“This is much nicer than the last time.” Failith sighed, looking around Tree’s teleportation square. He had pressed his one suit, and changed the beads in his horns to a new design. He’d also gotten a dye job done, with much of his greying fur back to its original brown.
“We had to come the long way. By foot,” Marco hissed. “Grandia refused us diplomatic use of their Circle, and we could not pay the exorbitant fee.”
“Well you’re traveling with us now, so we’ll travel in style,” I said, gesturing at team Brightstar. Starshine waved at us, but kept a wary eye on the side of the platform. Raysdotter sidled away from the edge and held on tight to one of the Greybough Consortium wagons.
Joseph had brought an entire entourage, complete with three horse-drawn wagons, eight workers, and five Kododos. He and Berry sat upon the largest and most impressive of the wagons, putting food in each others’ mouths and laughing.
“Did you not say he was an old man back in your world?” Marco asked, frowning at Joseph and Berry' s little lover’s buyplay. “Why’s he acting like a young buck in love?”
“Don’t ask me. Maybe it’s an elf thing,” I remarked. “Or maybe he’s actually in love.”
Val stood beside Kirk with three other giants I hadn’t met yet. They all had dark brown leathery skin that spoke of the life of a sailor or farmer, and wore simple white tunics and brown pants, much like Kirk usually wore. Their apparent leader had a thick black goatee and an eyepatch, and wore a large leather tricorn hat. He also wore a long red cloak that cascaded around his shoulders, crisscrossed with bandoliers of daggers and knick knacks. It was all of superb workmanship and almost certainly enchanted as it radiated a slight shimmer like a heat mirage.
He looked like an off-brand Jack Sparrow. I’d never seen anyone's wardrobe scream Pirate more in my entire life.
Kirk had introduced him as Harold, and said he was the captain of their ship.
The Mages called for Grandia, and we all stepped onto the Teleportation circle.
“Teleportation always makes me queasy,” Aishablue mumbled, gripping her wand so tight her brown fingers grew white.
“You’ll be fine. This isn’t a dungeon, there aren’t monsters waiting on the other side,” Flowerpott chuckled.
“FLOWERPOTT!” We all screamed as the surrounding Mana flared, and we were whisked halfway around the Erd.
—
We flashed into existence in a grand teleportation square quite like Kinshasa’s. Thick walls surrounded us, preventing us from seeing outside, and the glint of weaponry and the sound of barked orders told of soldiers at the ready.
There were not any monsters. Thank the Gods.
A moment later we were approached by a dapper man in a dark blue button up vest with golden buttons. He wore tight white pants and had a red cravate, while his balding pate was hidden beneath a black bowler. His skin was tanned, though not anything close to Harold and company. He looked like something straight out of a naval period drama, and my Ability shifted his accent straight into posh British as he addressed us.
“Ah! You must be Lord Roughtuff’s contingent!” He declared, sweeping us a bow. “Councillor Geronimo, at your service.”
Berry rolled her eyes and muttered, “Whose contingent?”
I stepped forward, smiling and giving him a slightly smaller bow. “Aye, that’d be us. Are you Councillor Geronimo? Duke Schist told me to expect you!”
“That I am! We have been looking forward to your arrival for months now! We have a place all set aside for the entrance to Cascadia. Imagine! A fourth dungeon in Grandia! Truly these are exciting times!”
Grandia, the city of Adventurers, was so named because it had more dungeons in close proximity than anywhere else in Erd. There was the Howling Mine within the city, the Emerald Coast a few days sail to the east, and the Daggerfell Plains just to the west. Unfortunately, none of them were particularly beginner friendly, which made Grandia a hub for more seasoned adventurers.
Clearly, they were hoping to change that with access to Cascadia.
“We still need to discuss the specifics for opening a door here,” I said, my eyes twinkling at the scent of blood in the water. These guys had sent an actual request to Kinshasa. I had leverage here.
Geronimo briefly faltered. “Ah. Of course. We understand that you’ll be spending most of your time at the Coalition embassy? Shall we meet there?”
