Channeled spells are weird. Spark’s easy. I shape the spell in my head, release it. Done. It is fire and forget. Shocking grasp needs a little bit more thought. You cast the spell but you then need to release it in contact with the enemy. Arguably I could fire and forget it, but I strongly suspect the first thing I touch after casting it either into my hand or my staff is what gets hit. So far it’s not been an issue, but I can see myself accidentally hitting allies, or the ground…should test that out when it doesn’t matter. But from the spell itself point of view, it is basically the same, just instead of a move in this direction component it has a wait in here until you come into contact with something component.

  So the first part of Ball lightning, I'm going to call a travel component. It gets the spell where I want it to be, at a similar speed to spark, it’s kind of just a go here instruction and it looks a lot like spark at start of the spell. Until it arrives, it then unpacks into its damaging form, and if I can maintain the connection, I can control it. That form is a 30cm wide ball of blue sparkly death. It gives off an electric blue light, and flickers of lightning emit from it randomly.

  I suppose I could describe it as a really intense plasma ball…but I prefer ‘ball of blue sparkly death.’

  “My Enemies will come to fear my ball of blue sparkly DEATH! Muhahaha!” I cackle to myself. I’m sat on the bench, enjoying the warmth of the sun as I practice moving the ball around. It’s not a cheap spell. Takes about a quarter of my mana pool to cast, then drains at least one percent a second to maintain it, and depending upon how quickly I try to do it, considerably more when I move it. I discovered that the hard way the first time I got the spell off and kept concentration on it. Half my pool in ten seconds just from moving it around at a sprint…a walking pace though, just doubles the drain…

  Casting time is up around the 20 seconds mark. If the damage is good, it might make an effective initiator, but I'm not comfortable yet taking that long in an actual fight.

  Any distraction though, and I lose it. If my thoughts slip to anything but the spell, I lose control and it starts to dissipate.

  I let the spell go and looked at my mana, half gone. Time to let it refill. I started practicing getting my head into the right mindspace for the spell. Maybe I’d be able to get that cast time down a few seconds.

  I’d been at it for maybe twenty minutes when Sam walked out of the office door. He stopped and stared at the slowly drifting ball of lightning, that started falling apart when my attention went to him.

  “Got it figured out?” he asked. There was a tone in his voice, like some of the life had been drained out of him, but he was trying not to show it.

  “Kinda, it’s taking me too long to cast, to use it midfight. The shape is complex and it’s still taking me seventeen seconds to put it together. You alright?” I’m sometimes receptive, and this felt like one of those times someone just needs to get something off their chest.

  “Yeah, my ex sister-in-law was just being her usual bitchy self. My niece started playing yesterday and it’s brought her out of her depression, but the wicked witch of the east thinks it's ‘too violent’ and ‘too scary’ wants to ban her from playing. Brother stood up to her though, first time he’s seen Kelsey smile in six months, so if she wants to play, she can. Sorry, sorry you don’t need to hear my family drama.”

  “That’s alright, I know in-laws can suck. Feel free to share.”

  “No, but I do appreciate the offer. We should push on though, I’d like to be in Landing when she gets there.”

  “I can do that. Feel free to imagine the mobs in the sail loft are her, and do the old stabby stabby.” I mimed stabbing a rapier into an invisible rat. “A bit of the old cathartic violence never hurt anyone… who didn’t deserve it.” I looked up to see his grin meeting my own.

  “I can’t deny there is an appeal in imagining her skewered…” I smiled, the life was back in his voice.

  We checked our buffs, renewed the [Well Fed] bonus with the last of our skewers, and headed over to the Sail Loft. The journey was a relatively pleasant stroll, and my mana had maxed out just as we arrived. The huge doors, sat in the furthest corner from the stairs, facing the sea were wide open revealing the chamber within.

  This building looked to be forty meters deep and over sixty across, and most of that space was a wide open well-lit space. The majority of the space had been separated into three regions, of smooth well polished wood. With a darker equally smooth wood between them. Each taking up roughly a third of the depth. Creating long rectangles leading deeper into the building. At the far end of the work area there were corridors leading into the back area, one for each work area, and a flight of stairs leading up to what I assume, based on the window’s appearance, were offices.

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

  In the middle of the chamber, canvas material had been gathered up, and used to create a throne. It was guarded by the nine rats which had run away from us before and they had been joined by a score of smaller rats.

