Singer Sailor Merchant Mage

Chapter 176: Feeding Frenzy

“From heresy, frenzy, and jealousy, good Lord, deliver me.”

Ludovico Ariosto

‘That could have gone better,’ I thought as I returned to consciousness. I could tell I was bound at the wrist and ankle without opening my eyes. I lay uncomfortably on a wooden floor with my arms behind my back, and my body felt uncomfortably hot. My skin almost burned where I was bound. I could not help but hiss at the increasing pain. This must have been what had woken me—the pain.

Spinning up my senses and skills, I reassessed my situation. From the shuddering and shaking of the galley, it did not look like the Libeccian Pirates had escaped my distraction yet. Sadly neither had I. But at least they had been kind enough to shove me into their hold before continuing to fight the feeding frenzy I had caused. Hopefully, I had not been out of it for too long.

It was clear from my senses that the water around the vessel boiled with sea monsters who came to feed. Lopping the head of the first serpent might have seemed sensible at the time, but its flesh and blood had only drawn more to the surface, feasting on it before turning to bite anything that came close.

They were ripping one another apart more than they were focusing their attacks on the galley, but their bodies were still buffeting around it. They were happy to snap up a hapless slave or sailor who fell into the water and even attempted to pluck a few bodies off the decks directly, but for the most part, it appeared they were being rebuffed by the heavy hitters who had hit me.

With the oars shipped to stop them from being smashed, the galley had to rely on the wind to escape the snapping serpents' centre. They were further slowed down by their sails being half burned and missing their rudder. It all meant that while they were moving forward somewhat aimlessly, they were not escaping the mess of flesh they were stuck in any time soon. Nearly dead in the water, it had allowed me to be stuffed into the hold alone, and I was keen to make the most of my privacy by escaping before they could focus on me again.

First up, I needed to get rid of these manacles. I opened my eyes only to realise that I was blindfolded. That would certainly make things a little more challenging, but it was not like we had not practised for this. The assassination of nobles was the next highest cause of mortality among young nobles, but after that, it was bungled kidnappings. I had been surprised by the statistics expecting it to be duelling or monsters, but no, it turned out that the more physical attempts to strong-arm the families were the second highest cause of death. Therefore Namir insisted we practice it too. It was my cousin's favourite game; they got to take out the increasingly annoying younger cousin who, legally speaking, lorded over them all. The manacles, though, were new, and I had to get past them before I could put my lessons to use. Why were they burning? They were not even hot to the touch, but I still felt as if my body was burning from where they were pressed against my skin.

After checking once more through echolocation that I was alone in this holding cell, I circulated my mana to break the manacles, only to find that the mana would not leave my body. Blocked by the bindings, the mana never left my skin, and I realised that was what was causing the pain. I attempted to manipulate the mana silently to avoid drawing any attention, but my failure meant I tried my Spellcraft out loud. But again, my mana was blocked from leaving my body. This time my throat was burning in pain. This would do wonders for my pain tolerance if it kept this up.

I had always leaked Mana. The failure to form a core had been the sole complaint by Lady Acacia about my progress and something she put down to being able to access magic and mana before forming it. Refusing to wear the amulet had been supposed to help the mana core develop, but it never seemed enough. The manacles, though, seemed to be doing by accident what we had attempted to do by design. My mana was being forced to stay within my body. There was no leakage anywhere. Each binding on me pressed my mana back forcibly into my skin.

First, there were two around my wrists. Then there were the two around my ankles. But those were not all that they had bound me with. The blindfold pressed in over my eyes, my temples, the collar around my neck, and bands around both arms. Despite returning to face the serpents I had called, I had been securely trussed up. However, hopefully, my quick and hasty incarceration would leave some wiggle room. I was not the halfling they had thought me to be. Nevertheless, they seemed well prepared to handle all manner of man.

