Private Tales Through the Red Mist

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer

Gal

Low morals on high seas
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Al-Kamah was a smart pirate.

He could smell a storm coming like a rat in a sewer, and always got out ahead of the flood. Keen as Dwarven steel, cold as Nahas in winter, and canny as an Allirian gambler.

Al-Kamah was smart, period.

Thus he saw what was happening long before Gal did – saw the way his crew looked to the First mate even before their Captain shouted the orders, saw how they chose to leave with her whenever the party split on shore. At first he ignored it, because hell if the Nazrani couldn’t keep ship discipline like no other. The crew was sharp under her watch, swift to maneuver, to sink their claws into prey and shred them bloody.

Then the unacceptable happened. Stalking a merchant ship through the Cortosi shallows was no easy business, even with a draft as shallow as that of the Southern Wind. Arguing strategy, the two came to a head.

And the crew sided with her.

But Eshan was patient, too, and so he bode his time until they caught up with the Allirian trader and his wealth of silk and spice. But their Captain was no fool – he had Orcish mercs on board that fought like rabid dogs, and the day went to shit. Fast.

For hours they battled back and forth between the two tangled ships; the decks slippery with brine, the men slippery with sweat, and both drenched in blood.

In the end it was a stroke of luck. Drained of skill and strength, al-Kamah stumbled to the aftercastle of the enemy carrack as the fighting finally reached a lull. No sooner than he’d drawn a breath, Gal and the last remaining Orc burst out of the Captain’s cabin below in a shower of glass. He watched as the pair duelled all over the listing quarterdeck, baring fangs and spewing curses that neither understood.

A hasty plan began forming as he glanced around and saw that most of his men (her men) were scattered towards the bow, finishing off the rest of the mercenaries or shoving them over the gunwale into the foaming sea below.

It would be so easy.

A pained shriek pulled him back to the present. The Nazrani had tricked the Orc into stabbing his blade through the spokes of the steering wheel – now he hung awkwardly off the broken limb, stark white bone jutting out like a shipwrecked bowsprit. Gal grinned, spat out something in her tongue, and ran him bodily through.

In the next instant, al-Kamah was on her.

But in his haste he’d forgotten the nature of the beast. His rushed footsteps had the woman half-turning when he sank his dagger into her side. Instead of pickling her kidneys and leaving her to bleed out into the sea like a stuck pig, the edge caught a rib. The jarring impact shook his arm, threw off his aim, and gave Gal the split-second she needed to slam her forehead into his nose.

Everything went red. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe – he certainly couldn’t finish her off.

But ever ambitious, Eshan stabbed forward again and again. His bloodied knife found only empty air. In the distance, beyond the ringing in his ears and the drums of his heart, he heard a splash.

Something heavy hit the waves.

He stumbled forward, straining to hear through the cheering of his men with the heavy thing was swimming.

Nothing.

Al-Kamah sagged forward against the taffrail, sucking in one ragged inhale after another. The waves lapping at the starboard hull were tinted pink, and he grinned.

“Capo!”

He jerked around, his smirk lost to the sea. It wasn’t hard to feign exhaustion when the sun was going red and they’d boarded the merchant at noon.

“What is it, Kreeling?”

“Elo ancora vive,” said the pirate as he swiveled the point of his sword at the trapped Orc.

Still? Tough bastard. Broke his arm, stabbed him in the gut… what’s a man got to do to kill one of these whoresons?”

“Ma… e l’espada d’Egal?”

Eshan stiffened. The men took it for anger. “I tried to save her, but… he got her in the side. Threw her over,” he tilted his head to the bloody smear on the railing. “Bastard of a loss we took today.”

The Orc grunted, eyes bulging as he tried to force a sound out of his raw throat. “Li—” he gasped, blood bubbling black on his lips. “Li—”

Al-Kamah stepped forward and slashed a decisive dagger across his taut neck. The mercenary twitched as he collapsed at his feet, one arm still dangling awkwardly through the steering wheel.

It was over.

“Grab whatever’s left and torch the rest! Next port, Cerak!”

Tired and injured as they were, the call brought new life to ambling limbs and drawn faces. The crew stepped to, a raucous shanty rising above the broken yards as they pillaged the hold. The sun hadn’t yet kissed the horizon when the Southern Wind unfurled her sails and left the merchant ship a burning beacon for the carrion crows of the sea.

