I spent the next day scavenging the warehouses and buildings near the dock, figuring it wasn’t a popular spot, given the ghosts that normally blanketed the area. I kept a wary eye out for the surviving priest but never encountered him. A number of the buildings were full of old trade goods, most of them expired or rotten, but a few had things that had held up fairly well. In one warehouse I found a large number of rugs, blankets, and other unprocessed cloth. It didn’t interest me, but I imagined it might be worth something to someone. In others, I found furniture, wooden planks, stone, and other solid things that had survived the ravages of time. I was surprised the other scavengers hadn’t picked the area clean, but maybe the ghosts had kept most of them away.

  The luckiest find of all was a metal foundry set just a street off from the dock where iron was turned into wootz steel. Wootz steel was a lower-quality steel than what I could make with my nanobots, but luckily, there were still several crates full of iron ingots in the warehouse. I broke open all the crates I could find, counting the iron ingots. There were enough that I wouldn’t need to go scavenging around the city for small scraps of iron any longer. I would be hard-pressed to use it all in a year or two of crafting my small bullets.

  The only downside to finding the iron was that the foundry wasn’t very secure. It had massive double doors, big enough for wagons to pass through, set on both sides of the building, but both sets of doors were shattered and broken, unable to be closed. The foundry building was one large rectangle made of solid stone with a high, unobstructed ceiling, which meant there were no secure rooms for me to hide in at night. Also, numerous windows that had no glass or shutters to secure them were placed around the building to let in as much light as possible. The building also had a back courtyard that held the forges used to actually cast the metal, but it was only protected by a low stone wall and a wooden roof set on pillars, so I couldn’t secure it against attacks at night.

  The other concerning thing was that the warehouse had a basement. When I approached the stairs leading downward, I was met with nothing but a pit of absolute blackness. The light streaming in through the many windows and open doors failed to illuminate the pit even the slightest bit, making it pretty obvious that I had found my first dungeon entrance. I definitely didn’t want to be inside the building when night fell and monsters began to climb out of the dungeon.

  After a bit of searching, I managed to find a home just down the street that seemed safe. It must have belonged to a rich merchant, because it was far more secure than the rest of the houses nearby. It had a large stone wall that stretched up at least ten feet and was several feet thick. Inside the wall was an open villa made of stone, as well as a central courtyard, in the middle of which was a large cistern that still had drinkable water in it. I searched the villa thoroughly and couldn’t find a basement either, thankfully.

  I found the most secure room on the top floor of the villa and decided to make that my new home. It was close to several places where I could hunt monsters, and I was just steps away from the foundry. It also had access to drinkable water and contained a secure place for me to rest. It was an ideal location, as long as the priests didn’t come back to this area in search of me. I hoped they would avoid me in the future. They had seemed to assume I was a Varangian, and since I had survived, they had reason to think they might be in quite a bit of trouble for attacking me.

  I spent the rest of that day crafting more bullets in the foundry. I also practiced with my revolver and rehearsed a few other combat techniques now that I had more room to stretch out. I filled my satchels with plenty of each type of bullet I had created so far, equipping myself as fully as I possibly could. I spent the night cleaning the secure room I had chosen inside the villa and waiting for the sun to rise again.

  The next day, fully equipped with as many bullets as I could carry, I made my way toward the other two ancient harbors that Nikephoros had told me about. I scouted the area thoroughly this time, not just for monsters but for any humans that might be around as well. The two harbors were near each other and were significantly smaller than the large one I had fought in earlier.

  Around the harbors, I could see a number of sub-bosses, but no golden glow of an actual boss appeared. I was disappointed, but even without a full boss around, it was worth killing the sub-bosses and regular ghosts for experience and blue orbs. After reloading with more Holy Bullets, I walked down to the first of the two docks and began killing the nearest ghosts.

  Only an hour or so later, I had cleared both docks, added eight blue orbs to my pouch, and earned another sixty experience, but little else. I had to admit to being a bit disappointed by the ease of my hunt, but I pushed aside the feeling. If I wasn’t careful, I could become addicted to the life-and-death excitement of this world. That would be a dangerous first step to getting myself killed.

  After I killed all of the ghosts I could find, I spent the rest of the day scavenging through the warehouses near the docks, but I found little of value, other than a few low-level monsters here and there. I was closer to the priests’ enclave in this part of the city, and the ghosts were weaker, so maybe scavengers had been through here more thoroughly than in the other part of the city.

  The next day, I returned to the original dock I had cleared and found several ghosts had repopulated the area. None of them were bosses, but it was interesting that the ghosts had reappeared. Were they coming from a nearby dungeon? If I left them long enough, would they eventually spawn sub-bosses and bosses again? If I had time, I would love to figure out how long it took to repopulate an area, but that was for the future, when I had the luxury of time to investigate this world more fully.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I killed the few ghosts that had repopulated the docks easily enough and then made sure nobody was around before diving off the nearest dock and into the water beneath the harbor. There, I swam down to the first sunken ship I could find. It was a smaller ship, possibly used for personal travel rather than shipping goods or fighting on the sea. I swam down and grabbed the closest railing, looking down at the ship where it lay on its side in the silt of the harbor. Leading deeper into the ship was a doorway that wasn’t buried, so I swam over and pulled myself through.

