Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Two — Shopping With the Fishes
Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Two — Shopping With the Fishes Shopping in Insmouth was a strange experience. Not the actual shopping, that part was fairly easy. It wasn’t shopping for fun, but for supplies, so it was more of a chore than a fun activity, but I still got to hang out with my best friends, so it was okay.The thing that was weird were all the looks we got from the townspeople. They weren’t quite suspicious. It was something else. I guess in a town filled with fishfolk and little else, our band stood out a lot. We were strange.Maybe that was it. Guarded curiosity as opposed to outright suspicion.It took a few hours, and two return trips to the Beaver for us to gather up all the supplies we wanted. The locals had plenty of fish to sell, in all sorts of forms. Salted, pickled, and even some smoked fish which I got to taste to confirm it was yummy, tummy-aches aside.They didn’t have wax paper, but they did have these big leaves from one of the local plants that worked well enough. Not much chicken though, and no beef or anything like that. We picked up a few sacks of veggies too, mostly turnips and onions.Once everything was squared away, we kind of just toured the town. Insmouth was laid out in a sort of crescent-shape, with the bay in the middle. That meant that the town was essentially split with the docks in the middle.I kinda expected there to be two districts, with the rich in one, and the poor in another, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Insmouth was a small enough town that there wasn’t much wealth to go around. Everyone was about as well off as their neighbour. Sure, some people seemed better off, but not by that big a margin. It was nice.The houses were all made of wood, sometimes with stone foundations. A lot of them had steps leading up to their doors, maybe in case of flooding or something? I didn’t bother asking really.It felt like being in a medieval town, only it was really clean.“We should probably head over to the inn if we want to meet Howard today,” I said.“I suppose,” Amaryllis said. “I don’t mind playing tourist, but there’s just not much to see here. Once you’ve looked at one hovel, you’ve seen them all.”I huffed a ‘don’t be rude’ huff at Amaryllis.“Stop doing that!” she said.Giggling, I grabbed her by the talon, then I grabbed Awen’s hand too, because I could, and I tugged them after me towards the docks.The only inn in town, the Frank Inn Stein, was a long, low building, with big bay windows at the front that looked into a lounge with a bunch of round tables surrounded by seats. The place looked to be nearly empty. A fire crackled away in the hearth by the corner, and the air smelled like freshly baked bread and frying fish.A fishfolk woman behind the counter looked up and gave us a big fishy grin. “You must be the strangers I’ve heard so much about,” she said. “Welcome to the Frank Inn Stein, I’m July! How can I help ya?”“Hello!” I said. “We’re here to talk with Howard?”July nodded. “Ah, he’s out back. I can fetch him.”“Does he own the place?” I asked.“Howard? No, I’m the proprietor. Howard does work here on occasion. Good man, Howard. Helps a lot of folk. You can eye the menus if you want, I’ll be back in a blink.”July waved toward some seats off to the side, then ducked back to behind a door that I guessed led to the kitchen.“Alrighty then,” I said. The menus were painted onto a thin wooden slab with iron bindings around them. I carried one over to the table July had pointed out and sat, my friends taking the seats around me and leaving one open for Howard. “This is mostly just different ways of cooking fish,” I said after inspecting the list for a moment.“They are a fishing village,” Amaryllis said.“They’re a village of fishfolk, you’d think maybe they’d hesitate to eat fish,” I said.“Have you ever eaten a mammal?” Bastion asked.I blinked. “Alright, that’s fair. I wonder if they have salads. The fish in Needleford made my tummy just a bit queasy, like meat does.”“Isn’t fish a kind of meat?” Awen asked.I had no idea. “Maybe?”“You’re both morons,” Amaryllis said.“Well, if you’re not a moron, then do you know what fish is?”