Without much more to talk about, Minerva and the rest of her crew gathered their equipment and lead the way outside of the warehouse.
Following them to the pier, their group walked towards a ship that hadn't been there before when they arrived but suddenly arrived without so much as any fuss from any of the locals. Apparently, the new ship reward was shared between the four of them and showed up docked at the far end of the pier.
Sol had expected to see a decently sized sailboat, the one a middle-aged father might have to go fishing with. Contrary to his expectations, the ship that greeted them was almost like a small battleship. The overall shape and design were what most would expect from a ship, but the exterior was made of a dark wooden color but there were no seams anywhere to be seen as if the entire hull of the ship was made out of one giant piece of wood.
Unlike pirate ships that he had seen before, there were no holes in the side of the ship or at least any that he could see, but there were two large cannon shaped objects on either side of the ship. The cannons gleamed with a shiny black hue and were much more intimidating than Sol expected to be.
As the group neared the ship, Melantha whistled in appreciation of our ship and even Brocca perked up at the sight of it.
A collective notification popped up as they got close to the ship.
-Please name your ship-
We all collectively looked at one another and after a bit of a discussion they ended up letting Sol choose the name, after their approval of course.
After thinking a bit, Sol shouted confidently "Boaty it is then!"
The girls all glared at me. "Rejected."
Pouting at their quick decision to kick me off deciding the name, the girls ended up naming the new vessel 'Aqua' which Sol begrudgingly accepted.
Despite his fears beforehand, learning how to pilot the small water elemental ship was actually pretty simple. In lieu of a steering wheel, the consol looking device in the cabin part of the ship had a GPS type function that would scout the various locations in the sea. Major landmasses and a few of the bigger islands had already long been scouted by other crews and with a touch of a finger, the ship would sail to those locations.
As for sailing to locations that were not depicted on the map, players would be able to gather maps from various sources like creatures or dungeons that would lead them to more lands hidden in the sea. Unfortunately, while there was technically a 'free sailing' function so players were restricted somewhat that they wouldn't actually find any landmass that was not already on their map but rather let them explore the sea to grind for elementals or other various rogue NPCs.
Surprising even Luna, Melantha, and her Seabreeze crew gave us a map to a secret location that they had found recently and agree to join them on the trip.
Not even five minutes had passed in their trip when a pack of sea elementals attacked their ship. Unlike the formless sprites or the bulky rock elementals, these sea elementals were in the shape of giant crabs that were half floating on the top of the water.
Skaldyr (Common Sea Elemental) Lv. 20
Health: 2,500
While their health was much higher than that of Lydrra, plus there being five of them, being level 20 and with the new equipment, they were not pushovers either and they quickly got into formation to defend their ship against the sea elementals.
Fighting on the sea, not to mention a ship in motion, is not a sensation that many if any would ever experience in their lives before this game. Imagine being on a slightly firmer water bed, while giant crabs made of water were attacking you and splashing water everywhere.
It was an overwhelming battle to start off with for everyone but the Seabreeze crew and Luna. Seabreeze was able to offset some of the pressure and fought three of the Skaldyr. Thankfully, as they whittled down the Skaldyr one by one, the pressure on the whole group as well as them getting used to fighting on the ship.
The destination was still a decent amount of time away based on the consol as well as what Seabreeze told them. On their way, they fought against more Skaldyr, all of which did not drop any gear. Just as they were about to reach their destination, Sol spotted something coming towards them in the distance that looked nothing like the roaming packs of sea elementals that they had faced thus far.
Pointing them out to Luna and Melantha, Melantha scowled. "Tsk, shit I heard about these guys raiding boats in the area. But hadn't heard of any activity recently. Damn bad luck to have them come out now. Whatever; get ready, these pirates are pretty ruthless despite how their ship looks. Do not underestimate them and do not let them board the ship or it's gonna get messy."
As the enemy pirate ship got close, the group was able to finally see some of their stats.
Pirate Ship (Common Water Ship) Lv. 20
Health: 5,000/7,500 (Poor Condition)
Pirate (Common Human) Lv. 20
Health: 1,500
Pirate Captain (Rare Human) Lv. 22
Health: 2,500
Aside from the sole captain, there were about 8 pirates all with the same stats but varying levels of torn clothing and chipped weapons. The captain himself was the best dressed with no obvious damages to his clothes as well as being equipped with a large and dangerous-looking saber and a pistol strapped to his belt.
