First Mates

Amun.

20th of Ianua, 1492.

Protectorate of Bakewia, Atford Province. 5km north of Winwell.

8:26 AM.

***

"Having fun, are we?" I snickered at Ed skipping along the walls of this Land Ship.

"Fuck yeah!" he chimed. "Now I see why you do it so much!"

"Yeah." I snorted as I approached the airlock. "Just try not to freak these people out too much. They aren't used to the eccentricities of Shavew."

Possibly a needless warning, but I believed it to be true. We'd traveled nearly 350 kilometers in a straight line through the forest to the dreary province. From the regional capital of Winwell, near the shores, the region stretched 2,074 kilometers, facing the entirety of the Republic of Knighilia to the north before the borders of Shujen appeared for the final 250 kilometers of the border. At which point it turned south to run through the Vrurian Empire until it halted at the southern coast of Eldereach County.

Being so far from Shavew and stuck amongst temperate forests trapped beneath an unnatural layer of snow, the natives of Winwell had to travel east through two cities before they reached the main road, wherein three of the counties' main cities were scattered in the opposite direction.

Southward, one only crossed roads until they entered Eldereach. And then they'd travel on through four more cities and several hundred kilometers before finally reaching Shavew and its wondrous enchantments.

As such, the only wealth came from the pirate-infested sea, just a few hundred meters over the hills. And though the thick coastal forest supplied them with wood and forageable food, the same couldn't be said for arable land. Especially in this climate.

Throw all that together, and you had a quaint, relatively poor province with a land area of 542,000 square kilometers, but only nine towns in which to hold the roughly 890,000 souls who called this place home. Among them, Winwell was the least populated and the most isolated with only 10,000 people calling the place home.

A single road ran through the city from the east towards the coast on the western side. Following it into town led past the obligatory inns and taverns one would expect to see in any roadside town, growing larger in density and variety until one reached the well at the city center. There, we could see many merchants and the like setting up their stalls for a day of what I assumed to be slow trade.

One other road meandered south of the trade district but eventually ended in a dead end of dilapidated buildings and ramshackle huts, in turn creating a border to the district labeled West Ward. As for everything on the hills north of the main road, that was the High Mile. The only section of the city protected by walls.

Our destination.

Thankfully, we had Grandmaster Artificer Endorsements with which to pay our way inside so we had little worries of them turning us away. On the contrary, our only worry was putting them into a state of shock. As such…

"You two stay here," I told Skoll and Hati as we dismounted the vehicle and waved Pora Bora's children, Muginn and Huninn, to me.

Rather than their dimensional homes set within my earrings, they remained on my shoulders, looking upon the result of farms and ranches and taverns and inns being battered by the coastal elements for generations.

There was a dinginess to the place that persisted everywhere we looked. Wood was stained a deep brown and riddled with frosted moss that insisted on bleeding earthy tones into the salty air. The roads, once cobblestone, were caked in the permafrost of mud pulled in from the roads beyond and packed down tightly by the near-constant snowfall.

In short, it sucked.

We got through the gate with little more than a glance at our endorsements and a double take at my eyes before entering a peaceful courtyard that was just as shitty as the rest of the town. Only three buildings were held within. The central and smallest one had signs of it continuing deep underground, giving me the impression of it being the village's storage cellar or dungeon or both.

The building on the right, Ed's destination, used to be a grand building of carved wood and wide windows with a flat-topped second floor shielded from the elements by raised tarps; permitting the governor or town equivalent to look upon their city from the safety of their walls.

My destination, however, looked like a mix between a cathedral, an inn, and a primary school. And unlike the others, there were people standing outside.

"Well, here goes nothing." Ed sighed before trailing behind me.

"You are Mani, yes?" the older man stopped halfway as he asked. His skin was a deep tan and heavily wrinkled by both the elements and his gentle smile. Judging by the unmarked robe beneath his overcoat, he appeared to be a priest.

According to his eyes, however, he was not.

At least not yet.

"The children have spoken your name from time to time. And then." His cobalt eyes turned south, towards the rocks and pebbles floating above Shavew.

