Chapter 52 One Free Meal

  Horseshoes clapped against weathered stone as Isaac and Lenna’s caravan continued on its journey up the coast. It had taken most of the morning to finally get a good look at the entirety of Mt. Henhopsha. Isaac had been staring intently at the mountain for almost ten minutes before Lenna finally spoke up: “What is it?” She asked him. “You are staring at the mountain like it just winked at you and you are trying to figure out how.”

  “What?” Isaac asked before his mind had fully processed what Lenna had said. “Oh, no.” He replied and shook his head. “Something is just… I don’t know. It just feels off. The mountain’s placement is odd. There aren’t any more mountains nearby, it’s not part of a range at all, there aren’t even connecting hills.” He explained. “Usually, I would just assume that it was a dormant or a former volcano but it can’t be one, Safeharbor is under it.”

  “Oh.” Lenna said and eyed the mountain for a moment. A moment turned into another ten minutes of both of them staring at the mountain.

  “No, it couldn’t be, right?” Isaac thought aloud.

  Lenna nodded as she had the same thought a few minutes prior but originally had passed it off. “It was made. It’s not a natural mountain.” She spoke what they were both thinking aloud.

  “But what about the large cavern that connects to it?” Isaac wondered about the cavern where they had fought Shamsha.

  Lenna paled and slowly turned her head towards the ocean. She swallowed hard as she mentally mapped it out. “How deep do you think the ocean is just off the coast?” She questioned him in return.

  “About five to nine hundred feet.” Their wagon driver answered for Isaac. “Why?” She wondered.

  “There is a cavern down there that connects to Safeharbor.” Isaac explained and pointed just off the coast. “A cavern we fought in.” The wagon driver just shrugged and went back to focusing on the road and the horses. Isaac slowly turned back to Lenna. “Lenna, Shamsha dropped an entire meteor shower on us, in a cavern that can probably only barely hold up the water above it as it is.”

  “I do not know what kind of bad luck we have in store for us, but someday Lady Luck will take her due.” Lenna replied.

  Isaac shivered at the thought of how close they had come to being crushed under millions of tons of water. “Patrons,” Isaac sent up a quick prayer. “please negotiate with Lady Luck on our behalf.”

  Lenna shook her head. “That might be a tall order.” She told him. “Lady Luck does not take bribes and cannot be bargained with. She likes who she likes, and dislikes who she dislikes. All we can do is hope that she fancies us personally.”

  –

  Halfway through the trip’s second day, the caravan collectively decided to stop by a small fishing village that was just off the path. The village was run by a baron in service to the marquess that ran Port Vespera, the marquess that was in service to Duke and Duchess Von Sasston.

  The marquess’s men had actually been instructed to stop by the barony in order to pick up tax paperwork on their way back to Port Vespera from Sapphirestone. Their original plan was to speed up, make the detour, and then meet back up with the rest of the caravan around dusk. They would have arrived a bit late to the campsite but it was a doable detour that only left them exposed for a few hours. With the entire caravan taking the detour, one of the small-time merchants would be able to sell a good bit of his cargo of fruits, to the small village that lived too close to the sea to have orchards of their own.

  It was just after noon when the small village came properly into sight. The caravan had been able to see small spires of smoke for some time from the houses, singular inn, and baron’s manor’s cooking and heating fires. It was a quaint village set just up from a peer. The village was on a slope with the buildings closest to the sea on stilts even though the stilts were usually exposed entirely to the air. The occasional storm surge would often bring waves crashing in far farther than high tide and the village had been built, or rebuilt, with that in mind. There were nothing but fishing boats out on the sea nearby, and even though people were out and about, it was anything but bustling. The village couldn’t have had more than a few hundred people in total with only a little over a hundred buildings. The baron's manor was built the farthest from the ocean but the inn looked like it was built on the highest point. The pair of buildings, one at the center and one opposite the sea, looked like they would become two isles in an ocean storm if the summer storm surges ever got too bad.

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  “It’s… cute.” Lenna said after a moment of taking in the village while they approached it.

  “It is, isn’t it.” Their wagon driver replied. “I grew up here.”

  “What’s it called?” Isaac wondered. “I didn’t even see a sign.”

  “Norrip.” The driver replied. “According to the story, when the village was founded, it was the only place along the coast that didn’t have an aggressive riptide, and wasn’t under threat from larger sea creatures. There used to be a sign that said: ‘No monster nor riptide.’ and that’s how it got its name.”

  “How bad are the storms here?” Isaac continued questioning their new guide. “Storm likes to send typhoons up the coast and away from Sapphirestone don’t they?”

  “They send ‘em south too.” The driver explained. “But they can get pretty bad sometimes. Thankfully we can always see them coming for at least an hour, even during the harshest part of the rainy season.” The driver looked back at the duo. “For big-time adventurers, you folks ask a lot a questions.” She commented. “It’s not a bad thing, just makes me wonder, it’s like you’ve never been outta Safeharbor.”

