NOVEL NEXT Chapter 88 – Sailing Away on a Boat
"While many monstrosities, far too large to be conceivably killed or driven away, and far too territorial to sneak past, inhabit the deeper seas, the shallower waters by the continents and islands are reasonably safe, with at most an occasional case of stray offspring of these behemoths making an appearance.
The waters between the two continents were the safest by far, as there the currents were gentle, and winds plentiful. There, the dangers faced were usually of the piratical variety instead of the monster kind, and while those are also annoying to deal with, they were also far more palatable.
You can pay off most pirates with money, while a monster would just eat you whole." - Ferrik Gustaffson, Jötunbergian veteran sailor and owner of a merchant ship.
Barniff Shore,
South-Eastern Elmaiya
Second Elmaiya Empire
7th day, 3rd week, 7th month, year 75 VA.
A sailboat awaited them on the rocky shores, having discreetly anchored in a region where nobody lived nearby, beneath a steep cliff that made a rope ladder and a crane line structure the only ways to get onto the boat.
Aideen spotted the other agents that she had split from - they had split into many groups back then, one escorting their rescuee to their destination, while the others laying false trails behind them - as well as Illyana and her mother, the forner street urchin giving her a smile that seemed to make her whiskers curl, while her mother nodded in thanks.
The girl's case was why they had to evacuate a portion of their agents, as it had been far too public for their usual secretive approach. The young girl - a rat therian - had been ran over by a senator's horse carriage in the streets, in broad daylight, right in the middle of one of the bigger cities in Elmaiya.
One of the spies stationed in the city happened to be nearby, and was attracted by the commotion. When she arrived, the senator was just about to leave after having "compensated" the grieving mother with some coin, but as luck would have it, the girl reanimated right at that time.
The spy - a younger one only recently assigned to foreign work, Rianna by name - had only moments to think before the situation could escalate further. If the senator - and she recognized that senator as an openly religious one - got her hands on the girl, she would be "purified" by any means, and rescuing her would have meant going through the city's and temple's garrison.
So instead, the young agent detonated a flask of smoke potion, an alchemical mixture that created copious amounts of dark smoke when exposed to air, right on the spot, and dove in, grabbing the girl's broken body and dragging her mother away by hand before anyone noticed.
Her actions led to a frantic search for "necromancer agents" within the city, and the entire contingent of agents there, other than the few who had deep cover, evacuated along with the girl and her mother. Aideen happened to be in the city as well, and went with them.
How she ended up running into Jerrod after they split up was an utterly lucky coincidence, and now that they had gathered, they were ready to leave the empire for home. It was a tad earlier than they planned to, but the change in circumstances dictated otherwise.
With care, Jerrod's wife and children, as well as Illyana's mother and the girl herself were loaded and secured on a basket weaved from thick ropes, and then they were slowly lowered down the cliff, until the basket landed gently on the ship awaiting below.
After they dropped the rest of the rope, and dismantled the crane, Aideen and the rest cleaned up all signs of them ever having been there, before they descended down the rope ladder, with Aideen herself going last.
Their last member atop the cliff, a wind mage, untied the rope ladder, and then used his magic to float down to the ship. The anchor was soon hoisted, and everyone helped row to push the ship off the shoreline and further into the sea, before they unfurled the sails.
Once unfurled, the small ship's pair of lateen sails easily caught wind, and under the expert hands of the captain and navigator they soon lost sight of the empire's shoreline.
From the uninhabited area of the empire they were at, it would have been a three-day trip towards the lichdom. There were closer spots, near the Shade Woods where the elven tribes live, but those are more populated in general, and more closely watched over, both because of elven raiders, and because refugees escaping the nation tend to flee from there.
As they were, the area they chose was more easily accessible, and also a convenient hideaway spot. If they were actually chased all the way there, at worst they would need to use one of the many other spots the agents had used since long ago.
After she started working alongside them these past couple of years, Aideen was honestly impressed just how far the Death's Hand intelligence division reached, as they seemed to have agents in nearly every country in the continent.
They mostly remained passive, just collecting information while staying undercover, and only passing information when they deemed it of importance. In the past few decades though, the Bone Lord had instructed them to keep an eye on news of other Unliving, and often sent agents to extract them where necessary.
From what she knew, they seem to have minimal presence on the other continent, but otherwise, kept a close eye on every other country on Ur-Teros. She once asked the Bone Lord why he was so invested in intelligence, and the reply she received was that they helped find interesting things to stave off boredom.
Now that there was another purpose for them, it only took some instructions from the Bone Lord to set things into motion, and have them scour news related to other unliving more actively.