Yutzen

In an upside-down forest of lichens and mold, clinging tightly to the dangling, dripping flora, a swallow and a skink crept their way from one stalactite to the next, with one eye always fixed on the rolling, dusty expanse below. One flew between them with ease, a streak of red and blue that flitted from one to the other and dug her spurs into the moss to survey the next flight, while the other practically submerged into the mass of lichen, with little more than their turquoise crest poking out from underneath. There was half a mile between them and the dunes, and they knew not even the “sand” that shaped them – a deep, sodden layer of fuzzy spores and other drifting detritus flowing from the forests to the North – would soften their fall if they slipped off the ceiling… But they hardly worried; even the one that couldn’t fly had a grip that would hold tight on bare rock, let alone these gnarled, overgrown fronds.

“Don’t start slipping now, I don’t wanna have to catch you.” Even the Cheli’s whispers were shrill, almost unwelcome in this breezy silence, and her sneer only made them worse. “You and that rifle of yours that’s gotta be half your weight. They’re gonna hear you all the way in the fucking Lakes with that thing!”
“You’d be surprised” was the Troxi’s reply, calm as they could manage under the strain of moving upside-down. “Besides, isn’t this a distraction, miss Chitwy? Better for them to hear the shot, make them realize it?”
Chitwy hung from her talons to face them, fixing them with a scowl before she deigned respond. “If you actually nail the shot, you don’t need the noise, it’s a bigger giveaway than anything else! You’re lucky this place barely has any echo, we’d be found real quick if it did.”
“Again, doesn’t that make the distraction better? We’re not the ones piloting a whole airship through the stalactites, looking for two little figures scrambling through the moss.” The skink was barely even looking at her, their eyes wandering all over the land beneath, admiring a landscape they’d never seen.

“Look…” Chitwy lingered, lingering on an empty pause where a nickname should be, before giving up. “Qarretzu, was it? Sure, this is a distraction, but we’re also supposed to survive this. Tag them and leave, gotta make sure they search where we ain’t, and where the boss and the others ain’t. And a big roaring gunshot’s good for the second one but it sure fucks us over!” Her wings stretched towards the distant ground, and reaching behind her, the claws on them pulled out a simple, dusty bow and a single arrow, which she couldn’t help but glare at. “I swear, just hitting one guy with one of these would be enough, they don’t even hear anything, and by the time he’s lying on the deck we’re just gone. But that’s the simple way, and that isn’t how we do things in this enterprise, isn’t it?”

The Troxi, however, was busy looking at the bow, and for once in this whole climb, he looked less than impressed. “Miss Chitwy… with all due respect, if we have to get close enough to use that they will see us, which is… worse. We might not get to shoot the ship in the first place that way…” After a second of thought, they looked back at the Cheli, with just a bit of embarrassment. “Or I might not, at the very least, miss Ziv-Ziri said you had practice with close-up hunting, with hiding until the last moment. I don’t, miss, my forte’s not at point blank range…”

Chitwy stared at the rifle in their hands, then at its wielder. Back at the rifle, long and soot-stained and scratched up, then back at the Troxi. She looked like she wanted to scowl, but was holding it in. “Fine then. You’re the new guy-”
“I’m not a guy, miss Chitwy”, they cut in with just a smidge of annoyance.
“Right. You’re the new hire, you tell me what your forte’s supposed to be here, that’ll keep us from getting blasted off the ceiling and falling off in little pieces?”

They’d heard a few warnings already about this one, but if they were to guess, it’d seem something about the rifle or its usage just set her off entirely… still, she wanted the facts, she’d get the facts. And so they began, hefting the weapon into their hands and looking it over. “I don’t need to get that close, miss Chitwy. I don’t need to get close at all by any metric, not with this one. I don’t mean to criticize your aim, but a bow is a bow, and this…”

A smile crept into the Troxi’s face, one that showed plentiful fangs – even the new ones, growing to replace the ones they lost back in the Luscent Steppe. Right where they got this rifle, from what would’ve been one of their captors had it not been for those two… A newer model from the Republics, a brassy repeater with a barrel that was almost too long for comfort, a Flarewood stock and room for ten bullets, each of which could kill even a war machine with the right aim. Hardy and deadly, everything one could ask for in the field if you had the size and know-how. “When you need to kill and run, being a mile away always helps, and this little beauty can make that happen, maybe even further. Mm, I have to wonder why it was in the hands it was, back there. That one seemed like the biggest idiot of the lot. And too short for it. Ironically…”

Yet when they looked back at the swallow, she looked skeptical. Baffled, even. “A fucking mile.”
The skink smiled just a little wider. “Maybe more, in fact, in good hands. And I’d like to think mine are! Proved it during my, erm, recruitment, didn’t I?”
Chitwy’s beak opened, but it took a few moments for her to actually say anything. “Alright, fine, I’ll give you THAT. But… still, a mile!? You know the kind of arc you need to land a shot a mile away, everything that can go wrong in that kinda travel time!?”
Their smile fell back to neutrality, and it took slight effort to keep it from falling to a scowl. “This… isn’t a bow, miss Chitwy. It doesn’t fire an arrow, you won’t see a bullet. You hardly need an arc for it, the shot’ll be there if you know how it’ll go.”
The Cheli remained unimpressed. “Don’t start acting like I don’t know what a bullet is, or like I can’t see one, you don’t know my eyes! But I know everything that can go wrong in half a second, or less, and with that kind of distance, it’s even WORSE. A shot a mile away does nothing if you miss it, other than give us away!”
Now Qarretzu frowned, stopping themselves before they outright snarled. “Miss Chitwy, I don’t appreciate these… t-these comments of your, if you have these doubts about what I can-”

They stopped cold, and both pairs of eyes turned downwards, to the empty air underneath.

Breaching through the spore-laden fog, the two saw an oblong shape, bigger than either of them would expect or hope. And on a closer look, they saw it had plenty of far less oblong shapes all over it, a variety of unidentifiable fiddly bits and points; some of them presumable weapons thanks to their length, and far too many of them much harder to infer. And with the sight of it, came its sound, a constant, rattling hum that should’ve been far louder to match a thing of that size.

An airship. An Urul Canyonking, to be exact, prowling what the Bannerbound thought was the rightful edge of their nation. It would’ve been overkill for the Pact’s hunting parties that usually wandered here, and it was definitely overkill for them, yet here it was, lingering and ready to rain down hell.

The first to break the silence was Chitwy – which Qarretzu was almost thankful for, despite wishing she’d shut up moments before. “Why the fuck is one of these here? That’s not some patrol boat, that’s an actual fucking warship! Did the Pact start something without telling me? Are we caught in the fucking crossfire!?” She landed on a stalactite, creeping backwards into the thick mass of lichen almost on instinct. Again, she chirped to herself, quiet yet perfectly audible to them: “No, couldn’t have been away so long that I’d miss a fucking war, this has to be some… coincidence. It’s alone, right? It’s gotta be alone.”

