Thread Closed
‘Twas the cold that roused him, the bite of chill winds across the cliffs. His back to stone, beneath him dirt, ahead… a wooden fence. Beyond that… the ocean.
The Lominsan groaned as he reached up and pressed the heel of one palm against his temples. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to collapse here, of all places. Plain exhaustion was a reason, but it wasn’t a good reason. Swiftperch might not have been the most accommodating collection of hovels, but any shelter would have been better than none.
Stress, then.
He stripped off his armguards, one at a time, and let them fall into his lap. Last night had gone far better than he could’ve hoped for. Leanne Delphium, gods bless her -- ought’ve been born a moon’s coeurl, ain’t known a Seeker that keen ‘n’ intuitive -- had struck true with her observation… no. No, that was going a step too far. Her observation had the ring o’ truth to it, that was all.
Smuggling their newfound employer into Aleport and onto a sea-farin’ vessel of his choice hadn’t proven too difficult, and with a little showmanship, they’d managed to walk old Balther Wright, deserter and former quartermaster of the Warbull, right onto the mid-deck. That was when the man had slipped his hired help their due… but to Dirk Problemsolver, a job wasn’t done ‘til it was done proper. When his employer left to spirit his family off into some secluded corner of the ship, he’d seen fit to dally for a little while, to watch and wait. The Sisters of the Edelweiss were involved, Wright had told them, and Dirk knew better than most that, to such as the Sisters could field, no freighter which could float was safely away until it was well out of reach of the docks.
He’d grown complacent, though, when he’d spotted his erstwhile companions deftly handle both the rogues and young Iyrnent Thosinfarr himself, the man who’d inherited the Warbull from his father, before Balther’s pursuers could so much as lay a hand on the hull. With complacency came boredom, and soon enough he was rooting around in the purse to gauge their earnings.
That was when and where he found the crystal.
Singular… which is to say solitary. Deep blue… like the sea on a nice sun, skies clear and not a cloud for malms. He’d turned it over and over again in his hands. until at last the pressing necessity to abandon ship got him moving again, lest he too find himself disembarking from Vylbrand’s shores for distant coastline. The swim back to the docks wasn’t precisely pleasant, but it must have jolted some sense into him.
’If you wish to leave this place,’ he said….
Apparently, Balther Wright must have mistaken his fellow Hyur for a man of small means. Sensing in the younger man a kindred spirit, the old quartermaster had rather jumped to the conclusion that Dirk, too, was trapped… shackled to La Noscean shores by way of a society which beat the same tired lesson sun after sun after sun into small folks’ heads:
The good cards are dealt only to a lucky few. The only way to win is to double down on your luck. Again and again and again… Mistbeard made it, didn’t he? Got away clean. And now Slaeglac….
Hells, even the ones who know better still don’t leave. I wouldn’t have, either. Didn’t matter how miserable we were. Home’s home.
But that didn’t matter. What mattered was what Balther had said next, when he’d spoken....
“...of the Tumult,†Dirk muttered, a few malms distant and one dawn removed from that night’s revelations. And revelations there had been aplenty, though whether they bode well or bode ill, were good tidings or bad… it was still too soon to tell. But, at the very least, all their efforts had paid off, had resulted in something tangible.
He pulled it out now and held it up to the light, pressed as it was between the pads of his fingers.
Leverage.
He supposed that he could blame the demon for convincing him to share what he’d found. Qaratai Hotgo. Until she’d posed the question to him, he’d been content to leave her and the others in the lurch. A moment alone with the Sisters would’ve sufficed to confirm his suspicions. Only after the question was posed did it occur to him how large the coming storm was. The Warbull, infamous for the blood oath sworn by all its crew… the Tumult, renowned privateer, its very existence a defiant thumb in the Emperor’s eye… the Dutiful Sisters of the Edelweiss, once known as the Upright Thieves in ol’ Bochard’s day…
The stakes were high, to attract this much attention, and those were only the players he knew about. He’d need help. He’d need friends.
You have friends.
Aye, but I didn’t bring ‘em with me for this business, now did I?
