The Runesmith

The message that Roland had destroyed the lesser abomination was displayed before him along with the experience points for it. Yet this was not something that he was preoccupied with. Instead, he looked onto the docks that they were leaving. There he could see more of those masses of tentacles arriving.

“Are they going to follow us into the water?”

“I don’t think they will…”

Senna asked Roland while watching along with him and the rest of the group. The only one not paying attention was Dalrak who was grasping his arm. After suffering from the carriage crash he was still feeling the after-effects.

“Har, those bastards can nah swim! Good riddance I say.”

Isabela spit out of the edge of the ship while also trembling slightly. It was clear that everyone that had made it to the ship was in the process of gathering themselves. They had been through a rollercoaster of emotions of being chased through tunnels and then the city by strange creatures. The same creatures were now on the pier contorting in unnatural ways. “Raise the sails, we be gettin' out o' here!”

“Aye, aye Cap’n”

The ship started drifting away from the shore and allowed Roland to see everything clearly. Soldiers started storming the pier that they left to engage with the monsters that broke through the line. Various fires could also be seen from within the city along with the sounds of fighting. Just as he predicted the noble district didn’t seem to be suffering that much damage due to the lack of smoke.

‘The church shield is still there, the only ones suffering are the common folk…’

As long as the merchants and nobles that had their homes in the rich district survived everything would be fine. All the workers could be replaced and all the buildings could be repaired. This was the reality of this work where the common labor force was deemed dispensable. The business owners were probably more concerned about their stores than the people getting killed.

Roland, who had worked hard to become a business owner, didn't quite like this approach. He knew the plight of the common laborer as he was one for a while. At his business, he allowed days off and even sick days, if he lost some money for a few days it was fine and nothing to lose sleep over.

Even to this day, he didn’t really understand people's fascination with money as to him it was only a means to an end. Was living in a grand mansion with multiple servants so much better than just having a medium-sized family home? To him, there was always a limit where money started losing its worth. The biggest reason he was improving to this day was mostly for survival as without money he would not be able to gain the strength required to have a peaceful life.

“Awright watch it, ah think tis broken.”

“Think you need to work on your evasion skills.”

His attention was brought back to his new party members. Orson was all smiles when looking at Dalrak who was in pain. At this very moment, the dwarf was slowly getting help from Senna with his armor. If his arm was broken the bone would need to be set, this of course would be a very painful procedure.

“Yeah, this one is broken, tell me when you are ready.”

In this world filled with monsters and strife, it was quite normal to see a scene like this. Dalrak just nodded while biting down on a rolled-up rag. Roland would offer the dwarf some pain-numbing potions but he didn’t have any and neither did anyone that was here. Almost every adventurer had the first-aid skill, Orson was performing the bone setting and seemed to know what he was doing.

*Crack*

Just a little grunt escaped from his mouth as the damaged bone was set in place. Only after they were sure that it was aligned was Dalrak allowed to douse it in a healing potion that would turn weeks of healing into a day or less. Only thanks to these potions and healing arts could these adventurers be so daring in their quests for money and fame.

“Fuck, finally it’s over… hey, do you have any booze here? I could use a drink.”

“'Twould nah be much o' a ship without some rum.”

Eve looked to Orson while winking at him with a bottle in her hand. It seemed that she was already downing it along with the other sisters. Dalrak was just leaning against the mast while the sailors worked on getting them out of here.

Just as anyone else Roland wanted to just sit down and rest but not long after they started gaining some momentum a strange howl entered their ears. At first, they thought that perhaps the abominations were just maddened by their departure but the sound was not coming from the city, it was coming from the sea.

“Ahoy, it's comin' from thar!”

The sailor that was up in the crow's nest shouted out while pointing into the distance. Roland with the help of his suit of armor was able to zoom in to see another large monster flying up in the sky. It wasn’t alone as several smaller ones accompanied it.

“The heck, there are more of them?”

