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Back in Leetsburg, the guards regard the adventurers with uncertain courtesy, a grudging balance between their initial friendliness and recent unease. Vector takes out the list, and they wander around looking for local businesses. The first one they find is Fools Rush Inn, a tavern and gambling house. Vector pockets the list, and they head in. He says, “Let me do the talking, eh,” as he holds the door open for the others.
Inside, the light is dim and the air is smoky. Past a few slot machines, there’s a food counter, with tables for eating and various games arrayed spaciously under hanging lamps lighting each of them with a warm, golden glow. Even now, just past ten in the morning, there are a couple dozen patrons scattered about the place, with sharply-dressed staff flitting among them like butterflies with drink trays. Vector leads the trio to the bar at the rear, walking purposefully.
A dwarf bartender eyes them suspiciously as they approach, hands spread on the polished oak. “Mornin’, heroes,” he says gruffly from beneath a mop of tousled brown curls. “The Hell ya want?”
“Vincent sent us,” Vector says, glancing at the green-gold nametag on his white starched shirt.
“Vincent’s dead.”
“We know that, Dennis. Everyone does. But before he died, he told us to come here if we ever needed reliable transportation. Not sure why, though - certainly wasn’t the friendly service.”
Dennis narrows his eyes, and looks them up and down. Vector passes a Performance roll to project confident derision, and the others don’t even need to roll to look impatient and bored. The barkeep coughs into his hand, and his demeanor softens. “Pardon me, I thought you were those other destined heroes. Should’ve recognized ya. Lemme get the boss for ya.” He retrieves a speaking stone and says, “Boss?”
The speaking stone rumbles, “Yes?”
“The demigods are here for a travel arrangement.”
A beat passes, and the laconic rumble says, “Send them back.” Dennis jerks a thumb toward a door flanked by two burly men, and Vector gives him a polite nod as they walk off. One of them holds up a hand as they approach, but a moment later a thin elf woman emerges in an elegant backless knee-length dress and stiletto heels, all black. She sizes up the adventurers and beckons them with a finger.
They follow her wordlessly through a well-lit hallway lined with doors and two security checkpoints to a heavy oak door, ten feet high and ajar. She comes to a stop just past it, then turns and extends her hand toward the soft light from within, saying only, “Mister Blackhoof will see you now.” She curtsies as they enter, and pulls the door shut behind them.
Inside, the office is all polished mahogany and deep green paint with gold trim. Half a dozen busts, oil paintings, and glittering gems are displayed tastefully around the large room. The marble floor was once elegant, but now dim and scuffed except for a few stretches along the baseboards. The most significant wear leads in a path from the door, across the room, and behind a large desk - behind which sits an even larger troll, one of perhaps twenty they’ve seen. Big, blue eyes watch the adventurers from beneath massive ivory horns and a glossy black mane. His massive chest rises and falls only once, and slowly, as they cross the floor to approach the desk.
“Please, be seated,” Blackhoof says slowly and evenly, unfolding his hands to gesture at the chairs arrayed before them. As he does so, the keratinous plates over his knuckles shift and clack with the movement of his hands, then he folds them together atop his desk once more. “So. I know Vincent didn’t send you. Yet here you are, in a place you should not be, saying things you should not know. Explain.”
Vector looks left at Phyr, then right at Pannych. Each of them raises their eyebrows and gives a slight shrug. He clears his throat and says, “We have our methods. I think we should focus on what we need, and what we can offer for it.”
Blackhoof lazily raises an eyebrow and measures his words, then says, “Two demigods grace my humble establishment, but the mortal speaks. Curiouser and curiouser. But I asked you to explain, not to pivot.” The eyebrow lowers, his curiosity evidently spent.
Vector rolls a 1 on Savvy to reevaluate the situation, and says, “Well, shit - I’m all out of ideas. You guys?”
Phyr snaps his head to face Vector and says, “Dude!” Then he turns back to Blackhoof and says, “Look, we’re just trying to get to Salinas, but we have a travel ban, OK?”
