First-Mate Hosan stared at the ruins of the city of Nuremo, wondering whether fighting the monster responsible for this would be harder than handling the guilt.
It was all for the sake of the fate he had to fulfill.
The decision hadn’t come easily to him. After getting rid of Liam, the demon worshiper, and tossing him overboard, the Weaver had visited him within his dream to grant him a boon: the gift of choice. The Goddess had revealed to him the two potential paths that lay ahead for him.
One path was to follow the warnings of the demon worshiper. The Weaver had openly admitted that he’d spoken the truth in that the Barb was ill-prepared, the monster they were to hunt was far more dangerous than they’d thought it to be. To face it and win, a great deal of people would die. In this path, the captain would heed caution, scout more thoroughly, and find out the nature of the threat, calling for reinforcements.
The Barb and most of her crew would live, but Hosan would remain a shadow of a person. The glory of the battle would fall upon the shoulders of the nobles that had brought their forces to support the Barb. He would continue working as a first-mate for a few more years before he’d die as nothing but a footnote in history.
On the other path, everyone but him would perish in the battle. Hosan’s tale would immediately spread far and wide, noble families from all over the region would line up prospective marriages. His own name would be synonymous with valor, the Caliphate itself would offer him an airship for his own to command, every enemy he faced would quake in fear at the very mention of his name.
Despite how one-sided the decision seemed, how obvious the choice was to follow the path the Weaver had presented him with, it had taken him days of tortuously going over it. This was the Barb, this was his crew, this was his captain. Would he truly throw that away for the sake of fame, glory, and wealth?
In the end, it had come down to his sister, Violetta.
Hosan had been born a farm boy, but his skills with knots had drawn the attention of the Ralo household, a minor noble family looking for talent. He’d been adopted, placed as the third heir in line, and given mage training. The household then put him to work as a mercenary. The income he received would mostly go to the household to repay them for his education, with the rest meant to provide for his sister.
Without the renown to be able to have noble houses throwing alliance and marriage proposals left and right, Violetta would live the rest of her days tilling the hard soil.
This knowledge had been what sealed Hosan’s choice.
At that time everything changed.
Hosan couldn’t tell the crew or the captain what was to come, he himself wasn’t certain, but he knew that if he gave a single utterance of danger, they would listen. His sealed lips were the only guarantee of a better future for himself and his sister, of a better future. Day in and day out he’d told himself that, by becoming the Hero of Cracked Bay, he would save countless lives, far more than what would be lost in the upcoming battle. His sister would have a better life, the generosity of his household would be paid back a thousandfold.
The very lands he’d claim for his own would see peace for a generation. Those were the fates that awaited him. Why else would the Weaver have shown him the future? It didn’t make the guilt any smaller, though; it was what pushed him to pull some strings here and there for the convenience of the crew. As the first-mate, he had access and permission to the small luxuries that were reserved for special occasions. Every night they weren’t training, he’d call for small celebrations. Alcohol was a poison few could tolerate, but the hookahs made a nightly appearance somewhere on the ship. Each would have some of the pleasures most compatible with their species.
The boatswains were dwarves, one and all, the most popular species small enough to fit through the tight entrails of the ship. They’d drink enough alcohol to turn their blood into rum. The officers, mostly elves with a few valkyries like the captain, would prefer milder pleasures, teas and sweets. Deckhands were the exact opposite, boisterous laughter marking their every minor victory and pleasure. Though it was the powderboys who were hardest to please; the lot of them were insane like only a powderboy could be, and would only let loose when partaking from the more extreme substances, the sort that left you as an insane babbling fool for days.
Then there was Alan, their resident insectoid chef of unknown origins or species. Hosan had invited him to a celebration. Once. Alan had brought live mice and, without further fanfare, began eating it tail first in front of everyone. Alan was no longer invited to celebrations. Everyone who’d been part of that particular party had taken it upon themselves to make their own food for the next few days. Hosan still flinched and shuddered every time he heard squeaking.
But morale was at an all-time high, the crew’s spirit was soaring, and they were fiercely anticipating the battle ahead. That left the trio that were the “newest” members of the crew. Whether the two draxani and the dwarf were allies or victims of the demon worshiper had not been mentioned by the Weaver. Hosan considered them potential enemies but avoided being overt about it. Even when it was a direction of his duty, the first-mate couldn’t go around making claims that the Weaver had told him to attack the trio because the Goddess hadn’t even acknowledged their existence during either of her visions. That, and directly voicing what he did know, would cause everything to crumble.
While most of his time was spent making sure the crew had the best they could hope for given the circumstances, Hosan had also put some effort into creating small sabotages for the trio. The draxani mage would find her requests for aether delayed, the older sibling would be sent to do pointless tasks that would be extremely exhaustive. Even the dwarf had been put under constant surveillance (under Umira’s suggestion no less! How convenient!), though Hassim barely did anything besides spending most of his time on his own. The real threat was the draxani mage; she’d been the most suspicious of the demon worshiper’s disappearance and also happened to be incredibly competent with fire spells.
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“First-mate Hosan, has there been any information from the scouts?” Umira asked, nervously approaching Hosan as he stood at the prow of the air-ship. “Any sign of the monster?”