But their impromptu pressure cooker effect on my mana had results they did not intend. The burning was forming a pressure as my mana was compacted further until it started to develop physical form. This was unreal. Humans did not have physical cores; a more spiritual metaphysical core was held within the body. It was why forming one had been such a challenge for me, as someone who had used my mana before it was created and never managed to get it back into the box. Beasts, on the other hand, , had physical cores. I could not worry about the implications. First, I had to get moving before the ship finally sailed out of the sea monsters, or someone came to check on their latest prize. I was worth more alive than dead, but I had no desire to get better acquainted with my captors.

Ignoring the blinding pain of mana being physically prevented from leaving my body and the pressure of multiple mana cores forming within my skin, I curled up into a ball to bring my hand underneath them and finally have them in front of me. Next up was removing the blindfold, something far more easily achieved with my hands now in front of me. I could only be grateful that they had not gone for the full hogtie, but maybe they thought me out for the count and pressed for time in rebuffing the sea serpents' attacks. It had been a silver lining to my poor showing.

Legend or idiot?

I was on the wrong side of the equation, but it wasn’t over until the fat lady sang. With my sight returned to me, I could see the runes on the manacles glowing as they struggled to hold the mana in my body. Perhaps they had never been meant to handle an individual with the trait source of mana. With sense mana, I could feel my mana cores forming, one on each wrist and another on each of my ankles. I even had one forming a crystallised Adam's apple made from mana at the base of my throat, if you will.

I pulled my attention away from my fascination with what I could sense happening within my body. I could look at that later, but first, I needed a way out of this room and off the boat. The easiest way would be to fly free to my father, who was still sailing cautiously around just outside the reach of so the circle of sea serpents. I would not be putting a toe into the water anytime soon if I could help it. But the lack of mana left me limited.

I would have to do it with stamina, although that would be a push. To skip on top of the water for so far. Dart pulled on stamina, but flash step drew on my mana. Wait for a second; if the mana never left my body, perhaps that was still available. But again, the manacles were a problem. The runes were growing painfully bright. If they did not notice the noise, they might soon notice the light I was unwillingly generating. I pulled my trousers, legs and sleeves down over the top of them. There was little I could do about the collar.

Would it be worth another prayer? My situation was genuinely desperate now. I started to whisper the words.

“I call to the eight winds of the world.

North to South, East to West

Anemoi, hear my plea.

Njal of the North, lend me your strength,

Pavel of the North and East, help me to endure

Feng Po Po of the East, speed my steps and guide my hands.

Vayu, of the East and South, mould my mind.

Shango of the South, open my senses.

Naseem of the South and West, smooth my voice.

Zael of the West, give me clarity of thought.

Era of the West and North, give life to my breath.”

I call on the ninth hidden god of magic.

From whom all mana is born.

I humbly beseech Fortuna, goddess of luck.

Please hear my prayer.

Please grant me the skills, stats and circumstances to save myself.”

. . .

There was a sudden silence in the world around me. I opened my eyes to find myself in the hall of the gods at the centre of a compass etched into the floor. Surrounding me at the point of each direction were the gods of the winds, the Anemoi. Njal, Pavel, Feng Po Po, Vayu, Shango, Naseem, Zael and Era stared at me in disbelief. Judging by their body language, it looked like they had been mid-argument.

Despite my own disbelief at what appeared to have happened, I was not one to waste a moment, I began again. “Gods of the Winds, Anemoi, I beg your . . .”

Feng Po Po swiftly cut me off, “We heard you the first time.” My prayer appeared to have been heard if not answered in any form I had hoped for.

“Then may I . . .” I anxiously began.

“No, you may not. We are still deliberating. Who brought him here before we had decided?” he quizzed his other gods, ill-tempered at the interruption of a mere mortal. He gestured, and I was trapped in a bubble of silence, although I was still there to witness their interactions.

“Decided what?” I wished to ask but dared not anger him further. Fortunately, my question was answered by another goddess stepping out from behind a pillar. She had no compass direction to stand on but stepped into the middle of the circle with me, unlike the cardinal and ordinal gods who represented the other races. She was or at least looked human to me. She also seemed invisible to others, and they continued their conversation without listening to her as she joined me in the centre.

