An Ocean World LitRPG
“ONE!”
The captain was a god. Her voice was thunder. It thrummed through the floors and reverberated in my skull. Magic itched at me, driving me beyond my limits, my Strength rising above its limit even if just for a moment.
My hands were bleeding.
Splintered wood wore at my skin faster than it could callous. I gripped the row, preparing for —
“TWO!”
In the ship hundreds strong, I was just a single piece . The rowing floor of the boat shuddered as hundreds of people fought a war against the ocean, forcing the ship to go faster, to go forward, to —
“ONE!”
I exhaled and released the row. The wood crashed forward in its socket, a thunderous noise echoing in the rowing deck. I lurched in my seat as the ship tipped. Ice cold water crashed into me from above, soaking through my clothes, sucking away my heat. I gasped and grabbed hold of the row. The ship shook.
“TWO!”
I panted, meeting the gaze of a bearded man on my left. His eyes were alight, shouting as we pulled the row.
“MORE HANDS ON THE DECK!” A new voice shouted, ducking down the stair long enough to shout before disappearing.
The ship threw me to the ground as I slipped between the rows. I caught myself on my hands before stumbling up the stairs. I crashed into others who joined me, pushing up the creaking wood and into the ever present rain.
Lightning flashes illuminated the storm, the cloud column so thick above us it was as black as night. Beyond the edge of the ship a mountain fell below the waves. Explosions rocked its side, audible in the night over the whistling of the wind and the rain battering our ship. The crowd carried me forward in a wave.
The armada was little more than a dozen disparate blots of light on the horizon. Archers lined the sides of multiple floors of decks. I panted as I looked around at the chaos. A huge center swathe of decks had been smashed to pieces, rubble and wood littering the ship. New archers ran forward to fill the gaps that had been created. I was nearly sent reeling as a wave battered the ship again, tilting it.
“Leviathan shit,” I cursed, stumbling forward towards the stowage. Dozens of deckhands pulled apart the knots, slipping back a tarp to reveal barrels full of gigantic bone bolts. One waved me forward.
With a dozen others I grabbed a barrel, wrapping my arms around it and pulling it towards the archers lining the ship.
“It’s almost dead!” The captains voice echoed over the wind and rain. “One more volley!”
Despite him saying so, the archers never stopped firing. Light and fire rained into the water where the monster had descended. Dozens of tiny and insignificant ships faded away in the horizon.
I dragged my barrel to an archer who was running low. With a practiced, mechanical motion, she reached into the barrel, grabbing an arrow as tall as I was, carved from bone. Her barrel was almost empty.
Every step I took towards her was measured; the surface of the boat was slick with rain, dark and smooth and covered in debris and tripping hazards from the impact to our ship. Right as she ran out of arrows, the monster rose from the sea again.
Lightning flashed, illuminating a carapace of metal. The monster was larger than a human city; larger than an island. The wave it made as it displaced the water rocked the boat back and I began to slip, falling backwards away from the edge of the ship. The woman turned, locking eyes with me.
“Come on then.” She said.
I was looking backwards. There was no guard rail behind me; the attack on the ship had destroyed it. I pushed the barrel up to her side. She grabbed the rim of it with one hand, freeing her empty cannister and throwing it into the ocean.
“It’s a trippin’ hazard.”
She slammed the new barrel into place, twisting it lock it down, and continued firing without pause. I staggered forward as the ship leveled out, still panting.
The monster roared, into the sky, the clouds displacing above it. It carved open a bubble in the sky that let the light in, though it didn’t breach the layer that blanketed the world. Wind buffeted my face, pushing me back.
“Hang on!” She’s going down!” The captain said, his magically enhanced voice cutting through the monster’s roar.
It fell.
The head and body crashed down into the water, waves rising above it. I jumped away, reaching out to try to grab onto anything I could.
Water roared over the side of the ship, washing me away almost instantly. I reached out to grab at something, anything.
My hand closed around rope.
The water fell away, slamming me back in the deck, every muscle and my lungs screaming in protest. I sputtered out water as salt stung my eyes. The sound of a hundred people running around the deck came back to my ears as the water cleared, and I struggled to my feet, then to the side of the boat. Grabbing hold of a rope another person was pulling, I started working to pull people back aboard.
