Open Chronicles The Sunset's Sorrow

[Aiari]

Amol-Kalit

---

Salitra

Sunset in the city was a marvelous time. Shops set up lights, the sound music and laughter rose up louder into the air, and the streets became more and more empty. Yet, at the docks, there was still a bustle. Business there often ran late now-a-days, and more and more it became obvious why. Pirates, and with each passing month they seemed all the more intent on raiding merchant vessels and other shipments.

They'd even hit Imperial ships.

"They're all fine, move along," said the dockmaster, finally satisfied with the manifest.

"Its about damn time, I could've been half way to Cortos by now... we might as well stay the night then," said one of the sailors.

Aiari shrugged, sauntering by the dockmaster and his armed guards. They were about his height, armed to the teeth, and didn't so much as cast him a look. He deliberately stopped alongside one, and leaned in closer to him.

No reaction.

Aiari narrowed his eyes, oh so tempted to lunge at him in some feign attempt to startle him, but he relented. Felt as though he might get a good jab in the gut if he made such a move. He did know better, and he trusted his gut. Don't stab the gut.

So he carried on, catching up with the other half-a-dozen sailors he'd been tagging along with for the last few weeks. There was a tavern just up from the docks they'd been told, and so what better place to go at this point. With the sun setting low, they may as well make themselves at home.

 

[Roul]

Black sails peeked over the horizon, emerging against the setting sun. They fluttered in the wind. Beneath them, galley oars churned the ocean.

Judgment came on the tide.

 

[Mathalla]

The Tavern - Corner Table

"Markus, all in, really?" She asked, a wide smile on her face as she leaned into the wood carved highback chair, her tongue flicking over pointed canines as though she were preparing them for a meal.

"Can you even afford that?" Mathalla said, glancing down at the pot in the center of the table. Her head shaking for a brief moment as though she had already done a quick count in her head. "I mean you're not adding much. That's just...what, one of these yellow ones?"

The Devil hadn't quite yet gotten the hang of Mortal coins just yet. Apparently the metallic composition was rather important to how much they were worth, that and their relative color. It was a silly thing, but then mortals had always prized shiny things.

That hadn't changed in ten thousand years. "I suppose I could just match, but...don't you want to wager more?"

She asked with a smile.

"Well, I ain't got none, but me'thinks I'm gonna win this hand."

"Well, if that's the case. How about if you win, you get allllllll of this." Mathalla said, pushing her coins into the center of the table. The jangle of the falling metal loud enough to turn some nearby heads. The other men at the table licking their lips at the small fortune. "And I just...ha, I don't know. Get your soul?"

This was a very, very old trick. She was almost certain the types of stories in this world that spoke about this thing had been made up about her and her sisters, but for some reason it still worked. Stupid mortals.

"Heh, well. Davey Jones is gonna take it anyway so...you must be dumb, or got me beat anyway."

The man said as he tossed his cards on the table, revealing a pair of Kings.

"Ah, well you're right about one thing, Markus." Mathalla said, smiling as she laid down her cards.

 

[Aiari]

The door swung open for a small company. All sailors, and not a one of them was hesitant to find themselves a place to sit and make an order. Right next to a card game by the looks of it. A few of the men took an interest, even taking a moment to salivate over the great pile of coin laid bare before them.

Subtle shakes of then head, each one knowing full well they hadn't near enough coin to compete.

"Drinks all around," said the captain in a luring gesture. He was a shorter and stockier man who wore a big hat with a feather on his head. For a sailor, he was fairly good to his crew.

After having been cast overboard and subsequently picked up by his ship, Aiari thought it was best to play it safe with them until a good opportunity arose.

As he watched the game taking place just next to his company, he wondered what exactly this Markus fellow was going to do now.

"Should've tried your hand at dice, mate."

---

The dockmaster turned, watching the sailors ferry themselves away on up into the streets. Then he looked to their boat moored there, a stout little thing. A flickering in the distance caught his eye, catching sight of a ship on the horizon.

He turned to some of the dock workers, "get all this out of here," he said pointing to the delivered merchandise, "looks like some more on its way."

---

Roul | Mathalla ​

 

[Roul]

Taller and taller the sails loomed against the sky, the setting sun behind painting them in blood hues - the last fingers afore twilight.

