Two days in, Elisa’s math had saved them a hundred times. She not only had entries for each ship in the water with them, but she had also given them names. She knew what they were capable of, speedwise, at least from what they’d shown so far. In fact, she had an educated guess for how fast each of them could be if they really pushed things, saving them where otherwise they would have been caught and dismantled by the enemy fleet.

Math could only describe reality. It couldn’t really change things. Marco could push the ship go a bit faster with his skills, but that was only enough to get rid of the very slowest enemy ships. The rest, it seemed, hung on to their wake like they were being dragged by an invisible line.

“I don’t get it. We are built for speed, right? And I’m optimized to make the ship go even faster. We should be able to outrun these guys. Is it another illusion?” Marco asked.

“No.” Elisa set down her book, shaking her head slowly. “I wish it was. Odds are, there are some ships that are higher leveled and faster than us in that fleet. There are skills out there that keep fleets together, sacrificing speed in quicker ships for the sake of slower craft. It’s something I have to watch out for, because if they find a sneaky way to cancel it, we might see some of the lighter craft speed up to catch us.”

“Why haven’t they done that yet?” Marco asked.

“Because they couldn’t stop us. Even if we took damage, we’d probably get away, and that would leave them scrambling to reassemble their force,” Elisa answered.

“So what do we do?” Marco said. “We can’t get away by running. We can’t land.”

“We might have to Riv it.”

“You can’t make his name a verb.”

“Yes I can, if I want to. We might need a little Riv mentality to get out of this, and I’m not saying Riv mentality ten times a day. Did you ever check your ship screens like I told you?”

“I did. But there was really only one change, and it doesn’t help us here.”

“I don’t know that it’s useless,” Elisa said. “It’s just not useful here.”

“I know. It’s nice to have. It’s just not easy to keep things in perspective when we’ve been running for days.”

At that moment, Marco’s state was sustainable if not comfortable. He hated fleeing and wished he stood the slightest chance of coming out on top of a direct confrontation with the enemies behind him. He hated having to sleep by the ship’s wheel instead of in his bunk, keeping at the ready in case something happened. Worse, he hated other people bringing him his meals or even feeding them to him if their margin over the other fleet was slim.

Even with all that, he could sustain it. It was terrible, but he could keep it going. A few days after that, the situation was starting to turn for the worse.

“Don’t give up,” Elisa said. “There will be something.”

“I’m not giving up. I’m just tired.” Marco looked out over the sea, trying and failing not to look desperate. “There isn’t anything?”

“Not much. Islands we can’t land on. Monsters haven’t been able to catch us either.”

“We want that?” Riv asked. “The monsters?”

“If one of them could catch up, we could fight it while we move. It might enhance the ship enough to make a difference,” Aethe said. “Though we’d have to fight it without Marco. Or the monsters could distract the enemies.”

“Doesn’t matter. We aren’t that lucky.” Marco’s voice felt sticky in his throat. It didn’t even really make sense. He had been getting enough sleep and enough food. It was just not having breaks that was doing him in. “What is our plan for when I can’t do this anymore?”

“Is that soon?” Aethe put her hand on his arm.

“I don’t know. Whenever I collapse,” Marco said. “What then?”

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“Then we figure it out,” Riv said. “Just like we always have.”

“We may not have to.” Aethe’s hand tightened on Marco’s arm. “What in the world is that?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Elisa gaped at the massive thing materializing in the distance. “I’ve only read about ocean currents that swirl together.”

“Oh man,” Marco said. “I can’t believe we are about to do this.”

“Riv things?”

“Riv things.” He steered the ship slightly to the side, aiming for the edge of the whirlpool. “Really.”

“Woo!” Riv yelled. “Me things! What does that mean?”

“I think it means we are going into the whirlpool on purpose,” Aethe said. “Although I’m not sure we could have avoided it anyway. That thing is fast.”

The whirlpool was moving pretty quickly, which was something, considering Marco hadn’t known they could move at all. As if it had caught their scent, it was on them, veering towards them so fast it was all Marco could do to match its trajectory.

“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” Marco said. “You really shouldn’t be letting me.”

“It’s as good an idea as any, but if you don’t think it’s reasonable, why are you doing it?” Elisa asked.

