Path of Dragons 9 - Chapter 37 - Not the Same

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Elijah, putting his hand on Nerthus’ shoulder.  He gave a quick cast of Nature’s Bloom.  “You don’t have to work.  You can –”

“I am healed,” Nerthus interrupted tersely.  “Please do not take this as an insult, but you need to stop.”

Elijah blinked.  “Stop what?”

“Hovering.  You are tipping the balance with your very presence.  Do not think I haven’t noticed you using Nature’s Design.  I have, and though your efforts are well intended, they only make my task more difficult.  So, I say again – please stop.  I am begging you.”

“Ouch,” Elijah muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I just –”

“You feel guilty.”

“I…I guess?  But you can’t blame me, can you?” Elijah answered.  “I should have been here sooner.  If I’d been a little stronger –”

“It is my task to tend the grove,” Nerthus said, once again interrupting.  This time, his tone was much kinder.  “That includes protection from brigands.”

“There were hundreds of pirates, Nerthus.  There was nothing you could do.”

“Indeed.  It is a mandate for both of us to get stronger then.  I must focus on defense, while you should work on your personal power,” the spryggent stated.  “We will work together.”

Elijah looked away, taking in the rest of the grove.  It was just as beautiful as ever, but the taint of the attack still hung heavy in his mind.  The visceral consequences were gone, but the knowledge of what had happened still clung to his memory.  And each time he focused on the family of lunar deer, he was once again reminded of his failure. 

“Do you know what the worst part is?” 

Nerthus shook his head, but he didn’t give voice to an answer.

“I don’t remember her name.”

“Who?”

“The deer.  I remember Bubba.  And Trevor, of course.  But the two females, it just slipped my mind.  I can’t…I should remember that, right?  I feel like I owe it to them.”

“Susan.”

“What?”

“That was her name,” Nerthus stated.  “The little one is Annabelle.”

Elijah let out a sigh, then pushed his hair out of his eyes.  “Susan and Annabelle,” he echoed.  “Good names.”

Before he knew it, Elijah was wandering off.  Nerthus called for him, but he just told the spryggent that he was doing as he’d been asked.  Soon enough, he found himself back at the site of the initial landing.  The two ships were still there, looking exactly as they had on that night.  The beach itself was cratered from the ethereal cannons, but the bits of slain crab had long since been taken away by other opportunistic scavengers. 

Another one of the crabs crouched nearby, though it remained mostly motionless.  Elijah approached it.  The beast reacted immediately, first trying to skitter away, and when that didn’t work, it took a defensive position.  The moment Elijah drew close enough, it snapped out its claw.

Elijah raised his arm, letting the attack land.  It pinched a little, but otherwise, it didn’t hurt.  He sighed, pushing forward and laying his hand on the crab’s purplish-blue shell. 

“It’s okay, buddy.  I’m not here to hurt you,” he said.  He extended his soul into the crustacean – only an inch, but enough to make contact.  Elijah hadn’t used that part of Soul of the Wild very often, and only with much more advanced creatures like the guardian clam or the tree at the center of Druid’s Park.  This time, he was surprised to find that he wasn’t overwhelmed by the experience. 

The crab was a simple creature, driven almost entirely by instinct.  In that respect, it hadn’t changed that much from its ancestral purple shore crabs.  However, it had still developed a rudimentary intelligence capable of recognizing patterns.  In this case, it knew the other crabs were missing. 

Did it miss them?

That was difficult to say because it wasn’t really capable of recognizing why they were gone or that they wouldn’t be coming back.  It wasn’t smart enough for that.  But it did know something was wrong. 

And that broke Elijah’s heart.

“I’m sorry, buddy.  I should have been here sooner,” he said, pulling away.  When he did, the crab, having realized that its claws were entirely incapable of hurting Elijah – or scaring him away – skittered across the beach and into the ocean.  Even as it disappeared into the waves, Elijah’s guilt nearly overwhelmed him.

All of those creatures had put their trust in him, and he had failed.

If he could kill the pirates all over again, he would have.  He’d have done it a hundred times over, and his anger and guilt still wouldn’t have been sated. 

But he couldn’t do any of that.  They were dead and gone, their bodies deposited in Seattle to remind Isaiah of the consequences of his political games.  But now, Elijah needed to do something with the ships. 

