>If we feel we are set for supplies and gear for the journey into the wild, then we may as well board as well.
>Once aboard, casually tour the boat to examine its offerings, then find our cabin and relax for a bit. We've been running around a lot.
>You walk purposefully down the pier, one eye idly following an enthusiastic child as she scampers aboard the ferry ahead of her long-suffering mother - at least if her expression is to be believed. The attendant examines and stamps your ticket with a professional smile and practiced ease, then ushers you up the access ramp and onto the deck of your second ship in as many days.
>A quick circuit of the vessel confirms a broad railed walkway encircling all but the rearmost quarter of the ship. It widens at the front into a large observation deck, ringed with painted wooden chairs in curved wrought iron frames and several small tables of similar design, each bolted securely to the ship beneath them. A brightly-colored canvas canopy hung from the upper level shrouds about one half of the deck in shade while leaving the rest cheerful and sunny; this seems to roughly mirror the expressions of the people seated on either side of it.
>At several points along the walkway are heavy doors which open into corridors running crosswise the vessel's interior. The layout is easy to grasp. A pair of staircases near the fore connect upper and lower levels with a single main hallway bisecting most of the floor plan. The upper deck is mostly cabins, aside from a wheelhouse you spy only from the outside - you assume it is accessed from a separate stair. The main deck houses some more cabins, a small lounge, a series of shared bunk rooms, and a small information desk with matching attendant nestled to the side of where the corridors intersect. The bright-eyed woman looks rather dapper in her uniform, and also liable to develop saddle sores if she's forced to remain perched on that uncomfortable-looking stool for the duration of the voyage.
>Directly beneath the observation deck is the ship's restaurant and bar - nearly empty at the moment, though with a surprisingly ample capacity. In Braston, it might even pass as a classy establishment, with burnished wooden furnishings sporting impeccably ironed table linens accented by needlessly ornate folded napkins. Is that idea that people will be tidier eaters if the alternative means defacing a minor work of art? You doubt it somehow. A thin hint of simmering vegetables and cream sauce issues from somewhere in the far back, mingling with a memory of cider and old smoke baked into the carpet beneath your feet.
>The lower deck corridor comes to an abrupt halt at a number of heavy bolted doors, leading to the engine room or perhaps other restricted areas. A dissonance of dull humming noises drones beyond them, interrupted once or twice by unintelligible fragments of conversation.
>The ship lurches slightly as you climb back up the stairs - enough to make you shift your footing, though not enough to grab for the rail. The rumbling in the distance intensifies. Well, this is it, you guess. Departure time. You make your way back to the observation deck to, well... observe.
>It turns out that a ferry pulling slowly away from a dock is not a particularly riveting spectacle. And it
is slow, though you imagine the other vessels in close quarters make the crawl a necessity; the canal isn't altogether wide to begin with. At least a dozen other people are standing alongside the railing in twos or threes, with more in the chairs besides. The boy from earlier squeals altogether too loudly.
>Somehow the atmosphere here feels utterly different than the last time you pulled away from a city harbour. As you left Braston, you felt almost as though the Maiden's crew shared your sense of purpose. Sure, they didn't know
why you were in a hurry, but they were as well, and they were also professionals - veterans of the sky, and of more than one tussle upon it, if your few days with them were at all illustrative. Even before that first night's storm, their bearing made it clear they knew their business. But these people? You cast a jaundiced eye across your fellow travelers and their overwrought hats and their feckless expressions and their impractical suitcases and their noisy children.
>You're being entirely unfair, you realize, but you're also not in a very charitable frame of mind. More days of idle transit are something you can ill-afford and do not look forward to, and you swear you could
walk to Isir's Cross as fast as this ferry is moving right now. The dense patchwork of lesser Val Razuan architecture fills your field of view as the stonework banks of the canal drift sedately past - brick and chiseled stone, wrought iron and brass, and the sea of people flowing between it all, each utterly unconcerned with the fate of one diseased mouse. Beneath your clothing, the sinuous brands of your affliction seem almost to itch. You turn to go find your cabin.
>A short exchange with an attendant later, you find yourself in front of a nondescript wooden door among a dozen identical neighbours, significant only in the fact that the brass lettering upon it matches the key you're carrying - a room 24B, on the upper deck. Your first impression of your cabin is that they use too much starch in the wash, though at least the scent of it doesn't seem to be masking anything more odoriferous. The second is that it's actually not too bad.
>It is perhaps even smaller than your quarters on the Blue Maiden, but furnished as though someone here actually cared to make it look comfortable. Fancy that. The bed is softer as well, you discover as you poke it with a finger - not that this would be much of a challenge. The room is decorated in a dusky blue and white motif, with a subdued chevron pattern on the bedsheets and carpeting.
>You briefly peel back the short draperies flanking your window and are treated to a more elevated view of the same cityscape you left just a few minutes ago. To be fair, the urban density is thinning noticeably now - even Val Razua must end at some point. With a small weary sigh, you let the curtain flop back into place, unsling your pack, and flop onto the bed; the well-starched sheets crinkle beneath your weight.
