After their run in with Captain Capricornus, Kami insisted on taking a glance at their foe’s abandoned belongings. If it wasn’t abundantly clear, that was thief slang for ooh, free treasure.

Once they got done tying up the remaining, still-terrified pirates in the ship’s undercabins, they proceeded to the captain’s chamber. It was a large, decadent room, decorated with skulls of every kind of land and water mammal. In the middle of the room was a completely bare writer’s desk, and sitting right below it was a treasure chest. A chest made of beaver bones of gold, with an elaborate goat-skull lock on the front.

“Sheesh. Zero animal-to-animal solidarity on display in here,” Momo mumbled, horrified. “It scares me to think of just how many beavers she had to kill to have that thing made.”

Kami laughed, approaching the chest. Instead of picking at the lock with his menagerie of tools, he just turned to Ribeye and winked.

“Old fashioned way, then?” Ribeye said. Kami nodded.

Ribeye proceeded to smash the skull-lock to bits. The chest opened easily after that.

The booty included a set of enchanted bracers, three replacement tricorns, a heart-shaped locket with another goat-lady inside of it, and a mysterious keyring. Kami pocketed the keyring and the locket, and Momo got to keep the bracers. Some sort of arm-covering was one of the only things still missing from her carefully curated outfit. She usually didn’t think much of her appearance, but she was seeing Sumire again soon. She wanted to look spiffy.

She equipped the bracers, and a piece of parchment flew in through the cracked porthole.

You have equipped [Arms of the Bloody Buck]. Sewn of beaver skin, these bracers have been passed down from buck to buck in the Capricornus Clan for generations. They are enchanted with [Unarmed Proficiency] and [Metal Bone].

Momo studied the enchantments. [Unarmed Proficiency] basically did what it said on the tin, offering the user a Strength bonus when in unarmed combat. [Metal Bone] was a little more interesting.

[Metal Bone]: This item, plus all the skin it protects, becomes as hard as steel.

Oh nice. Now I’m Marvel’s Steel Man. Or whatever his name was.

“Equipment check,” Momo whispered to herself once she was left alone in the chambers. Kami and his crew had gone off to try out the other keys from the captain’s keyring.

To her surprise, the piece of parchment describing [Metal Bone] simply flipped over in her hands, her equipped item list now neatly written on the back of it.

Huh, that’s new. Usually I’d get a whole new courier. Valerica must have started a new Nether recycling initiative.

Equipped Items

Hat – Captain Mandrake’s Tricorn

Mantle – Momo’s Cape

Bracers – Arms of the Bloody Buck

Shirt – Water-Resistant White Tailored Blouse

Pants – Netherthread Shapeshifting Trousers

Shoes – Fur-lined Lava-Repelling Clogs

All in all, the clothes that Lorvis had given her after her mayoral win in Nam’Dal had held up well. She washed them in sea water every few days, then left them to dry under the hot sun. The rest of the crew was initially skeptical about her only wearing a singular outfit the entire trip, but what could she say; even to her clothes, Momo was loyal. And more importantly, lazy.

Not only that, but the blouse and the pants had both been especially handy during her time at sea. The shirt for obvious reasons, but the trousers ability to shapeshift on command meant she could wear cropped breeches on the hot days, and loose-fitting slops when she wanted to lounge around. The clogs were a little more impractical, but there wasn’t exactly anyone on the ship to swap shoes with. Kasula and Nyk would have both bitten her for even asking, and everyone else wasn’t really her size.

The door to the room creaked open. Kasula’s head tipped in.

“Hey Momo,” she said, smirking. “Cute bracers.”

Momo jolted. “Ah – hi Kasula. Thanks. How’s the appropriation of abandoned goods going?”

“You mean the stealing?”

“Of course I mean the stealing.”

“It’s going swimmingly. We found another treasure room downstairs. It’s got at least fifteen thousand in bank notes stashed away beneath the planks. How would you feel about a fifty fifty split? Half to your crew, half to ours.”

Momo laughed. She looked down at Kasula’s bulging pockets. “Was that fifteen thousand before or after you stuffed as much of it as possible into your pants?”

“I don’t have a single clue what you’re talking about,” Kasula said, grinning wider.

The two laughed some more, then Kasula left. Momo really didn’t care about the money. She had money. Not only that, but she had clothes on her back, semi-trustworthy friends, a ship with only a few cannon-sized holes in it, and a cute pirate waiting for her back home. It was a middle-class American’s dream.