Blackhoof narrows his eyes at Phyr and says, “Strike two,” maintaining his measured pace. He turns to Pannych and says, “I don’t suppose the ninja will be more forthcoming? Tell you what - you deal straight with me, and I promise to deal straight with you.”
Pannych swallows hard and says plainly, “We broke into his house and cracked his cipher.”
Intrigue replaces impatience, washing over the troll’s face like the ebb of a tide. He says, “Impressive. Not only that, but the constabulary has no clue.” He takes a deep breath as he reappraises the adventurers before him. “Very well: a promise is a promise. You want to get to Salinas, and I am able to get you there. Normally, I would charge ten grand per head. But this income scheme of yours will enrich me considerably, and I know the value of cutting a good deal for rising stars such as yourselves. So I’ll give you a one-third discount: twenty grand, and you’ll travel in stealth and relative comfort. Is that acceptable to you?”
“Yes,” Phyr says. “I assume you take cash?” Blackhoof nods, then the adventurers stand to count out $20,000 and stack the bills neatly on his desk. They are left with $600 between them, and split it evenly.
Blackhoof says, “Indigo.” The elf opens the door and steps into the office. “Our clients will be traveling to Salinas, expedited first class. Here is their payment in full; please, see to the arrangements.” She nods, retrieves the cash, and exits without a word. Blackhoof stands, towering over even Vector, and places his hand gingerly upon the wall behind him. A panel of the wall whispers open, revealing another room, and he says, “You may avail yourselves of my quarters while you wait.”
Pannych and Vector start for the room, but Phyr demurs. “Can we not go somewhere else?”
Blackhoof says flatly, “It is best if you do not leave the premises, and you will find the amenities to be accommodating.”
Pannych says, “But shouldn’t we, like, change our location or something? Throw off the trail? Some guard probably saw us come in here.” Blackhoof fixes her with an impassive stare, and she adds, “Or, you’ve already thought of that because you do this professionally, and I’m slow on the uptake. Got it.” She nods and makes for the back room.
Inside, they find a variety of fresh fruits, as well as the magical equivalent of a stereo. The furniture is all tremendously oversized, including a chaise longue that seats all three of them quite comfortably. They find some music they like, and pore over the map and On the Nature of Humanity while they wait. In just under an hour, Indigo enters and bids them follow her with another beckoning finger.
Indigo leads them back to the hall and around one last corner, where it terminates at a rather obvious vault door. She walks them through the last security checkpoint, and the two guards stationed there both activate magical devices in coordination to open the giant steel portal. Past stacks of cash, gold bars, piles of gems, and glowing blue bottles, they come to a bare section of wall. Indigo lifts a tiny opal pendant from her breast and presses it to the wall, which whispers open to reveal a staircase. Down they go, emerging some fifty feet down into a wide-open tunnel of bare concrete. Footsteps echo as they traverse the dimly-lit expanse, passing various doors until Indigo stops at one and opens it.
Inside are three large wooden crates, each large enough for one of the adventurers to stand and stretch inside. Richly upholstered recliners are bolted to the bottoms, with five-point harnesses integrated into them. Indigo says, “Please select a meal,” and gestures to a cart bearing several bags, each with a picture of a fine meal in front of it.
“Uh, Indigo? I don’t know much about nautical travel,” Pannych says, “But I think we’ll need more than one meal?”
“These are bags of replenishing,” Indigo says. “Each one has two weeks’ worth of food magically stored in it. The catch is that it’s the same meal every time. They’re nutritionally balanced to get you through the day, so don’t worry about scurvy. And you may call me Miss Kestrel.”
“Ah. Sorry, Miss Kestrel. So we’re just gonna be in a dark box for two weeks? And - what about dishes? And bathrooms? And water?”
Indigo steps into the Vector-sized crate and taps a panel on the wall. A soft light glows from the crate’s ceiling. Behind the recliner, she opens the lid of a box, revealing a toilet seat. She next opens a cabinet above the commode to reveal a number of water bottles, removes one, then closes and re-opens it to show it filled with bottles again. She hands the removed one to Vector, and says, “Satisfied?”
