Kapitel 48: the spicy spice trade III
400 power stones, and I'll give you an extra chapter.(considering the previous 200)
any ideas or comments about the story would be appreciated.
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Johann von Rügen POV
We have been sailing for almost 13 days now and everything has been calm, just a random sighting of a galley, but everything else is extremely calm
even the weather is serene with only light breezes pushing us towards our objective, not one day we have had any headwinds, everything is according to plan, I even think we are ahead of schedule, as we believe that in 18 days we should be arriving at the first island of the summer islands, but according to my estimates we believe that between today and tomorrow we should be seeing land.
Our biologists had been fishing many times and had documented all the types of fish in the sea, luckily they were not dangerous, but I didn't like that they had done this experiment behind my back.
The doctors/biologists had paid a good sum to the sailors who dared to eat the fish cooked and raw to see if they reacted in a violet way, by the grace of god nothing serious happened, as none of them showed any symptoms and we found that certain good-sized fish can be caught in the high seas and are quite tasty, so we had added fresh fish to the crew's diet because this fish was very big and very similar to tuna, but it seemed to be a different breed, but at the end of the day, they served to give more variety to our food
something to be thankful for because already these pieces of hardened dough was boring me, as without soup it is almost impossible to eat it and as the soup is only prepared 2 times a day if someone is hungry before they must eat the hard dough, poor the teeth that have to face that, and it is a general complaint among all the ships, but it is not something that can be changed because it is necessary for the long voyages, as even dried meat tends to rot because of the humidity on the ships
although everything is calm, I was still very nervous about this expedition.
Baldric's words had left me a bit annoyed, about the boldness of the pirates and also the presence of slavers from the free cities looking for slaves for their fighting pits
but it was something that could not be avoided, those pirates take advantage of the little presence of fleets that protect the safety of trade routes, according to the merchant once every few years free cities send their fleets to burn the city where these scum gather to sell their loot, but that place changes location every time it is burned and does not achieve its goal which is to prevent more pirates to join the indiscriminate robbery.
We are in a golden age of piracy, there has never been more pirate presence in the key trading areas in the summer islands and mainly to the east there are too many pirate strongholds in the area, it is understandable because the trade is so lucrative, here there are many chances that small merchants are caught by the pirates even the merchants who own 5–10 ships only leaving the real possibility of trading to the big merchants who can afford a good defense of their ships while bringing huge riches in their holds, much like what we do
every time I learn more about the pirate presence, my nervousness increases, I can't understand that such a big problem for everyone has not yet been solved by a joint operation against the pirates, it seems that no one is interested in ending the main problem facing trade
I was very thoughtful and stressed when I was interrupted by one of my officers.
''admiral 3 ships are approaching us'' said my aide
''what?, pirates warn the captains to go on high alert have the men go to their stations and load their crossbows and scorpions and give the order to start heating up the Greek fire mixture to fill the ceramic jars, so we can throw them at that scum'' I said as I stood up to grab my weapons
''admiral, I don't think they are pirates they are local ships, a swan ship similar to ours only smaller'' said my assistant trying to calm me down
''yes it must be that plus there are only three of them anyway tell the men to prepare for the worst-case scenario they try something'' I said as I calmed down
''yes admiral'' said my officer as he came out of my cabin.
After waiting a few minutes, I had calmed down as I went out on deck to see what was going on
the information I was given was correct, three swan ships were approaching us, heading straight for us.
My men started to get ready and started to use the mechanism that allowed them to load the crossbow by the time we could see each other's eyes between the 2 ships, all my men were on deck with the crossbows loaded and in position on the scorpions ready for anything and all our ships were the same.
For three minutes we stood watching each other, they were in their boats with their bow, and it seemed that no one wanted to parley
but finally a ship approached, and a woman began to speak to us, but we did not understand anything.
Go look for the merchant, we won't get anything if we don't understand them'' I said to my men.
After 2 minutes, Baldric came out of the hold and approached me.
''What's going on'', Baldric asked, a little disturbed.
''the locals are talking to us, we don't understand them, I need you to do what we pay you for'' I said seriously.
''Sure, I'll talk to them right away'' said the merchant.
Baldric started talking to the woman, and after a few minutes, Baldric has an answer.
''she is asking what we do with so many ships near walano'' said Baldric
''trade, what else could we do'' I said raising an eyebrow.
