Pirate Age: The Golden Era

SilentxChaos · Feb 11, 2018

Jack stayed where he was as Kadi and Ray caught up, throwing two or three more knives to hamper the bluejackets from shooting them, but none made contact. The bluejackets, whoever they were, had no special abilities like his haki, or Devil Fruit powers. Their odd silent guns meant they had interesting gadgets; things Jack may have suspected from Brass Cape, a place he only visited once years ago. They also aren't the best of fighters, he thought privately, but decided not to underestimate them yet. The Undersea held so many unknowns, Jack doubted he'd ever underestimate anything again.

Once his crew mates were closer, Jack pushed further. He kept in front; in no sense of bravado but simply because his armament haki would protect him better in the open. As they closed in, the one attacked by CP appeared to be fleeing. He turned on his heel and leapt off the terrace. Jack went after him as Ray targeted the other jacket whom Jack had hit in the arm. He jumped by, vaulting over the second terrace in time to see the man below him land awkwardly, his right leg jerking and he nearly fell over. The cook leapt down, in time to see the man pull something out of his pocket.

"No!" Jack blurted and lunged for him. He had no idea what the device was, or what it did, and he didn't care to find out.

He was too slow. The man activated the device, causing the crystal to shatter and emit a strange pitch. Jack's instinct kicked in and he threw up his arms, the skin beneath the black coat turned to black, closed his eyes, and waited for whatever explosion or attack bound to come at him.

A moment of silence-- two-- and the cook cracked open an eye when nothing happened. The bluejacket took his hesitation to deck him. "Augh!" He fell backward, clutching a bleeding nose.

Then the pyramid shook.

The bluejacket tried to get on top of Jack beforehand, and both of them went rolling across the terrace, slamming against the stone banister. Dust and debris fell and blinded them. Shockwaves followed the initial hit, causing stone to crumble and before they knew it, both Jack and the bluejacket were falling straight for the ground.

****

Jack woke up slowly, painfully, his body one big ache. He groaned and coughed from the settling stone dust. Opening his eyes, Jack found himself in a small crater, created just before he landed as his he pulled his armament haki in a weak layer across his entire back. He rolled over and gently got his hands and knees, then vaulted himself onto his feet. He staggered, almost fell, before steadying. Coughing, he squinted around. His vision blurred and swayed which made it hard to see anything.

"Kadi? Ray?" Jack called out.

Capt. Blu · Feb 12, 2018

Collab between Arc and Captn. Blu

Location: Prophetic Place

Shadow Captain, Armored Sara, Glowing Alicia, Luro^7

Runali had pride in all of her crew, new and old. However there was always the little things that made that spark of pride grow, like Luro's constant need to show he was a Stardusk or Ray's undoubted loyalty, and so, so many other instances. And here was a new instance. One where Alicia looked the dead in the eye to proclaim that saving her life wasn't in vain and that the Stardusk were held in such a high regard in Yula Fei.

A visible grin crossed the captain's face.

Her grin turned into a more curious gaze as one of the Luros began to speak up. She squinted, remembering that particular Luro was Maka. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts while he was expressing his opinion- an opinion that… actually made a lot of sense. Grant it, afterwards the other Luro's ended up more confused than "enlightened".

Runali gave his words some thought before saying, to no one in particular, "You fight for what you believe in… or die trying."

The revelations didn't last too long because Haido began to speak once more. The man seemed to frown more and more with each of Alicia's word, even if he wasn't, probably, able to hear what Maka postulated behind her. Perhaps Haido wanted her to show some amount of humility, when facing people, her people, who, in the end, wished to live so much they grasped their last strands of existence so firmly, this existence seemed to them better than well deserved rest and oblivion. "In death, Tashigi, you see many things in a different light. So much seems irrelevant, and you learn that so much is worth much more than you think." The man undid a strap on his sword sheath, a Marine issue blade. Somehow, through some impossible feat of strength of will, he managed to clutch the weapon firm enough to carry it with him even to his death, and beyond. "How dare you question the motives of those who followed you, even into their death? How many times, Tashigi, have you lied in a pool of your own piss, shit and blood, and realizing all the honour and sacrifice rewarded you will naught but that? Was rescuing one person worth all the life spent that day? Was it not noble for them to act in the name of grater good, and sacrifice themselves?" He unsheathed the sword, showing it openly. The livery, insignia and decorations were stripped by rust and decay, leaving behind just a jagged, almost broken blade. He jumped off the gate, landing with squelchy splash, blood and puss and bits of all things flying everywhere. "To welcome you as a warrior would be the final act of our undoing, final recognition that it was all in vain. All our will, all our resolution to live, our covenant to this last, holy place. Once more, to give everything and receive nothing." His words were calm, metered, but everything else betrayed how full of rage the man was. "Perhaps, once you will realize you are counting the last seconds of your life, I will ask you for forgiveness. And you will ask for mine."

The garrison on the walls raised their weapons as one, a deafening single note on a drum of war. The feud between Haido and Alicia was not their business, but the rest of the crew were here for the same reason, to steal what kept them barely alive, just. Dozens of bone bows were locked and teeth-tipped arrows notched, aimed at the small group standing knee-deep in death at their gate. Despite the constant dropping of dead bodies into the swampy land behind them, the situation became painfully silent.

Runali was at a loss for words. She was watching her crewmate defend her life against possibly hundreds that had died because of an order. It put things into a perspective the captain hadn't viewed. Sure she was thankful for the sacrifice, but had she actually taken the time to appreciate it? And sure the crew went to war for Yula Fei, but Yula Fei had plenty of soldiers in battle as well.

Her shadowy form flickered as she fell deeper in thought, only for her to snap to attention when Haido removed his blade and closed the distance. This caused her to step forward, putting one hand up to show she wasn't planning to attack. At least not yet.

It was an instinct. Alicia was very capable of handling her own, but that didn't stop Runali from getting defensive when her crew was threatened. "Yula Fei's soldiers fought valiantly and bravely through Nevis and Kane'Artem and have more than my gratitude for it." Her gaze flickered to the others prepping their weapons. "And you see, consider it a debt paid from Yula Fei to the Stardusk. We helped save a nation, and you helped save a person." Her eyes fell on Haido once again. "Me, to be exact."

"And while I'd never strike down a Yula Fei soldier," Runali paused and took a step back. "The guilt kind of goes away since you're already dead."

Haido was Alicia's battle to be fought, as his anger was directed towards her, so the captain let out a loud whistle purposely gathering the attention of her crew and the undead men alike as the silence lingered. "A.. not so formal apology Alicia, but, we need to get into that fortress," She signaled for Sara and the Luros to get ready (as if the bow and arrows aimed at them weren't enough of a signal), "And they are in our way." She'd apologize a little more appropriately later when their lives weren't being threatened.

~~~===~~~

Arc, Zillia, Ray and Jack
Location: Auction House

Just as Zil finished buttoning down the shirt of the outfit and adjusting the sleeves, a group of guards rushed down the servant's tract. The corporal at the front just pushed her to the side against a wall and the unit hurried past her. Whatever happened, at least the guards were too busy to check if she belonged into the pyramid. The disguise seemed to be sufficient for the current situation, as long as she did not grab too much of an attention.

As she'd continue, she would hear a sound of a loud argument further down the tract. She'd come upon a door that someone forgot to close during the commotion. Peeking behind it, she'd notice two man almost shouting at each other, one dressed in the livery of the Auction House guard, though judging by the amount of random bits of metals and details in the embroidery of his jacket, it must have been someone slightly more important than a regular guard. The other man was dressed in a sleeping robe, the fact enhanced by an undid bed the size of a smaller kingdom behind him. In a corner of the room was a fireplace, and in the coals, Zilla could possibly spot a glint of a brass bullet.

"What do you mean, they blasted in?! How could you let that happen? Do you even know what that will do to our reputation?!" the recently awoken, shorter man who seemed completely hairless, sans two fain notions of eyebrows, shouted at the officer. "Wake everyone up, round up whomever is responsible and beat them until they talk who sent them! We must not let them reach the deposit. Round up my guard and fetch me my rifle, we will barricade by the archive deposit and hold the fort, while you round up the attackers!"

From the chimney came more sounds of a gunfire, distorted to sound like rapid beating of a carpenter's hammer. Considering the position of the chimney, Zillia could conjecture the gunfire was in fact coming from the back, not the front entrance, of the pyramid. A two-pronged attack, perhaps? Nevertheless, she was faced with a choice. Locating the chimney she used as an entrance, she could guesstimate where she was in relation to the surface of the building. She could try to go deeper, and find where the deposit archive was located, or she could try to find some way out to join up with Kadi, Jack and Ray, perhaps through chimney, or through some side entrance, or maybe through sewers.

Outside, things were getting heated up. The huge explosion by the entrance was followed by series of smaller ones by the side entrance. Those came in sharp and rough, as for those, the building provided no cover. Looking down, Jack, Ray and Arcadius could see the golem creature slowly moving up towards a cordon of blue-jacketed soldiers, which formed on the plaza where the side entrance connected to. The men tried to bring the creature down with salvo of hand-thrown bombs, but the thick skin of it proved more resistant to explosives than expected. Behind the line desperately trying to hold back the monster, a four wheeled cart was hastily being pulled up, with something sizeable hidden under the tarp. A woman with platinum hair jumped down from the cart and pulled down the tarp.

It was hard to properly identify what exactly lied on the cart. The Bluejackets were clearly trained to look away the moment the tarp was pulled away, as the ones around the cart did. The line just made a path in the middle and all the soldiers there covered their faces, despite the golem quickly approaching. Maybe they knew it was not something deemed to be ever simply observed by human senses. It was almost impossible to even look at the creature, and later, even trying to remember it would prove cripplingly painful. The opalizing amorphous mass was not something out of this world, or at least not completely. The Navigator would theorize that it could have been pulled from a dream by force, as the walls between reality and dream world were thin so deep under the ocean, as the creature writhed and undulated in way a simple three dimensional space time continuum would not allow. The entity impossibly quickly closed the distance with the golem and seemed to consume it within itself, but the golem struggled against it and proved, despite being a much more mundane construct, a sufficient opponent. The soldier cordon behind it ran away, meanwhile, to the cart and started to pull out strange silver colored cloaks and proceeded to hide under them.

This seemed to be a very clear cue to Arcadius. "GET DOWN EVERYONE, FACE TO THE GROUND!" He grabbed Ray and Jack and, second time, pulled both down to face the sandstone, a split second before the creature and golem conflagrated in a way that made the previous explosion look like second grade effort. The rainbow colored bloom of fire engulfed the whole plaza below them, burning painfully hot even at the distance the crew was hiding at, behind significant layer of limestone. The fire seemed to burn equally at their bodies as it did at their minds, feeling like a distant mortal scream that did not abate even after they nearly crushed their ears as they tried to block them with their hands. The fireball lasted for a nearly whole minute. The funny colorful shapes at the sides of their eyes' vision lasted for good five minutes, and the headache seemed like it would be permanent at first, but it too passed few minutes later.

The square and pyramid steps below them absolutely apocalyptic. The limestone was burned where it faced the place of battle, and everything in a two hundred meter radius around was simply burned to cinder. A huge chunk of the city simply ceased to be, leaving behind just hints of where building stood, sans for a clean spot where the Bluejackets hid under their shining coats. The injured Bluejacket, several steps below them, suffered the same fate as the buildings. Lacking the silver coat, all that remained was a blackened, burned skeleton. A sudden blow of the wind brought the smell of the caldera under them, a mixture of freshly burned garbage and human flesh, mixed with hideous stench of something rotten and forgotten.

Eastwood · Feb 12, 2018

As Sara listened to dead soldier's reply, her teeth gritted and her armored gauntlets clinked as she harder on her spear shaft. All she was hearing was the mewling cries of cowards who were too frightened to accept their ultimate fates. As a gladiator, and as a warrior, Sara understood that when it came to fighting, dying was a real possibility. Anyone who hasn't accepted that wasn't fit to be in the arena. The same principle applies to soldiers.

"Soldiers of Yula Fei!" She called out, taking a step forward. "Is this how you choose to honor the oaths you have made to a nation that you felt just cause to fight for?! As soldiers, you must have been aware that you yourselves, at any moment, could die. Your deaths have accomplished something important, something great. Take pride in that fact, for not many soldiers can make the same claim. Your deaths have accomplished so much, don't waste it on your bitterness."

It was unclear if Sara had helped, but it was more than likely that she made things worse. Not that things could be worse, Sara argued inwardly, it wasn't as if they were going to let them all go.

Mizos · Feb 17, 2018

x7

The Luro's stared at Haido with confused gazes, heads tilted and their gazes falling to one another and the crew as he spoke, this man was a strange one to say the least. The only one who seemed to really pay attention was Maka who raised his attention from the corpse he was poking as Haido spoke of perspective. His brows arched at the man and he grinned and clapped a few times as he landed on the ground. It seemed he could be pretty funny when he wanted to be, he couldn't help but laugh a little at what he was saying, he thought this was going to be really boring but maybe they could have a little fun with this.

Maka walked up to Sara placing a hand on her shoulder as she shared her opinion about the fallen warriors of Yula Fei, he couldn't help but smile at his friends powerful words and stood next to Sara looking at the soldiers as they pointed their weapons at them. Lo standing a few feet behind them smirked and took his gun off his back letting the tumblers fall into place as the other Luro's did the same, save Cloaky who stared at the scene in silence, or at least his version of silence.
"That's very nice Ma-ma," Maka said with a nod.
"Oi…Maka. I'm the only one allowed to give cute nicknames love," Lura said puffing her cheeks at him.
"Sorry Lu-Lu I didn't mean too," Maka said waving to her.
Lura closed her eyes and averted her gaze a small sigh escaping from her.
"I'm going to let that one go…"
Maka grinned at her before looking back at Sara and motioning to the soldiers in front of them.
"That's very well said Ma-m….Masu," Maka said winking at her. "I think it's pretty useless though."
Maka looked over at Haido, his eyes moving to the broken blade before raising his gaze to soldiers, in a way it was almost poetically hilarious, this whole thing was if one really thought about it. He couldn't help but feel a burst of laughter well up in him, and a bit of it escaped, though he brought a hand to his chest to try and pull himself back.
"These guys are stuck in their own illusions, trapped in an endless spiral of despair and false awakenings. So lost in their own worlds that words are pretty much useless, they're stuck in a trap of their own design forced to wander in a desolate reality they created for themselves, a personal made delusion. There's no real escape from it, I mean they seek to welcome us as warriors the very thing that brought them to this miserable state in the first place, they're cycle will never end, what they were took everything away from them and with nothing else to be they can't even return to that. There is no true end…each turn is just a shattered reminder of all they've lost and they're willingly wandering in it for reasons all their own, our words will carry little weight at this point."

Maka took his hand off Sara's shoulder and crossing his arms he grinned at the warriors finding the whole matter actually really funny.
"Maka…I know you're the smart one but could you stop using words for…a moment."
Lai walked up to the two squeezing the bridge of his nose trying to stop the headache forming in his skull, the other Luro's weren't having much better luck in the matter, save Cloaky who seemed focused on the bows currently pointed at them.
"Ah sorry Lai, I don't mean to be a wiseacre or anything, what I mean is that it would be rude of me not to treat this in a facetious matter."
Lai stared at him and Maka sighed before holding up a finger.
"What I mean is treating this matter with seriousness is ultimately useless," Maka said with a small shrug. "It's all meaningless, their actions here will not change their fates, and the very thing that they say got them killed, they're currently clinging to as a reason to kill us, how can you not find that just a little funny."
Banana walked up to the two and scratched at his peel causing Maka to bring a hand to his face, his comrades weren't understanding how funny this all was.
"They're playing off a tragic irony, trying to make something vain by acting in the same way that put them in that same place. Yet in a way by acting in that matter it could give meaning to the very actions they wish to call attention to as meaningless. Tell me you guys see this."
Lo put a hand on his hip and brought a hand to his chin.
"So…they're like…Banana?"
Maka hung his head before rubbing the back of it and turning his attention to the armed soldiers standing in their way, he knew better than to try and explain all this to the others.
"Look what I'm saying is, wouldn't it be funny to make them suffer again. To kill them once more so they can feel that pain again. If dying once put them in so much despair and trapped them in such a state, wouldn't you find pleasure in creating that suffering once more."
"Oh yeah that makes perfect sense," Luro said with a nod.
"Ingenious Maka, I'm quite impressed," Lai said with a nod.
"Very well said Love, I couldn't agree more."
"Appreciative comment as well," Banana said.
Maka rubbed the side of his head, at the end of the day it always came back to this, though it was fun so what did it really matter anyway.
"Hm…well it doesn't matter if they get it or not, we all agree on one thing. They're in the way and talking isn't working soooo there's only one response! Completely necessary violence!"
"We also have the Captain's permission as well, let's go all out guys," Luro said throwing a fist in the air.
The others joined him save Cloaky whose mouth moved causing the other Luro's to look at him, Lo shook his head and motioned to the guards.
"Read the room Cloaky, we got stuff to do."
"Allow us to give you a proper rest and lead you down a rightful delusional path," Maka said grinning.
"Huh?" Luro said looking at him.
"Just kill them till they're dead...again"
"Yeah!" The Luro's said together save Cloaky.
"I'm going to use your skulls as my new-" Lai started but stopped when Lura put a hand on his shoulder.
"Pull it back a bit love, Li-Li's right there."
"…Li-Li? You mean Manicia?"
"I gotta give it to Maka he's got some skill. It's too girly for Manicia though but we want to rile her up to fight her people. This has to be hard for her."
"Yeah you're right," Lai said. "We should say things that are completely untrue to get her mad so she can fight properly."
"Alicia you're clearly feminine in may ways!" Lo yelled.
"You're silky hair is clearly something you put effort in," Lai said with a nod.
"I can't see your bulging biceps right now," Banana said.
"Yes everyone keep lying to Alicia!" Luro yelled. "Keep giving her false compliments, let's rile her up, cause she's our friend!"
Cloaky's mouth moved and the Luro's all gasped and brought hands to their chests.
"Cloaky how salacious," Lai said. "Have some manners!"

Zilia felt a small bit of panic hit her the moment guards approached her, but she did her utmost not to seem suspicious. When she was pushed to the side she expected a gun to be shoved into her face but when the guards passed her she looked in their direction, waiting until they faded into the distance before falling to her hands and knees. A long breath escaped from her and her whole body relaxed as the footsteps faded into the distance. That was way too close for comfort, she didn't know how everyone enjoyed being put into positions like this, it was stressful. If her hair wasn't already a sort of grey it would have become it over the past few days easily. Climbing to her feet she continued pushing forward knowing standing still wasn't a good idea.
Something bad had happened and it was clear the place was in complete disarray which would be the perfect opportunity to escape from here without drawing too much attention.

Hearing yelling Zilia almost froze up but realizing it was coming from up ahead she calmed down and lowered her body continuing forward stopping at the open door and peering inside, mainly to find a moment when she could sneak by. Noticing the two men she sunk down a bit further feeling a tad awful for eavesdropping on their conversation. From what she could tell given the current situation things really were chaotic and she could definitely hear gunshots coming from somewhere, she took a moment to try and remember which way they came in to try and determine which way not to go, not really wanting to move towards the gunfire.

After a small moment of contemplation Zilia closed her eyes for a moment realizing she had a few choices currently, with everything chaotic this was an extremely good opportunity, she could press a bit further, try to find the location of this deposit, which seemed absolutely necessary now, or she could retreat now and try to rejoin the others, using the chaos to slip out unnoticed. The only reason the latter wasn't an obvious choice was thanks to the dangerous new events, getting the dirt was going to be much harder, there was a chance if there wasn't extra security after this they at least would have more guards who were very attentive after the attack. While considering this she felt a familiar voice echo in her skull, one she didn't appreciate.
"Listen Z, if you're going to do somethin' you gotta go all out. There's no point otherwise. If you get the chance go all the way and see what happens. That way there's no regrets, also drink while doing so cause then it's more fun."
Zilia put her face in her hands, she couldn't believe she was actually going to do this.
"I'm listening to advice from Luro! I must be going insane…I need to press further and try to find this deposit while they're all running around. Aftewards I'll retreat and convey this information to the others if I survive that is….ugh…I've never felt so much like a Stardusk pirate…"
After making her painful choice she pressed forward to try and find this jar of dirt, she mentally reminded herself that Kadi was the cause of all this as she adjusted the gloves on her hands.

SilentxChaos · Feb 17, 2018

By gods, Jack thought as the three of them witnessed the carnage below. A few seconds too late and he may have been another burnt corpse. Ray and Kadi hadn't fallen to the ground as Jack had; they managed to call him back up the pyramid's side to their position before the fighters, their cart, and their abomination appeared on-scene. In a moment of fervorous gratitude, he squeezed his crew mate's shoulders.

Jack eventually forced his attention to the Bluejackets hiding beneath their silver cloaks though his eyes occasionally lingered on a black, sizzling skeleton, or the black ash marking the pavement. Another scene floated on the peripherals of his consciousness. One of white ash instead of black, drifting, a scorching snow falling from a cloudless sky. It burned like a lit cigar against skin; the heat wafting against his face very much the same, as was the death. He swallowed. He tried to remember the thin layer of reality that existed here, and instead focused on the thousand questions popping into his mind: what was that creature? Where had it come from? (These questions became discarded immediately, as merely remembering the thing's appearance caused Jack a headache that compounded with his injured nose.) Who were the Bluejackets and how did they come by their destructive weapons? What were they after? The last question was the easiest to speculate. The same thing his own crew was after, the jar of dirt. Watching them, however, Jack realized they had a clear path into the Auction House's inner labyrinth through the service entrance now the golem was destroyed along with any guard in the plaza. If their present actions was any proof, Zilia would be in more danger if the Bluejackets found her before her crew mates did.

Jack gritted his teeth and wiped at blood trickling over his lip. "Well. I think it's safe to say all our planning has gone to shit. Anyone have suggestions?" He turned to the navigator. "Arcadius, do you know who those Bluejackets are? Do you know what else they may be capable of?"

Capt. Blu · Feb 21, 2018

Collab between Arc and Captn. Blu

Location: Prophetic Place

Shadow Captain, Armored Sara, Glowing Alicia, Luro^7

The ramparts over the gate offered no answer to Sara, as they elected Haido to speak for them. As far as they were concerned, this strange foreign invader had no idea what she was talking about. Who was she to offer billance of their actions in the living world? Who was she to tell them what was honorable or what was just? The faces behind the longbows offered no reaction to her words, or to the discussion of the even stranger seven men next to her.

With the first blow of the duel between Alicia and Haido, the arrows were let loose as one. The massive volley blotted out the bluish glim of the soul river above them that served as sunlight in this strange place. The cloud of teeth arrows was equally divided between Sara, Runali and Seven of Luros, leaving Alicia and Haido to duel undisturbed.

The moment the dead soldiers pulled back to release their arrows, Runali was readied to run. Judging by the distance, she wasn't going to be able to attack any of them from so far away. Luro and co's guns would be their best bet of protection. Thar or have protective armor like Sara.

"Sara! Stay close, we're storming the gates!" She jumped out the way of another arrow. "Luros! Stick back a bit until we get those doors open, I need you guys to cover us!" She pulled Sara out of the way of a succession of arrows before calling out to Alicia. "You got this! We'll see you in side! Ignore the boys, they're… odd." Well, she didn't want to be mean and call Luro dumb.

They raced through the rain of arrows, narrowly missing some while others did more than enough to scratch and dama. The entrance was guarded well enough, but Sara and Runali had gotten close enough to apprehend the majority of them.

While Sara kept the ones close at bay, Runali hurriedly pushed the large gate open only to find out that wasn't going to work. So she tried pulling, but that didn't work either. "It's locked!" She ducked under an oncoming soldier only to kick them backwards. "Or it's too heavy. I dunno, but a little help!" It took more than the effort of just Runali and Sara at the gate, but the entire group to quite literally destroy it open. Unfortunately, bullets didn't seem to have too much of an effect, however the sharp edges of blades did which made the captain remember her own armament capabilities despite her semi transparent form.

During their struggling, Runali paused, watching some of the souls start to vanish from where they stood. She didn't understand what had happened, nor did she see most of the fight, but she could safely assume Alicia had won. The captain gave an approving nod as they went into the fortress.

Skull pillars lined the long hall behind the gate, leading into an open courtyard in the very center of said fortress. "The decorator must have really wanted to… turn heads." Snickering at her own pun, she ushered the group forward now that the battle had finally came to an end.

As they entered the courtyard the first thing they saw was a bright vortex of souls in the very center. Not trusting it, Runali put her hand out and stopped the crew, only to glance up when she realized nothing else was around. The hand she used to stop them, pointed upwards and high above them, suspended in the air, was a stone crypt that could only be the tomb they were looking for.

"Well." Runali looked at her crew. "I don't suppose any of you brought a ladder."

