Chapter 111: Survivors of a Shipwreck

Unknown Location, North Sea

July 2nd, 1228

–

Erik, Selena, and Serafall were lazing off on the main deck of Helena's Revenge while naked. They had been on the sea for four days now and were liking every moment of it. And since Serafall had her work to do in the Underworld, she would only join them after she was done with it or during weekends, which was the case for the day.

Their trip had been a very tranquil one. They passed by two ships on these four days, but none of the sailors of them could see or detect Helena's Revenge due to the tons of protection that Erik had put on it.

"I have to concede this one to you, Erik. This metals ship that you built is great."

Selena said while basking in July's sun. Serafall, who was by her side doing the same nodded her head.

"I know, right?"

Erik replied and snapped his fingers, summoning to them three cold refreshments that he had prepared earlier.

*snap*

Erik and the girls took the cold drinks and sipped from them, letting out a content sound.

"Ahh… That hit the spot."

Serafall said, putting her drink aside and relaxing again in the lawn chair.

"Where do you intend to go now with this yacht, hubby?"

Serafall asked Erik. Since she could not stay with them all day and could only join them after her work for the day is done in the Underworld, Serafall would see one different scenario each day. She could work with that.

"Hmm… South, probably. I want to take this baby to warm waters before the winter hits us here. But we have some time. With the speed that we sail, we can navigate through all of the continent's east coast and still be in African waters by October."

Erik replied.

"So, we are not going to enter the Mediterranean Sea?"

Selena asked Erik. She really wanted to visit some of the more 'isolated' isles that contain communities that survived the Church expansion.

"We sure will. But I want to test Helena's Revenge a little more on the open sea. And I heard that there is a colony of Sea Serpents living somewhere near the African coast. I want to see them."

Erik replied to Selena. Soon after evolving, Erik had learned about his new gift and made sure to use it at every possibility that he had. When he heard about this colony of Sea Serpents, he knew that he had to go and talk with them. No complicated reason for it, he just had never talked with a Sea Serpent.

Hours slowly passed. The group had their lunch in the form of some fresh fish that was prepared masterfully in a magic-powered grill by Erik. And as they were preparing to retire for the day, Erik stopped suddenly and looked to the northeast of their location while squinting his eyes. Selena and Serafall noticed that and looked in the same direction. Having not seen anything, they asked Erik about it.

"What happened, Erik?"

Selena asked her husband. She knew that he had sensed something that they couldn't. His senses were a lot better than hers of Serafall's.

"I just caught something in the borders of my senses. A think that it is the remains of a shipwreck."

Erik replied to Selena and Serafall.

"Just the remains of a shipwreck would not cause that reaction on you."

Selena said, squinting her eyes while looking at Erik, who nodded his head.

"There are survivors. Two of them to be exact."

Erik replied to his wife. He normally didn't intervene in things such as this, but their vitalities were very weak and waning with time. But the worst, maybe, was that one of the survivors was a woman, while the other was a child. Having decided what to do, Erik started to run to the yacht's cockpit. Seeing that, Selena smiled and summoned clothes for her and Serafall.

"Time to wear clothes again. It seems that our husband decided to save the survivors."

Selena said to Serafall, and they started to wear their clothes while Helena's Revenge started to pick up speed and turn in the direction of the remains from the shipwreck.

It had taken almost one hour for the Yacht to reach the remains of the shipwreck. During this hour, Selena had to remind Erik to wear some clothes, because he was so focused on sensing, that he had forgotten that he was naked. Helena's Revenge slowed its speed as they approached the remains. Pieces of wood were scattered all over the surface of the sea with some of them still letting out some smoke, while others were just splinters floating lazily with the waves.

Erik was on the deck of Helena's Revenge, controlling the yacht's direction remotely while looking at the remains. His vision was fixed on a point more ahead. Selena and Serafall were by his side looking at all the destroyed wood. Eventually, the women would see what resembled to be mangled parts of human bodies, but never an entire one. Selena, at one point, floated a smoking piece of wood to her hands. She took it and smelled the burnt wood, frowning at what she had discovered.

"Black powder."

Selena said, throwing the burnt piece of wood back to the sea.

"So this was an attack of some sort?"

Serafall asked while still looking around and received a nod from Selena.

"Probably. That piece of wood smelled strongly of black powder. It could be a battleship that ended exploding due to ill-handling of its powder kegs, or it could be intentional. I could not tell the difference."

Selena replied to Serafall, who nodded her head in understanding.

"Maybe our survivors could tell us more about it…"

Serafall said, and Selena nodded her head in agreement. At the moment Erik pointed to where a big piece of wood was floating.

"There!"

Erik exclaimed. The girls looked in the direction that he point and saw a big piece of wood floating on the sea. Around it was some other pieces of wood. Not as big as the first, but big enough to identify that they were parts of furniture. Probably from one of the cabins of the exploded ship. And on top of the big piece of wood, two bodies were lying unconscious. One was a woman if the ragged dress that she was wearing could tell anything. The other was a child.

As Helena's Revenge approached the unconscious duo, Erik snapped his fingers.

*snap*

From the water, the big piece of wood started to float while holding the two survivors on top of it. Erik cautiously floated the big piece of wood over him and the girls and lowered it on the deck of the yacht.

"Selena, take care of the child. The woman is in the worst condition and needs immediate attention."

