Drowning was no longer an issue for Marco. Finding a big enough rock to sink himself was. The island he lived on was volcanic, which had the practical effect of keeping the rocks small and crumbly.

“A sack won’t work. I already told you,” Marco yelled as he stomped his shovel deep into the soil beneath him, ignoring the system -ding about the new record for the deepest hole he had ever dug. Above him, Elisa was lying on her back, reading what he was pretty sure was her third book of the day.

“Why not?” she called. “You could combine a bunch of small rocks. It would be more work the first time, but not after. You just add a few here and there to keep up with your growth.”

“I agree, Elisa.” He stomped the shovel down again, feeling the metal head clang off something hard. He prayed it was a boulder. “Except that the system treats packs I carry as ported goods and lowers the weight while I’m holding them.”

“So put more in the sack.”

“I tried that.” Marco went into a bit of a frenzy, tossing dirt out of the hole. “I tried that a lot. The bags rip. I don’t know why.”

Elisa went silent for a second. “Ah, probably because the system’s saving your back but doesn’t apply the same savings to the bags containing that much weight.”

“Huh?”

“Balance.”

Elisa snapped her book shut and tossed it over on her blanket. She was a good friend, all things considered. She wasn’t that into any of the things that Marco was, but she didn’t need to be. She was very good at hanging out just the right amount while he did them, doing her own thing so he didn’t have to feel guilty about ignoring her.

Elisa continued, “The system used language like doesn’t weigh you down, which is why you need more rocks to sink. But it didn’t give you make things inside the bag lighter, which is another thing.”

“Huh. Fancy.”

Marco knew as much about the system as he knew about air. It was around, it behaved in predictable ways, and he needed it. Elisa also knew about as much about the system as she knew about air. She just knew a lot more about air, and everything in general. Marco had always been strong. She had always known things. It was her thing.

I’ll have to ask her why at some point. Today.

The boulder was exactly what Marco needed, more than enough to plummet him to the depths of the ocean for training. He didn’t always need boulders. Once upon a time, he sank just like anyone else, and holding even a few pounds of weight would let him run across the ocean floor shallows near the shore without popping up at all.

But he had maxed out the Buoyant accomplishment first, something that any baby who grew up in and around water would eventually get. It was a safety thing. A sufficiently buoyant child couldn’t drown. They could only be drowned, and even then, it was a hard thing to accomplish.

It was a good problem, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a problem at all.

Marco had maxed out page after page of childhood accomplishments. This included easy ones like Rigging Rascal and incredibly difficult, almost impossible accomplishments like Runner which required him to be as fast as a child could be. Really, it meant he was as fast as the system would let a child be, but that was still a hard enough goal to reach.

“Do you really need Swimmer? I can’t believe you don’t have it yet,” Elisa asked.

“Swimmer is hard. Everyone says so.” Marco picked up the boulder and threw it out of the hole. It sailed through seven feet of air before being brought back down by gravity. “And it won’t level without some great feat of swimming. You remember Runner, how I had to go up and down the mountain and race the courier.”

“Right. And this time, Buoyant keeps you from diving very deep. So you need to make things extra hard on yourself.”

“If it was the stormy season, we’d have no problems.” Marco jumped out of the hole and picked up the boulder. Elisa followed as he headed towards the shore. “I’d just swim in a hurricane.”

At the shoreline, Marco unlooped a hemp rope he had swiped from his Dockmaster caretaker and strapped the boulder to his back. The weight bit into his flesh.

“You know you’re bleeding right?” Elisa pointed out.

“Worth it.” Marco had experimented enough to know that this was the limit of what the system would accept before it decided the rope would be classified as a pack and made the boulder lighter. This would let him sink.

He jumped off the ledge with the boulder on his back, and sink he did.

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With a sharp steel blade clenched in his teeth just as the old man had told him was the most reliable way, Marco traveled the sixty or so feet down it took to hit a solid surface. Down here, it was too dark to see anything beyond his fingers. Marco's ears also hurt from the pressure, and he was far below the thermocline and in a part of the ocean where the temperature was now almost freezing. It was also perfect for a great feat of swimming. Dragging the boulder made it a lot harder to swim, but it let him save energy he otherwise would have spent diving lower. He hoped it would be enough.

It’s going to be worth it. Tomorrow, I’m getting my class, it’s going to eat all these damn achievements, and it’s going to be worth it.

That belief only faltered a bit when a shark bumped into him.

It was bad luck. It had probably been in the area and then decided to track down the blood from his back. The dark shadow of the steep shore had sheltered Marco. But that protection was now gone.

Marco kicked upwards hard, ignoring the notifications that came in as the shark cut through the water at him on purpose this time, missing by a hair as he shot upwards a few feet. He could feel the currents pulse underneath him.

He reached for his knife just as the shark slammed into him. He managed to get his legs up just in time to be hit by its nose and not its jaws, but the impact sent him spinning around in circles in the water. When he got his bearings back, the knife was gone.