~~~===~~~

Arc, Zillia, Ray and Jack
Location: Auction House

The Navigator pulled himself up, looking like someone who just went through a wild night with zero sleep, or possibly a hailstorm of blenders. He looked around at the devastation below. The look was enough to make him sick, but if that would not be enough, a gust of wind blew that horrific smell to his nose, a combination of burned wood, roasted human and composting heap full of decaying investment banking concepts and petunias. For a split second, he wondered where that smell association came from, whether his nose simply picked something at random once it realized the analysed scent was simply unnatural and impossible in this reality.

Arcadius leaned against Jack, suddenly finding it difficult to decide where was up and how exactly standing upright worked. He covered his eyes with his free hand, and waited until his senses figured out where was ceiling and where was floor, just as the searing ash started to fall and slowly cover everything with caustic layer. "Schachehist," he muttered out weakly. "That was… schachehist. It's… it shouldn't be able to exist outside of dream realm… it just… destroys… all it touches. It must… they must have ripped it through someone's dream… it must have been in horrible pain… and it just… went berserk against the golem…"

Raymond was seeing stars, but he hoisted himself up to a steady enough position. He had heard what Arcadius explained, but couldn't necessarily believe it. That was of course, until he saw the destruction with clear eyes. "Just. Just tell me that thing won't come back." He rubbed his temples and checked to make sure his rapier was back on his hip. Ray wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know what else they were capable of, but listened as well, while eyeing his… new surroundings.

The schachehist explosion crater showed just how much the released energy was out of this world. In certain radius, including the pyramid the crew was standing on, everything within line of sight of the ground zero was scorched to cinders, regardless of the material it was made out of. Even the heavy stone blocks of the pyramid simply started to melt apart. However, once outside this radius, everything was left untouched. No fires, no rubble thrown around… houses with half of them burned away, but the rest kept without effect. In a distance, a three quarters of a horse seemed to be trying to run away, in a pathetic display of gory perseverance, dragging their guts behind them. The crew survived thanks to the sheer stubborn sturdiness of the ancient stones protecting them. The Bluejackets had their own means of protection, and, sans the poor fellow two steps under the pirates, were untouched as well. The group quickly picked themselves up from under their shiny covers, and were now filing in through the now unguarded service entrance.

"Everything… They… don't care. She doesn't… Kirkendall… I saw… Marguela Kirkendall with them…" The man fell into a seizure of hacking cough, falling on his knees. He promptly jumped up again, as the heat from the melted sandstone edge started to spread through the whole block. "We have to go… after them. The path is open for us."

The heavy metal portcullis of the service entrance was turned into a pool of rapidly cooling slag on the floor, making soft cracking sounds as the metal started to constrict around the cobblestones it formed around. Behind the gate was a sizeable loading dock, with raised platform running around the room for easier offloading from carts and wagons. To the right past the entrance was a large grate, which covered what was either a water canal or a sewer outflow, however the air was too full of the stench from the explosion outside to decide on the cleanliness of the dark sploshing underneath it. A portcullis-shaped outline was burned across the room.

The room had two exits, however only one had three freshly killed bodies next to it. They all seemed to be shot from close distance, given the burn marks around the holes between their eyes. The similar way they were all killed implied they did not expect to be attacked, or at least tried to not put up any resistance. All three, two men and a woman, were dressed in the livery of the Auction House, and were not armed.

On Zillia's side of things, the chimney suddenly erupted with painfully loud sound of mad, high pitched piping that caused everyone in the room to cower and clutch their ears, but their hands proved ineffective in blocking the music. The piping felt like it was suddenly, forcibly woven into the fabric of reality, like it was heard by every cell of their bodies, and it became inseparable part of them. It made them feel sorrow, frustration and mad longing for home that was impossible to reach. It made them share anger of their enslavers, who stole them from the shore of lake Marhul, where stars shine like rubies and sapphires. It made them roar in final act of anger and violence.

The piping reached an insane, blasphemous crescendo, and just as suddenly it came to, it also stopped. The two men in front of Zilla started to regain their senses, and the officer of the guard began blinking around in confusion. "What the…" he said, before noticing Zilla by the servant's entrance. "What… who are you… I've never seen you here…"

Winter · Feb 21, 2018

A collab between Arc and Winter

Location: Prophetic Place

Haido ignored Runali. To answer her would be to validate her words, and his mere existence was an affront, an anathema towards her considering the debt paid. To the soldiers at the gate and Haido, Runali was in debt towards them that she could never repay. Instead, the man turned towards Alicia, his sword back in its sheat, held by his left side. His left arm was holding the sheath, while his right rested on the swordhandle. His eyes looked up, locking with Alicia's. His face, or what mimics were left of it, showed very little of any kind of emotion running through the mind behind them.His eyes, however, were full of rage, of absolute, cold and hard as steel, berserk rage he felt towards the woman and the Yula Fei nation. Alicia's would feel the man was keeping it in control only by hair's width, and that the sheer emotional power rivaled even her haki.

"Just us, Tashigi…" he said, starting to circle to Alicia's right, like a snake slowly taking measure of its prey, before lunging for a single venomous bite. The man was clearly looking for a weakness in her defense, in her posture, in her skill, where he could focus all of his rage, and discharge it like a lightning strike hitting the tallest tree in the forest.

Alicia could only sigh when Haido replied, although little by little she thought she might be understanding more of the psychological toll the warrior had paid in the time he'd been here. The soft hues of her eyes remained locked onto his the entire time, though unlike the hard glare returned her's was one which conveyed a sadness over what the man had become. Haido had been a respectable man, a talented warrior and had earned the devotion of those who fought under his command. To see such a man fall from grace and forsake his honor like this was truly something upsetting for Alicia, who held a strong love and devotion for all her people.

"It may interest you to know" Alicia spoke as the warrior circled her, standing still with nothing but her hand resting casually upon the hilt of Shusui, or at least... the version of her sword that'd joined her in this realm. "I died once, a very long time ago" her eyes remained locked to his the entire time as she spoke, of course this was not uncommon practice for those who fought by the blade. "I know your fear, I know your doubts... your sense of loss and the confrontation of mortality" Alicia allowed her eyes to close for but a moment as she exhaled, recalling the moment she'd stood alone in an empty desert of a dead and hopeless land known as Davy Jones Locker.

"Cogito Ergo Sum..." the words she had said allowed to herself shortly after she realized she was no longer among the realm of the living, she was unsure of such words would touch Haido, but for Alicia they had anchored her mind to reality and kept her from losing herself to the vast expanse of insanity. The swordwoman's eyes opened and her foot swept back simultaneously as Haido made his strike, her sword exploding from its saya with the erupting force of a broadside cannon as her black blade struck to meet Haido's in a mere moment. Alicia angled the blade against his, using her other hand to press the back of her sword to force more pressure against Haido, attempting to force his stance to his back foot.

