Isabella, or rather ‘Bella the Blue’, turned the Bond Breaker over and over in her hand. “Well, I’ll be damned,” She said, staring at it in amazement. “A way to really free slaves. That’s gonna put a craw up the butt o’ some around here.”

After our short confrontation with her at the warehouse apparently belonging to someone named ‘Captain Longslip’, Grey had invited Bella and Pete back to his private room at the manor tavern. Which is apparently what it was called, as it had no official name. Once we’d left the warehouse we picked up Venix, who had apparently been waiting for us outside. Back at the tavern, we also found a deeply drunk Azarus haranguing a pissed off looking bartender.

We took him with us, rather than let our dwarven friend get shanked.

A difficult decision to be sure.

When we got back to Grey’s room, Azarus took one of the couches and pretty much immediately passed out, filling the air with snores. Grey took mercy on our ears and cast some kind of sound muffling spell over his prone form. Meanwhile, most of the group settled around the bar for whatever conversation Grey wanted with Bella.

“Don’t bother me none!” Pete, apparently called ‘Porous’ Pete by the locals, crowed with a bottle of rum in one hand. He raised it in my direction with a beaming grin, causing me to give him a wan smile. I was happy for him, of course. I just…wasn’t in a celebrating mood. I’d declined to sit at the bar with the others, instead sitting on one of the unoccupied couches.

“I imagine not, young one,” Grey smiled at the Sculpted man, taking down a few glasses from the shelves behind him. He grabbed a bottle of liquor as well and filled five glasses with it. Sliding them to the people sitting at the bar, I wasn’t surprised when Bella and Pete accepted them. But I was a little when Sylvia and Venix did. I’d never seen either of them drink before. Sylvia seemed a little disinterested in it, but Venix took a small sip, seeming to enjoy the taste.

Bella looked up from examining the Bond Breaker to look at Grey. “This your doin’, then?”

Grey shook his head, swirling his liquor in his glass. “Not at all. The Bond Breakers are a design of my apprentice's making,” He said, nodding at me.

When Bella turned around to stare at me incredulously, I smiled at her weakly and shrugged. “You…can keep that, if you want.”

If anything, the incredulous look on her face deepened. “Yer just willin’ ta give away doodads that can free slaves?”

“Yes,” I said quietly, giving her a shallow nod. “I’ll just make another later.” Bella was holding the last of the Bond Breakers that I had from the blanks Azarus had made me back in Addersfield. It wasn’t a big deal, though. It really wasn’t difficult for me to churn out another these days.

Bell shook her head at me. “Yer not gonna make many friends in this port, slingin’ these around. Still, thank ye. Both fer the fork, and fer freein’ me dumbass crewman. Speakin’ of,” Setting down her glass, Bella turned around and slammed a fist into the shoulder of Pete sitting next her. The impact actually caused a small amount of stone dust to fall from his sleeve from the force. It also caused the Sculpted man to hop off of his stool and clutch his shoulder in pain.

“Argh fuck damnit,” He cursed, giving his Captain a wounded look. “Ye almost broke me arm off with that!”

Bella glowered at him, holding up a leather-gloved fist in his direction. Pete cringed away from it. “Ye’d deserve it, ya daft fool! What the hells convinced ya that joinin’ a game with the Longslips boys was a good idea! It’s a damn miracle yer not ship bound fer the Principality right now!” Pete mumbled something under his breath, causing Bella to glower at him harder. “Speak up, ya scallywag!”

Pete threw his arms up in frustration. “We need the coin, that’s why!” He started glowering himself. “Sides, it were a trap anyway. And not fer me. They wanted to nab you, Captain. I was just bait.”

“Course it were a trap,” Bella said, sounding completely unsurprised. “That dog Longslip has had it out fer me fer ages. But that don’t excuse ye. Ye know I can’t afford to lose anyone else right now.”

Grey made an interested noise from where he was leaning against the bar, drawing the attention of the two pirates. “It sounds to me, Bella,” He said with a smile. “That you might have fallen on some hard times as of late.”

Bella snorted, grabbing her glass and throwing its contents back. “Hard times, ye say,” She said bitterly. Gingerly, Pete sat back down on his stool, now that his Captain’s wrath had been diverted. “Aye, ye could say that. If ye call hard times losing nearly everythin’ ye’ve built up over yer life to a bunch of gods be damned monsters.”

Sylvia spoke up at that, drawing attention. “Then, you were the Captain that I heard had been assaulted by a herd of Neptaurians? Father,” She said, turning to face Grey. “I did as you asked, and conducted a short investigation. When the Triumvirate spoke about how the sea is angry lately, they were speaking metaphorically. The talk of the town is about how a Neptaurian Prime has risen in the local waters and gathered a herd to harry any ship they find.”

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Grey frowned deeply. “A Prime,” He said, drumming the fingers of his right hand on the bar. “Complication after complication.”

I furrowed my brow. Prime. I’d heard that word before. After a moment, I remembered where. Sylvia had remarked ages ago, way back during the hunt I’d met her in, that the snake monster I’d fought in the forest might be a Prime. It had never come up again after that, though.

“Aye,” Bella said tiredly, reaching for the bottle lying on the bar. She poured herself another drink and stared down at it morosely. “Me fleet were the first to run into the Seahorsemen. We weren’t expectin’ them, and they ran roughshod all over us. They tore right through us, sinkin’ me entire small fleet and killin’ nearly me entire crew. I’m lucky that I still had a ship in port, or else I’d’ve been out on the street beggin’ with the whores.”

