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Chapter 5 - Celeste City

As the Pride of the Waves passed the breakwaters of the port of Celeste city, with it's tall and imposing lighthouse, the crew and passengers on deck were unsurprised to notice that the Auspicious Wind, the ship that was carrying the rest of the new baron's party to Celeste had arrived beforehand.

Before he had gone to his bed last night he had ordered that the new baronial banner the ship had been flying since the beginning of the voyage be flown at half-mast. When the crew of the Wind saw this they, in turn, flow the baronial banner they carried at half-mast. This was spotted by a guard on the small fortress that guarded the entrance to the port and soon thereafter the banner of the count of Celeste was also flown at half-mast and it would do so for the rest of the day.

By the time they docked at the quay a cart drawn by a mule was waiting on the quayside. Darian had his fathers body carried off the ship and placed on the cart and had it brought to a local temple so it could be prepared for burial which would occur in a few days once they reached the barony.

The two ships that brought both passengers and cargo intended for the barony of Yasia weren't suitable to make the trip from Celeste city to Yasia town, the baronial seat. The coast off most of the barony was for the most part very shallow and had many reefs that were for the most part hidden underwater.

This meant that the cargo from the two fluyt's had to be transferred to two flyboats that would take it onto Yasia. Only some of the passengers bound for Yasia from the fluyt's would be making the journey aboard the flyboats. The rest would make the journey with Darian and his father's body overland once he and his sister had been presented to the local count, Claude Talun.

"The Count went hunting two days ago and it is likely that he won't be back until tomorrow evening at the earliest.", was the response when he asked the harbourmaster if the Count was currently in residence.

Not being able to head to his new barony before seeing the Count Amondo could only do one of two things either wait until he returned or pay a visit to him at the hunt. Not having been a fan of even the idea of hunting back on earth he decided to wait at least one day for the Count to return.He asked his Stewart if the barony had a residence in the city and was informed that the barony owned several properties in the city that they rented out as well as a townhouse for when the baron visited the city.

However, the wife and daughter of the baron before his father were staying there at the moment. She would have returned to her fathers household but while he had sided with the emperor she was the only member of the immediate family to have survived. She was stranded on the island until they sorted out who would inherit her father's barony on the mainland.

Darian s father had allowed them to stay on in the townhouse and Darian didn't want to trouble them so he decided that he and the rest of his party would stay at an inn or if needs be several inns in the city. The majority of his party found themselves staying in the Island Garland a high-end establishment on the West side of the city. The rest found lodgings at The Louse Islander a less prestigious location near the north gate of the city.

Darian went to pay his respects to his father's corpse and then spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the city. In the evening he paid a visit to the baronial townhouse to talk to the widow of his father's predecessor. Ida Erles nee Aubigny was in her late forty's, had already been a widow before and had a sixteen-year-old daughter, Alice, with her second husband the former baron of Yasia. He had a long talk with her and her daughter about the state of the barony, it's people, the other barony's on the island and it's count.

When he was finished with the meeting he went to a local tavern my himself and got drunk. He wished to mourn his own passing on Earth, that of the father of his new body on Cantarus and all those whom he had left behind. He woke up the next morning with a killer hangover, got dressed and tried the local hangover cure. It tasted vile, looked a bit like vomit, didn't prove at all effective and somehow even managed to make him feel worse. He then decided to try and make a Cantarus version of a hangover cure he had once semi-successfully tried on Earth.

This, as you can imagine, took a lot of effort, searching his merged memories for Cantarian approximations of earth ingredients proved hard and he found it impossible to find a Cantarian equivalent of honey so he added the sap of a maple like tree instead. He had a servant, the Aed side of him had to get used to having them while for the part of him that was Darian it was just an everyday part of life, buy the ingredients in a local market. He then mixed them as best as he could without the use of a blender and drank the resulting concoction.

He didn't think it would work what with the differences in physiology between humans and Nostrums plus the differences in the biology of the two planets. He was pleasantly surprised to find that while it wasn't perfect it did have a positive effect on his hangover.

He was now able to go on with his plan for the rest of the day with a minimum amount of discomfort. He went to the stable attached to the baronial townhouse and saddled a horse and took it out for a ride. Aed had only ever ridden a horse once in his life while Darian had been around horses since the day he was born and started riding them when he was three.

Thanks to the merged memories of the two of them and the muscle memory of his new body he had no problem riding the horse. The same was true when after riding out of the city he found a slightly isolated area of forest to practice his sword fighting and other martial skills.

When he returned to the city he heard that the count had returned early and so he sent his Stewart to arrange an audience with him.