by V. A. Lewis
"Sure, uh, just give me a minute. I’m going to freshen up, ok?"
I nodded, and pointed back at the ship. "Could you meet me in my room?"
"Of course!" The young woman headed to a makeshift bath as I returned to the boat.
More people were waking up now, and it was starting to get a little crowded; I did not plan to do anything against Ginah’s Crew, but I wanted to fish for more information as well as covertly get back my gold. That meant I had to do it in private rather than in public.
I waited for a while in my room, just sitting in my bed. Eventually, I heard a knock and a voice called in.
"Hello?"
"Come in," I said, standing up.
Lisa entered, dressed in a plaid shirt and pants, looking very different from the robed young woman I had gotten used to seeing for the past few days. She smiled her usual smile as she approached me.
"Did you need something?"
"Yes." I nodded my head and put a hand out. "My gold. I want it back."
She immediately froze; the smile on her face slipped as she took a step back, and twiddling her thumbs, she spoke out slowly. "Y-your gold? Come on now, Melas. Jack and I lost our ship and our crew. We don’t really have anything left."
I just stood there, arm still outstretched. I continued staring into the young woman until she heaved a sigh.
"Fine," she huffed, and procured a bag of coins from a pocket. "Here."
I gladly accepted my money back, then nodded. "Thank you."
She scowled. "Was that all you wanted? Because I feel like I just came into your room to get robbed."
"Seems like you’re a little bit low on gold," I said, pointing out the obvious.
Lisa snorted. "No thanks to you."
"Well," I started, pulling out a few coins from the pouch. "What are you willing to do to make some of it back?" I grinned underneath my mask as I watched her eyes light up.
"That’s an interesting proposal. What do you want?"
I counted out ten gold coins, and placed it on the wooden table next to my bed. "I want to know everything there is to know about Ginah’s Crew."
It was a lot of gold, but I was pretty sure things like information were worth a lot— especially in the underground. And since Lisa was someone who was experienced with such deals, I knew I was at a disadvantage here; I had no idea what was a good price, and ten gold seemed like a decent amount to start off with.
Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Well," she started, keeping her voice neutral. "I feel like if you want me to tell you everything about Ginah’s Crew, you might want to fork up some more gold."
"I’m not playing this game, Lisa," I lied. "This is all you’re getting back from me. So either speak up, or walk away empty handed."
This was a gambit. If she did not bite on the bait, I’d have to concede and give her more than I wanted to. I was prepared to say goodbye to all the gold she had returned me considering I had already given it away in the first place. However, I’d have preferred if I did not spend so much on things I didn’t need to.
Shuffling her feet, the young woman took a deep breath and sighed. "Fine," she said, putting up her hands, "you caught me. That’s more than enough. And it’s not like there’s anything interesting to tell you anyway."
I relaxed slightly upon hearing that. "So what is there to know?" I asked.
"As I told you yesterday, Ginah’s Crew is considered to be one of the better pirate groups around. Everyone knows if you’re in hard times and considering to turn to criminal activity, but don’t want to do anything egregious, Ginah’s Crew would probably accept you."
"Wait," I cut her off, "why would you even want to do that?"
"What do you mean?" Lisa frowned.
I paused, choosing my next words carefully… or stupidly. It felt like a mix of both, considering I had to ask the question in the first place. "Why would you… turn to crime? Can’t you just find another job?"
"Do you even read the news, Melas?"
I hesitated. "No?"
Lisa looked at me inquisitively, but did not comment any further. "Laxis, as a country, hasn’t been doing so well for the past few decades," she explained. "You at least know about the Free War, right?"
At my nod, she continued.
"During the Free War, the Holy Xan Empire claimed that any country that aided them in invading the Free Lands would be rewarded, but those that did not would not be punished. Since Laxis did partake in a moderate amount of trade with the Free Lands, the King at the time decided to remain neutral. Stay out of the war."
