Marco checked the description for the Tortoise Gull’s Conquest.

That was how his Conquest skill worked. Every time they defeated some odd monster or some especially hard challenge, there was a chance his ship or equipment would grow from it. Marco declined the upgrade. It didn’t make sense to get rid of the stronger Crabshell Cladding in favor of something that only added a slight resistance to the sails.

On the whole, the world they were entering was vast and incredibly dangerous. They could survive here only by growing fast, finding new gear, and keeping ahead of whatever challenges were thrown at them.

That was why they had come. It was adventure, pure and simple. It was excitement on the biggest, grandest stage possible. Most of all, it was freedom, something that each of them wanted in a slightly different way.

Now they just needed to find land.

—

Food was not a problem. The mysterious island they last called their temporary home was run by an old woman who had packed their hold so full of food it very literally wouldn’t hold any more goods of any kind at all. They had eaten through a good amount of that food now, boiling rice and using up spices with fresh-caught ocean fish and whatever dried vegetable seemed appealing enough to rehydrate.

Boredom was a problem, but only just. One of the benefits of having cruised through unspeakable dangers of various kinds was that a break became very welcome. The government had been chasing Marco for a time and probably still was, but these days it was probably a much more theoretical pursuit than it had been before. According to the older, savvier people he had consulted on the issue, there were only so many people in the civilized nation they hailed from who could or would chase them here. The powers that be wouldn’t be eager to commit their entire navy to dangerous waters.

With their immediate monster threat thwarted, their former pirate nemesis in the grave, and immediate pursuit far behind them, Marco and his crew’s current goal was to make as much distance as they could in a particular direction. Elisa was their navigator, despite not having a specific skill that gave her an advantage in navigation. She could point them in the right direction, generally, just by using her very wide knowledge base. At the moment she didn’t need to do even that.

“Marco, slight starboard turn,” Elisa called out.

“That’s weird.” Marco adjusted the ship to be just a tiny bit more on course before propping the wheel in place and turning his attention to lunch. “We all know where the next temple is, down to the degree. It’s not like the system message came with a map or some kind of coordinates. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“I haven’t either,” Aethe said. “So it’s not an elvish difference.”

“It might be an older thing. You know. Like in Old Magics of the Sistym,” Riv said.

“In what?” Elisa turned to face Riv immediately. “Is that a book?”

“Yeah. Wait. Oh. Wow.” Riv suddenly gave his full attention to Elisa, taking his eyes and mind off of anything and everything else. “You’re telling me I’ve read a book Elisa the Learned hasn’t?”

“As unlikely as it may seem, there really are books I haven’t read. For one, we didn’t have every book ever written on Gulf Isle. What’s weirder is that you read a book. Or anything. I’m assuming it had lots of pictures?”

“Not a single one.” Riv took no offense to Elisa’s implied insult. He never did to anything, really. It was one of the things that made him an easy crewmate to have. Things just slid off him. “There was a sort of competition at the island library where the prize was something from a local blacksmith, and I wanted a better hammer. You had to read the book, and then give a speech about it. I figured reading a bigger book would mean I’d have a better chance at doing a good speech.”

“That’s not how it works,” Elisa said. “Riv, that’s not how it works at all.”

“I know that now,” Riv stated with a lot of emphasis on the last word. “I lost really badly. The point is that there are a lot of theories built off old records that the system used to be different. I’m not going to pretend to have understood all of it…”

“No shock there,” Marco ribbed. “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you read a book.”

“Because I’ve been too busy keeping this ship in perfect shape. I apologize.”

“Marco, hush. You too, Elisa,” Aethe said. “Banter is fun but there’s a limit.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“Yes. Well, anyway, the idea is that over very long periods of times, classes come and go. Skills come and go. They said that the original skills and classes might have been a lot different, especially a really long time ago.”

“And they supported this with what?” Elisa asked.

“Supported? No idea. Like I said, I didn’t understand the book. But it seemed like what the writer was trying to argue was that if everything changed at the same pace stretching back into history, there would eventually be a point where everything looked very different. It would still be the system and it would still be people, but everything would be in a different balance.”

“Huh,” Elisa said. “Maybe. I know there have been some very small changes to classes during our lifetimes.”

“Like mine?” Marco raised his gun a little in its holster, by way of demonstration. “It’s weird. Nobody has seen something like it so far.”

“No. That’s normal weird. The system has always had outliers. Your class wasn’t all that different from Steed’s, if you think really hard about it. That man could fight, he could pilot his ship, and he had some pretty unique skills. What I’m talking about is more like small changes in the average way classes work. Little adjustments you can only see when you study hundreds or thousands of people.”

“Got it. So if I’m tracking this right, the idea is that whoever made that temple back on the invisible island also made the island itself, probably. And to do that they’d have to be working with stuff that we can’t do anymore, but that made sense back then somehow.”

