Markets and Multiverses

The morning of the hunt came. Before I could leave for the meeting spot, my mother stopped me by stepping in front of the door. She stared at me for a moment, as if memorizing every detail of my face. Then, she smiled at me, although her smile was a little sad.

“Take this with you, sweetie,” she said, and handed me a bracelet made of pearls. I looked at it, confused, before I nodded. “Wear it while you fight the glowing fish. Maybe the Ocean Mother will see it, and keep you safe during the fight.” I slid it around my wrist, and carefully sensed it with my absorption essence.

There was no mana in the pearls. There wasn’t anything but my mother’s wishes for me to return home alive. I gently stroked the pearls wound around my wrist. 

Even though the bracelet had no special abilities, it was the most precious gift I could receive right now. I hugged my mother for a few minutes, and the two of us spent a few minutes taking in each other’s presence.

However, time waited for no one. After a few minutes, I gave my mother a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll come back home alive. And I’ll bring father back too.”

My mother’s smile grew a little strained, but she stroked my forehead and gave me a peck on the cheek.

“Come back safe and sound. I don’t need my little girl and my dearest Silas to disappear on the same day, so don’t you dare die during the fight, all right?” I gave my mother the most confident smile I could, gave her another hug, and then left.

When I was walking through the village, I found Sallia waiting for me just a few houses away. Like my mother, she also stopped me, and gave me a bracelet made of pearls.

“If you die before I do, I’ll make sure that your training is extra hard for the next three lives. I’ll be really angry with you, all right?”

I hesitated for a moment, before I hugged her too. “I’ll do my best.”

We didn’t say anything else. We simply stood together for a few minutes, in comfortable silence, as Sallia scanned me like she was trying to imprint my image into her memories.

A few minutes later, Felix also arrived. Unlike Sallia, he didn’t have a hard time speaking. He gave me a careful, studied look, before sighing.

“I wish I could join the fight too, but neither of my abilities are useful, and I only have five runes. Since I’m not an adult yet, and I’m not a fisherman, I can’t join in. But at least take this with you, as a token of my confidence. You’re strong, you have an Ability that counters the glowing fish, and you’re determined. You can make it through this and come back.” He said, before handing me another bracelet of pearls. I chuckled, looking at the three pearl bracelets I was now wearing.

“I’ll make sure to do so.”

The atmosphere was heavy after that, and so the three of us fell into silence. Finally, we just sat together as a group of three, taking comfort in each other’s presence in what might be our final moments together on this world if I died during the fight.

After a few minutes, I got up and left. I needed to reach the boats on time. When I arrived, I saw all of the other hunters and fishermen of my boat standing together. Like me, most of them were wearing several bracelets made of pearls. My father gave me a final, careful look, before he sighed and gave me a nod. I could tell there were a lot of emotions in his expression - pride, worry, hope, fear… all bundled together as he looked at me standing next to the boat, and realized I was really going to participate in the fight. 

The group didn’t say anything. We simply climbed into the boat and flew to the place the village chief told us to meet up. There, I saw several other boats of people sitting in the sand and waiting for the village chief’s arrival. A few minutes later, the village chief came, where he gave us all solemn nods.

“First, thank all of you for coming. I know that being willing to risk your lives for the sake of your friends and family must be hard. All of you are men and women the village can be proud of, and I know that you will perform well during the battle.

“Now, there are a few things the other village chiefs and I have been testing during the time all of you have been training. I’ve already discussed some of these details with the hunters, but I will reiterate what we have learned, and how we intend to use that to our advantage.  First, and most importantly, we have determined that we don’t have the firepower to kill this thing in a few attacks. Its body is very resilient against damage, and it’s definitely using a healing rune ability. This means that we need to exhaust its mana before we have any chance of killing it - otherwise, it will just heal itself while teleporting away. This means we will need to wear it down for a while before we trap it and kill it. 

