The True Endgame

Having made it back to the site for their future town, the crew is getting to work unloading materials from The Shoebill when Rao returns with Shogun.

“Find anything?” Fenrir asks, still feeling deflated from just how predictable he is. Him climbing up onto The Shoebill’s railing for comedic effect completely backfired on him when everybody called out that he wouldn’t actually jump overboard, and then he didn’t do it even after threatening to.

“Yo, and yeah. Pretty big town to our north. They seemed friendly. Were waving to me when they saw me flying over, and nobody tried shooting me down, so they can’t be too bad,” Rao explains.

“Maybe they just wanted to lure ya in and trap ya?” Tabitha suggests.

“I don’t know. Maybe. They looked nice, though.”

“Did you say anything to them by any chance?” Fenrir asks.

“Nah, bro. I just flew around and checked things out,” Rao explains.

“They probably thought you were really suspicious.”

“Why? I was just flying with Shogun.”

“I’d assume you were the scout of a potential threat if you were doing that to me.”

“That’s because you’re paranoid.”

“I think you’re just too trusting.”

“Am not!”

“Hey, Rao. How many of the griefers that have messed with you were people pretending to be your friends?”

“Most of them. It’s the only way they could find out where I kept on hiding. Why?”

Everybody looks at Rao in disbelief of just how truly gullible he is. Even Serra is pitying him. And, for once, Tabitha looks like she wants to comfort him rather than smack him away with her hammer. She doesn’t, of course, but she looks like she kind of wants to.

“Well, we should deal with them sooner rather than later. They might not appreciate us setting up shop here, so if they’re going to be annoying threats, it’s best to find that out soon,” Fenrir explains.

“Bro, not everybody is out to get you,” Rao says.

“I’m starting to understand how and why you got griefed so much. You’re still too trusting even after all those times.”

“Should I not trust you?”

“I – I mean, yeah, you can trust me, but you don’t know if you can trust others. Are you forgetting what happened when you trusted that Olly is a girl?”

“Fair, bro. Fair. But, I think I’m fine. You’re here to call out the untrustworthy punks now! Plus that explosion girl with the huge chest can blow them up if they try to do anything to us.”

“Oi, it ain’t polite to refer to girls by their chest size,” Tabitha scolds Rao.

Rao, being stupid enough to dare and stand up for himself against Tabitha, asks, “You jealous?”

Tabitha takes her hammer off of her back and taps its blunt end against her free hand. “Ya know I could’ve made myself whatever size I wanted to, right?” she asks.

“I – I… yeah,” Rao answers, all of his confidence to stand up for himself now gone as he backs away.

“You’re lucky we need ya to lead the dog to where that town was.”

“I guess we really should try to get that done with right away. Was it on the coast, Rao?” Fenrir asks.

“Yeah. Looked like they had a harbor, so we could sail up to save some time. Would probably take a day to walk up there, and I don’t think Shogun could handle flying us back and forth,” Rao answers.

“We really need to get some faster ground transportation. I don’t suppose you were able to see horses or anything up there?”

“Actually, yeah. I did.”

“We might be able to convince them to part with some of their horses then. We do have all that coin now.”

“Oi, what’s this about my coin?” Tabitha asks.

“You’re the logical one, Tabs,” Fenrir says. “You know we can’t hold onto the coin forever. If we can use it for something useful, we’ve got to use it.”

For the first time, Tabitha acts how she looks by crossing her arms over her chest and stomping her feet. But, she calms down and sighs before long and says, “Fine. Only because I don’t want to spend months doin’ this the hard way. We might as well make life easier on ourselves.”

“So, how do we want to do this then?”

Olly chimes in and says, “Well, Rao said it’s on the coast, so we don’t really need him to lead the way. We can leave Tabs, Rao, Cass, and Nell here to build while the rest of us head up to the town.”

Fenrir looks around. They may not have encountered any monsters nor other threats since their arrival to this area, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to be concerned about leaving his girlfriends here without his protection. Then again, both of them are more than capable of handling themselves, and they have Tabitha in case anything goes wrong.

