There were those amongst society, both highborn and low, who held envy in their hearts for the longest-lived of races. The elves and the dwarves were the obvious targets of their jealousy, most predictably, considering the esteem with which nearly all regarded them, but certain persuasions of society’s upper echelons even went so far as to yearn after those with misbegotten afflictions, those twisted by fae blood or insipid curses. The sort who held a deep fear of mortality did not care from where the offer of escape arose. Only that they may reach it, however it may be possible.
In his eighth decade of life, with his clicking knees and aching spine, Graf Urs did not consider himself among their number. His eyesight had begun to blur and swirl as the years passed him by, true. And the air did not quite seem to fill his lungs with the same breath it once did, he could recognize. Even his sword and shield seemed to leverage their weight against his body with a greater determination each morning, no matter how long or how well he had rested through the night. He could not feel the difference between single days, but at his age, it grew so tiresomely easy for days to become weeks and for weeks to become months. Even years had begun to slip by without fanfare. When he looked back at the body he had worn what felt like such a short time ago, it was pin to see it was a less tattered tapestry than the skin which cloaked him now.
Yet he did not fight it. He did not bicker and grumble with what few peers remained to him, growing bitter and jaded as they watched the ageless creatures twice their years flit past with the selfsame grace of youth. He had no interest in their lives, no matter how long. Graf had been a young man indeed when he had first met those that counted the seasons like hours, and he found them detestable.
Spoiled, privileged creatures, whose notions of morality were weathered to tangled threads by the very sands of time which so remarkably flowed around their bodies. Should a man be faced with a problem which might trouble them for a year, they would endeavor with all haste to resolve the issue, whether it should take them a day or six months. Through this struggle, they would learn. Grow. Improve themselves, and thus face the next year with a certain ineffable something they did not possess in the st.
An elf? They would never so much as consider it. To spend a year under a burden was to suffer a fleeting inconvenience; easily forgotten when a brief few decades had seen them by. To bor for six months, however? That was memorable. That would perhaps entail risk, perhaps no small deal of it, and the reward, by comparison, would be precious little. When bancing a danger to oneself against an eternity of life, there were precious few goals worthy of pursuit. Graf could never accept living as such.
Yes, to an elf, he may never be something capable of tempering the world in any meaningful fashion. He could not spend a millenia carving the nd, nor spend centuries in contemption of the forms of the cosmos, nor, even, would he while away decades in pursuit of crafting a bde which cuts the air itself. All he could be, if the circumstances were right, was the flint which sparked a fire. And he was content with that.
When all this tiresome philosophizing was put aside, however, Graf was excruciatingly aware that his knees were in pain. He never did manage to forget the swelling of his joints, and he failed to ignore the throbbing ache in his feet after a mere few hours spent standing. He was also accordingly grateful that his station in life did not require him to march the many weeks back to the capital. He had happily accepted the offer to be transported the hundreds of miles to the King’s Keep in a heartbeat, and had muddled through all the irritating pleasantries that were required of him on any occasion upon which he found himself trapped in the midst of the upper nobility. They had already stuffed the castle by the time he had arrived, cmoring for news of the ill-fated war.
He once more managed to successfully natter his way through countless useless conversations, taking any and every even vaguely polite opportunity to disengage. A great many of the nobility respected him, a notable few despised him, and most, at least in some capacity, feared him. All of these were facts he viewed only through the light of how it helped him brush aside their buzzing interest. He was not quite the fool in the realm of politics that many thought him to be. It was simply that he only ever used his limited skillset to avoid the entire mess in the first pce.
Some entreaties, however, could not be avoided, only deyed. And so it was, a week after the war had concluded, that he found himself back in some hall or another deep within the Keep, facing down the King and a pair of Dukes who were most in his favor at the moment.
The King was dressed in his customary peacetime finery, pelts and furs piled about his shoulders in such numbers and exotic nature that they threatened to outvalue even the bejeweled crown resting neatly over his brow. The room itself was underground, but one couldn’t tell at a gnce, for brilliant gems were pced behind thick stained gss windows high in the arched ceiling, washing the room in the light of noon at all hours of the day. A long table was permanently set with silver dining ware, the absence of dust across the space evidencing a great daily effort from the Keep’s innumerable servants. The attendance of the King and his two Dukes was almost a shame, by virtue of their very presence dirtying the ancient, sterile space. The oils of their skin left imprints in the cquered wood as they gesticuted at Graf, leaning forward at times to emphasize some point, leaning back at others in order to feign nonchance. Graf listened dispassionately, his expression unwaveringly neutral.
