…go back upstairs and explore there instead.

The upstairs door opens without a creek. It’s the safer option by far, you reason, and considering you’re dressed in a very suspicious black, running into people is a disaster you’d rather avoid. The door leads out onto a long corridor that stretches a considerable distance, likely the length of the whole mansion. At both of its far ends stand distant windows, maws into starry darkness, confirming your theory, and many doors branch off it, each offering a room and the possibility of quarry or ambush. Maybe she’s tired; gone to sleep in an upstairs bedroom alone and undefended. You doubt you’re that lucky.

Darkness covers most of the corridor as the lanterns upon its walls are spaced quite sporadically, but the middle of its long length is the exception. Warm light bathes it, shining in from a wide open space on one side, lighting up the wall on the other and the large set of double doors set upon them. The light is split into beams, painting the walls in vertical shadows as its source shines upwards through some barred construct. You’d guess the corridors middle doubles as the building’s main landing, with the foyers lights below being cut apart by a hand rail of some kind. A gap in those shadows, specifically upon the large centre doors, gives the further impression of a large set of stairs leading down. Faint voices can be heard, all male, and all too distant to make out in detail; likely, the buildings well lit entrance is occupied. It would be a shame to have such a brightly lit crossing watched, but that still leaves one whole side of the building to search.

You decide to slowly make your way left, toward the landing, checking the doors and rooms as you go. The one directly opposite your current dark stairwell is first; a quick listen produces nothing, and a quick lift of the latch and a peek shows a mostly barren room, its darkness broken by wide windows that seem almost hollow without the moons touch. One down. You move to the next, back across the corridor, choosing to zigzag your way down the available options. Barging into the rooms would be a terrible idea, but listening to them and checking with a peek leaves you feeling no less exposed. The corridor is long, and if anyone stepped out of any upstairs room, they would have a hard time missing you; a woman crouching at doors and dressed head to toe in black is not something the eyes fumble to see, even in the half light. Well...perhaps with speed and luck and the occasional dim patch you’d be able to slip fully into the nearest room before any doors disgorge their contents. Relying on luck doesn’t sit well with you, but is has got you this far.

You check them; one, then another, and another. The forth door in your inspection tour yields something a little different as a flickering light oozes almost imperceptibly between the cracks of its frame. Listening produces nothing of note; the people in the foyer still talk, a little louder now that you’re closer but with their inscrutability intact, and the house creaks slightly in the quiet, its old beams promising a crescendo of groans should any real wind accost it. The room beyond sounds quite empty though. Light with no master? Why? You weigh up the pros and cons and frankly come up blank. Should you take a peek or not? You did come up here looking for your target; you can’t just run away as soon as you find signs of life.

Realising that you’re stalling yourself, you shake off your indecision and slowly lift the latch on the door. It doesn’t creek as you slowly open it, pushing it inward just a little, just for the meanest peek. The room is lit by a lantern hanging on a plaster wall, lighting up crates and odd shapes, all covered with white sheets. It’s a small room from the looks of things, two doors down from the stairs you entered by.

“What the fu-“

You close the door with a click.

The words had been whispered by an unseen man from somewhere behind the door and freeze you in place for half a second. Naturally his footsteps come for the door, and naturally you run as well. Despite the panic welling inside you, you still keep enough of your senses to move quietly as well as quickly, letting the threadbare carpet absorb as much of your steps as possible. The door directly across from the evidently occupied room had not been checked yet -it being next on your serpentine route- so you retreat back down the corridor to the last room you looked at with hurried steps. The man, whoever he is, opens his door just as you close your own, plunging yourself into muted darkness with the slightest snap of the latch.

The room is as you remembered it from your first look; as plane, uninteresting, and unoccupied as the rest. It’s the room between the stairwell you entered by and the occupied room you fled from, occupying the rear side of the building, and as a result it’s angled to catch the rays of the moon through its windows, decorating the floor with lavish pale beams that ensure its darkness is not complete. In short order your eyes adapt, its dimness not far removed from that of the corridor.