Without further ado, he leaped aboard.  It didn’t take him long to find a rope, which he tied to a silvery ram near the bow.  It was shaped like the flared head of a cobra.  Then, he shifted into the Shape of Thorn planted his claws on the bow, then shoved it backward and into the sea.  It moved fairly easily – at least from his perspective – but that was likely due to his immense attributes.  Once it was good and into the water, he shifted into the Shape of the Sea, then paddled out to deeper water.

With the rope in his mouth, he towed the ship across the strait and to the Ironshore dock.  By that point, the dockworkers were accustomed to the sight of his aquatic form, but many of them still cast furtive glances in his direction. 

The consequences of his recent actions, he was certain.  A man couldn’t drag hundreds of bodies through the Teleportation Spires and not elicit a little fear.  But that had been the point of it all.  The entire purpose of his display was intimidation.  He just hadn’t considered the possibility that it would work on the people of Ironshore at least as well as it had against Isaiah.

Pushing that issue out of his mind, he shifted back into his human form, then swam closer to the dock. 

“I need someone to take care of this boat,” he announced.  “There’s a silver ethereum in it for the first ten people who help me.  And another when I bring the next one around.”

That got plenty of attention.  Fear or not, that kind of money wasn’t something they were going to turn down.  Not for what amounted to a few minutes’ worth of work.

The dockworkers quickly dove into the harbor and swam to the boat, which they boarded and got underway in a matter of a few seconds.  Elijah still provided the raw power necessary to get it into place, but the dockworkers took care of everything else.  Soon enough, it had slipped into a berth.  So, Elijah climbed onto the dock, paid the workers – mostly dwarves – and headed back to get the other ship.

It went a little easier now that Elijah knew what he was doing, and soon enough, it joined the first ship at the dock. 

That was when Elijah found a familiar figure waiting on him.

“Morin.  What brings you here?” Elijah asked of the prim dwarf.

“Those are nice ships,” he answered, stepping closer and inspecting the planks near the bow.  “Where did you get them?”

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“I do.  The owners are dead?”

“They are.”

“And no one will come looking for them?” the dwarf asked.

“I would be incredibly surprised if anyone does,” Elijah stated.  “Do you want to know the details of why I’m so sure?”

Morin shook his head.  “I really don’t.”

“Probably for the best.  It’s not a pleasant story,” Elijah said.  “I’m guessing you’re here because you’re interested in taking these off my hands.”

“That is correct.  Do you know what you have here?”

Elijah shrugged.  “If I said pirate ships, would you call me a landlubbing idiot?”

“What kind of nonsense are you talking about?”

“Nothing.  Don’t worry about it.  So, do you want them?  And if so, what are you willing to pay?  Bear in mind, I haven’t actually looked in the cargo holds yet, and the deal will not include whatever is in there,” Elijah stated.  In retrospect, he probably should have checked beforehand, but he’d been a little distracted.

“I don’t care about the goods, if there are any.  I just need more ships.  You killed that leviathan, but not before it damaged three of my fleet.  Buying these will be easier than repairing those outdated ships.”

Elijah knew better than to believe Morin.  He’d only known the dwarf for a short while, but everything he’d learned suggested that he was, at his core, a miser.  More likely, he’d still repair those other ships and just add two extra ships to his already impressive fleet. 

Not that Elijah cared much about that.  He didn’t.  But he filed that information way for use during negotiations.

Soon enough, he found himself in Morin’s office to discuss the price.  Or to hear the dwarf lowball him.  In response, Elijah just got up to walk away.  He didn’t even say anything.  That told Morin that he meant business.

In truth, Elijah had no idea what a ship was worth.  He just assumed that Morin would try to take advantage of the situation.  And as it turned out, that was precisely what he’d done.  In the end, they settled on a sum double Morin’s first offer, which amounted to more than five hundred gold – which was far more than he’d expected. 

Once the deal was done and the dwarf had transferred the money to Elijah’s folio, he lent a few of his dockworkers to unload anything in the cargo holds.  As it turned out, there wasn’t much.  Just some rations, which Morin agreed to buy for a paltry sum, and a couple of casks of cheap beer. 

