Chapter 59 - River Travel (Patreon)

AN: Sorry for the delay.  I had my COVID booster on Friday and it knocked me on my butt all of yesterday and most of today.

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It took two days for the quartet to reach a clear path resembling a road.  All of the villages in the area were located next to the sea, so moving goods via boat was the preferred method.  Zane and Violet continued to create shelters each night for better protection, which helped with the frequency of the perimeter wards sounding the alarm.

Violet did not have much of a chance to experiment with enchanting during their eight-day travel to the northern river.  Zane had everyone walking or running beside the carriage on most days.  Even Rick was not exempt from this new form of torture.  They each took a turn at driving the wagon throughout the day for individual rest periods.

By the time they reached the small town on the northern river, Violet was ready for a break.  She had never let herself be inactive for long, but Zane’s new torture workout had shown her just how much further she had to go.  The only ones in their group that could last the entire day walking and running were Zane and Rick.  If it had been just simple walking, Violet wouldn't have had a problem keeping up with the amberclaws.  Unfortunately, Zane liked to randomly call out activities for them to do like sprinting to a tree and back along their path which made things harder.

The small town they ended up in was mainly focused on fishing. There were a few fields, but the majority of the town had a boat and their diets consisted mainly of fish. It didn't take long for Regina to find a ferryman willing to transport them west to the next town. The barge was a little smaller than the one they had taken to cross the central river, but it was still large enough to fit their wagon along with the amberclaws.

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The northern river was eighty feet wide and impossible to see how deep.  The water was filled with silt giving it a greenish-brown color.  They boarded the flat bottomed boat in the morning without any issues.  It was common for merchants to hire a ferryman to take them on the river so there was a convenient ramp to get the carriage onto the boat.

The boat they boarded didn't have any sails, and even if it did, there wasn’t much of a wind present that morning.  “How are we going to go against the flow of the river without a sail?”  She asked Regina.

“Oh, that is part of the reason why we managed to hire the boat so cheaply.  We will need to recharge the movement enchant.  We will charge 1000 mana each morning into the keystone.”

“What kind of movement enchant?  Can I examine it?”  Violet asked.

“Not unless you want to go swimming,” Zane said from behind them.  When Violet made a confused face, he continued, “The enchant is on the bottom of the boat. We just need to pour mana into the keystone to feed it.”

The ferryman they hired was an older gentleman that mainly kept to himself.  On one of the few occasions that he spoke to them, he said the trip would take around four days, depending on the weather.  Each night they would need to stop and drop the anchor or tie up on land.  It was not safe to travel in the dark.

There was not enough room on the boat for the party to do anything more than light stretching, so that left everyone to pursue their interests.  Regina spent a lot of time writing in a journal that she always kept on her person.  From what Violet had deduced over the years, she was either writing entries in a diary or writing theories about magic.  The water ruin had given them all something to ponder.  What they had seen of the lower floor was telling a story or a history on each pillar.

Rick spent his time sharpening his swords and tending his armor.  His armor had saved him from being injected with the paralysis venom, but several rips needed to be repaired.  Violet suspected many of the slashes were created either by Rick himself or the others while trying to free him from the appendages.

Zane often had a book out during downtime.  The books he had brought with him in his Void Storage were all about Kasmayan history and the history of warfare.  Violet had made a point of always reading the spines of the books he was reading, hoping to catch him reading some trashy romance.  She had yet to have any success, but she wasn’t going to give up.

Violet spent her time recharging or recreating the enchants she had previously made for the group.  It just made sense to her for everyone to keep those enchants on them at all times, especially with them traveling on open water.  Once she had finished replacing what was used, she set her sights on the broken crystal they salvaged from the ruin.

The fight with the octopus did not help her in this endeavor. There were even more fragments of crystal that she needed to place back where they belonged carefully.  It was a three-dimensional puzzle that she needed to put back together without all of the pieces.  The words that she could make out on the larger pieces were not written in Runic.  This project was going to take a little while before she would see any results.

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On the morning of their third day on the river, Zane made an observation that made our tour guide roll his eyes.   “I’ve never understood those who are willing to risk their boat to save a little time.  Driving at night is just flat-out dangerous.”

“Is it something that we should be worried about?”  Zane asked.