You listen at the door. The man is as damnably quiet as he ever was, but the floor boards beneath his feet are less so. The creaks place him roughly at his door, likely looking about the corridor for his mysterious latch lifter. You wait, quiet as can be, listening for the moment he withdraws his search. The moment stretches painfully as time wastes away in silence, neither of you willing to move from your spot, until eventually, after reminding yourself to breathe lest you pass out, the board’s creek, a mutter sounds, and his door clatters to a close.

The door to your room is one that opens inwards, thankfully, so anyone in the corridor would not have their eyes drawn to the bulging swing of a door. After a few more moments spent in silent stillness, you gently position yourself at the door so that you might open it by a crack and peer out into the hall way. The man’s sudden appearance and search was a little too close, but at least it’s over. Was it a bad call or just bad luck? Perhaps you should have knocked first? The darkness splits under your gentle pull, revealing the familiar light of the corridor, the soft glow of the lantern, the frayed carpet, and the form of the man now staring intently in your direction.

You close the door again.

Damn. Damn damn damn. You back up. He definitely saw you, or at least he saw the door open. But didn’t he... the answer comes to you, cutting like a razor: he faked it! He closed his door from the outside and waited for you to check if the way was clear! And you fell for it! Footsteps approach, but no damning voice calls out, not yet. You backup from the door but quickly reconsider: there is nowhere to hide in this room! Instead you dart toward it, to the other side of it, so that you can be hidden by the door itself when it’s opened.

And opened it is. A quick turn of the latch and a push sends it gliding wide in a far smoother motion than you would expect from its old wooden face or its aged hinges. By the grace of the gods, its ark stops short of clobbering you, or touching you much at all, though it’s a close thing. Light spills forth, held aloft by an unseen hand: a lantern from the hallway, or the room he left most likely. Your stiletto is silent as its point gently traces your thigh, slipping free of its sheath through the split in your trousers to taste the tension in the air.

“The fuck?” Confusion fills his voice, which rumbles slightly with an age that matched his briefly glimpsed face. You saw grey at his jaw, and his crown, held back by red cloth. Perhaps senility will win out, but you doubt it; old men don’t chase down shadows so vigorously.

Your heart hammers. There is quite literally only one place in this room to hide and you are in it. All he need do is push the door a little further and your presence would be revealed with the soft resistance of your body. He takes a step forward, past the threshold. You wait, mind blank with panic. Another step. He leans forward, letting the light spill across the full length of the room as though the moon wasn’t enough; still nowhere to hide. His fingers come into view, gripping the edge of the door. Another step and a pull, the hinges still silent in their turning. In a moment, after stepping aside to let it pass, he’s on your side of the door, and his eyes land on its only other occupant.

His confused and curious expression gives way to surprise as you spring forward, lunging at him with the point of your blade. You have to keep him quiet; it’s the only thought in your mind. A cry of alarm now -a scream, a yelp- and it’s all over. The blade is caught; halted by his outstretched hand as he grabs its sharpened edge by instinct, but you barrel on, putting all of your strength into your other arm as you punch him in the belly, just below the ribs. His cry of surprise and pain is cut short by a breathless wheeze, but still you carry on, pushing off the wall and letting your shoulder takes the place of your fist, shoving forward and turning his flinch into a fall. He’s bigger than you, and it feel like you’re toppling a tower, but your bodies clatter on the floor, its threadbare carpet **** the noise. His grip doesn’t relent on your knife’s blade, even falling, caught and driven by a wild panic strong enough to best the bite of its edge, **** to keep its point away from him. Your hand holds true as well, for the opposite reason, holding its hilt with white knuckles and pushing its point towards deadly goals. The result is the blade shuddering with strain as it hovers over various vital organs, moving point to point as you both push and pull, aiming and turning without pause. Can’t let him make noise. Not now, not ever. Your limited plan, formed in the heat of panic, is spent and it got you this far. Now you fumble and straddle atop of the man, one hand pressing down with the knife against his stronger but less well positioned hand. His other hand flails at you, but your free hand only has one concern. You put it to his face, over his mouth to keep him quiet, your palm mashing his lips and your fingertips brushing his eye as you press him to silence. The knife shakes in the struggle, held back from his heart. Harsh breaths slash back and forth through your gritted teeth as the seconds tick on, the deadly game intensifying as clouds of shock give way to strength and experience.

