Startup 92: Security

Sunlight streamed through the everpresent clouds, creating a spotlight upon Alice. The short half elf, face twisted into a sneer, looked down her nose at “Captain Laurent.” Hot blood had splashed onto Sosima’s hand from the first wound she’d bestowed, and she could taste the memory of it on her tongue. Blood tasted divine to a ghoul, and Sosima couldn’t shake the wild urge to lick her own blade even if it wouldn’t taste the same as it once had.

Sosima surveyed the field, her eyes unfocusing so she could take in everything. Shishe coughed, spitting up scarlet blood. In the initial strike, two men had attempted to bury daggers into her back, and one had succeeded in impaling her shoulder as she twisted away. She looked down at the injury, a distant, shocked expression on her face, as if she couldn’t believe they would do such a thing. The whole world seemed to stand still, allowing Shishe to speak even as the two men hauled back their arms for a follow-up strike.

“You… you…” She said, her voice deepening into her natural sultry contralto, “Oh, you poor deluded fools!”

Sosima watched as Shishe cackled, completely losing her breath for a moment. A massive grin split Laurent’s face, growing more unhinged and predatory by the second. She jabbed her fingers at the two men, nails extending into dagger length blades which she snapped contemptuously, leaving the broken off pieces to melt away into golden goop deep within their bodies.

Sosima took that as her cue, and began a rapidfire stomping rhythm with her boots. She distantly assessed the battlefield, and found it to be in a rueful state. Her foes numbered four even if she assumed Shishe, an infiltrator by nature, to be able to handle half of them alone in open combat, and willing to do so rather than flee to save her own skin.

ACCEPT.

Sosima swirled around in a quarter pirouette, ignoring the voice inside. A circling blow was a dangerous gambit, powerful but predictable, but she had half a foot and fifty pounds on her opponent, nearly all muscle. Her superior strength and mass were simply too much for the spindly elf to manage. She did not draw blood, but his near perfectly executed block still jarred his sword arm badly. The clang of their blades meeting resonated through him, amplified by Sosima’s magic and tearing at his muscles. He dropped his blade and staggered back, ears ringing.

The man’s companion with an overhead chop, and she instinctively shifted her weight to take the blow on the curved surface of a pauldron she did not currently have. The blow struck her shoulder, partially glancing off the mail as intended but still striking with enough force to bruise.

ACCEPT.

She took the briefest moment of focus to activate the rune hastily etched into her blade, and the air grew noticeably colder as she did. A faint wind passed her face as the very air was sucked into the Nothing of her blackening blade. Her next reckless strike knocked aside the offending elf’s guard, leaving him open on the backswing. She nearly beheaded the woman, but took another blow in the process, this one piercing through her mail and drawing blood from her thigh. Two down, two to go.

She ignored the pain; such injuries were beneath notice. Once she dispatched these twigs she could mend her injuries easily enough by siphoning power from Vishgurv. The certainty that she could heal herself allowed her to burn twice as bright as a normal soldier could hope to, and the numbers demanded such risks. So very far from support, her only hope was to disperse this rabble through sheer ferocity.

ACCEPT

••••••••••

The engine of the Hippocampus was suspended upon a set of eight taut ropes, floating in the very center of the ship’s hold. A large brazier, currently empty of anything but ashes, sat beneath it. Syl circled the thing once, stepping over lifeless corpses and wondering what, exactly, the glittering silver drum did.

Hardly matters. It’s ours now and I’m willing to bet it could sell for a pretty penny.

“Conchobar.” Syl said, “Let’s move.”

Conchobar was already elbow deep in a bag he’d been entrusted with for this mission. He pulled out two goblin sized hatchets and a saw, all wrapped in old rags. They weren’t intended as weapons, small and unwieldy even in the hands of smallfolk. They’d be perfectly adequate as tools, however, and at Syl’s direction the two Kenku started hacking away at the stiff ropes.

“Dierdre.” Conchobar said. “I can’t use this thing anymore. Take it somewhere safe, ok?”

