Chương 127: Boat Incident

Meno did not waste time after deciding what he wanted. He left Westmarket's main square and went straight to the bank to claim the Vervenzal bounty before Solar or some other unforeseen disaster found a way to make it disappear. The royal bounty clerk verified the kill almost immediately. Meno had expected a confirmation window, maybe a congratulatory line from the NPC, then a satisfying increase to his balance. Instead, the moment the 5, 000, 000g reward entered his account, Westmarket lost its mind.

NPCs throughout the bank started clapping. The guards joined in, then people outside picked it up until the applause rolled through the street beyond the entrance. Meno had barely stepped outside when several Zubras rushed into the main square carrying short metal tubes, aimed them toward the sky, and started launching fireworks over the rooftops. Colored explosions burst above Westmarket while royal banners unfurled from nearby buildings.

NPC merchants abandoned their stalls long enough to cheer, guards slammed weapons against shields, and more Zubras appeared with additional fireworks as though they had been waiting weeks for permission to use them. Players came running. Within minutes, the square became packed.

Some players congratulated him on Vervenzal, others tried to inspect his half-naked False Hero setup, and a worrying number seemed to have arrived purely because somebody on Connect had posted that PrayerBeadGod had triggered another city event. Meno had forgotten how dramatic NPCs could get around major achievements. The celebration lasted almost half an hour before the fireworks finally slowed and the crowd loosened enough for him to escape.

His next stop was the Guild Hall, where he had originally registered GraveMistake. The same old NPC sat behind the guild desk with the same younger assistant nearby, though their attitude had changed considerably since Meno's first visit. The old man recognized him immediately, greeted him with enough respect to make the difference obvious, and brought up the available ship purchases as soon as Meno explained what he wanted.

Fortunately, Chadculator and the others had already handled the guild quests required to unlock the useful options. He started browsing. Tier 1 ships were cheap enough to ignore and mostly useless for what he wanted. Small crews, limited cargo, mediocre speed, and not enough room if GraveMistake ever needed to move a proper group somewhere. Tier 3 jumped immediately into ridiculous territory.

The 10, 000, 000g ship Kestrel had purchased appeared in the list, capable of carrying more than eighty people along with a substantial amount of cargo. It was basically a floating guild base, which explained the price. He filtered the Tier 2 options by speed. There were sturdier ships, vessels with larger cargo holds, and several that carried more players, but one sat clearly above the rest in movement rating while still having enough capacity for a normal party group plus extra passengers.

Meno opened the inspect window. [Tier II | Blackwake Clipper] Type: Naval Mount Capacity: 20 Speed: High Acceleration: High Durability: Medium Cargo Capacity: Low Minimum Crew: 1 Recommended Crew: 4 Summoning Requirement: Open water or sufficient navigable space. Price: 2, 000, 000g That was all Meno needed. If he eventually wanted to transport half of GraveMistake across the ocean, they could buy something larger. Right now, the point of having a ship was getting places quickly without depending on somebody else.

He purchased the Blackwake Clipper, dropping his balance to 3, 149, 415g. The ship did not appear in his inventory as an enormous folded boat or some miniature icon. Like the Mountstone used for regular mounts, it became a swirling magical orb with a tiny version of the vessel suspended inside, slowly rotating in dark water. Technically, the ship was a mount. Just a very large one. Meno left the Guild Hall and headed west toward the coast.

Westmarket itself sat inland far enough that there was no reason for ships to crowd directly against the city walls, so the official Royal Docks were located beyond the western gate near the shoreline. He could have summoned the Gravewurm and reached them quickly enough, but he decided to mess around with False Hero instead. The two-legged jump from Desync Titan was immediately his favorite part of the class.

Without Unstable active, nothing prevented Meno from walking or running normally, which meant he could build momentum before launching. He planted both feet near the western road, pushed off hard, and shot upward with enough force that the ground seemed to fall away rather than him leaving it. The 400% increase to jump power was almost excessive. Almost.

