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by Haruka Sat Mar 28, 2020 2:34 pmBoats. He was pretty sure he hated them at this time, given all the hassle and seasickness and all that jazz. Really, he enjoyed the first few hours well enough; it was the incessant rocking that eventually doomed him. He’d never been one for moving in ways he couldn’t control; hell, he couldn’t even ride a horse without assistance, and camels… forget about it. He’d about died the one time he risked booking passage on a caravan through the desert, the damn camel wouldn’t stop trying to roll over with him still on it’s back. Giant beast didn’t like him much, which to be fair was likely due to the small monkey owl spirits trying to perch on his shoulders for the ride. Animals didn’t tend to like spirits if they weren’t used to them, and it was likely that the only exposure a desert camel had was to a will o'wisp or some such. Not the best place to start from. So he really didn’t have much of a head, or ear rather, for constant movement like was he’d experienced during the voyage from the mainland. Not that he’d been instantly seasick either, it took a few hours. If he’d been even half way prepared he would have brought some seasickness herbs while waiting at the port for the ship to depart; but he’d convinced himself he’d be fine and paid for it with hours upon hours of retching over the side of the boat and essentially no sleep for two solid days. Fun. Just so much fun.
Crawling over the gangplank onto solid, mostly, ground was a blessing; he’d hugged the dock plates like the man of weak constitution the sailors believed his scrawny self to be. If they only knew. But it was a fair assumption; he was almost unhealthily scrawny, even under the bulky clothing he was wearing, and it was pretty easy to see by how the fabric hung from his shoulders and arms. He was still dressed like a bedouin of the high desert, as he’d essentially traveled directly from his last assignment directly to the port city they’d departed from. No downtime, no real chance to change gear. Merely a check in with a handler for his documents, an exchange of pay from the last mission, and the information to give to the local handlers once he got across the sea. Pretty standard, really. Although, he was confused as to why he was being sent that far out; if they had a local branch house, than there should have been a few floating around local to the incident he was sent to investigate that could step in. There was nothing in the briefing that screamed a need for any of his particular specialties; of which he really didn’t have any, outside of his strong visual ability when it came to spiritual matters. Even then, that was only for his age, plenty of his elders could see as well, if not better, then him at any given time. Still, a mission was a mission, and he’d been in the desert so long he’d actually started to tan the slightest bit. Given he was an albino… that wasn’t actually a good thing. He’d just burned so hard for so long that his skin was turning into jerky. Or some horrible full body cancer that was going to kill him at 20. Or whatever. Nothing to do about it, really. He didn’t get paid anything close to good enough to pay a reputable medic to check him over for cancers and whatnot, and the chances of having someone at even a larger library base knowing ANYTHING about how to treat an albino for skin damage was less than some Daimyo naming him heir to the throne at random. So, less than zero, really.
He’d just have to be exceedingly careful for a few months while he healed; maybe see about any local remedies that the locals used for sunburns. Likely have some good stuff, with how strong the sun is at the coasts. Or so he was told; he’d never been to the coastal areas far as he knew. Maybe in the blank times at the earliest parts of his life, but not since he could remember. Nothing but forests and mountains and deserts since then, and even that mostly forests or mountains if he could help it. More shade, less sun, less pain on his delicate skin. Here though, while the bedouin clothing was heavy with salt and the outer layers damp in ways they were never meant to be, they at least kept him protected. Thankfully, he was acclimated to the heat at the moment or he would be roasting in the heavy woolen overcoats, even if the linen and cotton undergarments where meant to keep the body cool by allowing for wicking of sweat and providing space for air flow to pull the hot air from the body. He’d need to get moving, and get to his handlers before he passed out from a heatstroke; it was barely mid-morning and he was already sweating horribly. The humidity was doing him in; the desert had been a dry heat. This was so wet he was having trouble pulling enough oxygen from the air to breath. Thankfully, he had only his small bag, with nothing more than his paperwork and the few small trinkets he carried; a bedroll attached to the base so that he’d have something to sleep on besides the dirt and sand on days he couldn’t afford, or wasn’t close enough to civilization to reach an inn or tea house to stay at. His weapons were kept strapped close to his body, hidden up his sleeves and across his back; the bulky clothing masking the bulges from them pretty effectively. Wouldn’t make it past a ninja, but a civilian wouldn’t notice anything unless they really looked. And by looked, it meant strip searched; therefore not happening.