I drew my lips into a thin line as I realized what happened. "And when the Holy Xan Empire was forced back to their continent, they blamed you guys."
"They blamed everyone who did not offer them support," Lisa corrected me. "And that’s not just Laxis. It was Elius, Puer, and a handful of small countries too. However, what makes our country stand out was what happened before the Holy Xan Empire left.
"The Holy Xan Empire realized they could not maintain their supply lines, and demanded all countries that had chosen to remain neutral to switch sides or face punitive consequences. Our King thought that if all the countries that chose to remain neutral refused this demand, the damage the Holy Xan Empire could do would be negligible. Much to his surprise however, more than half of the countries acquiesced, and only the few countries that stubbornly refused now face punishment, at first through naval blockades, but now it’s just a trade embargo."
"So now," I said, extrapolating from what I had just learned. "The country is in an economic crisis. That’s why people are turning towards crime." It was also the reason why the donations to Jay’s orphanage dried up around this time. The timeframe lined up with how things had to have gone down.
"Right," Lisa confirmed. "That’s why people turned to piracy. That’s what happened with Ginah’s father. 15 years ago, he was the most feared pirate around Luke. But Ginah didn’t like how her father did things. She didn’t like how cruel and terrible he was, so she killed him."
"Just like that?" I asked, blinking.
"Just like that." She nodded. "You have to understand, Ginah was trained to be a natural born killer since she was a little girl. And when she beat her father in combat and killed him, she reformed his original group, calling them Ginah’s Crew."
"But wouldn’t some of them be unhappy about that?"
"They would," Lisa said. "And they were." She gestured out the porthole, towards the people outside going about their day. "What you see out there is not even a tenth of the original group. Many of them mutinied, but Ginah won. And now, she’s formed a crew of people she can help. People who trust her."
I slowly let the information sink in, trying to glean any sort of inconsistency with what was said; I could not find any, so I decided to go for a different approach.
"And what’s your relationship with them?" I asked. "Allies out necessity since you both dislike the Elise?"
"I guess?" The young woman paused for a moment to think. She glanced up at the ceiling, placing her index finger right at the tip of her chin. "We’ve always had a fairly good relationship with Ginah’s Crew. We’ve done a few jobs for them in the past. But it was only when the Elise showed did we start working closer together. Then they were driven out a few months back, and… well, you know how Jack and I have been ever since."
I narrowed my eyes. "Interesting, so you always were enemies of the Elise? As in, you never liked them?"
"Not really, no. And we weren’t enemies, per se. We just didn’t work jobs for them because we disagreed with their business practices."
"That’s really interesting," I repeated myself. I walked around my room, lowering a hand down to my waist. "You know, that’s almost a different story than what you initially told me a few days ago?"
Lisa’s eyes widened as she immediately paled. "Wait, no— what do you mean?"
I studied the young woman as her eyes darted between meeting my eyes and the dagger sheathed on my belt. "You told me
that Jack refused to work with the Elise because he was… a speciesist. Not because of anything they did in specific, like diffusing the enuim among the populace. In fact, I found your tone and language about them back a few nights ago to be quite favorable. That’s quite the drastic change, don’t you think?"
There were many varying possibilities here. I did not like most of them, but I wasn’t about to slit her throat just because of this one inconsistency. However, if I did not get a satisfying explanation, I was going to have to speak with Gennady about this, and we would then reconsider our arrangements with Ginah.
She waved her hands placatingly. "Calm down, Melas. That was just…" she trailed off as I tapped a finger impatiently on my dagger’s hilt.
"What is it?" I asked. "Are you paid off by the Elise then? Was that an attempt on Jack’s life which you failed? Or was the Elise looking for some petty revenge against Gennady because he beat up a bunch of their men the other week by accident?" I listed out all the possibilities, but Lisa quickly denied it all.
"No!" she exclaimed. "I swear I didn’t do anything! I’m just…" She chewed on her lip as she was still hesitating.
"Out with it," I nearly snapped.