"We heard of two prodigal Grandmaster Artificers." A younger woman whose tired eyes betrayed the bubbling energy in her voice stepped in, her fiery hair tucked gently around her face from the efforts of her hood. "You," she nodded at me. "The strange-looking drow who puts land in the sky. And you." She nodded towards Ed. "The man who kept us from starvation."

Ed raised his brow in confusion. But his lips widened with pride.

"The traders are able to come here much more quickly because of you," the man said. "And with a lot more goods as well! For that, we thank you. But, er..." He turned to face me. "Why are you here?"

"Where are your manners!" the woman whacked him with her glove and turned an outstretched hand to me. "My name is Lois Gibbs. Are you hungry?"

She began moving towards the door even while she asked, then the man began to move behind her, yet looked over his shoulder as if he wanted to speak.

Nodding graciously, I stepped behind them and halfway into the threshold, removing any doubts of me being a vampire from their minds, much to my amusement. "If it is no trouble, I could go for some bread. If not, tea or any non-alcoholic beverage is fine."

"Water is fine, thanks." Ed smiled, then looked to the man as he slung his coat over one arm and outstretched the other.

"Horace Flynn, at your service." He shook our hands gratefully with liquid shimmering in his eyes. But through those eyes, my Eyes of the Void Devil looked and saw more. I saw a dream of a city- of this city becoming a place as grand as Shavew. Not to deepen his pockets or to fatten his belly, or even the pockets or bellies of anyone else in this building.

What he wanted was a grand city where kids just like the ones already here could come to learn, grow, and develop into the next prodigal beings mumbled about throughout the lands. It was the same thing seen in Lois. And, of course, the same things seen in Ed and I.

"How can we be of service?" Horace asked after we gave them our names and were given tea in exchange before being escorted to a private office upstairs. "You are looking for requests? Contracts?"

"Not exactly." I choked back a laugh and smiled instead.

"Then, you're here to help?" Lois accurately surmised.

"We are." I nodded. "If possible, I'm looking to adopt those who need help the most," I said. "The trouble makers. Those most overlooked. Those deemed by others as… lost causes."

"It is our biggest hope to give all these children new homes. Better homes." The priest turned his eyes about the walls, looking past them with deep trembles. "More so to such renowned Grandmaster Artificers such as yourselves!" He laughed in disbelief. Then sighed heavily.

"As for the ones who need the most help, there are four that, I'm sorry to say, are too much for us. Three are troublemakers. And the other… well." He stepped aside to open a window.

Inside was a room just as relatively posh as his office. A toasty blaze roared in the fireplace, giving an amber tone to the childish drawings on the walls and the toys and books neatly arranged around the room.

Through my eyes, I clearly saw a child's room. But, unless she had a maid, it was too neat. There were no scuff marks on the floors, no walls dulled by feet being put where they shouldn't be. And… there was a rocking chair fit for an old person. Heavily padded, set a perfect distance away from the fire, and aimed right towards Mani, shining through the window.

From the perspective of the moonlight shining within, I saw a frail young girl sitting silently in the dark room. Unmoving. Yet staring right at me with the most pleading blue eyes.

From the perspective of my Divine Sight and the Orison Vestibule, however, she radiated like the moon itself and cried louder than Cononthoth's roar for someone to take her away from this prison of a room and free her from the life she'd been dealt.

"She and her family were attacked on the road. She was… the only one to survive. Found on the road, she was, by a merchant. They thought her as dead as the parents. Went to bury them, only to find she was still alive, but unable to do anything but move her head and speak. Him bringing her here was… two years and some months ago."

"Can she be healed?" Ed asked. To me, but Horace grimly shook his head.

"It would be risky." He whispered low and bitterly. "Too risky for what seems like every witch we can find. Her name is Iris. She is seven."

"That's no way to live," I said. Then reached down to withdraw a couple of items from my shadow and asked to step inside. Their eyes went wide after seeing what I pulled out and how, but after a firm nod, they tapped on the door and gently stepped inside.

