"I've never seen Drew make that face before," Emelia said and laughed.

Adam glanced around the captain's quarters of the Golden Slug. After the White Flags' captain had seen the hoard of treasure, he'd immediately called three more ships over, and a total of forty pirates had run back and forth carrying almost all of it off the ship.

Emelia and Adam had made sure to hide some of the truly valuable items in the trap chamber that'd held the compass, but according to her calculations, they'd given the White Flags the equivalent of 20,000 Doubloons.

What they'd gotten in exchange was definitely worth it though. Instead of the ten crew they'd asked for, they'd been given twenty. On top of that, Herrman and three of the portsmiths had come on board as well, allowing them to upgrade and repair the ship as needed. With that many people, they could almost man every ballista on the ship, giving them an incredible amount of firepower. Not to mention, the White Flags were extremely skilled in close combat, so on the off-chance that they were boarded, they'd have nothing to fear.

The giant airship still floated outside Windtop Cove, but now its deck and lower levels were buzzing with activity.

"You don't think giving them that much money will curse them, right?" Adam asked.

"They know how to handle it," she said. "They usually spread out the money they have instead of storing it all in one place, or they trade it for things that are valuable but not a currency by themselves."

"Like those statues we kept," Adam realised.

"It's a clever workaround to the gold curse," she said. "And all the settlements are fine with bartering, so you don't really lose anything by converting gold and jewels into things of equal value to trade later."

She grabbed the egg from the nightstand next to the bed and sat up, curling her naked body around it. It was almost the same size as her torso, but it didn't weigh a whole lot, hinting at its fragility.

They had found the egg for her Patron Quest while the White Flags had carted off the treasure hoard. Unlike the other sections below deck, the front of the Golden Slug, the ship-swallowing maw, was accessible only by going down a narrow hatch and ladder a few metres behind the giant ballista. It had been incredibly cramped, forcing them to duck through small tunnels to reach the main compartment that the maw led to. A lever-based control panel operated the opening and closing of the front, and there were two specialised ballistae inside with bolts tied to chains and winches. Additionally, there were industrial-sized cutters to chop up ships, as well as strange spider-like tools for more precision work. Unsurprisingly, Herrman and his three portsmiths had eagerly taken over the maw as their own once they'd learnt about it.

As for the egg, it had just been sitting there next to the lever controls on a crude pedestal made of scrap. The former crew was obviously gone, but they hadn't fought any of them during their attack, so Adam wondered exactly how they'd gotten away. Or perhaps they'd vanished like the corpses, which might explain why the egg was left behind.

After they'd off-loaded their treasure to Windtop and all the new crewmembers had settled in, Adam and Emelia had returned to the captain's quarters and celebrated.

And now they lay together on the enormous bed that they'd slept in, their Relics and clothes on the floor. As a minor precaution, Adam's barriers had blocked the door the entire night and morning. After all, their new crew were all pirates and such things as privacy were not a guarantee with their kind.

Unlike in the vision from the Scale of Remembrance, Emelia hadn't cried in his arms and begged him not to die. Adam took that as a good sign that things were going well.

"Do you want to do your quest first?" Adam asked, looking at her coiled up with the large egg. "Also, why are you doing that?"

"It's warm," she explained. But then she must've realised how strange it looked, since she placed the egg back on the nightstand.

She cast him a mischievous grin and he couldn't stop staring at her.

"I think we can afford to sleep in a bit longer," she said, though her expression made it clear that she wasn't thinking about sleeping.

With a burst of speed she was suddenly on top of him, pinning his arms back into the mattress, her lips locked firmly on his.

When she pulled away, he asked, voice full of fake concern, "But what will we tell our crew? Surely, they'll be bored, having nothing to do."

"Oh, they'll see action soon enough," she said with a laugh. Then she intensified her grip on his wrists and started kissing her way down his body.

Soon enough, any thoughts about Slug Dragons, pirates, and Patron Quests were far removed from Adam's mind.

Emelia sat on the railing next to the wheel and fin throttles while Adam steered the Golden Slug towards the island she'd indicated. She'd told them all about it in the Tavern before the Stage, but Adam had a hard time seeing how any airship boss could be hidden on the island they sailed towards.

The six ballistae on the main deck were manned, as were four on both broadsides. The remaining crew remained topside to help with reloading, and in case Emelia had new orders for them.

They had decided to not send people down to the underside ballistae, since the crew themselves had said that very few pirates had ships that could attack from below.

And in case we do get attacked by such ships, we can quickly send people down there, plus Emelia and I can fly down to deal with them before they can get close.

I wonder how this Stage would be without the ability to fly with my barriers.

I hope I don't have to find out.

"Stop the ship here," Emelia said.

Adam pulled back the fin throttles and they slowly coasted to a halt. There were still 500 metres or more to the island, but they were about to summon the Secret Boss, and she assured him they didn't want to be close when it appeared.

The island was shaped like a capital I, flaring out at the top and bottom, with a long section of land straight down the middle. It was a fair bit bigger than the Golden Slug, and he worried just how large the enemy airship would be. In order to have the best potential for damage, they'd come at the island from the side. Adam wasn't sure how they'd just summon an airship from the island, but Emelia said it would make sense once they got there.