"I just like money, okay?" Lisa spoke hurriedly. She balled her hands into a fist, and continued speaking through gritted teeth. "I don’t care about all these stupid principles everyone has. It’s just as you said yesterday: we’re already breaking the law aren’t we? Why does it matter if we smuggle the enuim or if we smuggle something else? It’s all the same, isn’t it?"
"No it isn’t," I said simply. "But that doesn’t matter. I just have to know: will you betray us?"
"I won’t!" Lisa took a step back, and lowered her head. A pink shade came over her cheeks as she spoke softly, almost in a whisper. "I will never betray Jack. I became his partner for a reason, after all. He’s just so stubborn sometimes, but I wouldn’t go against him. If I wanted to, I’d have done that months ago."
I cocked a brow, but I decided not to press her any further; I had learned what I wanted, and I would prefer not to pass any sort of judgement now. I needed to discuss this with Gennady first, then maybe pass it on to Ginah— just so she could watch her back. Lisa’s explanation made sense, and her feelings appeared genuine, but I still did not fully trust her.
"Fine," I said. "I believe you. But you do realize that lying to me hasn’t won you any points, right? If Ginah or Jack get upset that I won’t help them in fighting the Elise, I’ll point their ire in your direction."
"I know." Her brows arched darkly on her forehead. "Just… please don’t tell Jack about how I feel. I’m not ready for him to know just yet."
I folded my arms. "I won’t. And I don’t care about either of your interpersonal relationships. I just want to get to the Taw Kingdom. Now please leave my room. I want to gather my thoughts for a moment before I speak with Gennady."
"Thank you," she whispered. She spun around and pushed the door open. She paused for a moment and she turned back to face me. "And Melas," she added, as I gave her a sidelong glance, "I may not have had any reason to dislike the Elise before, but know that I do have one now. Take that as you may."
"I will."
And with that, Lisa left.
I waited for a few moments, as the footsteps on the wooden floor slowly got further and further away until I heard nothing. Then I sighed.
"Now, what do I do with this information?"
I had not learned what I wanted to about Ginah’s Crew, and that might have been a good thing; however, the fact that Lisa was a liar and opportunist did not alleviate any of the concerns I had. And even if I was glad that I caught a liar in the act, I really wish I didn’t have, as that would not help me sleep any easier than I did last night.
Chapter 29: Next Step
Shortly after Lisa left, I had someone direct me to where Gennady was staying; he slept in one of the communal dormitories, just like Lisa and Jack did, but he was kept in a separate building from Jack to keep the two bickering. The Dwarf still seemed down, but he immediately brightened when I handed him back his gold.
"Here," I said. "Since we’re obviously not in Jahar’taw right now, I got our money back. This is yours."
"Oh." He blinked. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, before he snatched the gold off my hand. "Glad ya upped and did it for me. I probably would’ve ended up getting into a fight with that Jack if I tried to get it back from him."
I paused, scrutinizing his face; indecision kept me from saying anything for a moment, but I finally managed to muster up the courage to speak. "Do you think that’s enough?" I asked.
"Enough?"
"For the parts to make you a new bike." I waited to see if he would visibly react, and when he did not, I continued. "You didn’t lose anything else that was important, right? You’ve got your bag with you, and that’s got all your personal items… right?" I felt stupid for repeating myself like that, but I wanted to tread lightly considering the way he was the night before.
Gennady paused to stare at me, then sighed. "I’m fine, Melas— and I’m sorry for revealing your name the other day. But there’s no need to be concerned. I don’t have any sentimental attachments to that bike, and this is probably more than enough to buy everything I need to make a new one."
I found myself nodding along as he spoke, then glanced heavenward at the rock ceiling above, before looking back down and facing him. "Why were you so…" I trailed off, leaving the words unsaid but the implication hanging in the air.
"So depressed?" He cocked a brow.
"Uh, yes."
