No body to investigate
The party spends some time collecting and analyzing the remnants of the assassins. Daggers and crossbow bolts tipped with dangerous serpent venom. No identification or notes otherwise, but they know the attack must have been by the Myriad. Now that he has a bit more time, Vellym gets a good look at the tracker coin. It’s Myriad alright.
“Artemis, can Tay go and dispose of this coin properly now?” Vellym asks. “I think we’ve had our fill of being followed for one day.”
Tay flies off to find a moving target for the tracking coin.
Duerek and his crew are heavily wounded, and the newcomers lend their aid to patch them up. “I’m going to my quarters, and do not disturb me.” Duerek warns them.
With Morgryn and Artemis busy tending to the crew’s injuries, Vellym stalks off to clean up his equipment and massage his bad leg.
Booze for two
There must be good booze on this ship somewhere! Rocky thinks to himself as he wanders down into the lower deck of the Scarab. The kitchen has something strong, but poor quality. It’ll do for now. The barbarian picks up the skin and continues his thorough search.
Eventually, Rocky finds himself outside of the quarters of one Duerek Kranst. A funny feeling crosses his mind as he wonders whether knocking on the door is a good idea or a bad one. But Artemis isn’t here to confer with, and the wineskin in his hand doesn’t quite taste right. He raises his meaty fist and raps three times on the door.
“What!?” Duerek’s voice is heard through the door.
“Hey, Mister Kranst? I was wondering if you had anything better to drink.” Rocky turns the handle of the door and finds the room unlocked. He holds up the almost empty wineskin and blinks in wonder at Duerek.
Duerek’s quarters are small, like the rest of the ship, but neat and full of fancy-looking items. The dwarf sits at his desk, a bandage-wrapped hand gripped around a glass. Rocky’s eyes immediately go to the amber liquid sloshing around in the glass.
Sighing heavily, Duerek responds. “Aye. You may as well come in. Shut the door.” He stands, pulls a second crystal glass down and pours that same amber liquid into it. Sliding the glass across the desk, he grumbles slightly. “Sit down.”
Smiling gleefully, Rocky parks himself in the seat across from Duerek and picks up the glass. Smelling it, his smile grows. This is the good shit.
Post battle check-in
Morgryn finishes expending what little healing magic he has. The gunner fellow, whatever his name was, looked quite worse for wear. He helps the older man up, dusts his hands off, and turns to see where the rest of his party has gotten to. Vellym and Rocky don’t appear to be on this deck, but he sees Artemis leaning over one side of the ship. Morgryn slowly makes his way towards her and clears his throat before getting too close.
“Oh, hey Morgryn. What’s up?” Artemis turns slowly towards him.
Morgryn nods and steps a few paces away, he leans against the same railing. “Not too much. The crew’s looking a little better now than an hour ago – thanks, in part, to you.”
Artemis nods absently, returning her gaze outwards to where the sky meets the sea.
He isn’t sure if she wants to talk about what they’ve been through recently, but he remembers how shaken she seemed right after the heist. Scrubbing the blood from her clothes. Though it’s a faded memory, he remembers the first time he cut someone with his blade. Drew someone else’s blood with his own hand. The first time he took another life. He looks over at Artemis, then outwards to the horizon her gaze is fixed on.
A minute or two passes in silence, and Morgryn wonders still if he should say anything.
“Does it get any easier?” Artemis’ voice, typically ringing and cheerful, is subdued and quiet.
She’s so quiet, he almost doesn’t pick up the question. “The adventuring?” Morgryn asks, angling his body to face Artemis more.
She shrugs, still looking outwards. “The fighting. Killing…”
Ah. “Yes…” He starts, slowly. “And no… Taking lives never feels any better, and nor should it. But, adventuring is a dangerous field, and often we have to protect ourselves with our blades.” He pats the sacred sword on his hip. “And sometimes, those we hurt deserve it.”
Artemis looks up at him with that. “How do you know the difference?”
He feels her eyes bore into his own. He question earnest, almost child-like. The darkness in the grooves of his face fades slightly as he searches for an appropriate answer. “Between killing for the right reason, and the wrong?”
He’s met with a nod and youthful, pleading eyes. She needs direction, and he’s probably the last person who should be giving it. But, given the circumstances… Morgryn’s thoughts go to the other adventurers on the ship. Maybe he is the best person to mentor her, out of a very poor selection. “Time. Time will help you figure that out.” He smiles sadly, feeling some comradery. For he asked someone these same questions many years ago.
Share One Thing
“Okay, so, you gotta’ share one thing.” Rocky bellows after the third glass of whiskey.
“I gotta’ do what now?” Duerek slurs back.
“It’s a game, called… Share One Thing!” Rocky explains. “You share one thing about yourself, then I drink. Then I share one thing about myself, and you drink!”
“I see…” Duerek seems to ponder this. “Alright, let’s do it.” His eyes narrow. “You first.” And holds up his glass.
Rocky thinks for a few moments. “Okay, okay. I got something.”
Duerek sits back, ready to listen.
“So, there’s this story that my mom used to tell me. Back before Draconia was… anyway, so there were these three dragons…” Rocky launches into the legend of Auroros, Terravyn, and Caelis. The three dragon triplets who were once said to have looked over Draconia and beyond. “Auroros, whose scales glowed like the sunrise! And Terravyn’s emerald scales shimmering with the richness of the earth. And finally, my favourite. Caelis, whose azure scales mirrored the boundless sky…” Rocky looks up to the ceiling and sighs.
“That’s a good one.” Duerek takes a long sip from his glass.
Rocky looks at the other man. “Your turn!”
“Right…” Duerek sighs. “I have a brother. He’s the reason I’m keen on an expedition to Blightshore. Something he discovered there, it’s big.” His eyes go a little misty for a moment, then they snap back into focus. “I can’t share all the details, as you aren’t officially part of the expedition yet. But, just know, it’s big.” Duerek grins.
