Wizardly Dude
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[TEA] (138) 3.37. A City Adrift
🕑 Added 2025-10-15 16:00:23 +0000 UTCDespite knowing how to swim, courtesy of a few years on the swim team back in high school, Asher had never actually been on a boat before. He’d primarily grown up in the city, so other than the handful of beach trips they’d taken during the summers, he didn’t really have much experience with bodies of water larger than a competition-sized swimming pool.
Once their entire caravan had crossed the bridge and were stationed in what looked like one large landing area with a number of stalls for the mogrants and a small handful of buildings that Mags explained held basic supplies, they got to watch as the bridge was retracted and stored once again underneath the city-fragment. Without warning, the very ground under their feet suddenly began moving, and they all jerked slightly at the sudden motion as they started heading back toward the center of the lake.
Now that they were actually on the moving city-fragment, Asher could appreciate how just quickly and smoothly they were traveling.
“Brant should have already explained this to you all, but just in case he forgot in his old age, the city is constantly rearranging itself!” Mags called out to them all. “Never assume the same building is going to be where it was the day before. If you need to find something, or you end up getting lost, just ask for help!”
“I’ll give you old age,” a soaking wet Brant muttered, still busy trying to wring dry the bottom of his shirt as he directed his mogrants into their assigned stalls and helped get the wagons detached and secured down. “Anyone who is continuing with us to Abingdon, be sure to meet back up here in three days’ time! If you miss the city-fragment detaching for shore, we can’t exactly turn back for you all that easily, so you’ll have to wait for the next caravan!”
“Sounds like we have three days to kill,” Asher said, turning to look at Samantha as Brian headed over to the front edge of the city-fragment and nervously watched the water zip past them as they shot forward. “You guys have your swimming lessons, but I wonder how I should spend my time. I could just pop back over to Dormaul and keep hunting, I guess.”
“Didn’t you say the Guild there has basically hidden themselves under a rock for the time being?” Samantha pointed out, carefully watching Brian as if expecting him to fall in at any moment. “Maybe it’s worth seeing if you can’t find the Guild in this city.”
“Honestly, I’m not even sure how the Guild manages to function in this city at all,” Asher admitted, thinking it over. “It’s not like they can have hidden basements, what with them functionally living on one massive boat, and from what we’ve seen so far, I’m getting the vibe that the people of this city are far more connected and open with one another than most. Hell, even the nobles in charge are good people according to Brant, which means I doubt they’d be okay turning their backs on something as nasty as the Guild. If Owl hadn’t specifically mentioned that each city in the kingdom had a Finger in charge of it, I’d just kinda assume this one was an outlier.”
“It sounds like it still is one,” Samantha said, her brow shooting up as she was struck with an idea. “Actually… Maybe you should take this opportunity to try going after the Guild in a new way. You said it yourself, the noble family in charge probably wouldn’t want to turn their back on Guild activity, right?”
“Yeah. The Malrron family don’t even sound like nobles from what Brant said. I mean, they spent their time fishing and chatting with people.”
“Maybe if you went to them and informed them of how you specialize in hunting assassins, they’d actually help you root out the Guild influence here in the city,” Samantha ventured, looking more intrigued by the idea as she spoke. “Honestly, they might even hire you to do so. You’ve literally killed one Finger already, you’ve certainly got the credentials.”
“That… is a fantastic idea,” Asher said slowly, thinking it through in his head. While the Guild was naturally powerful and filled with deadly fighters, his biggest hurdle with going after their members was always just the matter of actually finding them. If the Malrron family was able to help him on that front, he could devote his full focus on simply fighting and eradicating the senior assassins.
“I knew I kept you around for a reason,” Asher said jokingly, earning an eyeroll from Samantha as she lifted a finger and sprayed him in the face with water.
While it felt like they were moving fast, the lake that Poltar resided within was incredibly large, and it still took them a bit over an hour to actually meet back up with the city proper. The members of the caravan all watched together as the dozens of Poltar citizens manning their fragment worked with even more people on the main city to secure their city-fragment to the main city with what looked like massive chains and floating, flexible bridges. In only a few minutes, they were secured once more. After informing them of a few different options they had available for them to stay at during their time in the city, Mags bid them all a good day and took off after Brant as the man tried to sneak away without her noticing.
“I like her.” Samantha chuckled, watching Mags scream about getting a drink as Brant used his impressive strength to leap across city-fragments and try to put distance between the two of them. “I’m pretty excited for my lessons!”
“Me too,” Brian admitted, fiddling with the flotation belt he had securely around his waist. After he’d leaned a bit too far forward and nearly fallen into the water while watching their fragment sail toward the main city, Samantha had demanded he wear one until they’d had their lessons.
The fact that he’d actually agreed just went to show how nervous Brian truly was about being in the middle of a giant lake.
