A/N: There is no author note.

Chapter 11 How Many Times Will the Author Lie about Getting Off the Ship?

Egomaniac could not tell where he was.

Things seemed a lot different from his living death, and, from what he pieced together to recall, even from life.

For one, everything was darkness. And cold. The undead almost felt trapped where he was, but as he struggled to get free, different perceptions came to him.

Faintly, an odd burning sensation was coming from something. But, mainly, something about where he was seemed familiar or was close to something familiar.

Something shifted his awareness as the result of his struggles, and suddenly, Egomaniac was in control of a body.

A dying body.

What! I can't die after just gaining life! It's time something changed with this.

That place he had been before—he could now tell what it had been. And he could tell that it was the problem. There was no time to free himself even if he could move the chains on his own; his lungs were already aflame for lack of oxygen. The idiot Barleyo. What had he gotten himself into?

Well, technically, it was all Egomaniac's fault.

Be quiet! I will not take the blame for this!

Oh, so now the characters talk back to the omniscient narrator? Well, just who do you think controls this story? I could squash you right where you are…

Growling, Egomaniac subsided and gave up all will to live. He was losing consciousness. Some odd light was going toward him.

Was is a merperson?

You must think I am so racist. No, it was an undine, a water sprite. And this water sprite had love at first sight.

Such a pale, pure person sunk right in her vicinity. What luck she had! It appeared the fortune-telling jellyfish had been right. Her luck was going to change.

Giving a screech that might have sounded beautiful to her people, it jerked poor Barleyo's body in one last convulsion before all awareness fled.

Yay, the water sprite was not dumb; she knew how surface-dwellers survived. And it was something she wanted to do anyway. Time to see just what kind of kisser Barleyo was.

On the undine grading scale with 4.3 being the highest, this kiss had to honestly be placed at the -.78 level. But really, can you blame poor Barleyo? He was unconscious and controlled by Egomaniac in the unconscious state! Plus, he'd been starved for a long period before this and was so weak he sunk to the bottom of the ocean from his chains. It just wasn't fair of the undine to put him on the spot like that. But, at least he was coming back to life by getting her used carbon dioxide. It had been so long since he had oxygen he was in danger of other complications, and the undine wasted no time bringing him to the surface.

Gasping and floundering from the chains the had pernisps replaced on him, Barleyo clung to the undine without realizing what he was doing. In fact, you could say Barleyo had no knowledge, or not much, that he had even been saved. Egomaniac, on the other hand, was rasping out orders for the water sprite to take him back to his ship. Of course, as he was so befuddled, he never realized which ship she was bringing him toward until far later.

"chirp-Squawk, SCREECH—chkchkchk, waaaiiil."

"Stop your incessant noise!" Egomaniac flung off her "protective" arm and floundered over to the ship. When he began yelling and flinging his chains against the side of the boat at the times he was not sinking once more, the people aboard glanced down and sent a saving device.

Quite new and remodeled for this fantasy era, you can guess who invented it, especially since it was something to save people's lives.

Realizing what he was doing, the undine grabbed at his chains and began to pull him after her. She was quite strong, especially since Egomaniac had greater power over this weak-willed body than Barleyo had and he was still having trouble staying where he wanted. When he had grasped the tube, those on the ship hauled him free from the water.

For a moment, the undine clutched him around the middle and was hauled up. Then, when her entire body was free of the water, she gave an ear-aching screech and dropped back, vanishing in a matter of sparkling sea water droplets.

The others finally pulled Barleyo all the way to the top, and as he kneeled there gasping and dripping, he looked up once. The faces he saw staring back at him made him recoil in astonishment, and he was back where he had awakened so confused at the beginning of the chapter.

Barleyo, puzzled and wobbly, tried to stand.

"All right! I knew you could do it!" The others glared at Axel, especially Put'oh, who had heard of the knight's actions by now. Whistling in the face of suspicion, Axel put his hands in his pockets—except armor did not have pockets and he hurt himself considerably trying to find some.

"Are you all right?" Kun asked, hesitantly trying to help someone taller than himself stand.

Weakly, Barleyo nodded.

