Chương 111: Chapter 107 – Harbor Administration

Mark was startled when he materialized because of the noise of people talking around him. He was in the same location that he entered the instance. But they were, at the same time, all different. He recognized the windows, the door, and even the desk. Though where he entered, the windows were gone, and just chunks of glass remained. The desk had been broken and partially deteriorated back there, but here the desk looked brand new. He stepped forward and looked out the windows down on the dock.

They were the same if you did not count the fact there were real sailing ships docked and workers running back and forth. People loading and unloading the ship: hundreds of people. Mark turned around and saw the others. Ava, Chew, Darin, and Steve were standing there looking as dazed as he felt. They too stepped forward and looked down at the dock. Steve said, "Um, did we travel back in time?" Mark replied, "Maybe, but I don't think the people or this place are real.

I did an instance in the cave once where I showed up in a kitchen. The people all acted real and reacted to me but seemed to ignore the inconsistencies, like that I was not dressed like a cook, but they treated me like one." Darin turned and said hello to one of the two guys talking behind them, and he turned and looked at him and said hello back and went back to his conversation. He was about to say something more to the man when a system message showed up.

[Emergency Scenario] Harbor Administration Status: Active Objective: Identify and resolve the active emergency. Estimated Duration: 3-7 Days Failure State: Harbor Degradation Further details unavailable. While they were reading the message Chew jumped up on the desk and looked around. None of the people looked at him or even seemed to care he was on the desk, which was completely weird because they were in a control room of some sort, and an oversized Beaver was sitting on the desk looking around.

Ava said, "Chew wants to explore any problem if we go look around." All of the other 3 immediately said, "Yes, stay here." Ava said, "Fine, make this boring. What's the plan?" Mark said, "Typical system; there is a problem, go figure it out. I guess we need to start looking around and talking to people. Maybe let's stay in the same general area together; let's go ask questions." Chew then pushed a stack of papers off the desk at Mark's feet. Ava said, "Chew thinks you could maybe read the stuff on the desk."

Mark laughed and picked up the unorganized stack of paper and started looking through it. He could read every one, so if they were in a different language, the system did its system thing with them. Reading through the papers, he could see that something was wrong but not the specific problem. They mentioned missing ships, navigation issues, lighthouse failure, delayed arrivals, and something with water levels.

As Mark talked and read through the papers, the other three talked to the people in the room and got basically the same info that mark got from the pile of papers that Chew pushed onto the floor. With nothing else to figure out here, they left out the door and down the stairs. Mark was a little surprised at how perfect things were, as he had just moments ago come up this half-collapsed staircase in the real harbor.

They went downstairs and found no one, just empty offices—nothing to give them any help on figuring out what the issue might be. When they got out on the street, it was interesting to see that the view to the lake was blocked by buildings. When they came in, most were collapsed or on their way to that. Without a better location to go, they headed toward the docks, talking to people as they went. They found the dockmaster and his office; he was talking to what appeared to be a ship captain.

They were discussing a navigation issue, and he reported that the southern lighthouse was intermittently blinking. They all took turns asking the two questions. It was funny; each time the question was answered, they would return to their previous conversation, like the group was not here. They finally left the dockmaster's office and headed to one of the piers and walked out to examine one of the boats. When they got onto the pier, Chew jumped into the water and swam off.

Mark looked over to Ava to find out where he was going. Ava said, "Chew says he is going to go check out the lake and nearby boats while you waste time talking to people. Mark laughed and continued his way to the nearest boat and then climbed the gangway onto the first boat they got to. It was a large three-masted sailing ship. The group of four spread out and continued to talk to people.

They heard more stories about buoys being in the wrong locations, lighthouse issues, and issues with the warehouse; things going into warehouse C were missing, and the wrong items got loaded on the boat. Things they learned were that something was up in the warehouse district; no one knew the cause. There were issues in navigation, including lighthouse issues. Nothing that pointed to something they could fix. They explored the full ship but found nothing, though it was interesting to see the inside of a ship.

Mark had never been on a real sailing ship or any other kind, for that matter. They all talked as a group and had two locations they wanted to check. The next one was the warehouses, and the other was the lighthouse that had issues, which was south of the harbor. Since the warehouses were closest, they went there first. Warehouse C was just like A, B, and D, but since it was mentioned by name by someone, they entered that one to look around.

The first thing that was off was there were no people, so they spread out to investigate. Ava was the first to find a problem: there were rats the size of pit bulls eating food down one of the aisles. There were a dozen of them, which made them trouble, but only levels 7-8. Darin and Steve quickly moved forward to attack them, and Ava and Mark supported from behind with their bows. The battle was quick, and both Darin and Steve took small wounds.

Both of them were cave runners, so they both pulled out water and rags, cleaned the wounds, put some kind of ointment on them, and covered them with bandages. Mark was very familiar with the bandages; he had used them many times before. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The group quickly looted all of the rats and looked around for anything else. But there was nothing there.

They continued to search for another five minutes, and with nothing changing, they were about to leave when about a dozen warehouse workers entered and started working. Cleaning up the mess the rats made, putting down boxes, taking new ones, and leaving, acting like nothing was outside of normal. The group waited for a while and talked to the workers. One of them told the group his shift started at dawn and he had been here all day.

They were working on loading the third ship today and said that the next one would be in about 20 min. The group looked at each other, and the worker had obviously not been there all day, as when they got there, no one was in the warehouse except a pack of rats that had taken up station. Looking for a system message, they saw none, so whatever problem they had solved was not the right problem, so they left the warehouse and went toward the lighthouse.