After a moment, the skink cleared their throat, and offered a meek answer. “I’d… I-I’d like to think so, and I can only see one, much as we almost missed t-this one…” They clung to rock and rifle alike so closely they found themselves with no free hand to use, and barely enough space to maneuver and keep an eye on the vessel… The oversized vessel, dozens of feet below, just past the stalagmites. “O-on the plus side, I don’t believe anyone there’s seen us yet. That’s a positive, I hope, though the idea of making them look up…” They couldn’t finish. Not when the thought of having to distract that crept into their head.

Yet as the vessel passed underneath, they both realized they’d have to do it, because if this drifting metal hulk caught so much as a whiff of the team down below in their wagon… it was a sturdy thing, sure, a boxy assembly of brass and iron with thick plate all over, and even the triangular cabin jutting out front for the driver was pretty reinforced for something so glassy. But it wasn’t a war machine in the least; just one cannonball would scatter team and wagon alike across the dunes, in smoldering pieces. Down there, they’d have little room to maneuver around an actual fusillade, especially of the caliber this aerial monster packed. Up here, they’d have far more maneuverability, they’d barely be seen, and they had actual cover, even if that meant little against the artillery battery pointed at…

“...wait how many of those are actually pointing up?”, Chitwy blurted after a moment of thought. “I don’t see any.”
And with a longer look, Qarretzu couldn’t help but confirm this suspicion. “Actually… hardly any, as far as I see. There may be some… observation decks, and… those are bare hardpoints, aren’t they?” They asked absentmindedly, noticing some oddly clean and oddly bereft spots over its armor.
The swallow nodded. “I guess, I think I see sockets but I sure don’t see guns.”
A different thought crossed Qar’s mind in turn. “Now that I think of it, it’s flying fairly high, isn’t it? We’re… closer than I’d like, but that might mean something. No guns above, and nearly scraping the roof…”
And the Cheli answered in turn, showing some actual joy for once. “It means something, alright. They’re not expecting us.”

And with that, she took off without warning, flitting from pillar to pillar, mosspile to mosspile, hiding her approach towards the dirigible below with bow in hand… nothing more to it, the Troxi thought. Time to make a distraction. It’d be nice to have her as a spotter, but they were understaffed as it was. Nothing left to do but to crawl into the lichens, wrap their tail around an uneven rock, and get into position with their rifle aimed downwards, pointed at the airship, looking for anything that looked like a soft spot, even just a window to smash or a sentry to drop. Ideally something opposite of where Chitwy was going, to keep their attentions away from her, and perhaps make them think they were being attacked from two different angles. If they wanted to be a hassle, and make themselves harder to find, that’d be ideal…

Yet circumstance wouldn’t let them have it, as the first watcher to take up their spot on the decks was right on the Cheli’s side, becoming priority target number one. If the blurry shape down there so much as looked up, they’d blow their surprise. So they took aim, readying up a snap shot towards the deck, something that would distract this one even if they missed – if the alarm was to ring, better that it ring before they knew where to point their guns. With the target in sight, obscured by clothing as all Bannerbound were – a raincoat of sorts, might be Clan Sofize – they felt the wind running through the vines and their scales, took a second to measure the ship’s speed, accounted for it all as they aimed… then tilted said aim just a tinge, to make sure the shot would land behind the target if they missed. More distracting that way.

BLAM

Sparks flew, but a few inches away from the sentry’s heels. Damn it. At the very least it would indeed be a distraction, as the target wheeled around in a panic, almost stumbling away from the impact area and staring at the bullet hole, realizing just how close they’d come to death. Immediately they began glancing around, immediately looking upwards-

And missing the shadow that flitted a few dozen feet behind them, as well as the thin blur that raced away from it and into their upper back. But Qarretzu sure saw it, watching the unfortunate sentry seize and collapse with an arrow right through them. Nice to see she could pounce on a chance like that without being told of it.

Nevertheless, they were committed to this little operation now, the shooting had started and they couldn’t stop yet. On to the next bullet, and to set an eye to the scope to see who came out next. Or what was next, with a rifle like this possibilities were fairly wide. First, a wider look around the hull, to see if any of the hardpoints had anything left open, or if the other observation decks had anyone on them. Scanning the outside, all over the plating, they saw nothing to pounce upon, not immediately at least. The hardpoints were plated over, and no one was yet leaving the observation decks…

Even as the vessel started tilting, turning towards its left, there was no immediate weak point exposed. At most, the observation decks were a little more visible and open, with one’s door just exposed enough to put a bullet through, even if Qarretzu had little idea of what laid behind it…

Nine bullets left. Might as well.

BLAM

Good, right through the window! Hardly any idea what they’d just hit on the other side of it, but it would’ve felt that shot for sure. On to the next bullet, again… though the Troxi felt a pang of curiosity, and looked around, just a bit away from the warship beneath, to see if they could spot Chitwy anywhere. Their eyes glanced around, all over the vessel’s surroundings, trying to spot even the slightest hint of red and blue, but that was far harder to find in this fog than the airship itself. Not even so much as a flitting shadow…

There she was! Lit up by a searchlight that had just turned on, pointed right at her as she zoomed towards the vessel itself, loosing an arrow at the spot right above the light – which got stuck halfway through the hardened window behind the projector. Damn it, even knowing she had that light right in her eyeballs that was far too impulsive – much as hitting it at all with a searchlight blinding her was remarkable, let alone breaching the damn thing somehow. Had some frightful strength on her claws, clearly. Still, she was spotted, the thing was following her, and it also presented a much more valid target than an empty window if it meant drawing attention from the crew. So, with a careful squint, making sure not to get too much light in, Qarretzu aligned their ironsights, accounted for movement and breeze, aimed for the very center, and…

BLAM

The crashing and sparking of the searchlight were barely audible at this distance, but the beam of light cutting through the fog visibly shorted out, before vessel and Troxi alike lost track of where Chitwy had gone. Watching the ship tilt further, just enough for other searchlights to start scraping the tips of the stalactites, they decided that was too much provocation from this one spot, and packed their rifle away to start moving. Better to find another stalactite to hide in, three shots was more than enough for this one. Into the brush of lichens, slipping their tail inside and lowering their crest as they crawled their way through the ceiling’s underbrush, hoping the trail of dust and spores wouldn’t give them away…

“We sure got their fucking eyes on us now! Get over that one, they won’t see it at first!”

