Marco wasn’t sure if the system had saved him or if he had just won that roll of the dice, but either way he was still standing. That counted. It counted double, he found, when his friends turned out to be okay too.

Boots clattered up from below decks. Elisa emerged first, her hands still crackling with electricity and ready for anything. Aethe came after her, bow still in hand, scanning the deck for more threats and looking legitimately surprised not to find any. Riv lumbered out last and by far the worst for the wear, his clothes stained with blood and char.

“Marco!” Elisa’s eyes locked on him, wide with alarm. “You used the buff. We thought you were dying up here.”

He waved her off, swaying a little but refusing to drop his rapier. “I had to. It was him or me. It turned out to be him.”

“You look like it was both of you.” Aethe moved closer closer, steadying him with a hand at his elbow. Her tone was dry but her grip was firm. “Next time, maybe dodge. Wait for backup before you duel someone obviously stronger.”

"He was fast." Marco sat down on the stairs leading up to the bow. "Too fast. It was all I could do to keep him from killing me, let alone dodge. I had to use the skill crystals."

"You should have done that days ago. I told you not to save them," Elisa said. "You got a skill?"

"Two. And waiting worked out fine. It let me surprise him. Though it almost wasn't enough anyway."

Riv just grunted. “Worked, though. We’ve got the ship.”

—

Looting the ship was equal parts grim and exhilarating. Enemy bodies still smoked on the deck where lightning bolts and exploding cannonballs had knocked them dead. The smell of burnt oak lingered where Elisa’s lightning had seared cannon planks and hull.

It wasn't all ugly, though. Everywhere they looked, they found wealth of various kinds waiting for them. There were exotic woods, unknown metals, and furs galore, all harvested from islands that might not even have had names.

They found enough to make the settlement they were protecting rich in the hold, but the captain’s quarters were still the real prize. After Riv kicked the door off the hinges, they found a chamber dripping with luxury. Whatever else this captain had been, he was successful. They found gold coins spilling from overpacked pouches, casks of wine still intact despite the fighting, and weapons mounted on the walls of a quality that implied they came from a long, storied line of defeated captains.

“Gods,” Aethe whispered. “This is more than a haul. This is a fortune.”

Elisa bent over a desk in one corner, fingers brushing delicately over the woodwork until she suddenly pushed. The desk clicked, swinging open a small door. “Not just money, either. There are skill crystals. Two reds.”

"Oh, he was lying. Weird." Marco walked over and looked down at the crystals. "He said this was his pay for taking us out. I wonder why he didn't use them?"

"There are things you can do to make them more likely to take, they say." Elisa held one out to Aethe and kept one for herself. "But we aren't waiting. Aethe, use that now before Marco has to take it midfight to get the upper hand in a fight with a sea dragon."

They both gripped down on their crystals, destroying them in an instant. From the look of them, they had done well. Marco left Elisa to make her notes on what they had gotten and stepped open to help Riv ravage the rest of the room.

Riv shouldered open another trunk, grinning wide when the lid fell back to reveal bars of raw silver and gold packed like firewood. “I’ve never seen this much. We could build a town with this. How did this guy get this?”

"From what I gathered? Decades of hoarding. He didn't seem to leave this area much."

"The crazy thing is that he was probably right to not spend it." Elisa looked up. "After a while, you've bought the best of what gold will buy in a particular area. Honestly, I don't think gold is going to have as much value the further and further we get out from civilized places. Think about how much gold it would have cost to buy the wood your ship is built of these days, Marco. I'm not sure we could have fit it in the boat."

Marco leaned on the doorframe, too tired to fully share the other's glee.

"We'll just share some of it with that town then. And keep the rest. Even if it's not useful right now, it should be useful later, somehow."

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"That doesn't seem like the most interesting thing, anyway. Didn't you two just get better? Why aren't we talking about that?"

"Oh, be patient." Elisa scribbled for a few seconds on a few pieces of paper, then ripped them out of her book and handed them over to Marco. "Here. Take a look."

"And that's good?"

"It's very good, I think. It will need some testing, but I think it's pretty sound."

"And Aethe?"

"An overcharge shot. Not much more than that," she said. "But being able to sacrifice rate of fire for a harder hit every once in a while is huge. If nothing else, it will bother captains more when they try to steer their ships."