“They are deciding your fate or at least whether or not to favour your plea.” She answered my unspoken question. “Ironically, your balanced stats mean that they each have a say in your petition resulting in the stalemate you see before you. What they currently arguing over is whose champion you are. They each already have one, and no one knew about you.” She continued as I schooled my face into immobility to hide my shock at being answered. If someone were going to answer my questions, I would do nothing to draw their attention to them and end our question-and-answer session.

“Champion?” I questioned internally. But she picked up on my thoughts immediately. It seemed

“Each one has a champion of their own and a god-given quest to defend the realm in the face of the failure of the Compass Empire.” She answered.

“Who? What? When? Why? How?” I did not need to ask explicitly. She could pick up from my thoughts the true meaning of each question. I was even rewarded with . . .

Ding! Telepathy Lv1

“They arrived the same day you did. But with the eight’s permission and attention, they were reformed whole and a little older than you were in the form of their respective god's races.”

My mind reeled at the information. I was not alone. There were others out there like me.

“Not quite like you. The eight were the focus of summoning their bodies copied and saved at the moment of impact. Your soul slipped through the crack simultaneously, although your body did not come with your death. After all, you were the driver. Welcome to Kosmos, truck-kun.”

Stunned, I realised I was never the protagonist of my ‘cosmic’ reincarnation. I was merely the side character, the method meme by which the eight had arrived. I also realised that my spin-out had not been as bloodless as I had thought. Eight other families would have been broken by that black ice as much as it had broken my body and mine.

Her hand rested on my shoulder in sympathy. “But at least you are not the only one.”

Her hand and words took a weight off my shoulders. I had always worried that I might have some vital destiny to face. Or worried about the reason for my reincarnation. Dancing around the subject with the bishop had revealed nothing from the texts of the Lodestar Church. However, I suddenly had nothing more to worry about if I was just an extra. The fate of the world did not rest on my shoulders.

“That might have been the case before, but they’ve noticed you now.” Without mercy, she shot down my sweet relief.

“Then what are they arguing about,” I mentally queried, worried. Were they going to send me back to earth, erase my existence? Had I unbalanced their even number of individuals. I did not want to go or leave this world so quietly without a chance to say goodbye—my existential crisis of faith was now an existential crisis of my own existence.

“Feng Po Po is arguing that you should become his champion as his champion did not transition well to her sudden reduction in size and did not last the week. He has been grumpy about it ever since. The others are arguing that he should not get a second. Because your stats are balanced, no one has precedence. But I could help change that. A small adjustment, if you will, and I will be able to help you escape both here.” She gestured to the hall of the gods, “And your predicament when you return.”

“How?” This seemed like the answer to my prayers.

“Your system. A little tweak and your free points could be assigned; they cannot complain as you have already earned them as long as we keep them 'relatively' balanced.” She grinned.

“The cost?” I asked, worried about deals with gods. The devil would be in the details.

“Nothing binding I am giving you nothing you do not already own, but a favour for your early fortune would not be remiss. After all, you would effectively become my champion alongside theirs.” She answered.

“I’ll be able to escape.” I focused on the immediate threat.

“You will have the opportunity, but it will be up to you.” she nodded.

“And return to my family.” Before thinking of the future and my family.

“I am the goddess of fortune, not fate. The choice will always be yours,” she answered considerately.

“And all you want is a favour,” I confirmed, contemplating my prayer's cost.

“More a favour for a friend, who is currently absent.” She deflected. But it looked like the argument might be winding down. I did not have time to ask for every detail.

“What will this favour cost me?” The thought rose to the front of my mind and she answered it just as she had every other.

“Time and effort but nothing you are not willing to spend. I am not asking for your family or your firstborn. You will have to leave your island in time, but that was always going to happen. This way, I will be by your side when you do. Put your trust in me and your hand in mine; I will not fail you in your hour of need.”

I wondered why I was hesitating. I had called on the gods to give me the skills, stats and circumstances to set me free, and here they were. I had gained a skill, and she offered me my stats and the circumstances to free me. What was I waiting for? I had avoided making waves in an attempt not to be noticed, but it happened anyway.

It was time to act before I lost my freedom to do so.

I put my hand in hers.