The last echo faded from the water long after the final firework had dissipated from the star dotted sky.
Passengers drifted back to cabins in twos and threes. Crew members coiled ropes, checked lanterns, and politely escorted the drunkest guests away from the railings.
Emil, Luna, and Sica stayed a little longer at the bow enjoying each other's company as well as the soft rippling of the water. They eventually had to call it a night as the chill of the night finally pushed them back inside.
…
Emil woke the next morning to the gentle sway of the ship and the not so gentle impact of a metal cylinder repeatedly bonking his forehead.
“Rise and shine, fellow fugitive of the law,” Luna said. “We survived the night through careful and calculated seduction of our would be assassin. Time to tactically investigate the breakfast buffet.”
He cracked one eye.
“Are there assassins at the buffet?” he croaked.
“Maybe. She did drink a lot,” Luna said, thinking fondly of their new friend who’d insisted on walking them back to their cabin after the show.
Emil dragged himself upright. His muscles felt as if someone had used him as a beach towel, wrung him out, and hung him over the rail to dry.
Despite the aches, he felt… lighter.
Not because the danger was gone, he was pretty sure they weren’t anywhere near out of the woods, but something in him had loosened. The fireworks, Sunny’s ridiculous boat, Luna humming with joy, Sica actually laughing… it had cracked through layers of stress that weren’t just from the last few days, but from the last many years.
He washed his face in the tiny basin, ran his fingers through his hair until it was at least pointing in a mostly uniform direction, and followed the smell of coffee.
…
The dining hall was a low ceilinged space full of clinking cutlery, bustling staff, and the sleepy murmur of passengers in various stages of wakefulness.
Sica sat alone at a corner table, posture perfect, eyes half lidded but alert. She’d traded her cloak for a plain fitted jacket that somehow made her look more dangerous, not less. A tray sat in front of her consisting of eggs, biscuits, some kind of fried potato…and a flagon of coffee instead of the standard mug.
Luna spotted her and instantly lit up before zipping across the room to hover over the chair opposite.
Emil hesitated for half a second, then followed his floating, glowing companion.
“Morning,” Sica greeted.
Emil slid into the space only slightly occupied by Luna’s casing, ducking his shoulder so she could settle into a classic pirate plus parrot configuration.
“Morning,” he echoed, a little wary, a little less terrified than yesterday.
Luna dipped in a cheerful nod. “If anyone is wondering, the eggs come from this kind of dinosaur thing. The chef acted like I was crazy when I explained my experience with chicken farming.” She angled toward Sica. “Also, all the workers here are so nice.”
Sica took a sip of her coffee to hide a smirk.
“Steady pay and benefits can really cut down on the likelihood of murderous desperation,” she noted. “From what I’ve gathered, most of the workers here are on solid contracts. Medical, hazard pay, and apparently access to on board legal services if a passenger gets drunk and shitty.”
Emil smiled. “You’re a happy drunk at least.”
“I am a professional,” Sica agreed. “It is very important for a rogue to unwind when the opportunity presents itself… or to lull a target into a false sense of security in order to better perform their duties.”
Emil opened his mouth, remembering he had been, and presumably still was, part of those duties.
Luna spun a slow circle between them.
“So!” she said. “What’s on the agenda for day Two of Outlaw Vacation Boat?”
“Rest and relax with a side of recon and security ward testing,” Sica said, continuing to shovel not chicken eggs into her mouth.
“Booo,” Luna protested. “The correct answer was breakfast, skeet shooting, engine room tour, lunch and a show, then karaoke. We gotta get our money’s worth out of this once in a lifetime experience.”
“The ticket was only thirty copper,” Emil said. “We made more than that while sleeping last night.”
“Save a penny, earn a penny, put your hand in a bush and all that,” Luna said wisely, wobbling lazily as she nodded along to her own completely accurate proverb.
“Breakfast first,” Sica said, ignoring them. “Then we can see about checking out the next ‘Delights.’”
She nodded toward a flyer tacked crookedly near the galley entrance:
RIVERBOAT OF LOVE & HAPPINESS
TODAY’S DELIGHTS:
– Breakfast
– Morning Yoga on the Upper Deck
– Skeet Shooting – Show off your best ranged attack!
