Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-One - Casting a Shadow Over Insmouth

Insmouth, from above, didn’t look like much.

If Needleford was a small city, then Insmouth couldn’t be much more than a large village. It sprawled out a bit, most of the homes and buildings nestling around the end of a bay, with docks running out over the water.

The docks seemed too small to deserve the name ‘port.’ The biggest ship moored there was a small caravel. Mostly, it was fishing boats that were bobbing away in the clear waters.

“Foresails stowed!” I called. Clive, standing next to me by the wheel, nodded.

The crew pulled in the foresails, canvas snapped, and with a slight lurch the Beaver Cleaver started to slow down.

“Grav to half!” I said.

Clive unlocked the lever controlling the gravity engine and dragged it gently down to the halfway mark before locking it once more. We started to dip soon after.

I eyed the village in the distance and bit the tip of my tongue as I concentrated. I didn’t want us to overshoot it. Or crash into it for that matter. “Engines, counter-rotate. Quarter-speed.”

Clive pulled the appropriate levers and soon the big propeller behind me started to spin in the opposite direction as before. I had to clamp onto my hat with my ears as wind blasted past me from behind. I laughed and spun the wheel a bit. With the prop spinning counter to its usual motion the wheel would need to be turned in the opposite direction as usual. It was a bit hard to keep track of.

“Captain!” Steve called from his position next to the figurehead. He was tugging up a coil of rope. “We’re a quarter league up!”

I nodded, then worked really hard to convert that to metric. That was... pretty high up, but not that high for an airship. We were also still dropping a little, even if it felt like the drop was slowing down. I certainly felt heavier as the Beaver moved down slower.

“Clive, set grav up a notch,” I said.

“Aye.”

I turned the wheel a little more, adjusting course not for Insmouth or its docks, but for an empty field right next to the village’s wall. I hoped whomever the field belonged to didn’t mind us stopping above it.

When we had slowed down to a crawl I had Clive set the engine to neutral and we coasted in over Insmouth, the tops of the tallest houses only a dozen meters below. I could see people staring up, some of them pointing, others running towards us.

I imagined that the local kids didn’t see ships as cool as the Beaver every day.

“Should we deploy more sail to stop?” I asked Clive.

The old harpy looked about, then raised an arm so that his feathers caught in the wind. “No, there’s a light crosswind from the south. Best to face away from it and push back into it.”

I nodded and spun the wheel around. “Quarter astern, Clive.”

Soon enough we were... more or less over the field I was aiming for. I was happy that I didn’t tell anyone that I was aiming for the field, or else that would have been embarrassing. “Anchors down!” Clive called. He turned towards me. “Now, usually this is when you’d turn off the grav generator and allow the ship to float down on its balloon alone. But we’re not over a proper dock.”

“Can the engine stay on forever?” I asked.

“On a low idle? It can run for plenty long. We ought to keep it going in case we need to leave in a hurry.”

I nodded. That was really clever. Insmouth looked like a nice town, and I bet that they never kidnapped anyone, but it was best to stay safe. Maybe we’d notice Golden Roger’s ship over the horizon one day and we’d need to bolt. “Are you staying aboard?” I asked.

“My days of being part of an away party are long behind me, Captain,” Clive said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll make sure everything is settled, then I’ll find a corner to rest in while you negotiate for supplies.”

I gave him a thumbs-up. “Sure thing.”

When I came down the quarterdeck I found Awen shrugging on a backpack while Amaryllis tugged on her leather coat. “Should we lower the ladder right away?” Amaryllis asked.

“You’re both coming down too?” I asked.

“I need to be there to negotiate. You’d see one orphan kid and give away the ship. And Awen here knows what the engine room needs most,” Amaryllis said.

Bastion moved over to us, looking really cool in his armour and with his sword sheathed by his side. “May I come as well? I would feel rather poor if one of you was injured while I stayed aboard.”

I nodded. More people was more fun as far as I was concerned. “Should we get the Scallywags to come too?”

Amaryllis shook her head. “We’ll head out first. Make sure things are safe. Those three aren’t fit for fighting. If they want to stay here after all, that’s on them.”

I rubbed my chin, but there wasn’t much I could say against that. “Fine! We’ll make sure it’s a nice safe place, then I guess we can give everyone a day of shore leave.”

“As long as we get what we need,” Amaryllis said. “Food, more water. A few odds and ends. Awen has a list that’s a little more important.”

“Ah, yes,” Awen said. “We’re down to half a bunker of fuel. It’s enough to get to the Grey Wall, I think, but not to our destination. So we should refuel here if we can. And I need some things. Oil, some things to tinker with. Things like that.”

“Let’s see what we can find then,” I said. A glance over the side showed a small group gathering not too far from the Beaver. From up in the air I could make out a couple of guys with spears, but for the most part they just looked like normal villagers.

