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image [https://i.postimg.cc/Ls38X74N/ch-74-vol-3.jpg.jpg]
Bells started ringing across the boat just before dawn, signaling the sailors to wake up and begin their daily activities. Today we'd be joining part of their morning ritual, finding ourselves on deck and staring off into an increasingly brighter horizon of fading stars. A hint of pink was rising off in the east, while stormy clouds were climbing in the south.
Out of everyone in our party, only Uncle, Indena and myself were able to get on deck early. Marek wasn't here just yet. He was making a phone call in the captain's quarters, informing the military on situation, as well as securing a ride for us to Verrenville.
“You guys ready for this?” Indena asked. “Gonna’ be a busy day.”
“I prayed real hard last night before bed,” I proudly stated, sitting on Uncle’s shoulders. “So I’m totally ready.”
“How about you?” Uncle asked her. “Sleep well?”
“Not really…” she grunted. “All this stress was getting to me. I barely caught a wink.”
I don’t think anybody slept well for pretty much the same reason.
“If you need, you can go back to bed until we dock,” Uncle told her.
She had a soft chuckle, then relaxed against the boat railing. “This is about the time I used to wake up for training anyways, so I couldn't go back to sleep if I tried.”
Martial arts, especially of a magical kind, probably required a lot of discipline. Despite Indena being vulgar sometimes, she really had a lot of skill and patience.
“I’m sure your instructor must have been very wise to teach you so well,” Uncle commented.
“Yeah, she is. She’s the best fire mage out there, but she’s got the most bubbly personality you’ll ever see. Her stupid optimism always pissed me off, but she’s taken care of me my whole life.” Indena brushed a hand across her nose and looked away from us. “Guess she’s kinda my mom when I think about it,” she uttered softly.
Indena sounded really calm and sincere. Seeing how fondly she looked at her own teacher made me want to meet that person. I would have expected her to be rough and swear a lot, but it seems like Indena was raised by a nice lady.
Our wholesome moment was interrupted by doors slamming. Some of the sailors were nervously running in and out of the helm, looking extremely stressed out.
"Captain!" One of the sailors reported. "We haven't been able to get in contact with anyone at Northport."
"What?!" the captain uttered in shock. "Those docks should always have someone watching them." The captain ran to the very front of the big sail ship, pulling out a little telescope and looking off to the approaching land on the horizon. "Dear God,” he breathed out in shock. “The docks are a mess!"
I leapt down from Uncle, running over to the bow and climbing up onto the very edge to get a higher vantage point. Using my own telescopic vision, I saw a nearly war-torn sight…
Boats were crashing into each other all over the place. The worst damage was a giant cargo ship that had completely driven over and destroyed one of the docking stations.
We started to notice some boats had drifted out at sea. Some of the men just assumed it was people on an early sail, but it turns out that those boats were empty and going on their way.
Our big sailship certainly wouldn't be able to find any safe place to dock in all that mess. The captain wasn’t even sure if it was safe to get near the town, since it looked like a battle took place there.
"Sorry fellas," the captain lifted his hat and swabbed his balding head with a cloth. "We won't be able to get you guys all the way to the port."
"Do you happen to have a life raft?" Uncle asked. "We could row the rest of the way."
The captain was willing to spare us a raft, but he wasn’t sure if it was a safe idea right now until they could figure out what was going on. We’d been through a lot rougher waters than this though, so our path had to keep pushing that way. I could only hope an actual battle didn’t take place there though…
Suddenly there was a very muffled scream that broke the morning ambiance. It came from below deck, sounding like someone said “Whaaaat?! What the H E double hockey sticks do you mean, ‘my men are sleeping on the job?!’ I’ll crush their F’in skulls if they are!” Of course, the voice used a little more vulgar language than me.
My friends and I weren't the only ones to hear it. All the sailors assumed it was their captain who was angry.
“It wasn’t me…” the captain shrugged.
Moments later, Marek finally arrived on deck with a disgruntled look on his face. We didn’t have high hopes that things worked out in his favor.
“I’m assuming that you’ve got some bad news,” Uncle said.
“Well, there is a little bit of good news. The Army will be sending scouts to Verrenville to investigate my claims.”
That was great! That meant we'd be getting some help from the Army!