– Guided Engine Room Tour
– Lunch Extravaganza (Variety Show Part II)
– Afternoon Card Tournament
– Sunset Karaoke Jam
“We could so cheat at cards,” Luna said thoughtfully. “Between both of our super visions we could sweep.”
“I would imagine they’ve warded the cards for that reason,” Sica said. “After around level five, no one uses mundane items to gamble with. Too easy to manipulate.”
“I can absolutely imagine a coconut mage getting shanked in an alley for rigging that find the thing under the three things game,” Luna said, fully understanding the stakes.
Emil dug into his own tray while listening to the hum of the room and the rhythm of his tablemates’ voices.
He realized, suddenly, that he was having a meal. With friends.
Not coworkers. Not Guild functionaries. Not people who treated him as an extension of his father’s signature.
Just… people.
It was nice. Dizzying, even.
“Hey,” Emil blurted, almost light headed from the act of saying it out loud, “I just… I want you both to know I’m having a great time.”
“Good job expressing your feelings with your words, buddy,” Luna said encouragingly, nudging his cheek with her shell.
“Live every day like it’s your last,” Sica offered, with a wink.
Emil was suddenly having a slightly less great time.
Luna bumped his ear. “What she means is…we should go check out the skeet shooting and see how screwed you would be if you were turned into some kind of defenseless flying target.”
Sica considered her now empty plate, then the flyer.
“…Fine,” she said. “We’ll go. Mostly so I’m not too rusty by the end of this boat ride.
“See?” Luna said. “Good clean family fun!”
Emil shuddered as the assassin blurred around the table to scoop Luna from her place not inches away from the man’s face, all without causing a single whiff of air to so much as tickle the stone still mages stray hairs.
The Riverboat of Love & Happiness had many decks, but only one of them currently smelled like discharging combat spells, weapon oil, and competition.
A loose gathering of passengers had formed around a roped off section of the upper deck. A crew member in a bright orange vest stood at the front beside racks of bows, slingshots, throwing knives, spears, and buckets full of various manipulatable elements labeled “Not safe for consumption”.
Behind the worker, a giant launch rig was aimed over the deck, primed to fling brightly colored clay disks out over the river and rolling hills beyond.
“WELCOME,” the vest man called, “TO OUR SKEET SHOOTING DELIGHT! REMEMBER, DON’T AIM AT THE BOAT, DON’T AIM AT THE CREW, DON’T AIM AT YOUR FELLOW PASSENGERS, AND FOR THE LOVE OF THE RIVER, DO NOT AIM AT THE CAPTAIN!”
Some passengers laughed at the “joke”, but some of the staff visibly shuddered.
Luna floated higher to see better. Another crew member stood to the side next to a chalk board headered with the word “Score” as well as tables holding propped up prizes including stuffies and commemorative Sunny boat themed merchandise. Pretty much a large scale carnival game.
A middle aged woman stepped up to the challenge first, bow trembling in her hands. The launcher fired a single bright red clay disk, she hit it on the second shot resulting in a cheering crowd applauding like she’d slain a dragon. She was quickly bested by the next launch that consisted of a pair of fast clays launched simultaneously. She did still manage to hit one, but the other plopped into the river with a sad splash.
She collected her comically small prize as the next passenger took her place.
Luna observed the quickly escalating challenges after the previously mentioned rounds were completed..
A single clay shot out, then split into two midair.
At the sight of this predicament, the young male participant panicked and strategically shot the deck rail.
A crew member hurriedly patched the damage with some kind of repair spell. By the crew’s reaction, this was to be expected.
The stream of passengers had wildly varying success with Luna able to observe rounds that even included illusions.
Hit the real one and it burst in a satisfying puff of blue chalk.
Hit the illusions and they detonated in a small shower of confetti and mocking trumpet noise.
Luna vibrated with delight.
“This is amazing. I might have tried out for my school's trap team if it were this fun”.
Sica stretched her arms, rolling her shoulders.
Emil rubbed his palms together.
Both were clearly preparing to show off.
A passenger stepped up for the cruelest challenge yet:
two large clays that, when struck, shot back.
Tiny paintball rounds splattered harmlessly against the surprised passenger marking the end of his run.
The crowd roared with laughter as the “paint” dissolved away.