  “More like out of the Innerworld.” Isaac replied. “The sun actively hurts my fighting power and blinds Lenna so we tend to like dark places.”

  The driver nodded. “Makes sense.” She said and just left it at that.

  A few hours later, the caravan had rolled into Norrip and stopped along the main thoroughfare. The thoroughfare ran right in front of the inn and then out the other side of town. The wagons all stopped just before the inn and the duo’s driver, along with two other drivers, headed into the inn to negotiate for stables for the horses.

  In extending their trip from three to four days, the caravan wouldn’t be arriving at Port Vespera at dusk and could instead arrive in the mid afternoon, which would allow an easier unloading of the goods and the finding of lodging. Apparently, none of the caravanners were in a rush if slowing down meant an easier time upon their arrival. Nothing that any of them were carrying would spoil if they took another eighteen hours to arrive, and none of them were working on a tight timeline, so none of them saw a point to pushing themselves needlessly.

  Once Isaac and Lenna’s driver returned, Isaac waved her down. “Are you all going to be fine until tomorrow?” He questioned her. “We were thinking about dropping in on the baron.”

  “We’ll be fine.” She replied. “Lord Drangur is a kind man but doesn’t take any nonsense.” She informed him. “It’s part of livin’ on the sea.”

  Isaac nodded in acknowledgement. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He assured her. “Dawn tomorrow?” He asked when they would leave.

  “Aye.” She agreed. “See you at dawn, or earlier if you wanna join us for dinner at the inn.”

  “Maybe.” Isaac replied. “It depends, we might be having dinner with Lord Drangur.”

  “You know him already?” The driver questioned.

  Isaac shook his head. “No, but I have a way of getting at least one free meal in every town.”

  —

  The baron’s manor looked like a wooden brick with rounded corners and a rounded roof. It was barely three stories tall but was easily big enough to house a family of seven and two servants just from its considerable width and depth. One of the reasons it was so massive was so that a good percentage of the local population, those that couldn’t fit in the inn, would be able to take shelter in it in the event of a truly awful storm.

  Isaac and Lenna walked up to the front door and Isaac rapped the brass knocker. A moment later, a young man in his twenties opened the door. He had the same brown hair and eyes as everyone else in the region but he was noticeably less tanned than most others. “Hello, is there something I can do for you?” He asked the imposing duo at his door. Lenna’s faceplate was removed but otherwise she was still in full battle gear and Isaac didn’t take his armor off unless absolutely necessary, while they were traveling, so he was as well. The fact that Isaac was armored but didn’t have an obvious weapon actually made him look more dangerous than Lenna who had her longsword hanging from her hip.

  “My wife and I would like to speak with the lord of this town.” Isaac explained. His interlocutor was about to say something when he took notice of the double platinum tags the Isaac and Lenna both wore proudly for all to see. He gulped. Isaac raised his hand to forestall the young man from jumping to any conclusions. “It is not something incredibly important, it’s just that we are here, so it would be nice to meet with him.”

  The young man nodded as he processed what Isaac had said. “I see. I will inform his lordship.” He told them and then stepped out of the way while holding the door open. “You may wait inside if you would like.”

  Isaac nodded and both he and Lenna walked into the comfortably open entryway. The entryway was lit by a large brass chandelier adorned with glowing stones inside of yellow glass that cast a much more natural looking light than most others. “Thank you.” Lenna told the young man. Neither she nor Isaac were completely sure if the young man was a servant or a child of the local lord. His clothes were well kept and practical, which was normal for both options in a lord’s household, but the colors were muted tans and browns instead of house colors. For a baron in charge of a small fishing village, it would not make a lot of sense to waste expensive dyes on day-to-day clothes that other nobles wouldn’t be likely to ever see.

  “He was nice.” Isaac commented quietly to Lenna as soon as the young man left to inform the lord of their arrival.

  “He looked mildly terrified.” Lenna replied just as quietly. “He even forgot to ask our names.”

  Isaac shrugged. “At least he offered for us to wait inside. After Arthur and his goons made us wait on the docks for hours just for an answer, this is like a breath of fresh air.”

  “Arthur and his men probably thought they had ‘noble immunity’. A baron is far too close to commoners to be that arrogant.” Lenna explained. “I am sure there are plenty of times when a baron pissed off someone like us. They were probably succeeded soon after.”

  “Fair point.” Isaac conceded. Both he and Lenna turned simultaneously towards one of the multiple entrances as they heard heavy footfalls approaching. “He sounds huge.” Isaac commented.

  Lenna scowled at him. “What if they hear you?” She snapped even quieter than before. “Be polite.” She finished just as the door opened.