“The logic of your position is understood, Graf,” Duke Ostoc continued to bther, “but the end result is untenable. The King’s orders are without room for interpretation.”
“You must cease your actions immediately,” concurred Duke Roth, rapping his overrge knuckles on the table for emphasis. His was the only orcish house presently amongst the peerage, and unusually for a member of the nobility, the st few generations had left his lineage as near to purely orcish as could be found. This novelty was the only reason Graf had been aware of the man before his ascent to prominence. “While the Night’s Eye is a vaunted institution, renowned across the continent in no small part due to your own actions, you are not above the King.”
They seemed to expect some response at this juncture. Graf provided them none. After a brief pause, the King spoke.
“Graf,” he said, taking on the tone of a chastising father, “in private, I am afforded the liberty to speak freely. Your failure in subduing the Champion’s forces are not something which I will allow anyone to view as a stain upon your legacy. You have served me as finely as any King can ask of a subject, and a single, lonesome defeat cannot change this fact. If it is shame which drives you to imitate these firearms, I assure you, there is no need.”
“I have lost battles before, My Liege. I feel no shame for this. Only regret for the soldiers whose lives were lost under my command. I have lost battles of greater import decades before you were born, and I have lost battles under your present rule, as well. A career as long as mine cannot be fwless.”
The King did not allow whatever emotion the words evoked to show. He remained impcable, as stern as ever. “It is as you say, and the silent utterance between your breaths is understood. But no length of time spent in my family’s service allows you to defy my direct decree. You are hereby ordered to cease your mimicry of the Champion’s weapons immediately.”
Graf stood still, in military rest, head level and eyes forward, staring at the wall just behind and above where the King sat.
“Why?”
He said nothing further.
“You have been given an order from your King, Graf,” Duke Ostoc rumbled, filling his words with the indignation that was beneath the King to personally reveal. “You have no room to disobey.”
“To ck these weapons is to imperil the Kingdom. And I serve the Kingdom in all things, as I always have.”
“You serve Sporatos,” Duke Roth growled, gripping the table as he bent towards Graf. “The King is the Kingdom. To betray his will is to betray us all.”
“To fail to protect Sporatos is the greatest treason of all.”
The room fell to silence as the men digested this statement, wondering at its many faces. Likely, they would not discern the truth of his cim. Graf did not bother with theater; his was a simple, emotionless statement. Such directness was a difficult thing for men of means to comprehend.
“To defy my Decree ensures a trial, and with it, punishment,” the King eventually said. “And for such prominent treason, the only penalty will be death.”
“I will not submit to execution,” Graf replied. “Particurly not when my actions are solely to the benefit of the Kingdom.” Seeing the color rising across the faces in the room, Graf decided to temporize. “I assure you, the Night’s Eye shall treat the weapons with all the secrecy and protection we can muster. They will not be allowed to disseminate throughout the popuce.”
“A useless assurance, when your ranks are already filled with peasants,” Duke Roth spat. “They are exactly who these weapons must be kept away from.”
Graf gnced at the man. There were further arguments to be made. Angles Graf could pursue, reason he could reach for. But he had never been one for taking a winding path when the direct route was clear.
“If you think yourself capable of enforcing your order, please do so.”
The King sucked in a breath. Held it for a moment. Then blew it out in a low hiss.
“You go too far, Graf.”
“I do not go far enough.” Graf allowed his words to cool, tempering to a steely tone. “It is only through my loyalty to your Royal Person that I withhold myself so. When our armies next march on Tulian, they will need every firearm avaible to them, else they be sughtered. To only equip the Night’s Eye with the weapons is a terrible shame, but one I will suffer.”
“I have already made the decree that war with Tulian will not be further sought. The Kingdom has other, more fruitful matters to pursue.”
“Until the next summer comes, and you have had adequate time to rally support for a second, far greater army.” Graf flicked his eyes across the Duke’s faces, noting their flinches, allowing them to notice that he had, then returned his gaze to the King. “I have fought in more wars than years you have lived, My Liege. I have no interest in pretending this conflict is not coming.”
