There was no celebration this time. The sails were lowered and all the men who'd fallen into the sea were thrown ropes. 

The captain had the men straighten the deck, then the sails were raised again and the drummer took his position, and we continued our voyage. Nobody believed the monster was gone this time. It had eaten 12 orcs already and had shown before enough intelligence to change strategies.

But after 2 days the men begin to relax, the marmaluke, which is what the men call the creature, apparently had had enough. Or maybe as a few men claimed it had bled out at sea.
"I did say it was a beastie." Said the oarsman from before. At his random comment, I too find myself believing it's over. And thanks to its chase we have made great time to Grabosh. 
The lookout yells that the Mage Spires are visible on the horizon. The ship's drummer quickens the pace so we can make port sooner. I think we'll be in the Grabosh capital an hour or two from now.

Three hours later though it seems I underestimated how far away the horizon is, or how tall the Mage Spires are, because they are still the only thing visible above the waves.
"What are you going to do once we arrive little miss?" Said Gordon. The old bull-orc was still rowing on the bench next to my mast. His tusks were white and cracked in a way which made him seem mature and cool. His wrinkled green skin hid powerful muscles in his arms and his grey hair was tied in a short ponytail, in the style popular with sailers.
I think about his question. My plan is pretty vague actually, "I don't know, I figured I'd find a boat to the sunken starship."
"Sure, but it'll be dark by the time we make port. You should really find somewhere to sleep." He said making eye contact, still pulling his oar to the ship-drummer's beat. The crew had all warmed up to me since the attack, and when before they would ignore me or act vulgar, they would now ruffle my hair and greet me as they walked past my spot on my rucksack. I suspect their entirely exaggerated tale of 'The Pixie who slayed the marmaluke' will be told for a while still.
"I don't have much coin and the weather is warm, I'm sure I'll find somewhere to sleep outside." 
Gordon raised an eyebrow at me. "You aren't in the south any more silver pixie. The city isn't anywhere near safe enough, you'll be robbed in your sleep, or worse." He shook his head. "Slavery is illegal in Grabosh technically, but that doesn't mean foreign slavers passing through won't think twice about taking a thing like you." He frowned at me. 
"I'm not a pixie, I'm a goblin. And I'm not going to believe there are slavers out to get me. I'm a little too old to believe in that."
Gordon smiles strangely, as if he'd thought of a private joke. "You best believe there'll be slavers out to get you. Don't be surprised if an informant for one starts following you the moment they see you alone at the port." He grins another odd grin, I guess he would know more about the city than me.
I feel a bit silly for not thinking about my safety before. Everyone on Perrifare knew everyone else, so of course there was very rarely any crime, and the shallow waters around the Southern Archipelago deterred most sea beasts. I had never been in real danger before this trip.
The only particular threat on Perrifare was the fishmen, who would crawl from the sea some nights. But even children knew you only had to hit fishmen with sticks or make loud noises to scare them back into the water. Actually, come to think of it, fishmen might not even be dangerous. They sort of just, lurk there, watching you. Maybe islanders just liked bullying them, not that I feel bad for them either.
"Slavers? Are there mainlanders in Grabosh?" I ask.
Gordon's jaw almost hits the floor. "I'm worried about you girlie. Of course there aren't mainlanders, they can't survive this far into the Crater. But there are plenty of islander nations that keep slaves, and merchants who'd sell you to the ogres on the mainland." He looks at me like I was stupid. "Are you sure you'll be alright on your own? You really haven't left the Southern Isles before, have you? You might be better going back home."
I can't deny that I'm ignorant. But going home isn't an option and I can't afford the fare back anyway.
"What say you come stay the night with the wife and I?" 
I think about his offer, so far Gordon has been very kind to me, and I did desperately want to bathe and sleep in privacy for a night. "Would I need to pay you?"
"Nah, I'm away from the city most of the year, so my wife has been quite lonely, it'll be good for her to have some company." 

When the ship finally pulls up to Grabosh's capital, which confusingly is also called Grabosh, I thank the ship's navigator and follow Gordon through the port toward his home. We must look like a grandfather and his granddaughter as we walk down the street together. Gordon with his hessian trousers and a linen sack over his wide shoulder, and I with my brown goat-wool dress and leather rucksack.
The streets of Grabosh aren't like anything I've seen before, stretching on and on for what seems like miles. The city was a maze of white stone houses and terracotta red roofs, with the huge black Mage Spire growing from the city centre. Its twin was easily visible to the east, towering above the large island's hills.
More people were walking the streets than I'd seen in my life. 
The sun had set before we had even arrived and yet the streets were still busy. The only time I'd been somewhere half this loud was when I was a girl, and my parents took my brothers and me to a town a few isles over during the Fishman Spawning Festival. 
The local fishmen would release their row into the sea, and the swell would mix it with the eggs that floated up from the fishwives in the depths. The islanders would paddle out to sea and gather the eggs in nets, then on the beach boil them over large fires. Once cooked we would eat the eggs with citrus and goat's cheese. 
The eggs didn't taste that great honestly, but it was well worth going just to see the faces of the fishmen. Who watched the affair impotently from the shallows. And the party vibe in the town was nice too.

