decided not to stick vega in prison this time, we needed something different.
(March 9th - Y1854)
My boat was lonely in the harbor. It sits, the sails fluttering in the wind as if it was playing with itself, the most free of spirits.
My sailboat was a modest vessel, it had one large, bold sail with a pair of cannons to decorate both sides of its deck. It was a decently small sailboat, but It felt nice being the captain.
…Even if I didn’t have a crew. A crew would be convenient, even if my boat was so small.
The wind whistled in the dark night sky, fighting through the auburn leaves and over the island. I pulled my black hood over my head while taking out several food items out of my bag and laid them across the ground, my stomach bellowing.
I looked at my haul from earlier today. I managed to find and stuff five large pumpkins into my bag (How did I do that?), a gang of red and blue apples gathered from the trees above, and a few berries I found during my journey.
I scoured my bag for the utilities, I pulled out my knife and held it in my hand, the sounds of the waves assuaging my feelings.
I chopped the thing up while my hands were fumbling and slipping every which way, it was like I was trying to split the plates of iron armor.
After about ten minutes, I sighed and forced myself to rest for a moment. Some of the skins of the fruit were sitting on the ground nearby while other parts hung onto my dark jeans, for their lives.
I rose and shook them off. I kicked them aside with my shoe and sat back down. Clutching my pants I felt they were really slippery - and wet, so I groaned.
“Really?” I muttered to myself.
After three minutes, my energy felt like it had returned. I reached for my knife again and continued my work, hacking away at it clumsily.
While I worked, the same doubt roamed my head. Once I finish cutting through this thing, what could I even use it for?
…Should I eat it raw?
I gagged at that thought.
The moon was high in the sky, smiling while shining its artificial light onto the bronze sea. I looked at my work, the whole thing appeared to be skinned now. I smiled, weary.
And immediately afterwards, I had to stop myself from falling flat on the ground.
All I could feel was tired right now, my journey up to this point had been full of twists, turns, and unexpected discoveries, even for how short it has been. Who could’ve guessed I had this potential in fire magic?
I began trying to cut the skinned pumpkin apart, but the dagger was too weak. As I slotted it in and pushed, it wouldn’t budge.
…Until, very suddenly.
It skated down the fruit’s dense exterior, the blade splitting not only that width, but something else.
Something else that was there, and important.
My hand recoiled in harsh pain, crimson liquid escaping from the deep cut as if it forced a prison hiatus. A dot of my blood fell onto the orange grass, I yelled in pain.
With my right hand, I tried my fire magic to try and cauterize the wound.
That, unfortunately, didn’t go very well. The flame I summoned was tiny, which kept it from producing enough warmth to defeat the wound.
I should spend more time practicing magic before trying this again…
My heart was slamming my ribs like a ferocious lion. I reached inside my bag and looked in it for a bandage, or something close enough to cover it.
I scrambled trying to grab a bandage. My hand came out with some other tools and some thin white clothing I had looted from pirate sailors, which would fail the job. Blood had oozed down making two red streams on my hand, and a decently sized blob had formed on the ground. I winced, blood in a situation like this made me squeamish.
Grimacing, I went with the sailor’s shirt in hopes of apprehending the wound. I applied pressure with it, the wound only howled more and more.
Despite the pressure, some of the blood leaked onto my hand and then down to my sleeve and arm, adding insult to the fruitless attempt. At this point I had only one idea left, to combine both cauterization with bandage pressure.
Frantically summoning my fire in my left hand, Nothing happened at first for a minute or two. I panicked, trying to get it to come out immediately.
Come on, please…
A spontaneous burst of flames came out, begrudgingly. While I managed to shield my face and chest from it, the blast ignited the shirt, some of the plants around me, and my pants into bright orange flames. The flames, despite how intense and sudden, only made the wound feel worse.