So he’d shown them… Leanne, Zanzan, and Qara… shown them what he’d found. In a manner of speaking, anyroad. He’d flashed it once, then slipped it discreetly to Leanne later when they’d been questioning the poor sods who were clearly rejects or washouts, not true rogues at all. Leanne had passed it along to Zanzan apparently, and the little thaumaturge had taken a good look at the bloody thing. A cursory appraisal, of sorts.
Emittin’ a signature, he said. Like a linkpearl, but not. Might be magitek.
That’s when the Seeker had all but confirmed Dirk’s growing suspicions. The Sisters, like as not, weren’t after Wright for coin he hadn’t stolen… nor were they after him for desertion which, in truth, wasn’t a breach of the code anyroad. He hadn’t swindled any purses from Lominsans. He hadn’t rooked his crew, saving only that he wished to retire against the spirit of an oath to a man long dead. He hadn’t clapped folk in irons and sold them into slavery. No, if there was a ‘crime’ of which Balther Wright was guilty, it was possessing a means to an end… a means he had either come into on his own and refused to share, or else a means he had stolen.
Dirk was fairly certain that the Maelstrom was involved somehow. Them or the jacks. Little else would galvanize the Edelweiss into taking an interest in anything besides the code.
He tucked the crystal away, pushed himself upright, and began gathering his things. There was a journey ahead of him; he’d thought it over last night, and came to the conclusion that -- despite what he’d told the others -- he didn’t have the time or luxury to wait around this poor excuse for a farming settlement. His supposed leverage wouldn’t open any doors to him if he didn’t know what it was or how to use it… and for that, he needed a magitek expert. He needed an engineer… and thankfully, he knew where to find one.
Aigiarn Kha was, after all, a fellow member in good standing of the same company he ran with.
He didn’t have the luxury because, quite honestly, he wasn’t sure where Aigiarn was at the moment. Linkpearls were notorious at times when attempting to communicate over great distances. Even if he could get word to her regarding his whereabouts, he didn’t want to burden any more of his friends and family with this business than necessary… and someone would inevitably insist on tagging along, if he made the call on an open channel. That meant he’d have to go to her… which meant a visit to headquarters. A trip home. For now.
He didn’t have the time because, according to what gossip he’d been able to pick up since landing on Vylbrand, the Tumult had gone missing moons ago.
Thom went missing ‘round the same gods-damned time.
That thought brought him to a halt, as he ran a hand up through his hair.
Everything came back around to his own foolish choices. When he’d offered to move the others, Thom had refused out of spite. The lad had a fire in his guts and an open wound on his heart that had never truly healed. Determined to prove that he could navigate the dangers and the temptations where others had failed, Tom had elected to stay behind. To fall even further into the abyss, in a manner of speaking. To race through the seven hells and come back out the other side whole and intact.
Because they’d lied to him his whole life. Because when Dirk’s luck had finally turned, responsibility came crashing down upon a poor child too young to understand why. Because Thom hated Dirk for that.
If the Tumult had gone missing, and the Dutiful Sisters were interested… then there was no doubt in Dirk’s mind that Tom was somehow involved. And if Thom was involved, then there was every chance that the lad was risking each and every horrifying agony that Dirk had whispered into Balther’s ears the night before.
Keelhaulin’...
Too slow y’drown, too quick y’get cut to ribbbons.
Abacination...
To blind with light.
...the boats.
His left fist slammed against the stonework. Cracks tore through the bricks as pieces of brick and mortar cascaded down onto the earth, but he paid his handiwork no mind.
Leanne was right. His method were, at times, deplorable. She could no more condone them than Thom could have done… but she could see that he knew. He knew what he was about, and he knew just how monstrous his decisions could be… how easily he’d slip and slide down the slope if he didn’t watch himself and take greater cares moving forward. Thom… Thom had never seen that. He’d never had the chance to so much as try to understand his older brother. That constant struggle to do better, to be better… to drag oneself up and out of the muck… that was the greatest trial of his brother’s life. First to atone, and then to redeem, and at last to reconcile. That was the path he’d been walking when Dirk Problemsolver had well and truly died.
The ghost of a man who now walked the dirt path through Swiftperch raised his right hand before his eyes. He’d been trembling last night.
He wasn’t trembling now.
