Please Note: Statements between % something in italics % are game system messages.
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The class had just ended and Swamy decided to meet the head of the department Prof. D'souza. He needed to find a solution and that too a permanent solution for a simple problem. He wanted time off to attend the quests. The thing was that this would not be the only time such a situation will occur, that a quest is going on the same time as class. On the other hand, he could not suffer because of not attending.
With this in mind he headed towards Prof. D'souza's office. He knocked.
"Come in."
"Hello Professor. I am Swamy."
"Hello Mr. Swamy. What can I do for you?"
"Professor, I actually have a strange problem. I am playing the virtual reality game Long Island. Have you heard of it?"
"Yes. Oh and I am playing that too. Isn't it an interesting and fun game." He smiled.
"It is professor. In fact I actually came to talk to you about it. You see I have this quest, D+ difficulty, but the thing is I will have to take time off if I want to finish it. You see a battle is supposed to occur and it can happen anytime, during the day or night. I thought of skipping school, but I realize that such situations can occur in the future as well. This is why I came to talk to you." Raka said.
"Hmmm.. Yes I understand. You see lots of people had similar kinds of problems even in the past years. A major quest would require their non-stop attention and they would be unable to attend class. And as we encourage playing of such games, we very well cannot ask them to choose. A lot of things people understand as they get stronger."
"Ah so is there a solution to this?"
The prof stayed silent for a bit thinking.
"Mr. Swamy, do you know why there is a hunger meter or a satiety level in virtual reality games?"
"Um...I don't sir. I thought they put it in to make it look and feel real."
"Yes that is there too. But a lot of real things don't apply in virtual reality games. So why shouldn't they remove hunger as well?
"I don't know sir."
"You see Mr. Swamy, it is to remind you of the real world."
"Sir?" said Swamy confused.
"When you are playing, your brain-body connection is interrupted. Temporarily, your brain cannot receive signals from your body such as hunger, thirst, pain, etc. Body functions which are involuntary like excretion and urination can still happen. But voluntary functions like eating cannot."
"Ok."
"Early studies conducted to learn about human behaviour in a virtual reality environment found that, without these bodily inputs, people started getting too engrossed in the virtual world and started neglecting the real world body. All sorts of problems surfaced both psychological and physical because people would play for almost 3 days and then faint from hunger as soon as they stepped out into the real world. Or they would find that they have excreted or urinated in the capsules involuntarily. A famous case, which was never discussed in the public domain, was the story of a man whose house caught fire and he burned alive. His mind, which was still connected to the virtual world realized the signals of burning and pain , too late.
You see companies had to take care of a lot of problems in order to deal with these issues before a virtual reality world for the masses was possible. They instituted measures, like installing fire alarms in capsules. Or detecting capsule movement or proximity sensors which will warn if the capsule is moved or if someone approaches, etc."
"Ah...ok. I understand."
"Yes, hunger or satiety was also one of these measures. It was thought that if people got hungry in the virtual world, they would be reminded of the real world as well."
"But why would people be reminded of the real world when they get hungry in the virtual world? They can eat in the virtual world anyway right?" Swamy asked.
"Ah now that is one of the mysteries isn't it. But it does. Studies show that after introducing this hunger or satiety, the number of people who started caring about their real world needs actually increased. Looking at this, virtual reality developers also put in 'tiredness'. The fact that virtual worlds have a day and night system is also to remind you of the real world. So when the local population in the game sleeps, you can log out. Remind you, it did not eliminate all problems but it did reduce them immensely. Did you know that the Long Island capsule will automatically log you out after 24 hours of continuous play? Or if you fall asleep for more than 4 hours in the game? It does allow you to immediately log back in though."
Swamy nodded. He did not know that.
"You see Mr. Swamy, the reason I tell this is to remind you that it is in your best interest to pay attention to the real world also. You may think you want to stay all the time in the game in the anticipation of something. But it will be more harmful than useful."
"I understand sir. I will take care."
"Alright. Now I have no need to tell you that even though there is no attendance requirement for the courses, if you miss your coursework it will affect you adversely."
"Yes professor."
"Good. However the department is responsible if you indulge in continued absences. So here is the deal. You will submit in a short video of your activities of each day in the game, only for the days you do not attend college. You may edit it if it contains information you do not wish to divulge. Please understand that the department reserves the right to notify close relatives or try to check up on you if you continue missing classes or if you fail to submit the video."