>There are seven knots in the ceiling - eight if you wish to be permissive. And the hinges of cabin 26B could use oiling. These are the momentous facts you have uncovered from your vantage on the bed - a Seeker hard at work. You feel weary in body as well as soul and somehow do not care to even move. Time passes vacantly. Absently, you realize you should probably have had lunch. You'll deal with that later. You might look out the window if you could be bothered to rise, but even that feels like more effort than you want to muster. You're out of the city now, for certain; even this ship could not be so slow. You wonder how Kyouko is enjoying the flower you bought her. For a moment, a thin vestige of a smile pulls at the corner of your mouth, almost unconsciously. Well, you'll be back to check on her later. You will. You promise yourself.
>Eventually you shamble to your feet again. It really feels as though you spent more time upon them today than you actually have, and that bothers you. There is a sort of dull ache sufficing your body, hovering on the very edge of conscious awareness - just enough to worry about. You stretch. Outside your window drift rolling fields of tall grasses and the gentle sweep of broad green hills. Elms and maples cluster in small groves, their leaves shimmering in the breeze. Maybe the grand city is still visible in some direction, but not from this narrow vantage; there is only green and red and the rippling blue of the water on which you ride. Somewhere, a wren calls and is answered.
>Supper is pleasant enough, fellow diners notwithstanding. You manage to avoid the worst of the crowd by eating late, which in your case is very late indeed, given that you've eaten nothing else since breakfast. You briefly ponder the alfredo that was unconvincingly recommended by the attendant you spoke with at the ferry terminal, but eventually settle for a more economical sandwich; it turns out to be pretty decent, all things considered.
>For reasons you cannot fully articulate, you follow this up with a snifter of brandy, and then a second. It has a crisp but sweet flavor, and the fruity aroma tingles your sinuses when you inhale. Before you've quite polished off your third, that feeling has extended all the way to the top of your head. It's not even altogether unpleasant. You snicker dryly to no one in particular, then spend a moment attempting to count the knots in
this ceiling before losing your place and giving up. Maybe you just wanted to take a break from thinking about things. Yeah, a break would be nice. Or maybe it smelled kinda appetizing and you were curious. Who knows? You could probably probably blame the alcohol for what came after, though.
>"You're a con."
>"Excuse me?"
>A woman in a jaunty vest and loose-fitting clothing is glaring at you with genuine ire unconvincingly masked beneath honest indignation at the slight. A series of bemused glances are exchanged among the others in attendance. Not a one seems to know what they should make of this event - probably why they ended up the marks in the first place.
>"I said you're a con. You don't look like you're hard of hearing, either."
>It had been a chance encounter. After putting aside the last of your meal, you went for a walk. As much as you had mustered nothing more than indolence this afternoon, now you wanted to move. And the night air had been truly pleasant, with a warm breeze blowing gently off the river beneath a clear and starry sky.
>Somehow you ended up crossing through the mid-deck lounge, where a small group of people were enjoying a friendly game of cards - at least if one were to judge solely by the smiles and polite banter. But it was abundantly clear upon a second glance that the rest of the table was being taken very slowly to the cleaners by an unassuming dark-haired woman. Who was cheating. She wasn't even cheating very
well. For a moment, you actually felt a little indignant that she could be as clumsy as that and not get caught. So you caught her.
>She claimed innocence. You reiterated. She feigned offense. You explained the mechanics of her deceit. She rallied the onlookers to her defence. You bodily removed the spare aces concealed within her clothing. Probably you violated several kinds of propriety in the process. It got the point across, though.
>Bemused expressions quickly turned to dismay and outrage. Money was demanded. Security was summoned. You restrained the woman by the wrist as she tried to exit. Where exactly did she think she was going to go, anyway? Dive off the edge of the boat and swim back to town?
>Probably you would have handled the whole situation with more tact and subtly if you'd skipped the brandy. Or maybe you just wouldn't have bothered to get involved; possibly that would have been best. It would have saved you having to recount the story to three increasing ranks of staff, at least, and also avoided the well-meaning thumps across the back delivered by a bear youkai who clearly did not know his own strength; you fully expect a bruise in the morning. Two people even tried to foist more drinks upon you in their gratitude. You almost accepted. But in the end, you settled for simple praise instead, and the grim satisfaction of that woman's helpless frustration as you tore her apart and then sent her off in disgrace. At one point, you honestly thought she was going to swing at you. You were even a little disappointed when she didn't. Maybe that was just the brandy talking again. Eventually you made it back to your room and dropped off into a torpid sleep before you'd even managed to work a wrinkle into your crisply starched sheets.
