Marco lifted his sword higher, stance wide. “You’ll have to find something else to eat.”

The parasite writhed formlessly, circling him. Wherever it moved, the space smelled worse, like someone was stirring a rotten pool of sludge. The chamber started to move with it, undulating in synchronicity with the leech and making Marco's footing uncertain.

Unwilling to wait for more tricks, he lunged forward. He didn't think about his sword much, but there was no doubt it had never been better. The blade cut through the stagnant air like light, undodgeable. The leech either couldn't or didn't try to dodge. His sword hit and sliced straight through the watery body without slowing.

For just a moment, it looked like victory.

Then the wound sealed shut with a sick squelch as the leech proceeded as though nothing had happened. It slammed forward, hitting Marco hard on the chest and sending him flipping and rolling through the dark, smelly water.

Marco clenched his jaw as he skidded to a stop, somehow scraped up from the friction. His wounds burned in a weird, unhealthy way as he stood up. He emptied his gun into the parasite again and again with no visible effect. This time the parasite approached more cautiously, slow enough for him to chop it in half twice. It reformed effortlessly, then cranked itself apart at the front to form a rudimentary mouth, complete with triangular, semi-liquid teeth. He backed away, gaining just enough space to lean out of the way of the first vicious bite, plant his gun on the parasite's forehead area, and blast it with a zero-distance shot.

The parasite blew backwards from the force, splattering into several pieces that took slightly longer to reform. Marco spent much of that time scanning the chamber, looking for clues that might help him. The stagnant water flowed around him, uninteresting and uncooperative. There was nothing to see here, nothing to know. It was only when the parasite came at him again and he almost missed his next sword strike that he realized something that might actually help him. He had misjudged the distance not because he was scared, but because the parasite had changed. It was smaller now.

“So you’re a damn leech,” Marco grunted. “At some point, your energy’s going to be gone.”

Marco's pistol was out of commission for a bit, so he dodged and fought cautiously, diving out of the way of the leech's lunges and bites while cutting it here and there where he could manage to do so safely. The leech fought back by changing shape. Where it had been mostly round and thick, it flattened out into a sort of whip, filling whole planes of the space with danger as Marco jumped and ducked to avoid each successive swing.

When his gun was ready again, he sliced the parasite multiple times as quickly as he could, punishing it until it gave up the tactic and reformed into a thicker, club-like shape. As it did, he followed the shrinking mass, pushing the gun into it so hard the barrel sunk into the liquid body. Only then did he fire.

The fight took hours. He could avoid most of what the leech threw at him, but not all of it. No matter what size it was, it always hit with the force of a cart full of rocks rolling down a hill. By the time it was around the size of his knee joint, his own body was a wreck. His left leg was fractured, he could tell, as were four or five of his ribs. His head was swimming from what he assumed was a bad concussion, and he had lost so much blood and absorbed so much diseased water he could feel the yellow, sickly pallor of his skin without having to see it.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

But when it came down to the final confrontation, he managed to push through the pain and get there first.

"Goodbye, little fella," Marco said. "Better luck next time."

He fired, and the leech broke apart into droplets that, this time, did not reform. Not that he supposed it was gone. A spirit as powerful as this whirlpool living in its own contained space was probably powerful. It had, after all, pinned him down with no trouble whatsoever. It could have done the same thing he had just done to the leech, at least. He was sure of that. There was nothing he had in terms of force or tactics he thought the water spirit couldn't have done.

Which meant in a few minutes or hours, however long it took, the thing would come back. If he wasn't healed up by then, it would win.

If it was an unusually short description, that was welcome. Marco liked having a new skill, but he was more than distracted enough with the sudden changes to the room. A splotch of clear, bright water appeared in front of him, then began to grow, sweeping away the dark and dirty liquid and filling the room with light. It didn't take much time to purify everything in sight. The moment the process finished, he felt a hand on his shoulder. A very wet hand.

"Good. You did it," it said.