Luna leaned closer to Emil’s cheek.
“You can do better than that guy right?”
“I’m a construction specialist turned product quality technician” Emil whined
“That’s a yes then?” Luna asked, sure that the Earth mage raised by a rich dad had to have grown up fantasy horseback fox hunting or something.
When the attendant asked for the next participant, Sica stepped forward with the serene confidence of someone who had absolutely killed people at a wide variety of distances.
Stolen novel; please report.
She picked out a sturdy bow from the rack, examining the string with glinting eyes.
The first challenge, one clay, destroyed instantly.
The second, two clays,two perfect strikes.
The split clay challenge?
Sica dispatched the disk before it had the chance to divide, ruining the trick entirely.
The illusion round came next.
Three clays. Two fake. One real.
Sica waited.
Breath steady.
Bow half lowered.
One fake flickered in the sun, just a tiny light distortion.
The other cast no proper shadow. She didn’t even need to activate her enhanced vision for this one.
She fired with confidence.
The real clay burst into blue chalk.
Sica continued the gauntlet dodging paintballs and lining up crazy shots only meeting her match to a massive swarm of clays. Even firing off multiple arrows at once only did so much. The handful of remaining clays splashed down into the water ending her truly amazing display.
The crowd applauded and cheered thunderously. Despite the crowd's reaction, Sica’s mouth twisted to the side in minor frustration.
Still, she had achieved great reward in the form of a complete commemorative dining set so she could only be a little upset.
“Okay,” Emil whispered to himself, “no pressure.”
Luna hovered at eye level.
“No matter what happens, I am right by your side. Unless you blow a hole in the boat. Then I will have to pretend that we are completely financially independent of one another.”
He picked up a handful of practice stones, exhaled, and let the familiar hum of earth mana spread through his fingers.
The first single clay shot out,
Emil flicked the stones forward in a tight spread.
A miniature shotgun blast of pebbles shredded the target instantly.
The crowd reacted with impressed oohs.
Luna beamed.
Next challenge, double clays.
He swept his arm sideways launching a line of stone that caught the clays in the stone gray brushstroke across the blue sky.
Even Sica raised a brow at the interesting use of earth manipulation.
Then came the splitting clay.
Emil launched a larger stone at the clay, but stone arrived just as the clay split into two smaller clays. Emil mirrored the action by detonating the middle of his stone in order to launch half of the projectile at each of the new targets.
Pop-pop.
Both burst in vibrant color
A small cluster of spectators burst into applause.
Emil blinked, genuinely stunned. “I… think I’m getting the hang of this.”
“You’re a natural,” Luna said proudly. “All those hours of studying your construction “What not to do” books have led you into your construction code violation villain arc.
Emil cheated during the paintball round by creating an earthen shield to shoot from behind.
Emil double cheated at the swarm level by fragmenting a handful of stones to the size of the beads inside of those special flavor packets they put in beef jerky. He pretty much just hit the wall of clays with a wall of his own to land him a top shelf prize. The prize being a giant stuffed bear with a picture of a familiar looking river boat stitched onto its stomach.
The vest attendant turned toward her, uncertain.
“Uh… little miss? Are you… armed?”
“Clearly not?,” Luna said wiggling her body that obviously lacked arms.
The attendant just stepped aside and let her do her thing.
Luna floated forward to claim the shooting area.
One clay shot into the sky.
Luna stared at it.
Her shell hummed faintly, mana gathering without direction.
She pushed at the mana around her, trying to poke the world, the way she had learned to “see” with her mind swords or manifest her summons.
Except now she had a new kind of body with which she could direct the energy.
A single spark leapt off of her shell.
Then another.
A small unstable glob of mana crackled to life a foot in front of her.
Luna flinched.
The ball of mana fired wildly into the sky, missing the clay by a heroic amount before exploding in a tiny puff of dissipating mana.
The crowd politely clapped.
Sica snorted.
Emil grinned.
Luna narrowed her entire cylindrical body.
“Okay, okay, okay. Let’s try that again but better.”
“One try per guest please” The attendant tried.
Luna, being known for her rule following, turned to float away despite really wanting to go again.
“Boooooooo” The crowd called. Luna had made quite a few acquaintances in the short time she had been on the boat. These many positive interactions seemed to culminate in the crowd wanting to see her attempt to redeem herself.