Pannych nods and says, “Thank you, Miss Kestrel.”
Indigo nods, and says, “One last thing.” She touches her hand to a lever on one wall, and adds, “This blows the crate open, in case of emergency. Be advised that you can’t close it back up after that.”
Vector says, “Single use, got it. Sheesh, expensive disposable, innit?”
“You can’t close it back up. We re-use these.”
“Got it,” Vector says. “OK, last question: entertainment?”
“Not provided,” Indigo says.
“Dibs on the book,” Phyr blurts. Pannych rolls her eyes, Vector winces and swears.
“Can I at least have the map,” he asks.
“Sure,” Phyr says, and hands it over.
“You gonna be all right, Pannych,” Vector asks. “Nothing to read or do for two weeks?”
“Meh,” she says with a shrug. “I’ve been locked up alone with nothing to do before. I can meditate. Stretch. There’s room enough for floor exercises. I’ll be fine.”
“Anything else,” Indigo asks. The adventurers shake their heads, and she says, “Then grab a meal and strap in. You leave now.”
After the adventurers are strapped in and boxed up, they get 5 XP for the social encounter. Then the laden crates are brought to the dock with all due haste, and the ship leaves port in the mid-afternoon. Well, Phyr knows it’s mid-afternoon - the others have to guess, and assume it’s been longer than it actually has.
The first three days pass uneventfully, but day four interrupts the monotony with a raucous commotion from above. The sound is dampened by the crate walls and insulation, but they can hear shouting and running around. After some minutes of this, gunshots sound with increasing frequency, and a cacophonous clanging of metal on metal is heard. They blow the crates, and Vector activates the flashlight on his rifle to reveal that they’re in a large cargo hold below decks. Phyr asks, “You thinking pirates?” The others nod.
They find their way up from the bowels of the ship to see the crew, all in merchant marine uniforms, frantically fending off battle-garbed pirates from a nearby ship that has been fastened to their starboard bow with grapnels and ropes. A battle of this scale doesn’t get a roll for turn order - little skirmishes are instead resolved as they break out.
Pannych draws her sword and rushes into the melee, sticking to the outskirts and assisting sailors who look in trouble. Phyr starts casting Stop Machine on the pirates’ machine gun turrets, causing them to jam. Vector heads up to the quarter deck, near the helm, and takes pot shots at the pirates as they try to cross over.
The battle seems an even match, the two galleons dead in the water. Then Vector spots another pirate ship, this one approaching their port bow - they’re about to be overwhelmed. He tries to signal Pannych and Phyr, but can’t get their attention over the din of battle. He heads back down to the main deck to tell them of the new threat individually, then retreats to the quarter deck again and climbs the mizzen mast to get a better vantage point.
Pannych disengages on learning of the other ship, and puts one shuko on her left hand. She then dives back into the fray, parrying blades with the steel palm-claw and counterattacking with Hawkmoth. Occasionally, she is able to disarm an assailant, but just as often she messes up and takes a hit. Overall, though, she dispatches the attackers with about twice her previous speed.
Phyr runs to port, sizes up the approaching galleon, and casts a massive Chill over the main deck. On the positive side, the pirates all take significant damage and are considerably slowed or frozen outright - but on the negative side, the helmsman loses control of the wheel and crashes into them.
Everyone stumbles and many fall at the impact. Pannych recovers her footing, then runs to Phyr and shouts, “Let’s go,” before charging to the ship now lodged in their hull. Phyr follows, and draws his blasters once they’ve crossed over to the frosty deck. There are enough pirates at close range that he’s able to alternate fire and hit nearly every time. Pannych ducks and weaves among the slowed swashbucklers, and falls into a rhythm: she slips behind one, digs her shuko into their shoulder and hauls them down on the deck, then slits their throat with her blade and moves to the next pirate. Phyr keeps one eye on her and the other focused on finding the closest attacker, whom he blasts with either Lefty or Righty. When he sees his Chill is starting to wear off, he holsters the blasters and refreshes it, casting once toward the stern and once more toward the bow. This leaves Pannych un-chilled, but also leaves the pirates around her to continue recovering their speed.
