by Kell Inkston
“He-” Saman coughs. “Hey there!”
“This young lady dropped something of hers, I thought it was the proper thing to do to return it to her, but it seems as though I’m also fortunate enough to catch you two partaking in… degenerate activity.”
Samar’s stomach drops upon hearing the figure’s vicious emphases on the last two words. “Uh… hey, no! No way! She’s just… into alleyways! You know! The thrill, the cold, that… raw… feelin-”
“The same way this other lady is into being punched out and left to bleed on the cobblestone, I assume?” The silhouette asks with an incriminating tone.
Samar takes to his feet, leaving the molested Grancis frozen in confusion. “Xarks, do something!”
The second necromancer, Xarks, flicks out his blade and goes for the figure. “Think fast,” he says, thrusting for the man. Xarks plunges the blade into the man easily, right into where the heart should be beating. Grancis has never felt such a strange mix of both relief and terror— it was just some normal well to do person that wanted to help, but this really does mean she’ll be tormented beyond any previous measure this night. Unfortunately, and yet fortunately for Grancis, the man reaches up and takes Xarks’ wrist.
“What a peculiar way to greet someone,” the man says, the blade lodged in, but he himself unmoving.
Grancis clenches— this guy’s a creep after all.
Xarks attempts to tear out the blade, but is unable to pull it even a millimeter from the figure’s grasp. “H-hey man! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by i-”
“I also assume you are those two thugs that have been lifting unaltered humans off the streets and tearing them to bits for your little necromancy business.”
Samar pulls out a small, hand-sized book, his foot securely on Grancis’ ankle. “What of it?”
The man reaches up with his free hand and adjusts the glinting spectacles upon his face— an unnaturally intimidating sight. “One of the boys you lifted was one of my jobbers. I intend to prevent this from happening ever again.”
Xarks begins flailing to escape as he punches the man repeatedly in the face with his free hand. “No! No! Not like this! Pleas—”
Grancis and Saman watch with utter agony as the man jabs his hand into Xark’s ribcage, the simple strike from his hand alone breaking the skin and ushering forth a spew of blood. Grancis can lean up just enough to see the figure in greater detail:
A long, official-looking coat, doused slick with mist— a pair of gleaming glasses, looking like the cindering coals of a dragon’s mouth as they shine in the lamplight— an astute, superior-standing captain’s hat with writing around the crest too small to make out. All around his body are pure, snow-white bandages, wrapping the entirety of his form underneath the attire; not even his eyes peer out from the bandages, making it appear as if he ought to be blind. A lit pipe is shoved in-between the bandages around his mouth, giving Grancis a considerably demonic, smoke-breathing impression. Even when impaling the necromancer, the figure has a straight, professional frame— reflecting maturity, coolness, and poise. This is all just a walk in the park for this man, whatever he, or it, is.
“Please excuse me, I’ll let you sort yourself out,” the figure says, pulling his hand from Xarks’ ribcage and allowing him to fall over dead. “Now then… Samar, I believe it was.”
Samar begins whispering frantically under his breath. Grancis can just barely make out a few indecipherable phrases in some language she’s never heard.
“I feel it’s only fair to punish those that kill the innocent, don’t you?”
Samar keeps whispering to himself, though his tone picks up in what Grancis assumes is terror.
The figure steps just a meter from him. “Of course, I’m certain your childhood self would quite agree; perhaps you may even agree now and yet still do such things because you simply don’t care enough…” The figure pauses as if expecting a response, but Saman just continues his chanting. “So be it. If you refuse to acknowledge it now, you’ll have to by the time you’re ferried to your proper place of re—”
“Vas’Voosood!” Saman chants, throwing out his other hand, holding one of the soul gems as he finishes his spell. A great purple glow emanates from the screeching, empty gem as ectoplasmic tentacles reach out and grasp for the figure, standing calmly with not a hint of alarm about him. The tentacles go right through him, and after a few seconds, they retreat back into their soul gem. Saman drops his book and the gem. “But that's... impossible.”
The figure scoffs. “What a delightfully colorful display— it almost makes me want to wait around and see what other tricks you have,” the figure says, entirely unfazed by the necromancer’s assault.
“You don’t… You don’t have a soul!” Saman shrieks, stepping back into the alley and screaming in horror.
“Oh, those are so overrated- I find the lack of one to be quite liberating. The breeze that I feel in the hole that was left in its absence is quite refreshing, I feel.”
“But… that’s not possible!”
The figure smiles under his bandages. “Tonight’s going to be quite educational for you- try to pay attention.”
“Wh-wha-” Saman is interrupted just as the man grabs him by the neck with his deft, bandaged hands. Ever considerate, however, the figure turns to Grancis.
“Would you like to do the honors and send him on his way?” The figure asks, producing a small knife from somewhere to present to Grancis.
Grancis slowly takes to her feet, looks over the man offering her the assailant’s life, and finally shakes her head. “I don’t hate him, but he should die… definitely…. Revenge is wrong. I won’t indulge myself… But he’s a killer… You do it.” She says, staring Saman right in the face.
Samar gasps in horror as if he were expecting her to plea for his life.
