Chapter 43 – Sailing (Patreon)

We arrived at the dock late afternoon, and I asked about the captain. One of the sailors went on board to fetch him. The captain approached me and said, “You are early; I told you I don’t need to test your dog.”

“I finished all my business in the city, so there was no point in delaying. Is it a problem I’m early?”

“No. Welcome aboard.” He said, “I have a proposition for you.”

“Yes?”

“If you check all my crew and heal them as needed, you don’t have to pay for the passage.”

“No problem, but not today. Today, I just want to see my cabin and relax. Let’s do it tomorrow.”

“Of course, not today; we are busy with final preparations. Tomorrow is also not good; the first day of sailing is always hectic. In two days?”

“Yes. No problem.”

He called one of the sailors over and asked him to show us around. The sailor led us up the ramp on board the ship. It was extra-long, wide, and mostly square except for the front, which narrowed to the ship's bow with a raised platform. There were three wooden deckhouses on the main deck, and the sailor pointed at them and said, “The one in the front is the cabins. The captain’s cabin and all the guest cabins are there. The second one is the galley, scullery, and mess hall. The third one is crew quarters. You can sit on the main deck wherever you want, but sailors might ask you to move if you’re in the way.”

He led us around the front deckhouse, pointed at an open hatch with a trapdoor, and said, “The cargo hold is below deck, and there are five hatches to access it; they are very obvious. When in port, don’t sit on or near them.”

He led us to the back of the ship, pointed at a row of big barrels, and said, “Water barrels.” He pointed at a big pot with a handle resembling a giant saucepan and said, “Use only that to fill water from the barrels.”

He led us back to the first deckhouse. Inside, it had a long corridor with six doors on each side and a door at the end of the corridor. He pointed at it and said, “Those are the captain’s quarters; please don’t go there uninvited. If you need something, ask one of the crew. All the other doors are guest cabins and look the same. Since you’re the first one here, you can choose whichever you like.”

I didn’t want to hear people going back and forth in front of my cabin, so I pointed to the end of the hall and said, “One of the cabins at the end. It doesn’t matter which.”

He led us to the one on the right and showed us the inside. There was a bunk that he lifted and said, “You can store your things here, but don’t leave valuables in the room.” He opened a small door I hadn’t noticed before. It had a chair with a hole in the middle and a bucket below it. “Chamber pot. Somebody will empty it twice a day, morning and evening.”

I gave him a copper and thanked him. He looked surprised to receive the money but didn’t object and left.

The room wasn’t big, but still lovely. It had a bunk with storage, a table with two chairs, and a two-seater couch in front of a big window. I arranged Stretch’s blankets for him and my bunk, and we had a late lunch.

While eating, I heard shouts outside and went to investigate. There were two women, and the older of the two was arguing with crewmen that she wanted her luggage in her room, not below deck; she didn’t care there was no room, and she wouldn’t pay for another room for luggage. When she saw Stretch, she stopped mid-sentence and started shrieking that nobody told her there would be “filthy animals” on the ship.

I told her, “Don’t worry, madam; he won’t get near you.” Under my breath, I added, “For his own good,” closed the door and decided to ignore everybody and everything.

I spent the next three days sitting in quiet corners on deck and enjoying the view passing by, except for a few hours when I checked and treated the crew. There were no significant issues, so it was quick. The sailing speed wasn’t great, but it was faster than on foot or a bicycle. After three days, I started to get bored without moving, so I took out my guitar and learned new songs. No matter where I sat, the space near me became a popular hang-out area for the crew. Stretch occasionally howl-sang with my playing, and the crew thought he was a hoot. Within a day, he was their mascot, food scraps disposal unit, and petting therapy.

I sang with him sometimes and even translated one song to Shimoorian. I chose a song suitable for the circumstances, “Sailing Away” by Chris De Burgh.

“Waiting at the water's edge,
Watching all the ships as they are heading for the harbor wall..."

Some of the crew asked me to teach it to them, and I heard them sing or hum it for the rest of the voyage.

I learned twelve new songs and read three books. I reached the last book I had in a series I was reading, but the series didn’t reach its conclusion. Hmm, should I return to Earth to get the next books? I laughed at the absurdity of the thought.