"Well, there you are. You could have helped, you know," Marco complained.

"I couldn't. I'm very busy." The spirit shook its head. "It is difficult to maintain this space in a way that allows for you."

"Sorry to be of trouble, I guess. So are you going to take me back now?"

"No," it said. "This is back. Already."

"Is it?" Marco looked around. It did look the same as when he had arrived. "I guess it's probably hard to explain."

"It isn't," the spirit said. "I just won't. Goodbye."

Marco wanted more information, but it was hard to ask for that when the real world had just returned in a split second. He found himself sailing through the air like a cannonball, spit out of the water on a crash course for his own deck. He slammed into it hard, snapping what was left of his fractured shin clean in half. Breath knocked out of him, he tried to struggle to his feet.

"Marco!" Aethe and Elisa screamed at once.

"What the hell? you didn't even come out of the same part of the water!" Riv yelled. "How are you alive?"

"Doesn't matter,” Marco asserted. “Riv, lift me to the wheel. Elisa, I'm hurt."

"I can see that!" She flared her hands green and touched them to him in an effort that he was sure probably cost her most of her magic supplies in one go. He yelped again as his leg bone shifted back into place and reconnected, at least for the most part. "It's not hard to tell when it's flopping around like that. What in the world happened?"

"I'll tell you later. For now, get behind something. I'm charging the enemy."

"You can't!"

"I said I'd explain later. Just trust me, okay? I'm pretty sure it will be fine. Get on a cannon. Turn them to get one good volley. Use the good shot. It's going to be okay."

They turned the cannons as much as they could as Marco cut upwards on the bowl of the whirlpool as much as he could manage. They had been circling around the lagging group of breakaway slow ships the whole time and were starting to get close.

“Aethe, tell me when they fire,” Marco said. “The big ships. When they do a big broadside, tell me.”

They were close when it happened. The big ships showed an admirable amount of restraint, holding on to their fire until Marco and his crew were almost alongside them. When they did fire, Marco started turning the moment Aethe started to yell a warning, tucking in towards the closest ship and pulsing a little more power into his boost skill. Steering against what the whirlpool wanted was really very tough, but nothing could have been easier than voluntarily moving deeper into the pool, and soon their ship was going as fast as Marco had ever seen it move before.

Almost all of the shots from the enemy ship missed, but the few that hit did serious damage, punching big dents into the side of The Foolish Endeavor. It beat home how lucky they were to not get hit very often. A few broadsides like that would ruin them, and even the one they had taken had hurt them quite a bit. Marco was resolved to get that back.

The speed of the ship made it easier to aim a ramming motion, and Marco decided against going straight for the side of the ship. What he wanted to do was not destroy the boat so much as turn it while doing a good amount of damage, and that meant punching it not in the breadbasket but instead right in its big, ugly nose.

He made some last-minute adjustments before bracing the wheel with his body, and vice versa, to the fullest extent he could. Everyone dove for cover as his ship bashed into the very frontmost part of his target, locking together with friction long enough to turn the entire assembly around clockwise.

Marco could feel the ship healing large amounts from the damage he had done, which was just enough to keep them together as he used all the momentum left after the collision to cut back up the whirlpool side, dodging debris as he did.

“The ship is healing!” Riv yelled. “I don’t know why! You’ll explain it later, I guess?”

Marco nodded. In the meantime, the bigger ship he had hit was in worse trouble. It turned as far out of the pull of the whirlpool as it could, fighting the slope with everything it had. He saw the sails and rudder glow with some unknown captain’s power as it burned precious resources saving itself from the terror Marco had wrought on it.

On the other hand, Marco was making great time getting around the circle back to the main group. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed like some of the support capabilities of the group were going to help save the bigger ships now, or else they had just spent enough resources to slow down after fighting the whirlpool as long as they had. Either way, he was gaining on them in a big way now. He aimed at the smallest ship in the armada, this time looking to hit it with cannon fire and throw whatever help it was giving the bigger ships into serious question.