Navy ships means I am very familiar with sailing work. My Sailing Skill is upper Apprentice Level. Gwaed signed on as assistant cook and medic. She had an ID from the Mercenary Guild as an Alchemist Healer under the name Rotte. She gave the Captain the name Rotte and took on her human disguise. He was not sure about someone with the Dwarvish name of Rat being a cook. He was less impressed when she introduced him to her bonds, Merch the rat and Sugnwr the vampire bat. She was told in no uncertain terms to keep them out of sight and out of the food stores. I caught Gwaed passing over some extra coin. Wai barely was glanced at after that.

The Captain was a slimy fellow. I am not sure what type of Mer he was, but he definitely had some hagfish in him. The ship was optimistically called Sea’s Fortune. It was a three-masted Caravel that had seen better days. There was a crew of around forty. I was under the orders of the first mate. She was also a Mer, as were about half the crew. The rest of the crew were Human, with three Dwarves and two Orcs. The Orcs were specialised security personnel, and one was the Master of Arms. Well, that was what he would have been on a Navy ship. I don’t know what they are called on a civilian ship. I guess I will find out.

There were two shifts for us seamen. Dawn till dusk and then dusk till dawn. A bell would signal an all-hands situation. We would get rotated through both shifts following the First Mate. The alternate shift was under the Captain. I was bunking in the main bunkroom. There were about twenty hammocks that we hot bunked in with a mate on the alternate shift. Each crew had a locker for their personal gear. Gwaed was bunking in the sick bay with her bonds.

The first few days were slowly getting used to everything and learning the ropes, literally. There were only four of us newbies on our shift. The rest were old hands. I enjoyed getting up in the masts and working the sails the most. When the First Mate found out I had Farsight and Darksight, she had me up in the crow's nest for some of the shift. We started with the night shift.

I gradually settled into the routine, and my body got used to the work and the climbing. We were fed before the start of the shift and after we finished. We got a piece of fruit at around lunch until it went bad, and then it was some salted meat to chew on. There was always water available, and one of the regular jobs was to work the pump to refill the barrels. The pump was fascinating as it was pumping seawater, and there was a series of runes to separate out the salt and other impurities to make clean drinking water. The pump jammed at one point, and I helped the ship’s carpenter to open it up and fix it, so I got a good look at the inner workings. The runes were beyond us, but the carpenter knew which general set of runes did what, and there were two main sections that cleaned the water. One was specifically written for the salt. Seawater came in, clean water went into the barrel, and impurities went back over the side of the ship. When we operated the pump without the cover to ensure it was working, I watched with my Sense Spiritual as the water passed each rune section, and I got an idea of what the runes were doing to the water. Now I need to try and replicate it for both Wai and me.

I got some funny looks because after we had eaten after our shift, Wai and I would sit on the deck for an hour or so with a bucket of seawater and stare at it. Every few minutes, I would scoop out a handful and stare at that. What was happening was that I had our bond at the forefront of my mind and tried to replicate the runes using my Water Manipulation while observing in the Spiritual. I was trying to walk Wai through what I was doing, and he would try and copy me.

It took us over a week of regular practice before it finally clicked into place. Purifying Water was the name of the skill, and as soon as I got it, so did Wai. It could be used on myself or on someone else by touching them. It would grow in the water volume and the cleaning ability as it levelled. The cost of use would also reduce. Wai tried it out in the bucket of seawater, and I could tell it still wasn’t pleasant for him, but he could survive for a good length of time. Every now and then, he would poop out the impurities. Seawater is never going to be his thing. I tried it on myself, and a cleansing wave moved through my body. I had to rush to the side of the ship and stick my butt over as I also needed to poop out the impurities. Daily cleansing will be good for me. This will also be a good skill to have against a Death affinity user. I need to level it as much as possible.

On the easier front, going up and down the masts and rigging meant Wai could teach me how he used his suction pads. I picked up the Skill Suction Grip quite easily. The Suction Grip is not strong enough to hold my weight on its own yet. At Apprentice Level, I will need all four points of contact to be able to hold in place solely with only the grips. At Journeyman Level, I will only need one point of contact. At Master Level, it won’t need to be my hands and feet, but any point of contact will do. Obviously, the more weight I carry, the more grips I need. The best use for it now is to supplement my grip, reducing my physical exertion. It is getting plenty of practice.

I haven’t been able to work out anything about how Wai’s skin works yet. There are poison glands spread throughout his skin, but I don’t know how they work. His permeable skin and respiratory skin are just a mystery. I am happy we managed to figure out how he could survive in seawater. That was the most important thing for us to discover.