Meno sailed over a line of travelers, cleared part of the outer wall's approach, and realized halfway through the arc that he had underestimated how far the jump would carry him. He activated Jet Lag. The ability did exactly what the tooltip promised and nothing more. Meno stopped following the natural arc and plummeted straight down at 500% base Movement Speed, hitting the road below almost instantly.

Instead of an explosion, impact damage, or a dramatic crater, he simply went down extremely fast until the ground provided resistance, at which point Jet Lag ended and Desync Titan prevented the fall from hurting him. The main challenge turned out to be arriving in the correct orientation, which Meno discovered on the next attempt when he launched himself forward, let the jump carry him nearly horizontal over the road, then triggered Jet Lag before rotating his body upright.

The ability sent him straight down exactly as requested. Meno hit the dirt stomach-first hard enough for his face to bounce once. The stream exploded. HAHAHAHAHAHA perfect landing 500% MOVEMENT SPEED BELLY FLOP bro became a dropped phone JET LAG WORKING AS INTENDED 10/10 TITAN MOVEMENT do it again Meno pushed himself upright while pretending the dirt on his chest did not exist.

"I'm limit testing. It was on purpose." The lesson was useful anyway. Jet Lag did not orient his body, correct momentum, or magically place his feet beneath him. It only forced vertical movement downward. If Meno wanted to land properly, he needed to rotate before activating it. That made the skill much more interesting than a basic ground slam. He continued west, alternating between running and enormous two-legged jumps while experimenting with timing.

Cancel too early with Jet Lag and he wasted most of the horizontal distance. Cancel late and he risked overshooting whatever destination he had intended to reach. In combat, where targets moved and attack ranges mattered, the jump power was going to be a skill check. Another thing became clear while he tested False Blink between jumps. Lag faded outside combat. The stacks did not disappear immediately, but if Meno stopped refreshing them, they gradually dropped on their own like most temporary combat resources.

That meant he could not casually prepare 3 Lag in town and carry it forever until the next fight. Inside combat, the stacks should remain until consumed. Meno eventually left the road, found an empty patch of grass near several trees, and decided to test the part of the class he had deliberately avoided activating in the middle of Westmarket. He lay down first, then used Engulf. Fire spread across his body. It looked like a full burn-death animation, but the capsule translated it into heat instead of real pain.

More like standing on black pavement at noon while the sun tried to cook him through his skin. Unstable activated and Rooted took control of his movement. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Meno tried rolling onto his side. Nothing happened. Okay. Rooted was stricter than the wording suggested. No rolling, no crawling, no clever floor tech. He planted both hands against the ground and pushed his upper body up. That worked. Arms were legal.

Torso shifts were legal. Using his hands to bully himself upright was legal. His lower legs, however, refused anything that smelled like normal ground movement. Veyrath had basically unplugged him from the calves down. They still responded when Meno gave Veyrath a clean two-legged jump command, so the rule was not something he could beat by arguing that crawling was technically not walking. The capsule knew the input intent, and Veyrath judged it correctly. No free cheese. Yet.

There was probably something stupid hidden in there if he spent enough time with it. Hand-walking might work, but if it did, Solar would patch the crime before he got to profit, so Meno left it alone for now. Meno let Engulf continue long enough to confirm the self-damage, then activated Pyronucleosis with 0 Lag. Control vanished completely. After 3 consecutive seconds under the stun, Reactor Titan activated and restored him to 100% HP, but no Reactor stacks appeared because he was not in combat.

Meno moved to one of the nearby trees for the Sticky test. He jumped onto the trunk, activated Engulf to gain Unstable, and planted his feet against the bark. They stuck. Meno shifted sideways until his body hung out from the trunk like a flag. Gravity did nothing. His feet stayed locked to the bark as if the tree had accepted them as floor. He leaned farther. Still attached. Sticky Titan was massive. Against a large boss, one clean landing could become permanent contact until he deliberately disengaged.

When he was not Rooted, leaving the tree was easy enough because he could deactivate the state and step away once movement returned. While Rooted, he had to make the exit a real input: launch off with a valid two-legged jump, or use Jet Lag if straight down was enough to break contact and send him toward the ground. Different boss shapes meant different escape problems. Meno shut Engulf down with Pyro and kept testing False Blink as he resumed traveling toward the coast. The skill was going to be difficult.