Right, now that the world was no longer spinning, he was able to attempt to stand up again. Yes, the desk beneath him still swayed a bit, but nothing compared to the ship as the supports where anchored in the sand below the waves. It made it possible to hobble to his feet and down the walkway until he was properly on rock and solid ground again; the way the port was built was that the berths for the ships protruded from a rocky area that was a sort of small cliff face against the reefs beyond, which themselves acted a breaks for incoming waves and gave the cove area the port sat on significant protection from rogue waves and storm surges. It also made it so that marauders and pirates that weren’t familiar with the area had extreme difficulties invading by sea, as there were few safe routes through the corals that on their own were more than a match for the average ship’s wooden hull. Many a protrusion above the waves signaled the grave of a ship felled by those massive creatures of stone and life. A moment was taken to try and gather his bearings, hand raised to shield his sensitive red eyes against the full fury of the sun as he tried to gauge directions based on the ways the shadows fell in relation to the height of the sun. He knew it was early morning, he’d watched the sunrise and knew it had only been a few hours at best; but he’d lost track of what was east in the maze run journey through the coral reef. Given what he saw, his best guess was that the port town was oriented north-south overall, following the curve of the island itself. There was a large main road he could see that ran roughly north-south, with branching side streets running east-west giving access to back alleys and areas that you wouldn’t want right on the main boulevard, such as the smithery, fish processing areas, etc. Likely a few brothels and less… reputable bars, gambling dens, etc. This seemed to be the place for it; shiny and clean during the day, but a trained eye could see the signs of rot and ware, both in the building and in the eyes of the locals. No one really looked up, everyone huddled to themselves and just moved. Few words beyond a grunt or an admonishment. Quirky, to an outsider. Obvious to someone that knew better. This place was dying a slow death, it seemed. Whether a purely moral, or financial as well, that was left to be seen.
Strange, he couldn’t find the meeting place. The handler had told him to look for a moderately sized statue in the center of the market area just past the docks, but the docks seemed to butt up directly into the main road with no delineation for market zone. In fact, he could see the market further down the main road, closer to the center of town, near what he was sure was an icehouse of some sort. Made sense, keep the fish and such near the ice, since the distance from the water to the market was negligible. Saved a huge amount of ice in transport, though. The ice was worth more than the fish, given how far it was being imported from, and how difficult creating fresh ice in the off months could be. Now that he really looked, nothing seemed to match what he was told. These where small, single story thatched roof houses, with few solid roofs and only one or two building beyond a watch tower over 2 stories. Even then, the watchtower was on a high hill, so it wasn’t even that tall itself. The encroaching foliage of the forest was to close, no large farms and plantations ringing the city. This wasn’t even a city, it was barely above a small village; maybe 20 total building. There where more huts that were barely more than angled thatched mats raised on branches dug into the sands supporting them, with woven reed mats to sleep on by the occupants. What in the heavens was going on?
Did… did he get on the wrong boat?
But the quartermaster checked his boarding papers… there was no conflict, no mention of being the wrong papers.. What the hell? Maybe they stopped in the wrong port? He didn’t get much of a feel for the size of the island, but it didn’t seem big enough to support two towns, let alone one as big as what he’d been told he was looking for. So then what was going on? It could be that they’d had to berth here due to incoming storm? But no mention was made to the passengers, not that he’d been privy to. Looking around quickly, he realized he was damn near alone; the entire area had emptied clear out in the time he’d taken trying to orient himself. Well, shit. That was bad. Turning around, he realized the boat was also gone, half way out back out to the entrance to the reef. Shit again.
He’d gotten off at the wrong port.