"Runali, Sara... Luro" she said while her eyes locked with Haido, "I would ask you don't kill them, please immobilize them and keep yourselves safe" it was yet unclear why Alicia asked this of her friends, but perhaps she still believed they could be saved, if not by her than perhaps by themselves.

Alicia had no physical body in this realm, thus all her strength being merely manifestation of the strength of her will. On Haido's side, his own body was at best incomplete, with damaged bones, missing muscles and severed tendons. These shortcomings were supplanted with sheer anger towards Alicia for bringing him his unjust death for a second time, and with the strange force the Prophet lent to all his followers that allowed them to resist decay even after their demise. In these attributes, they proved to be equal, or close enough to not matter.

Sheer blind brutality, however, can never match itself with lifetime of training and practical experience, with finesse and skill. Haido's eyes widened in sudden surprise, as Alicia not only caught his initial blow, but instantly vaporized his initiative and fluidly moved for a counterattack. The ground, composed of slimy rotting body parts and oozing foul fluids, proved too unstable to hold the force of her counter blow, and in order to not completely lose his balance, Haido was forced a step back. His expression of shock quickly faded into a half crazed smirk, however, despite being on the losing side already in the second stage of the sword play. "Immobilize? Immobilize! Ha! You fools! The guardians of this place know they are fighting for everything they have! To surrender to you is to die once you claim your prize! To suffer an absolute dishonor!" His eyes once more locked with Alicia's. "To die a second time by a Tashigi hand," he growled out.

He left his right hand holding his cursed, corroded blade, knowing well he would succumb to Alicia's pressure in a few moments if he held the blade just one-handed. That was his plan, however. Suddenly, he gave up his block, and let Alicia's pressure carry her closer to him. With his free hand, he grabbed her by the off hand around her wrist and yanked her closer towards him with inhuman strength. She could see that behind the rotten remains of his belt was a thighbone dirk-like blade, sharpened to a wicked point.

It didn't take Alicia long to work out the the rules were different here and in truth she'd already come to the conclusion long before their fight began. Though to what extent her abilities were limited or in what form they could be expressed was yet to be discovered. It was only when Haido engaged with her that she began to gradually understand, starting with the moment she felt his grip upon her wrist pulling her closer with strength beyond that of his decaying body. It was surprising and unexpected and Alicia was finding that the unstable ground was further limiting to her ability to swiftly counter the pull. Nevertheless the swordswoman acted as she always did in the face of an adversity, adapting to overcome the obstacle.

In a risky move Alicia threw her arm upwards, releasing her grip on her blade to allow it to travel above them. Only for a moment would she require the blade to be free from her proximity as she followed the momentum of the pull, bending herself forwards till her face almost brushed the surface of the bloodied coagulated muck beneath them, noting the sharp thigh bone. In the downwards momentum her leg swung back and upwards over her before her heel would aim to slam into Haido's face with enough force to throw him from her presence. With distance made she would recompose her stance in time to pluck Shusui from it's descent, grasping the blade before she would suddenly burst towards Haido in a staggering display of frightening speed.

The disgusting fluid beneath them parted in her wake as she flew in a straight line, blade outstretched to her side, "Suruku Anaki!" the words were in her native language and Shusui would arch furiously in a devastating blow intending to rend the rusted blade from the fallen warriors grip or shatter it entirely.

The sergeant's body soaked the energy from the kick to his head, partially by strength and partially by rolling with the blow, letting the energy push him and turn towards Alicia, just as she was raising Shishui. In the split moment before her landing a blow, all he could do was to grab his blade and raise it in a desperate attempt of another block. The Shusui landed, and his strength faltered for real this time. Alicia's blade bit into the rusted steel and ripped off a decent sized chunk of rusted metal. The blade would not stop, however, and continued towards Haido, sinking into his body between his shoulder and neck, visibly snapping the collarbone half, and severing first three right ribs from the sternum, before the force of the blow was fully spent in the spongy tissue of his desiccated lungs. Blood, or what maybe once was blood, started to leak from the wound, black and brown streaks of thick liquid that smoked and sizzled when it touched Shusui, trying to do to the sword what it did to the ruined blade in Haido's arm.

But there was more. Behind the decay and unrightful refusal to abandon corporeal existence that composed Haido's body, on the fringes of the would, Alicia could see the light blue ethereal glow of Haido's soul. It was still there, now trying to crawl out, to finally stop this miserable existence and move on, to due rest.

Haido grinned at Alicia. His right arm tensed, and his chest muscles clamped down on Shusui, preventing Alicia from sliding her blade out. His right hand grabbed her by the handguard and around her fingers, and started to pull her closer. His strength seemed undiminished by the wound, and the fact he was progressively stabbing himself through the chest appeared to not concern him too greatly. "You can't win!" he snarled. His left hand went for the bone dirk. "I refuse to die before I am done with you! No matter how many blows you land, no matter how much you destroy me again, and again, HE will never abandon me! He's a better master than you could ever conceive to be!" His left hand went for the bone dirk. With Alicia now close, the stabbing blade was aimed right at her heart.

The swordwoman hadn't expected her attack to succeed so well as to blow through his blade and sink into the remnants of his flesh. She was shocked and momentarily reminded of the moment she discovered her strength when her blade sliced through Odyn's armor and removed the giant pillar that made the armored giant's spear. She couldn't allow herself to become complacent with the memory as she grimaced, watching as Haido held her sword into him while his other arm reached for the sharpened bone to use as a makeshift weapon. What caught Alicia more than anything thus far had been the reveal of the man's soul, caged within the prison of his mortal remains. Her eyes widened as her lips parted, the brightness of his trapped soul reflecting in her eyes for a moment before reality drew her back to the moment.

Alicia threw her forearm against his wrist to intercept the bone dirk, holding it back as she listened to his crazed words, the anger and hate unleashed behind every word he spat at her. "I'm not trying to win Haido..." she replied softly, "I'm trying to free you from this place, from the torture of this prolonged existence.... I'm sorry" for a moment she merely held him locked in the struggle before releasing hold of her sword once more, drawing her arm back before she slammed two fingers through a visible opening in his decaying corpse, pressing her fingers against the outer aura of his soul before igniting it with her own. Her other arm would bend and apply force down into his arm, sliding her forearm along his till her hand caught the dirk, pulling it from his grip before knocking the arm open with a backhanded smack.

She'd press two fingers from her other hand against his forehead and once again ignite her soul, projecting it outwards onto the fallen warrior to warmly embrace his like a friend after many years apart at sea. The white silvery light of her soul would infect the blue, tendrils circling around it before she would pass onto him the kindling embers that empowered her through the realm of reality. Every memory of home, from the battles fought and lost to the memories of how the breeze would wash in from port Hurasai in the summer to gently wash against his face as he walked to meet his family again. The good and the bad would flood into him in the form of memory, both his own and Alicia's as she unlocked it from the depths of his tortured soul and projected onto it her own.

The man was still not done and defeated yet. The tortured, scarred, neuroses-seething existence of Haido had no interest in what Alicia Tashigi had to offer him, and hadn't considered her new effort at attacking him within, rather than destroying him outside, as a real threat. With her finally approaching at an arm's length, and with both of her hands occupied trying to redeem him in her eyes, his left, still fully functioning arm went for her neck. The man was slightly taller, with proportionally larger and longer arms than Alicia's. His fingers wrapped around her neck and clamped around it like a carpenter's vice, not even trying to strangulate, but directly crush, even sever perhaps. "You… will… submit…" he breathed out weakly, trickles of the foul lung liquid pouring from the sides of his mouth. Few dripped on Alicia's fingers pressed on his chest wound, and she could feel the corrosive liquid try to fight its way into her being.

While it was true Alicia's presence was not composed of corporeal matter and thus there was no real air circulating through her breathing pathways to be strangled and cut away, just as she projected her will to physically affect her surroundings, her surroundings could push back, and affect her presence too. The choking couldn't kill her body, which was safely left at the Shellfish Palace, but it could sever her link, and wake her up from the dream. She could already notice the first signs of waking up. The fringes of her dream were becoming blurry, and the causality of following moments was becoming confusing, with certain actions happening after their respective paired reactions. The notion of this absurd dream-state was slowly being recognized by her subconscious mind and her brain. The body-focused organ was starting to fight her from staying in the dream. The morning was coming, and it was time to wake up and face the real day. This could still be averted if she found her way to the soul of Haido, if she could make him see what she seen, but the man's grip was unyielding, and he was determined to make her see what he saw when he died.

As Alicia bore witness to the warriors memories she found her cheeks would wet with tears, feeling upon all his pain and all his loss combined with all the joy he'd experienced within his days among the living. It was a sweet sorrow, for not all tears that the swordswoman shed were from the memories of harder times. To build a bridge between souls was not something Alicia had ever done before, yet it all become as natural as breathing air in the real world. It was like such an instinct existed when two souls of such power and emotions acknowledged each other.

Where once were two was now just one. The two souls met, touched and started to intertwine each other, memories, instincts, emotions, fears, regrets. They were all, of course, still Alicia's and Haido's elements of mind and soul, but coalesced into a single frame, a single entity. Alicia has seen and felt what Haido has seen and felt, and vice versa, and without need for words or any secondary means of communications, the communication was crystal clear.

After the attack on Yula Fei, a hidden schism appeared in the officer corps, a notion that the outside world had nothing to offer to the nation, and that the island should instead turn inwards, and establish absolute isolation. The captain of Haido's company, Captain Seretaki was part of this isolationist fraction, and the idea quickly infected both the junior officers, as those were still young and culpable, and the senior NCO's, including Haido, who though the nation has seen enough of any sort of conflict for several lifetimes.

They still were marines, however. They would not disobey orders, even if they disagreed with them. The captain, Haido and the rest of the isolationist agreed the WG was something to be ignored and shunned, instead of being provoked and assaulted. As such, the men prepared for the assault on Fort Nelson with distaste that bordered with mutiny, and only wise calming words from second lieutenant Heve, who was still loyal to the Tashigi name, prevented Seretaki from ordering his men to take over their ship and turn it back towards Yula Fei at the eve of the battle. Instead, Heve convinced the Captain to voice his disagreement at the court when they returned.

This would never come to happen, though. A precise barrage from the fort raked the ship Seretaki, Heve, Haido and the marine company sailed on, just as the ships started to line up for the beach assault. The marines company suffered significant casualties before they even set foot on the sandy shelf in front of Fort Nevis. Alicia could not see and feel the last earthly moments of the man, lying on the broken ship's deck, splintered wood and body parts everywhere around him. The shock from the artillery strike made sure Haido did not feel any pain, just dull pounding everywhere from the waist down. He bent his head to look down on his body to see what happened. His legs were gone, shredded to bits, and there was gaping hole in his gut where his intestines prolapsed outside. Or were they someone else's? Heve, the stalwart, loyal and wise lieutenant was standing next to him, but in his place, his blurry vision saw only collection of random bloody body parts, like as if the honorable man was a children's toy, a building kit of a human being some overbearing child tore apart, to spite their teacher. In his dying moments, he pulled his sword close, and swore revenge to Alicia Tashigi, the woman who led them here.

The swordswoman pushed back against Haido as he seized her throat and began to crush it, pushing him up against a large bone that formed part of the gate. Her soul burned as it aggressively and violently refused to be overcome, empowered by her will which wouldn't relent to concede to the former Fein officer. For a moment her body would convulse as her mental and spiritual presence moved back and forth between this realm and reality, her left eye igniting in power in the real world as she stirred in her sleep. She fought harder and gritted her teeth before entering deeper into his soul, deeper till they finally merged and a connection was made between them.

It didn't take long, a matter of seconds within the realm that'd feel like a lifetime in the minds of the two warriors locked in conflict. But in that moment of shared memories Alicia better understood the ground of which Haido had stood upon. It'd been hard to watch, despite being a captive audience as she watched officers and soldiers shredded apart in battle around Haido's proximity. The thought kept circulating her mind as she continued to witness the horror of war, the same thought that'd followed her all her life from the very moment her mother was lost and she'd been forced to step up for the sake of Satia and her father.

"I'm not good enough"

She wasn't strong enough to save her friends in the first invasion upon the beaches of Hurasai, she hadn't been strong enough to stop Satia getting hurt and almost killed in the second invasion. She hadn't been strong enough to save her father... to save those who followed her, to save Haido, Heve and everyone else. She wasn't her mother, who possessed such strength and wisdom that could reach feats far beyond her own. Perhaps if she had been better, she could have prevented all of this and got them home again. Alicia unknowingly stressed these emotions on top of her own memories that became available.

Haido would bare witness to her own struggles, the losses and pain that followed. Her death and her time within the locker and even the assault on Fort Nevis, where she got beaten and bloodied holding back the rest of the marines in the top half of the tower while the rest of her friends and her forces retreated to the dockyards. Unlike Haido's memories where pain had been lost to shock, he would feel her every ache, cut and wound. He'd feel the punch that slammed into the back of Alicia's head before she was thrown through a wall from the top of the tower, managing to land herself in some water in front of the fort by the dock arm.

What came next was the slow limp towards the ship as the fort opened fire on the docks, the young girl cutting down cannonballs and slicing through walls of flame to parry the onslaught from reaching the escape ships. Then finally he'd watch as she redirected the attack from Presley before passing out on the escape ship. Alicia's entire life had been coasting a path of constant loss, pain and fighting and she was only the young age of twenty five. Despite the debt owed by the nation in the eyes of their ruler, was it any wonder that Alicia was willing to give everything, to save the something she had left in this world.

The exchange of memories finished and the two would break away from their locked combat stance breathing heavily, even if the actual need for air was only in mind and nothing more. Alicia moved back a short distance as her mind and soul fell back to being an independent entity. It took a few moment for them to really recompose as the exchange would have been quite taxing, given such a thing was not only uncommon but also a strain on the mind and the soul itself. After a few moments had passed Alicia eventually spoke. "I see now... " she started, looking at the floor as she recalled Haido's memories.

"Regardless of who we are, what we are and what we were doing. The bottom line is... I failed you" she looked to Haido again, "I wasn't there when you needed my help, I wasn't strong enough to stop your deaths and I wasn't wise enough to consider an alternate path..." after a moment passed the swordswoman came to a conclusion. "We may never agree entirely, but it is not necessary to understand" Alicia looked to her sword for a moment before looking back to Haido, taking a few steps closer again. With trained dexterity she flipped the blade around and held the hilt towards the Fein officer, placing the tip against her chest as she took a knee.

"I am not dead, killing me here will not be my end. But, pain is every bit real in this world as it is in the reality we come from. If it is revenge you wish for, if that would enable you to move on from this place. Inflict pain upon my soul, send me away from here... and be done with it" Alicia's words were soft and genuine. What she was presenting to Haido was not unheard of in their culture and was an act of complete submission to an opponent, a request of death after defeat in battle. Of course the situation here wasn't exact, but the offer held a lot of meaning in terms of honor and respect. All the Fein officer would need to do is seize the hilt and push it into her chest.

"You were not prepared," the man said. It felt like everything around them went into standstill, the cacophony of the battle around them strangely quiet and distant, like as if they were in a small world of their own, that was tacked onto the larger thing as an afterthought. "You were proud, and in your vanity, you had no idea how not prepared you were. And now you see the burden of command. "I wish to enact revenge on you," he continued, strangely calm out of a sudden. "I wish to crack the mirror of your soul. I wish to bring doubt into your mind. I with to bring rightful shame on the name Tashigi. I wish to dismantle you into the smallest possible pieces, and through pain and experience have you build something out of yourself. Something real, so the next time you dare to lead again, you'll know it is like holding double edged sword; one edge towards your enemies, while firmly holding the other edge, so firmly your hand never stops bleeding."