“Even supposing you are correct, there is no excuse to be found for creating the means of civilized society’s destruction. The Champion stated that she created these weapons with the sole purpose of undermining my rule, and for once, I find no reason to doubt her.” The King leaned back in his chair, gemstone rings catching the candlelight as he gestured. “Measures are being prepared. The archmages have been encouraged to develop countermeasures, and the artificers are even now at work developing armor capable of defending oneself from firearms. Should war with the Champion’s nation once more arise, we will be prepared.”
Graf allowed himself a small scoff. “And you think she will remain idle in the interim? You prepare for the next war with the knowledge of the st, My Liege. Do you believe that firearms are somehow singurly unique? That their iron barrels cannot be enchanted as easily as a steel sword?” Graf pressed a finger to his breastpte, indicating the test of its multitude of scars. An inch-wide dent just above his heart, a smear of lead still visible. “Perhaps the artificers may provide our troops a manner to defend themselves from iron balls unched from bronze tubes. But what of steel bolts unched from bcksteel barrels? What of ensorcelled bullets, loaded by troops who have trained with these weapons not for weeks, but for months? Years?”
Graf shook his head. “No, My Liege. These weapons exist, and they cannot be ignored. No amount of spellcraft shall make them obsolete, by simple virtue of the fact that spellcraft may enhance them, too. Do as you will with your resources; the Night’s Eye shall prepare for the inevitable.”
The King’s eyes narrowed as Graf spoke, a profound and deep-set sense of offense spreading across his countenance. As Graf fell silent, the King slowly stood, pressing his fingers to the table. Beneath the royal crown, his eyes began to glower, as if something molten were stirring behind the iris. His lip curled in a dismissive sneer, lifting to reveal the teeth of a man who was called a Lion. It was a practiced, impressive dispy, leveraging the fullness of his royal bearing. Many warriors had been cowed by the sight of King Sporatos’ anger, fearing what wrath they may incur.
“You will not create firearms.”
The King spoke in a growling baritone, rattling the table with the force of his words. The Dukes to either side instinctively drew away, both slipping a hand beneath their coats in search of a pommel’s reassurance. The King of Sporatos had begun his training for war mere weeks after toddling through his first steps. He was cloaked in archmage wards, his weapons as ancient as his lineage, and even without these supernatural aids, there were very, very few who could cim to be his equal on the field of battle. The Dukes were right to cower; should he lose his temper and sh out, the King could snap their necks like twine.
Yet Graf could only think of the young boy he’d often bounced on his knee, ensuring the young prince would not sob for his father’s attention throughout an important meeting. It was near impossible to be intimidated by a man Graf could still clearly remember carrying over to nursemaids for a change of diapers, much less the man to whom he was the only remaining tutor.
“I believe we are past the point of pretending you can threaten me, My Liege,” Graf drawled. “My smiths will begin the construction of firearms. We will not use them on foreign soil, so long as firearms are not first used against us, and we will not distribute them beyond our members. I do this with the sole purpose of protecting Sporatos. I would recommend you announce a special exception for your decree for the Night’s Eye, lest my disobedience encourage others to follow suit. Now if you will excuse me, I must take my leave.”
Graf pivoted sharply and marched out of the room, prepared to ignore whatever protest followed on his heel.
None did, however. The King watched him leave in silence, his royal expression unknown to the mercenary, who never looked back.
-------------------------------
Sara
-------------------------------
“Elf pussy’s gotta be the best though, right?”
“I still do not understand why you believe the different races must have such drastically different sexual characteristics, Master.”
“Elf pussy’s gotta be the best,” Hurlish sagely agreed.
Sara ughed boisterously while Evie groaned, rolling her eyes.
They were walking down the streets of Tulian in the mid-afternoon, meandering their way down to the harborside. Evie was no longer riding on Hurlish’s shoulders as she once preferred, not wanting to put additional strain on the heavily pregnant woman’s back. Hurlish had just passed the thirtieth week of her pregnancy, and it was taking a subtle, yet noticeable toll. The orc was fnked on either side by her wives, who were keeping a subtle watch on passersby. Sara kept her hand resting casually on the pommel of her sword, while Evie’s hands were loose and ready to summon her weapon at a moment’s notice.