Osric Melkire laid that hand on the aetheryte and disappeared, bound for parts unknown.
The Lominsan groaned as he reached up and pressed the heel of one palm against his temples. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to collapse here, of all places. Plain exhaustion was a reason, but it wasn’t a good reason. Swiftperch might not have been the most accommodating collection of hovels, but any shelter would have been better than none.
Stress, then.
He stripped off his armguards, one at a time, and let them fall into his lap. Last night had gone far better than he could’ve hoped for. Leanne Delphium, gods bless her -- ought’ve been born a moon’s coeurl, ain’t known a Seeker that keen ‘n’ intuitive -- had struck true with her observation… no. No, that was going a step too far. Her observation had the ring o’ truth to it, that was all.
Smuggling their newfound employer into Aleport and onto a sea-farin’ vessel of his choice hadn’t proven too difficult, and with a little showmanship, they’d managed to walk old Balther Wright, deserter and former quartermaster of the Warbull, right onto the mid-deck. That was when the man had slipped his hired help their due… but to Dirk Problemsolver, a job wasn’t done ‘til it was done proper. When his employer left to spirit his family off into some secluded corner of the ship, he’d seen fit to dally for a little while, to watch and wait. The Sisters of the Edelweiss were involved, Wright had told them, and Dirk knew better than most that, to such as the Sisters could field, no freighter which could float was safely away until it was well out of reach of the docks.
He’d grown complacent, though, when he’d spotted his erstwhile companions deftly handle both the rogues and young Iyrnent Thosinfarr himself, the man who’d inherited the Warbull from his father, before Balther’s pursuers could so much as lay a hand on the hull. With complacency came boredom, and soon enough he was rooting around in the purse to gauge their earnings.
That was when and where he found the crystal.
Singular… which is to say solitary. Deep blue… like the sea on a nice sun, skies clear and not a cloud for malms. He’d turned it over and over again in his hands. until at last the pressing necessity to abandon ship got him moving again, lest he too find himself disembarking from Vylbrand’s shores for distant coastline. The swim back to the docks wasn’t precisely pleasant, but it must have jolted some sense into him.
’If you wish to leave this place,’ he said….
Apparently, Balther Wright must have mistaken his fellow Hyur for a man of small means. Sensing in the younger man a kindred spirit, the old quartermaster had rather jumped to the conclusion that Dirk, too, was trapped… shackled to La Noscean shores by way of a society which beat the same tired lesson sun after sun after sun into small folks’ heads:
The good cards are dealt only to a lucky few. The only way to win is to double down on your luck. Again and again and again… Mistbeard made it, didn’t he? Got away clean. And now Slaeglac….
Hells, even the ones who know better still don’t leave. I wouldn’t have, either. Didn’t matter how miserable we were. Home’s home.
But that didn’t matter. What mattered was what Balther had said next, when he’d spoken....
“...of the Tumult,†Dirk muttered, a few malms distant and one dawn removed from that night’s revelations. And revelations there had been aplenty, though whether they bode well or bode ill, were good tidings or bad… it was still too soon to tell. But, at the very least, all their efforts had paid off, had resulted in something tangible.
He pulled it out now and held it up to the light, pressed as it was between the pads of his fingers.
Leverage.
He supposed that he could blame the demon for convincing him to share what he’d found. Qaratai Hotgo. Until she’d posed the question to him, he’d been content to leave her and the others in the lurch. A moment alone with the Sisters would’ve sufficed to confirm his suspicions. Only after the question was posed did it occur to him how large the coming storm was. The Warbull, infamous for the blood oath sworn by all its crew… the Tumult, renowned privateer, its very existence a defiant thumb in the Emperor’s eye… the Dutiful Sisters of the Edelweiss, once known as the Upright Thieves in ol’ Bochard’s day…
The stakes were high, to attract this much attention, and those were only the players he knew about. He’d need help. He’d need friends.
You have friends.
Aye, but I didn’t bring ‘em with me for this business, now did I?
So he’d shown them… Leanne, Zanzan, and Qara… shown them what he’d found. In a manner of speaking, anyroad. He’d flashed it once, then slipped it discreetly to Leanne later when they’d been questioning the poor sods who were clearly rejects or washouts, not true rogues at all. Leanne had passed it along to Zanzan apparently, and the little thaumaturge had taken a good look at the bloody thing. A cursory appraisal, of sorts.