It sure gave them away to the swallow herself, flapping in the air about a dozen feet away already. “You’re… fast, miss Chitwy”, the Troxi couldn’t help but blurt out.
“FINALLY finding out for yourself, huh!?”, she answered, stopping herself from outright shrieking. “Just keep moving, they’ll show more of those soon!”
“More searchlights, yes… Ideally, we take enough of those out, they won’t be able to find us, or anyone”. Qarretzu mused out loud as they scurried through, reaching the ceiling and dashing from vine to vine to get to a better, smaller stalactite to crawl onto. A better vantage point.
“More ANYTHING, you mean! Maybe it’ll even be anyONE by then, if you can put one of those through a window like I fucking couldn’t!”. She sounded miffed. A hunter denied her kill…
“If I can see them, of course. I only have so many bullets… but they only have so many lights, and can hardly find us even with them.” They popped their head out of the underbrush to answer, and found themselves at the base of the stalactite they were looking for. Down they went.
“Look, if by busting the lights you make them come out, then sure, keep at that and I’ll thin them out. But we gotta leave a mark!” She landed right behind them, clinging to the moss at the base while watching them crawl into the underbrush for a shooting spot.
“Ideally not so much that they keep hunting us after this, but enough that they’ll neglect our colleagues below, true…” Another musing from the Troxi, as they found a spot where they could wrap their tail around a rock, and get their rifle out once more…

Both settled down on the lichens for a look, to assess the vessel again, and locate any weak spots now that it had changed its plans and movements. “Not seeing anything yet, barely even turning the lights on on THIS side”, Chitwy muttered as she leaned with eyes peeled, “anything you’re seeing there?” Indeed, there were less targets than expected, though there were a couple searchlights already. No one on the observation decks, and the guns… they didn’t seem able to reach up where they were, yet, but they could hardly see any ammunition stocks, or anything other than the barrels. Though maybe, just maybe, if those things aimed directly up here, just enough to get a peek into the barrel, they could put a rifle shot down there and-

BOOM

...or maybe the guns could explode all by themselves.

“You’re not gonna fucking tell me that was YOU!?”, Chitwy shrieked, unable to contain her furious surprise.
“I-I won’t, miss Chitwy, I d-didn’t pull the trigger…!”, Qarretzu answered, about as startled if not more.

They looked again at the vessel, and the gaping hole it had right beneath one of its cannons. Pointed inward, ablaze, and clearly made by something with actual caliber, an actual artillery piece. The iron at the edges was still glowing hot, more melted than gashed. And more importantly, by the angle, it very clearly came from somewhere else in the fog. Somewhere to the East.

They both glanced in that direction, spotting a faint, pointed shadow moving alarmingly fast.

And they both followed a single streak of light, its tip almost blinding, as it rushed through the spore clouds to crash against the vessel they were supposed to distract, leaving a trail of flames. It crashed against the gasbag’s armor, almost weightlessly in spite of a resounding BOOM, leaving a massive wash of fire that poured over its surface; the core of the streak plunged right past the metal plates, leaving a perfectly round hole.

“T-that’s not a bullet, n-not a cannon shot…!” The Troxi gulped, with a glimmer of recognition in their mind.
“No shit,” Chitwy shrieked out, “that wasn’t ANYTHING I’ve seen, that was just FIRE! Does Embers have some older sister nobody told me about!?”

‘Embers’, or rather Usherrimi, their Ifchi pyromancer, who was down below in the wagon they were supposed to distract from. She had a point, that did look like mostly fire, and mostly…
Something clicked. Quiet nights at a Legion outpost, sifting through the pages on what they could expect to find and fire if they ever lent a hand to other nations – or faced them.

“...c-closer than you think, miss Chitwy, I think that’s.. a f-flame cannon. F-from Ishiss. No c-cannonballs, just… a marble with a seal and as much fire as it can carry around it. Marble c-cracks and the flames go everywhere.” Their voice trembled, as they watched the airship start dropping, meter by meter.
The swallow turned quickly, a full-body jolt to face the skink. “Wait was THAT what that was- I’ve HEARD of those! One of those things had set a swamp on fire on one hunt I did just East of here!”
They gulped, giving the idea some thought. “T-they do that, miss Chitwy, must’ve m-missed… t-they’re not subtle weapons. T-they save it for other nations, n-never defense, b-but…”
“Ain’t a hunting weapon either, if you’re gonna burn down all the spoils! Someone’s trying send one loud fucking message!” The swallow snorted, laying eyes on the vessel’s blazing wounds.
“O-or they’re raiding well above t-their weight, or they’re outright m-mad…” The skink’s eyes went elsewhere, trying to find the one responsible…

And there it was, bursting from a distant cloud of spores and ash, as Qarretzu nudged Chitwy to made sure she’d see it.

A pointed vessel with a strangely pearlescent hull, as if metal or timber had been plated over with a shell of its own, strung to long and narrow gasbags that seemed to have light of their own. It was barely a sloop, yet had spinning, buzzing engines fit for a ship twice as big, and an outright frightening array of energetic armaments they could not recognize at a glance… save for the unmistakable arrangement of a flame cannon, with its thick and short muzzle, abundant tubing and an ammo rack that resembled an enormous, hissing boiler, all mounted right at the prow. Right beneath that was the figurehead, a lustrous sculpture of a naked Ifchi, clinging tightly to the vessel itself while holding a golden orb right in front of them, pointed wherever the ship went.

And right behind that, in perfectly clear and styled Common Tongue, was the vessel’s name: Midnight Alight.

The sight answered some questions, and spawned many others. That wasn’t a navy vessel, and that was not an Ifchi name; whoever crewed that thing wanted to be known. And known they’d be, the way they bore down on this armored cruiser that seemed so menacing, so… excessive, a minute ago. Yet, watching the sloop do a breakneck turn to expose its broadside, and pelting the Clan ship with a fusillade of volatile energies that neither of them could identify, Qarretzu suddenly realized why a vessel of that size had been here.

“I d-don’t think this ship was the first one t-they dropped…!”, the skink sputtered, trying to sink further into foliage that could offer no protection.
“Yeah, they brought the big guns for a reason and it still ain’t enough!”. Chitwy sounded more startled than terrified, perhaps enjoying the luminous spectacle far more than Qarretzu could.
“W-what… what do we do now!? If that thing f-finds us, we can’t run! B-but neither c-can they…! What do we do, miss Chitwy, what do we do!?” They were battling their own growing panic, and they weren’t doing well at all. Deferring to their senior was the only option that seemed… safe, right now. She wasn’t panicking, right? Right…?
Not at all, from the sound of her voice. “Either we watch, or we take a side. If these guys want glory, we ain’t bringing it. If these guys want loot, they’ll get more than he can carry there. And if they want to piss off the Clans, then… fuck, let ‘em! I might even join in!”

The Troxi stared at her, concerned and confused at the same time. Back in the Republics, and even in the Legion, they hardly covered the myriad sorts of bad blood there could be between nations, so her comment left them wondering ‘what did the Clans even do?’ And yet, furrowing their brow, they realized it didn’t matter right now. If this sloop was raining hell on a Bannerbound ship, and had done so before, bad blood was a given – and maybe, just maybe, they could bank on being the enemy of their enemies, even just this once.