He handed the little fairy the Horn of Honor, and she only pouted for a few seconds before flitting away. She’d be back once she stowed it somewhere inaccessible, or failing that handed it to Filli.

“You use the saw.” Syl said, “I’ll watch the door.”

It was slow going; every rope was harder to cut than the last. With just a little bit of slack introduced, the axes were far more likely to glance off, hit different spots with each blow, or lose force to stretching. The first two were easy enough, but the next pair bounced and vibrated wildly with each blow. The saw worked just fine, but was not a particularly quick tool by its nature. Minutes stretched out, and Syl’s nerves stretched taut as they did.

The first time that a pair of half elves came down to check on what was happening with the engine, Syl erred towards the theatrical. She had her stealth suit active, making most of her body fuzzy and indistinct in the dark. With her hood up, that included her ears. Thanks to her monochromatic white eyes, her face looked plausibly elven. Dierdre’s magic would do the rest, loosening her tongue substantially and giving her lies the force of truth.

“Rejoice, elven brothers.” Syl said, “Your engine has been selected to aid in the Winter Council’s war upon the drow. Know that your contribution to our efforts will be eternally appreciated.”

Syl supposed that she could have wrestled her diction back into her natural register, but the entire point of the exercise was to appear to be someone else. The only reason these two were still alive is that she needed a clear enemy for the real Laurent to latch onto other than Emrys.

“Did… Did she say she’s stealin’ the engine, bruv?” One of the two elves said.

“That's not on.” Said the other, glaring at Syl. “Not right in the middle of a battle. Get off the ship and the Cap’n might forget you tried anything.”

“Alas, I did hope for compliance.” Syl said, “Should you force my hand, your blood shall be spilled unnecessarily.”

She drew her blades with a dramatic flourish, twirling them between her fingers. In the shadows they caught the light, almost seeming to float there thanks to her hidden arms.

“We… We’ll be right back.” Said the first elf, turning to run along with his fellow.

“I hope you are moving quickly.” Syl said, peeking into the engine room. “I’ve established our cover, but I’d prefer to avoid a fighting retreat.”

“I’m afraid you have other problems to deal with.” Came a voice from down the other hall. “Far more dire, and even more immediate.”

Syl jumped at the sight of a skeleton in a sodden dress, her hair clinging to a bone frame. It took precious seconds for her to recognize Mariana, the Catrina Emrys had sent along. Syl groaned. Mariana could teleport, but she had only intended to do so if everything went horribly wrong, or the job was completely finished. She glanced back and saw Conchobar was almost done with the last rope.

“What happened?” Syl demanded, “Also, can you teleport back to the Enterprise with this thing?”

••••••••••

Silk sobbed in Naomi’s arms, where she’d deposited herself minutes earlier. The pale half-drow had come to Naomi and demanded to meet in private, a furtive expression on her face, and collapsed into tears the moment that the door was closed. She’d then launched into a perfectly coherent, plausible tale about how a member of the Enterprise crew had forced her compliance. She claimed he pinned her down and forced her to accept a brutal railing in her hindquarters, which was off limits as she could sustain injury from rough treatment in the back door.

“I’ve already told Madame Rawna, of course.” Silk said, blowing her nose in a handkerchief, “I’m just hoping you can get that brute away from me.”

Naomi might have been caught up in the story, might have even taken the girl’s side, if it weren’t for two things. First, Milo chimed in to warn her that these were crocodile tears, in the voice he used for pointing things out that he thought she should already know. Her voice was too steady, and she kept checking Naomi’s face for a reaction. Second, and this might have been enough on its own, Silk had accused Cog.

If the tale had been about Cog trying to convert the girls to his faith and making them uncomfortable, Naomi would have believed it. If Tuya had asked that he be kept away from her because he kept staring, Naomi would have complied. An accusation of Cog, of all people, getting physical with a prostitute? It just seemed implausible.

Of course, he could just be pretending to be decent. Maybe he resents his mother. Took it out on one of the girls.

Dame…

You’re right. Especially with the fake tears.

Play along. No sense snapping at her now if you don’t know what it’s for.