While Evie’s paranoia was inherent to her character, Sara had been surprised by the way her own anxiety had grown with each passing week. The sight of Hurlish, usually so uncompromising in her absurd strength, getting winded by brief walks? It was disconcerting in a way that was hard to find words for. Sara’s divinely-imbued intuition sincerely doubted the Sporatons or Cultists would send another assassin so soon after the war had ended, but that near-certainty provided little reassurance.
Of course, she wasn’t so consumed by nerves that she couldn’t joke with her wives. Sara and Hurlish had spent the bulk of the walk debating the merits of various sexual partners and the potential benefits of their unique anatomy, a topic Evie was acting uncharacteristically reserved about. Sara wasn’t yet quite sure where the feline’s reluctance to discuss the topic came from, but the rare opportunity to fluster the debauched woman simply couldn’t be passed up.
“Elf pussy’s just gotta be the best,” Sara repeated emphatically. “Look at them. They live forever, they never age, and they’re all supposed to be beautiful and super femme. That’s gotta mean something.”
“And if Nora’s anything to go by…” Hurlish trailed off.
“Nora is not an accurate representation of anything other than herself,” Evie sniffed. “Yes, her body is exquisite, but so is yours, dear. Her half-elven heritage has little to do with it.”
“I bet elf pussy tastes like maple syrup,” Sara abruptly decred.
Evie sighed deeply. “And why would that be?”
“I don’t know. They’re all, like, tree and nature people, right?”
“A reductive view if I’ve ever heard one.”
“I call dibs on first lick if we ever manage to get an elf girl in bed,” Hurlish decred. “Not that I don’t mind swapping spit with y’all, of course. Just want to get the original experience right off the bat, y’know?”
“What a ridiculous thing to preemptively-”
“I call second,” Sara butted in.
Evie’s ears flicked in irritation. Whether it was at being interrupted or at losing rights to second pce, Sara couldn’t tell. She could have figured it out, of course. But she’d long since decided to avoid using Amarat’s gifts on her wives in casual conversation. It felt odd, somehow, like she was gaining an unfair advantage in the retionship, or if not that, at least over-analyzing their every word. She imagined it would grow tiring for them, to have their every little intention id bare for her.
“Guess that leaves third for you, Kitty.”
“I am fine with that. It’s highly unlikely we will encounter any elf women with a passing interest in us, regardless. It is written that their culture expects a courtship period spanning decades.”
“Damn.” Hurlish chewed her lip for a moment, thinking. After a moment, she grinned. “Okay. Catfolk girls, then. With how Evie’s ears get her going, catfolk have gotta end up absolutely wild.”
“Eh, I don’t know,” Sara demurred. “I’m not a furry.”
“What’s that?”
“A… long story.” Gncing at her wives, Sara saw she wouldn’t get off the hook without an expnation, so she continued. “Basically, you know how on Earth there were only pure humans? Well, people came up with the idea of people like catfolk and lizardfolk on their own, and they got really into it. Art, costumes, the whole nine yards. Some of them got really, really into it. Like… concerningly so. And more than that, it just never pushed my buttons.”
“So?” Evie asked. “I fail to see how some peculiar group from your old home applies to the reality of your new.”
“Well, I mean, I guess it shouldn’t. But I feel like if I got with a catfolk, I’d lose the right to say I’m not a furry. I mean, I literally would have fucked a cat woman.”
Evie raised an arched eyebrow, both ears pivoting to lock onto Sara. “You already have, as you might recall.”
Sara waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, come on. You don’t have any fur at all. That’s barely furry stuff at all. You’re just a mind-fuckingly hot chick with ears and a tail.”
“What’s it matter, though?” Hurlish asked. “Some hot catfolk comes up on you half-naked, are you really gonna turn ‘em down?”
“I might.”
“Nah.”
“You would not.”
“Okay, fine,” Sara said, throwing her hands up. “I wouldn’t. Still, I want to reiterate the fact that I’m not a furry.”
“I think your father is the only one who would comprehend that cim in any way that matters.”
“What about lizardfolk?” Hurlish mused, rightly deciding that Sara’s minor crisis of identity wasn’t worth worrying about. “I like my girls with some squish to ‘em, and they don’t have much of that, but damn have they got tongues on ‘em.”
“Would you believe I haven’t really met any lizardfolk?” Sara asked. “I mean, I’ve seen some around, but never really talked to any.”
“They are a fairly uncommon race on the continent,” Evie replied, “but not unheard of. Before the storms, Tulian likely had the greatest concentration of their poputions. The warmth agrees with them, from what I recall.”
