The road led directly into the river. Or rather, it had at one point, leaving a gentle path into rushing waters. Another, slightly less established path led west along the banks, which was surprisingly free of woody vegetation.

As wind drove into my face, I was glad there were plenty of warm covers for Tagalong Girl and Ria amongst our supplies. The river was only 400 feet wide, and with floodplains on either side, there was no valley effect to increase the windspeed either. Just an abnormally fast river with a calm surface.

I knew this as I snuck Haldi to the bottom to walk around. After all, undead sneaking beneath the surface were a must-have; especially as fall approached peaceful hamlets. He was having trouble keeping up, but come nightfall he would be close enough for me to either recover, or plan out a more detailed set of orders for him to rendezvous with us.

Yes, the foliage remained a strong green, but I could feel autumn approaching. If I’m not allowed to express it as simply ‘feeling the aesthetic of the world change’ then I can only say it was due to my numerous magical senses. You may not have grasped it properly with only having read these highlights, however the time between summer and fall seemed far too short.

Salt Village did not need calendars of precision, and even if any were present in the towns we’d passed through I had not been able to recognize their format. I’d diligently read the tomes acquired, deriving what I could of the Derrish language, and came up lacking. I’d need a bit more before I reached the fluency needed to pretend I could read all along, eventually teaching Tagalong Girl, who was also illiterate(though she seemed happy with receiving the book from me, she had not secretly taught herself. An oversight on her part, but not one I would bring up any time soon).

With the wind whipping my hair strongly enough that even had difficulty maintaining my appearance, we pulled up to a ferry station with Terdri in sight. Several barges floated along the docks; only one of them looked manned and ready to depart, nor were there many smaller ships. A far cry from Ritz’s tales of a bustling city. My three best guesses were that the church restricted movement over water, or there weren’t many settlements along the river to be profitable for private enterprise— guess three was that they were still reeling from the ankheg attack, but that seemed most unlikely, given almost a month had passed at this point.

So, perhaps a place none that the main cities knew of. It became increasingly apparent that even the ‘known’ areas of the country were only sparingly populated. After all, an ankheg attack annihilates average aborigines. Who would waste time constantly purging those areas a bit too far away? Those who wanted to take their chances could easily remain out of sight, it was just a matter of surviving out there.

Using to light the lantern, as I presumed was custom, we waited alone on the little dock.

“Hmm, have either of you been on a *boat* before?”

“No.” “A what?” I practically answered my own question even as I asked it. Tagalong Girl gave a solid answer, but I just asked to include her. Ria feeling ill was my primary concern.

“It shouldn’t be too bad, there aren’t many waves, nor obstructions. Just prepare yourself for a few minutes of jostling about that’s all. Actually, just speak up a bit if you aren’t feeling well, I can simply use to isolate you from any rocking sensation.”

“Where are we?” Her voice piped up again, a bit stronger.

“About to cross into Terdri, on our way to Medean. Depending on how long that takes, and how far the nearest city from there is, we may have to wait before setting out again.”

“We’re staying in Medean?” Tagalong Girl piped up. I kept her abreast of my plans— what little I actually considered.

“We’re heading there to collect information, without which we aren’t able to plan ahead.” Since I didn’t want to merely brute force our way through the wilderness. “We’ll probably stay in one of the smaller villages near the city… we know nothing about them so that’s subject to change. In addition, something seems odd about the weather, charging across the hinterlands as winter approaches would be ill advised.”

It seemed odd to me at least, I never experienced Derrish weather before. Perhaps this dry rainy season was par for the course, and the country only experienced mild winters that anyone could travel through without worry. Just chalk it up to magical mysticism and the dissent would dissipate, even if my worries were wanton.

“Now it’s still too early to be working on water based training, since we don’t have time to do the preliminary tasks of making sure you can swim properly. So just get used to the feeling.”

At this point the sky was beginning to turn red. Surely there would be no point in posting a signal lantern here if they only came by on schedule. Plus, plenty of people still moved about on the opposite shore. Again, it didn’t look like much was in need of rebuilding from this distance, a round-the-clock crew would be an unnecessary expense.

Would the Church even pay their press-ganged labor?

Hmmph, I really wanted to cross over ASAP and peek around. Terdri looked unusual somehow— I wanted in.

It took at least 10 more minutes before I noticed a smaller pontoon looking boat begin drifting towards us from upstream. It departed from the eastmost portion of Terdri, and given that the dock my party waited on sat about in the middle, the boat would likewise simply drift back across. That way it could be towed in a straight line upstream city-side… but wouldn’t the other boats get in the way?

