Corsairs & Cataclysms

Chapter 1

At last, the only sound in the master bedroom was the soft snoring of Shana where she lay wrapped in my arms on the bed, utterly spent.

But not for the usual reasons.

Baby Dash had a bit of a difficult night, and it was well past the traditional witching hour before we could settle him down. Which had become par for the course. He’d been good as gold for the first day or two and very grizzly ever since. Magical constitutions made life a bit easier but the necessity for sleep couldn’t be ignored indefinitely.

Fatherhood had been both a blessing and a chore. The Darkwyrlds hadn’t changed that. Spending time holding my son left me giddy with love and joy and I wouldn’t trade that feeling for the world. But there was no getting around the reality of the less pleasant aspects of having a newborn. If we could only figure out what was upsetting the kid so much. He was perfectly healthy, there were no worries on that front and yet the wailing would often continue until he exhausted himself.

I could have outsourced most of the work, there was no shortage of volunteers who wanted to fuss over the little lad, but this was my first child, and I wanted to be present for as much as possible. Both the heartwarming moments and the ear-splitting. There was an entire wing of the Stormwarden’s Palace designated as a nursery for the Lord’s heirs and we’d likely have to make full use of it in the future if I ended up with as many mini-Carters as I suspected would be the case.

The Scions of the Shattered Storm quest virtually guaranteed it.

In the aftermath of Dash’s birth, Mia and Fang Mei both admitted that they were also pregnant. Mia was more than a month along and I’d suspected this was the case for a couple of weeks. She’d put off telling me with all the chaos of recent events. Mia’s natural aptitude was a bit lower than the other women in my life and that reduced the fertile receptivity score required. If I hadn’t spent a significant amount of time away from Stormblade Harbour, she would probably have fallen pregnant not long after Shana.

Fang Mei’s condition was much more recent and something which she couldn’t hide from me whether she wanted to or not. Her pregnancy was the completion trigger for the quest to get her wings. The stubs in the centre of each shoulder blade had started to flower and grow. Although Fang Mei could withdraw these vestigial wings back into a private dimensional pocket similar to the inventory, they could only grow when unfurled in the real world. She had to keep them out and let them develop if they were ever going to be useful.

Now that Trisha was back with us on a permanent basis, it wouldn’t be too much longer before she joined the club and the trio of Calie, Lindsay, and Keisha wouldn’t be far behind. The brief periods of downtime over the last couple of weeks when I wasn’t deeply involved in being a new father or getting updates on the progress of destroying soul-sick dungeons had been spent performing my duties in making the next generation happen.

I was physically and mentally exhausted.

In fact, this was probably the first moment I had to myself since I’d returned from the debacle in Dallas. Reports indicated that the city had been fully conquered and crushed by the Liberation Army. The Lone Star armies from Austin and Houston had been crushed and the few survivors had retreated to their respective cities to try and forge a viable defence. It hadn’t worked and every major population centre in Texas had fallen to the Lamers in short order.

For the time being, the commanders of the invasion force seemed content to consolidate their early gains and hadn’t launched any attacks outside the state. Tens of thousands of local Texans had been conscripted to fight for the Lamers. The fate of their families was used as the currency to buy their participation. Any who refused or couldn’t be threatened had been put to the sword. That included the Texan Adventurer Guild.

Hard-hearted as it might be to admit but the slaughter was the silver lining in what was otherwise a disaster for planet Earth. Following the massacres at the Texan HQ’s, the Guild Alliance had declared war on the Liberation Army.

They hadn’t done anything as of yet, but it ought to mean I wouldn’t have to bride the greedy buggers for their help when it was necessary in the future. And it would certainly be necessary. Stopping the fragment might be the number one priority but exterminating the Lamers was a close second.

But those were concerns for the light of dawn. Right now, I needed to use this short window of peace to do something that I’d been putting off.

It was time to level up.

I closed my eyes, pulled my arms free from Shana’s sleeping body and lay on my back. If Shana woke before I got back, there was no reason for her to be trapped in my iron grip. Moving a person visiting the Admins was extraordinarily difficult due to the protections in place. Once settled into a comfortable position, I brought up and activated the level-up icon.

Blink.

My eyes opened in the familiar waiting room. Violet, Dean’s assistant, wasn’t sitting at her desk as per usual. Instead, she had her back to me and was staring pensively at the Monarch of the Glen painting that hung behind her workspace.

“Good evening, Violet.”

