The trip to Ostark was retively uneventful, taking five days in total. We did spot an eagle flying from the mainnd towards our isnd, but there isn't much I can do about it so I hope it settles in without much of a fuss. The crew-in-training is also learning the ropes quite well. The current pn is for them to run the ship for the return trip with the regur crew there to ensure any potential mistakes are corrected.
When we arrived in Ostark, we once again had to wait for a spot to be opened on a dock for us to tie off to. Compared to st time, there are a lot more soldiers and ships about, which either means they're getting more troops in from the human continent or they've been pushed so far back that more soldiers are stuck here. I didn't have time to figure out which was the case though, because shortly after we docked and unloaded the small amount of food we brought along as a gift, we were sent back out.
As I probably could have expected, both Kao and Shasta came to greet us as we docked. Matters were kept brief, but I agreed that Shasta could come along with us as a representative, transtor, and navigator for getting us to the location of our salt delivery on the human continent. From there, we'll also be getting paid to deliver a bunch of weapons and food on a return trip here. Everything seemed to be in order, so we set out within an hour of having docked.
I had hoped to get an opportunity to talk to Shasta about why there were so many soldiers about, but she was busy during the first day with getting all the navigation information reyed on the bridge.
Near the end of the second day of our travel to a human city called Bonbordon, I finally had a good opportunity to talk to Shasta. Kao has had her taking care of various administrative tasks, while also getting her trained up on navigation techniques to make her more useful for exactly this kind of work. She's come a long way from what her station was way back when she was captured on our isnd before we knew much of the outside world. Comparing now to then, a whole lot has changed. I think a lot of people's fates changed with that one event. History is shifting once again during this war, and again the outcome seems unclear.
According to Shasta, progress in the war has stalled. More soldiers are arriving and participating from both sides, so things are remaining in a stalemate. The number of demon boats trying to leave the continent have increased as well, so the condition in the center of the dwarven continent is likely getting quite dire, if not having fully colpsed already.
We saw quite a few ships during the st two days, many headed for the pass, but quite a few headed in other directions as well. The innd sea we're travelling on is quite a bit calmer than the ocean, though the pass is much rougher than both. Having finally travelled this far, I can see why they'd have a preference for using this for trade. It's probably a simir situation to the Mediterranean sea allowing for a lot more focus on naval development. The difference being that the sea monsters drawn on the edge of the map are actually real, not imagined.
Shasta says we should arrive in Bonbordon early tomorrow morning. It's not the rgest city about, but the nearby area is well known for it's bargas herds, which is why we'll be stopping here to leave salt for curing their meat. We aren't expected to transport many weapons compared to food, but the local lord is expected to have prepared a number of crates of both old and new weapons from the region. They don't have a proper port, so we'll be using rowboats and ropes to load and unload, which we expect will take a few days.
Bonbordon turned out to be about half the size of Ostark. It's situated along a coast with a pretty basic defensive wall. Not far from the city, the ndscape begins to shift into foothills that are likely caused by the same tectonics that cause the sheer cliffs through the somewhat nearby pass from the ocean to the innd sea, perfect conditions for bargas to live in. Just at the edge of what we can see from the crow's nest we can spot two defensive structures in the distance on the tops of some of the taller hills, so the region does seem to have better defenses than what the city itself implies.
As for the city itself, they were informed of our arrival, but that seems to have only made the situation with crowds worse not better compared to when we arrived in Ostark. When we cast anchor off their coast, it took all of about 20 minutes before the entire shoreline was filled with people. Though it only took until the first rowboat was close enough to tell that there were demons aboard before the crowd dispersed.
I know that the city was informed of the situation in advance, but how much of that actually made it to the general populous is unknown. From the looks of it though, not a whole lot. On one hand, it's something like exposure therapy for the citizens, seeing demons that aren't aggressive towards them. On the other hand, that fear is pretty rightfully founded. Shasta reyed some gruesome information that has made it out from the captured portions of the dwarven continent. It's at the level of a full on genocide.
Honestly speaking, unless the overarching threat of demon invasions is brought to an end, I don't think it's possible for us to integrate into any of the societies here beyond designated trade posts. The reason should be fairly obvious. If people got too used to seeing demons roam about, when an invasion arrives, there would be confusion about friend vs foe that would result in much higher casualties. On the flip side though, trade posts should be fine, since it's a clearly defined area where it'd be acceptable to see a demon. Of course, that's only a band-aid solution to cover for the repeated invasions causing the problem itself.
The first rowboat that went out had Shasta and two hobgoblins to discuss where the salt should be unloaded and how we wanted to handle things. Ultimately, they discussed matters for a short while before returning and it seemed to go off without a hitch. We have two rowboats ourselves for this purpose, and the city ended up sending out another six. Things ended up going smoothly with us rowing salt to shore, then rowing back with preserved food and the occasional weapon crate.
It did end up taking about two days in total though, because after a while the problem became transporting the salt on nd, rather than on the rowboats. With the rowboats nding on the shoreline, the crates had to be carried to warehouses, and after hauling through sand for a long while, the haulers started to get exhausted. I can't really bme them though, considering we're talking about hundreds of tons of material. After all was said and done, Shasta finalized some documents and went back to shore, got some signatures then returned, and we were ready to head back to Ostark.
The trip back to Ostark was uneventful, though it was interesting to see how much faster our ship was compared to other ships. When we were headed to Bonbordon, the ships we passed were headed in the other direction. On our way back however, we were passing ships headed the same way. I'd estimate that their trips probably take a minimum of three times as long as ours, and that's if they have favorable winds. If you think about that in a different way, our ship not only has a rger cargo hold, but it's cargo hold is hypothetically three times rger than it seems, since the same trip could be made three times in the same amount of time as another ship could do so.
Unloading in Ostark was quite fast, taking half a day in total including handling the cargo manifest paperwork and payment. After Shasta helped handle everything she set off back to whatever task Kao has her working on when not helping us. If the me from the past compared the payment we were getting now compared to the payment we would get for our meager trade in the past, I'd be shocked. The one transport job was less than we would get from the mana crystal auctions, but still well above a year's worth of trade we did back then. Since it was evening when everything was done, we stayed overnight, albeit further out in the bay as to not block a dock, before setting out in daylight to navigate the pass back to Kembora.
Future trips will be done on their own, so I'll be focusing on developing our isnd more for a while. It's too bad, because it was nice to finally get to see more of the world, but there will be more opportunities in the future. We can't really afford to just let me go sightseeing for the sake of it.