Figures like ants scurried about the deck.

Nigh on a hundred oars swept the water.

And from this distance, the shape emblazoned on the sable flag atop the mainmast became clear: a bleached skull.

 

[Mathalla]

"I'm actually better at dice." Mathalla remarked as she raked back the coins she had so carelessly tossed into the middle. She wasn't really sure what she was going to do with it all, but the humans seemed to like it.

Maybe she could score more than one soul tonight.

Reaching out, she plucked the last little coin from the center of the table, though this one was different than any other. It had not been there from the start, no, it had only appeared within the pot when Markus had given his words. "But I have a feeling that I won't be playing anymore tonight."

Mathalla said as she plucked the coin away and flipped it into her palm. Drawing back fully into her highback chair as though it were some sort of throne.

"I believe I'm done playing old tricks all together tonight, in fact." The Devil mused. "Mm, I think it feels like I'm going to experience something new tonight."

Markus looked down at the table, somewhere between fury and utter despair. "What the hell you talking about lady?"

He asked, just as Salitra's first bells of alarm began to ring.

 

[Nym]

The Sultana of Salitra had eyes everywhere, and so she was swiftly made aware of black sails on her horizon. The air in the Council chambers was already heavy with tension when the Captain of the Guard brought the news to her. Her slender fingers clenched the armrests of her seat, her gaze narrowing.

Pirates. She fucking hated pirates. "Vultures of the sea." she muttered, her voice low and dangerous. "You are all dismissed." she said, her gaze cast around the table.

Her small Council had shrunk significantly over the last few weeks. Several of her advisers' heads still adorned the walls on pikes, now serving as pickings for the carrion. Those who remained bowed their heads with more obedience than before she had redecorated, and they made haste to leave her alone with the Captain.

"It seems we have some unwelcome guests approaching our shores, Navari.." she stood with a humourless smile, her fingers curling into fists, her nails pressing tiny crescents into the soft flesh of her palms. "Double the patrols on the shoreline. I want more whisperers on the docks and in the markets and taverns. I want to hear everything. Anyone so much as smells like a fucking pirate will be arrested on sight. Executions will be public. An example must be made, and my people will know the importance of Salitra's protection."

Beneath the mask of resolve, her mind was a tempest of paranoia and suspicion, every shadow hiding a potential threat, every whispered word a dagger aimed at her heart. Pirates were not uncommon, flies in the ointment, but even the smallest of pests could poison the well.

"As you command, Sultana." he crossed his arm over his chest and bowed before leaving her alone. She ventured to the window then, her gaze settling upon the ships with a scowl.

Very soon, her patrols would be in place. Sooner still, her scouts would be listening. Men, women, children. Dockworkers, merchants, sailors, urchins. To everyone else, they were everyone else, to her, they were her eyes and ears.

 

[Aiari]

"Mm, I think it feels like I'm going to experience something new tonight."
​

Just then as he cast her a weary eye, all too cautious of premonitions, the first sound of a grand bell rang. He pursed his lips, his eyes slowly moving away from her and tracking across the establishment. More than a few heads perked up, the din of the evening quieting.

Shouting outside, and a single, clear word: pirates.

"Fancy a look outside then," he said with a grin, and then lifted himself from his seat and wandered to a window streetside.

---

So engrossed in the wearing of the day, the dockworkers had little forethought to suspect anything. Here in Salitra, it was folly to do anything other than to come and go in peace. Or at least... that is how it had been for so very long since the Empire had established itself, and especially so more recently as the former late Sultan's daughter tightened her grip on the city. But as the dockmaster watched in horror, men and women wielding all manner of grievous weapons were soon upon the docks. Clashing with guardsmen and dockworker alike, they were skewered and shoved aside into the waters below. The dockmaster's final thoughts as he stood there paralyzed in horror, were that he was dreaming.

---

Roul | Mathalla | Nym ​

 

[Mathalla]

”Oh!” Mathalla proclaimed, quite delighted to be invited along to this brewing new chaos. ”Do I ever!”

The Devil stood up from her seat in one smooth motion. Moving like liquid in three steps before she suddenly seemed to realize something. She glanced back, smiling wide as she snapped her fingers.

