There were a thousand things to be done in a limited time frame. An entirely new crew of cursed beings were orienting themselves around my broken ship. A hostile choir of sirens were sizing them up, trying to decide if killing on principle was worth the effort. Notifications for each and every crewmember were swimming at the crest of my subconscious, just waiting to be recognized. Above those notifications came the notification about my new ship and everything about it. There also seemed to be some skill advancements thrown in there or good measure.

But I gave thought to none of that. They were inconsequential in the face of what was happening to my mind at that moment. No sooner was I notified about Davy Jones engaging my mental capacities – something I was powerless to resist since Jones literally held my sworn heart in his possession – than my mana pool dropped precipitously. It formed in a way completely foreign to me in a design complex enough I was lost nearly instantly.

It was still my mana being weaved, even if I wasn’t in control of it. I recognized when it had created something, and I knew when a different source of magic – a much larger source – reached out and met it.

Where my spellwork had centered, a head appeared. It had two great white eyes that filled half its face, thick gummy lips on a wide mouth, horns on the top of his head and shaggy hair floating in the water. The head swelled, growing in size until it was larger than I was, engorged with magic. Inky darkness began spewing from its lips.

As I tried to comprehend what manner of conjuring I’d been forced into, the wide mouth opened … then stretched back further and further, not stopping until it had opened a full 180 degrees. It released a cloud of black water reminiscent of an octopuses’ ink.

And out of that inky darkness stepped Davy Jones.

With a feat of magic, Jones had used me to create an anchor for some teleportation spell he had! I had no idea where Jones had been prior to this, but that kind of magic was something mages spent their lives trying to create!

Characteristically, Jones didn’t care for my astonishment.

“I set you on a simple task months ago, and you’ve finally finished it with the motliest assortment of degenerates I’ve ever seen!”

I was taken aback not only by his sudden appearance, but by his criticism. I’d spent my time carefully avoiding capture! Did he want his new servant to be caught immediately after he was created? Before I could figure out how to respond, the siren matriarch approached.

“Jones!” She hissed. “What are you doing in the shallows? You have been behaving oddly in recent years, meddling in surface affairs and encroaching where you do not belong …”

Jones waved a dismissive hand at the matriarch. “Begone, pest!”

To my utter shock the matriarch closed her fanged mouth and with a snarl turned and swam away! Her entire choir fled with her at speed. I’d fought with that matriarch twice now and gone through a great deal of trouble because of her, and Davy Jones just dismissed her! And she obeyed!

“Months of opportunity,” Jones said again. “And no growth worth speaking of! And where have you advanced your profession abilities? Hiding your nature? Spending time on land? Pitiful!”

Whatever humble, polite, respectful, obsequious (ok, maybe not that far) reply I was trying to come up with failed me at his reprimand. I was reminded of all the time I’d spent agonizing over my decision and future because of the vague guidelines and threats facing me. Some of that attitude seeped through the first words I greeted my master with.

“I found the best route I could to cover risks I couldn’t comprehend.”

Jones looked at me askance. “When you found yourself in my depths, you had just amassed hundreds of thousands of XP in a matter of hours. I give you a mission to establish yourself – a mission to get the bare minimum you need to utilize your class! – and after months have passed you not only hadn’t completed this simple task, you’d only accumulated a few thousand XP. A few thousand! I expected more from you!”

“Why?” I demanded, unable to stop myself. “I’d spent my whole life at sea and hadn’t yet gotten level 10; why would my one night of crazed battle – which I was lucky to survive – be your standard for my growth?”

“Because I gave you a goal! And I gave you the class to do what you never could have!”

“I had a vague goal and no idea of how my abilities worked! I still don’t know most of them. I also had the threat of the most powerful people in the world hunting me down if they found me.” Jones snorted and muttered something insulting about the power those rulers had. “So what did you expect me to do? Swim to the nearest ship and start slaughtering for XP?”

“I wouldn’t have been opposed to that.” He stepped towards my ship, some trick of magic or his curse allowing him to step through water however he wished. Even my curse only let me ‘anchor’ myself to the bottom, anything else required I be ‘adrift’ and swim. “You would have attracted more interest sooner, true, but you would have been more powerful than they could handle sooner than they could muster forces to fight you. Instead the only useful thing it seems you picked up was mental magic.”

The deeper magic that was mental magic was a powerful tool, and seemingly the only ones Jones cared about. “You know I wasn’t exactly a combative person when you took me on. I had some training to do!”

“Why?” Jones demanded. “Let your crew do your fighting, let your ship protect you. You could have done without the novice-level weapons skills it seems you spent so much time on.”

Well it’s not like I knew that! I was still very much in the dark. There was a limit to how much you could complain to powerful men, though. “What skills do I need to be effective? How do I deal with the people that are coming after me?”

