NOVEL NEXT Chapter 189: Back to the hunt
"Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.”
Pirates of the Caribbean
I was riding high, literally and metaphorically, as we moved back to the Alzena on Arawn’s shoulders. Having already spoken to the mayor and delivered our homing pigeons, we did not need to talk at length, merely reassure him that it had been taken care of, which it had, we hoped. Our arrangement worked for now; hopefully, he wouldn’t try anything else anytime soon.
“Time to get this show on the road.” I grinned down at Captain Kashif, who stood at the ship’s railing. He had been absent for our face-off with our neighbouring Lord from the Ponentian Archipelago. There was no need to bring nationalistic tensions into what could have already been an explosive meeting.
“Ready to move on, Lord?” He asked politely as we started up the plank to board the Alzena. The Captain, ever the pragmatist, followed the money, and if I could replicate our treasure hunt once more, it would be more than worth it.
“Yes. Let’s head south to Little Wester before heading on home.” I answered as we drew alongside. After our brush with Baron Corus, I felt more confident dealing with the two envoys at home.
“I had a few ideas about that.” Captain Kashif fell into step with us as we crossed the deck. “I’d like to outline them inside with the map.” He opened the door for us to the former captain’s cabin, now mine.
Laid out on the ship’s table were a collection of maps from our own to copies of Mercurio’s and copies of his. Each a work of art; they had different nuances and strengths.
Ours was smaller in terms of the geographical area it covered and with a fair few acknowledged gaps, but also far more detailed in the areas that we had sailed. For example, my map was able to detail the depths of the Azimuth Ocean, forming a little topographic trail of our trips so far. Mercurio’s maps went into much more detail about each island of the Azimuth Archipelago between us and the Ponentian capital, with notes about safe sailing routes, tides, times, ports and coves. However, it was far vaguer outside of the corridors he would travel. Captain Kashif’s maps put Mercurio’s and mine to shame, seeing as how he had travelled to the southern tip of Ostro, all along the coast of Libeccio and out west to us.
He pointed out the sailing routes on Mercurio’s maps. “If we are going to look for sunken treasure. We will likely find them around the islands or along these sailing routes.” He traced the most common safe sailing routes between the islands. “I propose an outward expanding spiral search around each island and then a search pattern along and parallel to the main trading routes.”
He demonstrated his route by circling Wester Levante once or twice before heading off to Little Wester, where he repeated the circles before returning home to Wester Ponente, where he repeated the circles, gradually widening the area covered by the Alzena as he filled in the areas on the map I had yet to cover.
“If all is well, you could continue this as you start to sail into the Azimuth Archipelago, but it will have to be without me as I have a profit to make and another ship to sail once we get back to Wester Ponente.”
“Sounds good.” Father agreed, clearly having already been convinced earlier by Captain Kashif.
Under the command of Captain Kashif, we started for the harbour exit and the open ocean. The sun shone triumphantly on our freshly cleaned deck, commemorating our victorious morning. Even as the wind and skills filled the sails, stretching tight, it still took time to get a ship of our size moving, especially when the Libeccian galley was so used to having many rowers to chase down its prey. Seeing as we had yet to pick up any speed, my sudden shouted comment did not cause too much chaos.
“Avast!” the sailors following their lord's commands halted, the sails slackened, and we stopped making headway, beginning to coast then slow.
“Avast? Did you forget something?” Captain Kashif queried, a little annoyed to have the little lord countermand him and keen to start hunting again.
“I just had a thought. I should send Baron Corus a small consolation gift to remember our first meeting. There is no need to go back, but if we pull alongside his ship before we leave the harbour and send one over, that would be the perfect end and resolution to our little confrontation.” I explained while playing down the Machiavellian manoeuvres he had attempted.
“Very well,” Captain Kashif began to agree, resigned to my order when Namir interrupted him.
