Loading up my rowboat the next morning was a straightforward process. Gladys came over to where I had pulled myself close to shore, and once she had boarded, began to accept various items from her husband and son before she carefully organized them under and around my benches. Pots, Pans, Food Supplies, a small lockbox with money and jewelry inside, bags filled with clothes and more all were carefully given spots calculated to fit in as much as possible, and to keep it safe while travelling.

It painted an interesting picture for me. They clearly weren’t refugees, running away from home with nothing more than the clothes on their back, but for some reason they had decided to come here to this out of the way beach instead of heading to a town or somewhere else where they could charter a more normal means of transportation. I had my suspicions as to what exactly had caused them to leave their previous home, but none of them were volunteering that information, and I wasn’t about to try and clumsily pry, considering the respect that they had given me.

It was somewhat surreal just how easily Adam was able to accommodate my existence. Jim and Gladys occasionally ran into moments where their desire to treat me like a person conflicted with their view of me as a rowboat, but Adam just kept moving, treating me personably and never brining up a topic that would make things awkward. While Gladys was given the job of stowing their possessions away, it was Adam who always had a tip or two for how she could keep the fragile items protected, or firsthand knowledge of what things could survive the wear caused by saltwater.

Between the three of them they soon had me loaded down, with just enough space for them to take seats of their own. My weight statistic on my sheet still only showed me my maximum carrying capacity, but I could feel the difference, and knew that I must be close to the limit I could safely carry. I tried voicing those concerns to Adam, but he simply waved me off.

With Adam’s help I was soon pushed back out of the shallows. If I was empty I could have managed by myself, but the extra weight had caused me to sink deeper into the sands, and my ratio of force to weight had dropped dramatically. Once I was bobbing freely Adam hauled himself over my side and proceed to pester Gladys, teasing her with his wet clothes.

I couldn’t see, but Jim’s disgusted and exaggerated retching clued me in to the fact that the married couple were still very much in love and unconcerned about what their current audience saw or heard.

“Right.” Adam said, once he was settled into his seat. His hands rested easily on the handles of my oars, but he wasn’t making any effort to use them yet. “I know you said you could get us to Dirint, but I might be able to make the trip smoother than it would be otherwise. Have you been there before? Or are you familiar with Clentim, Poryi, or Tintel?”

“NO.” I hadn’t even heard of any of those places before, even if a quick check with Navigation did confirm that I could feasibly visit those places eventually.

“You seem capable of making your own way around the Sea, but it’s a little known fact that those four cities have put a lot of money and time into creating a magical connection between them. It allows for faster travel, and eliminates any possibility of sea monsters sticking their noses into things. This is my first time visiting this cove, so I have no idea how far it is to any of those cities, but if you can reach one of them you can get from there to Dirint in three or four hours.”

That piece of information was helpful on all sorts of levels. It was good to have confirmation that the duration of trips between different locations was more or less constant, and was even more interesting to know that those travel times didn’t have to add up in a consistent manner. It was somewhat strange to think that I could get to my destination faster by making a detour to visit another place in-between, but Adam seemed absolutely confident in his knowledge.

Asking Navigation to take me to the four cities in turn allowed me to get a very rough estimate of how long it would take to row directly there. Dirint, Poryi, and Tintel all had the feeling of being very far away, needing longer trips than I had ever undertaken by a large degree. Travelling to Clentim would still be a long trip, but was half the time or distance that any of the other ones were. I took a bit to try and compose a question for Adam.

“More details? Details on the cities, details on the monsters, details on the trip?” Adam helpfully narrowed things down.

“Again, I can’t say for sure, but I’d expect it to take a couple of days of travelling to get to Dirint normally. Could be less, but I made sure to travel a good ways away from Dirint once my term of service was done.”

That information made my decision an easy one. Half of a two day trip added to a three or four hour trip would likely be faster, even if Adam’s estimates weren’t quite right. I began to make my way out onto the ocean, following the directions that Navigation was providing me moment by moment.

At first Adam’s hand kept finding their way onto my handles, before he would pull them away once again. It felt like he was torn between wanting to help out in any way he could, while not wanting to interfere with what was either a magical artifact or the body of another person. It took a bit, but he managed to keep himself and his family busy by teaching them various sea shanties to pass the time.

I couldn’t sing at all, but a few of the tunes he belted out in his solid baritone had a refrain or echo that I could clap along to, and I cheerfully joined in. We might have lost a bit of time from me slapping the water instead of rowing, but me acting in such a personable way went a long way towards making everyone comfortable with me.

One benefit I had over a regular ship was that I didn’t need to sleep. While I could still let myself drift off if I wanted to, nothing stopped me from staying focused, paying close attention to my surroundings as my oars continued to steadily row me forwards. It seemed that all three of my passengers were snorers, even if Adam’s rumbling growl almost drowned out his wife’s much lighter wheezes or his son’s crackling exhales. Of the three Adam was also the most comfortable sleeping in a moving boat, with his snoring staying steady and constant even while Jim and Gladys woke up a few times over the night.

Jim was still able to easily rouse his father in the morning with a combination of rough shoving and loud cheers.

“Dad! It happened! I got my system, just like you said I would.”

It took Adam a bleary minute or two to get the sleep out of his voice, and he needed a drink from a jug of water before he could respond intelligibly.

The first thing to come out of his mouth once he had settled himself was a sigh. “It’s a bittersweet moment to hear you say that, Jim. Getting your screen is a pretty common sign that you’ve crossed over that boundary from being a child to being an adult. You’ve impressed me with your maturity and responsibility these last few days, but it's hard for me to accept that you’ve gone and grown up, that you’re no longer the little boy who kept wanting me to throw him in the pond. I also keep thinking that there should have been more that I could have done to keep you safe from the problems of the world, that I could have let you keep your innocence and youth for another year or two…” Adam trailed off.

“Despite my personal fears and failures, I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you as my son, and I’m proud of you as a person. There are families out there that would say that I, as your father, should still have a final say over what you do with your window, but I don’t hold with those thoughts. Sooner or later, you’ll need to be able to stand by yourself in this world. What I will do is give you everything I can to prepare you for that day, and I’ll remind you time and time again that I will always be your father, and will always want to help you if I can. Doesn’t matter if it’s something as big as killing some soldiers, or as small as tossing you around.”

Jim didn’t have the space at the moment to hug his father, and so he simply settled in to listen to what Adam had to say. I felt like an intruder into this sentimental moment, but was eager to get a direct explanation of the System, from someone who had grown up with it.