Chapter 91: Hold My Beer

Paragraph 82, subsection 3: On Knife Fighting.

Mutually agreed upon knife-fights are legally binding for settling disputes between Party Leaders. They are to be confined to indoor areas, as bleeding into the water is forbidden. The blade itself may measure no more than 2 inches for the safety of the fighters. Fights will be determined by first blood. Climbers failing to yield promptly after first blood are required to be beaten by any and all spectators until they yield.

Subsection 3-d, ‘William Oh’ addendum.

Knives are not allowed to be stored or wielded by Abilities invisible to the naked eye. First blood must be drawn by the knife itself, not any Ability or improvised weapon. Being stabbed by furniture or flooring no longer counts.

Stealing the opponent’s knife with an invisible Ability is prohibited, but stealing it with your feet is not.

Declaring a knife fight ‘against everyone present’ is no longer allowed, as it indirectly bypasses neutral ‘spectator’ judgement of who won and who lost.

Reparations for Large-scale property destruction is the responsibility of the losing party(s). If multiple losing parties were involved, the burden is shared between them.

“Any major things we should know?” Will asked as Loth scanned through the pages.

“Always ask permission to come aboard, don’t steal, don’t cheat at gambling, don’t destroy property, don’t kill anybody…

“Anything else?” Will asked.

“Oh yes, lots of it,” Loth said. “But most of it is either edge case or common sense. Be polite, pay your tab, and don’t pick any fights, and you should be fine. I’ll copy down the highlights. We should gather up the docking fee, too.”

Will raised a brow. “We don’t have much coin on us.”

“Thankfully The Flotilla operates on barter.” Loth said, “Some of my spidersilk ropes should cover it.”

An hour later, they were pulling up beside a wooden pier, floating on top of the waves, and jutting out from an oversized floating warehouse slightly smaller than Shimmer herself.

One thing that Will had learned since they’d arrived: Shimmer was not a normal-sized ship, as evidenced by the stares and the fact that the docking authority had refused them entry at the usual dock, citing fears of choking off the flow of ships.

So they made their way down to the industrial side of town where floating warehouses with extra robust piers were able to accommodate them without too much trouble.

When Will’s feet hit the pier, he could feel it shift minutely under him, giving him an idea of how much weight the entire pier could handle before it collapsed.

The people taking their docking fee seemed pretty miffed about a receiving a single crate of Loth’s rope until Will dared them to try and break it.

When they couldn’t, the tax collectors swallowed their complaints and bustled off carrying the crate over their shoulders. The warehouse master changed his tune, his manner turning obsequious after learning Will’s name.

“Of course there have been more than a handful of imitators, sir, but you’re the first person to dock sailing the corpse of a leviathan, which is all the proof I need that you’re the real William Oh.” The warehouse owner said with a grin.

Will studied the man, pondering how in The Tower word of his exploits had beaten him up here.

Sure, I took a bit of time getting here, but not that long.

The wind changed and blew the smell of Loth’s ‘substrate’ back towards them.

“Gods, is that your ship?” The warehouse master asked, muscling his way past the gag reflex with only a slight frown like a true hardened sailor.

“The entire back half is filled with rotting fish,” Will said, glancing over his shoulder at the ship. The front half was where they lived, and the back half, nearly the size of an entire warehouse itself, was where Loth was performing her experiments with soil creation and insect breeding.

They couldn’t really smell it anymore.

“The entire back half?” the man asked, to which Will nodded.

“Gods. Well, the druids up near the top of the Flotilla will gladly pay for bulk fertilizer, if you can find a way to deliver it to them.”

“Where can we buy supplies?”

“Market’s that way.” The warehouse master said.

“Billy-bob.”

“Yes, sir?” Billy-bob asked as the three spirit butlers rose out of the floor, causing the warehouse master to yelp and flinch back in surprise.

“You negotiate the daily docking fee, Stevie heads out with the Bakers to coordinate the resupply, and Noob watches the ship with Ria and Jean.”

