The Harmony arrived at Harvest Sanctuary sooner than Vayra expected. The ship’s bell began to toll as soon as the planet came into view.

Vayra ran up to the quarterdeck. Harvest Sanctuary floated in the void ahead of them, a little autumnal-orange speck along the Stream, with a bright star far behind it. The closer they got to it, the more moons Vayra picked out. A bright blue one, a pure white one, a pink one. The Stream didn’t connect to them.

“Did your brother put the moons there, too?” Vayra whispered to Phasoné, leaning on the front railing of the quarterdeck.

‘He only adjusted their appearance,’ Phasoné replied. ‘Though years of hard work and dedicated power, he altered their compositions, so they reflected the best sorts of light on the planet at night—the best sorts for growing alchemical ingredients, that is.’

“I thought the Gods…or, I suppose Emissaries, you call yourselves, could create planets out of nothing.”

‘None are that powerful yet,’ said Phasoné. ‘But our advancement does not end upon our ascension, and some of the Pantheon are more powerful than others.’

By now, Harvest Sanctuary appeared the size of a fist. About half of it was covered in land, and the other half was water.

‘That’s fresh water, too,’ Phasoné said. ‘All of it. Do you see the massive purification rune-circles?’

Vayra nodded. Hovering just above the planet’s ocean were circles of brown runes. She couldn’t read or understand them, but she trusted Phasoné’s word on it.

‘They captured the salt from the oceans and sent it all the way up to that pure white moon,’ Phasoné finished.

The rest of the planet—what wasn’t water—was forest and farmland. Streaks of flaxen wheat ran across entire continents, and orange, red, and purple forests waited in-between. There were only a few flecks of green.

‘Those are greenhouses,’ Phasoné commented. ‘The biggest you’ll ever see.’

The Stream connected to the planet just north of its equator—a short journey from the shore.

“It’s a big planet…” Vayra breathed, the enormity of the task dawning on her. How much would they have to search dn how far would they have to travel?

‘It’s a good thing I know exactly where to go to get the best loot out of this place.’

“Ms. Vayra!” Pels called. “We’re making our final approach now! Keep an eye out for other ships, and be ready! I’m sure there will be other God-heirs around!”

Vayra inhaled sharply. Not only did they have to run around, searching an entire planet, this would be the highest concentration of powerful God-heirs she had ever faced.

‘You’ll do fine as long as you keep your wits about you and don’t do anything stupid,’ Phasoné said. ‘Which I know is expecting a lot of you, but hey’—more footsteps began to thud up the quarterdeck stairs—‘at least you’ve got Glade and Nathariel along.’

Sure enough, Glade and Nathariel were climbing the stairs.

“How are we going to get to the surface, Captain?” Nathariel asked. “This is an Elderworld controlled planet, and we are in Elderworld space.”

“Aye, but take a look around on the stream,” Pels said. “And not just planet-gazing, like birdy up there.”

“Hey!” Vayra narrowed her eyes at him and shook her head, but she couldn’t resist looking around to see what he meant. She picked a spyglass out of a drawer on the front of the wheel hub and pointed it out to the Stream.

On all sides, glowing specks raced towards the surface with them. They sailed along the ocean-width river, and all were too far away to make out. But they had to be ships. There were more behind, and more ahead. And, when they entered the atmosphere, she picked out a few glowing specks lingering just offshore of the planet’s Stream-facing coast.

“I think it’s safe to say that there will be too many ships,” Pels said. He pulled his hat tighter to his head, then patted Nathariel on the shoulder. “If there is any local security, they won’t pick us out of the crowd. They probably won’t even pay attention to us.”

“They will if we are flying Velaydian colours,” Glade grumbled.

Pels raised a finger and opened his mouth, then turned around. A red and beige striped Velaydian navy flag hung off the stern. “Ah, you win this time. But I’ll have the last laugh when I tell Kertogg and Tressdot that we’re gonna sail under false colours—I’ll put them to work taking down the flags.”

Vayra snickered under her breath, then put the spyglass back in its drawer.

“But, Admiral,” Pels said, delivering an exaggerated bow to Nathariel, “if you wouldn’t mind heading to the tops and keeping one of your eyes on things, I would appreciate your assistance.”

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“I know what it sounds like when someone is trying to get rid of me,” Nathariel said softly. “And you don’t have to call me Admiral. It isn’t a navy rank.” He stepped closer to the Captain and loomed over him.

Pels cleared his throat. “Uh…yes. Understood.”

“I can sense all I need from here. An Admiral’s spiritual senses extend far. There is a Lieutenant-stage God-heir in the ship to our left, and there are three Masters’ Mates and a Master in the ship ahead. To our right, just astern, there is a Captain—and a true Captain.”

Vayra’s stomach dropped. Myrrir?

But he had advanced to Commodore, hadn’t he? It couldn’t have been him.

Still, the thought sent a pang of phantom pain to the stubs of her limbs. For a brief second, a jade sword flashed through her mind, and bone crunched. Her stomach churned. She inhaled sharply and pressed her eyes shut.

When she opened them, everything was…normal. As normal as it could be. She held out her mechanical hand and sent pulses of Arcara through it, contracting the fingers. Then she tucked it behind her back and ordered the fingers to clasp together—without even watching. She clasped her own wrist.