In an instant the odd coin which had been sitting in the pot suddenly flipped up and shot into her hand. A strange uneasy look flickering across the patrons of her poker table. She smiled wide at them, gesturing to the pile of gold in the center of them all. ”Enjoy it while you can, boys.”

She said with a smile.

”Markus, I'll be seeing you soon.” The Devil said with a wide grin as she slid away from the table. The odd coin rolling over the back of her knuckles, and then seeming to disappear as it slipped from her pink.

Gentle gliding steps fell with no sound at all as she slipped into place besides Aiari. Her gaze sweeping the streets of Salitra excitedly as she watched the crowds already streaming away from the docks. Among them thrones guards and soldiers, all heading the other way as the Sultana's words were passe down from the palace.

Soon, blood would spill like water from a vase. ”Oh how exciting!”

Mathalla praised, though glanced at her new companion. ”What is a peerat?”

The devil asked earnestly.

 

[Roul]

Magic whispered on the sea with the setting sun. Around the black sailed galley, a fog bank sprung up to cover the approach. As alarm bells rang, the rows swept forward until it reached close enough to the docks. Figures went pouring over the sides.

Among them, Roul. He clutched a short sword in one hand and a buckler in the other and he landed with a heavy thud on the wood of the pier. All around him, he heard the chaos of combat muffled by the pervasive fog. The fog had been his doing. A simple enough trick he'd learned at Elbion.

But now for the real work. He marched down the dock, dozens of corsairs following behind him, and he cut down the guards who came at him from the unnatural mist with a casual cruelness that smacked of derision.

"Quickly," he rasped to the corsairs around him. "We're not here to raze. Grab the vessels at dock and then we go."

It was a simple smash and sail. Smash the dock watchmen and ships crews, then sail out with as many prizes as they could manage to float out of here.

 

[Nym]

She could hear the commotion from here, her fingers gripping the edge of the windowsill so tightly her knuckles paled. The distant sounds of chaos and conflict reached her, mingling with the panicked shouts and clash of steel. Her heart pounded in her chest, a furious rhythm matching the tumult below.

"How fucking dare they."

She had been expecting attack from anyone and everyone, inside and outside of the palace walls, but this was ridiculous. It wouldn't be long before a wave of her soldiers descended upon the docks, but she would not stay here and watch the insult play out.

"Ready Tavros." she commanded two guards posted outside of her chambers as she strode passed them to the armoury, and quickly readied herself. By the time she arrived in the courtyard, the great Lamassu had been released from the enormous cage, the ground trembling each time the winged bull slammed down his hooves in rage at the guards pointing their spears at him.

"Enough now." she said, and the giant bull huffed and lowered to a bow, allowing the Sultana to climb up the rungs that hung from his saddle and seat herself before launching them both into the air.

“Low, Tavros.” She called over the rush of air as she unfolded her bow and nocked an arrow. A handy thing, this bow. Far more use to her than the man who’d left it behind when he dumped her in the desert…

The enchanted arrows could do far more damage than they had any right to, and they’d blow holes in ships quite nicely.

The beast swept across the surface of the waters, and Nym loosed a shot on the ship with black sails.

 

[Ubnara Debadn]

A calloused hand, tipped with sharp nails, gripped the ship rail as the orc mongrel vaulted over the side. She landed on the worn dock planks with surprising grace for her muscular bulk. The leather-clad, mixed-blood corsair bared sharp teeth in a grimace that rendered her fairly human features feral and dangerous.

With a thick-bladed short sword in one hand and an ax in the other, a bow and quiver on her back, Ubnara stalked beside Roul, a step or so behind to preserve his place as leader. Any guard that escaped Roul's blade was efficiently dispatched by the orc's. At the sound of his command to take ships, she broke off and headed down a jetty with a band of corsairs behind. Her eyes fell to a well-appointed caravel docked at the end.

Her hastened progress halted, however, at the startled cries of some of the men behind her. Turning, she saw what had them startled. Ubnara squinted in disbelief. Above the harbor was a winged beast, a flying bull, of all things. Astride the beast was a woman wielding a bow. "Huh..." The orc grunted.