Everyone started panicking as the monsters appeared from behind the clouds that blocked the view. It would be impossible for the ship’s cannons to do much damage to these monsters or even aim correctly. It was designed to hide from large sea monsters and battle at most the mid-sized ones while retreating. If one of those large worm monsters decided to wrap themselves around the ship they would need to quickly abandon it as they lacked a holy shield to defend themselves.

“Wait, there is something else there…”

Roland called out and the man on the lookout point on top of the main mast did the same. Behind the group of flying monstrosities, three large ships appeared. They were different than the first one Roland saw but they were carrying the church’s flag. Soon enough their cannons started firing off and hitting the flying creatures.

“Helmsman!”

“I be on it cap'n.”

A large bald muscle man that had his body riddled with various tattoos quickly turned the rudder to make the ship turn to one side. The evasive maneuver positioned the ship away from the battle in the sky as they quickly tried heading away from the shoreline where the battles were heading.

“Blasted wind ain't pickin' up, hey Wayland ye're a mage can nah ye do somethin' about this?”

“The Wind?”

It took him a second to process the information before quickly heading to the back end of the ship. He had read up about things like this, some ships utilized magical devices to produce strong winds. While his regular wind-based spells were meant to cut things or mix with his ice spells he could quickly alter their structure.

With the help of his Runic Restructuring skill, he was quickly able to alter some of the runes on his armor. This could be observed by everyone here as his armor started glowing and the runes started to slightly shift into other places. Soon enough he had a runic wind blower that he could point at the sails.

“Woah!”

Orson was the first one to stagger when the strong wind energy collided with the sails and made the ship jolt forward.

“That's wha' I be natterin' about! Keep it steady helmsman.”

“Aye, cap’n”

Even for Roland, this was no easy task, most spells were made by a quick jolt of condensed mana but this one would constantly drain it at a rapid pace. But there was no other way, with his help the ship could quickly zoom through the waves.

This could not have happened at a better point in time as suddenly a large explosion caused their ship to tilt to the side. To everyone’s surprise, the entire area was getting riddled with explosions that were coming from the sky. The vessels that belonged to the church were pelting the monster with cannon fire and constantly missing.

The ride was quite rough but the helmsman was quite experienced. Somehow he was miraculously able to predict where the next close explosion would occur and react accordingly to dodge it. When looking up, Roland got a good view of one of the metallic golden ships that passed over them. It was accompanied by a strange humming sound and a monster trying to entangle it.

Luckily the factions that were battling it above them didn’t care about the merchant ships below. After passing everyone they headed towards land and the forest area in the distance. Their aim was clearly the village where the Abyssal Cult’s relic was hidden. Soon enough the distance increased and the only thing the party of people could complain about was that they were now all wet.

Finally, it was over. The monsters in the sky along with the flying vessels were now a small speck on the spyglass. Even when new flying monsters appeared they were far away from their current location as they had made it out into a safe region. Yet not every ship had made it out in one piece, they could see that some lifeboats were floating in the distance.

“I can’t…”

Roland dropped down to one knee while holding his head, during the escape, he pushed his mana reserves down to ten percent. He was now starting to really get a migraine that if he continued would cause him to pass out.

“Ye did well, nah bad fer a mage.”

Isabela showed up to deliver a smack to his metal back that probably hurt her more than him. She didn’t seem disturbed by this fact as she began laughing while holding the hand she smacked him with. The other sailors around with the two sisters burst out laughing in unison as if this was a normal occurrence.

…

“Aren’t you going to join the others?”

“No, I'm fine here, I need to do some repairs.”

“Is that so…”

A somewhat intoxicated halfling with a mug filled with some alcohol was looking at Roland. He was in the process of fixing some runic pathways that had suffered some damage during the battles with the monsters. A day had already passed since they left the city of Reeka and everyone was taking it easy.

Not far away there was the sound of cheering and music. Orson along with Dalrak were dancing around with both of Isabela’s sisters and having a good old time. Even though the danger had passed Roland could not relax, instead of partying with the others, he decided to work on his gear.