"Poor them," Marco concluded.

—

They hauled as much treasure as The Foolish Endeavor could carry, which was all of it, in a way. Riv managed to weave some ropes all the way through the various cannon ports on the enemy ship, and after an hour of repair, The Foolish Endeavor was just barely the equal of towing it to shore.

Through his feet, Marco would have almost sworn the ship found the experience fun. He could feel the hull flexing and tightening to better accommodate the weight of the job, and what few creaks and groans the ship put out felt less serious than usual, like it was in on the ridiculousness of the task and thought it was funny. Marco felt all this, yet was not completely sure he wasn't making it up yet. He hoped it was true, at least, if for no other reason than the fun of having a ship that shared in their greed for loot.

It wasn't fast progress. Having decided against burning Riv's strength stat to make the tow go faster, inches felt like they took full minutes to cover. When they returned to port, the sun had already fallen low on the horizon. The enemy galleon, which was now their galleon, made it to shore with them, gently bumping the back of The Foolish Endeavor before coming to a wounded, unhappy little stop.

"I see you've done something insane," Youff said. "What in the world do you even plan on doing with this?"

"Doing with it?" Marco smiled. "We aren't going to do anything with it. We just figured your village might like a ship and the things in it."

"What?"

"The ship. It's yours. Call it thanks for all the help and a ‘we're sorry about dragging mercenaries to your doorstep.’"

"Well, alright." Youff looked up at the big ship and shook his head. "I can't pretend not to want it. There's always goodies in something like that. Give me a minute to get my men started and we can talk about the details."

"Details?" Marco said. "I didn't know there were any to talk about."

"Sad to say it, but there's always details." Youff sighed the sigh of a man who wanted to spend more time doing the fun parts of his job than he did. Marco knew that sigh well. "We'll bang them out quick, though."

In a few minutes, Youff had men crawling all over the ship, taking planks from their nails and nails from their planks faster than Marco could believe. Within five or ten minutes, the rails and a good portion of the deck were already off the boat. If they kept pace, it would be an hour or so at most before there just wasn't a ship anymore.

"So, details," he said once things got fully underway. "Might as well get to them. First thing is easy, and that's me making sure you don't lose out on this ship. We've already got a carpenter working on making sure your ship gets repaired, though he seems confused from what I can see from here."

"Oh." Marco laughed. "I think this ship counts as destroyed for me now. Something that big would have fixed my ship up when it was defeated."

"Don't tell him, then. Let's let him think you took that ship out without taking a scratch. It will be funny." Youff held up his hand and stuck out a finger. "Whatever's left, we'll make sure gets fixed. That's just a given, considering what you did for us. As for the materials that come off the ship, most of them aren't going to be interesting to you. Ships as big as that tend to be made of less quality, which they make up for with quantity. Still, I have my men looking out for anything especially good. If it's useful to you, I'll find it and you'll have it."

"But…"

"No argument," Youff said. "I'm older than you and I've seen this conversation before, so let me save you some time learning how it goes. It's not a sure thing, but this is probably the last time you'll ever come to this island. You are an adventurer, and we had something you needed or needed to learn. The moment you got it, you outgrew us. You'll probably come back for that temple, but otherwise what do we have that you need?"

"Lunch," Riv said. "You make good food."

"Fair enough," Youff said. "And you are welcome to it. But that's the way things work out here. We grow and we get stronger, much stronger than we'd be in a safer place. But we might as well be standing still compared to what you all do. So you are going to stop pretending we are building a relationship here. We had one as soon as you stepped out to defend us, and now you need to focus on what keeps you alive out there."

"Fine," Marco said. "It still doesn't seem fair."

"It might after we talk," Youff said. "Because I still don't have any idea what you found out in the woods. And I need to."

Lunch came together fast once Youff called for it. Elisa lit the fire, but after that none of The Foolish Endeavor's crew had anything to do with the process. Youff’s men contributed bread, vegetables, and fish, which an older, mostly silent woman did wonders with, like a conjurer performing tricks for an audience.

Bowls in hand, they gathered under the shade of a canvas awning and waited for the food to be served, listening to the village buzz with guesses about why the better part of them were tearing apart a prize ship plank by plank.