Instinct kicked in, and Nick’s hand drew his sword. He couldn’t see too far into the swirling gray vapor around him but he could hear well enough. People were shouting from the other ship, alongside the screams and wails of something inhuman.

His heel struck the wall of the cabin while his eyes scanned above. His heart beat with anticipation, and he felt something ugly stir within him.

The remaining men on Nick’s boat were in a column, and were completely still. Some lost their grips on the chests they carried, the containers knocking on the wood below. Judging by their shaking legs, they did not expect to have signed up for this. A few started to mumble, and one frightened fellow stepped backwards, away from the others.

“Don’t move!” Nick yelled.

A winged shadow dove through the fog above, whirling toward the lone man with talons out. The man’s hands curled up; his face twisted in horror as the monster’s claws hurtled closer. Nick stepped forth, but he knew he wouldn’t make it in time.

“Igni Sphera!”

Light illuminated the deck as a fireball slammed into the harpy. The monster squawked in surprise right before the sphere burst in an explosion of noise and light. Nick turned his eyes away. When he looked back, the creature’s burnt carcass fell to the deck, a few feet from its would-be prey. Crystalline cracks appeared throughout the corpse. A moment later, it shattered like glass and vanished into aether. An unsharpened emerald left behind.

The lone man squeaked and shuffled to the others.

“Quit standing around, pissing your britches!” Everyone’s eyes turned to Eric, black smoke whistling off the man’s open palm. The rubies on his bracer were glowing red. Without missing a beat, Eric kicked one of the chests open, grabbed one of the glowing mana bars, bit off a chunk, and tossed it back into the chest while slamming it shut.

“Get the chests back to the ship!” He raised his right hand up. “Igni Amni!”

A stream of fire belched out, turning fog into steam. The shadows of several harpies who were hiding above, were illuminated as the blaze cut through the vapor. They squawked and flew further up, disappearing beyond the reach of danger.

Eric’s eyes, turned toward his men, who were still standing around in shock and fear. Fire reflected off his coal-colored irises, stressing the angry and irritated look on his face.

“Get moving.”

That seemed to have done the trick, because the men sprung to action, grabbed the chests, and walked across the planks to the clipper.

“Will they be fine?” Nick said, over the shouting and screaming coming from the clipper. “I have a feeling there are more on the other side.”

“The rest of the lot aren’t as useless as them.” The stream of fire stopped as Eric closed his palm. The sounds of metallic crashes and explosions joined the shouting and screaming.

“They’ve been through worse and can handle themselves fine. Damn Adrestans. Good ships but soft damn people.”

Eric’s right arm reached into his coat.

“Cover my back kid.” Eric looked at Nick’s drawn blade. “You carry that thing like you know how to use it. You do know how to use it right kid?”

Nick stepped forward, turning his back and covering Eric’s rear. “I’d say I’m decent.”

“Let’s hope it is good enough.”

From the corner of his eyes, Nick watched Eric bring out a black rod. The handle was scrawled with archaic words and scripts in a language long forgotten. His eyes widened as he realized what it was.

Fire crept off the handle, forging itself into scarlet chain-links. The chains appeared one by one, ending in a red spiked ball that crackled like burning twigs.

“Is that a spirit weapon?” Nick’s eyes returned to the horizon.

“Yep, and getting it cost me the eye,” said Eric. Nick could feel waves of heat as Eric spun the blazing conflagration, round and round.

“Harpies can see your body heat,” said Eric. “Just react to their movements. They’ll be seeing you before you seen them, especially in this weather.”

“Got it,” said Nick, holding back the excitement in his voice.

A flurry of squawks drew closer and closer. The ugly thing inside Nick was squirming, even as Nick tried to clamp it down.

“Get ready,” said Eric.

Nick shifted his footing, twisted his body sideways, and held the blade in line with his chest. Just like he did in all those drills. His mind was wide awake now.

“Here they come!”

One of the screeching monstrosities dove out of cloud cover in a blur. Nick saw the flare of its talons in the firelight as his own body moved in response. One leg shifted, and he twisted away as the claws swept through empty air.

The monster screeched, and Nick got both a full glance of its body and a full whiff of its smell. It was covered in feathers, with wings protruding around its arms. The head was humanoid with beady eyes slanted into a permanently mean expression and a beak that protruded out its center. It smelled of seaside rubbish that had been sweltering in the sun for hours.

Who knew a being of pure aether could look or smell this bad?

Its talons slammed into the deck. Nick winced, but the wood would hold. He moved in for the counterattack as the harpy beat its wings in a mad dash to escape.

The wings were mid-flap when Nick’s sword flashed up. Blood sprayed against the deck as a twitching headless torso fell forward. Both blood and carcass vanished in the same style as the last harpy, cracking like glass and evaporating into pure aether, leaving behind a gemstone prize.

The sight woke something up in him. It wanted more. More fights. More foes to dominate and destroy. More lives to be brought to an end.

Nick didn’t have time to dwell or clamp down on the disturbing emotions as another harpy swept down from above. Now fighting a battle within alongside the battle without. He dodged and slashed sending another headless torso sprawling to the deck.

A burst of heat caused Nick to look behind.

Two harpies veered towards Eric as a third blew up in flames. Eric swung his burning flail the fiery spike colliding with one enemy and blowing up. The other swerved out of the way of the explosion, continuing its course towards Eric. The man raised his arm, and the monster shrieked with glee as its talons struck true, ripping through cloth of his shirt.

It squawked in surprise however, as its prey remained standing. Beneath the shredded clothes, Eric’s skin glowed red, imbued with fire aether from what was probably years of conditioning.

Eric opened the palm of his hand on the struck arm.

“Ignis Amni!”

The harpy’s screams were overtaken by the scream of fire streaming out from the hand. It enveloped the harpy, consuming the body until its outline vanished under the inferno.