“Obviously it’s just fish,” she said.I eyed her suspiciously. That didn’t sound right at all. Before I could poke her about it, July returned, accompanied by Howard. “Hello everyone,” Howard said as he pulled out the spare seat and sat down. “Heard you were all over the town today. Enjoy yourselves?”“It’s a very pretty town,” I said. “The people here look nice too.”“They are,” he said. “Hope they didn’t give you any trouble. Some can be weird about strangers.”“Nope, no trouble,” I said.July grinned. “Will you folk be having anything to eat?” she asked.I was a bit peckish, so I ordered a plateful of veggies and some fish, then my friends ordered a bit of this and that. Bastion even asked for a stein of the local brew, which reminded me. “What’s up with the inn’s name?”“The name? Oh, the first owner, Frank, was a brewer. Passed away some years ago, and I bought the place. Kept the name when I turned it into an inn instead of just a bar.”Orders taken, July went off to prepare things, leaving us with Howard to talk business.“So,” he began. “Spoke to the smith, the harbourmaster, and a few others besides. See, this is a delicate matter.”I sat up a bit. “Oh?”He nodded. “You probably guessed by now, but we used to be human here. Local dungeon opened up, and with it we finally had a way to get past our first evolution. It’s a small dungeon, four floors now, but it stayed at three for a good long while. Easy too.”Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.“And it allowed you to take a class that turned you into fishfolk,” I said.“That’s right,” Howard said. “My dad did it, so did my grandparents. Some of the kids are fourth generation fishfolk now.”“Alright,” I said. “That’s kinda neat.”“It’s good for us. It means a higher level cap, and the skills we get from the Fishman class allow us to do all sorts of handy things. But there’s been a problem lately.”“What’s that?” I asked.Howard waggled his hands a bit. “It’s hard to say what exactly it is. None of us can tell, but most of us folk in Inmouth have been here for a right long time. We don’t have any academics or the like, and none of the texts we do have talk about it.”“That’s not surprising,” Amaryllis muttered.“A few months ago, our dungeon started acting strange. Not as many critters on the top floors, the puzzles were a little uncanny. Nothing too odd though. We thought maybe it was about to gain a floor. That would be inconvenient, but it happens.”“Inconvenient?” I asked.“You idiot,” Amaryllis said. “Did planting those ears take up too much brain space? Think from these villager’s point of view. They get to their tenth level, maybe by the time they're our age even. Then, unlike folk in a city, they want to keep on growing, so they need to visit a dungeon. The local dungeon. If it only has a few floors, they can do it in an afternoon. Once in their life. They can form strategies and ideas on how to tackle it. I bet you have a few that go down often?”Howard nodded. “I’m one of them,” he said.I eyed the fishman and muttered ‘inspect’ under my breath.A Fishman Deep Diver, level 20.“I go down maybe once a month, twice sometimes. Know the dungeon like the back of my hand,” he said. “I was one of the first to notice the changes.”“Right,” Amaryllis said. “Now imagine if the locals suddenly need to deal with a dungeon that has a few more floors? That’ll increase the difficulty for all of them.”“Oh, right,” I said. “That makes sense.”Howard smiled, but his story paused as July returned with the food. It was only once we were all settled and eating that he continued. “So, the dungeon starts to act up. That’s when we noticed these things crawling up around the dungeon core.”“You looked at the core?” Bastion asked.“You saw roots?” I asked at the same time. Then I jumped.A New Quest!Trim the Cruel!You have heard a rumour about an Evil Root! Discover more! Destroy it!Bastion looked at me strangely.Howard eyed us both. “We don’t poke at our core. We might be isolated and quiet folk, but we’re not dumb. But we did look. And yes, I guess you could call those things roots. The dungeon’s since gone weird. More dangerous in places, less in others. You seem to know about them?”I nodded, even after noticing Amaryllis’ warning look. She might have thought I was an idiot, but I wasn’t stupid. “We’ve encountered them before. They’re called Evil Roots, and the World doesn’t like them.”