Alone among the bodies and flotsam that leaked from the shipwreck, a woman stirred. She hauled herself halfway onto a broken plank, panting and wheezing. Coal eyes eyes found the speck of the brigantine making swift headway for the safety in the shadow of the Black fortress.

But for all the blood smeared on her lips, her words came out clear.

“Ka akina kamu, Eshan.”

And then a roar to spook the birds out of the sky, the fish out of the water.

“I will kill you!”

Brandar the Burned
 
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You could smell the blood on the water. Or, perhaps, that was just wishful thinking. In Irons rolled and creaked with the waves, it's journey methodical and unhurried. You could smell the blood on the water, but you could hear death on the wind. His lips pulled upward, curling and cracking like ancient paper as he tightened the rigging on a sail.

Yes, he was the captain, but he kept himself busy. The helmsman, a man of the City Watch from Alliria named Hastings, was following the same song they all heard. It pulled them west, drawing them in like a shimmering oasis in the parched, midday desert.

"Steady as she goes..." He says, to a dry chuckle from the helmsman. The sound of amusement sounded like dead twigs cracking underfoot.

"Aye, Captain. With the wind at our backs." They both grinned, through they were the grins of the insane and damned, their faces contorted in ways that appeared painful.

It was easy to lose track of time out here on the waves, especially with the perpetual fog that shielded them from prying eyes. Just when you thought a day had passed, you got ahold of a merchant's log to find it'd been a week. And just when you thought that, finally, a full hour had gone by... you come to find it'd been three months.

In truth, he simply chalked it up to their unusual predicament. But a deal was a deal.

Wordlessly, something called to him. Drawn to the bow, he made his way forward, moving through shades of billowing smoke that only barely held the shape of a man. Some were full fledged spirits of spectral blue, and there were a handful of living crew; both moved out of his way. It was the shades, though... they always unnerved you.

Taking hold of the edge of the ship, he leaned forward, spying the wreckage of a battle around them. From the fog came the still crackling remains of a ship, mostly submerged. And then, like moths drawn to the light, the souls came aboard. They drifted up from the depths, where ocean pressure and drowning had killed them, or from the driftwood on which they'd bled their last.

Some even came from within the hold, where they'd made a last, desperate stand to protect whatever cargo had been held within.

But only one soul still drew breath. Only one soul burned with hatred.

The siren's call came from her, and once more, ancient parchment cracked. "Bring her aboard..." She was in for an ominous awakening, to say the least. But, well, Kiva had her ways.
 
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The white haze curled up and around the shipwreck, sneaking through the hull that had cracked open like the shell of a turtle. Charred planks fizzled out in the unnatural cold that stole the breath from her lungs, and Gal was pulled swiftly, cruelly back to waking.

What she saw nearly had her release the grip she’d held fast for hours.

Sails like hangmen’s rags peeled out of the fog, full of wind despite the holes, despite the calm. Black shades flitted about the deck as the rigging creaked and groaned to swivel about the massive yards. The bow grew ever taller as it drew near, looming another two decks above the smoldering remains of the merchant carrack. Letters gleamed in the gloom on the prow, carved with magic into the barnacles and seaweed that covered every inch of the hull.

If only Gal could read.

Not that it mattered. She was probably, most likely, very dead. This was the ghost ship of tall tales in the smoky corners of watering holes. Sailors who’d had a pint or five too many and heaped exaggeration onto embellishment until there was nothing left of the truth.

Then a rowboat was lowered over the side, and men – flesh and bone, gaunt as they may have been – began a steady rhythm towards her.

Why would ghosts need a boat? Why would they need bodies?

Gal shook her head, wet tresses sticking slick and cold to her skin. Her breath misted as she pushed weakly through the water with her legs, trying to swim away from the men, from the ship they would take her onto, but she’d barely strength enough to hold on.

Soon they were upon her, hauling her soggy and shivering into the boat. No words were exchanged. No threats, no greetings.

Just the dead silence of the irons and the quiet, mocking lap of waves.
 
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The longboat was winched back up. There was naught but scraps left in the water, and besides, supplies weren't what Kiva sent them here for. No, he had an inkling - if you could call a punch to the face an inkling - that this woman was what they were after. She was frigid, the sudden cold of his ship likely putting a bit of a shock into her system.

Funny, he always forgot about that. You just got used to it, really.

Full credit to her, she'd tried to escape, but as every mariner knew, you'd never outrun the depths. He'd gone back to his cabin once she'd been pulled onto the longboat, and while he heard it being winched back up the side he pulled his thick admiral's coat on around his shoulders.

