Fenrir pulls himself up onboard The Shoebill and sees Oleander and Corwin cuddling up to each other while Rao just sort of awkwardly stands around without anybody to cuddle himself.

“Looking lonely there. Need a partner?” Fenrir says to Rao.

“Pass, bro,” Rao answers.

“Come on. I’m fluffy.” Fenrir demonstrates his fluffiness, or temporary lack of it, by shaking his body to shake the water off of him. His tail gets slightly poofy as a result, but it’s still too damp to properly be called fluffy.

“Still pass.”

“What kind of girl is your type anyways? Also, hey. Nice timing.”

“Yo. And uhh… I don’t know. I like all kinds of girls, you know? I guess I like the real petite and sexy ones the most, though.”

“Like loli succubi?”

“What?”

“Demon girls.”

“Oh, hell yeah. With like horns and a tail and wings and all that. What’d you call them first? Loli succu-something?”

“You might not want to… yeah, loli succubi.”

“Fuck yeah bro. I want me a loli succubus.”

Fenrir is torn on whether or not he should explain to the innocent Rao what a loli is. Going by Rao’s previous statements, he knows that Rao wouldn’t actually be into lolis, but… this could be amusing.

Oleander is even giving Fenrir a thumbs-up while out of Rao’s sight.

Now Fenrir really feels guilty.

Of course, feeling guilty doesn’t mean that he’s going to do anything about it. That just makes it even better.

“So, Rao, from a quick look, what do you think? Think this place looks like it could be the place for our city?” Fenrir asks.

Rao crosses his arms over his chest and looks toward the coast. “River, mountains, forest – you already check it out?” he asks.

“Yeah, we went looking around. Seemed like a good number of the trees are steel oak, tons of wildlife and vegetation, the river is deep enough to sail The Shoebill up it, and it didn’t seem like there were any crazy threats or anything. Which… makes me think that it’s kind of too perfect. Why wouldn’t anybody else be here? I know that it’s distant from everything else going on in the game, and there’s the threat from the Eastern serpent, but what else?”

“You’re taking it too seriously, Fenny. This is still a game. You can put the most awesome looking place super far away from everything else that would be totally awesome for anybody who goes there, but if it’s so far that it’s annoying to get to, nobody is going to care. Some might, but none of the big players are gonna care. Probably. That’s why that empire hasn’t tried retaking its cities over here,” Oleander chimes in.

“There’s something else,” Rao says, pointing at the forest. “Look. See how most of those trees are bent away from the coast? You can decide for yourself whether that’s because of just really strong winds on a daily basis, or something else.”

“Something else like what?” Fenrir asks.

“I’m thinking hurricanes. If it was just regular wind, some of them wouldn’t be snapped and bent how they are. Hurricane winds are messier and can blow in every single direction during a system, but tend to blow in one way the most which is why they’re mostly bent away from the coast.”

“You sound pretty smart about this hurricane stuff.”

“Bro, don’t even get me started on hypercanes. You know scientists and shit are saying that it might be possible for us to get those in a decade or two? We’re fucked if that happens. Hypercanes are like, reaching-up-into-space mega fucking hurricanes that just destroy everything.”

“That sounds kind of exciting, but yeah, probably wouldn’t want to try and live through that.”

“Yeah. Anyways bro, if you think you and your girl can handle the serpent, then I can handle the wind.”

“How?”

“Dude. I’m an architect and live in a coastal state. You think I don’t know how to handle building things to code to resist winds? The real problem is the potential storm surge, especially if we want to build it near the river.”

“Storm surge?”

“Bro, don’t you ever watch anything about weather?”

“Uh… maybe sometimes, rarely?”

“It’s when the ocean wants to fuck your shit up during a storm. The water level rises and the storm pushes all the water onto land. A river just makes it even easier to flood.”

“So, would it be possible to just build some really big drains?”

“Bro, are you actually stupid?”

Fenrir learns just how seriously Rao takes this sort of stuff and spends the next ten minutes getting told about every single reason why that’s a bad idea and wouldn’t work.

“Alright, alright. No drains,” Fenrir says. “I do think we should build the city by the river, though. It’d make everything easier.”

“Couldn’t we just find somebody or something magical to stop flooding and winds?” Oleander asks.

Fenrir and Rao look over at him.

“Would that be possible?” Fenrir asks.

“Yeah… but following code is still more important. Have to have something to fall back on if magic screws up, plus we don’t have anything or anybody like that right now,” Rao says.

“Fair enough. Well, we’ll build the city to try and resist that while hoping we find somebody or something that can help us out with some magic. I really think this spot is too good to pass up, and the hurricanes might not even be that bad. They might not even be hurricanes in the first place!” Fenrir says.

“Maybe. Anyways bro, we’ve got to go over there to check things out. I’d like to visit the mountain to see what sort of materials we’ve got to rock with, and I need to make sure the land is good. You don’t want to try and build a city on a marsh.”

Fenrir is really tempted to ask why. In previous games, he’s built on marshes before and suffered some negative effects as a result, but nothing realistic and there were usually some positives to balance things out.

But, he knows that Rao can sense his curiosity, and he knows that Rao is probably already preparing another rant about how stupid that would be.

“I’m just gonna say this, bro. You don’t want another Florida. Nobody wants that,” Rao says.

“Fair enough,” Fenrir says.

All Rao had to say was “Florida” to prove his point that it would be a bad idea.

Florida is always a bad idea.

And so, The Shoebill sails up the river toward the mountains.

The current becomes too strong and steep once they get close, so they’ll have to drop anchor and get onto land.

“Wait!” Fenrir says as he sees Oleander ready to drop the anchor. “I’ll be right back, alright?”

Oleander tilts his head and looks even more confused once Fenrir dives into the water.

Fenrir looks around to see what the anchor would drop onto. Fortunately, there isn’t anything but mud beneath them.

Fenrir returns to the boat and gives Oleander the clear.

“What was that about?” Oleander asks.

“Wanted to make sure we wouldn’t be crushing any coral or anything,” Fenrir answers.

“There’s not going to be any coral this far in the river.”

“You never know. There could have been fantasy river coral.”

“Fantasy river coral?”

“Like I said, you never know.”

“Oh, Fenny. You’re never going to change, are you?”

“You sound like a middle-aged housewife tired of my shit, yet also endeared by it.”

“That pretty much sums up our relationship. Cor is my hot young squeeze, and Rao is the pool boy I’m trying to seduce by ‘accidentally’ changing in front of an open window while he’s outside.”

“Bro, what?” Rao asks.

“Unfortunately, he’s too obsessed with cleaning pools to notice the treat tempting him.”

“The man likes his hurricanes and pools,” Fenrir says.

“What are you two on about? Rao asks. “I’m seriously confused.”

Rather than clear things up for the confused Rao, the four men, dog, and honorary dog head for the shore and walk up along the river.

It takes another hour of walking before they even reach the base of the mountain, but Rao lights up when he sees it.

“Think you’ll have all the building materials you need?” Fenrir asks.

“Oh yeah, bro. Definitely. Tons to work with here. I can even see some metal exposed to the surface, so between that and those trees, we’re set. I’d still suggest building the city up here, though. Looks sturdy, no signs of loose rocks or mudslides, and it’d be protected against winds and storm surge better,” Rao says.

“I’m just… imagining the city being next to the ocean and over the river, though.”

“Listen, bro, if you want it there, then we can put it there. I’m just telling you it’d be safer up here. Either way, it’s a game. Doesn’t matter to me as long as I get to build my pad and get some cute loli succubi in there.”

Oleander and Fenrir both cover their mouths and look away when Rao brings up loli succubi again.