When they got to the lighthouse, Chew was sitting at the front door, and Ava said that he asked what took them so long getting there. Again, the place was empty; they checked the caretakers' residence, seeing clothing and books, a table, and chairs but no people. They went up the winding stairs and found the problem here. There were a couple of very large birds that had built a nest where the light should have been at the lighthouse.

Between Darin and Steve, they were able to wound the pair of large birds and chase them out, and Ava and Mark shot them down where they landed in the water, and Chew went and dragged the bodies to shore. They removed the nest and turned to leave when a man walked in the room, lit the lighthouse, and went back downstairs. When the group got to the bottom of the stairs, they found an old couple eating dinner. They had a short conversation with them.

Like the warehouse, they had been here all day; nothing out of the ordinary. Mark and the group just shook their heads and left the lighthouse. Outside, they looted the two birds and went back toward the harbor. On the way back Ava asked, "What's that thing on the south end of the harbor it looks like it has doors or something that open into the water." Steve replied, "My best guess is that it is a drydock of some type; they pump it full of water, and the ship floats out or in.

When a ship is in, they pump out the water, and they can repair hull damage, paint it, and clean it." Mark said, "Wait, remember that report I read at the harbor office? It talked about water levels do you think that drydock has something to do with our issues?" After a short discussion they headed back toward the harbor. The sun was about to set, so when they passed a house with a "for rent" sign on the door, they decided to go in and investigate. The house was empty—no people or furniture.

They decided that continuing in the dark would not be wise, so they called it a night. They took turns taking watch while the others slept. When morning finally came, they rolled up their bedrolls, made a quick breakfast, and then headed out the door. The traffic on the street was pretty heavy; people were walking towards work or something, they guessed by the way they were dressed.

On a very small dock on the south side of the harbor, they saw two older fishermen gathering up their net and heading out to catch fish. It took them a while to figure out how to get into and on top of the drydocks. The area looked abandoned; no workers were present. Which was a sign that this was a problem to be fixed. They found a control room and searched it. Finding indications that a flooding issue had happened and that the lower pump control room was flooded and that someone had gone down to fix the issue.

They went out of the office and located a set of stairs that went down into the walls of the dry docks. There were multiple levels and stairs down on each one. When they got to the lowest non-flooded level, they stopped in a control room that had a few inches of cold water on the floor. The sign outside the door read Harbor Water Regulation Station. When they entered the room, they found a system panel that looked just like their own system message screen, but it was on the piece of equipment.

It had a red border around the screen and the message read [Harbor Water Regulation Station] Status: Emergency Override Active System partially flooded Following the floor plans of the three floors above them, this hall should have a stairwell just past the door of this office, and it was completely flooded. Darin said, "Do you think this is why the system wanted Chew to join us?" Mark said, "I would guess so.

There is no way we can go swimming and figure out where or what the problem is down on the floor below; it's not like anyone has invented scuba gear here." Ava said, "I have called for Chew; he said he would come. I am going to go up and direct him down here." Darin, Steve, and Mark continued to search this room and all the hallways on this floor and the one above, looking for anything they might have missed finding nothing the returned to the control room and waited for Chew to show up.

About 30 min later, Chew and Ava showed up, and then he vanished under the water. He was gone for at least an hour. While he was gone, the three others kept asking if he was ok, and Ava assured them he was fine and exploring the path. When he finally returned, Ava let them know that Chew had found a safe path to where they needed to go, but it was hard to follow. So the group got out a rope and gave the end of it to chew, and then he again vanished.

A while later Ava said, "Chew found a path he said is not hard to swim but a little difficult to follow he suggests that we go one at a time holding our breath and then follow the rope he was holding the end of it and would not let go." Without a word, Darin stepped forward and grabbed the rope, walking down the stairs until only his head was above water. He took a few quick breaths, then a big lungful of air, and went underwater. Only a few minutes later, Ava said, "Next." Steve then went.

Mark and Ava followed after when instructed. Mark thought he was going to drown when he finally came up for air. He was hoping for a room with dry air, but it was just a pocket of air where they had to tread water to stay above and breathe. As soon as Ava surfaced, Chew was off again. They followed this same pattern 7 times until they got to a dry room with a short hall leading out. Ava said, "Chew says there are rats that need to die ahead." Darin and Steve quickly stepped forward and got rid of them.

They were so fast Mark never even got to count them. Once they were gone, the pattern started again. They continued the exhausting process for what felt like hours. Just when Mark thought the flooded passages would never end, they reached another dry control room. At this location they found rubble that had to be moved and cleared to allow them to get through, but eventually they got to another control room. this one like the last, had a panel in red with a message on it.

[Emergency Override Valve] Status: Locked Open The group started to look around and finally found a large lever that at first would not move they had to work it back and forth, and it finally let them move it to the closed position. The status on the screen changed to closed, and then there was a large grumbling of machinery, and then the water that was on the floor finally started to drain away. Then a system message appeared.

[Emergency Scenario Complete] Harbor Administration Stabilized Infrastructure Integrity: 12% → 14% Emergency Operations: Resolved Additional Harbor Opportunities Detected Further development available The group looked around at each other, and Darin and Steve gave each other a high five. They started to go around and do the same to the other. Then they both turned to Chew and looked at him. And Chew looked back. Then Darin bent down and gave Chew a hug.

Before they could say or do more, the portal showed up in the doorway, and the group walked through. Mark expected to find himself back in the office. Instead, he stumbled forward onto a stone platform he had never seen before.