Chapter 399: The Seaside Resort Had Gone Under Literally

Saltsink’s most expensive hotel offered sea views from every room, including the ones already full of sea.

I wanted to nose Wet Regret toward the flooded hotel, but Lukas kept us in the marked channel and told me to stop pointing at balconies. Apparently owning a boat hadn’t made me captain of the bits that might hit rocks.

The coast grazer stayed in the sheltered bay behind us. The market host had sent fried bread and a warning not to charge rent on animals I didn’t own. I thought he could have waited until I actually printed the signs.

[System: Book a room downstairs, mate. If the service is shit, you can swim out through reception.]

*Lyra would kill me if she learned I’d paid extra to sleep in a puddle.*

Saltsink had been built around a resort basin before the lower seawall failed years earlier. The upper terraces remained dry, with shops, workshops, and homes reached by stairs and lifts. Below them, flooded streets connected the old hotels to submerged service tunnels.

The harbor watch guarded the town docks, but the outer shoals lay beyond its little patrol boats. That was where the raiders made their living.

People still used both levels. Air-breathing workers traveled in enclosed lifts or carried equipment, while aquatic residents moved through lower doors that opened directly into the water.

A man carried lunch down to a submerged doorway while we watched. I wanted to follow the food, but Lukas steered toward the repair dock before I could improve our itinerary.

The pump was wheezing when the mechanic met us. I asked whether that was the engine warming up, and Lukas put the inspection sheet between us before I could make the repair bill worse by talking.

The inspection found a worn seal, a cracked mounting bracket, and a bilge pump that made more noise than progress. Repairs cost three hundred ten credits, with another seventy for fuel and basic supplies.

The harpoon idiots’ eight hundred had paid for the forty-credit race and now the repairs. We had three hundred eighty left from that haul. I stared at the boat, waiting for it to show some gratitude.

[System: You’ve owned a boat for one day and it’s already eating your crime profits. Nature is healing, mate.]

*If it wants a birthday present too, I am buying it an anchor and teaching it to fetch.*

The mechanic expected to finish by late afternoon, which gave us time to visit the clinic above the dock. I paid sixty credits and endured a thorough examination from a woman who looked unimpressed by both my evolution and my explanation of the race.

She checked the treated edge, asked about bleeding, and made me move the wing slowly through its comfortable range. The new form hadn’t repaired it, but the week of rest and care had helped.

"Short, gentle flight only, and stop if it pulls," she said. "No sudden dives, hard turns, or carrying extra weight until you’ve built back up."

*"What if the dive is gentle but the reason for it is stupid?"*

"Then I charge you another sixty to explain the same thing while your friend says he told you so."

Old Mate nearly spat his beer. I asked the medic whether she also treated loud imaginary pests, and she told me to stop changing the subject and take the clean supplies.

Ninety credits bought us a dry room and left two hundred thirty in the trip account. Lukas propped his phone up for our call home while I moved the medicine bag somewhere the camera couldn’t immediately betray me.

Lyra appeared first, followed by Cherry with a drink and Bridget carrying something she’d been reading. Seeing the three of them together made the room feel less temporary, even through a screen.

Lyra asked to see the wing. I turned carefully and explained the medic’s instructions before Cherry could accuse me of using a flattering angle.

"He remembered what the doctor said," Cherry told Bridget. "We should write down the date before somebody disputes it."

*"I listened to every word, and nobody needs to mention the race until I’ve finished looking handsome."*

"What race?" Bridget asked, so Lukas told her about the boat before I could threaten him. Cherry wanted the photographs. I wanted a friend who understood loyalty.

I explained the new bracing trick and asked what they’d tried. Keeping their own bodies meant they couldn’t enjoy being a very expensive red doorstop, but I hoped somebody had found a better use for it.

Lyra had tried it with her palms against a kitchen wall. Cherry admitted she’d tested a stubborn jar, and Bridget said she’d stopped them before anyone used the furniture as an opponent.

[System: Your sapphire stopped a furniture fight while you were entering one with a boat, mate. Buy her something nice before she figures out which end of this relationship needs supervision.]

*All three get presents, and you are banned from choosing anything inflatable, vibrating, or advertised through a dirty pop-up.*

Lyra said she missed eating beside me. I almost told her about the market host’s sausages, then realized what an idiot that would make me and asked what she’d cooked. Cherry wanted town photographs, while Bridget wanted to see where we’d sleep.

Lukas turned the camera around the room. I promised Lyra gentle wing exercises and told her I missed her, which earned a smile worth enduring Cherry’s whispered suggestion that they wrap me in bubble wrap.

After the call, we collected the repaired skiff and checked the work at the dock. Lukas tested the pump, the mechanic watched the engine run, and nobody accepted my suggestion that looking faster counted as an inspection.

The restricted marina lay around the basin’s inner wall. Its entrance used numbered docking tokens from the old contractor fleet. Lukas passed ours across while I tried to look like someone who had arrived without stealing anything.

The guard matched our token to the skiff’s hull registration and gave us a berth. I kept my mouth shut until we passed him, despite Old Mate quietly urging me to thank him for supporting local crime.

Lukas eased Wet Regret into place while I looked along the next dock.

The supply boat from our chart sat beside us, its name painted above a loading door, while two crewmen argued over where to store crates bearing the market’s stolen ration marks.