53 - Face the Music

Joe stepped out into the open air. Thankfully, Azbekt was not parked right outside his cabin, which eased some of his tension, but he was still nervous. He was afraid that people would be angry with him. He was sure his skills had been needed and yet he had slept the night away. By the looks of it, a fair portion of the morning as well.

Instead of the expected resentment, Joe was surprised by the warmth of his greeting. Hands clasped his shoulder and arms, giving him gentle touches and firm squeezes. He was showered with gratitude by their smiles and kind words. Sailors and passengers alike stepped up to him and shook his hands. There was none of the animosity he had feared.

Almost none. The only stormcloud was the thunderously scowling dwarf sitting on the raised aft deck. It seems his formidable defense of the ship had earned Azbekt upper-deck privileges. Joe ignored the myrmidon and activated his aura sight. Looking at the crowd on deck, he picked the most severely hurt and got to work.

Cendi Haill was his first patient. She was one of the deckhands he had seen cutting the troll nets. Cendi, like Joe, had received several broken bones for her efforts. One of the Gartrolls had stomped on her hand as she was freeing the netted prisoners. Her hand was a mess of bent purple digits. Joe could tell she was putting on a tough face but there were tears of pain threatening to spill down her cheeks. As soon as he used [Deadened Flesh] on her shattered hand, she breathed out a deep sigh of relief.

“Sorry, I took so long to get out here.”

“Hey, none o’ that, boyo,” she bossed in a rough sailor’s tone. “Yer here now. Be longer before I could see o’ mender in the city, and it’d cost me all me wages. Yer saving me from a very dry shore leave,” she stated with a wink and a nod. “If you can fix this busted rooker, then it was worth the wait.”

Her candid banter gave Joe focus. He looked into the hand and started working out what he thought would be the best way to put it right. Parla was there to help him again, and so was a new face, Elmar Soly. The sailor, who was the first one he had saved the night before, helped brace Cendi’s arm while Joe and Parla straightened the fractured fingers. The pair of them moved with Joe from patient to patient.

Somewhere around the fourth or fifth patient, someone handed Joe a warm plate of stew, which he practically inhaled, both from hunger and from the amazing flavors. Either the ship’s cook was a genius chef or the crew had allowed a skilled refugee to prepare a meal. Wakely offered him his flask to wash it down, but Joe declined, not wanting to burn away all those wonderful lingering tastes.

Once Joe had made it to everyone who could not easily move, Yago laid out a shaggy hide rug for him to sit on. The remaining injured came to him or healed in the [Homefire] aura radiating from a barrel parked beside the thick, soft hide. Even though the area had close to doubled, the mana use was significantly less taxing.

Joe used the seemingly endless materials from his satchel along with his spells. The Gartroll bites were mildly venomous. If the person bitten was only Sickened, Joe could use [Purge] to remove the effect. If they had the Poisoned condition then Joe gave them some antitoxin as well. Thankfully, he never had to replenish the supplies. Every time he reached in there were always more bandages and salves to be had.

After a few hours, the line of people ended, and Joe was exhausted once more. He gave himself a shot of [Efferous Endurance], but his weariness was less physical and more emotional. Between the battle the previous day, his own recent injuries, the non-stop hurt of those around him, and the looming thunderhead that was Phealti’s champion, Joe felt frazzled. He laid back on the rug and closed his eyes for a minute until he felt a cool cloth on his brow. He looked and saw Parla smiling at him.

“You have done much good, healer. This is for you,” Parla stated, placing a wide, ornately tooled belt in front of Joe. He sat up quickly, surprised by their generosity.

“Wait. I can’t take this. You all have lost so much. I’m not going to clean you out of the little you have left.”

Joe was about to say more when his eyes landed on Yago’s frowning face. “Highlanders pay their debts,” the large aresa rumbled.

Looking around at all the expectant faces, he knew it would be rude to reject them. “Thank you all. I don’t know what to say. Just thank you.”

“Good thing yer a Healer, boyo. Ye’d make a terrible bard if that be yer best oritorizing.”

“I don’t think that’s a word, Wakely,” Joe rebuffed, though he was thankful for the man’s defusing distraction.

He ran his hands over the smooth leather. The belt had three loops on either side of the buckle that looked like they would be perfect for holding potions. The patterns stamped into the leather had small arcane symbols tucked into the swirling designs.

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[Basic Alchemy Belt] (Item: Waist - Uncommon): Minor defense. This belt enhances any alchemy-based skills by 15%. Additionally, items stored in the pouch or potion loops gain [Greater Glass Ward], which provides objects made of glass with maximum physical damage resistance. Lastly, you can use a mental command to have a potion in one of the loops teleport into your hand. You can specify if you wish the bottle to be opened during the transference. {Alchemy}

Joe had not considered alchemy as a trade but the idea appealed to him. He had played an alchemist in the past and the character had been a blast, always on the lookout for weird and rare items to craft with. The character, Dorian, was one of the few of Joe’s who’d never had money problems either. As a matter of fact, the alchemical artisan ended up bankrolling the whole team. If Illuminaria was anything like his tabletop games, then crafting could be both fun and lucrative.

