Chapter 256: Saw Hula Gin?

I thought my Elvish was getting better. I even ventured to have Raelia join Favian and myself as I practiced in the dreamscape. Raelia had another opinion of my proficiency, and gave it with her sharp tongue. “You are insulting a language that has been spoken the same for ten millennia. You are better off sticking to Telhian.”

“I think he is much improved,” Favian said, defending me.

I pointed at Favian, but Raelia just rolled her eyes, which was a habit I had taught her in the dungeon. The truth was that my Elvish was decent compared to before. Just like studying spell forms or practicing with my weapons, it was easier to take what I learned in the dreamscape to the real world.

Xavier and Konstantin were sparring on the far side of the scorpion chamber. They were tossing good-natured insults back and forth, which seemed to revolve around me and not their contest. It gave me the thought that practicing with the blade and learning Elvish didn’t need to be mutually exclusive.

Thinking that I might have to practice against Desdemona again, I created her likeness and entered practice with her while Konstantin and Xavier paused to give me feedback.

I exited the dreamscape in the middle of the night. The water rushing along the hull outside my porthole was strangely soothing, along with the slow swinging of the hammock. I pulled out my last glowstone and the light-purple major essence I had gotten from Corvus. I turned the intellect essence in my hand, considering where it had come from, how it could improve me, and what it might be worth to someone else.

I held the glowstone behind it and watched the swirling colors play within, inspecting it from every angle I could. It was odd to imagine the power held in the small sphere. Maybe not this sphere, but the magic affinity spheres. Once we got to the safety of a city, maybe I would have the courage to unlock the water affinity. I had a pair of apex water essences in my dimensional space. I stopped debating, pushing aside my reluctance, and consumed the intellect essence.

A slight feeling of vertigo, and then my thoughts crystallized. My recent Elvish lessons played at high speed in my mind before the rush faded as rapidly as it had come on. My vertigo fled and a slight headache took its place.

I pulled a burrito from my space as the hunger pangs from consuming the essence gnawed at my stomach. As I nibbled on it, I questioned our course of action. Maybe the intellect essence was having an effect. The smart thing to do would be to pay an experienced adventuring group to extract Zorana for us. I would only need to sell one of the artifacts in my dimensional space to hire them.

No. Maveith wouldn’t agree to anything other than going himself. Still, the odds seemed oppressive, as it was us against a nation of orcs. I was hoping Castile and the company were in Gramney. But then again, why would they join us? I hated thinking so much. I swung out of the hammock and went on deck. A stiff, cold breeze was keeping the sails taut without the aid of the mages. A handful of glowstone lanterns swung with the waves at vital locations.

A few of the sailors tiredly walked the deck. “Need help, Eryk?” Isaak asked, walking toward me.

“I don’t need much sleep.” A thought occurred to me. “Do any of the crew speak Elvish?”

“Aye, a few. I have a grasp of it, but Leoch grew up with Elvish parents. He is our boatswain.” He switched to Elvish. “Looking to learn a few words so the elves don’t string you up by your balls? Or maybe you hope to seduce an elf and take her maidenhood?”

I replied in Elvish, “They don’t have string strong enough, and elf maidens are overrated.”

Laughing, Isaak switched back to Telhian. “Not too bad. I could always use the practice, too. Leoch would expect a few large coppers for his time, but like I said, he grew up with the elves. His mastery of the tongue far surpasses mine. It is a good language to know as it is the only tongue spoken the same in every corner of Desia.”

I spent the rest of the night talking with Isaak by the helm, adding dozens of words to my vocabulary and getting comfortable in conversational Elvish. When the sun rose, I was handed off to Leoch. The boatswain repaired the ship and kept it seaworthy. Most of his job was scraping the barnacles off the hull when they were in port. But today he was replacing a recently damaged deck plank so that no one would trip on it.

“You don’t mind helping me with my Elvish?” I asked in Elvish as I served as his assistant with the task.

“Not at all. Keep your coin; Isaak was just trying to do me a favor.” The middle-aged man smiled. “But I wouldn’t be opposed to you helping with my duties while we practice.”