When the flames died down, a charred emerald clattered onto the deck.

The sight drew a mix of awe and envy. A part of Nick urged him to see Eric as his next foe. He wondered whether he would die scre-

Nick shook his head, as if to physically get rid of the thought.

“Keep your eyes steady kid!” said Eric as his flail streamed back, ready to be swung.

More harpies joined the fray. They fought, albeit predictably, as expected of monsters from the Fringe. They dove down in a line; Nick would sidestep and finish them in a single strike. It was rather disappointing, and even the madness in him agreed with the ease at which they fell.

Then the attacks stopped. Six of them gathered in a circle, just within sight but out of melee range. Nick thought the harpies were about to reconsider what they probably thought as easy prey and retreat.

That was until they strode in a clockwise formation, beating their wings in a frenzy.

The air picked up, cold condensation splashing against Nick’s face. His hair and clothes fluttering to one side. He lay down in a crouch, but it wasn’t long until the gust turned to a gale and his feet started to slip away.

Before he could be thrown off entirely, he grabbed onto the edge of his cabin with one hand.

The deck began to rock back and forth. Water vapor peppered his eyes. The bestiary forgot to mention this, or maybe Nick wasn’t paying attention. He squinted at the cargo strapped down to the center of the boat. The ropes creaked and some of the barrels and sacks slowly were slipping free from their bindings. Fear mixed with horror as he watched a month’s worth of work about to be lost.

Nick didn’t see Eric though. Where was-

A hand whisked up from the other end of the cargo. Eric’s head bobbed up, the few strands of hair on his head whistling with the wind.

His eyes turned up, narrowing with determination and irritation, and his hands let go.

Nick watched with horror as he watched the man get flung off the boat.

“Ignis Amnis!”

Fire erupted from both of his feet, propelling Eric up until he was level with the harpies.

He twisted his body; a feat Nick would have thought impossible given his obesity. However, he still did and his arms swept in a single smooth motion to send the end of his flail careening out. The chains stretched longer and longer until it caught and the fiery ball swerved into the flying harpies. There was a rapid succession of six explosions as they slammed against it.

The wind stopped, and Nick fell flat. Eric landed, causing the deck to reel from his weight.

“Well,” said Eric, his bare feet sticking out of the ruined leather of his boots. “Got to say, I’m impressed with how well your little raft held together.”

Six emeralds clattered onto the wooden planks.

“Greenwood.” Nick lifted himself up. “Always trust on it to hold up.”

“Smart,” said Eric. “You holding up okay? Didn’t expect the birds to pull one like that.”

“No worries,” said Nick as he perched himself back up with the sword, still in awe at the sight he had just witnessed.

Nick had only read about the bracers, that and the occasional tales told by his father, but the pure display of power he had witnessed was something that could not be communicated in words.

“Thanks, by the way,” said Nick. “For staying.”

Eric raised an eyebrow.

“You had your men leave with the chests but you stayed behind,” said Nick. “You could have left me for the harpies but you didn’t.”

“Well.” Eric shrugged with his hands and winked. “Think of it as a favor that I’ll cash in later.”

“When you put it that way, I wonder how many favors I owe already,” said Nick.

“Eh, don’t worry about it for now. Besides, that mana bar is the only reason I could do all that. Gods, I haven’t felt this young in years.” Eric’s eyes shifted in the direction of the clipper. “It should be over soon.”

Nick looked up to the clear night sky and the moon, realizing the windstorm had completely removed their previous cloud cover. He followed Eric’s gaze to the clipper.

The ship was far more impressive now that he could see all of it. However, what drew his attention was the staggered groups of men along its deck, fending off scattered harpy remnants with spears and something resembling a metal tube with a lever at the end.

“Aether Muskets,” Nick realized. One group of men pulled the levers together. There were flashes of white as energized quartz struck a conducting rod, sending aetherial energy into the gemstone pellets loaded at the bottom of the tubes.

Ruby pellets in this case because bolts of fire shot out of the tubes toward one unfortunate harpy. Half the shots went wide while the others hit true. These harpies had air attributes, and the fire attribute of the pellets lanced through them like a hot knife through butter.

The harpy fell, its body disintegrating and its gemstone landing on the clipper.

If bracers were the invention of the century, the muskets were the invention of the decade. Inaccurate but deadly in large quantities. Weapons that required neither much practice to be used effectively, but allowed a common man to be somewhat a threat whereby before he was but fodder.

There was another eruption of noise as lines of fire erupted from another group of men, scouring another harpy. Followed by another and another. Spearmen held off the harpies while the muskets reloaded.

“Like an Imperial Tercio,” thought Nick. The men were actually doing a semi-decent job at imitating the actual military formation.

“They’re well-trained,” said Nick.

“Yep. Told you they can handle themselves just fine.” Eric took a fresh cigar out from his coat, lighting it and stuffing it in his mouth. “Took a while to get them to that level. Turns out all that time in the Imperial Army wasn’t such a big waste after all.”

“You were in the army as well?” It turns out he knew less about Eric than he thought.

“A different time,” said Eric.

And here Nick thought he was just some scoundrel who made his living off skirting the law. Well he still was.

They watched as the men wiped out the remaining harpies from the sky. Cheers of victory soon followed.

“And where did you learn how to fight like that?” said Eric. “I know that style anywhere, and the only people who- “

His words were interrupted by a screech, one that sent vibrations rippling through the air.

Everyone froze and watched as wings rose on the opposite end of the clipper, their span covering half the deck.

Nick realized why the bestiary didn’t bring up the windstorm the harpies used earlier. It was because that attack wasn’t marked under harpy packs, but under the entry for harpy swarms.

And a harpy swarm was led by something a step above a regular monster. An aberration.