When he looked up from the belt, Joe was surprised to see treetops peeking over the sides of the ship. He stood up, donning the belt at the same time, and saw the ship was working its way along a coastline. Thirty-foot tall seacliffs made of pale tannish stone lifted the coast out of the ocean. Joe ran his eyes over the crest and spotted a few small houses with paths working their way down the cliffside to the water. The top of the rise was covered in scrub grass and some wind-bent trees.

He and Wakely walked up to the railing, where Joe looked down. The blue water here was so clear he could make out the seafloor. The cliffs extended below the waves at least a hundred feet to aqua-tinted sand and what looked like shelves of coral.

“How long before we dock?” he asked the booze-hound at his side.

“Givin’ the tide, not more than half an hour, I’d say. Let me buy ye a drink when we get there. I know just the place.”

“I don’t think that choice will be up to me,” Joe replied glumly. Wakely tossed him a curious look, to which Joe nodded his head up at the glaring dwarf. Azbekt had moved to the railing of the aft deck. He was staring right at them. Joe could see the dwarf's pale knuckles as his hands tightly clenched the wood.

“You need us to keep him busy for ya, Joe?” Wakely whispered, using his name for the first time. The sailor’s voice was pitched low and earnestly. This was not the clowning sailor who had taught him how to piss. “He’s one scary digger, but ye only need ta ask, an these folks will bum-rush the bruiser ta give ya a chance.”

“No! Nobody gets hurt on account of me. And besides I’m pretty sure it’s all a big misunderstanding. It’s better if I just let him do his thing. That way, I can get this cleared up once and for all. Then we can think about me joining the crew.”

The grizzled sailor held eye contact longer than Joe was comfortable with. “Really, Wakely. Don’t do anything. It will be fine.”

“If ye say so, boyo. Want something to brace ya, or do ya need a clear head?”

Joe hesitated a moment before holding out a hand. “Both. Just a small sip.”

The shot burned its way down to his gut, but it did center his nerves. He put aside his fear of the upcoming encounter and watched the coast slide by. He leaned out over the railing, allowing him to lean out even further. He could see they were headed for a break in the tall cliffs, leading into a circular bay.

From the angle the ship was coming in, Joe could only see the far side of the shore, but this was clearly no fishing town like Heron’s Reef. Joe could easily see a hundred buildings that ran gently uphill from the shore. Given that he could only see about a fifth of the bay at this point, the port’s population had to be in the thousands.

As the ship closed, more and more of the town was revealed. Joe could see docks and ships filling the shoreline where the buildings met the bay. The vessels ranged from a few massive sailing ships to dozens of small single-sail fishing boats. Those about the same size as the Tide Dancer were quite common. Countless small rowed watercraft crossed the harbor as well.

Behind the piers, the land sloped upwards until it reached the level of seacliffs. This allowed most homes to have a view of the ocean. The buildings were almost all built from light stone and timbers. They were capped by roofs of clay shingles. About half were the orangy red of terracotta, but the other half looked like the clay had been dyed in shades of blue or green.

Had Joe not known he was heading to his arrest, he would have been looking forward to walking those seaside streets. He let himself have one more deep sigh before turning around; only to find himself face-to-face with Hah’roo. He hadn’t heard a sound from her as she moved up behind them.

“I will meet you in Temelmont Square,” her breathy-voice huffed. “That is surely where Azbekt will take you. You will know it when you get there. Churches surround the plaza. Do not let him bring you inside any specific church. When you reach the plaza, tell him that you wish to be judged by the Fourfold Court.”

Her fingers took his chin, locking their eyes. “This is most important. Temelmont Square. Fourfold Court.”

“Uh, ok. What do you mean ‘Meet me there’?”

“I have an errand to run. Remember those words,” she said with an intent expression.

“Temelmont Square. Fourfold Court. Got it. What errand?”

“There is not enough time. Have faith. I will see you soon.”

Hah’roo bounced up off the deck to balance on the railing. She pulled her hands apart, stretching a web of strings taut. A jet of mist shot out of the spaces between the cords. The vaporous stream arched towards the shore. After a quick last look at Joe, the galeling warrior leapt forward and landed on the ribbon of clouds. Her feet sank an inch into the gaseous span before it took her weight. A second later, the huntress was sprinting across the impossible vaporous bridge, allowing her to reach the wharf well before the ship lines were even thrown.

As the wind-dancer disappeared into the crowd, Joe’s stomach did a small flip. He knew that he was going to have to give himself over to Azbekt, but he did not realize how much he had been counting on the calming presence of Hah’roo until she was gone. The thought of facing the stern, fierce warrior alone filled Joe with a sense of dread.

“Ye look like ya swallowed a jiggly-fish, boyo. Ye sure ye still got this?”

“Don’t really have any better options, Wake,” he groaned. “Guess it’s time to go get myself arrested.”

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