It was, actually, an admiral's coat. While old, it was well cared for, and the rich purple and grey hues common among the Dark Elves gave voice to it's lineage and no doubt thoroughly dead owner. Like a cadaver in a gilded crown, he watched as she was taken into the galley, her hands clamped in irons just in case she got any funny ideas.

There would be warmth in there from the stoves, and she'd awaken on a bench with him sitting across from her, his cutlass set across his lap with his palms set upon the blade and hilt as though posed for a portrait. "Welcome." He says, lips curling into an effortless smile, as shades, spirits and crewmen moved about their tasks as though this weren't a wholly unnatural beast of a ship.

"What should I call you?"

Where she was bejeweled, he was plain, and where she held a tanned beauty starkly improved by the freckles on her cheeks, he bore the visible scars of losing battles, deadly pursuits, and, if she were a betting woman, the curse that had placed him in command here.
 
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Gal did, in fact, gamble on occasion, and was damn good at it too – because she cheated, profusely – but this was one wager she’d never play.

Never bet against the gods, the spirits, and the dead.

Between the pounding headache behind her eyes and the hollow of nausea in her gut (and the cold, the blasted, cursed cold), Gal couldn’t be sure which of the three this man and his ship were. If any at all.

Maybe she really was dead, and this was some last wicked game her head was playing before the sea swallowed her whole. Maybe the Shamans had lied about the afterlife too, just as they’d lied about the nature of certain spirits, about the limits of their magic, about what blood in the water could do.

With another blink, reality settled heavy as a crate of silk on her shoulders. She was alive. She was in too much pain not to be.

Besides, the afterlife wouldn’t stink of fish and rotting meat. The gods must’ve had that much sense.

“...”

Was all that came out when she opened her mouth. So she closed it, licked her lips, swallowed, and tried again.

“Water.”
 
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This was his favorite part. The indecision; the confusion; the reluctant, dreaded acceptance. It had played out before his eyes more times than he could count, and it never lost it's luster. Every individual was unique, and despite the commonality in reaction, you couldn't fake the uniqueness in the way their soul railed against the information being fed into it.

A gloved hand lifted, the leather clearly having been restitched several times. Behind her, a human swaggered into view, a tankard filled with water sloshing about in his hand. He didn't speak, but he was quite clearly alive. Once she took it, Brandar motioned for the man to step away, and sat there, fingertips running over the flat of his cutlass.

"I suppose you would be parched..." The left corner of his mouth curled upward into a smirk. It pulled his scar tissue in unsettling ways.

"Do you speak the common tongue?" Trick question. Everyone did on this ship; you didn't get a choice in the matter. Or, maybe it just sounded like the common tongue in his head. Yet something else he'd not been able to figure out. His life was as full of contradictions as his hold was full of shades.
 
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The water was as much for her dry throat as it was to gather her bearings. She sipped slowly for the same reasons, but it felt like heaven on her leaden tongue either way. Her black eyes roamed about the hold. Rot should’ve foundered this ship decades ago by the looks of the wood – black with rot, the caulk long eaten away by the salt.

But then the men should’ve crumbled to dust long ago, and the shades set free from a shipwreck that refused to sink.

This place existed outside the natural order, and Gal didn’t know how to feel about it.

The question was easy enough though. She raked her eyes back to the Captain, a man as wretched as his ship.

“If I must.” The right corner of her mouth curled upwards into a smirk.

“Pai e saya engari.”

This place existed in the spirit world – and Ngalu An’Ka Imla Iwi Lua knew spirits well.
 
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His head cocked to one side, and he stood stiffly, slipping his blade back into it's sheath at his waist. As with most pirates, he was festooned with weapons - daggers, mostly, but there were a few dangling pots about the size of a grapefuit that sloshed with something inside.

He wasn't particularly concerned about her, given this was his ship, and that her hands were still cuffed. But he knew better than to underestimate anyone. Still, his smile remained, genial as could be.

"Cheeky bugger." He remarks, clearly amused. "But I know why you're here." He wagged a finger, his lone good eye dancing with mirth.

"Kiva sent me to you, and that's because you want revenge."
 
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She had to force stillness into limbs that were used to constant movement. She had to keep her fingers from twitching as he slid the sabre home into its scabbard – wondered how quick she’d die if she lunged for the handle. Nazrani were faster than any human.

Problem was, this man wasn’t human. Gal wasn’t sure he was even alive.