"Take the ship, quickly!" She shouted, cuffing the nearest distracted corsair in the head with the back of her fist. As the hollering pirates swarmed the vessel, Ubnara belted her weapons and drew her own bow, watching the flying woman skim low over the water, loosing an arrow of her own, not at someone, but at their ship.

 

[Aiari]

The she-devil's proclamation of excitement prompted a grin to find his features. The following question turned it to a toothy smile.

"A peerat, my dear," he said with an inquiring and yet affirming tone, "let's just say if you want to experience something new, then let us go meet us some peerats."

His smile flared just a little more, and then he winked. He turned sharply and swept past her toward the door, clearly quite interested in partaking this little venture. And though he doubted it, with any luck it may even have been his old ship and crew who'd come to port, but he didn't think them so bold. One way or another, though, he was getting on that ship.

Out into the streets, civilians flocked one way while guardsmen flocked the other. A stroke of his chin, and then the pointing of his finger toward an alleyway. The fewer eyes on them, the more likely they were to get to the docks with haste. If these raiders had any sense at all, they wouldn't be staying here long.

---

Roul | Mathalla | Nym | Ubnara Debadn ​

 

[Mathalla]

"Delightful. I love making new friends." The Devil said with a toothy grin.

As Aiari stepped outside, Mathalla seemed nothing less than a shadow.

Though her steps were almost unseen, the Devil pranced along her new companion. Taking in the atmosphere of panic and fear which seemed to thrum through the air. Basking in the excitement which seemed to fly off the teeming soldiers.

A demon would have delighted in the chaos of the situation, but for Mathalla, there was joy in exactly the opposite.

Citizens and civilians ran every which way, but the soldiery of Salitra were remarkably calm. Threading through the city streets and heading straight towards the docks, moving in tandem with one another as they moved to defend their home.

It was a delightful thing to see, like watching a stream of ants.

She wondered how many of them would die. There was opportunity in the deaths of mortals.

 

[Roul]

Overhead, Roul heard a strange lowing noise as of a wild bull. He glanced up to see a winged bull with an archer atop and grunted.

"That's a new one."

He squinted at the archer, could smell the reek of power coalescing around her shot. With a quick word and a gesture from his buckler-hand, he summoned an ethereal shield of air in front of the ship, directly in the path of her arrow. The arrow collided with the shield and the explosion was deafening, rocking the sky above and sending pirates and guards alike hunching in fear.

"Shit," Roul rasped, sweat already beading his brow from the effort of sustaining that shield. He couldn't do that all day.

The mercenary turned, gaze sweeping the corsairs until he found the orc warrioress wielding her own bow. He roared over the din of battle.

"UBNARA!" he pointed with his sword at the absurd image of the woman atop the flying bull, "BRING HER DOWN!"

If they didn't take care of that threat, there would be no escaping.

Trusting to the orc to deal with the bull rider, Roul forged ahead down the pier. Roul came upon a cluster of guards in front of a merchant vessel struggling with a lone axe-wielding figure. Roul watched as the short, broad dwarf cut the leg off a guard, shoved another into the water, and then buried his axe in the chest of the third in the span of heartbeats.

"Hakon," Roul called to the dwarf, who turned around, face coated in scarlet gore.

"Ya ken this be my prize now, Wolf, find your own," growled Hakon in a thick, hardly understandable Belgrathian brogue.

Saluting the dwarf with his sword, Roul hurried on down the pier, looking for another vessel to steal. Soldiers were flooding down from the city, he could see them coming for the pier. The corsairs did not have much time...

 

[Nym]

Nym sneered as her arrow collided with a barrier, her venomous gaze searching below for the one who held it. She drew another arrow from her quiver and nocked it with swift precision. As the Lamassu dove towards the docks, she fired one shot, then another, aiming for strategic points to wreak havoc below, and submerge the dock entirely.

They could swim back to their fucking ship.

 

[Ubnara Debadn]

Powerful legs drove the orc huntress back up the jetty, watching in wonder as the mysterious rider on the winged bull unleashed another of her damned arrows. Roul acted impressively with magic of his own. But how long could he throw up such mystical shields, and how many arrows did the flying wench possess? The wolf's command was given and the problem of the bull-archer became hers.

