The dungeon was like nothing I could have predicted. It was absolutely real, the sounds of combat and the sea genuine in a way that no magic could possibly re-create, the smell of blood, sweat, and tar filling the air in perfect detail. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see an end to the dungeon; the water stretched away to the horizon without stopping. I couldn’t see a way to leave the dungeon, which meant I had to find a way to complete it before I was killed.

  I pulled out my revolver and began to clean it, ordering my nanobots to swarm the metal and get out the last of the water as rapidly as possible. I also put the book I had been carrying into my backpack, readying myself for combat. If this dungeon wanted to trap me inside of it, it would find out shortly that I wasn’t someone to be pushed around. Once my revolver was clear, I reloaded it with Holy Bullets and looked around me for targets to kill.

  The question was, should I attack the crew of the ship I appeared on? That of the attacking ships? Both?

  If I didn’t attack the crew of this ship, would they assist me or just attack me anyway once the boarders were repelled? I didn’t know the rules of this place or how sophisticated the dungeon would be in terms of the possible paths I would need to take to complete it.

  I decided to test things out before I made a wrong decision. The captain at the stern of the ship was by himself. There was an easy path to the captain on the starboard side of the ship since most of the sailors were busy repelling the “barbarians” on the port side.

  Crouching, I ran along the starboard side and up the stairs that led to the top deck, where the captain was standing at the railing, yelling encouragement to his crew in their fight against the boarders.

  When I reached the captain, I stood up and approached the man openly. When I got close enough to almost touch him, the captain noticed me and turned quickly, alarmed at my sudden appearance. He reached for a saber he had sheathed on his belt, but when he saw me, he stopped.

  “Why aren’t you attacking, sailor?” he demanded of me. “We can’t let these scum take our convoy down! Get in there and fight!”

  I guess that answered my question; the captain seemed to recognize me as one of his crew, maybe because I hadn’t attacked them yet. Apparently this dungeon was complicated enough to allow me to take sides in an ongoing conflict. The dungeon possibly even had multiple different ways I could complete it if I chose to betray the captain or side with the boarders. The implications were fascinating, but I put them out of my mind for now.

  “Yes, sir!” I replied, offering a salute that I was pretty sure wasn’t accurate, but the captain only nodded and returned to watching the fight below.

  I backed away and moved partway down the stairs that led back to the lower deck. When I was halfway down, I had a perfect, unimpeded view of the attackers and was partially protected from return fire by the railing on the stairs. I aimed and began to pick off the opposing archers in the enemy rigging first, shooting them down one by one. My Holy Bullets were just as effective, telling me that these were indeed ghosts like the ones I had fought on the dock, something I had figured was the case since the dungeon was inside the ship that had contained the ghost boss. The golden flash of the bullets was muted, though, no longer seeming to blind the nearby ghosts. Either these ghosts were more powerful or my Holy Bullets were somehow weakened inside the dungeon.

  Either way, the bullet itself was still powerful enough to kill the ghosts with a single shot. Once I had emptied the enemy rigging of their archers, I reloaded and aimed for the sub-bosses in the enemy forces. I figured that would help turn the tide of battle without my needing to waste bullets on the lesser ghosts, and it would give me the best experience for each bullet spent.

  I hurriedly dispatched each sub-boss. My aim, even from across the deck and into the chaotic melee, was good enough that I hit each enemy, thanks to my enhanced body. Once the sub-bosses were dead, our sailors rapidly gained the advantage, our sub-bosses able to focus on the lesser ghosts rather than trying to fight the more powerful sub-bosses of the enemy. Within a matter of minutes, the fight was over. No mercy was given to the opposing ghosts, and each barbarian refused to surrender, fighting until they were struck down.

  As the last of the barbarians began to fall, the enemy ship’s captain made an appearance in an attempt to salvage the fight. He carried a massive battle-axe. It was almost as large as the ghost was tall—which was even taller than me. The barbarian captain stood at least seven or eight feet tall, his body rippling with muscle. He looked like a bodybuilder that had been spliced with the genes of a gorilla and then fed a steady diet of protein and steroids for his entire life. With a mighty roar, the man leapt onto our ship. The impact of his leap sent a shock wave rippling out, blowing the nearby men off their feet and into others nearby. The men directly impacted by the shock wave appeared dazed, unable to get up, while the others were entangled with the disabled men, struggling to stand back up with their comrades on top of them.

  I took aim and unloaded all six shots into the barbarian captain as he stood up from his crouch, hoisting his axe in his massive arms, preparing to cut down the sailors nearby who were unable to defend themselves. As my bullets pierced his body, he turned rapidly, narrowing his eyes at me in anger. I had really expected him to die from my bullets, not just look annoyed by the Holy Bullets piercing his body. He roared again and began to charge across the deck toward me.

  I reloaded, backing up the stairs as rapidly as I could. I had absolutely no interest in meeting that axe in close quarters. I was fully prepared to leap from the ship and take my chances at the bottom of the ocean before I let it get close enough to touch me. Before I had to do anything drastic, our own captain whistled. Several of the sailors who hadn’t been entangled in the shock wave threw themselves on the boss, slowing him as they began to grab on to him, stabbing and punching him. The barbarian captain barely seemed to notice the attacks, but the bodies piling on him were enough to slow him slightly.

