Dungeon Sniper

Captain Baha unchained both Elysia and me as soon as we were signed off to him. That surprised me the first. What surprised me the second was that he was missing a leg. In the place of his left leg was a wooden peg leg, having been hidden from my sight the entire time he stood in the bustling crowd below the auction stand.

Still, the old captain stood tall and steady, looking at his newly acquired slaves in the eyes. I stared back into his gray, sea-weary eyes without blinking.

"I see you're no runners. That's good enough," said the captain after finally breaking his gaze from both of us.

"You're wrong. I'm going to run as soon as I get an opening."

The auction crowd had dispersed, but there were still a lot of passersby in the center of the market. The stalls and kiosks were selling other items than slaves, namely muzzles, shackles, wh.i.p.s... in other words, the basic slave keeping kit.

But the old captain was partially right. His first action of taking off the shackles from us caught me off guard. I suspected he was going to replace them with a new, matching set from the stall nearby, but for the past five minutes or so he had been looking into our eyes, silently and extremely awkwardly.

Sure, Elysia and I could run away and hide in the corners of the bustling port city until we find a way to get the f.u.c.k out of this slave-trading shithole, but something about the captain's cool demeanor was telling me that there could be a better alternative to hiding... even if the said alternative started off at a slave auction market.

The captain smirked and shrugged his broad shoulders playfully.

"I'm an old man missing a leg. You can run now and I'll never catch you."

"Sounds good."

"I won't be catching you, but the kind folks of the Floating Salamanders will pursue you and bring you back to ensure their reputation as the best slavers in the islands. The Reptils, they may look goofy, but they know what they're doing."

"I thought they were called the Drowning Salamanders," I blinked.

"Drowning Salamander is the name of their ship... if you could call that a ship."

The old captain clicked his tongue bitterly at the end, and before I could ask him what he meant by those words, he sighed and nodded to the stands to our backs.

"You have a choice. You can run for now, and by the evening you will be brought back here with a few beatings and scars, and yes, I know they were nice back on their ship but on land, they are required by the law to beat up runaway slaves, so don't count on the usual Reptilian hospitality."

"What kind of messed up law is that?"

"Let's just say King Laikaan was competent, but his sense of morals was a bit off."

"Wait, Laikaan? The Reptil hero?" Elysia interrupted abruptly.

"I remember he used to be called that, but no one remembers him that way anymore. Your names?"

It took us a second to realize that he had asked us for our names.

"Elysia," answered Elysia warily.

"Beta."

"I'm Baha, and you shall address me as 'Captain' from now on. I only give orders while on board, and my commands are just and reasonable, as you will see. And right now, I'm giving you a choice because you are off the ship, as the law of Trios dictates. So, your choice: will you walk with me to the dock like civil, cultivated individuals or would you rather be muzzled and dragged across the street with chains around your necks?"

Did this old man really think he could boss us around like this? There was only one way to respond to this type of c.o.c.ky, authoritative demand.

"We'll walk, thank you, sir."

I even bowed politely at the end.

Look, I had worn a muzzle once before. I would never let that happen again. Even if that meek answer lowered my manly charm in Elysia's eyes just a little, I only made the sensible choice.

.

.

.

A half an hour later, we had arrived at the dock and were standing in front of an impressive but plain-looking ship. But upon a closer look, it looked old, just barely serviceable.

"Welcome aboard Doby Mick II, rookies."

With that Captain Baha climbed onto the ship and walked away. Elysia and I followed hesitantly.

The main deck was populated with half a dozen people already. I had a feeling that they had been expecting us, but they looked anything but excited.

Amidst the fresh, salty sea breeze on the deck, I could almost taste fatigue in the air. No, more like... defeat.

"Crew, see to our new recruits. One's called Elysia, the other's Beta."

Captain Baha disappeared promptly following the short introduction. The old man could talk, but it seemed as if he did not want to stay around his own crew any longer than necessary.

I was getting some weird vibes.

No one moved for a while, so I took the time to examine the people up front staring back at us.

The most eye-catching of the group was the Elf male, needless to say handsome, with not a hint of tan on his face. A memorable part about his appearance was that he had these sad, unwilling eyes despite the clearness that hinted of intelligence and righteousness. He also reminded me of another Elf I once knew... but again, the Elves looked pretty much alike given their uniformly good-looks and scrupulous politeness, so I failed to come up with his lookalike at the moment.

The Elf locked eyes with me and smiled at me wearily.

"You must be Beta. Elysia is a common name among Elves. Anyway, welcome aboard, recruits. I apologize for the poor reception. We were expecting just one more addition to the team, not two," said the fair Elf.

"Yeah, I was thrown into the transaction, like one of those 'buy one, get one free' deal," I shrugged.

A bespectacled Human woman, or girl, leaning on the pole next to the Elf frowned at me and readjusted her glasses to take a better look at me.

"You speak funny," the glasses-girl c.o.c.ked her head curiously.

