“That the place?” I asked as we flew towards a small walled town surrounded by what looked liked farms with a small copse of trees off to one side, but far enough anything trying to sneak up on the walls themselves could be spotted with plenty of warning.

“Aye, tha’ be Thornbell aight.” Sean replied through gritted teeth as another shudder went through the Azure Horizon. The damaged and missing panels were really playing hell with the ship’s aerodynamics. At this point I was mostly keeping the thing flying through the brute force of the engines.

I knew nothing more serious than another hull panel ripping itself free would happen, but everyone else in the ship didn’t seem nearly as reassured as I was. Especially poor Leona, who had the arms on her chair in a white-knuckled deathgrip. Sean and Dann were nervous, but keeping it to themselves.

“You’re sure this bucket of bolts can get us there?” Dann added. “We’re close enough to walk without much trouble now!”

“We’ll be fine. It’s all turbulence, nothing to do with the ship.” I dismissed. “Though I probably won’t be flying her anymore until I can get the hull patched up after this.”

“Thank the gods for that.” Leona muttered, probably louder than she intended because everyone heard it going by Sean’s barking laugh and Dann’s more subdued one.

My poor apprentice turned an almost glowing red and did her best to sink through her seat into the floor at that.

“You guys have a way to call ahead?” I asked the two Huntsmen. “I’d like to have an idea where I’m going to park us.”

“Kin ya not do it yerself?”

No, because I had no access protocols to whatever broadcast network they used and until I got those I’d have to just guess the frequency and hope someone could hear it. But that would be way too suspicious to say so instead I just pressed a button that caused a bunch of red alerts to appear on the nearest screen.

“Comm system is a bit banged up. You’re our best bet unless you think whoever is in charge would accept a scroll call from a random ship flying directly at them with a completely unknown pilot better than a call from one of you.” I fibbed as I cleared the alerts for the still uninstalled weapon systems. “Still going to need a number in that case.”

“Nah, yer right about Jenkins freakin’ out a bit. Better I call ‘im before he does sum’tin foolish.” Sean muttered as he pulled out his scroll and made a call.

Thankfully for everyone things went pretty smoothly once the town found out two of their own were on the UFO heading towards them. Sure they didn’t exactly welcome us with open arms and invite us to land in the middle of the town, but they did direct me to a decent sized lot close enough to some dedicated landing pads that I would be close enough to get my hands on some hardware if I could pay for it.

I’m sure the fact that it kept my ship from being in the way and in the theoretical case I decided to sell or abandon it the town wouldn’t need to move it far to be worked on were also taken into consideration.

I wouldn’t ever consider it, but since it made things easier for me I also wasn’t going to point it out or complain.

Dann did plenty of that for me.

“No offense kid, but there’s no way I’m flying in that scrapheap you have there until it’s all fixed up.” He said as we headed off into the town proper. “I’ll stick to some safer ways of traveling. Like jumping on the back of a Griffon.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Speak fer yerself,” Sean grumbled. “I’ll take a bumpy ride o’er four days o’ walkin’ any time.”

The two Huntsmen continued to poke at each other the whole time we walked but eventually our paths had to diverge. They had to go report to whoever they worked under about their patrol and Leona and I needed to figure out how to get our hands on some local currency.

Easy enough since I had several pieces of jewelry I could pawn or sell off, but not exactly in the same direction.

In the end we said our goodbyes and separated at a street corner, letting me turn my full attention to my rather overwhelmed apprentice.

“Taking in the sights?”

Leona seemed to snap her attention away from our surroundings fast enough that I was a little concerned she had hurt her neck. “No, mistress!” She hurried to say, only to slouch a bit when I raised an eyebrow at the obvious lie. “I mean, I know what you said about wor– places more advanced than my home, but I never thought it would be so stark. The wealth they casually display…it’s almost obscene!”

I was confused by that for a second because while Thornbell was nicer than pretty much every town I had seen in Alagaësia, Leona had seen Farthen Dûr which I would consider significantly more impressive…up until I saw the building she had been looking at and something clicked.

