Chapter 5

As the days went by, I had completely lost track of time. My excuse is that it was hard to count when screams ring by your ears every day. There were so many threats, it was hard to keep track of all of them. It was getting more and more difficult to tell who's a Marauder and who isn't now, since more guilds have sprouted up. Most of us have gotten used to the nausea, but Wisp still pukes if we hit a wild current.

We called the guilds different names, depending on what flags they'll hang by the sides of their boats. Red and brown would be the Dragons. They didn't call themselves that, it's just that their leader, a wiry, thin, redheaded boy who weirdly reminded me of a dragon that never grew up. Frey had laughed his air out when I shared the name, and like most names, it stuck. Blue and white would be the Leviathans. They spent most of their time hunting for fish deep below the surface of the water and seemed to be able to hold their breath for an absurd amount of time, hence the name. Green and blue would be the nymphs. They are always seen in the same place, just like how nymphs are bound to a location. They were also one of the most peaceful guilds, focusing on trading and maintained friendly relations with the other guilds. There were about a hundred more guilds, each with their own unique traits.

Meanwhile, Wisp developed a relatively complicated navigation system. What he did was picture out the sea into multiple grids, and each grid was around a few tens of metres wide and tall. That way, the seemingly endless sea around us was split into roughly a hundred grids or so. It was supposed to make our lives easier, but I'm pretty sure that Frey fried his brains trying to keep track of which grid we were in. Not only could we navigate our way around, know where we last were, we could also keep track of how far we could travel before treading into enemy territory.

The guilds all had an unspoken agreement to stay within their own territories, to prevent any conflicts. The last thing we needed now was a fight between the people. Our top priority was to survive and hopefully find a way out of this godforsaken place.

However, things were not going well.

Tensions were rising amongst the different guilds. There were disagreements regarding the space of the territories of the Marauders and the Nymphs. As usual, the Nymphs were too weak to do anything about it, thus they gave in to the Marauders. Despite this, the Marauders still seemed to bear an intense hatred for the Nymphs, and I also saw a member of the Nymphs swear to take revenge on the Marauders. There were also disputes regarding the prices of goods. The Nymphs had recently raised the prices of their fish, from 2 clams to 4 clams. The Leviathans felt that this was an unfair decision, as they thought that the Nymphs only raised the prices for them. Just a normal misunderstanding, that led to an increase in aggravation between the two guilds, which would act as a stepping stone for a fight to break out. Just the normal stuff.

The Nymphs seemed to be a little more aggressive that usual for the past few days, which we assumed was caused by the change in their leader. Their previous leader, Tim, a small and kind-looking boy had been overthrown, and his position was taken by this taller, more muscular boy, Jacob. Jacob seemed to want to pick a fight with everyone who rubbed him the wrong way, even in the slightest. "That will definitely not turn out well", I thought to myself as I returned back into the boathouse to hit the hay.

What worried me more was the fact that the last time we saw the marauders was a few days ago. They had went into their boathouse and stayed in there for days. We instantly assumed that they were planning their evil schemes.

Unfortunately, our fears were not unfounded.

That day, as I stepped out of the boathouse and into the sun, I felt as if I had stepped into an open blast furnace set at max temperature. The day got worse when I was greeted with the foreboding yet familiar smell of smoke, the sight of a fleet of boats on fire. I watched on in shock as I saw the Nymph's flag on fire, the part that was still intact, waving in the wind, before it turned into nothing but ashes. I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched my dream of a peaceful and orderly civilisation turn into a nightmare of chaos and destruction.

The water surrounding fire were deep red, and on the boats surrounding the burning mass of wood, were the marauders, celebrating their victory by blowing trumpets and lighting torches. It was a declaration of war. Despite their strength, I still found it weird that the Marauders wanted to declare war. They should've known better than to declare war on approximately a hundred other guilds. We were sure that no one would side with them, thus they were fighting a losing battle, or so it seemed.

I was sure that they had other tricks up their sleeve. However, they had successfully kept it under wraps. I don't blame them though, not revealing all your weapons is always a good strategy. That way, you could use the element of surprise to your advantage and pull out your trump card in an extremely dire situation. All odds seemed to be against them, yet they still decided to take the risk.

The flames of war had been reignited.