Down the corridor.

Dago decided that walking up the stairs would lead to guards and sea serpents and he wasn’t entirely keen on seeing another giant snake ever again. He carefully picked his way down the corridor, trying to avoid getting any wetter than he already was.

He finally walked through a tall archway to see a huge hourglass that had a faint blue glow to it. Dago slowly approached it in awe, to see that there wasn’t sand in the hourglass, but there were tiny blue floating wisps. He touched the glass and found that his hand was able to go through it. He reached out to touch one of the wisps and suddenly his mind went blank.

He opened his eyes and felt like he was dreaming. He looked up and saw a cute young woman staring down at him, like she was sitting on him. She leaned down and kissed him chastely on the lips. Dago blinked a couple of times, finding he was unable to move of his own volition.

He shut his eyes, but they were immediately pried back open. He was staring at two open graves as two caskets were lowered into them. He looked over to his right and saw that young woman was holding his hand, looking up at him with sadness and pity.

He turned back to look at the graves, but found he was looking at a pile of bills in a language he didn’t understand. The red numbers were clear; apparently this man was in a lot of debt. Dago reached over involuntarily and took a whole bottle of what appeared to be liquor. He tried to look back at the bills, but his vision whitened again.

He was standing in the rain, speaking the young woman. Her light blonde hair was matted to her head and she looked like she was yelling and crying. Dago couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she looked like she was having a nervous breakdown. Dago tried to reach out to her without realizing it and she was already gone, running down the street.

Dago suddenly saw her again, but she was older. She looked much happier this time and was holding the arm of a good-looking business man. She had an infant in the other arm, a little boy who looked no more than a few months old. They looked like the picture of a perfect family.

Dago wasn’t look at them anymore. He was staring at the ground with both of his hands in sight. He looked up and saw the pirate or privateer man with the cold green eyes. He looked pleased, but still aloof. Dago felt something akin to a dull pain…

Dago blinked when he realized he had pulled his hand away from the wisp. What in the hell was that? He stared at his hand for a moment, unsure of what the fuck had just happened. Did he just see someone else’s life? Why would he see that? What in the hell were those blue lights? Dago took a step back from the hourglass for a moment to inspect it.

It was about ten feet tall and made out of a shining, highly polished glass and silver material. There were huge, black metal chains running across it and when Dago went to investigate the back, there was an equally huge black metal lock. It was probably half Dago’s height; it was impressive. He suddenly heard some noises, voices. He stayed behind the hourglass, to avoid being seen.

“Captain, the prisoner hasn’t been found yet, why are we down here?” came a voice. Dago peeked around the hourglass to see a very tall dark-skinned man speaking to the same cold-eyed privateer who’d interrogated him on the ship.

“Because even if that man doesn’t know Dimitri, Dimitri knows him and isn’t exactly cooperative,” the man replied waspishly, “Really, Lotan, do I have to do all the thinking for you? If I can’t figure out by asking, I’ll just invade Dimitri’s soul. It is mine, after all.”

Lotan hissed like a snake in displeasure, “Captain Leviathan, if I may speak freely?”

“Denied, Lotan,” Leviathan said with a frown.

Dago frowned, too. This man was Leviathan, then, king of Envy. That explained a lot, which meant Dimitri was here, unfortunately. Leviathan approached the hourglass and pressed his hand into it, flexing his fingers. All of a sudden, a specific wisp flew to his hand. He was silent for a few moments before he withdrew his hand.

“Very interesting, that man we picked up is his grandson,” Leviathan said with a curled smile, “I knew it, he’ll make a lovely addition to the Archer set.”

“The fuck?!” Dago said, without meaning to.

Ah shit, he realized when Lotan and Leviathan were on guard all of a sudden. He’d given away his position.