Chapter Forty-Five - Upskirt Down

Green Hold was tiny.

Or at least, that was the impression I had of the town from what had to be about three hundred meters in the air.

From all the way up on the Silver Boot the houses looked like big rectangles and the walls were only a rough outline around the town. The layout reminded me a bit of Threewells, but with many more homes set around a central square. The area around the town was filled with little farms, most of them with homes close to the roads leading into town.

“You kids all have your stuff?” Gabriel asked. He was standing right next to the edge of the deck, heels over the side and his weight on the balls of his feet. The crew had removed part of the railing, the spot where the gangplank had been when we arrived. “We can’t come back to ze ship if you forgot anyzing.”

I hefted my pack, certain that I hadn’t left anything behind. Amaryllis who was next to me didn’t have anything to begin with, something that I was growing increasingly nervous about. Was she going to buy all of her gear in-town?

I set that aside for the moment and raised my hand.

“Yeah?” Gabriel asked as he pulled a flask and took a sip from it.

“How are we getting down?” I asked.

“Did you ever rappel before?” he asked.

“I have,” I said. “But there’s usually something to, ah, kick off of. And a mountain.” Not... oh, we had lowered a bit. Still, that was two hundred meters of empty air.

A glance over the side--where I had a railing to lean on--showed that a few people in the town below were eagerly looking up to us.

“First time for everyzing,” Gabriel said. He secured his flask to his belt and then kicked a rope off the side. It went taut against the metal bar it had been tied to and the grenoil dropped four handles with little pulleys on them on the ground. “You set zem like zis,” he said before expertly doing something with the device. Then he walked off the edge.

France gasped, but I had the opportunity to look down and see that he was slowing down his fall with his rappel. It was still fast, and he didn’t have a harness, but he still made it to the ground without going splat.

“Well okay then,” I said as I grabbed one of the other devices and waited for the rope to loosen up enough to grab it.

“Just like that?” Amaryllis asked.

“Do you want to go at the same time?” I asked right back. “We could hold hands on the way down if you’re afraid.”

The girl rolled her eyes and, without so much as picking up her own rappel, she walked off the edge.

“Amaryllis!” I screamed.

“Ah,” Florian said. “She’s a harpy, she’ll be fine.”

I looked over the edge and saw that she was, in fact, perfectly fine. Her arms were outstretched and, while she wasn’t flying exactly, she was slowly drifting towards the ground, the long feathers on the ends of her arms twisting this way and that to control her fall.

“Oh,” I said. I felt a bit silly after that. “Well, see you guys at the bottom,” I said as I made sure my rope was taut and that my rappel was secured properly. “Bye Captain!” I called out with a wave.

Captain Isaac was near the wheel, but he heard me and gave me a parting wave. “We shall see each other again, winds willing,” he called back.

I didn’t have a way to say goodbye that sounded cooler than that, so I just hopped off the side.

The rappel went taut, then something went very wrong. The device slowed my fall, a little, but not nearly as much as I wanted to. I screamed as the ground reached up to me and suddenly two hundred meters didn’t look that far away.

I shot as much stamina into my legs as I could and at the very last moment prepared to jump.

I hit the ground feet first.

My stamina went from completely full to just shy of empty.

The ground cratered.

“Zat was a good landing,” Gabriel said from a few feet away. “But next time, don’t rappel wiz a skirt on unless you want to give ze whole town anozer show.”

I squeaked and pushed my skirts down, then I stepped out of the crater I had left in the road. “Did you do that on purpose?” I asked him.

“Look at your rear? You’re not my type, dry-skin, pretty blue underzings or otherwise” Gabriel said.

“Not that!” I said as my anger warred with my embarrassment to warm up my face. I could have died and I was mightily miffed about it.

“Don’t get your panties in a knot,” Gabriel said. “I’d have caught ya if you didn’t catch yourself.”

I tightened my fists but didn’t have time to give Gabriel what for before a scream from above had me looking up. France was rushing down towards the ground at a breakneck speed. I shifted, ready to jump up and at least try to catch her when she suddenly glowed and slowed down before landing on her feet with both eyes wide open.

Gabriel lowered a hand that had been pointing right at the grenoil. “See?” he said.

“You can do magic?” I asked.

The older grenoil snorted. “Featherfall. In our line of work you learn how to cast it or you learn how to pick up your insides after zey go splat.”

“Right,” I said. I made note of that. My anger had faded a little in the time it had taken to watch him slow down France’s fall.

“Go see to your partner. Ze fool girl wanted to leave before the sun set. Not zat I care.”

“Oh, okay,” I said before turning around and looking for Amaryllis. The harpy girl had landed at some point, because she wasn’t in the skies above. I took the chance to inspect Green Hold from the ground. It was a simple little town, more homes than Threewells, but most of them had mud walls and they were barely more than a floor tall.

