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The Sea Of Horrors
CH-18 Underlying Schemes

CH-18 Underlying Schemes

Holl also had his binoculars up as he watched the boat continue floating off into the distance.

“Well. It looks like our only sane contact here is gone now.”

Holl looked over Roth and Cundy.

“Are both of you feeling alright? Any sudden urges to praise Lord Enthenglem?”

Both of them shook their heads, not yet having noticed any changes in their personalities or tendencies.

A few townsfolk were running around by the shore, but there wasn’t anything they could do to keep Leon from running away. The boat that he was taking was the only one still in the water, and it would take them some time to bring a new one down to the water.

A few folks returned with a canoe, but after thinking for a moment, decided against chasing. Leon was heading straight out into the water, where the waves would threaten to capsize a smaller vessel.

It would be an assured death for anyone who fell into the freezing waters.

“That heathen will face our Lord’s wrath!”

An accented voice cut through the crowd as the baker Jean Farsue stepped onto the docks, his angry glare turned seaward.

As Jean reached the docks, someone slipped out of the crowd and started moving swiftly into town. The skinny man darted along the sides of the buildings, avoiding the vision of everyone else heading down to the docks to see what the commotion was.

As he ran through a patch of shadows, his figure seemed to blend with them, and when he exited into the sunlight again, his figure was still shaded and hard to notice.

The skinny figure quickly reached the bakery and wasted no time slipping past the counter and heading into the back rooms of the shop.

“Too small, too small… not in here, either.”

A hoarse, fatigued voice whispered as he tossed open every cabinet and drawer he could see, but all he found was baking goods. The figure made sure to close every door before opening a new one, leaving no trace of his presence.

He quickly moved on to another room, but once again, there were no signs of what the figure was looking for.

With a slightly inhuman speed, he finished checking every sizable storage space in the bakery, but didn’t find anything.

“Not here, then. Maybe not even in the town… where did these crazies even hide it?”

Just as the figure stepped back out into the entry space of the bakery, the door shook, and someone pulled it open.

“Enric! I didn’t know you were back from your hunt!”

Raymond glanced around the otherwise empty bakery.

“Did Lord Enthenglem bless you with a bountiful harvest?”

“Unfortunately not, but I will still need to pay you a visit. Ah, do you know where Jean is? I tried calling for him, but he didn’t respond.”

Raymond pointed down to the seashore.

“Likely there, I heard there was some sort of commotion. I was actually just on my way there, I only stopped because I heard you walking around in here.”

Enric walked over to the door and left the bakery, then continued chatting with Raymond as they walked toward the docks together.

“Is there any news in the town?”

Raymond nodded.

“That kid Jacob Wilson stopped by again, he’s heading back to the coast. It sounds like the conflict over there is getting more and more unavoidable. He dropped off a few sailors here, too. I’m letting them sleep in my son’s old place for now.”

Enric looked up.

“Guests? Is there anything special about them?”

Raymond thought for a moment before nodding his head.

“Nothing that they’ve said or done yet, but they have some pretty nice gear. I think one of ‘em’s a captain, even.”

Raymond tapped on his head, and then his chest.

“You remember that fellow who stopped by a few years ago? Said he was lost and asked for directions?”

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Enric nodded his head, and Raymond continued.

“The captain-looking fellow this time has the same red star badge. Now that I think about it, the two of ‘em even look pretty similar… Ah, and I also heard that one of their guys is a cartographer. I reckon that might be how they ended up stranded without a boat in the first place.”

Enric’s eyebrows perked up even further as Raymond finished speaking, and he asked for an introduction. The duo was already nearing the docks, where a group of men were lowering another fishing boat into the water. The wooden hull of the ship grated against the logs beneath it as the vessel was rolled off of the shore.

Six or seven of the villagers- some of them familiar to Roth- boarded the boat as it floated past the end of the docks, a few of them toting weapons. Guns.

Their weapons couldn’t match up in versatility to the pistols still held by Cundy and Holl, but they were still deadly arms. Three guns in total were carried by the folks boarding the boats, and as they started to drift out, Roth could see them trading guns.

“Eh? Why are they doing that?”

Roth peered into the distance, where Leon’s boat had already disappeared into the distance. It didn’t seem likely that they would be able to catch the man regardless of who was holding the weapon.

“Jean is the best shot.”

“Huh?”

