“Sometimes it’s not easy to meet up with old friends, doubly so when you live on different ends of the continent!” - Harald Edrikssen, famed adventurer from the Jarldoms, circa 409 VA.
Aideen reached Port Lif early in the sixth month that year, early compared to the time when Garth mentioned he met with Arquivaldo the previous year. She figured it was better to reach there early and wait for his arrival rather than be late and end up missing the man. She had no issues with waiting, after all, since she had all the time in the world.
Much like she guessed, after a quick query at the port, she received word that the good captain had not arrived yet, but that he was apparently a regular in the past decade or so, always arriving around the middle of the sixth month. Armed with that knowledge, Aideen settled down at a local inn to wait for the captain and his ship’s arrival.
It was a pretty relaxing stay at the port town, which was one of the most prosperous places in Ptolodecca, due to the volume of trade that went through it on the regular. While local Ptolodeccan traders prefer basing their business from the much safer waters of the great cove, from Port Leb situated at the deepest inland end of the cove itself, foreign traders typically went to the closer Port Erbe or Port Lif instead, depending on which direction they came from.
Both Port Lif and Port Erbe were primarily military ports, and the civilian section of the docks were clearly separated from the military side. In the past two hundred years, the military compounds were even dwarfed by the growing port cities that developed alongside the civilian ports as more regions of the Jarldom and Elmaiya sought to trade with the Lichdom.
For areas close to the borders, it was convenient to trade by land, but further-off areas found the sea trade to be more convenient and efficient, as it saved on time and travel expenses. Although spatial artifacts were common, there were nowhere near enough large ones to support the continent’s – or even a single nation’s for that matter – trade needs, so regular transportation remained the solution for most.
Eventually, the ship she had been waiting for arrived after a week and a half of waiting, just a couple days before the end of the month. In the century or so since they parted, Arquivaldo’s fortune seemed to be on the rise, as he had upgraded his ship to a larger one, capable of carrying more cargo and passengers on each trip.
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Aideen did not immediately go to meet the captain, as instead she waited until he took care of his business with the merchants and traders first. It was only later in the evening, with the day’s deals done and over with, that she followed the man when he headed to one of the local pubs, or as the locals affectionately called them, “watering holes”.
The Bony Bastard was exactly the sort of place one would have pictured from books or tales about sailors or pirates, a place where people who had been out at sea for a long while went ashore in search of good food, strong drinks, and maybe even bedmates for the night. Its clientele was mostly rough seafarer types and dockhands, but there was one detail that made it differ from most depictions of such places.
Namely that it was clean.
In fact, the place was so clean that one could probably eat straight off the wooden flooring with no ill effects whatsoever, the wooden boards polished to a near mirror shine.
One of the Bone Lord’s few personal preferences that he actually imposed upon those who lived on his land was his liking of cleanliness. Over the generations, that preference became a national one, and it was the norm for the vast majority of establishments to keep their place clean and tidy as a matter of personal pride.
Aideen walked into the Bony Bastard around a minute or so after Arquivaldo did, long enough for the unliving captain – who she noticed was on his own – to enter, make an order, and sit down on one of the stools lined up next to the bar itself, near the corner. Since the seat to his sides were empty, Aideen just sidled into one of them and seated herself, calmly gesturing at the bartender that she’d have whatever their specialty was.
“Long time no see, Captain da’Hock,” said Aideen with a slight smile as the captain, who happened to be drinking with his eye – the one not covered by his eyepatch, at least – closed when she sat down beside him. The man opened his eye wide, surprised, and looked towards her before his expression changed in recognition.
“Miss deVreys? Fancy seeing you here. Think it’s been over a century since we last met, wasn’t it?” said Arquivaldo with a pleased expression. “I reckon since you likely waited for me to arrive here, you might have some business I can be handy in?”
“Something of that sort, yes,” admitted Aideen openly. “I might be in need of some trustworthy sailors to ferry some people over from Ptolodecca to Alcidea, in some quantity, at that.”
“Well, my ship can only handle around fifty passengers or so at best, perhaps a hundred if they don’t mind setting up hammocks down in the cargo hold, so it’ll depend on how many people you need transported,” replied the captain honestly. His estimation of his ship’s capacity was about in line with what Aideen expected from its size. “If you need more than that, I might be able to get a couple friends I have good relations with to join in.”
“It’s still tentative for now, but it might be anywhere from two hundred to up to five hundred people, and I can’t give any proper timeline yet, but it will probably be within the next century or two,” admitted Aideen. “Sorry if that wasn’t particularly helpful.”
“Now you actually have me curious on what you have planned, Miss. Care to share with this old sea dog?”