Chapter 5: Trouble on the Blue Nixie, Part 3

My dreams were filled with blue. It was soothing. I was floating in an endless cerulean sea. It was the color of my eyes, and the color of my magic. I found it oddly comforting. Grandma always liked to tell me my eyes were too blue for their own good. Good ol' Grandma. What was she up to right now? It was nighttime, so probably asleep, like me. Or was I dead? If this was the afterlife, I hoped I wasn't dead. Swimming in pure magic was pleasant, but there was a severe shortage of reading material, and any afterlife without books was no afterlife for me.

I kicked my feet absentmindedly and found that I could swim with ease through the sea of magical energy. I knew, in the way you know things in dreams, that that was what it was: the same raw essence that fueled my own magical abilities. I swam forward, and then, unexpectedly, surfaced. Once I breached the surface, the tranquility of the dream was immediately shattered by ear-piercing hoots and shrieks.

"Wake up!" said a female voice. Liona was standing above me, and I could smell the seafoam scent of her magic on the air, mingling with the smell of smoke and viscera. "It's cool, the coast is clear, no more monsters," said Liona. "Not so invincible a bookworm after all, eh?"

I started to get up, but she held a hand gently on my sternum to keep me down. "Woah there," she warned. "I was able to heal you back to consciousness, but you still have, like, multiple broken ribs. Just hang tight while I put out these fires, 'kay?"

I groaned and surveiled my surroundings as best I could from my prone position. I was still in the ship's hold, but the spider-thing was lying dead on the floor next to me. The walls were lined with animal cages. That's right—they were on fire. But the animals had all been released. Kala was gently whispering to them while Liona was casting water spells to extinguish the remaining fires. As for me, my whole body hurt like hell, although my magical defenses felt like they were back up.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Looks like they were using the ship to smuggle exotic animals," said Liona. "One of the crew tried to destroy them, but that crazy monster got loose and killed her. Kala's summons finished off the monster just before I made it here. It was trying to eat you. Came damn close, too. Lucky for all of us, seems you're a tough nut to crack. Any one of us it got its freaky spider claws on besides you would be in two pieces right now, I guarantee it."

"The poor thing," cooed Kala, stroking the monster's corpse. "It was only lashing out because it was confused and scared and hungry." She turned and smiled at me. "But if you hadn't been there to help, Annie, I'd be dead right now. You saved my life. Thank you."

"Oh, uh...no problem," I said. "I didn't really do much, though, did I? Outside of getting thrown off the ship and almost getting eaten by a...what was that thing?"

"A rhagodessa," said Kala. "It's kind of like a mix between a camel spider and a grick."

"Did we find the, uh..." I wracked my brain. "...Signet ring? That's what we were looking for, right?"

"Snickers is searching for it now," said Liona reassuringly. "He's good at that sort of thing. Now, let me have another look at your injuries." She laid her hands on me and I smelled seafoam again. There was a slightly uncomfortable sensation as I felt my bones repairing themselves inside my body. Then the pain was gone. I sat up gingerly.

"Thank you," I said. "I'm sorry I wasn't more use during the fight. I know I didn't do much besides get thrown off the ship and then nearly get eaten. I'm still new to this whole adventuring business. I guess I'm not very good at it."

"Yeah, you really screwed up taking down Vark and saving Kala from the rhago-daggo-bobaggo," Liona said, raising one eyebrow. "Don't beat yourself up, kid. You pulled your weight just fine. And I think you got beaten up enough already. I mean, damn. That thing nearly cracked you like a walnut."

I grimaced. "I am definitely against being cracked like a walnut, or any other kind of nut for that matter. In fact, let's just avoid being cracked entirely."

Snickers's voice came echoing down from the grate above: "Snickers find stuff! Come up and look. Good stuff."

We headed back upstairs to the deck. All the birds that had been cooped up in the hold took wing as soon as the door opened, except for one parrot, who was sitting contentedly on Kala's head as she walked out. "His name is Squawk," Kala explained. "We're friends now."

Snickers was standing proudly over a pile of loot at least as big as he was. "Snickers find ring. Also more stuff." I could see several crossbows, two potions, a finely crafted sword and shield, a suit of sharkskin armor that had clearly been removed from Soller Vark, and an assortment of jewelry and other valuables. "We keep potions, give ring to rich lady, Snickers sell rest for 1,606 gold!" he said. "That 401 gold and 5 silver each."

"Adventuring. It pays!" Liona said, noticing my eyes go wide. "C'mon, let's grab one of these rowboats and haul all this back to shore. We can dump Varky here in the gutter."

"Squawk!" said Squawk.