Deacon did his best to stay inconspicuous while striding across the sea. He was considering how bizarre his life had gotten. Out here on the ocean while the waves undulated beneath making him look like a bottle lost at sea. Half the time he was struggling to change direction as the rolling of the waves pointed him in new directions. Deacon was content with being soaked through, so he never put a new shirt back after giving his hoody to the boy back in town. At some point he’d have to go under the waves and the outfit would be ruined anyway. Between the rain and the ocean it would have been a fools errand. Twice Jeremiah had to come back and point him toward the ship. It was only now that Deacon realized he may not have thought this plan all the way through.

They finally reached the hull of the lurching ship. Deacon could hear people shouting up on the deck. Jeremiah explained that most of these ships were the same. They had four decks. The bottom most deck held the prisoners who rowed when there was no wind. The floor above that doubled as the hold and slave pens. Next was the crew quarters and the galley. Then the top deck usually had the sailors working the sails, the captains quarters, and various weapons.

“Now what will you do?” asked Jermiah, as he skimmed back and forth on the waves.

“I’m going to go in and free the slaves. Then I’ll lead them to take the ship. We’ll wash rinse and repeat until all the ships are ours. Simple,” answered Deacon as he stepped closer to the large ship.

“Be careful. Boats of this size lurch violently in storms like this. You may not survive if that thing hits you,” warned Jeremiah.

“Just remember to come aboard when I give you the signal,” replied Deacon.

“What’s the signal?” asked Jeremiah.

“Lots of blood. See ya soon,” Deacon said before he slipped right through the hull of the ship.

Deacon’s head popped into wide open room with benches that ran up and down the length of the ship. Seated at these benches were exhausted slaves chained together in each row. There was a large oar seated across their laps and a hatch that opened one way near the wide flat end of the oars. Most of the slaves were slumped over the large length of wood sleeping. There was an aisle that running down the middle that could fit two people abreast walking. At the far end of the that aisle was slaver seated in a comfortable chair snoring. A thick ring of keys bouncing at his hip.

That seemed to be the only guard down here. It didn’t make sense. There were at least one hundred prisoners. One guy could be easily overpowered by them. There was something Deacon wasn’t seeing. He pulled himself further into the ship remaining permeable. He was standing between two rows of slaves. They were composed of men and women of various races. Deacon began to reach down before he noticed a globe of light moving up and down the center aisle. It wasn’t attached to anything. As it got closer Deacon got a better look at the object. It was a glass sphere with six sides. Each pane of glass had a different symbol etched on it. The sphere stopped at one of the aisles and spun to a specific symbol. It illuminated one of the slaves in a bright light. Then an aura surrounded that slave before it got sucked into the lantern. It spun one more time and continued down the aisle.

Deacon spun up one Ice Sickle and had it hovering over his right shoulder. Whatever that ball light was, it wasn’t good for the slaves. As he went to touch the collar on the nearest slave the orb spun and headed back to his row. The Ice Sickle spun out towards the ball, and it began to flash a red light. At the same time, the ring holding the keys lit up startling the guard awake. The Ice Sickle slammed into the orb shattering it as the guard at the door stumbled to his feet. Deacon took the opportunity the disorientation of the guard allowed, to slip back outside the hull of the ship. He extended his dragon claws digging them into the treated wood of the boat.

As the guard moved down the aisle to check on the orb, Deacon moved closer to him from the outside of the boat. He pushed his way through the hull again now behind the guard and two aisles back. Deacon pulled himself fully into the ship as the guard went down to one knee inspecting the Ice Sickle and shards of glass. The guard lifted his head just in time for Deacon to bring a fist down on top of it. Deacon’s Slave Masters Bane title gave him a twenty percent damage boost when fighting slavers and he wasn’t holding any Strength back. The man’s head burst as Deacon’s fist clubbed down like a hammer hitting a watermelon at a Gallagher show. The body slumped forward as one of the slaves began to stir a few rows down. Deacon quickly sent out party invites to every slave on this deck before proceeding to touch each of their collars. His title also allowed him to sense slavers within range. He knew there was a commotion above him as feet began stomping around in the same area he was sensing slavers. That made sense since it was a pirate slaver vessel. That was also the point Deacon realized he wasn’t doing this fast enough. The sounds coming from decks above him were getting closer and he’d barely freed twenty people. He quickly ran over to the ring of keys.

