Wandering Agent
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Chapter 151 First Days at Sea
🕑 Added 2022-06-22 00:46:02 +0000 UTCIt took us a few hours for the shore to fade to little more than a line. This boat wasn't particularly fast and even with a favorable wind there was little in the way of propulsion. I could probably have helped with the wind some, but that wasn't something I could do for more than a couple hours at most and it wasn't really needed.
While we moved further and further from the shore I noticed that the movement was something else too. I'd been on a number of boats before, though only a few at sea. This however was slightly different, in that it was nowhere near as stable or comfortable as a normal modern boat. I suspected the fact that we had to sail at least partially with the wind didn't help either.
By noon all three ships of the expedition were well and away, the horizon now looking flat and blue in all directions. I could see the captain and a few others taking occasional measurements using a watch and the position of the sun.
"Captain?" I asked as he settled into a spot where he could watch over the crew. As it was we were now cruising along happily and they needed little of his immediate input.
"Did ya need something lass?"
"Just a question. I saw you checking the heading, is there a reason you don't use a compass instead?" I knew such things were available, if a bit uncommon on land.
"A couple. While I do have a few it's good to check by the sun. There're a few creatures out in the deeps that can throw your heading off if you go by that alone."
"What kind of monster can do that..."
"Oh don't worry, don't worry. While there are some truly massive beasties out there none see a ship our size as a meal. The ones messing with the compass often aren't even that big, little schools of fishes and the like."
"Oh, that's good. We had spine wolves and the like back home if you knew where to look. Hate to have to deal with that kind of thing on the water."
"There are monsters, and mind that you don't go for a swim, but our boats are big, and wooden. We don't look like food to them unless we go for a dip. There are a few spots where you can find something that could and would take a ship like ours, but those leviathans don't leave their home areas often, and we'll be steering well and clear of all of those."
"Probably need the mana concentration there..." That comment got me a look so I went on. "Most of the really big things on land only live where there's lots of mana. Either where people have dumped magical items or for other reasons. Under Lithere there's a whole system of tunnels and the deeper you go the worse it gets."
"Huh, I'd never heard that one. Makes sense though I guess, even at sea things tend to cluster around areas. Some deep in the ocean and some near reefs and the like. There's even tell of islands that no ship can get near to without problems."
I wanted to know more about those, but from what I was hearing he didn't actually know much about it. That was sort of unfortunate, but I could just ask around either when we got back or found land.
For the moment though I had a good seat to seeing how things were done on board. There were a few things that I quickly noticed. Firstly, the water was created on board. I watched as the cabin boy and another elf moved to a barrel and added the fluid several times throughout the morning. My guess was that they were using as much mana as they safely could before returning to their duties, and it was enough to heavily supplement what the crew would need. My guess was that there was still some stored freshwater, but probably much less than what ships from Earth would have needed for this voyage.
Beyond that it was also interesting that a man at the top of the mast was exchanging messages with our sister ships. Every now and then a pair or red and black flags were taken out and a series of waving occurred. I wasn't sure how developed this code was, but it seemed to have at least check-in and reply signals. We looked to only be talking to the center ship in our formation, which was a simple wedge triangle with us to the far right side.
Before long lunch was called. There were two shifts, with our group being given priority in the serving along with the captain. The food was surprisingly good, and it seemed that Olnir agreed with my assessment.
"I was told that the food on board would be rather plain captain, but this is about what an inn would serve."
"Oh don't mind that sir," One of the men, an officer no doubt since he was at our table, spoke up while Captain Tom was busy laughing. "We'll be on ship biscuit and beans before too long have no worries." He said it with such a chipper smile that every sailor present got a good laugh before our host managed his own reply.
"Normal food lad is mostly a mixture of the biscuit no sane man could call bread, a bit of cheese, salted pork and beans. Every couple days we'll also have sweetened porridge and there are some fruit and the like we'll all be needing to keep off scurvy that are served with that as well." Someone must have realized about vitamin C, since one of my predecessors was a conqueror that being known wasn't that surprising.
I wanted to groan on how that could get old fast, particularly with the heavily watered beer that we were being given, but I'd survived on mostly summoned bread for a hefty chunk of my childhood, so there was no point.
"Oh, I see," Olnir replied. Most of my companions looked a bit put out as well.