“…I can’t say I ever had trouble with the Clans, but…” Qarretzu said, peeking out of the greenery to aim their rifle once more, “…it’s been the first time for many things, hasn’t it?”
“Ain’t the first time I fucked with the Bannerbound, I’ll tell ya THAT!”, Chitwy almost squealed in return, before soaring off to get closer to their common target – not nearly as close as last time, but close enough to draw beads on anything that moved.

It was time to reassess the situation, and properly. The Canyonking was losing altitude, not quite precipitously, but still fairly quickly. It was trying to maneuver itself away from the stalactites, and back towards the presumable West, in a retreat that wasn’t looking likely. The Midnight Alight was circling the thing like it was already carrion ready for the taking, keeping above the bigger ship’s firing line at all times even if it meant having its gasbags mere meters away from the spiked ceiling of the cave. They must’ve known this thing would be hunting low rather than high, somehow… Or they just got lucky, not that they needed much luck with an ambush like theirs.

Still, the flame cannon had seemingly done its job, with the rest left to lesser, though abundant ordnance… some of it fiery, some of it seemingly explosive, but for plenty of these they couldn’t see the full effect of each impact. The only common threads were that they all seemed to be energetic, rather than any kind of shell, and that they were all luminous, leaving streaks of light as they traveled and flashing brightly as they made contact with anything. Some of them even seemed to be going past the hull itself, and lighting the vessel up from the inside, somehow.

Complete with several members of the crew vacating onto the observation decks, followed by puffs of smoke in some cases. Lucky them!

Narrowing their eyes, Qarretzu started aiming properly, looking to maximize chaos and minimize bullets spent. Which of these looked the most calculating, or at least fanciest of the lot, which of these looked like they gave the orders down there? That could be hard to ascertain with Bannerbound, it was seven different uniform schemes to keep track of. They still seemed to be Sofize, with ample hats and glistening coats that reached boot-covered ankles, but on one deck – opposite to the Midnight Alight’s assault – there were a couple different ones. One, probably from Zau, was wearing a patch-work nightmare of an outfit, with scraps from what might be five different uniforms seemingly sewn together into one cowled robe. And that one in the tight, silky white bandages that boasted their (probably her?) twisty figure while showing none of it directly was probably from Vesh-

And was the one Chitwy immediately shot with one of her arrows, nailing her(?) midsection and taking her out of the fight. Not from life, at least not yet, but kneeling like that with an arrow buried that deep, this Vesh-bound wouldn’t be shooting at anyone. As the others swarmed the injured, it was clear that’d be enough for one deck, time to check the next one.

A good decision, too, seeing this little crew gathering had a couple rifles of their own. More Bannerbound, that was certain, and again most of them were likely Sofize, dressed for rains that’d never come. But judging ranks was difficult, when a couple of them seemed straight out of Clan Vesnor; those fine silks, those flowing dresses that almost dragged across the deck, those buttons that gleamed like medals, and those glimmering veils they wore over their heads, hiding even their eyes? Hard to tell rank by refinement between those two, all that was left to do was compare with the others in their raincoats. See when they opened, as two acted as spotters for another who laid their rifle on the guardrail, presumably to aim at Chitwy. Then another stepped right in front, pointing with one finger, letting their open coat show the undergarment within and a pinned, golden badge-

BLAM

A snap shot. Better to just take it and make a mess than let them shoot unimpeded, even if the one with the badge – probably and hopefully a high-ranker – was in the way. And thankfully, it paid off, thanks to their powerful rifle and the lack of any actual armor within all those layers of cloth. The Sofize-bound with the badge held their torso and fell on their side, pretty much on the spot, though Qarretzu saw no actual blood. The sniper behind, however was both more and less fortunate; that shot to the hip didn’t look too deadly, but there was a fair chance they’d never walk again. And no one’d be shooting at Chitwy just yet, hopefully. A bullet well spent! The next one would need haste, though, as already one of the fancy Vesnor sorts had turned towards the ceiling, and the way they fixated, the skink could tell even without seeing that one’s eyes they’d probably spotted-

A blinding flash, and Qarretzu looked away, blinking rapidly and trying to readjust. Looking back, they saw the side they’d been shooting at was being pelted with streaking lights and immaterial projectiles, as if the Midnight Alight had already rounded the vessel. And turning towards the spore clouds, they could confirm exactly that: The sloop had made it all the way around in moments, and was evening out the barrage. It was hard to look at it, but at least one observation deck took a direct hit that scattered the occupants… ‘Should I be glad I can’t see what happened to them’, they wondered, before casting that thought aside…

Out of curiosity, they looked back at the sloop – rifle still pointed at the Canyonking, just in case – and leaned in, trying to discern just what kind of overly bold captain was steering it through this lopsided battle. They could see a steering wheel at the very front, right behind the guardrails; the one turning said wheel was obviously an Ifchi, with skin the tone of tarnished copper and long, lime-colored gills that seemed to flow behind him as if stuck in the breeze of his piloting. The captain’s eyes were hidden beneath thick blue traveling goggles, and around their sinuous body was a long, black tunic, with a high collar and trailing coattails right over the tail. His (they assumed) motions were… smooth, yet exaggerated, as if even the slightest twist of the wheel deserved a show of its own to all that were watching. And even at this distance, the skink could see a smirk, thrilled and just a little smug. All of this as if there was a spotlight to be shared, and he was trying and succeeding in snatching it from all others in his crew…

They saw him call out, and swing that wheel until it spun like mad, swerving the whole vessel around in a maneuver that would’ve flung someone off the deck if he hadn’t warned them first… just so he could turn the Midnight Alight on a dime, show the other broadside, and order a salvo on the exact same spot. Was that faster than reloading?

Qarretzu screwed their eyes shut as the guns flashed, one after the other, nearly scoring their eyes as a casualty. It was faster, presumable bruises aside.

Once the skink’s eyes stopped seeing colors in their own eyelids, and they could trust their own eyesight again, they glanced back at the vessel as it… stopped dead in its tracks, its only movement being downwards. Its gasbags burned, the hull crackled with the leftover energies that had rent several more holes in it, and the engines did all they could, even catching ablaze, just to slow the thing’s deceptively slow fall to the cavern floor beneath. What little they could see of the crew was… scrambling all over, some grabbing onto the guardrails on the observation decks and staring down, others rushing out and pulling said gazers back into the vessel, and lights flickering all around where the windows allowed a peek. There was even one unwise Bannerbound peering out one of the holes in the hull! What could a simple bullet do to a mess like that? All that was left was to find Chitwy and-

“Yeah I think we’re done here, Squib!”