After going through this whole predicament he had to reevaluate his fighting style. His overreliance on spells was one of the problems. He was also questioning the choice of weapons, the sword and shield weren’t used as much compared to the magical staff. After some deliberations, he had thought of a replacement that would fit his frame more.

“Common, relax for a minute, have a drink with me!”

“Weren’t you having a competition with Grisalde?”

“Hah, that lightweight? For all her size she drinks like an old gnome!”

When peeking to the side he noticed the passed-out barbarian woman. Not so long ago he remembered hearing her shouting all over the place while challenging Senna to another drinking competition. Of course, she lost the new bet and was a few coins behind once more.

Isabela also decided to change the port they were going to. Roland wasn’t sure if it was because of him but when he mentioned that he would rather get out at the city he arrived in all those years ago, the captain humored him. Perhaps she was grateful for saving her life or scared of his spell-slinging capabilities. Thanks to this change he would arrive home sooner than he expected.

“Don’t be a stick in the mud, here.”

It didn’t seem that his new halfling acquaintance would take no for an answer. She was quick to pull out a fresh bottle of rum that was probably acquired in some shifty ways. The bottle was thrown his way so he was forced to stop and catch it.

“Hm…”

It took him a moment but finally, he decided to give in. His armor was still mostly operational and working on this ship was less than optimal. After the cork was popped open with the help of his thumb he just took a good swig. The alcohol filled his throat and started burning it, the sensation quickly subsided as his various skills took effect.

“Yeah, that’s better!”

Senna cheered out and her mug made a clunking sound with the glass bottle that he was holding. Roland tried remembering the last time he was pressured into drinking alcohol and started recalling the party of three he encountered when he was about ten years of age.

“So, what are your plans for the future? We haven’t had the time to visit the Albrook dungeon, I heard it was a C grade. Me and the boys are probably going to check it out.”

“Oh? Are you going to stay in Albrook?”

“Ye, that’s the plan, think we can get ourselves up to the gold rank there, that idiot might also join us…”

That idiot was the passed-out Grisalde. While she was over-leveled for being their party member she would probably be a great help against the tier 2 fire monsters in the lower levels. Yet her involvement in the group would cause them to gain experience slower due to a member with over ten levels higher than the rest.

“You’re also from Albrook, right? Can I count on you to show us around?’

She smiled while taking a sip from the mug that was not meant for halflings. A C grade dungeon would be a perfect training ground for adventurers below the golden rank. The monsters were at appropriate levels with not being overly easy or overly hard to combat.

“Ah… sure.”

Roland felt like he was scammed into agreeing as he just blurted out the answer before thinking much about it. He wasn’t really sure what to make of this halfling but he did not dislike her or the other three from this party of adventurers.

“Ye two got space fer a third?”

“Hey cap’n, come on over, we were about to have a little drinking competition with Wayland!”

“No, we weren’t…”

“Can nah 'ave a drinkin' competition without me!”

Suddenly Isebala appeared and started laughing like a drunkard. Some of the people that were previously singing and cheering were drawn to the voice of their captain. Soon enough they were all cheering and chanting as the drinking commenced.

‘Why did this end up like this…’

“Drink, drink, DRINK!”

Roland looked at the glass filled with alcohol and quickly tossed it down his throat. His competitors were red in their faces while he only had some rosy cheeks. It wasn’t that much of a fair fight as the two had already been drinking beforehand but even with that, he was starting to zone out.

He had gained resistance to alcohol but even he had a limit. These two drunks had probably gone through their life drinking wine and rum as if it was water so he was still at a disadvantage. Thus the night of partying ended with him passing out at one point in time. When he woke up he could feel some kind of weight on his face.

“Ugh?”

When pushing it down he realized that it was something soft and squishy. When trying to push it away he was surprised by the alluring moaning sounds. Soon he realized that the captain had passed out on top of him with her chest pressed against his face.

‘I’m glad Elodia isn’t here.’

He wanted to laugh while placing the passed-out woman to the side. Half of the crew were similarly sleeping in strange positions while the other half continued to tend to the ship. In a few days they would arrive at their destination and then finally this little adventure that turned out to be a disaster would come to an end.