His other hand reaches low and grasps your crotch, twisting the fabric. It’s a standard move when you’re pinned by a man: grab him by the manhood, squeeze, pull, twist, dig in your nails. Some men -those prone to violent encounters- grow their nails out and sharpen them for this exact kind of brutal struggle. It’s very effective, on a man. As it stands, his hand merely rakes you painfully through the fabric of your trousers, once in desperation, and once again in confusion. It hurts, but not enough. His hand goes to the knife, to your arm holding it, slowly turning the blade away from him. At the same time, his knee razes sharply between your legs, bumping you up to kneeling over him. If anything, it helps: you plant your toes and raise your rear and you put all your meagre weight behind your hands, pressing down mouth and knife both. He raises it again, hard, nailing you square in the crotch with a bony kneecap. You may not be a man, but even through the blanking buzz of the struggle you wince and snarl at the pain of it. Again. Again. Again. Again. He slams against your crotch, sensing the pain it causes. Your hand slips at his mouth, pushing more upon his nose, and your attempt at a hasty reposition sees it slip into his jaws. Teeth break the skin. No noise. There can be no noise.

You pull back, looking to reposition; a quick roll of the dice on your part. The split second leads to a quick and frantic struggle. You knee him in the belly and free the knife of one of his hands, leaving it gripped by one hand each, yours on the handle and his on the blade. Your other hand takes his wrist, takes his mouth, takes his wrist; it can’t cover both. He takes a deep breath born to bellow. Finally, just in time, your other knee pins his throat as you now straddle him horizontally, your other knee in his belly.

You bare down with both hands on the knife, but his free arm is behind you, punching at your backside, your side, your legs, between them, wherever it can. His legs kick at the floor and at the air. You can’t do anything about them. They scrape and rattle in the melee and still you breathe through gritted teeth, wetting your mask with spittle. Those noises and the thumping sound of his free fist are all that can be heard. Still the knife doesn’t claim his heart. It shakes, and it aims true, but he’s still stronger. The punches of his other hand weaken and turn to grabs, his first pulling at the hem of your trousers, lowering them slightly but doing no harm, while his second grabs at the back of your top and yanks you backwards. It enough to give him the initiative with the blade, now streaming with blood from his cut hand, and push up with it, throwing you back and off him. A deep, rasping gasp comes from his throat, while the floor flogs you back with a rolling impact and the blade grinds on bones, finally free from his grip yet still locked in your own.

Your frantic imagination can already hear his scream; his cry for help yelled up at the ceiling from the floor. If it comes then only running will save you, if then. He cannot make noise. You scrabble back up to a half upright position and dive forward, throwing yourself across him. You writhe briefly together, this time aiming your knife for his throat, hoping the blades meagre edge can do the same for his neck as it did for his hand. You almost have to crawl up him, besting the hands that swat you back to eventually lay metal to his neck.

Time seems to freeze, and a moment all of its own is born. His bloody hand is on your knife hand, but it’s too slick to stop both of yours. His other hand grips your top, holding you back, yet it can’t keep you from tilting the blade and biting it into his flesh. You do so, just a little, and the hot blooded steel stops just shy of the main vain. The juggler, or jugular, you think it’s called.