“Honestly?” Marco asked. “Because you aren’t going to like it.”

“Let us have it,” Riv said. “We can take it.”

“It’s mostly because I want to imagine the looks on the other captains’ faces when they realize what happened to them. Imagine you are chasing this one boat, and then it sics a whirlpool the size of a town on you. I’m doing it because they deserve it more than we don’t deserve it. Or something like that.”

“Ha!” Aethe laughed in one short, loud bark. “You are wrong, Marco. I like that a lot.”

“Me too.”

“Me three, as much as I hate to admit it. Let’s do it, Marco. It will be fun,” Elisa said.

As the whirlpool spun closer and closer to them, Marco got a much better look at the interior of it. The spirit inhabiting this bit of ocean had apparently been busy, judging by the flotsam and jetsam swirling around down in it. There were logs, planks, chests, and the remnants of what looked like a dozen ships in various states of decay. If Marco had to guess, the whirlpool never really sucked anything down permanently, and this entire basin more or less represented its digestion, just spinning things around without letting them go until they decayed to nothing.

Either way, the whirlpool lost no time adding them to its collection.

“Watch out!” Marco yelled. “And grab on to something!”

The nose of The Foolish Endeavor took a steep dip down into the water, sliding down the slope of it like a sled while Marco tried his best to adjust the ship so it was going around the whirlpool rather than straight down. The whirlpool felt like it was fighting him.

“I can’t control this!” he shouted, after a few seconds of trying to right their course to a less dangerous trajectory. “I’m slowing it down, but it’s going to get us to the center.”

“Don’t worry about that!” Elisa screamed above the roar of the water. “Just try not to hit anything!”

Her advice wasn’t bad. The dangers weren’t just those they could see on the surface of the water. Things were popping up to the surface all the time, and some of them weren’t arriving at safe distances. Marco was using his new rudder to the fullest, pulling back and forth to dodge stray masts, barrels, and anything else that was careening towards him on the current.

“It’s not natural, the way those things move in the water,” Elisa said. “It’s because this is alive, I think. It’s trying to get us.”

“Riv, Aethe, get on the cannons. Shoot anything I can’t dodge,” Marco said. “Elisa, stay here and tell me what to do.”

The other ships started to become visible around the lip of the whirlpool. Their usual marching order was more or less reversed. The smaller, faster ships seemed to have an easier time resisting the pull of the pool than the bigger ships did. Some of the truly large ships built for battle or moving goods started to tip into the whirlpool, clearly fighting for all they were worth not to capsize or ram into debris. One of them immediately failed on both counts, slamming into the prow of a wrecked ship at just the wrong angle, flipping, and then getting barraged with other floating objects so quickly Marco expected them to sink entirely any minute.

Sooner than he would have expected, he got a notification.

“I got a little power,” Marco said. “Just a little. Looks like the whirlpool takes most of the credit.”

“That’s fair. Are you sure it was little, though? The ship’s moving better,” Elisa asked.

“I know! I don’t think it’s my class doing it. I think the whirlpool only has so much power to fight against things in its reach. It’s a monster, right? That would make sense.”

Another ship tipped down into the whirlpool then, and this time Marco was paying attention. As soon as it was in the main body of the aquatic beast, he felt a little more freedom to move his ship as the water resisted him less. It wasn’t much but it was significant enough that he was able to right the nose of the ship a little more, cutting a less severe angle relative to the center of his problems.

That was going to be the game, then. As things were, there was no chance of escaping. As ships entered the fray, though, he’d have more freedom to try and climb out of the deathtrap he was in. Of course, that also meant dodging everything the whirlpool could throw at him, any cannon fire his enemies could bring to bear, or even boarding attempts if they proved exceptionally capable in ways he didn’t expect.

He loved it. Whooping over the roar of the water, he was just so happy to be out of the infinite chase-and-be-chased cycle that he didn’t care about anything else.

“We are going to clean up,” Marco said. “They are going to be sorry they ever chased us. Just watch.”

“He sounds better,” Elisa said. “I guess you were right.”

“Never bet with a betting man,” Riv said. “All it takes for Marco to cheer up is a good fight.”