Chapter 98: Float On

Anna lay sprawled against the rigging, leaning up against the piles of thick ropes. Just getting her bearings

She’d been terrified the first few moments as sharks had swirled down from the sky, seeking to snatch them up and tear them into chunks with their razor-sharp teeth. The way that Reese had been lifted into the darkness with barely a scream had shocked her to her core.

But then…

Then a few of her copies got bit.

And she had to say, it was like getting bit by that little dog her mother’s friend had in the tailor shop across the street.

A little pinch.

Despite their size, these monsters had all the strength and penetrating power of an inbred dog roughly the size of a soccer ball and just as kickable.

Despite being fifteen to twenty feet on average, a little bop on the top of their heads while they were trying to gnaw on her would mush their brain or snap their spine, invariably rendering them a shivering corpse.

Anna sighed.

She didn’t want to be a living weapon, but that seemed to be all her Class was capable of.

You know that’s not right, Anna admonished herself. She was the Queen of manpower. She could bake the bread, wash the clothes, mop the deck, make the beds, clean the halls, wash the dishes, all that and more in less than an hour. Honestly she had a lot of free time.

Being able to beat giant sharks to death with her bare hands was just kind of a bonus. It brought a nostalgic smile to her face, remembering Mom killing rats that her father was too softhearted to dispose of.

On higher Floors, the rats are just bigger.

Should call it Anna-power rather than Manpower, She thought, scanning the deck where over a hundred copies of herself filled the ship, making themselves busy mopping the blood, stashing the Relics and and polishing the scuff marks away. Over the night, she and her copies had each been able to split two more times, allowing them to finally send the sharks packing after over eight hours of fighting.

Thankfully the ship was extraordinarily sturdy. If anything had been broken, Anna wasn’t sure she would be able to fix it.

I need to learn more trades, Anna thought to herself, realizing that knowing carpentry and tanning and any number of other trades would expand her value to W-To the Party.

Anna took a deep breath and shoved the thought aside. She was a monster posing as a bubbly young girl. A bleeding chunk of someone’s hopes and dreams for the future isolated into a monstrous container.

Not even the real one.

It was best for everyone if she kept her feelings to herself and did her job. The feelings weren’t real: The job was.

The more pressing concern was rejoining with The Flotilla.

She didn’t know how to sail. She didn’t know where they had ended up. She didn’t even know what latitude was.

Just as Anna was considering what to do, a grunting noise attracted the attention of all Anna’s aboard, who snapped their heads towards the sound.

A moment later, a bony hand reached up and grabbed the railing, followed by another, struggling to pull Reese’s head up to the deck.

By then two of her had already made it to him and lifted him the rest of the way up, carrying him over to some shade.

“Reese, are you okay?”

The emaciated man’s clothes were shredded, and he seemed to have some sun damage, but other than that, he looked completely unharmed.

“Reese? I always liked that N-Oh right!” He seemed to snap to attention, gazing straight into her eyes. “Emily, I have been floating for MONTHS!”

“Hours.” Anna corrected. “And my name’s Anna.”

“Hours. Anna.” Reese muttered, his lips quivering as he seemed to repeat the words to himself over and over again.

“Reese, you know how to sail, right?”

“Eh?” He grunted, levering himself to his feet and scanning the horizon. “I do, don’t I? Hah. Wait until the folks back home hear about this.”

“Can you get us back to The Flotilla?” Anna asked.

“Sure, which direction is it?” Reese asked.

“I was…hoping you could tell me?” Anna said with a shrug. “Although…Jean is that way.” She mused, pointing. “That might lead us to them?”

“Oh. OH! Okay, let me see what I can do.”

Reese clambered down into the ship and emerged a few minutes later with one of Loth’s notebooks and a strange triangle thing that she’d seen Loth pointing at the sky.

Now’s your chance to learn how to sail! Anna thought, the thought prodding her into movement.

“Umm…can you show me how to use that?”

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

“Sure. We should probably see what they want first, though,” Reese said, pointing at the longboat filled with Climbers that was rowing it’s way towards them.

Meanwhile, on the Floating Church of Granesh, Will was equal amounts tense and bored.

“Bacon Bits Added to the roster!” the spotter called down.

Tense because he expected to get a bag thrown over his head any second, waking up strapped to a crucifix.

Bored because rebuilding The Flotilla was a week-long ordeal. Three days to find all the ship, four days to fit them back together into an actual ‘city’.

“Elmo’s Funnel Added to the roster!”

Warehouses wanted to go on the outside, where they could attach to the docks, bars and brothels wanted to cluster together, city hall wanted to have the best access to businesses, restaurants preferred to be far away from bathhouses, but both of them wanted to be near the distillers.

Will even learned that there were aqueducts, of a fashion. Most of the stationary ships that had been converted to buildings for public use had pipes aboard that they could use to connect to distiller ships and each other to pipe water in and shit out.

Naturally they had to have some sort of decision about where to put waste, because if everyone just tossed it overboard, the ocean would teem with life and monsters directly under The Flotilla, and their water would be tainted.

They figured out the prevailing current and piped it downstream.

“Mike’s Meats added to the roster!” the spotter called.