Silverhand locked his fingers behind his head and sighed in exasperation, "I might've gone a little overboard."
It was hard to believe that less than an hour ago, this was one of the three flagships of the Hunters Moon Pirates. Now, it was a flaming hellscape cutting a black scar through an azure sky.
Blazing fists punched through the deck, their fingers igniting the sails and canopy and tainting the air with ash and smoke. Glyphs flickered across the hull as the enchantments keeping the ship afloat strained to keep it in the air.
“Okay, guess I'll add getting a ship to the to-do list,” Silverhand complained. He looked over his shoulder toward the island, sucking his teeth as he contemplated his options.
The island looked like a dormant volcano, so much so that Silverhand might've passed it by without noticing it had it not been a pair of ships circling the crater's perimeter. It was always a gamble when traveling the outer rim. With any luck, they belonged to a small group of adventurers. If not that, Silverhand would've been perfectly content hijacking another pirate ship. "Also," He noted, "It's not like I have anywhere else to go."
As far as he could tell, there were only two ways in. The crater, which wasn't an option given how fast he was losing altitude, and a paper-thin slit running down the side.
“That’s gonna be a tight fit, and...oh, you couldn’t have picked the worst time to take a morning stroll,” Just as Silverhand had the makings of an idea, he spied a pair of islanders sitting on a bridge spanning the gap above the water.
Silverhand's plan wasn’t a great one. Frankly, it wasn't even good, but he firmly believed that even a bad plan was better than no plan at all. He let his hands fall to the side, extending his index and middle fingers like a gun pointing at the island and crow's nest.
A silver cloud the size of a grapefruit shot out the fingers of his left hand, tearing through the skies toward the island. Putting his concentration back on the ship, Silverhand pointed both hands to the nest and unleashed a barrage of silver cloud bullets from his fingertips. They cut through the smoke to strike the crow's nest, piling together until the upper half of the main mast disappeared in a thunderstorm. Booming thunder met the crackling roars of the flames in an epic battle of the elements that almost took up all of Silverhand's focus. Almost.
Silverhand's first cloud grew as it shot through the air. Changing shape and color until what descended toward the island looked like a near-identical clone of himself. Hopefully, his people skills weren’t so bad he couldn’t convince a couple of people to put some pep in their step in getting out of the way.
A monstrous groan came from the ship as if screaming that it would fall apart immediately. “What I need to figure out," Silverhand said as he slid down the bowsprit onto the foredeck. "Is how I'm going to get Nandi back,"
Silverhand gingerly strolled to the cathead, “It’s so tempting to go in guns blazing.” Aside from being charred around the edges, it was still intact. Silverhand leaned over the railing, sighing relief when he saw the anchor still set in place. “But the only good that'll do is get me one step closer to being sanctioned the second I show my face in Koalu."
There was another agonizing groan, followed by the sound of splintering wood. Silverhand leaped onto the railing, narrowly missing the flaming yard that crashed through the blackened foredeck where he stood. A spear of fire and smoke rose from the floor, impaling Silverhand’s storm and releasing a howling gale of silver wind.
“I could go in quiet. Haven't done that in a while, and I know that one-eyed woodpecker wouldn't expect it." Silverhand balanced on the balls of his feet as he walked down the rail. “Actually, who am I kidding? She's gotta be pissed. When she sees me, I doubt quiet will even be a part of her vocabulary.”
Silver winds fanned the flames of the main deck, filling the air with noxious fumes that Silverhand sadly knew with unmistakable familiarity. Superheated air tried to burn his lungs, assaulting his nostrils with the smell of roasted meat and leaving the thick taste of copper on his tongue.
Silverhand scrunched up his face at the sudden attack on his senses, the storm reacting with a simultaneous boom of thunder. Lightning flashed, and the cloud seemed to split apart as it released a torrential downpour over the ship. The fires let out a hissing scream as they were forced below deck, filling the air with steam.
“I could see Sam, ask if he could do some kind of switcheroo…but then I’d have to see the others.” Silverhand dropped to the main deck and paused as he let that train of thought leave the station.
The storm's rains parted like a curtain, allowing Silverhand to stay dry as he walked underneath in silent contemplation. Without warning, Silverhand twisted to look behind him. His eyes were wide as saucers, looking for someone but finding nothing but swirling steam and smoke. There were no survivors. Silverhand ensured that, and the only noise he should’ve heard was the thundering storm above and crackling fires below, so why had his heart stopped when he was so sure he just heard wings flapping?