Roth turned around quickly, nearly bumping into the owner of the unfamiliar voice. It was a skinny man clad in old-looking fur clothes, a thin layer of scraggly stubble growing on his chin. He looked a good decade and a half older than Roth, and gave off a slight weasley feeling.

The unfamiliar man pointed at where the men on the boat were handing one of the guns to the baker.

“Jean Farsue is the best shot. They only have one percussion cap musket, the others are flintlocks. With the flintlocks, even a good shooter like Jean can only fire two or three times each minute. With that gun? Double that.”

“I see… who are you again?”

Holl and Cundy had also taken notice of the stranger talking to Roth by now, and were paying attention to his actions.

“The name’s Enric.”

The fur-clad hunter spat out of the corner of his mouth, then extended his arm to give Roth a handshake. The young man’s eyes lit up when he heard the name, and he quickly returned the greeting.

“I’m Roth. We’re new to the town, could my crew and I speak with you elsewhere?”

Roth glanced up at Holl as he spoke, receiving a nod from the captain.

“Yes, but another time. I have something I need to ask your group, but I don’t want this many eyes seeing us going somewhere together.”

Enric gestured to the group of villagers surrounding them, then looked back out at the boat chasing after the runaway thief.

“Leon will be fine, they will turn back before they catch him. Chaos is inbound, and the cowardly shall hide before the storm’s rage.”

“What?”

Enric waved his hand like he was shooing away Roth’s words, but a shit-eating grin was growing on the man’s scruffy face. He repeatedly tried to wipe it away, but the grin refused to leave his face.

Is this guy alright? He hasn’t mentioned the Lord yet, so I thought he was sane… perhaps I thought too soon.

“Ehem… Just pretend I said nothing.”

“...”

“I need to go, I’ll leave a message at your place about when we can meet up. The winds blow ever in the favor of the ambitious.”

After spitting out another quote that made Roth’s toes curl, Enric darted off into the crowd, heading for the east side of town, where Tolus lived.

“Well then. At least this guy is willing to talk to us.”

Holl nodded as he watched the skinny hunter’s back disappear into the crowd.

“Yep. That should just leave Hendricks as the last Regarded in town that we haven’t talked to. I’m not sure if we should try to seek him out… Tolus did say that he was the treacherous type.”

Holl frowned as he heard Roth’s words.

“No, we should.”

Holl started leading their crew back toward the cabin as he explained.

“There shouldn’t be much danger in just speaking to him, and he might know something that these two hunters don’t. I have a hunch that this Hendricks fellow is probably important to this whole situation.”

Their crew broke away from the rest of the crowds that were also heading back to the town, and Holl led them back to the cabin.

“This Enthenglem thing has control over the townfolks’ minds, with the exception of the two hunters and Hendricks. Clearly, there is still some conflict here in the town, so it has to be between these groups.”

Plopping his backpack down on the table, Holl pulled a few bullets out from a pocket inside of it, then placed them on the table.

“Let me guess that this Lord Enthenglem wants whatever is in those jars. If it is mind-controlling everyone to focus all of their efforts on living to survive and throwing all of the town’s money into getting those jars, I’m guessing that they are something valuable.”

Holl tapped his finger next to two bullets he had sitting next to each other.

“Tolus and Enric both came back shortly after the shipment got here, but I have a suspicion that they’ve probably been back a bit longer than that.”

Holl then grabbed and moved a third bullet over next to them.

“And I reckon Hendricks is around town right now, too. As for what he wants, though, I have no idea.”

Finally, Holl picked up a fifth bullet and set it down in between all of the other ones.

“And here’s us, randomly showing up in the middle of the conflict. We have to be cautious. I think we can be clear that Lord Enthenglem is likely our enemy, but it is definitely possible that one of these three is also working with it.”

Holl tapped on the other three bullets in turn.

“Even if they aren’t working with this mind controller, they still might try to eliminate us for other reasons. If there’s something valuable on the line- like those jars of mist likely are- people will be much more willing to stab their allies in the back. Don’t trust any of them.”

Holl’s gaze held steady on his two companions until he received nods from both of them.

“Alright, then. We might be in a tough position of knowing next to nothing and being newcomers to this conflict, but this is also a great opportunity. If we can claim credit for Lord Enthenglem’s corruption being removed from the townsfolk, we might be able to get that ship. Also…”

Holl’s mouth curled up into a smile.

“I’m curious about these jars of mist. That Lia girl mentioned something about it, and when we saw the jars earlier, I had a certain feeling that it could be consumed. It might be good for us to try claiming some of it for ourselves.”