“Of course,” The spirit butler said with a nod.

After weeks of living through a heady blend of danger and monotony, they were finally able to take it easy for a few days.

The first thing that all of them wanted to do was be nowhere near each other for an evening.

They agreed to return to the ship before sunup and then went their own ways, their oversized party breaking into smaller clumps of ones and twos.

June went off on her own, Mason and Reggie took off together, while Alicia went shopping with Loth and the bakers. Travis slipped away while no one was looking, and the Bakers split into several copies of themselves, with some watching the ship, some going with Loth, and some simply exploring.

Satisfied that everything looked like it would go smoothly, Will was the last one to leave the ship as the sun was already going down.

The first thing that Will noticed as he walked through the city was that the whole thing smelled of a potent blend of saltwater, rotten fish and shit, which explained why the dockworkers hadn’t been totally put off by the pungent odor of Shimmer.

The second thing he noticed was a significant drop in the number of women who had bothered to make their way up to the 6^th Floor.

The Fifth Floor was a bastion of civilization, with farms and family businesses…and soap, where the logistics of leaving The Tower to start a family and then bringing them back up wasn’t too difficult because there was generation spanning infrastructure to facilitate that.

But The Flotilla? It was not a nice place. Period.

The Sixth Floor was the dividing line between people who were happy to get a little strength and prosperity, and those who were Climbing because risking your life is fun.

In short, ambitious idiots like Will.

That gave the entire Flotilla a much different vibe than Akul. Rowdier, for certain, and significantly more lawless, even though they professed to have them.

He’d read through their laws himself before they’d docked, and most of them could be arbitrated by combat or mob justice. Which was ridiculous.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Will asked around and found out there was a bar called The Bridge, where Party Leaders met informally to introduce themselves and share information.

He passed through the market on the way, spotting a Druid Archetype selling blueberries for an outrageous price that rivaled actual Relics, flanked on either side by bodyguards, as if he was trading illicit narcotics.

The way people fought each other to crowd around it, it might as well be.

Twice he passed by a thin-walled building where he heard the ring of steel and grunts of pain as two men tried to slice each other with the stubby little fighting knives everyone seemed to carry around.

Just long enough to make some decent lacerations, but too short to hit major organs without a fair amount of creativity.

Just don’t let anyone slice you in the groin or neck.

Many sailors had their stubby blades widened and swooped back to cover nearly the entire hand, gradually becoming something more akin to a sharpened brass knuckle than an actual knife.

But it still didn’t extend further forward than two inches, so nobody said anything.

I gotta get me one of those knives, Will thought as he walked out of the market back into the winding wooden pontoon piers tucked between the ships that had been converted into businesses.

I wouldn’t say no to some blueberries, either.

The bobbing ‘streets’ were rapidly darkening as the shadows grew longer, and Will got to see a Nuker archetype step out onto the deck of a nearby inn and create thousands of firefly sized motes of flame that flickered over to light the city’s lamps in a hypnotizing display of magical control.

You could charge for a sight like that in The Ring.

Here, nobody even bothered to look up.

The city’s vibe changed from rowdy to ominous as the sun faded, leaving only ruddy orange circles of light with impenetrable pools of darkness that spread beyond the reach of each lantern.

Two Rogue Archetypes began flitting from shadow to shadow, pacing along beside Will as he walked through the –

Wait, do they think I can’t-

“You know I can see you, right?” Will asked, pointing at the closest one.

The masked man froze while another crept up behind Will.

“Hey, I know I look like an easy mark, but I have a Rogue Archetype, and my Acuity is really high,” Will said, taking a half-step back and to the side, keeping both of them in his vision. “So this is going to involve a lot less stealth and a lot more fighting than you’d like.”

The two rogues glanced at each other, shrugged and vanished into the darkness, in search of more unwary prey.

Will waited a moment, until he was sure they weren’t trying to circle around and get him when he relaxed his guard.