Seaport Blue

Uncle and I returned to the train. Bells and alarms were ringing like there was a crisis.

“Attention!” A voice said over the intercom. “All passengers be advised. The train will be reconnecting with the tracks momentarily. Please fasten yourselves in the appropriately marked seats to avoid injury.”

The intercom guy added that we were coming up on the sea port town of Blue.

Uncle and I took seats in our room, then buckled up.

GRUNG!

SCREEE!

Everything was shaking like an earthquake!

“Oh no!” I clung to Uncle.

“Relax,” Uncle calmed me down. “The train is just back on normal tracks now.”

That was like an earthquake. The transition was pretty loud and freaky.

Before people started leaving their rooms, I had to slip into a disguise outfit so no one would think I stood out. Snow white hair made it hard to blend in, so a paperboy hat was my cover up. Not that anyone was looking for me, but we wanted to be careful anyways.

Instead of my normal dress, I had to put on overalls…

Blegh! Overalls are for farmers! I’d never be a farmer if my life depended on it!

The train came to a slow stop as it entered the station. People were getting out of their rooms and standing in the middle aisle. We followed the crowd.

The train let out a loud POOWF! Then we were allowed to step off into the station.

“Good morning, guys!” I waved to my friends, who were getting something to eat at one of the vendors.

“What’s so good about it?” Indena barked, rubbing her eyes. Clearly someone was cranky. “Damn train woke me up when it hit the ground. And Mr. Buzzsaw over here kept me up all night!”

She pointed to Marek, who was putting on his fancy blue coat.

“Blame me all you’d like, but you were snoring too, no?” he remarked.

“That wasn’t snoring. That was me growling in anger at not being able to sleep!”

The tattoos on her arm started lighting up hot orange along with her eyes. Magic fire burst from her skin.

“Guys, please don’t fight.” Yamin said, sipping some coffee out of a mug. “Can’t we have a little peace and quiet? My head hurts…”

“Quiet? Unlike last night?” Indena put hands over her hips, glaring at Marek.

The three of them had to share a room together, so I’m guessing it didn’t go too well for them…

After we all got some food, we left the station, looking over a hill of wealth and prosperity.

This place was known as Blue. A bustling little place, with no end of fancy looking people carrying boxes onto big cargo ships to take across the world.

We were hoping a passenger boat would be willing to take us to the mainland. Unless we wanted to sneak on a cargo ship, but Uncle said no to that plan.

It was noticeably warmer here, even though we weren’t that far from a colder climate. Girls were wearing these gold trimmed summer dresses, and boys had short sleeved suits with silver accents. You probably wouldn't have guessed it was late October.

“Uncle, why is it so warm here?” I asked.

“This town is on a Longitude Point,” He replied. “Do you see that beam of light in the ocean over there?”

He pointed to this blue beam of light that sent up a pulse of energy into the sky every twenty seconds on the dot.

“What’s a Longitude Point?”

He explained that these were big towers across the longitude of the planet that were responsible for sending mana into the sky. That way the mana could travel all over the entire planet through jet streams.

For at least a few kilometers, they made everything warmer too, almost tropical.

“These were built by your ancestors to maintain the balance of nature,” he told me.

Wow, so the Exceed built these things?

Exceed are synthetic life forms built by daddy to protect humanity. I’m all that’s left. They disappeared long before I was born, so I’ve never met another of my kind before.

“I thought caves gave mana to the surface world.” Indena asked, remembering what I told her not long ago.

Mana caves transported spirit energy from the center of the world to the surface. That way plants and animals could feed on it and live. People made their own mana energy, so they didn’t need to get it from somewhere else.

Uncle said Indena was right, but those caves didn’t put mana energy into the air. These beam towers were the answer to that.

“Wow, that’s what those things do?” Indena sounded amazed. “Damn…lived near one my whole life and never knew that.”

“So, why does it make things warmer, Uncle Mel?” Yamin asked.

HEY!! He was my uncle, not hers!

I latched onto his leg tightly and buried my cheek into his pant leg. That’ll show her whose uncle he was!

“That is a side effect I’m not sure about. Conversely, there is an alternating variant known as the Latitude Points, which makes things colder."

“Oh, that’s so interesting.”

I was seriously giving Yamin a pouty face, but she didn’t seem to care. That meant I won this territory! Uncle is my uncle! “MUAHHAHAHA!”

“Why are you laughing like that?” Uncle looked down at me with a disapproving scowl.

“Easy, Shrimp. You’ll turn into a supervillain if you keep that laugh up,” Indena claimed.