"I know. I get that a lot."

Someone clapped abruptly and loudly. Everyone stared at the Reptil with a sailor hat, his mouth agape with a momentary epiphany.

"So you're the ones that fell off the sky this morning! My dudes at Drowning Salamander told me about the exotic goods—sorry, didn't mean to refer to you as items—exotic beings from the other Level. You must be them! This is exciting. You've got to tell us about the other side, man. Can you believe it, guys? We've got Transcendents on our team!"

Unfortunately, the talkative Reptil's enthusiasm was not contagious.

"Yeah, Liamesh, what a perfect cherry on top for our last voyage together, huh?"

A Dwarf sitting on the floor in the corner with a bottle of rum—no surprise there—on his hand burped and spat bitterly.

"Oh, come one, Pat, it's not like it's a done deal. Mark my words, pal, because this time, we'll find it for good. And it will be our last of the unsuccessful sails!" caroled Liamesh the Reptil encouragingly, but no one even bothered to grunt back.

So I was right. The atmosphere on this ship was toxic. Everyone looked dejected, despondent, depressed... save for the overly optimistic Reptil, of course. But again, I had yet to see a glum, grim Reptil before me, so.

No one said anything, but I instantly figured that I was looking at the entirety of the crew of this large ship. And my eyes turned naturally to the last member standing with his thick arms crossed in front of the c.h.e.s.t.

I only stared because I did not know 'which' race this particular individual belonged to.

The silent, light-green skinned giant of about six-foot-four noticed my curious glance and twitched his face irritably.

I turned to Elysia and noticed that she, too, was eyeing the moody male curiously.

One by one, the crew of Doby Mick II followed our gazes.

Again, it was the Reptil who broke the awkward silence.

"Now, now, Queeqa doesn't like being stared at, unlike me, you can ogle at me all you want, I'm quite used to the attention."

"... Is he—"

I was about to say out loud my doubt, but Liamesh cut me off before I could finish my sentence.

"Yes. He's half-Orc, half-Human. He's been a celebrity all his life because it's rare to see interracial offspring in this Level too, so please understand his discomfort with curious eyes, although the interest died down after the first few years after his birth, people, right? There are always newer things to pop up, bygone be bygones—"

Liamesh went on, but I could see that none of us were listening to him any longer.

"Amazing," breathed Elysia, eyeing Queeqa the halfling with awe.

I thought I saw something else in her eyes other than just amazement... A hope? A future?

But I was busy on my own comprehending the existence of a halfling in this world. Also, looking at someone with the body of an Orc and the face of a Human (with bigger than average protruding bottom canines) reminded me of a certain beautiful Orcina with bold, promiscuous advances on one night—

When I snapped back into reality, Queeqa, who apparently had enough stares for one day, grunted and walked away from the attention. A giant harpoon was strung across his b.a.r.e, muscular back. I almost whistled at the impressive amount of tattoos filling every inch of his large upper body.

The Elf had stood and cleared his throat to garner attention around him.

"Newcomers, please pardon Queeqa's leaving, and pardon us for our belated introduction. My name is Shef, and I'm the lieutenant captain of this ship."

Shef nodded curtly and amicably and went on.

"And this is Hermana. She is our scribe and assistant navigator."

"Or just the navigator, because our old navigator quit last week. Very smart of him, I should say," scoffed Hermana. I noticed just now that she held a small notepad and a quill in her hands. I suspected that she had diligently written down the events of the last few minutes as well as would record everything that went on about this ship.

"That's for the captain to decide. For now, you're still an assistant navigator," chided Shef gently, and Hermana responded with an irritable jerk of the head.

"The delightful Reptil gentleman here is—"

"I'll take it from here, Cap, yo, rooks, I'm Liamesh, the First Officer of this magnificent 'salvager.' The captain and Cap are busy most of the time, so if you've got any question or request, you come to me, all right, homies?"

"He speaks funny," whispered Elysia next to my ears.

"Really? He sounds more than fine to me."

Liamesh would fit right in Brooklyn, or any American city at that.

"This little buddy—let go of that bottle, Pat, it's empty—is Paterpen. He's the boatswain, he's in charge of the equipment and maintenance."

"And storage, so if you ever feel like gurgling down some rum, feel free to join me every night on the deck. I'll be there," burped Paterpen with a truly welcoming smile.

"Queeqa, who's locked up in his room right now, is our harpooner and cook. His mother was a harpooner too, a sort of a legend around here, and his father a cook, not quite legendary but decent, so you can say that he got the best traits from both sides."

And that was everyone.

"Is there anyone else?" asked Elysia, not because she did not feel the loud absence of company in such a big ship but because she wanted to make sure.

"We had more, but, um, circ.u.mstances forced us to downsize," explained Liamesh meekly.

"What kind of circ.u.mstances?" I asked.

Liamesh blinked and turned to his colleagues for help.

