It was only two days later that the lookout in the basket on the tallest pole spotted something on the horizon to our left. That was the first time Aiko got to see the ship turn.

The crew began moving ropes that moved tarps around. One woman was turning a bit spiked wheel thing. Somebody else went down the back ramp and talked to the Merpeople in the bottom of the ship and let them know what was going to happen. Lastly, a guy came over to ask all of us who weren’t ship crew to hold onto the right rail tightly.

Aiko got a bit anxious at that point but did as asked. The whole ship began to tilt to the left side and somewhat slowly it began to turn that direction. The tilting kept up until a set of small wooden fins on the left side hit the water and then they kept it from going any farther.

Aiko had seen those fins on the ends of the poles hanging over the water but hadn’t asked what they were for. Now she knew and she was once again amazed at the level of ingenuity that went into the building of the ship. Clearly, there were some very talented people in the nation and Aiko would bet that the Premier had hired all of them.

Barely a minute later, the ship began to rock back the other way and the floor was level again. Merril had been busy hurling her breakfast at the fish the whole time. The orcish woman did not handle the motions of the ship well at all. A few of the other adventurers in other parties were like that as well and a few more had problems once the ship started moving really fast. Most of Zeyn’s party was fine though and Aiko herself never felt the least bit of discomfort from the motion.

In less than an hour, the ship had gotten close enough to see the land clearly. There was a huge expanse of gray sand beach that quickly melted into rolling grassy hills. It was beautiful. There were also mountains in the far distance.

The ship came to a stop a ways from the shore and the Merpeople took a big rope down and tied it to something underwater. They then began exploring the waters around the coast.

In a little under an hour, the Mer women came back. Aiko was the only one who could talk to them so it fell on her to translate what they found. It was quite awkward when they negotiated for the Merfolk additions to the crew because the Merfolk insisted that only women could go with them. That certainly went over well with the predominately male crew but Aiko was the only one who could hear the Mer women speculating about whether they could finally get pregnant and what their children might look like depending on which crew member was the father.

The Merfolk guided the ship into a deep depression along the beach area. Somehow the ship actually fit with enough room to spare on all sides that they would be able to turn the ship end for end. They then began unloading a few of the items from within the ship to check out the island.

Almost as soon as they began unloading things, they were attacked by the local wildlife. It was more of the giant crab creatures. None were as big as the one they had fought in Safeharbor but there were seven of them. Aiko used her trick of casting Chaos Knife where the blade was summoned inside the creatures and crippled five of them and went back to work unloading the ship. If the adventurers who came along couldn’t handle the only two that she hadn’t crippled, they were going to have words later.

That night, they had a giant crab feast and the Merfolk got their first taste of cooked crab. Unfortunately, it turned out that cooked crab meat was an aphrodisiac to the Mer women, or at least they claimed it was. Aiko was ready to get away from them because the mood got Brass excited and left her very sore. Honestly, who would have thought that fish people were so deprived or depraved!

The next day saw the adventurers, led by Zeyn’s party, exploring out into the hills to find a good spot to begin building the new fort that would overlook the port. One party was left behind to act as guards for the ship. Once they were in the taller grass, the next danger made itself known to them.

The three parties that were searching the hills were arrayed in a wedge with the fighting types in front of the casters and archers. Out of nowhere, one of the guys from the party on the right started yelling and hacking at the grass. A moment later, a huge three-headed snake rose out of the grass on that side.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Before Aiko or even any of the fighters could react, Shumai cast a lightning spell and the snake was left as a twitching writhing mess on the ground. The rest of the group descended on the incapacitated monster and the fight was on. One of the archers ended up with a broken leg but it didn’t take very long for the creature to fall to the overwhelming force of adventurers.

They had to drag it back but the meat was quite good and the scaled hide was left to be treated by the crew with salt water. The crew told them to let them handle it because they didn’t have much to do. There were apparently a couple of tanners who had joined the crew of the ship for a more adventurous life.

The next morning, everyone woke to the screaming of a crew member. They found him down the beach a little way, in a deep conical pit, buried up to his thighs, screaming about something eating him. One of the adventurer group leaders was a spearman and immediately thrust his spear into the sand beside the man.

Suddenly, the sand erupted all around them and the crewman was tossed cartwheeling into the air. He landed in a heap and didn’t move. What had tossed him became visible almost right away. A pair of long wickedly barbed mandibles were spread wide and snapped shut several times.

Everyone moved at once. Swords were slashed at the jaws to little effect. Aiko tried to cast her Chaos Knife into the creature but was jostled and lost the casting. Several people got in each other’s way.

A lucky stab with a sword at the soft part of the jaw’s hinge made the thing start moving seriously. It closed its jaws and started crawling backward up the side of the pit. As it backed through the sand, it left behind a furrow the size of an alleyway.

Aiko managed to scramble the thing’s insides with her next casting and the hack-and-slash types finished it off. The damage was done, however. The crewman who had taken a stroll on the beach to relieve himself was dead.

The next couple of weeks followed much the same pattern. The exploratory group ranged further and further out to get the lay of the land. One of the adventuring parties stayed behind each time with the unanimously agreed upon exception of Zeyn’s party. And work was begun in earnest to build a port.

The crew and the laborers on the ship worked on the port while the adventurers guarded them and scouted the area. In that time, the adventurers got well acquainted with the local wildlife and monster variants of them. They faced giant rodents, giant four-legged ground birds, giant lizards with too many legs, giant bugs with waaay too many legs, and even a few more snakes with too many heads, just for variety. And they ate the greater portion of it all.

There were also a few plant monsters in the mix. Quite literally, since they broiled the pod-like body of the crawling thornbush creature. They cut the giant constricting vine up and put it in a stew. Then there were the giant mushroom monsters. Those were used as edible serving bowls for a kind of monster-meat gravy.

The animal variety of the various monsters were often much smaller. Most of them also seemed to have only two or four legs and at most, the bird creatures had a pair of wings. However, many of the animals would also attack but in large numbers. There didn’t seem to be an end to the hostile creatures.

Despite the best efforts of the local populace to stop them, they built the docks and a few buildings on the beach. The adventurers had to scout far afield to find a copse of trees large enough to build with. They also had their work cut out for them when it came time to guard the laborers who went to gather that wood. It was an all-around pain.

One of the first buildings they made, after the dock was complete, was the waystation. This was a contribution of the mages, including Aiko to a small degree. Many mages contributed but somehow, Aiko could just feel whether they were going in the right direction with the research and development. It also gave her something to do during the winter months.

The waystation made use of the rare starmetal to create a magic beacon that navigators could track with a device that also used a tiny bead of starmetal. All one had to do was pray to the gods over the device for guidance to a certain waystation and one could feel the way there. The guidance worked through the worst kinds of conditions and from any distance but didn’t give more than direction.

With the name of the first port already decided before they left, people would be able to make their way to and from the two port cities immediately. There was already a waystation in Safeharbor. There were even talks of trying to make the process more efficient on starmetal use so that every town could have a waystation to guide those venturing into the surrounding wilderness.

With the majority of the building of the port built, construction of the fort began. The adventuring parties had to travel even farther to find wood to build the fort. In the end, a lot of the fort ended up being made of magically created stone. It took a long time to build that way but the safety of the laborers was the deciding factor.

Finally, three seasons later, the first ship, other than the one they came on, made dock at the port town of Newharbor.