They gripped their rifle tight, turning violently towards her with wide eyes. And yet in spite of being annoyed at the startle, relieved to see them arrived, and just a little terrified at the destruction before them, all they could say was one sputtered word: “Squib…?”
Yet the only acknowledgment she had of this new nickname was a dismissive wave of the wing as she went on: “If there’s gonna be any attention here, it’s gonna be on that guy, and he’s gonna be busy looting ‘em!”, she said, pointing at the dropping hulk.
“If anything is left by the time it hits the dunes…” they answered, staring with unease at the devastation. “B-but… you’re right, it’ll draw far more attention than any wagon down below. If there is even anyone left to pay attention…”

It was settled, then. Once the Canyonking had struck the earth, and the sloop landed to ransack what was left, they’d scramble away, down the nearest wall and towards their rendezvous. And indeed, the greater airship gave out at last, its engines puttering out in a blast of flame but a few dozen feet above the dunes. Even muffled by the soft bed of spores that passed for ground in this place, the thing still made an echoing, thunderous crash as it landed on them, the weakened metal crumbling around the holes its opponent had made. A great blast of flame was shoved out of the gasbag as its armor’s inertia crushed it to nothing, flattening the whole into the damaged hull below until it was practically blanketed by it, smothering its fires into the bed of sodden spores… Lucky them, if anyone had survived that. Knowing these caverns, and knowing the Bannerbound, someone likely had. But there was no time to check; just enough time to watch the Midnight Alight touch down next to it…

...which, after a few seconds that kept stretching, it didn’t. In confusion, they both looked around, then forwards.

There it was, still aloft, nearing the ceiling. Closer to the two than it had been a few moments ago. And it was pointed right at the two, and coming closer still, as its captain looked in their direction – with a Troxi at his side that was looking right at them.

Qarretzu froze, instinctively trying to bury their long and colorful self into the lichens, only to find those eyes were still on them. They glanced at Chitwy, who was already flying away, yet before they could even think of the idea she was leaving them to be caught, she was already flying back – and before they could be relieved in turn, she dive-bombed the skink off the stalactite, snatched them out of the air (while they barely held on to their rifle) and tried to carry them off, downwards and away from this thing that had so easily thrashed the vessel they meant to distract but a few minutes ago. Yet all she did was put them both in the spotlight as the vessel approached them anyhow, almost languidly in comparison to the breakneck pace they’d seen. They couldn’t outrun it, they’d have to out-maneuver it somehow…

“…M-miss Chitwy, above it! T-try above it!”, the skink sputtered, pulling on her tailfeathers to make sure she heard it. And she did; the swallow made a sharp, vertical U-turn heading upwards… and back towards the vessel itself, as if aiming to hide right above its gasbag where neither crew nor vessel could fire on the two. But where would they escape after that, they couldn’t wait out this ship forever, would she fly past it, force it to make a U-turn itself? All they could do was hold on tight, curl their tail around themselves, and keep a grip on their rifle, even if taking a shot like this wasn’t an option. Still, it paid to keep an eye on the targets…

But as soon as they looked at the deck, they saw a and a glimmer. Something sweeping, swirling through the spores. They yanked on Chitwy’s tailfeathers, hard enough to pull one off, to make sure she stopped in place and saw it as well. And so she did, stopping cold and flapping backwards, even if it meant Qarretzu had to hold tight as inertia made them swing forwards-

Leaving their tail to be caught in a spore-laden gale, strong enough to tug on it but not enough to actually pull them in. It went wide, right ahead of the two, barely dispersing until it struck the ceiling and scoured it of old lichens, leaving only that which was lively enough to take root.

And looking down, the captain was there at the prow with one boot on the railing, looking at them with a sly, confident smile. He had one finger pointed at them, his palm facing up as if he were about to beckon them closer. Then, once he saw he had their attention, his smile widened enough to show a surprising array of pointed little teeth, and he finally spoke: “Please, this is time to calm down! We had the same enemy! Don’t know what has a Troxi and a Cheli working together, but you helped, no? Come down, to meet properly!”

He had a voice like a tenor marred by the slightest rasp, an unwavering enthusiasm in every word, and a bizarre accent that Qarretzu could hardly recognize; the only other Ifchi they knew well was Usherrimi, and she didn’t sound quite like this. A glance at Chitwy’s face confirmed the confusion was mutual, much as hers seemed almost offended. But as the rest of his crew came on deck – mostly Ifchi, with the Troxi that found them and one… wax-riddled Bee, the most perplexing of the lot – it was clear they may as well take the invitation, whatever it was. Outlaws with a common interest, that’d have to do. They were about to tug on her tailfeathers one last time, gently now-

“Alright, FINE. If only because watching you fuck that thing up was the most fun I’ve had in weeks”, Chitwy cawed. And down she went, though Qarretzu was the only one to notice she dug her nails into their scales until they hurt. With some embarrassment, they handed back the plucked tailfeather as soon as they hit the deck, which she snatched off their claws quickly and brusquely. “All you need to know is we didn’t want that thing and its crew snooping. We were gonna just distract them, but”, she paused to look over the railing at the fires below, “this works just fine too.”

“Only distracting?” he asked with a little chuckle. “Distracting them for me, or were you going to shoot them like flies until you ran out of them? Though you were doing it! They were lining up for you, hah! Hahah!” The chuckle evolved into a sharper laugh, genuinely amused. “A distraction it was, they never saw us coming, and I think you got one of the spare captains too!”

“...spare captains..?”, Chitwy muttered, the bafflement taking the wind out of her wings.
“M-must’ve meant copilot of s-some kind, miss Chitwy”, Qarretzu whispered into her ear (or where they thought she had one), trying to hide it from this captain in a moment of distraction.

Then, this strange Ifchi shook his head as his smile warmed up, rounded the two, and laid his slimy arms around their shoulders, bird and skink alike wincing – not that he noticed. “You made this easier for us”, he said, “we lost nothing, and neither did you! I say this calls for at least a favor, no?” Letting go, and crossing between them before turning around on one heel to face them, he raised one arm high in the air, and lowered it to bow before them, his tail carrying the motion with a flourish that sent slime droplets far behind him. “So! A favor from me, Captain Shurrum Nish Isharral of Midnight Alight: Tell me where you need to go, and you will be there.”

Swallow and skink glanced at each other in silence, trying their best to communicate without a word. All they really needed, and all they really wanted, was to be away from here and back with their boss now that they had (more or less) done their job. This… exuberant captain clearly had business of his own. The business of… fame, probably, of someone that would shoot one of the biggest vessels the Clans could construct out of the air just to let everyone know it was him who did it. The kind of business with collateral damage none of them could afford.

