Despite Barcos’s desire to leave the island, we didn’t leave right away. Well, we left the island but stayed near the port. I wanted to get a measure of the man’s abilities before I accepted him as crew. If I didn’t like what he offered we would just drop him at the next nearest port and go our separate ways.When I told Barcos this, he laughed. “Any port beats this dump. You will have to forgive me if my skills are a bit rusty, I haven’t had to use them in almost a decade,” he said as he stretched.Despite his words, I knew he couldn’t be that rusty, going by what I had seen of his knifework. Also, just how old was he, the man didn’t look to be older than his mid-thirties. That would mean he did all this leveling in his twenties.From what I knew of other worlds, they were much tamer and leveling was far harder than it was on Earth. It's one of the reasons so many factions were trying to gain a foothold on our planet. It didn’t help that huge swaths of land and entire kingdoms had be

Barcos sighed and stored the bottle of alcohol away as he heard the Captain announce there were boarders on the deck. He unstrapped himself and loosened his shoulders as he opened the hatch and stepped out. He avoided the blade aimed for his throat and left a dagger in the man’s throat in return.He wasn’t surprised someone had been waiting to attack the only entrance to the top deck.He heard one of the boarders hiss, “who let you out of your hole, Blademaster?”“Does it matter?” Barcos replied.“No, you’re as good as dead anyway.”All ten men rushed Barcos as he danced between them, whistling softly as his blades carved through his opponents with ease.The dirge of defiance was one of his favorite songs from his Bladesinger class and he hadn’t had a reason to use it in far too long. He cut through the riff-raff sent against him. They weren’t true opponents, only meant to weaken him for the rest. The pirates had sent forty people aboard the Retribution. Some were trying to damage the

“Dammit, Barcos, would it have killed you to tell me Khikall was a former pirate?” I complained as I sat down in the command room.Khikall grunted but Barcos just shrugged. “Wasn’t my place to say, besides, I don’t see how it changes anything.”I rubbed my temples, “of course it changes things. Maybe not with the crew, but it changes how I need to go about our efforts in this region. And what’s your story anyway? No, wait, let me guess. You’re some wayward lord, found adrift or sent into exile.”I had meant it as a joke but I caught the quick gaze from Barcos to Khikall and the subtle shake of his head in return.“Oh for fuck sake, you're kidding me right?”“Well, not a lord, but I guess there’s no point keeping it under wraps any longer.”I sank into my chair and groaned as Barcos told his story.“So, I’m the fourth son of a house. They tend to call the oldest son of the house a prince but I never much liked the title. My father was referred to as a sovereign and along with four othe

Khikall and I had spent the better part of an hour watching the soldiers try different attempts to get on board. Thankfully – for their sake – none of their attempts caused any damage. Although, they had worked out some strange rubberized suits and were starting to put them on to attempt boarding again.By this time eight ships had entered the cove and were spaced evenly around to cut off any retreat. They even had a few blocking off our escape over the island and below it. Not that that would be a good idea given all the gun emplacements. They even had three triple deck airships blocking the exit to the cove as a backup.I guess I should be impressed that they thought my little ship was this big a threat but it annoyed me more than anything.I felt the ship jostle and I turned to see three men had jumped aboard wearing the rubber suits. I reached over and pressed a button on my console, switching the defense from electric to thermal. Khikall just watched curiously to see what I had d

With Em’ah’s directions, Khikall was quickly able to get us to the location where the Courier was last spotted. It wasn’t where they were attacked but that was fine as we knew where they had been heading.Khikall had been right though, my runes or the hull blocked Em’ah’s skill so she was forced to remain on the top deck as we searched for our target, using a radio to communicate. I wanted to just build the functionality into the viewer but I didn’t understand the skill well enough to guess at how it worked. I certainly hadn’t come across any items that allowed you to see traces of disturbed mana. I would have to think on it some more or grab the passive skill myself to learn more. For the time being, this would have to do.The radio crackled as Em’ah reported in. Despite our rocky start, she quickly took to her role without a complaint. “I spotted the trail to the port side, turn twenty and we should have a straight shot.”I didn’t understand half of what she just said but Khikall mu