Jones growled. “You want a leveling plan? Fine! I was gracious with your freedom but I’ll start pulling in your leash.” He held out his empty hand like he was gripping something and I stopped cold. I fought for a breath through the feeling of someone gripping my heart – the heart that Jones had taken when he’d given me my curse. “You will not advance your level so the experience from your enemies will be sweeter. You will avoid investing XP into that wreck of a ship you’ve claimed and instead focus on your abilities. And because you seem to have reverted to the courageous level of a guppy, you will not pass over opportunities to gain more XP, not even if it puts you in mortal peril! The sea is not a tame place, and you need to learn to gamble again as you ride the currents!”

I felt his commands imprinted on me on a deeper level than words. Davy Jones reached into his pocket, and the grip on my heart suddenly eased.

“As for your mission,” he said, pulling out an amulet. “There is an old friend of mine for days of yore. He is being hunted down. This amulet will lead you to his position. Find him, and deal with his pursuers. If you fail,” Jones stared me down, “then I will reel in every inch of freedom I have graced you with. You will serve on the Perdition until your soul wearies of life and you lose even the desire to hope for freedom again. I have made an investment in you, it is time it paid off!”

He looked at my ship with the cracked masts and broken lines. The crew had assembled around it, clinging to familiar structures as the hull bobbed on the surface, whacked down with every passing wave.

“I suppose a heavier investment is in order …”

Again he commandeered my mental capacities, this time something else flowed through. Jones looked through my ship’s interface like it was his own, manipulating it faster than I could think. His magic – or was he using his own XP through me? – caused the masts to snap back together like a broken bone being realigned. The lines shot through the water to have their ends meet again. The ship righted itself, staying just beneath the waves, my crew still clinging to it.

Jones began casting his teleportation spell again. “You wanted advice? Level up your leadership skill as much as you can. The level of your crew will be capped at your own level plus your leadership level. You can have level thirty fighters do your butcher work for you, but you need to be able to command them. Otherwise, they’ll be operating on your own level.” A fish head looking like a giant pike began to materialize below Jones. “Oh, and make the next ability you unlock be ‘domain’.” The squeeze on my heart was the physical reminder that his last command wasn’t just friendly advice.

The materialized giant fish head below Jones suddenly snapped its jaws around his body, engulfing him. Then the fine scales flaked away in a shimmer to show the bleached skeleton beneath – with no sign of Davy Jones.

The skull sank into the depths and I let it, taking a closer look at the amulet Jones had given me. It looked like a shamanistic medallion I’d expect to see on an orc, made of stylized bone. In the center in place of a gem or portrait was a single dark colored scale roughly the size of my palm. I put in on and instantly had the motivation to go north-west. That was nearly the whole ocean, but a bit of focus let me realize it was in the Median Ocean off the coast of Bandarn. A long journey … a long journey with a crew mostly made up of slaves and severely lacking in capable manpower. I also had to sail right past my old home of Antarus. It would be difficult.

There were so many things I’d wanted over the past few months. I’d just gotten some of my answers, but I’d also had fears confirmed. My timely meeting with Jones may have seemed like an act of providence to save my life, but it was indeed a deal with the devil. If I could stay on Jones’ good side I would stay free with all the power he’d given me. If I couldn’t, I’d rue the day I had passed over death. And what were my odds of staying on Jones good side forever?

It didn’t matter what the odds were. I had an imprinted command to gamble and take mortal risks now. I’d play with the hand I was dealt.

My crew was waiting for me on the ship. I had expected to deal with a barrage of questions and demands as soon as I was in range, but they were all silent. I felt the weight of their unasked questions like a palpable force.

Either from habit or because they craved the familiar amidst recent changes, they stood on the deck. I swam just above the gunwale, giving me the illusion of levitating above them all. I’d want to break them of the mentality that the deck of the ship was their ground – the increased maneuverability I found while sailing submerged was incredibly useful – but for now the idea that they were looking up to me as their new leader seemed advantageous.

“Bring the slaves up on deck,” I told Burdette. “This concerns them too.”

The former captain balked. “Domenic, I think you and I should talk before …”

“Have them brought up, Burdette. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re out of your depth here. I’ll address you with the rest of the crew.”

Burdette and I hadn’t gotten along and I needed to show that our relationship had drastically changed. But I did respect the man’s skills, and wanted his support. I thought I could give him something to sweeten the deal, but I wouldn’t be pulled aside by him now like I had to give advance notice before I could take charge. That would undermine my new authority.

It took several long minutes for the slaves to be brought up on deck. Burdette had given the order for them to be accounted for as they came up, which I approved of. While everyone was getting into place, I tried looking through the most important of my notifications.

Death's Consort (Cursed)

Ship Class

Carrack

Captain

Domenic Seaborn

Ship Durability

,000/34,000

Ship level

Cursed Status:

Voice of the Crew

From Nothing

Blood Payment

Ship alterations:

Speed

Maneuverability

Handling

Durability

Modifications:

Repairs

Effects

Relationships

…