"Thank you professor. I understand. Thank you for your consideration."
"Its ok. Remember to take care of yourself. Do you live with someone?"
"No sir, but my Aunt lives next door and she usually checks up on me."
"That's good. Oh you will need to fill up this form here, just your current address, etc. Oh by the way, what is your in game name?"
"Is that necessary?"
"No. Its just that if we ever meet in the game, I will know its you. My game name is Souzan."
"Oh...ah my name would be Raka." Not that there was any point hiding it. The videos would reveal his name anyway.
"Hm...wait. That Raka? The disciple of Lady Altia Raka? the first one to leave the village on Ilmentia Island?"
"Um, I don't know about being the first to leave the village but yes I am that Raka. Did you start in Ilmentia too?"
"Ah no. I started in Khardoum. But you know the forums were ablaze with your name at one time. Nice to meet a celebrity."
Swamy simply made a face.
Swamy now had a free pass. He did understand the point Prof. D'souza was trying to make though. So he set up a schedule for all his activities. A break for 10~15 minutes every 4 hours. And then sleep for atleast 5 hours. Any less and he would start suffering those symptoms again. He would synchronize it with the game time.
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Raka appeared on the ship. The room was empty. Raka walked outside to the galley. It turned out it was evening in the game.
"Hey Raka, you are early? How come?" Cook asked.
"Ah yes. I got permission to come early. In fact for the next few days I might spend more time here."
"Permission? From the Goddess?"
'Oops. Well lets go with that.'
"Yes. Oh she is quite well by the way."
And Raka walked off leaving the Cook confused. 'I better have a reason.'
He found Lady Verina and Lady Altia in the mirror room with the Captain. He knocked and entered.
"Raka, how come you are here?" Lady Altia exclaimed.
"Ah sorry Commander, please give us a few minutes here." Lady Verina spoke to the person in the mirror and waved her hand. The connection was broken.
"Ah it seems that by the grace of the Goddess, I can stay longer now, though I will disappear from time to time in between. Not for long though."
"That's wonderful to hear. The Goddess is kind." Lady Altia said.
"She is indeed." Lady Verina stared and then rolled her eyes. "Well it is nice that you will be around more though." she added smiling.
"So anything new?" Raka asked.
"Nothing. We are still sailing under the assumption that the pirates are heading to that small island. Well anyways lets resume the meeting." Lady Verina said.
And just like that, it was fine. Long live the Goddess.
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It was pretty routine going after that. More work. More training. More practice. More mopping. Raka may be first class in understanding magic, but not so well in actual practice. The soldiers and magic students were much more proficient in their use. That's the difference with having grown with it. What's the word, they had a better feel for magic than Raka. He was improving in his own way though.
Raka understood that their were two types of magic users by observation. One was the power type, who had huge power. The other was the technique type having more control. Lady Altia and Lady Verina were prime examples of the two types, respectively. This was not the difference in actual ability but rather the difference in aptitude. Or simply how one thought about it. For example, Lady Altia would want to produce a large fireball to attack and Lady Verina would like a smaller fireball but control the attack trajectory.
Goddess's children like Raka on the other hand could choose to excel in both. But only if they could figure out how to get those stat points. Raka kept practicing driving the boat, trying to reduce the energy required further. The speed reduced but the boat was still moving. And then,
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Focus increases by 1.
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He still did not understand why Focus increased, just that it did. Maybe it had to do something with trying to reduce the energy required for a task. 'So it does not mean simply using less energy but trying to use the least energy possible for a given task. Even if I did not use the least energy, as long as I tried to use the least and succeed, the Focus would increase. Probably!' Not sure about his thoughts, Raka assumed that there had to be a limit like this. Once you reach that you won't be able to increase your Focus by doing that task anymore. After all each task should have a minimum energy requirement. 'Unless there is this thing that after my mana increases, I will be able to generate more power from the same amount of energy' but that sounds a little far-fetched. He couldn't be sure though.
2 days passed in game time and Raka logged off to sleep.
He logged back in, 15 hours game time later. And it was lucky that he did. Because as he stepped up to the upper deck, the shout was heard.
