Toril was the most populous, most powerful, most prosperous, and most famous planet in the Realmspace crystal sphere. Even the eyes of the gods paid special attention to that place.
The continent of Faerûn had two ports where spelljamming ships could dock. The largest port was located in Waterdeep, where spelljamming ships were quite popular. Wealthy merchants, eager adventurers, and middle-class citizens with some savings, almost everyone longed for rare treasures from other worlds.
One important reason many spelljamming ships chose to stop at Waterdeep was that the local government's regulations for managing spelljamming ships were very reasonable. Some planetary ports were worse than tourist traps. Their officials were greedier than locusts, imposing all kinds of unreasonable taxes on crews, fining them mercilessly whenever they caught the slightest chance, bankrupting the sailors, and sometimes even impounding the spelljamming ship itself, leaving the crew as wandering undocumented outcasts.
Skyl had stayed on the ship for a month and listened to the crew talk about the customs and landscapes of many places. The eight planets of Realmspace each had their own characteristics, and the wars in Wildspace were even larger in scale than he had imagined. As a newly initiated warlock who had been wandering near the edge of the crystal sphere, Skyl still did not yet have a complete understanding of the dangers of Wildspace.
The one-month journey was not entirely smooth. During that time, they encountered raiders, saw from afar a war between neogi and mind flayer fleets, witnessed radiant dragons roaming the stars, and saw space fire elementals gather on a quasar to suck in light and heat.
Skyl could also be considered to have properly experienced a space battle.
Although they had already entered the age of space travel, the wars between spelljamming ships were still quite primitive.
Both sides attacked each other with ballistae mounted on the decks, closed the distance for boarding actions, and determined victory through decapitation tactics. It had quite a bit of the beauty of naval warfare from the Age of Sail, with brute force showing through everywhere.
Space warfare in a fantasy world was just like that. Basically, it was all space opera.
Back then, the group they encountered was a mid-sized bandit crew calling itself the Red Dragon Gang. Their main warship was a modified forty-ton light cruiser, and its tactical speed was quite impressive. The Charizard was long and heavy, unable to shake them off, and was captured by the enemy's grappling hooks and ropes, forcing them into a boarding battle.
Skyl, Stan, and Captain Manny could be considered the main force for boarding.
The bard was the most useless one. Stan's only role was to follow behind the crew, cheer them on, play his guitar, sing a few songs, and cast some buff spells.
Manny was a veteran fighter. Once he put on plate armor, he could both take hits and deal them. With him holding the front line, he could launch a deadly charge straight ahead and go directly for the enemy ship's leader.
Skyl chose to fight shoulder to shoulder with them. His time aboard the ship had not been wasted. He had copied many scrolls, fully displaying just how troublesome a prepared spellcaster could be. Multiple protective spells made him tougher than a fighter, and the illusions created by the 2nd-level spell [Mirror Image] made it impossible for enemies to tell which one was real.
Holding a shining Eldritch Blade, he faced the enemy's bows, crossbows, blades, and swords head-on, controlled three illusory doubles, and charged into the enemy ranks. He had a bit of the style of a Warcraft Blademaster using Wind Walk.
This experience was unprecedented even for Skyl. In the past, when dealing with enemies, he had always just thrown out one powerful spell. Either they were paralyzed as a group, or they were transformed into animals. When had he ever needed to personally swing a sword and cut people down? Still, the experience was not bad.
Skyl did not use lethal force against ordinary foot soldiers, but when he encountered the enemy's elite raiders, he showed no mercy either.
In the end, he drifted straight to the bow cabin, cut off the helmsman's head, and pierced through the spelljamming helm. With that, the battle reached its end.
Manny looked at Skyl's martial skill with newfound respect.
Although Skyl was a professional wizard, he was not completely ignorant of close-combat swordsmanship. The Tower of Tomes did not only contain magic books. The swordsmanship guide he had given Millicent had been compiled by Skyl himself.
If judged purely by martial technique, his level was actually quite high. Back in the Marvel world, he had absorbed the souls of the entire universe. Swordmasters from countless races, inheritances passed down over centuries and millennia, and all kinds of combat wisdom were clear in his mind. Even if a legendary sword saint competed with him in technique, they would fall behind.
However, limited by his physical fitness, he could not bring out much power. In actual combat, it was still less meaningful than throwing a few fireballs.
During the thirty-day journey, there were three or four skirmishes, large and small. Boss Gus kept muttering that their luck had gotten worse. He planned to seek shelter under a large cross-planar trading company after this merchant run ended, join a fleet, and obtain protection. Although he would earn less, at least he would no longer have to live on edge like this.
When the ship passed by the planet H'catha, the Charizard was nearly noticed by a wandering mind flayer warship outside the sky. At the time, everyone on board broke out in a cold sweat.
Mind flayers, also known as illithids, were extremely dangerous creatures. They fed on the brains of intelligent life and devoted themselves to reviving the illithid empire, vowing to enslave every alien race in the multiverse. Individual members of that species were quite powerful, as well as cunning and treacherous, making them difficult to deal with.
Skyl did not actually mind meeting mind flayers. When it came to the art of playing with brains, he had quite a bit of research experience himself. Turning the Celestial brain into a computer had benefited every member of the Tower of Tomes. A mind flayer elder brain might be able to produce some interesting tricks too.
Unfortunately, he was currently traveling the world with only an incarnation. Otherwise, Skyl would definitely go looking for the mind flayers' patron deity, Ilsensine, and slice up that brain of a greater god for research.
During the thirty-day journey, Skyl continued perfecting Eldritch Blade. He felt this line of thought was quite good. Condensing magical power into a sword, raising his hand and unleashing sword energy in every direction, it reminded him of a fantasy swordsman, Elric of Melniboné, whose Stormbringer's soul-cutting swordplay had a similar feeling.
Unfortunately, limited by the Weave system, if he wanted to unleash sword energy freely, it would probably have to be a 9th-level evocation spell. And since spell slots were limited, he likely could not use it as freely as a true swordmaster.
Once the thirtieth day arrived, the journey reached its destination.
The spelljamming ship broke through Toril's atmosphere and slowly landed in the sea several miles away from Waterdeep. After that, it disguised itself as an ordinary sailing ship and entered the harbor.
Skyl and Stan followed the excited crewmen off the ship. Mr. Gus embraced the dock administrator who came to meet them, and then came a series of procedures such as paying docking fees.
"Skyl, Stan, wait. Take this." Mr. Gus stopped the two of them and took out two bags of gold coins, handing one to each of them. "Without you two, everyone on the Charizard would have died in Wildspace. This is just a small token of my gratitude. Please don't refuse."
Skyl did not refuse the bag of gold coins. He had stopped worrying about money a long time ago, but putting in labor and receiving payment was perfectly natural. Besides, in the D&D worldview, turning stone into gold was not easy, so one had to cultivate a spirit of thrift.
Stan asked Skyl where he planned to go next. For a moment, Skyl had no clear destination. After thinking it over, he decided to go to Candlekeep.
"I hear the books there are vaster than the sea. I do wonder whether it can compare to my Tower of Tomes."
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