Suddenly as if emerging from a mirage two large ships were approaching our little trading vessel. They moved very fast for ships their size. Even though our trading vessel was smaller, it was losing distance. One of the pirate ships was flying a black skull and bones flag, but the flag on the bigger ship was… strange. 

Well the whole ship was strange. The flag had the same skull and bones image, but it was painted in a tapestry of green, red, yellow, blue and white. It had no patterns whatsoever. Just a chaotic tapestry of splashes, as if whoever made that flag had taken joy in creating a mess.

The ship itself was bright blue with all kinds of sea animals painted on the hull. The sails were bright yellow with a painting of a naked woman… enjoying herself. Chanting and singing could be heard from both of the pirate ships even though they were still half a mile away. The wind whipped strangely around our sails, and I saw the captain look at them with a worried expression.

But the ships were moving fast, and it was immediately clear to me that they would catch us.

“We can still escape!” the first mate said. “Throw the caltrops!”

“Young miss!” the captain called Veena. “You will go to the crew’s cabin and hide in one of the lockers.”

“No!” Veena said and stomped her foot. “I can fight!”

“Are you blind girl?!” The captain bellowed and pointed at the ships. “That is their flagship! Do you know what that means?”

“But—”

“That is Bombasar himself. House Salakin will have my skin if you are captured.”

“I will not cower like a child!” Veena said.

“I am the captain!” the stocky main yelled firmly. “Do as I say!”

I nudged Veena to move. “Go.”

“Hmph!” Veena said and stomped away, throwing her sword at the deck in a fit of anger. One of the crew picked it up and ran after her.

I looked back at the approaching ships.

Leaning against the pirate flagship’s figurehead (a voluptuous woman painted in red), was a massive blue man clad in black and gold uniform of fine make, wearing a massive red pirate hat with real skull and bones attached to the front. He had red boots with rubies encrusted in them, and they glinted in the sun of the open sky.

With a clear and rich voice he yelled over the waves and despite the distance we could hear him clearly, and I could see the crew was scared.

“Hahahaha! You be ready for me, mon? Pirate Prince Bombasar has come to plunder!”

“We need to escape!” the captain roared. “Man the sails, drop the cheap cargo! Now! Before he—”

The captain didn’t even finish the sentence. There was a strange ululating thin wind that came from the pirate ship. It immediately killed the sails. One moment the wind was blowing and giving us speed. The next, the sails flapped a few times, before going entirely limp. I looked at them in astonishment. I could still see the seagulls above us flying against the wind, but somehow the natural wind no longer touched our sails.

What kind of magic was this? Who was this pirate prince? I needed to know. Was this a perk? A class?

“What is this?” I asked the captain.

“This is the Spiritcasting of the Trola,” the captain said. “I did not think it could reach us from so far. There is still quarter of a sea mile between the ships.”

Indeed. I had no magic that had such a range! Whatever this Bombasar fellow was doing, I wanted to learn more.

“Hahaha!” Pirate Prince Bombasar laughed at us. “Where you think you going, mon?”

Not only did the wind in our sails die, but suddenly the waves changed too. Hard waves suddenly emerged from the churning sea and struck the front of our ship as we turned it to escape. It rocked the ship, and I had to use kinetic magic to pin my feet to the deck. Somewhere behind me I heard Alik retch.

The ship stopped entirely. We were not escaping the pirate prince.

Naturally, entranced by the magical effect imposed on the ship, I tried to look at what kind of mana structure was affecting our sails, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Even with my Mana Sight, I couldn’t make sense of what had made the wind and waves act like this.

There was no structure. There was only mana forming strange waves and patterns that I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t see what Bombasar was doing either. He was just laughing and talking to himself. Whatever was happening here was unlike anything I had seen.

I looked at the sails again, and found some patterns in the mana, faint and chaotic as they were.

It looked like someone or something was clumping up the mana around the sails and just throwing the clumps at them. Why did that stop the wind from affecting the sails? Who the hell knew.