My vision became blurry. My hand was yelling an SOS call. I could feel my body swaying…
Stray flames caused burning leaves to fall on my body. My hands suffered significant burns, and my bleeding hand felt this especially. I could see blurred flames on my pants and legs, which added a universal hot and stinging feeling to my body. The agony was only growing like an angry swarm of ants.
The sum of pain on my body was too intense. The flames were eating up my skin while my hand was leaking liters of blood, it was all too…
Thud…
Everything went dark.
**- - - = - - -(March 10th, Y1854)- - - = - - - **
I could feel my arms were tired, both were a bit hot and neither wanted to move. I looked at them, my left was thoroughly covered in a white bandage while my right was just burned. Last night was very chaotic, more than I’d want to admit.
I felt my body, my tank-top managed to survive last night in a pretty good shape; the tank-top was hardly burned, only parts of the white top were darker which was miraculous. My jeans and hoodie, however, suffered a fate worse than death. When I looked beneath my blanket, all I saw were my black boxer shorts which I wore beneath and my bare legs, partially burnt. My face blushed while I saw that my shoes and socks were also gone. My bare feet and legs were still suffering from the aftermath of yesterday.
I was draped with a thick and warm gray blanket, presumably made from an animal’s hide. My worn body hung from a low hammock, which was also friendly to the body.
My eyes fully opened up, I examined the room. I was in a brown wooden hut with a low roof, which was made of a mix of straw and wood. Nearby was a small drawer with a few items on it, such as lotion and a roll of bandages which I assumed was the one used to patch my hand back up.
Outside it looked like it was still somewhat late out, but there was some light on the horizon. I assumed it was about five o’clock.
Rocking in the hammock, I stretched my arms and pulled the blanket up to my neck. I felt my feet poking out at the end, the cold air was bitter as opposed to earlier.
I tucked my feet below the blanket immediately. I tried closing my eyes again, I was still very tired.
Curling up helped myself to more comfort, but it made the hammock sway a little bit more in exchange. This didn’t bother me enough to care about it, so I just closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep…
…
…
…
“Master.” A young voice said. Hearing that term sent a slight chill down my spine.
My head rose above the hammock’s covers, there was another boy standing there in black shorts and a white tank top, brown hair, and tanned skin which was darker in color than mine. He had no shoes on, and parts of his right leg were… Grey? Metallic? What?
Following them came a man with a gray hood, who was wearing an interesting scarf made from wolf skin. He had a brown beard and some iron leggings and boots with a gray tank top as a shirt. He had bright skin and well constructed arms.
“I see. They’re awake.” He said. His voice was low pitched and heavy, but I found it… comforting, in an odd sense.
The apprentice stepped aside so the master could come in and approach me. While I fell back into the hammock, his figure loomed above me, his ominous care. Without realizing it, I was shivering.
“He is freezing.” The master said. The apprentice shortly walked over holding another blanket, darker than the one I was using already. The master spread it out and laid it over my chest and legs. I stretched my legs back out and the soft covering felt marvelous for them.
The apprentice quickly turned and went back outside, but the master turned and walked to the exit with far less haste. I peeked over the hammock’s edge, the master stopped as he reached the way out. His arm was resting on the frame of it.
I watched him curiously while he stood like a boulder in a meadow. He was staring at something on the island.
After a few minutes, he turned around just enough to look at me, spectating his spectating. His dark eyes looked like glittering river rocks during the morning.
He took a step back in my direction. “What is your name?” Some butterflies gathered in my stomach.
I was quiet for a moment. “V-vega anch-chor.” I said, stuttering mostly from nervousness, realizing he was probably upset with my charade last night.
“What are you here for?” He asked me.
My mind became a void of thoughts when I heard those… strangely biting words. I closed my eyes and tried to gather my mind….
Despite, I felt like a hollow wind passing through the bronze seas.
My eyes opened, I saw him looking straight down at me. “I’m… n-not very su-sure, to be honess-st…”
He nodded before moving a few steps back from the hammock. “A vagabond. What occurred last night?”
