Once the morning is well under way and he grows hungry and weary of sitting, Koronos and Shelove walk down to the tavern, he still has some coin that Nombi gave him from many days ago. The pathways are quiet with a morning mist still clinging to the icy chill of the morning air from the fast-approaching winter. The only sounds are the seagulls and his footsteps on the cold wet stones under foot. Despite her large size, Shelove barely makes any sound at all as she strides along.

Upon reaching the stone-built tavern, there are the same men in front as usual, but one is missing, the men back away, in fear and terror, one has a bandage on his arm, the other has a bandage on his head. These men were likely at the Meibon village battle; they were the ones that ran away and survived. Koronos pays them no mind and enters the structure, his eyes quickly adjust to the low light as the heads of the patrons within turn to gaze at the big blue-skinned Kazarian and his huge pantera companion.

“Lord Koronos!” Is shouted by Captain Korvax in his rugged commanding voice as he stands in respect for his liege. He is at a table with two of Koronos’s bodyguards; Corvannafax, the half-blooded Kazarian shieldmaiden from the northern Hellfire Mountains with her golden hair and reddish skin, and across from her is sitting the huge and powerful Skullcrusher, all of them looking worse for wear and haggard. His bodyguards stand out of respect as well, then kneel as Skullcrusher says a silent prayer thanking the gods.

Koronos greets them all with a smile, and joins them at the table, “how do you all come to be here, is there more?”

They proceed to tell him of their harrowing survival story of being lost at sea in the great storm, but they found a large enough piece of debris from the wreckage of the ship. Visibility was so low they couldn’t see any other survivors and feared Koronos was lost to the sea. They washed up on an island near here. From there, they built a large raft to island hop and found this place, and it took many days. They go on to explain that they don’t know if there are any other survivors or where they might be.

After listening to everything they have to say, he says to them, “there is a ship here, the owner is dead and more than half of his men as well, if the remaining men haven’t set sail with it yet, they soon will, let us go down to the docks and take what now belongs to me. I slayed the owner in battle, his property is now mine if I so choose, as is the way of my people. We will take it, find men to crew it, and search the islands for any other survivors, I will not abandon them.”

Koronos and his group walk to the docks and easily find the Aggressor at its moorings, considering there are only two sailing ships at the docks. There is one drunken guard on deck, stumbling about and is greeted with Corvannafax’s dagger thrown into his chest before he can even call out, he flops over the railing. They quickly cross the gangplank and board the ship. She pulls her dagger from the dead man’s chest and pushes him over into the water below, and the group continues on while Sheloves curls up on the deck and takes a nap.

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Inside the captain's quarters is where the rest of the men are found, strewn about in a drunken stupor with a couple of the island’s local harlots, the room smells of piss, sex, and the sour stench of cheap wine. Koronos steps back from the threshold and yells to the men inside, “get up, off my ship, I claim it as my right of combat,leave and live as cowards or fight and die as men!”

After a moment there is noise and or man getting up and getting their fighting gear on, talking quietly amongst themselves. Then they step out of the threshold and fan out, there are eight men with swords drawn. The biggest man in the group pushes one of the other men in front of him, commanding him to attack; the subordinate reluctantly does as he is commanded but is grabbed by Skullcrusher and has his head slammed onto the deck hard enough to break his neck and burst his skull cavity, killing him instantly. This vulgar display of violence makes the remaining seven men step back, but Corvannafax doesn’t wait, she kills two more men in the blink of an eye with a lightning-fast swipe of her short sword by nearly cutting their head’s clean off, causing blood to spill on the deck along with their bodies. The other five crewmen meet an end nearly as quickly as unforgiving steel blades greet flesh and bone.

As blood begins to pool on the deck from the recently dispatched men, Koronos steps over one and enters the captain's quarters, “Leave,” is all Koronos says to the two harlots that are still within. The frightened women quickly grab their clothing and the coin that they earned the previous night and scamper out of the quarters and onto the pier and up into the village proper.

Captain Korvax is a big old burly and surly soldier, he asks, “what shall we do with the dead men, bury them, or?”

Koronos walks over to the open cabin window and leans on the frame, takes a big swig of the cheap wine from the bottle and stares out to the sea, then after a few moments he finally answers, “we don’t have time for digging graves, throw the bodies overboard, sharks deserve to eat as much as whatever writhing and wriggling critters burl beneath the cold hard ground.”

Into the drink the dead men are tossed, without ceremony, reverence nor a second thought while Koronos continues sipping the cheap wine and staring out to the sea through the cabin’s open windows.

“Now, we need a few sailors to help man this ship, and we set sail immediately, before the bay freezes over,” Koronos says to the group while still looking out at the sea, then he turns, and he saunters back into town to the tavern where the two harlots are already spreading news of what just occurred on the ship.