  The inside of the ship was dark, the murky water hard to see through even with my enhanced eyes. I proceeded half by feel, swimming down the stairs to find two lower levels in the ship. The first level was a galley with the rotted remains of benches and tables floating around the room. The second level had several smaller rooms and a hallway that ran the length of the ship, ending at a larger room that took up the entire rear of the vessel.

  I checked each room carefully but found little but decayed furniture and the occasional fish or crab. The large room at the end of the passageway contained the remains of a larger bed, a bookshelf with decaying books floating around it, a large table, and a large chest that was still held firmly against the floorboards. I searched the chest, hopeful I might have found something of value, but was disappointed to find it empty.

  I searched the rest of the room dutifully, but the only thing I found was a loose silver piece in a drawer built into the table.

  I swam back up to the surface and caught my breath before diving down again to search for the next ship. The first had been a bust, but I was confident that no other scavenger had been through here before me because of how dangerous the harbor was and because no normal human could hold their breath as long as I could, although I realized someone might have a spell that let them breathe underwater. Hopefully nobody had thought of that and come to loot the ships before me.

  Hours passed, and while most of the wreckage on the bottom of the harbor turned out to be empty, my idea did pay off a few times. The first thing I found was a magical book, perfectly preserved on a rotting bookshelf. It glowed with a blue light that illuminated the cabin I found it in, drawing my eye immediately. I kept the book in my hand as I searched the rest of the wreckage since its soft blue light was so useful for lighting my way. Unlike the glow from the sub-bosses, which seemed more spiritual than physical and didn’t actually cast light around the sub-bosses, the glow from the book produced real light that helped me see.

  I also found several enchantments that were still active. Some were on the boats themselves and impossible to collect, but others were on easier objects that I grabbed and took with me. I found a silver statue of a songbird that was covered in golden runes, a ship’s galley that had several small chests carved with green runes, and some articles of enchanted clothing that were still pristine, even in the poor condition I found them in.

  The small chests appeared to preserve the food kept inside; when I opened the first one, a number of herbs and a bag of salt floated out. They were immediately ruined by the water but otherwise perfectly preserved. I left the other two chests unopened after realizing what they did and took all of them with me.

  To keep everything hidden as I searched, I piled it on a nearby dock behind several old crates, but I kept the book with me for its light.

  As I was winding up my exploration of the harbor floor, I decided to search the remains of the ship I had destroyed in my fight with the golden boss. Given that it had such a powerful boss on it, the ship seemed worth looking over in case he had kept some valuable loot on his ship before I had sunk it.

  This ship was different from the others I had been searching. It was large but sleek. Its slim profile at the bottom of the harbor made clear it had once been a deadly warship rather than a meandering merchant ship or pleasure boat like the other ships I had searched.

  The side of the ship I had damaged was face-up, exposing the inside to me as I swam down toward it. I grabbed part of the hull that was still intact, scanning the dark interior, but didn’t see anything dangerous inside.

  Several of the interior decks were destroyed, the fire having ravaged whatever must have once been there. I swam inside, searching through the remains, but didn’t find anything of value. Below those decks was one more level, which was more intact than the rest of the ship. I held up the book I had looted, illuminating the dark waters around me, and found a stairway downward. As I began to descend the stairs, the light from the book in my hand began to fade and the stairway was plunged into darkness.

  I panicked, trying to back up hastily, but felt a momentary sense of vertigo and had to close my eyes to steady myself. When I opened them again, I was no longer underwater but standing on the deck of an intact ship, the bright sun above me, a warm breeze blowing over me as I looked around in complete shock. What was going on? How had I been transported from the bottom of a sunken ship to this place?

  Before I could figure out where exactly I was, the sounds of combat nearby reached my ears. I heard screams and cries of pain and the sound of metal striking metal, or metal striking flesh, followed by grunts of exertion and the harsh breathing of people locked in deadly combat. I blinked several times and suddenly the rest of my surroundings came into focus.

  Not only was I on the deck of a ship, but the ship was under attack. Around me were men in navy uniforms identical to the one the golden boss I had killed had worn. They were locked in deadly combat with boarders who had attacked their ship. The other ship was entangled with the one I was on, drifting next to ours. Grappling hooks and ropes held the two ships together.

  The crews of the two ships fought with swords and axes, brutally attacking each other with no mercy or hesitation. Several men in the rafters above fired arrows into the melee, sinking them deep into the bodies of the boarders, who wore no armor to protect them from the deadly missiles. I saw several sub-bosses on both sides of the conflict, fighting against each other, the human-looking men glowing faintly blue.

  “Repel those barbarian scum!” I heard a voice yell out from the deck of the ship I was standing on. I turned and saw a man in uniform standing on the top deck at the stern of the ship, yelling down toward his men fighting on the lower deck.

  I stood, frozen, unsure of what was happening and what I should do. Thankfully, either because of my lack of movement or because of my cloak, nobody had noticed me yet. I took the momentary peace to try to figure out what had happened, but with a sinking feeling in my stomach, I realized there was only one explanation. I had entered a dungeon.