Between finding the right ship, sourcing enough provisions, and settling once and for all if any member of the Order was even halfway qualified to captain a seaworthy vessel, a full two days were allowed to pass in the choking death haze of Saptra before Lieze and her allies were ready to depart.
She came to settle on a brand-new clipper which had most likely been sitting in the dock since its completion. It was large enough to comfortably house each and every cultist, but small enough to pick up some speed on the ocean. Lüngen was eager to inspect every square inch of the vessel in order to qualify it for a journey. Having experienced much of the maritime romance through the safety of yellowed pages, he was dying for an opportunity to ride a boat at least once in his life.
He danced around the deck with all the innocence of a child, ignoring the pain in his spine as he craned his neck up to the rigging. Lieze found herself a tad affected as the roiling waves caused the city to bob up and down of its own volition.
“We’ll need some able-bodied fellows up on the rigging.” Lüngen explained, “We won’t be able to furl or unfurl the sails without them. It’s normally a job reserved for the more experienced sailors, but experience is not something we have in abundance at the moment.”
“How safe is it?” Lieze had her back turned, arms folded over the bulkhead.
“About as safe as you would expect.” He replied, “The winds of the high seas can be fierce, and although we won’t be straying far from the coast, there’s always the possibility that someone might suffer a fall. That’s why I was so insistent that we bring along medical supplies.”
“There will be volunteers. That’s all that matters.” As she turned around, she kept her eyes on the floor to avoid staring at the background, “How much do you really know about this, Lüngen? And don’t be overly confident about it. I want to know exactly how likely it is that we’ll be swimming our way back to shore.”
“Loath as I am to admit it, my knowledge of seafaring springs only from anecdotes on the matter, and detailed as they might have been, milk-supping scholars like myself are not the sort who would have been relied upon to see a vessel safely on its way.” He waxed, folding his arms behind his back, “-Which is to say, I don’t know much.”
“But will it go?” Lieze asked.
“Certainly.” He answered, “But whether into the north or into the rocks - that remains to be seen. I hope you and the others are prepared to pull your weight. There is a reason why sailors have a reputation for hardiness, you know.”
Lieze allowed her gaze to slip over to the distant north, where the verdant forests of the countryside could be seen breaching the white cliffs along the coast. Ramming headfirst into them would mean more than a loss of progress.
“The reward is too great to not be worth the risk.” She said, “I want to move out as quickly as possible. How much longer are these preparations going to take?”
“Between inspections, stock, getting everyone aboard, and introducing our army to the freezing depths of the ocean…” Lüngen stroked his chin, “Sometime this evening, I would say.”
“Make it the afternoon.” She ordered, “Even I can tell this ship is brand new. We don’t need to inspect every inch to tell if it’s seaworthy.”
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As the hours of the morning whisked by, cultists came around with barrels of clean drinking water and preserved food. Lüngen attempted to teach the most ambitious of them how to handle the rigging without endangering their lives. The ship’s twin masts would require the bulk of their manpower - nearly twenty cultists in total. Preparations were also made to assign a carpenter in case emergency repairs ever needed to be made.
Naturally, Lieze assigned herself the captain, though that did not mean she had any intention of taking the helm. That privilege would be reserved for Lüngen, who seemed like the only person level-headed and intelligent enough not to send the clipper into a shoal of jagged rocks. More than anything, she desired the captain’s cabin, which was a private chamber and gallery beneath the poop deck. The last thing she wanted was to sleep in hammocks with the rest of the crew.
By the time the sun was beaming down on the dead city from above, the major preparations were concluded, and all that remained was to plot a route across the eastern shelf of the continent and await a fortuitous wind. Maps were in no short supply on that dock, and Lüngen, scholarly as he was, had no trouble explaining his reasoning for the route they were about to take.
“The north is scattered with black beaches.” Within the safety of the captain’s cabin, he drew an arc with his finger across the atlas, “There are no docks, which means we’ll inevitably have to use the lifeboats to bring ourselves to shore. But at least we won’t have to worry about scaling any cliffs during our disembark.”
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Drayya tapped her fingers against the wooden table, “How long will it take?”
“If the wind is good to us, then perhaps a matter of weeks.” He answered, “If it is not, then the journey could take a month. Bear in mind that an entire army of undead will be following us along the ocean floor, which will slow us to a call. I wouldn’t be comfortable predicting we’ll be on this boat for anything less than a week.”
“The more time we spend talking about it, the longer it will end up taking.” Lieze stood away from the table and tried not to focus on her compromised balance, “Get the thralls into the ocean and let’s set off before it gets dark. We’ve been twiddling our thumbs for long enough. It’s time to embark on the next conquest of our crusade.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself.” Lüngen smiled, “Let’s get a move on.”
