Insurrection and slaughter are words much too kind to describe

The horror of the Woods when His dread army did arrive

Against the gods of His people did He swear vehement vengeance

And did He use to accomplish his heretical transcendence

The Woods torn asunder, Into three they did split

And Dronn used this to make them all submit

He forced them to agree, and now war cannot be waged

Thanks to His reviled Treaty of Dread and Mist and Rage

- Beware the Everlasting Tyrant, Third Stanzas, author unknown

The day between us getting our tickets and actually setting sail was spent nervously waiting inside the Inn. Until Jevi dragged me outside to go send her letter, that was. Along the way we got split up, I took the opportunity to call over one of the agents following me and telling her to investigate any quartermasters in Source, if only because I felt it was something Jevi would appreciate. Then, on the way back, an old woman conned the two of us into buying an emerald and a ruby.

“Red and green.” She had said, instantly capturing Jevi’s attention. A wrinkled hand waved over a mundane glass orb, doing nothing special. “I see the colours, intertwined into the chaotic future. A flash of green atop a broken battlefield, independent, heroic, and fulfilled at last. A banner of red in the sky, soaring with joy as its worries fall away. I have seen these futures, and bound them.” She presented the verdant and vermilion gems, each the size of my pinky’s nail, setting them before us and the glass orb.

“Fifty gold for each.” She then said, suddenly brusque and businesslike.

I was content to simply walk away, but Jevi became enraptured with the idea of buying the damn gems. Since I couldn’t just drag her away, and she was fully capable of dragging me back, I ended up spilling the coin asked of me. Jevi had also argued that since I wanted to become independent of Avien, the green one was for me.

It also mentioned standing atop a battlefield and being heroic, neither of which spoke to me. I enjoyed using my sword, yes, but not that much. Regardless, I was now the owner of an emerald gemstone. Something to go with my alias of Emer, and her ruby with Rubes, which I now realised the obvious derivatives. It did strike me as strange how the old lady with a mundane orb was able to sell mundane gems related two aliases that had scarcely seen any use.

And I did check that my emerald was mundane. There was no magic sheen, or feel of importance when I tried pushing my own magic into it. Jevi wouldn’t let me touch her’s, but I assumed it was the same.

Overall, I just accepted it. Captain Sanjak was much more worrying than a gemstone that I couldn’t even fit into any pieces of jewelry on account of not having any. Weldon even had another quick quest thrust upon him, returning to us telling tale of how a thief attempted to steal from him, only to be chased down and redeemed by the boy, before being converted into a devout follower of whichever god Lavina had been spawned from.

When it was finally time for us to board the Busty Butler we arrived to find Sanjak and his crew of a dozen men and women sprawled across the deck having a nap. None of them were awake. I could’ve slit all their throats or lifted all their purses if not for my curse or Weldon shouting his greeting upon finishing his ascent up the gangplank.

I spied Sanjak lying across the stairs leading up to the ship’s wheel. He lifted his trifold hat, saw the three of us, clicked his tongue, then dropped his hat and returned to what he was doing before. Then he started snoring in record time.

“That’s cap’n speak for ‘five more minutes’.” Jvina spoke up from another spot on the deck. She was a half-elf with a faint bronze sheen to her skin, which didn’t stand out all that much against her already bronze complexion. At the moment she was yawning and struggling to her feet, which took about fifteen seconds once she actually started trying.

She was a reminder to me that not everywhere was as inclusive as Veliki was. I was human, and was friendly with Taranath and Maiathah, who were elven or fey with blood of varying purity. I’d met Voxis, who was likely the only gnome on this side of Rheasana, as well as a number of nizkaling, and whatever Weylon was. Dwarves, I had a strange relationship with. They didn’t hate me exactly, but introducing myself as Amber Jewel tended to insult them.

I wasn’t sure why, either. None I had met had ever explained.

The point was that Jvina was the first non-human openly displaying herself as such that I had seen since leaving Veliki. I remembered what Victoria had told me about her half-elven sibling, so the first thing I asked her was ‘do I call you she?’ Which had apparently made her decide that I was the best person ever.

Thus, she hugged me the moment she realised I was there, and only gave Jevi and Weldon nods of acknowledgement. “Welcome back to the Busty Butler, Emer and friends.” She’d really taken a liking to me. “You woke us up early, which is gonna mace our schedule a bit. But! You’re here first so you get to have first pick of the hammocks.”

