"I looted it from a human warship that I sunk."

Stillwater says "You managed to sink a human warship? How?!"

"It was while I was still hunting for the legendary beast. I was a giant shark at the time."

Stillwater says "You are truly terrifying! I am glad we are not enemies!"

"I am not that scary. Anyway, I am going to get back to my mission now."

Stillwater says "Alright, anything we can do?"

"Not really. Although, if you can figure out a way to improve the catapult or ballistas, that would be great!"

Stillwater says "No promises, but I will have my people take a look."

"Alright, I should be back in a few days."

After shifting back to an eagle I take off again, but I only make it to the mountains before losing the light. An eagle is not a night flying bird, so I find a clearing, land, and set up camp. I wake up before dawn to have breakfast and as soon as the sun comes up I take off.

Once I am in the air I head straight towards the main continent, which takes me three hours. I don't bother going by the fort, it has only been a day, not much will have changed. Thanks to the charts, I know where the ports are on the eastern part of the continent.

Once I reach the coast of the main continent I turn to follow it to the south. Out of the two ports closest to the island, the one to the south is slightly closer. When I reach the city I circle for a bit to observe until I find a tower with a view of the harbor.

Then I land and perch on the tower so that I can take my time to examine everything. The harbor does have a shipyard and that is what I am paying the most attention to. Currently there are five ships under construction, but they are all medium sized.

What I was hoping to find was a warship being built, since that is the closest to what I want to build. However, I want to learn as much as I can so I spend the rest of the day watching the work on the five ships. Not only is there no warship being built, but I don't see any warships in the harbor.

It makes me doubt whether or not this port is the one sending ships to the island. This kingdom has a larger port further to the south, but I think the port to the north might be a better option. However, for now I keep watching the activity in this shipyard since I am here.

While I don't learn anything new from observing, I at least manage to verify some of my theories. Unfortunately, the normal process of shaping the keel, building the frame, and adding planks doesn't help me. I will be skipping all of those steps and directly shaping the ship from the tree.

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After spending the day watching I camp out for the night on the tower and in the morning I fly north. The port in the north is much bigger than the one in the south, it is also a different kingdom. As soon as I cross the kingdom's border I know this is the one sending troops to the island.

That is because the troops guarding the border are wearing the same uniform as those I saw at the fort. According to the map, the northern kingdom is the smaller of the two. However, the military presence of the northern kingdom looks to be a lot stronger.

As I continue north I spot a couple of smaller warships patrolling along the coast. From the design I would say this is definitely the kingdom invading the island. When I see the port city, which is also the capital, I am even more sure.

The harbor is crowded with ships, including one brand new warship that is identical to the one I sank. The harbor has two shipyards, the one on the south side is building merchant ships. From the look of the wood it is a fairly old shipyard, the one to the north is the opposite.

It is only building three ships, but they are all warships, and from the look of the shipyard it is fairly new. It looks like the kingdom recently invested a lot of money into their navy. Of the three warships, one is nearing completion while the other two are in the early stages.

Judging by that it is safe to guess that the warship I sank and the one in the harbor were recently finished in this yard. The docks next to the shipyard catch my attention because I see troops boarding a ship. When I look around I see supplies and materials being loaded onto several ships.

What bothers me the most is that the loading is being done by slaves, including elves. Especially when I see them struggling to load cut stone blocks onto a ship. Stone is not something normally transported by ship, it isn't valuable enough.

However, the fact that I saw the humans using stone to rebuild the fort explains it. After all, it is not like they have set up a quarry on the island, so they would have to bring them by ship. The cost of shipping over enough stone for a fort would be astronomical.

This tells me that the kingdom is deadly serious about taking over the island. Whether it is because they want more land or for some other reason, I don't know. Just the amount of money they are investing tells me it won't be easy to make them give up on the idea.

Luckily, I don't have to, I just need them to be kept busy until I can get the elves off the island. Although, there being elven slaves here doesn't surprise me, but now that I have seen them I want to rescue them. The problem is how to get them to the island once I rescue them.

For that I would need a ship, and the ability to sail the ship to the island. While taking over a ship wouldn't be too hard, sailing it is another story. The other problem is, the slaves on the docks are probably not the only ones in the city.

I need more information before I can try to come up with a plan, but there isn't much I can do in broad daylight. So for now I turn my attention back to the shipyard and watch the construction. One man seems to be in charge of the entire place and I would love to be able to talk to him.

However, that won't be easy, there are soldiers at every entrance of the shipyard. They are stopping and checking everyone who enters, so sneaking in probably won't work. I could just walk up and ask for a job, but I don't know if they use any type of identification.

I would also love to sneak in and take a closer look at the nearly completed warship. With the eagle's eyesight I can see pretty much everything that is currently going on. However, I can't see inside the ship since the deck is currently being added.

It looks like both my problems are going to have to wait until it is dark. Since I still have some time before dark, I fly up and start memorizing the layout of the city. I pay special attention to alleys and any area that has a higher amount of guards.