Robert Ballard
We set sail the next morning. Father was happy to be out at sea with me. I suspected it was mainly due to the wind that I could bring that sent us skipping over the ocean. But I hoped it was also the fact that he hoped to induct me into the family business despite my other talents or at least instil in me a love of the sea rather than simply my ability to call the wind.
“We need to sail north first before heading towards Wester Levante,” Father stated as we cleared the island and he leaned on the rudder turning us towards the north.
“Why?” I asked confused, surely a straight line would be faster but ,there was some sort of obstacle on the open sea we had to avoid, maybe sea monsters or reefs.
“There is a strong current flowing south between the two isles and if you head on a straight bearing towards the isle you will end up far further south than where you are hoping to end up. It’s not a problem most days and certainly not for us with you on board but you need to be careful if you are heading into a prevailing wind otherwise you will find yourself swept south of Little Wester if you don’t watch out.” He explained.
“How far does the current flowing south go?” I asked wondering where on the sea you would end up.
“I don’t honestly know. I’ve never sailed further than Wester Levante or Little Wester. All I know is that it continues to go south past Little Wester. We will use it when we leave Wester Levante to reach Little Wester and you will see just how fast it can take you if you add the wind to it as well.” He shrugged when answering. It was easy to forget that while we might have a more seaworthy boat now but Kaius had grown up on Wester Isle and had not gone much further than that despite being able to sail. I was looking forward to clocking the exploration experience from this.
“Right come on Kai, let’s go!” he directed me to apply the wind and I did.
We spent the majority of the morning heading north before we turned east. He pointed out the current long before we reached it marked as it was by a lack of waves on the surface of the sea. We flew towards it before beginning to cross it.
“Can you tell how we are moving south as well as east now?” he asked me. It was deceptive, I couldn’t.
“No.” I replied.
“Well, we are going to stop in the middle of the current but I can show you just how dangerous this current can be.” He said before he dropped off an inflated pig’s bladder behind us as we traversed east across the current. I watched the bladder float behind us for a moment before it gradually started drifting further and further south behind us quickly disappearing out of sight and moving rapidly towards the south.
“This whole time I have us angle very slightly toward the north while heading east and we will still move south despite that. The current is strong and deceptively fast, it is always difficult to judge just how far south it will pull you which is why you need to aim north before you even attempt to go east.” He repeated.
. . .
The whole time that we were sailing I had all my senses on full filling in my mental map of the area. Sometimes the sea would be too deep for mana senses or echolocation to see anything more than the dark abyss we were sailing over but now and then I would see fish or even the sea bed rise never to meet us but to at least be within my sight.
Eventually, we left the southern current and it was just as we came within sight of Wester Levante that I spotted it. A wreck lying on the bottom of the seabed that had risen enough for me to see.
“There’s a wreck beneath us,” I told my father breaking the comfortable silence we had been sailing in.
“A wreck?” he asked surprised.
“Yes, we are coming up on it right now,” I replied.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“I’ve been straining my senses to see as much as I can see and that’s what I’m picking up,” I answered.
“Right below us now?” he asked before adding another question, “How deep?”
“Not too deep. Both of us could dive that deep.” I said excited at the possibility of exploring sunken ships maybe they had treasure on board.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Hmm,” he tapped his fingers on the rudder before saying, “Lower the sail.”
I hurried to obey letting the sail drop as he heaved the anchor over the side.
“No reason we can’t take a little look before we deliver those birds.” He said smiling at me.
It wasn’t long before we were stripped down and ready to dive. Each of us had a rock to help pull us down while he was bringing a rope down with us as well.
“Ready?” He asked.
“Ready,” I replied and we stepped off the side of the boat our rocks in our arms. We could dive down that deep without them but the rocks would speed up our descent and give us more time on the wreck to explore before we had to return to the surface to breathe. Breath Control, Diving and swimming would be getting a full workout on this dive.
Luckily the wreck was not too deep and there was still light to see by as we descended towards it. I had a little bit of an advantage over my father with mana sense, echolocation along with my super senses. But he had greater experience than me in both swimming and diving and he quickly accelerated ahead of me. However, I like to think that I was not far behind him.