Kiva,” she deadpanned, tipping her head back against the black planks to keep their gazes even.

Couldn’t run to Cortosi and back without hearing about her, of course. Anyone who set foot on the deck of a ship would encounter the stories sooner or later. And if her people were superstitious, then sailors were downright fanatic.

Even her crew (her old crew, came the bitter thought), with the whip-smart al-Kamah at the helm, would pay respects to the goddess of the primordial ocean.

But Gal had already paid for her mistakes in consorting with spirits too vast for the mortal mind to comprehend. Wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t.

“Dat how you end up wit dis ship – make deal wit her?” Her grin turned mocking. “How dat workin’ ot fo’ you?”
 
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She tried to mock him, but his grin said he’d gotten just what he’d asked for. “Quite well.” He replies, “Not many traitorous bastards left to hunt down but... well, once that’s done, I’m quite fine staying on. Always knew I’d die at sea.”

Outside, tattered sails snapped sharply in an ephemeral wind, and a shanty was taken up by the crew as they began to angle the sails.

Why they would need to angle them was likely beyond her, but no one said spirits - or deals with Gods - were prone to making sense.

With that smile finally falling, and his lips setting into a thin line, he hooked a thumb into his belt. “Well...” He begins after a moment, “I’ve made my deal for revenge... will you?”
 
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She stared hard at the scarred man, her eyes as black as the ship creaking around them. She could feel the vessel lurch and move, the yards braced around so they filled with downwind again. Surely it was late enough now that the high tide would carry them fast out to the open sea.

If the afternoon gale still held, they’d be heading right after the Southern Wind.

“Ah ne go ‘round makin’ deals wit gawds wen ah’m in chains. So.” She raised her hands and jangled the heavy shackles. “Unlock dese an’ ah’ll see aboot et.”

She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t tempted.

“But ah don’ tink so.”

And Gal was a liar.
 
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He stared at her for a moment, and then chuckled. It rasped in his throat, and with a snap of his fingers, the irons fell away. He wasn’t exactly a wizard, but he could do a few, chicanerous tricks.

“We’ll see.” He replies enigmatically, walking back to the stairs to climb up onto the deck, where the crew was hard at work. He stopped momentarily to ensure she followed, but where else was she going to go?

Silence reigned when he arrived on the deck, as though his return commanded absolute obedience and discipline. Brandar hardly seemed to acknowledge the crew, who should have all been busy. He was looking to the horizon, off to the Northwest.

A moment later, the crew turned their heads in unison, and then without a moment’s hesitation or a single command, the sails were turned once again as a haunting melody floated in on the breeze.

“You can save your lies and truths for the goddess.” He says simply, turning to the Helmsman, who was a stocky fellow, with a mop of black hair and bright emerald eyes.

“Hastings?”

“Captain.”

“Follow the faith.”

Hastings smiled easily, and the ship began it’s leisurely shift to a new heading, the mist shed behind it like a discarded cloak as it began to pick up speed. “So, Difficult, welcome aboard. The chase is on.”
 
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She followed alright, if only to get a whiff of fresh air instead of the stale salt and rot belowdecks. The soft light of the dusk was a small reprieve for her eyes after being stuck in the hold for hours. She ought to invest in one of them eyepatches she’d seen around. Neat tricks.

It was easier to take in the ship proper from the quarterdeck and on her feet than half-passed out on a piece of driftwood.

It was even easier to feel properly intimidated. Three-master, sails all the way up to royals on the main and foremast. Ballistae lined every deck she’d passed, including the main one. Gal tilted her head to the side and whistled low.

“Impressif.” She watched the shades and sailors work in unison to brace the yards onto a new tack. Habit, really. “Who you steal et from?”

Gal didn’t have to ask who they were chasing. The ocean was in her bones, though they thankfully remained inside her body for now. Hard to say if that’d stay true by the time this voyage ended, but what’s a girl to do?

Face the music of the sea and sing along to the tune.
 
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“Steal?” He asks, laughing, the sound gurgling from his mangled throat as he hobbled to the center mast to rest a palm to it. A hand stroked over the long rotted wood, and it was with clear pride that he looked up to the sails.

Turning to face her, he smiled wide, the evening wind seeming to give them plentiful speed now that the sails were rigged just right. Hastings was a chase helmsman, and Brandar had the utmost faith in the ability to get them caught up with their prey.

“I didn’t steal anything. The goddess provides.”
 