In all, it was a disappointing haul, but in retrospect, it made sense that they hadn’t loaded the ships down with cargo.  They’d expected to loot the entire grove, after all.  Elijah had already passed along their spatial bags to Atticus, who in turn planned to sell them on consignment. 

But the mere thought of those pirates filling bag after bag with natural treasures from his grove sent a note of rage coursing up Elijah’s spine and into his mind.  He shoved it away, refusing to let it affect his mood. 

Instead, he headed to the Branch to check his messages – there were none – before buying a few guides he expected would help him in his quest for cultivation.  They were expensive, not least because he’d needed to hire the town’s lone Librarian – a young gnomish girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen – to find it for him.  Her services didn’t come cheap, and the guides were expensive as well. 

In the end, he spent almost half of what he’d just made by selling the ships.  It was a sum that would have broken most of Ironshore’s other residents, but to him, it represented only a tenth of his wealth.  And now that Atticus was selling his soap – in Ironshore and Argos as well as to select other clientele – he knew he wouldn’t need money anytime soon. 

Before heading back to the grove to study his guides, Elijah stopped by the Forge of Creation, where he found Carmen hard at work.  He’d not paid much attention to it last time they’d met, but now he couldn’t fail to notice that she’d really settled into the first step in body cultivation.  So, he insisted on taking her out to celebrate. Just like the last time, she tried to beg off, but he wouldn't take no for an answer.

Realistically, he knew it was as much about taking his mind off of everything that had happened, but Carmen played along.  So, they shared a meal at a local Mexican restaurant, during which Carmen kept complaining that the enchiladas weren’t like what her mother used to make. 

She also addressed a subject that had been on his mind.

“So, Miguel is going to the front lines?” he asked.

Carmen nodded.  “He’s not supposed to engage.  His mentor – Ivin – assured me that the goal is to show Miggy what’s at stake,” she explained. 

“Does the kid even know you’re in contact with his trainer?”

Carmen shook her head.  “He danced around going to the front lines the last time he sent me a message.  It’s the kind of thing Alyssa used to do,” she said.  “You know, when she’d have a bad day, she’d just downplay it.  She got stabbed once.  A domestic dispute.  The wife went nuts and came at her with a chef’s knife.  If she hadn’t been wearing her vest, she might have…it just wouldn’t have been good.  But do you know what she told me?”

Elijah shrugged.  “She probably said she had an accident at work.”

Carmen slapped her hand against the table.  “That’s exactly what she said!”

“She used to do the same thing when we were kids.  When she got into fights, she just brushed them off as disagreements,” he said with a chuckle.  “Until mom and dad stepped in, and she’d always come clean.  She was a terrible liar.”

“Yeah.”

After that, Carmen looked away – only for a moment.  But then, she sniffed before wiping her cheek.  “I miss her so much,” Carmen said, her voice quivering.  “Some days, I kind of don’t think about it.  But then, it just hits me.  It still doesn’t feel real, and it’s been years.  And you know the worst part?  I don’t want it to stop.  If it did…”

Elijah reached out to grip her hand.  “I know, Carmen.  If nobody else in this whole world gets it, I do.”

She sighed.  “I can’t lose him too.”

“Do you want me to go get him?  I can bring him back in a few days.”

“He’d never forgive me.  Or you.”

“But –”

“No.  He has to do this.  I can’t protect him.  As much as I want to just build a fortress around him, we live in a world where the only safety is power.  He needs to get strong, Elijah.  He needs to be so strong that nobody can threaten him,” she said. 

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“It is for you.”

Elijah looked away.  That was true enough.  For now, barely anyone on Earth could match him.  He knew that down to his core.  The Chimeric Forge, as nightmarish as it had been, had been a turning point for him.  It had allowed him to grow the gap between him and everyone else, and to a point where he felt like he was on an entirely different level.

Did he believe that he was alone?  That no one could threaten him?  No.  Surely, there were people out there who could.  But he suspected he could count those people on one hand. 

After that, Elijah didn’t have much else to say, and their dinner ended in an awkward silence. 

So, it wasn’t long before he was flying back to the island to get some rest before he got back to work.  The gap was wide for now, but if he wanted to keep it that way, he could never let up.