Chapter 118: The Way to Wester Levante

Chapter 118: The Way to Wester Levante

“The deep sea is the largest museum on earth, it contains more history than all the museums on land combined, and yet we’re only now penetrating it.”

Robert Ballard

We set sail the next morning. Father was happy to be out at sea with me. I suspected it was mainly due to the wind that I could bring that sent us skipping over the ocean. But I hoped it was also the fact that he hoped to induct me into the family business despite my other talents or at least instil in me a love of the sea rather than simply my ability to call the wind.

“We need to sail north first before heading towards Wester Levante,” Father stated as we cleared the island and he leaned on the rudder turning us towards the north.

“Why?” I asked confused, surely a straight line would be faster but ,there was some sort of obstacle on the open sea we had to avoid, maybe sea monsters or reefs.

“There is a strong current flowing south between the two isles and if you head on a straight bearing towards the isle you will end up far further south than where you are hoping to end up. It’s not a problem most days and certainly not for us with you on board but you need to be careful if you are heading into a prevailing wind otherwise you will find yourself swept south of Little Wester if you don’t watch out.” He explained.

“How far does the current flowing south go?” I asked wondering where on the sea you would end up.

“I don’t honestly know. I’ve never sailed further than Wester Levante or Little Wester. All I know is that it continues to go south past Little Wester. We will use it when we leave Wester Levante to reach Little Wester and you will see just how fast it can take you if you add the wind to it as well.” He shrugged when answering. It was easy to forget that while we might have a more seaworthy boat now but Kaius had grown up on Wester Isle and had not gone much further than that despite being able to sail. I was looking forward to clocking the exploration experience from this.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.

“Right come on Kai, let’s go!” he directed me to apply the wind and I did.

We spent the majority of the morning heading north before we turned east. He pointed out the current long before we reached it marked as it was by a lack of waves on the surface of the sea. We flew towards it before beginning to cross it.

“Can you tell how we are moving south as well as east now?” he asked me. It was deceptive, I couldn’t.

“No.” I replied.

“Well, we are going to stop in the middle of the current but I can show you just how dangerous this current can be.” He said before he dropped off an inflated pig’s bladder behind us as we traversed east across the current. I watched the bladder float behind us for a moment before it gradually started drifting further and further south behind us quickly disappearing out of sight and moving rapidly towards the south.

“This whole time I have us angle very slightly toward the north while heading east and we will still move south despite that. The current is strong and deceptively fast, it is always difficult to judge just how far south it will pull you which is why you need to aim north before you even attempt to go east.” He repeated.

. . .

The whole time that we were sailing I had all my senses on full filling in my mental map of the area. Sometimes the sea would be too deep for mana senses or echolocation to see anything more than the dark abyss we were sailing over but now and then I would see fish or even the sea bed rise never to meet us but to at least be within my sight.

Eventually, we left the southern current and it was just as we came within sight of Wester Levante that I spotted it. A wreck lying on the bottom of the seabed that had risen enough for me to see.

“There’s a wreck beneath us,” I told my father breaking the comfortable silence we had been sailing in.

“A wreck?” he asked surprised.

“Yes, we are coming up on it right now,” I replied.

“Into the boat.” He said when he arose, “Let’s pull it up.” He sounded excited.

Once we were both safely back in the boat he started to pull up the chest. There was little I could do to help him so I stowed away the rope as he pulled it up.

Finally, it lay on the bottom of the floor of our boat in front of us.

“Care to do the honours Kai.” He asked aware from our daily meetings of my more recent spellcraft and spellsong.

“Exclidono” I whispered in excitement. Our lessons continued apace with Lady Acacia and one of the skills she had taught us was how to unlock the simplest of locks. She had warned us that this wouldn’t work on enchanted, runed, glyphed or otherwise magically enforced locks but for mundane locks would work just fine.

If there had even been such magical reinforcements on the chest they had clearly run down over time being submerged under the sea and it opened with a click. As the chest opened my avaricious nature was completely satisfied. Inside the chest, it was nearly full of gold and silver coins with pouches of gemstones and pearls lying on top.

We both burst out laughing at our good fortune.

Ding! Treasure Sense (Lv 1)

“To the Silversea Family!” Father raised an imaginary toast. One I could truly appreciate having gained another new skill.

“To the Silversea family!” I replied as I imagined what else we could salvage from the wreck below us as well as how much the single chest we had recovered could buy us. My new skill seemed to imply that there was more of worth still hidden below the waves.

“Want to make another dive?” Father asked.

“Sure . . .” I hesitated. After my mistakes in letting my senses lapse, I was running them constantly. The gold had distracted me for a moment but looking into the depths we were no longer alone. An Octopus or mini Kraken, it was hard to tell, had emerged from somewhere and was now sinisterly hidden out of sight behind the wreck. If I was to add emotions to what I could sense using mind sense I would even go as far as to say that it was malevolently looking up at us just waiting for us to dive once more.

“No, there’s something down there now. Watching us.” I said after hesitating to confirm exactly what I was seeing.

“What can you see?” he asked.

“I don’t know but there are a lot of legs,” I answered. At this distance, it was hard to be accurate with my senses but there were definitely a lot of moving parts to it.

“Got lucky then we didn’t meet it down there. That could have been nasty. Still best fishing trip yet.” He smiled at our success. “On to Wester Levante, we will just drop off the birds and eggs then head onto Little Wester. It will be late by the time we get back but the current should take us swiftly south.” He thought things over out loud.

We carefully stowed away our new cargo behind the general odds and ends we carried locking it tightly in a hidden compartment that grandfather had found on the assassin’s boat then piled everything in front of it. We doubted we would be searched when dropping off a couple of birds but better to be safe than sorry. As much as I wanted to, I would have to wait until returning to Wester Isle before I counted our sunken treasure.

We raised our sail and set forth for the island that was only just visible on the horizon.