Chapter 225: SAN CORVO
Chapter 225: SAN CORVO
[Boat — Approaching San Corvo — Day 42 — 7:30 AM]
The island appeared at dawn.
"Land," said Kira from the crow’s nest.
No one celebrated.
Everyone had known it for six hours.
But Max exhaled from the helm with the sound of someone who had spent forty‑eight hours calculating how much water could enter through two ten‑centimeter cracks before the boat stopped being a boat and started being a navigation hazard.
"Good," said Max. "Good, good, good."
Viktor from the railing, looking at the island:
"Do you know the shipyard?"
"I know the shipyard master." Max orienting the helm. "Or I knew him eight years ago. I hope he’s still alive."
"Why wouldn’t he be alive?"
"Because the last time I saw him, he was in the middle of an argument with three Sea Fangs captains about the price of a keel." A pause. "It didn’t end well for the captains, but it wasn’t his best night either."
---
San Corvo from the water was exactly what the sailor from the Port of Sands had described — a small port with the shipyards visible from the bay, the hulls of ships in various states of repair stacked on the docks like an inventory of what the ocean could do to wood if it set its mind to it.
The market on the north side of the bay — not organized in blocks like the markets of the main continent but spread without apparent plan, stalls between buildings between stalls, the kind of place that required having been there before to navigate without getting lost and guaranteed that everyone got lost the first time.
The sound of the port arriving before the smell — voices in four different languages, the hammering of the shipyard, music from some instrument none of the team recognized but that sounded like something played in a port at seven in the morning should sound.
"Do they have Temple posters here?" asked Emily, looking at the dock.
"Possibly." Max. "But San Corvo is neutral. Information arrives, but no one acts on it unless the price is high enough."
"And the price on us?"
Max evaluated honestly.
"With the Fragments you’re carrying —" a pause, "— high. But the risk of collecting it is also high. In San Corvo, people calculate the second number before acting on the first."
---
They docked at the south dock — the closest to the shipyard, the one Max remembered from eight years earlier with the confidence of someone who had been in enough ports to know that south docks were always the closest to serious work.
The shipyard master was a man in his sixties with the arms of someone who had spent four decades working wood and metal and the expression of someone who had seen so many damaged ships in so many different conditions that none surprised him anymore.
He looked at the team’s boat’s hull for ten seconds.
"Energy Storm," he said.
"Yes," said Max.
"How many direct strikes?"
"One to the hull. Two to the immediate radius."
The master nodded as if that confirmed something he already knew.
"Three days." He pointed to the first dock. "That berth. The hull cracks take one day each with the right wood. The burned deck is cosmetic, but I’ll fix it anyway."
"Price?"
The master named a number.
Max named another.
The two looked at each other for five seconds.
They arrived at a third in the middle.
"Three days," the master repeated, and went to the shipyard without further ceremony.
---
The team on the dock with everything they had decided to bring ashore — which in practice was everything they had because no one wanted to leave anything on a boat under repair in a port they didn’t control.
Three days in San Corvo.
"What do we do?" said Maya.
"What we need to do," said Seraph. "And what we want to do." A pause. "In that order."
"And what do we need to do?"
"Information about the Empty Fleet and the Eastern Island." Seraph. "Supplies for the final crossing. Checking the Fragments’ state after the storm."
"And what we want to do?"
Seraph looked at her.
"That’s no longer my area."
---
[San Corvo — North Market — 10:15 AM]
The San Corvo market was exactly what it had promised to be from the water.
Chaotic, colorful, with the specific smell of a place where people from fifty different origins sold what they brought from fifty different places with no organization system beyond "there’s space here and I’m setting up here."
The team dispersed efficiently.
Maya directly to the maps — she had seen a stall in the second alley from the dock that had scrolls in the window and smelled of ink and dry paper.
Kira to the market’s perimeter — not to buy, to map. Predator’s Sense in environment‑reading mode, cataloging exits, present levels, any signature requiring attention.
Raven to the material stall she had detected from the bay — high‑rank sea creature bones, the kind San Corvo had in quantity because it was on the migration route of several SS‑rank species.
Emily to the plant market — San Corvo had Eastern Island species that didn’t reach the main continent, plants Emily had seen described in Temple books but never in person.
Jessica to the information stall — the one all ports had even if they didn’t all call it that. In San Corvo it was a small tavern where sailors exchanged rumors in exchange for drink and where information had the specific price of being willing to share something in return.
Seraph with Grim following Alex, who had entered the market without a specific direction and whom Seraph had decided to follow because why not.
---
Grim on Alex’s shoulder looking at the market with his crimson flames processing each stall with the attention of someone for whom everything was new.
**"Master."**
"What."
**"There are a lot of people."**
"It’s a market."
**"There are a lot of people carrying a lot of different things."** His flames. **"Do all those things come from different places?"**
"Most of them."
**"And how do they know what people from other places want?"**
Alex looked at him.
"Are you asking how trade works?"
**"I’m asking how this man —"** indicating with his gaze a spice seller, **"— knows that the person coming from the Eastern Island wants exactly what he has."**
"He doesn’t know." Alex. "That’s why he has twenty different things and hopes one of them is what the person wants."
Grim processed that.
