Coming to the small docks that sat not too far south of Freyview, a small crew of four sat around a campfire by the oceanside, all dressed in cloaks, dawning the guild's crests. Merchants perhaps? I’d still better remain on guard “Say is that your boat?” Pointing towards the vessel of a ship currently docked.
“Aye, what's it to you?” One of the men responded, as all the others looked to him, leading me to believe he was the captain of this ship.
“I’m after passage out of the north, that's all.”
“From the amount of blood on that shirt, you sure you’ll make it out of the North?” He responds walking over to the barrel of beer, refilling his oaken mug as his crew snicker in the background, each drinking their ales.
“You let me worry about that, besides if I die, you'll have to loot my body and take my coin.”
“And if you don’t die?” The man interrupted quickly grinning as he took yet another large swig of his drink clearly determined to finish it before our conversation ended.
“I’ll pay you regardless, twenty coins total… half now, half upon arrival.” Reaching for my pouch from my belt containing my coin showing them all I'm good for the money, rattling the coins inside around a bit to ease any doubts in their mind that it wasn’t coins.
“I like you, come sit… have a drink with us.” He says bursting out laughing, patting for me to come sit next to him, handing me a mug full of ale. “You don’t even know where we're going”
“That doesn’t matter to me” I responded whilst drinking my mug of ale in one go, forgetting that it’s supposed to last me, after all I don’t know how far their generosity extends. “But if I were to know where we're going, where would that be?” As I ask I can hear the rest of the crew muttering amongst themselves, enjoying themselves with some blackjack, gambling on their profits.
“Namzi, have you ever been?”
“Once, a couple of years ago… it was a wasteland if I recall, the land was dried up and infertile. Barely habitable.” A physical confusion swept my face, racking my brain struggling to figure why on earth they would be going there of all places.
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“It’s not anymore.” He retorts, handing me yet another mug of ale for me to sit and enjoy this time, stopping myself from drinking it whole again. “The land is thriving, yielding one of the largest profits of our time.”
Land doesn’t just become farmable let alone harvestable in such a short time. Surely? I think to myself becoming more and more curious about the situation. Another god perhaps? That last one did say there were others. Or just some schmuck with magic?
“That’s where i’m going then.”
“Welcome aboard!” They all cheer as they raise their mugs slamming against one another in the air, spilling a large portion of the contents across the floor, but that didn’t matter as everyone was happy in each other's company.
As the night continued, I found myself having so much more fun than usual as we all drank ourselves stiff and taking a quick bath in the ocean washing away all the blood I was still wearing, gambled all throughout the night under the aurora, as one of the men played his lute and a women looked to be in her late twenties with them serenaded us all with song, her voice captivating as if a siren luring me out to sea.
“What is your name, old man?” Old man I play the words back in my head in disgust, I’ve never felt like an old man.
“Rudsek, yourself?” Ignoring his last remark about my age.
“The one singing is Esin, whilst the one with the lute is Sernon, the one passed out is my brother Ailsesird and I'm Aellil. A pleasure to meet you.” The part abruptly coming to an end by the sound of a shattering glass, landing right in the centre of us.
“I’m awake” Ailsesird yells out leaping off of the ground standing to his feet. As I look around observing each of them individually their faces have all gotten very pale all of a sudden, each looking at the boat. As I avert my gaze towards the boat to see what they were all looking at so intensely. A woman stood leaning over the side “Who do you think you are? Drinking my booze” She said her eyes locked with my own staring down on me from above, refusing to submit and be the first to break eye contact.
“It’s alright captain, he just wants to pay for a ride to Namzi and since we're going there anyway.” Aellil chimes in, knocking over his mug spilling the rest of his ale across the floor.
“Fine, but we gotta stop at Aelstone first and deal with some business first. It’ll take about ten days to reach Namzi with our stop… Don’t like it find another way.``
“That’s fine by me, I'm in no rush” I declare, meaning I can sit back with my feet up as I have done tonight and enjoy the ocean view for a change. After all, who knows what troubles Namzi will bring.