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“Da goddess is a shipwrait, eh?” Gal pursed her lips in amusement as she tested the frayed ratlines with a few sharp tugs. “Wel.” She tipped her head back to squint at the crow’s nest. “It don’ look gud, but et works.”

She lifted her tunic to inspect the wound on her side. A jagged red line ran across her ribs and down to the hard point of a hipbone. She scowled and dropped the tainted fabric back down. “Fucker.”

“You keep watch?”

Ghost ship or not, running aground on shoals was nobody’s idea of a good time. She could only imagine the draft a ship this size would have. Already she was missing the whip-quick tack of the Southern Wind.
 
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“Oh, aye.” He replies simply, “And she isn’t, one, no.” He adds. “But she does have access to the largest shipyard around...”

His grin said all she would need to know. “Do you wanna join the crow in his nest, Difficult?”
 
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She worried the tips of her sharp teeth, eyes flicking between the Captain and the swaying tip of the mainmast. It was tempting, like the rest of this ship, like this whole journey; like the deal he’d offered. Gal bit her lip and exhaled through her nostrils – a slow, tempered sound.

“A ril crow?” She cocked a brow at the man before turning her gaze upwards with renewed interest. “Mebe tamorrow. Don’ wanna puke on ye all,” she said with exaggerated regret as she patted her injured side.

The sway a hundred and fifty feet above the main deck was a whole ‘nother animal, and the ship was downright flying across the waves. If she couldn’t remember what she’d had for breakfast, a few minutes up in the nest would help right quick.
 
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"No, a fake one." He replies, dead serious. Maybe literally. Hard to say on a boat like this. His lips quirked upward, and he just barely showed the teeth through the left corner of his lips. "If you haven't puked yet, you likely won't." He kept looking out towards the bow, as if visualizing their target appearing on the horizon.

His eyes flickered back to Gal, and he motioned to the stairs. "Need me to show you around, Difficult? Hard to say how quick we catch them. Might be in five minutes, could be three weeks. That's the fun of it!"
 
She blinked once. Turned slowly to face his mad grin. Her eyebrows climbed her forehead like a sailor climbs the shrouds.

“Ar’ ye ne bound ta da winds? ‘Cos Cerak’s week an’ ahaf o’sailin’ southward, ne tu weys aboot et.” With a shrug, she fixed her stare back on the black horizon. She’d bet a months’ earnings in prizes that she could tell ship from sea better than whatever bird, mascot, or skeleton they currently had up in the nest.

And truth be told, she’d always wanted to climb a mast this high.

“Ah, fuck dis wit a rusted cutlass. Ah’m goin’ aloft… Capo.” With a grin and a mock salute, Gal bounded two steps forward and scrambled up the ratlines as if they were stairs. O’er the futtock and onto the mainmast top, and then onto the next set of ratlines until she was naught but a dark shade amid the mess of rigging and blocks that creaked between the masts.
 
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He was happy enough to watch her scamper up into the crow's nest. In truth, they were both right - it was a crow; a dead one. Specifically, it's skull. Mounted where a flag usually went, it stared lifelessly out into the evening breeze, and someone had hung a makeshift sign beneath it.

Not that she could read.

She wouldn't be up there long, though, before the mists settled back in like a shroud. They traveled, and traveled, perhaps an hour, maybe more. And then, in the mists, the first pinpricks of light could be seen, and the sails began to raise while the Irons slowed. From below, she'd hear Brandar speak up - or rather, begin the shanty.

"I thought I heard the old man say..."

From a thousand voices, from a thousand lifetimes, came the response. "Leave her Johnny, leave her!" They prowled through the mist, a shark in shallow waters, and with a precision that bordered on the preternatural, they dropped anchor with room to correct themselves to return to sea.

"Tomorrow you will get your pay!"

And as the refrain started again, he waited for Gal to join them, one hand on his cutlass and the other on his belt, a lopsided grin on a his scorched face. It didn't take a genius, too, to figure out what the shouting was about. Fog at this time of year was unnatural. People singing in the fog was even more strange.

A ship easily three times the size of a regular pirate vessel? Cause for alarm.

"Did you see her, Difficult?"

"Leave her Johnny, leave her!"
 
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She’d been under sail for a good decade now, port to port, island to island, and mostly under the wide star-strewn sky and on the vast open waters. There was no feeling like it – and no feeling like the long hours aboard in light winds, the sun bearing down like a furnace.

Between dice and cards and grog, there was little to fill the time but song.