"Kaleon? Kaleon!" Silverhand watched through his clone's eyes as the woman screamed at the other islander, Kaleon, trying to get him to move. She looked frantically between him and the rapidly approaching ship. The cute, mottled grey Sudegrade whined at his side, trying vainly to push Kaleon's bulk out of the way.
Silverhand tapped his foot as he read the situation, lamenting how he’d been on this island for less than a minute before things got complicated. "I swear I did that right, " Silverhand muttered absently. Admittedly, Ujido was a relatively new skill in his arsenal, but he was pretty sure both reacted differently from what was supposed to happen. "Uh...so are y’all moving or?" Silverhand's voice trailed off as the woman shot him a look that could melt plate steel.
“Whatever you did to him, fix it.” The stars along her Chart flash in a staccato rhythm as the woman's sudden switch from panicked fright to stern determination was almost enough to make Silverhand's head spin.
He raised his hands as if to surrender, “Whatever’s up with him, that’s not me. I swear I'm just trying to help." Behind them, alarms sprang to life, alerting the town of the impending danger. "Except for the flaming pirate ship I’m bringing through your front door, I mean."
Lightning flashed throughout the woman’s hair as her fear and frustration made her glare more intense. Silverhand’s eyes flicked between her and the ship. Contemplating, if only for a moment, if knocking two people out and dragging them to safety was worth the trouble when all he technically had to do was offer the warning, and that’s it.
When his gaze returned to her, Silverhand's perpetual grin faltered. The panicked fury behind her glare had cooled into something else entirely. Silverhand looked into a set of penetrating green eyes filled with, strangely enough, a cautious curiosity. “You’re him, aren’t you.”
That statement wiped the grin from Silverhand's face entirely. He clenched his jaw as the edges of the clone rippled, threatening to come apart along with his focus.
“Look,” Silverhand said through his clone, seeding his growing impatience into his voice. "I'm rusty when it comes to interacting with regular people, but I’m pretty sure conversations work better when your lives aren’t in danger," Gumbo growled as Silverhand took a few steps forward. The woman eyed him wearily as he extended a hand to touch Kaleon's shoulder, "I don't know who you think I am, but that can wa-" As the Silverhand clone touched Kaleon, blue razor winds wrapped around them, tearing the clone into tufts of silver cloud stuff.
On the ship, Silverhand turned his attention to the island with raised eyebrows. He watched as the prominent figure he assumed to be Kaleon grabbed the woman, the familiar, and his picnic supplies using wind magic. "Well, look at that," Was all Silverhand could think to say as he watched Kaleon carry them off the bridge, "Problem solved, I guess,"
Silverhand’s left hand took hold of the wheel at the helm while his right furiously tapped away at a tablet set into a pedestal on the side. "C'mon c'mon c'mon." A sea of red and yellow glyphs covered the tablet, each one accounting for the gross amount of damage the ship had received. “All things considered,” Silverhand said as he tried to clear the tablet, “I’m surprised you’re still in the air right now,”
Twin sirens blared as the two ships patrolling the island swooped in, coming up on either side. Silverhand studied the boats, his lips forming a tight line as he recognized the signature white, gray, and dark blue, "Joot."
The pilot to his left pressed a glyph on the tablet next to his helm, and a booming voice filled the space between Silverhand and themselves. “This is Officer Quind Syc of the Teon Naval Guild. Are there any survivors on board?”
“Yeah, I’m here, but I’m sure you can understand that I’m not really in the mood for a chat,” Silverhand responded, broadcasting his voice through his storm cloud so his words were equally as loud.
“Understood, I’ll make this brief then. Our orders are to destroy the vessel before it can damage the outer wall. Please abandon ship, and we’ll swing back around to pick you up.”
Silverhand gritted his teeth as the ship fought to veer off course. “Might want to rethink those orders, Syc. There’s about two dozen takohr batteries aboard; blow the ship, and you kiss Teon goodbye. I can land it safely. Give me some space so I can work my magic.”
There was a brief pause, and Silverhand wondered if it was because Officer Quind was considering his response or he was getting new orders. When he spoke again, just like that islander, what he said wasn’t what Silverhand was expecting, “Who am I speaking to?”