The figure’s smile grows just a tad. “What an impressive character you own, young lady. Most youths I know would be at his throat in an instant, but you seem to possess a rather unnerving amount of…” the figure looks at her eyes closely, as if peering into her very soul, “self-control, it seems. It's lovely.” With that, the figure squeezes and destroys Samar’s neck in an instant. It’s a critical, painless death like the sort administered to stock animals. The figure tosses the corpse aside, the fear-stricken expression frozen into Samar’s features as he lies in the place Grancis had been lying just a moment earlier. Having finished his task, the figure brushes his hands clean of dirt and dust— though a considerable amount of blood has seeped into his bandages. “Oh, bother. It seems I’ll have to change these sooner than expected… Well, at least now I know for sure that this establishment’s holding the cult.” The man takes Grancis’ small, cute bracelet from his front chest pocket and dangles it in front of Grancis as an offering. “I believe this is yours?”
Grancis just stares at the man a moment before she speaks. “Are you going to hurt us?” she asks finally.
The man draws back in measured surprise as he takes off his coat and places it around Grancis’ shoulders. “Why, however could you come to such a conclusion?”
Her gaze is direct, honest, full. “Why would you save me?”
He hums a moment. “Don’t you think that the punishment of criminals should, ideally, be a civil responsibility?”
Grancis’ expression sours. “I…guess so.” She takes the bracelet.
“So I killed two murderers and I’ll leave the authorities to draw their own conclusions… Now, would you like to take a walk with me, miss?” The horrific man takes up the unconscious Colette, drapes her over his shoulder and then offers his free arm to Grancis.
By this point, Grancis doesn’t know what to feel. This man saved her life, but what if she said no? What would he do? She takes his arm. “Yes… sir.”
The man nods his head and the two walk along, the figure holding Colette in tow.
Grancis puts in a good word for Colette and Seals their Fates
“Now, I feel bef
ore we go any further in our… erm, relationship, we should at least introduce ourselves,” the man says. “I’m The Captain, captain of the M.S. Nocturna.”
Grancis raises a brow as she watches people look at the two of them walk along. It seems like most every passerby recognizes this man, and their expressions continually turn to show fear. “The Captain isn’t a real name, is it, sir?”
“Of course it is, miss. Just what are you called?”
“Grancis Vereyrty, sir, daughter of….” She holds her tongue. There’s no way he’d know who her dad is.
“Daughter of nothing, I rather like the sound of that; poetic,” The Captain says, nodding his head about in thought.
They approach The Stabbed Eye again. “We’re going back?”
“Of course— your friend wanted to become strong, didn’t she?”
“Well, yes, but I’d rather be the overlord’s wife than risk that again,” she says, glancing back to the alleyway the two necromancer’s spiritless corpses now inhabit.
The Captain jiggles her arm in some eldritch attempt at comforting her. “Well I’ll make the searching easy. I’m short some hands and wouldn’t mind a couple of soulful girls like you working on my ship.”
Grancis jolts. “Sorry. I mean... thanks, for saving us, I mean.... but I really, really don’t think that seafaring’s a good fit for u-”
“I believe it was your friend who wanted to apprentice under someone of command, yes?”
She sighs as they reach the tavern’s doorway. “Yes.”
“So why not let her decide?”
“Because last time she did that we almost died; if it weren’t for me dropping… the bracelet...” Grancis turns her gaze away, considering just how lucky she was that this mysterious man decided to do her a simple favor. “Thank you.”
The Captain tilts his head to the side. “Whatever for? Being an upstanding citizen?”
Grancis shrugs, her gaze still held aside. “Sure.”
“You’re quite welcome.” He says with a tone Grancis recognizes as genuine, but she’s scared, by some tragedy it’s all going like she expected when she first laid eyes on him; Colette’s not going to be smart enough to deal with one this sly, she’s certain.
They enter the establishment and the atmosphere’s changed completely. Everyone’s on edge, and the bartender is practically shaking in his boots. The Captain leads Grancis to the nearest table, held by five dudes about three times his size. He taps the table and makes a quick shooing motion, and every man on the table scrambles from their seats and offers it to The Captain the moment before they promptly exit the tavern. The Captain seats Grancis and sets Colette down in the chair next to her. He then pulls from his person a weird metal instrument with a handle and a trigger and gives it to Grancis. “Wait here a moment. Feel free to shoot anyone that displeases you,” he says matter-of-factly. The Captain then turns about and delivers a rather focused glare to the bartender, who quickly rushes away from the bar and unlocks the door to the basement. The Captain disappears down the stairs. A wide-eyed Grancis is left holding a revolver clasped in both hands amidst the bar’s patrons, who are now steadily filing out of the bar to make an escape; they give Grancis looks of discomfort—and, somewhere in their eyes, pity— as if she has just fallen into a fate worse than even that which she might have met at the hands of the necromancers.
Grancis takes a deep breath and tries to calm her mind as the last of the patrons exit the bar, leaving the awkwardly-grinning bartender tapping his broad hand against the bar in grim anticipation. “…Can I…” he takes a breath, “Get ya’ a drink?”
