The flotil had evaded the Ice Cn's pursuit for a day when the weather took a turn for the worse. Large snowfkes began to fall, and a powerful southerly wind accelerated the boats' journey downstream.

  “Are the demons attacking?” Alex worried. “I thought we lost them.”

  "This tempest bears no taint of fiendish sorcery," the Dark Knight rumbled, his voice a gravelly whisper against the rising wind. "Unnatural it may be, yet the demons do not pull these strings directly."

  Alex gaped. “You can sense demon magic?”

  The revenant simply nodded. And then there was an awkward silence.

  Another day passed and people reefed their sails, they pulled out wool bnkets, kept the boats together as much as possible and tried to stay warm even if staying dry wasn’t possible for many people. People with skills like [cold resistance] or something that made them less prone to hypothermia got the majority of the watches.

  The following day offered no respite. The river's currents intensified, forming rapids that violently tossed the small boats. Swirling snow veiled everything, raising fears of running aground or being crushed by the wind and water.

  The boats pitched and bucked, caught between an unusually fast current and the storm's fury. Some vessels, barely rger than lifeboats, struggled to keep their passengers from being swept into the turbulent waters.

  Everyone was being tested to their limits. Decks grew slick with frost, and hulls and masts groaned under the strain, despite sails being heavily reefed.

  The barge, however, lumbered steadily forward, cutting a path through the chaos. Huddled figures clung to frozen ropes on deck, holding on for dear life. Their eyes scanned for any sign of an enemy attack. Though they had escaped the ice cn, a fire cn assault was equally probable as they drew closer to the capital. Yet, the storm was their unwitting ally; the blizzard's intensity provided concealment. If they couldn't see the shore, then no lookouts could spot them.

  The boats leaned precariously around each bend, their sails snapping like banners of defiance. Through it all, an ice fairy on a toy ship was utterly reveling in the experience.

  Ariel’s high pitched voice rang out through the fleet. She kept screaming nonsense like “Heave to!” or “Hard Starboard.” Most of it sounded gibberish to Alex, but her hand was on the tiller and when she heard the little fairy voice she just knew to yank the rudder this way or that.

  “Ten knots!” The ice fairy procimed with squeaky excitement. “Keep it up, we'll get to the bar in no time at this rate. And that is not even counting the currents!”

  Days ter, they arrived at the bar, the brackish water a clear sign of its proximity. The storm and poor visibility persisted, making it feel as if they were being flushed away, much like an unpleasant deposit in a toilet.

  “The water has a bit of salt to it.” Alex stuck her finger off the side of the small boat and into the cold water. She then stuck it into her mouth and made a yucky face.

  Fufi huddled close to Alex, hiding under her wool bnkets. “We’ve probably passed the harbor and are about to cross the bar into the open ocean then.”

  To confirm the guess, Ariel’s clockwork toy boat pulled up to the center of the flotil, next to the barge and called out to everyone. “Lads and Ladies, we’ve just got to pass the bar and we’ll be out in the open ocean. I’m not going to lie, this is going to be the worst of it. If we can make it past this then it’ll be rough going through the swells but only a day of sailing left to get to our destination.”

  As if on queue, the flotil surged forward, bows spshing against the swells of the sandbar where the river and the ocean met. The transition to open ocean was abrupt, the current of fresh water that guided their path faded away, repced by an expanse of rolling swells.

  The smaller boats, Alex’s included, tossed violently, bows going under and popping back up, soaking people on board who had to use buckets to bail out the boats. Luckily, they followed Alex’s advice and built their boats with water tight compartments in the front and rear. So long as the boat wasn’t completely overloaded it would still float even if completely filled with water.

  Freezing spray and waves threated to consume them, but with Ariel’s singing of disgustingly cute sea shanties they held steady, adjusting rigging urgency. They Storm had carried them past their enemies but now it was the ocean that challenged their resolve.

  For hours they fought the wave, pressing forward through the swells. The temperatures remained bitter, but the storm finally began to weaken, leaving only a restless sea beneath them.

  For this final push, very few got more than a wink of sleep. The river’s currents were strong but predictable. The endless expanse of water in all directions as far as the eye could see was a different kind of horror. Luckily, they had a former sea elf to guide them, and a pair of fmingos that could fly up and scout the area. So they sailed into the night once again.