“And how would you know what the World does or doesn’t like?” Bastion asked.“It told us, obviously,” I said before turning back to Howard. “Did you manage to break the root?”“No. We tried a few things. But it’s close to the core. Do you know of a way to break it?”“I think that Cleaning magic can do it, but it needs to be really strong. Other than that, I don’t know. Sorry.”Howard sighed. “It was too much to ask. We do have one solution.”“You do?” I asked.Howard shifted in his seat. “There’s this item. An ancient font of power. It’s strong, and it’s dangerous. But it might be able to break the... you called it an Evil Root? It might be able to break it.”“What is it? The font thing, I mean. And why haven’t you tried yet?”“I don’t rightly know what it is. I just know that it’s a weapon. You heard about the fog here? It hides these nasty critters. Light will scare ‘em off a bit, but not as much as you’d want. They stay away from the shore though... mostly. This font? They won’t come within a league of it.”“So it’s what you use to protect the town?”Howard shook his head. “Not us. Another town. They have it in the middle of their town. No walls or anything, because they don’t need them. Nothing evil comes close.”Amaryllis leaned forwards. “You want to use the thing they use to keep safe in order to save your own dungeon?”“That’s the whole of it, yes,” Howard said.“Won’t they be in danger while you use the font?” I asked.“Only for a day or two. We’re honest folk, we’d return it.”“Only if there’s anyone left to return it to,” Amaryllis snarked. “Though I admit that I’m curious about this font thing.”Howard raised his hands in surrender. “We’re not desperate enough for anything wrong-headed. And if we were, then we’d find some solution that didn’t involve hurting our neighbours. We just want to ask them if they’d help us.”“And where do we come in?” Bastion asked.“Well, the problem is that Hopsalot is a couple of days' walk to the north. It’s not an easy place to reach, even for the hardiest of us. Two days there, then back. Even if we get the font, it might take a day or so to delve to the dungeon’s core. Then two days back to Hopsalot.”I snapped my fingers as I got it. “You want to have us send a message over? Or go there and back with the Beaver Cleaver?”Howard nodded. “If Insmouth had its own airship it wouldn’t be a problem. As it is... it’ll be dangerous no matter what. We can pay for the trip there and back. Mostly in supplies and trade goods, but we have a bit of gold.”“I’ll have to talk to my friends and crew about it,” I said. “But I wouldn’t mind helping.”
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Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Three — Hop Along to Hopsalot
Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Three — Hop Along to Hopsalot I knelt on one of the benches along the fancier side of the Beaver Cleaver, arms crossed over the rails and back bent forwards so that I could rest my head on my forearms. I was beat. Even with the exercise with Bastion, I was still a little under the weather.I was getting better though. Still, a day of gallivanting around Insmouth and trying out different things had left me dead on my feet.Below, the fog the villagers had warned us about roiled and twisted, almost like the waves in the nearby bay. I could imagine that we were riding over the clouds if I wanted.“Hey.”I looked away from the fog and over my shoulder just as Amaryllis sat down next to me with a sigh. She looked about as tired as I felt. “Not going to bed?” I asked.“I noticed you weren’t in your room. You know, you were just sick, it’s not wise to be out at night like this.” She tilted her head to the side to look at me. “Not even wearing a jacket. Idiot.”I smiled. I was in my night clothes, a big shirt and some underthings, and a big pair of wooly socks of course. It was comfy clothes. “I guess. The air feels nice.” It was humid and cool. It kind of reminded me of the air back home.“If you get sick, it’s on you,” she said.“Will you still tuck me in?” I asked.Amaryllis face went a strange shade of red. “That was all Awen,” she said too quickly.I sat up a bit. “Wait, did you actually tuck me in?”