A tenth of a second was almost nothing. He really did disappear from the world position, becoming untargetable and unable to take damage, but standing still made the effect hard to read without watching the Lag counter. His vision did not cut out or flash. The world simply skipped for the smallest fraction of time before he existed in the same place again. Using it correctly against attacks would require timing far more precise than normal dodging. He tested False Blink mid-jump and felt the hitch immediately.

The skill did not stop or reverse him, but it tugged against the arc for a fraction of a beat before momentum resumed. Actual lag. Meno laughed when he realized it. The effect might become useful for correcting trajectories, especially when combined with Jet Lag. False Hero's active toolkit was surprisingly small once Meno reduced it to basics. Engulf dealt damage. Pyronucleosis turned the dangerous state off and triggered Reactor if Meno accepted the full 3-second stun.

False Blink was the defensive timing tool and generated Lag. Jet Lag handled downward mobility and could clear Lag when he wanted to preserve the full stun duration. Everything else shaped how those four buttons worked. The real resources were Lag and Reactor. Chat loved the class already, mostly because half the toolkit seemed designed to produce embarrassing clips whenever he made a mistake. The longer Meno thought about it, the more he saw the crack. False Hero was built to make solo play miserable.

Engulf ate 10% maximum HP every second, and Reactor forced him to gamble on self-stuns for healing, but nothing in the wording stopped other players from healing him through the burn. With four healers, he might keep Engulf running until their mana ran out. Maybe. The problem was his HP pool. His gear gave him four times the HP, meaning ordinary healing was effectively four times worse against his bar while Engulf still removed 10% every second. He could also unequip the HP gear.

His damage did not scale from maximum HP at all. The health existed mainly so random attacks and DoTs did not erase him while he intentionally burned himself. With four healers supporting a smaller HP pool, permanent Engulf might actually become possible. Solar had probably considered that. Probably. Meno reached the Westmarket Royal Docks before he could fully theorycraft how badly he wanted to abuse it. The docks were large enough to function as a small town outside the city.

Stone administrative buildings, warehouses, guard posts, and supply yards spread along the shoreline while long wooden ramps descended toward rows of protected docking bays. There were surprisingly few players around. Meno saw several in the Level 50–55 range running between quest NPCs and cargo workers, but most were too busy with their own progression to care about him immediately. The viewers from Westmarket were another problem.

A growing horde had trailed him west on mounts after the bounty celebration, and they continued arriving behind him despite Meno making absolutely no effort to wait. Annoying, but unavoidable. Several large wooden vessels occupied the royal docks. They looked closer to military frigates and heavy merchant ships than the sleek vessel Meno had purchased, with broad hulls, multiple decks, rows of sails, and royal insignias painted prominently along the sides.

NPC workers carried crates aboard while guards supervised from the piers. None of the ships belonged to players, because there was no reason to leave a personal ship sitting around unattended when naval mounts could simply be returned to inventory after use. Meno found an empty docking bay near the outer end of the harbor and took out the Blackwake Clipper orb. He activated it. Dark water spiraled outward above the bay.

The miniature ship inside the orb expanded rapidly, unfolding into full scale until the magical water dispersed and the vessel settled against the dock with a heavy wooden groan. Meno stared upward. The Blackwake Clipper had a long, narrow hull built from nearly black timber polished enough to catch blue reflections from the water.

Its bow rose into a sharp forward point rather than the broader reinforced front of the royal ships, and the sides sat relatively low above the sea, making the entire vessel look stretched and fast. Two tall, slightly rear-angled masts rose from the deck with tightly furled dark sails. The rigging between them was lighter than on the larger ships around the harbor, and the rear deck was compact instead of stacked into a bulky command structure.

There were no obvious armored plates, reinforced boarding rails, or heavy weapon positions along the hull. It had sacrificed almost everything for speed. The deck still had enough space for around twenty players to move comfortably, a small enclosed cabin toward the stern, storage below, and a raised steering position overlooking the length of the vessel. Chat approved. BOAT ARC 2 million well spent PBG PIRATE ERA name it beadboat actually fast looking holy WE SAIL FOR FRACTERA Meno smiled.