Silverhand stopped fooling with the tablet and looked incredulously toward the speaking officer, “Seriously? That’s the question you’re asking right now. If it’s that important, my name is Nick, Adventurer designation six-two-five-zero-zero-two-D-one. Now, stop distracting me. Unless you’re the one that’s going to explain why we’ll have to redraw maps of the outer rim with one less island!”
There was another pause, and the two seconds it took felt like an eternity, but when the officer spoke again, he said, “Understood. We’ll be waiting on the other side. Hewa be with you.”
Without saying another word, both ships shot off to the island. Silverhand watched them disappear as they passed through the side entrance.
“If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Silverhand grumbled as he resumed tapping at the tablet. He was getting that familiar itch between his shoulder blades, but he pushed the budding feeling of danger aside, “Alright, now that’s all said and done, where was I?”
A bolt of silver lightning blasted the cathead into splinters, the anchor chain clattering as it plummeted toward the sea.
Silverhand spun the wheel so fast it blurred. The ship released another frightful groan as it turned completely around, Silverhand swiveling his head to keep his eyes locked on the island until he looked back at it over his shoulder.
He risked a glance at the tablet, a sigh of relief escaping his lips at the encircled green glyph in the center of an otherwise empty surface. Silverhand pressed his finger on the circle around the glyph, watching the line disappear as he traced it. When the glyph was finally alone, Silverhand pushed it and waited. Nothing happened. “Son of a-“ Silverhand tapped the glyph again, but still nothing.
Another internal explosion rocked the ship as the foremast shattered, sending wooden splinters in every direction. For one dreadful second, it looked like it would fall back on the deck instead of forward over the side. Before it got the chance, he sent a bolt of lightning to strike the top of the mast, shattering what was left from the inside out in a flash.
Silverhand shielded his face as wood chips pelted him. Through gritted teeth, he shouted, “That’s it.” Silverhand slammed his fist onto the tablet. A pulse of energy swept out from the ship, creating a haze of heat unrelated to the fires raging within to wrap around the hull. The glyphs on the hull stopped flickering, each glowing symbol growing brighter as the magic powering the enchantment surged.
There was a pop like someone had taken a pin to a balloon. A moment later, there was another, and another as the glyphs swelled with so much magic they burst in radiant flashes of light.
Silverhand strode over to lean against the back railing, leaving his left hand on the wheel to keep himself aligned with the entrance. Another shudder spread through the ship. This one was much more violent, like the death throes of some great beast.
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When the ship finally settled, Silverhand closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He held it for a few precious seconds before his eyes snapped open, taking in everything his senses told him.
The ship was barely a stone's throw from the entrance now. A breeze that had been gentle at the beginning of Silverhand’s descent had picked up, transforming into a howling gale that bit at Silverhand's clothes like starved hounds.
A sinister grin spread across Silverhand's face, crinkling the corners of his eyes as they lit up in pure, unabashed delight. “Time to thread the needle.”
Silverhand violently jerked forward, slamming his gut into the rail as the ship tried to gain entry to the island. Sawtooth rocks ripped through the sides, opening crimson mouths that let tongues of flame spill out from the ship's ragged remains.
A second later, Silverhand and the ship were through. He blinked, eyes adjusting as he got his first look at the island's interior. "This just keeps getting better and better."
The islanders had built a small city in the heart of a volcano. It looked to be a quaint place. A shipyard overlooked a serene lagoon while most of the island's population lived on two terraces holding up the market and residential districts. The Manor that belonged to the island's Lord sat on the third-highest terrace. It was, to put things mildly, one of the most ostentatious buildings Silverhands ever laid his eyes on. Its only saving grace, as far as he was concerned, was the twisting floral labyrinth surrounding it.
What took up the bulk of Silverhand's attention, however, was the building embedded into the wall of the island. It was as big as the Manor, looking like a giant hornet's nest made of stained glass, and Silverhand desperately wished that was the case.
Duking it out with a bunch of insects made of glass would’ve been a first for him, and he was quickly running out of those. Unfortunately, as Silverhand watched the swarm of Naval Officers scramble to readiness, he knew a very different fight would soon be underway, especially if the ship continued its current trajectory to crash into the heart of the residential district.