“I’m very sorry that happened to you.” Naomi said, with a voice that sounded wooden even to herself. “I’ll need to speak to him before I can do anything.”

“Oh?” Silk said, raising her voice, “Is he threatening you too? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. Please, just forget about it. I would hate it if I got you in trouble.”

Silk wordlessly popped up and left the room, almost too quickly for Naomi to notice her mostly dry cheeks.

Dame. The walls have ears. Who’s next door? No way a line that bad was for your sake.

Naomi ran through the schedule in her head. On one side was a halfling girl sleeping with Ratts, and on the other was Tuya servicing Salyar. She let out a long sigh. One thing was definitely true. She needed to talk to Cog about Silk’s story.

••••••••••

Shishe danced away from her foes, the first of whom were already growing sluggish. The shallow cuts were barely worth looking at on the battlefield, but as the golden venom melted into their bloodstream their limbs began to seize up.

Even so, it was a slow process and a low dosage, so it seemed unlikely they’d be paralyzed from a few broken fingernails. Worse, the two men that had been supporting Mariana’s weight were not caught off guard by her deadly hands. They launched themselves at her, and wide, sweeping blows with their cutlasses chopped off strips of flesh that quickly dissolved into golden goop.

Alice’s eyes widened in a look of sheer outrage, and continued to widen until they bulged slightly from her head as massive compound eyes. Her clothes dissolved into golden slime, reforming into black and yellow carapace. Her ears lengthened into proper elven points, and within seconds she looked nothing like Matilde Laurent’s half elven aide.

The two vendenopterix met eyes for only a moment, and Shishe realized that she was entirely screwed. Any one of her sisters was, as a general rule, her equal in combat. They were all crafted from the same mold, granted all the skills Callistria deemed them to need as instincts, and precious few underwent the level of training needed to push past that point.

“Sister!” Alice snarled, “You would serve the betrayers?”

Shishe winced as her wings formed, bursting from her back with a painful tearing sound that splattered gold slime all around her. She tossed herself back, off the edge of the cliff, and the wings buzzed and held her aloft, out of reach of the away team.

“They aren’t traitors, sister.” Shishe said, “They’re sick. I’d trust even a drow over someone like you, who can’t see that.”

Shishe wasn’t sure if she fully believed that, but Emrys at least seemed decent enough. She’d perused enough drow minds in Heslandaena to know there was quite a bit of variance among them, and her Mistress had chosen at least one to bestow power upon. However, her words were chosen entirely because she could tell at a glance what the response would be.

Alice’s own wings buzzed as she roared in rage at the insult, and she leapt into the air towards Shishe. The injured Vendenopterix had no intention of brawling with a fresh opponent when she was already injured, and fled. Sosima would need to handle the remaining six elves herself, but at least she wouldn’t also face a handmaiden of Callistria.

••••••••••

Emrys shoved his hand out in front of Sandara’s face, forming the signs for “What North?” As always, it was extremely tempting to act like she just didn’t know what he was asking. It was more fun to improvise, after all, and she really wasn’t very good at this new hand language.

She quashed the impulse, but on the other hand she actually didn’t know exactly what the thing she was swimming towards was. Not for certain. She suspected that it was something that didn’t much care for krakens, but until she could get a good look at the ship’s prow she was betting on a middling hand. She didn’t have the signs to explain that, so instead she angled upwards and breached the surface, popping up out of the water like a dolphin. That’s when she was reminded that, while she could breathe water, it wasn’t actually turning into air in her lungs.

A torrent of water sprayed out of her mouth as she tried to explain her plan, which Emrys obviously wasn’t going to pick up much meaning from. That was probably fine; she didn’t see any divine parrots so they could probably afford to be on the surface for a few moments while her lungs swapped out the water for air. She took the opportunity to squint through the rain, which was somehow wetter than full submersion, and wrangled her notion into an actual plan. No dice on the ship’s name from this distance, but it was a big one, and old. Even better, the island was clearly in view. They were heading in approximately the right direction, they just needed to slide past these nosy gents.

