Chapter 380: Chapter 342 – Port of Xeluvo

“Even when one visited regularly, there was just something different about returning back to where you came from. Was it perhaps some leftover instincts? Some sort of remnant of the instinct most animals have where they would know where their homes are that remained with us over the ages? Or was it something that was caused by our more sentimental minds? Nobody knew for certain, but it remained a fact of life that everyone pretty much agreed on.” - Attributed to Vouz’le Plat, Elder Shaman and Philosopher from Gloomshine Isle, circa 497 FP.

“So how are you and that group related?” asked Cal early the next morning when the ship continued to sail on their way to Xeluvo unimpeded. That Arquivaldo was acquainted with the pirates that pretty much owned the waters to the south-west of Alcidea was not something that surprised her one bit, given the old unliving captain’s own history and fame as one.

 

“Funny story be that, aye,” said Arquivaldo with a booming laughter that made the hungover crew members near him wince in pain. Cal was honestly impressed that they went right back to work the next day after consuming ridiculous quantities of alcohol the previous night, though that compliment was likely one she would have to share with the pirates too, who departed early in the dawn hours under similar conditions. “T’was maybe… fifty years or so ago? That little girl’s grandpa still be a young, brash kid, tried to rebel against the government and failed, then ran here to the islands and started pirating up.”

 

“Back then, the cocky brat actually painted his beard red and used that to scare people off, would ya believe that? Called himself the second coming o’ Redbeard and whatnot. Of course, we sailors be a rather superstitious lot, so some bought the act and rumors spread from there,” continued the captain even while he lightly adjusted the ship’s course with the wheel. “Then he be running into good old me and my crew during one of our trips.”

 

“I see you left him alive, since he had a grandkid and all,” commented Cal dryly. She recalled all too well what happened to a group of pirates that had used Uruza’s nickname in the past, and guessed that Arquivaldo was not as vicious with people who assumed his more famous past identity. “So you let him off and all that?”

 

“Taught him how to run a tighter ship, even. I’m proud of him for what he managed to build with that little bit of teaching over these years!” said Arquivaldo in a clearly prideful tone. Cal was aware that the pirates possessed the strongest maritime force in the local region, to the point the people from Xeluvo had not dared to contest them for the seas.

 

They made such attempts in the past, repeatedly, and all that resulted was humiliation and defeats, to the point that by the time the last great sea battle took place two decades ago, the city-state was almost entirely denuded of its navy by the far more skilled and experienced pirates. The seas were no longer under their control, and the pirates made sure they knew it.

 

Meanwhile, their neighboring city-states, who were also their rivals in trade, only scoffed at Xeluvo’s self-made misfortunes. The pirates had let their ships off for a mere modest fee, nothing most captains would begrudge in exchange for safe passage through a stretch of the ocean, and their predation only hampered the business of their rivals, so merchants and sailors from those rival city-states were only too happy to rub salt into their suffering neighbor’s wounds.

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In fact, if not for the continued revenue they received from overland trade, which they mostly devoted to maintaining a strong guard regiment, it would not have surprised Cal if the pirates were to pull off a successful coup. They already had the public sentiment behind them, and only lacked the manpower and military force to have a good chance to pull it off.

 

If the local government kept building resentment amongst its own people, those issues might well be solved in the near future.

 

When the ship reached the port city itself the next morning, Cal found that it was a relatively well-off town, if one with a very obvious divide in wealth and prosperity. The richer merchants and local nobles - which were actually easy to tell by skin color, as they also seemed to practice racial discrimination around there, which had not surprised her that much - wore richly colored clothes of fine fabrics that contrasted greatly with their dark to charcoal-colored skin, whereas the laborers and workers, who all tended to be lighter in skin color, wore drab clothes.

 

The locals even seemed snobby enough that they held their noses high at merchants who had lighter skin, while they treated those with similarly dark skin - mostly people from Knallzog or other city-states in southwestern Alcidea - with obviously better treatment. Cal could only shake her head at such silliness, but then again she had seen similar things in various flavors before.

 

When it was not by skin color, people would happily discriminate by tribe, or by race, or by many other things. It seemed like it was inevitable for people to commit to the folly of discriminating against one another merely because they were slightly different to each other. She had seen the worst examples herself, where the very same people fought each other for differences in loyalty and ideology, like during the Empire’s Civil War.

 

Even with so many examples of such folly in the history books, people would keep committing the same mistakes again and again. In fact, it was only during the more prosperous eras like the current one that such tendencies to discriminate and hate others due to often minor differences take hold on society. In harsher times, people would more often than not be too busy to try to stay alive to think about such things at all, after all.

 

Yet mankind never truly learned and were cursed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

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