Chapter 67 – Plan for the Stratosphere

As it turned out, Darya had slept for nearly four days straight since she was brought to the Desert Rose by Lurim and his Beluga friend. 

A lot had happened in the time she was in the timeless void.

Nerima had obviously been fully healed. A couple of iridescent scales were missing from her tail, but they would regrow. 

Fominel’s arm and all other injuries were already healed. One sailor had unfortunately perished, and one mage had suffered an amputation. 

They were finally out of the Dreagan territory. Master Lam had made sure to turn the Desert Rose into an oversized jet boat with a pack of belugas hauling it out of the dangerous water. 

They were still accompanying Lurim, even after two adult whales had been eaten and several wounded. Seris had gone underwater several times to fix them, and they were doing fine. 

The one that wasn’t doing fine was Seris herself. She looked like a dried plum, dark circles under her eyes and her hair a complete mess. She was still unfathomably pretty, and Darya didn’t know where even to begin telling her how grateful she was. 

We need another healer. She’s the whole hospital for fifty miles at any time. Should’ve added another mage for healing. 

The next one that wasn’t doing fine was Nerima. It had nothing to do with getting injured or anything physical. First, she had been crying her eyes out for about two days, and then she had tried to use her Seer powers to find out if Darya would wake up again. 

She had seen something that only Sarka knew, and no one else. What she saw had scared the fishtail off her, and she had been silent for the next two days. She only started talking when Darya woke up. She also refused to leave the bed even when her mermaid skin was drying out. Lurim was hauling buckets and teacups to pour water on her every few hours. 

Surprisingly, she didn’t want to talk about what she saw with Darya either. Only Sarka managed to put it into words, and Darya summarized the disjointed thing he told her as unexpected exposure to cosmic horror.

Nerima was still twelve. There was nothing much else Darya could do besides hugging her like a pillow and suggesting Enta as therapy against all things evil. 

If anything, she wanted everyone to be like Enta. His mouth had apparently been a downward curve ever since he saw her on the bed. He had tried some things, like changing his hovering location for four days. His mouth was now always a satisfied grin. 

Unfortunately, he hadn’t leveled up at all. Apparently, he only improved when he ran around with Lurim. In the last battle, Lurim had leapt off the ship, and Enta had just been a mana tank for Seris. 

Things brightened the next day when Darya finally forced herself out of bed and hauled a sleepy Nerima like a grain bag into the living room. She sat down, summoned Fominel, and demanded grilled fish and land meat. 

Everyone who wasn’t preoccupied gathered in the living room, and it quickly became a big meal. 

“We need to find Rossarie,” Darya said after everyone sat down. “I hope someone kept track of that while I was gone.”

“I don’t think so,” Seris said with a yawn. “We thought you died and this whole thing was over.” 

“Alright. Guess we never talked about it!” Darya clapped. "New rule for Desert Rose pirates. It doesn’t matter who dies; the goal remains the goal!”

“Without a captain, princess?!” Sarka exclaimed, as if this was some breach of etiquette. Actually, Darya didn’t know if it was. 

Some pirate crew we have. I don’t know who fills what role. 

“Fominel is second. Seris is third. We can keep going down the list  until it’s Enta if you want.” 

“Eek!” Enta responded from the top of her head when his name was mentioned. 

“Is he higher or lower than Lurim?” Master Lam asked with a grin. 

“Good question, actually. If it ever comes down to the baby and the toddler being the only survivors.” 

“You just keep adding things into this pirate book that don’t exist. Maybe it’s time you started writing them down.” Seris said, elegantly eating a piece of lamb. 

“Hold! Which position am I?” Sarka asked eagerly. 

“On the finger of whoever’s got fingers fat enough for that ring,” Fominel said with a snicker. 

Nerima looked at her thumb and blinked sleepily with a piece of meat hanging from the corner of her mouth. 

“Swordsman! Apologize. You called the young lady’s fingers fat!” 

“Hey, you called mine fat too!” Darya said. The ring was safely back on her own hand now. 

“... and the Princess!” Sarka gasped. “How dare you!” 

“I said what I said.” Fominel shrugged. 

Master Lam cleared his throat. “On a more serious note, I have been keeping track of Lady Rossarie and Prince Volfarro.”

