The rest of the day had passed without much notice. The only two things of note that happened were my conversations with Ed and Sir Miller. Ed had been a bit reluctant to undertake the guild quest at first.

“I’m not really sure that a suicide quest is in the best interest of the guild,” he said after having heard the details.

“Yes, it might be a temporary setback for some of them if they aren’t smart about it,” I concurred. “However, with a day to make sure to level up the skills closest to levelling up, you could minimize the XP loss.”

“I don’t think that fifty thousand XP is enough to make up for it,” he countered.

“How about the upgrade point?”

“It’s very tempting.”

“Indeed,” I said. “Just think about how much faster you started levelling up after getting your skills upgraded to Apprentice. With two skill points for each level up. I’m telling you that this looks like a bad idea, but if you’re smart about it, it will be advantageous.”

“But dying is not fun,” he said with a frown.

I nodded at that. “Yeah, it sucks big time to die. But look at all the benefits the guild can get for this. Most of the new people will jump at the chance of earning at least ten thousand contributions points for the guild points. Twenty-five thousand if they’re lucky.”

“What about equipment?”

“Have the Phils make up some wooden weapons for everyone. That way they don’t lose any really valuable weapons,” I suggested. The conversations ended up going over the same points a few more times before he finally relented and agreed to do it. With Ed on board, the others would follow. Of that, I had little doubt.

My conversation with Sir Miller happened because I had to inform him that our departure day for the castle ruins was pushed back a single day.

He was not happy about that because it meant his men would be stuck in a low-level area for an extra day. He informed me of that. “I am not entirely happy about this.”

“Sorry, but a guild quest came up. It’s a bad idea to turn down those,” I said.

“I understand that. I just wish we could collect enough reputation with the Lord to buy a guild property,” he said wistfully.

When I heard that I was torn. I could help them in that regard by telling them about the sewer dungeon. Which would cut into the times we could run it and impede the guild’s growth a bit, especially our own guild point collection. On the other hand, the more guilds who owned a guild house in the region, the more guild quest there would be generated. At the same time, it would also foster a closer relationship with the Squirrel Knights.

It would probably have been better if I had taken the discussion with Ed beforehand, but I made an executive decision to spread the wealth. “There’s a reason why we keep running the sewer dungeon.”

“I reckoned that already, but just couldn’t figure out the secret,” Sir Miller said with a scoff.

“When you’ve run the dungeon fifty times, or more precisely have a collected five hundred reputation point between the party, he opens up a new section of the dungeon.”

“That’s a lot of times,” he noted.

“Yeah. Each run is usually worth a couple of platinum coins but is severely restricted in how many times it can be run,” I warned. “I tell you this because Blue Lotus considers your guild a friend and partner. I hope you won’t go blabbing about it to someone else.”

“My word is my honour. It shall remain a secret between our guilds,” he said in all seriousness. “Well, I guess it’s time for us to run the level one dungeon a lot of times. Will it go faster if we clear it individually or in groups?”

“Since there’s a limit on how many times it can be cleared daily, it’s best to go with the group option, since the individual member receives the same rewards whether he’s on his own or not.”

“Thanks again for your insight. We will be ready to leave when you inform us you're done with your guild quest,” he said right before bidding good day and leaving.

It was only five minutes after he had left, I remembered my magic lunchboxes. ‘Crap. Forgot to try and sell him my magic items.’

The next day had gone by without any significant incidents. One of the two noteworthy things that did happen was the fact that our fields were ready. Despite the high bonuses from the fertilizer I had been making, only the red moss plot remained Below Average quality, the two other fell to Poor quality. The rolls had been pretty bad, and if not for the boost by the fertilizer, the rolls would have resulted in Failures, meaning the quality would have dropped to Very Poor.

The other noteworthy thing was that I did manage to find a source of big and large rocks of Below Average quality, but because of a lack of supply, they were pretty expensive at six and ten copper apiece. Double the standard value, and definitely more than what Captain Roughbark would end up paying. He would probably pay four and six apiece. At worst five and seven apiece.

