The next morn brought with it what felt like a combination of a nasty hangover and some serious sinus congestion. I woke up and immediately sneezed, wincing at the burning in my lungs and my sore throat.
Well I felt like crap, but at least I got a good amount of sleep. Peering out a brightly lit porthole next to my bunk gained me a spike of pain that made my head throb, and my frustration with my fatigued condition grew. It was well after sunrise. I had missed the cool of dawn for any attempt at hunting.
Changing into light hunting clothing, I checked my old and heavily customized cutlass in its scabbard, then strapped on my best fighting harness. It had belonged to mom, but she wouldn’t be needing it anymore and I was starting to grow into it now.
Not long ago, it had fit me too loose to be safe, but now it was easy to adjust the straps for my quickly growing frame and it’s well worn and oiled leather straps were becoming as familiar as my old fighting rig. The crystals in the fighting rig were different than what I had on my normal flight harness, and more importantly, there was a larger ballast stone secured to the back in a small artifice called a skimmer.
Rigs like my mom’s were the most expensive to own and they allowed a magi to pour some power into the ballast and “skyhop” for short flights, or use stored power from containment crystals, in the case of people who didn’t have any way to charge the ballast. The rest of the body harness could morph into a wingsuit and would direct the energy from the ballast along the body much like the enchanted hull of Sweetwind channeled and focused her own energy for more efficient propulsion. It was the best way to board enemy airships or sky whales, and could save your life if your hold fast line was cut by acting like a slowfall in just the same way most fight harnesses could.
After a quick visit to the head, I gave a splash of tepid water on my face from the small rain barrel on deck. Clipping myself to the mainmast’s assist rail I used its enchanted clip races to hoist myself aloft into the Sweetwind’s small mainmast and up into the lookout.
There was a small auxiliary helm up there that could be used by the watch tender to make an emergency course adjustment. More importantly, there was a telescope mounting. I pulled the little brass telescope from its waterproof case on the side of the watch compartment, and fixed it to the mounting.
The telescope could be traversed along the rail all the way around the mast’s lookout post and I used it to try and scan up along the cliff walls in the valley and scanned the treetops of the thick canopy.
There was little to see along the cliffs, and my search for any sort of game along the tops of the canopy didn’t seem to be bearing much fruit.
My eyes narrowed as I zeroed in on a large flock of colorful birds erupting out of the morning mist far down the little valley. Squinting I and bit the side of my lip as I tried to consider what had startled them. Finding little to indicate the culprit, I sighed and turned the instrument around until I spotted a small heard of grazing dwarf deer that I knew were common to these islands from previous stops. They were from past experience, quite tasty. My mouth watered with the possibility of fresh meat, something I hadn’t had for nearly a month.
Unclipping the telescope, I gave a feral grin of expectation in the direction of the small herd as I secured the waterproof case and slid down the small mast, easing my slide with a slight thrum from my harness.
I floated gently across the deck from the mast, the harness carrying me as I slowly fed power into it, opening my arms and letting the breeze catch my wingsuit webbing on the harness, lazily riding the breeze as I slowly drifted downwards.
Grabbing the railing I yawned and arched my back against the side of the ship as I stretched out, taking a deep breath and trying to steady my shaking hands. I felt a lot better now that I was back in my harness, but I still longed to be a thousand feet aloft, with the wind at my back. That was where I belonged, and not landfasted like some sort of grubber.
I exulted in a weightless hover there as I closed my eyes, counting to ten and scanning the area around. Giving a bit of a giddy whoop I did a summersault as I pushed off the side of the skiff and extended my arms, using the wingsuit to control my trajectory as I slid slowly through the shimmering barrier around the Sweetwind. My skin prickled and my hair frizzled out a bit then lay back down as I passed the structure of my warding. Squinting through my googles with one hand I began adjusting a dial on the side of them manually, raising the tint to block out the morning sun shining in my eyes as I drifted silently towards the small heard of dwarf deer.
Reaching into one leather snap pouch in my harness I pulled out a small round shocksphere and clenched it in my hand as I charged it with my power and concentrated on my target, a larger buck that was looking around and sniffing the wind. I turned the ballast in the harness and slid back as I wound up my hand and thrust it forward, focusing my will on the sphere and my arm.
There was a hissing crackle of power and the sphere hurled forward at deadly speed, aimed with the precision of long practice. The object raced the short distance like a burning, fizzling ember and slammed into the side of the buck. It gave a startled bleat, causing pandemonium in the small herd who all bolted as the buck tumbled onto ground, twitching. Angling downwards I gave a war whoop and pounced onto the deer. With perfect grace, my body grappled it, and a hand flashed to the side of my harness for a weapon. A split second later the dirk slammed into the deer’s heart in one quick stroke and I clutched the creature tightly as I felt it struggle it’s final gasps under me in a death spasm.