  Dawn broke, casting enough light for the birds to take flight. They spotted an archipego to the west. After a few more hours of sailing, the flotil saw it for themselves: a cluster of scattered isnds cwing out of the ocean. One huge, jagged peak, a volcano with its pointed top missing, loomed above them all. Its ruined slopes, streaked with hardened va, bore the scars of a past eruption, perhaps years ago.

  At the base of the isnd y the remnants of a town. Crumbling stone structures and entire sections of what might have been a rge trade district were buried by va and rockslide. Some parts, though in need of repair, were still intact. Stone piers stretched into the harbor, and breakwaters jutted up around the inlet, deflecting the waves. The flotil pressed on, navigating the shallows to find spots on the dipidated harbor docks where they could tie up. There was even a space deep enough for the barge. Relief settled over their worn faces when they finally set foot on dry nd once again.

  Once everyone had secured their, beaten, and damaged boats, likely not fit to be used any time soon their sea-elf-turned-ice-fairy flew up and announced to the group of refugees. “This journey has tested us. But we made it! Now we just need to make this pce our refuge!”

  “I want to just y down for a whole day or two and do nothing.” Alex climbed out of the boat, dusted herself off with the feather duster to get try and flopped down on the stone dock.

  “Come on.” Fufi pecked the prone magical girl. “We got to off load supplies at least.”

  “Get mister dark and ominous to do that.” Alex compined. “He’s the strongest here.”

  Fufi went and poked the dead man with her beak. “Hello?”

  He didn’t answer, just stood there like a statue.

  “I think he’s gone into torpor again.” Fufu looked back at Alex from the boat.

  Alex just groaned pitifully.

  A little submarine surfaced from the harbor and a slime girl popped out. “Meru!”

  “Hey Merumeru.” Fufi walked over to the other side of the dock. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Merumeru surfaced the bathysphere with a wave and, with a vilger's help, secured its chain to the dock. The hatch opened to reveal construction supplies: bricks, gss shards, a small wheelbarrow with a wooden wheel, seeds, and potted pnts.

  The vilgers, possessing superior strength to Alex, swiftly emptied the bathysphere in minutes. Merumeru then directed them to stack the bricks near a sheltered, ruined building a few blocks from the harbor.

  A little worried that Merumeru might be up to something crazy again, Alex got up and walked to where the slime girl had set up her little construction site. Alex summoned the carriage that had the trailer attached to it. The trailer had a bunch of supplies tied to it that they got from the warehouse back in Mignonneville. Alex figured she’d let the people unload that as well. She took some time to clean up, fold the bnkets and change from her arctic outfit back into her skirt and corset outfit. After the time it took her to do that, she opened a window and looked outside to see another pipe being constructed by Merumeru that went straight down into the dirt.

  “Looks like she’s setting up another one of her portal pipes.” Alex mused.

  Ariel flew in from the window, causing Alex to let out a yeep.

  “Hey Alex!” The ice fairy nded on a table. “That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

  “You are crazy.” Alex shuddered. “We all spent days getting soaked and shivering.”

  “It could have been worse.” Ariel didn’t notice Alex’s dour mood. “We didn’t have to csh with the fire cn or any of the demons in the Jass capital. I was a little worried that we’d wake up one of the tier 3s that reside there or worse that general posing as a mountain.”

  “Can we just not.” Alex flopped down into a chair. “I want to spend at least 24 hours in bed.”

  “What about your boat?” She countered. “You haven’t offloaded it.”

  “But I didn’t bring anything other than what I could carry.” Alex snapped.

  “You sure about that?” The fairy’s voice was like bells. “There is a big suit of armor that might fall over and get stuck in the bay.”

  “Fine!” Alex gave up. “But I need help getting him off the boat.”

  Alex, along with the two fmingos and the ice fairy, enlisted Cecil's help to find men who could lift the sleeping revenant from the boat. They dragged him to a guarding stance, identical to the one he assumed when he fell into a torpor, right beside Alex's carriage. He stood there like a gargoyle, cd in shining armor, with a glimmering sword on his back and the shield of an honorable knight clutched before him.

  “Looks like the sea water washed off all the soot.” Fufi inspected the knight.

  “I don’t think he’d like that.” Alex didn’t want to listen to another lecture about the virtues of different shades of bck again and resolved to get some bck paint to decorate the armor before he woke.

  melchi