The bedraggled cat clutched the wooden mast as it approached the surface of the water. High adventure they'd said. Exciting sea battles they'd said. Swashbuckling, looting, and daring deeds, had all been mentioned when the little goblin had signed up to crew the player run pirate ship.
A glance around showed that the survivors who remained were the ones with swimming skills. Those with flight had already departed. One of the swimmers let out a short cry and vanished beneath the waves. A colorful tail fin smacked the water leaving a momentary ripple.
He should have resigned from the crew after they tried looting that island of their light globes. The NPC villagers had rejoiced, to their confusion. They'd discovered why the next day, when they'd logged on to find that the light globes had begun hatching.
It had turned out that the village had used a type of glowing eggs as lights, and every year in the hatching season, they had to fight off the ravenous newborn moth-like monsters. The ship had lost its sails then, but they had enough magical propulsion available to continue onward.
Running into the sea serpent had seemed like the final stroke of bad luck. It had destroyed the ship with casual annoyance, and then departed. But their bad luck continued, as the wreckage was found by mermaids shortly after.
The little goblin had shifted to the cat form he'd learned from the sub-path, that he'd acquired during the Christmas event, in order to climb the narrow mast. But it was obviously only delaying his demise. There was no sign that any of the flyers were going to return with some kind of rescue, despite shouted promises.
One of the surviving swimmers approached and yanked him off the little stub in a cruely selfish gesture. The little cat shifted back into his natural goblin form and began swimming away from the wreck as quickly as possible. The ship had been cursed, he decided.
He was startled when he glanced back and saw that the others were following him, except for the one who'd pulled him off the stub of mast and now balanced on top of it as it sank into the water. He wondered where they thought he was going, or maybe what treasure they thought he was carrying.
The little goblin rolled his eyes and swam forward, he expected the hands of a mermaid or the teeth of a shark to pull him under any second now. His mind was focused on what he should try reincarnating as, when the cloth fluttered into view.
He gazed in blank incomprehension as the cloth blew closer, and yet hovered a mere hand span above the water. He reached for it, and the heavy silky fabric slid past his fingers. His hand became a clawed paw as he shifted back into his little cat form. He used his claws to pull himself up onto the carpet.
The swimmers who still followed him cried out and paddled toward him with all their might. When the first hand slapped at the slick surface of the carpet, he was tempted to ignore it, but he looked into the goblin face that was filled with hope, and sighed internally.
A moment later he withdrew one of his few treasures, an enchanted feather that made whoever held it much lighter for a single bell. He shoved it into the grasping fingers and then hooked his claws into the hand and the carpet beneath him, and heaved the swimmer out of the water.
The startled goblin quickly oriented itself and helped the cat pull the next swimmer onto the carpet.