Tales of Aria | Piercing Lightning

IX: Corrupted

Entering Megarimoo's Territorial sea...

"How's the water, Lyria?"
"Warmer than before, Ray. We're close."
"..."
"You don't need to check twice, Lyria."
"S..shut up, Miko! I can't help it!"

Along the journey, Lyria could not care less but to excitingly widen her eyes upon seeing the open blue sea for her first time. Time to time, she often ran her fingers across the waves. The cool ocean breeze traced her forehead, along her sterling silver hair. She closed her eyes and let the fresh air in to her with a deep breath.

"How does it feel?" Ray loosens up his grip on the caravel's helm.
"Oh, it feels nice!" She giggled, flapping her hands up and down. "It's like I can chew the air around me!"
"Glad to hear that." He smiled lightly.

"Hey! What is that?" Miko, who was sitting on the front most part of the caravel, pointed straight ahead. Lyria stood up to get a better view at it, grabbing the edge of the deck.
"Well... We sure took our sweet time getting here..." Ray mumbled as he prepares the caravel for docking.

Galoo, Megarimoo's northern city, was in sight.

It was far, far above Lyria's expectation. The desert-coloured hills surrounding the settlements loomed tall, visible even from where they were, still quite the distance to sail. It completely took her eyes off the ocean. Along with Miko, their jaws were left wide open, gasping, eyes glittering. Ray couldn't help but to chuckle at both of them. Lyria, however, couldn't care less, as she was too busy preparing herself to be amazed once again by seeing it up close at the dock.

Caravels docked.
Several minutes later...

"Phew!"
Lyria hopped off the caravel, followed by Miko. The two teams anchored their caravels to the dock cleats beside each other, and were reunited a short bit after gaining balance in the wake of the sailing trip.

"How's the trip, Lilia?" Lyria immediately rushed over to the stiff-looking young girl.
"I'm..." Looking gloom, she stretched her body, hands up. "... Not used to sitting for an entire seven hours... Ought to do some more stretching once we get to the AO."
"Back in my younger days, I used to sail all kinds of stuff from Burmal to Galoo, vice versa." Stein joined in. He seemed friendlier this time. Maybe Lilia had grown on him.
"I see." She chuckled. "I better get used to this quickly then. We'll be doing this for a while after all."

"Alright, team check!" Mavin said strictly. "Everybody here?"
"Where's Eric-"
"No no no no no, no Eric here."

A shady man, wearing a desert camouflage buff and bandana, and black sunglasses walked up to them from the direction of the caravels. Though not revealing his face, the costume made the others clear who he is.

"Oh, come on..." Mavin sighed.
"Everybody here knows Eric– Me. Old man said that we mustn't draw unwanted attention. Well, aren't we drawing more than enough of that just by showing up in these flashy outfits?"

His point were proven right, judging by the quickly retracted stares Lilia felt when looking around. She gave a nod of agreement to Mavin, a twitched grin.

"I'm keeping this up until we reach the AO."
"Understood."
"Let's get going, then. Seriously though, why are there so many people here? Didn't seemed this crowded before I left."

After a short walk under Eric-in-disguise's guide, they reached the market. It has a much more traditional look; The sellers and merchants sat on colourful carpets while displaying their wares and goods in front of it, which ranged from earrings, necklaces, dozens of trivial souvenirs, gadgets, to clothing, furniture, statues, and even small to medium-sized weapons. Most of the trading took place under the huge gazebo, much bigger than Lighthouse's main hall, while some of the unfortunate ones set up a camp nearby. All of those, packed with a heat haze, the heat haze, courtesy of Megarimoo.