“This is the phase of the fight all of you will be most important for. The other chiefs and I will get in attacks when we see a good opportunity to use them, but we will mostly be conserving our mana for the second phase of the fight. We will only step in during emergencies. During the first phase of the fight, I want all of you to harass the fish and bleed it as much as possible. I’ve asked the crafters to design some very special spears, which are quite a bit heavier than regular bone spears. These spears will have a much easier time penetrating the scales of the fish, meaning all of you will be able to deal damage even with regular thrown weapons as long as you’re close enough.

“During this phase of the fight, little Miria will also do her best to keep the fish distracted. We don’t know how long it will remain focused on her illusory boat, since we don’t know how the fish will react when injured. However, Miria should keep the fish concentrated on her for as long as possible, and in the meantime, all of you should just do as much damage to the fish as you can. Make it waste mana teleporting and healing itself, until it starts to run low.”

“Once its mana is low enough, we will begin the second phase of the fight. We’ve observed that the glowing fish is afraid of some islands - however, it isn’t afraid of all islands. We aren’t sure what differentiates these islands, but we intend to make full use of this. We’ve discovered a few important traits of the glowing fish’s teleportation ability. Most importantly, there is a cooldown between each use of its teleportation ability. Every time it teleports, it needs to wait about five seconds before teleporting again. And the range it can move is also limited. We intend to use a few ‘minor’ attacks during the first phase of the fight, to make the fish complacent against our actions. Miria, your illusions will also help with this, since it will make the fish fear our attacks even less - anytime the other village chiefs and I use a ‘big’ attack, try to follow up by adding an extra fake attack into the mix when you can. When the fish is low on mana, we will use a special combination of abilities to toss the fish onto an island. The island is relatively small and uninhabited by either humans or landbeasts - it doesn’t even have a forest. However, it’s large enough that the glowing fish would need at least three teleportations to get out of the island if it gets stuck in the center of it. From there, the village chiefs will use our abilities to trap it on the island before everyone will shred it to pieces with our abilities. This second phase of the fight will be much safer than the first phase.

“If all goes well, we should be able to kill the beast once and for all without letting it flee back underwater. During the first phase, prioritize dodging over dealing damage whenever it’s possible. Stay out of range of the fish’s teleportation, and hit it only when you’re able to do so, or when it’s unable to teleport. Pay attention to your own safety first. Fishermen, make sure you’re ready to flee at a moment’s notice, and hunters, if you have any abilities that help the boats maneuver around, make sure you have them ready at a moment’s notice. You can’t hurt the fish more if you’re dead, so be cautious. Miria, whenever the fish stops getting distracted by your illusions, focus on dodging with the rest of your boat. Keep as many other people as you can alive, but worry about yourself first, all right?” The village chief looked directly at me, and I nodded.

“Yes, chief.” 

One after another, boats began soaring into the sky, laden with their crews and weighted spears. We soared across the swirling waters of the ocean, and soon we met with several other flying boats from other villages. We temporarily landed on the island we planned to lure the fish onto during the second phase of the fight. The village chiefs disembarked, before going over last minute details together.

Meanwhile, I watched the waters nervously, my hands tightening and relaxing over my fish core pouch. I had brought twenty fish cores with me - more than I could absorb in one day, in case someone else needed a mana resupply. 

Finally, the village chiefs finished speaking. Several scout boats took to the air, and began moving in different directions to find the fish and lure it towards the island. 

Finally, after almost an hour, we saw a distant ripple on the ocean.

“In the air, everyone!” Called one of the other village chiefs, and nearly a hundred and fifty boats soared into the skies. Meanwhile, the distant ripple on the water approached us. It wasn’t long before I saw the beast that had haunted my nightmares for days appear.

The glowing fish had come.

It seemed totally unfazed by the cloud ships waiting for it. As it looked at us, I could swear I saw it smirk a little, its massive translucent lips curving ever so slightly as it prepared to fight us. Its distorted geometry flickered in and out of my field of view as I took a deep breath. Then, I summoned my illusory boat.