After it was still, I tried to stand up, my world spinning and my stomach going in circles as I tried once again and failed to catch my balance. Crouching down I took a deep breath and hunted around the ground until I found my shocksphere and pocketed it, my hands still shaking and my heart still pounding.
Fishing around in the same pouch as my shockspheres, I pulled out a small piece of ballast in a gyroscopic mounting along with a small net that I wrapped around the carcass. I wanted to get this kill away from any predators, and I was feeling uneasy about what was inside the nearby tree line. I had always known I had a sixth sense for danger, and something wasn’t right. The unearthly silence was more than just the startled break in the morning routine I had inflicted. Things were still hiding, even after I had made a kill.
Quickly pushing a drop of power into the ballast to lighten the burden, I pushed off and pulled the kill behind me as I fled towards the Sweetwind. Behind me I heard a piercing cry and I turned to see nothing but the ominous dark interior of the nearby jungle. I gulped, and tried to swallow the dry lump forming in the back of my mouth and gripped the small net my kill was held fast in as I propelled myself hurriedly away.
It wasn’t until I was back inside the barrier and had collapsed onto the deck of the Sweetwind that I took a deep breath of relief. In an instant my spyglass was at my eye from my waist and scanning the canopy again, blood thundering in my head as I tried not to panic. It took a few seconds until my nerves recovered and I allowed myself to look at my prize with a grin of triumph.
I dressed my kill at the bottom of Sweetwind’s aft cargo hatch, a lifting boom holding the small buck up as I drained the blood and butchered.
When I was done, I used the external water tap to wash my hands off and I sagged down against the ramp, trying to think about the fact that I would have meat in my diet for the first time in weeks instead of waybread, jerky or cooked rice. Even the prospect of a savory stew for dinner couldn’t draw my thoughts away from that feeling of dread that had overwhelmed me.
I was scared yes, but also curious. These small islands typically didn’t have anything more dangerous than a hexapuma or, the occasional primitive gnoll infestation. What if it was a drake? I could make good money selling wyvern or drake scales. Even a small one would net me enough to finally finish Sweetwind’s overhaul. Her ballast mounting needed replacing and I was missing the reagents to do a full tracing of all of her wardings. If I could bag something valuable while here, I could make my delivery then lay up for a bit at the local dockyards and get my service time in. I bit my lip and rubbed my damp hands over my tired eyes and groaned as I stood up.
Whatever was out there, I didn’t feel like running from it until at least I figured out what it was. As I looked out through the shimmering bubble of my ward, out towards the nearby meadow in front of the tree line I froze and my blood went cold. There were figures out there where I had made my kill. I gave a yelp and nearly fell over in my haste to jump up while feeding power into my harness so I could get a vantage point from the deck of the Sweetwind
I peered through my spyglass just in time to see the group of what had to be humans disappear back into the jungle. There was no way those had been gnolls or pygmy gnomes. My blood froze as I realized that they may be pirates or something. There were no recorded friendly tribes of islanders or trading outposts here according to my charts.
Well that settled it. I would have to lift ship and get the heck off the island. Unnatural monsters I could deal with, even a small flying menace like a wyvern or a skycat, but other people could mean anything. I had heard chilling stories about some of these islands recently. Ever since the travelers had returned, some of the islands were becoming pirate havens, some were saying by the travelers themselves.
While that hardly made sense, given the legends about the travelers, from ages long past. Something about the new tales I had been hearing did make me uneasy due to a few new experiences with them. I had run into some of these new travelers while in Port Salwar a few weeks ago and they were very odd.
They really didn’t seem to understand much about Endaria, and were often exceptionally rude and demanding. One had been trying to book passage on my skiff and somehow had expected that I was supposed to put up with them for the journey for a pittance. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t have minded the company, but with how much of a little shit that guy had been behaving, I knew that I’d end up tossing him overboard halfway there.
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I spent the rest of the afternoon in the lookout, my telescope scanning the treetops, as I tried to spot any more activity. After a while, I gave up and worked on dinner. Fresh meat was an event that I hadn’t enjoyed for a long time, and as darkness fell I sat around the small galley and prepared my gamey stew using an old skyfarer’s cookbook. The damm thing ought to be called the scrounger’s handbook as it called for more than a few oddball spices. It did give it a more of a spicy and heady kick I had to admit.
Nevermind I had to use a bit of fire root, from a casting kit, and a few shavings of nakerwood from a shaping pin. It still tasted fine.
