NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4: Sharcliffe Redoubt
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Adya: It's just a game, don't get all weepy. Drink your chai.
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Sol 488 FY 26, 15:59 Mars Time, Ghostlands, World's End Server, Sharcliffe (8,022 viewing)
The waves were lapping against the hull in a decidedly placid, friendly fashion as the sailors on the front barge worked the block and tackle, hauling in Marie's vessel at last. The cliffs they were here to claim loomed grey and green in the half-light, rising steeply from the shore above a wide stone shelf. At the base of the rise, a weather-worn pier jutted out into the water. A few of the old fishing sheds still clung to the edge of the escarpment above it, accessible now only by scrambling up weathered rock or jury-rigging lines. That stone shelf—the one the pier had once served—stood maybe fifty feet above sea level.
The real cliff—vertical and imposing—rose up behind the escarpment, another hundred and fifty feet or so. Somewhere up there was the high plateau where Artemis planned to cast his spell. The map said there was a switchback trail leading up. From the barge, Marie hadn't seen anything of the kind.
The pier, once used for launching numberless fishing boats before the ghouls had come, now slumped gap-toothed and dangerous, hanging limply from a mere handful of stone hardpoints, a pair of which had been put to use when the lead barge had first made fast. This left the whole expedition, now that her barge was drawn close, floating about forty feet offshore from what her eyes insisted was a steep and difficult landfall.
There had been considerable upset among the crew of the forward vessel, the Campus Regoris, whatever language that was trying to portray, when they heard the news of the near-floundering and the loss of crew—nobody but the captain had ever shown up, and Mars had already quietly informed her they were most likely lost at sea. However, the cargo was intact, the healer was intact—she was surprised to find she was such a commodity—and the expedition leader, one Artemis, eventually calmed down and gave the pair of them his thanks. He and Captain Regis, the forward bargemaster, then wasted no time in calling a meeting of senior staff and decision makers—which, being bargemaster and healer both, they insisted she qualified for.
Marie noticed with narrowed eyes that there was no discussion of compensation for this newly recognized title, but had a suspicion she'd be asked to steer again.
Marie smoothed a wrinkle from her robe, appreciating the weight and fall of the fabric as it caught the wind off the sea. Once a sensible field garment, now aggressively witch. Storm‑pale cloth fell in overlapping riding panels, the neckline cut into a deep V that showed a ladder‑laced chemise underneath. Twin leather bandoliers crossed the plunge and hauled the lacing snug, each loop of cord peeking between ranks of stoppered vials that winked color when she moved. The silvery mantled hood integrated into the shoulders of her outfit fastened at her throat and trailed a long liripipe tail—extremely witchy; billowed sleeves collapsed into tight glove cuffs; Leather gloves and hobnailed boots kept the ensemble grounded, practical where it counted. Her casting bangle pulsed quietly on her wrist, warm and ready. Pretty. Impractical. Hers.
It was ridiculous, maybe—but she liked it. It moved when she moved. Felt elegant. And after another day spent in sweat-stiff coveralls and algae-streaked sleeves, the shift into something designed to be beautiful—to be noticed—felt like a gift. Her necklace, a simple silver symbol of the god of magic, lay cool against her sternum, mostly forgotten. She rarely remembered to emote reverence.
She dallied outside in the wind, listening to the canvas snapping whenever it gusted, for long minutes before spotting what she'd hoped to see—a break in the clouds, and then the jewel-like luster of a descending airship. The Captain's Bounty, an unrealistically small prop-driven airship glowing in sapphire, emerald, and ruby—whatever was most colorful when the time had come to patch its envelope. Her friends were here.
Boot‑thuds hit the Campus Regoris forward deck in quick succession—one set light, one heavier, spray thrown up in arcs off the sodden deck.
The first newcomer straightened from her rappel line with a flourish that somehow didn't topple her on the wet planks. Broad‑brimmed leather hat, low crown, a single dark feather wired along the side so it wouldn't blow free. She swept it off in a half-bow that managed deference and showmanship at once.
"Captain Jazelle Venn, charter free and presently at your service," she announced. "Permission to tie in?"
"Welcome aboard!" roared Mars, gruff voice rolling like surf through a throatful of gravel. "Friends of yours, Healer?"
"Old and true!" she said happily, running through the shallow water to meet them. The younger of the pair, though by days, turned to receive her greeting: a tall coltish woman with copper‑red hair drawn into a long braid collared by brass, hung with bangles bearing the ankh of Ghostlands' clergy class.
