Chương 571: Chapter Five Hundred and Fifty-Six - Edge of an Empire

Southerfell was as good a place as any to stick around for a day, even if I was a bit worried that the local nobility might be somewhat... not very nice, at least from the hints the nice guard captain had dropped. We weren't here for that, though, so I decided to not stick my ears out any more than I had to. It would be best to avoid problems. Our goal was that little village that Celiga, the historian, had brought up, and unfortunately we didn't know the exact location of it.

"So, this is the plan," Amaryllis said as we stood on the ship's deck. It was about midday. A lot of the crew had taken naps and we were... if not in tip-top shape, then at least we weren't so badly off. I think my Captaining skills was working to let me know that everyone was functional, at least, if not yet at their best.

"Awen has a significant amount of repairs to look after. The Scallywags, and Steve, will be assisting her." Awen nodded once with a little 'mhm!' next to me.

"I'll ah, do what I can," she said.

"Is the damage that bad?" I asked. She raised a hand and wiggled it in a so-so gesture.

"The bolts that went through the hull are going to be annoying to repair. I have some skills to help, but it might be best if we can find a carpenter? One of the big hull-planks was smashed in half, so we'll need to replace it, and getting one cut and curved just right is going to be time-consuming. But it's not a structurally important part. I mean, no more than the rest of the hull? If it's not nice-looking, then it's not that bad, only..."

"Only we want it to be nice-looking," I said. Awen nodded.

"Yeah."

"We can afford to hire a carpenter," Amaryllis said.

"While you do that, I'll be talking to the first mate of the other ships in the convoy. They did agree to donate some money, to get us back in fighting shape. The cost of a carpenter and some materials is nothing compared to the potential losses we helped them avoid." That seemed fair.

"What's the rest of the plan?" I asked.

"You, Broccoli, are going to go into town with... hmm..." Amaryllis scanned the crew.

"We need more humans if we're going to be working with humans."

"Huh?" I asked.

"They tend to prefer working with their own sort," Amaryllis said.

"I suppose you can go with Desiree. The two of you are close enough in appearance. Your goal is to locate the town we're heading to. Maps, rumours, any information you can find."

"Alright!" I said with a thumbs up. That I could do!

"What about the party?"

"The... what?" Amaryllis asked.

"What party?" Calamity asked. I pointed to Southerfell. It wasn't super obvious, but there were definitely signs. Banners were going up across the city, and it looked like people were cleaning rather vigorously. People seemed to have a lot of pep in their step. They might have just been happy, but my senses were telling me that there was something up.

"It's New Years Eve," Bastion said.

"Is it?" Caprica asked. She closed her eyes, lips moving, then opened them wide.

"My goodness, it is. We'd be celebrating it tomorrow in Sylphfree."

"Today in the Harpy Mountains, then," Amaryllis said.

"At the stroke of midnight."

"Do we know what they do here to celebrate?" I asked. There were a bunch of headshakes, so I supposed it would be up to me to find out!

"Okay then! Well, I think we ought to have a bit of a celebration too. Calamity, Bastion, Caprica, you're not part of Amaryllis' plan, right?" Amaryllis' lips drew into a line, but she didn't say no.

"We're not," Calamity said.

"Neat! Then your job is to grab some coin and get us some food! I don't know how others celebrate New Years, but back home it's always been by gathering together, eating lots of finger food, and gossiping for hours until it's time to count the last seconds of the year away." That seemed like a plan that everyone could get behind. It would mean another long night, but this time with a much more fun twist than looking out for pirates. I think my friends deserved a bit of fun anyways!

With everyone given some task or another, we split up and started to head out. It would be good to get any shopping or whatever done before the entire city got too excited for the New Year celebration and things closed down. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Desiree came up next to me, and we joined arms as we made our way down some wooden stairs on wheels all the way to the ground.

"Feels weird to have left the desert so abruptly," I said.

"Hah! I could do without returning to that furnace!" Desiree said. She twisted her tails around and ran her fingers through the floof.

"Half the desert's sand has insinuated itself into my fur." I giggled, then tried to help with a bit of Cleaning magic, but Desiree complained that even if there wasn't any sand in her tails, she could still feel it. We really had to find a way to install a shower in the Beaver, though I imagined that would be pretty complicated. The air around Southerfell was a huge departure from the air in the Ostri Desert. For one, it wasn't nearly as hot and dry. Instead, as the sun climbed higher, it was warm and wet.

The northern end of the city overlooked a cliffside that dropped down to the Moonstruck Sea. We couldn't quite see it from where we were, but I'd caught sight of it from the air. The sea pushed out warm, swirling winds, thick with humidity. When the wind shifted and came from the south instead, it was even warmer and muggier. That way lay the Silverstar Forest. We'd flown over the northern edge of it, where forest was sparser. The Silverstar Forest was more of a jungle, from what I'd heard.

Massive trees with huge, thick canopies covered a small, hidden world of entwined branches and vines and a multilayered thicket. I wouldn't want to have to navigate through that, actually. It seemed like an annoying kind of adventure. Desiree and I chatted until we reached the gate into the city. On this side, it was barely manned. A few guards who glanced us over before letting us in. I supposed that that was one of the advantages of being so far from everything.

As we walked through the more industrial parts of Southerfell, all of them on the southern end of the city, we came across a large trainyard. It looked like there were cargo containers of different sizes, all being loaded into box-cars with cranes and trolleys. It looked like Southerfell was connected to the rest of Pyrowalk, all via a long trainline that ran along the northern shore all the way to a space called the Betrayer's Strait.

At least, that's what I gathered from talking to a local for a few minutes while waiting at an intersection. The people here were pretty talkative, and it was nice to be able to just ask a question and have someone tell me what I wanted to know. Though Desiree and I did get a lot of weird looks and some double-takes. Whenever we talked to someone, they'd kept staring at our ears. Maybe it helped that we looked like adventurers, and that we were asking about the local adventuring places.

They didn't have an Exploration Guild, but they did have one for adventurers, and people were happy to point us in that general direction. As we left the more industrial areas of the city, the new years stuff became more common and a lot more colourful. People were stringing up these long vines across the street and from home to home. I think they were cuttings taken from the forest. Little girls were weaving knots of flowers into the vines, and there were little wooden lanterns being put up all over.

They had thin, papery covering and small wooden bases that held onto thick candles. The papers were often painted in greens and forestry colours, or in blues and greys with wavy patterns. Eventually, we found the Adventurer's Guild. It was nearer to the northern parts of the city, just a block over from the noble quarters and surrounded by nicer shops and other guilds.

Young men and women, often wearing a few bits and bobs of armour and carrying sheathed weapons, were lingering around the place, but Desiree and I managed to squeeze our way in without too much trouble.

"Alright," I said as I turned to my foxy friend.

"Let's find someone who's in charge around here, or like, an archivist, question them about the location of our destination, and then we can head back!" I was looking forward to celebrating the new year with my friends tonight!