After a brief talk with Rachael while Sarrah changes into her beach outfit (green two-piece swimsuit over which she wears an unbuttoned denim vest, sandals, mid-width brim white semi-floppy sun hat, sun glasses and a standard pistol wand and enchanted survival knife in a shoulder holster under the vest), they grab her GTFB bag and go.

  They take a short walk to Allia’s bungalow where they find her sprite feeder buzzing with the glowing orbs. She takes 20 minutes responding or dismissing them, then another minute redirecting her feeder to the Bancroft’s much larger box.

  Once done, Allia changes and grabs her own GTFB bag. She has a wide brimmed straw sun hat, white one-piece swimsuit, denim jacket, towel tied around her waist (with a safety pin securing the bind) and sandals on her feet. In addition to the GTFB bag she grabs a teal beach parasol wide enough to lay under. Per Sarrah’s suggestion she keeps her own bullet wand in her bag, but straps her knife to her waist.

  They walk a few minutes out of the neighbourhood to a bus stop where they wait about 5 minutes for one to land.

  It’s about 40 feet long, flat bottomed with an enclosed passenger cabin with two dozen benches lining the windows and hand grips down the spacious central aisle. The two pilot chairs are suspended by a short catwalk in the front of the bus, where they’re protected by a glass dome that allows them to see under and above them without impairment. Unlike most hover boats, it seems to sacrifice some of its seaworthiness in favour of considerations for overland use.

  Rather than sitting, they choose to grab onto the suspended handgrips along the centre as they fly off smoothly to the city’s main dock. Two stops later, a boy and girl about their age and in similar beach attire gets on and grab rungs next to them. The boy has neon blue hair and the girl neon yellow. The girl has a two piece suit and the boy trunks. Both wear matching blue and yellow hooded light jackets unzipped to show athletic muscles and that, like Sarrah, they’re wearing shoulder holstered pistol wands and knife. In addition to carrying bags similar to the girls’ own, they each carry a spell propelled surf board.

  “Going to crystal point?” Allia asks, glancing at their weapons.

  “Oh, yeah! You?” the boy answers, his own gaze going to Sarrah’s holster.

  “Yeah! It’s our first time. Sarrah just blossomed… was it yesterday, or the day before?” Allia looks to her friend.

  “It was in the morning, so yesterday,” Sarrah politely smiles at the couple.

  “Right,” Allia continues. “Anyways, she got her temp license yesterday, and with the school closed we figured we might as well blow off some stress.”

  “Oh yeah? You’re Thistlehow too? What year?”

  “Second,” Allia says.

  “Oh! I guess we’re you’re seniors then. We better take care of you.” He smirks as he says it.

  “Only by one year.” The yellow haired girl rolls her eyes at his comment.

  “One year can be a lot at Thistlehow. Besides, this is our fourth time at Crystal Point.”

  “Third time.” The girl corrects, with a questioning tilt of her head.

  “Right, third. My mistake.” The boy averts his gaze for a brief moment, his face blushing faintly, before returning it with a cheerful smile. “Either way, we should show them the ropes, no?”

  She looks at him, tongue pressed against her teeth, seemingly hesitant to say something before shrugging and looking away. “Fine. You’re probably right.”

  “Great… if you accept of course?” He turns to Allia who in turn turns to Sarrah seeking her opinion.

  Sarrah, glances between all three and shrugs, clearly suppressing a sigh. “Sure, why not. This should be fun.”

  “Great! I’m Jakes?n and this is Car.” Car coughs. “Carly. We’re planning on exploring the coast, but we can at least show you a few places on the way to the beach.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Allia and this is Sarrah.” They all exchange handshakes. “Your name and accent though? The clipping cadence?” Jakes?n tenses. “East Chthonian?”

  Jakes?n immediately relaxes. “I’m surprised you can tell the difference between us and our less friendly neighbours. Most Thalassians cannot.”

  “She has an ear for it.” Sarrah comments.

  “Oh? How fortunate for her.” Jakes?n says.

  “Have you explored the island before? Isn’t it dangerous to leave the inhabited zone?” Sarrah asks, eyes glancing to their bullet wands?”

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  “Oh these?” He taps his weapons. “They’re just backups. We have active powers, but they aren’t good around others, especially in water. Lightning. But we’re immune to each other, so we’ll be fine on our own.”

  “How nice,” Allia comments. “Are monster attacks as frequent as they say?”

  Carly answers with a neutral tone. “On the main beach there was one about every hour. Nothing serious though. Just make sure you have a shield up if you go in the water. Populations on the island itself are pretty low, since so many mages like to hike through it. But the locals said that something more serious shows every couple of weeks or so. Juvenile death worms are the most common cause of the shallow waters, but adults sometime show up plus a variety of shark hybrids. Usually, they aren’t in the ‘swallow you whole’ range, but apparently a mega beached itself chasing after some swimmers who went too far out a few years back.”

  “Oh, how interesting. Any humanoids?” Allia asks with tilted head.

  Carly shakes her head. “No tool users or mages at least.”