Besmara employed plenty of ghost ships; hells, Sandara had worked on one for a week! Those seemed much more likely as a blockade in this storm than ships crewed by the living, but they still sailed like normal ships for the most part. Dredged from the bottom of the sea, repaired, and crewed by the damned, but ultimately just Besmara recycling her dregs. They couldn’t move like the thing floating through the rain to intercept them. She could only think of a few ships in Besmara's fleet that could, wracking her brain for the tales. Of those, only one was likely to face this level of indignity, sitting alone in a storm on guard duty when not needed elsewhere.

So it was either a normal ghost ship with a very impressive crew that lost one too many rounds of dice, which they could hopefully evade, or it was Besmara’s Herald, the Kelpie’s Wrath. The Kelpie’s Wrath showed up in a few stories, enough for Sandara to know a bit about the guy.

He was a ship animated by the soul of some bigshot pirate around a century back, and acted as his own captain. Working on his crew was probably the most prestigious post a draugr like Sandara had been could hope to work up to. Moreover, he was a right cunt that Besmara preferred to keep far away from herself.

There were only a few stories about him, since he didn’t care to talk about himself and didn’t mind killing anyone who speculated too freely, but she knew one thing because he was damn proud of it. He never passed up an opportunity to hunt sea monsters, particularly sea serpents, saltwater hydra, and krakens.

“We need to get the Kraken to come after us.” Sandara said, “Then we make the last dash. They’ll distract one another.”

Sandara shifted her weight and the water carried her in a wide arc around the island. She could imagine Emrys’s face, that one where the light goes out of his eyes as he realizes he lost control of the situation. She’d be perfectly happy to hear an alternative, if he could manage to communicate one. With that in mind, she plunged back into the depths so that he’d get distracted by the mass of animated seaweed trying to kill them.

••••••••••

Sosima twirled and stomped, pulses of sound lashing her foes as she did. That was good, because precious few of her actual strikes were landing on the agile elves. She spent nearly every second on the backfoot, shifting slowly, feinting, and draining her foes stamina with her blade. Her initial burst of recklessness had not granted her the breathing room she needed, because these stupid fanatics seemed intent on throwing themselves upon her blade.

ACCEPT.

She tried to angle herself towards the plank. The piratical gibbet would be the safest place for her, if only she could reach it. There, she could balance and face the elves one by one. The elves realized this, or perhaps they simply were intelligent enough to restrict her movements on principle. They encircled her, each fading back as she faced them and surging forward when she turned away.

They took few risks, and she could tell it was more a matter of confidence than cowardice. She was moving with fluid grace now, but her rapid, energetic movements were quite a bit more demanding than a steady stance and the occasional step forward or back, seal of the void or no.

It was a limitation of her style of combat, more meant for duels than prolonged engagements. Sosima could maintain longer than most, but it was unlikely she’d be able to kill the whole crowd with wild bursts of sonic energy no more deadly than a firm punch. Even so, what else could she do but dance for this most deadly audience?

ACCEPT

She felt hot tears run down her cheeks unbidden, as she belatedly wondered what would happen if she died. Would Emrys choose to resurrect her, whatever the cost? Would this death serve to simplify things for her, or only deepen his debt? Some spiteful part of Sosima wanted only to rest, to die gloriously and hope that everything would turn out ok.

I can’t do that to him.

THEN ACCEPT

Sosima’s shoulders shuddered and she let out a sob, then her body began to twist. The loosely cinched mail coat grew tight upon her body as layer upon layer of fat and scales filled it out. Her eyes lost their golden glow, darkening to coals as black as her blade, portals into the abyss. The bruises and cuts she’d accumulated through the battle began to fade and mend as Vishgurv knit her slowly breaking body back together.

She let out a roar with a mouth too wide and too full of teeth, and barreled forward before they could react. One man was impaled upon her blade. One shied away from her savage left claw. The last, the one in the center, she crashed directly into. Her jaw snapped, and ripped away a mouthful of flesh from his throat. The artery severed, pouring blood into her mouth.

Oh, Abadar forgive her, it tasted every bit as good as she remembered.