“It all works out to that happening a very long time ago,” Aethe said. “Which raises the question of why this is all just starting to resurface now. We found the temple, someone else found a map to the temple. Frisk knew somehow. So now three people know about it. Presumably this all happens within a few months. Why now?”

“The temple said something about a new era,” Marco said. “Not that it means much. The way I figure it, we have nothing better to do.”

“Nothing better to do?” Riv tossed his hammer into his tool bucket. “I could be building houses, Marco. Big beautiful houses. Or docks. Or barns. Anything, really. Though this ship isn’t bad either. ”

—

They sailed onward, taking shifts as they worked closer to whatever unidentified target they were headed to. Most of the time, Marco stayed on the wheel, since his presence made the ship go much faster than anyone else’s could. When bedtime came, though, anyone could steer as accurately as he could, even if they couldn’t go as fast. They all had a sense of where they were going, and pointing the ship that way wasn’t hard.

Night fell slowly over The Foolish Endeavor, turning the sky from a bright blue to a dark, diamond-studded black. The crew settled into the rhythm of slowing down for bed. They ate, joked, and finally divided up the night watch.

Marco stayed at the wheel for the first stretch. Having won the drawing to have his choice of slots, he opted for what he usually wanted, which was as much uninterrupted sleep as he could get. The sails caught the moonlight and gleamed.

These days, he could feel the magic in his body flowing into the ship in different, more powerful ways. The power from defeated pirate captains stored in his gear somehow interacted with the ship enhancements from the strange monsters he had fought. His class should have done pretty well on its own without all that, but with all the slight increases and moderate enhancements

he had accumulated over his adventure so far, he and The Foolish Endeavor were batting far above their pay grade.

Aethe took her post on the bow, sitting cross‑legged by the rails with her longbow across her knees. Her eyes, far sharper than any other crew member's, scanned the horizon. Even in darkness, her Scout's sight could pick out shifts in the water or the movement of clouds that Marco would completely miss. She hummed quietly to herself, a tune without words that wove through the sound of waves striking the hull.

"You don't have to be up with me, you know," Marco said. "You could get some more sleep."

"I will, when I want to," Aethe said. "For now it's just nice being with you when it's quiet."

Riv and Elisa moved below deck, checking their supplies and making sure nothing had gone awry with the food that was keeping them going. For a long time, Elisa had demanded Riv also run her through the day’s maintenance as they went. Lately, she didn't. Riv seemed to have an instinct for what sounds were normal and what weren’t, what planks could be tightened, and what joints needed more tar to stay watertight. When he needed help or another opinion, he asked for it. Otherwise the others trusted the well-being of the ship to their quartermaster absolutely.

Hours passed after that, and slowly the others drifted to bed and sleep in earnest. The night air cooled, the sound of the water slapping the sides of the boat dominated all the remaining noises of the night. Marco scanned the horizon, seeing nothing at all besides more water. And yet, after looking long enough, he thought he did see something different, even if he couldn't quite put his finger on exactly what. The waves were different somehow. Not bigger. Just off their usual rhythm.

“Something out there,” he said softly, pointing northeast. “Not close. But moving.”

It could have been a school of fish, for all he knew. But if so, it was the only one that had stood out to him this way since they had started. It felt more likely that something weird was happening.

Then, far out in the black water, something breached. At first it was just a shadow, but it was a shadow as wide as a house. Aethe was up and near Marco in what seemed like an instant, bow drawn. Marco gripped the wheel and squinted into the dark, glad he wasn't deciding what to do alone.

“Elisa and Riv?” Marco asked.

"They're coming."

The sea bulged again, closer this time. A long tentacle surfaced and slapped back under the waves, leaving a trail foam where it hit. The rhythm of the ocean shifted. The off-beat waves Marco had noticed now had an obvious source.

Aethe whispered when the head finally rose out of the water enough for them to see the house-sized head in its entirety.

“Kraken,” she said.

"I thought those weren't real. Elisa said so."

"I said there's no one thing called a kraken. It's sort of a catchall for very large squid." Elisa was up now. her hands glowing with fire. "But I'd say that's one, if anything is. A kraken."

The word hung in the air, chilling all of them..

“What should we do?” Riv asked. "Fight? Fly?"

“Hold steady,” Marco said, keeping his voice steady. “It might not want us. But maybe get that axe you packed anyway.”

Another tentacle broke the surface, thicker than the ship’s mast, lined with suckers that glowed faintly blue in the starlight. It hovered, dripping, then slammed into the water just off their port side, drenching them all in spray and rocking The Foolish Endeavor back and forth like a cork.

Elisa raised her hands, switched to lightning, and waited. Aethe stretched her bow. The kraken regarded them coolly, and for a long moment it seemed like it might not move for them after all.

Then it did.