Chapter Four Hundred and Sixty-Eight - Get On the Same Page

Leaving Port Royal was surprisingly easy. A half dozen ships were trying to come in, so any traffic leaving the city had it easy. I suspect that the captains of those ships sitting around and waiting to dock saw every ship that left as one more berth opening up for their own vessel.

They'd be a little bit disappointed in our case. Caprica mentioned offhand that the embassy had rented out our berth for the next month and a bit, so that we'd have a place to return to and so that they'd know where their princess was going to be.

They were... a little bit upset that Caprica was leaving, but she put her foot down and personally shoo'd away any guards that tried to accompany us. I heard her muttering something about how she'd only allow handsome paladins to follow her around. Was she talking about Bastion?

It had been a while since I last saw him. I hoped he was doing alright!

"Alright!" I said as I smacked my palms on the captain's desk to bleed off some excitement. "It's time to plan!"

Amaryllis gave me a supremely unamused look. "Calm down, Broccoli."

"Aww, but this is super exciting!" I said.

"I'm aware, but I don't need you bouncing off the walls," she replied before scanning the room. It was just the two of us, and Awen, and Caprica, and Booksie, and Desiree. Actually, it was most of us. Calamity was taking a catnap on the deck with Orange resting on his tummy, and the Scallywags were working on the ship while Clive watched over everything.

Booksie reached into a satchel of books, then pulled out two. The first was a familiar tome, the Exploration Guild guide to dungeons. The second was a rolled up map which she unfurled onto the desktop. "I brought this. I hope it helps?"

"It should," Amaryllis replied as she leaned over the map. "This is more of a political map than a navigational one."

"I'll admit, I don't know the difference," Booksie replied.

Caprica gestured at the map. "See how the map shows the entire Kingdom of Deepmarsh, and carefully indicates how it is bordered by other countries? That is the chief point of a political map. In this case, we also see the internal provinces, and all the major and minor cities. Since this map is fairly localized, the scale is large enough for features like rivers and lakes to be visible."

Booksie nodded.

"An airship navigation chart will typically show a smaller region at a larger scale," Caprica continued. "That allows the chart to show a much greater density of information. It will show every village, every road, every river. Most importantly for airships, it will show topographic heights and prevailing winds. For this trip, I believe it's short enough that we have a chart that covers the whole route?"

Amaryllis nodded. "Indeed." She pulled open a wide drawer and paged through a stack of maps for a moment, eventually retrieving a map which she pinned onto a large clipboard. She placed it next to Booksie's wider map.

Desiree leaned forwards. "Where are we?" she asked.

"We're here," I said, pointing to Port Royal on both maps with twin taps. "And the dungeon we're heading to is... here." I traced my finger across the map to the west and a little ways south. Across the Seven Points mountain range, and not too far to the north of Port Hazel. There was a small blip for a town on the map, but no name for it.

"The village isn't on the navigational charts," Amaryllis said. "We might have to circle the area for a moment."

"Rhawrexdee can help," Booksie replied. "He should be catching up soon enough, and he says that he can see the white of a rabbit's eyes from above the clouds. I'm sure he can spot a town easily enough."

I nodded along, that sounded perfect. Once we were close enough, it would solve itself, basically.

"Awa," Awen said. Amaryllis, Caprica and I all looked her way, and I noticed both Booksie and Desiree looking up with confusion. It was kind of funny, they weren't used to Awen's Awenness. She was usually too shy to butt into a conversation, but she had her ways of letting us know she wanted to add something. "This small town, how close is it to the capital?"

"The Capital?" Desiree asked.

"I think she means the capital of Mattergrove," Caprica said. "Port Hazel, right?"

Awen nodded.

"It looks like it's... hmm, a day's carriage ride distant? Maybe a good morning by airship with the wind being neutral," Amaryllis said. "Do you think we'll encounter any issues? We are flying into Mattergrove without any permits."

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"Do we need one?" I asked.

"Most countries want you to have a permit to cross their border. You also can't just have an unregistered airship. There are people that verify that at every port. But we've mostly been skirting around it by dint of being an Exploration Guild vessel registered in the Harpy Mountains. We might have had a hard time in Sylphfree, but we had Bastion onboard at the time, so he smoothed things over with his presence," Amaryllis said.

"Oh," I said. "Well, that's ... good. And this might be a problem in Mattergrove?"

"Maybe," Awen said. "One thing you should know about Mattergrove is that the nobles there are very envious. They're also very jealous of their own power and their... looks? Um, I don't know exactly how to put it, but it can be a mean place to be if you have to deal with the nobility."

"How awful," Desiree said. "If a noble dares to besmirch the good name of their fellow nobility for nothing more than petty greed and jealousy, then they ought to have the fur shaved from their tails!"

Awen blinked, then shrugged. "I think we should just be careful."

"We're flying in from an odd angle. There shouldn't be any real watch posts along this path," Amaryllis said as she touched a talon along the route. "If we fly low, then it's unlikely that the capital will see us, and we won't be spending too much time in this village here, will we?"

"We shouldn't have to," Booksie said. "Unless we're hiring a local as a dungeon guide?"

"We'll see about that once we land," Amaryllis said with a firm nod. "In the meantime, let's talk timetables. I think we'll be arriving at the mountains late into the night, so, winds willing, we might arrive at the village tomorrow night. We'll want to use the daylight to cross the mountains themselves."

"Too dangerous?" I asked.

"A little. Not nearly as bad as the Harpy Mountains. These aren't so tall as to be impassable. We can just fly over them, but our charts don't have very precise measurements, so I'd like to see where we're going, or at worst fly much higher than necessary, just in case."

"So we'll be there by tomorrow?" Booksie asked. "And back in... four days?"

"Just about, assuming all goes well and Broccoli doesn't get distracted," Amaryllis said.

"Hey!" I said. "That's rude, I don't actually get distracted that easily."

"Broccoli, if we flew over a menagerie advertising that you can pet all of the baby animals for free, I think you'd find a way to stop the Beaver dead in its tracks."

That wasn't fair! Who wouldn't?

I pouted and crossed my arms, but didn't rise to Amaryllis' bait, because she was right, and she knew it, and judging by her smug huff, she knew that I knew that she knew.

"So, are we concerned about time?" Amaryllis asked.

"Well, I am getting married in two weeks," Booksie said.

There was a beat of quiet. "Wait, you mean to tell me that if we're late, you'll be late to your own wedding?" Caprica asked.

"Rhawr is flying with us. I think if both the bride and groom are late, then it hardly counts," Booksie said.

"I... suppose," Caprica said. She sounded halfway scandalised. "Well, in any case, having a dragon with us should provide a certain degree of leeway when it comes to dealing with the local authorities. In Sylphfree you'd have the entire army mobilising, Paladins and all, but I suspect that a backwater nation--no offence, Awen."

"None taken," Awen peeped.

"--Won't have the resources or experience to handle a dragon to begin with," Caprica finished.

"Rhawrexdee won't be coming into the dungeon with us," Booksie said. "He'll be waiting around, however. Probably grabbing a local snack or something."

"Oh... we'll have to set some money aside for that," I said. "We don't want to ruin anyone's reputation by stealing a cow or two from some poor farmer."

"Yes, that's true," Booksie said. "Half the time I think that the only reason dragons are so rich is because they eat freely and pay no rent."

Well, that was certainly a new perspective on things. I hadn't really put much thought into it myself, but I guessed she was maybe right about it.

In any case, the trip was on. Soon enough, we'd be over the mountains and landing in Mattergrove!

***