Jevi and Weldon both nodded in perfect understanding while I was left to wonder what that meant. Instead of raising the question and exposing my lack of common knowledge, I kept my mouth shut as Jvina lead us below deck and showed us a room that took up most of the Busty Butler’s considerable length.

It was filled with hammocks, unsurprisingly. I don’t know why I even bothered stressing about it.

“Most vessels have their more expensive hammocks be the ones at the sides, since you get more privacy.” Jvina explained. “But the Busty Butler’s a little special. You actually want to stay away from those walls.”

“But what if we value privacy?” Jevi asked.

“Then go for the walls.” The half-elf shrugged. “It’s not like it’ll kill you.” She paused and looked up like she was trying to remember something. “Yeah, no. Won’t kill you.”

Jevi frowned. “I’m more used to smaller rooms. I get this is a ferry meant for the peasants, but do you have any private rooms?”

Jvina smiled at me for some reason. “Aye, I’m sure we can work something out for one of you.”

“Nope!” Jevi pulled me behind her, as if I couldn’t fend for myself. Then she shoved a finger in Jvina’s face. “Your captain said we had tickets, with no fee. All he said was they needed to be as far as Burden Bridge, not that we needed to bunk with the rabble. I’m demanding an upgrade to a more private room.”

Jvina looked Jevi cooly in the face. “Cap’n doesn’t take well to demands.”

“Good thing I’m demanding this from you. You’re the one that’ll have to pass it on.”

The half-elf’s face went pale. “I’ll think of something. Don’t bother unpacking here.”

I reached out and shoved Weldon’s shoulder. “Pack that up. We’re not sleeping here.” Jevi’s argument was horrendously flawed, but if Jvina was convinced, then there was no reason to linger here. There was just one problem with that.

Weldon looked up from his vast array of religious accoutrement, which had been set out from his travel pack in record time. “But I’m not supposed to move any of this until the incense stops burning.”

“And how long will that take?” I demanded, barely suppressing a sigh.

Weldon looked down at the four sticks of incense, then to the fifth he was holding in his hands, seconds away from being lit as well, and then back to me. “Several hours?”

“Then it’s decided,” I said, “You’re sleeping here. Jevi and I will have our own room.”

“That was how it was going to be anyway.” Jevi said severely, directing her words at Weldon. It seemed she was going to persist with this inane grudge of her’s, but that was also her’s and Weldon’s problem. I just followed Jvina when she told us to follow her.

We were shown to a room that was four paces across, and had a single hammock strung up inside. There was also a wardrobe, a porthole, and that was it.

“Miss Jvina, this isn’t going to work.” Jevi said upon entering. “There’s a single hammock. Emer and I are two different people.

Jvina scowled at her, nigh on feral. “This is my room you royal harlot. I’ll string up two more hammocks, and you can sleep on the bottommost one. Be glad I’m even allowing this. Normally I would give consideration to sloppily used goblins before one such as you”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Jevi was taken back at the half-elf’s visceral reaction, but I wasn’t surprised. Having grown up in constant contact with not one, but two people of elven blood, I had come to know there were some things you just didn’t do to the fair folk without expecting vicious and disproportionate reactions. Condescend was one such thing, no matter how slight.

It seemed I would need to educate Jevi on etiquette. How fun.

“Jevi would be more comfortable sleeping in the middle.” I said, causing Jvina to go from furious to straddling the verge of tears. Her crying eyes were nothing next to Maiathah’s though. I wasn’t moved. “Yes, I’m aware that puts me closer to the floor.” She had made a deal about the walls before, so I assumed the floor was the same.

After a few moments Jvina seemed to regain her self control. “So long as you’re aware of the consequences.” She said with a shrug. “I’ll get you your fucking hammock.” Then she smiled sweetly at me. “Just you wait and I’ll sort it out, 'kay.” One thunderous look at Jevi later, she was gone.

“Well…” Jevi said, which just about summed it up.

I grunted. This was how this stretch of my travels would be. Best if I just accepted it.

\V/

Somehow, against my greatest reservations, the next few days of travel were simply boring. There was the matter of my becoming melancholic upon looking over the rails on the sides of the ship, but that was much lesser than my initial episode, and was easily staved off by eating treats from my bag. About twenty five other people had booked passage on the Busty Butler, making pretty much everywhere cramped, and making me grateful that Jevi had demanded more privacy.