I was just about to turn in for the evening, my belly pleasantly full for the first time in days when I felt a shiver over my body just as my wards around the ship crackled and arched. There was a shriek of pain and I bolted out of the galley and up onto the deck to peer over the railing. A figure was sprawled across the ground and through the sparkling shimmer of my barrier I saw several others dragging the figure back as she twitched and jerked.
I could hear surprised shouts of panic as the small group of people below peered back up at the shimmering barrier. One of them picked up a nearby stone and threw it at the warding. There was a flash of power and I felt my body shiver as the warding drew power out of me and the stone exploded into glowing fragments as bolts of power swam up and down the warding.
Dashing back into the galley, I grabbed my combat harness and belted it on, my heart roaring in my chest. They couldn’t see me or the ship, but they knew something was there! How had they found me? I knew my wardings well and it was impossible for any amount of power to have seeped out of them. They were designed to throw the eye and attention away when someone, or something looked directly at them and they weren’t in the warding’s weave.
Thundering out the aft ramp I reached up and grabbed my kit and touched the ward stone at the side of the ramp’s entrance to trigger its closure mechanism.
As the ramp hissed up and closed behind me, I stared at the small group on the other side of the barrier as they peered blankly back, their eyes constantly skipping off the warding but, somehow, they still could see something was there.
They were garbed in an odd assortment of rag-tag clothing, bronze armor pieces and animal skins. The group contained five in number, including a pair of rather formidable looking women, one of whom was standing groggily up being supported by the other as she flexed her hands stiffly and looked dazedly back at where she had collided with the barrier. There were two other men, both who carried themselves like warriors and a small teenage boy who they pushed out in front of them. He was holding a glowing wand over his head and he gestured towards it.
“I’m telling you, something is there! Obviously! She didn’t just run into thin air, and something shocked her!”
I glared at them, a cutlass in one hand and a shocksphere in the other, daring them to try my warding again.
“Well no shit sherlock! Now get rid of that whatever it is, or I’ll just send you back to your spawnpoint noob! You want to get griefed by the Beachlords again?” One of the men poked the youth with his spear and he yelped and nodded as he held up the rather worn instrument I recognized as a focus wand, probably water crystal focus from the shimmering glow of the blue stone atop the small wand.
He gave a shriek and I felt his will smash into my wardings. I presented the kid a smirk, even if he couldn’t see me, I had to give him credit for actually trying.
But as I expected, he had no grasp of the skills required to break a warding. He was trying to slam his power into my circle with brute force and all it was doing was grounding out, and causing him feedback as he hissed in pain.
There was a flare of blue light as the crystal pulsed then it fizzled out as he screamed and dropped the wand, rubbing his numb fingers and wincing. He was rewarded with another jab in the side with the spear as his comrades burst out laughing.
Turning around in a rage, he glared at the bigger of the two men and gave him the same middle fingered gesture I had been given by the traveler I had refused passage to. This caught my rapt attention. Were these travelers? Well apparently, the stories about the islands being populated by pirate travelers were quite true.
I had to admit I was curious, and I really didn’t feel that this group was particularly dangerous. There truly wasn’t anything they could do to break my warding so I ought to introduce myself, was only proper after all.
Concentrating on the invisible threads of power that connected me to my working, I tweaked the pattern slightly, removing the parts that kept myself and the Sweetwind invisible to them, or more accurately I added them to the mental list of what could see though my circle.
They all gasped and backed up as I stood there just on the other side of my barrier with my hands on my hips, and the crackle and hiss of glowing energy running up and down my cutlass at my side as I lifted my goggles and glared at them.
“What be you grubbers about, speak up! Be you pirates?” I snarled as I narrowed my eyes in suspicion at them.
They gawked at the skiff, their eyes going up and down the vessel then locking upon my steely gaze. The teenager stumbled backwards falling onto his bottom as he gaped up at me.
“I know what that is! It’s an airship, or sort of looks like one anyways! I’ve seen pictures of them on the forums, guys this could be our ticket out of here!” One of the men cried and completely ignored me and common sense as he took a step forward towards the Sweetwind’s starboard side and right into the barrier.
Letting out a shriek of pain and earning wry grin from me as he jumped back, I gave a hearty laugh at their expense. One of the women, the same one that had originally collided with the barrier when they had discovered its location locked her gaze with mine and leaned on her spear as she eyed me.
“This your ship?” I nodded, and gestured to my skiff. “I be Becca Marshall, at your service. I be a registered member of the messenger’s guild and this the fair courier skiff, Sweetwind.”
They looked stunned, and I saw yearning and hope and anguish on their faces all at once. The boy just looked at the vessel in pure wonder.