Glass.

For a long time glasswork was incredibly expensive and how much you had was a statement of wealth. And it wasn’t until new technology and techniques were introduced that large scale sheets were even possible. Yet in a random town Leona was not only surrounded by buildings with glass windows, even storefronts that in her experience should belong to simple merchants.

For the average person on Earth it would be like going to the next town over and seeing that they paved everything with gold because they liked the color and had enough of it. The scarcity and inherent wealth associated with it simply didn’t apply to the owners.

“You’ll get used to it.” I assured her, causing her to huff and sneak a glance back to the store I had caught her looking at.

“I doubt that.”

I shrugged and let the topic drop. For all that I could describe the places that we might visit it wouldn’t mean much until Leona had seen them herself. Eventually things that she considered incredible and impossible back home might just be commonplace to her.

As if sensing my own doubt Leona puffed up in annoyance. “Anyway, what are we to do now? Trade for local coinage? Talk to the smiths about the order you want to place?”

“I want to get some local currency first and then get my hands on a couple scrolls for the both of us.”

“Those mystic codes the Huntsmen used? Would they make something like that for two unknowns even if we helped their defenders?”

I smiled and pointed a little further down the street where several people could be seen eating outside a restaurant. Several of them, from older men and women to children, could be seen with a scroll in their hand.

Leona’s mouth dropped open as she quickly spotted children using a device she considered miraculous. Like I said, she would learn in time.

“Depending where you go, devices like that are used by nearly everyone.” I informed her. “Sometimes they are simple communication devices, but more often than not they are basically handheld libraries. Something we are going to need since my abilities don’t extend to witten words and it will help shorten the time you need to rely on that trinket.” I waved a hand at the choker she was wearing.

I was actually being pretty dismissive calling the thing a trinket considering it was a mystic code that could transfer my own inbuilt omniglot nature to her through a combination of Runes, Jewelcraft, and Mana manipulation and abusing Leona’s own abilities as an Animancer so that it would actually slowly teach her the language as she used it. The fact it worked instead of melting into a puddle like the first two prototypes was a minor miracle, but one that would only work for a few weeks before it broke down and while she was within a certain distance from me.

Theoretically that was plenty of time for her to learn the language but I knew things happened and I wanted her fully fluent before whatever crazy situation that popped up forced my apprentice to fend for herself.

“Come on, I want to get this settled before it gets dark.” I nudged her to keep walking. “The faster we get some money and ourselves a scroll the faster we can move on to the actually important things.”

Leona nodded. “Repairing the ship.” “Finding a good restaurant.” The two of us spoke over each other.

“...mistress…” Leona groaned at my nonsensical answer.

I was unrepentant. We’d had nothing but jerky and nonperishable meals ever since we left Alagaësia. I was absolutely going to prioritize food now that we had the chance!

But even if I wanted to run off for a good meal we still needed the money to pay for it, so our first stop was actually to a small locally owned jewelry store where I could sell off a few pieces I had made specifically for this purpose. I was sure that I got absolutely fleeced by the owner for what those would actually be worth but at the end of it we now had several thousand Lien in a variety of colored plastic cards.

From there it was a simple trip to an electronics store where Leona and I got a basic model scroll after spinning a tale about how ours had both been damaged while we were outside the town.

I even made a projection of Sean’s scroll to sell the story. And since I had no idea how the device actually worked and the projection was basically a thin metal shell rather than a working device, no matter what the sales person did he was unable to ‘retrieve’ our information or settings and was forced to set up two completely new devices.

The poor guy was so embarrassed after failing to uphold his promise that he could get everything migrated to the new devices no matter the state they were in that I was able to get him to download a few language learning apps without him asking any questions about them.

I was happy with it though. We had some money, we had access to everything we’d need to learn Valeish, Eastern Minstrali, and Old Atlesian even if we probably wouldn’t need the last two.

That meant it was time for food!

“Come on, Leona. You can play with the scroll later. I think I saw a ramen bar this way. You’ll love it!”