Vector sees that Pannych has started taking blows again, and stows The Final Word before descending a rat line, drawing his quarterstaff, and heading over to the adjoining ship. He batters at any enemies in his path, staving them off, and starts casting Heal on Pannych as soon as he’s in range of her. Phyr casts a pair of Chill spells one more time, and recharges his blasters before resuming the attack. Vector heads toward the bow, where the pirates are somewhat thinner, and starts heaving them overboard - an easy task, in their chilled state.
The sailors see the adventurers dispatching the second ship’s crew with ease, and redouble their efforts on the first. Soon, the tide of battle has decisively turned, and the embattled pirates surrender. The adventurers earn 60 XP for the battle.
After the merchant marines round up the pirates, the captain says in a booming giant’s voice, “Clap ‘em in irons, boys!”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n Starling,” comes the rousing reply.
“Damage report,” the captain demands.
“Hull breach, taking on water,” a voice replies from the crowd of sailors. “Not terribly fast, but not fixable, either. We have a couple hours, maybe three at most.”
Captain Starling nods and shouts, “All right! We’re losing the Birthright, but taking back the Boundary Line from these bastards! Put ‘em in the brig and lock ‘em up tight, then all hands move to transfer our cargo to the Boundary Line! Peterson, grab the High Queen’s Pennant and see that Jolly Roger burnt, then survey the One Horizon for damages and cargo!” Peterson, a short-ish sailor with close-cropped hair and a thin black beard, acknowledges and salutes before climbing a ratline up the main mast, while the rest of the crew get to work. The captain turns to the adventurers and sizes them up. “You three - come with me.”
They follow Captain Starling to her quarters below the poop deck, her chestnut-brown hair swaying in a long braid across the back of her olive green frock coat. She doffs her bicorn hat and straightens the gold plume before setting it down on her desk, and bids them be seated. Her deep brown eyes and golden-brown skin have a satiny luster in the lamplight as she stares them down. After a long beat passes, she says, “All right - I don’t take kindly to stowaways, but stowaways don’t usually save my bacon. I haven’t decided whether to throw you in the brig yet. Play nice, and my decision will be easy. Deal?”
The adventurers nod, and she continues: “Very well. Let’s start with introductions, shall we? I’m Charise Starling, captain of Her Exalted Majesty’s Birthright - soon to be the Boundary Line and possibly the One Horizon, as well. So maybe I’ll be an admiral by sunset.” Her golden epaulets shimmer as she shrugs a shoulder. “Who are you?”
Pannych stands and curtsies, then says, “I am Pannych, lesser goddess of fear and anxiety.”
She sits, then Phyr stands and bows, saying, “And I am Phyr, lord of destruction and chaos, whose wrath makes the very heavens tremble with reverence to my otherworldly might.”
He sits, and Captain Starling looks to Vector, who waves politely and says, still seated, “I’m Vector - just some guy.” Starling fixes him with a stare, and raises one eyebrow. He spreads his hands plaintively and adds, “Look, I don’t have a speech or anything - these are just my friends.”
The captain raises a finger and says, “Give me a moment.” She spends a full minute in silent contemplation - the adventurers watch the clock on her desk - and then says, “Your reputations precede you, but they are a stark contrast to what I have just seen. I was told that you were reckless and undisciplined, carrying on like cock-sure mercenaries who know little and think less.” She takes a deep breath and adds, “But you showed discipline, coordination, and - most importantly - great power wielded with precision and restraint. What’s more, you travel with a mortal and treat him as an equal. I put little faith in gossip, but it usually forms around a kernel of truth. Tell me - what kernel sits at the core of this confusing clutch of calumny?”
The adventurers look at each other, then Vector raises a hand and says, “If I may? My friends are new to this world. The rumors you heard are probably all true, at least for the most part. But Pannych is a quick study, and Phyr has a good heart - they just needed a couple days to catch on, is all.”
