That night the girls slept with me and Shadow slept with Lux again, at least that is what I assumed since she wasn’t in our hut. Shadow had been being lazy and just sprawled around the huts all day, not even accompanying us when we explored the ruins. The villagers mostly ignored her although a few of the children were curious. Shadow wouldn’t let them get close enough to touch her however. I idly wondered how well she would handle the ship voyage.
Speaking of the ship, San came over to us towards the middle of the third day to let us know a ship had been spotted on the horizon. The girls had been sunning themselves while Lux and I stayed in the shade of the huts. I had gotten quite the tan from my time in South Port so didn’t need anymore sun.
The previous day had been pretty boring. After wandering around the village for a while, I decided to start studying my next spell. I figured since I had already learned the earth manipulation spell, the stone arrow spell would be a cinch. Ann had contemplated learning the earth manipulation spell after seeing what it could do but went a different direction. Instead, she started learning a telekinesis spell. It sounded interesting so I was excited to see it in action.
We went to the beach but I couldn’t see anything. Ann and Lin said they could see a black dot that must be the ship which proved once again their eyesight was better than mine. With nothing else to do, we returned to the huts. I continued flipping through the magic book inside the hut, away from prying eyes. The stone arrow spell had some similarities to earth manipulation so learning it was going fast as I had hoped.
It took a few hours before the ship finally reached us. It set anchor in deep water parallel to the beach and dropped a rowboat into the water. I was surprised to see the ship had no sails. It didn’t seem like it was a steam powered ship either so I immediately realized it must be another magical creation. Other than the lack of sails and masts, it looked pretty much like what I had envisioned a large wooden ship to look like. It even seemed to have cannons along the sides.
As the rowboat headed for the beach, I asked Ann about the ship. She confirmed my suspicions and told me the ship had a large magic crystal which powered devices that produced jets of water and propelled the ship forward. The cannons were evidently magical in nature as well. It made me wonder how fast the ship was. It had to be faster than a regular sailing ship anyway.
When the rowboat hit the beach, I could see it was manned by mostly lizard folk with one muscular human in the mix. They all had swords at their waists but didn’t have much else for clothes besides pants that only went a little past their knees or maybe they were just this world’s version of shorts. All were bare chested and looked like body builders.
One of the lizard folk sailors clasped hands and greeted the village chief while the rest dragged the boat farther up the beach. Lux went to greet the sailors while the rest of us stayed back. After seeing the ship, I was excited to get onboard and look around. Previously I had only ever been out on a small fishing boat so this would be an interesting experience.
I knew they would be loading up supplies and trade goods from the villagers before they would set sail, or no sail in this case I guess. They probably needed some shore leave also and it was already the afternoon so I guessed we wouldn’t be leaving until tomorrow at the earliest. The lizard folk sailors ignored us in favor of the villagers but the human came over to say hi.
He seemed to know the sisters already and grinned widely. “Hah, you two are a sight for sore eyes. I’ll have you know I was one of the few who bet on anyone returning alive, so I don’t mind buying you a drink when we get back to port to celebrate.” The sailor said, eyeing the girls up and down lustily. I definitely didn’t like this guy already. He seemed like he might be a few years older than me and was about my height with way more muscles. He was cleanly shaven and wore a brightly colored rag around his seemingly bald head with long scars on his broad chest.
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“Hmm, no thanks.” Ann said. Lin just ignored him altogether. His grin faltered and he was about to say something else when I stepped in between him and the girls. “Nice to meet you, I’m Matt.” I said holding out my hand and smiling. “Oh, I’m Rex. Sorry, I don’t seem to remember you.” Rex said, frowning. “That’s because I met the girls on their journey to the cursed city.” I replied, shaking his hand. He had a firm handshake but didn’t try to overpower me. “Is that so…” he muttered, still frowning.
I didn’t bother explaining further and instead gestured at the ship. “That’s a nice looking ship, I can’t wait to board her.” I said, changing the subject. This seemed to brighten his mood and he was about to sing its praises before he was cut off by being called back to work. I breathed a sigh of relief as both girls came up and each grabbed an arm. “Thanks, but he isn’t the only one that tried bothering us the last time. Luckily father and brother kept them from annoying us too much.” Lin said, squeezing my arm between her breasts.
“Well, who can blame them with two beauties like you around.” I replied teasingly. Inwardly I was worried the voyage might not be as peaceful as I thought but with Lux around hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad. Both girls giggled cutely as we made our way back to the hut. During the rest of the day things were brought from the ship to the village and vice versa. There seemed to be only one rowboat, but it was a good sized one. It still took several trips however.
That night the villagers had another bonfire party to welcome the sailors. This time I made sure the girls didn’t drink too much and Shadow even slept in our hut for a change. Most of the sailors were lizard folk and I heard Lux mention that a lot of them originally came from the village. A few humans and beast folk were mixed in but the crew wasn’t as big as I was expecting. I suppose since there were no sails and rigging to worry about, they didn’t need as many hands on deck.
The next morning after breakfast we packed up and were ready to go. Half the sailors had stayed to sleep in the village while the rest slept on the ship. We said our goodbyes to the village chief and got in the rowboat. I carried Shadow so she wouldn’t get wet. The sailors seemed surprised that we didn’t have more luggage, not realizing three of the bags were magical artifacts and stuffed to the gills with loot.
The captain greeted us when we got onboard. We had been introduced during last night’s festivities and he seemed like a nice enough guy. I couldn’t really tell the lizard folk apart but the captain had a bunch of gold chains around his neck and rings on his fingers. He had also seen a few battles as there were old scars on his chest and arms but most of the crew seemed to have those. I wasn’t sure if they got them battling pirates or sea monsters. I just hoped we wouldn’t run into any.
We were shown to our quarters below deck. The rooms were small with two narrow bunks to a room and not much else. The girls immediately started fighting over who would get to sleep in my room but when Lux cleared his throat, they decided to take turns. I could only smile and shake my head at their behavior. We returned to the deck to watch the village recede in the distance. The weather was good and the water calm. I couldn’t really tell how fast we were going but it seemed like it was a good pace. The magical engines didn’t make any noise so it was quiet except for the sailors who would occasionally yell at each other.
I was told the engine room was off limits which was a disappointment. After watching the water for a while, we returned to our rooms. It was Ann’s turn first evidently and we both studied our spell books. Since Ann was with me, Lin had grabbed Shadow. A round window let enough light in for us to see and so far the boats motion wasn’t bothering me too much. If the seas got rougher, then I might have a problem.
Ann said the trip back would take two days. Before then I should easily be able to learn the stone arrow spell but wouldn’t be able to practice it on the ship. After thinking more about it, I decided I could probably just shoot the spell overboard into the water and it wouldn’t cause any problems. With that in mind I continued learning the spell.