“Are they cold-blooded?”
“I am unfamiliar with that term.”
“Like, their bodies don’t produce heat. They rely on sunbathing and stuff to warm up. I think pretty much every lizard back on earth was cold-blooded, and you said that lizardfolk like the warmth, so it would make sense.”
“If that were the case, I’m certain my tutors would have mentioned it, but I cannot recall anything that would confirm or deny it at the moment.”
Hurlish rustled in her bag for a moment. “Y’want the colr?” She asked, holding it out.
“If you would,” Evie replied, tilting her chin up to expose her neck.
“Always making me do this shit myself,” Hurlish mumbled amusedly, csping the colr around Evie’s throat. She clicked the lock in pce, wisely ensuring the inscription of Whore pressed against Evie’s skin, instead of facing the public, then tossed the control band to Sara.
Sara tapped it in midair, letting it csp onto her wrist with a puff of smoke. A simir fsh was echoed by the colr, and Evie shuddered pleasantly, looking to Sara.
“Remember your lessons regarding lizardfolk exactly, word-for-word.”
“Of course.” Evie’s eyelids fluttered for a moment as the order rolled through her, then she opened them again, frowning. “No, there was no mention of body temperature in my tutor’s lessons. Only various biological peculiarities which may have had relevance should I find reason to someday host a dignitary of lizardfolk heritage.”
“Ooh, that sounds interesting. Like what?”
“That they prefer brighter lighting than most, and do not enjoy clothing which may get easily snagged beneath their scales. This lends most lizardfolk a preference for casual, open-air settings, of the sort that would eschew constraining formalwear. My tutors made a point to emphasize that these are not absolute rules, however, and individual variation easily and often overrides the general trend.” Evie shrugged, reaching up to remove the colr. “Not much more than that, I’m afraid. As I said, Lizardfolk are rare, and my lessons emphasized other topics.”
“Huh. Guess we’ll have to figure out how warm they are the old fashioned way.”
Evie rolled her eyes yet again as she deposited the colr in Hurlish’s bag. “For one who once often spoke of your concern for avoiding the fetishization of various races, you are awfully eager to taste their natures for yourself.”
Sara’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Oh, that’s why you didn’t want to talk about this. You thought I’d feel guilty ter, once I realized what I was doing.”
“I’ve noticed such behavior before, yes,” Evie said. “When your old world’s morality and the new csh, you often come away disconcerted. Best to avoid the topic, I decided.”
“But, like, people back there just got real pissed off about different color humans, right?” Hurlish asked. “That’s way dumber than talking about how much fur a catfolk has to grab when you fuck ‘em.”
As if by divine providence, a catfolk woman chose that moment to turn onto the street, their pointed ears swiveling alertly. Her muzzle almost immediately turned into a frown as she parsed Hurlish’s words, and she made a point to swerve to the opposite side of the street.
“...okay, that did make me feel a bit bad,” Hurlish muttered after a prolonged silence, when the catfolk was out of easy earshot.
“My case in point,” Evie said, not quite hiding her smirk. “But regardless, lizardfolk are…” She trailed off, staring into the distance.
Sara immediately tensed, gripping her sword’s hilt while stepping in front of Hurlish. “What’s up?”
“Hm?” Evie gnced at Sara. “Oh, no, nothing of concern. I merely wanted to comment on another lesson my tutors had mentioned, before abruptly realizing I couldn’t recall it. It is a profoundly odd experience to be so aware of myself forgetting something. Like something has plucked it from the flesh of my mind and sent it sliding through out through my ear.”
“Oh, yeah, that would have to be weird, wouldn’t it?” Sara agreed, rexing her stance. “But no, I won’t keep the colr on you all the time.”
“I wasn’t going to request anything of the sort,” Evie sniffed.
“If you still had the colr on, I would order you to tell me the truth.”
“Don’t give her another excuse to put it on right after she took it off, babe,” Hurlish dryly reprimanded. Then, before Evie could push the point, “So. Lizardfolk tongues. They’re absolutely wild. There was this kid in my vilge that could lick their own eyeball. Can you imagine getting something like that squirming up in your guts?”
All three women’s steps slowed for a time, lost in private thoughts.
Sara shook her head a moment ter, forcing the vision out of her mind.
Still not a furry, she insisted, if only to herself.