Violet turned around and blinked owlishly in surprise a couple of times. “Oh, Torin, I didn’t sense you come in.”

“That’s not like you, is everything alright?”

“Um, yes, yes,” she said and shook her head and quickly stepped out from behind her desk and moved over to open the huge double doors that led to the interior of Dean’s playroom. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m positive. It’s just something unusual has happened and we aren’t sure how. It’s quite the mystery and I suppose it’s taken up more of my attention than I expected.”

“Anything I should know about?” I asked with an edge of concern. There had been more than a few unwelcome surprises over the past year, and I could do without any further.

Violet hesitated before answering. “It’s not my place to divulge matters that relate to our other clients. I wouldn’t have said anything at all, except…I suspect you are going to find out what has me perturbed very soon. You’ll understand then. That is all I can say for now, apart from that this is not a danger to you or your family. Quite possibly the opposite, in fact.”

I can’t say I liked the sound of that, but Violet had mostly played straight with me in the past. It was Dean you had to watch out for. Not because he was maliciously out to get you, or anyone else for that matter. He simply had too much of the mischievous child in his character makeup. He didn’t always consider the ramifications of his schemes, only the fun that could be had along the way.

“Okay.” I let her lead me into the open-plan office.

It had been remodelled again and was larger than ever. The one-on-one basketball court, video-game arcade, and bowling alley had been joined by an indoor trampoline experience combined with a zip line apparatus that crisscrossed the room. The trampoline park was a combination of eight black bounce mats with blue crash padding surrounding them. The whole thing filled the new space completely. The three walls had some padding but the side you entered from was open to the rest of the office.

The reason for that was so the zip line had access. Somehow, the harness had been rigged so you could pull a rip cord and it released you to drop directly onto the trampoline bounce mats.

I knew this to be the case because Dean had been waiting for me to come in before he did just that.

“Moooootthhherrrffucckkerrr!!” He roared with glee and zoomed across the room thirty feet above my head before he pulled the cord when over the trampoline and fell screaming like a gleeful toddler.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out what happened when his portly form hit one of the bounce mats at both speed and an awkward angle. Dean couldn’t control the bounce and went flying into the wall with a thud. He slid down onto a safety mat and lay there for a moment breathing heavily and giggling to himself.

Beside me, Violet was shaking her head in exasperation.

Dean would be fine. It was not like he or anyone else who visited the Administrators in their domain could be physically hurt. Not by the environment at any rate. However, I was a dad now and that came with certain responsibilities. “When my son grows up and comes for his first visit, he is absolutely not to see any of this. I won’t have Dean corrupting his mind with this insanity. It will give him ideas. Bad ones.”

“Agreed,” Violet said and stalked over to the trampoline facility and helped Dean who was flopping around like a fish out of water off the contraption.

“Whoop-whoop!” Dean cried and ran over to embrace me in that uncomfortable manner he liked. “Fancy a go?”

“I’ll pass, thanks. This is not a social visit. I’ve got some levelling up to do and then I need to head back. Preferably, before anybody notices that I’ve zoned out.”

“I’ve missed you, you big bastard. You don’t write, you rarely visit, and now that you’re finally here, you’re going to fuck off again as soon as possible. Not cool dude, not cool. Some might say it’s downright fucking rude.”

“You would know about rude,” I laughed and disentangled Dean’s arms from my waist before stepping back. “That mouth of yours still needs a good scrubbing. Sorry about the delay, but as I’m sure you’ve realised, I’ve had other priorities.”

“Pffftt,” Dean blew a raspberry. “Babies are boring. All they do is cry, drink Mommy’s milk, and sleep. Oh, and cry some more. Not to mention the crime against humanity that comes out of their bottoms all too frequently.” Dean shuddered and shook his head and shoulders. “Don’t get me wrong, I understand that making them in the first place has a certain allure, but I fail to see the fascination with them once they arrive. I’m much more fun. I’ve got a trampoline park. Does your baby have one of those? Of course he doesn’t, he’s a baby. Seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

Dean’s little rant concluded, and he flopped down onto his favourite bean bag and Violet handed him a mug filled with coffee.

“That’s my son you’re being so dismissive of,” I reminded him.

It was difficult to be angry with Dean after the time we spent together. His idiosyncrasies were part of who he was and you kind of had to put up with them. Dean didn’t say these things to be offensive, he just didn’t have a filter, and I had several suspicions as to which green-clad, smug git had a hand in that.