"Told you we'd show," Jillian said. Her pale eyes smiled as she hooked Marie into a one‑armed hug with her free arm, the other hand holding the hawser steady. "Where d'you want me to make the Bounty fast?"
"Anywhere'll do," called Mars as he strode off towards the meeting tent. "Come inside, all of you, once you've done what's needful!"
The airship captain, Jaz, shot off a snappy salute, but stopped for her own damp, one-armed hug before completing the tie off.
Priorities.
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The troupe sidled into the command tent, and it was immediately obvious where everything was going to go wrong.
Artemis, a big bluff fellow with cornflower blue eyes, was hosting the meeting in his personal pavilion, pitched on the deck of the barge. Maps and tables were set up within, as well as wineskins hanging from support poles. He invited them to drink, but they declined. It was either a test or Artemis wasn't the most intelligent leader.
Her legs were the wrong length for the chairs he had pulled up to the maps table, so she stood beside Jillian, looking over Mars' broad shoulder. Jaz shook her head at Marie's questioning glance—not worth the effort of looking, then. She wandered back around toward them, pulling up a chair and sitting astride it, backwards.
"This was my father's land," Artemis began, gesturing broadly. His voice was thick with emotion. "Fifty years he pulled fish from these waters…"
"So how's tricks?" Jaz opened, her voice a low murmur only for them.
Ping!
Marie's attention snapped to the notification shimmering in her vision. Gordon.
[16:01] Gordon: I'd like nothing better.
"…and he expanded atop the cliffs and built a farming town," Artemis continued, his voice fading into the background. "With the support of the Mysteria Geologica, we shall today take the first steps toward winning this back for humanity…"
"Mr. Man still part of the plan?" asked Jaz cheekily.
Marie rolled her eyes, her fingers flying across her virtual interface. This wasn't unheard of; the girls were patient.
[16:01] Marie: So I get to see your face tonight? I missed you. Work's been a nightmare—sorry.
"Vera would like a new port city," Jill suggested quietly. "Maybe we'll get her out of her Guild storyline for a bit, get her to found a chapter here or something."
"Our first step: raising the spires," Artemis announced, pointing to a baked clay model of four conic shapes. "We shall pull these up from the ocean bed… Sharcliffe, it shall be called, for my father's surname. For his memory."
Poor guy, thought Marie, noticing the tears running down the mage-captain's face. Someone else should have taken this job.
Ping!
[16:02] Gordon: Hoping for an early sign-off on this end. Harry's almost there.
[16:02] Marie: Rooting for him. Harry seemed nice enough. I gotta go soon. How are you?
Jillian shook her head. "You are distractible."
Marie winced. "Agh, Jill, I haven't gotten to talk to him much today. One moment."
"Like when I went north for the survey," said Jaz, elbowing Jillian. "You were beside yourself. Have some empathy."
"Oww, alright, I know. She can talk to the boytoy, I'm just poking fun."
"So, what's the big picture here?" Jaz asked, nodding toward Artemis, who was now dabbing at his cheeks while outlining phases on the map.
"Basically? Fortress building in hostile territory," Marie summarized, tuning back in just long enough to catch the gist. "Phase 1, spires. Phase 2, bridge. Phase 3, repel ghouls."
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"How hostile?" Jaz asked, looking cheerfully bloodthirsty.
"No way to be sure yet," Marie admitted. "I'm picturing ghoul hordes at the cliff top, though. Plus, I got the feeling there were supposed to be political undercurrents, but so far it just sounds like a simple guard-the-builders questline."
> Randoon_the_Wizard: Nobody's ever heard of immersion at all, huh?
Ping!
[16:03] Gordon: I've been singing our song again.
"On a brand new quest? Doubt," Jillian commented darkly. "We've got some sort of complication incoming."
A secret smile touched Marie's lips.
[16:03] Marie: You are pining
[16:04] Gordon: Could be. Put me out of my misery?
[16:05] Marie: It's a date!
She closed the message window, the warmth of their exchange lingering.
"Smitten," pronounced Jillian.
"So where do you need me?" Marie asked, turning her full attention back to the NPCs and pointedly ignoring her friend. The geomancers were nodding in satisfaction at Artemis's plan, but she could see a gap. "That map shows a trail up the cliff, but I didn't see one from the barge. Are you sure it's still usable?"
