“I’m sorry,” Carter mumbled again. His voice sounded like he was under a blanket. The words slurred together in the darkness. “I didn’t think about…”

“Quiet. Listen, there’s nothing,” Twila said.

The scrabbling at the door had finally stopped, and Twila could see a faint line of light in the gap below the door.

“It’s time to go,” she said, carefully moving Rosie’s head from her lap. The younger girl had fallen asleep a dozen times, only for the monster to awaken her. Each time she’d woken, her shaking and shivering got worse. But when she was asleep, the monster’s claws scrabbling on the door were all Twila could hear–and that was harder than Rosie’s panic.

Once Carter woke up, though, his blurry apologies and begging for light were even worse than that.

Twila cracked the door. The…monster, whatever it was, had vanished. Its claws had almost scratched through the door, but it was gone. She breathed a sigh of relief; she’d been listening all night and thought the day would never come.

“Rosie, we’re going back. Carter, you can come if you want.”

The children walked back. No one felt much like talking, and Twila had to guide Carter up the hill. He was just too dizzy to do it himself. They climbed silently up ladders and stairs until the wall loomed over them. Its door hung wide open.

“No guards, huh?” Twila asked.

“Wha…Oh, yeah, there’s never guards during the day. The Tide comes out at night,” Carter said.

“But you brought us down there at night!” Rosie complained.

“Oh, well, yeah. I wanted you to see ‘em.”

The lower town was empty. Wind whistled through a crevice in the tuff cliff’s wall, ruffling her shirt, but Twila couldn’t hear a single voice. No one even stared out of their windows, and most of the lamps had burned out. The few that still burned flickered against the morning fog as wind howled along the pillar.

“Something’s not right,” Carter said. He ran ahead, climbing up to his family’s home. “Beth! Grace! Mum! Anyone home?!” He pounded on the door, but no one answered.

“Got a bad feeling, Rosie,” Twila whispered. Villages, even the poor ones, and even the poorest parts of those, should have someone around.

Rosie nodded. “Yeah, me too. Where is everyone?”

Carter pushed on the door, which popped open. He ran inside, checking every room, but he found nothing.

“They slept here last night, so where are they?” He asked the girls. Before they could even shrug, he’d started climbing to the upper town. The girls followed.

The [Myst Lantern] outside of the octopus pub lay broken on the ground.

The tavern’s walls were pitted, and scratches ran across its wooden door. A dozen monsters lay dead around the door. Someone had fought them, but whether they’d won, fled, or lost, Twila couldn’t tell.

“The lamps should have kept the Sable Tide out. They’ve always kept it out before!” Carter mumbled. He kept moving forward up the stairs and pathway.

“If the lamps broke or went out, though…that could let it in,” Rosie said. Carter was too far away to hear her.

They found the villagers near the small fishing airship at the top of the stairs. A half-dozen things wrapped in parachute cloth sat in a row near the ship; as the girls watched, a pair of men grabbed one and loaded it onto the fisher.

Carter bolted through the crowd, looking wildly for his sisters and mother. Twila edged closer to the wrapped things. Were they…bodies?

They were. Each wrapped figure’s head poked from the cloth. A single radish, tomato, or carrot had been placed on each one's chest, where their hands met. On a few, blood oozed through the sheets.

She ran through the funeral and into the crevice. The Hourglass looked smaller than it had in the morning. Just like the lower village, the ship seemed empty. But Twila wasn’t worried; one person was always aboard. “Will! Will!” She screamed as she ran up the gangplank and onto the deck. “Will, where’s the skipper!”

A quiet boy’s voice from belowdecks answered, his tone as morose as usual. “Skipper Anton never came back last night. He’s probably out there still, but I didn’t see him when I watched them check the bodies. Most of the crew’s out there, though.”

“The crew?”

“Yeah. They got thrown out of the pub. The [Myst Lantern] broke, and that was that,” Will said matter of factly. “That’s what I heard people say outside, at least.”

“The crew’s dead? What about Anton? If the skipper’s dead, what happens to Hourglass?”

“I heard the villagers talking. They said she’d be a good fisher,” Will said from below. “They’re gonna take her to Ternport, strip her down, and refit her.”

“No! She’s too good to be a fisher!” Twila shouted, aghast. Her hopes and dreams flashed before her eyes - the Hourglass, a fisher? Could she get the courier sloop out of Iswixel? She could try piloting herself, but without the starter, and with the repairs she needed… “Be back soon! Stay here!”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I always do,” Will muttered as Twila ran back to the funeral.

She got there out of breath. Rosie stood stock still, transfixed and pale. “That was Conner,” she said, voice quivering, “and I saw Gregor a minute ago. Everyone’s…dead.”

“No time, Rosie,” Twila panted. “They’re gonna take Hourglass! Gotta find the skipper first! He’s got the starter! Help me look!”

The pair of men loaded the last body onto the fisher. They stepped off the gangplank but didn’t join the funeral. Instead, they started walking the narrow staircases and paths, looking in garden beds and behind the cantilevered houses. As they passed the girls, one muttered, "Maybe the drunk fell. If we can’t find him, we can take the fisher and check the rocks below….”

Twila grabbed Rosie’s hand and ran up the path toward the skywright’s workshop. “Hurry. They’re looking too!”

