Chapter One Hundred ay - The Parable of the Baker Knight

  “Raa!” I roared as I swung my padded spade around. The head swooshed through the air and hit absolutely nothing because the clever sylph I was trying to bonk with it casually stepped bad out of the way.

  “Duck!” Awen called out from behind me.

  I dipped down, ears dropping ft onto my head just as a crossbow bolt (with a sandbag for a head) shot past where I’d been.

  Bastion smiled and casually flicked the wooden pole he had in pce for a sword, spping the bolt off course. “Good timing there, girls,” he said. And then he was stepping up and swinging for me.

  I parried his first strike with the haft of my spade, then hopped over a sweeping kick--only the kiever happened; instead, mid-twist, Bastion shoulder-checked my tummy, grabbed the bay knee, a me crashing to the deck back-first.

  “Erk!” I coughed.

  Bastion stepped past me and lunged for Awen. She tossed her crossbow aside and flung her arms out at him. Two balls of gss formed in her palms and unched out towards the sylph.

  But Bastion was way too fast, and he weaved around both before stepping right up to Awen. He shoved her arms aside, ignored a kick to the shin, then threw Awen over his shoulder and to the ground right o me.

  “Awa!” Awen coughed.

  We were both down for the t. Again.

  “Well done,” Bastion said. “Your teamwork is improving, and even your reflexes.”

  I raised an arm to protest, the fall back down. I was too pooped to get up. "You’re too fast,” I pined.

  “I’ve got nearly twice your levels, and a decade’s worth of bat training,” Bastion said. “Good training too. Day after day of being punted around by my seniors until I learned how to take care of myself.”

  I rolled onto my tummy, then pushed myself up. My ade--with the end ed in a bundle of cloth--had fallen a few steps away, so I had to move over to pick that up. “I don’t know if we’re getting aer,” I said.

  The day before, Bastion and my friends tricked me into going back to bed after lunch. But today I spent all m trying to fight Bastion. I wasn’t back at my best, but I wasn’t too far from it, a I hadn't nded a single blow.

  “Captain!” Clive called from the quarterdeck. “Land ahead!”

  I gasped, and seeing that Awen was already jumping to her feet and didn’t need a hand, rushed to the bow to look out to sea. Out by the horizon was a long strip of green and brown. “We’re getting close.”

  “Looks like it,” Bastion said as he came over. “I think that’ll be a good pce to end our training for today.”

  “Was it really training? All that happened is that you threw me and Awen around.”

  Bastion nodded. “Now you know how to be thrown around a little better. Don’t worry, you’ll improve.”

  “Of course I will. I’m doing my best after all. Right Awen?”

  “Right,” Awen agreed with a very serious nod. “We’ll be strong in no time.”

  “We have some open General Skill slots too, so we should fill those out with some bat stuff,” I said. “But that wait. We’re heading to a port over in, uh.” I poio the shore ahead. “What nation is that?”

  “None,” Bastion said. “Or I suppose you could argue that the nd is trolled by the g Mountains, but seeing as how the people from those mountains rarely move away from their dwellings that argument doesn’t hold up very well.”

  “So it’s a free pce?” I asked.

  “Not quite,” another voice said. I turo see Amaryllis ing over. “The nd is wless, which isn’t the same as free. There are a few uhere. Small vilges and such. But for the most part it’s virgiory. Only oioried to capture it though.”

  “Oh?” I asked. I knew how much Amaryllis liked her history lessons. Plus, they were !

  “The Tres mounted a sort-of invasion. They’re keen on expansion. So they crossed the Hoofbreaker Forest, and tried to quer the oy and the few vilges there. They crossed the Crystalline people of the g Mountains though. One of their biggest defeats. A running rout across the entire nd, through the Hoofbreaker Forest--which is what ear that name--and all the way to Crystalbreak where the reinforced army made a stand and arguably won. They never pushed back as far as I know. Not with the wall going up.”

  “The Grey Wall, right?” I vaguely remembered that part.

  Amaryllis nodded. “Paid for by the g Mountain. It’s a barrier across the only nd bridge between two tis. Probably one of the biggest structures in the world. It took nearly half a tury to be pleted, and that’s with a detly rge body of workers.”

  “Does it work? As a wall I mean.” I remembered learning about the Great Wall of a not being all that great at stopping Mongolian invaders.

  “I suppose so. The Treten Fts haven’t tried their luck again. I suppose the wall, and the forces behind it, act as a det deterrent. The Hoofbreaker Forest is also mostly untouched. The cervid used the wood from it to build some of their infrastructure, but they have other sources.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Maybe we’ll be able to see the wall from the air in passing.”

  “Probably,” Amaryllis said. “We’ll be passing to the east of it in a few days. Assuming all goes well in Insmouth.”

  “What do you know about Insmouth?” I asked.

  “Very little,” Amaryllis said. “It’s a small indepe port, with not much of value for sale, and it’s not on the way to anywhere iing. If it wasn’t for the rge detour we’re taking we wouldn’t be passing anywhere near here.”