"Ship spotted on the stern." the guy manning the crow's nest called out.
Dawn had just broken and the first light of the sun appeared on the horizon. People hurried to check. The Captain brought out a telescope and looked closely at the ship which appeared.
"Its the pirates! Sound the alert! Pass on the word to the other ships! Ready for battle!" The Captain snapped commands as the highly trained crew jumped into action.
It seemed that they had overtaken the pirates by going around the low winds area, the Captain had talked about before, whereas the pirates had got stuck in it. In the dark of the night, they could not see them but as dawn broke, the pirates appeared behind them. Still a little far but with their speed they should catch up in some time. Though there was always a possibility that they could try and run.
"Turn to port! Get the boats out!" More commands.
Raka could not believe the speed of the sailors now. He had always thought that opening the hole and lifting out the boats would be a slow operation, like always. But the speed now! They had all the boats lined up on the sides in 10 minutes.
"Alright man the boats!"
Ofcourse Raka was not assigned to the boats. He and the other students were just learning, after all. It was the more experienced soldiers and some of the sailors who boarded the boats. Lady Altia and Lady Verina stayed on the ship too and the ship entered in an interception course with the pirate ship. The other ships in the fleet followed.
The best situation according to the plan would be if the pirates attacked. Being on a faster ship, if they tried to run, none of the weighed down ships in the fleet will be able to give chase. On the other hand, the pirates would have to change course for somewhere else and not the small island they were aiming for initially. Apparently in this region of the sea, the other closest land mass belonged to Brittanica main island and Ilmentia island. With them on guard against pirates, they would have to sail the sea for a long time, while the fleet could resupply easily by sending one ship.
All in all the choices were limited for the pirates. Their best case scenario would be to attack, disable a ship or two breaking through the defense line of ships and head to that same small island. Atleast the attack was imminent.
Raka watched as the flurry of chaotic activity slowed down to ready watchfulness. The preparations were done and the pirate ship was still a little distance away. Raka could see the pirate ship landing dinghies of their own. About 4 or 5, compared to the 30 something dinghies the fleet launched in total. After all, the pirate ship was designed for speed not cargo. There is advantage in numbers and right now it was with the fleet.
They say the start of a battle is silent. And then like striking lightning it starts abruptly.
"Fire away!" came loud commands from all ships. Lots of stone projectiles were hurled towards the pirate ship. Lady Verina immediately took control of one of the stones while Lady Altia did the same. And they zoomed towards hull, just below the water line. A hole there would reduce the ship's speed, if not completely disabling it. The other stones were targeted at important locations, sails and masts, some were even targeting people. Try imagining being shot by a shotgun. And then imagine the bullet to be the size of your face. It would have been gruesome.
If it had hit. The stones reached the hull but bounced off and could not damage it. The ones targeting the masts suffered the same fate. Only the ones targeting the sails and the faces of people were intercepted by magic. Some changed the angle of the approaching stones so that it would strike the hull instead. And some started a fight with other magicians who were still in control of those stones.
Distance matters in magic because it matters to us. And being closer to the approaching stones, the pirates had an upper hand in power. It took someone with magic control like Lady Verina to still keep control of the stone and again attack the pirates, even after being deflected many times.
And then the boats collided. The battle dinghies had reached attack range and started by launching attacks against the other dinghies first. Much closer in range, free magic was being used. Fire balls, air slashes, water whips, even the hulls of the boat hardened with earth magic collided. And as they closed in weapons were drawn. Consider a cavalry charge, but with battle dinghies.
The pirates were also experienced in combat. In fact their specialty was naval combat. Armor, weapons....hulls strengthened with magic reduced or diminished the various attacks. Wood did not burn. The armor protected the men. And then from the ship came arrows. They wanted us to come close to them, where they would have the advantage.
A blow of wind is enough to cause an arrow to lose direction or to make it lose power, if it is not supported by magic. But if simply used as a distraction, it worked great. The dinghy attackers had to focus on the arrows targeting them or others, which left them vulnerable to attack for a moment. And some other pirate would strike at that very moment as if anticipating it, which someone else had to handle. The pirates may be fewer in number, but they had the advantage in team work and experience. Knowing they had no way to run, they had committed whole heartedly to this.
