Sailing was incredibly boring, it turned out. Getting a fleet of hundreds of ships, most of which were dependent on the ever-changing wind for propulsion, to make a coordinated move was an absolute nightmare. I suspected that the sound of Strixkin screeching into communication orbs would haunt my nightmares for years.
I imagined sailing might be interesting if you were a sailor and had stuff to do. As a passenger, I had done my best to avoid all contact with the crew, largely so I wouldn’t have to wipe anyone else’s memories or kill anyone. Plop had recovered, thankfully, but I’d heard him crying softly in the night whenever his candle went out. The sound seemed to disturb the crew, who moved quickly past his quarters during the darkness.
The winds had been in our favour for the return to Brokebone Island, and as the lookout high above us in the mast hooted out the alert that I understood to mean land sighted, I rushed up from the cabin I’d been assigned and peered towards the south, eyes narrowed.
A vague smudge on the horizon. Maybe a cloud? Maybe mist… I couldn’t tell for sure, but it did not look like an island. Alicya clomped up next to me and put a hand over her eyes as a visor to shield from the harsh glare of the sun. It wasn’t terribly bright, not desert-glare by any stretch of the imagination, but the waves all sent glittering reflections of it into my eyes, and they added up. It was a bit like being snow blind, from what I’d read of the term.
“A day?” I asked.
“Not that long,” the werewolf replied, shaking vigorously as the blast of spray from the prow cutting into a larger-than-usual wave rolled over us.
“Want to go take a look?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“No. And I don’t think you should either. The Shehsa aren’t the only scalekins, and most of them don’t like your sort.”
“The human thing?”
“You’re a dragon. You know how you’ve altered certain parts of your anatomy in your human form to be more… impressive to the ladies?”
“Who told you that? I did no such thing!” I lied.
“Riiiight. Well, the little scalies have a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to you big scalies. They don’t like your kind, so expect some hostility.” She chuckled drily. “The mammalkin often feel the same about werewolves and weretigers. Any apex predator scares the herd.”
“What the hell are we walking—sailing into Alicya?”
“Nothing I need to worry about, you on the other hand…”
“You’re enjoying this!” I accused, and she chuffed in amusement.
“It’s like watching a child learn to walk. You know they’re going to get a few bumps along the way, but sooner or later, they’ll figure it out, and you’ll get the satisfaction of watching them evolve. Speaking of which, if you’ve got a store of biomass, I’d use it up as much as possible. The next part won’t be bloodless.”
“How many?” I asked tiredly while pulling up my status.
Biomass stored:
620.4 KG
Biomass required for evolution: 340 KG
“I can’t see your screens. It’s a minion contract, doesn’t give me access to that stuff.”
“No, how many am I going to have to kill?”
“Depends.” Alicya shrugged in an annoyingly nonchalant fashion.
“Not bloody helpful.”
“Not my job. You’ll need to assert dominance in some fashion. How that goes is… unpredictable.”
“Do they have a king or something that I can beat the shit out of?”
“Not last time I was there, but from what Plop says, things have changed a great deal.”
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Biomass stored:
620.4 KG
Biomass required for evolution: 340 KG
Congratulations! You’ve received an Epic roll!
Rolling for evolution choices…
Please select from the following three options:
-
Nautical Naughtiness
-
Massster and Commander
-
Increase Mass
I briefly regretted not bringing Kat along on this trip, but that feeling faded very quickly. God only knew how she’d have reacted to me mind-melting the Admiral of the Fleet.
With no need for ship-based evolutions or anything involving multiple S’s, I made the safe and sensible choice. My fingers bit into the wooden railing in front of me, and Alicya put a hand on my shoulder.
The muscles down my back and across my stomach contracted in waves. I had no idea how long it lasted, but when I regained full control of my body and senses, Alicya was sitting to one side picking the meat from a bone with her teeth.
“That sucked.”
“What did you get?”
“Increased Mass. Might as well get stronger before I face whatever these feathery pricks have in store for me.”
“Feathery pricks might be what they—”
“Sod off. I’m not doing that.”
She chuffed happily. “Idiot. It will be intimate but more violent than sexy times. Assuming I don’t work as your golden ticket.”