  “All hands, defend the boat!”

  The captain’s order rang out over the ship, his words echoing with power that I could feel deep in my body. The crew, many of whom had been lying on the deck, dazed from the skill of the enemy boss, suddenly sprang up, fully recovered. The other sailors seemed to grow in size, becoming stronger and moving faster, clearly gaining some kind of enhancement from the captain’s order.

  The newly empowered sailors all ran toward the enemy captain, unconcerned about their own safety, swarming the barbarian and stopping him in his tracks. There were so many sailors piling onto the barbarian captain that I couldn’t risk firing any more bullets; I was more likely to strike a friendly sailor than the enemy captain. After several minutes of struggle as the sailors brutally stabbed, punched, bit, and attacked any way that they could, the enemy boss finally seemed to slow and fall to his knees. Another few moments passed. Then his struggles ended completely and he fell face-first to the deck. The crew, covered in the blood of the barbarian captain, untangled themselves from his body and began cheering and clapping each other on the back. I could do nothing but stare at the surreal scene in front of me, unsure of how to process the strangeness of what I was seeing.

  “Get that bastard of a ship off us!” the captain yelled, pointing at the enemy ship. “And then get us going again. We have more barbarians to kill!”

  The crew cheered, jumping to obey the captain. Crewmembers hefted their bloodied axes and ran to the railing, cutting into the ropes connecting the enemy ship to ours. The rest scrambled around the lower deck, gathering their own weapons and tossing the enemy bodies off the side of the ship, clearing the deck as much as possible. Once we were free from the other ship, the sailors pushed it away from us and we began to slowly drift apart.

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  “Get those sails up, boys! It is time for some revenge!” the captain yelled.

  I moved down the deck, checking to see if I could loot the boss before he was tossed overboard, but no glowing orb appeared above him, despite the fact that he had glowed gold before he died. Was it because I didn’t deliver the killing blow? Or because of the nature of the dungeon? Maybe rewards came at the end. Or were there no rewards for bosses in dungeons, only the reward for finishing the dungeon itself? I didn’t know how it worked here, but I planned to complete this dungeon and find out.

  Large oars were cast out of our ship, splashing into the water on both sides. At the same time, the sails were quickly unfurled, causing the ship to jerk forward. The captain moved from the railing that overlooked the lower deck to the wheel that steered the ship and began to guide us toward where two more ships were intertwined nearby.

  Once we got close, the oars on the side near the enemy ship were pulled in and the men came pouring back up from down below.

  “Brace for impact!” the captain yelled as we approached. I grabbed the railing near me as the ship slammed alongside the enemy ship. Wood exploded upward with a tortured scream, and the sailors near the railing tossed grappling hooks across and began hauling us up tight against the other ship.

  “Attack!” the captain yelled.

  With a collective roar, the sailors from my ship charged over and attacked. The enemy ship was barely prepared for our boarding; most of the barbarians were still engaged in trying to take over the ship they had originally attacked. Only a few of the enemy ghosts had turned to repel us, so our sailors were able to swarm over them easily. Once the enemy’s deck was cleared, our sailors continued forward, attacking the rest of the barbarians from behind as they were focused on fighting the sailors of the ship we were here to rescue. I stayed on our ship and picked off the barbarian sub-bosses with careful shots of my revolver, trying not to draw too much attention to myself.

  The barbarian captain was in the middle of the melee, fighting the captain of the friendly ship, both surrounded by a subtle golden glow. As the enemy ghosts began dying, the barbarian captain turned and seemed to notice for the first time that they had been attacked from behind.

  As the boss stood, momentarily frozen at the sight of his men being cut down from behind, I fired all six bullets of my revolver at him. My shots pierced his upper chest, one after another, sending him staggering backward. The captain of the friendly ship took advantage of his distracted foe and ran him through, finishing him off.

  Our sailors cheered at the sight, surging forward and dispatching the last of the barbarians still standing.

  “Captain Leontius!” the captain of the ship I was on yelled. “Get your men onto my ship. We will combine forces and clear the rest of this rabble!”

  “Yes, sir!” the other captain yelled back. “You heard the man!” he continued, turning toward his own men. “Get over there!”

  With a cheer, the combined forces returned to our ship, bloody weapons held high in celebration, and we swiftly cast off from the enemy ship and made our way to the last intertwined pair of ships fighting nearby.

  The final ship was in rough shape. Most of the friendly crew were dead, and the barbarians were in full control of the deck. A last holdout of men was fighting on the top deck near the wheel, holding on simply because the barbarians could only come at them a few at a time up the narrow stairs. The captain of the ship was fighting with a sword and dagger, seeming to appear and disappear in an instant, always intervening to stop a thrust or strike that would kill one of his crew members.

  The barbarian captain, though, was an archer and was calmly standing on his own ship and firing deadly arrows into the sailors on our side whenever an opening presented itself. His sub-bosses and sailors were doing the fighting while he stood back and picked off vulnerable sailors from a distance.

