Volume 2 Dealing with Nobles
Chronos was sitting at a desk in the lower hold writing in a journal about his adventures so far when Gregory entered the room.
"Still writing?"
"Yeah, Lyla convinced me to write a journal detailing my adventures so far and it's taking me a while to write it all down. I didn't want to at first since I had no way to keep it safe."
"But now you have storage."
"Yep, using that I can easily protect something as small as a journal. How's the upper deck?"
Gregory looked a little frustrated at that question.
"Apparently this is a 'research vessel'. Which means that it doesn't have very many ways to protect itself and the apprentice archivists have too much research gear onboard."
Chronos laughed at him, "So, they've been asking you to perform various 'tests' while they observe."
He sighed while nodding.
Gregory's Nightweave Threads were a rare and valuable technique that anybody would like to study, even more so when they were researchers.
After they had boarded the ship all of them were being bothered by the researchers to do tests but most. Luckily most of them were too scared to ask for more tests after Sariah threatened to curse them.
Shortly after boarding Micheal insisted on leaving in order to get back to the archivist tower as soon as possible and had sent all of them to their rooms to prevent them from damaging anything.
The apprentice archivists didn't want them touching the equipment on board and they had filled nearly every room with some kind of research gear for this trip which left few to no areas for them to use.
All of them had been put in the guest rooms near each other making it easy to talk with the others but there really wasn't much else to do on board.
Which is how Lyla had managed to convince Chronos to start writing a journal.
"Ping...Ping."
Chronos scratched his ear, that annoying sound had been going off periodically ever since the ship started moving.
"Did you find out what the 'ping, ping' sound is? It's starting to annoy me."
"Yeah, they're using some sort of sound-based magic to map the surroundings of the ship. One of the apprentices wants to map all of the Leighla kingdom and started using this ship for it. I've been told it's not very accurate yet but that's what you and the other werewolves have been hearing." Gregory responded.
So, he'd have to hear it during the entire journey. That was going to bug him but oh well. He couldn't just ask them to stop doing their research while he was onboard, it might take them a decade or more to come back out to Dracon Fen after all.
Due to the sound and the constant questions from the apprentice archivists Chronos had been staying in his room for the last couple days while the ship made its way through the swamp. Now they were almost to the other side of the swamp and would soon be above the plains separating the capital from Dracon Fen.
"You said the ship didn't have very many methods of protecting itself; do you think we'll come under attack?"
"Not today. Most creatures can't even reach us up here, I'm more worried about the monster birds that are following us. They have archers on the main deck, and all of the AA's can use magic. But I don't know how skilled they are, so we'll need to be ready in case something happens."
Bang!
The ship swayed as something struck its side.
"Hah, what was that old saying 'speak of the devil and he shall appear'? I'm beginning to think it might be true." Chronos said as he stood up and grabbed his sword off the desk.
"I blame you. I only run into such trouble when you're around and bored." Gregory said as he followed him out.
Had Gregory already figured out what the skills from his title were? No, it didn't seem like he had yet.
On the main deck they found men running around with bows, but nobody was shooting at whatever had struck them and the ship hadn't been hit a second time yet.
"Is everything alright? What hit us?" Chronos asked the nearest archer.
"A boulder. There was a treant below us that seemed to take offense at us flying over it and threw a boulder at us. We're already past it and shouldn't have any other difficulties."
Chronos frowned, "Was the ship damaged?"
Even for a vessel this sturdy and with a barrier being struck by a boulder should have caused some kind of damage, so why was everyone so relaxed?
"Only a dent in the side. It didn't strike anything important and the repair crew is already fixing it. There's nothing to worry about so please return to your rooms."
Looking around none of the archers seemed happy to have them on the main deck. They probably thought that they would get in the way if a battle started.
"Alright, if something does happen let us know." Chronos went back inside while the archer glared at him.
"You know they aren't going to tell us anything, right? Everyone on this ship treats us like we're idiots or useless." Gregory said once they were out of earshot.
"I know but I felt like I should say it anyways."
They encountered Sariah and Lyla on the way back to their rooms.
"If you're back then whatever happened up top must already be resolved. How was it?" Lyla asked.
"Just a boulder. We're past that point now but Gregory says he saw a number of birds following us from a distance and thinks they'll attack soon."
"Good, staying in our rooms is so boring." Lyla grumbled.
"I like it. It gives me time to work on my magic." Sariah said.
Laughing as the two extreme personalities started bickering, they went back to Chronos's room.
"Why are you all coming to my room?"
"It's boring being alone. Besides, if something does happen, being near you is safest." Lyla said.
Lyla skipped in and picked up the papers on his desk. They were diagrams for potential magic items using spatial magic but very few of them were complete right now.
"You're making floating torches?"
"Floating lanterns, torches aren't large enough to put [Axis Lock] on them. I'm also trying to expand item bags using [Empty Gate], but it keeps throwing anything inside it into a random pocket of space instead of holding it."
"Random pocket space? Where does it go?" Sariah curiously asked.
"Beats me. [Empty Gate] opens a hole to a random pocket of space nearby or possibly another dimension, but my skills aren't high enough to tell where it comes out."
"So now there could be a bunch of random junk floating around another dimension?" Sariah asked, confused by why Chronos would do something like that.
"Not necessarily. [Empty Gate] doesn't hold the items forever; it moves them to a location where they won't cause harm. That's why it's a defensive skill and vacant spatial pockets are used to hold attacks but that doesn't mean it won't move them elsewhere when needed. It might spit them out at a random location in the world or maybe another world."
Sariah started laughing at the thought of someone walking through town only to have a random journal or quill hit their head with no indication of where it came from.
"Why not turn it into a shield?" Gregory asked.
"Opening [Empty Gate] isn't hard but maintaining it requires a huge amount of energy so turning it into a shield would just exhaust anybody that used it. I can't keep it open for more than twenty minutes." Chronos responded.
"At any rate it looks like you have plenty of stuff to keep yourself busy. I'm jealous." Lyla complained.
"Why not start working on your skills? You haven't mastered your healing skills or those two new attack skills yet have you?" Chronos said as he took back his diagrams.
"I don't have anywhere to practice. This ship doesn't have a practice room to begin with; they turned it into an alchemist's lab. And they don't want us up on deck either." She sat down on his bed frustrated by the limited space onboard.
"Why not practice your cooking then?"
"Do you really think they'll let me touch their food supply?" She raised her eyebrow at him.
"You don't need their food. I stuffed meat from a buffalo into a few [Pocket Sphere]'s, and we still have the camping gear. As long as we open a window you could cook in your room without letting anybody find out."
This was a dangerous proposal as an open flame onboard could burn the ship but seeing how bored Lyla was, it was better to distract her than let her do something dangerous.
Her eyes went wide and she immediately stood up opening the window in Chronos's room.
"Not here, in your own room."
"You have the meat and will be eating it, so I'll be cooking here, deal with it. Hmph." She refused to listen to him as she began taking out her cooking gear and spices.