Their slow walk continued through the city, topics shifting with the same sedate pace that dictated their journey. It was a relief for Sara to be heading to a meeting with anything less than crushing importance, and even more of a relief to be able to freely take both her partners along with her. War councils and secretive agendas had consumed so much of her life over the past few months that the simple pleasure of not worrying was a joy all on its own. That her conversation partners were those she cared the most for in all the world? Another excellent topping piled upon the others.
In the end, after Sara assured Evie she wouldn’t be locked into self-recrimination ter on, they reached a general consensus.
Elves, it was agreed, were likely to be some of the best ys in the world, by simple virtue of their vast experience, if not any inherent biological advantage. They were also in agreement that lizardfolk had to have an incredible natural aptitude for giving head, while the raspy sandpaper texture that covered the back half of catfolk tongues was a feature likely only of interest to Evie. Vanara, the more monkey-like species that Sara only knew from a few scattered acquaintances, were up in the air. Hurlish thought their tails had the necessary rigidity, flexibility, and length to be used as dildos, something Evie doubted, while Sara, who was unsure, just didn’t want to know what a fur-covered appendage felt like inside of her. The combination of stickiness and stringy hair just couldn’t be good. Shaving the tail was a possibility, but would probably look ridiculous.
The conversation did come up with some novel ideas about those they’d already had sex with, however. Until Evie pointed it out, Sara hadn’t considered that Ketch didn’t technically need her mouth to breath. If she was underwater, her gills could do all the work. That had massive potential for Sara, and she had Evie make a note to investigate the possibility of a swim-up bar being built somewhere along the Tulian shoreline. It would be popur with Azarketi passing the city by, and Sara could occupy a stool there in the off-hours, spending hours with Ketch’s nose pressed to the base of her cock.
In the same tangent, Selliana’s water-breathing potions suddenly took on an entirely new level of importance for Evie, who became (completely rationally, she assured them) insistent that the potions were a strategic asset of national importance, one that they needed to acquire as soon as possible. Sara didn’t know if the potions would let Evie actually breathe with cock stuffed down her throat, or if the potions simply let someone’s lungs function like gills, but she wasn’t going to preemptively rain on the girl’s parade.
(A parade, Evie continued to insist, that had nothing to do with spending an entire day impaled by cock)
Then there were the stranger topics that reared their head. Notably, that they had a cooperative vampire. That was something that, as far as they were aware, was completely unique in all the world. According to a few letters traded with Garen, no one had ever been able to truly sate a vampire’s hunger like Sara and Ketch could. Any “drip-feeding” efforts uncovered by the archmage’s cursory research had ended in failure, with a vampire’s desire to drink someone dry eventually reaching irresistibility. Garen encouraged them to explore the experimental avenue regardless, noting both the incompleteness of his records and the peculiarity of the opportunity they’d stumbled into.
That topic kept them occupied for a while, after they’d moved on from the overtly sexual. Noctie’s venom had already been used as a painkiller by Ketch, and considering Tulian’s burgeoning surgeons had nothing better than stiff alcohol to knock a patient out, the numbing agent had incredible potential for surgeries. They’d have to test on animals first, as Sara was willing to bet the venom served double duty as an anticoagunt, but even if that were the case, it could still do wonders for assisting in pain control after a procedure.
How much venom they could get from the vampire was another question, and how exactly they’d go about “milking” her yet another. Sara wasn’t sure if the venom was inherent to Noctie’s saliva, or emitted from her fangs when they elongated, but either way, volume was probably going to be an issue. There was also the question of potential addictiveness to be studied; Sara didn’t want to turn every surgery patient into an unwitting vampiric thrall, blindly seeking out a literal predator to feed their newfound craving.
Ketch certainly showed signs of addiction already, but that meant little coming from a girl with the willpower and mental fortitude of a spoiled puppy. Sara was fairly convinced Ketch could get addicted to shoulder massages if someone gave them to her often enough. Without Selliana crawling around in the young azarketi’s mind, Sara half suspected Ketch would have ended up a member of Amarat’s church, spending the rest of her life happily blitzed on santhem.
This string of slightly ridiculous conversations ended with their journey, unfortunately. They’d arrived at the devastated Tulian harborside, one of the few stone wharfs currently serving the crippled Waverake.