"Iris?" Lois gently called as what I assumed to be a permanent nurse strode forward to wheel the girl around to me. "Mani is here to see you."

A young girl with skin as tan as Saharan sands and eyes bluer than the waters of the Pacific soon turned to face me with a deluge of tears streaming down her face. They were happy tears. Hopeful tears. Tears that made wet sniffles and coughs echo through the room as she sobbed, "I- told them- you- were real."

"I know." I chortled low as I knelt down, pulling a copy of Ed's chair close for her to see.

"This is for you," I told her, and she replied with the most surprising answer.

"Why?" it was a question of despair, and immediately I heard prayers and pleas banging against the drum that was my mind. 'No! Don't leave! Please!'

And so, I used the Credence Cortex to communicate the entirety of my intent through illusions, emotions, and false memories of what she was to become should she agree to be adopted. She would regain the ability to walk as she so dreamed. And much, much more.

To make things even easier, I translated a less-detailed version to Horas and Lois, making them come to understand that I'd educate and train her so that this would never happen again and more, make her my protege.

They were ecstatic and of course, so was Iris. She zoomed around and around the room in her floating chair while we sorted through the paperwork of the other three, wherein Horace and Lois' demeanor shifted ever closer towards distress.

They didn't explain it on the way to meet them either. And only after Ed left to make some deals with the mayor did they explain what they got in trouble for.

Namely, for taking apprenticeships or jobs from whoever or whatever they could; cooks, construction workers, financial workers, merchants, diplomats; all fields, it seemed. Eventually, though, the trio would steal, sabotage, and even blackmail their employers for material gain. Then they would lay low for a while and repeat until they became hated wherever they went.

Curiously enough, they then used the skills they got from working in such a wide variety of fields to make themselves a private shelter a fair bit to the north, near the coast. That shelter wound up being a decently made sauna dug into a stony hillside. Undecorated and crude, but functional and clean.

A harsh knock signaled Horace's entrance and he guided us to a central pool to find, wrapped in towels with their backs facing us, the three delinquents.

At the center, was the rotund girl I saw through Mani's eye. A curly mane of red-brown hair strewn across the shoulders and back stared at us in response to the knock, covering more scars than one her age should have.

"Congratulations, Blude," Horace signed with equal parts impatience and gratefulness. "You have been adopted."

I almost laughed when she turned her head to look at us. She couldn't have been older than ten. And yet, hanging from her lips was a burning cigarette.

Her skin was deep brown with hints of green, almost like a real olive. Jewels and pins that didn't belong to any particular style I was familiar with dotted her hardly pointed ears from tip to lobe. Angular brows contorted inward towards a sharp avian nose centered between a pair of verdantly green and round, almost beady eyes that were far too cold in intensity for one her age.

Mixed with a tall and rotund build of what seemed to be mostly muscle, she held an appearance similar to a heavyweight boxer in their youth.

That, or truer to her gaze, a mob boss.

"My name is Amun. If it is your wish, I will take you under my care from this day onward."

"I'm not going anywhere without my girl." She spat immediately, though there was a little emotion to her words that radiated with me.

Looking behind her, I saw two more girls with wildly different looks. Redd and Sam, Horace told me before we entered.

Sam was slim and lanky. Not awkwardly so, but in a way that suggested she'd be either tall and lithe or of average height with a lean build as she grew older. She had an acorn-shaped face with deep-set, almond-shaped eyes and hair with white roots that grayed into black as it lengthened. And in her spirit was a mist well of the eleventh grade, with no affinities to speak of.

Like Blude, Redd also had a large mist well and no affinities and was around the same height as Sam, but with more weight. Though not as much as Blude. She had the same jet black hair, round face, and deep brown skin known to the Inuits of Earth, making her and by extension, the rest of them stand out amongst any humans I've seen thus far in this life.

More than their appearances and the lack of magic, however, I saw their potential paths, and more, I saw their desires for, strangely or not, the same ambition; yet different dreams. And so, I connected to NoxNet to put in a few orders. Then I smiled wide at the three of them.

"Congratulations, they can come too." I smiled.