  “The dastardly coward!” our captain yelled at the sight. “Ram that ship!”

  At our captain’s orders, our ship leapt forward as if the vessel itself could obey the captain’s command. We rapidly gained speed and slammed into the enemy ship head-on, cracking its hull. The bow of our ship wedged deeply into the hull of the enemy ship, causing the enemy captain to lose his footing. He was thrown to the deck of his own ship, his bow sliding out of his hand.

  At the sight, our captain roared, ordering our men to attack. The sailors near me seemed to surge with strength once again, leaping across the bow of our ship and onto the last barbarian vessel. The enemy captain was just starting to recover when the first of our crew reached him, cutting him down ruthlessly from behind as he tried to stand. He had no chance to defend himself.

  Once the enemy captain was dead, the remaining crew of our ship stormed across, still empowered by the command of the captain of the ship I was on, and easily finished off the last of the barbarians. The speed and ferocity of the empowered sailors was so great that I didn’t get a chance to fire a single shot in the final battle. I just stared in awe at the frenzied sailors as they massacred the last of the enemy ghosts.

  As the last of the barbarians fell, the three crews erupted into cheers. The survivors of the last crew greeted the comrades that had saved them, hugging and patting each other on the back in celebration.

  “Well done, lad,” I heard a voice say beside me. The captain had come down from the upper deck and approached me. “We took the day, thanks to your skills. No doubt of that.”

  I turned and tried to think of a response but wasn’t sure what to say to the captain’s thanks. Before I could think of an appropriate response, the captain continued speaking.

  “Now comes the cleanup and burial,” he said, his stern face looking over the celebrating crew. “A near victory this was. I fear for Nova Roma, that these barbarians have given us such a challenge lately. Many of our ships do not return from these waters any longer.”

  With a frown, the captain passed me on the stairs and went to join the captains of the other ships we had rescued. The three captains greeted each other and began to talk in low voices, clearly not wanting to interrupt their celebrating men with their more serious discussion.

  I was unsure of what to do from here. Things were settling down and it appeared the fighting was over. Nikephoros had mentioned something about a core that should grant me a reward for completing the dungeon, but I had never imagined I would need to find it on a ship in the middle of the water. Where would a core be in a dungeon like this?

  I climbed down the rest of the stairs and ducked into the doorway that led to the lower decks. I followed the stairs downward, seeing that this ship had the same layout as the one I had sunk in the harbor back in the city. That gave me an idea of where the core might be. On the lowest level of the ship, where I had been sucked into this dungeon in the first place, I found a glowing white orb hovering in the middle of the hallway. I stared at it warily, but when it didn’t move or do anything aggressive, I relaxed.

  Now the question was, should I try to complete the dungeon right away or go back and kill the remaining ghosts? There was a good chance the reward from the dungeon might be better if I killed everything inside, but when I thought of the cheering sailors and the friendly captain, I couldn’t bring myself to go back upstairs. It was all too real and I didn’t want to be the kind of person that ruthlessly killed people that had helped me just because it might give me a momentary advantage. Mind made up, I approached and touched the orb with my hand.

  Congratulations, you have completed this dungeon. You have earned the following rewards: 3 gold cores, 9 blue cores, 1 perk, 1000 experience.

  Perk obtained: Captain’s Command. Anyone obeying an order that you give will receive a morale bonus of +1 to all attributes while carrying out your command.

  After the voice finished speaking, the white orb in front of me transformed into the golden and blue orbs. I shook my head, dispelling the odd feeling that came whenever the announcements beamed themselves directly into my brain, and grabbed the orbs. A moment later, my vision darkened and I found myself surrounded by water once again. I was back inside the sunken ship. The hallway I had been in before surrounded me once again, although this time it wasn’t as unnaturally dark now that the dungeon was cleared and had disappeared.

  I panicked at the feeling of the water pressing down on me again so suddenly, and my body tried to gasp for air in panic, but I clamped my mouth shut, controlling myself before I could inhale water and drown myself. Instead, I turned and hastily swam out of the ruined ship, kicking as hard as I could toward the surface.

  As my head broke the water, I gasped in several lungfuls of air. It wasn’t that I was out of oxygen, but the sudden shift back to the water had left my body panicking as if I was drowning. It took a supreme amount of willpower to calm down enough to swim to the surface, and now my body wanted nothing more than to gasp in as much air as it could take.

  As my panic began to fade, I remembered to scan the area around me in case one of the priests had returned. Looking around hurriedly as I bobbed in the shallow waves, I was relieved to see that I was still alone. It had felt like an hour or two had passed in the dungeon, but as I took in the docks around me and the position of the sun, it appeared that barely any time had passed. The sun hung above me, covered by a few wispy clouds, almost in the exact same position as when I dove down to explore the sunken ship.

  I pulled myself onto the nearby dock and stumbled over to where I had been stashing the loot from the other ships I had scavenged. Checking around the docks once again, I saw I was still alone, so I gathered the items I had found and jogged swiftly back to the villa I was staying in.