Mars shot her an approving glance. Artemis blinked. "Ah, excellent observation! No, I suspect the trail is long gone… I've taken the liberty of providing a very great length of rope ladder…"
Marie pictured herself climbing nearly two hundred feet' worth of ladder and felt queasy. Then, she pictured a ghoul spotting her from the cliff's top, and climbing upside down with the eerie, spider-like way they had, and following her if she tried to flee. It would overtake her part of the way down, and she didn't know Feather Fall.
"I'm afraid I'm not myself sturdy enough to make the climb," she ventured. "Not to mention what would happen if our adversaries began to follow back down the thing—is there no other way?"
> Randoon_the_Wizard: NOW you're speaking the vernacular! Commit to the bit!
Silence in the war room, then an angry female voice."I told you. Didn't I tell you? Step two is going up the escarpment; step one is letting the fancy merc scout team you hired do their business."
She was tall, thin, and seemed equal parts rawhide and grimacing, snarling teeth, set in an even row and quite white. She reminded Marie of a greyhound. "Aylin," she introduced herself, holding out a calloused hand to Marie. "Nice to meetcha."
"Step zero is letting my airship put your fighters up top," Jaz said flatly. With NPCs, she went full hard‑nose. "I'll ferry designated groups—twenty at a clip. Supplies are on you."
"Capital!" Artemis tried for hearty; landed on merely less downtrodden.
"This is all very irregular," complained one of the earthcrafters from the ranks behind Artemis. The guy had a hooked nose and beady little eyes, and reminded Marie of a cartoon character, though she couldn't place the face. "Do the soldiery typically interrupt their betters during councils of war?"
Mars guffawed. "Council—that's accurate enough. Of 'war' is puttin' it a bit strongly."
"'Betters' is pushing it," Jaz growled, hand hovering over her dueling pistols. Jillian took her arm, apparently not looking to see her girlfriend breaking out into an honor duel quite this early into the questline. She had a bad habit of removing quest-essential NPCs from the board.
"It's quite all right, quite all right," said Artemis, watching as Aylin, not apparently requiring direction or further permission, filed out of the room with her two companions, both leathery and sunburned as she was. "We can support a bit less decorum, I'm sure. Besides, I'd entirely forgot the presence of our scout team, and that'd have been a waste of good silver if we left them cooling their heels."
Order—such as it was—re‑settled. Artemis raised a wineskin toward the assemblage "to their health," then waved dismissal until the scouts' return.
"Do try a spot of fishing," he suggested as Marie passed him. "Excellent fishing around these parts."
Marie had a fishing line, of course. She'd adventured her way almost to the 300s, and as an alchemist no less. Fish weren't a common ingredient, but they did see some use. Her reagents pouch was likewise a treasure trove for bait. Glowing worms, gleaming grubs, pastes and preserves of a number of different creatures and their meat or hide or ichor. She dipped the hook in some blue gel, a sticky material she knew from experience wouldn't easily fall off the hook, and which smelled like raw chicken, then weighted the hook with a lead sinker. Her cork was a bit wonky, having been snapped at by a turtle in the tutorial dungeon, but she'd kept it for that reason—a reminder of how far she'd come.
Also, she liked fishing.
Jaz and Jillian rolled their eyes but drifted after her, hand in hand, "sightseeing." Fair—this was a worthwhile view: the stark white cliff rising to a ragged tuft of dark green against storm‑grey sky, a pounding surf hammering the gap‑toothed pier and throwing up spray. Marie hoped the fortress wasn't going to ruin the look.
Artemis was sitting, maudlin, feet trailing in the water off the edge of the barge's loading ramp. His fine shoes were in a heap next to him with his hose, which she'd not seen him removing and had no desire to see him don either. His eyes lit up at the sight of her hook and line, and he made way for her with a smile, watching her cast the horsehair braid with apt attention.
"I used to fish in that same manner, as a lad," he confided. "Awfully good fun, isn't it?"
His pallid, aristocrat's legs splashed absently in the brackish sea swell, potentially scaring off her fish—but no, she wasn't going to worry about that. She just cast her line to the side, far enough out that the mage's pale toes wouldn't pose an issue.
> Just_A_Myth: Put your feet in the water . . . for good luck.
> SlimeNinja64: Myth, shut up. You're embarrassing us.