''they think we are a strike force, let me tell him our intentions'' said Baldric
Baldric began to talk to the woman for a few minutes until I came back to me
''she asks if we are merchants we will have merchandise she wishes to see it with her own eyes'' said Baldric rather serene
''mhhh well, but only a small group'' I said thoughtfully.
Baldric I went back to chatting with the locals, after a minute I came back to talk with me
''well they are going to get on this ship, help them get on, you don't want them to get mad at you, their bows can pierce plate armor'' said Baldric
''well I'll take care of helping them, but how is it possible for a bow to pierce plate armor it would take monstrous arm strength and an extremely strong bow to do that'' he said in surprise
''I don't know, they don't give anyone their secrets of their bows'' said Baldric, lifting his shoulders.
''mhh how strange I would like to see how they work because they should have the strength of a crossbow, but that would be impossible, since to just load it, we require a pulley system to put a bolt'' I said thoughtfully.
''it has something to do with wood, but I don't know more, here it comes, help them'' said Baldric.
Quickly, we put a bridge between the boats and let a group of 5 people get on our boat, their skin was quite dark, I had never seen someone like that before.
The woman who seemed to be the leader of the boat started to speak to Baldric
She says to take her to the hold'' Baldric said looking at me.
''well, she should follow us'' I said as I headed for the hold.
We went down to the hold of the ship, where the millions of gold coins we had brought with us were in chests
the woman started talking again
''What did she say'' I asked Baldric.
''Wait for her to finish talking'' said Baldric annoyed.
After the woman finished speaking, Baldric spoke to me
''she says to show them what you plan to buy with or what you plan to sell'' said Baldric looking me in the eyes
''Sure, I'm going to take out a chest'' I said looking at the woman.
Quickly, I approached and took out a chest from our holds, it must have weighed about 100 kilograms of pure gold, taking it down from the top of the chests, I put it on the floor and proceeded to take out my key that I always wear around my neck to prevent the chests with the coins from being opened by other people.
When I opened it, I showed her the contents, which were thousands of gold coins.
The woman's face calmed down, and she started to smile and began to talk to me, I only looked at Baldric.
''she apologizes that she had mistaken me as the leader of the expedition, she also asks you to show them 2 more chests this one and that one'' said Baldric pointing to chests that were in the middle of the mountain
''ok, ok, everything to avoid problems'' I said scratching my face.
I had to move several chests to get the specific chest that the woman wanted to see, but after 3 minutes I did the same thing again, I put them on the floor and opened them showing the content of gold coins and in the other one uncoined gold bars.
The woman nodded and began to smile and spoke to me again.
''she says she's sorry for the inconvenience, but your trade fleet looked more like a war fleet, and she wanted to make sure you had no intentions of plundering the walano ports'' Baldric said looking at me
''well, if it is no longer a problem I would like to go back to sailing, I want to be able to accomplish my mission as soon as possible, tell the woman'' I said calmly to Baldric
''as you command'' Baldric said.
Baldric began to speak to the woman, and she spoke to me again.
''she says she would be happy to serve as your guide to the port of last lament which is a few hours away'' said Baldric
''well better so more protection,'' I said nodding looking at the woman
the woman smiled, and her group returned to their swan ship while we went back to unload the crossbows and scorpions and reopened the sails and started to follow our new guides to the port where we should sell everything.
After 2 hours, a watchman began to shout out
''land in sight'' shouted the watchman.
I was on deck, where after a few minutes we could see the bright green of the summer islands.
''Beautiful, isn't it'', said Baldric.
''yes quite beautiful, but we didn't come to see the landscapes, we came to make gold'' I said smiling.
''same here, I know many merchants we can trust last lament, but for the amount you wish to sell and buy we may have to turn to others, even the local prince'' Baldric said
''mhhh I don't want to stay too long, the longer we are detained the more the huge amount we have in the holds will be known and nothing guarantees me that that woman will keep her mouth shut'' I said seriously.
''I doubt that anyone who participates in the defense of the islands is with the pirates, since they also fight them because the pirates capture them to sell them in the slave markets of essos'' said Baldric,
''well let's hope you're right I don't want to have problems, not this time at least'' I said smiling.
After three hours we were already seeing the port, and finally, I breathed a little more relaxed, since I had fulfilled the first part of the mission, we arrived alive to the summer islands.
We approached the harbors, and luckily, they were deep, and our ships could dock peacefully, we put the bridge, Baldric and I began to go down searching for riches.
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