I on the other hand was less bothered, something which the captain noticed. "I didn't get the impression you'd sailed before lass," he asked with a slightly raised brow.
"I haven't like this sir. I did however learn the lessons of bland food from my childhood and brought my own herbs and tea." There were several very tightly stuffed jars in my luggage which held enough to make it through much of the journey.
"Hah! Takes most men at least one trip across the blue to think of that. Not worried about any of the men trying to rob you though?" This indicated that my idea had long been thought of, not like a small thing of herbs or tea would cause any problems even if you had the little luggage prepared for normal sailors.
"Any man which tries to rob me will sorely regret that poor decision." My chipper response got the old seaman laughing again.
After lunch there really wasn't much for me to do, so I returned to my cabin resolved to either work on my core more or to do some reviewing of the 'Guide' because it was at least didn't have me sitting in the sun all day. I sat and sunk into my own mindspace, letting myself drift a bit as I sank down. I had noticed that I was becoming somewhat more aware of things going on around me sine hitting the second level of the core, which was nice in case anyone wanted to talk.
I spent several hours thus, making my connections and building towards the third and final level of the core. It was absolutely massive and I had little in the hope of finishing it anytime soon. The fact that almost nobody did probably had to do with how daunting the task looked. There would be a ton of time investment for any payoff at all, I just hoped that it would be worth it down the line.
After a few hours spent thusly I returned to the world at large only to notice that I was feeling a bit below the weather. I stood up, took a step from the bunk, and promptly doubled over, spewing what was left of lunch all over the floor. My hands grabbed for the bunk so that I wouldn't fall in my own sick as the accumulated hours of meditation crashed into horrid nausea.
Ah the smell of vomit, and the wonderful thing that it does when you taste/smell/ect. it. I got a second to briefly look at the mess before another wave hit me, nearly sending me sprawling again. Around the same time I heard small racing feet approaching and quick knocking on the door.
"Miss, you sick?" It was the voice of the cabin boy.
"Yeah."
"Hold on, I'll grab ya a bucket."
"Thank you... *Retch* just come in when you have it." I didn't want a conversation feeling as I was.
It was only a moment or two later that he returned with the vessel and a damp cloth. Upon opening the door he groaned a bit before holding them out to me.
"Please try to hit the bucket miss. I don't fancy cleaning up even more." I gathered that he was the one in charge of cleaning our room if needed, and after giving the bucket a nice warmup sang a few notes.
Singing while trying to not puke was fun and all, but getting enough out to remove the mess and smell was priority if I ever wanted this to stop, which I did. I felt as I always did when sick, a deep and dark missing of ginger ale. If there was any chance of learning to make it some day I would, if only to aid the upset stomachs of the blighted world.
"Thank you for the help... um... what's your name?" I said as I tried to keep myself normalized.
"It's Elian miss. That's some spell... if only I could..." The boy looked on in amazement as things went back to clean.
"Right, thank you Elian. Sorry for embarrassing myself like this."
"Not at all, happens to a lot of our passengers. The lads were taking bets on you lot, and I'm happy to say I won."
"Well at least I made you some money..."
"Oh not on you miss. I bet that your boss would get the ocean stomach. You should've seen the bosun's face when he got it right on the shoes. Had to go and hide, if that old jerk saw me laughing he'd tan my backside." I knew young Elian would look back on that with a smile for some time, being low man on the totem pole couldn't be fun.
"Well I'm sorry I missed that too. Olnir's kind of a jerk." That got me a laugh.
I spent several days cooped up in the cabin with my new and dearest friend Mr. Bucket. The other girls had somehow managed to dodge the bullet while most of the boys had some level of seasickness. It was made clear to me that while I was doing badly nobody could hold a candle to Olnir though. He was so bad that the other boys nearly kicked him from the cabin out of frustration. Sadly I was a bit too busy with my own issues to get a look at it, but such is life.
When I finally surfaced from my time below decks, now used to the rocking of the ocean and several pounds lighter I had a rather sad realization. While we were still guests, very well paying ones, and still eating at the captain's table, the quality of food had taken a noticeable dip. Several of the greens and less well keeping foods were already gone, being lost to the poor shelf life. There was little to do about that though, so I dug into what was still some of the best food onboard.