Why aren’t you killing him? The fact that this man is a human being and may not deserve his **** doesn’t even occur. When it comes down to it, it’s him or you, and you prefer you. He’s stilled with fear, and breathing as hard as you, bobbing you up and down as you press yourself upon his chest. No words come. Finally, thinking catches up to your action and the reason for not killing him outright comes up in your mind. Hesitation turns to opportunity. Pressing the metal a little closer, you whisper hoarsely at him.

“Tell me where your captain is and I’ll spare your life.”

It barely sounds like you, whispered and rattled through murderous exhaustion. Even you would be scared to hear that voice. He, like you, struggles to switch from the life or **** struggle to the language used by civilised humans. He thinks, but it’s clearly an attempt to orient himself more than think of the answer. ‘Letting him think is bad’ you remind yourself. “Now.” You growl.

“Master suite. C-couple doors down.”

A glare and a press of the knife draws out a final “M-middle of the stairs!”

It’s enough to go on, but unfortunately can you really let him-

The moment your blades press eases in thought, the bloody hand still gripping your own (or more accurately, the thumb and still working finger of that ruined hand) seizes and turns it away from him. The hand grabbing your top yanks you in close, drawing your head in for a sudden impact with his own. A bright flash of light and pain leaves you dazed, while the hand that pulled you in soon shoves you back, but not free, holding you at bay with his outstretched arm.

He takes a breath.

Your free hand bats his arm, bending it in the middle and unlocking his elbow. It’s no longer enough to hold you up and you fall towards him once more, collapsing on his arm and letting gravity bring you together again. He’s doubled in your vision, but you hold out the knife and aim for the middle one.

The knife sinks in just below his ribs, turning his breath into a little winded gasp.

The knife sinks in just between his ribs, puncturing his troublesome lungs.

The knife sinks in just by his middle, glancing off the plate of bone that his ribs join.

The knife sinks in just by his heart.

The knife sinks into his heart.

The knife sinks in, and in, and in, and in, and in.

Your other hand covered his mouth after his arm gave out, and it aches from crushing his lips closed now. Foolish, you know. Utter exhaustion assails you before snapping back to frayed animal wariness as you listen to the noises of the house. Listen for the sound of raised alarms and running footsteps. Listen and listen. You hear nothing. The room flickers dimly, his dropped lantern unbroken and long since rolled to a stop. Its light, outside the mockingly still and pure beams of the moon, presents the spectacle of shaking hands and the comedy of them soon struggling to pull free the blade they so enthusiastically placed. It’s slick with blood from top to bottom. So are the hands, and the sleeves, and your mask, and your face. His life’s blood is spattered on your hair, hot and wet and as unwelcome as the body they left. Gods, you could rest forever after that.

The old man could as well, it seems.

The grim humour doesn’t help. It doesn’t slow your breathing any more, which you find is still annoyingly rapid. It doesn’t hide the sick slurp that sounds as cut muscle clings to your withdrawing black painted blade. You look at him unhindered, as if for the first time, not as some frightening abstraction -an unknown come to claim you- but as a man. He’s older; certainly older than you, but also old to most other people. He has a stubbly white beard that would look almost dignified if not for the red bandanna upon his head. His clothes are those a servant would where, or perhaps be fired for wearing: torn, stained, and patched almost to new again. You wipe the blade clean on them, careful to get the handle as well before it returns to the sheath on your leg. It feels hotter than before. Far hotter.

Who he was no longer matters, and thinking about it isn’t helpful. Even if he, in the den of a beast like Wendigo, was some kind of innocent, you can’t muster up anything but a dislike for him; the bastard who tricked you and worked so hard to ruin everything. They say people who fight each other come to understand or even respect each other, or something, but you reason that such things must only apply to men. Besides, he didn’t fight like an innocent.