He didn’t seem very upset at me, more so curious. I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on talking, “I was trying to get some things I had from my bag when I accidentally cut part of my hand open.”
“And I’m assuming you misused a heat spell, hoping to cure the wound?”
“Ayyup.”
The man went back to the hut’s entryway and looked back in the same direction as earlier. I tried to take my mind off the worries from before, closing them and focusing.
A sudden worry hit me. “Speaking of that fire, did you find anything around the spot where the fire happened?”
The man nodded. “We found parts of your pants and shirt in ashes. We removed them to avoid them further burning your skin.”
“But what about my backpack?”
The man looked back at me with a small frown. “We couldn’t find an item like that, unfortunately. I’m sorry.”
I smashed my right hand against my left, and sighed.
There goes my change of clothes. And my pajamas. And my spare pants. Walking around in public will be humiliating.
“There were, however, some gold coins and some burnt food items there. We assumed those coins were some galleons you had on you.” He said.
I perked up and rose. “That’s music to my ears, Thank goodness.”
I pulled myself up to a sitting position. That statement helped me gain the motivation to get up.
Using whatever strength was still in my body, I pulled myself out of bed. I walked over the short grass, wet and refreshing, to the hut’s exit.
I tried to squeeze past the master. While he didn’t mind what I was wearing, His arm grabbed mine.
He was observing both of my burnt arms - and my legs, too, for some strange reason. His brown eyes were glowing with a curiously soft yellow hue.
“You have potential.” He told me, “I can teach you something great.”
I stared at him, confused. “That’s nice, but you haven’t told me your name yet?”
He looked slightly bothered by that phrase, forgetting one of the most civil things to do in this scenario. “I am Sarloveze. I can teach you the art of iron leg if you have the willpower to do it.”
“What exactly is iron leg?” I asked.
“A fighting style.” He began, “The main focus is to train the muscles and bones of the legs and feet to become more heavy and dense than the most tough metals.”
I gave him another uneasy look. I tried to exit again, but he kept holding on.
“I promise that it will be simple. Did you see my apprentice’s leg?”
“Uhm, I did.” I remembered the distinct metallic particles on his leg, the strange fusion between bone and metal.
“This style will aim to strengthen your body to the point where your feet will end up being just like that.”
My body shivered. “That sounds painful.”
“You will get familiar with the iron leg’s weight as you use it.”
“Why doesn’t that comfort me?”
His observant look faded and he looked me in the eyes. “This is an offer, not a promise. You are staying here for a few days regardless due to what you did to yourself last afternoon.”
I looked back at my arms, which the flames had a pirate party on.
“What are you thinking?”
My body’s weight pressed down on my legs. I turned around and walked back to the hammock in which I had awoken from.
“I feel like I need some more rest,” I told him, “Even if I took your offer, my whole body is in terrible shape and I wouldn’t be able to learn with you.”
He nodded towards me as I began crawling into the hammock and pulling the blanket over my body. I laid down and tried to relax, letting my muscles be at peace.
Sarloveze came over to me. After a moment, he opened his mouth.
“Do you accept, novice?”
I thought about it for a moment, my eyelids were beginning to weigh themselves down, the weariness in my body growing.
I had been doing pretty well off of basic combat so far, my basic fighting skills have not only taken down a user of an exotic magic, but a samurai - a dangerous one - as well. An upgrade would be very useful and appreciated by now, I’d only be facing horrors worse and worse from here on out. And who knows what the wizards or other foes in the sky are like?
… This looked like an offer I couldn’t put down, mentioning that.
“I accept, master.” I replied, weariness pulling through.
“Your training will begin in two days.” He said. “Take your time and rest, and get yourself acquainted with the island when you feel ready to.”
He left the hut a moment after saying that.
Stuck in the hut alone, the weight of my eyelids became too dominant. I yawned, my arms stretched out, and I fell asleep.
Credit
@SpectreTheFox helped touch up parts of this so if it looks nicer than the mines stories, that’s why.
Wanted to get this out before Saturday.