“Very well,” The attendant said, clearly defeated by unanimous vote.
Luna regained her place and metaphysically inhaled, focusing on the task at hand.
Mana is just stuff that doesn’t know that it’s stuff yet. Luna thought, processing what she wanted to do.
She more purposefully shaped the energy this time,
not a yarn ball of sparks, but a dense bead of power.
Substantial.
Dense.
Stable.
The next clay shot into the air.
Luna launched her bead of mana, clean, fast, and direct.
CRACK.
The clay exploded in a crisp flash of red chalk.
A notification chimed softly in her mind:
New Spell Unlocked: MANA BOLT (Tier 1)
Basic ranged attack. Fires a condensed mana projectile that deals 1 force damage.
Base cost: 1 mana.
Scales 1:1 in damage with additional mana spent.
Fully compatible with Modified Concentrator class.
Luna gasped.
“OH MY GOD I invented the Luna gun. Watch out nerds, there’s a new sheriff in town.”
Luna spun her body, dancing and warming up for the rounds to come.
Turns out, though very basic and only doing one damage, the mana bolts were super intuitive, accurate, and completely tuned to Luna’s senses. She passed all trials with ease with a combination of her new mana bolt to deal damage, Nothing vision to see through illusions, small frame and dodging skills for the paintballs, and finally a mana donation from her coin storage for the final swarm level. Sure, the whole ordeal cost her a couple bucks, but it was worth it to claim her a top shelf prize of a signed copy of “Captain Sunny’s 10 rules for a healthy relationShip”.
Sica patted Luna’s shell after taking in her fantastic performance.
“I underestimated your combat abilities.”
Luna spun twice in giddy circles.
“You would have been right to, I made that up just now!”
“What do you mean by that?” Sica asked.
“I needed a way to shoot things so I made a way to shoot things” Luna explained.
“You’re telling me that you were using freeform mana that whole time?”
“No no, just the first one. I got a spell after that”
Sica’s face fell. “Luna, you’re making it really hard to forget why I ended up on this boat.
“If it makes you feel any better, by the end of the boat ride I’ll probably be too strong for you to stop anyway”
“It actually doesn’t” Sica stated carrying her prize of novelty dishes and flatware.
Emil joined the pair while holding his giant bear. “Hey Sica,” He started “I was just wondering… if you want… actually… I want you to have…” He was struggling to find the words while offering the oversized bear towards her direction.
“We aren’t doing this Emil!” Sica said turning away from the man seemingly struggling with the emotional weight of the offered bear.
“It says here to leave the door open, but to let her make her own decision,” Luna said, flipping through the relationship book authored by Captain Sunny.
“Since when can you hold books?” Emil questioned the floating cylinder as it manipulated the book in space with supportive “arms” of mana.
“Just now,” Luna answered “Keep up Emil, I’m actually really cool when I’m not having existential breakdowns from being kept in a sensory depriving metal ball for days on end.
Emil wondered on how much of the real Luna was now able to come out now that they were in this less stressful environment. His thoughts drifted to Sica as well as himself using this framework of thinking.
“Don’t run off too far!” Luna called after Sica. “The engine room tour is next!”
…
The Riverboat of Love & Happiness ran on a hybrid system. Three humming mana engines powered the wide enchanted paddlewheels, and a lattice of guiding runes along the hull nudged the boat away from rocks, logs, and the occasional disgruntled river spirit.
The tour group gathered at the base of a steep metal stairwell where a wiry engineer with oil stained sleeves, goggles perched in her nest of hair, and a gear patterned anchor tattoo on one bicep greeted them with a grin.
“Alright folks,” she said, “welcome to the beating heart of the Love & Happiness. Hands off the moving parts, absolutely no spellcasting, and if you hear something hiss that wasn’t hissing before? Tell me. Then run.”
Luna vibrated with anticipation.
They made their way along a narrow catwalk suspended above the engines.
The air was warm, not temperature hot exactly, but dense with power, the kind that prickled along Luna’s shell like static trying to become a song.
“These beauties,” the engineer said proudly, patting one of the engine’s reinforced plating, “keep us movin’ even when the river gets lazy.”
