Scourge One - Portcity

“Look! You can see the city!” I say as I rush to the very front of the ship.

The ship is one that Mom pulled out of storage, which is to say that it’s a ship that was sunk in the ocean just off the coast of the Land of Monsters that a few ocean-dwelling friends had started to call home. Mom ordered it pulled out of the ocean and some cleverer monsters got to work patching it up.

I don’t know much about ships. This one is a caravel, I think. Maybe? It has three posts for sails in its middle, currently all deployed with black cloth snapping in the wind, and a few decks. The middle one is filled with small friends, an army of them that I figured I might as well bring along. The bottom, near the hull, is home to a monster that I named Gloop.

Gloop is a squid, sorta. Squids don’t usually have so many legs, and I think they’re usually limited to eight or so tentacles, but Gloop didn’t get that memo. He has hundreds of tendrils that he uses to push our ship along or to grab onto some bigger nautical monsters that can pull us across rougher waters. He’s pretty nice, even though all he can say is “Gloop.”

The top deck is where my friends and I have been living the past week and a half. It was pretty strange living on a boat, but I think we’re all used to it now.

Felix likes standing way up in the crow’s nest where the wind is strongest, and Esme spends a lot of time on the quarter deck, puking over the side while complaining about the way the ship rocks.

“I can’t see that far,” Felix says as she joins me by the front. The figurehead twists a little to the side as I let go of it to look at her. She’s wearing her blindfold again.

“I can’t imagine why not,” I say.

She grins and tugs it down, her pale eyes staring at me for a moment before she squints into the distance. “Huh, I still can’t see it.”

I can’t really blame her. Felix’s eyesight isn’t all that great, not that I’ve ever heard her complain about it. The city isn’t really that obvious. It’s clear that there’s a coast ahead, but even that’s more like a darker line. We’re surrounded by a rolling fog. It’s not exactly a natural fog either. Mom wants this ship kept somewhat hidden. There are pirates and such off of these coasts, and I don’t think the local navy would appreciate a monster-ship patrolling around. Hence, magical fog.

“You see that little light over there?” I ask. I point to a faint glow in the distance, a bit over the horizon line. “That’s a lighthouse. There’s supposed to be one next to the port in Vizeda.”

“It could be another lighthouse,” Felix says.

“No,” Esme says. “There’s only supposed to be one.”

I half-turn to take her in as she wobbles closer. When we left home, I was sure that everyone would get over any sea-sickness in a day or two. Esme is working hard to prove me wrong.

She hasn’t changed all that much since we’ve left Montele. She might be a bit taller now? And her cheeks aren’t quite as pinchable, but she’s still very cute. Her hair, usually all poofed out and wild is... still wild, but it looks like Mister Stretchy the cat after I give him a bath.

“Hey,” I say. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says, but the way she wobbles over and grabs onto the rails suggests that that’s a flat lie. “Anyway, there’re only a few lighthouses along the northern coast of Caselfella. One in Vizeda, one to the north where the coast sticks out a little, and one in Guimanho. So unless we’re wildly off course, that lighthouse has to be Vizeda’s.”

Felix nods seriously, her lips quirked up in a small, knowing smile. “Bookworm.”

“Hmph,” Esme says. “Illiterate jock,” she snaps right back.

I roll my eyes. I love my friends, both of them are the best, but they can be a bit dumb sometimes. “Well, then that’s Vizeda. Which means we’re nearly done with this whole trip.”

“Oh, thank Semper,” Esme mutters. “Also, we’re hardly done with this trip, this is only the first, easiest part. And it was already very difficult.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Only for you,” Felix says.

I think Felix is a bit miffed about Esme wasting food on our trip. Nevermind that she’s been wasting it by losing it overboard whenever we hit any particularly bouncy waves.

“Alright, alright,” I say. “We’re nearly on land. Once we’re in Vizeda, everything will be much easier.”

Esme nods. “We both have our quests to handle.”

“I know,” I say. Esme can be a teeny tiny bit uptight sometimes. “Let’s just get to the dock, and then we can worry about all that other stuff, alright?”

I say that as if we need to do anything to get us to dock, in reality it’s as easy as telling Gloop to aim for the city and to find a place to dock.

The ocean is decently calm, maybe because it’s only mid-day and the sky is overcast and dreary. It’s kind of early in the fall, so I’m expecting the weather to start turning a bit cooler, but for now it's still just a little too warm to be comfortable.

“You okay?” Felix asks me after a bit. Esme’s already back in the cabins by the rear of the ship. At a guess she’s laying down with a pillow over her head and a bucket next to her cot.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I might be a bit nervous?”

Felix tilts her head to the side and her hair flicks out that way with the motion. I think she’d be pretty with long hair, but every so often she’ll chop her hair off with a knife so that it doesn’t get in her way. “You shouldn’t be nervous. I’ll make sure that no one hurts you. And Esme’s there so that you can both think up smart things to do.”

I laugh and bump shoulders with her. “You’re pretty clever too,” I say.

“I’m street smart,” she says. “It’s not the same.”

I pull her into a side hug, and she laughs before squeezing me back. We don’t have all that much time for that kind of stuff though, not as we really do approach Vizeda. The tallest buildings are just tall enough to poke out above the fog, and I can make out some of the ships sitting at dock.

I jog back to my quarters at the back and pick out the stuff I’ll be bringing with me. It’s not all that much, mostly since I’d rather travel light. A backpack has a couple of changes of clothes and a few small books that I figured might be handy. I have an empty notepad for notes, and a small bag full of gold and a few other coins.

A second, bigger pouch of gold I tuck in a loop on my belt, and I have a new cloak. My old one is hanging on a hook in my bedroom back home. I haven’t grown all that much, but I am taller now, and my old cloak only comes to mid-butt now, which would just look silly.

Mom made sure that all three of us have our own, that way we’ll all be harder to identify, not that it should be a concern for my friends.

I don’t have any armour or anything like that. I don’t know how to fight with it on, and it would be heavy besides. I do have a nice knife that I also strap to my belt. And that’s about it.

Once I have everything and I’ve double checked that I’m not forgetting something under my cot, I summon some little friends to hide in my cloak. A few butterbutts, some twinkle-fairies, a couple of spikeyboys; enough small monsters to give anyone pause.

“I’m ready!” I call out as I step out of my room.

“Me too,” Esme says as she steps out of her room. There’s this wafting stink of sickness to the air coming from behind her, but I choose not to comment on it. She’s suffered enough as it is. Esme’s got a big backpack on, a duffle bag next to her, and a second, smaller pack hanging by her hip thanks to a sling.

“You’re bringing all of that?” I ask.

“I didn’t bring anything for sea-sickness,” she says. “I’m not going to make the mistake of not having whatever I need.”

“I have a lot of stuff too,” Felix says. She has a backpack on, and three smaller duffle bags.

“How much of that is food?” I ask.

She looks guilty for a moment.

“You should probably leave some of that behind, we have a lot of traveling to do, you know.”

“Fine, fine,” she says.

The ship shivers, and I grin. We’ve arrived!

***