Chapter 8-237: A Long Ride to Kiwi-Land

It took us another two days to finish circumvoluting the Mountains, winding back and forth between them and picking off a lot of oozes and a few shoggoth who hadn’t gotten the message that we shouldn’t be messed with.

Even though we didn’t stop, it took us that long because the Mountains on this side of Antarctica actually stood alone, deviating from the Transantarctic Mountains and effectively forming their own unnatural chain marching down to Princess Elizabeth Land and ending up near the Amery Ice Shelf, before abruptly vanishing with no sign or indication.

Yeah, those things were totally natural, yup-yup, nod-nod, wink-wink.

That, in turn, meant we had to turn around and quarter-circle the frozen continent to line up with Australia and the like for our trip up across the ocean to the Land Down Under.

Contact between nations was a far more sporadic thing than before. There were spellcasters who basically made a living scrying chosen locations, Writing or Holoing the information put on display there, while others returned the favor in ‘newsrooms’ across the world, desperately trying to maintain contact between the far-flung branches of humanity in an unfriendly world.

Transport via airplanes was the most common, and some of the riskiest, as going down in a plane was basically a death sentence without any of the sea traffic there that might rescue you, and nobody to Waterjump you to safety.

Transport via the sea could handle larger numbers, but was slow, and there was the very real possibility of encounters at sea with the hostile aquatic races, human cargo basically being seen as either a floating buffet or slaves/reproduction sources by the sahaug and the Deep Ones, and even the merfolk could get very prickly about territory.

Because of that, world trade had never developed to the massive extent it could have after the Shroud arrived, and technology had not spread. International phone cables had all been severed long ago, so alternate sources of information were all that could be used.

The single most reliable way to get across the ocean was on warships, as the aquatic races didn’t want to take on a fleet of naval vessels. Trade vessels generally assembled in convoys escorted by naval vessels if they wanted to get to and from somewhere, raising the cost of trade immensely to do so, and hiring security forces to help safeguard their ships was also a thing.

There were plenty of colluders happy to report if you didn’t hire security, or maybe the sea races’ Seers just sussed you out. Any attempt to sail a ship without them was going to end badly sooner or later... unless you were dealing with them on the sly, and truly didn’t need the security.

On top of all that was the fact that any smaller port cities, towns, and villages were potential raiding targets of the sea races or creatures crawling up from the depths, and only the larger port cities were able to fend them off and stay in business. Fewer ports of call meant less trade.

There were whole cities and islands in the Pacific that had been virtually wiped clean by the assaults of the aquatic races, their populations eaten or carried off into the deeps to unspeakable fates. Indonesia and the Philippines had never managed to develop properly because of this, and there were very few of anything that could be called proper ports of call there, greatly hindering their ability to defend and improve themselves.

Naturally enough, there were Shroudzones, too, the most well-known of which was Sydney, where the spirits of murdered aborigines had risen up and slaughtered the entire population of the city, turning its largest place of habitation into a literal ghost town overnight, the corpses of descended settlers now serving their former lessers in undeath.

That wasn’t our first stop, of course. Our first stop was New Zealand!

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New Zealand had a much more integrated culture with its natives than Australia, which had shown its value by the much weaker undead presence that had risen there, and was put down by valiant new Powered springing forth from all the people.

The Kiwis had united even harder when the raids started coming from the seas, building up shore defenses repeatedly and relentlessly, pushing invaders back time and again with blood and fire.

They didn’t ship out much sheep anymore compared to another Earth, and had to rely on the Aussies for a lot of their iron, but in terms of grimly enduring siege mentality, the Kiwis lost to nobody on the planet. Their Maori Berserkers were the most famous of their units, taking axes, greatclubs, and spears, as well as a lot of shotguns, out to meet the Deep Ones and sahaug who seemed to take turns coming at them from east and west.

Still, even their hardened Shoreguards didn’t see a motorcycle come riding in out of the sea every day, or watch it put a radiant bolt of light through the skull of a megalodon with a six-foot dorsal fin that was having it out with a pod of angry orcas.

Whalecaller Kauri of New Zealand was one of the first human Druids to make Faux Seven, and his focus had been the sea. In addition to being one of the best deepwater scouts and a sentinel against infiltration by the aquatic races, he had further Awakened and spoken with many porpoises, orcas, and whales, negotiated a peace between their races and Humanity, turning New Zealand, and especially Cook Strait, into a sanctuary for them in times of danger.

Needless to say, whaling around New Zealand carried the death penalty now.

The Whale Nation of New Zealand was at once both formidable and wary. The animals couldn’t gain spellcasting ability themselves, but they had proven lethally effective hunters and scouts, and with humans providing areas of relative safety, food so they didn’t have to spend so much time hunting, and loads of healing magic, they had proven incredibly effective at punishing the invaders from the sea time alongside the inventive monkeys from the land.

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The brawny men working the sturdy trawler called out in excitement, and whooped when I blew a Shardray through the skull of the mutant shark, a trademark pet of the sahaug and a born whale-killer. They held out massive hooks, calling out in Human that they’d tow the thing back for food for the whole town, and I gestured out, bringing the hooks from their hands and into Master Fred’s, who smoothly descended into the water to anchor them into the massive beast.