Erik said to Selena. And, as soon as the big piece of wood landed on the deck, Erik and Selena jumped into action. Serafall watched the two do their work with marvel in her eyes. She had never seen them acting like this in the more than fifty years that she knows them. But then, she had never seen them in this kind of situation before. While the duo was doing their work, Serafall decided to make herself useful and search for anything that could be salvaged from the shipwreck. She then unruffled her black leathery wings and started to slowly fly around the remains of the ship.

Almost an hour later, Serafall was back while dragging behind her two wooden trunks that had, somehow, managed to survive the explosion. She softly landed back on the deck of Helena's Revenge, letting the two wooden trunks land too with two 'thuds' sounds. At that, Erik came out of the inside of the interior of the yacht while smiling at Serafall.

"How are they?"

Serafall asked Erik, who continued to smile at her.

"We got to them in time. The boy is fine and is just really exhausted. His small magic core seemed to have protected him and the woman from the rough part of the explosion in a feat of accidental magic. But the woman was more serious. She had a lot of broken bones, together with some internal bleeding. She would not live the night if we had not got here in time. Selena is now taking care of her."

Erik replied to Serafall.

"So they have magic?"

Serafall asked. Erik had told to her that accidental magic was common within magical children when they were stressed about something. Erik shook his head negatively.

"The boy is. And, if he was in the Isles, he would probably receive a letter of acceptance in the next years. But the woman isn't. She has some magic inside her, but just not enough to freely use and be called a witch."

Erik replied to Serafall. He then looked at the two wooden trunks that she had brought back with her.

"Oh, it seems that you found something."

Erik said and walked to the trunks. Serafall nodded her head at that.

"They were floating around. Strangely enough, they managed to survive the explosion. So I thought that they could give us some idea of the identity of our survivors and brought them along."

Serafall said while Erik had put his hand on top of one of the trunks. He smiled, and then put his hand on top of the other trunk.

"No wonder they managed to survive an exploding ship. They are made of magical wood."

Erik said to Serafall. Magical wood was the wood from a tree that had grown in an ambient full of magic. Through the years, the magic seeped into the tree, turning it into a kind of magical wood. They were different from the wood coming from magical trees, but if used to build something, the thing built with it would show tremendous sturdiness. Hence the survival of these trunks to an exploding ship

"No wonder they survived then…"

Serafall said, understanding very well what Erik meant with it, who nodded his head in agreement.

–

The first to wake up was the woman. She was still very weak and couldn't talk much but the first thing that she asked about was where was her son. Selena, who was the one keeping an eye on them at the time, pointed to the bed at her side and explained to her how they had found only the two of them alive at the middle of the remains of a shipwreck. With some more ease of mind, the woman introduced herself as a Duchess from the Norway Kingdom, and her husband was a cousin of the current King, Haquino IV. Geri, which was the woman's name, said that she and her son, Arne, were coming back from a trip to her parents' lands when they were ambushed. Not strange to her, at least, was the ambusher's identity. Her brother-in-law wanted her husband's title, and for that, she and her son, the actual heir to the Duch, had to die. After ordering the death of all the sailors of her ship, her brother-in-law confined Geri and Arne inside their chambers and prepared an explosive charge. After that, the last thing that she remembered was that she hugged her son for dear life.

"Typical history of a greedy relative."

Erik commented to his wives after the woman went back to her sleep to rest. The girls agreed with him. It was a very common thing to see. A greedy relative that was not content with what he had, schemed to get his hands on the fortune that didn't belong to him. And it always ended in death. Be it from the target or of the schemer who got caught.

–

Two days later, the boy, Arne, woke up. When he looked around and saw Selena, he asked her if he was dead in a very cute manner. Selena giggled at that and answered the boy that he was very alive. She then pointed to the boy's mother, Geri, who was sleeping in a bed by his side. The boy, quickly jumped from his bead before Selena could say anything else and tried to hug/jump his mother, but froze in mid-air.

"Careful there, boy. Your mom got very hurt during the incident and you would have ended hurting her."

Selena said and slowly lowered the boy to Geri's sleeping side. The boy was still frozen with what had just happened, but took his mother's hand and started to cry in happiness. That woke up the woman, who saw who was holding her hand and smiled before starting to comfort her son.

–

Three days later, Helena's Revenge was docking in a port city in Norway. Its magical protections were working in fully, hiding its true form from people's eyes, showing only the illusion of a simple sailing ship. Waiting for them on the port was the Duch himself together with a small group of loyal soldiers. Erik had sent him a letter written by Geri with the story of what happened to her and their son, and with the estimated date of their arrival.

When the 'plank was lowered', from the ship came the running figure of Arne, that jumped into his father's arms. Behind him, being pushed by Erik while sitting on an improvised wheeled chair, was Arne's mother, Duchess Geri. It would take some time for her to recover completely. Even with Erik's magic and knowledge, he could not heal her completely. Some things could only be helped and left to heal by themselves.

"Geri!"

The man exclaimed when he saw his wife coming to where they were being pushed in a chair with wheels. At that, he saw that what happened with his family had been a very serious matter.

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a/n: Yes, I changed the name that I had chosen for the Yacht from 'Raven's Talon' to 'Helena's Revenge'. After marinating the name inside my head for an entire day, I decided that it made much more sense than 'Raven's Talon'. And yes, it is a homage to Black Beard's flagship, the 'Queen Anne's Revenge'. Will we see him in the fic? Maybe.