Cleaning the blood off _you _is trickier than the blade as there is no part of him you’d want to use to wipe yourself. Instead, your sleeve bears much of the burden, once you find a space upon it that lacks any splatter. You clamber to your feet to stand over him, and promptly drop back to the floor when the pain kicks in. You feel considerably bruised in some quite sensitive places, and its sudden introduction is enough to catch you off guard. It feels as if...well, it feels as if a fully grown man has kneed you between the legs repeatedly, to say nothing of the myriad of other bruises and impacts layered across your body. Still, it’s an ache more than a pain, and the fact that you can now feel it tells you that you’re calming down; that, and your breathing sounding less and less like you’ve just run a full circuit of the island. You should start to feel other pains now as those injuries that you bore in the fight now catch up with you. He bit your hand, didn’t he? You look down at the angry red teeth marks between your thumb and forefinger. They’re visible, but he didn’t break the skin. In addition...yes, it definitely hurts. In fact, the more you look at it, the more it hurts, so you resolve not to do so.

You stand again, a little more gingerly this time, wincing at your bruises as you aim for the lantern. After scooping up its handle and setting it to rights, you survey the room that was so quickly turned into frantic battleground. It’s a nauseating mess. Blood pools beneath the man’s body with the lethargy of a leaky tub as no heart beats it free of his veins. You worry for a moment that it may seep through the floor and the ceiling below, but there is nothing you can do if it does. Instead, with upmost ****, you put down the lantern and grab the corpse, dragging it to the corner of the room. He can occupy the space behind the door, where you once occupied. The pool of blood and its resulting trail doesn’t look so bad, in so far as you can judge such things. At least, it probably won’t seep through the floorboards. Perhaps with his heart stopped he won’t bleed anymore at all. That’s how it works, right?

As though the question becomes irrelevant with your absence, you listen at the door very carefully before opening it and peeking out. No waiting people this time; the corridor is fully empty. You open and close your bitten hand a few times before you reach down and grab the lantern. After a mental back and forth about its usefulness, you snuff out its light completely and put it down before you depart and head back to the stop you reach before.

Darkness about the door confirms the lanterns origin, as well as confirming that he occupied the room alone. You open it and peek in, just out of curiosity, finding that the lantern was necessary after all. The rooms windowless dark is almost total, beaten back only by the light that spill in around you and a faint glow coming from a square looking hole in the wall, which you cross the distance to inspect. It’s very much a square hole in the wall, but more than that, it’s one that clearly leads downstairs, to a room lit enough to show the tray being held up by some kind of pulley system. A dumbwaiter of some kind? It could prove a useful escape route if it came to it, but you’re left with more worry than relief; you don’t like the idea of someone putting food on it only to find the hands at the top didn’t pull it up. You can only hope Captain Washkin isn’t hungry this evening.

With that in mind, you return to the corridor and proceed to the light at its middle. No doors between you and it have the tell-tale blush of light between their cracks or the mumble of voices behind them, though you don’t stop to inspect each one. Once you get to the well-lit middle, the double doors upon its centre have a radiance to them, especially compared to the now darker corridor. They glow with the soft light of the lanterns projecting onto them, but to your eyes they shine with an unmistakable danger as well. After closing the distance and standing just before the light, you confirm all you suspected previously. There is a landing, some banisters, and stairs. There is also a foyer of sorts where the sound of conversation drifts up from. It’s muttered though, and the few words you can pick out speak of gold and product. Merchants most likely, but more importantly they are at the bottom of the stairs. Crossing to the doors would be monumentally risky. Could the man have been lying? No. His eyes, and the situation; they both tell you no; that he was too wild and frightened to think in lies. That combines with the doors themselves, their grandeur and position centre stage. Now that you think about it, how could the captain be anywhere else?

It’s grim news, but as you peek out into the foyer itself -a fairly grand room with a central staircase and several large doors leading out of it- it’s not so grim as you first thought. The landing is quite high up and of a reasonable width; if you were to keep low and near to the far wall, those below would have a hard time seeing you. The men -five in all- are clearly merchants, huddled protectively around a stack of their boxed up and no doubt ill gotten goods and dressed in displays of wealth unwise for wear on an island such as this. They stand at the base of the stairs and are the rooms only occupants, leaving them blind to the lowest point of the landing above them. You’d still need to open the door enough to slip through, but with the business they’re conducting requiring they keep their suspicious eyes on each other, a low crawl could get you there.

