It was almost as if we were choreographed. We were a mismatched chaos crew, but we had faced the World Dungeon together.

  Soup, serious now, moved like smoke, slipping up behind the sentry at the base of the gangplank. There was a pause as some sailors walked by, then a dull thud as he used [Render Unconscious], and the man crumpled without a sound. I was right behind him and caught the body before it hit the wood and lowered it gently behind a bollard.

  We swarmed up the gangplank. I gripped my hammer, muscles coiled, waiting for the shout, the alarm, the inevitable clash of steel and flesh.

  But the deck was eerily empty. Suspiciously so. The lanterns were lit, and in their dim light we saw an absence of activity. The wheel was unmanned, where was no one in the rigging, no sailor checking ropes. I thought they were getting ready to sail?

  “Where are they?” Copperbeard grumbled, looking left and right.

  “Maybe they’re all below deck prepping to sail?” Soup suggested, his voice echoing too loudly in the silence.

  “This is a sailing ship, Soup,” Ayerelia sighed. “All the sailing prep happens up here, you know, with the sails. Though I think it might have augmented magical wind propulsion.” She was looking up.

  There were two sets of sails. Some looked to be of regular cloth and snapped back and forth in the breeze fitfully, like the ship was impatient to get going. The other sails, hard to make out against the sky, were dark and billowed full though the wind wasn’t coming from the correct direction to do that.

  We pushed forward toward the center of the deck. The silence was heavy, pressing against my ears. This was wrong. It felt too easy. My back itched like there were unseen eyes upon me.

  “Hold on,” Vyper whispered, holding up a hand. He was crouched by the main hatch leading below deck. “It’s open.”

  “Ok” I said softly, walking over and crouching beside him. “Let’s go. Dekka is down there.”

  “I didn’t open it. It was just sitting open.” Vyper looked up at me. “On a ship about to sail? But with no one on deck. They want us to go down there.”

  A chill that had nothing to do with the sea air swept over me. I looked up at the rigging. I looked at the shadows on the upper quarterdeck.

  “It’s a trap,” Rose realized, her voice tight. “Back! Move back!”

  Before we could move, the hatch Vyper was examining exploded with magical lights.

  A wall of purple magical force shot up and then crackled like electricity, the light crawling across the wooden planks of the deck at us. There was no way to escape it.

  This was going to be bad. Would it hurt?

  I yelped when the purple force grabbed my leg, locking it to the deck, and then climbed up my body, creating a force prison just centimeters off my skin. My head was left free, the only part of my body I could still move. Looking around, I saw we were all being held immobile by a pulsing purple light.

  Floodlights from the masts above snapped on, blinding us with magical brilliance.

  Slow clapping echoed from the upper deck of the stern. How had we not seen him? I had looked where he was currently standing just a few minutes ago and had seen nothing.

  Looking down at us with a glass of wine in his hand was the wealthy Lord. He was smiling, his teeth white in the gloom. Beside him stood his bodyguards. Two of whom were aiming crossbows at us.

  “I knew you would come,” the Lord said to us as he descended the stairs to join us on the main deck, his voice conversational, as if discussing the weather. “The unexpected variables always try to balance the equation.”

  The problem with magical traps is that they are terribly efficient.

  He actually swirled his wine. This was some top tier moustache twirling villain shit. Lazy storyline writing. I sneered up at him.

  “Give me my dog back, you petty thief!”

  “Oh, no, your words wound me.” He pantomimed being shot with an arrow. “But you got me there. I am a thief. But petty? Hardly.” He walked right up to me and looked me over the way one looks at a car they were thinking of buying. “And now I have stolen you and your friends as well.” He gave a brief nod of approval as he glanced us over, his face faltering a moment when he took in Rose’s small stature.

  “It is time to say good night.” He said and walked back up the stairs to join his guards, who had never moved.

  “What the fuck do you mean, goodnight!?” Vyper spat at him.

  Soup and Barry started yelling. Copperbeard started to sing, but I couldn’t make out the words over the cacophony the rest of the party was making.

  The only one who was silent was the elf. Ayerelia was looking at the man with interest.

  The archers shot their arrows. My heart skipped a beat, not with fear but with rage. The barbarian in me hated being held down. The arrows didn’t thud into flesh. They pierced the wooden ship by our feet, and a yellowish gas was released on impact.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Fuck nuggets. This was terrible writ-

  I woke up to the smell of mildew and unwashed bodies. My head felt like I’d used it instead of my hammer in a fight.

  “She’s awake,” a voice whispered. Vyper.

  I cracked my eyes open. They were gritty, and my eyelashes were stuck together. My eyes slowly focused in the gloom. We were in a cage. A literal, iron-barred cage inside a dark, swaying room. The motion told me everything: we were at sea and that I was not a good sailor.

  My stomach churned.

  I felt at my back. Where was my war hammer? I looked around to see if it had fallen off. But no, of course they had disarmed me. I looked around at my friends. They would have disarmed all of us.

  But the mages. I opened my mouth to ask Rose.

  “Nope,” Rose said from the corner, responding to the look on my face. She was sitting on the damp floor, looking furious. “The whole brig is warded. Maybe a larger area. Mage and I can’t access our mana, and I can’t open my inventory.”

  I looked around. The whole squad was there. Copperbeard was pacing like a caged tiger. Barry was looking distinctly green, clutching his stomach. Vyper was sitting sullenly with his back against the hull of the ship. Soup and Mage were poking at the bars.

  “Where is she?” I rasped, gripping the bars.

  “Down the hall,” Vyper pointed through the bars.

  At the far end of the brig, in a separate, reinforced cell, I saw a small shape huddled on the floor. She was still muzzled. But her little face was pointed my way.

