Ashinaro had expected the Divide Crosser to be a regular, if robust, boat.
That was not at all what was now docked in the harbor.
Instead it was a monstrosity of metal which floated above the water’s surface.
There were no sails, nor any oars with which to row it.
An empowered boat, then. And so large. It looked capacious enough to hold thousands.
The top deck was dotted with buildings that were difficult to make out from his low vantage, the exterior a smooth surface with nothing to cling to and nowhere to hide.
The trolls must have some truly skilled crafters to create such a vessel.
Surprised as he was, it didn’t change his plan: he would use Flesh’s Frenzy and Whirling Rush to board the boat from the water. While it was large, the deck still wasn’t as high as the west wall of Argalis near the Blighted Wilds, so he knew he could reach that far.
A stream of passengers was disembarking, though passenger boarding didn’t begin until tomorrow. Even now there were workers with cleaning supplies boarding via a larger ramp near the ship’s stern to prepare it for its next round of guests.
He committed one of their forms to memory.
Before seeing the vessel, he’d been skeptical of its ability to cross the Sea of Fear. He believed it of course, he’d seen the other races for himself, but he had a hard time accepting that it was possible.
Its treachery was what had kept Fayteraus separated for so long.
The drakken had made several attempts to cross, and all had resulted in failure, the wreckage of their attempts washing up on shore sometime later, the crew never seen again.
He wasn’t the only one skeptical. When the trolls had first arrived, they’d been captured, as no one in Argalis had believed they were truly from Fairwind.
Not that anyone had any other viable explanations of what they were.
The council had eventually come to the conclusion that however unlikely it was that the trolls had managed to brave the Sea of Fear, it was more likely than any of the other outlandish explanations people had come up with.
So they’d agreed to set that initial envoy free if they let members of the council examine the Divide Crosser.
No drakken had boarded it however, despite offer of free passage, and Ashinaro realized he’d be the first drakken to leave Fayteraus in generations.
As the last of the passengers disembarked, the crew began unloading crates from the ship via the large ramp near the stern.
“Maybe we can steal one of those and sell it back to them,” Zanas suggested as four trolls in battleform navigated precariously down the long ramp with a crate between them bigger than all of them combined.
“That seems more difficult than stowing away.”
“Exactly. In other words, more fun.”
One of the trolls suddenly cried out as he slipped on the ramp, losing his grip on the crate.
The others tried to recover, but that crate must have been massively heavy, because the three of them alone weren’t enough to steady it. They looked about to tip off the side.
With a roar of frustration they dropped the crate, which hit with a shuddering impact, rattling the ramp and causing the end to skitter and scrape across where it rested on the docks.
They all dropped to the ramp, clutching to it desperately. Trolls were not good swimmers.
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The crate slipped off the rattling ramp and dropped into the water with a loud splash.
Once the ramp stopped shuddering, the trolls got to their feet, then looked at one another, then down into the water. Then they rushed down the ramp and headed into the city as the remaining crew stood around looking shocked.
“We don’t have to steal it anymore,” Zanas said. “We should go see what’s in it.”
That wasn’t a bad idea, but Ashinaro wanted to see what they would do first. From the way they ran off, he doubted they planned on leaving it.
Sure enough, a short while later a large contingent of trolls returned to the docks, this time with a massive roll of rope with a claw-like device attached to the end which they set to work bolting to the docks.
“We could have gone down there and back by now.”
Ashinaro doubted it, it had been maybe fifty breaths.
After watching for a while longer, it was clear they were going to be a while in retrieving the crate, so he headed east from the docks. He went all the way to the far wall enclosing the island city, then looked around to check he was unobserved.
It was dark, but his vision was acute enough to see the area was empty. He slipped into the water.
As a drakken, he was almost as at home in the water as he was on land.
He looked around for any monsters. The ocean harbored many, but the docks were still within the protection of the city. As long as he stayed within its walls, he should be safe.
He submerged deep enough he wouldn’t leave a wake, then quickly navigated to the docks, where the workers were arguing about who was going to go into the water to attach the claw to the lost crate.
The ship was harder to locate, as it was not touching the surface and the sky was still dark, but he eventually found it and swam around to the starboard side opposite the docks.
He slowly rose to the surface to confirm he was in the correct location and check that there were no overlooks or portholes he’d be spotted through.
He was, and there weren’t.
The ship blocked his view of the docks, so no one would be able to spot him from there. Not that the trolls would be able to pick him out among the swell in the dark.
He submerged again. It was a long way till morning, but as long as he didn’t go too deep, he could breathe underwater. It was a good time to practice his breathwork.
“Why aren’t we boarding now, again?” Zanas asked, manifesting physically next to him. And immediately began to sink. He quickly shifted to his insubstantial form and floated back up.
“Why didn’t you warn me it was so heavy in here?”
“You have no lungs or fat to make you float.”
“Just when I think I’m going to get to stretch my legs. It’s so cramped in here.” His mask flipped to its frowning side. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“The longer we wait to board, the less chance there is of getting caught. If they’re expecting stowaways, they’re more likely to be alert while docked. And it doesn’t look like they’re finished unloading all the cargo. As soon as it disembarks, I can board, then find a place to hide.”
“Or you could just use Epitome Veil.”
“I’m not killing someone. Besides, it doesn’t last very long on monsters, and I don’t know how long it would last with a person’s essence.”
“All the more reason to test it.”
Well after sunrise, the Divide Crosser finally disembarked.
The ship was large enough that Ashinaro was still shielded from view of the docks, but he waited, swimming alongside it as it slowly made its way toward the mists of the Sea of Fear.
When it was a good way away from dock but still a ways away from that inscrutable mist, Ashinaro aimed for the deck, then activated Flesh’s Frenzy.
His flesh shot off of him and erupted from the water as at the same moment a sting erupted over his fleshless body so intensely he nearly lost concentration and gasped in a breath.
“Well, you didn’t think this part through,” Zanas said.
Ashinaro gritted his teeth and activated Whirling Rush as his flesh golem landed on the deck.
The stinging vanished as the damage was redirected to his golem and he was yanked from the water and back into his skin.
Controlling his breathing, muscles still stinging under his scales, he looked around, making sure he hadn’t been spotted, then masked himself as the troll worker he’d seen boarding the night before.
From this vantage, he could see that what he’d thought were buildings were actually some kind of machines. His beyondsight didn’t reveal anything useful about them, which was strange.
At least he didn’t see any people.
Keeping low, he searched for some way belowdecks. He wasn’t convinced it was safe to stay up here while crossing the Sea of Fear. There was something about that mist shrouding it that was… not natural. The ship was enclosed for a reason, possibly to protect from whatever destroyed other vessels that attempted to cross.
A moment later, he found a hatch that led below.
Though, perhaps it was more accurate to say it found him.
It slid open, revealing a contingent of troll Champions in battleform.
They had their weapons drawn and at the ready. All were glaring at him. None looked surprised.