“I'm assuming there’s a catch,” Indena commented.
“That's right. The first local military outpost I was communicating with didn't seem to be taking my words very seriously. Through all their yawning and complaining that ‘it was too early for work,’ I actually gave up and contacted a few more bases in the area.”
He claimed it was the same story at those too. Some of the bases didn’t even answer his calls. People didn’t seem to be awake just yet, I guess.
“So, who the hell did you actually convince to send out scouts?” Indena asked.
“I just kept making calls until I was able to get in touch with the local general, Zachery Travis. When I told him what was going on, he was livid that his men were slacking off. He was so mad, his screaming almost blew out the phone speaker.”
Holy moly… so that’s what the screaming was.
“So, what about our ride?” Uncle asked.
“With everyone still sleeping, there’s been a logistics problem. He isn't able to send us a vehicle just yet. They barely had the resources to drive a few scouts out to the town.”
“And why didn't they come pick us up instead of sending scouts?” Indena asked. “We’re a little more important right now.”
“Because they needed proof that a threat was actually present in Verrenville. That way they could get the more resources allocated to dealing with it.”
“It's not like demons happen every day, I guess,” Indena commented.
“Supernatural things aren't rare, but this is a little more strange, no?” Marek said. “Claiming an entire town has fallen to an enemy nobody can see sounds like a joke.”
He was right. Back at Urnan some of the guards there didn’t even see that demons were taking over. It must have been the same problem here too.
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“What tipped the general off that something was wrong was that trains and other transports going through Verrenville suddenly vanished. That, and plenty of people who live there haven’t been heard from since the attack started a few weeks ago. The final straw was that his men were acting strange.”
We informed Marek about the situation of the docks here too. With the new perspective he was giving us, it seemed like all these things must have been connected.
“You want my opinion?” Indena spoke up. “Sounds like everyone here at the docks are sleeping on the job too. That would explain why that big boat crashed into the beach there.”
“Sacrebleu!” Marek announced, slamming a fist into his palm. “I remember that when the demons were attacking, people were falling asleep all over the town. It must be connected.”
Then there wasn’t any doubt that the demon zone was influencing the local military, while also affecting people all the way out here too, making them fall asleep. Which meant the power of the demon lord must have grown exponentially. All the more reason we needed to get to Verrenville asap!
-☆☆☆-
Uncle and Marek were hard at work rowing our borrowed inflatable raft through a debris field from all the damaged boats. There was so much junk just floating around, it really did look like a war tore through this area.
We finally reached a beach where our raft could slide on up to land, letting us finally plant our feet down on Erdareich soil. It’s too bad my first steps here felt like I was storming the beach front of a battlefield.
Uncle flew up to where the big cargo ship had crashed and searched for survivors. The rest of us did the same for a few minutes, gathering up people and putting them in a safe space inside one of the nearby buildings.
“No casualties, but some of these people are worse for wear,” he said, doing his best to treat any of their conditions.
Beyond the docking area was a silent little port town. We couldn't find a soul on the street. It felt like some sort of ghost town, completely vacant of life. We were hoping that maybe we’d be able to find someone here who could help us travel to Verrenville, but that was seemingly out of the question with how empty the place felt.
“Marek, do you think maybe your family might be able to send someone?” I asked, hoping we might still be able to catch a ride.
He was wealthy, so he might have had servants to come and pick us up.
But he shook his head. “My father and I aren’t really on speaking terms at the moment. And it would take too long for servants to come out this far.”
That’s no good. But you know, speaking of servants, I had the phone number of a private contractor. She could help us out, right? She was on daddy's payroll, so money wasn’t an issue.
I twisted my left ear clockwise and a small antenna popped out of the top of my head. It sounded a little like a toaster popping up, which prompted Indena to ask…"Did somebody just make toast?"
"No." I pointed to my head antenna. "I'm making a call."
"A call, to whom?" Uncle asked.
"Emily Wolfstone. She's a private contractor," I said.
Uncle was skeptical if she could help us, but he said it was worth a shot. I dialed up her number and my head started to ring.
*Ring ring!*
*Ring ring!*
"Hello. This is Ms. Wolfstone-"
Good! She picked up.
"Miss Emily! I need you're…"
"I'm not at the phone right now. Please leave a detailed message of your inquiry after the tone."
