Blood Shaper

Book 5: Chapter 13

The ship was larger on the inside than Kay had expected based on looking at it before boarding. The “royal suite” that had been added in addition to the captain’s quarters was a decent sized room that showed the ship had been rebuilt to be his personal transport as opposed to being a fighting flagship. As Captain Rogers had said, she was only the flagship at the time because she was the only ship they had in working order. But while she was larger than expected, the ship was still incredibly cramped for Kay. He’d never spent any time on a boat or a ship before this and it didn’t take long for him to start going stir crazy. From some of Eleniah’s comments, the captain and crew weren’t yet at the level of being a well oiled machine, they were still practiced professionals that didn’t need an amateur like Kay getting underfoot, leaving him with nothing to do.

He ended up spending most of his time practicing his less violent Skills. He didn’t have any breakthroughs or sudden epiphanies that changed anything, but he worked on making small useful items with Blood Shaping and Meld Blood and got more practice converting preexisting enchanted items that he stored with his Inventory Skill into blood related items. The journey was a long one based on Earth’s sensibilities where engine powered ships could make steady progress each day without fear of the wind changing directions or hitting a portion of the ocean where it was too calm for the sails to move the ship. From the little history he remembered they were moving a lot faster than a historical sailing ship, thanks to Skills and Classes, and the fact that they’d recruited a decently talented Wind Mage, a luxury that most ships didn’t have, but it was still going to be a three month journey.

He hoped that somewhere during that period he’d get back the Blood Melder Class, which he needed for the next tier five Class he wanted to earn, Bloody Transmutor. It only combined two Classes, Blood Manipulator and Blood Melder, which by the general understanding of the System he’d been taught meant it wouldn’t be too powerful, but it had a Sublime Skill available which meant it had the potential to be very overpowered under the right circumstances. He didn’t know if it was an option just for him as the Class Line Progenitor, if it was something he’d gained access to thanks to that same title’s intrinsic hints towards new Class combinations, or if it would be available to anyone with those two Classes and an open spot for a tier five Class, but he was interested in experimenting with it.

He was in the middle of melding a compass that pointed at the closest fire with some of his blood, trying to make another useful and repeatable item like the camouflage blood he’d created, when Eleniah stepped through the door into his room. “Hey.”

Kay gently stopped the melding, easing the enchanted item back from the edge of no return into a new creation before looking up. “Hi, need something?”

“The sea-scouts have detected a monster coming our way and I thought you might like to see how traditional sea combat works before your Outworlder techniques change it forever.”

“What’s a sea-scout?” He asked as he tossed the item into his Inventory and pulled his blood back beneath his skin. “I’m guessing that with a different name they’re different than lookouts. And adding a new weapon isn’t going to change sea combat forever anymore than it’s going to change land combat forever, magic and Classes make ‘outdated’ weapons just as viable.”

“Sea-scouts use various Skills to watch the water around us and beneath us for monsters and people that aren’t on ships.” She waited for Kay to get closer before slipping out the door, “And yeah, I know, but I don’t have anything else to tease you about at the moment.”

“Bah.” As they ascended up onto the top deck Kay was forced to look at the other reason he preferred to stay in his quarters other than not wanting to be in the way of the crew. Torotia was a planet, with a spherical shape and all of that, but it was many times larger than Earth. One of the consequences of that was the horizon was significantly farther away. Spending most of his time in cities, in forests, and otherwise low enough to the ground or with enough coverage in the way to not notice how far you could see, the visual reminder was incredibly unnerving to Kay. He had no idea how far it was possible to see on Earth while on the ocean, but seeing ten times that made him uncomfortable.

Forcing down the slight twitch he felt creeping up on him as he looked out at the seemingly endless expanse of water, Kay turned in the direction everyone else was looking and could just faintly make out the sight of a bow wave getting steadily larger as whatever creature was making it got closer. Closing at a deceptively fast speed, the wave went from appearing to be a few feet across to revealing its true size at several dozen feet across. Kay watched as a tall arcing fin with several ridges in it rose from the sea.

“It’s a ridgehead!” Someone called from above the deck, in the rigging or all the way up in the crows nest, and everyone who’d been standing around watching relaxed.

“Is that a good thing?” Kay asked, looking from person to person. Where there had been tension and people carefully preparing weapons there was now an air of celebration and conversations about… recipes? “What’s a rigdehead?”

“It’s lunch, that’s what it is.” Eleniah replied with a grin, pushing past a few people and leaning nonchalantly against the railing. “Ridgeheads are good eating.”

Annoyed at the non-answer and confused at how relaxed everyone was being about what appeared to be a massive shark coming right at them, Kay focused on the fin and Inspected the creature, hoping there was enough of it above the water for the Skill to work.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

[————————————————————]

Ridgehead Shark-Whale

Tier III Equivalent Monster

- Carnivorous, mammalian monsters that closely resemble sharks, shark-whales are a common predator across most of the world, often directly competing with actual sharks. Ridgeheads are a particularly voracious variety of these monsters that will attack any movement they detect. Sporting large ridge-like protrusions along their heads, giving them their name, they attack by ramming their heads into their prey repeatedly until movement stops, at which point they will begin eating. They are primarily known for three things, their bullish stubbornness, their incredible stupidity, and the incredible taste of their flesh. Ridgeheads will never stop attacking their chosen prey, not as long as its still moving, and the prey they chose is any movement they see, including inedible things, like ships, or vastly superior foes, like sea serpents. Most sailors view ridgehead attacks as good luck, since the unintelligent monsters are incredibly easy to trick and catch, supplementing existing food stores.

