Amusingly, the port of Heron’s Reef resembled the bird it was named after. All the buildings stood on stilts that held them above the water. The roofs were made from gray-blue slate. The clapboard walls were gray with age and salt, but the trims around the windows and door were painted white. The color combination of slate, old wood, and whitewash mirrored the hues on the feathers of the large blue herons that fished the waters around the edges of the port.

The two young men approached the town somewhat disguised. They both had moved their armor into their packs. Kaid had zipped off on the last leg of the trip, returning with a couple of wide-brimmed straw hats that were commonly worn around the area. He had a fishing pole for himself while outfitting Joe with a basket and a net. It was unclear if he had bought, traded, or stolen the items. As they were fairly common items, Joe decided he didn’t care at this point. Their use as camouflage was surprisingly effective. While both he and Kaid were a bit paler than the locals, the addition of the fishing gear made them pretty much indistinguishable from everyone else.

The smuggler's tunnel was bigger than Joe expected. He had to stoop a little, but it was easily wide enough that he could have carried a load of illicit goods with him if he had one. In a few minutes, Kaid clambered a ladder up into an ‘abandoned’ hut. Closing the trapdoor behind them, they stepped out onto the dock-like streets with no one the wiser to their arrival.

As they were both hot and hungry, they had decided, before seeking out a ship, food was their first priority. Just a block away was a sign depicting a lounging frog in a mug of frothy ale, which beckoned to them.

The pair entered and took a seat at the table Kaid picked towards the side of the open floor. The room was a large open area with balconies forming a ring around a central bar. The beams were painted a deep emerald green, wreathed in chains of white and yellow paper flowers. The dark blue floor had green circles painted at random intervals. The room as a whole reminded Joe of lily pads on a lake. The cool colors eased the sense of being overheated, even if the room itself was not any cooler than it was outside.

“If anyone looks like they are coming at you, head for the side door there,” Kaid said, with a slight nod of his head. Joe tried to look without making it obvious he was doing so. “Let’s get a quick meal. Then after we eat, you grab supplies for your trip. I’ll find us a boat out of here.”

Before Joe could answer, a scaled woman stepped up to their table. “What can I get you, boys?” she asked in a voice that carried a slight hiss to its pronunciation. She was mostly a teal color, but rainbow-like highlights glinted in the sunlight coming through the windows. Joe found the effect almost mesmerizing.

“What do you have that is fast? We got a boat to catch in a bit,” Kaid replied.

“How does gator gumbo sound? Either that or fish skewers.”

“I’d like to try the gumbo,” Joe said.

“Skewers,” Kaid grunted. “Pints for both as well.”

“Please,” Joe added, which earned him a sharp-toothed smile.

“Coming right up, Hon.” She spun and sashayed away with an undulating step that made Joe think she had more of a serpentine background than a lizard one.

“Can you not?” Kaid hissed, leaning slightly over the table.

“Not what?”

“Be so blazy obvious. If someone comes asking about us, she probably won’t remember me at all. I did nothing to catch her notice. You got her smiling and flirting. You, she will remember.”

“I wasn’t flirting. I just said, ‘please’.”

“And then ya flashed her a big, dashing smile. We gotta stay off people’s assessment.”

“Sorry. I won’t say anything else to her.”

“No, don’t do that,” the little man groaned from behind a facepalm. “Berghal’s balls, Joe. Have you never tried to be inconspicuous before? Now, you have to keep being nice to her. Better she remembers a nice guy than feel snubbed and want to rat you out.”

Joe began to retort how most people he knew were not practiced in clandestine activities when his partner’s hiss, cut him off. “Here she comes, with the drinks. You pay and make sure to give her a tip.”

“I always leave a tip.”

Kaid rolled his eyes. “Of course you do.”

“Two ales. I’ll have the gumbo and the fish out in just a minute, Sugar.”

“Thanks,” Joe replied, now feeling overly self-conscious. He was sure he was now grinning too much at the serpentine server. Thankfully, he did not have to suffer long. As soon as the drinks were on the table, she wriggled back into the crowd, heading for another knot of customers.

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Joe took a big gulp of the beverage. It had been a very long time since he had been able to enjoy a good beer. His chemo and cancer meds had not gotten along with alcohol at all. He wished it was colder, but that first draught was blissful. The ale was crisp and refreshing. Joe let the drink slide down his parched throat, releasing a deep sigh.

A few minutes later, his meal arrived. The soup had a nice kick to it without being too hot. It tasted much like the gumbo from Earth, but a bit meatier since the crawfish and shrimp had been replaced by the heavier alligator meat. The weirdest part was the colors. The rice was bright yellow and the slices of what he took to be okra were baby blue colored.

Joe considered ordering a second portion but if he was going to be on a ship shortly, it was probably best not to stuff himself. Kaid finished his meal at about the same time and nodded his head toward the door.

“Yeah, I’m done, too,” Joe acknowledged. “What now?.”

