HBWnovel Chapter 102: Searching Llorth
Chapter 102: Searching Llorth
Chapter 102: Searching Llorth
Gareth was upset with receiving no accolades in the form of coin. Maybe that was why he wanted to present the pelts, to collect the reward. I shrugged, as any reward from a small village would probably not be worth much. “Stormy, we can’t let them walk all over us like this,” Gareth whined cynically.
“I will talk to Othella after I check on Remy’s repair work on the landing strut. The troll did a lot of damage, and I want to be able to land in water if we need to without flooding the cargo bay,” I told my friend.
Gareth’s mood brightened, “The town is having a huge party for us. I also noticed some nice-looking young women,” Gareth’s focus changed instantly.
“Well, there is your reward. The party, not the woman. I will tell Fera this time if you decide to sleep around,” I teased my friend. His grin faded, and he looked betrayed.
He finally said, “It’s not the same. In all the stories, the adventurers get the loot and a reward,” Gareth voiced his frustration. His whole act was all in jest at the mock injustice of it all. He thought he was being funny, but I really didn’t have the time to indulge him.
I just patted him on the shoulder, and he left. I diced up some raw chicken from my dimensional space and fed the eager cats in the cage. They attacked the bowls and mewed for more. I tried petting the white one. It let me, but the black scratched me, cutting the back of my hand. I spent time making a separate cage and split the two up. I gave the white one more chicken, and as it ate, it let me pet it. The black one mewed pitifully as its sibling ate. I tried to give the black one more chicken and pet it as well. It bit my hand this time. Maybe the black one was too feral, I thought while healing myself again.
I left and went to see Remy. He was under the ship. Remy was grumbling, “I patched the hole. We won’t be able to get a new landing strut until we return to The Shiny Platinum.” I could make one but decided not to reveal the extent of my ability to Remy.
“It is fine. We still have five struts and can now land in the water. Anything else?” I asked my engineer.
“Leda said we are good to make it to Llorth with the aether crystal charge. We can leave anytime. I will stay with the ship if you want to go to the party,” Remy said while packing his tools.
“No. It is fine. I am just going to talk with the town elder. When I come back, you can go,” I said, inspecting his work closely. He did a good job, and I left to find Othella.
I was directed to her home by the townsfolk and knocked. She answered, and I entered when she gestured me inside. The house was well kept, with shelves of books and nice furniture. She was preparing a meal and invited me to sit. “Here to ask for a reward? I told your friend we didn’t have much to offer but that I would think of something. I talked with the townsfolk, and we can pool eight gold for you. It will be ready in the morning,” she said heavily. I used my assess person ability on her.
Othella Ridgehome
Human Female
Age 79
Disposition Grateful
My skill indicated a person’s intentions well, and I guessed this woman was not deceiving me. I took the bowl she offered me. It was a rice and meat gumbo. It was very mild and under-spiced, but I ate it anyway. I finished the bowl and said, “No need for a reward. The pelts will fetch more than enough to cover our efforts. Gareth is a good sort, and I am sure his being upset was an act. He just likes to be the center of attention.”
“Oh, he wasn’t rude or mean. Just shocked,” she said. We both laughed, and I could imagine my friend being shocked at not being recognized for risking his life to save the village.
I stood, planning to leave, but paused to read the titles of her books. “Those were my husbands,” she said.
I nodded as I read the titles. Most were basics of spell magic. Different from the books I learned from but probably containing much of the same knowledge. Eighteen books on aether cores and spell imprinting and evolution. A few books on local monsters. I paged through the books after getting permission. I found the entry for Phantom Cats, also known as stalker cats. Gareth was mostly correct in what he remembered about them. Nocturnal hunters with a habit of being sadistic in their hunting practices, torturing their prey and playing with them.
It mentioned a few ways to trap the beasts and how to skin them to keep the hide intact. The hide was an integral component of something called a cloak of displacement. The eyes were also used as glow stones but rotted over time. The eyes had two uses in alchemy: night vision and true sight potions. I fingered down to the reproductive cycle.
Mated pairs separated from the pack once a year to lair for six months to give birth to 2 to 5 kittens. The kittens were born with needle-like teeth and couldn’t use their abilities until after a year. They were considered dangerous from birth. The females only lactated for a week after giving birth, and then the kittens ate prechewed meat from the parents. At six months, the cats would be four feet in length and taught to hunt by the parents and rejoin the pack.
I moved to the crate and tried petting it without the price of food. After a few minutes of my attention, the feline let me pet her again and appeared to fall asleep with a light purr. I whispered, “I think I am going to call you Kiara.”
The crew stumbled back over the next few hours, well past midnight. I caught most of them, removing their intoxication. Gareth was last and had a noticeable hickey on his neck. I decided he could manage his own hangover. I locked down the ship and moved to the bridge. Leda and Cilia were there but didn’t look in great shape after hours of celebration.
“I think I will get some practice flying the ship. Leda, help me get oriented...” I took the chair and got the ship moving in the right direction at speed and altitude. I then moved to the sensor station and let the two of them get some rest. It would be about seven hours till we reached Llorth.
They both returned about six hours later, and it was my turn for a quick nap. The cats needed to be fed, and I cleaned their cages with my cleanliness spell. They both were spooked when their urine and fecal matter disappeared into nothingness. The black cat didn’t scratch me when I fed her this time. The white one gave me that same appraising stare.
