Dungeon Sniper

I could not sleep, so I went out on the deck around midnight. I was both hopeful and hesitant to find Elysia out there, doing her job as a newly instated navigator of the ship to check the stars regularly and set the course aright. Her presence would have comforted me for sure, but things were still a little tense between us two. Three, if Hermana were concerned as well.

The refreshing night air greeted me as I poked my head out of the trapdoor. The crescent moon was not giving off too much light, but the stars, in turn, looked brighter than ever.

Under the starry darkness, someone was indeed standing near the ledge of the deck, looking into the far nothingness of the sea.

Captain Baha turned and spotted me standing awkwardly from the distance.

"I figured you wouldn't be able to sleep, after all that scene."

The old captain was puffing the pipe with one hand while holding a bottle of rum on the other.

"Care to join?" asked Captain Baha, lifting the bottle.

"I don't drink," I declined, but I walked over and stood next to him to face the pitch dark ocean laid around us.

"Yeah? You look old enough to drink."

"I am. I... quit. Don't ask me what happened."

"Don't worry, boy, if there's one thing I can't care any less about, it's people's past."

"Thanks."

We stood in silence for a while.

"What's with all the hate? Against the Black Whales, I mean."

"The sea breeds superstitions. It is too vast and unforgiving for the sailors not to rely on something, however absurd and nonsensical that something is. The Black Whales are known for swimming around shipwrecks, and people believe the whales gather to eat off the corpses, like the vultures and crows on land. And there's also boredom. Nothing quite like shooting and killing big, helpless animals on lazy afternoons on the sea."

"Do they, really?"

"What, boy?"

"Eat off the corpses."

"Personally, I think it's hogwash."

I nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly.

Captain Baha remained silent for a few seconds, took a swig from the bottle, and s.u.c.k.e.d on the pipe contemplatively.

"Everything can be explained, of course. The Black Whales appear near shipwrecks not to eat the dead bodies but to inform the nearby sh.i.p.s of the accidents... As for the ubiquity of the mass slaughter, it only seems like the Black Whales are hunted down more frequently and brutally than other animals because the whales are left to rot on the sea rather than claimed as food. The Black Whales taste awful, and no cook has ever managed to make a decent meal out of any part."

The old captain paused and smiled bitterly.

"Not just as food. Their fat burns too fast and creates too much smoke to be used as fuel. Their smooth, beautiful skin is ridiculously thick to be processed and used for any clothing or material. The only merit they have is that they're the smartest bastards on the sea, even smarter than some idiots calling themselves the men of the sea."

"If they're so smart, has no one tried to tame and train them as, you know, pets?"

"Can't be done. The Black Whales are docile, but their longing for the open sea is too strong to be tied down."

"How about we use them as we use horses? Make them pull the sh.i.p.s in front, or even ride them."

"You're funny boy, but you're not the first person to suggest such a usage for the poor animals," Captain Baha chuckled heartily.

"That's a no too, then."

The old captain stopped laughing and sighed resignedly, his eyes back on the dark sea, looking farther back, not in place but in time.

"... As far as I know, there are two 'Humans' who successfully rode a Black Whale."

"Who?"

But even before Captain Baha opened his mouth, I knew which name was going to come out.

"One's Alpha—"

Right. Him again.

"—and the other is—"

Captain Baha closed his mouth abruptly. He looked up at the sky and sniffed the air like an alert hound.

"What's up, Captain?"

The old captain blinked and let out a curse with a frustrated frown.

"Damn it."

"What is it?"

"There's a storm coming."

A flash of lightning later, Captain Baha chucked the half-empty bottle into the sea and limped briskly past me.

The deafening boom of thunder came about two seconds later, soon followed by ominous raindrops that beat against the wooden floor of the deck, like someone's footsteps growing louder with each passing second.

.

.

.

The storm had been raging for an entire day, and I was having my first-ever seasickness. The rest of the crew were fine, except for Elysia. She had fainted and been bedridden ever since the first rumble. She was asleep when I visited her at the cabin. Pale and sickly, she was having it real rough. And I could not help but feel guilty, for having brought her into this mess, for making her go through with everything that had been going on.