“Okay. You are going to head a couple blocks that way, and you’ll find the general store. Big sprawling thing,” the gnome pointed toward the window behind their booth. “You can’t miss it. Try not to stand out, Joe. With any luck, we’ll have you en route to the Small Kingdoms on the afternoon tide. So, stay safe.”

Kaid left first. Joe finished his drink and then followed a minute later. Joe tried not to gawk even though he was now in his first big town in a real-life fantasy world. One that had a very unique feel to it. Heron’s Reef was a giant set of connected docks. He had seen shows about places like Bangkok and Vietnam, where the city and the waterways were fully integrated, but he had never been anywhere like it. The center of town was one massive slab of bound logs. Every now and then, there would be small gaps that showed glimpses of the water below. Underneath the sounds of the crowd, one could hear the constant swishing of water lapping against the poles.

Trying to look nonchalant, Joe headed along the road Kaid had advised him to use. After a few minutes, he entered a large timbered plaza where he could see dozens of hanging signs. As soon as Joe spotted a general store, he understood what Kaid meant by it was unmistakable.

Unlike Gurda’s neat, high-ceilinged, wide-aisled store, Rordgar’s Emporium was a series of connected small shops and shacks. The store looked like it had started with a decent-sized building and then expanded, connecting neighboring structures by adding walls across the alleys.

Inside was even more chaotic than the outside seemed. The connected rooms were filled with mismatched shelves, each one crammed with stuff for sale. Additional items were hung anywhere that seemed like they would fit.

As Joe moved away from the main door, and the most likely spot for a town guard to stumble into him, he passed an open barrel full of simple and second-hand pole weapons. Most were priced at a gold piece each. There was one blue-stained stave with a larger tag on it. The hanging card read ‘3 gp - Reinforcement charm’. He hadn’t worried about his real staves breaking before, but after the puma bit through the last makeshift one, reinforcement seemed like a good idea.

He had forty gold and change pieces to spend. He would have had a good chunk less, but he had found stashed in the supplies the Dellhams had given him a coin pouch with a dozen gold pieces worth of coins.

Having a staff that would not break if he needed to use it in an unorthodox manner seemed worth the couple of extra gold pieces. Joe smiled at the dumb mental image that popped into his head of levering a boulder over the edge of a cliff, Wile E. Coyote style. He grabbed the blue shaft and picked up a dozen basic rations.

He then hunted through the maze until he found the Skill Stones. Of course in Rordgar’s Emporium fashion, they were not nearly as organized as Gurda’s were. There were four baskets. Each stone had a tag for what skill it provided and a price. The baskets were not arranged by skill, attribute, or rarity. They were just lumped together by cost. The most full basket was the one with the cheapest stones. Joe couldn’t see all the prices but the highest price he could read was 8 gp. The next basket seemed to be between ten to fifty gold, and the other two were so far out of his price range that Joe just ignored them.

Joe grabbed the cheap stone basket and tried to quickly look through them. He knew he didn’t have a lot of time, so he would not be able to labor over his choices. He would have to take what he could readily find. At the same time, he was not going to just grab any old skill. Joe was aware that his choices now could impact his build for years to come. Unless the skill was something he really thought he could use, it was staying in the bin.

The crystals here were coated in a clear layer of wax, obviously to prevent shoplifting. A thief would have to peel off the wax in order to absorb the skill. Unfortunately, this meant that large groups of crystals were stuck together.

Joe first searched for the ones with red tags, indicating Strength-based skills. He currently had dedicated two points there as well as one extra point in Vigor. That meant, for Strength skills, he could learn a pair of common skills or one uncommon without spending his last free attribute point.

The problem was the lighting was terrible to read black ink on red tags. Additionally, many were missing tags or had tags that were crumpled or torn. Joe was beginning to sweat how long he was spending digging through the clumps of skill shards. Finally he stubble on a small clump of all red shards fused into one waxy blob. The one skill tag he could read was marked ‘Steadfast.’

Unlike Gurda’s, there was no skill guidebook here either. He would just have to go by the name on the tag. ‘Steadfast’ was usually a skill that had to do with either bravery or resisting being knocked prone. Considering it was a strength-based skill crystal, Joe assumed it was the second. Thinking back to the fights with the beetles and the cats, this seemed like one worth considering.

There was also something about the shard he liked. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but Joe felt drawn to the [Steadfast] crystal.

He was about to dig it out but then reconsidered. He would see if he could get a discount on the whole blob. Maybe there was a second spell in there he wanted. If not, he’d sell the extra at the next port he reached.

He flipped through the few shards that were free, looking quickly for anything that caught his eye. There were four that he liked the look of: two Vigor-based skills, [Poison Resistance] and [Stun Lock], a blue shard called [Retrieve], and a purple Spirit shard called [Stone Spike].

The [Stun Lock] stone was the most expensive, costing seven gold pieces. The others were between three and five gold. If Joe could get the blob for under ten gold, he’d have plenty for some rations. If not, he’d leave behind whatever he couldn’t afford at the counter. Time was more precious to him at the moment than new skills.