“I guess we should get lodging taken care of, and then we can move forward from there,” Asher said, getting two nods of agreement.
The three of them crossed one of the floating bridges, suddenly finding themselves right in the heart of the city almost without warning.
As they’d been told, Poltar was a unique city in the sense that it didn’t have distinct areas. Everything seemed to be happening everywhere, all at once, and that made it more than a little confusing to try to navigate the foreign city. They’d be in a floating fragment dedicated almost entirely to merchant stalls hawking their wares at one moment, only to cross another bridge and suddenly find themselves in what looked like a schoolground, based on the young children playing under the watchful eyes of adults, ensuring none of them tried leaping into the water. Cross another bridge, and they were surrounded by restaurants, the smells of smoked and grilled fish causing a rumbling in their stomachs. It wasn’t that the food wagon in the caravan had been bad by any means, but they’d been eating a lot of preserved food the last few days, while everything here smelled freshly caught.
After snagging a quick bite to eat, and enjoying the best fish Asher had ever had in his entire life, they carried on, bouncing from one city-fragment to the next. Finally, they stopped to ask for directions after they got a stern talking to for wandering into a restricted section of the city that was apparently a floating prison, and they found one of the taverns Mags had suggested. The tavernkeep in charge of the Drifting Anchor was a middle-aged man more than familiar with people booking rooms in between caravan stays, and they got their lodging sorted in no time at all. By then, it was only late afternoon, and they still had a good few hours of sunlight left.
“No sense in waiting,” Samantha said, smiling after they’d gotten settled in their room. “I guess I’ll go try and find Mags. No doubt either she managed to track down Brant and had that drink by now, or Brant managed to give her the slip. You ready Brian?”
“Definitely,” he said, sounding equal parts nervous and excited as he tugged on the belt around his waist yet again. “…I guess we have to leave our bows and stuff here though, huh?”
“Oh… yeah, that would make sense,” Samantha said slowly, her excitement faltering as she finally came to the same realization Brian had.
Bows and arrows weren’t really all that useful underwater.
Frowning, she pulled her enchanted bow off her back, looking at it as if leaving it behind would physically pain her. Ever since they’d first attracted the attention of the Guild, Samantha had kept her bow within arm’s reach at all times. She’d used it to kill everything from bears to lesser demons, and it was obvious she didn’t want to part with the weapon, even temporarily.
“Here, let me store it in my rift for now,” Asher offered, hoping that would at least alleviate some of her concerns. “That way even if someone were to break into our room, your bow will be safe.”
“Thanks, Asher, that makes this at least a little easier,” Samantha said, giving him a sad smile as she turned over her bow and quiver full of arrows. “I guess I’ll ask Mags what she’d recommend for a good weapon to use underwater. I don’t like only having a hunting knife to rely on.”
“Good idea,” he said, safely storing their weapons while he imagined Samantha swimming around with a golden trident in hand. It didn’t really fit the mental image he had of the hunter, but he had to admit, he thought she could probably pull it off if she tried.
“Stay safe,” Samantha said, giving him a tight hug and a soft kiss before she and Brian headed out in search of their swim instructor.
Before he did anything else, Asher laid a hand on their door and pushed a small sliver of energy into their tavern room, almost struggling to get it out of him. Other than gaining the ability to scry his Eternal Marks, one other benefit he’d gained from evolving the skill was realizing that his total number of marks was slowly increasing again. He didn’t know what the final number would end up being, but at least at the moment, he’d upped his total to seven, if just barely.
Well that solves the problem of getting hopelessly lost at least, he thought, feeling Samantha and Brian’s marks gradually move further and further away. He was happy to have a mark in the city that he knew was out of the water, as he wasn’t a huge fan of the idea of Recalling to either of them and suddenly finding himself thrown overboard. In fact, he had to be especially careful with Samantha now, as it was entirely possible if he Recalled to her without thinking, he might find himself a hundred feet underwater without warning.
“If I were a noble family, where would I be,” he muttered to himself as he headed back outside and started wandering once more. Following Mag’s advice and simply asking someone wandering by, he was informed that the head of the family had actually been called away on business, along with a number of the other members, but that he could probably find whoever was left over by the fishermen.
I wonder what fishing even looks like in this world, he pondered, making his way in the direction he’d been given. At this point, he’d seen plenty of people using what looked like fairly standard fishing rods and quite a number swimming around with nets or harpoons, but he hadn’t seen too many people using skills to assist them. He assumed those people were probably swimming far beneath the surface and out of sight, so all he had to go off of was his imagination on that front. After walking for a good bit, he finally got his first view of what it looked like when one combined elemental skills with fishing when he got to the edge of the city.
Where he spotted a hollering woman going toe-to-toe with what looked like a massive sea serpent.
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