  Upon the throne, was a huge dominating rat, easily the size of large dog, its eyes glowing red, its tail…its tail, in a matted filthy knot was tied to the tails of seven more rats, most the size of a medium-sized dog, a few maybe the size of a cat, each though with the same malevolent glowing red eyes looking our way.

  “A Ratking…” muttered my companion, the name bringing back memories of having once faced one of these in a D&D game, many many years ago…was this the reason the rats we had faced had seemed so smart?

  We pulled back away from the doorway, the rats had clearly seen us but weren’t making a move towards us.

  “We get to plan the attack?” I joked, the last few fights had really taken us by surprise, this felt novel.

  “Seems that way.” He poked his head around the doorframe to take another look. “Almost like they are begging for you to try out your new spell.” When he leant, I leant around him to take another look, myself.

  “This seems sus…” I comment.

  “The Ratking is in the same spot the red dot was…”

  “Still sus, but let’s go for it…I call in the lightning and then we follow it in?”

  As plans go, it was a pretty simple one…but it had been working for us so far though right? I started casting the spell, then just before it was done, I stepped around the corner, aimed, and throoosh. The small pellet zipped out of the end of my staff.

  When it was most of the way across the space, one of the smallest rats, shot forward from the pack and jumped up to intercept the spell.

  Unlike with spark, the pellet passed through the rat. Traveled the two meters further it needed to get to its destination, and with a frumph expanded out to the size of a basketball. Lightning sparks shot out of the orb, striking the rats within a meter of it at random. The rapid zaps sounding out like someone was swinging a bug zapper through a mosquito cloud. I shifted it deeper into the pack, and towards the Ratking.

  Some of the rats tried jumping at the orb, as if to sacrifice themselves. Their collision increased the drain I was feeling, but I could maintain the spell. When that didn’t work, two of the largest rats started trying to drag the Ratking’s throne back away from my approaching ball. The Ratking's heads all squeaking in panic.

  Somehow, despite all those things to distract me, I managed to keep my focus on the orb, keeping it moving forward. Then there was a loud bang, a much brighter flash, and a gust of wind that blew my hair back. I couldn’t help myself, my eyes flicked to Sam. He had two pistols out and they were glowing.

  I pulled my attention back to the orb, but it was too late. I had lost control. The sparks continued to rain out striking the rats, including the now in range RatKing, but it was rapidly shrinking. With nothing to sustain it, it burnt through the mana I had imbued in it and faded from view.

  The spell had done its job. All of the rats smaller than a dog were dead. Sam’s four rounds had all been aimed at the largest of the rats. I watched the pistol start to glow, and then another bang. I could see his mana pool dropping, it seemed with unlocking the mana pistol skill he also unlocked the ability to manually charge them.

  Two rounds later, we were down to just the Ratking. It was squeaking in panic…and it wasn’t doing anything else…Sam had moved a few meters from it and stopped. I moved closer. I could see why. It was pathetic. All its bodies were fat, limbs atrophied, it was an utterly pathetic creature and it stank, like rotting flesh, and the excrement I could now see firmly caked into the knot that was its tails.

  For the first time since I started playing this game…I felt let down. Still, we had a job to do… so I started casting and let it have it.

  A moment later, Sam’s pistols joined in.

  I don’t think either of us were satisfied with this victory.

  We dragged the ‘throne’ out of the building and over to the waters edge, soon after the material was set on fire. Couldn’t see any other way to deal with the smell to be honest, and the canvas had been shredded. We then set about searching the building. The corridors each, had three large doors into quite long rooms. The first couple of lockers we checked had been chewed into, apparently where they got the material to build that ridiculous throne from. Each door was labeled with a number, which made finding room fourteen on the right corridor a doddle.

  The door for fourteen was made of metal and showed no signs of being chewed into. The handle to release it was stiff and heavy, but once we managed to loosen it from the bracket, the whole door slid open easily. Inside there were four rolls of canvas material around a wooden pole, which extended deep into the chamber. On shelves on the left, large canvas bags, labeled with words like trysail, topsail and spinnaker.

  “These what we are looking for?” I asked Sam.

  “Sure are.” he responded, after checking each one out. “Best if we pick them up on the way out…” he decided. He pulled the door shut and then got the handle closed to protect the contents. “Back to the Harbor Master’s office?” he asked. I nodded.