Dean rolled his eyes and then Violet gave him a light rap to the back of the head. “Um, yeah, sorry about that.”

“Apology accepted. Can we crack on, I promise to spend a bit more time hanging out once all the madness dies down in the real world.”

“Hmmm, yeah, it is a bit hectic out there with the Liberation Army showing up on the same continent. We could have it down without those assholes sticking their oar in. All is forgiven. Okay, let’s see. You’ve been a busy boy. Level 37 beckons.”

Discussions with Dean about Ashli and the fragment were pointless. Dean, Violet, and the other Admin staff had been programmed with a blind spot where those subjects were concerned. Better to keep the conversation on things he could hear. “The Lamers are good for progression if nothing else.”

“Let me see,” Dean mused. “33 to 37 means progression of your T2 and T5 abilities. T5 is One with the Ship. That has a set path of advancement. T2 is your Chaos magic. What are your plans? Do you want to enhance the Summon Rift Beast cantrip again?”

“No,” I told him. “I’m feeling happy with its current capabilities. I think it’s time to increase my repertoire.”

Dean smiled at me. “It doesn’t hurt that you’ve passed the halfway threshold and have access to higher-powered spells.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Dean produced a tablet from his pocket, tapped away for a minute or two and then handed it over. “These are your potions.”

The first page was the same cantrips that had already been on offer. Chaos Dart, Haze of Befuddlement, and Physical Chaotic Surge. The second page had three other spells which had become available when I reached Chaos Magic 3. They hadn’t been much more impressive than the early cantrips, but now that I’d reached Chaos Magic 6 there was a third page with an additional three stronger spells.

Chaos Missile (Greater – 80% more effective)

Type: Offensive (Ranged)

Cost: 150 mana

Description: Fire a magical missile. The missile will explode when it contacts something physical. The range of the explosion is variable and reduces the further it gets from the contact point. (1-10 metres, the damage reduction is 10% per metre. The central 1-metre sphere is always at 100%)

Damage: Variable (100-300 Chaos)

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Mutiny in the Ranks (Greater – 80% more effective)

Type: Defensive

Cost: 150 mana

Description: This spell must be cast on a group of enemies in proximity to one another. (There must be a minimum of six targets.) The minds (20-40% randomly selected) of the group are attacked. Should they fail a resistance check, (Their Mental Resistance roll versus the caster’s Willpower + Domination / the number of targets attacked) they will see their compatriots as the enemy for thirty seconds. The caster may limit those included in the spell’s effect to a subsection of a larger unit, but they need to be positioned next to one another. You cannot pick and choose individuals from an army for example.

This spell cannot be cast on the same group until 24 hours have elapsed.

Duration: Thirty seconds.

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Chaotic Surge Triad (Greater – 80% more effective)

Type: Enhancement

Cost: 150 mana

Description: A random physical, mental, and social stat is increased by the range of 15-25. Can’t be cast on the same target for 30 minutes.

Duration: 3 minutes.

The spells had a similar flavour to the cantrip options, one of each type. Shelving Chaotic Surge Triad was the easy decision. It was still far too random and honestly high stats weren’t a problem for me. If my baseline stats were lower, then the 27 to 45 bump with the 80% efficacy increase might seem more worthwhile. As things stood, I’d probably only call upon the spell in situations where I needed a boost of something specific and the chances that a different stat which might not be helpful would be selected was too high.

Of course, if you lucked out and it was your Mana Capacity that got enhanced, then the spell would be a freebie with the extra mana. If there was a way to make that more likely, then this would become a viable option in the future.

That left the decision of whether to take Chaos Missile or Mutiny in the Ranks.

Before I read through the spells, Chaos Missile was the clear favourite. I’d been hankering for a magical ranged option for a while now and this was a nifty selection. After my level-up, I would have a Mana Pool of 611 enough for four casts without the need to swallow a mana pellet. My Greater affinity for chaos magic meant the damage range would be 180-540. And it was explosive to boot which meant it was useful against groups as well as individual targets.

A no-brainer, right?

And then I read the text for Mutiny in the Ranks.

My thoughts harkened back to the recent battle with the Lamers in Dallas. How much easier would that have been if I could have overwhelmed the minds of a few of their number and had them turn on each other? Even if it was only for thirty seconds, they were hard bastards and would have torn severe chunks out of one another and turned the fight on its head.

However, I had to stop myself from picking the spell straight away.