A knock at the door interrupts their fun. Vellym pokes his head in. “Hey, Rocky? Everything going alright in here?” He looks to Duerek and then to Rocky.
“Oh yeah, come on in!” Duerek invites the elf in and pours him a glass.
Another round
The next few days pass uneventfully. Eventually Rocky gets them all together for another round of Share One Thing with the good booze in Duerek’s cabin.
This time, Rocky starts off the game telling them about his flight from Draconia as the great city fell. He was only a boy at the time.
Artemis gives Rocky a side hug when he’s done, opting to go next. “Okay, so Rocky knows this one already… But, I’m not a great performer.”
“Nah!” Rocky boos in disagreement.
“It’s true, Rocky.” Artemis laughs. “I was training to be in performances, but I wasn’t ready. So I had to make sure I was useful to the troupe in other ways. I’m not too bad at sneaking around, so sometimes my dad would send me on little missions. Usually to pick up a trinket or supplies the troupe needed. Once in a while, it was money…”
Nodding in understanding, Morgryn states. “Sometimes to make due, you got to steal from some rich arseholes. Nothing wrong with that.”
Artemis noticeably relaxes a little after that.
“Okay, your turn Morgy.” Rocky prompts.
“I spent some time in Xhorhas, like I already told you.” Morgryn starts. “I was hired as a guard in Assarius. But, after a time, I was due to head off. Found myself out here on the Coast, looking for… friends.” He doesn’t elaborate.
“Well, I guess it’s my turn then.” Vellym sighs audibly. “I uh, spent a lot of time by myself in my younger years.”
“Like, on purpose?” Artemis ventures.
“Uhh, not really. I was kept within four walls and a ceiling.” Vellym concedes.
“Were you, a prisoner?” Rocky asks.
“Not… really. It’s complicated.” And it’s all Vellym will say about it that night.
Dreams and Nightmares
Grand halls of memory
She finds herself within not a new, but a recurring dream. A feeling of comfort from the high ceilings of a grandiose interior overtake Artemis. She’s been here before, many times, many years ago.
A high-pitched child’s voice calls out. Their adorable laughter echoes off of the stone interior and boundaries of Artemis’ consciousness. Turning to look at them, she sees only the flick of dark hair obscuring a child’s figure, turning away from her. The hallway begins to elongate, with the child pulling further and further away. The hall pulls and pulls until eventually it and the child within condense into a speck on the distant horizon. Darkness overtakes the former scene’s place.
A voice shouts behind her, and suddenly Artemis feels the instinct to run. Her horn is suddenly in her hand. Running forward, trying to escape these new but also familiar shouts, Artemis dashes over the fence. The guards are gaining on her, she closes her eyes and whispers the secret word to enter the safety of her horn. The last thing she remembers before waking up, sweating and panting, is a reptilian skull burned into her mind’s eye. It’s stunted horn in a dark and gloomy cave. As the steady snoring from Rocky nearby grounds her in reality, she realizes it was just a dream. Somewhat the same as usual. If she could just remember who that child was… but the skull, the cave. Those were very new.
A night of horrors
Crimson floods his vision. Shouts fill his ears. Some familiar, most of them not. Morgryn stands strong, finding himself on solid ground. There’s fire painfully licking at his back. Silhouettes flicker past the flames. He can’t get to them. They’re suffering, he knows it. He can hear their screams of pain as the flames take them. Blood drips down his eyes, and an ever-persistent dull thudding beats in the back of his consciousness. A heartbeat.
Morgryn sits bolt upright, breathing heavily. He shakes off the memory of the dream. Some of it wasn’t just a dream. Looking over, Morgryn sees that Vellym is still soundly asleep in his cot. Standing up, Morgryn quietly slips on his belt and scabbard and leaves the room.
He creeps up to the top deck of the ship and breathes in the cool night air, breezing off the sea like a balm. Morgryn practices his sword exercises until his limbs are too heavy to lift, then he slides back into his bed and falls into a blessedly dreamless slumber.
An Approaching Storm
“So, this troupe you and Rocky were in,” Vellym asks Artemis over breakfast the next morning.
“The Phoenix Catchers.” Artemis nods excitedly. “You heard of us?”
“No…” Vellym hasn’t, but that doesn’t say much, he’s not really one for entertainment of that sort. “Your dad, is from here?”
“Yeah I guess so. He was born somewhere on the Menagerie Coast. Been travelling his whole life, so he’s not really ‘from’ anywhere.” Artemis explains.
Vellym nods. “And that cloak, you said he gave it to you?”
“Yeah, my last birthday before I had to leave.”
Vellym raises an eyebrow at that but doesn’t press any further. After all, he hasn’t been exactly forthright about his situation. “What is the rest of the troupe like?” This will hopefully be safer ground.
Artemis launches into telling them all about the Phoenix Catchers and their main performance. “My dad, Pat, he’s the lead musician. And then there’s Bella, she’s the ringmaster. Manny is a halfling and does the craziest sword tricks.”
“He can swallow them whole!” Rocky supplies.
Nodding, Artemis continues. “Pierre, he can fly, so he usually plays the Phoenix.”
“The Phoenix?” Vellym asks.
“Yeah, you know the legend of Asmodeus’ Phoenix and the Changebringer?”
“Like, from the Calamity?” Vellym ponders.
“Yeah, that.”
“All hands on deck!” DecklePockle’s voice rings out abruptly.
A city looms off in the distance, a fast-moving storm cloud seem to be coming their way directly from a central fixture. The fixture is spherical and atop the tallest building they can see. Lightning crackles off of it as tiny winged creatures descend upon the ship from the sky.
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