Oh darn! I didn’t mean to laugh in real life! That was supposed to be in my head. Oh well. I just kept quiet and looked all embarrassed, hoping they’d move on to a different topic.

“Oy, Blue Boy,” Indena called out to Marek, “these people must get rich off of all these exports.”

Marek nodded his head. “Any sort of items leaving this part of Esma have to travel through this port. The 9% tax they take from everything really adds up over the years.”

With how many boxes I saw going into those big boats, I think I understood why 9% tax could actually make a profit.

It’s like, if I was the only one selling lemonade in my neighborhood, everyone would have to go through me to get it. And if there was a high demand for lemonade, I’d make a killing. That was really smart!

Oh, then if I put salt in everyone’s food, they’d get thirstier. I’d have to control the food market too, or at least have some influence over it. This idea will be the beginning of my lemonade empire!

Funny enough, I bring up the lemon example because we were standing under a Lemon tree.

Indena shook her head, clearly upset by something. “You know what sucks? This is gonna’ cost a fortune to get to Erdreich.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Since everyone is rich here, prices are gonna be high.”

Marek looked rich, so maybe he could get us to pay our way through a boat.

He let out a sigh, then reached into his pocket for a red card made of crystal.

“We’ll need to stop at a bank. I wouldn’t have enough on me for the ferry boat there.”

“Wait, can’t we just use our crystal cards?” Yamin pulled out her own red ID card.

Marek explained to her that the people here didn't really like the idea of using ID cards for money. Quite a few people didn’t trust the idea of having all their currency accessible on such a brittle piece of crystal.

“The boats we need don’t take crystal cards anyways. We’ll need physical money.” Marek said.

“Darn.” I snapped my fingers. “What about Pier tokens?”

I pulled out a gold coin with a bob haired goddess on it. I guess her name was Pier.

These remind me of those tokens you get at arcades. Hey, maybe Uncle would take me to an arcade if I asked?…er…um…wait, get your head in the game, Yalda!

Marek shook his head at my question about the coins. “They hate Pier tokens here too. Most wealthy people don’t like them.”

“Most ‘people’ don’t like them.” Indena corrected.

These things were everywhere, usually getting mixed in with piles of change. At least they looked cool, and were made of gold.

“Heh.” Uncle chortled. “What a burden they are.” He smiled, pulling his hat over his eyes.

I could always try to cash in on that lemonade empire, but it might take a few years to kick off. I guess a bank was the next best thing.

BOOM!

CRASH!

There was an explosion on the docks! What the heck was that?

Smoke was rising up from the end of one of the boats full of cargo. It was sinking!

It looked like there was a…a pirate?! He was marching up the docks, carrying a big crate of supplies out from the sinking boat.

Way out in the water, I saw something that looked like one of those pirate sailboats from the movies. No doubt this guy was scurvy scallywag of the sea!

That pirate didn’t look very nice, he was getting in people’s faces and waving a big pistol around.

He kicked someone down to the ground, then the person handed over something shiny. Probably money.

A band of guards in blue uniforms showed up, holding up rifles and spears to force the pirate out. Sailor looking people were mixed in with their ranks.

We quickly went down to see what was going on. Railings kept us from getting closer to the docks, but it would have been easy to jump over them.

“Get out of here!” The sailor captain shouted, clinging closely to his rifle. “We told you already, we won’t give you the scrap yard in exchange for protection!”

“Ya’ foolish blokes think wer’ not lookin’ out fer ya’?” A laugh gurgled out from the pirates gut. “Come on’ now, wer’ tryina’ help ya’!”

“Last chance, pirate, head back to your cove, or we’ll fill you full of lead!”

The pirate laughed again, then aimed at the sailor captain.

"That's exactly what wer' wantin'."

A few other pirate people appeared out of thin air behind him.

“Ahoy! What’s this now? I reckon wer’ seein’ some a’ those lads at sea!”

-WARNING! Threat sighted! IFF tags active-

-Pirate Crew tagged; Foe-

-Guards tagged; Friendly-

-Sailors tagged; Friendly-

My Identify Friend or Foe tags were lighting up! Uncle and all my friends tagged “friendly” along with the guards and sailors. Friendlies were highlighted with green, and foes highlighted red.

“Oy, Old Man…” Indena lit fire around her body, turning to Uncle. “I think we’d better head down and help out.”

“I should warn you, I don’t give you permission to kill a human being." Uncle said. "Pacify them, but don't kill.”

Indena agreed to those terms, and the two of them jumped over the railing, ready to battle against real life pirates.