Sia had joined her family on the ship’s deck, grasping onto the rails to get the first glimpse of their new home. The town that was visible now was littered with Minka-style buildings. Homes and businesses that had gracefully curved four-sided roofs.

The Keep that towered in the middle was an oddity, a stark contrast more concerned with defense than aesthetics. It was an atrocity of solid walls built of stone, a sharp contrast to the rest of the town that relied heavily on wood.

Today would be the last day Sia and her family would be confined to the ship. Over a year traveling to arrive in a town that served as the capital for her daughter’s Fief. The trip had not been without its problems. The first of which had been when the suite of rooms that Jai had booked and paid for had been confiscated by a Cultivator.

The Cultivator had only been at the Body Refinement Realm, but he was still a Cultivator, so the ship’s captain had allowed the insult. Why a Cultivator would use a ship as a means of travel instead of one of the flying beasts said much about the wealth and power of that person.

Sia and her family could only bow their heads and accept their change in fortune. They had been forced to spend the last year traveling, wedged into a small one-room berth initially assigned to the ship’s crew. A room where beds were stacked floor to ceiling to accommodate the small family.

The lack of privacy had tempers fraying, and the children had the excitement of moving to a new land crushed beneath petty bickering and moments of ennui. Some of the ship’s affinities had tempered that boredom. There were places to play and mingle with other children, but even those entertainments grew stale as the days passed.

“Is that it, Mom?” Syha asked, the longing in her voice overshadowing any excitement she might be feeling. The ship had made land at a handful of ports, enough that Syha had lost any expectation that this would be their final destination. Even though they’d explained this stop would be their new home, the young girl remained uncertain.

She had had her seventh birthday on the ship, but she was still so small, so quick to trust, and so quick to take harm. Syha had been devastated when their stateroom had been confiscated, made aware for the first time that the world was not fair.

“It is,” Garth, Sia’s husband, and Syha’s father, replied. He had moved closer to his wife and daughter, reaching out to hug them, his size a buttress against the wind and sea spray.

The ship was too large to enter the harbor that protected Xiwang, but it had been built with that possibility in mind. The builders had solved any problem that low water and small ports might have by segmenting the ship, allowing a section to separate and act as a cargo vessel, landing craft, and personal transport.

Sia and her family were standing on the lower deck of the main ship, a deck that the ship’s crew disconnected, allowing the much smaller vessel to float free. Where the main ship was large enough to house thousands of people and a respectable amount of room for cargo, this smaller vessel was sleek and maneuverable. It would serve to ferry goods and people to shore and back.

Sia gave silent thanks to Jai once again for the gift of storage devices that allowed them to move without the encumbrance of crates and luggage weighing them down. The transport vessel they were riding in suddenly jolted as it was freed from the ship. A large door had opened, allowing the cargo vessel to use the lowered door as a ramp.

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As the section they were standing on slid down the opened door, the ocean crashed against the side, and people were sent flailing as they tried to maintain their balance. She might have gone overboard if Garth hadn’t been holding Syha in a hug. Geon, her brother, wasn’t as lucky and crashed into side rails, leaving his mouth bleeding and a tooth chipped.

“Geon, you’re bleeding!” Syha shouted in fear.

“I’m fine,” he replied stoically, even as his chin quivered and tears filled his eyes. Geon was at that age where admitting pain and crying were beneath him. He’d rather break a bone than admit to weakness, and crying over a broken tooth, gashed lip, and swelling cheek would be considered weak.

Sia withdrew a healing potion from her storage device, “Drink this,” she said as she handed the potion to a reluctant Geon. He had drunk enough of his mother’s potions to understand that the taste was almost as bad as the injury. He secretly thought his mother made them taste bad on purpose.

Whatever the truth, there was no arguing about the effects. Geon had barely swallowed the concoction when the broken tooth had been expunged and a new one regrown. The other gashes, scrapes, and contusions had healed even faster.

The cargo master or bargeman, whomever it was that captained the detached vessel, had unfurled a device that allowed them to see the ocean’s bottom. It allowed the small ship to navigate the reefs and enter the harbor without waiting for a guide ship or tugboat.

A few other ships were already docked, most outfitted to use sail and water paddles to move. Those contrivances seemed outdated, but the masts had been enchanted and equipped with beast cores to generate wind. The paddles had enchantments that allowed the paddle-wheel to use water to maneuver.

The dock itself was lively, with people offloading and loading cargo. More people gathered to watch the newly arriving ship. People dressed in uniforms that suggested they were guards and town officials.

Sia and her family scanned the dock frantically, their anticipation of reuniting with their daughter and sister hard to contain. They didn’t stop searching until the ship had docked and it was time to disembark. A search that proved fruitless. There were too many people to pick out one individual from the crowd.

Those disembarking only made the crowded dock more confusing.

Sia was so angry about being moved to crew berthing partly because of the continued indifference of the ship’s crew and the reassignment of the cabin that should have been theirs each time the ship docked. The proof that connections, power, and wealth were once again proven with the priority given to certain people for disembarkation.

The people that had paid for passage from the Empire mainland had left at the first landing- including the Cultivator that had conscripted their stateroom. Sia and her family would have as well if Jai hadn’t sent messages about her elevation to Baroness and the location of Xiwang, the town they would all be living in.

That meant almost another six months on board. Six months where the ship quietly loaded more and more people. Immigrants from the Empire, those individuals looking for a fresh start, or Refugees from the island, groups paid to resettle. Groups with someone powerful enough to claim the suite of rooms that should have been theirs.

People that had been afforded priority in disembarking. Her family had only been given even the slightest change in fortune when the ship’s captain had learned the city they were approaching was governed by a relative.

Sia and her family were joined by hundreds of people who were among the lucky few given priority when unloading. At least they would have someone to greet them. Most of the new arrivals would be left to fend for themselves in this new town. This trip was just the first of dozens of trips the cargo ship would make as it ferried people from the boat. Thousands would make landfall and make Xiwang their new home. People who were not lucky enough to be related to the Baroness that ruled the town the ship had arrived at would arrive at an increasingly crowded dock. A place of confusion and disorder.

Sia was worried about what the large influx of people would mean for her daughter. She was a new Baroness, controlling land that was sparsely populated. She hoped Jai had made provisions to deal with all the people arriving and that she had the resources to keep them fed until they were integrated into the town.