There were two parts to Silverhand's plan. The first and most important part was not crashing into the side of the island. The second part, if you boil it down, was essentially fishing. Or it would be if the ship was the pole, and the anchor the line and hook.
The anchor flailed wildly behind the ship. They’d lost enough altitude that it was just short of skidding across the water. As the vessel passed through the entrance, eventually, so did the anchor. Its chain crashed into the stone bridge, the anchor’s momentum swinging until it wrapped around with a metallic clang as it hit the stone.
Silverhand's feet slowly rose off the deck as the chain went taut. He let go of the railing and let his storm abandon its hold on the crow's nest. Changing its shape into a mitt that caught Silverhand as he let himself tumble through the air.
Wood groaned as the anchor of the dead ship acted as a fulcrum, altering the course from the city to the water at the last second. Like a flaming divine hammer, the Hunters Moon pirate ship struck the crystal lagoon. The still and pristine waters erupt violently as a geyser climbs into the air, sending waves to crash against the boardwalk.
“Oh, she would’ve loved that,” Silverhand sighed wistfully as the storm gingerly carried him to the dockyard. He drew the storm back into himself as it dropped him onto the boardwalk.
A crowd of disheveled islanders had gathered. Almost all of them looked worse for wear, clearly dragged out of sleep from the constant ring of the alarm and then kept awake by the dazzling spectacle of Silverhand's grand entrance. There hadn’t been so much as a whisper as he approached, the islanders looking between Silverhand and the ship that miraculously sat idly in the water obscured by the last whisps of steam.
Silverhand rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he looked at the sea of faces, “Now, which one of you is feeling kind enough to loan me a ship on an IOU?”
“Oi lad!”
“Hm?” Silverhand turned as the crowd parted, letting a sailor shuffle step into view. He was an older man with wild strands of grey hair that poked through from beneath his fisherman’s hat.
The old sailor took a couple of puffs from a wooden pipe in his hand as he took a couple of steps forward until he was just out of arms reach of Silverhand. He gave Silverhand an assessing look in his eye that was more cautious intrigue than the barely contained fear like the others.
“Ya all right?”
“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?” Silverhand gave the man a puzzled look, then looked down at himself, “Ooh,” Although he’d managed to stay dry, Silverhand was covered head to toe in ash and soot, not to mention the smell that smacked him aside the face once brought to his attention.
Silverhand's left hand, a construct of swirling silver winds attached to his wrist, exploded. The winds wrapped themselves around him momentarily, obscuring him from view.
“Thanks for the heads up,” The silver winds collected back into a hand on his wrist, revealing a now spotless Silverhand aside from a faint lingering smell of smoke. “It doesn’t matter how cool the thing you do is if you don’t look cool while doing it. Am I right, or am I right?”
Silverhand held his hand for a high-five to the person next to him, a man so big he could hold Silverhand's head in his hand to juice it. After an awkward silence, Silverhand gave himself a high five and focused on the older man. Pointedly, not acknowledging how the crowd was rapidly thinning, leaving only sailors who looked like every meal they ate consisted of nuts and bolts.
The man narrowed his eyes at Silverhand, taking a long pull from a wooden pipe before blowing smoke out his nostrils, “So here’s the part where ya tell me who ya are and what in Hewa’s name ya think you’re doing? And ion wanna hear nothin’ but the Gods honest, else I’ll have Bo and my boys show you how we treat pirates thinkin’ they can come up on us,” The big man beside Silverhand grunted in acknowledgment. “For ya sake, hope ya better a talkin' then flyin'.”
Silverhand tilted his head at the sailor, his mischievous grin falling into place but not reaching his eyes. Now, Silverhand fancied himself a gambling man, albeit usually with more bizarre stakes than most. That said, he’s learned the hard way how to read the proverbial room. Recognizing the likelihood of two people from a random island, he’d never heard of knowing who and what he was five years after his supposed death was slim to none.
The question of how this old man could’ve possibly known flitted into Silverhand's mind, and his gaze absently fell on the pirate ship. Silverhand paused, chuckling as he realized he’d just skipped over the obvious answer in favor of the one he found most interesting.
“Somethin’ funny?” The big man beside him asked as he and the dozen men still surrounded Silverhand took a menacing step forward.
“Yes, actually, there’s been some kind of miscommunication.” Silverhand held up his right hand and rolled down his sleeve. On his wrist was a cuff with five gemstones embedded in it in the shape of a circle.
