Book 2 Ch 43: On the Lake

Michael looked at the winged in front of him in confusion for just a moment, recovering from the sight of a giant bird-person landing next to him and asking him a question with a high pitched voice.

“What do I want? Uh, we were hoping to find someone who could take us out onto the lake.”

The white winged snapped its beak together in a series of rapid clicks that Michael read as laughter.

“Dumb. None will take you onto the Lake of Beasts for free. Dumb. You would drown if you fell off a boat in that heavy armor. Dumb.”

“I was going to pay,” responded Michael. “And we wore the armor for travel through the woods, not for the lake itself.”

The winged clacked its beak one more time. “Different then. For the right price, Greytip will take you. Yes.”

“That’s good to hear. Who’s Greytip?”

“Dumb. I’m Greytip.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, come on Michael, he’s obviously talking in the third person. Get it together,” said Ollie shaking his head in mock disappointment.

Michael raised an eyebrow at him before returning his attention to Greytip.

“How much to go out on the lake?”

“How far? Farness matters.”

Michael focused on his Godseeker feelings. The pull was already very strong, so it probably wasn’t much farther.

He pointed in the direction it was pulling. “A few miles that way.”

Greytip shook his head and nibbled at one of the feathers on his arm for a moment. “Deep waters. Dangerous. Costly, costly.”

Michael looked around and saw a number of other white feathered winged with fishing lines in the water or working on small boats in the dock.

“If it’s too costly costly maybe I can talk to some of the other fisherman to see what they’d be willing to do.”

“None have a boat so big as Greytip’s to take all of you. Still, maybe not costly costly. Maybe just costly.”

“I may be able to swing just…costly.”

Greytip clicked his beak once and they spent a short period of time haggling. Michael had some trouble telling if the bird was a savvy negotiator or not, but decided that it was more likely that he just had different priorities. He actually charged less when Michael offered to pay with a number of smaller coins rather than just a few large ones. Once the negotiation was over, Greytip took the money and quickly flew up onto a nearby roof. For a moment Michael wondered if he’d just been had, but the feathered fisherman returned shortly after and gestured for them to follow.

While there was a central path that was solid, the majority of the stilted buildings and dock were disconnected with only a few wooden posts sticking out of the water. There were a number of winged making their way across the pegs easily with their taloned feet. When they reached the dock and got a better look at the boats, Michael once again wondered if they’d been fooled by the fog. They looked like nothing more than loose collections of driftwood. Once he got close through, he saw that the inside of them was a much more traditional shape for a boat, including a sail.

Greytip seemed to notice him looking.

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“Monsters in the deep attack boats, but not debris. We make boats look like nests, which look like debris. Lets us pass safely.”

“Are all the fishing villages winged?” asked Davi as he knelt down to run his hand along the surface of the water.

“No no. Only three. Most humans. They die a lot.”

“That we do,” said Pyotr.

Greytip took them further down to a larger boat that Michael guessed would be called a sloop, but he wasn’t exactly full of knowledge of boats. The bird hopped into his boat and started to prepare things, then he gestured for the rest of them to get in.