With the crew ready on the Golden Slug, all shifted to the portside ballistae, the pair flew to the island atop Adam's barrier.

The island was unnamed on Captain Drew's map, but Emelia said it was called Fallow's Grave. She'd recognised it from its shape on the map. In the Tavern, she had said it was best to leave the fight until the third day when a team had an upgraded medium-sized ship or larger. And unlike other airships, the one they'd be summoning to fight couldn't be boarded and overtaken since the whole thing was just some kind of magical spell.

I still don't know what to expect. As always, her description left a lot to the imagination.

Emelia had just called it a ghost ship of the famous Captain Fallow.

Hopefully it's possible to hit it with my barriers.

The island itself was rather peculiar. There were a lot of dead trees everywhere and the sandy ground was covered in a thick layer of ash. It was as though the place had been lit on fire, burning down all the trees and plants, leaving behind only their charred skeletons.

Emelia pointed them over to a large flat rock atop the ash near the back of the island where it flared out. As they got closer, Adam saw that there were several stones stacked on top of the flat rock, creating six small pillars that formed a half-circle.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Once they touched down and got off the barrier, Emelia pulled out candles from her Spidersilk backpack. She'd gotten them from Captain Drew for this specific purpose.

After placing one atop each of the wobbly stone pillars, she asked Adam to use the passive flame effect imbued by his crown to light them up by touching his barriers to their wicks.

"What now?" he asked once all the candles were lit.

"Now we get back to our ship in a hurry," she said.

Then the ground started to rumble.

< < Secret Optional Stage Objective > >

< Defeat the Pride of Captain Fallow >

The middle of the I-shaped island broke open, creating a large cloud of ash, dust, and sand as something enormous rose from below. The dead trees were uprooted and tossed aside, and waterfalls of sand spilled over the edge of the island, raining down into the gold-tinged clouds below.

As Adam sent their transport barrier back to the Golden Slug as fast as he could, he looked back to see a tattered and ancient airship silhouetted inside the cloud by the golden light that touched every part of the Floating Sea. It had six masts and four sets of fins. A large bank of propellers sat at the back near the huge rudder, and two big propellers were situated on either side of the ship's bow. A bowsprit like a curled demon's horn sprouted from the tip of the airship, and as the dust and ash dissipated, he saw that the ship itself was made of rotten black wood and contrasted with copious amounts of gold everywhere.

It was easily the size of the Golden Slug, probably longer still, and on its deck ran a horde of golden skeletons. A bulky figure glowing gold stood at the helm, one arm on the wheel and the other on the propeller-and-fin throttle.

Before Adam and Emelia had even landed on their own ship, their ballistae barked loudly as their crew fired their entire broadside and the six topside in one harmonious symphony.

Emelia returned to the helm, immediately taking command of their crew and ship, while Adam spun up his three barriers, splitting them into two with his new Relic, creating a total of six.

With the spin he induced into them and their aerodynamic shapes, they all flew far enough to hit once he launched them, but the results were underwhelming to say the least. Two of them skimmed across the deck, taking out several of the skeletons like they were bowling pins. The other four embedded themselves into the masts and broadside hull, doing very little damage.

By contrast, their steady barrage of ballistae bolts were tearing open the ghost ship, managing to disable the fins on its portside, along with a lot of its broadside portholes and the weapons hidden within.

"Is he summoning more skeletons?" Adam asked while he sat on the ground and went through the steps to create a quadruple-fused barrier. He had to wait a minute to recoup before he could launch it, but it was looking like he might not have to do much for them to win, since Emelia was circling the Secret Boss while their entire portside lit it up like they were just doing target practice against a dummy.

"The captain controlling the ship is Fallow himself, and for reasons I don't understand, the ritual with the candles basically revived him as a lich. One of a lich's powers in the Trials is that they can summon skeletons. His are just gold, because he's the primogenitor of the gold curse."

"We're doing a lot of damage to it," Adam remarked.

"The Golden Slug is the strongest airship Players can get their hands on," she replied. "But it's normally balanced by the fact that you have a max of six Players who can operate it. Since there are no sails to babysit, that means five Players on ballista duty. By contrast, we have twenty firing the ballistae, and they're all basically veterans, meaning their reloading speed and accuracy with these weapons are off the charts. Couple that with the nasty bolts that Herrman cooked up, and the end result is obvious."

"I'd better hurry if I want to get a punch in then," he said and stood up.

Then he cast Mana Infusion on his quadruple-fused barrier, turning it black and making its thrum like a deep bassy note that was impossible for the human ear to pick up.

With a dramatic gesture, Adam fired the projectile.

Emelia stumbled a step, but kept herself steady with the wheel in her hands, though her metal stilts scraped the deck. A few of the ballista crew fell back, and Adam's vision went black for a second.

Then came the roar of thunder, which he was starting to suspect was actually caused by the projectile breaking the sound barrier.