[————————————————————]

“Oh. That’s a bit disappointing, I really was looking forward to seeing how monsters are fought from ships.”

“Don’t worry, we’re sure to get attacked by at least one or two other monsters this trip, maybe even some pirates. I’ve literally never been on a ship journey that took as long as this one will that only got attacked once. And ridgehead is really good, so we’ll get some great food out of this.” She turned her head and motioned at someone moving toward the rail, “You’re even going to get a good demonstration of some water magic.”

A rakish looking human man with short cropped hair held out both his hands above the water and began waving them outward. Beneath him the ocean began to swirl as currents formed that began to stretch out toward the closing shape of the ridgehead.

“Sorry, make that manipulation.”

A swirling, faintly frothy, flow of water swept out to meet the wave thrown off of the monster’s body. A moment passed after the ridgehead swam into the water’s controlled by the Water Manipulator with nothing happening, when the ridgehead began to suddenly thrash like a landed fish. It wildly threw itself around like it was trying to escape something as it began to rise into the air, lifted by tight bands of water wrapped around it’s body that were much easier to make out in mid-air. With it’s body fully revealed, the monster looked like someone had merged a sperm whale’s head onto a a great white shark’s body and added three protrusions that looked like large elongated knuckles to the creatures head. It was at least forty feet long and it thrashed against its bonds as it tried to escape back into the water. The Water Manipulator held it steady while his crewmates brought out a pair of long spears from below decks.

“They’re going to wait for it to tire and stop struggling and then they’ll stab it. There’s a portion right behind the ridges that’s easy to stab into and leads right to the brain. Kills then quick and prevents a lot of blood from spilling to avoid other predators form coming to investigate.”

“Do they pull it up into the air for the same reason, so the thrashing isn’t as visible as it would be in the water?”

“For those who can, yeah, you’re exactly right. Not every ship has a Water Mage or a Water Manipulator strong enough to fully pull one into the air, but being able to at least restrain or slow down monsters of this size is a qualification you need to get shipboard duty like this.”

The show soon became stale as the ridgehead struggled for a long time and Kay was debating going back below to finish his project when the ship shifted and he stumbled, holding onto the railing to stay up in his surprise. “What was that?”

“I don’t-“ Eleniah’s head snapped toward the ridgehead, still held in the air. “Fuck.”

Kay looked over and saw a gigantic tentacle slowly appearing from where it was already wrapped around the smaller monster. Starting at the tip and working downward the skin of the tentacle was changing colors in a scintillating display that turned portions of its skin from perfect matches with the background colors to a dull gray color. The light show continued, revealing more tentacles connected to a massive body with two eyes beneath a truly gargantuan spiral shell that dwarfed the ship.

[————————————————————]

Chameleon Nautiloid Kraken

Tier V Equivalent Monster

- Any cephalopodic monster of sufficient size is considered a Kraken, including nautiloids, a classification of species comparable to ancients. In fact, most nautiloid monsters are considered ancients, however in the case of kraken, most other classifications are ignored. Chameleon nautiloid krakens take the color changing and camouflage abilities of cephalopods to the extreme, able to blend into most environments. Their large size and inherent power makes ambush tactics unnecessary for these great beasts, but the intelligent monsters use such strategies anyways, especially against ships, partially due to their understanding that high tier enemies can be dangerous no matter their size, but also because they enjoy terrifying their prey before they destroy whatever they’ve caught and eat the tasty bits.

[————————————————————]

More tentacles appeared surrounding the ship as the monster dispelled its camouflage, and people began rushing to grab their weapons that they’d discarded in the relaxed atmosphere created after the capture of the ridgehead. The kraken swept it’s eyes across the deck, watching the crew scramble to a combat ready state and Kay could feel the smug air wafting off of the monster.

“Fucking hate krakens.” Eleniah cursed, staring up at the shelled monster with narrowed eyes. “Too damn smart, and the ones that like ambushes are the worst. This one probably followed the ridgehead in, knowing we’d stop looking for other threats. Hell, it might have even lured the damn thing toward us.” She started pacing down the deck toward the kraken’s main body.

“What do we do?” Kay asked her.

She looked over her shoulder with an incredulous expression. “Fight it?”

Kay had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes. “How do we fight it? First time against a kraken.”

“Oh, just keep it from damaging the ship and I’ll go try and break through it’s shell. If you can cut off some tentacles or get it in the eyes that’ll be great too, but the main focus is keeping us afloat while I hurt it enough that it decides we’re not worth it. It’s a baby, so it might lose its shit once it realizes we’re actually a threat, but if its as smart as most kraken it’ll run before we can kill it.”

“That’s a baby?”

“An adolescent if we’re going to get particular about it. The adults are two to three times this big. Anyway, we need the ship to survive, so focus on that, okay? See you later!” With that she took off sprinting down the deck in the direction of the closest tentacle.