Sampson hefted the big box, nodded acknowledgement to the group, and walked off. For the next quarter of an hour, the group ate and joked. Marco found it was easier to like Kuzai now that he was off his ship. Having one completed trip with the Pulper on the books and having found he was perfectly reliable in describing at least one destination helped with that, too.

Clora came back periodically during the wait, topping off drinks and delivering more pork until, finally, even Riv found himself full to the point of bursting. They had a few minutes to digest the food before Sampson came back, holding a much smaller sack instead of their crate and with an envelope pinned to his side.

“Here.” The thick-set man tossed the sack to Riv and handed the envelope to Elisa, proving he had a pretty good sense of who handled what in visiting crews. “The rest of the stuff in that sack might not be garbage, but it’s not saleable here for now. The envelope has the details of each transaction, and total gains in credits. I scribbled in a rough conversion to gold pieces too, but don’t trust that number absolutely. It changes a little every day.”

Elisa opened the envelope and took a look at the invoicing. Her eyebrows quirked further and further as she got deeper into the document.

“This seems like a lot.”

“Told you.” Kuzai set down his fork and took one last drink of juice before sighing in satisfaction. “One man’s flotsam is another man’s salvage, they say. It’s not as much as you think, though. Remember, this is an outpost that makes money in a lot of ways. If I were you, I’d hurry to those baths. Sooner or later the sellers and crafters are going to find you, and you’ll be busy after that.”

The crew didn’t need to be told twice. They hurried to the inn, where the older, very mundane man working the counter set an experienced eye on them as soon as they walked through the door.

“Baths are that way. Kuzai, show them how to use the valves. Two tubs for each of you, one for cleaning, one for soaking. Don’t put your dirty things in my tubs, please. There are some barrels at the back of the room for that. You want soaps?”

“Tell us what we are getting and what it costs.”

“You want the good stuff, you have to pay. It takes me a long time to make. The normal soap will get you clean. The good soap will get you… cleaner. It’s hard to describe if you haven’t used it before. Then there’s armor and gear soap, which is rougher and you shouldn’t use on your body. If you wanted everything, it would be this much.”

The old man slid a piece of paper forward with a surprisingly high number on it. Marco had no idea how much money they had actually made, but the decision ended up not being in his hands to begin with. Elisa took one look, made a motion with her hand that encompassed the entire group, and put her credit invoice on the counter.

“All of us, everything. Is there any time limit to how long we can use the tubs?”

“None, Miss.” The old man made a mark or two on the invoice, then stamped it before handing it back to Elisa. “There are two rooms that handle six people each. Divide them how you will.”

Elisa and Aethe all but sprinted to their room after grabbing their soaps, while the men followed only slightly slower behind. When they made it to the tub room, Marco took a moment to take it all in. The center of the room featured a huge brass tub suspended above a flame, dominating the center of the room and feeding out to twelve tubs through a series of pipes. At the back of the room, four large barrels stood ready, also attached to the hot water source.

Kuzai jumped into action without anyone having to request he help, turning three valves that led to tubs and filling the barrels.

“Put your gear in here. Whatever you want clean. Some people don’t do weapons, but I’ve heard being better maintained helps weapons. I’m not much for weapons myself, but it won’t hurt them, at least. And it makes them shiny, if that’s your thing.”

“How worried should I be about ambush?” Marco glanced at the heavy door that led to the outside world. “Is it safe here?”

“No place is safe.” Kuzai started loading his gear into his own bucket. “But this is an inner sea outpost. If you didn’t have anyone chasing you when you came in, there’s about as little physical danger here as you could ask for. Even if these people had malice, they wouldn’t want to mess with a returning captain. And you don’t read as a normal kind of returning captain, really.”

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“How so?”

“You don’t look strong but you don’t look scared. That’s a mystery. Smart people don’t fight with mysteries if they don’t have to.”

Marco accepted all that at face value. If Sampson was average for this place, he wasn’t very worried in the first place. It wasn’t a skill, but Marco was starting to get a sense for who he could take in a fight even without any system interference. It wasn’t always accurate, but nobody they had seen on this island set his nerves on edge in that defensive way. He ended up dumping all his gear and clothes into the bin before turning back to the tubs.

“Kuzai, there are two bars of soap in this package. Why?”