Once I was over the simple fact that I was on a river, the slowly sliding scenery was rather pleasant. We were moving at what seemed like walking speed, even if Jevi assured me it was much faster. The landscape of Kreg’uune slowly slid past, and after a while started becoming same-y. Though every now and then there would be a short mountain or an outcropping of rock to make things interesting. Mostly I passed the time observing the ships that we passed, marvelling at some of the ill maintained designs and taking in the ridiculous names, though none quite matched the Busty Butler.

Weldon all but started a cult amongst the other passengers. If not for how his religion was already recognised as such, I would’ve called it a cult outright. He seemed fine without my interference, so I left him to his new followers. Jevi, on the other hand, seemed just as bored as me. It only took half a day of slowly moving up the river for conversation between Jevi and myself to dry up and for her to search for entertainment elsewhere. She came and went freely after that.

We would’ve sparred, but there wasn’t enough space. Some of the other passengers had to join the crew in sleeping on the deck there was so little room. A problem that was exacerbated by some people hauling excessive amounts of cargo. I took that to be because of the mounting tension causing some to move back to their families.

Or they were traitors. I brought it up with Jevi and watched her investigate them for a time.

When I wasn’t feeling recently alive again, I spent the rest of my time doing two things. The first was figuring out how exactly this ship was going against the current, seeing how I couldn’t identify any druids aboard the ship and the telltale feeling of magic wasn’t present around any of the crew that I was comfortable getting close to. The other thing was to slowly get over my prejudice against Sanjak.

So far that hadn’t gone too well. I kept a constant eye on the man, and wherever he was at the time, I’d be on the opposite side of the ship, if I was even on the same floor. After a day, boredom won out over caution and I allowed him to wander close enough for me to make out the tattoos revealed by his rolled up sleeves. What I saw didn’t quite make sense.

It was arcane script. The kind that was charged and extremely volatile, handling energies of spells that ranged up into the seventh tier of magic at the least. Each of the sages that had taught Avien their magic all had their own variation of writing in arcane, all developed over a lifetime of trials and tribulations, or so the wrinkled old farts liked to claim. What I saw was a ninth variation, potentially fraught with errors, which was enough to make me cautious about him all over again.

And he has that tattooed into his skin? Wait, is it glittering? What is that doing on a fucking pirate?

Immediately after, as I was getting away, I found myself hastily walking through at least two rooms that hadn’t existed before, and didn’t notice until I calmed down. Then, when I looked for those two rooms again, they were gone.

So I decided to keep staying away from Sanjak. It was the only reasonable thing to do.

As for the other thing I was doing to pass the time, that led me to starting a conversation with Jevi on the third night of sailing. I was in the bottom hammock, and had been for some time. Jevi had just climbed into her’s, lying down the opposite way and leaving her heels rather close to my face. At times I worried about the likelihood of her kicking me, but so far that hadn’t happened.

“How are we sailing upstream?” I asked, breaking a quiet that wasn’t quite silent. Only a few walls separated us from the rest of the passengers, and they were loud enough to make that only slightly matter.

“What was that?” Jevi asked, sitting up. The action involved moving her feet about a third of the way to the other end of the hammock and only just let me catch Jevi’s eye with my own, but did little to ease the feeling of being cramped.

“How,” I repeated, pacing my words for clarity. And to convey my irritation, “are we sailing upstream? The sails are down and no one’s rowing. I can’t figure it out.”

Jevi gave me a look. “Magic.”

“From where?” I asked, annoyed at the answer that was likely intended as such. “Is it a caster or an artefact? Is it on the bottom of the boat-”

“Ship-” Jevi corrected, but I didn’t let that become an interruption.

“Because that seems like a terrible idea. It could be disrupted by the water, and then repairing it wouldn’t be feasible unless the ship was pulled out of the water. If it’s a caster, I haven’t noticed them, and I’m very good at noticing those pompous dicks.”

“Hey now,” Jevi protested indignantly.

“They always show off. Think they're all stars or something.” I said with a sharp look. She was unable to refute that. “So how? There’s fucking nothing to do here, even less than I had to do back home. If I don’t figure it out after having so much time to figure it out, I’m going to go at least five steps more insane than I already am.”

“I think you’re a model of sanity, actually.”

“Jevi, help me or I’ll cut you.”

She laughed. “I don’t know, actually. I’ve been doing this.” She took out her wand and waved it with a quick incantation. Magic formed a glyph in front of her wand, and then the same one again in front of her face, which then faded. I waited for the explanation. “Simple detection spell. Magic that detects magic.”