He dropped the stabbing knife into the mire at their feet. The knife made a soft squelching sound as it broke the surface of the oily mix of blood and water. "I welcome you to my house, Alicia Tashigi. As one warrior to other, as one equal to other. Now you bear scars of shame, doubt and consequence. May they serve you well." As he spoke, she could see parts of the man starting to rot and fall off. By the end of the sentence, his skin was gone, his muscles exposed. His words became more slurry as mimics of the face ceased to function. His head started to droop as his neck started to lose ability to bear the weight. His eyes fell out, and finally, as he finished, he fell apart. Shushui was let go, and Alicia was now faced by amorphous, blueish cloud, in rough shape of Haido's person. It stayed for a second, before heading up and joining the vortex of other souls spiraling above them.

The very moment that Haido fell apart and his soul released into the vortex of souls, the men under his command followed suit and dissolved to depart from this world, leaving Alicia to stand alone in the world of dead flesh. She sighed and stood up, nimbly returning Shusui into it's saya with a metallic 'clink'. The swordwoman still didn't fully agree with Haido, for his duty in the military was to serve under their ruler for the people. That being said she wouldn't squander the value within the lesson to be learned from this, ti appreciate better the position of leadership. She gazed up for a moment into the blue swirling mass above before turning and making her way after her friends, to find them once more. Even though the Fein warriors had moved on, the rest of the undead forces that protected this place were still very much alive and active in trying to prevent their advance.

Capt. Blu · Feb 25, 2018

Collab between Silent and Blu

Jack paused at the service entrance, glancing behind his shoulder back out at the destruction-- and the ash-- covering what was once the plaza. He swallowed, squeezed his eyes shut, then forced his full attention to their task at hand. He knelt down next to the House servants and checked their pulses, out of reflex, as they were quite obviously dead. They'd been gunned down in cold blood. Whoever their enemy was, they were merciless, ruthless, and determined. Jack shuddered. They were surrounded by dangers without backup.

Checking the servant's pockets for anything of use, Jack glanced at Kadi, then gestured for Ray to come closer. "Is he looking worse to you?" he whispered while handing Ray a set of keys he found in one the pockets.

Ray sifted through the destruction, keeping up the rear of the group until they made it to the service entrance. The dead bodies on the ground made him frown a bit, impulsively checking to make sure his rapier was at his side. They couldn't take any chances.

Spotting Jack's gesture, he stepped forward and looked down at the key in his hand before glancing back at their navigator. He had known the man for years and it was still hard to read the man, however now, it was easy to see this mission was taking a toll on him. Ray just hoped it was the mission though. His thoughts went back to what he had said on the ship about not having much time left. He could only hope this place wasn't speeding up that time. "I think we're all a little worse for wear." Ray tried to sound reassuring, but it felt a lot more hollow than he wanted it to. He shook his head and tried again. "This place… it might be taking its toll on all of us, but more so him." He left it at that before eyeing their surroundings and speaking up for the both of them to hear. "We're in the building and by my guess, Zilia is on the opposite end. Hopefully we run into her while we look for what we came for. Or hopefully she already has it."

"Considering not much time has past, doubtful," Jack whispered back. He wished he had a cigarillo right about now. "But she's not here so she must be looking for it. We need to catch up."

With nothing else to scavenge from the bodies, Jack stood up. His eyes couldn't help sliding towards Kadi multiple times. To assess his condition; wondering who Marguela Kirkendall was. Questions that would do little good for them right now. He looked back down at the dead servants. "Should we take their uniforms? There's no blood on them and it would help us blend in."

Ray nodded, having the same idea as Jack. "Better to blend in with the people who work here, should we get caught." It could also have made them targets like the ones they were stealing from, but that was something they would have to worry about later. After they hurried into the uniforms, Ray took the lead down the halls of the auction house. It had been awhile since he had been in one but they were more or less all the same. A large seating area to hold all the people, Ray peeked through a door on the left, not too far from them, finding exactly that. Further down the room was the large stage where the items would have been displayed. But at the moment, it was empty.

"I don't know how much of a chance we have, but the items are more than likely in a storage room further back." Ray turned from the door he was looking in and pointed further down the building. "And with that commotion, it's probably locked tight."

Jack pulled at the collar of his stolen livery which was a little too tight around his throat. He nodded to Ray. They continued farther down with the gunner at point and Jack bringing up the rear. They stuck close to the walls. All senses were alert as they heard chaos ensuing farther in the building, which must only be the Bluejackets fighting their way through. To Jack, that at least meant the crew headed in the right direction. These Bluejackets, whoever they were, knew what they were doing. They had planned this. Trained for this. Apart from the two who had followed him, the group seemed well-prepared. That didn't bode well for him and his very ill-prepared crew mates.

As they proceeded, they came across more dead bodies, some of the servants, while others were guards evident by the useless weapons clenched in a cold fists, or spears lying beneath their bodies. Jack adopted a blank face as they passed. Eventually, they came to what appeared the servant's quarters. Bunks, small kitchens, and bathing rooms past them by. The cook peered into each but didn't see anything of particular significance.

"Where now?" he whispered to Ray, though no one was in sight.

The moment Jack spoke, Ray put his hand up. Not too far from them, outside the exit, he could hear the sounds of people. He gestured for Kadi and Jack to get closer, peeking out the door.

Ray wasn't sure which gods were watching over them to get as lucky as they always did, but he could have sighed in relief seeing Zilia was alright. She was being confronted by two strangers and Ray looked back, wondering the best course of action. He placed his hand on his sword, as if suggesting the easiest plan.

Jack shook his head. He whispered, "I'd like to avoid death for the rest of the day, if you don't mind. Take them out quietly."

This time he took the lead as they snuck in behind Zilia and the guards. He stayed to the right wall, directly behind their backs, keeping low and taking each step with care. He moved soundless and with practice. Once they were close enough, Jack came into position behind the man closest to the wall. He gave a nod to Ray then jumped the guard. He snaked an arm around his throat, the other clamping his mouth before he could cry out. The man struggled and kicked, dropping his gun in his panic.

"In this occupation? Hardly possible." Ray had muttered it mostly to himself and Kadi as Jack led the silent assault. He followed suit deciding to take a page from Alicia's book and use the scabbard his rapier was held in to knock the other man out quickly. When they both dropped, Ray looked over at Zilia. "Are you alright?" There didn't seem to be any ruckus behind her so he could only assume she was as quiet as she ever was.

Mizos · Feb 25, 2018

x ?

The Luro's all lined up the Captain's orders prepping their guns for the assault that was about to happen, they couldn't help but get excited at the idea of storming a castle, it seemed like it had been years since they had broken into one. Their attention moved to Alicia as she clashed with the loud guy from earlier and though Lo raised his gun Luro put a hand on it lowering it and shaking his head. Fun as it would be to kill the guy this was an Alicia fight, she had to have fun by herself, that and their were arrows raining around them, something the Luro's paid little mind to as they conversed with one another.
"Hey if there's a throne we should steal it," Maka said.
"Oh that sounds like a great idea, with all of us we can easily get it out. Not like at Arenheimer's castle," Luro said with a small nod.
"....gentleman and lady arrows are currently raining down upon us, we should take cover," Lai said pushing his glasses back onto his nose.
The Luro's were pulled from their conversations at the Captain's orders to hang back and with firm nods they raised their rifles training them on the warriors on the castle, Lai having an especially wide grin on his face as his finger rested on the trigger. However at Alicia's words that smile faded and his attention quickly moved to her, his glasses cracked at her words and reaching up with a quivering hand he removed them placing another pair on.
"...what's the point of this if we can't kill then," Lai said scratching the side of his head. "Can't we kill like...one? That one there specifically."
"If Alicia says not to kill them we don't kill them that simple," Luro said looking over at Lai. "She's our friend right, that means we gotta do favors sometimes."
"...I was going to make a skull belt though...with their skulls," Lai said. "...I wanted to use one as my new rum holder."
"No killin' em," Lo said with a nod. "If Manicia doesn't wanna kill them fine, leavin' them sprawlin' on the ground in pain is more fun anyway."
Lai's eyes widened at this and he grinned raising his rifle again.
"Of course, leaving them at the edge of death once again. How malicious! Superb Alicia Tashigi! Superb!" Lai said.
"All right everyone in positions, four of you focus on the guys up above, the rest of us should help Masu and the Captain reach the door!" Luro yelled. "

Due to the fact Lai was clearly bloodthirsty and the 'don't kill' rule might be forgotten, he was put on the protect Masu and Captain team, while taking cover from the arrows Lai, Cloaky and Maka took care of any arrows that were clearly aimed at the two approaching the gate. With only the three of them and having to take cover to avoid getting hit themselves however they had to take small pauses to reload and dodge the arrows, something Cloaky disliked seeing the arrows get close to their crewmates. The other four Luro's focused on the tower, Luro and Lura switching with Lo and Banana as they kept firing at the archers up top. Lo and Banana were clearly displeased at having to purposely miss vital spots but they complied making sure only to hit the archers so they couldn't fire down at them any longer. Banana stepped out while Lai was hidden only for an arrow hit him as he raised his rifle, Lo's eyes widened as Banana hit the ground gritting his teeth and holding his right eye.
"Banana!" Lo yelled running over to him.
He knelt down and lifted his comrade into his arms, banana juices staining his clothes and hands as Banana groaned in his right grip, he could feel the warmth from his body draining from him.
"Banana! Hey stay with me!"
"I...I can't...it's too much. Tell my kumquats I never loved them."
"Banana! No!"
Lo grit his teeth at his own helplessness, though after looking closer he realized there wasn't an arrow stuck in his eye, in fact the arrow had only hit his shirt, seeing this Lo looked at Banana who was rubbing his eye.
"...huh?" Lo questioned.
"Ah I got some dust in my eye...ugh."
"....you're not dyin- why am I covered in your juices?"
"Huh...oh I leak juices all the time. It's hard to get out of clothes."
"....I'm going to kill you."

Though the Luro's wanted to stay and watch the fight with Alicia they knew they had to keep up with the Captain, only Cloaky looked back and speaking something in his comrades' direction followed after the Luro's who ran in the castle after the Captain. Once inside Maka's gaze raised to the skull pillars and clapping his hands together motioned towards them excitedly. He jumped from foot to foot trying to get his fellow Luro's attention.
"This place is so pretty! Look look!"
"...I had idea for skulls," Lai said glancing in Alicia's direction.
Luro started to respond to him but stopped as the Captain spoke making a comment on the skull pillars, all the Luro's went silent their gazes resting on the Captain. Their mouth's formed thin lines for a moment and they looked at each other scratching their cheeks almost simultaneously. They turned to look at Lai who was cleaning his glasses with a red handkerchief, he looked up realizing the others were looking at him and returned his glasses to his face, handing the handkerchief back to Maka.
"It was a pun, making a reference to skulls and heads," Lai said. "It was quite funny."
"Should we laugh?" Luro questioned.
"Probably," Lo said with a shrug.
"I don't wanna laugh," Maka said. "Can I giggle?"
"Giggling is permissible," Lai said.
Maka giggled and Lura joined him, Banana wrote 'Hahaha' on a page and held it towards the Captain giving her a thumbs up before walking with the others, Cloaky put a comforting hand on the Captain's shoulder before going to catch up with the others, his mouth didn't show the hint of a smile however.
The moment the bright vortex appeared Maka ran towards it only to be stopped by Lura the moment she saw the Captain's hand go out, she held Maka up with a small sigh as he tried to leap into the portal, his hands stretching towards it as he looked over at Lura who slowly shook her head. Maka wasn't that much smaller than the other Luro's so that raised a few question in Lai's mind but he had a feeling it would probably be a good idea not to delve too much into it, his pride was still a tad hurt from the Sara incident earlier.
"I'm sure we could find a way up there if we-" Lai started but stopped as Maka whistled.
"We gotta assemble the Luro's!" Maka exclaimed as Lura sat him down.
"We'll make a ladder! Do the Luro call!" Lo said pointing forward.
"...we're not doing the Luro call," Lai said squeezing the bridge of his nose. "Please don't do the-"
"I got it," Maka said. "Lura the rum!"
Lura handed Maka a rum bottle as Luro lead Cloaky over to the vortex and had him get on all fours, when he looked over at him and spoke Luro shrugged.
"You're on the bottom."
After a momentary exchange Luro shook his cloaked head and made a motion with his hidden hand.
"Cause you're a bottom, Cloaky makes up the bottom."

Maka took the rum bottle and held it up high into the air, he looked over at Cloaky who with a small shake of his head opened his mouth, though no words came out it was clear he was singing some manner of note. The other Luro's joined hands and started rocking back and forth humming the song, it was a slow but upbeat song with small pauses here and there and every few seconds Maka would shake the rum with his free hand. After what seemed like roughly a minute more Luro's started to step out of Luro, Luro wearing hats, Luro's with green hair, Luro wearing a monacle, Luro's wearing masks, Luro's dressed in dresses, a Luro wearing a cape, and one Luro who seemed to have a ship's wheel on his waist. A myriad of Luro's filled the area and turning to their Captain held up their hands as the Luro's stopped humming.
"You're orders Captain," the new Luro's said simultaneously.
"We only did the first verse," Maka said. "If you want more just say the word. We'll be your ladder guys!"
"Yeah teamwork with Cloaky at the bottom!" Luro said pumping his fist in the air.
"Yeah!"
"We're shoving them back inside once this is done. We agreed on seven," Lai said.
"We agreed on five," Lo responded holding up a hand.

Zilia brought a hand to her stomach leaning against the wall as she tried to calm both the pounding in her head and the nauseousness in her stomach. She wasn't entirely sure what happened in the last few minutes but she was positive she didn't like what it was. She wasn't sure if it was the sound or just the situation she found herself in but she felt sick. She suddenly missed Runali's home, trying to be killed by bounty hunters beat this by a considerable margin. She missed the wonderful home cooked meal, the warm home with a mountain of books. Being in this situation really gave her a bit of perspective on their last adventure, she started to wonder if this was how Stardusk handled this, by literally thinking 'it's not as bad as that one time', because bounty hunters were nothing compared to this situation. She thought doubly so when she came across two guards.

When the guard spoke to her Zilia stared back her body shaking slightly, her mouth twitched and she turned her gaze away from him, she wasn't sure what to really do about this situation. She couldn't explain her situation without her notebook, but from her experience with guards they didn't like waiting for responses. On top of that she didn't have an answer to his question either, she could probably lie and say she worked in the kitchen and ended up here due to disorientation from the recent noise, but that was a stretch. Zilia closed her eyes and knew her options were limited, her best option was to make a break for it, she wasn't sure where this tunnel lead but she was positive she could outrun these guards so long as she got a head start. However they saw her face, that would make breaking in almost impossible later, her right hand flexed and she opened her eyes to the two men, just as she was about to move she noticed two shadows move and in the next moment the men were on the ground.

Staring down at the two unconscious guards Zilia looked at the trio with tearful eyes and her body relaxed seeing familiar faces, she never thought she'd be so happy to see the faces of her crewmates, she quickly nodded in response to Ray's question and held her arms out indicating she was fine. She brought a hand to her hip a small smile on her face, she really was happy to see the three of them again, she almost hugged them, except there were eight reasons not to hug Kadi, Jack smelled like smoke and due to Luro's stories, which were hard to deny, she knew it was a bad idea to do that with Ray. Instead she raised a hand and walked over to join them glad to finally have backup again.
Zilia took out her notebook and wrote down what she heard from the strange bald man before handing the note to the others, she wasn't sure if the information would help but she decided to share what she did find out.