"I have a ship, aweso—" Two figures appeared beside it, tossed small objects onto the Blackwake's deck, and vanished again. The objects detonated. One explosion tore across the middle of the ship, blasting pieces of railing into the harbor, while the other erupted near the forward mast and spread fire through the deck so violently that the furled sails caught within seconds. Meno's brain seemed to explode with it.

He stood motionless while the brand-new ship he had purchased less than an hour ago burned in front of him.

"What… just… happened?" ROGUES LMAOOOOO zubra engineering bs STREAM SNIPED IN FIVE MINUTES -2 million rip WELCOME TO NAVAL CONTENT Meno stared at the flames.

"My ship." Another section of sail collapsed.

"It's gone." The game automatically recalled the vessel before the destruction progressed any farther. Dark magic swallowed the burning hull, shrinking it back toward inventory while an alert appeared across Meno's vision. [Blackwake Clipper automatically recalled.] Durability: Critical. Repair required before resummoning. The ruined ship orb dropped back into his inventory with the tiny vessel inside visibly blackened and cracked. The rogues were gone.

They had returned to stealth before his brain had even caught up with what happened.

"What did they throw?" That had not looked like an ability. Grenades? Dynamite? Apparently, engineering items capable of blowing holes in ships were simply a thing people could carry around now. Disbelief lasted another few seconds. Then it became anger.

"That was a big mistake, whoever just pulled this stunt." Meno said it like he was already past anger and into routing.

"Huge mistake." The rogues had appeared from stealth, which meant their names should have become visible, even if only for an instant. Meno opened his own stream inside an overlay and dragged the VOD backward until he reached the explosion. He slowed the footage, advanced frame by frame, and watched the edge of the dock instead of the ship. One frame showed nothing. The next showed both characters. Got you. MattyDiff, Level 55 from Crownfall. Shifto, Level 57 from Crownfall.

Meno closed the overlay and stared out across the water with the broken Blackwake orb sitting in his hand. Whatever the repair cost, Kestrel was about to pay double. The bastard had actually sent two rogues to stream-snipe him and blow up his ship immediately after purchase. Meno summoned the Gravewurm. The mount surfaced from the ground, and he climbed onto it before turning back toward Westmarket.

The viewers who had followed him to the docks scattered out of his route while several screamed nonsense about the boat incident. The Gravewurm accelerated. Too slowly. Its Low Speed rating had been fine when Meno first got it. Now, after jumping across half the road with Desync Titan and spending the morning driving something that reached sixty miles per hour in one point three seconds, the Gravewurm felt offensively sluggish. Meno was buying a Tier 2 mount from the Faction Quartermaster.

He had enough Reputation for one. First, however, he needed his ship repaired. Meno rode directly back to the Guild Hall and entered with enough purpose that the old guild NPC immediately stopped what he was doing. The man looked at Meno, then at the damaged ship orb in his hand, and his expression became difficult to interpret.

"I need this fixed." The old man did not ask how Meno had managed to critically damage his new ship already. He simply stood and led him through a side passage into a large guild courtyard behind the hall. The courtyard looked nothing like the formal office. Zubras ran between wooden workbenches with tools, rope coils, sailcloth scraps, and metal parts. Ship diagrams covered the walls in every direction, some pinned into neat rows while others hung sideways or upside down.

Half-built components sat on stands around the yard, and several zebra-headed gnomes argued over a drawing while pointing at different parts of the hull. One Zubra noticed the damaged orb and rushed over with immediate professional joy. He turned it in his hands, peered at the miniature Blackwake from several angles, then announced the repair price like this was wonderful news.

"One hundred thousand. Big fix, fast work. Pay now. Okkk?" Meno paid, because Kestrel was going to reimburse him whether Meno asked or not. Above Level 60, Grave Crown now stole 3, 000g per valid PvP kill and repeated-kill protection was gone. He was going to find Kestrel, stick his feet to the guy's face, and collect the repair cost 3, 000g at a time. Kestrel was about to have a very bad day.