Just then,
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(Event Quest) Defeat the Pirates
Pirates have attacked the fleet. Help the fleet defeat the pirates. You will be awarded as per your efforts.
Difficulty level: D+
Reward: Contribution points with the nation of Ilmentia, Fame
Note: The quest cannot be refused and has been accepted. The quest may change depending on the situation.
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'So I have to make sure Lady Altia does not overexert herself and I have to help in defeating the pirates!' Well doing either meant keeping track of the situation anyway.
The pirate ship was getting closer even with all the attacks launched against it. It seemed the strengthening done by dwarves did not only increase durability, it also protected against effects of things like fire. Or maybe they had some other way to make fireproof wood because the hull wasn't burning one bit, even with constant fire attacks.
And then came their attacks.
The dwarves were good at manufacturing. Unlike the shotbows, they built proper trebuchets, though a smaller version as it was on a ship, which launched proper fire projectiles. Some stuff which burned good but held shape while it was launched and then scattered as it hit something else. In this case the hull or deck of the ship. Raka's ship was burning.
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(Event Subquest) Dousing Fires - The ship has caught fire from the pirate's attacks. Act swiftly to douse it and you will have saved your ship from a worse fate. You have 1 minute to douse the fire or it will spread.
Time remaining: 59 seconds.
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Raka had to hurry and grab a bucket, actually his mopping bucket, fill it with sea water and then douse the several small and big fires which had started as that fire projectile broke. It smelled funny.
And for some reason, the standard method of dealing with projectiles, a puff of air hadn't worked. It was under some strong magic control.
"Its made of pitch! " Someone shouted. 'Note to self, check out this pitch thing later.'
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The fire has been doused successfully.
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"There is someone really strong with magic on that ship." Lady Altia shouted. "Verina, find him. Raka help her."
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(Event Subquest) Extra Eyes - Someone really skillful with magic is on the pirate's ship. Help Lady Verina find him. The more time he is unchallenged, the more damage he can cause the ship and the fleet.
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It was Lady Altia's puff of air which had gotten overwhelmed. If it was simply a matter of control, it would have made sense. But the puff of air did not even budge that fire pitch thingy. It meant there was someone there who had power and the control to keep up that power for the time it took that fire projectile to hit their ship. If he was not brought down soon, defense would become meaningless. After all, unlike the dwarves, humans don't have the power or mana to strengthen a whole ship hull and maintain it for any considerable length of time, even if they could do something about the fire.
And then there was the pitch. It spread and it burned. Even when Raka doused it, the unburnt pitch remained stuck to the wood. That became a fire hazard just waiting for a bit of flame.
Raka quickly scanned the pirate ship looking for signs of anyone focusing on the trebuchets. Apart from the dwarves, there were a few other humans standing near it. But the problem was finding one human among a bunch of other humans. Also if the said human was the skillful magician, he wouldn't need to stand around a trebuchet. So one human among all the humans. 'Kill all the humans I say!'
Maybe Lady Verina heard his mind. But she was doing just that. She was now targeting the humans one by one using the stones being launched. In fact, seeing as they made no damage to the hull, all the other people had started targetting the people onboard the pirate ship, Humans, dwarves and beastmen. It became a game of distance vs control. If you had to describe it, it was the magicians battle for attrition. The one who lost focus or the one who lost mana died.
The fleet had the numerical advantage, and soon stones started hitting the people onboard. Raka watched carefully, noticing if any of them showed signs of being extraordinary skillful.
Few did. One guy was skillful enough to dodge two stones coming at him at the same time. The other batted the stones down with a bat. Oh wait that was a dwarf. The beastmen were the most useless on the ship, but they could use the strengthened bats the dwarves provided them and their hands/claws to do the same.
Another guy, who was standing next to and looking at the trebuchet launching a pitch ball aimed at the nearby fleet ship. But someone had stopped it with some good water magic. The pitch ball went down the sea. Next moment a stone went crashing through his head. 'Ugh! Gruesome indeed!' Raka turned his eyes away.
'Definitely not that guy.'
More time passed. The pirate ship was closing distance as fast as possible. It was so close that distance wouldn't matter too much for magic anymore. And it was showing effect. The magics started killing people on both sides.
"What are they planning?" Lady Altia shouted while attacking with her own magic.