Oh great. It was just her answering machine. What a bait, am I right?
*BEEEP*
"She didn't pick up," I said. "I have to leave a message."
Clunck! Crick!
"Hello?"
Uncle shook his head. "I knew it wouldn't work."
"Hello? This is Emily speaking."
Either the answering machine was really impatient, or she was actually on the other line now.
"Hello?! Is this Miss Emily?"
"Sure is! May I ask who's speaking?"
"I'm Yalda! Do you remember me?"
I heard her snicker on the other side.
"Of course I do. How many seven year old's do you think I give my number to?"
She must have been teasing me. That's not funny!
“Miss Emily!” my voice dove into a panic. “We need your help! We were just in Blue, and then we went to a big mana tower where pirates and an evil actor guy was…”
While I was speaking in a single breath, Uncle put a hand on my shoulder and said something. “She doesn't need to know everything. Just ask her for transportation.”
“Oh, right.” I nodded. “Sorry, I don’t need to tell you everything. Can you come pick us up and drive us to Verrenville from…” I looked at a sign next to the dock, it said we were in Northport, “We’re in Northport. Can you do that?”
Emily was quiet on the other end. I could hear blinds open on her end and she took a deep sigh.
“Absolutely. Are you in any danger?” Her voice turned serious.
“No, but there’s a lot of people who are.”
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Hang tight. Lucky for you, I’m not far away."
"Thank you. Bye bye.” I hung up and retracted my antenna. “She said we have fifteen minutes."
Given the alternatives of either walking, or trying to find some other transport, this was great.
In the meantime, Marek suggested we hunt down someplace to quickly get some food.
“We don’t have time for that,” Indena barked. “Yeah, why don’t we hit up a buffet while we’re at it? A nice fancy one where they serve fish eggs.”
“When was the last time we ate anything? Yesterday, no?” Marek turned to me. “My grandmother used to say, ‘a little food brings up the mood.’ So let's keep our spirits up, and bellies full.”
Come to think of it, I was getting a little hungry.
*GURGLE!*
And it sounded like Indena was hungry too…
“Ugh… Fine,” she submitted. “But good luck hitting up a fast food joint this early in the morning, especially with everyone conked out hard.”
She had a point. No way anyone would be up and cooking food.
“Young Mistress, open up your map for a moment.”
I pulled up my LOCATION menu and zoomed in on our current position. A message appeared in my field of view, asking for permission to let Uncle make changes to my hard drive. I gave him access.
Suddenly, small icons appeared all over my map. They looked like crescent moons and apples.
With my video game knowledge, I knew exactly what those were. Crescent moons on maps usually indicated inns or resting places, and apples, or similar food items, indicated places where you could get food.
“This info will only appear when you're in a town or city. If the icon is lit up, that means the place is open. Otherwise, it will be closed.”
A really neat addition to my map! By my count, Northport had forty different food vendors, and ten different inns or hotels.
Just our luck though, almost everything was closed. Only one food vendor was open, and it was a few blocks down in a park.
-☆☆☆-
My map led us to a vending machine in a big park. It had mostly candy and treats, but with some small sandwiches mixed in. The most interesting item was a giant cookie.
“Don't even think about it.” Uncle slipped in a few coins and out came some wrapped up sandwiches. “Your getting a sandwich.”
Darn! No sugary treats for me. Doesn’t he know sugar is important for a growing girl? Were 1/3rd the stuff! He must not understand because he's a boy.
I mean, I guess iron was more important for an Exceed's growth, but that's besides the point.
The sandwiches that came out were random, so everyone got something different. Mine was eggs and bacon. I guess if you’re going to get anything, it might as well have bacon in it. Right?
-☆☆☆-
As promised, Miss Emily arrived to pick us up in a windowed van, and not a second too soon. She proudly exited her vehicle and leaned on the open door, swirling keys around her finger.
“Need a ride?” She suavely clicked a button on her keys and the doors to the van shot open on there own. “I just got my license back, so let's go fast!”
“I hope that’s a joke,” Uncle said, expressing the concern we all shared over her statement.
“It sure was, handsome,” Miss Emily winked. “Now get in. We’ve got a good drive ahead of us, and I have a lot of questions.”
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