Plus, American dream or not, getting caught up in the little things wasn’t useful for someone running on borrowed time. For as long as Sera’s Wraith Box was burning a hole in her pocket, there was no saying how many moments Momo had left to enjoy on Alois. She wasn’t going to waste them.

Just as she was about to leave the captain’s chambers, she noticed an uneven piece of wood jutting out from the wall next to the doorway. It looked like it had been jammed into the wall haphazardly, secured by a crooked, wobbly nail. Insatiably curious as always, Momo pried at it with her fingers. It came loose without much effort, clamoring the floor and revealing a crumpled piece of paper. Momo took it out and unfurled it.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Enough of your excuses, Caprico. You get back to Refuge’s End with at least one of the daggers by Tuesday, or I’m slitting her pretty little goat throat. Time’s up.

Yours truly, Celestina

Momo frowned. Celestina? Wasn’t that… Komodo’s new bullshit alias? Momo had almost forgotten her involvement in all this. If Momo recalled correctly, the Holy Resistance was led by three figureheads: Celestina (Komodo), Slythorn (Nia), and formerly Bellafor (Vivienne). Sumire had assured her that the movement was in shambles, but then again, she also didn’t seem to know that it was Komodo who was running the new criminal enterprise in Refuge’s End.

Momo sighed. She had a lemur to talk to.

—

“Kami,” Momo said, looking across the table at the lemur, who was sipping idly on a lemur-sized beer. “I’m going to need you to be incredibly real with me.”

It was midnight, and the Revenge was mere hours away from shore. After a raucous Sea Chess tournament that involved the entire crew, most of them retired to their beds. Not Momo. Her mind was alive with worries: the Wraith Box, the alleged failure of the Holy Resistance, Jarva and his Circle of Brutes, and most worryingly, where to find a hair brush before she met up with Sumire. She found Kami similarly awake, lost in thought, his feet kicked up on a chair in the small crew lounge underdeck.

“Oh?” he answered, downing the rest of his bottle. “Have I ever not been real with you, my dear Momo?”

“I can think of six instances in the past hour.”

Kami grinned, his tail whipping. His beady red eyes were alight with inebriation. He was clearly a little drunk. This benefitted Momo.

“The Wraith Artifacts. That’s the reason you came to the Vagrant Dunes, right? To collect the Soul Splitting Dagger and add it to your collection?”

Kami hummed. He seemed intrigued by her choice of topic.

“Correct.”

“I keep hearing that word over and over again. Wraith. First the Wraith Box, then these Wraith Artifacts. It’s kind of driving me insane. The terrifying little creatures are everywhere I look, especially in my more creative nightmares,” Momo muttered. “I always thought it was a coincidence. But I’m starting to think otherwise. Not to be an insane conspiracist, but I think these things are connected.”

Momo slipped the piece of parchment over to him.

“It seems that the goat-pirate Nyk cannonballed to death was searching for the same thing as you. The Soul Splitting Dagger that Kasula nabbed off Zephyra. And that very same goat-pirate – and this is where things start getting awfully strange – was hired by my old friend, Komodo, the scary lizard lady that ran things out in Nam’Dal. Nowadays, she’s Sera’s frontman. So that begs the question: why would Sera care about a stupid old dagger?”

Kami’s hand stilled, his bottle of beer freezing on the way to his mouth. After a moment, he set it down on the table, and readjusted his handkerchief.

“Are you implying something, my friend?” he whispered.

The subsequent silence was deadly. Momo nearly curled into a ball, but she had to see this conversation through, social anxiety and fear for her life aside. If her hunch was right…

“Yes,” Momo said bluntly, cheeks coloring. “I am. I’m implying that I’m confused. You and Komodo have the same goal. But you’re my friend, and Komodo has tried to kill me on many separate occasions. If you could just illuminate why that is, it’d be very helpful.”

Kami stared at her blankly for a few moments, then laughed.

“You know, Momo, there’s a phrase that’s said about you in the Nether. That you’re Morgana’s sheep in wolf’s clothing. A benign little ball of wool dressed like a catastrophic threat.”

Momo swallowed. “How would you know that? You’ve never been to the Nether, have you?’

“I haven’t,” he chuckled. “But Mordecai and I… we chat. He warned me about you. Called you the goblin woollyback. But I think he has it wrong. I’ve seen you in action. I’ve seen you fight. More than that, I’ve seen you talk. To others, to yourself, to the wall. It’s not that you have an especially fine talent for phrase. It’s that you have a delightful gift of disarming authenticity.”

He picked up his beer, then threw it out the porthole.