Eastwood · Feb 27, 2018

Sara scowled at their lack of reply, it appeared that these cowards had made their final choice. Her scowl darkened when she was told that she couldn't kill them. She knew that this was one request that she couldn't, nor wouldn't, honor. If she had to worry about the well-being of cadavers above herself or her crew mates, they would most likely end up stuck in this realm forever as corpses. And now apparently, Alicia was going duel them. With a sigh, she turned her head to focus on the walls, wondering what they were going to do until she saw them drawing back their bows. With another heavier sigh, she stood in front of her unarmored captain, shield at the ready.

Sara lead the way towards the walls, dodging arrows and blocking the ones that she couldn't evade, the arrows colliding against her shield with a loud clang. She cut down those in her path without a moment's hesitation with their decaying heads being launched into the air as their bodies collapsed, twitching as they lay. When they got to the gate, she covered Runali, keeping the foe at bay with her spear, lunging it at their chests and skewering those who dared come close. She was about to run through one particular soldier when he collapsed mid-penetration. Sara paused, confused until she saw the blue wisp rise and float up into the sky above. She took a moment's respite to look around for Alicia and saw that she won as Sara had expected, after all her opponent already died once. She grinned as she dove back into battle, buying the time that Runali needed to break through the door.

Capt. Blu · Feb 28, 2018

Location: Prophetic Place

Shadow Captain, Armored Sara, Glowing Alicia, Luro^???

The moment 'assemble the Luro's' came out of one of their mouths, Runali spun on her heel to stop them. But she wasn't quick enough- that and confusion halted her. They all began to talk amongst themselves and Runali put a hand to her head, standing between Sara and Alicia. "Brace yourselves ladies, this is going to be a really bad idea or dumb enough to work." At the rate of Luro excitement to actual command, Runali knew there was no stopping him or them until there was an actual opportunity.

Her cue should have definitely been when the Luros began to hum a tune but couldn't help but hum along. That was stopped rather abruptly when more Luros began to appear out of the main redhead she knew. Something like a cold chill ran down her spine at the absolute mayhem that more than seven Luros could cause. "At what point do dreams become nightmares?" She glanced over at the ladies next to her before she snapped to attention when all of them waited for her orders. "Oh boy- No, no!" Her hands went up when Maka asked if they needed more than the many they had. "No… This is enough." She squinted a little. "Maka. Right? Right… Yeah all of these Luros are going back afterward."

Once more, the captain shook her head. "Well." It sounded ridiculous every time she thought of it. "We need to get to that floating box up there… so, I guess you guys are making a ladder?" It was almost too weird to say out loud, but as the group began to pile together, she managed to grab the original Luro by the back of his robe. "You're going to do another job for me." It was mainly so she didn't forget where the original was, but he didn't need to know that. "You're going to beee…" She pointed to her eyepatch. "We are going to," Runali glanced at Alicia and Sara, recounting all of the weird 'harassment' they had gotten, then corrected herself. "I'm going to climb up there and I need you to be at the ready, the moment anything tries to attack."

To Sara she tapped her armor. "If you're not climbing up, just make sure I don't hit the ground, okay?" As Runali started towards the makeshift ladder, she turned to look over her shoulder. "And Alicia please don't kill any of the Luros. You can hit the one when we're above water."

The climb, despite undeniably valiant effort and sacrifice from the ladder, would prove to be a hard task. The fortress was far from empty, and new and new guards would show on the balconies surrounding the central open space, raining arrows on the crew. Luros would get hit by the quarrels, and while some would retain their grip even after injury or death, many would simply fall off from the ladder, splitting the construction in two, and stopping the climb until new Luro variant was provided and the loose ladder ends would be tied back into one whole. Eventually, the bottom Luro of the ladder would also start to climb on the rising pile of dead himself at his feet.

Worse, even the skies were not clear. While they were standing directly under the soul vortex, a particularly durable body would occasionally fall right through it and land precariously close to them, splashing the liquids pooled at the ground floor of the central open space. One of those, a heavy set man in frayed uniform with faded cedar tree embroidery on his back, went precariously close to causing an ugly accident by trying to grab at Runali as he fell past, his hands instead gripping at Luro just under her. He caught him by a sleeve and his momentum ripped the Luro out of the ladder. The two landed with disgusting splash into the mire below. The Luro landed on top of the two, and quickly jumped to his feet, looked up, waved merrily and ran to rejoin the ladder.