“This has to be some sort of really weird random encounter or something!” One of the women enthused as she gave an excited look at one of the men and he nodded. I cocked my eyebrow at the odd statement, and wondered why I always ended up dealing with the oddball or completely madcap travelers.
There were nods all around, all except for the teenager. He just kept staring at Sweetwind with his slack jawed expression.
“Are you here to rescue us?!” One of the women, her haughty expression and severe gaze settling on me and I just shook my head wearily. “Na, afraid not mam I’m not taking passengers if I can help it, and I hardly imagine you could afford my wayfare anyways.”
The downcast eyes and sighs of regret from the group was pitiful, so I shook my head and smiled at them. “I be willing to trade for supplies though! I landed to rest and restock a bit. I’m sure I can barter something with you lot.” I beamed them a cheeky sunbeam smile and I saw the group exchange excited glances.
“Well was too much to expect from the devs anyways, the island spawn was supposed to be a survival challenge, would be too easy if we could just fly out.” The larger of the men chided the woman, and looked at me.
“Just what exactly do you have to trade, and what do you need?” He asked and I scratched the back of my head, causing a few crackles of static to frizzle my hair a bit as I gave it a ponder. “Well, I need clean water. I have the barrels if you want to fill them two large rain barrels would tide me over, more than I need really and if you have any dried meat or fresh game I’d be willing to trade. I do have a variety of small items to trade such as knives, tools and the like.”
I tried to think of what they might be interested in, and wondered if my mother’s collection of old sewing cloth would be of interest. “Oh, and I have some cloth too, sewing cloth and extra sackcloth.” One of the women perked up at that and tugged on the larger warrior’s tattered tunic with a grin. “You have any sewing needles? All we have is bone needles, and they are a pain to work with.” Her eyes were wide, and I saw excitement on her dirty face. “You mean metal ones?” I replied and she nodded.
“Aye, mahaps I can spare a few, there be several different types of sewing kits.” I grinned at them, my naturally mercantile mind whirling at the prospect of cheap victuals.
I also had a treadle powered mechanical stitchery I used on sail repair, but that wasn’t something I was going to part with. I silently thanked the small gods that my mother’s hobby had been embroidery.
“Magic! You have any books on magic?!” The teenager finally sputtered out and I looked at him quizzically, wondering if he meant the magicraft. It was generally referred to as a magic path, one of many.
“If I did lad… well they wouldn’t be for barter that’s for sure.” I chuckled weakly. My mother had a small library in our cabin on the craftwork of the wind riders, but something that valuable was a family heirloom.
“We can get you supplies! how long you going to be here?!” The haughty woman cried out in joy and the group looked at each other with predatory grins and I sighed.
I would definitely have to make sure I casted purity rites on anything I got from these… er pirates? I wasn’t so sure now. They seemed more like castaways.
It wouldn’t do to get my water, and have it laced with what passed for the local knockout herbs, or something of the like. Not that I’d use most of these supplies this leg of the journey anyways. I was less than a day or so out from Bagliona now if the seasonal squalls held up.
Perhaps when I landed at Bagliona I’d inform the governor about the situation. He could send messages to any ships passing by. At the very least, I knew he would pay me well for information about a colony of travelers on this island.
I’d rather get the supplies myself, but then again, I also didn’t know the dangers of this island, and I was betting they had a decent variety of foodstuffs. None of them looked like they were suffering from malnutrition, although the wannabe magi did look a bit worse for the wear. Looking closely at him I could see a lot of bruises all over his body, and one heck of a shiner over one eye as if someone had socked him a good one and almost caused his eye to swell closed.
Oh well, wasn’t any of my rub. If I could use them to restock my stores on the cheap all’s the better for me. I had a few light trade goods, like inexpensive cruddy steel daggers, a few short swords, glass beads and of course my mother’s old sewing stuff. It wasn’t like I’d use much of it, considering much of it was for fine needlework and not the utilitarian repair usage I normally employed.
As they dashed off, running off into the treeline, I started to ransack Sweetwind for any bits of forgotten knick knacks that were no longer of use, or were just deadweight. I started to pile old half-worn tools, forgotten junk and other stuff I hadn’t even realized that I still had, on the deck.
They came back with food and took the barrels I used the deck block and tackle winch to lower off of Sweetwind’s aft riser and the big guy, who called himself Kirk, startled haggling with me as I showed him my meager barter. He was impressed with just about everything, especially the tools and I made sure to drive a hard bargain on my castoffs, eager to milk every bit of victuals I could out of them.
Through out the entire exchange I saw several more people that hadn’t been in the original group, and all of those were acting as lookouts for something, or someone. It seemed they were pretty nervous. After I turned in for the night they camped out nearby, and climbed trees, not even lighting a fire. This was curious, and I did pick up talk about a few rival groups.