Chapter XLII (42)

  Her time aboard The Terror was significantly different than in her first loop. She wasn’t the rich passenger gallivanting off on an adventure to save her friend. This time, she was last minute hired help. Other sailors ordered her about and mocked her whenever she failed to do something like raise a sail fast enough or tie a complex knot. That last one irritated her especially. She’d always considered herself decently adept at knots, but not in her new peers’ eyes. They considered her a laughable joke. She heard more than one sailor make snide speculations on who she had to have slept with to get hired on. Only her very visible display with knives kept them from asking her directly. She would have preferred a sword, but she made do with a few kitchen knives and a mostly rust free machete she discovered amongst the old cargo that never sold.

  “Up then under,” Wes instructed. The cabin boy was nearly half her age but knew dozens more knots. He struggled with eye contact and constantly blushed when he spoke, but he was only too happy to teach her when she asked him. Both days of their trip so far they’d retreated to a quiet corner of the hull after lunch to practice with the rope.

  She did as he said, tying her rope into a loop, almost the same as a lasso.

  “Interesting,” she said. “It’s similar to a knot I know that’s used to hunt game.”

  “Like, animals?” Wes asked. “Deer? Rabbits?”

  “I learned it to help me with a prowling crawler problem.”

  “A…prowling crawler?” The boy risked a glance up from his ropes.

  “Six long, thin legs. Head sunken into its shoulders. Bit smaller than you are, so they’re not hard to overpower. But their claws are laced with a really potent poison. Just a scratch is enough to take out a normal person.”

  “That’s why you used a rope trap!” Wes exclaimed, clearly excited to have caught on.

  “Exactly. They’re legs are deadly, but also fragile.” Mitsuko untied her sailor’s knot and tied the rope into the one used as a trap. “Here, put your hand through this loop.”

  Wes did as she instructed. Then she snapped it closed with a tug. He jerked back in surprise, then gaped down at the rope around his wrist.

  “The idea is to trip up the prowling crawler and break its leg.”

  “I don’t get it,” he mumbled.

  “I mean, that wasn’t our primary defense against them,” Mitsuko explained. “Just one trick among many. For example, we also used thin wires, enchanted with invisibility, to clothesline their legs if we knew they’d be going in a specific direction.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not it. I don’t understand why you’re here. You let the others shout at you all day. If you can kill monsters, why are you here?”

  “Ah.” Thankfully, Mitsuko had planned out a fake backstory for this. She shrugged and said one word. “Gambling.”

  That lie was enough to convince Wes. “Did you try the new card game from Hon? Beasts and Undead.”

  Mitsuko stopped herself from chuckling. She knew the creators of that particular game. “I’ve heard of it. But I mostly bet on outcomes of world events.”

  “Like what?”

  Mitsuko thought fast, coming up with a subject she knew enough about to not get caught in her lie. “Well, there was speculation about what the Hon Emperor was doing traveling over to the Prismatic Archipelago. I placed…a fair bit of money on predicting his reasons.”

  “That emperor never made it though,” Wes said.

  “Exactly. And now I’m here.”

  “That’s not fair though!” Wes protested. “Wasn’t he stopped by the weird dome? He couldn’t help not making it in time. There was no way to predict that.”

  Mitsuko couldn’t help but smile. “That’s part of the gamble. Nothing is ever sure in life.”

  Wes did not seem appeased by that answer. He continued to grumble about injustices. He was a good kid.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  “Folly of youth,” a rat said from her pocket. “Oh naivety. If only justice was truly so simple.”

  “Do you have a hero?” Wes asked. “Like, a super powerful mage you aspire to be like?”

  Mitsuko blinked. She slowly finished another knot as she considered the question. “I suppose I have a few. I’m lucky enough that I have friends who fit that description.”

  “You’re friends with powerful mages?” Wes scooted forward. “How strong are they? Can they shoot thunderbolts and summon comets from space?”

  “Strong enough to…slay Dragons.”

  Wes’s eyes went wide as saucers. “You’re joking? How?”

  After she finished telling one story, Wes demanded another. She told him all about evil necromancers and giant monsters she’d witnessed slain. Her role in the stories was always very miniscule. Simply surviving the encounters had been a victory for her.

  Unfortunately, she lost track of time and a furious sailor hunted them down to demand they return to their duties. Wes scampered off while Mitsuko went to start scrubbing down the ship's interior to keep it clean of mold.

