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. "So its true."

"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...