The loop around the pillar was Twila's longest run in years. She wound through trampled vegetable gardens and past darkened streetlamps, eyes peeled for any sign of the captain. Her lungs burned, and she could hear Rosie’s breath turning ragged behind her.

When she got to the shop, she and Rosie turned and started running back down.

“Hey, ship rats,” A familiar voice softly said. Becca sat on the steps just above the shop, head down.

“No time, sorry. Looking for something important,” Twila said between breaths.

“Is it a body? If it is, I know where to find it,” Becca said. “I’ll show you."

The walk back down the path felt like it took forever. The girls could see the funeral starting to wrap up past the crevice. A few more people strolled the stairs and trail, glancing into buildings or peering off the precipice. Twila felt her stomach drop. What if they’d found Anton’s body before her?

“It’s over here,” Becca said. She pointed to a garden next to a stone building with an empty lamp hook.

There, behind the tomatoes, lay Skipper Anton. Or most of him.

Rosie looked away, face pale, and threw up in the vegetables. Becca patted the younger girl’s back. “It’s okay, deep breaths, deep breaths,” she whispered.

Twila gagged too, but what needed to happen was too important. She crept toward his body.

He’d been savaged by the Sable Tide. His pistol lay beside him, green runes almost faded against the whalebone grip. His greatcoat had been torn open - buttons lay around him–and Twila could see the key ring hanging from his belt. She’d never touched a dead body, and she didn’t really want to, but there wasn’t much choice. She closed her eyes, not wanting to look at his dozens of wounds, and reached for it.

Her hand gripped something cold and metallic. She pulled. It came loose, but it wasn’t the keys.

She opened her eyes. Her hand opened to reveal the skipper’s pocket watch - a brass-and-silver thing shaped like two cogwheels, one on the other, with the bottom slightly wider than the top. Five hands sat frozen on its face; the usual brass hour, minute, and second; but also a silver hand identical to, and keeping pace with, the second one. The last one didn’t move; a short, iron hand, it pointed at the twelve.

She shoved it into her bandolier, closed her eyes, and reached again. “Got ‘em!” she shouted, jingling the keys loose from the skipper’s belt. After a moment’s thought, she picked up the pistol in her free hand. “Thanks, Becca! Rosie, we gotta go!”

“Wait! You’re leaving Iswixel?” Becca said. She pushed blonde hair out of her eyes. Tears filled them. “Wright Toll died last night, too, at the tavern. My parents are gone too–have been for a while. There’s nothing for me here. Let me come with you.”

Twila thought about it. She and Rosie probably couldn’t get the Hourglass to another harbor–not even Ternport, just up the pinnacle. She closed her eyes. How many ship rats had been onboard yesterday? Eight? Nine? Between Twila, Rosie, and Becca, they could run one shift. And Will could…no, Twila decided. It was best not to rely on the shy, sad crewmate. They needed Becca.

“Okay, welcome to the crew, ship rat. Hurry up. We have to get to Hourglass fast.” The girl’s master had just died, and she needed sympathy. But sympathy was something Twila didn’t have time for. Not if she wanted to save her ship and her dreams.

The funeral had all but ended when the three girls crept into the abandoned crevice harbor. They slinked up the gangplank and onto the ship’s crate-cluttered deck. “Kick that down,” Twila said, pointing at the gangplank.

“No, they’ll hear it!” Rosie whispered. Her face was still a moon, and her eyes were saucers.

“You’re right. Becca, keep an eye out. Rosie, we’ve got some work to do on her engines, and then,” Twila sighed. For once, she wasn’t looking forward to flying again. “I need to see Old Bitch up close.”

[Twila Tighe, Ship Rat Mystgineer, Equipment Level 1.0 (Myst 1/10, Hit Points 1/1)]

[Head - Empty]

[Eyes - Myst Lens (lvl. 1) Myst Sight (passive) See own status block and others’ classes]

[Chest - Ship Rat’s Harness (lvl. 0)]

[Waist - Apprentice Mystgineer’s Bandolier (lvl. 1) Deep Pockets (passive) - Equip an additional Gizmo]

[Legs - Canvas Overalls (lvl. 0)]

[Gizmo #1 - Basic Myst Tools (lvl 1) Skill - Tinkering]

[Gizmo #2 - Anton’s Pocket Watch (lvl. 4)] Unknown Effect; Skill - Piloting]

[Gizmo #3 - Firestarter (lvl. 1) Mystfire (active, 50% failure chance, 1 myst/attempt) - produce a small flame; Skill - None]

[Gizmo (Belt) - [Myst Lantern] (lvl. 1) Lesser Light Aura (sustained, 1 myst/tick) - light a small area; Skill - Perception]

[Myst Battery - Basic Myst Battery (lvl. 1) Small Storage (passive) - 10 myst maximum, requires condenser to refill]

[Weapon/Pair - Anton’s First Pistol (lvl. 1) Smoothbore Myst-Shot (active, 1 cartridge/shot) - fire a ray of heated myst; Skill - Marksman]

[Weapon/Pair - Empty]

[Skill #1 - Tinkering 1]

[Skill #2 - Perception 1]

[Skill #3 - Piloting 4]

[Skill #4 - Marksman 1]

[Skill #5 - Empty]