( from hereA huge palace-like structure stretched up to the sky with smaller towers and other little buildings radiated out from the base. From the descriptions, this was Hollow Bastion ( Read more... )

To the pirate, boats be boats. They all sailed back and fourth (some faster and plainly better than others) on the waves in the open sea. It was quite a new concept for a boat to sail so fast--but to sail upwards was unheard of ( Read more... )

So we had Will and Elizabeth eagar to leave, Jack wanting to commandeer a new ship, and James - at least, that's what Touma thought he had heard earlier - wanting information on Port Royal ( Read more... )

Japan. It sounded like it must have lay far to the east, but that was young William's best guess. He had been a blacksmith before all of this piracy had entered his life. It hadn't been his business to become concerned with things like geography. Still, the man had to have quite an impressive ship if he'd sailed all the way to Port Royal on his own ( Read more... )

Further into the town, the houses changed slightly. They were still old by Touma's standards, but they weren't as...shabby. More upscale, as if he had gone from a Tokugawa era peasant's section to that of the samurai. Perhaps he could find a coffee shop, hopefully with wireless, but he could make due with ethernet if he absolutely had to ( Read more... )

It was a good thing that Tenku could also land in water - the engineers wanted to cover all eventualities, apparently - because that's all that Touma could safely land on. The land he did see, what little there seemed to be of it, was covered in what looked to be wooden houses. Almost like what he had seen in books and movies, really ( Read more... )

A while after Riku left, Touma gazed at the various items on the bed. His own bag was packed, ready to go to the landing area and onto the next world. That wasn't the problem ( Read more... )

When Touma walked fully into the room, he could smell the nail polish - something that he'd never really gotten. Why put that stuff on your toes when no one is going to see it? Which was exactly what Faye was doing, just...messier than he'd seen Nasuti do. Oh well ( Read more... )

As Faye sorted through the bags she’d brought back from the Red Tail, it struck her that packing was an incredibly unnatural exercise. People always brought too much, or too little. Even if they brought just the right amount, they ended up with the wrong stuff. Like this: Faye had neglected to bring fingernail clippers, but she remembered to ( Read more... )

Touma didn't waste any time leaving the hotel and making for the First District. It was still a bit chilly, but it wasn't anything he minded. He did notice a couple others out near a fountain, fire-like lights surrounding them - which were really cool, if he thought about it. However, the thought of food kept him from going over to the two men ( Read more... )