One of the orcas burst out of the water next to me, uttering the sharp cries of their kind. I listened intently, and nodded, “Of course! Line up next to Master Fred if you have any injuries, and he’ll get you fixed up quickly if I don’t.” I reached out and blew a full Heal through this cetacean knight of the sea, who had introduced himself as Carchadon’s Bane, mending the torn hide and bleeding wounds he was currently suffering. He hadn’t taken a direct bite from the creature or he would have lost a lot of mass, so the spell fixed him up pretty good.

He had a crapload of Soak, which had likely saved his life. This was a Classed Orca, and decently high-Level, too!

Flashes of light came from down below as Master Fred used his Healing Wrath to much the same effect, treating the larger orcas and the smaller, faster porpoises who acted as ranging scouts for the attack pod. In a few minutes, he rose back to the surface and gave a thumbs-up to the men on the trawler, who waved back and gunned the motor as they began to crank the massive shark up to their stern.

Master Fred hopped up and landed on Sleipner as the bike glided by beneath him smoothly, and we came in beside the trawler as it and its heavy load, the monstrous shark’s head now partially cranked out of the water to reduce drag, headed back to shore.

“Thanks for your help!” a big man covered in islander tattoos waved out to us. He then did a doubletake when he saw me. “T-Traveler?” he squeaked in amazement.

I sketched a headbow to him. “Who do I have the honor of addressing?”

His face puffed up so proudly he almost lifted off the deck. “Manaikai the Shark-Eater!” he proclaimed enthusiastically. “These are my boys, all of us Shark-Eaters, and the best meg-hunters in these waters!” he proclaimed proudly.

I noted the half-dozen harpoons in the beast, which had doubtless contributed greatly to the fight. They had been reloading the guns when we rode up.

“Sahaug jump you, Captain?” I asked knowingly, and he scowled, reaching down to pick up the scaled corpse of a shark-man and shake the thing like the bulky corpse was a rat.

“Yeah, they damaged the batteries for the harpoons, or it wouldn’t even have been a fight. Pump some lightning through the cables, paralyze the sucker, and Carch and his boys would have torn out its gills and killed it straight off,” he nodded strongly, glancing at a row of parallel slashes on his left arm with a scowl. They probably would have torn his arm off without Soak.

“Gather everyone wounded together,” I told him, bringing up a healing glow on my fingers he was familiar with. He grinned happily on seeing that, getting everyone to stand close together in my line of sight. Master Fred dumped his Wrath into my Mass Cure, and I rained it down from atop them, golden positive energy flowing over them with energetic power. Cuts, gashes, scrapes, bite marks, and several puncture wounds all sealed up, blood was swept away, and they were as good as new.

“Whoa!” The Shark-Eaters all looked around in astonishment at the power of the healing magic that had just gone through them. “That’s some magic, Lady Traveler!” their boss called out, impressed.

I patted Master Fred on the head. “Healing Wrath gives quite a kicker to it when used together!” I replied easily. He gave Master Fred a big thumbs-up, and Master Fred saluted back calmly. I saw Manaikai crouch, squint, and wince openly when he made out the throat wound on Master Fred, so he didn’t make any stupid remarks about it.

Since I obviously had no problem hearing him, and the spray between us was totally subdued, he leaned on the side of the boat and talked down with us while the whales paced us smoothly. “What brings the bearer of the Human tongue to New Zealand?” he asked with a big grin. “The shark-hunting here is great!”

“Just passing through and getting a Teleport lock in case I need to get here in an emergency.”

“No shit?” He’d never heard the word before today, but the power of a genetic language meant that he understood it anyway. “So, like, if we had a real problem, we could call for help, even if you were out in America or something?”

“That is correct, Captain. And I could bring friends.” I winked at him and gave Master Fred a casual squeeze, effectively telling him I was taken, and he shouldn’t get any ideas.

He got it clearly, giving Master Fred an assessing look, thinking over how deep those hooks had been buried, healing the whales, going into the water, and how smoothly the scarred Warlock moved for his height and build.

I noted that the rest of the crew was sitting in a circle, and big knives and small axes were rising and falling in sprays of pale blood. “You deboning the sahaug?” I asked directly.

“Yeah, the orcas don’t mind the taste, and we don’t want ‘em rising as undead. But the bones can get stuck in ‘em, so butchering ‘em into chum works best.” There was not an ounce of shame or guilt in his face. He could have been discussing the weather, and it also didn’t bother me at all.

“Out of lemons, lemonade,” I just sniffed knowingly, and he grinned ferociously in appreciation. “I’ll vivic the bones so you don’t have to grind them, just pile them up in a corner.”

“Awesome!” he chuckled again, and blinked as Master Fred raised his arm up, looking straight down.

“Shit, you’ve got an undead shark sitting a hundred meters down underneath you!” My voice carried into the water, and the whales about promptly scattered like professionals. “No, don’t go down there yet,” I broadcast to the whales. I murmured a Detect Undead at V, and looked over the side, drawing out Clavus. “Ah ha, there you are. Thought you could surprise us, did you?”

Aqueous was coming in handy faster than I thought it would.

Shards spun up, doubled in number as the watching Shark-Eaters blinked in shock, and then speared down into and through the water. The ones closest to the side could look down and see them plunge down like a gathering of stars, incredibly vivid right until they hit something, as the spiritual nature of the vivic energy about them made them unusually visible in the water despite the distance.