  “Interesting company you keep,” Sterling commented as she reached for a particularly awkward stretch of planks with her scrub brush. “Nothing compared to the sages of my time. But the closest thing I’ve heard of since awakening. Though that necromancer your pal defeated sounded rather lackluster. A ghoul infestation? That never would have spread back in my time.”

  “They’re heroes,” Mitsuko growled.

  “As you say. I won’t argue with the fact that they engaged in heroic deeds. But so much knowledge has fallen to the wayside. You will far surpass even the most powerful mages alive once you complete the Prismatic Spiral. You’ll be a hero unlike any the world has seen in centuries.”

  His words gave her goose prickles. A hero. Her heart hurt. She desperately wanted what he said to be true, but a weighty doubt lingered, pressing down on her.

  “I am a sword dancer,” she said simply.

  “You’re the Champion of the Prismatic Spiral. A temporal mage unlike any other. Able to wield the weaves of time to your bidding.”

  “Why did you choose me?”

  “You were selected by virtue of your talent. Only the tiniest percentage of the population has the raw potential for greatness that you possess. Even us sages can’t individually match you. I’ve only ever encountered one other in my entire existence who stood as your equal in potential for temporal spellcraft. Naturally, when you entered the Prismatic Spiral’s perimeter, it immediately activated, seizing on your existence and making you our Champion. Quite simply, there was no better person in a thousand years. And you arrived not a moment too soon. A few more months and the Prismatic Spiral would have simply halted the passage of time entirely for the entire archipelago.”

  Mitsuko stopped scrubbing.

  “Does that answer your question?” Sterling asked.

  She clenched her jaw and resisted the urge to throw the rat at the wall. She should leave Sterling to fend for himself against the ship’s cat.

  “Yes,” she said through gritted teeth. “Thank you, Sterling.”

  It could be worse. At least this answer put a few fears to sleep. According to Sterling, there was no one else who could accomplish this. She was the best option. But that also placed a different expectation on her. In the past, when she accomplished something useful, everyone had always been pleasantly surprised. No one anticipated her help. Survival alone had been praiseworthy. Now people depended on her. It was on her to save hundreds of thousands of people. They expected her to be the hero.

  Everything she always dreamed of. And everything she always dreaded. Mixed into a single concoction of fate.

  She shook off the eerie anxiety and decided to focus on everything one step at a time.

  Last loop, she had been a performer. Someone to make a spectacle. This loop, her duty was that of an assassin.

  First task in front of her was disposing of Sett. The one armed cook was currently scheduled to a rest period, having finished washing the lunch rush’s dishes. He could be in his hammock, but judging by what she knew about him from the first loop, Sett would probably be exercising on the upper deck, near the bow. An inconveniently visible spot that nearly every member of the crew could see from their work stations. Not an ideal location for an assassination. If she had planned everything ahead of time, she would have brought a vial manticore venom or decollate spider thread. Nice easy assassination methods that could be thwarted by the Hon Emperor’s Elites, but not a random ship cook with one arm.

  But it was no sense in pondering on what she would have done. Or…she supposed there was actually some sense in it, since she could turn back the clock and revisit this challenge again in the future. However, at the moment it didn’t help her. Instead, she took stock of what tools she did have on hand. Obviously, she could just stab him with one of the many sharp objects on board. That would be simple. But everyone would turn on her in an instant. And, as the newest member of the crew, anything even remotely suspicious with his death would attract attention to her. Even more so if she just so happened to be on deck nearby when he suffered a stabbing or fell overboard.

  She scrubbed away at the walls as she considered and dismissed dozens of different plans. Then, while on her cleaning brigade, she reached the secret closet room where she’d attempted to stow away. Then, finally, a decent thought crossed her mind. Just the seed of a scheme, but one that she thought might actually grow into a plant of a plan.

  Checking her surroundings to make certain no one was nearby, she slipped into the secret room. This time, she carefully located the enchantment that had alerted Captain Alina of her presence and dismantled it with Mend.

  Then she rummaged through the crate full of enchanted knickknacks until she finally found what she was looking for. Perfect? Not quite, but she decided it was good enough to get the job done.

  In a few hours, Sett would be dead and gone. And she would have one less obstacle in her path.

  15 more chapters on my !!