Starling looks to the “demigods,” and they nod gamely. She takes a deep breath and says, “Very well - I believe it is as you say.” She drums her fingers on her desk for a moment, then says, “Here’s how this works: half of all recovered booty goes to the treasury, and the other half is split evenly among the crew. I’ll give the three of you each a double-share, since you’re not with our outfit and you could’ve easily sided with the pirates. You’ll go by pseudonyms for the duration of the voyage. In Salinas we part ways, and we never saw each other. That way, word doesn’t get back to Nadab that I’m letting demigods run loose - as if I could do anything about that - and you don’t have him on your trail. Do we have an accord?”
The adventurers nod agreeably, and they all shake hands.
For the rest of the voyage, the adventurers are known as Deirdre, Dale, and Sye. The One Horizon turns out to be in fine shape, only needing minor repairs. There are sailors enough to crew her, so Admiral Starling field promotes her first mate Peterson to captain and gives him One Horizon. The adventurers sail aboard the Boundary Line and dine as special guests of the admiral, and anyone who asks questions is ordered to drink enough grog to forget ever seeing them. The trio ends up with just over twelve grand apiece, and they sail in relative comfort for the remainder of the two weeks.
That night while they eat, Phyr asks Pannych, “Hey, isn’t that sushi from your bag? Why don’t you eat the ship food?”
Pannych shrugs and says, “I like sushi?”
Phyr says, “I like burritos, but I got sick of ‘em after several days straight.”
Pannych replies, “I mean, there are three things for which I have a bottomless appetite, and they all start with S: sushi, sandwiches, and slaying the undead.”
Vector says, “But why don’t you save it? We have food here, and the bags will keep.”
Pannych says, “For how long, though? I’d rather eat more sushi now than try to save it and risk it going bad.”
Phyr waves his hand and says, “Oh, they won’t. I had time to check ‘em out in the crate: these bags of replenishing are pretty awesome. They hold one meal in a timeless pocket dimension, and basically paste copies on demand for a set number of times, so there’s nothing to go bad.”
Pannych says, “Huh, I figured they were just refrigerated or something. I’ve never heard of a pocket dimension before - makes sense, though.”
Phyr says, “That’s probably because of the mind wipe. You’re 34 outside, but it’s your 17-year-old self in here, so there’s probably a few things here you wouldn’t think of. Like how you’re out and stuff.”
Pannych stares mutely for a second, and asks, “Out?”
Vector says, “Yeah, you came out on your last birthday. It was pretty rad, you got a lot of support.” Pannych stares a moment more, and starts to tear up.
Phyr says, “Hey, it’s fine. It’s good. Everyone accepts you.”
Pannych says haltingly, “No, it’s - I mean - all I could…” She trails off.
Vector looks in confustion to Phyr, who nods and says, “She told me when she was like 21 that all she could find on the topic as a teen was porn, and that wasn’t her.” He turns to Pannych and puts a hand on her shoulder. “But it’s not like that any more. Turns out, trans people - maybe not always by that term - have been around for all of human history. But it’s a good way into the 21st century before we have a worldwide conversation about it.”
Pannych looks confused, and Vector says, “Yeah, the internet really takes off. Things are… well, they’re still a bit touch and go, but progress is happening. Just in fits and starts.”
Pannych looks to Admiral Starling, who is staring in open fascination. The admiral shakes it off, raises a palm to them, and says, “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
A couple evenings later, Phyr takes Pannych aside before they bunk down and says, “Hey - so, I saw someone sneaking a mana potion from the hold, there’s a ton of ‘em down there, and I figured I’d top up. And I had Vector stand watch, ‘cuz I figured you’d prolly try to talk me out of it, and I used the tablet to identify the potions. Turns out, the enchanted earring goes both ways - and I get ten times more mana when I drink a potion!”
“OK,” Pannych says, taking a deep breath. “In order: bad, accurate, and good. But why are you telling me this?”
Phyr says, “We should get you one of these earrings for that 14K you need to fix the holes in the world. It’ll be a big help.” Pannych nods assent. Phyr adds, “You know, we could-” but she cuts him off with a hand.
“No, we shouldn’t press our luck. I’d hate it if someone got punished more because I took one stupid potion. Good lookin’ out, though.”
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