“Not a problem,” I replied in Elvish. We talked as we worked. He corrected me when needed and filled in the gaps in my knowledge. We started by repairing the damage to the deck that Maveith had caused and then moved on to inspect the rigging on the sails, grease the pulleys, check all the anchor pins, and wax them. We finished all his work shortly after midday.

My Elvish was a work in progress. The language had not changed in millennia, and I learned there was a formal form of the language reserved for court and royalty. It was unlikely that I would ever need the formal tongue of Elvish, but Leoch’s adoptive parents were actually part of the elven court, so I got a crash course in formal Elvish.

While we worked, I had learned Leoch’s life story as well, as we needed to keep the conversation going and I wasn’t going to volunteer much beyond my time in the Legion. “I grew up in Esenhem. My parents adopted me from an orphanage. They were too old, even for elves, to have children, so they liked to visit other cities and adopt children. I don’t know why they adopted a human, but I was a cute kid.” He smirked. “I think it made them feel young to have children constantly around. They were good to us, and I have a dozen brothers and sisters across Esenhem. I will never want for a place to stay.”

“Are humans accepted in Esenhem then?” I asked.

He nodded. “I wasn’t bullied growing up, if that is what you are asking. Elves generally treat every race with respect if it is given in return.” He chewed his tongue before continuing, “The only exceptions are half-elves. Human and elf coupling is uncommon, so resulting half-elves are rare and very few exist. I am ashamed to say it, but I joined in the harassment of two half-elves growing up. Stupid kids do stupid things.” He huffed and went silent for a time after that.

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To revive our conversation, I changed the topic. “Why are you on an Adventurers Guild ship?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

He explained with a grin, “Getting my shipwright license in Esenhem takes a fifty-year apprenticeship! By the time that happened, I would be retiring. Instead, I joined the Adventurers Guild and signed on as the boatswain to the Shorebreaker.”

With our day’s work finished, I handed Leoch an apple, which he happily munched on. “These are out of season, easily worth a silver in Esenhem and well worth my time.” Since it was a fresh dungeon apple, it was probably worth more, but I didn’t tell him. I had no want for coin, and Ginger might object to me selling my stock of apples. Ginger had settled in, and the deckhands were taking excellent care of her as promised.

“Any advice for traveling in Esenhem?” I waved Maveith over, planning to take a break, but I would be back tomorrow to practice again.

“The cities of Esenhem are ruled by a Regent. A council votes on the Regent to serve a twenty-year term of service, which is usually renewed. My mother was an advisor to the Regent, and my father cared for the Regent’s estate. My advice is: don’t piss off the Regents. Check the local laws in the Guild Hall.” He reached out and we shook wrists.

“Can I help again tomorrow? I still need a lot of work on verb tenses.”

Leoch nodded happily. “And proper names. You can insult someone if you address their station as too low in relation to yourself.” He was making it sound more complex than it actually was. Every elf was at a higher station than me, so I hadn’t been practicing addressing those of lower station. Maybe Leoch had a bad experience growing up.

I practiced on deck with Maveith in the afternoon. I found myself uninvited to the captain’s dinner that evening. Apparently, calling the captain of the ship you were sailing on a cheater was frowned upon. I had thought she would find a way to tease me back, but instead, she was giving me the cold shoulder. I really needed to work on my flirting skills. At least Maveith was enjoying his time with Desdemona.

Four days into our voyage, I was helping Leoch repair the port railing while he helped me struggle through obscure Elvish vocabulary. A call rang down from the crow’s nest. “Sighting, port aft!” The bell rang immediately after, and the ship became a flurry of activity.

I rushed to the stern to find Desdemona there with her spyglass out. “What is it?” I asked, thinking it was another ship.

She didn’t answer me, and instead yelled to Isaak at the helm, “Come starboard half a turn!”

Maveith joined us at the stern and I asked for my spyglass back since Desdemona had not answered me. I smugly put my larger spyglass to my eye. After a few well-practiced adjustments, I could see the disturbance in the water. An array of dorsal fins cut the surface. “Cool, dolphins,” I noted.

“Not dolphins, sharks,” Desdemona retorted irritably.

