Rosie sniffled and shook as she slowly, hesitantly put her weight on her front foot. She edged closer to safety…closer….
“Come on.” Twila grabbed her friend’s hand and pulled her off the ledge and onto the solid ground a dozen yards below the wrecked town gate. She patted Rosie on the shoulder. “You’re okay. We’ve got work to do at the farmhouse.”
Twila started down the path, one hand on her pistol grip and another on her sword hilt. Far below, through the twilight, the ocean pounded against the off-white tuff pinnacle and the old ship harbor. She shuddered, throat tight. The Sable Tide had come from there the night they’d been trapped in the old farmhouse with Carter, and now, she was willingly walking back into the same trap, but this time, there’d be pirates everywhere, too.
Rosie hurried up behind her, still shaking. She pointed down the cliffside toward the farmhouse. “They’re already fighting!”
Twila stared for a moment, then hurried along. Mystshots lit up the old abandoned graves, one of which looked open, like someone had dug it up. From so far away, she couldn’t see inside it. Someone had lit a bonfire outside the house, but whether the From Hell’s Hart crew was attacking or not, the defenders were hard-pressed. They retreated into the old farmhouse, slamming the door shut.
A few mystshots later, it crumbled to dust, and pirates poured in.
One stayed outside, and as Twila crept closer, she decided he had to be a Hell’s Hart man. He leaned against the farmhouse’s wall, watching the door, and lit a pipe.
“What do we do?” Rosie asked. We’ve got to get inside before the Tide rises, or we’re in trouble.”
Twila nodded slowly. She thought back to all her fights—the desperate escape from Iswixel, the raid on the Gibson Company Foundry, and her duel with Vayne. Of all her battles, this one felt different. She didn’t have to be here. She could have left the treasure to Vayne, sold the Hourglass, and settled somewhere. In the back of her mind, a voice told her that living in a farmhouse with Rosie and Auntie Charlie wouldn’t be so bad.
But another old called her a liar. For all that she hated the fighting—and the killing—that came with being a pirate, she needed to see this adventure through. She’d come too far to back down just because she’d have to fight someone. She’d been preparing for a fight with Vayne; this was just a job she had to do before she could beat him and take back [Anton’s Pocket-Watch], find the key here on Iswixel, and claim Kerr’s treasure for herself.
“I’m going to get rid of him, then we’re going inside. If Vayne beats the Hell’s Hart crew, I’ll fight him. If not, I’ll fight them,” Twila said.
Rosie stared at her, and Twila breathed and blinked. She pushed down something, but it wasn’t her memories. Instead, she pushed down her fear and stepped into the farm’s abandoned fields.
But only for a second before Rosie pulled her back.
“What?” Twila whispered.
“You could get a lot closer. You’d have to work your way past the cliffside, though,” Rosie said. She looked mistrustfully at the drop.
“What’s with you? You’re a ship rat, right? We’re higher up than this all the time.”
“I don’t like the rocks. It’s just falling on an airship, not rocks. And we’re tied in on the ship. Seapike was hell. If you sneak along the cliff, I’ll make a distraction over here. We can…take this pirate out together.” Rosie looked unsure of herself. She played with her eyepatch, then pulled her pistol. “Sound like a plan?”
“It’s a plan.” Twila stepped toward the edge, then dropped to all fours. The acrid smell of myst filled the air from the battle, along with a thick, heavy scent. Pirates had fought here. Some had probably died. She kept herself low, crawling through the mud toward the door guard.
Thirty feet away, she slowly pulled [Anton’s Paired Pistols] free and set one on the ground. The pirate hadn’t seen her yet; if he had, he hadn’t shown any sign. She leveled the other pistol. Then she hesitated.
This time, when she pulled the trigger, it would be different.
This man wasn’t fighting back. Did he deserve it? Twila thought for a moment, her finger on the pistol’s trigger. No, he didn’t, but it didn’t matter if he’d signed up for this, because Twila needed to see this through—whatever the cost.
She pulled the trigger.
The purplish mystshot erupted from her pistol’s barrel and slammed into the man’s chest—only to dissipate in the air as his [Myst Absorber] ate the shot.
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“Damn,” Twila cursed. Rosie’s shot went wide as the man moved faster than either girl expected. His sword was in one hand in a flash, his pistol aimed out into the night. But Twila had expected a miss—or a [Myst Absorber]. She dropped the first pistol, grabbed the second one, and fired again.