Fun times. Well, no use in panicking until he had a place to stay for the night. There was no way he was going to find passage out until the morning, not with how fast the tide was going out. The ship was riding it out to see, and risking washing ashore on the reef to do it. He wasn’t a sailor, but the basics had been explained to him while riding on the ship. A talkative deckhand that dreamed of running his own crew one day had taken pity on him over the long nights; the boy was assigned to the crows nest for night watch and had passed the time talking to him as he hugged the railings trying not to tumble overboard while his stomach tried to escape his body via his throat. Nice company, nicer kid. He wasn’t much for religion or spirituality of that nature, but he knew a few names of benevolent water spirits he could toss a prayer at for the kid’s safe journey. Tit for tat, a good deed for another. Time to find an inn, or at least a bar that would let him sleep in the doorway. Or maybe see about one of those huts. He’d slept in worse, after all.
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Crawling over the gangplank onto solid, mostly, ground was a blessing; he’d hugged the dock plates like the man of weak constitution the sailors believed his scrawny self to be. If they only knew. But it was a fair assumption; he was almost unhealthily scrawny, even under the bulky clothing he was wearing, and it was pretty easy to see by how the fabric hung from his shoulders and arms. He was still dressed like a bedouin of the high desert, as he’d essentially traveled directly from his last assignment directly to the port city they’d departed from. No downtime, no real chance to change gear. Merely a check in with a handler for his documents, an exchange of pay from the last mission, and the information to give to the local handlers once he got across the sea. Pretty standard, really. Although, he was confused as to why he was being sent that far out; if they had a local branch house, than there should have been a few floating around local to the incident he was sent to investigate that could step in. There was nothing in the briefing that screamed a need for any of his particular specialties; of which he really didn’t have any, outside of his strong visual ability when it came to spiritual matters. Even then, that was only for his age, plenty of his elders could see as well, if not better, then him at any given time. Still, a mission was a mission, and he’d been in the desert so long he’d actually started to tan the slightest bit. Given he was an albino… that wasn’t actually a good thing. He’d just burned so hard for so long that his skin was turning into jerky. Or some horrible full body cancer that was going to kill him at 20. Or whatever. Nothing to do about it, really. He didn’t get paid anything close to good enough to pay a reputable medic to check him over for cancers and whatnot, and the chances of having someone at even a larger library base knowing ANYTHING about how to treat an albino for skin damage was less than some Daimyo naming him heir to the throne at random. So, less than zero, really.
He’d just have to be exceedingly careful for a few months while he healed; maybe see about any local remedies that the locals used for sunburns. Likely have some good stuff, with how strong the sun is at the coasts. Or so he was told; he’d never been to the coastal areas far as he knew. Maybe in the blank times at the earliest parts of his life, but not since he could remember. Nothing but forests and mountains and deserts since then, and even that mostly forests or mountains if he could help it. More shade, less sun, less pain on his delicate skin. Here though, while the bedouin clothing was heavy with salt and the outer layers damp in ways they were never meant to be, they at least kept him protected. Thankfully, he was acclimated to the heat at the moment or he would be roasting in the heavy woolen overcoats, even if the linen and cotton undergarments where meant to keep the body cool by allowing for wicking of sweat and providing space for air flow to pull the hot air from the body. He’d need to get moving, and get to his handlers before he passed out from a heatstroke; it was barely mid-morning and he was already sweating horribly. The humidity was doing him in; the desert had been a dry heat. This was so wet he was having trouble pulling enough oxygen from the air to breath. Thankfully, he had only his small bag, with nothing more than his paperwork and the few small trinkets he carried; a bedroll attached to the base so that he’d have something to sleep on besides the dirt and sand on days he couldn’t afford, or wasn’t close enough to civilization to reach an inn or tea house to stay at. His weapons were kept strapped close to his body, hidden up his sleeves and across his back; the bulky clothing masking the bulges from them pretty effectively. Wouldn’t make it past a ninja, but a civilian wouldn’t notice anything unless they really looked. And by looked, it meant strip searched; therefore not happening.
