NOVEL NEXT Book 4, Chapter 8
We convened in a room with a set of three long, thin tables arranged in most of a square around a central map, where figurines and markers represented things we wanted to track. And on the tables themselves, already conveniently laid out for us, there were big bowls of noodles and some sort of rich meat sauce, with bread and small dishes of olive oil, herbs, and vinegar for dipping the bread into.
I'd never had Grigian food before, but judging from this truly heavenly smell, I was going to have to change that.
"Eat up, but pay attention," Primogen Thompson said, as he moved into the center of the room, beginning to adjust markers on the map table. "The situation isn't as simple as we'd like."
I dug into the food eagerly, and, despite the heavenly nature of the dish before me, I did manage to pay some attention to Primogen Thompson- and to catch the knowing smirk that Melody gave me from across the room, seated next to Emily.
"Is it 'we need the pirates alive' complicated?" Talia asked. "Because, uh, I don't think we're really equipped for that."
"We would actually prefer that you killed them all and let your gods sort them out," Admiral Abbondanza said, as he joined Primogen Thompson at the map table, adjusting a few markers that he deemed inaccurate. "At least, we Grigians would; their leader wields some measure of political influence that is... ah, how do you say this in Hikaano... In Grigian, it is scomodo, but..."
"Inconvenient?" Nicky suggested.
"Ah, yes, inconvenient," the Admiral said, nodding. "Now, I am given to understand that the Paladins are more indifferent to the life or death of the pirates?"
"I have been told that it would be preferable that Admiral Bowser be taken in alive, and saw trial," Primogen Thompson said mildly. "However, being as I have been given independent command in this matter, I have taken that under advisement, and will say that, if it is convenient to do so, then arresting Admiral Bowser would be nice, but only if it comes with no risk to you, your ship, innocent bystanders, and whatever else we might happen to care about more than the life of a man who is already dead and simply doesn't know it yet."
Interesting...
"What kinda influence does Bowser wield?" I asked.
"As it so happens," Admiral Abbondanza said, grinning again. "That is where the full briefing begins. So! Let us get started."
He cleared his throat, took a sip of water, and then began to explain.
"While the Grigian Republic tries to embody the ideal that one's upbringing and lineage matter not, and that all citizens are equally important, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that these ideas, while beautiful, and a necessary foundation for a functional government with actual rule of law, are not strictly true. Men born to wealthy and influential families wield greater influence than men born outside of them. We may have taken away the legal basis of hereditary aristocracy and nobility, but we do still have our large, influential families of elites."
As Admiral Abbondanza spoke, he gestured to a figurine of an orcish man, near the Grigian coast of the Barracuda Sea, which began to glow with a red aura.
"The Bowser family is one such family," he continued. "Or, rather, it was. Generations ago, a small merchant house from across the sea came to settle in the Republic, and married into the local population- after all, 'Bowser' is not a Grigian name. From their ship and their knowledge, and their connections, they began to grow larger, and wealthier, as more and more Grigians did business with these seemingly-neutral outsiders who were so eager to please, until, very recently, the Bowser family was one of those large, influential families."
"You keep saying was," Volex said calmly. "I take it that the Bowser family is no longer in power?"
"The other merchants of Grigia were beset by sky pirates," Abbondanza said. "Only the ships of the Bowser family seemed to be safe from the pirates. It was, of course, well-known that the Bowser family was buying weapons, especially the sort you would put on ships, and for a while, the story was that Bowser ships were simply unusually well-armed and able to fight off pirates, but as the pirate problem grew worse, and people looked more closely, it was noticed that Bowser ships were actually completely unarmed, and nobody knew where the weapons the Bowsers were buying had actually gone."
"Until we found out," Primogen Thompson said. "Five months ago, a crew of sky pirates were captured in a sting operation by the Paladin's Guild. Shortly after we had them, we had the name of their sponsor: Mario Bowser, the head of House Bowser and their operations. We considered the possibility that the Bowsers were secret privateers, Grigian-sponsored pirates who preyed on Hikaano trade, but I was well aware that these pirates were preying on Grigian vessels as well, and managed to convince my fellow Primogens of the wisdom of cooperation- if the Grigians were secretly funding privateers, then showing them this evidence and demanding a truce to deal with these 'pirates' would force them to deny the Bowsers and work to wipe them out before they can reveal that the Republic put them up to this." He turned to regard Admiral Abbondanza for a moment. "Personally, I don't think the Bowsers are privateers. The Grigian Navy tends to be more capable than these pirates have shown themselves to be."