Also from the reactions from Luna and the crew from Seabreeze, the group was going to be a difficult fight compared to the Skaldyr. Getting into a defensive stance, Sol frowned as the pirates started to jeer and taunt them as they got closer, especially when they noticed all the women on board.
Without much to do at the moment, it was up to Luna and Diana to start attacking as soon as their ship got in range. While Eilyria and the other familiars could attack, they conserved their abilities to be more supportive and defend against the pirates boarding attempts. While the ranged attacks were aimed well, the pirates responded quickly and blocked a majority of the attacks and the arrows that did hit were unable to do much damage. Even attacks that were deflected or missed the mark initially hit the boat barely did any damage above single digits so destroying the boat before they got too close was unrealistic.
It was only a few moments before the pirate ship got within range for them to attempt to board. Roaring at his crew to hurry up, the pirate captain directed them to grab ropes attached with a heavy-looking barbed hook at the end. Despite how hefty the hooks appeared, the pirates looked practiced a majority of them grabbed the hooks and threw them accurately at different parts of our ship.
Despite their best attempts at blocking the hooks, the hooks kept true to their trajectory and all but one of the hooks managed to land. Almost immediately after the hooks landed, the pirates all jumped immediately onto the roped and climbed over to their ship.
Thankfully with Luna and Diana alongside the Seabreeze twins, they were able to more easily knock off the pirates while they were attempting to climb over. Any pirate that fell into the sea was effectively out of battle since they were taking damage from being in the turbulent waters as well as they would need to get back on their own ship in order to attempt to make the travel over again.
Unfortunately, they were unable to knock down every pirate and the first one to make it to the ship was blocked immediately by Sol. Sneering at Sol, the pirate viciously attacked and despite the pirate's more scrawny figure, his attacks packed an immense amount of power which kept Sol on the backfoot and constantly on the defense.
In the chaos, all of the hooks were able to be thrown or cut off. Unfortunately, however, the pirate captain and 6 pirates were able to make it onto the ship. Sol tanked the 4 pirates while Brocca took on 2 pirates and their captain.
While Sol was no stranger to tanking multiple enemies, this was his first time fighting human enemies. The pirate's strength was lower than that of the elementals he had fought before but their attack pattern and teamwork were much more crafty. Sol was putting in every ounce of his effort into surviving while he noticed his health bouncing up and down.
Thankfully Sol was able to effectively kite the four pirates and stay alive at the same time with the full support of Minerva's healing and Luna's ice slow. There was one close call where a pirate dashed towards Minerva as Sol was unable to keep their attention on himself. Despite the group's efforts to stop the pirate, they were unable to stop the pirate from reaching Minerva.
Despite the suddenness of the attack, Minerva was surprisingly calm and kept healing both Sol and Brocca while glancing at the pirate and whispering to her familiar. Just as the pirate grinned and slashed at Minerva, the familiar floated in front of the pirate's face and shined a blinding flash of light.
Unable to react properly to the blinding flash, the pirate followed through with his slash but Minerva had already dodged to the side. Expecting for his slash to meet resistance, the pirate was unable to stop himself from falling off the side of the boat which also depleted the rest of his health.
The entire group was shocked at the quick thinking and reaction that Minerva displayed and Sol almost ended up dying. But thankfully with the lessened pressure from having one less pirate attacking as well as a second dying soon after with the focus from all the DPS, they were able to quickly mop us the rest of the pirates one after another.
The pirate captain roared out in anger as the last pirate was killed off. "Damn you bunch of useless curs! I'll finish you off myself!" Stabbing Brocca with a mysterious knife that was tucked away in his coat pocket, the Pirate captain threw the hulking water elf to the side. Regaining all his health back and gaining some more stats, the captain looked towards the players.
"Tssst, damn pirates! You all need to fight him without us, we need to cast a ritual to get rid of the poison in Brocca and we will join you as soon as we can!"
Cursing at the crass pirate captain, Melantha and the twin sisters went over to Brocca's side and began to cast some sort of ritual to help get Brocca back on his feet again. With the whole Seabreeze crew effectively out of the fight, the party readied themselves for the rough fight they were about to face.