It’s a risk, but not an insurmountable one.

Still, last time you opened a door, the result was nearly fatal. If all a near **** experience can get you is wisdom then you resolve to accept it gladly and humbly. Simply opening the door and moving in would be the height of foolishness. Perhaps you could use the room next door? If you listen through the wall, perhaps you could make sure the captain is really in there and if she’s with anyone. Thinking about it, you have no clue how to handle the captain or what to do next, so it may be good to take a break and think of something anyway.

Yes, good to take a break. You’re not hesitating, just...planning. Besides, you feel a headache coming on from where that bastard hit you.

A look back at the door on the edge of the corridors light shows a dark and lifeless looking room, and after a listen and a careful peek, the room lives up to its promise. It feels good to get out of the exposure of the corridor, yet strangely stifling to be back in one of the dark and secluded room attached to it. At least this one doesn’t smell of blood. It also has the benefit of being stacked high with various crates and boxes and other assorted hiding places. Despite the generous reach of the walls, it doesn’t really feel wide. The boxes make it feel cramped and the single window is narrow, if tall; another odd design choice by whatever drunk architect made this mess of a building. As you look at it, you try to work it out and eventually come to the realisation that the rooms on either side of this one must have taken priority. They expand inwards at angles, as though someone wanted an extra room made and decided to make it out of this one, leaving it nice and wide at the door but without the window light needed to make it nice to be in. Instead, the moonlight shining on the buildings backside doesn’t reach much beyond the alcove of the window. No wonder they use if for storage. You move to the boxes on the right hand wall and begin to listen.

“-haven’t told me what this is all about. It’s not that I don’t like the benefits of you, and your ‘company’, but I left important business to come here.”

The voice, worryingly that of a man, comes muffled through the wall. You can barely make it out, yet moving up the wall makes it clearer, placing them further toward the rear of the house. He’s responded to by an unmistakably feminine voice.

“Oh? What would that be?”

“Why have you called me here!? I’m not your dog you know! I can’t just drop everything when you call!” The man’s voice has a snarl to it, as though caught in a lie.

“Oh Roland, I’d never dream of owning a dog like you. We’re business partners! Relax! We have business to take care of and then _business _to take care of, and we have all evening and all night to do it. So...” The woman’s voice, sultry and promising, comes clearer as you meet your rooms first corner. Perhaps the wall is thinner here, or more likely there is more than one room on the other side and you’ve moved up to the one the captain is in. Either way the clarity goes from muffled rumbles to being able to hear the pouring of a liquid into a cup. “How about...” Make that two cups. “We have some wine and catch up. How are those trade routes I gave you?”

There’s a pause, and not one filled with drinking. The man, this ‘Roland’, seems to be mentally debating if this insult he heard was real or imagined and how to respond. Then again, you can’t see their faces, so you’re only guessing.

“Good.” He responds, letting the past comment slide. “But getting poorer”

“They’re getting poorer because you’re getting richer, no? Besides, my sources say that trade along those routs hasn’t completely dried up.” Her words are followed by another tense pause. “Oh, not that I’m accusing you of skimming off my cut! The earnings you’ve passed on are about right considering the traffic going through there. I was just wondering if you were ready for bigger things.”

This pause was different; subdued and pregnant. If peaked interest had a noise it would be reverberating through the walls right now.

“Bigger things?” The man finally responds. There is a game you’ve heard of played in the worst places or Coronac. Small stones are numbered and placed in the coils of a poisonous snake. The higher the number the higher the prize, but the players that rush in get bitten. If they’re playing with an adult snake then that’s usually fatal. From the slow care Roland is using to navigate this conversation, he’s dealing with an adult snake.