"I'll take care of her, don't worry."

Hermana, who was in charge of tending to Elysia, told me reassuringly. I thanked her and left the cabin promptly. Hermana did not insist that I stayed longer either.

Trapped inside a rolling ship, I had nothing else to do other than lie flat on the bed and hope for the storm to pass. Queeqa could not cook in such a state, so he went around the cabins and distributed emergency dried food to the crew. I kind of hoped for him to stay and keep me company, but everyone else but me had a proper job on this ship. In the evening, I ventured outside the ship holding a mop only to be chided by Lieutenant Captain Shef.

"You'll have the entire ship to yourself to mop around after this is over, so get back into your bunk and stay down!"

The emphatic order only did the reverse effect, and late into the night, with the storm still rocking the ship left and right, I picked up a lamp and sneaked into the library, the small space where Hermana had told me to take a shower in the least s.e.xy way possible. I grabbed a handful of books that I wanted to read and got back to my cabin unnoticed.

I knew it was a torture to read something while the entire world around me shook and swayed, but I was getting motion sickness even with my eyes closed anyway.

So I bravely opened the first book, titled Where Did the Other Two Go?

... King Laikaan pleaded them to stay. The people needed all three heroes in one place, not divided. But the Human and Orc heroes were adamant that they pursued the 'ultimate' enemy. With the enemy still breathing fire down their necks, the entire Dungeon was unsafe, the two negligent heroes said. What they failed to realize, however, was that the enemy was already within the inhabitants of Level Three, and its name was 'racism.' Only our benign, perspicacious King Laikaan saw the real problem and resolved to fix it, once and for all...

I flipped the pages and perused the entire book, but it did not mention who or what the 'ultimate' enemy was. In fact, the rest of the book was devoted to the greatness and virtues of King Laikaan. It read like a fascist dictator's biography, full of praises and legendary episodes of the so-called great leader.

I flung the first book and picked up another, which was titled The Forevershut Gate: Myth or Truth?

... For convenience's sake, allow me to call the two neglectful heroes by their proper names, despite the conventional abstinence to acknowledge their presence in our esteemed history. One of the two disgraceful heroes, Alpha of the Humans, is said to have 'shut the Transcendent Gate forever' by 1) sinking the Gate to the bottom of the sea and 2) disposed of the only key able to open the said Gate. The witnesses of the heroes' parting have uniformly claimed that Alpha, after letting Rafaqa of the Orcs pass through the Gate beforehand, 'transmuted' the key into a glowing, gold 'star' before shooting it off to the open sea...

I blinked at the last phrase, or rather the first words of it in particular: a gold star that used to be the key to the Gate.

Could it possibly be the D-Bug of this level? But a star was not a bug, nor would it have any wing to fly away from reckless catchers...

The motion sickness suddenly hit me hard. I found myself yawning at the same time. The result was a combination of dizziness and drowsiness. The letters on the book started to dance and waver before my eyes.

I pushed aside the third book from the bed. It was titled A Study of the Black Whales, or an Observation but had no author name on anywhere. It was a nondescript, poorly-made book with an amateurish cover, but what drew me was not the contents itself but a short note written by Hermana in an angry scribble on the flyleaf.

'Reads as if a twelve-year-old wrote it.'

I chuckled softly as I imagined the beautiful bibliophile with her cute mouth taut with anger, only to feel guilt that right this second, Elysia was suffering needlessly from a journey she was forced into by me.

I had the worst dream that night. Elysia showed me the saddest smile as she turned away to leave me for good, telling me that 'it' was her choice, and nothing made sense when I woke up with either full of sweat or tear on my face.

.

.

.

"The storm, it stopped!"

I sprang to the deck cheerfully and greeted the others already on board.

"There's your rookie mistake. The storm's still on. We've just hit the eye of the storm."

It was one of the rare occasions that Paterpen spoke back to me. Eye of the storm or not, everyone seemed to be in a better mood now that the storm had stopped, albeit for a short time.

I found Hermana stretching by the ledge and walked toward her.

"How's Elysia doing?"