  Awooo? It was weak, but it was there.

  “I’m here.” My heart broke when her little tail gave a halfhearted wag.

  The heavy door to the brig opened. The Lord walked in, flanked by four guards, and holding a perfumed handkerchief to his nose.

  “Excellent,” he said, looking us over with avarice. “You are all awake. I wanted to make sure you were settled into your ... accommodations. You will be enjoying my hospitality for a while.”

  “Let us out, ye bastard,” Copperbeard said, “and we’ll give you our review.”

  “Such spirit,” the Lord mused. “It will serve you well in the North. We are traveling to the Frost Pits of Valoria. There are mines there deep beneath the ice. They have a problem with keeping their workers alive. With spirits and strong backs like yours, you might last awhile. Which is good for you, and for me as you lot will fetch a high price.”

  Mines? That was a trope. And that had been a monologue. Short. But the evil bad guy had actually monologued at us. I was almost amused. But he was talking about slavery. We could log out, or in my case die, and leave. But did that mean there were NPCs out there toiling away as slaves?

  The Lord chuckled at the looks on our faces. “Though I don’t think you will bring in as much as the marvelous little beast over there,” he nodded at Dekka. “I hear rumour she is a hellhound. The Emperor has a menagerie. He enjoys watching rare creatures fight for sport. I imagine she will provide… minutes of entertainment before she is torn apart by a Void Drake.”

  My vision went red. Not the game mechanic Rage, but pure, human hatred. I threw myself at the bars, reaching for him.

  “I will kill you!” I roared. “I will burn this ship to ash and drag you down to hell!”

  “You won't get a chance. Anyway I did have to come down here and to thank you for running into my trap. You won't be seeing me again.” He waved at his Bodyguards and they spun with him as he left.

  “Frost Pits,” Rose stated flatly, I think she also noticed the lack of originality. “I hate the cold. My hands get all stiff in the cold.”

  “Focus, Rose,” Barry. He looked at Soup. “Tell me you have an idea.”

  Soup, our rogue, grinned. He reached into his mouth and pulled out a small, twisted piece of wire. “I always keep a spare lock pick under my tongue. Rogue Rule #4.”

  “Can you pick the lock?” I asked skeptically. Could it be that easy? Then again, this wasn’t a subtle story arc.

  “Easily.” His confidence was obvious, but was it earned?

  “There look to be runes etched into the bars.” Vyper said, pointing at esoteric looking groves in the bars.

  “Those are anti magic ruins,” Mage said quietly, his voice devoid of emotion. Rose nodded in agreement. That must have been what they were investigating.

  “Exactly,” Soup said. “And my lock pick is the most mundane of tools.”

  “Even if we get out of the cage, we have no gear. Those guards outside have swords and magic.” Barry pointed out.

  “Just get the door open,” I said, standing up, my eyes still on my dog. “I don’t need a war hammer to be a Barbarian. I just need my hands.”

  Soup went to work. It took him barely thirty seconds. Click.

  The door creaked.

  “Wait,” I whispered. “Vyper, can you act sick?”

  “Yeah,” Vyper said, then catching on, “Oh god, I feel wretched,” he said.

  “Louder.”

  Vyper let out a retch that sounded like a dying walrus that should win him an acting nomination somewhere.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Guard! One of is puking! I think he’s choking on it!”

  “Oh god he can’t breathe!” Rose wailed with a little overacting, but not bad.

  Vyper made more choking sounds.

  I hoped that keeping us alive was enough to get their attention.

  Footsteps pounded down the hall. A guard appeared, wrinkling his nose. “Quiet down in th—”

  I kicked the cage door.

  It flew open, slamming into the guard’s face with a sickening crunch. He went down instantly.

  25XP!

  “Go!” Barry shouted.

  We surged out. The moment we stepped past the runed bars of the cage, Rose’s hands started to glow and Mage’s robes swirled as if they were in water.

  I grabbed the guard by the wrist and flipped him over. He had a sword on him. Not helpful to me. “Hey Vyper, want a sword?”

  Without a word, he came over and pulled it free.

  Two more guards showed up in the stairwell.

  “Step back,” Rose commanded.

  The guard’s head must have been relatively intact, because when Rose’s hands wove a pattern in the air the man stood up. His eyes opened, and it was clear there was no one home.

  The undead guard turned unsteadily and faced his erstwhile comrades. He wasn’t armed anymore, and watching him, I am not sure that would have mattered. It was clumsy and slow.

  The other guards were freaked out, however. We just moved back to watching the show. The one raised his crossbow and shot the undead guard in the chest. This had no reaction other than there was half an arrow sticking out of his shirt. No blood dripped, no flinch of pain.

  The other guard, who had been right behind the archer, drew his sword and tried to stab at the zombie from the confines of the stairwell. This resulted in him slicing the ear of the archer and opening up a shallow, bloodless cut on the zombie’s face.

  It looked like the group was fine without my help. I charged down to the other end where Dekka’s cage sat. I smashed the lock with a single blow. I ripped the door open.

  Dekka looked up at me, her gaze steady but unreadable. Why couldn’t I read her thoughts? I dropped to my knees and tore the muzzle off.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  Dekka stood up. Now I could feel her anger. And relief. And … love? I felt an overwhelming feeling of rightness coming from her. I was there, her person, and now all was as it should be.

  She shook herself, her fur rippling. Shadows were pulled towards her form, elongating and breaking off, swirling around her until she was once again wearing them like a mech suit.

  But now she was larger. She had been the size of a pony; now she was the size of a small horse.

  She threw back her head and let out a howl that was felt more than heard and that shook the very timbers of the ship.

  “Good girl,” I grinned. “Go get ‘em.”