The pirate ships approached us and I saw a crew of twenty armed pirates on the flagship. Probably another twenty on the auxiliary ship. I didn’t have an exact idea how strong the pirates were, but considering Bombasar had magical abilities to affect the wind and waves from half a mile away, they were surely strong.

Our crew looked like they had no interest in fighting. The captain did tell them to draw weapons and man the harpoons. 

The bright flagship glided to tower over our ship’s side, and the pirate crew jeered and spat at us.

Our captain held a firm face.

“Board us, and it will cost you,” he yelled.

The crew on our ship prepared themselves and aimed the harpoons at the large blue hull.

Bombasar only shrugged. “Ah, that be just cost of doing business. Board the ship!”

Our captain shouted orders and the crew fired harpoons and threw firebombs at the ships. The pirates shot harpoons of themselves and started climbing them to board our ship. They also threw smoke bombs and readied crossbows. 

I looked with interest at the cannons on the pirate ship. This world didn’t have much in the way of technology, but I had been ambushed with explosive devices before so…

I checked the cannons with my Mana Sight and was absolutely delighted to see the barrels were intricately inscribed with all kinds of patterns. I wondered if they would make a sound? How devastating was one of these shots? The formula must have mostly consisted of kinetic components and—

Oh right… the marine battle with the pirates.

I didn’t want to fight here. I could probably cause a lot of damage to the ships, but this all just seemed like a bad idea. We were outnumbered and fighting on open sea. Even if I could destroy their ships, what if they destroyed ours?

My family was on the ship, and I didn’t want them to get hurt. 

But, the captain wanted to fight, so fight I would.

I shrugged and started casting a Water Spear infused with destructive speed and power from kinetic spells. I enjoyed the rich mana, that was about twenty or thirty percent higher than in Aligapa, which allowed me to gather a strong spell quite fast. The water mass took the shape of a projectile and I put a little spin on it.

Bombasar looked at the spinning mass of water above my head curiously. He flashed a gold-toothed grin at me. 

“What is this? A little sorcerer aboard a mere trading vessel. What are you about to do, mon?”

I felt like this wasn’t a good time for a monologue, so I just acted. launched the destructive spell and blasted a massive hole in the hull of the ship. It started drinking water and sinking the ship.

Everyone turned to look at me and stopped their skirmishing. Even Bombasar was shocked for a moment and started at me silently. But then he burst into laughter again.

“Kraken’s tits, mon! You be blasting us with the hard ones. Is your master on the ship?”

I didn’t say anything, but only prepared another spell.

“Andre!” Bombasar called. “Fix the hull. Use your tar Ability.”

Then the pirate prince turned his gaze back to me. When I fired a Water Bullet at him, the Pirate Prince smirked.

A massive wave rose suddenly between the ships to absorb my spell. Then the wave hit our ship and rocked it.

“Hahaha! You be not the only one with them tricks, sorcerer. Bombasar be bargaining too and it is he who is master of the sea around these parts.!”

The pirates cheered and continued their attack.

“Nobody need be killed, you hear?” Bombasar said to our captain and pointed a gilded cutlass at him. “We be just taking the sea tax and be on our way.”

Then the Pirate Prince turned to me and flashed that golden grin again. “Any more tricks, for old Bombasar?”

I prepared another Water Spear. Clearly Bombasar had power enough to deflect my lesser spells, but it didn’t seem he could stop a properly cast Water Spear. He seemed powerful, but was not a direct combatant, if my read was right.

“How did you block my spell?” I asked immediately. “You’re not using structured magic.”

“Hahahah! Bombasar has many secrets!”

Another blue Trola emerged to look at me next to Bombasar. This man was smaller and skinnier and he had no shirt on. His face and body was full of tattoos and bone piercings and his sharp eyes looked at me unkindly. On his hand was a staff of wood and bone with a strange fetish of two shrunken heads dangling from the top. I saw some magic in the staff, but it was the strange unstructured kind as what had affected our sails.

“Why you talking to this child?” he asked Bombasar. “The captain—”

“The captain?” Bombasar asked and laughed boisterously. “He be weak, Jalani. This one is the leader.”