She shakes her head. “No, thank you,” she says with a meek peep of a voice, awkwardly thumbing over the revolver contraption.
“Alright,” he says, standing as still as his fear will allow.
Suddenly, both Grancis and the bartender hear screaming from below. “NO! NO! DON’T YOU DARE! THE MAYOR WILL HEAR ABOUT THIS! SHE’LL TEAR YOU TO SHREDS FOR THIS!”
There’s a pause, in which Grancis assumes The Captain delivers a calm, horrifying response— and then more screaming.
“NO! PLEASE! I’LL GIVE YOU ANYTHI- OH GODS, NO!!!” The next minute is filled to the brim with screaming of such magnitude and such agony, Grancis wouldn't have believed it was physically possible until this moment; whoever is down in the basement is suffering a fate of indescribable horror at the hands of The Captain. She wonders just how The Captain would kill someone slowly— just what dark secrets might be hidden under all those bandages? The minute passes with Grancis and the bartender looking about awkwardly, and finally the screaming subsides in the victim’s dying breaths.
The Captain emerges from the basement to see the tavern practically deserted. He nods in satisfaction. “As it should be,” he says before he taps his left shoulder twice, pauses, and then taps twice again. He asks the bartender for a damp cloth, which is produced for him with incredible speed, and then he returns to the table with Grancis and a now-fidgeting Colette. “Let’s trade,” he says, handing her the damp, warm cloth as Grancis gives up the strange device with six shots. The Captain takes up his coat from Grancis, holsters the gun into his coat and takes a seat as he patiently watches Grancis clean Colette’s bloody face. A moment passes, and The Captain looks over to the barkeep and notches his head in the direction of the door. The barkeep should have realized by now that, as his employer is now dead, there is no reason for him to be manning this bar anymore. The bartender bows and takes his leave, rendering the establishment private for The Captain and his new recruits.
Grancis finishes cleaning up Colette just as The Captain redoes his coat and casually stretches back in a quick moment of unprofessionalism. “Lovely; the whole place to ourselves.” He snuffs out his pipe, stuffs it into his coat and gets up to inspect the bar’s shelves. Grancis watches with a consistently-concerned glare as The Captain looks over the bottles of various spirits until he finds one that really piques his interest. “Perfect,” he mutters as he takes up the bottle of Dugal’s scotch and pours himself a few shots. “So, Miss Vereyrty,” The Captain addresses.
Grancis looks up. “Yeah?”
“Would you say that your friend is a committed person?”
She nods. “She’s definitely that, sir.”
“High ambitions… strives for greatness?”
She nods again. “Yeah.”
“Alright… So do you want to join the crew?”
“Of course n-” She skews her breath. “I’m… hesitant.”
“It would be quite adventurous, you know, and adventures are quite enjoyable!”
She smirks. “I’m afraid not for me, sir. Adventures aren’t what I like.”
“You like a peaceful life?”
“Sure.”
“I hear people only truly appreciate peace once they’ve lost it. I think this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for; to move away from your comfort zone.”
Grancis looks aside. “I don’t know.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know if the risk is worth it.”
The Captain hums. “Then I suppose the question is what is this thing that the risk is compared to. Why might you two be looking for an apprenticeship?”
She takes a sharp, disgusted breath. “Because in a year we have to duel an overlord. If we lose he’ll put us in his harem or something.”
“And you two are from…”
“A village… we don’t know how to fight, at all.”
He chuckles. “I take it she’s not the… brightest lamp on the street?” He says, glancing down to Colette.
Grancis scoffs and shakes her head. “No… but she… she’s going to do this whether I like it or not, so I’m here for her every step of the way. I believe in her force of will, if anything— and she’s my friend, I can’t just let her go and get herself killed without me… and we need help. I don’t know who you are, really— but in retrospect, we don’t have anyone else to ask. Honestly, I guess… I g
uess I’ll go anywhere she does— so I’ll join the crew, if she does; you have me, too, Mister Captain,” she concludes, her gaze averted the entire time in what The Captain assumes is embarrassment.
He strokes his bandaged chin in thought. “Very good, very good… I suppose, then, to ensure that she joins the crew I should attempt flattery. The matter is I’m rather untrained in the art… You’re a lady of course— tell me what ladies like you enjoy being called.”
She draws back from the unexpected question. Just who the hell is this person? “Uh… nice things, I guess?” She mutters with an awkward half certainty.
The Captain downs his first shot. “Please, be more specific, Miss Vereyrty.”
Grancis looks aside in the perplexed way that one does when one is asked to explain something obvious. “Well, sweet things? You know, stuff that makes people feel good. Saying something nice to a girl is the same as saying something nice to anyone, sir.”
He draws back in some massive realization just as he finishes his second shot. “Of course, sweet things.” He picks up his last two shots and returns to the table just as Colette jolts back to consciousness. She sees The Captain downing a third shot right next to Grancis.
She stares forward tiredly. “…What the hell?” She asks in a half-conscious daze.
The Captain downs his last shot and flings the glass aside carelessly. “Why hello my cream-drizzled cinnamon roll! You… you passed!”