He took a deep breath, leaning his back on the cold, stone surface of the cave wall. "I was just upset. It’s something I spent a lot of time designing. And while I do have the blueprints necessary to build a new bike from scratch, I had planned to simply show the finished product to a friend back in Taw."
"Why’s that?" I looked at the Dwarf inquisitively. "What were you planning to do?"
"Revolutionize transportation, of course," he snorted. He wagged a finger in the air as he explained. "Right now, the mana cars, bikes, and ships you see all rely on expensive, large mana crystals to function. If not those, they typically require dozens of smaller ones, which doesn’t make it any more efficient or cheaper. And what happens when a mana crystal of a car is tapped out?"
"You have to buy another one."
"Exactly."
He pushed himself off the wall and straightened; he took on a lecturing tone almost reminiscent to the professors I had met when I attended summer college classes back on Earth.
"What I did was reconcile mana tech with steam technology to make this hybrid form of technology that would be a cheaper and better alternative to what is available right now. People still ride horses and carts because they can’t afford mana crystals, but what about liquid mana? Or as I’m calling it— mana fuel."
"Won’t the cost of liquid mana just go up then?" I asked, frowning. "Since more people want to buy it?"
"Yes," Gennady agreed, stroking his beard. "But so would the supply of liquid mana since people would then capitalize on all the untouched mana wells. Maybe it’d become more expensive than it is now, but it’ll never reach the prices of mana crystals. They just don’t have as much utility as those.
"My friend owns many large factories throughout the country. He’d be able to mass produce these vehicles of mine at such a scale, it’d be used in all of Taw within a decade. Us Dwarves, unlike you Humans— no offense— aren’t as close minded to new ideas. That’s why we’re known as inventors and innovators. When the Mana Revolution came about, we didn’t just give up on every industry we had before. We understood we could combine both to reach peak efficiency!"
"That’s a very Dwarf thing for you to say." I grinned, forgetting for a second that I still had my mask on.
"Oh shut it," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "It would’ve been easier to simply show how superior my mana bike is to the regular ones out there, since many of th
e Engineer-Tinkerers there wouldn’t be able to graph my design. But I’m confident I wouldn’t run into any problems selling it otherwise."
I smiled as he finally seemed to return to his usual self; placing a hand on his shoulder, I nodded reassuringly. "Of course you won’t. You’re probably the smartest Dwarf I know."
"I’m the only Dwarf you know," Gennady snorted.
I shrugged over exaggeratedly. "It’s true."
He laughed, raising a hand to smack me in the back. I braced myself for it, but was caught off guard when he lightly patted me instead.
"So," he started, changing the subject, "is that all you wanted to see me for?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I’ve known ya for a bit, lass. I know how you operate. You like to do as many things at once whenever you can. I highly doubt you came here just to check on me and cheer me up with gold— which, I appreciate by the way."
I folded my arms and faked a pout. "Hey! Are you saying I don’t have empathy! Because I do have lots of it!"
Gennady rolled his eyes. "Coming from the girl who tried to kill me when we first met."
"That’s… fair." I exhaled deeply, then glanced about— making sure nobody was nearby. When I was certain that we had our privacy, I spoke up. "It’s about Lisa," I said.
"Jack’s partner?" I watched as the Dwarf’s brows furrowed in his forehead. "What about her?"
"I don’t trust her." It was an empty statement; I was suspicious of her ever since she barged into my room without a sound. However, after catching her in her lie, I didn’t feel the least bit reassured since I had no idea what to do now. "She lied to me. It wasn’t a terrible lie, but she definitely isn’t who she seems to be."
"Quit skirting around the subject! I don’t quite get what you’re saying, lass."
I sighed; I was not sure how to explain it. The way she acted— she seemed both honest and fake at the same time. Her interest in me did not seem fabricated, but her demeanour certainly was.
"I don’t know," I admitted. "But unlike Ginah’s Crew and Jack, I don’t think she has any reason to dislike the Elise. She could betray us for any number of reasons."