…pick up the stone and fight.

It’s heavy, and for no particular reason, you dust off the dry dirt as you roll it hand to hand. The round edges are far from smooth, and while your sweat turns the remaining dirt to mud, you find it is not one to slip from your fingers. If anything, it bites into them as you grip it close to crushing.

The light closes, it’s barer drawn ever forward. It doesn’t touch you yet, as the stately tree you hide behind is quite wide; a giant among its often gnarled and twisted cousins, each bearing some troublesome branch or bend of the trunk. While obvious from the clearing, and unavoidably freckled in laboured moonlight, it remains a fine spot for an ambush, assuming your target has the good grace to accommodate. If he were to enter the clearing as you did, you could clobber his squarely, but if he goes around, he’d see you plainly and in short order.

Orange begins to war with the pale, and sooner still does it win, chasing the moons glow back into none existence under the far more present light of the lantern. His movement breaks the branches, often delicately, but enough to prove him no more a woodsman than you, and you stop rolling the stone, instead gripping it with a ready strike. If he comes around the same tree as you, you’ll swing horizontally for the head. If he comes around a nearby tree, you’ll have to jump to and swing vertically, bringing crushing **** down on him. If he goes around the clearing…you could run at him and throw the rock…maybe. Either way, you’re pursuit ends here.

The cracking sounds louder, and quicker, it source still seeking to make up the distance he lost. The stone is heavy. The light is getting blinding. You want to peek around the tree and see where he’s going. Surely it’s just one. You can hear him breathing as he pants for breath, made laboured by a steady jog. He’s getting close, and closer still. Too close. You swing horizontally.

It would be nice to say that some resounding crack echoed out -perhaps crisp and clean enough to scare a few sleeping birds from their nests- but that is not what happens. Instead, a noise not unlike a butcher thumping some slab of wet meat on a counter would be better description, or the juddering feel of something twisted into **** tearing. Far more dramatic was the reaction. As the stone, swung with all your strength, found its mark, crunching into his face, his head stopped its pursuit. His nose even retreated back the way it came, but his body, jogging at speed, carried on with dogged determination. As your blow was far from sufficient to separate the two, the man’s lower half flew forward, pivoting on the stopped head before quickly drawing it downward, flipping him neatly backward with drunken precision. As it happened, he was also carrying two things -one in each hand- and both went on in their journey as well, flying violently forward and past you, into the clearing. One an orange light, sealed in a glass and brass lantern, and the other a sharp and familiar blade, glittering along its edge where it was not darkened with paint. The man slams down into the earth, neck and shoulders first, and by poor fortune, the lantern crashes into an exposed stone, casting its oil into the dry brush and its flames soon after.

Now lit by the far larger light, freed from flickering wick and turned to roaring fire, and shining not through trees but directly upon both you and your pursuer, you see that it’s the same man you questioned, wrestled, and fled from. You can tell from the clothes, or lack thereof, and nothing else, his face bloodied beyond recognition (not that you had much of a face to face conversation to begin with). He moves groggily, moaning in delirious pain and confusion, and you hesitate for only a moment before bringing the rock down upon him. This time, the noise is far wetter, spattering you with lavish crimson across your clothes and across your face. You don’t look at the result, save to confirm his confused and wondering arms fall still and his attempt to stand halted for good. He certainly makes no more noises.

You look about, a task made far easier for the rapidly growing fire, and you quickly confirm you saw what you through you saw. Glowing with the light, your lost blade lies near the flames, and you duck forward to grab it, leaving your sleeve smoking with the growing heat. It’s a bittersweet reunion. The new and blossoming wildfire is quickly growing into one that you have no hope of extinguishing. Your pursuer is dead, and he seemed at least to be chasing you alone, but the alarm is certainly raised. You’re also…somewhere; in the woods of the island. While not a large island by any means, it’s mostly woods, with canopies enough to keep from navigating by starlight. It’s safe to say that your mission is not going well. Not well at all.

