CH92 Dockyard
The fifteen-minute eclipse, a rare phenomenon usually relegated to ancient tales of impending cataclysm, had just ended.
Alex found herself in a predicament. Her spying attempt had gone awry, almost leading to her becoming a maid after she donned a cursed outfit. One event cascaded into another, and now a city of hundreds was devoid of living demons. Alex knew she should review her character sheet, but the imminent demonic retaliation meant the town remained unsafe. This brought her to her current location, sitting on the dilapidated docks, gazing at the river.
Poking the water, Alex inquired, "Hello, is anyone home?"
Zeke and Trudy watched quietly.
Trudy, looking concerned, shifted her gaze away from the shore. "Is Alice talking to a river?"
Zeke grimaced. "I'm a little worried that we're putting our faith in someone soft in the head. But is there a better plan?"
Trudy shook her head. “No, the only other option is begging for mercy. And well, I don’t know how many will survive that.”
A transparent face formed in the water. “Hi there.”
“Aqua?” Alex asked. “Is there any way we could get some help getting a village of people upstream?”
The face giggled. “Aqua is my cousin. I’m Agua.” The water splashed a bit around her. “But don’t worry, Aqua went back to the nymphs and bragged to everyone about your heroic plan. Rumor has it the calvary is on the way.” She disappeared back into the water with a small whirlpool.
“Why are water fey so wishy-washy?” Alex complained to Fufi who was wading nearby in the river water. “Also, Aqua and Agua are way too similar. I’m going to have trouble learning nereid names. Also, Aqua was just here, now she’s a hundred miles away?”
“Do you really need me to answer that?” The pink bird gave her a flat look. “Spirits of water are hard to pin down by nature.”
“Haw,” Alex chuckled. “I left myself wide open for that one. Looks like I really screwed things up. It wasn’t my plan to hurt anything. I know you told me keeping that hero doll wasn’t a good idea and now I have a bunch of blood on my hands. All those demons are dead. They didn’t even get a chance to surrender or flee. Now I have a bunch of levels and I feel dirty.”
“Why do you think they are dead?” Fufi tilted her head in confusion.
“How are they not dead? There are bodies all over the town.” Alex felt like she was missing something.
“The bodies won’t last. For summoned extra planar creatures they will dissipate and go back to their home plane. The only way to kill them for real is to do it there. But I don’t think anyone would willingly go there.” Fufi pauses. “Sorry, a bit too much information. Was your leveling up condition killing demons?”
Alex shook her head. “No, it was defeating monsters but you already knew that.”
“You didn’t kill them, just banished them from this world. They can’t come back for a long time. I believe it also sets back their cultivation, but I’m not exactly sure how that works.” Fufi sounded a bit uncertain about the last part.
Frustrated with waiting, Alex took out her feather duster and cleaned off the docks. “It would have been nice if Agua said how close people are. I know we made some and people were practicing their sailing but getting hundreds of people more than a day up river.” Alex cleaned a plank that was too far gone and it evaporated. “We really could use a barge to load things on.” Alex frowned. “Though, I think even if we could pull it from the shore, trying to get through the swamp might present a huge problem.”
Alex dusted off the boardwalk, there were not many planks that were so far gone that they evaporated but a few cracked planks turned into mist after a pass from the feather duster.
One of the maids stepped forward. “Do you need help cleaning the docks, Miss Alice?”
Alex shrugged. “What we really need is a shipwright. Is there one in this town?” Realizing that she’d ignored the question she added, “This place should be cleaned if people are looking for something to do.”
The maid shook her head. “No, most of the larger ships were made in the capitol. Though it has been many years since a new one came up the river. I doubt there is a high level shipwright a hundred miles away.”
“What happened to locally owned boats? Or ships that couldn’t safely be operated?” Alex asked the maid. The maids did clerical work for Yvne so they might know some useful information.
“There might be some row boats people have hidden away. But boats that were left tied to the pier were taken by the fire clan to feed their pyres. Reports say that larger ships were taken by the river monsters one by one.” The maid adjusted her skirts and spoke with poise.
Alex surveyed the waterline. There were no shipwrecks sticking out of the river nor broken upon the shore. “I wonder if any of them can be refloated. Are there any charts or reports?”
“There should be, I can go back to the manor and check.” The maid bowed.
Alex nodded and the maidly-outfitted woman left.
“I guess we should do a proof of concept first.” Alex collected rose and the hose that could be used to attach her water gun to a water source. If the gun could handle the pressure needed to spray down people like a fire hydrant then maybe shooting air under water to fill a bladder or reverse run a bilge pump could be possible.
“What are you doing?” Fufi asked, watching Alex take the doll and wade out into the river.
“Can you hold the hose above water? I want to test something.” Alex eyed the hose that she got. “Making a longer hose is going to be a pain. In my world they are made out of composite. I’m not sure that is viable here.”
“You’d be surprised what transmutation magic can do.” Fufi used her long bird-legs to wade out as well and hold the hose in her beak.
“Well if we ever run into one I’ll be sure to ask.” Alex smirked, and placed Rose under the water. “You ready?”
Fufi nodded, hose still in beak.
