Chapter Five Hundred and Forty-Three - Come Here, it's Dry

The biplanes continued to circle the Beaver Cleaver while we moved towards the city. The Ostri who'd jumped aboard stayed by the front of the ship, and signalled that we were safe to land to his companions using a clever sort of mana-burst technique.

Amaryllis mentioned that it was something that other nations were looking into, but most people weren't sensitive enough to mana to feel the bursts from afar, and not every ship had a mage or person with good mana control to use that kind of technique, so semaphore flags continued to be the standard.

My friends couldn't speak the local ostri language, but the guide could speak a few languages and was able to talk to the others.

His name was Markeb Secondson, the Lightfoot, but he said we could just call him Markeb. Amaryllis wanted to know if he was part of Come Here and Die's air-traffic-control, but as it turned out, they didn't have anything of the sort.

The rule for air traffic was pretty much that the bigger, more heavily armed ships moved first, and every ship that was smaller moved around.

Amaryllis was pretty horrified about that, but apparently there was so little air traffic here that it hadn't ever become a problem.

Come Here and Die didn't have a proper airship port, but there was a large, cleared space to one side of the city, next to a tall, rocky outcropping with a wall above it that provided good cover from the desert wind.

Large, round indents into the ground had been spaced more or less evenly apart, each one a good few metres deep and ringed by carefully placed bricks. We were heading towards one of those.

Apparently, there was still some amount of trading and such, even if the ostri here were anarchic. There just wasn't any legal framework for contracts, and no real police to call on if something went wrong.

Somehow, that made me feel a little queasy. It was weird. I'd always grown up knowing that there were laws and rules that I had to follow. I knew that sometimes the law was wrong, or that rules might be silly, and that doing the right thing might mean breaking one or both, but they were always there as a sort of guideline for what was acceptable.

A place entirely without either felt strange.

We brought the Beaver

 down anyway, gently aiming for a free spot next to another circle that held a beaten up old cargo airship.

The lower we dropped, the hotter it became, until I was feeling like a very sticky, sweaty bun. I was pretty sure that it was scorching enough to cook things just by sticking them out in the sun, so I was happy that the Beaver Cleaver had a balloon above us to at least provide some amount of shade.

"I will take my leave, then," Markeb said.

"You're not staying?" I asked.

"Why would I?" he replied. "I flew over to see if you'd be trouble, and I have a sense that you are, but you're not the kind of trouble that I care much for."

"Huh?" I asked.

The ostri tilted his head, and I had the impression that the gesture was as good as a smile. "A bit of advice, little bunny-eared captain. All ostri are honourable people, but not all ostri are good. This city's name was earned. If you want to stay, then make friends with some locals and stay close to them lest you trod upon the honor of someone who lacks the goodness]to see past a slight."

"Okay," I said. "Thank you, I appreciate it. Ah, so once we're docked..."

"Talk to the person who runs this place, then do what you came here for," he said.

With that, he walked off the side of the Beaver. We were still a dozen metres off the ground, but when I ran to the railing, I found that he was just casually walking along the desert ground between the airship pits.

"Ostri... are so cool," I said.

"Really? I'd have thought they were hot, what with the desert and all," Amaryllis said.

She didn't understand, and I felt a little bad for her about it.

Once we landed and dropped anchor, a team of ostri pushed a long plank up to the side of the Beaver and we were met by a tall, thin ostri man in elaborate robes who climbed to the edge of the ramp and negotiated a staying fee with Amaryllis.

It turned out to be much cheaper than staying in most other ports, mainly because we were paying only for the right to park here.

"We're going to have to source fuel and water and the rest of our supplies ourselves," Amaryllis said. "Which means leaving the ship."

"All of us?" I asked.

"That would be unwise," Bastion said. "We are among a warrior people, in a land with no laws. Many call them fair -- but one man's fairness is another man's arbitrary violence. The princess shall not leave the ship, nor can we leave her here alone." His words on that matter were utter steel. "Our away team should be small, and above all, capable of escaping a fight."

I pouted, but just a bit. He might have been right. I was hoping for the best, but the city was called Come Here and Die, so I had to set my expectations at a certain level. "So, who's going out?" I asked.

"I'll come. Someone needs to watch over our purse, and I can defend myself perfectly well," Amaryllis said.

"I'll come too, of course," I said with a nod.

"Is sending the captain wise?" Bastion asked. "By all rights, you should remain on the ship."

I blinked. But... but I wanted to see the cool desert city! "Ah! But no one else can speak the local language, so you have to send me," I said with a nod. "And I'm good at running away!" That was a very clever reason to go!

Bastion frowned, but my logic was irrefutable, so he had nothing to say on that.

I ended up going around and seeing who wanted to come. Calamity was okay with staying, as long as we promised to bring back some local snacks, but Desiree really wanted to see the city as well.

Awen came along because she was the ship's mechanic, and would know what to grab, and that made a group of four, which was good enough.

Steve and Gordon were going to wait on the Beaver

 ready to leave as soon as we came back with a good idea of where to pick up the stuff we needed for the trip.

"Alrighty! Let's go!" I called out before stepping onto the ramp. I felt it, the moment I stepped out of the shadows of the ship. The sunlight hit me like a slap to the face, and I could instantly feel my sweat evaporating away.

Amaryllis huffed, but that was her only complaint, while Awen just shifted her shoulders. She was wearing that long trench-coat that she'd gotten a long time ago, and it seemed almost perfect for this kind of weather.

Desiree was the only one who seemed to commiserate with me. "This weather is untenably warm. I can see why this place is still as free as it is. No invader would be able to endure the place in the height of summer."

Oh, right, we were basically in mid-winter, weren't we? So this was as cold as it would get. Holy heck.

I flagged a nice-looking ostri man down, and he seemed happy when I asked him where we could find ship fuel and supplies in his own tongue. He pointed us towards the centre of the city proper, and then continued on his way.

Fortunately, we didn't have to stay in the sun for long.

I had seen that a lot of the buildings looked like they had dug-in courtyards from above, but on the ground, we discovered that the entire city was dug in. They had roads above, but for the most part, the foot traffic moved around in trenches. They had angled walls on the sides, with wooden planks holding out the dirt. They didn't have to worry about mud, I supposed. Some sections were covered over, with tarps and thin roofing, often designed with holes along the edges to let the air circulate a little.

It was still super warm.

"So, that ostri guy mentioned someone called... Aguila Firstson Sandseller," I said, translating what I'd learned for my friends. "And he has a shop not too far from here that sometimes deals with out-of-towners like us."

"I can't get used to their names," Amaryllis said.

"Oh," Awen replied. "Their first name is their... actual name. The second part is the order of birth, which is important to the ostri, and the last is their class. Usually their first. Most of them don't mention if they have a second or third, but they'd also be part of their name."

"Like our tails," Desiree said with a swish of her twin tails. "An indicator of potential and rank."

"Neat!" I said. I was looking forward to getting indoors, and maybe learning more about this place. The name had to have a story behind it!

***

A note from RavensDagger

SPORE IS BACK! 

Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54658/sporemageddon

At long-long-long last, the story is back on RR! 

Daily posts until the end of Volume Four. That's a chapter a day for a whiiiile!