Cinnamon Bun

Chapter Five Hundred and Thirty-Two - 5²

"Whoa!" I said as I leaned way forwards on the railings and squinted my eyes to take in Deepmarsh. It was about midday, so the sun was almost directly overhead and shining down with a bright light that made the entire world feel vibrant and colourful, for all that the world below was filled with a lot of browns and greys.

Deepmarsh the country was known for its marshes. Deepmarsh the capital city? It was smack in the centre of a massive swampy space.

A dozen small rivers from the north and east and west all came together to meet in the same spot, forming what looked like a shallow inland sea.

I'd seen some maps of the region, so I knew that it wasn't actually a sea, just a really, really big river, one that ran from the capital all the way down to an estuary that met the ocean to the south.

Still, even from so high up, the lake was wide enough that it felt like we were hovering over a sea.

The water didn't look super inviting, being mostly brownish and sluggish, and it was covered in huge mats of greenery that seemed to slowly float along. Small, squarish boats bobbed atop the lake, moved by pole-welding grenoil. More impressive were the larger floating docks and platforms, some of which had entire small town's worth of homes and buildings sitting atop them.

And then there was Deepmarsh itself.

Unlike the boats and platforms all around, the capital was built of stone.

It was a five-by-five grid of gargantuan buildings. Each one ten times longer than the Beaver and probably three times as tall as the ship was long. They stood in the waters with just enough room between them that two of the smaller barges could float past each other in the grid of waterways between the buildings.

Some were topped by massive greenhouses, and others, especially on the edges, had wooden towers that rose up with docks and airship ports for incoming ships.

The buildings were lined by balconies and linked together with a confusing array of bridges and what looked like zip-lines that had boxes shooting past.

"It's huge!" I said.

Each building probably had as much stone as a decently large castle, and there were twenty-five of them! Some, to the north, were larger than the rest, with gilded pillars rising up around them and domed roofs that glinted in the noonday sun.

"That's the palace," Caprica said as she came to stand next to me.

"It is?" I asked. "Have you ever been here?"

She shook her head. "No. But it was covered in my studies on Deepmarsh. And Deepmarsh is an ally of Sylphfree. Or at least, not an adversary. The palace over there took a century to be built. The entire city took twice that. It's one of the engineering marvels of the world, really."

The city was two hundred years old? I couldn't tell from above, but it was certainly impressive. The palace reminded me a bit of images I'd seen of the Taj Mahal, only a bit blockier and sitting atop of a swamp instead of dry land.

"Why is it built like that?" I asked.

"I don't know, exactly," Caprica said. "I think the first home pad--that's their name for these square buildings--was a proof of concept, and when it proved successful, they built more of them. Some are housing, some contain factories." she pointed to one off to the side that had several chimneys belching smoke atop it. "And some are schools and living spaces and markets. I imagine that over time, some have taken on many tasks."

That was cool! But... why? Deepmarsh had some dry land to build on. They didn't need to build a whole city over the swamp like this. Though I supposed it would make invading pretty difficult. The grenoil were a semi-aquatic people. Their neighbours were either harpies, cervid, or humans, and none of them would be well-suited to assaulting a city sitting on so much water.

"Are they floating?" I asked.

"Dirt no," Caprica said. "They must weigh millions of tons. They're anchored to the bed of the lake far below, I believe. The stone is quarried from... ah."

I heard a click-click of talons on wood as Amaryllis approached. "The foothills of the Harpy mountains. About two hour's flight north of here," she answered. "Cutting and bringing all of that stone here was a chore. But it's a tough, durable material. The rivers pouring into the lake are all damned now, with the amount of water flowing in carefully regulated. If the grenoil want, they could flood all of the lowlands around here. It would be disastrous."

Why would they do that?" I asked.

"Well, they need to flood the land every few years to make the grasslands wet and to irrigate their crops... and it's a great deterrent. Can you imagine marching an army across ground that could be swept away at any moment? Aerial warfare is truly the worst thing to happen to the grenoil, all of these defences are rendered nearly obsolete by the invention of the airship."

Honestly, I thought Amy was being a little too cynical. Not every giant building project needed to be a cold-blooded preparation for a future war that might never even happen! Couldn't they build a capital like this just because they wanted to? It was pretty, and I bet it was a cool place to live in!

I had to stop staring as we came in closer. It was time to pilot the ship in towards the docks. Fortunately, Clive had been here before, and he knew enough to warn me that the docks around Deepmarsh were a little tricky.

We had to slow way, way down and signal with a few semaphore flags to the port authority tower that we were looking for a berth, then we were carefully directed to join a line of incoming ships.

Smaller ships, like floating skiffs with small sails and no balloons--just powerful gravity engines--zipped around and acted as tugs to push ships into place and keep order.

Eventually, after a solid hour of moving at a pace that I could have out-walked, we finally came up next to one of the free dock towers. Ropes were tossed back and forth, and large metal gantries came up from below and were adjusted to fit the Beaver's strange hull configuration.

We slowly lowered the output of our engine until we were confident that the dock could hold us, then shut it all down.

"Well done, Captain," Clive said. He bit the end of his pipe. "I'm going to take a breather, leave the dockwork to the younger folk."

"Sure thing," I said with a grin. "Can you keep an eye on the ship while we're off? I think most of us are going to be coming along for this one."

"Aye, I can do that," he said with a nod.

I grinned, then took a few minutes to make sure everything was in order. Amaryllis argued with the dockmaster over the fee we'd have to pay while our friends that were coming along got geared up for a bit of fun in an unknown city.

Once I checked in and made sure the Scallywags knew what they were doing with the ship, I ran down and got dressed up as well. I tossed my captain's hat off and picked up my trusty kettle helm, slipping my ears through.

I stepped out onto the main deck a few minutes later in my gambeson and with my breastplate on. It was a bit much, going out all armoured, but... well, this wasn't a familiar city, and there was a possibility that we'd be getting up to some trouble. If we did, then I'd rather do it armoured.

"Is everyone ready?" I asked as I scanned over my friends. Calamity was adjusting his moustache, unstrung bow on his back, Awen was next to him in her long blue coat, warhammer hanging from her belt, and Caprica was plucking lint off of her militaristic uniform. She had a sword and shield strapped to her back.

Desiree was over by Amaryllis, tails wagging happily behind her while she chattered away and Amy made vaguely disinterested noises. Both seemed pretty ready too.

"Alrighty then," I said as I did nothing to stop a grin from spreading across my face. "Let's go exploring!"

"And where, exactly, are we exploring?" Bastion asked as he walked over, very much looking the part of the noble paladin in his shiny armour.

"We'll start at the University Quarter," Caprica said with certainty. "Our quarry is an academic, a 'Mister Celiga.' If he's not there, then the people in that area ought to know where we can find him."

"Sounds good to me!" I said. "So... which building is the University Quarter? And why are they called quarters if there's more than four buildings?"

***