Silverhand pressed one of the gemstones. A holographic image shimmered into existence in the air on his wrist. The image was of nine swords whose blades pointed inwards to form a circle. Overlayed over the swords was a serpent, biting its tail, its eyes twin orbs of fire.
“I’m an adventurer, not a pirate," Silverhand said as he pressed the gemstone again, dispelling the image, "but since I came in a little hot, I get why you'd think that."
"No." The old sailor said quickly, making his point by poking Silverhand in the chest with the end of his pipe, "I think that cuz ya flew in here on a pirate ship.”
Silverhand looked at the man. Then, all heads turned to the ship still sitting in the lagoon. Streamers of white smoke rose from the deck. Billowing at the top of the main mast was a mangled black cloth. On it was an azure skull impaled by four spears.
"Yeah, I guess that's fair," Silverhand admitted. He put his hands on his hips as he looked down at the old sailor. Giving his best ‘Well, what can you do’ smile, Silverhand said, "Anyways, to answer your question, those pirates were supposed to be my ride. Kinda in between ships at the moment. I thought they would take me to see a friend, surprise, surprise. They had different plans in mind. I tried to have a civilized conversation with them. Y’know, remind them that it would be in their...best interests to keep heading my way. One thing led to another; we exchanged some heated words, and before I knew it, I was stuck piloting a ship for an emergency landing."
The old sailor returned the pipe to his mouth as he looked at Silverhand. There was a light hum in the air as they stared at each other for a long time, long enough that the men around them shared their awkward glances. "Y'allright." The old sailor finally said, although not entirely convinced.
"Boss?" The large man, Bo, said quickly. He looked between Silverhand and the old sailor, flexing his hands open and closed.
"Davron Luli, dock master, call me Luli. Mostly everyone does." Mr. Luli told Silverhand. He turned, and the men behind him parted as he started to walk away, "Ion' know where you gonna get a ship, but if any from my docks go missin'..." He shot Silverhand a dark look over his shoulder, "Best believe ya gon hear from me."
To his men, Mr. Luli said, "Y'all boys go 'head and relax. Ain’t no point in wranglin’ wit a storm like dat if we don’t got to.”
Bo shared uneasy looks at the men who formed a loose circle around Silverhand. It took a moment, but eventually, the men broke off, disappearing into the various taverns and going aboard ships until only Bo was left.
The big man glowered down at Silverhand, doing his best to appear menacing. Bo grunted and said, “You’re lucky,”
“I’ve been told that once or twice,” Silverhand chuckled. Bo gathered up an avalanche of flem and spit on the ground between them before walking off. Silverhand tilted his head up as the faint hum in the air grew louder. He sighed angrily and shook his head before calling out to Bo, who only got a few steps away, “Ya know, none of you guys even bothered to stay for me to tell you my name,”
Bo paused, turning around to look at Silverhand, “‘Cause I didn’t care, but aight I’ll bite. What’s your name?”
Silverhand opened his mouth to speak, but a loud hum drowned out his voice. "Silverhand! We have you surrounded. Dispel any enchantments on your person, and put your hands in the air!"
Twenty ships descended over the boardwalk. Dozens of red lights lit up across Silverhand's body as Naval Officers trained Inika bolas, rifles, thunder breakers, and the ship's cannons for good measure.
Officers clad in enchanted hide armor jumped from the ship, flooding the boardwalk. An alabaster wall surrounded Silverhand as the officers formed a phalanx around him.
"Okay, now that-" Electrified spears burst between the shield wall, filling the air with ozone and cutting Silverhand off. "-Y'all settled, clear up what's some kind of mistake."
Silverhand brought up the Adventurers Guild symbol. "Like I told Syc, I'm an adventurer. My name’s Nick-"
"I don’t know what infuriates me more. Your name being Nikolas 'Nick' Nahm, or that you had all this time to come up with an alias, and that’s what you came up with."
The ships hovering over him moved back to what they presumed would be a safe distance, the hum of their engines fading as the officers parted to let a man pass between them. He was tall, with broad shoulders and rich mahogany skin, sporting the signature naval officers' close-shaven look. Silverhands arched an eyebrow in surprise as his eyes couldn't help but notice two glaring features that stood out to him. The first was a chin so pronounced Silverhand knew chiseling was part of his morning routine and the fact that he was human.