In addition to the high prices, he only had less than a couple hundred of each size, and would not be getting more for the foreseeable future. Oh, he did try to get me to pay upfront for a load he could have brought to the island within twenty days. It was better to wait for the captain and hope he found room for as many rocks as possible. If he got the large rocks at six coppers apiece, I could afford over thirteen thousand of them. A number that would keep me in the manastone business for a while.

The piddly amount of rocks I bought would hardly last me more than a week, and that was only if I did not concentrate on making manastones, which I very much wanted to do. I would need a lot of them to make all the magic lunchboxes I needed.

Day 34 dawned with the entirety of the guild down by the docks. Six of us were standing on top together with a lot of the wives and children of the Locals. The six of us were the crafters, who would be of no use in holding back the sea monsters that would swarm the bait, while the fishermen were hauling in some fish.

Down below was a beehive of activity. I could see my fifteen fighters had been given three flatboats, little more than rafts with sides and sails. At least that was how it looked to me. They were not meant to be truly seaworthy, just hold together long enough for my guildmates to put up a fight. At the same time, it gave them more space to fight than a normal boat would have. From the looks of it, they divided into the three parties they were already in.

The soldiers from the Imperial garrison looked to be manning five bigger boats, with ten men to each. They would provide close security to the fishing boat, but if all went according to plan they would only provide fire support. There would be a total of ten fishing boats, which would hopefully bring a tidy sum of coin. None of it would be earmarked for the guild but would be split up between the fifteen members who were going on the quest, to make up for any equipment lost. Even if most of them had changed their equipment to something of less value, since there were a great chance of them losing everything they had on them.

I noticed the leader of the soldiers handing a large device to Ed. A Thumper. Like something taken out of my favourite twentieth-century sci-fi novel, it would send out vibration, provoking the local monsters into attacking, while scaring the fish towards the fishing boats. I observed Ed putting it in the boat his party was manning.

After standing around for ten minutes just staring at the preparations, boredom was starting to get to me. It would feel wrong to leave, while fifteen men and women were doing something very important for the guild. However, my hands and feet were itching because of the inefficiency of just standing around doing nothing. Not able to take it any longer, I went over to my cart and pulled a table out, and started making normal manastones. I just needed to do something.

After twenty minutes the boats finally set out. They would be sailing a fair distance out, which would make it impossible to see what was going on with the naked-eye. Normally. I already knew it would happen. Ilat had set up a large telescope on a tripod and connected it to a metal box with a lot of manastones on it. When he activated it, it projected a hologram of what the telescope was pointed at.

Only my five guildmates and the youngest kids were surprised or awed by this. Nise said, “Wow, I didn’t think they’d have holographic technology.”

“They don’t,” I said with a grin.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s magic,” I said with a straight face.

“Any technology sufficiently advanced will seem like magic to those that don’t understand it,” she paraphrased.

“True, but in this case, it’s literally magic. It’s classified as a magic item,” I countered. All I got was a huff in lieu of a reply.

I kept making manastones while staring at the scene that unfolded. It took the boats thirty minutes to get into position. Ed had placed his boat a good distance from the soldiers’ boats and fishing boats. Kira’s boat kept pretty close to Ed’s, while the newest party was holding a position further back, but out of the line of fire of the soldiers.

On the holographic display, I was able to see Ed put a manastone on the thumper device. Slowly the thumps started. Not that we could hear them, but we could see rings being formed in the water between the wave. They became more frequent.

The first monsters to break the surface was a dozen fish looking humanoid. Fishfolk were the low man on the totem pole amongst the sentient sea monsters, as the idiom wrongly states. They were in fact high on the totem pole, since they were treated like day labourers most of the time, and canon fodder the rest of the time.

They started by throwing spears after Ed’s party, but Ed had summoned an earth elemental that took the brunt of those. It was funny to see an earth elemental springing into existence on a boat where there was no dirt. Nevertheless, it happened. Robin, Blaze and Marion responded with a barrage of their own which killed off a couple of the fishfolk.