They were behind and to the side of Fallow's Pride, and the shot went right through the captain's quarters at the back, through the first two masts, and then down into the main deck, before finally exploding out the starboard side of the ship's underbelly. A large six-metre-wide hole pierced all the way through the airship following the shot.

The crew aboard the Golden Slug cheered loudly.

"Let's finish her off with style!" Emelia shouted over the celebration. "Man the Ship-Breaker!"

Six of the topside crew ran to the bow and the giant ballista placed here.

"Ship-Breaker?" Adam asked. "I didn't know it was called that."

"The Whale Eaters actually stole it from Fallow's Pride, after Fallow was defeated. Or so the story goes."

He looked back at the airship. It had barely moved since they'd started bombarding it, but he saw a large ballista at the front of it.

It kind of feels like we found an exploit to defeat the boss easily.

Not that I mind, but it's a bit hard to feel any sort of satisfaction about it, when it's this easy.

Adam frowned, realising how bizarre his gut reaction was.

Why am I treating this like a game…?

Surely it's better if it's easy.

Then he was violently pulled from his thoughts by a crack like a giant's whip as the Ship-Breaker fired its enormous projectile. It was basically the size of a small airship's mast, except with a sharp tip at the end and no sail.

Using that against a Slug Dragon makes a lot of sense, Adam mused.

The impact against the enemy airship was spectacular. The bolt went in one side of the ship and exploded out the other, dealing way more structural damage than Adam's barrier projectile, thanks to its size and length.

The team manning the giant ballista quickly loaded it again while their broadside kept launching bolt after bolt.

By the time the second Ship-Breaker bolt was fired, the Pride of Captain Fallow was listing dangerously and had already dropped back down towards the island's surface.

The bolt struck somewhere near the middle of the airship, and that was that. The secret boss simply just broke in half and fell apart into two pieces. They struck the island with two loud booms and then whatever magic had created it faltered, turning the visage of the ghost ship into just ash and broken dead trees. The golden skeletal crew and its glowing captain simply vanished, as though they'd been mirages that had never even existed in the first place.

Given how they couldn't even fight back, that comparison definitely seems apt.

< < Secret Objective Complete > >

< Defeated the Pride of Captain Fallow >

The legendary captain's shadow has left this world.

I wonder what that means.

The crew aboard the Golden Slug roared in celebration, those from below coming topside to join in.

"Getting our own little pirate gang turned out to be a good investment," Emelia said with a grin.

While the pirates celebrated by breaking out a cask of rum and provisions from below, Emelia and Adam returned to the island where the ghost ship had crashed.

"Have you beaten it before?" Adam asked as they stepped off onto the ashy ground.

Emelia nodded. "We got it in my previous loop," she said. "But it was a lot harder. The Pride has a Ship-Breaker too, and it took out one of our masts with a clean hit. After we won we were basically limping back to the nearest settlement and had to get a replacement airship."

"Do we get a special reward for beating the secret boss?" Adam wondered.

"No, but the Relic Chest and two Upgrade Chests it leaves behind have their rarities increased."

Adam grinned. "Then that means…"

"Yeah," she replied with a grin of her own.

They ran over to where the chests had been left behind in the middle of the island, the same spot the ship had risen from. There was no sign of it ever having broken free from the ground, and he wondered if it was really just some kind of elaborate illusion spell they'd seen.

Adam immediately opened the Relic Chest, and four holograms appeared. The three Epics that appeared he'd already seen before, but the last one, a Legendary, was completely new. It was a shape-shifting blob of gold.

< < Relics Available > >

< Whale Eater's Snap Gauntlet (Epic) — Punch the gauntlet against a target to trigger the spring-loaded mechanism to snap and latch on to their flesh, inflicting 100% weapon damage. 30-second cooldown | Afflictions delivered with this Relic are twice as potent >

< Golden Mask of the Fallen (Epic) — Gain 1% Attack Speed & Damage for every 10 pieces of currency in your inventory | The potency of the Gold-cursed affliction is twice as potent and can be triggered by all currencies >

< Reckless Warlord's Cape (Epic) — Reduces Defence by 25% | Verbally taunting foes makes them inclined to attack you >

< Captain Fallow's Treasure (Legendary) — Inflicts Gold-cursed on hit, causing hallucinations and lowered reaction speed | Allows a weapon to fight on your behalf >

That sounds really strong. I wonder what kind of applications it might have.

A shame I don't have another Choice Ring that's off cooldown. Grabbing that Snap Gauntlet would've been nice.

Emelia swooped in and immediately grabbed the Legendary Relic.

"Hey!" he exclaimed.

"Watch this," she told him and brought out her Priest weapon, the flanged mace. The golden blob appeared on the weapon and quickly coated it, making it look like a gaudy luxury replica of the real thing.

She switched back to her gauntlets, but instead of the mace returning to her hip, it remained in the air, floating next to her.

"Wait, it works with Second Sheath?" he asked, surprised.

"It also works with ballistae and even some Relics."

"That's sounds really good," he replied.

"That's because it is."

"Alright, so what's next?" he asked.

"Now we go make an egg delivery," she replied.

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