Perhaps you should give up?

The thought twists your lips with its bitter taste. You know where the captain is (if not where you are) and what she’s doing. You also know-

You stop yourself from further considerations, wincing at the heat. That fire’s really growing quite out of control. Its reaching flames catch a desiccated bush of dried leaves and it seems to double in size in the space of a second. Perhaps it would be best if you were no longer here. You run to the side, working your way up one of the slopes that funnelled you in, navigating it safely and easily by the ever growing glow. The cracks and pops of burning wood begin to give chase, and a low roar begins, belting out heat and rousing the night shrouded woods with an early dawn.

By some instinct or wisdom, or blind stubborn foolishness, you chose the embankment that you’re fairly sure leads inland, based on the rough direction you ran in. As you climb and climb, you quickly begin to leave the burning valley behind, even outpacing the fire enough that its light can no longer guide your way. Fortunately, free of the suffocating foliage of the valley, the moons rays can once more cast intermittent light on your path, and you travel forward without incident for some time, spending an embarrassing amount of it trying to get your stiletto blade back in its sheath without stabbing yourself.

Eventually, you see your first signs of civilisation since entering the woods, and by all the odd strokes of the most sarcastic luck, what you see is a big manor house on top of a hill, just as described. From the angle you stand, it’s the back of the building, which while quite long is also quite lumpy; jutting out with expansions and extensions in a somewhat ugly way. It is also on a hill by virtue of the climb to get here, as from the edge of the expansive lawn from which you look, it all seems quite flat. The smell of smoke reaches you, or clings to you, but you can see no sign of it where you are at your low position. No doubt from the building, whose roof just bests the tallest trees, a plume of smoke and fluttering ashes are visible by now, signposting your last known position and the cremation of at least one pirate.

As you work your way around, thinking about if you should even attempt what you’re going to attempt, while unthinkingly looking for a way to attempt it, you see the hurried silhouette of a roof guard above, moving with torso only as a short wall edging the roof hides his legs. He stops at the buildings corner, looking over the woods and the growing devastation no doubt brimming at its centre, and you freeze your movement close to an old overgrown garden, like a rabbit under the eyes of a hawk.

“Captain!”

You watch as he shuffles along the buildings length, half hurrying, half watching the smoking glow. He’s several floors up, with the windows of the building clearly showing a ground floor and an upper floor; both built with the extravagant height favoured by nobles. He crosses the building from its side to its middle, navigating the angles until he can look down at one of the few lit windows of the upper floor. There, your breath catches as you see a woman with long blond hair, leaning out to answer the call.

“Report!”

“Fire Captain, in the woods!”

The man on the roof points in the direction you came and she follows his finger. Whether she can see what he can or simply believes him, her distant frame seems to twist with rage before being forcibly calmed.

She gives him simple orders, “Keep watch! Let me know when it gets close!” before disappearing.

So, that’s the captain. You wonder how best to get to her. Resuming your movement further into the overgrown garden, which reaches across some of the wide lawn to the mansion, you see a few notable points of ingress.

There is a drain pipe that least to the roof, which you quickly dismiss. The roof guard had continued his patrol, head flicking to the woods as he moved out of sight, but you don’t fancy the idea of getting up to the roof to confront him, even if you could drop down from the roof to the window in question.

There is a window level with the ground, which probably leads into a cellar of some kind, but that seems even further from the captain’s current position than where you are now, even if it does lead into the building. You saw as you circled about to where you are now, that there’s a back door, guarded by the distant shape of a man, on the other side of the captains protruding room. If that door is guarded, you don’t need to check the front to know it will be as well.

Looking at the now vacant and open window directly, you see that there is a short roof below it where the lower floor protrudes out further than the upper. Said protrusion stretches from that window and about an internal corner of the building, reaching across one side before towards your hiding spot, ending before the buildings next turn. If the buildings back end was uneven enough to resemble a set of steps on its side (with each step being another bulge of the building), then Captain Washkins room would represent the last apex step, with the lit window on its inner side facing you. The short roof meanwhile would stretch from the window to the edge of the step below, ending before the next turn. Upon the face of that turn, you see a balcony with an open door at its centre, leading into darkness; though with no way up to it, it is no different from any other shuttered window across the buildings face.

