Isekai-eh Chapter-33 (Patreon)

As they moved towards the rapids, Mythlyn appeared in a flash of warpfire, standing at the very front of the canoe.

“I shall shatter that which you cannot avoid,” she said as she crouched down, hand held at the ready. “Though do not count on too much assistance. I fear it has been some time since I wielded my power in such a way.”

Jed nodded even as he looked past her to the oncoming rapids.

Gwen grabbed her rifle still in its case, holding them tight in her hands as they started down between the rocks.

Life soon became a hectic swirl of activity as Jed fought to keep them from the worst of the rapids, though he quickly discovered he had no idea which ones truly were the worst.

Not much time for thought either.

Their positional training quickly came to their aid, Gwen using her forward position.

“Foam, right,” she called, and he juked left.

“Straight ahead,” Mythlyn called, and Jed set his course around.

“Should’ve had her practicing with us,” Gwen swore as she pushed off against something.

“I… apologize, I had intended-”

“Not the time!” Gwen interrupted while shoving at something again. “Foam left, three seconds. More on the right in four.”

Jed followed, and as they made their way down the rapids, their timing improved. Occasionally, Mythlyn would vaporize an invisible rock, or cleared a path through a treacherous section.

“Oh… oh no,” Gwen said, getting Jed to take a second to look around. When that didn’t reveal anything, he listened.

A rumble. One that was growing louder, echoing down the canyon.

“Is that…”

“It seems we have encountered a waterfall,” Mythlyn said, glancing back at them, eyes resting on Jed for a second before flicking forward.

“Knew I messed up. There were a dozen other routes we could’ve taken,” Jed said, almost reaching for the map but having to adjust course as Gwen called out another obstacle.

Jed grit his teeth, wondering if Mythlyn could maybe use her wings to carry Gwen to safety. He was about to suggest it when they rounded the corner.

“Ha!” Gwen said, sitting down hard, chuckling softly.

“That is rather unexpected,” Mythlyn said looking out to the right.

“Okay, then,” Jed said, shaking his head as his gaze traced his way up the waterfall. It had to be at least thirty meters high. It plunged into the side of the river they were following, only leaving a narrow path along one side.

“A boon of calm. Perhaps we might rest here a time before we continue our mad descent,” Mythlyn suggested.

“Not really sure how to get this thing to stop,” Jed admitted, looking down at the handle. A little bit of shuffling with his chest didn’t help either. The scan didn’t even recognize the motor. Too simple, he figured.

Even so, he wove their route as lazily as he could, allowing Gwen to catch her breath.

The waterfall seemed to be the end of their adventure, as soon after, the cliffs started receding. In the distance, he could just make out where their fast flowing river looked to join a much larger body of water. And on the junction sat a small town, with docks sticking into the water.

“Looks like we made it,” Jed said, leaning back and letting out a chuckle, grip loosening on the rod.

“Most of us, anyway,” Gwen said as she shifted in the center of the canoe.

“What do you mean most?” Jed asked, looking between her and Mythlyn for a second before remembering their passed out pilot, who was very notably not in the canoe. Jed half-pushed to his feet before realizing what a bad idea it was, looking about them. “How long ago did we lose him?”

“Uh… long time ago. Maybe a couple minutes in? There was all that rock raining down on us and we slammed up against that rock right next to the wall, right?” Gwen said, holding her hand flat then moving it sideways, up in an arc. “We went up, he went down. Was a little more worried about being thrown out than catching him.”

“I do apologize for the showering rock,” Mythlyn said, folding her wings neatly behind her. “I hadn’t expected it to explode like that.”

“Yeah, me either,” Gwen said with a wry chuckle as she rooted about among the remaining saddle bags. “So, good news and bad news.”

“Bad first,” Jed said.

“Most of the food is soaked,” Gwen said, pulling out a soggy brick that Jed thought might have been cheese at one point.

“That can be salvaged, if we need to,” Jed said, though his gaze was fixed on the town ahead.

“Guess so. Anyway, good news is we’ve got all our ammo, so if we run into trouble, we’ll be ready,” Gwen said. Even as she spoke, she lifted one of the bags, holding it with one end pinched, letting water drain out of it. “Just glad neither of us rely on paper cartridge ammo.”

“That’s a thing?” Jed asked as he looked back out over the water. He felt kinda bad about losing their pilot. Though really, he mostly felt bad about not noticing he’d gone missing. The man had clearly been an addict of some sort, and had chosen to get high while he had people aboard his canoe.

