The Developer Reborn As Archmage

They anchored the Desert Rose in the evening near a small island with a decrepit lighthouse. Fominel knew the lighthouse keeper from long ago, and he knew of a spot to hide the ship.

Darya and Seris had swapped their disguises by the time they got there. Again, they couldn’t wear any fancy or normal dresses. The ferry was transportation for the poor. Young women looking their best with open necklines were asking for trouble. Even Dovarist holy women were a step too far in terms of drawing too much attention.

She had nothing in her wardrobe that could pass as a fisherman's wife. She ended up wearing an old dress of Seris. It was tight around the chest and hips, but she could stretch it just fine.

They also went through the extra effort of making themselves unremarkable with some grease stains and messy braided hairstyles. Darya took one of Fominel’s rugged capes, and Seris found a tattered one in Rossarie’s room.

They packed better outfits in their bags to change into once they were on Galtean soil. It was better to be a mage or a Dovarist there.

Coming back to the weather deck after spending hours getting themselves ready, they met Fominel washing the blood stains off the floor with a bucket.

“Now that’s a proper disguise!” Fominel said with a grin. “Good work, you two!”

“You already ditched the bodies?!” Darya exclaimed. Fominel was terrifyingly efficient when it came to something like that as well.

“They won’t be found again,” he said, shoving the mop back into the bucket of red water.

I don’t even want to know what he did.

“Did you see a ferry on the way, Fom?” Seris asked, tightening the strings of Darya’s cape.

“Yes, the next one should pass by here in a bit. There’s one every hour,” he said, looking at the horizon. “I’ll drop you two off in the boat.”

“Can you join us after hiding the ship?” Darya asked. She felt safer with him around. Their little excursion to the fishing village had already ended with four dead pirates and a broken hand.

“That depends on whether my friend’s going to keep an eye on it. He might be too old to move now,” Fominel said, nudging his head at the lighthouse.

“If you can come, bring Enta with you, alright?” Darya said worriedly. She didn’t want to leave the baby wisp alone on the ship that could be looted by thieves at any point.

“Sure, princess,” Fominel said.

“Let’s get going then, the boat’s ready, Fom?” Seris asked.

“Yes, get on!” Fominel said, gesturing at the rope ladder.

The storm was already raging elsewhere. The waves were swelling, the sea growing more turbulent by the minute. It was getting foggy already. Fominel rowed the boat and kept circling the same area until the ferry emerged from the distant mist.

The ferry was exactly as Darya remembered from the VRMMO. They were steam-powered ships that looked more like rafts. The smoke trail was visible even through the mist, and the mechanical sound cut above the noise of the wind as it drew near. The last time she saw this transportation system was during playtesting in version six. She had worked on automating a fleet of twenty of these, traveling from one end of the crescent to the other end at regular intervals throughout the day.

Fominel rowed the boat near the side, and the ferry slowed down for them to get on. Fominel helped them jump off the boat into the metal ramp of the open raft.

“Be careful, you two. Seris, take care of the princess!” he said, patting their backs. Seris nodded as the ferry cranked loudly, accelerating again. Fominel disappeared with the boat into the mist.

He’s going to have to hide the ship before the storm hits. Can he do that?

The answer was yes. It wouldn’t even be the wildest thing he had done so far. They lingered on the ramp long enough to wave him farewell, turned back around, and climbed up a rusty ladder.

It was more crowded than Darya thought. There were at least two hundred islanders on board. Everyone with cargo sat on piles of their own boxes, keeping an eye on their goods. Fishermen with smelly cargo had their own corner.

Three horse-drawn carriages were parked at the center with uniformed men around them. At a glance, she thought they were military of some sort, but they had no insignias or patches.

“That’s either navy or RCMF. don’t look at them,” Seris whispered when Darya nudged her to ask.

People stayed well away from these carriages. Seris decided to do the same. They found a dry area where women had naturally flocked to. On their way, Darya saw two or three well-dressed women who were getting catcalled constantly. They looked like students or apprentices of some trade. They seemed fine with the attention. They were in a deep conversation of their own, blocking out all the outside distractions.

This would’ve been a headache for me with the wrong dress.