I nodded. “I have some work I’m doin’ fer ‘em. But you won’t be talking to me, as I’ve delegated the specifics to the Greybough Consortium.”
I gave a shark-like smile as Joseph smoothly stepped into the conversation. He was dressed in his finest sarong, and festooned with gold and silver jewelry. He looked like some kind of hedonistic roman nature god. Joseph laid his hands spread out in front of him and gave a small bow.
“Greetings, Ambassador Geronimo, I give my boughs to you. Joseph Stannard of the Greybough Consortium. It’s a pleasure to be doing business to you.”
Bit of a slip of the tongue there Joseph… or was that to on purpose?
The ambassador’s smile grew forced. “Lord Stannard. I’ve… heard of you. I was not aware that you would be speaking for Lord Roughtuff.”
I laughed jovially. “Oh, you know how it is. I suspect I’ll be so busy with the Coalition that I’ll never be able to spare the time. This way you’ll be able to get the door open to Cascadia as quickly as possible. Greybough has done a lot of good work for the Thirsty Goat Brewery, and we expect that they’ll become a primary distributor for our alcohol here in Grandia.”
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I gave Joseph a wink and he widened his eyes back at me. Annie, John, Jeremiah, and a retainer’d Urist Mclawyer had all gone over Joseph’s contract and proclaimed it fair. The more we made, the more he made. Win, win!
Poor Geronimo looked ready to pop as Joseph led him away.
Beside me, Kirk stretched mightily and took a deep breath. “Ahhhh! Can you smell that bracing ocean air? It’s good to be home!”
Harold clapped him on the back. “Aye! That it is! It’s been years for you, hasn’t it Kirk? DId you miss it? I was gone for far less than you, and I missed it every hour.” He took a deep sniff as well, his eyes closed in bliss.
I followed suit, my nostrils flaring as the scent of salt and human waste hit me at the exact same moment. “Ugh! Argh!” I choked. “What’s that smell!?”
“People.” Kirk shrugged. “Grandia’s one of the largest cities in the world, and controls much of Erd’s maritime trade. Awemedinand doesn’t allow for burning in the open, and Crack has strict air quality controls, but Grandia just cares about gold. The Periton even caught fire once, before they clamped down on illegal dumping.”
“Gold’s gold,” I muttered. So it really was just like England; that had to be on purpose. I made a mental note to look a little deeper into this Fourpwood character who’d founded Grandia. Or maybe put Richter on it to feed me a summary. Because I really did not have time.
Because I was on vacation. Vacation!
Councillor Geronimo stalked back over, his lips thin. “If you would care to follow me, Lord Roughtuff. I’ve arranged for a carriage to take you to your destination. You can bring two others with you, but the rest of your contingent will need to make other arrangements.”
“I got it,” Kirk said, sweeping forward to talk to Joseph’s wagoneers.
“We have our own arrangements,” Failith said, turning to Marco. “We must go speak with Mystic Isen at the refugee camp first. I have sent word to the embassy to expect you, Lord Roughtuff. I suspect you wish to inspect the meadery first?”
“You suspect correctly,” I said, grinning. “I hope that I’ll have good news for you when we meet next.”
“So we pray to Aaron,” Failith said, bowing. “And may Solen guide you to our Freedom.”
I followed Geronimo to a stately black carriage with two champing white horses. I eyed them warily – after years of goatback and kododoback, I was wary of the giant stamping champing beasts. Seriously, horses are intimidating when you barely come up above their bellies!
Thankfully, the carriage had been properly outfitted with dwarf-sized steps, and Balin, Starshine and myself mounted them to enter the plush carriage. The scent of clean leather wafted out as we opened the curtain. It was opulent inside, glimmering with gold accents and crimson satin, offset by black leather ornamentation.
“Ah, giants are always so appreciative of the proprieties,” Balin sighed, sinking into a cushion.
“Certainly beats being thrown off a tree,” Starshine said, sitting down beside him.
“Very nice,” I agreed, patting the cushions. “I wonder if it’s enchanted too.”
A quick glance with the ol’ magic eyes told me that it was indeed enchanted, the telltale glimmer of runes visible through the carriage floor. “Yep. Guesses?”
“Prob’ly reduced shock. Human roads are poor copies of good dwarven engineering. They do everything bigger, including potholes,” Balin huffed.
“Listening enchantments too, almost surely,” Starshine added. “So watch what you say.”
I shrugged. “Eh, we’re not at war or anythin’, but I get ya.”
Councillor Geronimo mounted the stairs of the carriage and plumped down to sit beside me. He loomed over me in this position, and I kept down a twinge of red anger. He wasn’t doing it on purpose.
Probably.
Geronimo removed his bowler and wiped his forehead. “We’ll be passing the docks on the way to your lodgings, where you’ll have a lucky opportunity to see the GN Seasiren in the docks.”
“Seasiren?” I asked, as we passed through the gates of the teleportation square and out into the city proper. What first met my gaze were towering edifices of wood and mortar, each with their own unique flair on breaking the local building code.
They were also huge, easily four to five times the height of the average dwarven building. The air was salty and muggy, and that distinct scent of so many people and coal and animals and everything else in close proximity was everywhere.
“There’s so many people!” Balin whispered what I was thinking, his eyes also drawn to the sheer mass of humanity. It looked like the Grand Market, but on every street corner and as far as the eye could see. And it definitely wasn’t doing anything to help Grandia beat the London clone allegations.
The majority of what we could see were, of course, giants. That wasn’t to say that we couldn’t spot the odd dwarf, gnome, or more commonly, beatsfolk. But the sheer number of humans simply made it impossible to spot the comparatively smaller races scurrying underfoot unless you really looked for them.
Then we were out of the main streets and the ocean suddenly swept out in front of us. The scintillating white and bright blueness of it spearing our eyes. The sun coruscated off the waves and into the horizon in a way that the artificial dungeon environment of Cascadia just couldn’t quite match.
“The Eastern Ocean!” Geronimo said, pointing out the window. “If you look just down and to the left, you’ll see the jewel of our proud navy!”
Three dwarven heads peered out over the bottom of the slightly too tall lintel. There were swarms of white specks near the docks, and as we got closer they revealed themselves to be sailing ships of every shape and size.
I’d always loved going to the tall ships’ days in Vancouver and Victoria back in the day. Sailing was a man’s romance as they say! And I felt that warm tingle in my chest once more as our route took us nearer to the docks.
The largest boat easily dwarfed the surrounding buildings, with at least four levels of cannons jutting out from its wooden sides like so many deadly toothpicks. It was spotted here and there in blue mithril accents, and black cladding on the hull spoke of harder dungeon metals and more. The flag of Grandia proudly flapped over its main mast in the breeze, a diagonal line separating red and yellow halves, with an eagle rampant in the center. The sheer majesty of it all took three dwarven breaths away.
“The GN Seasiren!” Geronimo declared, proudly.
“Ach, it’s a thing of beauty!” Balin, ever the eager carpenter, sighed.
But upon closer examination, the reason for the GN Seasiren’s presence in the docks was revealed. Black specks swarmed all over it as shipwrights made repairs to a massive crack that had torn the ship from bow to stern.
I pointed. “What did that!?”
Geronimo frowned. “You’ve likely heard of the increase in Dungeon Stampedes of late. The Dire Kraken of Emerald Coast Dungeon led a horde of monsters out of the dungeon last month. It was followed by a seemingly endless swarm of trolls. The Seasiren led the subjugation force, and we successfully slew the monster, but not without damage to the fleet.”
Balin and I looked at each other.
“And the trolls?” I asked, thinking of what Val had said about them.
“They disappeared back into the dungeon. But they’ve been spotted raiding pirates and the odd merchantment off the atolls. We think they may be responsible for the hurricane that’s sprung up around the dungeon archipelago as well.”
“Hmm.” I grunted noncommittally. I shivered, my mind marveling at the sheer power the damage to Seasiren spoke of. As we trundled past the docks and into the heart of the embassy district, I prayed that it wasn’t a sign of the things to come.