"I don't know. But if I wasn't sure that it would be a stupid idea, I would think they are looking to ram this ship." Captain shouted out from the wheelhouse. The first mate and the second mate were both defending the bridge and anything directed at the Captain or themselves.
'Seriously!' Well that would have been a good course of action if they had more of their number. But the pirates still attacked even when dying. And the ship kept coming closer. Somehow the sails and mast were being protected, even when people, dwarves and human kept biting the dust. The beastmen were injured but its like a simple stone couldn't hurt them much even when struck with the speed of an arrow. 'Their body linked magic is surely something.'
"Raka watch out!" And Raka quickly turned his head to see a stone like five feet away from him frozen in air. 'Gulp!'
Lady Verina, who had shouted, quickly moved that stone back to attack the magician targetting him. But then Raka quickly moved and defended with his staff, against the stone which was headed towards her. It pushed him a couple of meters before he stopped.
"Thanks." she said smiling but her eyes were focused elsewhere.
"Thank you too. But that one's coming again" and Raka batted the stone again. Good thing his staff was metal. Even when he had embedded air magic. The air acted like some kind of balloon, cushioning the damage to the staff itself. Not that he had planned to use it like this. His transformation of energy thingy was still slow. He couldn't just dive into his colorful world mid battle or mid swatting the stone but as they say whatever works.
But this stone was persistent. Not that you could hurt the stone itself. All Raka could do was play cricket or baseball with the stone till Lady Verina killed whoever was targeting him previously. Another time and he swatted it again. It was in its own way quite fun.
"Alright thanks for keeping him occupied. I will take over now." Lady Verina called out.
Raka sighed as the stone stopped homing on him. In the meantime the pirate ship came even close. A few more minutes and they would smash into his ship. 'What are they after?' He had more important stuff to do for now, like finding out the most skillful magician. The pirate ship deck was now covered in bodies. Few people had died on the other fleet ships too. The pirate ship dinghies were broken or burned and a couple of the fleet dinghies seemed to be floating empty as well. Raka's ship had no one killed so far, thanks to Lady Verina and Lady Altia standing on the vanguard of defense.
People had died but the pirates had suffered much more. But their ship still kept coming closer. People kept trying to smash stones against the hull but dunno what the hull was made of, it just didn't break.
"Are they really planning to ram us?" Lady Altia shouted finally. After all once a ship comes this close what else was it supposed to do?
"I am afraid so. But looks like there are only a few people still left. If we all attack together, we should be able to finish them off." The Captain shouted in reply as another pitch ball started making its way to our ship.
"I will handle this" shouted Lady Altia but unlike last time she got her sword out. She focused and then started slashing attacks on the approaching pitch ball. Considering it was still far away, Raka thought she was using something like an air slash. But no, every slash she was doing was cutting and dousing that pitch ball at the same time. 'That looks like some kind of water magic.' Raka was impressed.
Well if you break an object into pieces, it does not remain the same object and hence the magic embedded in it does not remain effective which meant the out of control pieces harmlessly fell into the sea. Another reason why stone projectiles were preferred. Not easy to break those.
And the pirate ship moved even closer.
"Captain should we move the ship?!" Lady Altia shouted out.
"On Oars!" The Captain ordered immediately.
Most of the pirates had been killed or injured heavily. Even the beastmen were injured although still standing. But they were harmless. 'Unless they could jump. Damn!'
"Watch out, the beastmen are preparing to jump on our ship. Move away fast." Raka shouted immediately.
But he found out immediately how wrong he was. A couple of beastmen did try to jump but some clever air magic and they fell straight into the sea. And then some cool water magic was used to drown them. They were no fish after all. Now everyone was wondering what was happening. 'What the hell! I thought the beastmen would be the threat but they can be handled so easily. Like this, this battle can be won by just waiting....I should go take a nap or something...' Raka thought wryly. Being the weakest of the bunch its not like he had a lot to do. The stone batting contest was the most fun he had.
Then he had a brainflash. In fact napping had turned his gear for some reason. 'Who is protecting the ship?' Most of the people on the pirate ship's deck had been involved in fighting so whoever was strengthening the hull?! In fact could only one dwarf be responsible for that? And where was that incredibly skilled magician?' And the answer was.....the lower deck.
