The enemy remained docile as The Foolish Endeavor drew alongside their battered vessel. The crew that had moments before been reloading cannons now stood in a single nervous row, looking a lot like they were waiting for orders. Marco kept one hand on the wheel while gesturing for Riv to ready grappling lines. With a few well-thrown ropes, they closed the distance and steadied both ships.

Marco ordered Elisa and Aethe to both train their weapons on the enemy. At that range, there was little question what another shot from the Arbalest would do. He didn't expect much in the way of resistance.

“Barrels,” Marco called. His voice carried across the waves with an authority he hoped rang true. “Every weapon you have goes into the barrels. One at a time, slow and steady.”

The enemy captain barked an order reinforcing Marco's, and soon a pair of deckhands dragged out three massive storage barrels from their hold. Swords, muskets, pistols, and knives clattered into them as the crew obeyed. The noise of iron and steel tumbling together was oddly satisfying, each clunk representing a different threat Marco now didn't have to deal with. His eyes never left the action, and Aethe’s bow remained half‑drawn and pointed directly at each member of the disarming crew in turn.

The enemy crew seemed to understand all this as an unspoken warning that any sudden move would be met with swift retaliation. That was good, Marco thought, since that was exactly what it was.

One man hesitated, clutching a cutlass as if dropping it would cut the line to the last thing anchoring him to life. Riv stepped forward to the rail and glared. Without a word, the sailor blanched and tossed his blade into the growing pile of surrendered weapons.

The barrels filled quickly, until the last dagger and boarding axe was given up. The barrels were closed and tossed over to the Foolish Endeavor with no muss or fuss.

The enemy captain, an older man with weathered skin and a proud but weary bearing, raised his hands.

“Captain,” he called, his tone edged with reluctant respect. “I know when I’m beaten. You’ve shown strength. More than enough to end this. But perhaps you’ll accept something more profitable than their surrender?”

Elisa stiffened at the suggestion, but Marco only narrowed his eyes. “You’re offering a bribe.”

“Not a bribe, Captain,” the man corrected. “A gesture of good faith. Gold, maps, and trade contracts. Enough that we might both profit and part ways with no further bloodshed.”

For a long moment, the only sounds that traveled between the two ships were the lap of the sea and the creak of boards. Marco briefly considered the offer, weighing both the danger and the principle at stake. Finally, he shook his head.

“No deals. You’ll limp back to your outpost with your crew intact. That's more than enough mercy for a pirate.”

The captain’s face fell, but he nodded.

“As you say. We’ll remember that you showed restraint.”

Riv pulled back the boarding ropes, and Marco turned the wheel, maneuvering The Foolish Endeavor behind the enemy ship. “Elisa, keep watch. Aethe, eyes on their sails. If they try to run or move to fight, sink them.”

The enemy ship began its slow, painful journey towards the people it meant to rob, its hull scorched beyond easy repair and just barely holding together at all. The Foolish Endeavor followed close behind until they finally creaked nearly to port.

Marco had Riv and Aethe row the outboat to the docks, then stood guard over the ship as they sent their rowboat back and forth, dropping off crewmen in pairs to be bound and carted off to whatever served as a brig in this territory.

The walk back to town wasn't a quiet one. The captured crew shuffled in loose formation at the front, their hands bound but their posture subdued, as though the idea of resistance had been scoured out of them by fire and fear. They moved acutely aware that a single wrong step might draw down the entire force of the town on them, not to mention the unknown close-combat strength of the crew that had already defeated them. Marco kept a measured eye on them from behind but found no reason to shout or threaten. Silence and the occasional clatter of boots against cobblestones sufficed.

Ahead of the prisoners, a smaller party had hurried on, comprised of several tellers and cooks from the outpost. It seemed they and everyone else had already abandoned their morning plans in favor of preparing a celebration, and talks of a party were already coming out of every mouth Marco could hear.

"Won't this disrupt business?" Marco asked. "I thought this was a mercantile outpost."

"Sure it is. But this won't disrupt business anywhere near as much as fighting that ship off would have. Your doing a good, clean job on that made this a lot easier. You are the outpost's only customer right now too. They can afford an extra morning off."

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Their pace was growing quicker and more excited, though it still maintained a minimum of dignified tone in the presence of the captured men. As they were finally led off to be locked up, the shackles of that restraint fell off completely. Tables were sourced from buildings, chairs were set up, and the cooks dragged out huge skillets to place over the fire.