Their plan was ridiculous - par for the course when Lieze was in charge, but the sight of her thralls leaping into the water from the ends of the dock made her realise just how ridiculous it really was. But her logic couldn’t be defied - the undead had no need for air, so why bother moving them over land?
Naturally, the Manticore would be taking to the skies. An endless amount of stamina meant that it could easily remain aloft for the entirety of the voyage. After some pestering, Drayya was able to convince Lieze to take the Void Beast on board with the rest of the crew, under the stipulation that she would be responsible for cleaning up any amorphic spills the creature left in its wake.
Drayya crossed her arms, “How does it feel to finally be leaving the midlands after all this time?”
“I don’t feel much of anything.” Lieze replied, “There’s nothing to miss, and we’re going to be moving into a region that’s even more desolate.”
“We had some memorable moments.” She lowered her hand to pet the Void Beast brushing up against her leg, “Remember when we bought those nice outfits and attended the gala at the castle?”
“To infiltrate the prison, you mean.” Lieze kept her eyes on the ocean, “-Wherein we discovered that the long-lost sister of Ricta had been transformed into a monster at birth and locked in the deepest cell to save face?”
“Uh… yeah, that did happen, didn’t it?” Drayya flashed a forced smile, “But, but - remember that time when you said you would be a baker if you weren’t a necromancer? How funny was that?”
“-While we were pilfering a Dwarven workshop for explosive blast powder?”
“Damn it, Lieze!” She exclaimed, “You need to focus on the good times for once!”
“There are no good times.” Lieze said, “Not until-”
“-Until we cast aside these mortal shells and attain true immortality in the afterlife.” She repeated that familiar tirade while bobbing her head from side to side, “I know. You say it every time.”
But how true is that belief?
Lieze was about to reply with those exact words, but she found them trapped in her throat. They were sacrilegious, unforgivable words. Drayya must have perceived some slight change in her expression, and didn’t hesitate to fill the gap with probing questions.
“Are you worried about something?” She asked.
“No.” Lieze paused, “Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Everything I’ve ever been taught over the course of my life has been torn down by the events of these past few months.” She replied, “My father was a poor leader. The Blackbriar is just another player in a much larger game. As it turns out, ‘death’ is not so much better than ‘life’. There is nothing better than ‘this’ - our insatiable reality. We cannot escape from pain. We cannot escape from suffering. So why are we fighting? Why is anyone fighting?”
“Lieze…” Drayya’s expression turned from intrigue to worry. She didn’t hesitate to answer, but only realised the folly of her reply after the fact, “Come on. You know why.”
“No. I don’t.” She insisted, “The Gods are just… just children playing with the sanctity of our lives. They use the Scions as a method of forcing themselves upon the world, and that includes the Blackbriar. So why do we kill in its name? We’re all too glad to offer ourselves up as pawns, but I’ve seen what that leads to. Nothing will change. The ‘immortality’ of the soul is nothing but hearsay. It’s imperfect, just like Sokalar’s phylactery.”
But what was she, if not an acolyte of the Blackbriar? A psychotic mass-murderer searching for salvation through annihilation? A cold-blooded madwoman satisfied with nothing less than the gruesome deaths of her enemies? There had always been a greater purpose stifling the guilt threatening to destroy her from within - to enlighten the world’s inhabitants to the beauty of life after death. But even that promise, like so many others, had turned out to be a lie.
“...And no matter how much I question and probe, what will it change in the end?” Lieze wondered, “I won’t stop killing, or demanding others to kill in my name. Ever since that day I was chosen by the Gildwyrm, this is all I have ever known. I chose this future for myself, and to consider giving it all up after having come this far… it’s just not possible.”
She was ‘herself’ no longer - only the ‘Lieze’ that had come to replace the innocence of her youth remained. But a crack in the dogma of her faith had split her mind in two. Would she walk the path of true evil and gleefully welcome the Blackbriar’s influence into the world by emerging victorious from the celestial colosseum of Scions, or abandon the only semblance of control she had over her life in a final bid to be forgiven for her sins?
Drayya grabbed her hand, as if afraid of Lieze suddenly leaping into the depths of the ocean.
“Didn’t you say it yourself?” She asked, “If the heavens stood in the way of your ambitions, then you would gladly oppose them, just as you did with Sokalar?”
“What will ‘opposing the heavens’ accomplish, or even involve?” Lieze wondered, “The body may die, but the soul will inherit its pain. What have we accomplished by slaughtering thousands? Are we so consumed by bloodthirst and loathing for the living? Even now, we travel to ensure the deaths of tens of thousands more. And for what?”
“All of these things you’re claiming… can you prove any of them?”
“Is that your response?” Lieze turned to meet Drayya’s gaze, “If I told you ‘yes’, would you believe me unconditionally? Or would you reject every piece of evidence I present?”
“But…” She lowered her head, “It can’t be…”
“Of course. It can’t be.” Lieze repeated, “It would destroy you otherwise. Am I right?”