Her throat itched something fierce with the urge to raise her voice, but it felt like a trap; like tar sticking to her boots and nailing her in place on this cursed ship. The shanty that rose through the fog felt thrice as heavy as the shackles she’d borne just hours ago.

Gal was halfway down the mainmast when she heard the Captain call up from below. She paused, then swung round to hang from the underside of the ratlines. “See wot? Da Southern Wind?”

And I hate to sail on this rotten tub rolled through her mind all the while.
 
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The shanty wasn't just heavy for her - it weighed down the bay. Boats were coming through the fog, paddles splashing as torches were hefted; lightning bugs gathering in a midnight pasture. He smiled broader still, and then nodded once, drawing his cutlass as the inquisitive 'City Watch' rowed closer.

"Yes. Your old ship." He replies, a cadaver with a rotted tongue forming words of dust. "Do. You. See. Her?"

He was clearly waiting to give the order that would see the artillery thrust out through their ports, even if it was, all told, a terrible idea in a port full of other pirates. Not even the biggest animal was safe from a large enough swarm of pests. Revenge, though? That was ingrained in his being.

It rotted his heart, and sang through his veins like fresh steel through patchwork sails. Tensed like a jaguar about to leap, the first boats were finally in sight, and shouts of alarm went up. They weren't going to be fired on, not yet.

But if she wanted revenge, and she wanted it decisively... he couldn't shake the feeling that now was the time.
 
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She stared hard at the man, then turned her sharp black gaze to the mists. Fires danced in the white expanse like wills-o’-the-wisp on the marshes south of the Spine – treacherous lights that could lead even the most seasoned sailor to a watery grave.

“Ne,” Gal said in a voice so soft it got drowned even by the gentle splash of oars dipping into the glass-still bay. She climbed another two lines down and dropped to the deck beside the rotting Captain of a rotting ship.

“Ne,” she repeated, half-turning to face the taller man. “Ye fly ‘afore da wind. Dey aren’ ‘ere yet.”

Her gaze slid beyond the approaching boats, to the distant flicker of Cerak. Her port of call for as long as she’d been at sea. “You step on land, Capo?”
 
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He grinned wider, then nodded. “I’ll be right back.” He wasn’t sure if they had beat the other vessel here or not. But they had. That was good.

“Ahoy!” He yells, moving to the side of the deck to lift a hand in a manner so friendly as to be incongruous with just about everything that constituted his surroundings.

Around them, the shades had dissipated, and the spirits seemed to have taken their rest for the time being. All the better, too, or they’d unnerve the Wardens - he was fairly certain their leader was still a paranoid gob.

“Who comes ta’ lay anchor?” Yelled a figure from below.

“In Irons.” He calls back, and silence followed.

“And the tribute?”

“Ready to be lowered into the water fer ye.”

“Then lower it!” While the Warden didn’t sound scared, sailors were, by nature, superstitious. They refused to come aboard, but that didn’t mean it granted them patience.

Brandar turned, circling his finger in the air, and some of the deckhangs began lowering a longboat into the Bay.

“Hey, Difficult?” He asks, turning towards her. “Want ta’ get a drink?”
 
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By way of answer, Gal stalked over to the taffrail, leaning forward until black hair spilled over her shoulders and the lanterns caught a glint of gold. The Warden’s eyes widened, and his posture lost just a bit of tension.

A familiar face will do that.

“Ey Vesso! Ho’ boot ye quit wastin’ me tim an’ let os fo’ da shor’?” She cocked her head to the side, thumb stuck at the Captain he still couldn’t see. And thank fuck for that. “Throats gettin’ dry op ‘ere.”

Hesitation was written over every inch of his weathered features. He didn’t like the look of the ship. Who in their right mind would?

“It’s just— where’s al-Kamah? Ya didnae leave him stranded on some island halfway between the Spear and nowhere, did ya?”

“Somtin’ like dat.” It was all she could do not to grind her smile into dust. Instead she shrugged a comely shoulder free of her tunic and winked. “Ne, he jus’ had som… treed ta do in Bellesgardes. Me an’ few o’ da oders catch ride wit dis fine Capitain.”

And that wasn’t even a lie. She’d seen the shades of former crew flit and slide across the ship during their voyage through the mists.

Vesso fidgeted with his lantern. Gal leaned further. Once breasts were brought into play, the Warden’s capitulation was swift a-coming. His shoulders sagged.

“A’ight. Welcome ta’ Cerak, In Irons.”
 
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