"Do you realise," Emil began, arms crossed, eyes narrowing with exasperation, "that if we leave our ship floating out there, it's bound to draw attention? They're not just going to let it sit out there and bask in the sun like a damn sea turtle! How in the realms are we supposed to get back home once they impound this hunk of wood? Or—don't tell me—you also plan for us to swim halfway across the world?"
Kyle rolled his eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn't spin out of his skull. "I said relax, and leave all the thinking to me. You just focus on playing with your precious sword, or whatever it is you're always polishing."
"No!" Emil snapped, pointing a finger at his face. "I don't think leaving the thinking to you is a good idea—especially since your stingy little self would rather toss away everything just to save a few measly gold coins!"
Kyle staggered back as if slapped, clutching his chest in theatrical offense.
"You don't understand, Emil! If we dock that ship, we'll have no money left for food! Shelter! Basic survival! What do you want us to do—sleep in a ditch? Eat seaweed off the rocks?!"
Emil pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes twitching. "Kyle… the docking fee is—barely—five percent of the capital we brought."
"Five percent!" Kyle barked, as if Emil had just suggested amputating a limb. "You're talking like that's nothing! You're bleeding me dry, man! DRY! I can feel my wallet shriveling into dust just thinking about it!"
"You're being ridiculous—again," Emil muttered through clenched teeth.
Kyle gasped as though Emil had just stabbed him with a dagger made of betrayal. He clutched his chest and staggered toward the railing. "Oh! So now I'm ridiculous!? After everything I've done for us—all the sacrifices—this is the thanks I get?! Do you even trust me, Emil?! Do you?"
"Don't start this again."
Kyle turned back with the dramatic flourish of a scorned noblewoman, lip trembling. "You don't! I knew it. After all these years—after all our glorious adventures, all our close calls—you still don't trust me! Just like those husbands in the stories, always doubting their loyal, underappreciated wives!"
Emil stared at him, stunned into silence by the absurdity of the comparison. "Are you seriously comparing yourself to a—"
"A wounded housewife, yes!" Kyle snapped, eyes glassy with faux-emotion. "One who's been carrying this relationship on her fragile, slender back while her ungrateful husband swings swords and wastes money!"
Emil groaned and rubbed his temples like he was trying to massage the headache out of existence. "Fine," he muttered darkly. "Fine. We'll do it your way. Beach it. We'll swim. Sneak in. Whatever. Just… shut up."
Kyle froze.
Then a slow grin broke across his face—smug, triumphant, and insufferably self-satisfied. He threw back his head and laughed. "I knew you'd see reason! That's the spirit! Let the real mastermind do the thinking!"
Emil looked at the sea and briefly considered drowning himself in it.
*****
And with all said and done, the two self-proclaimed masters of infiltration began stripping down to nothing but their shorts. Emil, ever the reluctant accomplice, carefully encapsulated their dry clothes in a cocoon of shadow magic—one of the few practical uses of his dark powers. Once they swam ashore, the plan was simple: don their disguises, slip into the capital unnoticed, and finally enjoy the splendors of the Blue Pearl Islands without emptying their coffers.
What the two idiots had not accounted for, however, was the very obvious fact that idling around a busy foreign harbor, weaving back and forth across docks for hours, and then parking suspiciously in the middle of the water wasn't exactly inconspicuous.
As Kyle stepped up onto the railing, standing proud with his arms out like a sea god preparing to descend, he turned his head to Emil with a wink. "Observe, my friend. Precision. Grace. Artistry. I shall demonstrate the perfect form—watch and learn."
And then—
"What are you doing, foreigner?!"
A sharp voice barked from beneath them. Kyle's soul nearly exited his body.
An amphibious patrolman, clad in sleek marine-scale armor, had silently breached the water's surface just below them. His webbed hand gripped the side of the hull as his damp, authoritative scowl locked onto Kyle with military-grade suspicion.
Kyle shrieked like a startled noblewoman at a tea party and leapt from the railing—not into the sea, but right into Emil's arms.
Emil caught him with a dull oomph, glaring murderously as Kyle clung to him like a frightened cat up a tree. The warlock's arms trembled—not from effort, but from the sheer urge to drop him immediately onto the deck, headfirst.
The amphibian's eyes narrowed.
Emil sighed long and deep, like a man watching the last threads of his dignity unravel before his eyes. "Brilliant," he muttered darkly. "Once again, the genius gets us caught before the plan even begins."
*****
The soldier slammed a webbed fist against the side of the ship with a metallic clang, loud enough to jolt the fish in the harbor.
"Foreign vessel! Report to Dock E for immediate questioning!" he barked, voice stern and suspicious.
Kyle, still curled protectively in Emil's unwilling arms like a terrified child caught stealing sweets, whispered frantically, "What do we do now?"
Emil's expression twisted into something between a snarl and an aneurysm. His eye twitched. "Oh, I don't know," he snapped through clenched teeth. "Why don't you tell me, oh wise and glorious master of infiltration?"
Kyle had the gall to look offended. "Hey, don't look at me like that! If anything, we're equally to blame here!"
Thud—Emil dropped him like a sack of potatoes onto the deck with all the mercy of gravity and none of the concern.
Kyle groaned as he sprawled out dramatically, arms flung across the planks like a fallen martyr. Nothing—absolutely nothing—could properly describe the volcanic pressure building behind Emil's stoic exterior. The irritation was no longer simmering. It had achieved sentience and was now playing the drums on his frontal lobe.
He muttered, barely audible, "If I strangle him now, would anyone really blame me?"