  “How often do people die?” Sarrah says with a strange intensity.

  Carly looks at her oddly but shrugs it off. “From monsters? Besides the mega, I heard the last time anyone actually died was 10 years ago when a baby kraken snuck up and yanked some swimmers from a few miles off.”

  “I heard about that, I think. MDC deployed for that, didn’t they?” Allia asks.

  Carly shrugs. “Probably. There’s always some jurisdictional nonsense between them and the army when they show up, but it seems pretty obvious they had the better claim even if they don’t normally care about the island.”

  Sarrah stares out the window, her lips move silently, and she occasionally nods to herself.

  “You okay?” Allia whispers.

  Sarrah looks like she’s about to nod and speak, but stops, looks sideways for a few seconds and finally finishes the motion. “Yeah, it sounds pretty ideal actually.”

  Allia gives her friend a worried look, but whatever she’s about to say is interrupted by the bus reaching their stop.

  They get off to a bustling dock with hundreds of boats, with or without hover options, ranging from a little smaller than the bus to several hundred-foot ferries going to various other islands. Down the coast, other docks are seen dedicated to larger vessels.

  Most of the riders get off the bus, and there are two other busses similarly disgorging passengers from other parts of the city. The four pause a brief second to breathe in the salty sea air before heading directly to the ticket booth, the two pairs splitting up to go to different tellers.

  A middle aged tired looking woman with dull hail behind the counter suppresses an envious look when the two girls state their destination, but dutifully brings out a sigil scanner for them to place their permits.

  Allia places her I.D. card on the small flat disk which immediately lights up the inscribed symbols a solid green. Sarrah puts her temporary card on, which only produces a yellow until she puts her regular card with her basic defence certificate on it, which results in a greenish-yellow. Finally, the woman asks to examine Sarrah’s weapons, only approving once she sees that they’re in working condition – shooting the wand into an enchanted block designed to register and safely disperse the force.

  “Right, ahem,” the woman starts a speech performed thousands of times before, “congratulations on qualifying to travel to crystal point. Before you can purchase the tickets, you must sign this paper stating that you have received verbal warning and instructions for these major rules, and this written pamphlet for all minor rules unique to the island. As the MDC does not have a presence on the island, by signing this paper you acknowledge that your protection from monsters is your own responsibility while on it. However, even when protecting yourself, you must take care not to harm any of your fellow guests. As such, no potentially fatal attacks may be generated from more than 10 feet from any targeted monster unless you are the closest to it and no person is in sight on the other side. Shield spells must be active within 50ft of the water or upon leaving the settled portion of the island. Pistol wands are required to be carried at all times by any person without a combat suitable manifestation and may be transported to and from the island without hinderance. Advanced wands may be transported to the island with the proper license, but only in proper casing. Advanced wands may also be rented or purchased on the island without a license, but no wand purchased on island may be transported away from it. The ferry has its own shield generator and security team. In the event that the boat is attacked, you are to gather at the centre of the main deck where you are to remain until instructed otherwise. Unless otherwise instructed, you are not to attempt to assist in the defence of the boat. Do you understand and agree to all of these stated terms and conditions, and the ones written in the pamphlet?”

  The girls agree and sign. Sarrah tries paying for them both saying that “Mom gave me sols for both of us,” but Allia protests.

  “I won that bet from Emil, remember? I can buy my own… though I won’t object to her buying the gelato. We can get a whole tub.”

  “…Deal.” Sarrah giggles at the thought.

  The woman stamps their tickets, and they run off to the boat, stopping only buy a bag of sweet and salty nut mix from a vendor cart. They meet Jakes?n and Carly at the boarding ramp of the ferry: the MV puddle stomping after a summer storm. It’s small for a ferry, only 150 feet according to one of the pamphlets the lady gave them, but it has three passenger decks: the main deck, an elevated viewing deck, and the first subdeck where they board onto with small windows positioned next to bolted down tables.

  The elevated viewing deck runs about half the length of the ship, is enclosed with a steel frames and wide glass windows with tables lining them. The portion of the main deck under it is similarly enclosed. There’s a small portion of the main where passengers are allowed to roam outside, but about a quarter of the length is restricted to crew and holds the ship’s hover skiffs. The skiffs are big enough for maybe a third of the passenger capacity, with the rest of the filled ship having to wait at the site of any catastrophe in the unpowered lifeboats strapped to the side of the vessel – hoping nothing decides they look tasty while the skiffs deposit their first load on the nearest land and come back.

  Fortunately, the ferry is only running at a quarter capacity, so not only do they not have to fear being left behind, but easily find an ideal table looking out of the elevated viewing cabin. They caught it near the departure time (Sarrah had looked it up before Allia woke) and so they only have to wait 5 minutes idly chatting before the triple blast of the horn tells them to brace for departure. An instant later, the propulsion orbs lurk into life, and they glide away from the busy, gull infested dock. A few more blasts to clear other ships out of the way, then they’re out of the docks and into the vibrant blue waters of the open sea.