The devil is in the detail and these details were quite important. If the affected individuals didn’t fail their Mental Resistance check, then the spell did nothing but grant them immunity from another attempt for a day. My Domination and Willpower were high but that would be divided by the number of people taking the checks. Preternatural Insight helped clarify that the division was only based on those taking the check and not everyone in the target group which helped. But even with that assurance, if you tried to affect too many people, the division would make the check easy to pass and render the spell worthless.

In essence, despite being confident about the size of my stats, I needed more. There were likely solutions out there for this conundrum. One would be gear that could enhance my Domination and Willpower. You wouldn’t normally bother with equipment like that because it wouldn’t be directly useful in combat. I would need to construct a gear loadout that I could switch into to cast this spell and then go back to my normal armour set for fighting.

That would take time. Mutiny in the Ranks would have to wait, and I chose Chaos Missile from the options.

With everything locked in, I handed the pad back to Dean.

“You didn’t take Mutiny.” He pouted like a disappointed child.

“Don’t worry, dude. I’ve got my eye on it for when I reach Chaos Magic 7. I need to a bit of prep first.”

“I suppose I’ll have to wait.” Dean jabbed the tablet theatrically and I felt the shudder of the changes rippling through my body.

When the sensation finished, I opened my eyes and glanced up at one of the many screens in Dean’s very large man cave and perused the changes to my character sheet.

Name: Torin Carter

Species: Frostbinder Abyssal Acheronian (Tier 4.2.3)

Abyssal Acheronian:

Physical Stats: +30% Social Stats: +45%

Class: Dual Dungeon Corsair Lord

Level: 37

Strength: 76

Constitution: 83

Speed: 81

Agility: 75

Mana Capacity (+30%): 61.1

Perception: 59

Willpower: 134

Mental Resistance: 129

Empathy: 108

Charisma: 136

Dominance: 275

Leadership: 242

Hit Points: 8,145

Health: 98

Mana Pool: 611

Unused XP: 10,200

Notoriety: 935 (XP multiplier x2) (Path cost x 0.665) (Harmonisation cost x 0.8) (Class cost x 0.8) (Species cost x 0.8) (Act of Piracy length +100%)

T2: Chaos Magic 6: Grants ability to cast Chaos Magic spells. May cast Summon Rift Beast 1.4, Chaos Missile

T3: Clarion’s Call 4: Mental communication with adherents. The number of uses is Leadership divided by 4 (Faction wide). Pressganging Corsair 3: Adds the tier bonus to the crew cap for each rank.

T4: Claim a Dungeon Core 3: Two Cores claimed (max 2) Flagship and first free dungeon shard. Splinter boost for your cores. Your cores can grow core splinters (slowly) to be used for splinter vessels/weaponry. +1 tier access for upgrades

T5: One with the Ship 3: Symbiotic bond with the ship improved to tier 3. The environmental field is increased to tier 3, with high mitigation against non-magical environmental damage while within the field’s range. The effective range is increased to 1 kilometre. Swim speed is x8. Can remain at high altitude indefinitely without harm. Enhanced Healing rate while on the ship is +15%.

“When are you sending the hotties my way or have you finally decided it’s time to make decisions on their behalf?”

I blinked in confusion for a moment and then understanding dawned. I must have been more tired than I thought because it hadn’t even occurred to me to bring Anastasia and Claudia along to this meeting. When I levelled up, they levelled up. Of course, they should have been here.

“Bollocks,” I growled but self-recrimination would have to wait.

Quixbix could now talk to me through the problematic secret channel while I was here. Communication like this was a bit risky because the fragment could overhear anything we said while using it. Hence why he was a bit vague and non-specific. However, it had to be something important if he had utilised it all and my mind swirled with concern.

“No worries, Torin. I won’t tell your ladies that you forgot all about them. Call them in now and we can shoot some hoops while they natter away. Don’t blame me when I beat you, though. I’ve been practising and pushing myself to a twelve percent success rate. Impressive, no?”

Before I could answer, Violet put her hand on Dean’s shoulder and interjected. “Torin needs to return home,” she said firmly.

Dean seemed like he was about to object and then a faraway look crossed his expression briefly. “Oh, ah, yes, yes. Good to see you, Torin. Don’t be a stranger. Violet and I will handle things with Claudia and Ana.”

Dean’s sudden acquiescence and eagerness to usher me away did not fill me with positivity and I didn’t waste any time with polite goodbyes before heading back.

Blink.