I stirred from where I had been listening. “How did you survive?”

Bella looked over her shoulder at me briefly, before turning back around. “After those shites had wrecked me ships, they left without makin’ sure everyone was dead. Damn odd behaviour fer monsters, but then again, they didn’t have to. We were all dead in the water anyway. We were too far from shore to make it back, even with our levels.” She sighed, before turning a wan smile Pete’s way. “Enter Pete here. He could float just fine by himself without any effort, unlike us. He swam around and grabbed hold o’ who he could, includin’ me, and we swam back to the cove clingin’ to him. Took us days, it did, and we still lost some people to exhaustion on the way. But with the help of our life raft here,” She patted Pete on the shoulder much more gently than her previous punch. He grinned back at her, raising his bottle in salute. “At least a few o’ us survived the attack.”

“I’d like ta see one of those wooden bastards do the same!” Pete boasted, thumping his skinny chest. “They’d’ve sunk way before I would!”

Grey smiled at her. “An intriguing tale, and one that makes me believe that we can, perhaps, assist one another.”

Bella raised an eyebrow at my mentor and smirked. “Oh, aye? How so? You recrutin’ fer yer little civil war with the watchacallem, Loyalists? Gonna ask me to fight fer the rights of Sculpted everywhere, like ol’ Pete here?”

“Oh, in a way you could say so,” Grey smirked back at her. “What I need is a crew that’s willing to accept a commission to ferry myself and my companions to the isle of Caer Drarrow. And it occurs to me that you might be familiar with those waters, with how you used to sail with Cassandra.”

Bella leaned forward to rest her cheek on her fist, elbow on the bar. “Mayhaps I am,” She grinned at Grey. “But ye see, there’s a couple o’ problems there. First is that order from the Triumvirate. Can’t go around helping ye and risk exile, now can I? Second, well, those Seahorsemen are still out there, aren’t they? They’ve been keeping most crews on land fer awhile now. Ain’t no-one willin’ to risk runnin’ into a Prime led herd o’ monsters.”

“Indeed, those are issues,” Grey said, crossing his arms and nodding sagely. He grinned back at the pirate Captain though, surprisingly boyish. “But not insurmountable ones. Let us talk terms, yes?”

……………………………………..

While Grey and Bella haggled over a yet unsigned contract, Sylvia offered to show me back to Grey’s own manor here in Marrowmist so we could link back up with Fade and Aurum. Apparently, he had one not far from where we were, which didn’t surprise me. We weren’t needed for this part, I trusted Grey would get us the ship we needed. We woke up a groggy and still drunk Azarus, and took him with us. Venix stayed behind, to fulfill his apparent role as Grey’s bodyguard. Pete saluted us with his bottle of rum on the way out.

Sylvia led us out of the manor tavern and down the road to the right of it. Before long, we’d reached a manor with its gate thrown wide. Pass through the open gates, I saw that the same image that had been on door of Grey’s private room was engraved on them. That of a bird in flight. Over the hedges in front of us, I could see Grey’s manor. It was more modestly sized than some of the behemoths I had seen in this section of town, and was painted white with only two stories to it.

Continuing onward and passing the hedges that blocked the view of the front door, I stopped in place. My jaw dropped in astonishment at what I saw. I wasn’t the only one, as both Sylvia and Azarus stopped abruptly as well on either side of me. Azarus burst out into uncontrollable drunken laughter, while Sylvia buried her face in an open palm.

“Father, really?” I heard her say in secondhand embarrassment, voice muffled by her hand.

As for myself, I just shook my head in amazement.

In front of us was a large fountain, with a solid gold statue on top of it, standing in the uppermost bowl. Considering how everyone around here called Grey ‘Whitegull’, I wasn’t surprised that it was a statue of a seagull. It just…wasn’t quite what I’d expected.

It was a pirate seagull. Almost cartoonishly so.

The seagull was saluting with its right wing, with a golden dagger clenched between its beak. Somehow, I got the impression that the seagull was smirking around the blade. On its head it was wearing a tricorner hat, while an eyepatch rested over its left eye. The chest of the gull was puffed out, to give it an almost cocky air.

I can truthfully say I’d never seen such a ridiculous statue in my life. However…

“Honestly,” I said in an impressed tone, gaining the attention of both Sylvia and Azarus. Azarus turned to me with a grin, while Sylvia peaked at me from in-between her fingers. “It’s a really good statue. Whoever made it was pretty talented.”

Azarus burst out into wheezing laughter again, while Sylvia just groaned at me.

My attention was stolen from the awesome statue by the sound of muffled barking. Beyond the statue, the double doors of the manor opened and Fade came racing out towards us. I kneeled down in time for my wolf to skid to a stop in front of me. He sniffed at me wildly for a moment, before giving me an almost concerned look. He yipped almost scoldingly. I got the impression that he was chiding me for getting in a fight.

Look at me, the wolf-whisperer.

I ruffled the pup’s ears, giving him a small smile. “I’ll be okay, boy,” I murmured to him. He gave me a doubtful look, and then licked my hand consolingly. Yeah, I’m not sure I believed me either.

Meanwhile, Aurum poked his bald, golden head out of the open doors of the manor. “Oh! Hello there!” He waved to us. “C’mon in! It’s a little dusty, but nice enough in here!”

I stood up and walked over to enter Grey’s manor, my friends and companions at my heels.

One of them, literally.