**"That’s inefficient."**
"Yes."
**"But it works."**
"It does."
**"Interesting."** His flames. **"Chaos has its own logic."**
Seraph from a step behind, without looking at him:
"You’ve been existing for eons and you’re only now wondering how a market works."
**"I spent eons harvesting souls,"** said Grim. **"Markets weren’t part of the job."**
---
[San Corvo — Shipyard — same time]
Max supervising the repairs with the shipyard master — not because the master needed it but because Max was the kind of person who needed to see the work happening to believe it was happening correctly.
Viktor sitting on a crate nearby, with the coffee he had obtained somewhere between the dock and the shipyard.
The shipyard hammering. The smell of wood and resin. The bay visible from there with the ships in various states of repair.
"How many times have you repaired a boat after an Energy Storm?" asked Viktor.
"This is the first." Max looking at the hull cracks. "You?"
"Also the first." A pause. "But the second strangest storm I’ve seen in the ocean."
"What was the first?"
Viktor took a sip of coffee.
"A Silence Storm. Twenty years ago, crossing the central zone." A pause. "Three hours without any sound within a fifty‑kilometer radius. Not the water. Not the wind. Nothing."
Max looked at him.
"What caused it?"
"I don’t know." Viktor. "When it ended, there was something at the bottom of the ocean that wasn’t there before. I didn’t see it. I only felt it in F3 for the next three days." A pause. "Then it disappeared."
Max processed that.
"Did you mention it in the Circle’s records?"
"I wrote four pages." Viktor. "No one read them because no one cared about the ocean at the time."
"And now?"
Viktor looked at the team’s boat with its hull under repair.
"Now I think I should have insisted more."
---
[San Corvo — Information Tavern — 11:30 AM]
Jessica with her notebook on the tavern table and the sailor across from her with the expression of someone who had agreed to give information in exchange for drink and was reconsidering whether the deal was fair.
Not because Jessica was intimidating.
Because the number of questions she asked was inversely proportional to the time the sailor expected to spend in the tavern.
"And the Empty Fleet has a fixed base?" asked Jessica.
"None that anyone has found."
"How many ships estimated?"
"No one knows."
"Average captain rank?"
"Also no."
"Any pattern in the ships they let pass versus the ones they don’t?"
The sailor looked at his drink.
"Miss."
"Yes?"
"I’ve been answering things I don’t know for half an hour." The sailor. "Do you have any question that has an answer?"
Jessica considered honestly.
"Are there ruins on the Eastern Island with seals that no one has been able to decipher?"
The sailor was silent.
"How do you know that?"
"A sailor at the Port of Sands mentioned it." Jessica with her pen ready. "Do you know anything more specific?"
The sailor looked around the tavern — not with fear, with the care of someone who had learned that certain conversations are held quietly.
"On the Eastern Island’s interior, there’s an area the locals call the Silent Threshold." His voice lower. "Very ancient ruins. The island’s scribes have been trying to decipher the seals for generations without result." A pause.
"It’s said the stone in those ruins is from no known quarry on the island or the main continent."
Jessica’s eyes were exactly what they were when something confirmed a hypothesis she had been building for a long time.
"Black Coral," she said quietly, only to herself.
"What?"
"Nothing." Jessica writing quickly. "One more: has anyone entered those ruins and come out?"
"Enter, yes." The sailor. "Come out, too. The problem is that those who enter and come out say different things about what’s inside." A pause.
"And the things they say don’t contradict each other. They complement each other. As if each person saw a different part of something no one has seen whole."
Jessica closed the notebook.
She opened it again.
Added one line.
Closed the notebook.
"Thank you." She stood up. "That was very useful."
The sailor looked at his half‑finished drink.
"That’s it?"
"For now." Jessica. "If you remember anything more about the Silent Threshold, the boat under repair at the south dock is ours."
---
[San Corvo — end of the first day]
The team gathered at the south dock at sunset.
Maya with three new maps and two route books no one had asked her to buy but she clearly needed to have.
Raven with A‑rank sea creature bones in her backpack — more than she had bought at the Port of Sands, because San Corvo had access to species that didn’t reach the first port.
Emily with plants in four small pots and the expression of someone who had found exactly what she was looking for and probably more than she expected to find.
Kira with the San Corvo map fully mapped in Predator’s Sense and without having bought anything because Kira didn’t buy things in markets unless she specifically needed them.
Jessica with twenty‑two pages of notes from the first day.
Alex with Grim on his shoulder and the feeling of having walked through the market for three hours learning how trade works through the questions of an 80cm skeleton.
Max from the shipyard:
"The hull cracks are going well. The first one finishes tomorrow. The second the day after."
"And the deck?" asked Maya.
"Cosmetic. They’ll do it tomorrow too."
"So the third day is free."
Max looked at her.
"The third day we set sail."
"Not until sunset if the hull finishes the day after tomorrow." Maya with the map. "We have the morning of the third day."
Max considered that.
"Yes," he said. "I suppose we do."
Grim’s crimson flames looking at the market closing at sunset.
**"Master."**
"What."
**"Tomorrow I want to go back."**
"Why?"
**"To keep understanding the chaos."**
Alex looked at him.
"It’s a market, Grim."
**"Exactly."**