No. I’m going to drown. I’m going to get eaten. I’m…

Marco stopped just in time to keep himself from panicking away the last of his oxygen. Now that he was closer to the surface, he could see the shark coming for him. He didn’t have any way to get rid of the boulder completely. He really only had one choice if he thought about it. He would have to get the shark to get rid of the boulder for him.

Marco watched the shark circle into another attacking run, cutting through the water like a knife. Not trying to outswim the beast had been a smart choice, or at least not the worst one. When it finally got close, he closed his eyes, spun his body around in the water, and curled into a ball.

The shark hit the boulder hard. Marco kept himself from screaming as the sharp boulder gouged deeper into his back and then from screaming in triumph as the fragile volcanic rock cracked into pieces, giving him enough room to shimmy out of the ropes and rocket towards the surface.

It’s still going to be close. Come on, air. Come on.

Marco broke the surface before the shark got him, pulling in the deepest, most satisfying breath he had ever taken. He reached for the edge of the shore, then almost screamed for a third time that day when he couldn’t find a grip. His arms slipped off the ledge time and again until he was too exhausted and too oxygen-deprived to move.

He had only just given up on surviving when a young, slender arm locked onto his. Elisa had grabbed him by the wrist. His much greater weight almost immediately pulled her into the water as he bobbed downwards. His foolishness had brought danger to the girl who had always been there with him in his training. Marco pushed his legs to kick harder than they had at any point during his struggle.

Elisa caught her balance as he shot up several inches, set her feet, and yanked backwards with every ounce of her strength and weight. The combination of Marco’s upward momentum and her absolute commitment to pulling him out actually resulted in some progress, moving him up slightly onto the rock shelf and allowing him to get out of the water completely before a fin cut through the water behind him a moment later.

“Whew.” Elisa took a deep breath. “That was really close. Much closer than the time with the boar…”

Marco gasped. With his head pointed in the opposite direction of Elisa’s, he could see both her and what she couldn’t see. The real danger, more dangerous in his estimation than the shark and the boar combined, was on the rocks behind her.

“And the eagle that thought you were stealing its eggs…”

Elisa was on a tangent. This was one of the ways she scolded him when he had done something she thought was wrong. She’d never actually say so, but she hated when he crossed the street without being careful, let alone the kind of stuff he got up to. He had to warn her, but he just didn’t have the air for it. He looked her dead in the eye, trying to get her attention as he coughed up more water to make room for air.

“What? If you don’t like it, don't give me so many examples,” Elisa said. “It should be easy to stay alive on this island. The only dangerous animal left is the lion, and nobody’s seen it in years. I’m pretty sure it’s dead.”

Finally, with great difficulty, Marco managed to force in a full breath.

“Your book,” he croaked. “Water.”

Elisa’s eyes went wide, and then the scholar moved like a whipcrack towards where she had been sitting before she came to Marco’s rescue. The book had fallen in a small pool of water, sucking up moisture for the past few minutes. Marco could actually see the ink dripping out of it when she held it up, washed clean from the page by the brine.

“Sorry,” Marco wheezed. “It’s my fault.”

“No.” Against all odds, Elisa controlled her anger. “I dropped it. My fault. You were just doing the things you do.”

“Plus a shark.”

“Yes, plus that.” She chucked the book off the edge of the cliff. “No use trying to save it. Or you. You know I won’t be around to save you after tomorrow, right? Once you go out there on your boat?”

“They’re called ships,” Marco protested.

“Oh, believe me, I know. I even know why.” Elisa sat down on the rocks next to him and pulled him into a sitting position by his arm. “I have half a mind to go with you, you know. Just to keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t end up drowning yourself on your first day.”

“Can’t work. I’m a captain, remember? I’m supposed to go out to sea. You’re going to be a bookmaster, or something. You stay on land.”

“Not a real class.”

“You know what I mean. What’s out there that books can help with?”

Elisa looked at him steadily.

“What?” Marco asked.

“You really don’t read a lot, do you?”

“No. Why?” Marco tilted his head at her. “Are there things about the ocean in those?”

Elisa’s next breath caught in her throat, a sure sign that he had said exactly the wrong thing. He was saved from whatever rant she was building for him by another friend coming across the rocks, old as dirt and pissed as hell.

“Idiot boy. Do you know what I was doing when I got a your charge is being eaten by a shark notification? Do you?”

Marco was still huffing pretty hard from the whole experience with the shark. The old man waited until he had enough air to respond. He had plenty of time to let Marco dig himself a deeper hole. It was one of his worst qualities.

“Probably talking up the Widow Montrar,” Marco offered.

“I was talking up… Dammit, boy, yes. How did you know?”

“Because you are awake, it’s past lunchtime, and you didn’t have me to yell at. What else would you be doing?”

Elisa laughed from somewhere nearby. Tatric, the old dockmaster, turned red.

“Well, I hope it was all worth it. Making an old man sprint with your insanity,” Tatric grumbled.

“Oh, it was. It was.”

Marco smiled even wider as he looked at his new notifications.

“You can’t even imagine how worthwhile it was, old man.”