Perrin was starting to hate the four rowers. It had been at least an hour of arguing. The rowers insisted that all of them, including Perrin, Lilliana, and Dominick, return to the city. Lilliana had tried to reason with them and encourage them to go back alone.
Every time Perrin thought they would see reason, one of them got angry and repeated that they should all return to the city. It was getting exhausting hearing them repeat the same issues over and over again.
Yes, the world outside the city was dangerous.
Yes, the desert region was far away.
Yes, they had been attacked on the airship and should do something about that.
Yes, there was safety in numbers and yes it was smarter to travel in groups.
But honestly, what I do is none of their business. And if if they don't see that soon I'm going to have to jump into this argument they're having with Lilliana. If I have to join this idiotic debate...it won't be pretty.
Besides, they kept repeating that the sabotage on the airship was something they had to "take care of," which Perrin thought was ironic since they had been in on the plot to kill them through the destroyed airship. If anything needed to be "taken care of" about that it was ditching the untrustworthy airship crewmembers as soon as possible, not continuing to travel with them.
It was all giving Perrin a headache. All she wanted was to split from the whole party and get on with her journey.
Frowning, Perrin's fingers fumbled with the straps as she tied her pack. With a frustrated sound she pulled the ties free and started over. The problem with continuing her journey was that she had no idea where she had to go next. Her goal had been to get on the merchant airship going to the north-east sector of the empire.
That had exploded beneath her feet.
Going in the direction Lilliana was headed would be best for now, at least it was going to the north and avoiding the city that had nearly executed her for no reason.
After that, that was when she would continue her journey back to the east. Back to finish what she started all those years ago. Back to see old man Hannery and his "Rats." Though while she would be damned before joining them again, it was long passed time she returned there.
She had just been too much of a coward these last five years, and now she was finally ready to face them again. Or so she hoped. As long as she stayed strong in her resolve to return, unlike the last three times she decided to return.
But first, she supposed to ought to help Lilliana in this absurd argument with the rowers. And that meant agreeing with Lilliana to go to the town of Litem-Ferro. Standing up with a sigh, she crossed her arms.
"Alright listen closely." She said loud enough that all five arguers turned to look at her. "I've got business elsewhere in the world and it means going to the north first. So I'm going to stick with the noble mage here and head to Litem-Ferro with her and her spirit. And you four bilge rats can scurry back to the city where you came from. You all tried to help have us killed on that airship. I'm hoping the pay was worth it. So I say you go back before I decide my sword wants revenge."
"Like we would listen to you." Fiona said stiffly.
"You should. Because if you go back and say we died in the crash but you survived with a few injuries I bet you anything your captain will pay you the reward he promised if you sell it right."
She picked up a stick from the ground and tossed it to Lilliana.
"Go ahead and use your noble magely powers to make that stick look like that staff of yours. Then our lovely rowing companions can take the fake staff home, collect their reward, and escape as soon as the deed is done. Problem solved, they get their reward and we can go north."
"What?" Lilliana said, startled. "I don't know how to do that."
"Alright fine, maybe you don't but I bet you our friend Dominick knows how to do that. Hmm? Am I right oh great and powerful wind spirit?"
The four rowers were exchanging glances.
The crystal on Lilliana's staff turned a dark blue color, a color Perrin was beginning to recognize as Dominick-is-annoyed-at-Perrin-prepare-for-a-cutting-sarcastic-remark.
"For your information," Dominick said loftily, "What I can and cannot do is none of your concern and such paltry tricks are not worth my time. We have more pressing concerns and needs for my powers than your barbaric ideas. With your logic, these rowers ought to just kill us outright instead of this complicated scheme."
Well now they sure as hell won't agree to this plan. Of course it's a complicated and unbelievable scheme. At least we would be rid of them.
Dominick let out a harrumph, a sound Perrin was already exhausted of hearing.
"Not," he added, "That you four would be able to succeed in killing any of us. As I'm sure the example of the airship crash can show, we are remarkably unkillable with me around."
"This is foolishness." Fiona said.
"Yes it is." Perrin snapped. "Accept it, we aren't going with you back to the city. And if that means sneaking away in the middle of the night or fighting you with my sword so be it."
Fiona looked as if she had swallowed something incredibly sour. And none of the rest of the rowers looked pleased. But they retreated and huddled together with a defeated air.
Well that was pointless, Perrin thought glumly. What a waste of time and effort to argue about this. They had to have realized long ago that we were never going to go back to the city with them no matter what happened.
Perrin was wrong to think that would be the end of their troubles that day. They had finally escaped from those awful marshes and spent the night just outside of them. Perrin was more than ready to put as much distance between them and the marshes as possble. The marsh spirit had been unsettling and strange, as well as rude. She wondered if "rude" was a common trait among spirits, both the one in the swamp and Dominick were banner examples of rude spirits. What little experience Perrin had had with other spirits had mostly been in regards to smaller, nature spirits. And with those spirits, she got the feeling their mage and spirit filled partners had not had to deal with so rude a set of spirits. Though, even with the nature spirits it was only since she started exploring around the empire that she even experienced anything at all about spirits in person. Who was she to judge what was and was not normal for spirits.
But thinking about the ins and outs of spirits was really going to give her a headache. Life would be so much easier without spirits messing things around. Especially with the kinds of advancements the desert region was making. First, airships have become entirely operated without mages, soon enough mages and spirits might even become irrelivant.
Before they could set out on their journey, Lilliana hesitated. The four rowers were still unhappy with the situation, and looked unsure if they should really go back to the city without the others. Perrin would have thought they were best off just avoiding the capital city altogether. It was easy enough to get lost within the empire, if they played their cards right they would never have to deal with their backstabbing captain ever again.
"Come on, we should get moving." Perrin said pointedly, looking at Lilliana. But Lilliana was hesitating still. She was looking back at the marshy landscape behind them. "Hey, Lilliana." With a start, the noble mage seemed to only just hear her for the first time.
"Hmm, yes?"
"I said we should get moving."
"Oh, right. Yeah we should." But instead of moving she looked back at the marshes. If Perrin had to guess, she would have thought Lilliana wanted to go back to the marsh.
"What the hell is that?" NAME shouted.
Perrin felt it before she saw what NAME was looking at. There was a great rumbling beneath the earth, sending shivers through Perrin's whole body. From the direction of the marshes came a drawn out groaning sound.
Before Perring had any idea what was happening, Lilliana was running for the marsh.
"I should just run away now." She said to herself. "I should just head north and leave all of these insane people behind me."
But with a sigh, she instead pulled Galandat from its sheath and ran after Lilliana.
The four rowers stayed behind, panicking.
As they got closer to the marsh, the shaking of the ground increased drastically. So much so that Lilliana was having trouble running, allowing Perrin to catch up to her headstart. The fog that had blanketed the marshes while they were traveling through them was gone. The landscape looked oddly scrubbed clean, as if it were a picture of a marsh instead of the messy, damp thing it was in real life.
Lilliana seemed to have some idea of where she was going, which was a surprise to Perrin who had no idea where they were going except away from anyone's destination and towards the thing that was shaking the ground.
If this was how their traveling was going to go Perrin knew it would be a very long time before she reached old man Hannery.
Not, she admitted, that she was all that keen on seeing him again anyway.
Which is why she allowed a smile to grow on her face. At least this way they would definitely lose the four rowers and their constant complaining and silent threats of backstabbing. Besides, this was the thrill of adventure after all.