“No word as of yet,” Hosan replied. He had followed the captain’s orders but had not sent a single more scout than had been specified. “It is hard to imagine something so large could hide so well.”
The port city of Nuremo was of little sprawl and thick defenses. Long ago, it had once been a stone fortress at the edge of civilization, a bastion meant to stand tall and strong against the monsters within the Blue Mountains. It had expanded since then, building concentric walls.
It wasn’t the best protected among the cities that circled the Blue Mountains, but it should have been impossible for anything to crush it so utterly that not a single survivor would have made it out.
Every inch of the city had seen some degree of destruction and bloodshed. At least a whole third of the houses had collapsed, but not in any kind of apparent pattern. It was as if the city had been attacked by a scattered force, one that had randomly made some structures crumble while others remained entirely intact.
There was a singular line of coherent destruction, one that penetrated in a straight line through each of the walls and directly toward the center of the city itself. All along this path were perfect circles of crushing devastation, footprints of a creature with legs that had to be at least thirty meters across.
The monster had to be the size of a hill.
They were currently heading toward the fortress, looking to dock the airship and investigate more closely. If they were lucky, there would be stores of aether within the vaults that they could put to use. The contract had been for the elimination of a monster, no one would complain if they did some scavenging along the way.
Hosan had read the reports from their forward scouts; though they had not seen any signs of the one responsible, they’d stumbled onto a city littered with corpses. Though there had been many casualties under the ruin of the city’s buildings, almost every citizen within Nuremo had apparently died where they stood.
Nearly a hundred thousand souls lost, apparently in an instant. The state of the bodies didn’t reveal much, only that this cataclysm had occurred three months ago, which coincided with when the city had lost all contact with the rest of the world.
“The scale of this destruction is unnatural,” the draxani commented. “For a single monster to be responsible for this, are we certain we have enough to handle this?”
In truth, despite how hauntingly dangerous things appeared, Hosan was not concerned for the nature of the monster; he knew his victory was assured. Whatever horrors awaited, the Weaver had shown him it would be a challenge he’d overcome.
No, his true concern was the short draxani.
Umira kept looking down at the city with those reptilian eyes, trying to put the pieces together. If she succeeded before fate unfolded as it should, then all could be brought to ruin.
“Among all the free-owned ships in the Caliphate, the Barb stands in a class of her own,” he reassured her, trying his best to dispel her concerns. “We hold a hundred artillery pieces, and the crew is well trained; we can fire a keel-side salvo every two hundred seconds. That alone could make any fortress surrender without a fight. And if this firepower isn’t enough, we have a dozen mages, with the fortune of counting you among their ranks.”
Hosan idly wondered how hard it might be to throw her overboard right now. Could he convince the captain she’d attempted to attack him? Unfortunately, there were too many witnesses for that; the captain herself was out on patrol, she might even see something she shouldn’t.
Patience, he needed to be patient. It wouldn’t take too long for all to be resolved.
“I can’t help but think it might not be enough,” she muttered, staring down at the city far below. “It killed an entire city while only having gone through a small part of it. Was it poison? Did it bring a disease? Or is it something else? We might end up winning the fight but—” She stopped, her eyes widening. “Stop the ship!”
The draxani pointed ahead of the ship, where a few of the valkyries were flying. The moment they’d crossed over an invisible threshold, they plummeted down, seemingly unable to stop their drop, barely able to spread their wings to slow it, if barely.
Hosan’s training and experience kicked in. “TURN TO PORT! ACTIVATE THE BARRIER!” He shouted the command, bolting towards the control room.
Neither his command nor his feet made it in time. The ship’s bow pierced through the same invisible threshold and began to dip forward. Hosan’s knees suddenly gave out as an invisible weight was dropped upon him, threatening to squish him against the deck. All of a sudden his head spun with a woozy darkness threatening to take away his focus, breathing was laborious, moving that much more.
Everyone around him appeared to have fallen to the same effect, though he did spot Umira tracing the beginnings of a spell.
Activating the protective spell he’d weaved into his own hair every morning, feeling the aether hidden therein burning away his scalp and luxurious mane, the pressure around him relented enough for him to regain his breath.
But the Barb was in a nose-dive at an ever steeper angle, straight towards the castle at the very heart of Nuremo.
“BRACE!”
The one call every air-ship sailor feared above all else. The warning that things were about to go terribly horribly wrong. A half-scream that came out with undertones of terror, repeated all throughout and from every direction.
Hosan sought the nearest rope and used it to tie himself to one of the masts.
But not before sending a singular kick at the draxani, knocking her arms away from the barely-formed spell-knot she’d been weaving. He recognized the small barrier formation she’d been making before the light flashed, all semblance of cohesion lost. With the angle of descent becoming a nose-first dive towards the ground, Umira Dalimor was thrust away, practically overboard. The spell she’d been creating collapsed with no control, a ball of light and heat concentrated within the singular point of coalesced uncontrolled mana.
Umira was caught within the blast.
Hosan didn’t get to confirm her fate, for the ship’s barrier shimmered to life in a blinding blue flash. It was its most powerful defense, and one that barely slowed their descent as the Barb crashed against the stone of the fortress, punching through the structure like a wooden behemoth.
And from deep within the fortress, a monster stirred awake.