Chapter 46: Future Glories - Part 8
Blackbeard had consigned his men to several rotting longhouses. The men bundled into them, far more in one place than the buildings had likely originally planned for, but the complaints did not come as frequently as one would have expected.
After several days of sleeping outside – and apparently weeks more before Vol had joined them – the men had been glad of at least a roof and walls to cover them. Even if the longhouses had long since been abandoned, their state of rotting disrepair was not something that several long fires couldn't fix.
As the men jovially settled in, Vol had found a suitable opportunity to sell on his mule. After he'd achieved the mastery of the basic horse riding skill, he did not see much point in keeping it around any longer.
He was surprised to find that he'd been sad to part with the animal, but he'd been given two silvers to console that – more than the fence up in the mountains had offered – and the promise that the animal would be well cared for.
He didn't doubt that. All Vol had been able to do for the beast was give it a pile full of oats a day, and a few pats well done after it had carried him miles through the steep snow. It deserved thorough brushings, waterings and to have its shoes taken care of. None of which Vol could provide it with.
THUMP!
His axe stormed into the tree for what must have been the fifteenth time since he'd come out here. Of all his skills, the one he figured he had the best chance of evolving was his axe-throwing skill. He was sure that he'd been so close to evolving it after his battle with Usar and his men, but even after having thrown it fifty times, the System offered him no clues as to why his mastery of it had yet to increase.
!! SYSTEM ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: VESSEL REQUIRES FURTHER INFORMATION.
RATE OF MASTERY ACQUISITION IS DEPENDENT ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT THE VESSEL FINDS HIMSELF IN. WHEN CONFRONTED WITH LARGER PROBLEMS, THE VESSEL WILL ATTAIN MORE MASTERY POINTS FOR SOLVING THEM.
So, essentially, the System was telling him that throwing an axe into a tree was by no means equivalent of killing a man with a thrown axe in the middle of a pitched battle. He took the point, and he felt like the System had said something to a similar effect before… But still, shouldn't the mere act of practising it be doing something for him?
It had before, with his snow and ice running, and his basic axe slashes, but for some reason, now, it stubbornly refused to increase.
It irritated him, because in his head, on the march here, he'd felt as though strength was right at his fingertips. Further strength, that was, and progress… But now, once more, it proved to be further away than he had realized.
Blackbeard hadn't heard the announcement yet, about their raid. Vol wasn't even sure if it was the type of thing that the raiders announced, or whether they just woke up one day and did it. Regardless, he'd seen the conversation Blackbeard had had with the old man on the docks. He was planning something serious, something big.
After spending a few days amongst the raiders, Vol was learning other things as well.
Over half of them were new recruits, just the same as him. Blackbeard had gathered them as he travelled back from the western shores, after suffering a crushing defeat. He'd asked some of the older raiders about the details of that defeat, but they refused to answer him, as though they'd been forced into silence.
He didn't like it. The whole thing reeked. Apparently, Blackbeard's force had been well over a hundred men before this battle, and he'd barely been able to escape with a quarter of them afterwards. What exactly did that mean? From the way they were hiding the information from him, it must have meant something. At the very least, it meant Blackbeard wasn't just a small time-crook. He was used to dealing in bigger things.
There was that ship, though, with oars enough for a hundred men to row. That was definitely commissioned before his loss. Vol had seen ships being built back in Bolrif. He'd even worked in the lumber yards that assisted them, and spent summers in the docks working for extra coin. He was well aware of just how long it could take to build a ship.
Whatever Blackbeard had planned, it was a plan for a hundred men, not fifty. If that was the case, then it spelt danger.
It was their first night in this place. He should have been in there, resting with the rest of them, as night drew in. But he'd stolen out with a torch to get some training in. Whatever was coming, he needed the strength to face it.
This was where he wanted to be. He wanted the opportunity to test himself. But opportunity wouldn't mean much if he were dead. Being chased by the guardsmen had told him just how perilously close he'd come to that. Being forced – and also coerced into it by the System – to join the raiders had highlighted that weakness to him.
To be at the mercy of anyone, at any time. It was something he sought to escape from. He'd suffered it in Bolrif. He didn't want to have to suffer it anymore. Not even because he disagreed with whatever he was being told to do, but merely the fact that he disliked being told what to do.
How long had he felt like that? He fell to wondering. Something about the strength of the feeling told him that it had been there a while. Years, perhaps even longer. Perhaps it had always been there, he'd merely kept it bottled down, because he had no other choice. It was either obey, or starve. He hadn't had the means to fend for himself.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone