Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Ch: 44 Silver Spoon

On a wide, manicured lawn; a small group of young people and their pets faced off against a fae being older than their civilization. He flared his blazing red gills and blew mucous bubbles on his wide, axolotl lips in obvious consternation.

The pudgy, cheerful fae being hitched his shorts up a little higher on his complete lack of waist and sighed.

“Apologies in advance, if my pants fall down. I can’t even use suspenders… No shoulders.”

“I’ll see what I can do about that, buddy… Are you a party to this scheme?” Gary asked with a little annoyance and concern in his voice.

“Only in as much as I have Contracted with young Barry Ward… In hindsight, perhaps I should have spoken with you and your lovely mate, before sealing that bond with your child.” The aquatic being’s gills curled in and turned pale in embarrassment.

“Whoopsie…!”

“No, it’s fine… I’m a little concerned about some of the outsiders, though.” He grumbled, as he turned back to his kids. “None of you took a divine Contract?”

When they all shook their heads silently, Shai reached out and took him by the shoulder, before he could say anything stupid.

“Sit yer arse back down an dinnae be a greater fool than need be.” She murmured softly in his ear, while curling up in his lap, effectively pinning him down, very pleasantly.

“Ye hae trafficked wi many outsiders… an let some few inside yer soul, frae time to time.”

“I’m just worried…” He grumbled into his wife’s pale, muscular shoulder.

Kree fluttered out of his shaggy brown hair and came to rest on the lawn near kitten Shiro, joining his game of pouncing on any blade of grass that dared move. “Hi kitty…” She chirped. “I’m Kree, princess of this hive… I’ll let you be my subordinate!” Shiro responded by pouncing on her, rolling them both across the lawn in a mad tumble.

While the cat deity and armored insect girl brawled for supremacy, Gabbie settled down on her bottom among the kids with a regal “Oof!” of imperial comfort.

“This seems to be quite the discussion…” She murmured happily, with her eyes on Axio. She spared a moment to skewer her muscular, dangerous husband with a death glare. The man was stealthily working his way in between the empress and the unknown creature, with his hand concealed in his sleeve, no doubt holding some implement of murder.

Jocomo withdrew, scowling unhappily under that baleful gaze.

“Is this fellow one of your fae friends?” She gently demanded of Gary, her dark eyes twinkling with delight, now that her husband had been managed.

“Empress Gabbie, this is Axio, lord of the upland waterways and noble fae of the summer court.” Gary declared awkwardly. “Axi, Gabbs is the empress of a big human country that’s pretty far from here and this is her husband, Jocomo, the murder ninja.”

“Oh, how charming!” He muttered happily. “Gabbie, my dear.. you have the aura of something like Gary’s kind; you are one of the otherlings we’ve started seeing again… and something else…” He waddled closer and took a deep, long sniff of the amused and lightly disconcerted empress.

“Yes, like Gary, you touch the endless ether, but you have a complex magical root system here… binding you to a group of mortals…”

“Axio, Gabbie is my sister… and she has secrets that she would rather keep private.” Gary spoke to the small being the way he spoke to his kids; gently, carefully and with a sense of being very present in the moment.

“We have to respect other people’s boundaries and privacy, even when we have eldritch senses and mystic knowledge.”

“I understand…” He burbled merrily up at his giant weirdo friend. “In that case, my Contract with Barry is also private, is it not? These rules are very interesting, do all mortals abide by these strictures?”

“I’m gonna go drown myself in the pool, gang… Be right back.” Gary moaned, while flopping back on the lawn among his kids, half buried under a pile of muscular, huggable wife.

“This is just too weird.”

#

This is… It’s just too damn weird!” Duke Abed muttered crossly, looking down on the scene from a great height. Some kind of colossal mutated ground dragon had waded into the fray at some point and was being brutally put down by the two insect warriors. This variant had a vicious, lamprey ringmouth and a slimy, segmented, wormy skin.

The stupid beast was gamely trying to gnaw on the armored giants with little success, while their pincers, horns and mandibles did their grisly work on its slippery, snotty, earthworm hide.

The body parts of a number of other monsters lay scattered about, most were unidentifiable; though they remained uniformly disturbing. Tentacles, scales, teeth, thorns and chitin spikes littered a churned and muddy valley of wrecked trees and sluggish, foul water.

“I see the remnants of a stone-borer beetle, a death-scarab and at least two cave crawlers of significant size, judging by the stench.” Count Liam supplied cheerfully. “We will know more when my brother comes up with a way to neutralize these creatures.”

“You could just say kill them…” Abed complained a little petulantly.

“He might find a way to kill them…” The handsome count answered the duke of far Shiraz with a smile of utter confidence. “I suspect he will surprise at least half of us, however this turns out.” He cast his eyes back on the valley and sighed thoughtfully.

“We could just cut a new road and leave the valley to them, until they kill each other or starve. Neither will be able to tunnel or climb out.” Julius offered helpfully.

“Or I can have a siege team here in six weeks to batter them to pieces with heavy weapons.”

“I would rather not start this venture off with a debt of such magnitude to a friend.” Liam answered the handsome blonde duke of Port Clement. “Do we have any other suggestions? These things seem well fed enough to carry this nonsense on into the new year.”

Dannyl spoke up from the edge of the group, far back from the overlook the nobles were enjoying. “My team and I can get to the dungeon mouth, without waiting half a year for a road.” He clambered the rest of the way down a scraggly pine tree and dusted the bark and sticky pine sap from his gear effortlessly.

“There’s a trail that leads up there, most of the way. It’ll be some hiking, some free climbing and a few water crossings…”

“Oh, excellent, are you getting the band back together?” Julius enthused eagerly. “I haven’t seen Gary play in years!” He turned to duke Abed and smiled radiantly. “You’ve never seen Ginger Dreadnought in action… Well actually, neither have I, but reports indicate that they are truly formidable…”

Duke Julius stumbled to a halt when he saw the pained expressions on the faces of count Liam, Dannyl and Ivy, the only members of the defunct Adventure band that were present.

“I meant team Ragamuffin, your grace.” Dannyl murmured apologetically. “Gary is still… unwell. I assume that Shai and Tallum will be reluctant to leave him to take up Adventuring again.”

“Your team is still unranked…” Abed scoffed. “I’d not send unranked tyros into an unknown dungeon mouth, miles down a goat path from aid. If you would, perhaps you should reexamine your priorities.”

“Surely duke Belen can have a team here in a matter of a week or two… a veteran Belen delve team would be the safest course.” Julius urged, concern writ large on his face at the thought of the Ward kids and their teammates being led into such peril.

“I could have the Fist here in a few days, for that matter.” He turned to count liam with an open and friendly smile. “I would contract them for this task at my own expense, Liam… I owe you and yours at least that much, without question.”

“We should discuss this back in town and come to a reasonable solution…” The young lord said, diplomatically. “And then, we will probably do as Adventurer Dannyl suggests… and unleash Team Ragamuffin on this poor, unsuspecting nest of monsters.” He finished softly.

A few minutes later the party was back in the saddle and headed down from the heights, cantering for civilization on mounts that were very pleased to be leaving the area.

#

“Uncle Dannyl figured out that you weren’t doing well and took most of the lords out of town to watch the kaiju battle in Dimwood Vale… or what’s left of it by now.” Larry muttered from inside his papa’s crushing hug. He’d been hugging the kids a lot lately.

“Seriously, I need to breathe, old man!” He gasped eventually and squirmed free. “Kree, stop stinging him, it’s getting weird!”

“I’m a princess, Peasant! Address me properly, or not at all!” The insect girl answered in mocking tones of offense and superiority. “And I didn’t! Not since yesterday morning! I got him good then though, right in the butt!” She buzzed, before darting into her master’s hair.

Gary meanwhile, was smiling and swanning about the sales floor, cleaning and dusting the instruments the way he always did, but now he handled them the way Becky and the Ragamuffins remembered.

He touched each of his creations with a parental fondness and intimacy, rather than handling them as if they were sharp edged or fragile, as he had been these last several years.

Even his old favorites he hardly touched or looked at without a real need. When he did take one of his personal instruments down, he always had the same expression on his face that he had when thinking of his lost loved ones.

He still dared not try and tune anything up, lest his gifts stir involuntarily, which would dump all of his Mana and Stamina through the floor… and his unconscious body along with them a few seconds later.

Even a few bars of ‘Ode to Joy’ would result in a trembling, vomiting wreck on the floor and leave him debilitated for days afterward. Only in the carefully controlled environment of the worksop and with absolute focus could he touch a fragment of what he had been; and then, only at the cost of bone deep, lingering pain and exhaustion.

The little family settled down to an early dinner, with Gabbie and Joco anchoring one end of the long family dining table and Gary and Shai at the other, for a terrifying feast.

Sir Kermal and Lord Jocomo were the only ‘normies’ at the table so the Wards were less circumspect than usual about their monstrous appetites. Amy gnawed a whole roast chicken down to bare, dry bones in less than four minutes, with sweet baked beans, loaded with smoked wallowbear hamhocks and half a pan of biscuits following right after. Her salad bowl would feed a small horse or donkey all by itself.

The others were no less voracious, consuming heaps of the rich, ripe produce of the vast, magical garden around their home and a terrifying quantity and variety of grilled, roasted, fried and stewed beasts and monsters.

Kermal and Joco bailed out three courses in, when Larry went into the kitchen with Wilf to ‘stir fry up a little something’.

The two huge men dragged the corpse of a possessed, monster serpent of some kind out of the ‘walk in fridge’ and began disassembling it with huge knives, while chatting amiably.

“...hunted it down in the hills yesterday, it had three heads and a bladed whip for a tail. Nasty venom too, it got half a dozen sheep and the shepherd’s dog.” Wilf rumbled, as his carved the meat from its bones with confident strokes of his blade.

“What was the hide like?” Larry asked, while he wielded a massive cleaver, separating the long corpse into manageable chunks for his older brother.

“Toughest scales I’ve seen in a while, skin feels super durable and flexible too, it’s gonna make nice armor.” The big man sighed happily, contemplating his crafts, while his hands performed their task, nearly by rote memory.

The two human men retired to a sofa by the fire, while the Wards and her radiance devoured enough vittles to feed a double strength platoon of troopers on patrol.

“Terrifying, when they are all together… I was worried one of them might mistake me for some exotic dish and snatch me up.” Jocko muttered quietly through a dark chuckle.

“Most of them are distressingly large.” The compact ninja sat back and watched with interest, as they devoured all that came before them.

“Shh, don’t embarrass them, we will want to dive back in soon… you don’t want to miss dessert, they really shine there!” Kemal Singh whispered, watching his tiny, beautiful wife crunch down a fair sized melon, rind and all.

She held the ripe, golden honey melon like a beachball and chomped into it with a bright smile on her sticky, kissable lips.

The noble party trundled in not long after they finished washing up, sparking a second round, which amy characterized as an ‘evening snack’.

“That falls neatly into the schedule, between early dinner, late dinner, late snack and midnight snack…” She explained, indicating with her father’s bronze tipped bamboo rod, exactly where this meal stood in the complex hierarchy.

To the hungry, tired noblemen and their escorts, and the squad of Adventurers that had tagged along, including Ivy and Dannyl, it was a feast.

Fresh loaves of bread, and bowls of a hot, spicy, shellfish and tomato stew that was a house specialty hit the tables more quickly than expected. That was joined by a farmer’s market stall of salad vegetables and enough ‘roast’ for everyone…

When pressed on what the day’s ‘roast’ was, Wilf did his best to avoid a direct answer.

“We have soy marinade, honey glazed and garlic herb crusted…” He replied, when asked what kind of ‘roast’ it might be.

“It’s monster pit viper… a big one.” Amy announced happily. “Anybody that’s too good to eat monster, can stick to salad… Wait, are these the monster daikon radishes we fought earlier this week?”

“Gods, I love this house.” Sir Kermal whispered to his sneaky friend, as they gasped and tried to digest, while a swarm of nobles and guards attacked the mountains of food.

#

The next morning, after a breakfast that nearly ended the life of a large trooper; who’d independently decided that he would eat more than Amy… the Wards split off to chase their pursuits.

For Amy, that meant sailing Moonrise on the wide lake and fishing with her mother and the three captains. A tranquil day on the lake was just the antidote for their troubles…

“Aye, another harpoon lass, ‘tis nearly spent, this big beastie!” Shai called from the prow, where she stood on the very edge, on a railing, gripping one of the mainstays with one hand and casting another barbed weapon at her prey.

The thing was a muddy brown color, irregularly speckled with indistinct dark colors, under a thick, viscous clear slime coating. Twenty five feet long and eight feet wide at its vaguely arrow shaped ‘head’, the blood-fluke mud leech was a dangerous creature that blurred the lines between predator and parasite.

It would lurk in murky, silty waters, lying on the bottom until disturbed, then latch its ringtoothed, gnashing, blood drinking bone grinding maw onto the victim and either suck it dry of blood, before devouring it, or simply consume smaller creatures alive.

The beast’s trick lay in their toxic slime and potent lightning ability, concealed behind the mucus barrier, waiting to kill or stun any prey that fought back.

Many warriors had discovered the perils of jabbing a metal weapon into one of the rare beasts, while in metal armor and standing in water.

For Shai’s part, her hair stood out in a flaming red corona around her head, as she hurled another harpoon into the tough, rubbery hide. Stunned fish littered the lake surface, following their battle across the deep expanse in a long line. Birds and other predators were having a fine time, despite the titanic struggle raging across the mountain lake.

#

On the shore, a man sat his massive horse, watching the battle unfold, his hands twitching on his reins in time to the flow of combat.

“We missed out, Annie…” Sir Khan, master Adventurer of the Wheatford guild sighed through his elegant and well waxed ‘stache. He patted his enormous mount’s neck and turned her hooves toward the inn, just visible on the shoreline below.

“Wake up love, we’re home.” He whispered into his cloak, waking his wife from her slumber on his lap.

Wilf was in the boatshed attached to his house on the shore, working on Seahorse; the boat he’d ‘helped’ his father build, when he was a little lad of three. The studious, sober, quiet boy had watched nearly every phase of the construction with rapt attention…

Which showed in the careful, precise and thoughtful work he was putting into the weather worn vessel. She’d been run aground, rammed into monsters, hauled up and down the waterways in all weather and conditions and it showed.

Battered and worn, her strakes were a bit uneven, after too many impacts, her keel needed a fresh bronze cladding and a number of rivets had broken or were missing entirely. Much of her caulking was exposed and worn, but she was still sturdy and robust.

Faint lines of script and runes spidered over every metal surface, structural beam and spar on the boat, binding it together and strengthening every piece of the magical cruiser. The lines had been carved in by his papa as he built the boat from raw lumber and metal ingots, one piece at a time. Crafted with loving care and the strange, musical magic he spun from his fingers and very soul, when working on a labor of love, only skilled hands could repair her.

Shirtless and sweating, with a song whistling from his lips as he worked a plane down a long strip of red oak, destined to replace a damaged section of the hull, the big man was fully engrossed in his task.

When Annie chuffed and stamped a delicate hoof behind him, she had his full attention in moments.

“Sweeet!” He sang, merrily, while hugging the enormous horse around her neck. “Let me find a grenadier pear for you, auntie!”

Luna and Khan watched with amusement as the lad fretted and fussed over his childhood babysitter and ignored them entirely, as always. “It’s good to be home…” The tattooed woman murmured warmly.

#

“We’ll get you boys as well equipped as we can, but as for traveling expenses… I don’t have much in coin.” Gary murmured to the four triplets, down in his workshop.

“It’s pretty embarrassing, but being a crippled, mad witch doesn’t pay well… I do all my trade in barter.” He sighed utterly embarrassed by this turn of events.

“We weren’t asking for money, papa… we want your permission to go Adventuring.” Larry said firmly. “We will be fine on money.”

“Really? I won’t say I’m not nervous… terrified of the idea, but you’re young men now… If you want my permission, you don’t need it, if you want my approval… I’d rather you stayed home where it’s safe.” He murmured, sinking deeper into abject embarrassment.

“I can sell some stuff, maybe get a loan from Liam…”

“Hey, guys… Can we cut the crap?” Harry demanded, from his armor and gear stand in the corner. “Seriously, why are we still hiding it?” All four boys looked at each other for a silent moment and shrugged as one being.

“Papa…” Harry began after a breathless moment. “We’re stupid rich, always have been.” He smiled awkwardly.

“Mama, Becky and the ‘Muffins swore us to secrecy, but we think you deserve to know.”