“I did not!” she said.“You did!”“I just said the contrary.”I grinned from ear to ear. “I guess I was too sick to notice it.”Amaryllis crossed her wings. “I didn’t.”I pulled her into a sidelong hug, crossed wings and all. “I can tuck you in later if that makes you feel better. We’ll be even then!”“Absolute moron,” she grumbled into my shoulder.She tilted her head a bit so that she could look over the side of the ship with me. The fog would warp and shift sometimes, and when the wind moved just right there would be some openings in it deep enough that we could see the ground below. That’s when we could catch glimpses of things moving in the dark.“What an awful place we’ve found,” Amaryllis said.“I don’t know,” I said. “It sure is scary, but it’s also different. I’ve never seen a place like this before, and I don’t know if I ever would have back home.”Amaryllis was quiet for a while. “Do you miss it?”“Seeing scary things?” I asked.“No, you idiot, your home.” She nestled a little closer. I was sure that if I teased she’d just say that idiocy gave off warmth or something. “You never really talk about it.”I didn’t know exactly what to say. Thinking about it made my chest achy in a weird way. So I pulled Amaryllis even closer and leaned my head against hers. She didn’t protest. “I don’t know,” I said. “I... My parents moved a lot. From town to town. My dad was always chasing work, and my mom didn’t like staying in one place for long.”“So you’re used to moving?” Amaryllis said.“That’s not quite it, but yeah. The thing is... uh, where I’m from you need to go to school, from when you’re pretty young until you’re basically an adult. You’re supposed to learn all sorts of things, one of them being how to make friends. I never really got that lesson, you know? Every year it would be a new school, with nice people but none that I knew. And they already had their own friends.”“You were left out,” Amaryllis said.“A little? I’m pretty good at meeting people, I guess. I just never clicked with anyone, not the way I wanted to.”Amaryllis uncrossed her arms. I thought she was going to get up, but then her talons started scratching my back through my nightshirt. “You idiot,” she sighed.“I think my parents are probably worried,” I said. “That’s... I should probably feel more bad about that than I do. But they’re the sort of people that would love to be in a place like this, with magic and monsters and all sorts of strange people to meet. They’d probably really like you.”“Are you saying I’m strange?” she asked.“There aren’t any harpies where I’m from. I think they’d find you really cool.”“Hmph,” Amaryllis hmphed.“There are other things that I kind of miss. Cars were neat. And music. We had so much music. The internet was a terrible place, but it could also be kinda cool sometimes.” I shook my head. “Lots of really naughty people there, though.”Amaryllis and I sat there for a little longer, until the skies cleared a little, and we could see the stars twinkling down at us. There was a bit of light from Insmouth, but not enough to hide away the night sky.“You can’t see this many stars from home,” I said. “There are way too many lights on for that.”“To prevent monsters?” Amaryllis said.“No, just... because we like lights I guess. We were always very afraid, I think.”Amaryllis snuggled up a little, her feathers poofing up in a way that made them really soft. I almost nodded off for a moment before she spoke up. “We’re going on that hare-brained mission, aren’t we?”“To save Insmouth?” I asked.She nodded.“I... I don’t know if I could live with myself if we didn’t at least try.” I liked my lips. “I got another quest for it.”Amaryllis nodded. She didn’t seem surprised. “You do know that we’re on a schedule, right?”“And will us arriving early be worth an entire village of people?” I asked.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.Amaryllis shrugged. “I suppose it wasn’t much of an argument in any case. Not with a world-given quest. They had better reward us fairly though, otherwise you can explain all of this to Clementine.”“That’s fair,” I said. “We should go to bed.”“We should,” Amaryllis agreed.We still took a few minutes to relax before finally heading to bed.