Jed’s sympathy only extended so far.

Unfortunately, when Jed drew Metsa’s note out of his pocket, he discovered the food wasn’t the only thing that had gotten soaked.

“That’s not gonna be super useful,” Jed said, holding the page up and letting the water run down off it. The map itself was still intact, apparently having been put on using a different method than Metsa’s instructions, but the words were mostly gone.

There were a few he might be able to guess the meaning of, but he was suddenly wishing he’d thought to take a picture.

Which had him checking his cell phone, which was not-so-miraculously dry, secured in the waterproof pocket of his duster as it was. A pocket he hadn’t realized was waterproof, but was the only one on the inside with a zipper.

“Note to self, do not keep important documents in my pant pockets,” Jed said as he laid the map out on the edge of the canoe. Luckily, while the instructions on how to get there were wiped away, it wasn’t hard to remember their destination.

“Seven Falls,” Jed said, tapping the spot at the bottom end of the map. He remembered there being a line that followed the river the whole way, but there’d also been a line that cut across near the big bend. Unfortunately, both lines were gone. As were the notes that went with them.

“What about Seven Falls?” Gwen asked, looking down. “Oh hey, didn’t know you had a map.”

“Got it from Metsa, when she was leaving. It had instructions, but, well…” Jed gestured to the water flowing along beside them.

“Yeah, right,” Gwen said, twisting about to get a better look. “What were you saying about Seven Falls?”

“Apparently that’s where we’re headed. Supposed to meet them there. Just looks like we’re going to be figuring out the how part on our own,” Jed said, taking a picture of the map before powering down his cell and tucking it away. He didn’t know how long it’d be before he saw another charging pad. The pylon had had one, but he couldn’t count on stumbling across one of those every ten to fourteen hours.

“Honestly, kinda glad,” Gwen said, turning forward again to look at the oncoming city. “It’s nice to have a destination, but figuring out how to get there’s half the fun.”

“It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey,” Jed said, nodding along.

“Nah. Seven Falls is gonna be great, you’ll see, partner,” Gwen said, shading her eyes as she leaned over the side of the boat.

At the front of the canoe, Mythlyn turned back, her eyebrow raised a fraction. Then she vanished in a soft puff of purple-black warp-fire, returning to the revolver at his hip.

Instead of the grip, Jed ran his hand over the strap that kept the revolver in place. He’d been a little worried about the choice to add that strap, since it would slow him anytime he needed to draw the weapon. Considering its far more important purpose of keeping Mythlyn at his side…

Yeah, he was glad of the strap.

The small town quickly grew large as they drew close. Despite the late hour, there were people upon the docks, though not a great many. One of them noticed their canoe drifting closer and barked something at them Jed didn’t catch.

Gwen yelled back, and from context, Jed picked up that they were being directed to a dock further down for smaller craft.

Following the man’s instructions, Jed steered the little canoe into the appropriate dock. Nearby, hogging an entire pier to itself, was a large paddle-wheel style boat.

It was easily twenty meters wide, and six times as long. An impressive profile. Then again, the river they found themselves on was nothing like the one they’d just come down, the water seeming to be at least a kilometer across. It was hard to gauge those sorts of distance, Jed was finding, with the curvature of the world inversed as it was.

Point was that the river was more than big enough for the monstrosity of a boat.

The boat seemed to be making a point of its grandeur, with people filtering to and from it the main source of life upon the docks at that late hour.

“A pleasure wheeler,” Gwen said as they drew up to the dock. “That’d be the way to go, if we’re sticking to the water. No way we’d get bored on that.”

“You’ve been?”

“Nah. Pleasure wheeler’s can’t make it up to Vaskerville. Not many places they bother to stop in Six-oh-six. We don’t have the people for it to be worth it, most places.”

“They’re stopped here,” Jed pointed out.

“Probably stocking up on RDR,” Gwen said, grabbing a rope from the canoe’s bottom and tying it to one of the little rings hanging off the side of the dock. “Pleasure wheelers go through more than their share of demon-fuel. Or so Grams always said.”

“Hmm,” Jed said, the fatigue of the day pushed back by curiosity. “Sounds like a good opportunity.” With a glance down at their sodden supplies, he chuckled. “But what do you say we see what we can do about some dry bags first?”

“And then we check out…” Gwen paused, squinting as she attempted to read the gold lettering in the dark of the night. “The Queen’s Gambit?”

Grabbing one set of sodden saddlebags, Jed climbed out of the canoe, nodding. “And then we check out the Queen’s Gambit.”