A barbed war arrow was knocked to the string and the strong bow was raised. The thick wood complained as it was bent hard. The trained hunter lead the soaring beast as it soared closer in a wide turn, then the wicked arrow was released. In the span of a breath, another arrow was knocked, the bow bent and another missile followed. Even as her simple arrows were launched at their target, so did the airborne archer. Her's impacted the docks with concussive blasts, tearing through the wood in billows of fire and smoke.

 

[Aiari]

He shot Mathalla a final smile before saying, "let's go!"

Darting across the street through a break in the crowds, he led the she-devil down into a narrow alley, one which fortuitously stretched across alongside the buildings and down between them. They turned down and hurried on toward the docks, emerging out into the open after just a short while.

Onto the street overlooking the harbour, Aiari's eyes widened. The sight of a winged bull hurling through the sky with a particularly angry looking woman riding atop was something to behold. And then, something struck him. Thankfully it wasn't an errant arrow or bolt of magic, but it hit him nearly as hard.

Hand to his chin again, his posture one of deep thought. Eyes fixed on the bull riding woman. With the chaos going on around them, he could afford only so much thought, but really it wasn't much to think about. It was as plain as day.

"You see, my dear," he said, leaning a little close to Mathalla, "peerats can be a fickle sort, but if you present them with something shiny..." he inclined his head to the spectacle, "then we might gain ourselves some favour, and less chance of a knife in us once we set sail."

Proven worth, even amongst murderous thieves, did mean a thing or two.

---

Roul | Mathalla | Nym | Ubnara Debadn ​

 

[Mathalla]

Mathalla gazed in wonder upon the scene unfolding on the docks. Her bright eyes flickering back and forth as she saw the chaos unfold.

For a brief moment, she could even admit to herself that there was something beautiful about it. Especially as the flying creature cast great bellowing flames from its maw and sundered the wooden pier. Explosions tearing through the wood and reinforced steel as though it were naught. Fire quickly bursting from the beams even as they crashed into the ocean below.

It was a marvelously new thing to see, and her guide seemed insistent on showing her even more. ”Wonderful.”

The Devil declared, and she hadn't even needed to grant him a boon.

Her gaze followed along with the sweeping beast above as Aiari spoke of ‘sailing’, a term that she'd never heard of, but his call of Peerats enjoying something shiny was nothing new to her. She couldn't even count how many mortals had sold their souls for just a few baubles. Sometimes even without any magic attached to them.

”Is that so?” She mused, feigning her ignorance as behind them the sound of tromping boots echoed out. The soldiers of Salitra having come calling. Some holding blades, as others swept onto the tops of buildings with great curves horn bows. ”And what shiny thing shall we offer them?”

She asked, no small amount of eagerness in her tone. ”It seems they may be hampered in the taking of their own.”

The Devil mused as she continued to watch the spectacle, her magics wrapping them in a subtle cloak of perdu.

 

[Roul]

Behind came deafening booms, Roul threw a look over his shoulder and saw amidst the heavy fog a dock engulfed in fire belching black smoke, enormous pieces of the pier now mere flotsam in the ocean below, bodies too. And he could hear screaming amid the din. Who knew how many of the crew had been slain in the blasts.

No route back. They could only push forward now. It all hinged on momentum.

Roul cut down another dock guard, but was confronted as a half-dozen well armed and armored soldiers finished their slog from the city and took up positions in front of him, guarding the merchant galley he’d aimed for.

These were grim looking foes, battle-hardened in the Empire’s campaigns and unmoved by the carnage behind Roul. He set his jaw and advanced on them, willing the magics of the sky to take form around the length of his sword. Its sharp edge shimmered, then crackled as motes of blue lightning danced along its length. He crossed swords with the first soldier and the lightning spat from Roul’s sword in tendrils, coursing up his opponent’s scimitar and all across the chain mail until it met flesh. The man stiffened, body shuddering as the lightning crackled into him, then he fell backward to the pier, smoking, flesh blackened.

The remaining five stepped over the body of their fallen comrade, advancing on Roul. He let out a growl. He didn’t have time for this.

A word and a shout, a gesture with the fingers gripping the leather wrapped hilt of his sword. A concussive wave of force leapt from his hand and smote against the five soldiers, sending them flying through the air as if backhanded by a giant.