I flew the fake boat near the edge of our cloud of boats, trying to lure the fish within range of everyone’s attacks without getting it too close to real boats.

The fish’s eyes locked on to my illusion, and it suddenly looked pissed off. It clearly recognized my fake boat, and was eager to finally get revenge. 

I grinned, ignoring a System notification that popped up at the edge of my vision. I would deal with System notifications after the battle.

The fish leapt out of the waves, before teleporting towards my illusion. The boats nearest to the fish moved a little farther away, keeping themselves safe, but most of the boats didn’t need to move at all.

“Ready! Throw!” yelled Brezin, seeing the fish appear in midair near my illusion.

The fishermen and I braced the ship, holding it steady as the hunters on our ship threw a wave of spears and abilities at the great fish. I could see the other fishing boats doing the same, forming a hail of multicolored attacks that sailed towards the leviathan the moment it finished teleporting.

Its teeth crashed down – onto my illusion, which exploded in a burst of light. My fake boat reappeared nearby a quarter of a second later. Many of our spears missed completely, but perhaps seven in ten hit the fish. Of those, perhaps half bounced off and half broke its skin.

Even so, the fish didn’t seem concerned with its minor wounds. Its size was so huge that the spears were little tiny needles pricking its skin. None of our attacks had been a serious threat so far. It plummeted back towards the waves, its eyes quickly locking back onto my illusion. 

It still hadn’t started attacking the real boats yet.

Then, the fish began swimming away from us. Its eyes were still locked onto my illusion, but it wasn’t attacking. I felt my gut clench with fear. Was it running away? If it continuously ran away from large fleets in the future and only came back to attack small, isolated groups of fishing boats, we would have no way to hunt the fish down, and no way to get food. We would slowly starve to death. We needed this hunt to succeed.

To my relief, the fish turned back around. I finally realized what it was doing - it wasn’t fleeing, it was preparing an actual charge. However, its actions were very different from when it had been chasing our boat last week. Why was its behavior different this time? I frowned, but didn’t have time to think more. Managing my illusion and flying the boat was already a strain on my mental resources. 

The fish charged my illusion, and leapt out of the water towards my fake boat. I again turned it into a burst of light, before reforming it.

“Ready, throw!” yelled Brezin.

Another hail of weighted bone spears shot through the air towards the leviathan as it tried to attack a nonexistent boat.

This time, more of the spears hit their target. The fish’s smug smile was gone now. As it crashed back into the waves below us and the sea wobbled, and then turned towards my illusion. 

Was it still focused on my made up image? I grinned, preparing to dissolve the illusion the moment I needed to. Then, the glowing fish began to glow brighter and brighter, and the eighth, rune inside of its body began to look like a second sun that had been dropped into the ocean.

I suddenly had a bad feeling in my stomach.

A bolt of lightning erupted from the skin of the fish and struck my illusion, passing clean through it. The fish’s dozens of eyes widened as it saw its attack literally pass through the illusion, and it simply sat there in silence for a moment. It didn’t respond to the fishermen and hunters raining abilities on it, and simply stared at my illusory boat. I dissolved it into a blast of light, before making it reappear near the ocean, in case the fish somehow hadn’t noticed that something was wrong.

The glowing fish turned towards the cloud of boats and snarled.

The jig was up. After only three attacks, the glowing fish had finally realized my boat was just an illusion.

 

acaswell

I believe I’ve already mentioned this before, but on February 15th (and the days leading up to it) I have something I really need to do. Depending on when and how things happen, chapters for next week may be shorter than usual, or delayed or something. Just… if chapter schedule or chapter length gets weird next week, be prepared in advance, ok? I’ll try to keep things normal and then maybe go back to five chapters a week after February 15th if I feel up to it and think I can manage it, but on February 15th and the days leading up to it, things might get weird release-schedule wise. I’ll figure out what the future schedule looks like after I get through my due date, and then have a little time to think about what I want to do afterwards.

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