The wreck as it came into view was a lot larger than ours closer in size to the Swift sailed by Mercurio. It looked like it had once had at least two masts, a hold and a captain’s cabin which is where Father seemed to be headed. I followed excitedly behind him.
We arrived at the windows to the captain’s cabin which had been popped out at some point in the life of the ship. A dark cave loomed in front of us.
Father gestured at me to ask if I could see into the gloom and I was happy to give him a thumbs up. There was hardly any light in there but a combination of my skills and senses meant that I was hardly blind despite the darkness. Handing me the end of the rope he had brought down he gestured once more at the cabin’s quarters suggesting I take a look and tie on anything worth retrieving.
As I made my way through the opening I found myself surrounded by wood. The table appeared to be bolted to the floor and anything loose that had once been in here had probably been washed out over the years. I could see a bunk bed, desk, even a cabinet that looked like it held plates strapped down many things that with more time we could salvage but the prize I aimed for was the box underneath the desk.
The small chest had lit up to my mana sense and unless I was terribly mistaken it held gems, pearls and hopefully gold inside it. I tied the rope onto the handle of the chest and pulled twice to get Father to help pull it towards the window.
He started dragging it across the floor towards the window.
At the window we manhandled it through very grateful that it fit through the window itself we were running out of time. Once out of the ship I bolted for the surface having pushed the strength of my skill Breath Control to the max.
As I headed to the top I could see my Father below tying up the chest properly to haul to the surface afterwards.
I breached the surface and sucked down lungfuls of fresh air. I was tempted to head back down below but waited for Father to follow me up.
“Into the boat.” He said when he arose, “Let’s pull it up.” He sounded excited.
Once we were both safely back in the boat he started to pull up the chest. There was little I could do to help him so I stowed away the rope as he pulled it up.
Finally, it lay on the bottom of the floor of our boat in front of us.
“Care to do the honours Kai.” He asked aware from our daily meetings of my more recent spellcraft and spellsong.
“Exclidono” I whispered in excitement. Our lessons continued apace with Lady Acacia and one of the skills she had taught us was how to unlock the simplest of locks. She had warned us that this wouldn’t work on enchanted, runed, glyphed or otherwise magically enforced locks but for mundane locks would work just fine.
If there had even been such magical reinforcements on the chest they had clearly run down over time being submerged under the sea and it opened with a click. As the chest opened my avaricious nature was completely satisfied. Inside the chest, it was nearly full of gold and silver coins with pouches of gemstones and pearls lying on top.
We both burst out laughing at our good fortune.
Ding! Treasure Sense (Lv 1)
“To the Silversea Family!” Father raised an imaginary toast. One I could truly appreciate having gained another new skill.
“To the Silversea family!” I replied as I imagined what else we could salvage from the wreck below us as well as how much the single chest we had recovered could buy us. My new skill seemed to imply that there was more of worth still hidden below the waves.
“Want to make another dive?” Father asked.
“Sure . . .” I hesitated. After my mistakes in letting my senses lapse, I was running them constantly. The gold had distracted me for a moment but looking into the depths we were no longer alone. An Octopus or mini Kraken, it was hard to tell, had emerged from somewhere and was now sinisterly hidden out of sight behind the wreck. If I was to add emotions to what I could sense using mind sense I would even go as far as to say that it was malevolently looking up at us just waiting for us to dive once more.
“No, there’s something down there now. Watching us.” I said after hesitating to confirm exactly what I was seeing.
“What can you see?” he asked.
“I don’t know but there are a lot of legs,” I answered. At this distance, it was hard to be accurate with my senses but there were definitely a lot of moving parts to it.
“Got lucky then we didn’t meet it down there. That could have been nasty. Still best fishing trip yet.” He smiled at our success. “On to Wester Levante, we will just drop off the birds and eggs then head onto Little Wester. It will be late by the time we get back but the current should take us swiftly south.” He thought things over out loud.
We carefully stowed away our new cargo behind the general odds and ends we carried locking it tightly in a hidden compartment that grandfather had found on the assassin’s boat then piled everything in front of it. We doubted we would be searched when dropping off a couple of birds but better to be safe than sorry. As much as I wanted to, I would have to wait until returning to Wester Isle before I counted our sunken treasure.
We raised our sail and set forth for the island that was only just visible on the horizon.