Burning iron bands squeezed my chest but I held perfectly still.

Almost, alllmoooost. Now!

I let go of the bolt and watched it fly straight into the side of the lobster. It pierced the joint where the tail meets the main body cleanly. The red sea-bug thrashed around fiercely but it was pinned. Then it suddenly wasn’t. I took the necessary moment to poke my head above water and gulp down some air for the first time in too long before I took off after it.

My swimming skill had progressed greatly over the last week and I cut through the water like I’d been doing this my whole life. The lobster’s initial burst of energy took it nearly out of sight but it tired quickly and the cloud of sand it disturbed was easy enough to follow. The bolt didn’t do much damage initially but the crustacean's frantic thrashing had torn the smallish wound into something much worse.

Without any way to finish it off, I ended up circling my prey like a vulture until it was moving sluggishly when it twitched at all. I dove down, the handy [Diving] skill helping me to come in from a safe angle. I put one hand on the lobsters back and wrenched the bolt around before pulling it free and plunging it into the spiky face of the lobster until I got an experience notification.

---

You have vanquished: Red Lobster (Lv 1)

+3 exp

---

I put the heavy lobster in my inventory, handy thing that, and pushed off of the sandy bottom, rocketing back towards the surface. It was a rippling silver and crimson boundary to the ocean and when I breached the surface, I spent a few minutes just looking up at the colorful sky as I floated on my back.

When I caught my breath, I headed in to shore and from there to Frankie’s place. It was the last day of the quest and I had bagged 2 lobsters today! I still fully expected the scallywags-du-jour to get a good laugh in at my expense but I was making tangible progress. Give me another year, and I’d be known as the kingfisher.

“Wait a minute. What the hell happened to my ambitions? I can’t just be a fisherman forever! I’m destined for greatness!” I said, pumping myself up. “I’ll be swinging swords and missing the obvious advances of my adoring harem in no time!”

I ran the rest of the way to Frankies and burst in with a little too much enthusiasm yet again. The laughing was tempered by the two huge lobsters I produced from thin air and added to the soup-pot but my [Jester] skill increased again. Let’s not speak of that skill.

When I got my serving of soup Frankie also dropped a coin on the bar with a plink.

“Not bad kid, those were some quality ingredients. I’ll give you a copper for every extra lobbie you bring in. I’ll pay two for any crabs.”

---

Quest Complete

Rewards: You can keep the speargun Frankie lent you

+15 EXP

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Repeatable Quest Evolution: Food for Frankie

In addition to trading stew for ingredients,

Frankie will now pay 1 copper coin for lobsters and 2 for crabs

---

I was so distracted by the notifications that I nearly forgot my plan for the first time I was presented with money. Just as Frankie was turning his back, I spoke up.

“Just one coin?” I asked “either of those lobsters could have fed a family of four! That’s just worth one copper to you?”

I crossed my fingers and hoped that I would get some kind of bartering skill rather than a swift backhand. Frankie turned stone-faced.

“Aye, just one coin. If you don’t like my rates, you can take your catch elsewhere.” He stalked off to give another customer a refill, but he left the copper coin where it was.

Huh, so I had forgotten the most basic principle of economics. Frankie was the only one on the island who would buy anything from me. With a monopoly like that he could set any price he damn well pleased.

I picked up the coin and examined it. It wasn’t perfectly round, it had some faint bite-marks on it and it was a little bent. The candlelight gleamed off of the polished edges and got lost in the tarnished interior. I dropped it into my inventory.

“Only two hundred and ninety-nine to go then…” I told myself.