“Yes yes, but first, tell me all about your income; your successes and what you hauled. I want to hear all that I’ve missed in the last few months.” Captain Washkin (and despite not hearing her named, you’re sure it’s her) is quite airy by contrast. She sounds like she’s gossiping with some old friend.

Roland doesn’t see it that way. “Didn’t you get the reports? You’re the one who insists on them, I thought at least you’d read them!”

“I prefer to hear some things with my own ears.” The airiness is gone, the glint of fangs show, but in a voice that carries a smile. Her tone makes it clear that she will hear it with her own ears. Another pause sounds and Captain Roland begins to speak.

What follows is a somewhat tedious report of waters you’ve never heard of and ships -mostly small pearl or even fishing ships- boarded and looted. You try to retain it, it sounding like the kind of thing the Coronac Navel guard would love to hear, but you’re no seaman and the terms you don’t understand are too many and said too quickly. The Captain, for her part, interjects with questions and comments, ever attentive and encouraging. Some of what she says is actually quite clever, and quite insulting. Fortunately for her, most seem to go over her fellow pirates head. If anything, the positive sounding comments seem to make him more relaxed and the few insults he picks up on are met with far less intelligent declarations of her ex and current whorehood. Some are snarled, but most sound smirked.

The man’s reports of ships taken and lost don’t include lands, thank the gods. Land raids are the ones where the people are the prizes. The ones with the most tragedies. Nevertheless, his tales include a ship whose crew caused him trouble enough that he made them all swim home with broken legs. The mentality needed to break a wholes crews legs... The effect he wanted to inspire in people is clear, and effective. He also mentions an adventurous girl who was allowed to crew on a ship loaded with silk. Apparently she ‘didn’t last a week’. Perhaps you could kill him as well, as a bonus?

You think back as to who this man is and don’t have to think long. Captain Roland was on the list of subordinate captains sworn to Captain Washkin, each commanding one or more ships, yet each being more or less independent of her. They were different from her own appointed captains, drawn from her own crew; these men usually had ships already and used them for evil long before The Wendigo assembled them under her banner. Still, shouldn’t he be in the South? Or was it the North? If you’d thought he’d be here you’d have looked into him more. As it stand, you remember on a noted paragraph about him being a short and angry hothead, too direct and simple in his tactics to become any kind of legend: a classic thug. You’d have thought a mutiny would have taken him down by now.

You move down the wall as they talk, looking for the best place to sit and listen. What you find is far better. A speck of light adorns the back of one of the crates, shining like a beacon in the dark. The crate itself is relatively small and sits on a larger version below. It’s also relatively light, as you find when you very gingerly move it onto the floor and reveal the pinprick of a hole it guarded. You gingerly squat your sore rump and press your face against it, revealing nothing but a distant bed blurred by the holes small size.

“So apart from a silk ship and ‘less than half’ a tax ship, you’ve landed no really big fish?” Captain Washkins blunt words bookend the evidently finished story.

Angry, and more than a little defensive, Roland responds without hesitation. “Even sunk, what we got from that tax ship was worth your damn routes!” You hadn’t heard of any tax ships going down, but it’s not like the nobility or the merchants would advertise such a loss. Even half of such a ships contents would be worth a fortune. That it would barely be only a small fraction of Captain Washkins bounty speaks to how often she’d done the same.

“I’m not mocking you Roland! I think it was quite impressive! In fact, it’s because of displays like that that I’ve called you here.” This is followed yet another pause as Roland sees again the glint of gold hiding in that snakes embrace. It’s a pause answered by it maker, ever the seller of despicable ideas. “I’ve got a fish in the net just begging to be taken, bigger than any tax ship, and I bet you’re the man to help me do it.”

The hole is far too small to hear his gulp or the rasp of his tongue licking his lips. It’s too small and poorly positioned to see them at all. But the look of greed no doubt upon his face is projected into your minds eye by a voice of barely contained want.