By the time they sat, the party was already on. The welcome smell of fried dough, eggs, and spiced sausages filled the air, immediately reminding Marco that they had missed breakfast in favor of the calorie-burning stress of battle.

Marco made sure his crew took seats among the townsfolk rather than off by themselves. They were part of the celebration, after all. Riv flopped onto a heavy stool, stretching his arms over the table in anticipation of food. Aethe leaned her bow against the leg of a table as she sat with a few merchants and Kuzia.

Elisa remained standing for a time, studying the crowd and the prisoners, before finally accepting a steaming cup of spiced tea from a smiling hosteler and sitting beside Marco.

The clatter of plates and mugs soon filled the square. Any tension from the morning was gone now, replaced by food and merriment. It was, all things considered, a good morning. That was most true for the idolizing boy, who was still circling the square listening to anyone who would speak about what they had been able to see of the battle, collecting the bits and pieces people had seen from afar like little treasures.

Marco listened to the buzzing of happy conversation around him while watching the boy. Eventually, between two possible sources of insight on his heroes, the boy paused mid-step, gasped, and ran to the leader of the town.

The man listened to the boy impatiently at first, but within a few seconds began reluctantly nodding along. He patted the boy on the head and left that conversation in favor of mounting a few steps to gain the height he needed to yell at the crowd.

"It has been brought to my attention that we have not, in fact, paid these good people. Marco, do you have any desire to keep the enemy ship?"

Marco looked to Elisa, who shook her head. He knew she had poked her head belowdecks to do a quick assessment of their wealth, and if there was anything they needed in the ship's cargo, it wasn't something they'd find in the next day or so.

"Then we'll keep it ourselves and add it to the protection fee we owe you. So who has ideas on how to pay them?" the leader said.

"It's not just more credits?" Elisa asked.

"No, Elisa. It can't be." The leader shook his head. "You already took most of what you needed from the merchants, correct? Giving you credits leaves you with no assurance we've actually paid you in a way that matters. We noted you were running short on gold, so we'll give you a big sack of that for travel expenses. After that, I'm at a loss how to help you."

"We did get the rune blocks."

"Not enough," Manala said. "I really would have done that work for free considering what I got out of it."

"I have a clear skill crystal," a man in the back said, rising up. "Not sure if that counts."

"Huh," The leader said. "That might be good. Have you three maxed out what you can get out of skill crystals? I mean reasonably."

"Elisa?" Marco looked to her. "Have we?"

"Sort of. Aethe has all her arrow utility skills. She's basically a team of archers all by herself. Riv has so many strength skills that adding more on hardly makes a difference now, and the last skill has let him almost completely absorb what the Tyrant Club grants him. You know about my skills."

"I really don't."

"Well, you know enough. I've been laying a foundation. It's just missing a few key pieces, but those are levels and equipment, not skills. And you topped out before any of us."

The last ten skill crystals Marco had taken in had done less than nothing. It wasn't that he didn't get stronger. If anything, he was much stronger than his friends and still growing faster. It was just that his Gluttonous Marauder class provided power via consuming enemies, apparently at the cost of the efficacy of skill stones.

The upshot of all that was that he wasn't weak, but they had learned the hard way that he was the last person on the team who should be trying to acquire new skills in conventional ways like that. Elisa knew the same thing, if in a little more mathematical a way.

"Luckily, this is something different,” Elisa continued. “Normally, we'd need hundreds of skill stones for any of us to have an even chance of acquiring a new skill. Not with a clear, though."

"Clears have a better chance?"

"They are a different kind of thing entirely. They make a capstone skill," Elisa said. "You won't be able to use skill crystals after that, but it's usually worth it. For you, it's all but free."

"Sounds like that's that," the leader said. "We add that to our offer. It's not enough by itself, though."

Marco stopped himself from arguing. It seemed like it was enough, if not too much. He reminded himself that these were merchants and knew better than him the value of things. Being worried he'd cheat them was like a five-year-old being worried he'd knock out his father in a mock battle.

"Do you still want these?" The merchant from the day before, the one with no real wiggle room on his magical item prices, approached from the direction of his stand. "I remember the young lady liked them."

"The Foci." Elisa looked at the team hopefully. "I don't suppose…"

"Oh, shut up, Elisa." Riv shoveled another bit of food into his mouth, chewing around his words. "Of course you can have those."

"That's a big-ticket item. I brought these in case there was a bit of gap left." The woman tossed the Foci to Elisa and the gloves to Marco. "Take a look at those and read the description to her. I know that look. She's not putting down those wands for anything."

Marco dutifully obeyed.