“No need to stop or pull alongside. I can run it across and swiftly catch up to us as long as the gif is not overly big or heavy.” He said, referencing his high dexterity ability to run on the water. Equally noted was the fact that Arawn had not offered.
“Wonderful.” Captain Kashif seemed happy that he would not have to turn around the minute we had embarked on our journey, and with a few more shouts, we were once more headed to the mouth of the harbour.
On the other hand, I rushed inside the former captain’s cabin, now mine, to put together a suitable gift basket for Baron Corus.
Namir followed me in.
I ran around, grabbed an assortment of fruit, wine and other local products, and threw them into a wicker hamper. I did not have enough time to present them neatly, but this should be enough to soothe hurt feelings and enough intrigue to get him to invest in our island.
“This should be enough.” I bundled the rapidly made hamper into Namil’s hands.
“You have a little more time.” He commented.
“Not enough to make it perfect, so twenty per cent of the effort for eighty per cent of the effect is fine with me,” I replied. I knew I could spend significantly longer fretting over the correct placement of the presents, wrapping them and surrounding them in cloth, but I did not have enough time or the patience to spend perfecting it. Besides, the hamper needed to leave now. “Here you go,” I said, pushing the hamper across the table toward him.
He lifted it easily, but there wasn’t a weight problem when walking on the deck. It would only become an issue when he attempted to run on water. The increased weight meant that if you followed old-world laws of physics, you would have to run ever faster to stay on top of the water. I was not sure how much the skill he had would be capable of bending the laws of physics through mana or system shenanigans to keep him running across rather than into the water.
I followed him out and watched him disappear over the ship's side. Soon we could all see him sprinting across the harbour water to Baron Corus’s docked ship. It only took him a moment to deposit the hamper of goods from Wester Levante before he departed and returned to us. We were picking up speed as we arrived at the harbour's mouth, but he quickly caught up and climbed aboard before we braved the more giant waves of the open ocean. Once aboard, the mainsail was dropped, and we finally began to pick up speed.
. . .
The Alzena circled Wester Levante in an ever-increasing spiral outwards. Should any ship have run aground, it could be near the island port it was heading to. So that is where we searched. I say we, but really, it was me. I spent my time staring into the sea on the ship’s prow. Any sailors watching me would have thought me half mad, but for the fact that we had found both treasure and monster on our way to Wester Levante.
The ship was well organised and ran, leaving little for the sailors onboard to do. At least we were not on a long journey, so for them, it probably felt like a pleasure cruise more than anything they had ever experienced, plenty of food, a clean ship and pay for the first time in their lives. They had little to complain about. Even the weather had been perfect for sailing, with steady winds and no storms.
With the deck cleaned once already this morning and the sails made fast, I could sense the sailors amusing themselves with games of dice and cards. Interestingly, the Lodestone and compass belief permeated all aspects of life. The familiar suits of Hearts, Diamonds, Spades and Clubs were there but replaced with a compass version. The cards were split between two decks, the Cardinal of North, East, South and West, and the Ordinal deck of NE, SE, SW and NW. They still had kings and queens, but the jacks were lords, and the aces were the champions for each race. At least they were not playing with their gods. That seemed a little sacrilegious and possibly stupid, as they were real.
Dice games were much the same, with numbers being numbers, but they also had a fascinating game called Stones. The people, or at least the majority of the people, might not have magic, but through the game called Stones, they pretended that they did. Each stone was marked with a spell they would throw down against one another. Countering one another's throws. The game of stones was fairly simple. But apparently, the game was ubiquitous across the Compass continent and even played among the nobility as well. However, according to Lady Acacia, the difference in the game was that the nobility played with precious stones and, on occasion, powered gemstones that were capable of releasing the spells stored in them.
Needless to say, I wanted a set.
But all of that was a distraction from what I was here to do. Listening to the seagulls cry, I continued to scan the sandy seafloor searching for anything that might hint at a wreck or some form of hidden or buried treasure.