  “Isn’t there anything to the south of it? The only maps I’ve seen cut off around there,” I said.

  Amaryllis shrugged. “Ope, and not the sort that be traversed like the Ostri Desert. I suppose there could be more that way, but if there is I haven’t heard of it. Airships should make expl that way easier now, but I don’t know of a expeditions.”

  Bastion nodded. “There’s civilization all over, but you really o go looking for it. And there’s little iive to do so. Our er of Dirt is rather plentiful already.”

  “It might be getting too full of plenty,” Amaryllis muttered. "The Trenten have been butting up against borders in nearly every dire, and they don’t seem keen on crossing the Vermin Vasto go looking for more people to terrorize that way.”

  I didn’t quite know what to say about that. “Lunch?” I tried.

  “Certainly,” Amaryllis said. “As long as you’re cooking.”

  I nodded, pced my spade on my shoulder, then walked off to the back of the ship and down towards the kit. As we’d discovered through trial and lots of error, her Amaryllis or Awen could cook. Nor were they allowed to try to cook anymore.

  Clive and Steve and Gordon could manage simple foods, and Bastion had a sort of camping skill that let him make some things in a hurry. I had a bit of experience preparing things bae, which made me one of our better chefs. The scallywags were also pretty deft, especially Joe who had worked a food stall once or twice.

  I rummaged around a bit for something to cook, theled on a sort of stew. There were limited cooking ingredients in our little kit area, and not all that mu terms of tasty supplies.

  As good as hardtack could be when it came to sting a long time and being nutritious, it didn’t beat proper food. So, I ed some veggies using my cheating ing magic, then started dig them up and tossing them into a pot of water which I set to boil.

  We had a little bit of meat left, stu a rune-powered coldbox and ed in a few yers of filmy paper. That was the st of our supplies from the Harpy mountains. we hadn't had much time to stock up at Needleford.

  I made a mental o pick up some more provisions at Insmouth. We had some ed food, and wouldn’t starve even if we had to ration things out for a month or more, but that didn’t mean that we’d enjoy beans three times a day.

  Which was as good a reason as any to open a and dump it into the stew. More protein was always wele!

  By the time most of the crew came down, the stew was simmering and I was filling out bowls with hot broth and pg them onto the table. “We should get utensils with mags built into them,” I said as I put a bowl in front of Awen.

  “Ah? Oh, so that they don’t move around?” Awen asked.

  I nodded. “Yup. Who’s on watch above?”

  “Steve and Sally,” Oda said.

  “Do you want t them some bowls, or will they be eating after?”

  “They’ll take a break ter,” Oda said. “We’ll just have to make sure not to eat it all.”

  I hen got some help passing things around. Once everyone was set, we dug in. After having endured some of Amaryllis cooking, even something as b as my stew felt great. “So, did you scallywags figure out what you want to do once we nd?” I asked.

  Joe shrugged. “We might look for work. We might not. Depends. Heard that Insmouth is a pretty quiet pce. So it’s probably safe, but that doesn’t mean there’s much to do there.”

  “Finding work is important. You’ll need some moo keep afloat. But with three of you helping each other out that shouldn’t be too hard. Once you have work, all three of you should find a dungeon,” Bastion said.

  Amaryllis nodded. “He’s right. You’re all going to find it hard to fier jobs if you’re caught at your first evolution.”

  “Is that a big problem?” I asked.

  Amaryllis made a so-so gesture. “In bigger cities it isn’t unon to have most of the popution locked at their first evolution, with a few naturals having pushed past. It’s good enough to keep things running smoothly. But anyone of a higher level, with more csses, will be seen as somewhat more desirable in any given position. The stats alohat a person will be more resilient.”

  “Awa, there’s also a, um, notion that people that have gone past level ten are likely to keep on going. That they have more potential? Keeping someo a low level means that they stay depe.”

  “I should pay more attention to people’s levels, but it feels... kinda sad to only see people for the numbers, instead of seeing them for who they are.”

  “That’s a pretty on way of doing things,” Amaryllis said. “Iimes, whehing is going well, it’s hard to discriminate against people based solely on css and level. It’ll still happen. The amount of practice you o... say out-bcksmith a Bcksmith is immense. Doesn’t mean it ’t be done.”

  “The Baker Knight,” Awen said. “Uncle said he met him once.”

  “Hmm?” I asked.

  “It’s a children’s story. Based on more or less real events,” Amaryllis said.

  “You never heard of the Baker Knight?” Joe asked. “Everyone knows the story.”

  I shrugged. “What’s it about?”

  “A young man that got the Baker css deg he’d bee a Knight,” Amaryllis said. “This was during some turmoil in Pyrowalk. The long version is filled with aesops and side stories. The short version is that he succeeded, eventually being a rather terrifying figure. The character’s often pyed off as a bit of a goof though.”

  “That sounds cute!” I said. I had been slowly getting aced to all sorts of new cultures and people, but I never really sidered what the children's stories were like. It was something else to dig into... one of these days.

  Annou

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