Luna drifted dangerously close, her whole casing tilting like she wanted to nuzzle the machine.
“Ohhhh my god,” she breathed, “you’re glowing. Look at those curves. Emil, she’s purring.”
“Please stop being weird,” Emil said, face beginning to redden. “I’m trying to listen to the guide.”
Luna ignored Emil, the wet blanket, and continued to take in the wild cycles of mana that were visible in her Nothing vision.
Sica stood further back, arms crossed, eyes scanning with professional detachment.
Similarly to Luna, she wasn’t just looking at the engines, she was watching the patterns of mana around her, specifically in the formation of various ward lines, magical anchors, and anti-tamper glyphs that most would never know were there.
“Who did your warding?” Sica asked during a lull in the guides commentary.
“One of Sunny’s old crewmates,” the engineer said.
“Retired adventurer, ward specialist. Captain won’t trust anyone else to touch his ship’s vitals.”
Sica’s gaze sharpened.
“These all look uniquely crafted then disguised in a way that I wouldn’t be able to work through even if I had the next month free.”
“All hand carved. No remote link. No way to make a copy. If someone even tried to scry or force their way into the glyphs, the wards would shut them down...”
Sica was both more and less reassured by this information. The ship was safer from tampering than she had originally thought, but she also didn’t want anything to do with the wardsmith if it was who she thought it was.
Meanwhile, Luna had plastered herself to a glass panel, staring into the pulsing core of the nearest mana engine.
“Ohhh she’s so shiny,” Luna whispered. “Look at that mana swirl. It’s like watching a hot tub but instead of champagne and piss, it's mana.”
She tilted even closer.
“I want to get in there.”
“No,” Emil said immediately.
“I won’t actually Emil, I just think it would be coo…”
An arc of mana shot out from the engine and slammed into Luna.
*Warning – Critical mana levels.*
*Destruction due to instability imminent.*
“That hadn’t happened in a while” Luna mused printing coins as fast as she was able.
At the moment, her mana pool simply read ERR/80 so she had no idea how much mana she had to get rid of to not pop.
*Lucky Penny Forcefully procced at max current tier.
A shiny gold coin popped out into space in front of Luna.
Everyone’s eyes were already on Luna after the magical discharge, but they were particularly interested by the sudden appearance of the shining piece.
The engineer’s eyes widened.
“…Did you just… steal money from my engine?”
“It was an accident! She kissed me first, I swear!” Luna panicked, grabbed the coin with a tendril of solidified mana, and offered it to the engineer. “I—I’m sorry, I don’t steal! Please don’t call Sunny! Or punish Emil since he’s my trusted adult!”
The engineer stared at her.
Then burst out laughing.
The engineer accepted it and flicked it into a slot on a mana recapture bin.
“Machine’ll digest it back into the system. No harm done.”
Luna sagged with relief.
Emil leaned over the rail to inspect the recapture bin.
Sica leaned over the rail to inspect Luna.
“Anyway, moving on to the next portion of our tour” The engineer continued leading the group onward.
“You almost exploded didn’t you?” Sica asked through Luna’s telepathic connection already knowing the answer.
“Yeah…,” Luna admitted. “That probably wouldn’t have been great.”
“Yeah, not great” Sica agreed imagining the intricate mana engines and runework being damaged by Luna’s casing blowing thus causing a magical cascade that vaporized the entire ship and its occupants.
Sica dragged a hand down her face.
“At least now I know if we are low on funds I can just sneak into a power plant or something.” Luna mused.
“Friends don’t let friends resort to turning their body into a bomb to pay the bills.” Sica said reassuringly. “I’d spot you before we got to that point.”
Luna perked.
“We are so good at being friends.”
Emil groaned as he was of course also tied into Luna's telepathy network.
The engineer clapped her hands to get the group’s attention.
“Alright! That concludes the most dangerous part of the tour. Let’s head up and take a look at the helm to see how it all comes together.”
Luna floated backward as they moved on, still glancing lovingly at the engines.
Ooooh if only the fate of the whole ship wasn’t at risk, she would have some spearamintn’ to do.
Instead, she floated after the others, humming to herself, already planning which fun activity to drag them to next.
Outlaw vacation boat, day two. Off to a dangerously great start.
