Cira peeled her face off the aged paper and saw its ink discolored from her drool, “Damn… I fell asleep.” Her left hand felt cold, and she looked at it in a panic only to see it buried in a glob of mashed potatoes from the night prior.

“Ughh, I have so much to do, and I didn’t even get to sleep in my own bed.” She was still trying to wake up, so started the day off by washing the potatoes off her hand and setting a kettle on the stove. Her cups were mysteriously absent, so she had to pour her tea into a bowl before walking out to the garden and taking a seat.

There was a mild throbbing in her head that she attributed to dehydration, and she tried to conjure a glass of water on the side, but that didn’t turn out so well. Deciding not to get up again yet, she sipped hot tea from her bowl while grumbling into the mist. Beyond Breeze Haven’s barrier was the same white veil that always surrounded the island. Cira tried to avoid looking at her mess of a yard, but there was really nothing interesting out there.

Inside, her grass was cut up and torn with various gashes and damage wherever she looked. Where did the burns come from…? There were three spots of charred grass which she didn’t recall. And I can’t do a damn thing about it… Stupid Earth Vein, why couldn’t you fix your own island?

The tea had begun to revitalize her, and she looked around the yard to take a headcount. Shirtless Joe was actually sitting at the table with her, but fast asleep. Baum and the goons were asleep in her orchard next to a pile of apple cores and bloodied pomegranite shells—those poor fools.

No sign of the rest, but they must have fallen asleep inside. She had to walk around Skipper to make her tea earlier, but the others would turn up.

For now, she focused on getting herself ready for the day. Waking up, in other words, and preparing to get off her ass, which was quite sore along with her only foot, and somehow, the remainder of her right leg. She got far too much exercise since waking up from her coma and nearly felt incapacitated all over again.

“I guess now’s as a good a time as any to read that letter.” Cira rarely got mail, and the letter she received on Fount Salt was the first in almost a year. The letter prior was junk trying to sell her alchemical ingredients. She couldn’t discount the convenience of having it delivered, but the prices were ridiculous. Cira wasn’t familiar with the currency, but the numbers were all very large.

Now she pulled out the letter from a few weeks before. Cira wanted to read it that morning before they left Uren to start on the cure, but the seal was new to her and held enough mana to discern its legitimacy. The insignia on the wax seal was that of a simplistic flame. She decided it would be best to wait until she wasn’t in the middle of a job to read its contents.

To the master of Breeze Haven,

The decennial Convergence of Sorcerers approaches, and your presence is demanded. Absence without justifiable reason will result in a sorcerous audit and possible imprisonment pending investigation. In half a year’s time, a council warden shall arrive to escort you to Horizon’s End.

With regards,

Alden Withers, Arch-Sorcerer of the Council

“Good grief…” Cira folded the letter back up, “I’m glad I didn’t open that earlier.”

Can I just not go? That definitely sounds like something my dad would do. Surely this was meant for him, no? Breeze Haven’s master was indeed Cira, but whoever addressed the letter must have had her old man in mind. Unfortunately, it was far too vague to consider herself completely off the hook. Whatever the hell a council warden was, one would show up at her doorstep. How they would find it was a mystery to her, but she was inclined to believe the words clearly stated.

“If I’ve ever seen a problem for future Cira, this is it.” The letter found its way back into her pocket and she lapped up the rest of her bowl of tea. “At least I’ve got plenty of time.”

She had half of her entire life to deal with it, given her terminal diagnosis of one year to live. No, I guess I received the letter a month ago, so less that that. Before anything happened on Fount Salt, too. At least I know it’s not about that.

Cira hobbled back inside to put her bowl back in the sink and ran into Jimbo kicking Skipper on the ground, “Hey, you ain’t dead, right? Oh—mornin’ Cap.”

“He should be alive. I checked on my way out.” Cira put her bowl in the sink and replaced it with a glass she found, filling it to the brim with water and taking another seat at the dining table. “Does your leg always hurt when you walk around on that peg, or does it get better?”

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“You’re still on crutches and you’re already complainin’?” He gave Cira an exasperated look and sat down across from her. The first volume he was tasked to read was sitting in front of him open to what looked like a few chapters in.

“Of course, I am. I’ve been slacking around for a whole month now and there’s been pretty much nothing but setbacks.” Shaking her head, Cira started to pore over the book on reforging souls again. “I’m way too weak to be this lazy.”

“Are you being serious right now?” Jimbo slapped the back cover of the book and flipped it closed on her hand, “You were in a coma until yesterday morning. Take a day off—at least one. You got a crew to do all the thinkin’ and workin’ now, so use it.”