"Watch out! They got more people hiding in the lower decks!" Raka shouted at the top of his voice almost at the same time as oars came out from small doors at the side of the pirate ship and it picked up speed. 'Portholes, they are called.'
"Damn..."
"Move those oars!! Get moving or I will set the dogs of hell after you!" the Captain shouted in an even louder voice. Sailors do have loud voices.
'Damn how could I forget...pirate ships are made for speed so they don't have much cargo space.' Which meant they have a bigger lower deck than the fleet ships and that lower deck can be used for a good number of people. To sleep and to stay protected. And ofcourse they had oars. So the pirates were basically hiding their forces to spring a very nasty surprise. And that surprise was about to smash into the ship's side momentarily.
But in Raka's defense he could not have realized it any sooner. For one, the pirates were always coming out from the lower deck. And going down below as well. It had seemed that they were busy taking out the cargo to supply others or something. And what had happened was a bit worse than that. People, humans, dwarves and beastmen had actually left the upper deck after fighting for some time. In the heat of battle, no one noticed people suddenly missing from the upper deck. Who was counting anyway....the missing ones would have just been killed. Or that's what the people would have thought. No one counts the dead bodies if you have enough of them. And so the skillful, powerful people who maybe the higher ranked ones quietly descended to the lower deck. Maybe they had split their forces into weak and strong ones beforehand and they sacrificed the weak ones as pawns on the upper deck.
Ofcourse this became clear much later.
But right now the ship was about to break into pieces and everyone watched the pirate ship ominously with wide eyes and bated breaths. The, now 20 something, dinghies fired magic non stop. Some even came in next to the ship in order to buffer the impact of the pirate ship. This way the boats would be hit first. The sailors quickly tied the boats with the ropes so that they don't drift away and then jumped off and swam to get out of the way.
"Abandon SHIP!!" The simple command rang out as people were moved into action.
Lady Verina suddenly fell on her hands and knees as if supremely tired. Raka hurried over to her.
"Are you ok?" he asked but Lady Verina had her eyes closed.
"I will stop that ship. But I need to get close." She simply replied softly. Raka understood. She was probably going to transform a large amount of energy for something. Just then,
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(Event Subquest) Powerful barrier - Lady Verina aims to do a powerful magic which will stop the approaching pirate ship. For that she needs to get closer to the oncoming ship and the water. Help her reach one of the dinghies by the side.
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"Ok, hold on." Which brings us to the bag limit weight. See rabbit and wolf skins and bones weigh like 1~2 stones. But he had carried about a hundred each of those so almost 200 stones atleast. Atleast about 100 kgs and he hadn't felt a thing. A woman such as Lady Verina should weigh far less.
Raka easily lifted Lady Verina and carried her in his arms. Whats the word, bridal carry...princess carry...whatever it is called. And then he quickly ran over towards the approaching pirate ship. He jumped aiming for one of the boats. He slipped as his feet reached the boat and he landed on his butt instead. Thankfully he kept holding Lady Verina who still had her eyes closed.
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You have successfully landed on the boat.
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Soon she opened her eyes and reached for the water. A soft word spoken in her clear voice...
"Kraken."
Eight small ribbons of rapidly turning water rose high into the air. But then came down and settled on a height of about 8 feet. And slowly started getting thicker. Almost like the water was being sucked into it and increasing its volume. From a ribbon to a thick rope to a tree trunk....to almost 2 feet thick. Raka felt the boat being pulled towards it. Infact even the ship was being pulled towards it. It had so much power.
And then 4 of them disappeared. And the 4 remaining got even thicker. Lady Verina stood slowly and Raka supported her by standing behind her. She opened her hands and moved them away to either side. The 4 joined to become 2, even thicker. And then stood in front of us just as the pirate ship hit it.
The front of the bow was higher than that and it still approached, passing over Raka's head as it smashed into the ship just behind him. And then the hull met the water barrier and the pirate ship stopped. Noises bellowed out of the pirate ship, probably calling for greater strength at the oars. But the ship did not move forward. In fact the turning water was pushing it back little by little. Like two large gears working together, they were generating more reverse pushing power than the ship's forward power. And so it moved back, and the thick masses of water moved back with it, pushing it all the way. Soon the pirate ship was pushed back just far enough. With that said, it was still close enough that one could jump on their ship.