>You wake up feeling nearly as dull as the dreamless interlude that divided morning from night. For a moment, you wonder if you can blame the brandy for this, too - stupid, useless indulgence
that was. But as the corners of your consciousness slowly pull themselves together, you have second thoughts. This doesn't really feel like a hangover, limited though your experience with those is; you don't have a headache, your mouth tastes... well, like you just woke up, to be fair, but no worse. And you weren't
that drunk, surely. It's just that you feel... weary, heavy, like your blanket was lined with lead while you were unconscious. It takes some effort to actually remove it.
>The blight has grown again, and more thin black tendrils dot your torso and arms. The largest on your leg is dangerously close to being visible when fully clothed, now. In fact, you expect it already is if you are not extremely judicious with how you sit. At the rate things are going, even that will not help you tomorrow. Your bittercress sits sedately in a thin shaft of sunlight piercing the gap between your drapes. It, in contrast, has not changed at all.
>Breakfast is a simple affair of omelet and ham, washed down with orange juice. Your shoulder aches a little, but otherwise you seem relatively unaffected by last night's adventure. It is the more subtle fatigue in your limbs and mind that weighs more heavily upon you and refuses to be fully dispelled.
>You are told it will be the better part of another day before Isir's Cross comes into view. In the meantime, the terrain has changed only little, grassy plains growing denser with thick trees that stand like phantoms in the morning mist. The air is colder than yesterday, but that will probably change as the sun rises. You expect a long and uneventful day.
>In the end, the day turns out to be only one of those things. A densely packed gathering of people is to rumors as tinder is to flame, and it seems word of last night's escapade has somehow become common knowledge by the time you go to return to your cabin. A courteous and well-appointed, if somewhat dim, gentleman thanks you for intervening upon his valet's behalf and pays you a remarkably generous sum in gratitude. The purser offers you a complementary meal. A shrill and frankly tiresome woman contracts you to uncover the location of her pilfered shawl. There are criminals on board, after all! The culprit turns out to be a protruding rivet on the upper walkway with a bottle of wine as its likely accomplice. You suspect the only felony involved was wearing such a gaudy thing in the first place, but the guilders pressed into your hand are quite enough to buy your silence on that topic.
>By the time the afternoon draws to a close, it feels like you have been running back and forth the ship all day, doing errands and answering questions and generally being a productive celebrity of the moment. Your badge probably deserves at least half the credit, or people would not have suddenly decided you were the preferable alternative to waiting on the ferry's lost and found box. But it was something to do, and you made a few coins while you were at it, so you guess you can't complain.
>It is a surprisingly cool evening, and you spend it in blissful quiet at the front of the ship, watching the river meander back and forth across the landscape. Beneath the still air rings the steady churn of water, ever moving. A few others share the observation deck with you, but most are elsewhere at the moment; you are glad for the solitude. Rocky hills are starting to rise in the distance, silhouetted by the dusky pink of the waning sun. The trees upon them are stocky and rugged; it would be difficult terrain to traverse. The dull heaviness in your body has yet to wane, though the vestiges of sleep are long departed. It is vaguely disquieting. Hopefully you have a few more good days left in you yet; the hike to come promises to be physically demanding.
>As the light burns a last brilliant red against the lip of the horizon, you spy the faintest suggestion of a structure nestled against the hillside, tall and stocky. The ferry turns a broad bend in the river and a field of tiny houses spreads out in the distance, dappled like soot upon the bumpy slopes rising to the east. For a moment, they remind you almost of Easthaven - low, flat, and unremarkable structures of slate and timber - though there is scarcely a sign of cultivation in sight, and little enough flat land for it. A closer inspection spots a number of smaller vessels moored at modest docks along the bank. The river is wider and gentler there, and a cluster of wharfs and support structures have grown up along it. It still isn't a very populous settlement, but the densest point is there.
>The building you spotted first disappears behind a crag as the river descends into a small ravine, coming into view once more as the water levels out and widens. It looks to be an old guard tower and easily the tallest structure in sight. It is on the opposite side of the river and set an appreciable distance away from the village itself. You can vaguely make out the suggestion of other structures clustered around it and a thin grey streak across the terrain which must be the highway that crosses Val Razua's southern border. An arched stone bridge connects one bank to the other, itself on the village's periphery at a point where the hill ground offers more equivalence in height between east and west. The space beneath is vaulted high enough to allow your ferry to pass with room to spare, but any cargo vessel that even approached the Maiden's size would be out of the question.
>The final leg of the journey passes restlessly, as the village slowly draws near and the last vestiges of sunlight fade from the sky. You fetch your belongings from your room and grab a last small snack on the ferry's dime before returning to the main deck in time to watch it pull into dock. Someone belatedly announces your destination.
>You descend the ramp to far less pomp and spectacle than your last disembarking. One look around town and you have to assume that most commercial traffic on the river passes right on by without stopping; it certainly hasn't made the place rich. Other passengers file off behind and beside you; the would-be card shark glares daggers at you as she marches brusquely past and disappears into town. Well, you're here. Time to get to work.