Confused, I reacted defensively to my error. “I didn’t know sharks swam together like that.”

“They don’t unless they are being controlled.” She looked at me and then back and forth between her small spyglass and my larger one. She reached for my artificed spyglass and I released it. I knew Pickle up in the crow’s nest had a lesser artificed spyglass, but it was weaker than my Hound one. Desdemona’s current brass one was not artificed at all. She put my spyglass to her eye and cursed, “Circe’s tits. They are changing to match our course.”

“They are just sharks. They shouldn’t be able to do anything to the Shorebreaker.” I knew she had to be concerned for a reason, so I was hoping my statement would prompt an explanation.

Looking through my spyglass, she responded, “I said they were being controlled.” A long hiss escaped her lips, and she yelled to her crew, “Sahuagin!” This caused another flurry of activity as the crew made to repel boarders.

“What is a saw-hula-gin?” I asked as Desdemona rushed away to prepare. We didn’t cover many sea creatures in Hearne’s lectures.

Thankfully, Leoch was close to me and informed us, “It is pronounced sah-hah-gwin. They are fishmen, more commonly called sea devils. They are controlling the sharks. They are swarming, either to relocate their queen or establish a new queen. If you know anything about ants or bees, it is the same thing.”

The masts groaned as the mages increased the wind to maximize our speed at Desdemona’s calm but loud order. I could hear a flurry of activity below the deck as well: the deckhands securing all the portholes. The crew was strapping on hardened leather armor pieces, and those with bows and crossbows sought a position to fire from. The crew was practiced in their preparation, but you could sense a very somber mood.

“They are merfolk?” I asked Leoch as I observed the bustling activity and began to retrieve my adventurer armor from my dimensional space to put it on. I had learned a great deal about the dangers on land in my new world. I even witnessed some young merfolk harvesting on the night shore while I was a sentry for a Hound, but my overall understanding of the threats in the oceans was limited.

Leoch coughed a laugh as he checked his knives on his person. “No. If you call a merfolk a sahuagin, the insult can only be repaid with your death. They are mortal enemies of the seas. At least merfolk can be reasoned with. Sahuagin will consume anything and everything in their path. They are the locust plague of the sea and have earned the name sea devils.”

Desdemona returned to our position to check on the swarm. Using my spyglass, she noted in a detached tone, “They are closer. Maybe two hours before they overtake us.” She handed back my spyglass, giving me a slight nod in thanks for its use.

“How deep in the shit are we?” I asked, after looking at the swarm for myself. All I could see were over a hundred shark dorsal fins, but it was too difficult to count accurately.

“The orc warships generally keep the sahuagin populations in check in the Endless Salt Sea. Their fight with the Telhians must have distracted them from their task,” she said, looking at me and speaking in an accusatory tone—like it was somehow my fault. “The best we can hope for is that they tire of the pursuit and go look for slower prey. We were lucky we did not cross their path during the night. By the number of sharks, I am guessing over a hundred warriors.”

I remained on the stern and watched with Desdemona, Maveith, and Isaak as the foamy water in the distance got closer and closer. When Desdemona was certain we were going to be overtaken, she barked an order at her two mages: “Conserve your aether for the fight.”

It wasn’t time to hide my aces, as it was clear our lives hung in the balance. I summoned a bow and quiver to my hand. Desdemona’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Any advice on how to fight them?” I asked.

She took a moment to reply, trying to grasp the size of the bow I held. Her eyes flitted to my rings, probably thinking one was a storage device. I wasn’t wearing my gloves, as I had been working on my tan.

She responded seriously, “I have never fought more than a raiding party of thirty or so before. They give no quarter, so fight till you are dead. Don’t let them drag you into the water. The warriors will try to get on deck, net you, and pull you overboard for the sharks to finish you.”

I digested her words. That sounded awfully unpleasant.

A large shark appeared four hundred yards away with a strange fish-like humanoid riding on its back. It emitted a challenging sound, revealing sharp teeth beneath its unsettling lips. Its blue- and olive-skinned body was dominated by webbed appendages. As I prepared to take action, all I could think was, They certainly are ugly.

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