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"And yet, they've got a fleet of airships," I pointed out.
"Alas, the Bowser family owned a number of shipyards, including the one that makes most of the airships in Grigia," Admiral Abbondanza said. "They were able to produce a hidden surplus- more airships than even the Navy has, due to our prioritization of conventional water-ships, as our preferred naval weapons are too heavy to be practical on airships."
"Which does bring us to the question of whether you can actually do this," Primogen Thompson said. "Having seen your ship, you seem to have armored it for war, but I've yet to see any actual weapons. You don't intend to engage the pirates with only your personal spellcasting abilities, do you?"
"We have shipboard weapons, they're just... let's say, trade secrets," I said. "Suffice to say that I have built weapons that any idiot can aim and fire, which will launch an explosive fireball with an effective radius of a hundred feet up to two miles away. I have confidence that this, plus our other weapons, should suffice for destroying their ships from a distance."
"Then all you will need to worry about is keeping your distance," Admiral Abbondanza said. "And, of course, avoiding encirclement and entrapment from a coordinated foe that outnumbers you quite handily."
"I didn't say it'd be easy," I said. "But, uh... Well, if you've got anything that'd help us survive long enough to finish the part where we blow them all up and take their stuff, then that'd be much appreciated."
"Materially? No," Primogen Thompson said. "You were contracted specifically to minimize our own losses of men and equipment, and that, unfortunately, I cannot gainsay."
"The Senate, in their infinite wisdom, have declared that Hikaano lives are less important than Grigian lives," Admiral Abbondanza said with a sneer that conveyed precisely how much he respected the Grigian Senate's opinion on the matter. "However, the Senate cannot complain if I were to, say, give you advice and training, in the matter of airship warfare and naval maneuver."
"It is no insult to your competence," Primogen Thompson added. "However, we are men who have spent our whole working lives learning the intricacies of naval warfare, and, well... You are not."
"We welcome your instruction," Vanessa said diplomatically.
"Do you know what the pirate fleet's composition is?" Nicky asked.
"Unfortunately, no," Admiral Abbondanza said. "They have with them a powerful spellcaster, perhaps Mario himself, who maintains a wide bubble of divination-blocking around the fleet, and ensures that all ships who get near enough to lay eyes on the fleet directly never escape. We know their location, of course, by tracking the divination-blocking bubble, but we do not know their composition." To indicate the fleet's location, he telekinetically moved the figurine of Mario Bowser out to the middle of the Barracuda Sea, and then added three ship figurines around him.
I hummed quietly and tapped my chin, thinking it over.
"...Airships can land in the water, yes?" I asked.
"Of course," Abbondanza said, nodding.
"You think they've landed?" Thompson asked. "That would make sense if they were trying to hide- the higher up you are, the farther people can get and still see you, and only physical obstructions can block line-of-sight."
"It would be the most inconvenient thing for us, so naturally, it has to be what ends up happening," I said. "Unless, of course, the Grigians have figured out how to make invisible airships?"
"Alas, no," Abbondanza said. "Even as small as they are, they are still too big for invisibility to be practical."
"Thank god for small mercies."
"Any other questions?" Thompson asked.
We exchanged looks, and nobody seemed to have anything.
"Then finish eating, and get some rest," Thompson said. "Mull it over. We'll discuss our strategy further in the morning."
He left the room, and when we finished eating, we took the dismissal as intended, heading back to The Harpy to spend the night. They probably would've put us up as guests if we'd insisted, but aside from the work that Vanessa and I had put into working on the ship's living areas, there was the simple fact that it was our ship, and we would very much like a private space where we could speak freely about everything we'd just learned.
Nobody hired Adventurers to deal with a problem they were unopinionated about, after all. And who knew how Abbondanza and Thompson would react to our more unfiltered thoughts?
"I don't trust those bloodless snakes for a second," Envy said, once we were back inside The Harpy.
Best to not find out how they'd react to that.