“Where the Market Isle was the gateway for the tribal islanders to trade with their imperial neighbors, Gloomshine Isle to the far north of the island chain was their gateway to the northern continent. As it was far closer to Alcidea than the rest of the isles, traders from the northern continent interested in the local wares of the isles would congregate there and make it their first stop.

After all, why go through the tariffs and fees incurred from dealing with a middleman from another nation when with a little extra travel you could head straight from the source instead?” - O’ni-Gia, Therian trader and ship captain from Gloomshine Isle.

Cal and the rest of her party spent the rest of their month of vacation on the Mistweave Isle in a relaxed manner. They strolled around, enjoyed themselves with the many interesting things around in the day, then returned to their inn to enjoy soaking in the hot springs in the evening and enjoy good food at night.

She naturally also took the rest of the group to give a try to the local delicacies which she herself had been subjected to. While most of the party had reacted much the same as Cal had, some of them actually liked the extremely spicy dish and asked for seconds. Willa, Fheeri, and Dan kept eating until their stomachs were nearly fit to burst, despite how they sweated buckets during the meal.

They also visited some of the isle’s volcanoes, which, constrained by the enchantments laid on them, were made dormant while a pool of lava was steadily extracted from their crater through the various channels the locals had built. As such, the volcanoes no longer erupt explosively, as their output was carefully controlled and measured by the locals for use in their everyday life.

Those same volcanoes also formed a popular tourist attraction, where visitors would climb to the crater at the top and peer down at the pool of molten lava within. It was an awe-inspiring sight in its own right, Cal thought, as she moved up her assessment of the locals by a notch for the ingineous way they harnessed nature’s might.

After the vacation ended, some of the group looked a bit reluctant to leave, but they did so nonetheless. It was a rare occasion for many of them to just have an entire month to rest and relax like that, though for some like Vark and Krystal, the trip had just been a long vacation as a whole.

Vark still worked at the Levain Institute of Higher Learning, although he and Krystal had moved to Paradise to be with the rest of the family. It proved to be a non-issue, since Aideen had simply given every member of Cal’s family one of the tokens that allowed them to use the teleportation gates for free after they moved in, so all Vark had to do was to take a gate to Levain in the morning and return the same way in the evenings.

He had asked for a leave for the year when Cal had asked him to join in on the last leg of her trip around the world, which the Dean had approved. Vark himself felt more than lucky to be able to see his parents on the regular again, and was wholly satisfied with his daughter’s improvements over the trips she had taken with Cal.

At the northern port of Mistweave Isle, they took a local ship to head towards Gloomshine Isle, their last destination for the trip. The local ships were odd ones compared to the sort that traveled the waters of Alcidea or the various boats used by those of Ur-Teros.

For one, rather than wood, they were made of reeds that had been dried and woven together. Even the sails were made from the same material, while the masts were made from a sort of large bamboo that was larger than the ones Cal knew of.

The ship itself was built in the Catamaran style, but to a scale larger than any Cal had seen before. Each of the two long, ovoid hulls were around fifty meters in length, while planks of the same bamboo-like material were laid between them, where more cabins were built on.

While the ship was built of reeds, those reeds had a glossy look to them, and as Cal inspected them closer, proved to be waterproof. The weaving was so tight that there were no ways for water to leak into the ship, and while it was nowhere near as sturdy as wood, the construction meant the ship was far lighter, and thus faster than wooden ships of the same size.

Crewed mostly by locals of Gloomshine Isle, which were predominantly rodent-like and smaller reptilian therian breeds, the ship sailed through the waves smoothly, the lateen sails on its six masts - three per hull - driving it over the waters with speed and agility Cal had never seen from ships of that size.

Due to the semi-isolated nature of its geography, as it was further north than the vast majority of the isles, Gloomshine Isle had a mostly peaceful history, as it was too far for most others to bother invading. While the inhabitants leaned towards smaller breeds of therians who were physically disadvantaged against larger breeds, they quickly found a way to make themselves more trouble than they were worth.

Whereas warfare between the tribes mostly happened on land, and ships were used almost entirely for transports or boarding maneuvers, the locals of Gloomshine Isle instead used their unique fast and fragile ships to weave in and out of range while they pelted their foes with slingers carried on board the ships.

Their development of a strong navy ensured that invaders soon considered them a tough nut to crack, which was made even more so when the locals began to trade with people from the Northern continent. The ship Cal was on had large dwarven ballistae mounted on its hulls, seven per hull, designed for both naval warfare and to deal with larger sea creatures.

Such tactics, while poor on the offensive, ensured that the inhabitants of Gloomshine Isle managed to keep their isle for themselves - although they did take in migrants - over the centuries, as they were the dominant naval power of the region.