"Did you think changing your hair would be enough to hide? That after five years, we wouldn't remember your face? Remember what you've done." Silverhand could hear the barely contained rage in the officer's words. Sunlight glinted off a pristinely polished captain medal pinned to the man's chest and the steel of his sword as he pointed it at Silverhand's throat.
"I see someone's testy." Silverhand ran a finger along the blade's edge, "Okay, you caught me, fair enough, but I-"
A sharp pain cut off Silverhand's words as a bead of blood ran down his neck, "That's enough out of you." The captain spat, "I don't want to hear another word from you until you're sitting in a cell."
Silverhand sucked his teeth, "Well, that's not how you hold a conversation. I get that this is complicated, but the badge is real. You can authenticate it and everything just-"
"Do you think I care?" The captain leaned in close, his voice a harsh whisper as he looked down at Silverhand, "I don't know what you did to get that badge, but it doesn't matter. I've got over five dozen men who remember the Promise, all of them itching for a chance to make you pay for what you've done. Myself included."
Silverhand's mischievous grin slithered across his face, stopping just beneath golden eyes that burned in their intensity. “Okay, Captain Chin, I get you’re upset, and normally, I'd let you and your men take whatever anger you’ve got and show me exactly how you feel.” He leaned closer, unbothered as the sword dug deeper into his neck, “But let me set the record straight. Regardless of whatever you think I am, I’m an adventurer. One that doesn’t have time to help a bunch of grown men sort through their emotions. How about we skip your delusion that fighting me wouldn’t do more harm than good and go right to the part where I leave somewhere I’m not welcome.”
The Captain and Silverhand glared at each other for a long time. Streams of wind swirled around them, kicked up as magic radiated off them in waves.
Silver clouds spread over Silverhand’s right hand as his left shifted from wind to clouds. The Captain turned his weight, subtly winding his body like a coil waiting to spring into action at a moment's notice
If someone had bet Silverhand that after less than five minutes of landing on the island, he’d be fighting his way through the island's entire Naval guard, he would’ve taken it. After all, the saying ‘old habits die hard’ existed for a reason.
A vaguely familiar voice cut through the tension, “Dashard, wait! Stop!”
Silverhand watched in curious amusement as the captain stiffened. His jaw set, the anger burning behind his eyes doused by frustrated apprehension as his gaze drifted to something behind Silverhand.
A woman came up from behind and stepped in front of Silverhand. Loose curls of auburn clouds fell above her shoulders as hands went akimbo on tantalizing hips as if the woman intended to be the bulwark of Silverhand's defense.
The captain, Dashard, fell in line with his officers. He didn't sheathe his sword, letting his hand rest at his side as the officers lowered their spears so they weren’t pointed toward Silverhand and the woman. Or rather, not at her, because seconds later, Silverhand felt the tip of a spear slowly press into his back. Not enough to break skin but more than enough to make its presence known.
“What’re you doing here, Rynnelle?” Dashard said through gritted teeth, his eyes flicking between the woman and Silverhand.
“I could ask you the same thing,” The woman, Rynnelle, shot back. “Please tell me you and your officers weren’t about to start a brawl in the middle of the docks on the first day of Harvetal to capture just one Yana?” Her voice was soft, but there was an unmistakable edge to her words that was every bit as sharp as the captain's sword.
Dashard blinked as if the words slapped him across the face. Silverhand watched as the captain made a painstaking effort to contain his anger before it got the better of him. He shot Silverhand a menacing glare that said, ‘This is not over’ even as his mouth said, “No. We weren’t.”
Silverhand schooled his expression until all you could see on his face was a grin as he took stock of the rapidly changing situation at hand. He did notice the slight tremble in Rynnelle's shoulders but purposefully didn't bring any attention to it, “Good. I’m sure the last thing Mr. Luli wants is to clean up during a vacation,” Rynnelle said, her tone much more pleasant even though Silverhand was sure the edge was still ready to be drawn.
There was a pause as Rynnelle stood between Silverhand and what he presumed was a significant portion of Teons Naval Guild. It was clear neither side was sure how to move forward, so Silverhand did what he believed any sensible person would do in his situation and create a well-mannered dialogue between the opposing parties.
Silverhand clicked his teeth in reprisal at the young Naval Captain, “See? Now that’s how you get what you want outta a conversation.”