But it seemed Chitwy had reasons beyond that, by the growing look of genuine disgust on her face. She was opening her beak, lingering on her next words, and… no, they couldn’t afford to taunt the captain either. With one hand on her (still slimed) shoulder, Qarretzu stepped forwards with the best smile they could manage, and spoke first. “Very kind of you, c-captain, b-but we were j-just going to leave, this is…”, they said, pausing to think of a way to say ‘you’re too blatantly showy to help’ diplomatically, before having a different idea: “…c-could you take us to our wagon? We’re h-heading on f-from here, a-and we have to be quiet about it…”

Then, Chitwy herself stepped forwards, nudging them back to presumably take it from there. “Yeah we’re running something quieter here. If you’re one of those ‘leave one to tell the tale’ guys, tell ‘em it was your guys.” Oh, that sounded clever, letting him claim a little extra fame if he wanted to, no harm done if he didn’t – hard to tell which he’d go for. “So all we’d ask is for a quick lift to the others, and we’ll be on our way.” A moment of silence, as she… squirmed, mentally, as far as they could tell, but a quick nudge from their tail and she got out what she needed to say: “Thanks though.” Practically spat the word out, but, it would do.

The captain nodded, keeping his smile. “Ah. From the shadows, then! I understand it! Very good, I won’t make you wait!” Striding over to the steering wheel, with his hands behind his back his tail slithering over the deck, he continued: “You tell me where this is, and I will get you there, ladies!”

“I’m not a lady, captain”, Qarretzu cut in almost instinctively.

Then, slight panic bubbled in their mind, suddenly concerned about their reaction. It was unlikely, but neither of them could afford a bad one. But they weren’t expecting Shurrum’s actual reaction: He froze mid-step with one hand clamping tightly around his other wrist, his eyes went wide, his smile twitched, and they got the sense he would be blinking hard if he could. Like they’d just hit the brakes in his brain, almost by accident… But after half a second of this, he was back to normal, like this pause never happened, and he just resumed his walk to the steering wheel with his voice just as lively as before: “Then you tell me where this is, and I’ll get you there, friends!”

Crisis averted, much as they didn’t know what to make of that.

Still, off they went, as captain Shurrum took the wheel in one hand, and the (presumable) speed lever in the other, and gave them both a pull, letting the vessel respond in kind as the engines kicked in, and sent the vessel sailing into the spore clouds beneath. It took Qarretzu a moment to realize they hadn’t told him where they were going yet, but before they’d taken two steps forwards Chitwy’d already rushed in, practically ramming onto the railing, to point a talon into the darkness. “More or less over there, I’ll let you know when I see ‘em!” She huffed, and glanced back at the skink with a look both alarmed and annoyed; all they could do was shrug.

“Yes, of course”, he answered while flashing a bigger smile still, one that almost let them see his sharp little teeth. “Same cavern, no? We’ll be there in just minutes! Must be important if this had you shooting at the Canyonking with a gun and a bow, no?”
Another glance between the two outlaws. This time, Qarretzu moved first, and rushed to reply. “W-we couldn’t afford the risk, captain, one shot from it and that would be it f-for our… enterprise as a whole.”
“Yeah why WAS that thing there anyways!?” Chitwy outright demanded to know, turning back to the captain. “Was it hunting you? ‘cause it sure wasn’t hunting US, even the Clans don’t do that much overkill!”
Yet in spite of the accusation, the captain just laughed. “Of course it was! They have been looking for me for months! And I always find them first!”
Qarretzu couldn’t help but mutter as they reasoned out loud, “they must think the bigger they send, the better the chance at getting… g-getting one shot on this. T-they might think it’ll be enough if it’s a b-big enough shell?”

And suddenly, they found the captain sidling up to them in an instant, with just one hand on the wheel, grin practically pointed at them. “It doesn’t matter how big if they don’t get to fire it, my friend!”

They would’ve said ‘fair enough’, but with that kind of invasion of personal space they just saved their words until a tug from the wheel snapped his attention back to piloting; learning their lesson, they backed away towards the railing, and turned around to search for their destination in the billowing sporeclouds, as they all made their way through. Four knowing eyes was better than two on this. And, more importantly, it kept them both out of this captain’s overly friendly reach…

…six eyes, now, as the skink that acted as the captain’s spotter stepped forwards and looked over the railing. Dull palette on him now that they got a closer look, mostly an earthy red with a light brownish underbelly. His crest was a brilliant purple, though, as if his very feathers were made of amethyst… to match his eyes, in fact. Not unheard of, but kind of unusual. He leaned in far over the railing, reaching out with his tailtip to latch onto the guardrail and practically throwing himself over it, landing just far enough to see directly below the vessel if he needed to… all without a single word.

Chitwy just stared, her face stuck in an odd expression that was between concern and annoyance. “You… seeing something down there? I could always just fly and check.”
This other Troxi’s response was to wave his finger in the air, a denial of her words, before leaning further into the cloud as if the extra inches would help him find something. “Don’t mind that”, the captain said from behind them all, “my first mate never speaks.”
Said first mate’s only reaction was to glance back at the bird, motioning with one thumb at a spot somewhere in the spores, then turning to Qarretzu to do the same, one brow raised with what might be annoyance.

After a quick look at each other, both outlaws focused on the spot this Troxi was pointing at, seeing nothing but the fungal fog before them… at first. After a few moments, a few more meters, and a finger pointed far more aggressively, the tell-tale glint of a wagon’s lights… their wagon’s lights, cutting through the spores as the vehicle made its way across the dunes.

“T-that’s the place, yes” was all Qarretzu could say, wondering how the first mate’s eyesight could pierce the clouds before their own, or before Chitwy’s. They’d always thought of themselves as a good spotter, but this one-
“How in the fuck did you even see it!?”, she blurted out right then and there, voicing their thoughts in far more crass a manner than they would have.
The captain’s voice answered in his stead. “He has very good eyes, lady, keeps surprising me! Could see the end of the cavern without the clouds!” For good measure, he left the wheel behind momentarily just to lay his arm across the first mate’s shoulders, pulling him in. “Shame we can’t shoot that far, no?”, he added with a grin – completely ignoring the skink’s resigned (if amused) look.

But then, Shurrum slid right back to the wheel, steering their gradual descent. “Now, I think they’ll like to see you two first, so they don’t think we’re shooting them, no? No need to waste bullets!” Yet again he laughed, as if his boundless energy had no other outlet. “Get on the prow, so you’ll be the first things they see! Then you let them know it was me. Might not see you again, but good for you all to know it was Captain Shurrum that made your job easy today, and easier tomorrow, whenever you come again!”