“So have you found any magic?” I demanded.

Jevi shrugged. I started reaching for my dagger and she laughed. “I have, it’s everywhere.”

My hand paused by the hilt. “Everywhere?”

“Yep.” Jevi idly poked a wall with her wand. “I tried an identification spell on the ship, but I got nothing. It’s there… but also not? I stand on it, and when I look at it, it’s there. When I use magic to look at it, it’s still there. Yet when I make magic to touch it and figure it out, nothing.”

“Hm.” I pulled my dagger from its scabbard and scraped it across the floor. The magic blade came away without making a scratch, even though I felt the resistance from the wooden planks. That done, I put it away and went back to lying in my hammock. “It’s Sanjak.”

Jevi sat back up from being halfway to lying down again. “Oh yeah?” She prompted.

Normally I’d leave this be. There were countless times I’d encountered people in Veliki doing similar posturing to this- making something grand and acting like it was nothing. I’d learned it was best to simply ignore it if you could, and if you needed to acknowledge it, to do so in such a way that avoided complimenting whoever was responsible. It was only by learning to do that I was able to maintain my own sanity.

Yet… boredom was a powerful force.

“Tell me so I know how much you know, what do you know of Sanjak?” I asked, already regretting this.

Jevi started counting things off using her fingers. “He used to be a privateer. He came from money, which was how he could afford this ship though he wouldn’t tell me which house he was from. He once battled with a boarding party of merfolk, taking out their leadership and cowing the rest. He’s sailed underwater rivers, which was quite the tale.” She thought for a moment. “Oh, and he likes to sleep.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “You spoke with him?”

Jevi raised her eyebrows back at me. “You didn’t?”

“Fuck no, he reminds me of B- Ratmaker.”

Jevi gave me a look that said my blunder hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Then please explain.”

I sighed, picking what was best to say first. “The biggest thing is his green hair.”

“Some people have strange hair, it’s hardly cause to hate someone.”

“I don’t hate him, he just scares me.” I stated. “Exotic things like that are signifiers of other exotic things, usually involved in the backstory. When someone has a backstory, half the time they’re a Chosen One. Like how Ratmaker didn’t wear a fucking shirt and had that crazed look in his eye. He had a backstory, though we never asked about it. When one also has a ship with vanishing rooms, self repairing magic along with whatever it is pushing us upriver, then those chances pretty much become guaranteed.”

“So you’re telling me that Sanjak is a Chosen One?” Jevi asked, a familiar look of greed stretching her mouth into a smile.

“One that should be avoided if at all possible.” I insisted. “His magic is…” I sighed. “He has arcane script tattooed over his arms and neck. I’ll bet it’s all over his chest and legs as well. You don’t do that unless something has taken your sanity hostage and you’ve decided you’re better off without it!”

Unfortunately, my efforts to dissuade Jevi had only emboldened her.

“I’d liken him to fey, or guess that he took a fey deal or something for this boat-”

“Ship.” Jevi corrected again.

“-But the flavour is all wrong. It’s like what Jvina told us, to stay away from the walls, was actual good advice. There’s no green things growing on the ship either. Whatever his deal is, or the deal with the ship is, it’s not fey. It’s something else.”

“And what would you know of fey deals?” Jevi challenged.

“The Lord of Frozen Roses denies your inquiry.” I stated, then frowned. What I meant to say was ‘It’s where I got this’, while gesturing at my bracelet. It was disconcerting, but the disconnect didn’t have the feel of someone tugging on my strings so I attributed it to something Taranath or Maiathah had done to me at some point in my life, new or old. Regardless, my body wouldn’t misbehave in such a way so I tapped my ivy bracelet. “Though, come to think of it, why did Jvina give us that advice anyway?”

Jevi hummed, a calculating expression in her eye. “Do you want to test it?”

“I’d rather see if we could get a straight answer first.”

“Good idea.” Jevi jumped out of her hammock, landing a foot on my thigh on the way down. “Sorry.” She said without proper feeling as I hissed my displeasure.

I grunted, gave her a scratch on the neck in return, and went with her to find Jvina or one of the crew. As it turned out, everyone, even some of the passengers, were all willing to give us the same advice, yet none of them offered any reasoning as to why. Jevi even went to go ask the captain himself, though I stayed far back for that exchange. She found out nothing new.

So that night, well after sunset, I rolled out of my hammock and slept on the floor.

\V/

I regained lucidity standing atop a flat and endless river.

“Fuck.”

\V/