“Thank you, I guess? But that’s not really—”

“So it turns out I like you,” Kami interjected, cutting her off. “I really do. And I don’t like many humans. You can tell from the company I keep. So because I like you, I’ll let you in on a secret. But first you’ll have to swear not to tell. How’s that?”

Momo nodded firmly. “Of course. I swear on… Dusk.”

Kami chuckled, then fetched a single piece of gold from his pocket. He placed it on Komodo’s letter.

“I fear you’ll have to do better than that. Mordecai doesn’t exactly like leaks. Kindly put a coin down.”

Momo squinted, confused, but did as he said, extracting a coin from her pocket and placing it next to Kami’s. Kami then took out a pocket knife, and wordlessly slit the palm of his hand. He didn’t even flinch. Blood dribbled from the cut, drenching the two gold pieces.

“What the hell are you doing?” Momo yelped.

“[Thief’s Promise],” he said, gritting his teeth. “Now, your turn–”

“I’m good, actually! Please get that knife away from me!”

“Do you want the information or not?”

Momo squirmed. She did not like the sight or smell or feeling of blood leaking out of her hand. Still, she was too far into this now. She needed to know. Everything or nothing could hang on the information.

“Shit, shit, shit. Fine,” she said, quickly grabbing the knife. She bit her lip as she carved the smallest mark into her palm, letting a single drop of blood leak onto the gold.

“Wonderful,” Kami said. He then took her hand in a firm handshake. “On thee gelt dies these words. On these words, dies thee gelt. Our lips are sealed.”

The gold pieces melted into a puddle of golden goo. Momo immediately retracted her hand, shaking it in the air and wincing.

“I must warn you, if you tell this information to another soul, you will suffer a most unpleasant demise,” Kami said casually. “Now that that’s done with…”

He settled back in his chair and sighed.

“Sera has entered into an agreement with my deity, Mordecai, God of Thievery and Trickery. And plenty more of the pantheon, too, although I do not know the specifics. She plans to use the power of the Wraith Box to unseat the Queen of Creation herself. To harness the combined power of all of Morgana’s precious mortals against her. A very unpleasant, truly faithless scheme, but a scheme nonetheless. And Mordecai can hardly resist himself such a thing.”

Momo’s breath caught in her throat. No.

“You’re lying.”

“Fear I’m not,” Kami said. “Have no reason to. These words die with us, after all.”

Momo blinked, paralyzed. It was Morgana’s greatest fear, materialized. The pantheon of companions which she created from her very bone and skin, which stood around, arms crossed and ambivalent, as the Nether dissolved into oblivion, had turned against her. It was too ridiculous and cruel to even conceptualize. Momo refused it.

“There’s no way,” Momo said. “First of all, Sera loves Morgana. It’s like her mission in life to gain her approval. Why would she want to destroy her?”

Kami shrugged. Momo continued her tirade.

“Also. Isn’t Mordecai indebted to Morgana? Valerica told me a long time ago that she saved Mordecai from his brother, Neculai. The ugly vampire guy.”

“Yes, she did. But loyalty is not a common feeling amongst the gods. You should probably know that by now,” he said bluntly. His tone was cold, but not uncaring. “I think it’s something that happens once you ascend — you lose something. Mortality comes with morality, as they say. Good and evil lose their meaning when one cannot die. Perhaps that is what changed for Sera, too. Her original goals crumbled in the face of immortality.”

Momo gripped the table, anger flaring in her throat. His words felt like ceaseless punches.

“I don’t get it. I don’t get it. That’s not how things should work. Not dying should make us nicer, not meaner. It should let in more room for good things. Like more time to eat chinese food with your friends. More movies at the theater. More kicking back and fucking relaxing,” Momo shouted as she stood from her seat, the words flowing out of her like bile. “I’m so tired of backstabbing and betraying and caring about stupid things like money and power. It’s all so worthless. It means nothing. People are what matters. Why doesn’t everyone get that? Why don’t the gods get that?”

She took in a heavy, shaky breath, and sat back down.

“I knew I liked you for a reason,” Kami said, and held his new beer up. “Cheers to that. And cheers to getting a scream outta you – that’s a rare, beautiful sight.”

Momo sighed. The anger had gone as quickly as it came, but something had shifted in its wake. It was as if the fury had burnt right through the hard, unbreakable shell that had always entrapped her raw, true emotions; it was as if the net around her anger, around her rage, had finally torn, and water was flooding in like a tidal wave.

“Kami,” Momo said, gazing at him with a thousand-mile stare. “I think it’s my turn to tell you something.”

Kami looked at her oddly. He had never seen Momo this still. This focused.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “I’m going to become a Lesser Goddess. And I’m going to change everything.”