As your eyes follow the short roof, you see an almost divine sight. Ivy grows from some large plant pot, climbing what looks like, from your bushy bunker, a wooden trellis. It climbs near the balcony end, though linked to the short jutting roof rather than the austere stone outcrop, and it marks a clear path from your position, up its face, along the roof, and to the window. The tiles of the roof look noisy; simple rounded clay things ready to slip and clink at a moment’s notice, and the dry ivy with no doubt shake, but it’s the clearest and fastest route you can take, and welcome enough on a noisy night like this one. With a final check on the long gone roof guard, you slip from your bush and run to the ivy.

It’s dead, in a way that far surpasses the withering dryness of summer. Fortunately, in life it had wrapped and strengthened the wood that encouraged its climb, and a few preliminary tugs prove it to be better than some ladders you’ve seen. A quick climb and you’re on the roof. It does clink, but not so noisily as you feared, and there are windows before it; narrow slits like some old castle, that would be difficult to pass though even if they opened. No light or signs of life come from inside, but you pass them quickly anyway, lest some skittering rat sees your shape shift the light of the stairs and moon. You cross the inner corner and come quickly to the window you saw below, drawing your knife and peeking tentatively around.

Nothing. The room is empty of any life, save the candles that give it light. It’s large, with an empty fireplace, large table, four poster bed, and many cupboards and wardrobes along its far side. There are two doors, one on the left hand wall and the other directly across, and both are silent, lacking any activity beyond. There are even piles of clothing strewn haphazardly about the floor, showing messy signs of recent occupation.

What do you do now? Could she have already gone? The captain you seek could be marching out of the buildings front door and down to the docks right now, for all you know. You think back to her orders to the roof guard, asking him to keep her informed, and you look up instinctually at the empty roof above. She wouldn’t say that if she didn’t plan on returning, would she?

It’s not safe here; this spot being the place the roof guard barks his updates to. You slip inside the room, hoping to wait in ambush for his captains’ return. The room is replete with hiding places but you quickly settle on the distant wardrobe as the best, assuming it’s empty of course. It has several draws at its base, leaving the doors starting at waist height, and after crossing the room and opening them, you see that it contains only several sets of clothes, both practical and formal. There’s a good spot behind what looks like a ball gown, which flows down and crumples under the inadequate space. It leaves a froth of fills and lace far too girlish for the fearsome Wendigo of legend, piled high and perfect to hide in.

Before climbing in, you look about the room and consider your next move. There’s still time to go back out the window and call it a night. A thin smile crosses your lips; if that was your attitude, you’d never have come here in the first place. Everything else you see in the room seems unimportant to you; the bed is not made, and the clothes piles add to the mess. You look at one and see it’s composed of odd scraps of material; patches of silk attached to fine strings or metal clasps. You wonder if the captain you seek had taken up the task of a seamstress, but quickly repeal the though when you see the definite crotch shape of some transparent lace undergarments. The sight quickly reconceptualises the other items as things known only to ex-whores; items of an unscrupulous and lecherous nature. The final thing you look at is the round table, half pushed up against the wall with the chairs below suffering for it. Two pewter cups are on its surface; both containing some red liquid; likely wine. One is half filled while the other is nearly drained. The vial of poison at your leg tingles with anticipation.

With one foot on the sill of the wardrobe, you consider it. When the sound of activity comes from outside, you consider it faster.

You poison the mugs and maybe both owners die; but maybe just one, with the other left on alert. Maybe there’ll be only one. You could draw your poison (before that becomes difficult in the confines of the wardrobe) and carefully add it to your blade there. Or you could quickly jump into the wardrobe; an option made more enticing by the sound of approaching footsteps.