But Fishman Spawning Festival has nothing on Grabosh though. There are street vendors, musicians and dancing pygmy trolls wearing costumes. There is so much going on it's hard to know where I should be looking.
"So if you don't want to be called a silver pixie, what are you called?" Gordon says from beside me.
Urrrgh. I hate telling people not from the south my name. 
"Pimple."
"Hmm, pardon?" He was paying more attention to a rather good lyre player. 
"My name is Pimple."
He stops walking. Then slapping his leg he says "HA! You Southerners are great with names, yes I see it, pink with a white top, Pimple of Perrifare is it?"
I love my parents, I do, maybe I'm conflicted about my father right now, but I still love them both to death. But they hadn't done me any favours when they gave me my name.
I give the elderly orc a frown and explain "It's not because of my appearance, it was my great great-great-grandmother's name, and it's good luck to be named after an ancestor, and it's even better luck to have an unflattering name."
He laughs again, but we continue pushing through crowded streets.

A great number of different styles of clothing are worn by the crowd. Made from silks, wools, leather, linens and a few materials I don't recognize. The prominent style for men is trousers with a short shawl or poncho covering their chests, upper arms and shoulders, leaving their midriff exposed. 
While women mostly seem to wear knee-length skirts with a sash, that went from their belt and around one shoulder. Covering one breast but leaving the other and most of their upper body exposed. Underage boys and girls both wear pants or skirts as they saw fit. The only difference is girls wrap a cloth to completely cover their chest, while boys go around bare-chested. 
The exception was a few adult women of various ages, who wear nothing over their top half like the young boys do, or like the sailors and dock workers do while working. I wondered if they might be prostitutes but I'm unsure because all of them seem to be among the most extravagantly dressed on the street, with silk skirts and colourful shell necklaces. Did whoring pay so well? 

The crowd was mostly orcish, with only a few goblins dodging through the forest of green legs. The goblins all looked poorer than the orcs. Although I noticed a goblin shamen who looked quite wealthy, but mages can always find work.
There was also a huge diversity of buildings. While all followed the same general materials and colours, they varied greatly by design, size and quality. A few of the wealthier businesses were even decorated with marble pillars and statues of orcs by their front doors. Which to me seemed an unimaginable display of wealth.
I've heard there is no natural source of marble on Mars. Whatever marble is around was manufactured by the Ancients in a technique now lost. Making marble objects exceedingly rare and exceedingly desirable. The only marble I'd ever seen before was on the prow of a Merchant Navy warship, which had chased a small pirate fleet into our archipelago. Mounted to the warship's prow was a tiny marble statue of a naked orc woman, who had been carved with a beautiful face and exaggerated proportions. 
My mother had explained that marble was the symbol of the Merchant Navy. And that an uncut piece could be worth twice its weight in ancient bronze. The amount of marble in front of me on what were presumably Merchant Navy buildings, made me start to think about the amount of wealth the people around me might have.
Ancients didn't look like orcs, so every statue of an orc must have been made within the last few centuries. That means every building with an orcish statue must of at some point bought a piece of uncut marble. If the uncut marble was worth twice its weight in bronze, how many bronze palms was that? There were 60nails in a finger, and then 12 fingers in a bronze palm. But a bronze palm still weighed a bit less than a kilo.
How much did the statues weigh? 500kg? 1000kg? They must have cost more than the Southern Archipelago sees in a hundred years.
Did any of the people around me have as much wealth? The bronze finger grandmother had treasured for so long, represented almost a third of a year's income at our farm, and it hadn't even been enough for my passage to Grabosh by itself. Was bronze worth so little to these people?

I suddenly felt incredibly isolated.

I stunk. I hadn't bathed in weeks. I was wearing dirty underwear and a modest brown dress, which covered my legs, stomach, back and even both my fucking tits. 
On board the Tax-Me-Not I felt a little fancy compared to the oarsmen, who wore nothing but scratchy hessian trousers. Even the captain and navigator, the two wealthiest men on board, seemed quite cheap in their linen pants and half ponchos. Now I realize from the beginning the sailors must have seen me as nothing but a south isle bumpkin, with bland, undyed clothes in a style which must have seemed incredibly quaint and modest compared to what they see at home. Barely even nicer than what they wear while doing hard labour.
Should I try and squeeze a tit through my dress's arm hole, to seem more fashionable? At least Gordon beside me was just as underdressed. Well, he wasn't wearing a poncho at least.
After fifteen minutes of self-consciously following Gordon through the streets, we arrived at his villa.