Ontop of the ladder, scaling the last of the Luros, they would meet another issue. The thing was a crypt, still. And crypts are usually closed by heavy, stone door that are not necessarily made to be opened ever again. As the luck would have it, this was the case. Their way was blocked by big, dumb heavy door, while they were stuck on a ladder made from Luros, good fifty meters in the air, while not-dead guards were shooting arrows made from teeth, bone and sinew from every direction around them.

~~~===~~~

Arc, Zillia, Ray and Jack

Location: Auction House

The Navigator was not feeling well since the explosion of the… that… the event with Thing. Changing his clothes for the disguises proved to be bit harder for him that he'd expect from a simple wardrobe exchange, and he lagged a bit behind Jack and Ray as they quickly traversed the Auction house's halls and tracts, wondering if anyone will stop them to ask questions, or, perhaps, in a stroke of random luck, tell them to go guard the Archive, letting the skip the possibly unfruitful search.

Luck would appear in a slightly different form, through. They stumbled upon Zilla, being bothered by a pair of guards. Jack and Ray were able to dispatch them before he could say anything, and Arc was silently glad there were only two of them. Suddenly, he was not completely sure he'd be up to the task of taking on an alert and possibly slightly panicking grown up man, woman or possibly also a child.

He silently read Zilla's message. "Okay… this probably simplifies things… if they barricade at the Deposit Archive, we'll just…"

His words were cut in by a sound of explosion, but this time it was crisp, sharp and very loud, reverberating from the vaulted ceiling like a perfect pitch note, but on such volume it left their ears ringing, as well as knocking dust off every surface in the hallway. It was followed by a rabid volley of musketfire in response. Arcadius picked himself up from the dust-covered floor and looked around, trying to guess the direction where it came from, despite the pain in his ears. "I MEAN TO SAY," he picked up. "WE FOLLOW WHERE THE GUNFIRE IS STRONGEST. MUST BE WHERE THEY HOLED UP!"

He pulled out his pistol and loosened his sword scabbard. The man gestured with his gun and ran off into the dust-filled hallway, suddenly erupting with energy that was not there five seconds ago. The end was near. No point in holding reserves you were never going to use up, anyway.

The flashes of gunfire in the dust, random explosions and amount of gunfire was quickly picking up as they approached the epicentre of all the commotion, where the Curator was holed up and defending his Archive. Occasionally, they would stumble into another guard in the House livery, running in the same direction as them, hurrying to bolster the defences at the barricade. Soon enough, a small squad of people gathered around them, but everyone was covered in so much dust, noone considered the possibility the four of them could possibly be a bunch of infiltrators.

The combat cacophony finally reached its bloody climax as they ran up into what could have once been a sacrificial temple or a public speaking place, with three equally sized entryways in three directions(central one with which they ran in, and one to the left and right), meeting into a room in a size that was more of a small plaza. Directly in front of them was a brass and iron vault door, where possibly entrance into an ancient burial chamber once was, given by the basreliefs of skeletal Death around the door. In the middle was an elevated stone podium, now turned into a small fortress, made from tables, barrels, chairs and all the other random clutter the defenders found in a hurry. The fort was garrisoned by the House Guard, and Zillia would recognize the Curator and the Captain of the Guard in the middle, trying to organize the defenders as best as they could amids the raining hand-grenades and flying lead. Pieces of their fort were scattered and blown off across the whole plaza, offering random spots of cover.

The assault on the fort was coming from two sides. From the left, the Bluejackets formed a musketed phalanx, the front row holding light metal shields, providing cover for the back ranks that were keeping constant, paced fire towards the fort. In the back on the formation was the woman they saw outside, Marguela Kirkendal. The woman was holding a Brass Cape made revolver in one hand, and in the other a smooth, egg-shaped object.

On the other side was a more rag-tag group, man and women dressed in random selection of civilian clothes and firearms of all sizes and calibers. They were more numerous than the Bluejackets, but less organized and dead bodies could be seen among their ranks as bullets from the House Guard found their victims. A keen eye could, however, spot several combatants in impeccable black uniforms, with the insignia of the World Government on their right shoulders. One such man was standing in the entrance to the room, and waving frantically towards someone outside. A moment later, two soldiers ran in, carrying a strange mechanism disassembled into two parts. The first man set down a tripod at the top of the stairs leading down to the plaza, while the other affixed what could only be a small portable cannon with revolver magazine ontop of the tripod.

The group of House Guards that travelled with the crew these past few moments ran down the stairs down to the plaza, planning to quickly ran over and join the defenders at the barricade. The sergeant leading them turned around and waved at the crew, just as they almost made it over. The WG officer commanding the Puckle gun noticed him waving, however, and pointed his weapon towards them. The shell landed in the middle of the small group, just as they started to climb over the top of the barricade. It the explosion and following shockwave seemed strangely anti-climatic, with no blown off limbs or suddenly flying bodies, seemingly only giving them a proper kick, and knocking the sargeant off his feet. They all seemed like they could have possibly been only mildly concussed, or accidentally fell asleep, as their bodies released all the tension inside them. One or two morbidly slid off the barricade, as suddenly there was nothing left to tell their fingers to grip and hold, nothing to animate them anymore…

The Navigator slid into a halt, just in front of the room, and carefully looked inside. "We… we need to get across, I think," he said and looked back at his three crewmates, his face quite pale out of a sudden. This seemed like a suicide.

Mizos · Mar 6, 2018

x ?

Maka grinned with his hands on his hips as the Luro's all pumped their fists in response to the Captain's orders, hearty cries escaping from them before running to make a way up to the crypt. Lai and Lo helped organize them as Banana sat a few feet away adjusting the Luro's on the bottom so they had a better base and could remain stable. Luro and Lura hung back pointing out openings for the Luro's to fill, which left Maka to respond to the Captain, that and she seemed to address him, something that made him clap his hands together and jump up with glee.
"You remember me Captain!" Maka exclaimed with a laugh. "Don't worry Captain we'll shove them back inside. We're used to it, this happens a lot....I think."

A green haired Luro walked up to the two, he saluted the Captain before looking over at Maka and motioned to the growing ladder. Maka made a small motion with his hand which was a small indication to voice his concerns, something the Luro did with a small smile.
"Erehw dluosh I og," he said folding his hands behind his head.
Maka scratched his cheek and looked at the growing ladder, the Luro's flipping on each other's shoulders and tossing each other up to others at Lai and Lo's orders. Maka brought a hand to his chin before looking over at Lo who pointed at a random spot in the center of it, which had a Luro shaped hole.
"Benia Savera," Maka said with a small nod.
The Luro nodded and ran up to his spot Maka moving over to double check their positions, Luro glanced back at the Captain as he was pulled away and waved to Lura who nodded and moved over to help Lo and Lai. His gaze moved to the Captain, then to Sara and Alicia before finally falling back on her as she explained what she wanted him to do.
"Consider it done Captain, don't worry if you fall I'm sure someone will catch you," Luro said.
"I'll catch her!" Banana said.
"No you won't Banana, you'll just watch and laugh!"
"That is true, but Lai would too!"
"Only if she hits the ground!" Lai responded before focusing back on organizing. "We don't want the Captain to die yet though so don't fall Captain!"
Lo walked over to the group giving Sara a firm pat on her back which got a look from Lai.
"I think Masu should go first she's lighter than Alicia anyway," Lo said walking over to the group. "Actually...why is Alicia going to end up hittin' us again."
"That's a good question but which one of us is getting hit?" Lai questioned walking over.
"I guess the original one," Luro said.
"That makes sense," Maka said. "So the original is going to get hit."
"Alicia does like to flex those muscles," Lo said grinning at Alicia. "You gotta respect that."
"Guys we can talk about Alicia's amazing muscles later!" Maka said. "We have to get everything together! Luro's initiate plan 47!"

Maka watched as the Luro's stared at each other before looking over at Alicia and Sara, they shrugged and digging in their pockets pulled out bits of rope before walking towards them.
"No guys 47! 47!" Maka said. "It's too soon for that one, wait till winter."
"Winter? Isn't that too soon I thought we agreed next year," Lai said.
"We can discuss it later, just not now," Maka said waving his hand at Lai.
The Luro's nodded putting their rope away and ran over to the ladder climbing to replace any Luro's that fell off, it was strange how organized they could be, if one fell another one climbed up and took their spot laughing as they did so. The Luro's all hummed as they locked arms and legs, forming a surprisingly stern ladder to reach the crypt. They seemed wholly fine falling hundreds of feet as Luro's stretched nearby ready to fill any spots that fell. If one got tired another ran in and filled the spot immediately, once everything was set ignoring a sweating Cloaky on the bottom the other Luro's moved to try and join the Captain. Any remaining Luro's raised their rifles and tried to offer some support to the Captain by firing at the guards up top.
"Never give up! Luro's fill the spots for the Captain!" Luro yelled.
"For the Captain!" The Luro's responded before returning to their humming.
Cloaky seemed to speak causing Lo to look down at him.
"You don't count Cloaky!" Lo exclaimed as he tried to climb up.
"Yeah stop ruining the moment Cloaky!" Maka yelled.

SilentxChaos · Mar 7, 2018

Collab between Silent, Mizos and Capt. Aki

Location: Depths of the Auction House

Jack surveyed the battlefield- which, surely, was what he and his crewmates stumbled upon- and agreed with the feeling Kadi didn't say, but was clear on his face. A suicide mission; them on one side, and their goal on the far other, barred by three hostile armies. Two would kill them on sight. The other would kill them if their disguises were compromised. Quite the shitty situation, so Captain Hoshi would've said. At least, I don't see how it could get any worse...

Immediately, it got worse.

Behind the disguised Stardusk crew, came another troop of reinforcements for the House Guard. Their officer, or the one who appeared in charge, took one look at them, frowned, then growled and barked, "What cowardly manners are this? Why are you all standing there flappin' your gums? Fall in line and do your duties! You!"

The officer snapped and pointed a blunt, fat finger in Zilia's direction. His guard hastily stampeded down the steps, and at the rear servants lugging extra ammo and weapons thrusted rifles into Jack and Ray's hands. The officer took one of these bags from the passing servants and thrust it into Zilia's arms. "Stay behind these men and supply ammo when needed! Try not to get killed. Move it, all you!"

The fact that follow where the gunfire is strongest was their plan didn't offer much comfort to Zilia, but she was pretty sure whatever plans they had were now useless with everything going on. She expected resistance with how many people were moving in their direction but when she actually saw the chaos that was the Archive she realized just how bad the situation was, especially seeing the numerous dead bodies littered on the makeshift battlefield. She swallowed something back at the sight, her gaze moving to the others, she couldn't deny her worry and it seemed Kadi felt the same. The fact this was all over a jar of dirt almost made it unbelievable, she wondered if they were actually in the dream world and didn't know it, maybe Luro and the others were going after the jar and they fell in by accident, it felt like it since this scene made no manner of sense.

When a voice yelled Zilia jumped and turning noticing the officer staring them down, her eyes twitched slightly and she turned her eyes away from him. She didn't feel comfortable being in this situation again, one set of guards almost destroyed her illusion as it was and now there were three of them. Her attention was forced back on him however as he pointed her out causing her to quickly straighten up before the ammo was shoved into her arms, she stared down at the bag then up at him before her eyes narrowed.
"Wait why do I have to-"
She didn't have time to finish her thoughts as the man was already yelling at them again, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath in and turned towards the battlefield before motioning towards the door with her head.

"Well, here's our ticket in." Ray said through above the sounds of crossfire, after they were given weapons to defend themselves. It was now or never and frankly, Ray was eager to get out of Zigzar- whatever the place's name was. Or had they left that place and this Auction House was its own separate entity? He couldn't spend too much time dwelling on how little sense everything made considering they were definitely being shot at. So, instead, he gestured for the group to follow him as he lead the way into danger. "Our best bet is to follow their lead and get as close as we can." He ducked further down as they entered the fray of bullets alongside people who thought they were allies. "Our only problem is," In effort to not only seem convincing to the ones they were with, but also not get shot, he loaded the gun he was given. "There's no way we're getting that door open easy."

Jack stared at the gun thrown at him for a long moment, his face twisted with something between disgust and loathing. He reluctantly slung the rifle on his back but pulled out a stack of knives in one hand, and one butterfly sword in the other. He nodded to Ray, who seemed to be taking the lead, and brought up the rear of the group as they all unwillingly followed the House Guard into the fray. The cook stayed low as they traversed the fighting grounds to the makeshift fort. Upon leaving the stairs, the fire intensified in their direction. Guards in black livery fell like flies to pesticide; the crew was saved only by being close to the center of the bulk, shielded from the fight.

They made it to the fort with scratches from splintered shrapnel. The moment they did, the men the three had been with scattered. They took up posts along the fort's weak spots as servants with ammo setup in the center and most protected areas, so they may stay alive till a guard called for more ammo. That left the crew, for the moment, to themselves.

Frowning, Jack turned, expecting the officer behind them to be shouting orders. He found the man...three to five meters behind, laying in a puddle of blood that looked black from this distance, on top of another guard whose arm obliterated to a stump. Jack winced, then forced it out of his mind.

Zilia stared at the ammunition in her hands and with a small shake of her head took out a bit of it and shoved it into her pocket. She would normally be bothered stealing from another but she'd make an exception over someone yelling at her and basically making her a disposable pawn. She wouldn't have minded a gun as well since they would be shooting at all of them anyway, servants didn't get guns now just because she was a little lower on the class scale her life was somehow disposable, she was literally being thrown into battle and told not to die without a weapon, what kind of sick joke was that.

Her eye twitched a bit at this kind of treatment but she put it aside for the time being since she had to keep up with the others, and Ray had a point on both fronts. This was a way to reach the center without taking fire from three sources and getting that door open wasn't going to be easy, much less getting out even if they did get it open. That all came if they managed to make it to the podium in the first place which was going to be hard enough.
Keeping her body low Zilia ran with her compatriots holding the hat still resting on the top of her head, the smell filling the air tickled her nose and forced a multitude of thoughts in her head, which she quickly shut out not wanting to distract herself. The smell of gunpowder, especially this much wasn't exactly pleasant, Zilia's eyes moved to the left and she quickly slid behind some cover as a bullet narrowly ended her short sprint off knocking her hat off in the process. She picked up a gun from one of the dead bodies and fired at the man only for the shot to miss hitting ammo next to the man, the ensuing explosion threw up fire and burning bodies in the process causing Zilia to flinch a bit. She stared at the gun before gently setting it on the ground and quickly running after the others, she suddenly wasn't too upset at not being given a gun.

Zilia dove into the fort the moment they were close and all the tension seemed to leave her body just having a safe spot to catch her breath. She slowly climbed to her feet and peered over one of the barricades only to duck again as another bullet came, though it hit the barrier. She was quickly reminded that it was actually safer running through the bullets, at least they weren't in a place where the fire was being focused. Zilia climbed fully to her feet adjusting the ammunition in her grasp before looking out over the battlefield, it had been a while since she had seen so many dead bodies in one place, not long enough in her personal opinion. Noticing where Jack's eyes fell she looked at the bodies, her face blank save for a bit of a furrowed brow. Setting the bag down she folded her hands together and lowered her head for a moment shutting her eyes. The small moment passed and raising her head she pat Jack on the shoulder for a small bit of comfort before taking out her notebook. It was good to feel that way towards death, it's when one stopped feeling it became a real problem, but she kept that thought to herself and held a note out to the others.
"We should act quickly, do we have any options?" Zilia wrote before shoving the letter back into the book and putting it away.
While they were distracted they need to figure out how to get the door open

The explosion was large enough and loud enough to be heard throughout the room, making everyone scramble to gather themselves. The opposing side, now with a shortage of ammo was forced to pull back and take more caution. There were cheers from the crew's "allies", despite them not knowing which of them got the upperhand.

"Quick thinking." Ray commented as he glanced at Zilia's note. Before he could say much, his attention was on returning fire at the ones who once again narrowly missed him and his friends. He had a couple of scrapes and bruises, along with what he was sure was a bullet wound the grazed, if not pierced his arm. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping him going at this point. "Well, most of our options probably'll end with us dead- and as I recall, the captain's one rule was to not do that."
His gaze went over the chaotic room before he pushed Kadi down to duck from oncoming fire. "If only we could get a large enough explosion to break it down. It'll be hard to tell which side it came from and we can sneak in during the confusion and smoke." Of course, this was all just ramblings from Ray while he focused on keeping his friends safe from harm. He wasn't sure how they could make that much damage.

"Yes, but if we did that, then all the fighting here would simply follow us in," Jack answered him, who took the suggestion seriously as he pondered their predicament, "Don't know about you but having armies on our heels while looking for a jar of dirt doesn't sound appealing to me. We need a way to make sure everyone here can't follow us in…."

Zilia stared at the battleground ahead of them and reaching up started fiddling with her bang, this was a bad situation, the houseguard were getting torn apart getting attacked on both fronts. This was a losing battle, especially if they didn't find a way to turn things around. Zilia closed her eyes for a moment before opening them her gaze moving over to the curator. The two had a point a large explosion would just leave an opening for them to follow, but if they didn't have that opening maybe they could buy more time. There might be a way to get inside while making sure to follow the Captain's rule.
Zilia took out her notebook and started writing furiously in it, keeping her body low as the bullets continued firing, after a moment of writing she tugged on Jack's sleeve shoving the page into his chest.
'Say this to the Bald man…'

"Sir we're in a bad position at the moment, mainly because we were caught off guard. Our forces are coming but the most we can do is defend until reinforcements arrive. These intruders more than likely know they don't have a lot of time before things get too hairy to stick around. That being the case they're going to keep hitting us hard with everything they have to break through our lines. (Motion to the dead house guard just to make that point clear). That being the case and forgive me for speaking freely sir, you should hide in the vault. It's the safest place for you and if they get their hands on you, I doubt they'll be gentle in trying to get that information. We can escort you to the vault and get you inside if time allows sir, but we want to ensure your safety, we're all soldiers, are job involves the battlefield, but if you fall we lose much more and the most secure place should be the vault. That should at least keep you safe until we recover from this surprise attack. Though that's just my opinion sir, I trust your judgment."

Zilia stared at Jack then over at the curator, she didn't think he would agree, if he did all the better but this was just to find out if there was some trick to opening the vault. Did it take long? Was there some sequence the Curator alone couldn't do, anything to help them figure out a way to get inside as quickly as possible. With that in mind she handed Jack another note.
"If that doesn't work stick a gun into his back and make him agree, if he tries to weasel his way out of it make it clear pulling the trigger isn't a problem. I'm getting a little tired of all these games today. I'll do it if you don't want too."
Zilia stared at Jack with a look that clearly showed what little patience she had was wearing thin, though it was probably easy to understand after the day they were having today. It was taking everything in her power not to let her eye twitch in front of them, what composure she had was failing quickly.

Jack skimmed her note and gave her a hard smile. "Don't worry. I can be very persuasive when I want to be."

In the same moment, the Puckle gun fired at the fort for a second round. More House Guards fell, but they were learning, and more got to cover. The crew ducked, Jack gritting his teeth. We'll have to get rid of that weapon if we wish to make it to the Archive, he thought. He briefly fiddled with the rifle on his back, hesitant on using it unless absolutely necessary, until he spied the ammunition bag Zilia still carried. An idea formed.

Jack stood up and waved for Kadi to follow him, and said to Zilia, "You and Ray convince the servants to hand over some of their ammo bags. We'll need them to cover us as we run for the doors."

Turning back, Jack hustled up to the Curator. He realized he should have recognized the man sooner; he wore more adornments-- rings, velvet and silk clothing beneath new, shiny armor-- then the soldiers and was ill-equipped for the fighting surrounding them. Nevertheless, he was here. Doing what he could to protect his Archive. Jack kept that in mind as he and Kadi confronted him. Jack took a breath, then straightened and unslung his rifle to hold in his hands. Speaking to the Curator, the cook's voice suddenly took on a deeper, rough quality with a hint of Common speak. "Sir, permission ta approach?"

A minute later, Jack and Kadi returned with Jack in the lead, and the Curator between them. It seemed, for the moment, the Curator willingly agreed to their plan. He was nervous, fiddling with a pistol, and kept glancing at Jack and Kadi suspiciously, uncertain about their plan. Sweat glimmered on top his bald head as he made frequent glances to the dead and dying outside. The last Puckle attack also left some men alive, though badly wounded. One or two screams were heard above the raucous and the Curator flinched at each one. Self-preservation won over any doubts he had towards his "soldiers".

Jack went to Zilia, keeping up his fake accent and giving her a cool look. "Ready with them ammo bags miss? We'll use them ta throw at the two enemy forces, shooting them ta cause an explosion. While they deal with tha' threat, we'll scuttle the Curator, sir, ta the Archive so he can shield hisself inside. Target tha' Puckle gun specifically. Understood?"

Zilia nodded to Jack trusting him to handle the matter with the Curator, he managed to sweet talk his way into Stardusk, she didn't doubt he would at least get something from the Curator. She had to depend on Ray to do most of the gathering as she knew how weird her form of communication could be, and from Luro's stories he apparently had quite the silver tongue as well. One worthy of the Fallen Scholar specifically, and it seemed there was some truth to it as they returned with even more ammo bags, some of the servants more than happy to hand them over and get away. She couldn't help feel a bit sad for them, they were forced into this, some without any training in this matter, but it just showed how desperate the situation was, something she hoped they could use to their advantage. When Jack returned Zilia looked over at him, she purposely tensed up, and every now and then her hands would shiver, she made herself look around repeatedly ducking whenever a loud explosion came. No normal servant would be used to being surrounded by so much death and chaos so she made sure to play what part she had to. At Jack's order she gave a small hesitant nod and looked at the other two waiting for them to lead the way.

Gathering up the ammo bags, Jack and Ray convinced other soldiers to help them. They split the amount and snuck to either side of the makeshift fort, one person ready to throw the ammo-turned-bomb and the other to shoot at it when it landed. Jack left one with Zilia-- just in case.

The decrease of fire coming from the House Guards caught their enemy's attention. For a brief moment, the cacophony siddled to mere peppering, as if the battle was taking a breath, as all sides attempted to discern what the others were doing. Jack gave the signal. The first one landed near the Puckle gun. One shot, and the explosion toppled it to the ground. A trigger, and the lull erupted into a new monumental chaos as multiple explosions occurred among the Bluejackets and WG sides. The explosions themselves were relatively small. The Bluejackets had more protection, less casualties, but the others were unprotected. They scattered, trying to escape, not knowing whether bigger explosions from an unknown weapon was to follow. In the ensuing chaos, the Stardusk members dressed as House Guards and the Curator, raced to the Archive.

Arcadius · Mar 7, 2018

Arc, Zillia, Ray and Jack
Location: Auction House

The Curator was not a brave man. For the last twenty years, since the moment he was given his function, he always felt he had so much to lose by being needlessly brave. Zamorakzorak had ample supply of people down on their fortunes, mostly because of their own greed and foolishness. People who were willing to be brave, because that was all they had left. He felt it righteous that they would risk their lives and well being in the service to the House, so he did not had to. He earned that privilege from the House, by not being another fool swayed by his ambition. The House had need for such people, and so very few of them found their way to the Undersea.

The current situation was unusual for the House. Never before someone tried to directly assault the Auction, with such advanced use of organization, technology and unbridled brutality. The Entrance Hall, with its marble and crystal piano, laid in ruins. A whole neighborhood next to the service entrance was wiped from existence. He was surrounded by dead bodies. The House would win, of course. It always did in the end, as whomever made the assault was a being susceptible to ambition; indeed, the very reason they attacked was ambition, and so the threads of their fate would lead them back here. In the less esoteric sense of things, the House had many servants, and they were all hurrying to aid in the defence. It was only matter of time before the attackers were either overwhelmed, or chased away. The Archive was never breached and never would be, the Curator was sure. But he decided he would like to live to see it.