The two spared each other furtive, baffled glances, before turning around to peer over the railing, with Qarretzu holding their rifle in front to make their silhouette easier to spot. The wagon was closer still, they could see the lights moving already… and slowing down. Even at its size, a ship as unsubtle as the Midnight Alight was hard to miss… Chitwy leapt on the railing, clinging with her claws, and waved with one wing holding her bow, just to make sure they knew they weren’t about to get shot. And narrowing their eyes, Qarretzu already saw the cowled, spindly figure of their boss coming out of the vessel, claws in the air, before lowering them…

Yet before either of them could call out, and put this odd workday to an end, the captain made a question, a very casual question, that sent it right into a tailspin: “But before I forget it, one question! There’s been this fire, ah… fire-channeler, yes! Also Ifchi, black body with white tail, and very red branches! She’s made a name, already, even back in the city! You know her?”

Qarretzu was very, very glad Shurrum couldn’t see their jaw drop. They looked at Chitwy out the corner of their eye, and found her with her beak clasped, almost grinding, and her wings’ spurs flared in alarm. Their eyes met… This was a terrible moment to find out Usherrimi was somehow famous in his circles.

The Cheli bolted into the air and practically divebombed the wagon, landing loudly enough on it the Troxi could hear her nails scratching iron. That left distraction duty (again) to them… so they slowly turned around, resetting their jaw, and tilted their head in the most confused-seeming manner they could. “F-fire-channeler, c-captain?”, they asked, not even trying to hold in their stutter, “You mean… p-pyromancer? Isn’t that… i-it sounds rare, I didn’t think it happened…!” What else to say, something that would take his attention, feign even more ignorance, perhaps? Ignorance that’d draw him to answer, even! “I-it even seems so… contrary! S-so often they twist water, b-but fire, t-that’s the absolute opposite…!” It even seemed to be working, ever so slightly marring the captain’s smile before it twisted back together, getting him to lean from behind the wheel…

Only for them to notice he wasn’t looking at them.

They followed his gaze, and realized, far too late, that with Chitwy heading down there and Qarretzu handling the captain, there was no one left to distract the first mate, who could spot red gills and a white tail in hiding even through the spores, and through the window of a lightless wagon. Could, and more importantly, had, leaning right over the railing to point directly at her while his tailtip waggled in the air.

Captain Shurrum’s eyes went wide, and he returned to the wheel to give its lever a harsh yank that nearly toppled everyone on board, including Qarretzu, as the vessel practically threw itself downwards only to brake at the last moment to land smoothly – more or less – on the spore-strewn grown beneath. Right after that, he rushed out, outright leaping overboard to get to the ground faster, and the Troxi could swear they heard a whooshing sound as he presumably landed… a whooshing sound that very much wasn’t there as they ran for the guardrail and immediately pivoted over it to crawl down the hull to follow him. They couldn’t stop him by now, but might as well be with their boss for this.

Off they went, yet already this captain was far ahead, right at the wagon, having crossed the distance far faster than their thin, slimy legs should’ve allowed in a place like this one. They could barely focus on his figure as they rushed across the spores, but they were very sure they saw it bowing before the wagon and its gathered group, much as he had earlier for the two. But with their heart pounding in their ears from the rush and the shock, they couldn’t pick up on his actual words until they’d finally arrived behind him, getting to see Chitwy digging her claws into the spores with one hand on her bow, Ziv-Ziri with her clawed hands clasped together and wings flicking within her cloak as she bore her usual smile, and Usherrimi, the very target of this all… emerging from the carriage, looking merely annoyed, as if she’d been woken from a nap.

“First time I have someone chasing me all the way from Ishiss, this better be good”, she said, the irritation clear in her voice as she combed through her gills with her own fingertips. Then, tilting her glasses, she noticed the skink’s approach, and immediately turned to them. “Alright, that’s everyone. Qarretzu, if you could please tell me who this one is? All Chitwy had were insults.”

Something about the way she asked them made the captain have another full-body freeze, like the one they’d already seen when he called them a lady. Right when he was almost done bowing, too, stopping him in place; they’d swear his eye would’ve twitched if they could see it right. Or if it had lids to begin with.

“W-well… we were d-distracting the Canyonking”, they began, pausing to see if she registered what that meant. When her gaze did not change, they clarified: “M-massive airship, m-much bigger than that one, would’ve… b-blown you up. B-but we were d-distracting, a-and he showed up in t-that, a-and shot it down… said he’s been d-doing that for some time. T-then he offered a ride, a q-quick trip, and we just… wanted to get out fast, s-so we came right here. B-but… t-then he asked for you. T-that’s all I have, miss…!”

But it was Ziv-Ziri that answered, practically springing out of the driver’s seat and onto the spores to run towards Qarretzu and practically lift them off the ground. “Canyonking? Aren’t those actual cruisers up there!? With cannons you could stuff Vel in!? And you were shooting at THAT!? We don’t have anything for that, for nothing even close to that, were you just gonna plink at the windows until we left!?”

Qarretzu tried, and failed, to say something, as their stutter consumed the first few words – Chitwy filled in instead: “Boss, it was either that or letting that thing find you, decide ‘eh whatever we can spare one shell’ and blowing you UP! And besides, we got a few of ‘em! I know I got one right before everything back there started! And I know you had to hear Squib’s gunshots, got actual aim with that thing! Better than any moron I saw using one of those things.” Said ‘thing’ being the Troxi’s rifle, which she pointed at just a little dismissively.

“And then”, the captain cut in, in what would’ve been a polite tone if it hadn’t been both loud and sudden, “before anything could start going wrong, I arrived!” His smile was almost a little too wide at first, practically stretched, before he settled it once heads had turned. “Jumping on the distraction the two made, the Midnight Alight made her entrance, flying across the cavern like a shooting star!” Ignoring the several tilted heads at this simile, he continued, spreading his hands towards the ceiling. “With sharp eyes on the deck and good hands on the wheel, we were there, and the Canyonking had shown its big, soft side to us all. It was then or never, we could see it, because it brought every gun, every last gun!”

“T-they were all mounted b-below, n-none of them could point up,” Qarretzu interjected. I felt like an important detail.

The captain’s expression didn’t change, but he inhaled sharply before continuing. “Oh, but that’s what you think, my friend, there are ways to tilt a ship, even a ship that big, to get them pointing up. I’ve done it before with her, and I know I will do it again, even if she grew! But that one did not get the chance. Before it could start, before the crew inside could get out and shoot back, the Midnight Alight struck! Blasting precisely where the ammo could be reached, where it would kill the guns, where no amount of armor could stop it! And then another shot, just as precise, into the gas, right where the plates could do nothing! In the shot went, a perfect strike within!”

“H-he has a f-flame cannon on board, h-he used that for both shots…” That also felt like an important detail.
“A flame cannon”, Usherrimi repeated, apparently agreeing with them. “Ten inches of steel couldn’t stop that, the real trick would be in getting that thing bought and mounted there to begin with”, she added, pointing at the Midnight Alight’s prow.