“Well… It would be nice if everyone could clean up…” Cira noticed the spilled ale on her kitchen floor and dirty pots and pans everywhere. A trail of blankets led to the living room, and she didn’t feel like investigating yet. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but seeing her home in such a state made her feel anxious.

“Skips, got dammit!” Jimbo kicked him into a roll and the young man woke up coughing.

“Guhh, what’s the deal?!” He looked up from the ground in utter betrayal.

“Wake up the others and start cleanin’!” He glared at Skipper who shrunk into the floor before eventually letting out a loud yawn and climbing to his feet.

“You could have just woken me up the regular way. Man, my head…” He held his head with one hand and gathered dishes around the sink with the other.

“Well…” Cira observed with mixed feelings, “Regardless, I need to get through this book and, I don’t know, make a soul forge or something? It’s hard to even understand half of this.”

Cira’s fingers ran through her hair in frustration. The text was dense and full of principles she only had a vague understanding of. She knew the soul was the core of one’s being, and that everything ever experienced had an effect on it. Past that, she knew some things were bad for it, like fractures or degradation.

At points she thought she was on track, then it was suddenly difficult to tell if she was reading instructions on how to fix or destroy a soul. It spoke of absolute deconstruction and the melting points of soul memory. For one who could barely even see the soul if she squinted as hard as she could with all her aura, Cira was beginning to think she was in over her head. This is a job I can’t turn down though.

“James is good with books, but… It might be a little out of his wheelhouse. You should talk to Kuja. Her folk all but died out, but she’s all about souls and stuff.” Jimbo shrugged, as if her plight were a simple matter.

“That lady from before… What was up with her? I didn’t take her for a pirate.” Not that it mattered to Cira. She had her pride, but would gratefully accept a helping hand on this matter.

“The ones who lived here before. People these days call ‘em the spirit-sworn, but they had some other language they spoke. Kuja’s probably the last one alive who knows it.” Jimbo pulled a crumpled ball of paper from his pocket and unwrinkled it to reveal a weathered map, pointing to a coastline south of what was clearly Hangman’s Cove, “We’re right about here, and it sounded like Kuja left town for now. We can probably find her back home, up by these cliffs.”

He pointed at the opposite side of the map, clear past the cove. It seemed the island was mostly covered in forest but had a few lakes throughout it and one section of plains. The end where they would find Kuja was mountainous and there wasn’t much green.

“What are these skull marks?” Cira noticed a few such markings on the map.

“Places to avoid. This one’s quicksand… Over here we got a three-armed troll, and nimbus sharks nest in the caves just over these hills. There’s an evil tree on the northern peninsula, and let’s see… I guess I forgot a few of ‘em, but I try to steer clear.”

“Huh… Some of those might be worth checking out later, but that’s not important right now.” Cira dramatically flipped the pages in her book, “Do you think Kuja would be able to make any sense of this?”

“If anyone can, I bet it’s her. She said to find her if you found anything, didn’t she?”

“I guess she did…” If I had a soul forge in front of me, I bet this would be easier to understand. Setting up an aethereal furnace is simple enough with someone to serve as my aura, but it’s described so strangely here. Almost like a cauldron. But then I don’t get where the soul crucible fits in. Either way, I fail to see how melting my soul down is supposed to help my situation and it sounds incredibly painful. And how does that turn into an unbroken soul? Perhaps I should have expected this, but I would like to understand how any of it works before up and destroying my soul. “Fine… we should speak with her then, but it would probably wise to look around first.”

Cira opened the cupboard where all of her food was stored in a stasis and found a half dozen eggs and a single link of sausage. Closing it with a sigh, she resigned to wait at least a few hours before taking flight. “Did Rocky seal the archive back up?”

“Not yet… I kind of felt bad askin’ the guy. He was pretty shook up.” Jimbo got up as Cira began to walk away.

“Where did he sleep? I feel like I should have seen him by now.” In the living room, she only found Skipper cleaning up around a slumbering James on the too-short couch, snoring like a riptide with his head hanging over the side and his mouth wide open.

“Should be downstairs somewhere.” The sound of his peg leg and her crutch should be enough to wake anyone up, Cira thought.

“Let’s get everybody moving and try to set sail by noon.” Despite her stiff muscles and sore foot, Cira was starting to get used to walking around on the crutch. “We should send Skipper to grab my crossbows and wooden leg while he’s picking up groceries.”

“Right…” Jimbo looked a little nervous, “I’m pretty sure Larry was expectin’ to see you back. You should be restin’ right now after all. Under his watchful eye, you know, in case another staircase does you in.”

The stairs weren’t innocent in her mind, but Cira still protested. “That’s not what happened! Don’t make me get the shoe polish.”