Emittin’ a signature, he said. Like a linkpearl, but not. Might be magitek.
That’s when the Seeker had all but confirmed Dirk’s growing suspicions. The Sisters, like as not, weren’t after Wright for coin he hadn’t stolen… nor were they after him for desertion which, in truth, wasn’t a breach of the code anyroad. He hadn’t swindled any purses from Lominsans. He hadn’t rooked his crew, saving only that he wished to retire against the spirit of an oath to a man long dead. He hadn’t clapped folk in irons and sold them into slavery. No, if there was a ‘crime’ of which Balther Wright was guilty, it was possessing a means to an end… a means he had either come into on his own and refused to share, or else a means he had stolen.
Dirk was fairly certain that the Maelstrom was involved somehow. Them or the jacks. Little else would galvanize the Edelweiss into taking an interest in anything besides the code.
He tucked the crystal away, pushed himself upright, and began gathering his things. There was a journey ahead of him; he’d thought it over last night, and came to the conclusion that -- despite what he’d told the others -- he didn’t have the time or luxury to wait around this poor excuse for a farming settlement. His supposed leverage wouldn’t open any doors to him if he didn’t know what it was or how to use it… and for that, he needed a magitek expert. He needed an engineer… and thankfully, he knew where to find one.
Aigiarn Kha was, after all, a fellow member in good standing of the same company he ran with.
He didn’t have the luxury because, quite honestly, he wasn’t sure where Aigiarn was at the moment. Linkpearls were notorious at times when attempting to communicate over great distances. Even if he could get word to her regarding his whereabouts, he didn’t want to burden any more of his friends and family with this business than necessary… and someone would inevitably insist on tagging along, if he made the call on an open channel. That meant he’d have to go to her… which meant a visit to headquarters. A trip home. For now.
He didn’t have the time because, according to what gossip he’d been able to pick up since landing on Vylbrand, the Tumult had gone missing moons ago.
Thom went missing ‘round the same gods-damned time.
That thought brought him to a halt, as he ran a hand up through his hair.
Everything came back around to his own foolish choices. When he’d offered to move the others, Thom had refused out of spite. The lad had a fire in his guts and an open wound on his heart that had never truly healed. Determined to prove that he could navigate the dangers and the temptations where others had failed, Tom had elected to stay behind. To fall even further into the abyss, in a manner of speaking. To race through the seven hells and come back out the other side whole and intact.
Because they’d lied to him his whole life. Because when Dirk’s luck had finally turned, responsibility came crashing down upon a poor child too young to understand why. Because Thom hated Dirk for that.
If the Tumult had gone missing, and the Dutiful Sisters were interested… then there was no doubt in Dirk’s mind that Tom was somehow involved. And if Thom was involved, then there was every chance that the lad was risking each and every horrifying agony that Dirk had whispered into Balther’s ears the night before.
Keelhaulin’...
Too slow y’drown, too quick y’get cut to ribbbons.
Abacination...
To blind with light.
...the boats.
His left fist slammed against the stonework. Cracks tore through the bricks as pieces of brick and mortar cascaded down onto the earth, but he paid his handiwork no mind.
Leanne was right. His method were, at times, deplorable. She could no more condone them than Thom could have done… but she could see that he knew. He knew what he was about, and he knew just how monstrous his decisions could be… how easily he’d slip and slide down the slope if he didn’t watch himself and take greater cares moving forward. Thom… Thom had never seen that. He’d never had the chance to so much as try to understand his older brother. That constant struggle to do better, to be better… to drag oneself up and out of the muck… that was the greatest trial of his brother’s life. First to atone, and then to redeem, and at last to reconcile. That was the path he’d been walking when Dirk Problemsolver had well and truly died.
The ghost of a man who now walked the dirt path through Swiftperch raised his right hand before his eyes. He’d been trembling last night.
He wasn’t trembling now.
Osric Melkire laid that hand on the aetheryte and disappeared, bound for parts unknown.
![[Image: 1qVSsTp.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1qVSsTp.png)