“Stupid rich.” Barry agreed. “You created an ointment that cures armor rash and jock itch, like three months after you got here… That stuff is more popular than the violet healing ointment and Fuckbutter combined.”

“Wait…” Gary began, as his stomach fell down a deep well.

“I’m rich?”

“Yeah, Papa… You have what uncle Ward calls ‘fuck you’ money. He thought keeping it secret from you was too hilarious…” Larry mumbled.

“I’m rich…?” He spoke very softly and gently to his own shoulder. “Kree, did you know?”

She pushed her tiny face out of his hair and yawned. “About what?” She demanded haughtily. “About the shiny chips of metal you humans trade about among each other?”

She shook herself free of his hair and hovered in front of his face with her hands on her hips.

“The only gold I care for is my honey, why should I care for your things if you don’t bother to?”

“I guess that’s true… so all this time…?” He sagged down on his stool and sighed. “Does everybody know?”

“Only the family knows, all the money is held by the Ginger Dreadnaught company. Shai and Ivy run the business side with Esperanza.” Harry confessed eagerly.

“I’ve always hated keeping this secret, it’s stupid.” He sighed.

“Collect your gear, boys… I gotta go have an argument with your mom.” Gary grumbled, with a strange light shining in his eyes; it was a slow simmering anger and something much darker and more primitive.

#

Khan and Luna watched the boy work, slowly but surely putting the boat back to rights. He used a wooden mallet and wedge to snug up some fresh oakum in a leaking seam and sighed with satisfaction. “She was holding up better than I thought…”

He murmured, scritching his giant horsie assistant on her massive dinner plate of jaw muscle. “We’re done here.” He sighed softly, with deep satisfaction. “I even scrubbed her down from stem to stern…”

Annie chuffed in agreement and pulled the control lever on his crane device with her square, white teeth.

With ponderous grace, the small ship lowered down from the rafters of the boatshed, toward the placid waters of the lake. The young man watched with pleasure as his horsey friend operated the boatlift controls skillfully, the boat slowly gliding to its berth.

“Just in time, too.” He whispered, as Moonrise silently docked at the pier a few dozen yards away, below the main house.

Khan, Luna and Annie followed the big craftsman out to greet the sailors, once he’d secured the newly refloated vessel in the boatshed mooring.

Amy and Shai were the last off the boat, after their haggard and stressed crew departed on exhausted, stumbling legs. A few of the off duty warriors and retainers of the noble parties had offered to crew for the two women, expecting a tranquil day of fishing and cruising the waterways…

The monstrous leech, flatworm, electric eel creature had put up a hellacious fight, battling for nigh three hours, hammering up and down the lake first pursuing, then pursued as the stealthy ambush hunter discovered it was the prey.

Now it was in tow, bobbing on the tranquil waters, a limp and disgusting wreck, studded with harpoons and ballista bolts. Wilf seemed excited by the hideous corpse, just as Rio came trotting from the stables, smiling with eagerness at his sister’s loud call.

“We skewered something gross! Come poke around in the corpse!”

Predictably, their father came out of the main house as well, emerging from the cellar door that led directly into his workshop.

Less predictably, he had no attention or care for the disgusting mass of flesh they towed home, instead he took Shai by the wrist and smiled weakly at the kids.

“You kids handle this for a while… Your mom and I need to… talk.” He grumbled angrily. “In private.”

“I just finished refitting Seahorse… She’s in my boatshed.” Wilf mumbled nervously, hoping to derail his father’s unpredictable mood swing.

“Perfect.” He growled, missing the lad’s convenient conversational off ramp and hitting the gas. “We need to talk, Shai.” He reiterated, as he started walking down the shore toward Wilf’s place, dragging her along behind.

A few minutes later, the sturdy little craft eased out of the shed and cruised for the middle of the lake, silently cutting the still waters with her sharp prow, her regal horsie figurehead leading the way.

“We told him about the family finances.” Harry admitted proudly. “He was really beating himself up over not being able to ‘finance the team properly’.

“Oh… Shit.” Wilf mumbled awkwardly.

“Yeah, double dogshit.” Rio agreed.

“We’ll see, boys, we’ll see what happens.” Amy sighed dejectedly. “I need a bath, that thing was disgusting.”

#