The Great Magical Mishap

Chapter 2 - Monkey business

"All aboard! We're leaving in five minutes!" Harrold heard a sailor yell in the distance.

Next to him, Pat perked up. "That might be our ship Harrold, let's pick up the pace a bit."

As if waiting for the moment, Pat instantly demonstrated his navigational skills by rapidly making his way through the docks and the many, many sailors without disturbing anything or anyone. It had been ridiculously busy ever since the flying fish boom. The docks weren't designed to fit such an amount of ships, so captains took it upon themselves to build their own anchoring spots. It resulted in a constantly expanding and already surprisingly large secondary dock, made entirely out of spare wood. To call it rickety would be an understatement. To call it a monstrosity would be a correct statement. It was as if thousands of tortured souls were connected, crying out in pain as they begged to end their suffering. Though to both the average and non-average human being, it sounded like creaking of old planks. 

The ship in question was, of course, located somewhere near the end of this monstrosity. The slippery surface combined with the constant movement of sailors, on a surface barely wide enough for three or four people, made it hard for someone of clumsy nature to remain standing. It didn't help that Harrold also had to avoid barrels filled to the brim with fish, taking up precious walking space and covering the ground around them with dead fish.

The smell was absolutely unbearable. Harrold thought he had gotten used to the smell of fish by now, but the hot midday sun combined with the sheer number of the flying slippery bastards collected at the docks was too much for him. Unlike Pat, Harrold disturbed everything he could possibly disturb as he walked around the docks. Though he didn't catch much flack for it besides a few quick angry glances, which always turned into looks of surprise as the glancer noticed Harrold's hat. He also felt a very familiar and worrying urge. A sensation comparable to an itch that needs scratching in a spot that would be highly inappropriate to scratch in public. He didn't want to give in, but it was getting worse as he went along. He wanted to get on that ship quickly.

As soon as he tried to go faster, he was hit in the head by something wet and floppy. Before he could consider what this wet and floppy something might be, he was hit in the head by many more wet and floppy somethings, causing him to fall backwards. He managed to break his fall with his hands. As a result, his hands were filthy, but at least he prevented most of his clothing from sharing the same fate. As he looked behind him to see what hit him, he saw a school of flying fish trying to escape. A large group of shouting sailors with nets ran after them.

I hate flying fish.

He sighed and tried to get up, which turned out to be impossibly difficult due to how slippery everything was. Harrold was getting frustrated at this point. Everyone around him seemed either too scared to approach a wizard or too indifferent to bother helping. After a bit more struggling, something tugged on his robes and pulled him upwards with surprising strength. Expecting to see a large man in front of him, he instead was faced with... nothing. Then he felt another tug on his robes, lower this time. He looked down in response and was surprised to see a monkey. Though the sight of a monkey was strange enough on its own, the monkey also appeared to have two wooden pegs instead of legs and was wearing a white shirt covered in red stripes. Bound around its head was a red bandanna.  The bandanna's color was slightly off compared to the shirt, which slightly annoyed anyone that noticed it. It also carried a scimitar on its back, which appeared slightly too large for the monkey to wield properly. The monkey aggressively pulled on Harrold's robes with such strength that Harrold was afraid his robes would be pulled down entirely.

"Hey, stop that," he said, before realizing that the monkey wouldn't understand him at all.

The monkey made angry monkey noises before forcibly pulling Harrold along. Harrold couldn't say that he liked this, but wasn't sure how to respond to this rather unique predicament. That's when Harrold noticed that the monkey was actually pulling him in the right direction and the pair were going at a much faster pace than Harrold was originally.