I managed only forty minutes of sleep when the ship alert bell rang. I went to the bridge, and Leda was ready, “We can see the city. It is huge. It looks like they have a few defense skyships and numerous drake riders.” She handed me her telescope, and I looked at the city. We had slowed to under forty miles an hour.
I could see the drake riders and counted seven over the city. All the drakes were a metallic blue in the sun. Two massive skyships also circled the city. I had read the limited material we had access to on the city. Lloth was a major trading city over one of the Ley Line nexus points. They had a high-tier dungeon in the center of the city that allowed an infinite number of delvers in. This gave the city a heavy stream of resources to exploit. The races controlling the city were the Dark Elves, with sizable populations of humans and gnomes.
As we approached, Leda was busy figuring out the signals flashing from the towers around the city. They were navigational tools for incoming flyers and skyships. She had a reference book out and started giving Cilia vectors to set up an approach that would allow us not to get attacked. She was actually sweating and finally asked me, “Water or Land?”
A breath later, I went with the land option. It was a very slow approach as we were soon directed by flaggers in towers to an open stone area. The landing area looked like a giant chessboard with seven by seven hexagons. “I think we can land on any open hexagon,” Leda said with a little uncertainty.
“Closest to the gates then,” I gave my input, but I was studying the other ships. Two looked completely metallic in nature and had modules on the hull. We were still far from a transition tunnel to the Outer Sphere, but those ships definitely looked like they might be space-worthy. Cilia swung the Maelstrom around and landed. Our ramp would face the city gate. Everyone was on the bridge except Remy. He was one of the crew that I had not cured of their alcohol poisoning. Sammie checked on him, and he was just still passed out.
I gathered the crew. “Ok, we are going to leave two crew with the ship, Remy and Gareth. Cilia, Leda, and Sammie, you can explore but stay together. Bleiz, you are with me, so stay visible. When Cilia, Leda, and Sammie return, Remy and Gareth can go out together. Stay out of trouble, everyone.” I looked at Gareth, who looked surprised I was singling him out. “We will lift off in eight hours.”
Everyone nodded and made their own preparations. As I descended the ramp, I was met by a dark elf with four guards in heavy armor. I was nervous for just a moment, but he was only here to register my ship and collect a docking fee. Ten gold a day or fifty gold for a week. I would have scoffed at the cost if I hadn’t had unlimited wealth. I handed him a large shiny gold with a hydra on one side and a Medusa head on the other side. It was a design from my book of dungeon and kingdom coins. I was being cautious and did not plan to use Skyholme coins.
Bleiz walked next to us as we headed through the gates. Wide streets and tall buildings lined the sides. Everyone was walking, and no horses or other mounts were in sight. Bleiz was just as awed as I was as we walked. Mostly, humans with an array of gnomes walked the street. The dark elves were sporadic but were the most richly dressed in this trade quarter.
The languages spoken were dark elf, gnome, and the common human tongue spoken in Skyholme. I suddenly was grateful that I had picked up the comprehend language spell. If I was planning to visit different cities, I would need to learn the spell soon. We turned into a common goods shop run by a young gnome proprietor. We wondered about the racks to get a feel for pricing. I would say everything was slightly higher quality than Skyholme and about 50% more expensive.
We talked to the gnome owner, purchased a beautiful city map for two gold, and he marked the sites I was interested in in red ink. The central library. All the three portal stones in the city. The best beast tamer in the city. And the spell emporium run by the Adventurers Guild.
The Adventurers Guild was an organization that was found in every city in the Sphere. It was a network of guild halls that was supposedly unaffiliated with local governments and did not have any political bias. Although Skyholme had an Adventurer’s Guild, it was definitely handicapped by the Triumvirate. Maybe that would change with the new regime. Skyholme could see a large influx of delvers if they gave the Adventurer’s Guild power.
I walked with Bleiz to the closet portal stone. I went through the square and spread around some large silver coins for information on two female platinum-blonde elves that would have arrived three months ago. As luck would have it, a man completed a registry for the city of arrivals. He had a skill similar to my assess person ability. It cost me a large gold bribe to look at the book.
Nothing. Aeyln and Niserie had not arrived at this portal stone. The man was very helpful, though. The lower city stone had a similar registry. The third portal stone near the dungeon had spell locks on it. The city controlled that portal stone, so not just anyone could use it.
We spent an hour reaching the lower city portal stone, and two gold coins later, I was disappointed. Once again, we had come up empty. This was the only city named Llorth. I was positive Niserie had said Llorth. They must have arrived near the dungeon portal. Niserie must have had the key for that portal stone controlled by the city.
We pressed to the center of the city and found the portal stone. It was in a large cage with guards surrounding it. Bleiz and I asked around, and the stone had not been activated in over ten years when the Nagas had attacked the city. It only connected to one of the moons in the Sphere. I spent almost fifty gold asking various people and got the same answer every time. Bleiz finally said, “Storme, I do not think they arrived in this city unless there is another portal stone somewhere.”
I had spent almost six hours tracking down and questioning people. I sighed, extremely disappointed. Aelyn was not here, and I had no idea where she had gone. I looked at the map to orient us, “Bleiz, we are close to the Adventurer’s Guild Spell Eporium. Let’s go check it out before heading back to the ship.”