"How does 'an extended series of unsuccessful treasure hunting voyages' sound to you?" said Hermana sharply.

"That's an overstatement," laughed Liamesh nervously.

"No, it's an understatement. The company has been bankrupt for over a year, and soon the union is going to confiscate the ship. We're neck-deep into debts, and our amazing leader of a captain is adamant that we keep trying to pull up this lost treasure that no one's been able to find the past forty years. Now, that's the accurate assessment of the situation. And to say that 'we're f.u.c.k.e.d,' is the perfect summary."

Every woman I had come across in my reluctant, forced adventure had to be sour, snappy, and spiteful. That was the law, it seemed.

"So, wait, you guys are broke?" I asked cautiously.

"Didn't you hear a word I said?" snapped Hermana.

"I did. I was just wondering where your captain got all that money to spend one hundred and fifty thousand trios on us."

On Elysia. I would never forget that amount. One hundred and fifty thousand for Elysia, zero for me.

And apparently, no one else was going to let go of this either.

The crew fell silent. Some turned pale, except for Hermana, who erupted and breathed, to my eyes, fire out of her mouth.

"He f.u.c.k.i.n.g spent how much trios?!"

I dared not repeat the numbers for the fear of taking the fall for Captain Baha's all-too-evident mistake.

"I'm going to kill him!" Hermana sprang up and left the deck.

"Looks like the captain's going all in this time," Paterpen shook his head.

"He knows it's his last voyage too."

"How, Cap? No one's told us that we'd leave him after this sail."

"A seasoned sailor like him can feel the turbulence in his ship like smelling the land from a hundred miles away," said Shef sadly. I personally was not sure whether that was an easy feat or an impossible one.

"Sorry to interrupt... mates, but I can't help but wonder what would happen to us if this is, you know, indeed the last voyage."

The three crew left on the deck stared and blinked at me.

"I'm afraid that's for the captain to decide," paused Shef, "But you will probably be set free. Captain Baha is not someone who will abuse others, be it slaves or free people."

"Yeah, and besides, you're no longer slaves. You're one of us now. A member of the Sea Cranes."

Liamesh seemed like a good guy. Not someone one could count on life-or-death situations but during boring, sleepless nights to strike up meaningless conversations.

I was about to let the conversation drift away before something felt off.

"Cranes, like the bird? But cranes don't live near the ocean," I said.

"Not the bird, mate. Literal 'cranes.'"

Liamesh then pointed at something behind my back. I turned and saw a crude machine that looked like a lifter of some sort.

"We lift treasures from the bottom of the sea with that beauty," said Liamesh proudly.

So it was a crane, but there was only one on the ship. I had the prudence not to ask about the other cranes, plural.

"But the girl with the glasses, Hermana, said that you haven't been successful for a while. What happened?"

It turned out I was not as prudent as I thought I was. While Liamesh blinked in embarrassment for a few seconds, the drunk—in other words, perfectly ordinary—Dwarf answered for his Reptilian colleague.

"You want to know what happened? I'll tell you what freaking happened, man. The captain's been stubborn about digging up a particular ship and bypassing other treasures on the way, that's what's been happening the past couple, no, three years now," grumbled Paterpen. He now had a fresh bottle of rum in his hand. It was pure magic, the way the Dwarves materialized drinks seemingly out of nowhere.

"More like obsessed, but mind you, Pat, that Doby Mick has been our top priority from the start," sighed Liamesh to correct Paterpen's complaint, but not as an admonishment.

All right, slow down, sailors.

"Hold up. I thought this ship was called Doby Mick," I frowned in confusion.

"The second. We're riding on Doby Mick II. Doby Mick I has sunk and is buried deep in the bottom of the sea. The treasure among treasures. The legend of legends," scoffed Paterpen derisively.

"The Curse of the Black Whales," said Shef so softly and ominously that I had to double-take to make sure I had heard right.

"Why is Captain Baha obsessed with this particular sunken ship? Does it have to do with the fact that this ship is also named after it?" asked Elysia.

"Ah, Elves. Sharp as ever. But that's a long story, pretty girl, an intertwined story of legacies, conspiracies, monarchies, prejudices, vices, sacrifices—"

I stifled a yawn as Liamesh drone on about the legend of Doby Mick I. The tension and apprehension over what might happen to our future had melted, and the weather was nice, no, perfect for a little nap, and there were hammocks everywhere on this vastly understaffed ship—

"—ambitious apprentices, unfair injustices, calculated misadvices, uncontrolled avarices—"

Liamesh was still going on. I yawned once more.

"—and last but not least, the magical orifices that lead to the next Level."

My third yawn halted midway.

"... You mean the Gate? To Transcend?" I asked, hoping for a 'no.'

"The very same, my friend, the very same."

Liamesh beamed as he pointed down to the floor and then upward.

"Down is the way to go up around here. Oh, the irony."

... Oh, the hell with it.