Sweat dripping from his brow from the effort, Roul vaulted into the merchant galley below, where the deckhands cowered.

“Beat the drums and get this ship moving I swear to the gods I will slaughter every last man on this boat,” he snarled to the nearest sailor.

The man grimaced, then gave a curt nod and started shouting. Drums aboard the boat began to pound. Ropes were cast off, oars put out. They swept into the water, soon to be on the move.

 

[Nym]

She had just loosed another arrow into the docks when she felt something whip passed her. An arrow, a big one, and close. Far too close. Nym banked quickly, pulling Tavros away until she could set her sights on the one who'd fired at her. The answer came all-too-quickly however, as another of the barbed arrows speared through the lamassu's wing, and he let out an almighty sound that rattled through her bones.

Shit. The beast's wing folded, it's other trying desperately to keep them from plummeting, but it's eyes blazed with rage and pain and Nym had to hold on for dear life as it tumbled through the air. She had little choice but to let go, to launch herself from the creature's back lest it crush her upon landing. The Sultana fell far, and plunged into the sea.

 

[Ubnara Debadn]

She had little precious time to follow the path of her arrows. The docks between her and their ship were a wreck, blocking any chance to get back to it. The orc turned back down the small jetty towards the ship her band of pirates had boarded. Over her shoulder, she saw that her arrow had found a mark as the winged bull begin to plummet, the rider separating from the beast. Their fate was veiled from her by the smoke and chaos at the docks.

A shift of hard emerald eyes towards the town revealed a swarm of armed men making their way to the harbor. She could make out Roul boarding a captured galley, missing his sorcerous means to clear his path. The orc grunted in frustration. The raid had become a fiasco, as she ran towards the vessel, Ubnara cursed again. Did the Wardens know about Salitra's airborne guardian? Did Roul? She wouldn't put it past the Wardens to send she and Roul into a shit storm just to see how they fared.

Quickly helping to loose the thick lines that held the captured caravel to the dock, she then scrambled up the rope and over the rail onto the deck. "Get this thing moving, you hounds...NOW!" The orcess roared. The remainder of the original crew were cast overboard and the pirates scurried to maneuver out of the harbor.

 

[Aiari]

Looking out over the harbour, it took only mere moments after their arrival for it to descend into a chaos he was more than at home in. Nevertheless, things had escalated exceptionally quickly, even by his own reckoning. They'd best tarry very little if they hoped to hitch a ride.

He looked up, catching sight of the calamitous descent of the winged bull, watching as its rider heaved herself away, plummeting into the waters below.

Eyes widened as opportunity presented itself, and the urgency it called for.

"Come along my dear!" he urged, quick to scurry his way down to the beaches.

Along his way he swiped up a rope. Quick to the shore, the bottom of his boot shoved firmly against the hull of a rowboat rested there, pushing it further out into the water. He hopped up into it, grabbing hold of one of the oars and waiting only a moment before pushing off.

Getting out there to procure their prize would have to be done quickly.

---

Roul | Mathalla | Nym | Ubnara Debadn ​

 

[Mathalla]

"Ah, not so shiny, but valuable in it's own right." Mathalla commented as Aiari began his bounding flight down the docks and towards the waters below. She had seen mortals trade in their own kind before, it wasn't shocking to her that Aiari would think to do so now.

As she watched him, however, her lips pressed a thin line. Her new friend jumping into the sea to make his way towards one of the smaller ships in the bay. The Devil's head shaking as she noticed the splash of water below. "Too unseemly."

Mathalla whispered to herself, and then in a rash of flame she disappeared.

A soldier dashed up behind to where she had stood, throwing himself as though he'd meant to capture her, but finding only fire where the Devil had just been. The flame burst upward, rushing through the open air and away from the confounded guardsmen.

The spout of flame turning into a tight spiral as it wound down to the beaches and onto the very boat Aiari had thrown himself on.

Scorch marks trailed over the sodden wood as the small inferno burned itself, turning once more to a woman of red skin. Leaning back on an arm perched on the little ships railings, the Devil smiled. "Would you care to go a little faster?"

She asked casually, not answering before she snapped her fingers. The waves beneath them suddenly shifting, and seeming to carry their boat out into the bay. Directly towards where Nym had fallen.