“Just start using them. You’ll see.”

Marco hopped into his tub and got down to seriously cleaning. It was almost impossible how well the soap worked, even from the first seconds of using it. He rubbed it into a washrag and then across his skin, leaving swaths of slightly different-colored skin in the wake of every swipe. By the time his whole body had some attention, the water around him was a murky, suspicious brown.

“The second bar is for a second bath,” Marco said. “Because the water leaves you dirty.”

“Something like that. Pull the drain and refill.” Kuzai was working on his own cleaning in his own tub. “Use the second bar. You’ll like the results.”

The second round of cleaning was much less dramatic, but also much less disturbing. Now that the bulk of the gross had been rinsed off, the water grew soap-clouded but had much less difference in color. In the meantime, the soap had taken every bit of dirt and grime from Marco’s hands and fingernails, not to mention how completely dirt-free the rest of him was.

“The other tub is just for enjoying,” Kuzai said. “If you’ve used up both the bars of soap, that’s your last rinse and soak. If I understood those young ladies mood out there, you might as well. You’ll have time.”

Marco filled the second tub and lowered himself in. He immediately had to admit something to himself: while the girls seemed to like this kind of thing better, that appearance was more a function of them being honest about things than him liking the baths less. He felt himself drop down through another level of tension he hadn’t even known was there, reaching a deeper level of relaxation he hadn’t suspected he had in him to reach.

“This is nice.”

“Yup.” Kuzai was in his soaking tub not long after Marco. “I thought about this every day on that island. The grime just sort of creeps up on you out there, and I was sleeping in the dirt. My hair is going to be lighter after this in more ways than one.”

Riv was just finishing his second bar of soap, which was funny enough to think about. There was just more of him to clean these days. When they had picked him out of captivity in some dungeon’s cages, he had been about the same size as everyone else. Now he was a bigger, stronger-looking being in all ways. Marco wondered if he looked older in the same way Riv did now.

“So what’s your plan, Kuzai? After this.”

“That’s a matter for discussion and thought.” Kuzai waved a hand thoughtfully above the tub. “One way or another, I’m making my way towards the center, towards Main Island. I have to get there eventually. How fast I do that is another issue. So is the with who part of things.”

“You shouldn’t have any trouble hitching a ride. Plenty of ships come through here, right?”

“Enough. But not every ship is a ship I want to ride on. You remember how your whole crew bristled when I came aboard? Imagine how I feel as a non-combatant on some raiding ship. It’s like I’m a baby in the care of lions.”

“In the care of what?” Riv asked, finally sinking into his soaking tub. “What are those?”

“Big dangerous furry things. Sharp teeth, sharp claws.”

“Ah.” Riv nodded. He knew about that kind of thing, at least. “Got it.”

“I guess that makes sense. But where are you heading?” Marco said. “You keep saying Main Island. I’m guessing that’s the capitol, more or less.”

“More or less. It’s where I’m from, originally. I haven’t been back in a long time,” Kuzai said.

“Bad blood?” Riv settled further into the warm water. “Or something else?”

“Just the nature of the job. I need trees to process to advance my class, and I wanted to see the world. That meant going out to the edge of things where there’s unlimited lumber nobody wants. It’s easy to lose track of time when that happens.”

“You really haven’t been back?” Marco asked.

“Once, for a year, when my parents were ailing. They went close to one another, which is what I think they wanted. But once they were gone, there wasn’t much left.”

“And now?”

“And now I have more wealth than I’ll ever be able to spend, and the kinds of things I’d have to do to level past where I’m at are simply outside of what I’m willing to do. I’d have to train up in different directions to fight giant living trees, and even if I could do that, it’s not what I want to do.”

“Fighting living trees is actually sort of fun,” Marco said. “We’ve done that.”

“Be that as it may, it's not what I want to do.” The pulper shifted in his bath, then started to heft himself out. “Actually, on that note, I have some conversations to have. When you are done, remember to rinse off your armor with that spigot before you wear it. You don’t really want that equipment soap on your skin.”

Riv and Marco hung out for another ten minutes or so. When the water in their tubs finally started to cool, they threw their equipment into the dryer and let the hot air work on it for a few more minutes before dressing and heading out. The girls were surprisingly already there, very clean and ready to check out the rest of the island.