The great fgship of the Tulian Fleet sat low in the water, a steady stream of water sluicing in small waterfalls from its upper deck. The great lengths of timber which had been used for her construction were one-offs, harvested from the distant jungle, which meant the chunks which had been ripped from her hull were still not repaired. Tulian’s very first prototype water pump was currently thumping away in her hull, ensuring she didn’t sink in harbor. Sara had meant for that pump to be sent to a mine as soon as possible, but the potential loss of the Waverake superseded that need entirely.
Her sails were in an even worse state. Acquiring the sheer volume of cotton required for all 45,000 square feet of her sails had been the impetus for much of Nora’s early piracy, and now that nigh priceless collection had been burned to tatters. Even with the great white sheets folded away, tucked neatly up top in the forest of wooden masts, Sara could see the bckened edges and multitude of hasty splices, the signs of a ship which had narrowly avoided burning to the waterline. Her early version of firefighting foam had reportedly proved effective, at least moreso than throwing heaps of sand on the fmes, but the margin of improvement was slim. The moment the frothy mixture of animal fat had sloughed off the magical napalm, the fmes had fred to life with a vengeance. Ultimately, Nora had been forced to cover the affected areas of the deck with the foam, then order her carpenters to cut the portion out, and finally toss the chunk of diseased wood overboard. Even submerged, columns of hissing bubbles proved the hellish stuff had spent half a day burning beneath the waves.
But for all the damage she’d suffered, nothing could change the fact that there was no ship on the pnet which mounted twenty cannons, with room for thirty more. The TRS Waverake was a wounded titan, but a titan all the same. Her presence alone ensured the safety of the entire capital coastline.
Sara, Evie, and Hurlish walked their way down the shattered stone pier, appraising the vessel’s damage for themselves. The gunports were open, many sprouting a sweat-slicked sailor picking feverishly at the hull. Most were carpenters endeavoring to patch long scars in the wood. Some worked at the wide, shallow pins that had been carved by another ship scraping past, while others bored at the far narrower, deeper indentations, the pces where a ram had failed to embed itself in the hull.
“This ship’s fucked up,” Hurlish wisely rumbled.
“But still floating,” Evie hummed. “And so long as it remains so, Tulian’s dominance of the waves will go unchallenged.”
“Dunno if we can go that far,” Sara said, taking a moment to stretch up on her tiptoes to try and look in one of the gunports which still sported a cannon. Hurlish grabbed her by the hips and lifted her up, so she could inspect it properly. “She can still be taken out by numbers. As Nora keeps saying, the Sporaton Navy was the bottom of the barrel. Cannon looks good. No fractures that I can see. Thanks, Hurlish.” The orc dropped Sara, and they continued on their way.
The uppermost deck of the Waverake was as busy as the hull, with an incomprehensible whirlwind of sailors shuttling loads of goods back and forth. Even with her Blessings pouring every word spoken into her ears, Sara still couldn’t parse much. There were so many obscure naval terms being flung back and forth that she may as well have been listening to a foreign nguage.
Taking care not to interrupt anyone else’s work, Sara guided her little throuple to the state room, which had been expanded by the demolition of the adjacent captain’s cabin. Nora had no need for sleep when on the ocean, and so she’d turned the somewhat modest meeting room into something considerably more patial.
Having been designed for a human crew in an age where most men were considerably shorter than even their modern averages, the sight of Hurlish squeezing into the cramped decks was quite something. She didn’t have to quite bend double, but no one could be comfortable in a room with a ceiling eight inches shorter than they were. Sara and Evie both hovered protectively near Hurlish while she crab-walked into the room, doing their level best to look like they weren’t hovering. The first time Sara had tried to offer a hand for support had ended with it nearly crushed in contempt, which had been a painfully direct lesson on how Hurlish didn’t enjoy being coddled.
Eventually, only once Sara had assured herself Hurlish was comfortably settled, Sara turned her attention to the room’s other occupants.
It was an eclectic group, that much was certain. Sara didn’t imagine there had been many tables throughout history at which sat a mixture of former nobility, less than sane captains, disgraced marines, wisened army sergeants, archmages, and one excruciatingly normal midwestern father. Vesta, Nora, Ignite, Voth, Garen, and her Dad were talking amongst themselves in quiet murmurs, all too aware that there were precious few secrets on a ship. The Waverake’s hull was as thick as its walls were thin, and no one delighted in rumors quite like sailors.
