A blood moon hung over the bustling city, its red hues stretching over the frosted night. The strumming of Oz’s lute played slow and enticing, flowing through polluted fog, mingling with the mortals below. Two street whores looked up from the alley below and to a third story window, where Oz slumped, legs dangling out from the steel arched window’s sill. He grinned a horrid toothy thing and the two decorated ladies waved him off mindlessly. He was a beastly looking pirate, a wide bulbous nose matching well with the long scraggly beard and tattered coat. 

Far from where he sat a sea of people drew to the center of Bohan, the capital city of Taulou, to celebrate its annual Red Night parade in the cobblestoned city square. As far as one could see danced an abundance of sweaty revelers under the baltic sky. 

Oz felt like a mortal man nestled in the opened window, a blood moon strung high in the air, like the staring eye of a crimson goddess. The night laid thick in cold qi-less moisture, his breath fogged before him. He fished a drink from an inner pocket and plopped down into a seat just below the window, taking a swing of the pungent liquor.

“Dammit, Oz!” Rui slammed the window closed behind oz, “Quit drinking before a job.” 

“I work best a little tipsy, boy.” 

Rui’s scowl deepened as he combed his fingers through his curling black hair, but didn’t offer a reply, instead keeping his eyes and mind vigil of the life beyond the sealed window. Oz began to play a new tune, this one a tad festive. Biaoji, who resided in a far corner of the chamber, began tapping his hands against black flowing breeches, humming along with the melody through his sewn shut lips, warding off boredom.  

“Sing me up some lyrics,” Oz grinned, a mischievous tilt of his chapped lips, “serenade me.” The Brawny man shook his head in distaste at the old man’s jesting. Dense inked in tattoos of hands, eyes, and other body parts were plastered across Biaoji’s skin, ranging from his shaved head to the soles of his feet. Oz presumed it was an odd ink talism of sorts.

“We’d find ourselves in far less troubles if it were you without mouth,” Rui frowned.  

“Come now, you’d miss this old man’s gripes.” 

“If your gripes were of use, mayhaps. But here we all sit feeling every bit of useless.”

“And say your prayers for it, I was tired of tending to that damned ship day in, day out.” Oz said, leaning forward to set his lute on the bed where his feet rested, the chair legs creaking under the burly man’s shifted weight and his opened drink sloshing puddles onto the boarded floor. 

“You're a damned drunkard,” Rui reached over and snatched the old man’s drink and screwed the attached lid shut before pulling it down into his own coat pocket, embroidered on his much more refined garbs, “and I don’t recall a time where you’ve ever prayed.” 

The haggard man slid his legs off the frayed bed and leaned to the edge of his seat, “You’re heckling with the devil, pilfering my dri-”

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Both of the men’s mouths were clamped shut by a pair of ink like hands, a sudden but familiar situation to Oz. Biaoji hadn't moved from the dimmed corner and instead extended the shadowy space beneath his cloak into two large arms, similar to his tatted ones, shutting the two men up. They were filmy black hands, chilling yet light and were gone as soon as they came. A layered bitterness formed in the air. 

Oz held back from hollering at the brawny man as he interfered in matters that didn’t warrant his concern often. Biaoji unfolded his arms from beneath his wool robes and pointed a bony finger to the window behind the men. No words were uttered as Rui turned to jostle the window back open, peering out the window pane and into the streets. A high breeze carried the smell of street vendors, body odor, and warm blood, each tangling together in the familiar scent of the Red Night.

 “What?” Rue asked, slightly annoyed. 

Oz leaned back into his seat, raising furrowed brows at the darkened man still camped in the corner of the lodge, “Damned bonehead, ain’t nothen there. You’s just trying to get that boy to stop his yapping.” Baoji stared at Oz, an expression that couldn't be named written across his face, only broken by Rui’s voice, “What the hells is that?”

Oz shouldered Rue aside, never lifting himself from his spot by the window and rummaged into his pockets in search of his ribi. His fingers grazed its cool steel edges and rounded letters that jotted out from its square surface. The ribi would sound a morse sequence from the captain, a message of how to proceed. 

Down south there was a simple stone path extending into the slums, between numerous grime covered brick shops and drooping tin scraped inns. The slums were built along the edge of the abandoned, but functioning, Bohan Seaport, the same seaport which held their crews’ ship ‘Lamei’. Looking farther into the festival there was a part in the ocean of churning dancers. 

A plume of smoke sizzled off a stocky man's skin and in his fist shrunk a blonde headed boy, profanities being sworn between them as two uniformed men rode through the masses on towering white horses. Their hooves beat against the paved city’s square, scattering many frightened dancers with urgent orders to move aside. They stood out like a sore white thumb amongst the red revelers.

“That pig head,” Rui whispered under his breath, “is causing trouble.” 

Oz let out a bellied laugh that vibrated the closed room, “Why that bastard forgot how to use a ribi.” 

Rui left his place at the window, a deep scowl etching his forehead and a tch sound leaving his thinned lips, “You’d think you’d know your own brother well enough, Gun wouldn’t let anyone use their ribi before riddling the city in bullets.” He crossed the lodge in three hefty strides, an act of nervous pacing, causing the room to feel notably cramped. 

“Forget that scallywag,” Oz’s breath clouded in the frigid air and he closed the sill behind him with a snap. Oz sighed and palmed his calloused fingers over his face, catching the laugh that tickled his throat,  “Cap’n mentioned to expect this.”

“Doesn't ease the nerves to know captain’s gone off on a whim once more.” Rui edged, shifting his weight between each foot.

“Aye, cap’n knows what he’s doing.” 

“You're being foolish, old man, we know nothing of his current plans with Feng,” Rui’s voice began to waver, frustration creeping into his tone, “I told Captain this one was too much. And to why we’re up here instead of down there or what reward we’ll gain from this absurdity.. he's left us in the dark.”

Oz stared at Rui, “So are we to abandon this lifestyle after one odd job handed to you? After he’s taken you in, to soothe your own cowardice. There’s no safety in retreat for cultivators.” Oz grumbled and stroked his beard in deep contemplation, Is being caught up in gods’ farces not the price to pay to live as an immortal? He suspected Biaoji knew the answer to that, “If cap’n has to offend one distant god in order to appease his then so be it. We’ll claim the Weaver’s trinket and we'll receive the full truth in time..”

“I simply fear our consequences for tempting the Weaver’s anger so brashly.” 

Oz was never one to comfort the younger men and nothing came to him when faced with Rui’s blatant truth, no one truly had tested the Weaver’s ire, for she beheld quite the reputation in such a short span of reigning Taulou. 

Rui folded back into his seat, fiddling with the hems of his sleeves and Biaoji began to pace the narrow bedchamber. The three pirates had been settled into the wooden planked inn for the past three hours, they truly were ‘sitting dogs’ awaiting their captain’s orders. 

Catching the two younger men so unnerved caused Oz to feel, to an extent, enlivened. There wasn’t a long wait before the ribi rang loud  in their stilled chamber, each buzz against Oz’s discolored coat pocket electrified his innards and a steely glint rose in the old man’s eyes.