“I’m listening.” He sounds it.

Wine is poured twice again, the story evidently having drained their cups, and the snake starts one of her own. One that you have no problems paying attention to. “The merchants union isn’t giving up the sea lanes. Not that they were going to. Instead they have convinced the nobility that further protection is needed to transport their goods. They’re sending convoys, with big fat prizes in the middle, and big fuck off walls of ships around them... and I want those prizes.”

A cup slams on the table, evidently downed by Roland. “Sounds good. How many and what are we hitting them with?”

Captain Washkins response is rote and practiced. “Fifteen ships. And we’ll be using Cutters three, six of mine, your two, John Croke, Graith, Kitcher, and I’ll be trying out a new blood called Shan-something.”

It’s met with a grunt of dismissive recognition. “Shan-Mahjour. I’ve met him; kids gonna buckle”

“Maybe. If he does then it’s my problem and my prize; his ship is quite nice.” Her salesmanship doesn’t falter at the possibility of her allies failure or the possibility of having to take his ship. All part of the plan.

“So it’s...” Roland does some quick math, you suspect with his fingers. “Fifteen to fifteen? What about-”

“Not quite.” Captain Washkin interrupts, apologetic but again, rehearsed. “Actually, its three ships that will be attacking, with the rest hanging back. And two of those ships will be yours.”

“Bullshit!” A chair scrapes and falls as Roland stands, his tone sounding threatened as though assassins were about to jump him.

Captain Washkin -cool, calm, collected Captain Washkin- speaks back with calm certainty. “There are two tricks in Conjack, which is where the ambush happens. I can show you-”

“The Navy will have back ships!” Roland spits back “And there is no trick to the Conjack constellation, except a clockwise current, which everyone knows about!”

In response to his words, Captain Washkin slowly scrapes her own chair as she stands. “Let me get my map, come on. There’s something I want to show you anyway.”

The clunking sound of a latch being lifted and a door opening reverberate through the wall, and the noise of the conversation warps as they pass from one room to another.

“I don’t need to listen to this. Attacking with numbers like that is wrong anyway” Captain Roland seems unwaveringly agitated, barking his confused assertions as they move and never once giving time to hear a response. “If it’s a strong convoy then they will have Galleons and I know Cutter doesn’t have shit! If we don’t out number them, it would be a disaster!”

Another set of doors open: the main landing double doors if you’re not mistaken. A spike of panic lances through you; what if the map is in here! You look for a place to hide and settle on some large boxes in the middle of the room.

“Roland, the map will show you why that doesn’t matter. Come this way.” You relax as the words and footsteps of the woman you’re here to kill fade away, moving down the corridor and away from you.

You take a pause of your own. What now? The whole point of being here was to come up with a plan, but staying here all night with a body rotting a few doors down doesn’t appeal. They’ve left, but they should be coming back soon enough, though the captain mentioned having ‘something else to show’ him. It would be quick enough to hop out of this room, dart to the double doors and enter. They spoke to no-one else and the Captain doesn’t seem the type to invite members of her crew to secret meetings, so the room is doubtless empty. Maybe you could lie in wait and ambush them? You have the vial of poison still strapped to your leg, unused; couldn’t that be useful in some way? Your thoughts drift you towards the small hole in the wall, as though you could enter the room directly through it. The problem you fear is the captain concluding her business and leaving. Worst would be if she left to return to her ship. She must know that the heart of that floating fortress is the safest place she could be; why spend time alone in a room any old assassin (or even Agent of the Right Honourable Principalities) could peek into.

You pick at the hole with an idle finger, aware that time is passing quickly. The soft powdery mortar dusts away easily, expanding the hole instantly from flickering pin prick to a finger width shaft of light. Between a risky ambush and staying to watch, surely staying is safer. You have your doubts as to whether you can take on two seasoned pirate captains at once, even with surprise and poison on your side. But by a body being found or the captain slipping through your fingers, you are up against the clock.