“You’ve got a single-horse cart, that’ll be 2 argent. More if he kicks up a fuss.” With a business-like tone the sailor eyed the wagon. Actually there were no sails, and he’d likely never seen a ship with sails, so this man with a crew cut(perhaps another layer of irony, as running the raft was a solitary job, not one for a whole crew) was more of a ferryman.

“Hmm, well there’s not much choice.” Fishing two silver out of Inventory from within my sleeve, I tossed them past his hand and into the partially open pouch on his waist. His eyes immediately shifted from greedy to cautious.

Now now, if I’d the temperament of a young master you could have put yourself in danger. Try scouting out your mark before trying to scam them.

“I don’t see anyone else, let’s be off. I’d like to find a place to rest for the night.”

“Sure thing boss!” Snapping to attention, he quickly tied up the boat and lowered a gangplank rather ingeniously concealed within the deck of the pontoon. I wanted a closer look, but the gearbox that controlled it was mostly concealed. Blast it, those gears needed to reveal themselves. With the hyper-abundance of lumber and mention of a plank-maker’s guild, there must be some level of timberpunk going on.

Plus looking at the gear ratios and leverage would give me a better idea of how strong the wood here was. With hints of ‘earthy-ness’ infused the wood, but was it just coincidence? A method of treatment? To justify moving it across continental distances, it needed an irreproducible superiority.

“Some travelers claimed Terdri to be a commercial hub due to the waterway, are there more before the rainy season starts?”

“Most all trade is settled before the Randall-Varren sets out. No one wants to be caught wandering about and interrogated by tax collectors for fraudulently avoiding them. Besides, when it rains, boats have trouble working. It’s not worth it.”

“Boats have trouble working?”

“The gears on this lad are reliable enough, but on bigger ships it can gum up the works something awful. I hear all about it from the lads working the docks.” The ferryman made some nonsensical sounding claims. Residue in the water? Machinery so fine that incompressibility came into play?

No, I needed to leave that all aside for the moment. Focusing on our upcoming surroundings and formulating possible lesson plans took precedence over the minutia of what passed for ‘physics’ in this world. As usual, I needed to engineer the workings of fate myself. Natural events are simply too chaotic.

That’s talking quite a big game for someone who didn’t even have a proper intelligence network setup. So I needed to settle temporarily. While I originally planned on taking the caravan to Corsen; if Tagalong Girl was to have some meaningful human interaction, we would stay put for a year at most to catch the next. But better to abandon tools than lack them in a time of need.

Undoubtedly there would be orphaned ragamuffins to start with— back alley fellows to take care of matters that needed an adult would doubtlessly need coin, so I would hold off on that until necessary. From the raised edge of the docks, the city almost certainly had an abundance of wells sprinkled throughout. Two impressive looking waterwheels on the west side of town hooked directly into one four stone buildings I could spot, with no sign of mechanisms actually collecting water. Together, this implied the shore served as an ‘industrial’ zone, not for civilians to mill about. Buildings on the east side occasionally had a fourth or fifth floor, in generally better shape, the majority of trade likely happened on that half of town. So enterprising street rats would likely hover around the outskirts of the eastern market district before retreating to the northwest side of the industrial zone… of course I couldn’t nail down where the residential zones would be for certain, and I’d not yet grasped the location, or cultural connotations of the Church here.

The recent ankheg attack would have given some of them odd jobs to sustain themselves temporarily, but it was fundamentally a matter of Derrish ideals of self-sustenance without a reliable path. It would be reasonably simple to set up a small intelligence arm here, the only prospective difficulty was in getting someone to report to our hometown closer to Medean, both due to the distance and the fact that said base was as of yet undecided.

A minor setback for tonight’s self to deal with.

Tagalong Girl herself was eyeing the town, with her signature look of confusion, attempting to puzzle out if there was a puzzle to be solved. I surreptitiously ed her hair back into shape, all our travel along the windy banks left it a matte brown from all the particulates. Ria remained much safer beneath the edges of the wagon, bundled within her disguise. Of course I gave her a to help clean her up as well, even as the temperature dropped, layers get hot and sweaty.

Leaning into our cart, I rearranged our gear to distract me from experimenting with spells until we docked. After asking for the nearest inn, I shook the ferryman’s hand with a strong grip.

“We’ll likely be here for a day or two at most. Patriarch be with ye.”

“Take care. It’s been rowdy around these parts since those Disciples came by to help restore order. Of course I’m sure you can handle yourself, it’s just to let you know.” I fished out another silver piece for this natural born toady. It sounded interesting, maybe there would be worth in visiting Terdri before leaving.

“Given the number of lamps lit there’s likely to still be some activity on the streets. Lucy, keep your eyes peeled and make sure your sister is comfortable.”

Tagalong Girl readied herself to get back into character as we headed down the dirt road to the inn in the dark. And when her head was turned, some of my grave shadows slipped into the city.