"Yes-" he blurted out. His hands were shaking, and had problems reloading his smoothbore, break-action elephant rifle. The large calibre, slow firing weapon was hopelessly unsuitable for the situation, but the man thought it would be the best choice. "Yes, we need to retreat, our position cannot be held. Captain," he said and looked at the man next to him. His lifeless body was slumped against a barrel. Two bloody holes in his chest and neck, and the herring brine leaking from the barrel behind him, explained what has happened when he was not looking. "Let's-let's go. Get me to the Archive door!"

They would lead him to the Death door, across the battlefield. They jumped over the barricade. The Bluejackets were more elite force, and was quicker to regroup. The ONW agents, ironically, hired the city's rabble to do most of the fighting and dying for them, and they were mostly busy hiding behind pillars from the gunfire coming from the stockade. Potshots rang against the ancient flagstones around the crew, chipping away on the masonwork, but all of them missed. They would dart from cover to cover, closing in on the Archive door, each time waiting for the gunfire to lose interest in them and trail back to the barricade fort.

"Yes, yes, now, let me!" the Curator yelled over the gunfire. He was impatient to get to the safety behind the door. Against wisdom, he ran out of cover and sprinted to the vault door. The brass and iron door had a spot where a hollow, or perhaps incision, was cut, roughly large enough to have human hand slide inside. He placed his hand there, ignoring the bullets pinging off the metalwork around him. Inside the hollow, he grabbed onto something, and turned it with his hand. "There!" he shouted. "Now we can get to safe-"

The gunshot, in some capricious act of dramatic crescendo, stood separate from the cacophony of the ongoing battle. They could hear it ring against the ceiling of the chamber, clear and crisp, despite being nearly deafened from the gunfire. The bullet zipped past the crew and hit the Curator in the dead middle of his back. It went through him, rang against the metal door like a hammer against a bell, and ricocheted somewhere unseen. Looking at the Bluejacket formation, they could see Marghuela, with her arm extended, aiming her revolver at them, the barrel smoking.

"Aaah…" a soft groan came from the dying Curator. The doors started to open, with the Curator still stuck to them. His limp body was pushed in front of the moving metal slab.

"Go…" the Navigator whined. He was crouching behind overturned wheelbarrow, holding his hands against his right eye. The man got on all four and quickly crawled through the opening doors, just as there was enough room to squeeze through, stopping only to smear his free hand in the Curator's blood, oozing from the terminal wound.

The Archive, or rather, the tomb from which it was converted, was massive rectangular room. The walls were lined with storage spaces for smaller deposit boxes. The room's barrel-vaulted ceiling was supported by four pillars, with larger safes carved and installed directly into the stonework. In the middle was an elevated small stone podium, where presumably once the sarcophagus of whomever was originally buried here laid, but now it was replaced by a metal box with no visible door or locking mechanism.

"Right. Now to find what we are looking for, shall we?" the Navigator asked in shaking voice once they were inside the Vault, the adrenaline and shock of the day once more starting to getting better of him. He didn't care by this point. He couldn't see from his right eye. It was to be over soon, anyway, though. What mattered another lost piece of body or mind now?

It was easy to find the right deposit box. Macropulos bribed enough of the servants, until she met the right one that knew where the high value objects were to be stored. The A-line was a series of circular metal safes, stacked onto each other to form a pillar, with a wheeled ladder mounted onto rails running around the pillar's diameter allowing access to the higher levels. A-13 was, luckily, close to the ground and thus there was no need for climbing. The Curator's blood on the Navigator's hand was mixed with Arcadius' own, dripping from his ruined eye socket, but the safe's lock was fine with that. The door mechanism made a click, or rather, a resonant note that sounded like a click, and the door allowed itself to be swung out, revealing what was inside; a maddeningly mundane looking jar of dirt. Arcadius reached in to retrieve the container, the climax of their insane journey, and nearly dropped it from the shock as he pulled it into better light.

Faces. What seemed to be dirt was a constantly writhing and twisting mass of faces, swimming to the surface and sinking back. An endless panoptic of possible existences that never came to be, a repository of possibilities, options not chosen by random chance. He carefully placed the jar on the floor, breathing raggedly, trying to digest the shock. But still, this was what he came for. It would be shame if the end of his journey looked mundane. Reality, especially here where it was close to dreams, had a penchant for drama.

"The other… deposit box…" the man continued. His hand slid into his coat's pocket, and retriever a piece of paper and something that looked like a very small flute. "V-113. Devil of a woman. This place gets nearly wiped from existence, and all she cares about is insurance fraud…" he murmured. Lady de Macropulos told him this was her own deposit box. She said she stashed something of use to them, something that would help them get out safely. They could take it if the chance would arise, as she'd simply claim it as stolen in the raid, and collect the insurance money.

V-113 was further down the Archive, where the walls of small, more diminutive, deposit boxes started. The 113th box of the V-line was near the top of the wall, just under the ceiling. Arcadius had to pull up a railed ladder to get up there. As he climbed, he got a better look at the entrance of the archive, on the last stand of the House Guard and the Curator. The Death Door, and the battlefield behind them. "Other people's folly. Of all the regrets, this one doesn't belong to me," he whispered to himself.

He climbed to the 113th box. The boxes seemed small from the front, but as he tried to retrieve it from the wall, it proved to be surprisingly long, with something metallic clattering inside. The ladder creaked and bent as he climbed down, the box in his hand making the load on the ladder's rails uneven, a fact the wheel mounts made sure to loudly complain about. Finally on the ground, me laid the box on a nearby table, and inserted the fluted key into the lock.

Similar as before with the A safe, the key emitted a clear note, which resonated within the locking mechanism, and unlocked the top of the box, which came off completely. Inside were two things.

First, a small clear crystal bulb, with hollow space inside it. It was unclear what kind of art was used to create this crystal bulb, as there was no incision through which the inside could be carved or drilled out. Inside the hollow was a small, bluish furtive mote of what seemed to beg as, or very thin liquid.

Second, the Seasong, Arcadius' old sword he got on Yula-Fei the first time they made port there, and fought in defense of the island. "You wicked old bitch…" Arcadius commented on Macropulos' gift.

The note on the crystal, written on a piece of frayed parchment and attached by a bit of twine to the crystalline object, was short and concise enough to permit no confusion: 'Destroy me, Arcadius'. The Navigator identified the cursive as Macropulos' handwriting.

At the same time, a small group of the Bluejackets, split from the main force which was still trying to deal with what remained of the House Guard and the ONW, rushed the open Vault door. They were led by Marghuela directly, and quickly took position by the door.

The Navigator turned towards the row of rifles trained on the crew, glancing at Jack, Zilla and Ray. This… this was a regret that did belong to him. He raised his hands, as the officer demanded, leaving Seasong and his pistol on the table, but he was still holding the crystal in his left hands. He closed his eyes. Nothing ventured…

"WHAT IS THAT?! DROP IT NOW!" the woman yelled at Arcadius, as the navigator's hand clenched around the crystal. It was strangely soft, and cracked and broke easily. The officer was already aiming his pistol at Arcadius, and upon seeing him breaking the crystal, he pulled the trigger on the gun.

…nothing gained. Arcadius opened his eyes. The Auction house was gone, instead replaced by a lush green meadow in the middle of a picturesquely beautiful forest. In the center of the meadow stood ruins with arched portal, but more importantly, a rugged looking man in a ruined green coat and boots covered in caked opalizing blood was blinking at him. He was sitting on a log, and it seemed Arcadius interrupted him in the middle of him cleaning his gun.

They looked at each other, two pairs of matching green eyes. Two sets of identical brows furrowed as one, but the realization that dawned on them was positively singular. "Oh," they said as one. "You."

The Navigator was the first one to grasp what was going on. "Well, more of 'us', wouldn't you agree? Ain't like I can possibly be here. This isn't a place for the likes of me."

The other man got up and grinned. "Ah, but that's about to change!" The Navigator grinned back, as if he was looking at Belen dressed in a chocolate cake. The other man seemed to only now notice the blood-weeping hole where the Navigator's right eye used to be. "I would like to ask you about the woman you picked up on your travels, and which we certainly seem to be looking forward to meet again, but that looks rather fresh to me," the man said, pointing at the missing eye.

"Aye. Few minutes," Arcadius answered in mildly ashamed voice. "I was… expecting to die. Week, I think. Few days, anyway. Got… reckless."
"Ah. Well, given the surprise you're showing, she didn't tell you much, did she?"
"We had to move quicker than we planned to."
"I know."
"Yeah, I know. Trouble on the outside. Several people aiming rifles at me."
"Going home hot. Wouldn't have it any other way. Might as well start with a show."
"Yes, well… what happens now?" the Navigator asked. "I don't know," the other man answered. "Not like many people here had this happen to them. Met a few other suckers like us, but none of them had her to help."

"Aye, I wondered what she was doing here," Arcadius continued. "You'll… I'll see," the main retorted. He looked up and smiled, seemingly unfazed by the trouble weighing down on Arcadius' shoulders, "I guess it will just feel like having lived eight years in four. I hope."

Capt. Blu · Mar 12, 2018

Location: Prophetic Place

Shadow Captain, Armored Sara, Glowing Alicia, Luro^7

There were a shower of arrows going in one direction and a return fire of bullets going in the opposite direction. And every now and then, the sound of a sword could be heard slicing through either the undead or their weapons. It was hard to tell. In short, it was chaos.

The captain continued her climb up the Luro Ladder, positive that this was closer than she ever expected to be to him. Sure she used him as a step stool every now and then, but this? Well this was the definition of overkill. With the rain of arrows trying to keep her away from the tomb above, there were moments her grip did falter or she stumbled, causing her to fall towards the ground. However, she'd always be caught by the arm or leg and helped back upright to climb again. Runali found herself upside down, face to face with some Luro too many times.

"This is ridiculous." She muttered once as she once again climbed her way up to the top. At one point, an arrow went straight through her shoulder. Her shadowy body prevented actual injury, but the rush of pain caught her by surprise and caused her to once again fall towards the ground. Instead of Luro, that time it was Sara who managed to catch her.

"Oh. My hero." Runali patted the lion on Sara's armor before hopping down to try again. She was nothing, if not resilient. The group's efforts to get to where they needed to be had been taxing, but eventually rewarding. The captain was glad that the others ended up climbing up as well because the moment Runali tried to remove the tomb door by herself, she realized it was shut tight. With their help, it opened.

And almost immediately, it felt as if something escaped. Something cold went through each of them, making them all halt in their place. They weren't sure what exactly happened, but they were sure that a new feeling settled in that wasn't their own.

It was like a wave of panic radiated around them, but with no source, Runali shook her head to dispel it. "It's about time we got this thing, I'm ready to get out of here." She peered into the dark tomb, spotting the sarcophagus in the very center, untouched and unbothered. "C'mon." Runali didn't realize she began to whisper, as if some ancient being was going to wake and attack them, but she continued to keep her voice low anyway. "Shouldn't be a problem grabbing a skull-"

Again, that cold chill hit everyone once more. The panic they felt was almost suffocating now. They themselves weren't in a panic, but it felt as someone was forcing the feeling onto them, or as if they were watching a wild animal cower in fear.

But no one was there.

"Enough of this." The captain huffed, forcing herself to ignore whatever tricks the world was trying to play. She gestured for the others to help her remove the sarcophagus lid, ignoring the panic and fear emanating an practically screaming from the entire tomb. But when the lid was removed far enough for them to see the eyeless skull inside, the panicked feeling stopped almost as abruptly as it began. Runali couldn't make out the feeling that replaced it this time besides that it was something a little more than sadness… Something else. But Runali had to focus on the task at hand. "Shouldn't be too hard to remove this right?"

Physically, it wasn't that difficult of a task. Mentally was a different story. It was- what she thought was- her conscious, yelling and pleading for her to stop that made her hesitate. It just didn't make sense though. There was no reason for her to feel as bad as she did for trying to remove the skull. The Drowned King needed it. Kadi needed it. And her crew- her friends- were more important.

While the skull gave way with a soft and gentle snapping sound, the 'feeling' that had been looming through the air was not so gentle. For each of them it may have felt a little different, but for Runali it felt as if someone important, maybe even someone close to her had just died after a traumatic fight they were bound to lose. And she was helpless to prevent it. Runali wiped the sudden tear from her eye before it could escape, confused as to why she suddenly felt bad.

But, despite it not existing in the realm they were in, time was not on their side. Runali didn't have time to question every little detail or ask if the crew "felt it too" because everything around them began to collapse.

The walls around them shook and crumbled, causing Runali to turn on her heels and head to the exit. "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Their escape was stopped short when Runali skidded to a halt at the door. All of the Luros had vanished leaving them without a way to get down and the soul vortex had began to collapse as well. The souls began to flow freely now that there was nothing keeping them in one place. More and more things began to collapse around them until Sara, Luro, Alicia, and Runali were trapped in one spot, not being able to go back to the sarcophagus or forward to at least try a leap of faith. It had all disappeared.

And then they woke up.

Each of them were lying on the floor back in the Shellfish Palace- that is, if they even left. Runali sat up seeing that she was back to normal. They all were. Whatever normal was.

She realized she had lost the skull, but before she could panic, she realized Luro had it. How and when did he get it? That was the least of her worries. She picked herself up, helping Alicia and Sara, then collecting the skull from Luro. "Yeah when we get back to the ship, I'm going to need a drink." Runali looked down at the skull in her hands and frowned a bit. "Make that several." Her next comment was said towards the Drowned King. It wasn't clear how long they had been gone or if they ever left, but it didn't matter. She raised the skull up to show to the King. "We ran your errand for you. Now what?" The Drowned King looked on in that intimidating manner that is always did, not saying a word.

Instead, a loud voice echoed in their minds saying, "Wait."

Mizos · Mar 16, 2018

Relief flushed over Zilia seeing the Curator was actually going to open the door, she didn't expect him to go that far but it was nice to see at least one thing was going in their favor right now. The sooner they got the jar the faster they could get off this battlefield, though as they followed the curator she wasn't entirely sure how they were going to accomplish that. The way out was going to be completely blocked by the others, she really hoped the other guards came quickly, at the very least the Curator could close the doors and that would buy time for reinforcements, but they still had to sneak the jar out at the same time. Zilia fiddled with her bang trying to consider a possible way out when her gaze raised as a single gunshot resounded somehow louder than the others, for some reasons she felt a chill run up her spine and when it rested on the Curator she realized just how worse their situation was.

For some reason or another Kadi seemed intent on rushing inside and she quickly followed lowering her head to the deceased Curator for a brief moment before crawling inside afterwards. Her eyes moved to Kadi a tad concerned about the state of his being, one didn't need a careful eye to notice he was trying to hold himself together, in a way almost literally. She wanted to comment on it but knew they were already low on time, with the Curator dead the door wasn't closing behind them, at least locked anyway, which meant it was only a matter of time before the others came in. She was a tad disappointed in having to rush as well since this place was certainly interesting in itself, she wouldn't mind taking a closer look around but Kadi was falling apart and they had a literal army behind them, there was no time to appreciate the artistry around them.

When the intruders entered Zilia quickly turned towards the armed combatants her body lowering slightly as the rifles were pointed at them, her eyes narrowed at them but from this distance getting close was a bit of a problem without getting shot first. They had somehow accomplished getting the dirt which wasn't really dirt but some weird assortment of faces she had no desire to touch much less look at, and Kadi for some reason or another retrieved a sword and what looked like a crystal ball of some sort. They accomplished their goal but now they were at gunpoint, with the only way out being past the armed people.
"If I die here I hope go where Kadi's going so I can make him miserable for the rest of his existence."
Zilia straightened up and held her hands slightly up her eyes looking for any opening past them, her eyes moved to Jack wondering if he had any plans, he had Haki at the very least so he could get shot and survive, she wasn't so lucky, if they fired and she wasn't fast enough that was the end of it.
"...Okay Kadi's a smart person...as far as I can tell. I really hope he has a plan b...I really miss the Captain right now. In situations like this it's really easy to remain calm with her nearby...that and Miss Sara, she and Luro are easy to hide behind...granted I could probably hide behind Jack...would he be offended if I asked him to be a shield...probably...I'm thinking too much I need to concentrate."
Zilia's gaze moved over to Jack, if there was ever a time for a silver tongue now would probably be that time, though her attention was pulled from Jack as Kadi was yelled at by the woman, she turned to look at him really hoping he had a way out of this.

x 2

The Luro's climbed up after the others leaving a few down to fire at the attackers as they climbed. It seemed the collection of Luro were having conversations amongst themselves, the topics were generally the same same though the higher they went the stranger the subjects seemed to get. A few times the Luro's commented not to look up the ladies dresses, only for another to point out that it was okay if they did since it helped. This only led them to comment that Sara was wearing armor and how one looked up it, which started a whole other discussion that it was very possible to sneak peeks through armor.
Everyone save Cloaky added to the conversation as they passed their counterparts adding their own two bits to the discussion.
"I mean s' not that hard to look up armor, you just gotta' be creative," Lo said stepping on another Luro's face.
"It's not so simple, you must understand the armor and its openings, then you can take a peek, I believe under the armpit is the easiest depending on the style," Lai said stopping to adjust his glasses.
"Didn't know you were into that," Banana said. "You seem like the kind of guy into some weird stuff Lai."
"He really does right! I think Lai's an armpit guy!" Maka exclaimed with a small laugh.
"How insulting, I'm all about the nape of the neck gentleman and lady," Lai said sighing.
"Ugh you're so old..." Banana said. "That's not the most important part. Lina tell them."
"It's the rear love, the forbidden fruit always out of sight."
"What no way s' all about the front," Lo said. "Who cares about the back?"
All the Luro's looked down for a moment before Lo threw a hand up almost falling in the process.
"What does personality have to do with anything Cloaky! Stay out of this we're talking about the best place to wear armor! You have to protect the front part of your body Lina that's just common sense."
"Not everyone fights upfront love. Having protection behind you is important."
"You need to make sure your neck is protected but as that is the front I suppose I'm with Lo in that regard," Lai said.
"You have your neck behind you too though," Maka said.

Such conversations continued all the way up until the Luro's made it to the top with the others, the moment everyone was up all the Luro's climbed up and immediately ran back into the original Luro. Some jumping in, others tumbling and climbing over others to go back to their home until they were all gone. A single hand grabbed the edge nearby and Cloaky climbed up onto solid ground breathing heavily as he made his way back over to the others. He brushed himself off and pointed at the door indicating they should help. The Luro's agreeing helped to open the door only to stop as they were hit by something when it opened, almost like something punched them straight in the chest. They all looked at each other and scratched their heads almost simultaneously.
"What's this feeling?"
"Don't know...don't recognize it."
"Hm...what a strange sensation," Lai said bringing a hand to his chin. "Perhaps it's excitement."
"Nah it's not that," Maka said shaking his head. "I'm already excited and this is different."
"hmmm well there's only three feelings right," Luro said. "It's none of the ones we know."
"Strange...it seems familiar though," Lina said.
Cloaky brought a hand to his face and walked past the others deciding to just head inside with the Captain, she was correct it would be good to finish this soon.

The Luro's helped with removing the lid and peered inside, Lai rubbed his hands together and started to reach in only to be pulled back by Luro who made a motion to the Captain. He wanted to take the skull but the Captain was the Captain she got first skull privileges, that's why she would get a head for her birthday whenever it was. The moment the skull was snapped all the Luro's eyes widened slightly, though it didn't show on two of them. Shortly after however a wide grin formed on the faces of all the Luro's as they stared at the skull. There wasn't a certainty on what had passed through them, but whatever it was they seemed to like it. Cloaky's gaze moved to the Captain seeing her wipe a tear and his mouth moved which caused Luro to look in her direction, but before he could say anything everything started shaking causing Maka to fall on his rear in the process. The Luro's looking around looked at each other before nodding and turning quickly dove back into Luro.
"Hey what are you guys doing?" Luro questioned.
"It was nice meeting you guys....well again!" Maka yelled before jumping into Luro.
Lai adjusted Runali's eyepatch once more with a firm nod before offering a small bow to Sara and Alicia and leaping back into Luro.
Lo gave Alicia a punch in the shoulder and tapped Sara on her chest plate with the back of his fist before following the others.
Lina opened her arms and started to move towards the others but Banana just shoved her inside alongside him, only leaving Cloaky who seemed to be with the Captain's idea of leaving, though that was quickly cut off when they realized there wasn't really a way out. Luro backed up until he was back to back with the others, he looked all around them and laughed before closing his hands into fists.
"This is a pretty good way to go Captain! No complaints on this end!" Luro yelled. "I can't wait to tell Jones this one!"
Luro felt something press against the side of his head however and glancing over noticed Cloaky had put a pistol against him, his eyebrows arched as Cloaky readied it and just before he pulled the trigger everything seemed to fade.

Luro's eyes shot open and he quickly sat up his grip tightening around something in his hands, he blinked a few times and started looking around noticing the weight of the cloak was gone. He recognized this fanciness, they were back in the palace. He closed his eyes for a moment and after a brief moment he opened them again realizing the others weren't outside anymore, the voices were all there.
His gaze went down to the strange object in his hand and noticing the skull he turned it over a few times, grinning a little before climbing to his feet.
"That was all kinds of fun! Can we go again, I have words for Cloaky," Luro said brushing off his pants. "We got the skull! It was easy, we only almost died a few times!"
When the Captain took the skull he flexed his hands already missing the object before reaching into his sleeve and pulling out his pouch.
"No need to wait till you get back Captain," Luro said taking a large drink from it. "We should celebrate though, I'll put out the good stuff tonight...though where's Jack and the others, he has to make the food."
Luro looked up at the Drowned King and raised a hand to him to greet him, he started to talk but stopped as an unfamiliar voice echoed in his head.
"Huh...that was louder than normal...I don't recognize that one though," Luro said holding out his pouch to the others.

Eastwood · Mar 18, 2018

Sara cleared some space using her spear to push back those who refused to die. Her instincts told her to look up and, as she did, she saw her captain lose her grip and fall back towards the ground. Cursing to herself, she stabbed her spear into the dirt and stood under her, catching her bridal-style in one smooth gesture.

"Yeah, be careful next time." Sara said, not unkindly as she put her down. "I don't know if it's possible to die in this place, but I don't think we should try to find out!" She looked up at the tomb doors and frowned to herself. "I think you're going to need our help for this one." Sara said, taking her spear and holding it tightly. It was unfortunate that it had to come to this, but she saw no other options. She *had* to climb the Tower of Luros.

Scowling at her predicament, she let go of her spear, she couldn't take it with her up, as she reached up for his limbs and began to slowly climb up. Out of all of them, Sara was the most protected as the enemies' arrows were unable to punch through her armor, not that they could be wholly ignored. The force of the impacts almost made her lose her grip and twice she had almost fallen but able to grab on at the last second. It was rough work but she eventually made it.

Once they made it to the top, Sara shivered as this new sensation overcame her, a glance at the faces of her comrades suggested that she wasn't alone in this. She stood back, letting Runali go first, taking the rear and making sure that no one snuck up on them. When the world started to disintegrate, she stood close to her allies, her gladius ready to strike at nothing for there was nothing to hit.

And then she woke up.

With a start, she suddenly sat up, her eyes wide as she looked around. Her armor was gone, instead replaced by her usual clothes as normal, as she remembered where she was. Right. She remembered. Drowned King palace, getting the skull. We have the skull, right? Sara looked around and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that they definitely had it. Well, she stood up shakily, that was certainly an experience.

Arcadius · Mar 18, 2018

Collab between Arc and Captn. Blu

Location: Prophetic Place

Shadow Captain, Armored Sara, Glowing Alicia, Luro^7

With their half of the task finished, there was an atmosphere of amused amiability in the throne room. As the rest of the group would start to wake up and rise from the cold water pool, the priest from before emerged from a nearby wall as a mass of human shaped effigy, made from small shellfish creatures.

"Heroes! Valiant heroes, you have succeeded in your task, for the eternal glory of the King! The perfidious Prophet has been vanquished, and our power only grows with the acquisition of his skull! The King is most pleased with your performance!" He would gesture towards a small pedestal, standing to the right of the King's Seastone Throne. "Please, leave the skull there, and feel well deserved rest and relaxation! Once the Shattered One returns, there will be feasts and festivities! In the meantime, the King is willing to grant audiences to you all, or perhaps one of you is willing to challenge him to a game of chess?"

