Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (beach books .txt) 📗

“Well, that was damn special…” he muttered, frowning at me. “What you need a ship for, if you can do that?”

“Because I’d get a bad back if I tried to lead a team without the ship, maybe?” I asked him, and he shrugged.

“Way I hear it, your lady-friend does her best to give you a bad back anyway. Whole fleet heard it that way, too.” I looked at him flatly and he grinned at me smugly. “I win.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Takes one to know one,” he said, shrugging, and I glared at him before sighing.

“Whatever. Anyway… thanks, Mal. Thanks for coming back for us,” I said, swallowing the feeling that I was surrendering something precious in admitting we’d needed the help. “I mean, obviously, we’d have been fine; we were totally winning, in fact, but you know…”

“Yeah, kid, sure you were.” He smirked knowingly, and I resisted the need to lash out at him. There was something about that face, that was what it was, I decided. He was just so punchable…

“Anyway…” I said, glaring at him again, while feeling the edges of my mouth twitching, as though the traitorous thing wanted to smile for some reason. “Thank you, and the crew, for coming for us.”

“Eh,” he said, dismissing it as unimportant. “I see you went and got some gnomes to join you… mayhap you could lend ‘em to me, get a few things around th’ ship worked on, and we’ll call it even for me comin’ back for you?” He remarked casually, and I turned to look at him, my mouth dropping open in shock, before I spun around and faced away, looking out over the foam-topped waves far below as I thought quickly, trying to hide an evil smile that was lighting my face.

“Well… I suppose I could order a few to come help you, maybe make some of their ideas about how a ship should be built come true over here, but I have sixteen left, that’s all, and there won’t be much time before we get to the fleet…” I said, struggling to hold in a fit of the giggles. “I’d have to send you them all, like right now, and you’d have to keep them on your ship until we reached the fleet to make it worthwhile…”

“You’d do that?!” he asked me incredulously. “You’d lend me all yer gnomes, fer the last day or two of the flight to the Tower? An’ I could get them to work on ma ship?”

“Well, they’d have to be let loose essentially. You know gnomes, they ‘fix’ things in ways that I don’t really understand… and my ship is a bit of a derelict… but you’d owe me Mal… I mean it, you’ll owe me a favor, a big one for this… they could be working on my ship, after all….” I said, all the while internally I was giggling and rubbing my hands at the thought of getting the crazy little bastards off the ship. “Plus, there’s not many of us, I’d need help to run my ship… maybe get Soween and a few of the crew across to help me… and I’d really need some alchemy ingredients, like a lot, of whatever you have…”

“Deal!” he snapped, holding his hand out before I could think to ask for more.

I stared at him, utterly gobsmacked, and then reached out, gripping his forearm, and shaking once, before he released me and laughed in my face.

“You be a damn fool boy! I’d have given anything to get a single gnome working on ma ship, and you agreed to sixteen?! I’ll even swear to carry out that favor with a god damn smile on my face! All it’s cost me is a few days without Soween and my alchemy stores that I was going to sell anyway! Ha!” He lifted both fists into the air and started humping the air in front of me. “You just got fucked, boy!” He said laughing.

“Oh, darn,” I said trying to keep the smile from my face, and look downhearted, even as he called Soween over and told her to pick a handful of crew to help with operating my ship. Then he ran off, darting from section to section, clearly wondering what he could get the gnomes to upgrade for him first.

I looked at Soween, and let out a long, satisfied smile.

“Oh my… he just got fucked in the ass, didn’t he?” she asked me, trying to hide her own smile.

“Oh, so badly.” I admitted. “And without even a touch of lube…”

“Am I gonna have a ship to come back to?” she asked, and then glanced over at my ship. “Plus, how bad is it?”

“Mine isn’t as bad as I think it looks; the gnomes already did a load of upgrades and fixes, and we have a wisp that’s integrated with the ship, so she’ll keep it together, if anyone can.” I said shrugging.

“So why did you need me?” Soween asked and I grinned again.

“Well, I figured a few more hands to help out with any work that HAS to be done would be useful, but it was more about making sure you weren’t here to help him, I’ll admit… but I could definitely do with some help making the ship habitable, it a damn filthy mess.” I said, winking.

“Josh!” Soween shouted over her shoulder. “Get Padraig and Barti, Tinny and Steve, tell them to bring their gear for a few days’ helping me on that ship over there, as well as the basics like food and wine. You bring everything you’ll need to help, too.”

“Seriously?” Josh asked, popping his head out of the wheelhouse. “I get to look round a gnome Airship?”

“You’ve got five minutes,” she replied calmly, before looking at me. “How you going to get us across?” I shrugged.

“Either I’ll fly you one by one, or you can jump, I guess?” I offered and she sighed, before shouting out a series of commands to