"My father," he continued, as though she'd spoken, "Was a great believer in fishing as a test of character. Those without patience, you see, find it greatly unproductive, while those who can stand to rebait their lines and cast again are rewarded for their patience. It encourages me to see our healer is also a fisherwoman—healing, if I am not mistaken, shares that fundamental precondition of temperament."
Marie nodded. "Patience comes easily when it's calm," she rejoined, probing a bit to see whether his dialogue would continue as canned, or if he had something new for her.
A flash of red spun through Marie's periphery, and fish pale legs were now in the water on both sides of her, Jillian's natural red looks corresponding with a nearly green-white skin tone that would look deeply unhealthy on anybody else—but she'd had it her whole life, she was fine. Probably. Marie resisted the urge to encourage her to eat more steak.
> Just_A_Myth: That's what we like to see!
"Perhaps," he said, looking moodily over the water. That didn't clarify anything at all. "I have hopes of the scouting team," he said presently, as she re-cast her hook for the second time. Something was out there, and it liked the bug-gel a lot, if she could only set the hook fast enough. "High hopes. The cliff face is just riddled with caves, some of them leading all the way up—I'd not taken the king up on his offer, but his surveyors are known for their professional zeal, and seem to have stowed away despite my missive—on royal orders, perhaps?"
He sighed. "I'm not the first to know such things, even on my one expedition, I fear, but I won't complain of the company of three doughty explorers such as Aylin leads. We'll have our route, and won't be dangling off the cliff face either, which I admit I'd had my own small fears concerning."
Canned dialog, she was almost sure. Which made Mars . . . what?
"Got one!" she exclaimed, her musings forgotten. The hook had set, and now the surprisingly fierce tugging on her line was drawing, hand over hand, ever closer to the ramp's edge. She could see it in the shadows of the water, trying to dart side to side. A final pull, steady so as not to break her horsehair line, and she had it, a small shimmering silver fish.
"I don't know how you manage without a reel," Jillian commented companionably.
"Practice. I had to have some quiet time," Marie teased the younger girl with whom she'd spent the majority of her days for the last ten odd years.
"Nice that I'm finally mature enough to enjoy the quiet things now, huh?"
"You're still a kiddo to me."
Marie handed over the line, keeping her catch in her cupped hands for study.
"It's glowing," commented the mage. "Is it supposed to do that?"
It was, in fact, a slight silvery sheen even in the shadow—perhaps a result of all the bait it'd eaten. Then again, he'd noticed—so perhaps this wasn't canned after all. Or it was supposed to glow anyway? What a lovely questline, she decided.
Artemis, who'd leaned forward in interest at her catch, accepted the fish gratefully into his hands when she offered it. "Ah, well done! Let's have a look at the lucky fellow."
The long pale fingers turned the fish over, and the mage's face fell into startled focus. Marie found herself surprised that he was even capable of making that expression.
"Hmm. Look here—just above the tail. That scar." The mage frowned now. "A beak. I'd wager that to be the work of an octopus, but I'd never heard of octopi in these waters."
Marie looked closer. Sure enough, the fish had a crescent-shaped blemish near its tail.
"This little one's traveled a long way, it seems. All that effort, only to meet a sticky end on your line."
She shrugged. "I don't really need it," she explained, slipping the hook free with some effort. The fish twitched out of her fingers, vanishing into the sea with a plop. "Go free, fishie," she said under her breath. She caught Jillian's smirk out of the corner of her eye.
"Touching," came a voice from behind her. She turned. A figure with an aristocrat's vestments, buckles, velvet—was standing over her, the sun behind her head making Marie squint and hiding her face. "But I'd hoped to find you working toward something more substantial, Artemis."
"Lord Rhea," said Artemis, flushing slightly but making no effort to get up. "My cadre has been ready since we made fast, we merely need to know where to go. I'm sure your team's contributions will be forthcoming presently, and we can all get about it."
"Mmm." The answer was noncommittal but didn't sound displeased. "Lady Healer. Though it would please me greatly if your skills were to remain entirely theoretical for the duration of this expedition, I very much suspect you'll find work for yourself yet. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and His Majesty and I both wish you well in your work."
The oncoming Captain Regis drew the woman's attention, and she strode off with carefully measured footfalls, seeming perfectly stable on the swaying deck.
"Back to work, I suppose," said Artemis regretfully. "Next time, my friends." He offered her a slightly damp and tender hand up, then gathered his things and retired, to her relief, not attempting to clothe himself in front of her.