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The next morning I was up bright and early and bunny-tailed! The grey fog had faded with the sunrise and left the world smelling fresh and full of life.Boats were leaving the docks at Insmouth to tackle the choppy waters of the bay, a whole fleet of bright sails heading out to sea, and from the scents in the air, the townsfolk were working hard preparing a hundred breakfasts already.We, for our part, had a little gathering in the Beaver’s kitchen. “Alright,” I said as I set down a huge bowl of porridge next to a plate stacked tall with buttery toast. We didn’t have maple syrup for the oatmeal, but life was like that sometimes. “I know that some of you are aware, but I want to make sure that everyone is filled in,” I said.“Filled in to what?” Joe asked.“Our next mission,” I said.“You’re not dropping us off here?” the scallywag asked.“Only if you want off. Insmouth is a strange little town, but I’m sure they’d welcome you with open arms.”Joe’s nose scrunched. “I don’t think we’d fit in,” he said.“That’s alright too. So! Insmouth needs our help. The town wants us to head over to another town called Hopsalot just to the north to pick up something there. We don’t know if they’ll be willing to give that thing up though, so we’re going to have to negotiate with them. Or rather, someone from Insmouth will have to.”“We’re taking passengers then?” Sally asked.“Just one,” I confirmed as I passed some bowls around. “Howard, the town... actually I don’t think he has a title. But he’s a nice enough person.”“What are we getting?” Sally asked.I tapped my chin. “Howard called it a Font. I’m not actually sure what it is, but it apparently keeps monsters away. It might be tricky to get the people in Hopsalot to give theirs to us. We’ll have to see.”Discussion after that turned to other things. Mostly revolving around the upcoming trip. We didn’t have any indication on any map of where Hopsalot was, so we had to guesstimate it a little bit based on what Howard said.Clive at least seemed to think it wouldn’t be much of a problem. “One of the great advantages of air travel is having the height to see great distances. Small things are difficult to find, even when you know where they are, but an entire village? We should be able to manage.”“Brilliant!” I said. “We have a guide too, so that ought to help.”I grabbed my handy old kettle, put some water in it, and set it to boil with some mana while the others finished up their oats. By the time they were done the tea was ready.A cup of mixed berry tea brewed by an amateur, helps sooth muscles and energizes the drinker.For a moment everyone cuddled their cups close and enjoyed the warmth of some freshly made tea, then it was time to get up and go.I did the dishes with a snap of my fingers (and a bit of mana spent) and then we rallied to the deck to get the Beaver ready to go. Orange took her place atop the figurehead while sails were inspected, the fuel tanks were partially refilled by Awen and Steve passing cans up and down, and Clive and I made a quick inspection tour of the ship.So far, the Beaver had really only done light duty for a ship. There wasn’t much to show as far as signs of wear and tear went, but it was better to keep an eye on things than not.Less than an hour after sunrise, Howard showed up below the ship and hailed us. He had a big pack on his back and a few odds and ends clipped onto some belts around his waist. No armour, and the only weapon I noticed was a knife in a strap around his leg.“Ahoy!” I called down to him. “Glad you arrived! You’re just on time.”“Really now?” he asked. “That’s mighty good news. Now, how does an old fishman like me get all the way up there?”I laughed. “Give me a moment, I’ll lower the ladder.”As soon as the ladder was down Howard climbed his way up and scrambled onto the deck. “Reminds me a bit of being on the sea when it’s calm,” he said as he looked around.“It is an airship,” I said.“True. Don’t know why I had in mind that it wouldn’t sway and buck like a water ship,” he said.“Did you speak to your crew?”“I did,” I said. “We’ll bring you over to Hopsalot and back.” he grinned, a big fishy smile. “By the way, you look ready for adventure.”“Oh, this stuff? It’s what I wear when going in the dungeon. Minus a few things. Figured that since I was out of the village, it was better safe than not.”I gave him a big thumbs up. “That’s a clever way of looking at things. If you’re the only one coming aboard, then I guess we’re ready to set sail. Do you want to sit over by the wheel? You can help us with directions once we’re underway.”“Sure thing,” Howard said.Soon, we weighed anchor, and the Beaver’s engine was happily thumping away below deck. An oily Awen came topside, grinning past the soot on her face before she came over to the quarterdeck. “He’s purring,” she said.I grinned right back. “Then let’s see how far along we can go. There’s a whole bunch more adventure to be had.”And so, with the winds at our backs and the sky calling to us, we set off to the next leg of our journey.
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