“This boy? Three summers, maybe four.”

Bombasar only grinned. “Strange indeed. We should take him.”

My mother rushed to my side from who knows where and clutched me fiercely. Father also emerged to stand in front of Bombasar with arms crossed.

“If you take him, you will kill us first,” father said.

“Oh? Maybe Bombasar will do that, then.”

I shot a water bullet at him, but he swatted it aside. “That be rude.”

“What is rude is you threatening my family,” I said flatly. Then I nudged at the Water Spear. That got his full attention. It was already spinning wildly, and I saw Bombasar’s grin falter just ever so slightly to know he wouldn’t enjoy his ship eating another one of my bad boys.

“How good is Andre at repairing two holes at once?” I asked.

Bombasar raised his hands. “Okay, Bombasar understands. You want parlay.”

I stabilized the spell and stopped making it bigger. It took some effort to keep it stable, but I didn’t want to let it go in this kind of a situation.

“You should turn back, if you want your ship to stay intact,” I said. “Let’s just forget about this.”

“Bombasar think not,” the pirate said flatly. I could see that even though he thought me clearly dangerous, he saw wiggle room. “You were mighty fierce about your parents.”

I shot another Water Bullet, which Bombasar deflected with a wave of a hand that was followed by water jumping from between the ships.

“Tut, tut,” Bombasar said. “Merely a suggestion here. If Bombasar boards your ship, many things will happen. There be chaos. Maybe you sink Bombasar’s ship. Maybe all the ships will sink. The sea be so very treacherous.”

He paused and smiled.

“But there be risk in piracy, Bombasar knows this. Bombasar might lose today, but he is a good swimmer. He does wonder though, how well does your pregnant mother swim?”

I felt my mother flinch. I kept my eyes on Bombasar, but said nothing. This was an impasse. I could destroy his ship, but he could just as well sink all the ships. My father could swim my mother to safety of course. And where would that be? The only land mass close by were the Pirate Islands. 

And judging from his wide grin, all this knew Pirate Prince Bombasar. For all his theatrics, he was not a stupid man. I needed to keep my family safe and make a deal with him. Additionally, there was that strange magic he was using. If I were to allow us to be taken captive by him, I could angle to learn from him these ways of controlling winds and water.

“Well?” Bombasar asked. “What will it be?”

“Escort us to Baros and House Salakin will pay you,” I said.

“Bombasar think not.”

“Why this boy here, you think Jalani?” Bombasar said, turning to the thin Trola.

“Going to the mainland, Prince.”

“Yes… on a Salakin trading vessel. This boy is from Tapoka. Leaving for mainland right after the Silver Sea Tournament.”

“What does that mean?” Jalani said.

Pirate Prince Bombasar never took his eyes off me. “There be someone important here. Someone from the Salakin family.”

Damn it. I tried to keep a poker face, but The Pirate Prince was no fool.

“Ah, Bombasar see it on your face. You are fierce, young sorcerer, but Bombasar seen many bluffs and tricks.”

I pointed at the Water Spear swirling above me. “This is no bluff.”

“That be a problem,” Bombasar admitted. “How about this: You come aboard as honored guests. Bombasar will treat you with respect.”

“That doesn’t sound like piracy to me.”

“Don’t be fooled. Bombasar will take the Salakin member as hostage and commandeer the cargo. Once ransom is agreed, you all go safely to Baros. You have Bombasar’s word. This will be keeping your family safe, no?”

“Not good enough for me,” I said. 

“Oh-ho? What more you be wanting?”

“I will agree to this, if you teach me your magic.

The thin man next to the Pirate Prince protested. “Prince, this is foolish—”

But Bombasar raised a hand to silence him and grinned at me. “We be having a deal. So you be letting go of that spell, and Bombasar’s crew can go find the missing Salakin?”

I shot the spell out into the open sea. It cratered the water where it hit and sent a tall pillar of water rising in a high arc.

I looked at Bombasar flatly and tilted my head. Bombasar gave me a gilded smile back.

“Bombasar understands the implications,” then he turned to his crew. “Board the ship.”