Her hand clamped down tighter than it had been able to before. The stronger, higher-grade Lieutenant Arcara that she could gather…well, it made the hand feel physically stronger. She released it, having nearly left a bruise on her flesh-and-blood arm.

She practiced opening and closing her fingers five more times before they reached the surface. The Stream sloped down gently into the surface of the ocean, and the Harmony slipped off it.

The shore was a distant band on the horizon now, sandwiched by a perfectly clear ocean on one side and a bright turquoise sky on the other. As far as Vayra could see, there were no proper cities. A network of tents and campfires, however, had grown along the Stream-facing coast.

“Tent village?” Vayra asked. “They won’t be a problem, will they?”

Pels shrugged. Nathariel raised two fingers and placed them on the bridge of his nose, then shut his eyes. A wave of invisible willpower pushed away from him, and Vayra doubted she would have sensed it before advancing to Lieutenant. He opened his eyes after a few seconds and said, “At this distance, I will have difficulties sensing threats. When I project my perception, it doesn’t always return. But it seems like the most powerful God-heirs have already ventured inland, or are still arriving.”

“The tent city is just opportunists,” Glade said. “I would expect most of them to be mortal, even. They are just trying to make the most of a fiasco like this—selling wares, trinkets, hospitality.”

Vayra blew a puff of air out her nose. “Alright, then. Doesn’t sound like a place worth visiting.” She put her hands on her hips and turned in a circle. To the south, there was an endless expanse of sea. It didn’t smell like the ocean, but instead, like a clean river, and the wind was pleasant (if not a little warm). To top it all off and frame the view, the misty outlines of the enormous rune circles still hovered above the ocean…somehow.

‘Wind Arcara,’ Phasoné provided. ‘Thanks to our mother’s influence on my brother’s Path, he was able to demonstrate enough lasting Emmisarial authority over wind to make the runes stay in place. Then, it was up to his enormous stores of mana and Arcara to fuel it.’

And to the north was the shore, where the bow of the ship pointed. “Alright, Phas,” Vayra whispered. “You’re our guide. I’d…uh, appreciate it if we could get a little bit more than just some sightseeing. Not that I mind the sights.”

She didn’t at all, truly. Harvest Sanctuary probably had enough sights to spend a century exploring the planet, and she still wouldn’t see them all.

But there was the issue of duty, still.

‘How’s our map situation?’ Phasoné asked.

Vayra glanced back at the navigator’s table. They had brought up some sector maps from their room belowdeck, but nothing of the surface of the world. They hadn’t had anything for the surface of the planet. Right now, the navigators had set out a blank sheet, and a cartographer was starting to sketch the coastline as best as he could.

“We could use some help drawing the surface of the planet.

‘Just give me one second…’ Phasoné said. The starlight in Vayra’s scarf leaked out. It condensed into white lines, and within a second, the ghostly outline of Phasoné stood beside her.

The navigators leapt back from the table, nearly spilling the ink—until Pels calmed them down.

Now outside of Vayra’s head, Phasoné’s voice was audible to all. “Let’s see. If you give me the quill, I can start sketching the surface layout.”

“You’re not using my Arcara when you do that, are you?” Vayra whispered.

“I’m drawing on my own stores, now,” the Goddess replied. “Our link is strong enough, and you are strong enough, to start pulling in some of my old Arcara.” As she spoke to Vayra, she sketched a rudimentary map on the sheet of parchment. “The essence of my body, before I left to serve as Mediator, was scattered around the cosmos. It will reform when our duty is complete.”

When Phasoné finished talking, she had a map drawn. She had continued drawing the coastline, then dragged little globs of ink off perpendicularly. There were inlets all along the coast, which travelled inland and irrigated the crops with a freshwater and spirit-water mixture.

“So…all the crops on this planet are spirit-grains, then?” Vayra asked. “Nurtured with Stream water?”

Phasoné tapped the quill on the rim of the inkwell elegantly, then gave a flourish of her wrist and began to label the map. Her handwriting was perfect, and she didn’t even seem to be concentrating. “Almost all. But those are the simple ones. The best, you’ll find in the inland greenhouses—along with the treasures and elixirs that he made when he was still alive. If most people get a vial of the water used in those greenhouses, they’d be set for life. There’d be enough almost-purified Arcara in there to take you from Mate to Quartermaster in a swig—and a bunch of those will be more than enough to fuel you through the Lieutenant stages.”

“We’re going to need directions soon,” Pels warned. The wind down here filled the saild—regular, surface sheets. “Unless running around aimlessly is part of your plan.”

“If you give me the wheel?” Phasoné said.

“Not happening.” Pels paced around in front of the coxswain, hands behind his back. “Tell us where to go.”

“Fine.” The ghosty outline of Phasoné walked back to the front railing of the quarterdeck, but the moment she got more than ten feet from Vayra, she stopped, as if pressing up against a wall. “Vayra, I’ll need a little more leash…”

Vayra shrugged. “I’m not holding anything.”

“There’s likely a limit to how far she can get from you,” Nathariel said. “Just stick close to each other.”

Vayra nodded and ran with the Goddess up to the front railing of the quarterdeck. Squinting into the morning sun, Phasoné pointed slightly northeast. “Head for that channel. If I can remember the route, it should take us right past one of the biggest greenhouses on this continent. If we go fast, we might get there before anyone else loots it.”