[Subclass (Deckhand) Leveled up] [Novice Deckhand X -> Apprentice Deckhand I]
[+1 END, +1 STR]
Handling the rope suddenly became easier. The way I stood changed slightly, more natural, holding the rope closer in my range with both hands. I hefted. My muscles still burned.
A man pulled himself over the side of the ship, falling over, and the rope went loose. I ran for the next one. It took nearly an hour before we were done rescuing people from the side of the ship. Sunlight still snuck into the storm through the displace clouds above, the dome of thin clouds moving with the wind.
The leviathans corpse floated atop the water, and the armada had slowly begun approaching it.
Men and women crowded the deck, covering themselves in blankets as they stared out at the monstrous corpse. Most of the rowers came to the upper decks, making the ship crowded in a moment. They crowded in circles where others worked to free latches from the decks surface. They came loose with a puff of smoke, churning black. I jumped in a circle myself, pushing my way in.
People crowded around the vents, pushing their hands up to fight off the cold.
The ship turned and approached the leviathan.
With my hands shaking, I reached inside of the layers of clothes I wore, pulling free a metal flask and knocking back half of the contents. I coughed at the burn in my throat. The boat grew so quiet that I could hear the shouts of the rowing captain below deck escaping through the wood.
Everyone was waiting for the notification.
[Kill contribution: 342 XP]
[Level up!] [ Level up!] [Level up!]
I closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of power coursing through my body, and the last moment of silence on the ship. Water dripped from my hair and my mouth was filled with the aste of seawater. Every person aboard the ship roared in celebration.
[Status]
[Leander Wavebreaker][Druid]
[Lvl 9][XP 42/100]
[Health 100/100][Stamina 250/250]
[Strength 10][Constitution 5]
[Endurance 15][Dexterity 4]
[Wisdom 0][Intelligence 0]
[Classes]
[Druid]
[Novice Friend of the Forest III(65%)](+5 CON, +5 END)
[Novice Wildspeaker I(+0%)](+0 WIS)
[Shiphand]
[Apprentice Deckhand I(+2%)](+10 END, +10 STR)
[Novice Sailor IV(+23%)](+4 DEX)
We approached the corpse too large to be a living thing aboard a fleet of dozens of ships. Arrows of bone littered its size like porcupine spikes. Now the works of the butchers began. Archers fired arrows attached to ropes over the surface, creating safe lines for harvesters to climb back aboard the ship.
Hundreds of humans descended like fleas upon a corpse. Birds flew down and pecked at the unshielded joints of the monster. Creatures from the sea struggled to board its side. Archers struck them down. The people on the beast’s back plucked free the arrows and even collected the corpses of the vulturous monsters that tried to steal our rewards. None of my classes aided in collection at all. My work was done. I just sat and watched.
When there was no land, every resource was precious.
Metal hooks as large as anchors were unspooled and wrapped around the monster. Human divers ducked below, killing the scavengers in the sea as well. I didn’t envy their work. They wrapped the beast in chains, attaching it to every boat. Even we spun about, wrapping the beast. The armada arranged itself in a chevron and began to sail toward the Steel Archipelago.
I took another drink from my flask.
“Leander! You old enough for that, shiprat?”
“Eighteen now, Merrick.” I turned and stole a glance at him. He was on the other side of the rows of people crowding around the stovepipe. The boat swain was dressed as elaborately as ever. I didn’t know where he stole his clothes from but they were always decorated with pearls and came in fabric of a half dozen colors, like he raided a dozen different noble woman’s closets. He towered over the rest of the bystanders on the deck, his face dripping with saltwater.
Despite that, his hair looked freshly made. I wondered if he had a skill for that; maybe his Born class was a hairdresser. He never told.
“C’mon shiprat. Quartermaster wants to talk to you.”
“Fuck does she want with me?” I physically recoiled, hunching up.
The crowd parted like water, fleeing Merrick’s sight as he approached me, the smile never leaving his face. He swaggered to me, dropping a gloved hand on my shoulder.
“They wanna hire you.” Merrick said. Then he snapped the flask out of my hand and drank it in one go. “Where did you get this piss?” He asked while pushing the empty bottle back into my hand.
“Come with a pay raise?” I asked. The drink had been a week’s labor.
“Bet your ass. C’mon.”
Merrick all but dragged me towards the squat walls of the boat’s offices.