Upon touching it, his hand began to burn and sizzle, forcing him to drop it. The keys that were on it have been slowly melting into puddle of molten slag. One of the slaves began pulling on the chains that kept him in his seat as others started crying out for help. His plan was falling apart too fast. Refusing to take the L on this one, Deacon began coating the iron cage door at the end of aisle where the guard was sleeping with Nether ice. He hoped that would buy him some time to unlock the rest. Then he noticed a line of red appearing on random collars amongst the slaves.

“You, you need to get these off of us quickly. Where are the keys? They’ll burn the skin right off our necks,” cried out one of the slavers.

“Everyone quiet down. I need you to listen to me very carefully. I can get the collars off of you, but I need to do it by touching them. Hold your chins up and don’t move. I need you all to stand up and lean forward. I’m going to be moving very quickly. Once your collar disappears, I need you to get out of the way and let the person behind you get to the main aisle. If we don’t do it this way some of you will die. Do not answer me just line up, damn it!” Deacon ordered before racing to the aft of the ship and taking a runners stance.

He pumped soul energy into Spectral Dash with both hands held outstretched. As he plowed down the aisle, he only missed a few people who were either too short or too tall. He instructed the others to help level out and to accept his party request. Some of the freed slaves started to help aligning people within a few more passes they were all freed.

“How did you do that?” asked one woman, her gaunt features starting to fill in with color as she was healed.

“How are you healing us?” asked a tall man with Kel’Aish features.

“It’s an Adventures Guild perk. Now listen carefully. I know there are cages above us. I’d like to free them too, but this took too long, and I tripped some kind of warning system—” Deacon was interrupted by a loud banging from the iced up door at the forward section of the ship.

“But we are in the middle of the ocean. There is no where to run,” cried another woman amongst the throng of people.

“Not true. We are just outside of the Shattered Sky’s port. We just need to take the ship to get there. I’ll do most of the fighting with the slavers but would be happy to have help,” Deacon said with a shrug as he moved closer to the frozen door.

Deacon could feel five different slavers on the other side of the door. It was like they were five points of brown and grey cold spots in his perception. He couldn’t actually see the spots, but he could feel them, and he knew where they were. The slaves watched as he slipped through the wooden wall on the right side of the door.

“Get this blasted door open, damn it. We need to find out why the rings went off,” said one pirate.

“What the hell? It’s colder than a witch’s tit down here,” said another.

“The locks open but the damn door won’t budge. It’s like there’s something blocking it,” said a third.

“If the captain finds out we can’t get in there, he’ll have you all in chains. Get it open!” yelled a fourth much more clean pirate with a rapier.

Deacon heard all of this from under one of the stairs they were all standing on. His view was obscured by a torn pair of slacks worn by one of the pirates. He reached up and slammed the heel of his right palm into the back of the pirates left knee. That forced the man to buckle and scream in agony as he fell forward onto the two trying to work the door. They all went down in a heap. Deacon used Polterheist to manipulate their weaponry. One short sword stabbed up and through the one who initially fell from Deacon’s attack. The other had a small hand axe that flew up into the air coming down on the head of it’s owner. That left one pirate at the bottom of the heap under two very dead bodies.

That was when Deacon floated up through the staircase and the bodies. There were two more pirates on the stairs starring down at him as he stepped off the bodies and onto the stairs proper. One pirate didn’t know what to make of the situation and just stood there mouth open. The rapier wielder slowly pulled his weapon and pushed the mouth breather to the side.

“What will you do now specter? Did you die at sea and now you’re here to take your revenge? You may have claimed our slaves, but my blade will send you back to the nether from whence you came,” called the pirate brandishing his weapon.

His blade began to glow a crimson and black color. That immediately told Deacon he needed to dodge. As the pirate lunged down the stairs Deacon just stepped into the wall. The rapier made contact with the wooden door on this side of the bars and the door exploded. Wood shrapnel peppering the pirates face and huge pieces of the door punched through the pirate. The sole living pirate at the bottom of the pile of bodies was pressed up against the door when it shattered. He was punctured by the remnants of the door as well, silencing his pleas for help.

The rapier wielder staggered backwards up the stairs until he fell on his ass. Hunks of door jutting from his torso. His head lolled back, and he looked at the other pirate further up the staircase and wheezed out some words.

“Get the… captain,” he croaked out before succumbing to his injuries.

The final pirate didn’t need to be told twice as he turned to run up the stairs. He didn’t get far as Deacon emerged from the wall above him, two Ice Sickles spinning their way down the stairs. They were moving in a crisscross pattern before meeting in his throat. The pirates body fell forward while his head bounced back down the stairs.