She was already uncomfortable in a crowd. She wouldn’t make it through this ferry ride if she found herself or Seris at the center of attention. Their outfits made them invisible as long as their heads were shadowed by their hoods.

Everyone was huddling to shelter from the storm closing in. People seemed eager to put themselves and their goods where the storm couldn’t reach. They met many glares along the way as they passed through the gaps. It would’ve been stupidly easy to get into a fight simply by trying to sit anywhere.

They climbed up a rusty flight of stairs to find an unoccupied spot with a roof but no walls on the side. The seating there was a bunch of abandoned wooden boxes.

“Seventeen stops to Galtea, you can take a nap on me if you want, princess,” Seris whispered in her ear and patted her lap.

Darya leaned in lazily.

“May I speak, princess?” Sarka’s voice came from her hand as she rested her head on Seris’s lap.

“Shh! quiet!” Seris hushed at Darya’s gloved hand.

“Don’t call me a princess in public! Speak normally and quietly,” Darya whispered.

“I’m hearing a lot of voices on this ferry. Are you seeing any injured people? particularly, a gathering of young males?”

“Injured young?” Darya narrowed her eyes. The well-dressed girls could be late teenagers. “I’m not seeing anyone injured, old or young. Where are you hearing these voices?”

“We already passed by them on our way,” Sarka said. “I thought it was weird that you didn’t remark on it.”

Darya rose off Seris’s lap and looked at the ground level through the open railings. Her eyes met the black carriages in the center. They were completely sealed off with no windows. She had assumed they were full of some valuable cargo.

Are there people inside those?

“It could be prisoners,” Seris said after watching her silently.

“What sort of prisoners? Sarka says they sound like young males?”

“Anyone above ten can be arrested for thieving and banditry. You shouldn’t trust anyone just because they’re children. They’ll sell you for parts if you’re not careful.”

Prisoners and slaves! This place is just getting more horrible. RLP is making things entirely too realistic!

Vainfall wasn’t going to be a curated experience with an age rating or content warnings anymore. This was no longer a product to be sold for the widest appeal of a global audience. She had a feeling she was going to witness the worst of it in Galtea.

“Keep listening,” Darya said to Sarka. “Let me know if it's prisoners or slaves. I don’t want to mess with prisoners, but slaves could be heading to an auction.”

She had to focus on the task at hand. She wasn’t going to be able to fix everything wrong with a real-life simulation of an old society. Setting prisoners free without knowing who they are and what they did could do more harm than good.

“I shall keep listening for clues!” Sarka said eagerly.

They idled as the storm started battering the ferry halfway through the journey. Darya counted ten brief stops before she gave up and closed her eyes on Seris’s lap.

She snapped awake when it was fully dark outside, and the rain was splashing them at a diagonal angle. Surprisingly, Seris had used the cape to keep them both dry. It wasn’t a splash that had woken her up. It was Seris poking her cheek.

“Two of the carriages rolled out,” she said. “Sarka says they are prisoners. The third one is something else.”

Darya yawned, sitting upright. She used her own cape to fend against the cold splashes battering the ferry. They were just about to depart from another island with ruined buildings.

“Sarka, what’s in the last carriage?” Darya asked lazily.

“There is no sound coming from there. The guards are rather silent too. They only talked with each other when lighting their cigarettes.”

“A silent carriage with guards?” Darya narrowed her eyes at it.

Could it be money? treasure? something valuable?

Darya stretched as she stood up. “I want to see what’s inside it,” she said.

“Huh?!” Seris grabbed her leg. “Don’t blow our cover!”

“I won’t. You can watch from here. If I’m still inside it when we make it to Galtea, you follow it until I get out,” Darya said.

“How!” Seris almost yelled before hushing her voice. “How are you even going to get inside!”

“I’m going to do that thing again, where I can appear in places out of nowhere,” Darya said with a smile. “You know the one. You’ve seen it.”

“Y-you’re crazy!” Seris said shakily.

“Trust me, I won’t get caught. I’ll just check what’s inside and get out,” Darya said, walking up to the railing. The carriage was directly below, only about two feet away. She needed to plan this properly. Phasing into an opaque carriage was a great risk. She could end up fused with whatever was inside.

“Wh-what are you going to do?” Seris asked shakily.

“Can you do something to distract everyone for a bit?” Darya asked.