Tanner pushed Axel completely out of the way. "Did this knucklehead try to help you before and then leave you to drown?"

Let's see…Barleyo is a stranger on this ship of people that had been harassed by those on the ship he had come from, not to mention the one talking seemed to be some sort of acquaintance with the one who had nearly killed him.

"No, it was all a mistake." Woohoo, another one who is not completely ignorant!

With a suspicious glance at the all-too-innocent-looking-for-any-person-and-especially-himself The Sir Prince Axel, Tanner Clothier the minstrel showed Barleyo to a room Captain Yesah grudgingly gave him.

"I'm sure it would please my father," the young captain said as an excuse since good deeds always needed to have an excuse.

"Whatever," Tanner muttered. He really wondered how Put'oh and Muggy could live with this brother who went on about a father who was obviously dead, being eaten by wolves and everything. But, he tried not to get involved in family business. Yet, he was certain he was going to make a little free verse poem someday about the three Gruff brothers. But he'd have to disguise it. Maybe make them all aliens from another place.


In his room, Barleyo was feeling quite strange. The others had not taken his chains off—he didn't even know if they could. But there seemed to be something strange with them. Almost, they felt…separate. Like a separate identity. He must have been underwater even longer than he thought. Everything was muddled together.

Barleyo gave a last sigh and fell into an exhausted sleep.


Would anyone believe me if I said the ship made it to shore without any further problems? What if I said there were no problems major enough to have to stop and slow down the journey? Because that's what happened.

Axel managed to cause a lot more trouble, mainly tripping near the hole on deck that had yet to be fixed and pushing the Earl de Vlin into the excrement. The latter cursed him in verse the rest of the voyage for the damage done to his glorious hair.

And, of course, Muggy managed to get himself in trouble every day by trying Put'oh's phobia. The young man was reallyattempting to work on it. Really. But having a little brother who purposely went out of his way to make danger for himself was not helping.

Barleyo slept a lot of the time, but when he awoke, he suddenly had a huge appetite and ate everything within sight. The chain no one could get off (maybe Put'oh would have tried a little harder except for constant interruptions of his desire-to-turn-monkey brother), but Captain Yesah gave him the address of a good blacksmith.

And the others mainly managed to get by without anything terrible happening. Kun dealt with the other being inside him as he always did; ignoring him. And Tanner continued to switch from laughing at de Vlin's rhymes to encouraging him on to taunt Axel.

All in all, the cloned sailors steering the ship could not be happier once they docked and departed.

Muggy waved a farewell to his brother, and Put'oh nodded, and everyone left.

Now, if you'll recall, there was a little "squiring" happening on the ship, and Sir Blaydelot had no intention of leaving either Muggy or Put'oh's side. He wanted to find this sorcerer Gruff.

But poor Barleyo had never been alone in his life (as if he is now!), and he shyly asked the others to go with him to the blacksmith's.

Muggy could not dare preoccupy his brother—actually, he didn't dare waste any time in case they were late to the lesson of his other brother, and he cast a look back at Sir Blaydelot in helplessness.

However, the little mechanisms within Blaydelot's mind were cranking and turning and making another idea, and I hope it was not like the one that could not have originated in the brain.

At the coastal city, they parted ways. Some went to—huh? The treasure. On Virtually Unstoppable? You want to know what it was. Hmm, so do I. But it doesn't look like the story is leading us that way.

Pan the camera back to the city…-angry sigh- Fine. You want to know what the treasure was? It happens that it was a collection of virtual reality games that were going to be transported to a time capsule for those in the future to use. What else would Yesah carry? Now can we please get back to the point of the story?

At the coastal city, they parted ways. Some went to the blacksmith to see what he could do to help their new friend, others went to the forest path and rented a coach, and one followed after those on the coach until he was quite certain where they were going. After all, considering he saw so many signs saying, "Warning! Angry sorcerer ahead" or, "Do not enter and disturb the sorcerer or he has rights to punish you accordingly" made Blaydelot quite certain he knew where they were headed, especially since the coachman would not drive them himself. Sighing, Put'oh grabbed the reins and they were gone.

Yep, Blaydelot went back to the others quite confident in where he still had to go.