I decided to be social and meet the other passengers, except the shrieking ladies. It turned out all the other passengers were merchants. We talked about trade and travel, and I sold a lot of my glassware to them; they loved it and were amazed at the craftsmanship. I also offered them some of my office supplies, primarily notebooks and pens, and they were a hit as well, but mostly for personal use. I bought two belts with pouches and a knife sheath without the knives, beautifully carved bowls, and a comfortable pair of boots. All the trading was done in a laid-back atmosphere, with a lot of haggling for fun, and I enjoyed it immensely.

At some point during the voyage, the wind changed, and the crew switched to oars. The captain let us know the voyage would take longer because of that, and the ladies were very unhappy. The rest didn’t mind so much.

After eighteen days, we reached Mormet, and the captain approached me, saying, “You’re the only one continuing with us, so you can stay on the ship or take a room in an inn. I won’t charge you extra for staying on board.”

“I’ll take a room in an inn.”

“Come find me in six days, and I’ll tell you when we leave.”

“See you then.”

I found a lovely inn, sold the innkeeper’s wife the rest of my linen, found the baths, and toured the city for two days. After two days, I began to do some trading, but this time, I was more discreet and chose specific shops based on my Storage. The things I had the most were glassware and clothes, so I looked for places to sell them. The glassware was easy, the clothes more problematic, but I did manage to sell more than three baskets. I toured the blacksmiths and the leather area and bought more weapons and arrows. I realized that after the attack, I completely forgot that I promised the bowyers I’d come back for more arrows. I hoped they wouldn’t get stuck with an inventory that was too big because of me.

I visited the captain after six days and was told we would leave in five days. Since it hadn’t snowed in the last couple of days, I checked out of the inn, and we left the city. The city was again situated on both sides of the river; on one side, it was in a valley between two mountains; on the other, it was all open plains. I decided to investigate the other side of the mountains.

After two hours, we reached the other side, but there were just more mountains with small valleys between them. I needed to move, so I ran to the next valley. This time, when I ran, I didn’t jog but pushed myself to my speed limit. I was fast!! I was always fast as a kid and an adult, but I couldn’t even begin to compare my speed to the past. I actually created a strong wind resistance with my speed. It was exhilarating, and Stretch had a lot of fun too. We ran for a few hours, and I was glad all the mountains had valleys between them and not high mountain passes like some places we traveled.

In the afternoon, we reached a big open valley with some streams and a herd of mukar/bison. Yay! I needed to replenish the meat supply.

We ate lunch, and I went hunting. I think I was too excited because I missed the eye for the first time and hit a cheekbone. I was so surprised that I froze momentarily, and the mukar started running away. I didn’t want it to run away injured, so I had to chase it. After I managed to bring it down, open its belly, and hang it, I told myself, ‘Slow is fast, fast is slow’ and repeated it in my mind a few times.

Again, I started to saturate it, but this time, I worked on an idea I had somewhere along the way. Instead of flooding it with mana and then controlling and directing it to go and do what I wanted, I created a mesh of mana where I wanted the cuts. It looked like a detailed diagram of how to butcher a cow, and then added a thin layer of mana between the skin and the meat and “pushed” with my intention. The whole thing collapsed inwards like always. When I lifted the pelt and examined the cuts, they were better than the way I had done it before. I looked at the sun, and it didn’t look like it moved much, maybe half an hour or a bit more. I checked my mana: 6820/7200. Woo Hoo!!

A red light started blinking in front of my eyes. When I taped it:

______________________________

You have perfected a technique to harvest bovine game
+1 to Perception
Advance the technique and formalize a spell to get more benefits.

______________________________

The notification was strange. I didn’t expect a level or something, and the hint about my next step was nice, but it was still strange. I also didn’t understand why Perception; seemed out of left field. I scratched my head, looked at it again, and told myself to add it to the pile of everything else I didn’t understand.

I checked my profile, and the ability Harvest Game still had [In Progress] beside it. Oh, well, you can’t have everything handed to you on a platter.

When I cleaned everything and buried the bones, it was getting dark, so I lit a fire and set up camp.

The following day, after breakfast, I moved some things and emptied and cleaned another cooler. I had a total of 14 coolers to fill. I didn’t think I would fill them all, but I had three days and learned to use much less mana.

For the next two days, I did this. In total, I hunted and harvested nine mukar and filled eight coolers. I didn’t want more of this specific meat, so I began to saturate it with mana.

The next day, it started snowing again, so I headed back. It took longer since I didn’t want to run too fast with snow falling, but we still made it back late at night. I took a room near the docks for a night, and we boarded the ship the following afternoon.

