Chapter 108: The River Remembers

The boat pushed away from the dock a little over an hour later, its patched sails catching enough wind to turn the shoreline into a shrinking strip behind them. Jaxir leaned against the railing while Marr Town remained somewhere beyond the hazy opposite shore, and Nick stood beside him.

"Relax," Jaxir said when he saw Nick’s eyes darting around, "we’ll be fine."

"You don’t know that."

"Well, you’ll run when it really matters anyway."

"RUN WHERE?!" Nick snaps, point out at the river waters around them.

Jaxir chuckled and turned his attention back toward the deck. The crew was moving with quite a bit of confidence.

Most of the others he had identified sat somewhere in the mid-teens as well. The entire crew was made up of pretty strong warriors.

More interesting than the crew was the way Jaxir’s own body felt beneath him. He could sense the vibration of the hull through his palms, the slight adjustment in his ankles whenever the deck shifted, and even the faint pull through his fingers every time his grip tightened against the railing, all of it carried through pathways that Mana had only recently opened inside him.

Physique Elite had done more than increase his stats.

Mana no longer felt like something stored inside him purely for casting. Small traces moved through his muscles, joints and nerves with every motion, and the longer Jaxir paid attention, the more obvious it became that his reforging had changed the relationship between his Mind and Body rather than simply strengthening one of them.

That interaction with the little girl made him really feel these changes. He had almost missed them entirely, maybe because he was too focused on getting to Lue quickly enough.

He was still following those sensations when a faint impact travelled through the deck beneath his feet.

Jaxir’s head turned toward the stairs leading below. "Something’s moving in the cargo hold."

Nick followed his gaze before looking back at him. "You can tell that from up here?"

"Either that, or they’ve got a 50-pound rat."

Nick considered it for a second and then said, "Let’s ignore it," without hesitation.

Everyone of the crew was above the deck, and the captain had offered them to go below already because the start of the journey would be bumpy. Jaxir had also already accounted for everyone, so it didn’t make sense for anyone to be down there. Something was up.

Jaxir pushed away from the railing with a laugh and started toward the stairs.

The cargo hold smelled worse than the deck, with damp wood, fish and something sour hanging heavily in the narrow space. Crates and barrels had been stacked into uneven lanes that blocked most of the room from view, but Jaxir didn’t need to see far when every small movement sent another vibration through the boards beneath him.

He followed the faintest of them between 2 rows of crates before stopping near several barrels stacked against the hull. Something shifted behind them, and Jaxir smiled as he stepped around the corner with Nick close behind.

"Found you."

The little beggar girl from the docks crouched behind the barrels with half a piece of bread clutched in one hand. Her eyes went wide the moment she saw them, and she pressed herself against the hull while dragging the same frightened expression across her face that she’d worn after being thrown from the ship.

Nick stared at her before slowly rubbing both hands over his face. "I fucking knew it. I told you she had quest written all over her."

"You also thought she was a giant rat about 20 seconds ago." Jaxir looked down at the girl and folded his arms. "Your instincts seem flexible."

"I adapt."

The girl ignored Nick and kept her attention on Jaxir. "Please don’t tell them I’m here."

Her voice trembled just enough to sound convincing, but Jaxir noticed the moment her eyes stopped looking scared and started studying him instead. Her gaze moved across his arms, chest and face before narrowing slightly, and the change happened quickly enough that Nick noticed it too.

Jaxir smiled. "That fear disappeared pretty fast."

The girl stood up and dusted crumbs from her oversized clothes, abandoning the act without even bothering to deny it. She took another bite of bread while looking Jaxir over with the casual confidence of someone who had decided he wasn’t much of a threat.

"You’re a Natural."

Jaxir’s brows rose while Nick slowly turned toward him, and for a brief moment neither of them answered. The girl seemed to interpret the silence as confirmation and rolled her eyes before pointing at Jaxir’s chest.

"Your Mana is flowing through your body. You don’t have to pretend around me."