We dropped the ladder and Bastion started down first while I ran off to grab my gear. I wouldn’t be caught without any equipment in a spot of trouble a second time.

I came down last, landing with a heavy ‘omph’ next to Awen. “Ladder up!” I called to the Beaver. Steve’s head poked over the edge, and soon the ladder was rolling back in place.

“Alright Broccoli,” Amaryllis said. “Go be yourself at them.”

I snorted. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

The harpy gestured to the villagers. “Go be a clumsy idiot. That way they’ll assume that we’re harmless.”

“Mean,” I said before making sure that my outfit was nice and proper. I had all of my armour on of course, and my warspade. I probably cut a very fearsome figure as I flounced over to the villagers.

One thing stuck out to me right away about the group. They all had very wide, wet eyes, and their skin looked a bit blue-ish. That’s when I noticed the gills around their throats and the lack of hair on a lot of them. They had neat little fins though, and some of the older ones had human ears and hair.

From the air I’d assumed that they were human, what with the two legs and arms, but I had been way off. “Hello!” I greeted them as I stopped a few meters away. “My name’s Broccoli. Broccoli Bunch, captain of the Beaver Cleaver. Do you have a leader? A mayor?”

One of the fishpeople stepped up and bowed a little while removing the formless fisherman’s cap that sat on his bald head. “Greeting captain. I’m Howard Philppers. There’s no mayor in Insmouth, but I know everyone who’s anyone here. If you need anything I’m always willing to help a stranger.”

I grinned and extended a hand. The other fishfolk seemed a little nervous, but the spears were lowered and they seemed to be coming around to the idea that there wouldn’t be any fighting.

I shook Howard’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” I said. “We didn’t really intend to stop here, but I’m glad we did, you seem to have a very cute village.”

“Why thank you,” Howard said. “Insmouth has been a kind place to us all. We don’t often get guests, but I’m sure we can brush off the old hospitality and make sure you and your lot are comfortable. Are you traders?”

“Us? No, we’re explorers! On our way to Sylphfree. We wanted to circle around the Trenten Flats, but we may have circled too far down.”

“Explorers, huh?” Howard said. He blinked his big eyes. “That’s mighty interesting. Do you do dungeons? Fight monsters?”

“Yup! We go on adventures.”

Howard nodded. “Well, if you intend to stay around the town for any amount of time, we might have something that you could help us with. I think that would make the lot of us a lot more welcoming than before.”

I tilted my head to the side. “What’s that? Have you been having trouble?”

“A little,” Howard said. “But I ought not talk about it so openly. I’ll speak to a few townsfolk, see if there’s any interest in hiring some tough young folk to help.”

I shrugged. It wouldn’t do not to at least see if we could help. “Sure. We should be around for a little over a day. We need a few essentials.”

Howard smiled, seeming pretty pleased with that. “I work over at the Inn. You can’t miss it. I’ll ask around right away, so if you come over later I’ll have an answer for you.”

“Brilliant!” I said. “And it’s okay that we shop here?”

Howard nodded. “Sure thing. Gold spends as well here as anywhere else. We might need to weigh your coins though, we’re not part of any fancy-big governments you know?”

“That’s fair,” I said. “So, is everyone here a fish... person? Ah, I don’t know the name of your race, I’m sorry!”

Howard laughed. “No need for that. We don’t rightly have a name for what we are. Just normal folk. The local dungeon’s pretty easy, and if you do things right by it, you can become like us. My family’s been here for five generations now, and we all end up looking like this.”

“That’s neat!” I said. “I guess I’ll give the town a tour while we grab some supplies.”

“Sure thing, Captain. If you run into any trouble, you just ask me and I’ll help you as much as I can. Oh, but word of caution, get back to your ship before the fog sets in. It’s safer that way.”

“The fog’s dangerous, got it,” I said. I waved to Howard and ran back over to my friends. “They seem nice,” I announced.

“Strange looking folk,” Amaryllis said. “They might be bigger bumpkins than you.”

“That’s a rather common thing with towns like this,” Bastion said.

“What is?” I asked.

“The town’s detached and separate from the rest of the world. So they develop their own little ideas and culture. These folk look like they might have been humans, or maybe their ancestors were. Now they’re not just separate from the rest of the world on account of their ideas and culture, but physically too.”

“They don’t seem mean,” I said.

Bastion shook his head. “I don’t doubt that they’re just as kind as anyone else. That might be the problem.”

That was a weird way of thinking. “Whelp, they’re heading back in,” I said as I noticed the group dispersing. A few still looked up at the Beaver but it was with interest, not maliciousness. “We should see about getting our supplies too. Oh, and we need to stay out of the fog. It’s dangerous.”

“We’ll see about that,” Amaryllis said.

***