Kira’s party had no ranged damage dealers, so they held back for the moment. Two of the people from our temporary party helped, by shooting arrows and magic after the fishfolk. Mostly missing though. The soldiers did not help yet. They would be waiting for things to get more serious before they got involved. The fishing boats were starting to cast their nets.

Another couple dozen fishfolk popped out of the water on the other side of Ed’s party, meaning they were between Ed’s and Kira’s boat. Kira set course towards them. Ed made his earth elemental jump from the boat, landing amongst the first group of fishfolk. As soon as it started sinking, he made it explode. He quickly summoned another two elementals. An air and a water elemental.

The water elemental created water sprouts lifting up a fishfolk or two, while the air elemental used strong bursts of wind to send them aboard Kira’s boat, where they were quickly slaughtered. A few fishfolk from the first group had arrived at Ed’s boat and were trying to make their way aboard, but Petals kept them in the water, with the occasional help from Ed’s staff.

The second group of fishfolk were busy contending with Kira’s boat which had sailed into the middle of their group. Every ten seconds or so one or two would be lifted out of the water, to land on the deck of the boat where Kira and Hei quickly took care of them. One-Eye and Elize kept the fishfolk out of the boat, while Robert was doing his best to reach them with the length of his double-handed axe.

The third group of monsters to appear from the water were only three large. However, the two larger fishfolk seemed more dangerous, while the third fishfolk was definitely more dangerous than those from the other waves, because he started casting spells as soon as he surfaced. The trio of ranged fighter aboard Ed’s boat immediately targetted the caster, though to no avail it seemed. The two larger fishfolk intercepted all the spells.

What they did not catch was a single flight of arrows the soldiers had launched. The arrows rained down, biting deep into the two bodyguards, but most of the arrows perforated the caster. The bodyguards tried to shift to protect against the new danger, which opened the caster up to attacks from Ed’s party. Which also included the air elemental, which swooped down and detonated before the bodyguards could react. The stun inflicted by the detonation allowed Robin to finish of the caster.

Wave after wave of fishfolk followed. Each wave bigger or stronger than the next. Robert was the first of our members to perish in the sixth wave. He was caught by a large barbed harpoon with a chain, and before he could get it removed he was yanked into the water.

I would need to look into getting my hands on some barnacles. If I could get the right ones I would be able to make some water breathing or walking potions. Maybe I should see about making some alchemical fire which would burn just nicely on the surface of the water. However, I did not have the items to make all those items, nor the time. Even if we did not get the quest the next time, which was unlikely since they lowered the chance of getting the same quest twice in a row, I could still make a healthy profit selling to our allies. Which still only counted the Squirrel Knights, and that was tentative still.

The next to fall was either Nise’s mom or aunt and Petal’s father. The two sisters looked very much alike, and they were at the periphery of the fight. However, their boat had caught a few low levelled fishfolk making for the fishing boats. Low levelled being level fifteen, almost double the level of the party.

They fought well and managed to keep the fishfolk from reaching more than halfway to the fishing boats. They needed a couple of flights of arrows to help them kill the fishfolk, but it was what to be expected. They fell in the seventh wave.

On the eight wave, merfolk was starting to appear as well. They were higher level than the fishfolk, and all of them a whole lot smarter. Robin got caught by one of their water sprouts washing her overboard. Kira’s party tried to save her but lost One-Eye in the failed attempt. Meaning we were down to ten combatants.

In the ninth wave, the temporary party was wiped away, and the soldiers had to finish off the part of the wave that had attacked the party. That signalled that the quest was nearing the end. Slowly the fishing boats and the soldiers’ boat began making their way towards the docks.

The tenth wave was the first “boss” wave so to speak, and brought something completely new. Two giant squids, each one big enough to crush the parties’ boat eventually, were holding a large wooden platform. On it was a large group of fishfolk bodyguards, as well as a naga. The snake-like creature with the humanoid head started chanting as soon as it appeared next to Ed’s boat. The water was filled with merfolk and fishfolk as well. The squids lifted the boat with a few of their arms, capsizing it.