Right, now that the world was no longer spinning, he was able to attempt to stand up again. Yes, the desk beneath him still swayed a bit, but nothing compared to the ship as the supports where anchored in the sand below the waves. It made it possible to hobble to his feet and down the walkway until he was properly on rock and solid ground again; the way the port was built was that the berths for the ships protruded from a rocky area that was a sort of small cliff face against the reefs beyond, which themselves acted a breaks for incoming waves and gave the cove area the port sat on significant protection from rogue waves and storm surges. It also made it so that marauders and pirates that weren’t familiar with the area had extreme difficulties invading by sea, as there were few safe routes through the corals that on their own were more than a match for the average ship’s wooden hull. Many a protrusion above the waves signaled the grave of a ship felled by those massive creatures of stone and life. A moment was taken to try and gather his bearings, hand raised to shield his sensitive red eyes against the full fury of the sun as he tried to gauge directions based on the ways the shadows fell in relation to the height of the sun. He knew it was early morning, he’d watched the sunrise and knew it had only been a few hours at best; but he’d lost track of what was east in the maze run journey through the coral reef. Given what he saw, his best guess was that the port town was oriented north-south overall, following the curve of the island itself. There was a large main road he could see that ran roughly north-south, with branching side streets running east-west giving access to back alleys and areas that you wouldn’t want right on the main boulevard, such as the smithery, fish processing areas, etc. Likely a few brothels and less… reputable bars, gambling dens, etc. This seemed to be the place for it; shiny and clean during the day, but a trained eye could see the signs of rot and ware, both in the building and in the eyes of the locals. No one really looked up, everyone huddled to themselves and just moved. Few words beyond a grunt or an admonishment. Quirky, to an outsider. Obvious to someone that knew better. This place was dying a slow death, it seemed. Whether a purely moral, or financial as well, that was left to be seen.
Strange, he couldn’t find the meeting place. The handler had told him to look for a moderately sized statue in the center of the market area just past the docks, but the docks seemed to butt up directly into the main road with no delineation for market zone. In fact, he could see the market further down the main road, closer to the center of town, near what he was sure was an icehouse of some sort. Made sense, keep the fish and such near the ice, since the distance from the water to the market was negligible. Saved a huge amount of ice in transport, though. The ice was worth more than the fish, given how far it was being imported from, and how difficult creating fresh ice in the off months could be. Now that he really looked, nothing seemed to match what he was told. These where small, single story thatched roof houses, with few solid roofs and only one or two building beyond a watch tower over 2 stories. Even then, the watchtower was on a high hill, so it wasn’t even that tall itself. The encroaching foliage of the forest was to close, no large farms and plantations ringing the city. This wasn’t even a city, it was barely above a small village; maybe 20 total building. There where more huts that were barely more than angled thatched mats raised on branches dug into the sands supporting them, with woven reed mats to sleep on by the occupants. What in the heavens was going on?
Did… did he get on the wrong boat?
But the quartermaster checked his boarding papers… there was no conflict, no mention of being the wrong papers.. What the hell? Maybe they stopped in the wrong port? He didn’t get much of a feel for the size of the island, but it didn’t seem big enough to support two towns, let alone one as big as what he’d been told he was looking for. So then what was going on? It could be that they’d had to berth here due to incoming storm? But no mention was made to the passengers, not that he’d been privy to. Looking around quickly, he realized he was damn near alone; the entire area had emptied clear out in the time he’d taken trying to orient himself. Well, shit. That was bad. Turning around, he realized the boat was also gone, half way out back out to the entrance to the reef. Shit again.
He’d gotten off at the wrong port.
Fun times. Well, no use in panicking until he had a place to stay for the night. There was no way he was going to find passage out until the morning, not with how fast the tide was going out. The ship was riding it out to see, and risking washing ashore on the reef to do it. He wasn’t a sailor, but the basics had been explained to him while riding on the ship. A talkative deckhand that dreamed of running his own crew one day had taken pity on him over the long nights; the boy was assigned to the crows nest for night watch and had passed the time talking to him as he hugged the railings trying not to tumble overboard while his stomach tried to escape his body via his throat. Nice company, nicer kid. He wasn’t much for religion or spirituality of that nature, but he knew a few names of benevolent water spirits he could toss a prayer at for the kid’s safe journey. Tit for tat, a good deed for another. Time to find an inn, or at least a bar that would let him sleep in the doorway. Or maybe see about one of those huts. He’d slept in worse, after all.
2126
