Chapter One-Hundred-and-Thirty-One
< < Settlement Discovered > >
< Morgan’s Rest >
Adam steered the Creaking Madam towards the safe haven after sailing them through the Floating Sea for the last hour or so. The journey had been relatively short since he’d been able to navigate according to a cluster of peaceful-seeming melodies and didn’t have to veer off course except to avoid islands. Despite Jabari and Ellen both wanting to get off at the first island they saw, Adam made sure they got to a settlement first, since they ought to be able to briefly get a look at a map.
Morgan’s Rest was bigger than Adam remembered Lenny’s Landing, but still not as big as Windtop Cove. Like the other settlements, the whole thing was held aloft by a balloon from which ropes, chains, bridges, and walkways criss-crossed the space below like a strange spiderweb. It was tethered to a donut-shaped island, hovering above the opening in the middle, and unlike the other two settlements it didn’t have a port for ships to dock in. That meant that all of the ships, even the ones owned by the White Flags, were moored to the edge of the donut island, which grew a verdant forest atop of it and had porous nutrient-rich dark soil. Pathways were carved through the trees, but Adam could tell that there were guards hidden throughout based on their blood melodies, and he was willing to bet there were dug-in ballistae as well, just waiting for an excuse to start blasting.
Even though there was no port, there were small wooden docks with retractable bridges that the ships attached themselves to around the island. As Adam brought them towards one of these docks, he noted the other airships around them.
I think I see ships from each faction except for the Fallen, which is a good sign.
Adam directed the others to grab the anchors and toss them to the White Flags workers waiting on the wooden dock. No one seemed to question how effortlessly he’d steered the ship or how easily he understood the docking procedure.
They probably just want to get onto land.
Fighting on an airship is quite precarious, after all.