Jaxir’s interest sharpened immediately, but he kept his expression loose. Luxy had already explained that Naturals possessed a connection between Mana talent and bodily talent that most races couldn’t reproduce, and apparently the girl had seen his reforged constitution and reached the most obvious conclusion available to her.

"Good eye."

Nick’s head snapped toward him so quickly that Jaxir almost laughed, but one glance was enough to stop whatever question had been forming. Nick stared at him for a second, recognized that Jaxir was playing along, then shut his mouth.

The girl looked pleased with herself. "Obviously."

"So what are you doing down here?" Jaxir gestured toward the cargo hold. "You went through a lot of effort to get back onto a boat that already threw you off once."

Her expression shifted again, this time toward confusion. "You don’t know?"

"Humor me."

The confusion turned into something far more insulting as she stepped closer and sniffed faintly in his direction. "You’re older than me, you’re clearly a Natural, and you still haven’t sensed what’s on this boat?"

Jaxir smiled. "Apparently not."

"Then you must be pretty untalented."

Nick made a choking noise beside him and immediately covered his mouth with one hand. Jaxir turned his head slowly, and Nick shook his own with enough enthusiasm to make his shoulders bounce.

"Something funny?"

"Nothing at all." Nick’s voice came out strained. "Please continue."

Jaxir gave him a flat look before turning back toward the girl. "Let’s assume I’m tragically untalented. What exactly should I be sensing?"

She sighed with the exhaustion of someone who had lived much more life than she clearly had, then walked deeper into the cargo hold without checking whether they followed. Jaxir went after her while Nick fell in beside him, still wearing a grin that promised this conversation would come back to haunt him later.

The girl eventually stopped in front of a reinforced crate near the center of the hold. Iron bands wrapped around every side, several unfamiliar symbols had been burned into the wood, and once Jaxir stood close enough, he finally felt a slow pressure pulse through his senses.

A second pulse followed several heartbeats later, faint but unmistakable.

Jaxir’s grin faded slightly. "That’s alive."

The girl gave him a look that suggested he had finally solved a very simple puzzle. "Congratulations."

Nick crouched beside the crate without touching it. "What exactly is alive?"

"A Riverheart Egg." The girl rested one hand against the wood, and some of her earlier attitude finally disappeared. "Someone stole it from a nesting ground upriver, and they’re probably planning to sell it once they reach Marr Town."

Nick’s eyes shifted toward the crate. "How valuable?"

The girl glared at him.

"I’m asking academically." Nick raised both hands. "Purely for educational purposes."

"The creed of a gentleman?" Jaxir asked.

"Exactly."

She ignored both of them and pressed her palm more firmly against the wood. "It belongs to a Riverheart Matriarch, and she’ll keep following its scent until she gets it back."

Jaxir looked toward the hull. "How strong is she?"

"Strong enough that you should’ve noticed the problem before I did." The girl frowned at him again. "Seriously, how are you this bad at being a Natural?"

Jaxir chuckled instead of answering, but his thoughts had already shifted toward Rovan and the Twinkle Twinkle Bear King. He’d assumed the Naturals were simply possessive about powerful beasts, yet the way the girl spoke made the situation sound less like ownership and more like maintaining something larger.

"Riverheart Matriarchs control nesting territory across huge stretches of the river, and the beasts around them learn where they can hunt without being killed. Steal an egg and move it far enough, and everything following the Matriarch starts moving too."

The girl opened her mouth to insult him again, but her head suddenly snapped toward the side of the ship. A second later Jaxir felt the same thing through his feet, a deep vibration travelling through the hull from somewhere far beneath them.

The entire boat lurched hard enough to send several crates sliding across the floor, and shouting erupted from the deck above. Jaxir caught himself against the wall while Nick grabbed one of the iron bands around the Riverheart Egg, but the girl never moved as she stared straight down through the floor.

A system notification unfolded across Jaxir’s vision.

―

[Regional Event Triggered]

[The River Remembers What Was Taken]

―

Another vibration rolled through the hull, deeper than the first.

Something enormous was moving beneath them.