"Adapting. She'll live," smiled Hermana. Fatigue showed on her face too, and I thanked her earnestly for all her effort.

"By the way, a few books are missing in the library. Have you taken them?" asked Hermana casually. I was taken aback, naturally.

"How did you— Do you always keep the count of the books? That sounds a little too paranoid."

"It's just a habit, and I can notice right away when things are not placed in an order I put them in."

"You call that mess of a place an 'order?' I knew a Dwarf friend who had his lab cleaner than that dump—Ow!"

Hermana punched me in the arm with a frown-like smile, and as much as I hated myself at the moment, I was grinning back at her.

"Get a room, you two!" jeered Paterpen, and I hated that he had to be in a good mood right now.

"So you know where you keep your books at. But how did you know it was me who took those books?"

"Are you kidding? The only ones who even pretend to read books on this ship are Shef and me. Shef has been busy trying to maintain the course through the storm all day and night, and I was busy taking care of your... girlfriend, who's still sleeping on her bed, so she's the last person to get up and raid my library in the middle of the night."

I wanted to believe that I was imagining that there was a slightly edgy pause before Hermana said the word 'girlfriend.'

"Which leaves you," concluded Hermana triumphantly.

"I don't know whether I should feel superior or sad for the fact that almost no one reads on this ship. Not even Captain Baha?"

"He has his own study full of books. Boring stuff, if you ask me," shrugged Hermana as nonchalantly as she could, but there was an undeniable greed in her eyes determined to explore the 'boring' study one day.

"So? What made you want to pick up some books in the middle of a storm? I'm not mad at you, I'm just curious."

I told Hermana the list of books I borrowed from her library. When I mentioned the angry scribble found in the shabby book, A Study of the Black Whales, or an Observation, Hermana did not share my laugh. Instead, her eyes flashed eagerly, the eyes of someone willing to share a secret.

"Did you read it?" asked Hermana in a whisper all of a sudden.

"No, I fell asleep just before."

"There's something you have to know about the book. But don't take my words for it because it's only a theory..."

Hermana beckoned me to get closer. No one else was paying any attention to us, so it was a meaningless effort, but I could feel my heart beat a little faster as I smelled the usual flower-scented perfume as I got closer to Hermana's face.

"I think I know who wrote that book," whispered Hermana, tickling my entire body.

"Who?" I asked back in the same whispery tone, although I did not care about the topic any more than I was trying to figure out the exact color of Hermana's eyes.

"Let's make this fun. I'll give you a hint: I found the book here on the ship, but not 'my' library."

"Okay," I said dumbly.

"You don't want to play this game, do you?" smiled Hermana, her eyes sparkling yet again.

"What game?"

Overall, the eye color was hazel, but with a hint of green and blue, the latter color quite possibly a reflection of the sea around us, which only made those eyes look more lively, lovely—

BEWARE—

I started and jumped. Hermana too stepped backward away from me in surprise.

"What was that?" I gasped in panic.

"What was what?"

The other crew members turned to us curiously. I looked around, remembering the voice that said the alarming, distressing word.

CLOSER—

There it was again, and this time I was sure that it came from none of the crew members around me. It was not their voice, nor was it any voice.

Rather, it was a vibration in the air, received through not my ears... but the heart.

DANGER—

"What are they doing here?"

I looked up and saw Hermana looking past me with a confused frown. I turned and saw it too.

At first, I thought I was looking at a shipwreck with only its mast floating above the surface of the sea. But slowly, the mast grew longer, and the rest of the ship began to emerge from under the water.

The 'ship' looked familiar, but the flag on top of the mast did not. The blue-colored flag had a figure of a round-headed lizard with chains in all four limbs. No, not a lizard. A salamander.

I realized that whenever they returned to the harbor, they would deliberately remove the 'pirate' flag along with the disturbing figurehead in the front... because they sent too clear a message to the onlooker.

The figurehead of a giant salamander with chains all over its body slowly rose above the deck I was standing and glared down at its prey with lifeless, merciless eyes.

'Drowning Salamander is the name of their ship... if you could call that a ship,' Captain Baha had said.

And he was right. It was not a ship.

It was a submarine.