The System Seas

Chapter 87: Test Drive

“I guess that explains the claws,” Marco said. “I thought for sure this thing would give us more.”“Shh,” Elisa said. “It still might. Give it time.”

The floor shifted in color slightly a moment later, then shot out a single beam of light that connected with Marco’s forehead. He tried to twist out of the way but found that he couldn’t dodge it. That turned out to be a non-issue as the next notification popped up in his field of view.

Sense gained!

As a challenger to this temple, you can now dimly sense the plinths that make up this temple's amplification network. This sense is short-range and only works when you are within several miles of a plinth.

“Oh,” Marco said after reading the notification. “Yes, that will probably help. Elisa, how hard is it going to be to get out of here?”

“Not hard, exactly. Worst-case scenario, I’ll have to put us near the exit and wait for to refresh. Why?” she asked.

“Because I have an idea where the first of those plinths might be. I want to check it out.”

Getting out was about as easy as they expected it to be, if not a bit easier. As if they had already paid their dues, the temple seemed reluctant to subject them to any more illusions. They were out of the space in fifteen or twenty minutes, and only that because Riv was significantly slowed down carrying the huge chunk of metal they had recovered from the larger of the statues. Marco and the rest of the crew were loathe to leave behind any part of the loot, especially when the loot was so good that they couldn’t even understand it. They rested for just a bit outside the temple, picking up their gear again and redistributing it to take as much load from Riv as possible before setting back towards the town.

It wasn’t a short walk, but Elisa kept them on track and they made it back to the settlement with hours to spare before sundown. They were met at the outskirts of town by Youff, who frowned at the exhausted Sturdy under the large lump of metal before reaching out and lifting it from Riv’s improvised rope harness with one hand.

“Bring that along. Might as well see if we can get it in on the action. No, no time to talk. Your ship needs you now,” Youff said.

Marco and the crew trotted along behind the high-level lumberjack until they got to the ship. As Youff had once warned, it looked truly bizarre. All over the boat, planks of thinly cut, close-grained wood overlaid as many vital parts of the ship as the limited materials would let them cover. On the deck, bigger piles of lesser but still pretty good planks were laid out in piles, as if for raw material availability alone.

“You are going to have to trust me that this is the best way with what you have available to you. If we had a true shipwright here, it might be different. The materials will make up the gap, though. Trust me on that.” The big man puffed up with pride. “My ancestors were no slouches when it came to trees. That’s the best one on an island full of good lumber nailed to your boat. With great nails, I might add.”

“What about this metal?” Marco asked. “We have three little ones and this one huge lump.”

“The three little ones I’d say to keep. They aren’t going to make much difference to the process when all is said and done. The big one? Let me handle that.”

The big man dropped the lump of metal on the deck and got to work carving out a slot of sorts in the deck, just in front of the mast. When he had it to a sufficient size, he took the huge piece of metal, slammed it down, and let the force of the motion wedge it firmly in the new, apparently intentional damage the man had caused.

“That’s about as good as we can do. Now, Marco. I suspect the system will be looking to you for guidance. It’s been all our poor shipwright could do to distract it this long. I swear I’ve never seen the system so eager.”

Just as Youff said, the notifications started pouring in as soon as the ship began to glow gold. Marco and the crew retreated to the dock as the chickens hid in their space, giving the upgrade process enough room to begin in earnest.

Ship Upgrade Underway.

You are offered several possible upgrade paths to your ship in a typical upgrade process. The inclusion of odd and nonstandard materials has limited those choices to two in this case. They are as follows.

Warclub (Ramming specialization)

The Warclub’s prow is plated with magical metal. When unempowered, this improves the durability of the front of the ship. When powered by the captain’s magic, the Warclub becomes a weapon par excellence, capable of destroying ships much larger than itself in one fell, bludgeoning swoop. The plated area can resist most attacks, though there will still be damage from each attack. When powered by the captain’s magic, the plated area is, for all intents and purposes, invulnerable except to an attack that would have normally shattered the entire ship.

As an upgrade to a ramming-specialized ship, this ability is enhanced a small amount further.

Magerunner

The Magerunner is a ship powered by a battery bank of enchanted metal. Over time, the captain of the ship can fill this metal to capacity, leaving it in reserve for moments of great importance and danger. As the metal itself was pulled from living golems, the ship will become a quasi-creature of sorts, gaining small amounts of experience from both battles and certain feats. This experience is added to the ship as material quality and over time can vastly lower the cost of your next significant upgrade. Before the upgrade, this quality will be experienced as actual gradual upgrades to the function of the ship.

The ship itself will be much more conducive to magical influence in any case, and any existing cannons aboard the ship will be combined into one large Wizard’s Arbalest.

As a living ship, further upgrades to will all take a living-item path if this option is chosen.

“Wow,” Marco said before he explained the options to his crew and Youff. “Good stuff. Two of them. Both solid, but I think I know which one is more exciting. I need to check out one last thing.”

Wizard’s Arbalest

The Wizard’s Arbalest resembles a large crossbow and shoots powerful bolts of magic. Its orientation is neutral if not otherwise empowered, but can be imprinted with elemental magic if a user of that type of magic is manning the cannon. It draws magical power first from its user, then from any available ship’s battery, and then from the ship’s captain, in that order.

The Wizards Arbalest is a tele-primary weapon, and as such precludes the use of any other ship-mounted weapons. Its shots follow a flat trajectory out to their maximum range unless intentionally curved. Such course correction reduces the range of the weapon significantly.

Marco read both options out loud just to make sure he wasn’t crazy. Youff’s eyebrows climbed higher and higher on his forehead as he read the Warclub’s description, but just about jumped into his hair to get lost forever when he shared what the Magerunner could do.riangular canvas was just slightly ahead of the other, free to catch the wind to their heart’s content. The cannons were consumed in a flash of yellow light, just as he had been promised. That light merged into one enormous mounted weapon near the rear of the boat, set at an angle that would let it shoot in almost any direction the masts didn’t block.

The greatest change, however, came from the metal embedded in the deck. It slowly flowed like water as it became rounder and smoother, eventually resolving into a kind of flattened dome on the ship’s deck. As the gold finally cleared from it, he was left staring at the most beautiful craft he had ever seen, a ship that looked like it would slice through the water like an enchanted razor cut through hair.

“Test drive,” Riv said. “Marco, now. Test drive.”

“I’m on the same page!” Marco said. “I can’t wait to give this thing a try.”

“No. You don’t understand.” Riv’s arm pointed out to sea, towards a horizon Marco had been completely blind to as his ship upgraded. “These people have been pretty nice to us, and I’d hate to see their village burn. That’s a very, very large ship. We don’t just want a test drive. We need one. And we need it to go well.”