~~~===~~~

Arc, Zillia, Ray and Jack
Location: Auction House

In my dreams, I see the life of another man. The memory used to vanish, just before I was about to wake up, but not anymore. In the dream, I see a building, at a square with a fountain. A man sets a house on the square on fire, and runs away. A person on fire runs from the house, and instead of suffering the slow death by fire, they kill themselves on the snow-covered flagstones.

I had four years to find that man. To ask him why, and request vindication.

Arcadius watched Marghuela aim her revolver at him. Without hesitation, the woman pulled the trigger on her gun, second time today. Coincidental, he though. She had no possible way of knowing him. He was nobody. She was here only for the Earth. No matter. He was tired of people firing guns on him and the crew. On his friends. Of pulling them into danger, without any option of protecting them.

The bullet rode out from the barrel, framed with blazing pinions of burning gunpowder. It was perfectly aimed at his forehead, and he would not be able to move, or dodge or deflect it in time. Two seconds ago, it wouldn't matter to him. He was about to die, the fake fire of soulless body finally burning dim, nearly snuffed out. He ran out of time, but he hoped his friends would complete the task without him.

He could see the bullet rip apart the air in front of the barrel as it broke the sound barrier, like an umbrella violently opened to face oncoming rain. Things would be different now. Better. He was whole now.

Deflecting the bullet was easy enough. Small object, simple trajectory. Halfway between Marghuela and Arcadius, the bullet's flight took sharp perpendicular turn upwards and ricocheted off the ceiling, striking one of the Bluejackets through her neck, killing her instantly.

The room went silent. Marguela blinked in disbelief over such blatant disruption of euclidian mechanics. Arcadius went for his gun and Seasong. He pointed the pistol at her, and smirked. "No, I say you drop it!" he shouted back. The Bluejackets found it less than amusing, their trigger fingers already slowly rubbing at the triggers of their rifles.

"FIRE!" Marghuela shouted in anger. "FIRE, KILL THAT ONE FIRST!" she continued, gesturing with her revolver towards the Pathfinder. As one, they fired, the boom from the broadside cannonade deafening and shocking everyone. A wall of acrid, oily smoke from the burned gunpowder covered the Archive, momentarily obscuring everyone from everyone.

As the smoke dropped and settled, Arcadius emerged unscathed. Everything around the man seemed shredded to bits, as if all the bullets missed him, or were deflected at the last time by some unknown art or force. He seemed clearly winded, hunched and breathing heavily, but the smirk on his face was undamaged and he still seemed like, of all thing, he was having fun.

"My… turn…" he growled through his clenched teeth. He raised his pistol and almost without aiming let loose a shot. Marghuela growled in pain as her wrist was exploded by the bullet, the revolver dropping onto the floor undamaged. He threw away the flintlock and joined the fray with his sword, the Seasong finally singing again.

The first man the Pathfinder approached had his rifle trained at him, and managed to pull the trigger before he was severed from his clavicle to his sternum by Seasong. The bullet, once more, simply turned midflight, and ricocheted off the floor, just enough to hit Marghuela into her other wrist, disarming the woman in the most literal sense possible. Arcadius pulled a bayonet from the Bluejacket's corpse and approached the woman, shaking on the floor.

Noticing him approach, she showed her first emotion this night. Fear. Her inhuman eyes were now wide and full of it, her pupils tracking the man slowly walking towards her, a sword dripping with blood in his right hand, a shining unstained bayonet of her own production in the other. Her legs started to scrabble for purchase in order to push her as far as possible from him. He followed, until she hit a wall with her back. Arcadius squatted in front of her, grinning.

"Ah, now you recognize me, don't you? He freed me, you know. Well, I freed me. It will be bit confusing to get all the grammar correctly, human language was not made to deal with situations where two personalities merge into one. Doesn't really happen to linguists, I guess," he said to her, the battle behind him framing his figure with blazes of light, splatters of blood and occasional shard of ice. She said nothing.

"Now, I am in good mood. I just made sure I won't die in the next hour. Makes you all giddy inside. On the other hand," he said with snicker and pointed towards her missing hands with the bayonet. "On the other hand, I lost an eye." He pointed towards the bloody mess across half of his face. "And I also don't want to be followed. But it's nice to have a friend like you, so…"

The man stood up, reared up his left arm and threw the bayonet hard enough to pin Marghuela to the stone floor through her thigh. "Stick around."

As the last of the Bluejackets would be dealt with, it was time go make a quick exit. Looking through the Death Door, they would find only a silent battlefield. Without reinforcements arriving in time, the House Guard manning the impromptu stockade was ultimately defeated by the much more elite Bluejacket force, after the ONW rabble ran away.

***A short while, spent running through the empty pyramid and the city, later***

The steamer was still moored at the pier where they left him. Old Bob was sitting on a rocking chair outside of the cabin, and waved at them as they approached. "W' kept the boilers hot, 'n case y'need a qui' exit. Lady s'd so."

The Precious, the dreadnought built using Red Science, was still sitting at the exit of the harbour, where it could see the flashes of white and red in the distant South. This time, however, the whole crew was standing on the decks, looking at their departure. Suddenly, as if controlled by a single entity, the whole crew started to wave. Perhaps it was a sign of thankfulness, that the ship would not be allowed to be tamed by the ONW. Perhaps a foreshadowing of things to come.

The rest of the voyage was done without any undue surprises, no mysterious passenger or giant eyes in the water. Soon enough, he mainsail lamps of Lady were seen on the horizon, and CP flew over to greet them, trying to land on Zilla's shoulder. The Shellfish Palace was quickly reached, and moments later the steamer was throwing gangplank at the coral jetty.

They were back.

Mizos · Mar 22, 2018

Luro's gaze moved over to the guy from before grinning at him as he spoke to them, being called Heroes was still a strange thing but at the very least someone seemed happy they returned which was still a good feeling. Luro's eyes moved over to the pedestal as the priest motioned to it, but his gaze instead went to the king's throne. It was a really fancy one now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure if he could even get it onto the ship, but he wouldn't mind getting a chunk of it. It was always nice to have an extra throne chair in the rum room, it could be used for all kinds of things. His thinking chair was also resting at the bottom of the ocean as well so he needed another one. He wondered if the king would join in the festivities and how long it would take to drag something like that to the ship.

"Shattered one?" Luro questioned looking in the priest direction. "I'm not sure what you're talking about but is the king attached to his throne chair, it's really nice...I kinda want it."
Luro looked back at the throne bringing a hand to his chin, Kadi said plenty about the place but he didn't remember him saying anything about not stealing chairs so he was pretty sure it was allowed. He stared to speak further but he suddenly tensed up and looked around, closing his eyes he sniffed the air for a moment, after a little bit of this he opened his eyes again.
"They're back I know those scents...though..." Luro said smelling the air again. "That one seems familiar...but different....hmmmm."

Zilia stared at the scene ahead in silence, watching as Kadi tore apart the people holding them at gunpoint. She watched the display with a blank expression her mouth a thin line and her eyelids lowered slightly, her body somewhat tense as she folded her arms under her chest. Her eyes watched his movements and her mouth twitched to the side at his 'merging' talk but aside from that she showed little emotion at the scene before her. Not that it wasn't an impressive display, under normal circumstances she would staring mouth agape at what had just occurred, this man almost seemed completely different from the man before and it was probably due to that they were alive. Granted she wasn't an expert on Stardusk but even she knew what just happened was...different than usual. The general reason why Zilia was staring at the scene with the expression of someone not laughing at a terrible joke was because of one very simple thing.
"...where was this five minutes ago!"
Zilia's eye twitched slightly at the skill Kadi had just shown them, after all that had happened, not just here but in the Captain's hometown as well, there was no such talent displayed. Even here it was Jack and Ray that took out the guards, but they were literally running through a battlefield, getting shot at from all sides, some shots coming a bit too close for comfort and this man was standing here stopping bullets!

She looked over at Jack who had to have caught this as well and pulling out her notebook wrote something down before handing a note to him pointing at Kadi as he spoke to the woman.
"This is a bother right! You see this too Jack! Was he like this with you guys! Did I miss something while I was away?!"
Zilia clearly didn't like what was going on, if Kadi had been holding back all this time after getting them into this mess, she was going to have a few very select words with him when they were free of all this. At the moment it didn't seem like the best time though, they had an opening and wasting it would be a pretty bad thing at this point. She put her own thoughts aside and followed them out of the pyramid and eventually back onto the boat which she was extremely happy to see again, she even pet CP who landed on her shoulder glad to see the bird once more.
"We got the strange jar and can finally head back," Zilia thought as he sat on the edge of the ship. "...I hope the others are all right...with everything we went through I can't imagine what they might have had to endure."
Once they were all settled Zilia handed a note to Kadi narrowing her eyes at him slightly, not shy about her displeasure at being in the unknown yet again, especially with her life on the line.
"So...are you going to explain what that exactly was...and where it came from?"

SilentxChaos · Mar 22, 2018

Jack lowered his weapon to read Zilia's note, the remnants of the Bluejacket's guard unconscious at their feet. The moment they'd turned their weapons on Kadi, Jack and Ray launched into action; disarming the guards closest to them. It wasn't enough to stop all the direct fire at Kadi and Jack nearly froze as he waited to see a bullet-riddled navigator on the ground. It earned him a shock-- as the smoke cleared and Kadi emerged unharmed, not even a tear in his coat-- and an elbow to the face that thoroughly broke his nose.

He wiped away fresh blood as he shook his head. He answered to Zilia, "I have honestly no idea where this is coming from."

While Zilia was obviously off-put, Jack seemed nonplussed by the sudden transformation. Confused, yes. But he didn't understand anything that was happening since their ship plunged to the depths of the sea. It felt almost normal while they investigate the Auction House and look how that turned out. Arcadius turning over a new leaf seemed the least weird thing to have happened.

Besides, Jack was used to crewmates with secrets.

He remained quiet while they made their way back to the steamer. Crossing the now-silent battlefield was eerie, and the remains gruesome. Jack glanced at Zilia. He'd noticed once before her blank look. He thought she'd be more moved at seeing the dead, those beyond saving, considering her position as a doctor. He made a mental note of it to ask later. Once aboard the steamer, Jack collected their stolen disguises and weapons and threw them overboard. The guns went first. He hated guns.

Afterwards, he rejoined Zilia and Kadi, peeking over her shoulder to read her note. "Well, I believe that definitely deserves an answer. I'd also like to know who that woman was back there. You know, the one you stabbed? You seemed to know her, though I'm not sure if that was mutual." Jack leaned against the railing, spying the Shellfish Palace in the distance. With the Auction House behind him, he never thought it'd be a welcome sight. He prayed the others were safe.

Pirate Age: The Golden Era

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