The following day, Iris ventured onto the main deck for the first time in a while besides her brief excursion to catch Littletooth two nights prior. Since her injury she had avoided the main deck, especially during the day, due to Titus's insistence. According to him, she would just be a liability amongst the highly active crew as they manned the sails and conducted repairs. Now that she felt more comfortable moving around and blipping, however, she was back to her old ways.
"Sorry!" she shouted as she stepped aside to dodge a pirate carrying a large crate in her arms, before blipping past a particularly busy area of construction where the deck planks had been splintered and cracked from some kind impact.
"This is why we don't use powers on the ship," she overheard Nelson the boatswain say as he shook his head.
She quickly blipped again to gain distance, not wanting to reveal her recovery progress to her de-facto boss just yet -- besides, she reasoned to herself, she was still sore and shouldn't be working anyway. She passed by Grell, grumbling angrily to himself as he used one of his raggedy little daggers to pry off the same spike posts they had both nailed to the railing a several days prior. She felt mildly bad for not helping, but was also quite glad not to be stuck with him.
Even while the ship was underway, some repairs were still being made to sails that had been ripped or torn during the battle. Of the five masts, the one between the central main mast and the furthest forward mast -- Iris couldn't remember the names for any of them besides the main one -- was not in use. Instead, all its sails were fully closed, and one entire roll of sail was in the process of being removed so another could be affixed in its place. She watched diligently as she walked past, wondering if she would graduate to doing that kind of work during her time aboard the ship.
Next she came upon Misty, who was walking alongside Autumn as they inspected the various planter barrels placed around the deck. Iris blipped up behind them with the intention joining their conversation, but didn't announce herself when they failed to notice her arrival.
"I had to use a lot of the nutrients from the soil to grow vines for the battle," Misty was explaining, "we'll need to amend it with fertilizer or the crops will struggle. At least half the starboard barrels, and a few port side too."
"Can't you just pump some mana into them?" Autumn asked.
Misty shook her head, "I can use mana to make stuff grow faster, and as a less-than-perfect replacement for sunlight, but the nutrients and water still have to be in the soil for it to work."
Autumn sighed, "I'll add fertilizer to the list."
Already bored, Iris blipped away without ever being noticed. She soon reached the bow, where she blipped to the very peak of the deck and looked out into the distance. To her delight, there was land on the horizon. Two shores converged towards either side of a wide river, both sides populated with familiar redwood forest. Those were all the details she could discern at this distance, and it wasn't exactly anything new quite yet, but it still filled her with excitement to see what more the Giantrock region had to offer in its eastern lands.
She found a comfortable place to sit not far below the railing, on one of a pair of thin platforms that wrapped around either side of the bow -- presumably for easy maintenance access – before stopping on either side just before the large ivory bow fixture itself. She sat on the starboard side platform with her back resting against the hull and her feet dangling over the open air between her and the water far below. The wind was less than gentle as the ship cut through it, but she enjoyed the breeze on what would otherwise be a rather hot afternoon, and relaxed as she watched the land approach and let the day pass by.
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Eventually, more detail came into view. While the lands on both sides of the river were covered in redwood forest, the shores still presented quite differently. The southern shore was a rocky gravel beach while the shore to the northwest was a crumbling cliff side held up by the roots of the forest that wrapped over the edge of the cliff and hung downwards before doubling back and borrowing into the rock.
The river was plenty wide even for the massive ship, and flowed out of the lake to the southeast. It amazed Iris that so much water could flow out of the lake, yet it still remained full. She recalled the beaver dam along one of the tributary rivers to the northeast, and imagined the giant beavers might use the dams to regulate water levels of the lake.
She opened her journal and thought back to some notes she had taken, and the journal flipped through pages on its own until it landed on the section she had dedicated to handwritten notes. She couldn't ever be sure they were actually the same pages she had written on, however, as it always took a moment for shifting lines and shapes on the page to converge into the words she had written.
After a short while of perusing her notes, she found was she was looking for. The Great White, that's what Eli had once called this river. She glanced up from her journal towards the river, and quickly discerned why it was called that. As the waters of the lake converged towards the river and picked up speed, a strange white foam formed on the surface and drifted along with the currents. The foam was a brilliant white that almost glinted in the sunlight, and it caught on branches and rocks along the shore where it collected in patches. That explained the ‘white’ part of the name, and the sheer size of the river explained the ‘great.’
It wasn't long before the ship was truly departing the lake and entering the river. As the shores grew nearer on either side, many commands were shouted across the main deck and masts creaked as ropes were pulled and sails were adjusted in response. Though many sails were furled, the ship's forward speed didn't slow, the flowing river pulling it along in place of the lost wind.
The river seemed massive before, but now that the Gaping Maw sailed through it, it almost seemed small. With her back to the ship, it was almost easy to forget just how massive it truly was, and the towering redwoods and expansive river began to look much smaller. It was only when she blipped back to the main deck and was reminded of the enormity of the Gaping Maw that her mind seemed to half remember, half realize that the lake and surrounding forest were as equally magnificent in size.
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Victoria lay still in her hammock, her eyes were gently closed and her hands were folded softly across her chest. Underneath her still demeanor, however, a nightmare was brewing.
She found herself standing in an empty deck of the gaping maw on a dark and quiet night. It appeared to be the crew quarters, though all the hammocks, furniture and crew members were nowhere to be found. No glow stones were lit, and only faint starlight filtered through the port holes.
She stared out through a porthole at the flat, open expanse of water beyond. She knew this wasn't where the ship had been when she last looked, she knew there were no empty decks on the ship, and slowly it donned on her that she was dreaming.
She turned her back to the porthole and gasped, stumbling back against the hull. Before her loomed the Dreamweaver in her now true form, her torso melding into the thorax of a giant spider that crouched and spread its legs wide to fit within the ship. Thick webs now covered the deck, stretching from end to end and thoroughly trapping her where she stood.
"Pleasure to see you again so soon, my darling," the Dreamweaver said in a sultry voice.
Victoria straightened her expression into a stern glare, "I'm not your darling."
"Are you sure?" the Dreamweaver asked coyly as she twirled a finger in the air towards Victoria. Glowing purple lines began to shine through Victoria's skin, following the paths of her arteries and ultimately emanating from the center of her chest, "my mark says otherwise."
"What do you want?" Victoria asked flatly.
"You'll be meeting the giants, soon," the Dreamweaver said, cutting off her sultry attitude for a matter-of-fact explanation, "Clement will speak with their council, and the events of this summer will no doubt be discussed. Find your way into the chamber -- it shouldn't be hard for you -- and take note of everything the giants say. I will visit you again in the coming weeks for your report."
"Why do you care?" Victoria asked, "I thought you were running away from all this?"
The Dreamweaver laughed, "running is precisely what I'm doing, darling." her demeanor abruptly grew darker, "that doesn't mean the responsibilities won't chase me."
Victoria's eyes opened. She was back in her hammock, amidst the ambience of snoring pirates and a creaking ship.