Driving at night can catch up to you, and the reckless ones lose their boat. I wouldn't worry about anyone passing us at night. This is a standard route to reach the town where you are going.” The ferryman replied.

After breakfast, Violet decided to take a break from putting the puzzle together and enjoy the scenery for a little while.  Rio joined her when she climbed on the roof of the wagon, but he didn't seem to be in a talking mood.  She needed to write a thank you letter to Avery after making their circuit of the ruins.  Rio had tipped her group off to several potentially dangerous events.  She reached up to stroke his feathers while taking in her surroundings.

The trees along the side of the river had been getting increasingly denser as they progressed on the river.  Today, Violet could not even see the shore.  The trees along the shoreline had leaf-filled branches touching the water on both sides of the river.  Besides the river being a faster way to travel, their group did not travel along the shore because of how thick the trees were in this area.  Dangerous beasts were often spotted in the forest to the south of them, so it was safest to avoid it.

While she was musing about what kind of creatures lived in the water, she saw the back of something swimming.  It did not surface for very long, but it looked similar to a crocodile.  She quickly added swimming to her list of things not to do while on the river.  Not that she had planned on it in the first place.

As they rounded a bend in the river, Violet noticed a large tree had fallen and was blocking a large portion of the river.  “There is a tree down up ahead.”  She called out in case their tour guide had not already noticed it.   The older man waved at her and began to slow their boat down to maneuver around the tree more manageable.

There were around three feet of clearance on each side of the boat as they tried to avoid any downed limbs from the tree.  They had slowed to a crawl to get around the tree safely.  When their boat had reached the halfway point, vines began to grow from both sides of the river to entangle their craft.

This confused Violet until Zane shouted, “Nature mage!” and started to cut any vine that came too close.  Regina and Rick each took a section and began cutting shortly after Zane had called out.  Violet took her place on a corner and started to use Far Seeing to see if she could locate the Nature mage that was trying to attack them.  They likely wouldn't show themselves until the craft was disabled or locked down.

Something bumped the underside of the boat, causing Rick to let out a string of curses followed by, “At least one beast is attacking. There will likely be more.  Keep an eye out!”

Shortly after Rick’s announcement, the boat was bumped by two other crocodiles, causing the vessel they were on to be pushed backward and slightly closer to the shore.  When the beasts came up for another push, Violet was ready.  As soon as she saw its head, she shot it with a combination of Ice Shards and Acid Blast.  It was an acid projectile encased in ice with a sharp tip designed for maximum penetration.  The animal didn't have a chance. The tip pieced its eyeball and delivered the acid directly into its brain.

As soon as the beast she targeted died, a loud shriek came from somewhere along the shore.  Violet remembered hearing about Nature Mages being able to share senses with their controlled animals.  There was an abrupt stop in the vines and beast attacks because of this.  Their ferryman chose that moment to yell “hold on!” and increased the speed of their boat to avoid the trap they were in.

After an hour of high-speed travel, the ferryman slowed the boat to their usual traveling speed and asked, “Could you charge the keystone, please?  Traveling at high speeds costs a lot of mana to maintain.”  The passengers gladly donated their mana to help charge the keystone and then gathered together for a discussion.

“We need to be extra vigilant from now on.  I know we weren’t slacking before, but this stalker of ours just escalated her actions.”  Zane said.

“What more can we do?  I thought we were being careful.”  Regina replied.

“Double watch at night.” Zane and Rick said at the same time.

“Rick or I will trade-off watching with you two,” Zane said, pointing at Regina and Violet.

“Do you not trust us to keep watch?  You won’t get enough sleep to be functional during the day.”  Violet asked.

“We’ve both trained to function on less sleep, and we can take a nap during the day if we need it.  It’s not that we don't trust you. You haven’t been trained on all of the signs to look for while on watch.”  Zane said.

“Aye, and I can hear and smell better than the lot of you,”  Rick put in.

Regina then turned to the ferryman and asked, “Sir, if we can provide light to see by, would you be willing to travel through the night until we reach the next down?  We should only need to do it for one night, right?”

“If it means we don't get attacked again, I can make an exception.  We will be traveling at half-speed.  Even with a light, it is still dangerous to travel at night.”

Regina and Violet took turns keeping a modified version of Dazzle active during their night of travel.  It was a weak version of the spell tailored to not interfere with night vision, as long as you didn't look directly at it.   They made it into town before noon on the next day.