A miss. The purple shot burned a scuff mark on the farmhouse’s tuff wall, but the pirate ran through the purple-green cloud the concentrated myst left behind—right at Twila.
She pushed herself to her feet and drew her sword just in time to parry his slash with a two-handed grip. Steel rang, and her hands felt the vibration as she thrust, only for him to leap over her blow. Then his pistol rang out, aimed at Rosie, who threw herself to the side and landed in the open grave. “You’ll both be in there soon enough,” the pirate growled.
“Or you will,” Twila replied. She dropped into a perfect lunge, just like she’d practiced with the coin on a string and against Auntie Charlie. Her sword’s tip sliced across the man’s arm, and he roared in pain and rage. Then she backpedaled, putting distance and time between them.
He roared again and charged her.
As he sprinted toward her, sword swinging wildly through the air, she ducked to avoid the blow. His feet caught under her, driving the air from her ribs even as he tripped toward the cliff’s edge.
Twila rolled, letting go of her sword. She stopped herself, legs a foot from the pirate’s chest—and him right on the cliff’s edge.
She kicked him. Then she kicked him again. He scrabbled to grab onto her feet, and she pulled herself back. A boot-heel slipped through his fingers as he teetered on the edge, then fell.
He screamed, but only for a few moments.
Twila lay there next to the cliff’s edge, blinking and breathing. Rosie shifted from one foot to another near the house like a nervous bird. Twila pushed herself to her feet, recovered her [Heatblade], and retrieved her two pistols. Then she joined the other girl, blinking and breathing as she walked. Rosie shouldn’t have been this close; something was wrong.
“Anyone inside?” Twila asked.
“No, but we saw them go in—all of them. It doesn’t make sense.”
Rosie was right. It didn’t make sense. They hadn’t looked around much when they’d been stuck last time; they’d been focused on making sure Carter didn’t betray them and surviving the Sable Tide. “Maybe there’s a secret door or something. This was Kerr’s or his family’s, right? I bet he had all sorts of trapdoors hidden away.”
“Yeah,” Rosie said. “But Twila, I need to show you something.”
Twila followed the girl to the open grave. Inside, next to a somewhat-squashed skeleton, sat an almost empty box. It was half-covered in dirt, and next to it, in the sun’s last light, a scrap of paper—paper that matched Kerr’s journal.
Twila leaped into the grave to recover it.
The sound of waves against stone vanished, replaced by the beating of a thousand wings. A moment later, Rosie’s battery ticked, and the air filled with piercing shrieks as the Sable Tide came in.
[Twila Tighe, Ship Rat Mystgineer, Equipment Level 1.33 (Myst 12/12, Hit Points 1/2)]
[Head - Empty]
[Eyes - Myst Lens (lvl. 1) Myst Sight (passive) See own status block and others’ classes]
[Chest - Platejack Coat (lvl. 2) Plated Coat (passive) +1 Hit Point]
[Waist - Apprentice Mystgineer’s Bandolier (lvl. 1) Deep Pockets (passive) - Equip an additional Gizmo]
[Legs - Canvas Overalls (lvl. 0)]
[Gizmo #1 - Loaded Dice (lv. 2) - Roll the Bones (active, 1 myst/roll) - gain a random myst enhancement; Skill - Trickery]
[Gizmo #2 - Empty]
[Gizmo #3 - Nola’s Embrace (lvl 2) Unknown Effect]
[Gizmo (Belt) - Mystwork Lantern (lvl. 2): Mystlight (active, 25% failure chance, 1 myst/attempt) - start the light; Adjustable Light Aura (sustained, .5-2 myst/tick) - light a variable area; Skill - Perception]
[Myst Battery - Condensing Battery Mk. 2 (lvl. 1) Myst Storage (passive) - 12 myst maximum, requires condenser to refill; Condense Myst (passive) - Condenses 1 myst/6 ticks]
[Weapon/Pair - Anton’s Paired Pistols (lvl. 2) Smoothbore Myst-Shot (active, 1 cartridge/shot) - fire a ray of heated myst; Rapid Shots (active, 2 myst/shot) - fire twice/tick; Skill - Marksman]
[Weapon #2 - Heatblade (lvl. 2) Heat (active, 1 myst/tick) - cause the blade’s edge to superheat; Skill - Acrobatics]
[Weapon/Pair - Empty]
[Skill #1 - Trickery 2]
[Skill #2 - Perception 2]
[Skill #3 - Empty]
[Skill #4 - Marksman 2]
[Skill #5 - Acrobatics 2]