As much as Fenrir doesn’t want to admit that the shortest, most loli member of his crew is the strongest, he can’t deny it. Tabitha is, by far, the strongest fighter that they have. Her small figure is way too effectively deceptive.

“Well, I guess we might as well go and get that done with,” Fenrir says.

“You have three hours!” Nell says.

“Before what?”

“Before gaming time is over for the day!”

“Have you been keeping track? Doesn’t feel like that much time has passed.”

“It does not matter, my hero. Your girlfriends are always right!”

“Sure, sure. Alright, I’ll be back within three hours,” Fenrir says before kissing both Nell and Cassiel. Serra, despite coming with him, also asks for a kiss and gets one.

When Fenrir turns around, he sees Oleander standing on the tips of his toes with closed eyes and puckered lips.

Fenrir flicks him in the forehead and steps aboard The Shoebill.

Tabitha, Rao, Cassiel, and Nell are left behind to get started on building as the rest head toward the town that Rao spotted earlier.

With good winds and Tabitha’s engine, the wooden walls of the other town come into sight before long. Somebody posted in a guard tower even flashes a light at The Shoebill after noticing the vessel.

“That was faster than I thought it’d take,” Fenrir says.

“Why are they flashing us?” Serra asks.

“To welcome us, I hope.”

“Or to tell us that they’ll kill us if we come any closer!” Oleander shouts from The Shoebill’s wheel.

“Well, they’re not doing anything threatening, and Rao said they seemed friendly enough, so… let’s try and show some good faith,” Fenrir suggest as he pulls the cannons back.

Serra and Corwin work together to pull the other cannons back as well.

“Rao didn’t mention this part,” Fenrir says as a new sight comes into their vision.

The town’s wall completely surrounds whatever is within, and the town even extends out into the water and has to rely on a gate built into the wall to let vessels come and go from the harbor. The entire length of the wall in the water, save for the gated section, has breakwaters stacked up against it and spreading out into the water.

“What are those?” Serra asks.

“What?” Fenrir asks back.

“The… triangle things?”

“The stuff along the wall? They’re used to break up waves. Waves will break on them instead of hitting the wall at full force, I’m guessing. If these guys have put up a wall in the water and have those all around it… I’m thinking we might need something similar. The waves must get pretty bad here.”

“Great,” Oleander says. “The ocean is just as cruel in-game as it is in real life! I thought games are supposed to provide escapism?”

“You only care about games providing sex,” Fenrir retorts.

“You’re not wrong about that.”

A man standing on the wall above the gate waves at The Shoebill and signals them to come on in.

“They’re either desperate for visitors or this is a trap and we’re screwed,” Fenrir says.

“We could always just park her out here,” Oleander suggests.

“Then we’ll have to swim to and from – wait.”

Fenrir looks out to the ocean just in time to see a certain serpent swing her tail up over the surface.

“Yeah, we’ve got support, so we’ll be fine. If we go down, she’ll be taking this wall of theirs down,” Fenrir says.

“Having a giant serpent friend is really useful,” Oleander says.

“She’s best girl,” Serra says with a nod.

With confidence from knowing that if they get attacked, their favorite non-humanoid serpent is here to avenge them, The Shoebill sails past the gate and into the calm waters of the town’s harbor.

While the town may not be anywhere as large as Port Tugator is, it puts a smaller settlement such as Coastedge to shame. More importantly, it brings a large smile to Fenrir’s face.

Why?

Because almost every single boat in the harbor looks like it’s meant for fishing. The harbor is full of people transporting fish and fishing supplies, the boats are lined with fishing rods and nets, and there’s a station on the dock for some fishers to hang their catches from to measure and weigh them – and, probably, to take screenshots with.

Just from the harbor alone, Fenrir feels like he’s at home and a burning desire to go fishing this very moment gets lit within him.

Unfortunately, he has to take care of boring business stuff first.

“You totally trust them just because they’re a bunch of fishers, don’t you?” Oleander asks after noticing how excited Fenrir is. Fenrir may not realize it, but his ears are perking straight up and his tail is excitedly wagging behind him.