“What was the place like, back when you ran it?”
“I didn’t run it.” Bitterness filled her voice. “I got to babysit a bunch of crazies.”
“I feel you, sister. Wait till you meet the rest of my minions.”
“I had to try and stop them from killing each other more than anything else. They’re all so different from each other. It’s like asking mice and cats to build a society. That’s literally what I was doing for Muskin and the Felikin.” She stood and rested her elbows on the railing next to me. “Have you ever had to herd cats?”
“Nope. I tried to find cows one time but ended up stealing a load of bulls.”
“How… Nevermind. They had kind of self-segregated before I left. The Testislands, with their woodlands and stubbly brush, were occupied by the preykin. The Broken Shaft was occupied by the scavengers and the predakin. That’s why the Usrakin would have access to the Raccoonkin, I reckon.”
“Testislands?”
“Go see for yourself,” she said with a sigh.
I looked at the cold water, the fleet arrayed around Foamsprayer, and the sky above me. Wispy clouds scudded across it, heading south even faster than the ships, breaking the endless blue of the heavens with random animal shapes made of water vapour.
“They won’t fire on me?” I asked, just double-checking after the danger the big city represented to overgrown flying lizards.
“Not if you fly high enough. You’ll want the altitude to get the effect, anyway.”
I gave her a look, earning a doggy grin in return, and shrugged. Between flight, portals and god-forged scales, I should be alright.
“Tell Plop I’ll be back.”
The water was icy cold for a moment, but then scales covered my skin, and I became my true self once more. My wings swept up and down, forcing tons of liquid behind me as I built up speed. I skipped across the waves like a… flying fish, before I was able to break upwards and into the other great blue yonder.
Spray fell away from my scales as I climbed for altitude, happily ignoring the shouts from below that were tinged with unnecessary panic. As I spiralled upwards, the fleet became so much smaller than it had seemed from the deck of one of those tiny ships. It had only been a week trapped in my mammal suit, but it felt like so much longer, and my body exulted in the power of my true form.
I was bigger than I was used to; that last evolution had paid dividends. A percentile increase in length and girth… Well, the bigger I was, the more difference it made. I doubted I’d be able to land on Foamsprayer as a dragon anymore. I’d plunge one end under the waves and sink the cramped, smelly piece of floating kindling.
Powerful wingbeats sent me through the air towards our mysterious destination. An island full of furries constantly at each other's throats. I’d heard about what that sort got up to at conventions back on Earth, and I was both intrigued and disturbed at what I might find.
The blob of land drew closer and soon resolved into two separate landmasses. Both were covered in short, trimmed trees for the most part. Someone took manscaping very seriously and likely feared bushfires.
The almost spherical islands formed a pair to the north of the main landmass, for want of a better word. As I passed over them, I saw small boats coming and going from the docks in the seaside towns. From my altitude, I couldn’t make out anything more than insignificant blobs moving around below me, which was perfectly natural considering they were mere mammals,
Beyond that, a long and narrow stretch of land thrust itself up from the waves. There was probably less than a mile between the two islands I’d passed over and what passed for a mainland here. It was largely deforested, and the patchwork colours of fields and mines reached south from the base. I flew on for a few more miles, marvelling at the amount of agriculture and industry the place seemed to contain.
Within a minute or so, I found that the island seemed to fall away beneath the water, the long, wide swath of arable land falling into the salty embrace of the ocean. It returned shortly afterwards, the beaches separated by perhaps half a mile of brine.
The new island turned off at an angle, some freak of geology causing what looked to once have been whole to bend at a painful-looking angle. This final island was a little shorter than the other, and it ended in a purple glow, which was shrouded in an eruption of white smoke and ash.
Guessing at the population numbers from up in the sky was impossible, but I would hazard a guess that it was in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. Catching the updraft from what I hoped was a volcano, I circled higher and then wheeled back towards the north, finally seeing the island laid out in all its glory in the morning light.
Brokebone Islands indeed. It would soon be time to meet the natives and introduce them to their new overlord. As well as try to make peace between them and the Empire, if it wasn’t too much bother.