As the captain had told Luna, her sleep hangover had gotten a lot better after three nights. It was hard to judge, but to her it felt like a normal sleep again. The same bleary eyed waking up, but no longer dead tired, while at the same time too awake to fall asleep again. When she felt finally like herself again Luna had started to make herself useful, or least she tried to. The problem was, the crew was handling everything on the ship and playing with children was only fun for so long and barely fell into the category of being useful.

Her regular climbs up to the crows nest were still fun, but the novelty still wore off quickly. They had stocked up on perishable food and freshwater on the 11th day of their voyage at Norderstead. Luna had asked why they had not started their voyage from there, but the central location of Middingfurt was deemed the best location, as they had people from other kingdoms on the other ships as well. The town on the east coast made the last sensible stop before they turned towards the open ocean. After that the scenery had become rather boring. Where previously Luna could watch the coast with its myriad different forms, cliffs, beaches and the occasional village, now all there was to see was ocean.

One evening Luna had retrieved her Pathfinder Map from the backpack, but when looking at it and dragging around the map image to follow her travel she found the road from the capital to Middingfurt was now easily visible, after that the trip along the coast was also added, but after moving out into the open ocean it was hard to understand the scale of distances, after some point there was no land nearby and the whole map was ocean.

Captain Enric turned out to be her savior, as he had a small library with books on ocean animals and the occasional monster, but the majority of books were adventure fiction written in the recent years. With the human lands being peaceful and the last monster incursion centuries in the past the idea of becoming an adventurer had been romanticised. These novels were the perfect example, as they were utterly unrealistic, drawn out combat scenes with spells flying everywhere, heroic speeches by the obviously righteous party of heroes.

With those extra comedic elements the books proved to be a great source of entertainment for Luna, even if the captain did not appreciate her running commentary over evening dinner on how unrealistic the story, characters and fights were.

The ship’s crew offered another source of distraction. They hauled some wooden planks from the ship's hold and mounted them on the wall of the sterncastle. After painting some rings on them Luna finally recognized it as a makeshift target for throwing knives. Some of the sailors were true experts of throwing and Luna was happy to find a chance to train the Skill, even if the unsteady deck provided an extra challenge. She politely declined the invitation to bet on some matches.

Most other people on the ship spent the day tending to fishing lines which were thrown over the side of the ship. The fresh fish they were able to catch weren’t very big, but they were a welcome fresh addition to their meals. Two weeks after leaving the coast behind they had run out of fresh food and were now dining on hard baked biscuits, meat jerky and pickled vegetables. The fare reminded Luna of her time hunting the bandits and her tolerance for pickled vegetables and jerky was still very low.

Luna had tried fishing herself, but found her patience had run out after 15 minutes of nothing happening and the inane chatting going on around her had only contributed to her fleeing up into the crow’s nest. From up there all the other ships were visible, even a small bout of bad weather over two days had not been enough to seriously break up their formation. They had slowed down in the wake of the little storm to fix some minor damage to tacks and sails, but none of the other ships signaled about major problems.

It was 5 weeks into the journey across the ocean and given the speed they had been traveling at, they expected to sight land in the next few days. Behind them the sky had started turning dark and strong winds were buffeting the ships along at even higher speed. The captain had decided to raise as much sail as they could afford and try to use the brewing storm behind them to drive them ahead of the storm clouds.

It worked reasonably well, but in the waning hours of daylight it had become obvious that they were slowly losing the race. Captain Enric and Parrot decided to signal all ships to split up the formation to prevent them colliding in the dark. All loose pieces of gear had been tied down, everyone on deck secured with extra lines to prevent them from being swept away or blown overboard. Anyone not required to keep the ship going was sent under deck or in Luna’s case to her cabin.

Just before the storm caught them fully Luna felt the air shift, an indescribable feeling rushed over her, like the air was filled with little lightning bolts that made her skin tingle. A great commotion with lots of shouting broke out on deck and Luna quickly scrambled to get on deck too. When she stepped back outside she could not believe her eyes. It had been nearly pitch black outside, thanks to the thick storm clouds covering the sky, but now she was looking at a beautiful sunset on the horizon with only a few puffs of white clouds in the sky.

She hurried up the sterncastle and sidled up next to Parrot who was staring behind the ship. The storm clouds simply stopped behind them. Like some invisible wall was parting the sky. Just a few hundred meters behind them the sky was black night with the storm raging, the high waves spilling over to them still, but they were now under a sunny sky with little white clouds.

“What is going on?” Luna demanded to know.

Parrot was looking behind them just as slack jawed as the other crew members. To their left and right they could see the other ships had left the storm behind as well and Luna could just make out the small figures on their sterncastle pointing behind their ships and gesticulating wildly.

“I have no clue. When we found land the last time, we had clear skies for the last few days. Even if we passed this wall, for a lack of a better term, we never noticed.” Parrot was about to add more when a cry from the main mast interrupted him.

“Land ahead!” the cry came down and everyone scrambled towards the forecastle to get a look. Luna climbed up the rigging and up the mainmast to the crow’s nest. Sidling up next to the sailor she looked ahead and the view took her breath away. There. straight ahead of them on the horizon, was a massive coastline, still too far away to make out details, but the land was there. It had taken them less time than they had calculated, the wind must have been more in their favor than they had previously expected.