Blaze, Marion and Petals all went into the water, while Ed managed to manoeuvre his water elemental into position to grab him. The other three were beset upon by the sea monsters, meaning there was nothing Ed or Kira’s party could do for them. They fought bravely, but lasted all of four seconds before they were killed by the horde of monsters. A large group of the monsters had started towards the retreating fishing boats, but thought better of it when a continuous rain of arrows barred their way.

The naga finished chanting, and a giant water sprout lifted Kira’s boat into the air and tore it to pieces. Ed’s air elemental caught Elize as she fell towards the water, while Kira and Hei managed to land on their feet on top of the bottom of Ed’s boat. They looked at each other for a moment, and because of the telescope, we could see a manic grin light up Kira’s face. The naga had started chanting once more.

Kira and Hei made it look easy when they jumped from the capsized boat to the arms of the squids, were Hei used Paralyzing Touch to prevent the squid from moving for a second. Meaning they had enough time to make it to the platform, where dozens of fishfolk awaited them.

Kira charged right at them, being a whirlwind of red streaks flying through the air. Hei followed close by, paralyzing and stabbing anything trying to move in behind her. After a couple of seconds, with a few long-ranged heals from Elize, Kira activated her Shadowcloak and was soon hidden in the shadowy fog. Hei rushed into it and seemed to vanish.

The shadowy fog with streaks of red light pushed the fishfolk back a couple of meters before it disappeared. Leaving Kira alone surrounded by fishfolk. No more heals would be coming from Elize because the air elemental had been killed, and left her in the water, struggling for her life. Ed looked around helplessly, as the water elemental took blow after blow. He seemed to come to a decision and jumped from the elemental, exploding it while he was still in the air.

He got caught by the force of the blast and sent closer to the platform. While in the air he managed to summon to new elementals, both earth elemental, who he plummeted into the water with. As soon as they hit the water, he exploded both of them, killing himself in the process. The explosion made the squids rear backwards, tilting the platform a bit.

Kira used the distraction to open a path towards the side of the platform, shifting all the fishfolk’s attention in that direction. Hei appeared out of thin air from where we had last seen him, and made a wild dash towards the naga. He had to duck around one enterprising fishfolk, otherwise, he arrived in front of the naga unhindered. He paralyzed it, grabbed the back of its head and proceeded to repeatedly stab it in the eyes with a dagger, and paralyzed it over and over again.

Meanwhile, Kira died fighting the mass of fishfolk, who collectively turned to Hei. He tried his best to kill the naga as spear after spear stabbed him in the back. However, he was not strong enough.

He died with his dagger logged in the naga’s eye socket. When the paralysing effect wore off, the naga threw its head back releasing a keening wail that we could hear even from where we stood. In fact, I believed most of the city could hear it.

“They’re going to feel that for a long time,” a Blackport guard next to me said. “Your friends did better than most people dared hope. Though the one who blinded the naga has made a nemesis.”

“What do you mean?” Phil asked.

In a low voice, I said, “The sentient underwater races, like fishfolk, merfolk and the naga are born, well, hatched to be exact, and grows just like the Locals.”

“You’re telling me those aren’t just monsters?” Nise asked.

“No,” the guard said. “They were treated as inferior beings during the time before the First Rupture, and we’ve been at war with them ever since the ancient races died out. Though we had a truce going for the last hundred years.”

“But why would they be attracted to a simple vibration device then?” Mia asked.

“Because the sound waves the thumper makes can destroy the corals their houses are made off, we were attacking their home,” the guard said.

“Oh god,” Mia and Nise exclaimed at the same time. Andrea looked indifferent, while the two Phils frowned.

“It's a fact of war. They’ve been starving us ever since the Second Rupture,” the guard said and started walking away. Just out of habit I checked his name and saw it was the same guard who had manned the wall when I had trouble with the Iron Bears.

I called out to him, “Guardsman, I believe I owe you a round of ales or two.”

“Now you remember,” he called back. He stopped outside a tavern. “Better late than never.”

With a grin, I packed my stuff away and figured we had half an hour to kill before everyone was back in the square anyway.