After we got all that together, it was Vivian's time to shine. This special tracker medallion that they had made for us didn't work for whatever reason. While we're on board this shift. It was probably something about the s*** constantly moving and the track are having to be still. It was very fickle.

  I still wasn't the calibration. It would give us good idea of which direction the closest ones were in.

  When someone had to dispose of over a hundred bodies account for any that we're missing, it was important to know what one was looking for. And it's to say, there are always some that might just take up the challenge and then decide that this was my value for them and I couldn't blame them for that. No one could.

  Their job was to find a token of this wild archipelago somewhere. Could you swim from Island to Island? Yes they weren't that far apart but East China way stopped. It would be a different eye Island and since we gone to the furthest one to start off with we had to work our way backwards one at a time. The last one or the closest one that still had corpses on it was easily visible from where we were and in fact would not have been that long of a swim that. If the tide was out I could have walked there. I don't know. Without draining the pile of corpses of the rest of their blood, there was nothing else for me to do that. Fresh blood was the best but any blood would do.

  In a pinch, I can use my own blood but that would kind of be counterproductive. I needed that to live. Even if I just took a little bit that would be worst case scenario type thing. A red cap that used their own blood to keep their cap wet and satiated would not last for long.

  Just like a man he used all water up. Wouldn't get a drink. There was precious little fresh water since the sea was all salty. The little pocket of fresh water inside of this island had to have been one of the reasons why I sent money where killed about it. Each one of the competitors that we found had a large water skin with them. They didn't need anymore so the company would sell those and make a tidy profit. Of course we would be selling it back to the same courts that sent these poor souls out here to die.

  "It really is such senseless violence," Martin said. "They send 200 here and only fifty are supposed to advance? It's like they're just wasting their own people. And these were people at the top of their game."

  "A life is a life and they all had a choice," I said. "The human world isn't so different that this is foreign to you."

  He shrugged. "While we might have a reputation for losing a lot of military Cadets. Those are all Dragon riders. Or at least that's what they say it is. Anyone who volunteers for ground duty we want to keep them as long as we can, not have them die just getting to the college."

  It wouldn't do to have humans die the same way. Then they might live somewhat to their lives but they made feel up for it. How much they reproduced. They might have one or two children across their entire lifespan, but they lived long lives. To some of the humans. Might seem like they lived forever but we all knew better. Even if someone would live for a very long time, it's not like they could go without some things. Just because I could go without blood for a long time. Didn't mean that I didn't feel like awful without it.

  "So you were a part of some human Society back home?"

  "You might say that. I did tell you I took a sabbatical but I was trying to do something useful and this job fell up on my lap. Safe to say, you helped me out in so many ways."

  I felt a little tickle in my stomach as he said that. Why would he try to humanize me or or think of me as anything except for his current employer? He might be taking up with psychosis. I'd heard that humans like to do that from now to time. They would pretend that they were sick or mentally to get treatment from some sort of ongoing medical issue.

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  "How does somebody take a sabbatical from working at a human War College. Is that even a thing?"

  "Well to start off I tell my boss that I'm going to be gone for a season or a semester and then I take off. I've been there long enough that I've gotten enough days accrued to take off. And it's not like they can't have somebody else teach the thing I teach."

  I nodded at him. I knew he was strong but he hadn't told me he had some sort of specialty that he taught military cadets.

  "I teach healing magic."

  I raised both of my eyebrows at him. "You teach healing magic but you took a job out here to make sure that one of these females didn't make it?"

  "Just because somebody is a nice hunk of meat doesn't mean that they're going to be some sort of consort for the empress or something. I have other skills besides healing."

  I could only imagine what the other skills would be but I could see muscles underneath his shirt. He'd gotten a bit of his own blood on there and it had been too crusty for me to do anything with. I wonder what his blood was like now that I knew he was at least some sort of journeyman mage.

  "I never said that you were a nice hunk of meat."

  "You didn't have to. Your eyes did."

  I had to search my feelings throughout that he was saying something truthful and not immediately try to reject that. I'd been with men before. I'd been with males and I'd found that I probably needed to keep my eyes to myself a little bit more than I did, but I didn't expect him to see through my glamour.

  Glammer wasn't cheap. But it was something I could maintain all day with just a bare minimum amount of Grill. But I had realized that I hadn't put it up and I I hadn't really consciously made an effort to do that. It had been a long time since I I not kept myself clamored up in front of a human. They tennis not like the red cap.

  It was refreshing to realize that I could just be myself. Even if the human was being a bit odd.

  It's probably time to move man on. Some of the more esoterics are goods of the crew.

  Vivian came back up to the deck of the small merchant ship that we used go from place to place. " Well he's a new addition to the crew huh? I guess it's time to baptize him and bring him up to speed and what's going on. It's a shame that it looks so dry right now."

  "What's going on?" Martin said.

  "Can you swim?" I blinked.

  Whatever flashed across his face, it wasn't understanding. I hadn't placed him on the port side for nothing. With the starboard side being the side that we always loaded up supplies, the ramp had been down there.

  This method there was enough water on the port side too swim in and if someone was pushed, they wouldn't end up falling onto sand.

  "Come again?" He looks so innocent in that moment and I was almost sorry.

  "I said can you swim. You did just canoe across a seed to reach a far island. I'm guessing you had some way of knowing who you were about to find was there."

  He blanched at this description

  "I can swim. I'm dry because I didn't have to too much to get my canoe out here and around the bend. My feet dried up quickly from the water."

  "It would be a shame if we just inducted you into the company in the traditional way," Vivian was suddenly right next to him.

  "It's tradition that we throw away some things when we accept these new positions. So, I'm going to go on a limb here and say that you want to accept her offer at least on a temporary basis until this job is done. Is that correct?"

  "That's correct?" Martin said.

  "Good. That makes this next part easier." Vivian jumped onto the bench, throwing him up into the air. The counterweight and countermeasures of the bench mid is so that we could launch someone safely into the drink with enough Force. They just needed to be somebody sitting there.

  He sailed slowly through the air and I could see all the regret. It fought against him as he made his way into the drink.