After signals were exchanged between the ships they moved back into their formation and sailed towards the land. When they got closer they could start to make out some details on the coastline. In front of them the coast was a solid line of cliffs that marked the sharp edge of the land. The cliff ran along the whole coastline to the north, as far as their eyes could see. The ships turned southward and followed the coastline until they found a river spilling into the ocean. It had eroded the cliff face over decades, maybe centuries and created an accessible patch of beach for them to land on. It was only a few hundred meters wide, but that was plenty enough for them to decide on dropping anchor.

In the excitement everyone on board wanted to set foot on land, but Parrot stamped down on that hard. Nobody was to leave the ships until they had tested the beach and found it safe to walk on and marked a safe route onto solid ground. The last thing they needed now was for people to sink into quicksand along the beach.

Luna had scrambled down the main mast when Parrot called her down. Time for her to do the job she came to do. A small row boat was untied from the deck and hoisted over the railing. Luna had run to her cabin and retrieved the Pathfinder Map and belted her axe, but with her bows still securely packed into the travel trunk, she felt a bit naked. Parrot was waiting at the railing with an additional crossbow for her and Luna gratefully accepted it.

Two sailors were manning the oars and Parrot, William and Luna were their only passengers for now. When they were rowed towards the beach Luna observed the lay of the land. The river had created a sizable beach. To the north of them the cliffs started again and built a neat little wind protected bay for the ships to anchor in. At least if the wind kept blowing from the north east as it was now. Should it turn the bay could just as well be a dangerous place to drop anchor in, with the ships being driven towards the cliff face by the waves.

It took a bit of time to reach the beach. Parrot had been measuring the water depth while they were rowed ashore and seemed pleased that the beach seemed to drop off quickly and they could move the ships a good bit closer for unloading, possibly even safely beach them, but that would require checking for hidden rocks under the sand first.

When they reached the sand the sailors jumped out and pulled the boat onto the beach. Luna thanked them for the effort, being able to leave the boat without getting her boots wet was a welcome boon, as there was no easy way to dry them off.

Parrot grabbed some standing torches from the boat and rammed them into the beach. They would burn for a few hours and clearly mark the spot where they had gone on land. Just in case they had to get back in a hurry and also to show the remaining ship captains that they had made it safely.

“Luna, you will have to lead us from here on. My skill to see in the dark stopped working when I set foot on land. I will carry a torch so William and I can see where we step. We will also place wooden sticks in regular intervals to mark our path.” Parrot told her.

Luna nodded and started moving. She picked a path that did not take them closer to where the river spilled into the ocean, as the chance of quicksand was a lot higher near the running water. Some dried wood on the beach near the river was a sign for the river carrying higher water on occasion, something she pointed out to both Parrot and William, who could not see that far in the dark.

A lack of tidal pools on the beach indicated that there was not much tide to speak of, but they would have to watch the water levels for a day to make sure. The beach itself had started to rise slowly but steadily, until they reached a clear line where it suddenly ended and transitioned into solid stone where the cliff had been ground down by the river. Just a dozen meters after that the ground turned to earth and the first bushes and trees started to grow.

When they reached the spot where actual earth replaced the stone Parrot placed two more standing torches and lit them up with the torch he was carrying. Luna carefully picked their way closer to the river, which was flowing at a pretty high pace into the ocean. The river banks were solid stone, the rock formation the cliffs were a part of seemed to extend quite a bit under the land here. Luna led them in a half circle from the river towards the treeline and back towards the torches.

She saw some small animal life here and there, birds in the trees and little rodents scurrying around between them, but nothing bigger than squirrel size so far. The trees themselves looked familiar to what Luna was used to, but even with her good vision in the dark she could not be sure.

During their walk William and Parrot had been talking to each other in a whisper and when they reached the torches again Parrot summarized his observations.

“It seems like we got lucky. The river is running through a solid bed of stone here and created a nice little beach for us to land at. We might have to construct some kind of wooden pier at some point, but for now this will work nicely. William what are your thoughts?”

William rubbed his chin and after thinking for a moment began to talk. “I agree with your observation. It is too dark right now to be sure, but a little further in the ground is obviously fertile enough for a sizeable forest to grow, it should be good enough for us to grow some foodstuff, even if the soil only lasts for a year or two that should be enough to get us started. But with the possibility of the river flooding we should build a bit away from it, the land rises up a bit around it and we should avoid the area. If we are really lucky we might even find some flood plains further up the river, which would be ideal for farming. That is all I can say for now, but the place looks good enough to stop looking any further.”

Parrot let out a deep sigh. “That is very good to hear. It was one of my greatest fears that we would have to keep looking for a good spot to land. Let’s get back and tomorrow we can start unloading.”

They extinguished the torches on the higher ground and made their way back to the boat. Thanks to the foresight of placing the sticks as markers it was easy going and they were back on the ship only a short while later. Luna was disappointed she could not simply sleep on the beach, but Parrot had denied the request. Sleeping alone on the beach without knowing the local wildlife was a very stupid idea and even Luna had to agree with that.

Back in her cabin Luna took out the Pathfinder Map, which had not been needed for their small excursion after all. In the dim light of a candle Luna activated it and started looking at the area. She could clearly make out the beach and cliffs around it, but when she moved back along their journey, it suddenly stopped in the ocean. No matter what she tried, she was not able to find where they had crossed the ocean or the human kingdom.