Just as rumors that Xia Lan Veloss, Guild Leader of the Xia Lan Chamber of Commerce, and Levis, the guardian dragon of Minas Tirith, had been seen together at the Temple of the God of Love and Beauty began spreading far and wide through every circle in Water-Drawing City, a three-masted merchant ship departing from Silvermoon City slowly drifted down the Surbrin River.
It was the Sword, a ship that had passed through the John Chamber of Commerce's hands for decades and had once been its founder John's most beloved vessel.
Now that John had passed away, Elisa was nominally its captain, though she had already taken the helm of this old ship many times.
In truth, for the sake of a good omen, ship names like Sword had long become dime a dozen along the Sword Coast of the Northlands.
Yet these captains, who generally had not received much higher education, still never tired of them.
They couldn't exactly imitate those nobles and name every ship something-or-other Princess, could they?
Besides, in their experience, merchant ships called Princess Whatever were far more likely to be robbed at sea than other vessels.
You called it Princess Whatever—if they didn't rob you, who would they rob?
When the Sword passed Minas Tirith, it stopped for a little over half an hour. Under Captain Elisa's personal supervision, a large group of Gnolls who had long been waiting at the harbor carried crate after crate of sealed, heavy cargo aboard.
Once the cargo had been stowed in the hold, the crew could clearly feel the ship's waterline sink alarmingly low, nearly reaching the merchant vessel's displacement limit.
One sailor could not help muttering in puzzlement:
"What the hell is in this shipment? How can it be this heavy? This is already the largest