It snowed nonstop, so I spent most of my time in the cabin. I finished saturating the meat and switched to restoring weapons. When my mana reached 250/7200, I stopped to regenerate. Now I had a problem: to read, I needed light, and the light ball needed mana. I was trying to regenerate mana, so it was counterproductive.

At this point, I understood the bored Travelers that spend time in the Archive. I opened the Archive and checked my comment about buying the Mend spell. There was a whole discussion about which is better, Mend or Restore. The Restore detractors didn’t like it because it cost two ability points and was a channeled spell, i.e., more expensive mana-wise. The Mend detractors didn’t like it because it only mends breakage or tears but not deterioration or wear. The discussion was normal; nobody sounded like a frat boy, and there was no calling each other stupid or a liar. It even surprised me a bit.

I decided to post my lasagna recipe. I remembered the recipe I read and didn’t recognize anything but the salt, so I tried to make suggestions for alternatives. Writing in the Archive was an interesting experience. There was no keyboard; you had to “intend” to write, and an empty line appeared, and then you had to “think” the text you wanted to write. When I posted comments in the past, it was short and quick, but now, writing a recipe, I discovered that it had similarities to “speech to text” – a few times, I had to delete and re-think the correct text into the Archive. The whole process was an interesting mental exercise. I thought about the pompous ass that wrote the article about awakened beasts and couldn’t understand why, with the difficulty writing long text in the Archive, why did he pad the whole thing with so much flowery fluff.

I scrolled to the post where I said I got the Luck stat, and by now, 162 people were calling me a liar. Based on the mature discussion I saw earlier, I decided that calling people liars in those circumstances was a game, not an indication of the Travelers’ intellect level. I must admit, I felt relieved. There was also a new addition; somebody wrote that they got the Bard Class and got the Creativity trait. Already, 21 people called him/her a liar. It’s a trait I would love to receive.

I reached the article “Opportunities and Dangers in Worlds Undergoing Integration,” which I had started reading before and decided to finish. I had already read the stages and the dangers, so I had only the benefits left. After finishing the article, I sat there thinking. It explained why it was so easy to “farm” ability points, but it didn’t explain why. That bugged me; I always needed to understand things. Finally, I added this question to the pile of stuff I don’t understand. That pile was growing rapidly.

I continued scrolling through the Archive, but I was smart this time. I didn’t stop to read everything; I looked for articles and read the titles to decide if I wanted to read them. This method worked wonders, and for once, I didn’t want to murder the Traveler population, AND I found some cool articles.

I read an interesting article that explained the difference between the “planets, planes of existence, and parallel universes” mentioned in the Gate Traveler Class description. It was fascinating, and I definitely wanted to visit the Dragon plane/realm, but much later, when I’ll be stronger. Otherwise, I’ll never reach a dragon; I’ll be eaten on the way.

I also found an article that explained the classifications of low-mana, medium-mana, etc., and the difference between worlds in each classification. After reading this article, I decided my next world would be a medium-mana world in the 30-50 mana level range. I hoped there was a Gate in Shimoor, maybe even the Gate I was heading to. Initially, I thought the direction I felt and was heading in, was somebody writing a book and needed time to finish it, but maybe I was heading to a Gate to a world with higher mana that would have more information? The only thing that didn’t make sense with this theory was the feeling of “Take your time.” Maybe they are writing the book in another world? I decided to stop tormenting myself with speculations and continued looking for cool articles.

I read three articles with theories about why mana and tech couldn’t exist in the same world after integration. All those articles concluded that Magitech was the solution. Theoretically, I could imagine what Magitech was, but I looked for articles with more information. It took me a looooooong time to find each article, the Archive was choked with crap, but I didn’t give up until I found some, and it was fascinating. I understood why the dungeon cores mentioned in the “Opportunities and Dangers” article were so valuable. I basically did some Traveler education, and it was interesting and enlightening.

Finally, the snow stopped, and I spent the last three days on the deck enjoying the view; Shimoor was so beautiful. It was 90% pristine nature, but I was getting tired of it. I needed this place, this beauty, this nature to heal and find my balance again. Now I felt much stronger in mind and body, and not because of my stats, so it was time to move on to something more diverse, challenging, and engaging. I felt ready to face the world again.

We reached Talis, and I bid all the crew and the captain goodbye. Stretch received so much love on departure; it was like a family member leaving. Then, we headed into the city.