And then the oars were cut. Like all the oars on one side were cut off at the same time. Probably Lady Altia was the culprit. The 'so called strong' pirates had made a simple mistake in their plan. In their complete victory simulation they had probably not expected to be stopped like this and hence had forgotten to strengthen their oars. By the time they realized their mistake, the other side oars were cut as well.
"Quick! Cut their sails!" She shouted from above. On hindsight this was not too incredible. They were childhood friends. Their teamwork was the best.
But the fight was not over yet. If they stayed this close, the people who were now coming out of hiding, would probably jump on to our ship and reign havoc. Lady Verina had considered that possibility. She had not cancelled her magic because of this. As soon as the oars and sails were cut, she started pushing again. It went easier this time without all that forward force and soon the ship was about 20 meters away. Not too far but it was enough.
She waved her hands and the two swirling masses of water quickly dropped down.
"Pull us up!" Raka shouted.
"No! Wait! Hold me!" Lady Verina said in her clear voice and closed her eyes again. She was transforming more energy. And probably that needed water as well.
Once more, "Kraken."
And 8 ribbons of swirling water rose again. But this time it surrounded the pirate ship. It looked exactly like an octopus now. The pirates sensing danger quickly started firing all sorts of magic. But none of it reached us as they got blocked by so many people, soldiers and sailors of the fleet.
Some of the pirates even managed to shoot a pitch ball towards us. And the highly skillful magic user probably got involved in it as well because somehow it kept heading towards us.
"There...him, the guy wearing black clothes." Raka finally spotted him. It was easy this time, he was the only human who was intently looking at them, the rest had gotten engaged with fighting other people.
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You have found the skillful magic user.
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Lady Verina simply moved her hands like she wanted to catch it and a ribbon or tentacle caught the pitch ball, blocking it. And then two other tentacles moved. One of them towards the skilled magician. As soon as he moved to block himself from this attack, the other tentacle hit the pitch ball back towards the pirate ship. Without that guy's control and the others being engaged by the people of the fleet, the pirates had no chance. The pitch ball fell on to the deck and scattered.
Then all the tentacles came into action. Lady Verina quickly moved her hands while Raka held her from behind. All the tentacles hunted that one guy. In a magic battle if you lose focus, you die and keeping track of 8 swirling ribbons of water was not easy. Not that he didn't try. But the tentacles caught the skillful magic guy from the back and then quickly threw him overboard over quite a distance. That guy was effectively out of the battle. And then Lady Verina fainted.
"Alright lift us up now!"
The fight went on for some time after that. And a lot of pirates were killed. Raka laid down Lady Verina near him and Lady Altia and watched the fight, always ready to defend. But this fight was about numbers...and the fleet had them.
And finally the pirates surrendered and the battle ended.
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Event Quest: Defeat the Pirates ends successfully. Based on your efforts, you have been awarded 30 contribution points towards the Nation of Ilmentia. Contribution points can be used in various endeavours or to ask for favors from the nation.
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Fame increases by 20.
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Raka carried Lady Verina back to the room and laid her on the bed. There were still lots of things to do but Lady Altia and the Commander of the fleet would handle the rest.
The captured pirates were divided into each ship with the beastmen being tied far more securely than required. They were also kept on separate ships. It turned out they had enough chains and ropes which had been brought expecting an encounter with the beastmen. The same was used now for the dwarves and humans, as well. Not that they resisted. They were kept on the upper deck and under strict watch always. It turned out that the number who surrendered were only 10, 3 humans, 5 dwarves and 2 beastmen.
The pirate ship was stripped bare, the sailors picking up any and all supplies and weapons they had, which was not much and all the treasure they were carrying was divided and loaded on two ships so as not to add too much weight on one. And then it was scuttled and sunk. When Raka asked the reason, he was explained that they didn't have any extra crew to handle that ship and hence it was decided to sink it.
It turned out that the skillful magician guy was actually the pirate captain, but no one cared to look for him. "Let the Goddess judge his fate" the Captain said."We have our dead to worry." The dead were given a simple ceremony and laid to rest among the waves.
And then the ships turned home.
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Swamy logged off to take a break. He decided to submit the video of the battle to the university. He didn't have time to edit it anyway. After thinking for a bit, he also uploaded the video on the Long Island forums.
Who knew what kind of effect this video would have.