Just because they were made of mud didn’t mean they were poorly crafted though. Most of the homes were built into neat squares and they had little gardens out back with flowers blooming within. Red roofs all gleamed in the almost-orange light of the waning evening and the air smelled like firewood and supper, unlike the rancid odour that had permeated Port Royal.

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I ended up wandering along the main street until I found an irate Amaryllis waiting before what looked like the town’s inn, arms crossed and talon tapping at the ground. “You finally decided to show up. Good. Let’s go,” she said before bending down and picking up a bag that had a bedroll and tent tied to the top.

“We’re leaving already?” I asked. “And where were you hiding that? Do you have an inventory?”

“An inventory? I’m not giving you a list of my belongings,” she said. “And yes, obviously we’re leaving now. The sooner we get this over with the better.”

I didn’t sigh because that would have been rude, but I certainly felt like sighing. I had kind of hoped that we could become friends but so far that hope had turned into mush.

I followed after Amaryllis as she aimed for the town gates.

No. No I couldn’t just give up. “I won’t give up.”

“You won’t give up what?” the harpy girl asked.

“I won’t give up on trying to be your friend, even if sometimes you’re a little rude,” I said.

The girl stopped a few steps ahead of me and gave me a look so filled with confusion that my determination to become her friend soon turned into determination not to giggle in her face. “My partner is an idiot,” she said before walking on.

“I’m not an idiot. We just think differently,” I said.

She huffed as she marched out of the gates, the man on guard duty not even giving us more than a passing look. “Different is right. Your intelligence stat must be in the negatives you’re so different.”

“There’s an intelligence stat?” I asked.

“And you’re gullible too.” She stopped and looked around, then pulled a tiny compass from an inner pocket of her leather jacket. “North and East,” she said.

“You know where the fort is?”

“Unlike someone, I purchased a map. You do know what a map is, don’t you?”

“Being rude won’t stop me from becoming your friend,” I said, a huge grin splitting my features when Amaryllis turned to glare at me. I only smiled harder.

“Tch.” She stomped off along the road, head darting this way and that as we moved out of the area with little farms and into what was almost a forest. Almost, because for every tree there was a deep puddle of brackish water.

The bugs must have sensed us and they knew that we were a snack, because soon enough there were swarms of mosquitoes flying our way. I stopped and searched my bag until I found my bug-repelling rune, the one I had purchased in Port Royal. It came with a thin leather strap that made it easy to wear as a bracelet. A bit of mana pushed into it and the bugs coming our way suddenly whooshed back.

“Hrm. Not completely useless,” she muttered.

“I strive to not be completely useless,” I said as I pulled out a runelight next. It came with a handy strap that went around the head, but it fit around the brim of my cool hat just right. It wasn’t full dark yet, but it was getting dark enough that a bit more light would be appreciated. I pinched the tip of my tongue between my teeth and focused. A second trickle of mana had a cone of light flashing out ahead of us.

Health 120/120

Stamina 31/125

Mana 109/115

I made a note to keep an eye on my mana reserves. Maybe I could cycle the bug-repelling rune.

Amaryllis snapped her arm to the side and a knife appeared in her hand, a strange leaf-shaped blade that had two tines at the end instead of a point. She glared at it and then the tip lit up like a flashlight.

“Neat,” I said.

“Even an idiot ought to be able to use a spell like that,” she said.

I smiled, happy that she was willing to talk, at least. “You’re a lightning mage, right?”

“Thunder mage,” she corrected.

I fired a stealthy Insight at her.

An irate Thunder Mage, level 9.

So, she was three levels ahead of me, which probably meant that she had at least one more class skill. I was willing to bet that she had skills that were way cooler than Cleaning and Cute.

Especially Cute.

“So, is thunder-aspect mana close to light?” I asked as I scanned the marshes around us. They were surprisingly noisy, with frogs croaking and bugs humming and the occasional splash or gurgle from the water. As the sky darkened even more my paranoia went up a notch.

“It’s adjacent, yes,” she said.

“So it’s only two steps away from Cleaning magic?”

“I do not use that kind of peasant magic,” she huffed.

I shook my head at that. Cleaning was useful. I mean, it wasn’t fireball, but it was alright.

We reached an area where the road forked and Amaryllis pulled a small map from a side pocket of her backpack. “I think there’s a spot that’s a little dryer up ahead.”

“We can set up camp then,” I said. “It’ll be hard to light a fire around here.”

“Best not to then. It would attract the slimes.”

The what?

But I didn’t have time to ask as she kept on moving and I had to jog to follow behind her. As it turned out, she had been right about the dry spot. It was just a more elevated position that overlooked some of the swamp around us, but it was a bit farther from the many little tributaries running down from the east.

We set up only one tent, both of us quiet after Amaryllis insisted that we use her superior gear for the night.

And then, after flipping a copper and drawing first watch, I was left alone again. It was okay. I was making steady progress. I knew that in no time at all Amaryllis would dislike me a little less!

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