Darya was elated. She gestured at Lam. “Sorry, Fom. Looks like you’re going to be demoted to third in command.” 

Fominel almost choked on some noodles he was slurping. Several other people chortled. Seris had oil dripping from her nose. Nerima was covering her mouth. 

Also, Prince Volfarro? Is that Emil? Wait. Seris did say he’s my earliest friend and the son of a lord or something, if I remember right. 

“Lady Rossarie is in a slightly better position than she was,” Master Lam continued. “At least it looked that way at a glance, but she was anxious. Maybe delirious? I’m not sure. I don’t think she would’ve survived this far with her head straight if she wasn’t a Draconian.” 

Seris nodded along.  “Her head’s always been straight. You can’t survive Arlok to adulthood without being that way. The only time she doesn’t have her head straight is when she gets mad; that’s why she threw herself at magus Sarka’s Shadow and got ported all the way out here.”

“I see, that is the sense I got from her as well. It could end her if we don’t get there fast enough. She was worried about something. There is some kind of threat where she is. I don’t see why else she would choose to be in a dungeon without looking for an exit.” 

“How about Emil?” Darya asked. 

“Same as he was. Still sleeping day in and day out. I would say the prince is majorly depressed. As Nerima said, this is about losing his weapons.”

 “Needs someone to talk some sense to him,” Fominel said, looking at Darya. “I can be too harsh. You used to be the one to drag him out when he gets like this.” 

“He got like this often?” 

“Oh, just any inconvenience really. Father yelled at him? Mother refused to increase his allowance? Was a trial slightly more difficult than planned? You’ll find him rolled on his side on a bed. Boy’s been spoiled rotten since he was born. You grabbed him by the neck and forced him to be more…adventurous, and I’ll be fair, some of it was actually his idea. When things go wrong, though, Emil’s always going to want someone around to complain and whine to.”

“What a baby,” Darya said. 

“Still went to school in Goliante, and graduated as one of the youngest mages at fifteen. You’d never know by looking at him,” Seris said. 

“Ah. Another useful baby. Like Enta.” 

“Eek!” 

Darya ate some steak in silence as the other broke off into their own conversations. She was actually hungry. The food felt like a whisky shot, straightening her bones from the inside. She had the most important question to ask once she was done eating. She had delayed asking it just because she could almost sense the answer in the air. If she knew before the meal, she wouldn’t have been able to eat it in peace. 

“So, where are we?” She asked, looking at Fominel. 

“Four hours away from the first island of the Greybone chain,” he answered. 

“Got a plan?” 

“I had it all ready to go the minute you woke up, Princess,” Fominel said with a smile. 

Fominel was the same lunatic she always knew. The difference between him and master Lam was loyalty. Fominel wouldn’t do anything if it didn’t benefit Darya. He probably had several plans the moment he saw her being brought into the ship. If she died, his priority was crying at her funeral. If she lived, his priority was whatever her priority used to be. 

“Great! You’re promoted back to second in command. Tell me, where should I go?” She asked with a grin. There was no point dissecting the plan that he had surely put a lot of thought and time into. 

Plans don’t even work out at the best of times. I have to do my part like everyone else. 

“You can stay on the ship,” Seris said, touching Darya’s shoulder. “You need at least two more days to get better.”  

“You know I’m not going to sit here and do nothing,” Darya smiled at her. 

Seris gestured at Fominel. “I tried,” She said with a shrug. “Told you plan A was never going to work.” 

“What’s plan B?” Darya asked, leaning forward. 

“Princess, Sarka, Nerima and Lurim. You’ll go find Emil.” Fominel said. “Seris and I, along with the rest of the crew, will handle Rossarie.” 

“Put me on babysitting duty, really?” Darya raised an eyebrow. She was ready to ask for plan C, which definitely had to be drafted already. 

“There is a reason,” master Lam said. “I saw something else when I was watching Prince Volfarro.” 

“Yes?” 

“There is a Dreagan hovering above that island like a moon. It looks like a black dot, but it spawns Shadows with wings.”

“It’s going to see us coming no matter what we do, and if it decides to become our new problem, there’s no one else who can get that far up,” Fominel said, his eyes sharper than ever. 

Ah. Here I go from the bottom of the trench to the fucking stratosphere. 

“I’m going to need a new telescope.”