“It likely will hiss a bit but I don’t think it’ll be dangerous so long as you don’t let the end of the hose intake touch you. Might lose some feathers that way.” Alex stretched, preparing to dance.
Alex danced a jig when Fufi looked ready. “Here we go.” The doll sat motionless on the river floor holding her gun until Alex’s animate doll skill channeled into her.
Submerged, Rose pointed her gun up and a stream of bubbles shot out of the water.
Alex stepped out a little bit deeper and dangled Rose from the hose. She held onto the hose, keeping her head above water while doing a smooth underwater dance. That is where the first problem showed up. Shooting a jet of air under water while dangling 10 feet from a hose caused the doll to spin wildly. Slowing her dance even further, the air came out in more calm bubbles but the river currents still pulled on the light doll. Too much air pressure and no place to brace would cause the doll to rip free of her squirt gun and get flushed down stream. Anyway, the test was a success. The next steps would require finding a sunken ship. Hopefully the maids or locals could help with that. Reeling the doll back in like fish bait, Alex collected Rose and headed back to shore with Fufi in tow.
“That water is too cold!” Alex shivered, dusting the water off her outfit, causing it to dry off.
“I saw bubbles!” Fufi cheered. “My end of the hose made a sucking noise and I had to hold it tightly in my beak tightly to keep it from flopping around. Do you need some tea? I think the tea leaves in the carriage got burned but maybe we could ask some maids to prepare some hot tea.”
As if having supernatural hearing a maid appeared, standing on the dock. It was a little creepy. “All of the food is back at the mansion. If we wanted to prepare tea we’d have to fetch a set and come back, miss Alice.”
Alex finally got the last of the water out of her hair. “I’ll be okay. Remind me to make a diving suit next time we have some time to do some tailoring.” Alex was from Canada, she should be able to handle a little cold water for a few minutes.
A separate maid, the one who went back to the manor to look for a chart came back holding some scroll cases. “Miss Alice, here are some documents, though I don’t think they are current.” She handed the cases to Alex.
Alex headed off the pier and found a covered table to place the documents on. There was a nice spot on the boardwalk that overlooked the river. “Here it should be safe. It is still a bit cloudy outside. I don’t want these to get damaged in the rain.” Alex carefully placed the documents on the flat surface. They were indeed navigation charts. The depths of the river and the path it took from the north to the south was marked along with towns on the way. “Lets, see, 10 feet deep here. 50 feet deep there. 5 feet deep there.” Alex looked and looked at the charts, hoping to see where shipwrecks were marked but nothing was there. “Why are there no shipwrecks marked?”
“Shipwrecks were quite rare along the river route.” The maid gestured to the marking on the scroll. “As you can see by the date, these documents predate the hero and the demon queen’s conflict. Back then the kingdom of Jass was operated much more smoothly.”
Alex sighed heavily and stood up, taking a few steps away from the table. “This would be most helpful if the shipwrecks were on that map. I think we might have to come up with another plan to evacuate everyone.” Alex sat down and stared at her hands.
“Miss Alice?” The maid tried.
“I’m worried about the land route. If we head north there are places the swampland will suck up people into the murky water. We could search blindly or ask some of the locals but time is not our friend in this situation.” Alex closed her hands into fists, her frustration showing on her face.
On the horizon, some sails could be noticed making their way downriver.
The maid, standing behind Alex and slightly to the side said primly, “It looks like we have guests.”
A familiar figure emerged from the water at the pier's edge, creating a splash. It was a woman, her upper body adorned with a seashell bra and a girdle, her lower half a fish's tail. With a swift movement, she shed the girdle, and in mere seconds, her fish tail transformed into legs. From the water, she retrieved a sack by rope, quickly donning an outfit to preserve her modesty.
“How indecent.” The maid sounded offended.
The woman wrung out her wet hair, spotted Alex, and headed up the pier to the rather obviously dressed magical girl. “Hey Alex, remember me?”
Alex facepalmed. She’d tried so hard to keep her fake name going. It wasn’t really needed at this point
“Um, sorry, you are the girl who got the mermaid item from the dungeon?” Alex smiled and put a hand on her cheek. “Your name escapes me.”
“Haha, I’m sure it’ll come to you in time. Anyway, when I was in the water someone handed me this and said you’d need it.” The woman handed Alex a scroll.
“Alex?” The maid’s tone was accusing.
Dodging the confrontation with the maid, Alex accepted the scroll and placed it on the table with the other maps. “Oh.” The scroll looked like a scribble from a pirate map from movies. It showed a rough sketch of the river with some ‘X’s in places to make spots. Alex guessed that Agua was spying and decided to help out but wanted to stay out of the eyes of humans.
Comparing the new and the old maps, Alex discovered a problem. “The closest shipwreck is here.” Alex placed a stone on the nicer map with the depths marked. “The depth of the water there is 50 feet. I don’t have long enough of a hose to get air down there. Also, I think going that deep in a dive might risk decompression sickness.”
“I don’t know about decompression sickness, but I’ve dived that deep before as a mermaid and it worked okay. Maybe transforming into a mermaid makes it so that going deeper in the water is okay?” The woman smirked, refusing to remind Alex of her own name and adding to her discomfort.