Captain Shurrum’s smile strained, just a little. “Oh, but precision matters, lady, it matters very much even there! You have to know what lies behind the armor, and then hit it still!” Taking half a second to relax, he picked up again. “Anyhow, we struck well and hard! And from that moment, it was a matter of finishing. Gun and arrow softened those that came outside to look and aim, while cannons ablaze poured in to kill the very ship itself! Around it we went, fast as our winds could take us, letting out all we had, lighting it up until it could have no more! Always above its cannons so that it would not take revenge – I could see in their eyes, they would’ve done it! But they did not get to do it. We all made sure of it. After that, only a matter of courtesy to bring the two that helped before you.”

“Only because your guy actually SAW us somehow up there, we would’ve gotten here our damn selves just fine.” Chitwy seemed to consider that an important detail, or at least frustrating enough to squawk it out.

This time, there was no real stumble or stutter. The captain just stared at her, for several seconds, with a strained, frustrated and utterly unhappy smile. The sort of smile Qarretzu’d only seen once, on a newly-minted sergeant who just realized, three explanations in with zero progress, the kind of squad he got. Then he just stared at the ground for a little longer, giving them the impression he’d be screwing his eyes tightly shut if he could…

“Moving on, then”, Usherrimi interjected almost mercifully, “what’s this all have to do with me?”

She had to regret it, from the bewildered look on her face as the captain was immediately inches away from it, with his usual dashing smile back on. “Everything to do with you, because if they are with you, then it all makes sense, their skill suddenly makes sense!” As he spoke, he went back to pacing, with his usual wide gestures, before the other Ifchi could light up in annoyance – though Qarretzu still expected that soon. “But you are the one making a big name in Ishiss! Whispers about the one burning soldiers in every country, leaving just ashes. About the big family heir that got pushed too far on what she thought, set an entire University ablaze, and walked away!”

Throughout it all, Usherrimi’s face was an active battleground, somewhere between thrilled, horrified and simply baffled. Lost for words at accusations spoken like actual praise, from this airship pirate (corsair maybe?) that’d just fallen out of thin air as far as she knew… If she had any words for this, they weren’t coming out.

But the one that did have words that’d flow was Ziv-Ziri, who immediately popped up behind her shoulder as she emerged from the wagon, and cut in. “Uh, sorry to undermine this whole thing, and sorry to undermine ya Sherry, but these whispers sound pretty exaggerated.” She spoke casually, a marked contrast with the captain’s bombastic words, turning repeatedly between him and Sherry. “I know she’s not ‘burned a soldier in every nation’ ‘cause I was there, and we didn’t have to. Though were ya hiding the ‘whole university’ thing from me? Not gonna be mad if ya did, I still get it either way, but it doesn’t sound like ya did?”

“Because it is exaggerated, Ziv.” Sherry’s voice was even, low, and utterly unimpressed. “That kind of rumor’s just undercutting me, making it sound like I’ve lost my damned mind, slinging flames before I even open my mouth. As to the university thing,” she paused, turned towards the captain to directly point at him and added “which is none of your business,” then went back to the Vezarym to finish her thoughts with “no, it was barely even one room. I knew exactly who had to burn, and acted accordingly.”

After a frozen millisecond on Shurrum’s part, he sprang back to life with his smile renewed. “But you did burn! You survived that and more, and if you wanted to leave just ashes, you could have! Less furious and less happy to burn, but just as impressive as I hear, I bet! Ah, rumors always give a crooked picture, and I must say…” He let that linger, and slipped just a little into the pyromancer’s personal space, drawing an indignant look he ignored. “The real picture is far, far better~!”

The wink that followed lit a flame in each and every one of Sherry’s gills, and had her fingers stretched outwards. Qarretzu knew what that meant…

But so did Ziv-Ziri, who quickly wrapped herself around the fiery Ifchi with a slightly smug smile… and a small whisper that Qarretzu couldn’t hear; all they could see were her lips moving, right behind the olm’s gills where the captain couldn’t see them. Then, as Usherrimi’s eyes twitched, and she herself blushed, the bat offered a far bigger grin before speaking in a lilting, smug tone. “I know, right? Way better than any rumors, than any hearsay! Though I gotta wonder about mine though, what they mention. The daring escapes, the little heists, maybe the fact I’m with her, so that she’s not open for business in any sense of the word?” She almost hissed those three words out, then went back to her smile, punctuating it all by turning Sherry’s snout and kissing her right on the front, briefly but with just a bit of tongue for him to see. “Then again in this business, not having a name’s pretty helpful, maybe the less everyone knows the better, hee~!”, she finished, turning that smile into an outright grin, smug and with a little menace.

That outright paralyzed the captain, leaving that dumb smile frozen on his face with wide eyes as he just stared at the bat. Almost cathartic to watch… for a moment, before something in his mind finally leapt a hurdle, and his eyes lingered further on said bat, up and down, then at the pair as a whole… and that smile regained its life, with some slyness to boot. And then came his reply, looking straight back at Usherrimi once more, with not a single inkling of a comeback in his tone: “Hah, hahah, very good taste, too, fantastic!”

Then he just spun on his boot’s heel, striding with hands behind his back like he hadn’t just left a trail of dropped jaws and eyes both shocked and vexed right behind him; the skink could swear they heard the words ‘I thought that would work’ whispered indistinctly, before the captain’s voice drowned it out. “But there is one problem. I have sources in the city, and they say that family is looking for you. They want you back! And they are moving lots of money for it! You can’t stay out of their eyes forever, they’ll know more than I know. And they’ll have someone chasing you once they do. And there goes everything!”

The pyromancer got a dark look on her face. Outrage and fury, with just the slightest hint of fear, all tempered with a growing, menacing calm as she outstretched her fingers once more. “They hardly know me. No matter how much they think they do. They won’t find me, and none of their trackers that do will ever go back to Ishiss.” Qarretzu’d seen what she’d done to their hunter and warden back in the Hills, they knew she meant that.

“But they will”, Shurrum just repeated, his smile flattening to something almost dour, before perking up again and adding “but it won’t matter!” Now, he turned to the side, hands still behind his back as he looked at Sherry with one eye with one finger raised in her direction. “It doesn’t matter if they know where you are when they can’t reach you or catch you! And on the Midnight Alight, they can do neither! The only ship fast enough to keep away from them all, until they tire… no matter how long it takes!” He made one sweeping motion towards it – his own tail swishing across the spores at the same time – as his grin grew wider still, now showing actual little fangs. “And she is in need of one like you, I am in need of one like you! One fiery one, ablaze! With gills of ruby and blood of blue! A perfect match, perfect story!”

He left but a moment to let them ponder what he said (Blood of blue…?), before practically lunging, ending up right in front of Sherry once more and making her flinch as he just smiled in her face. “Here, they will never get you. Here… we shall all make names across the caves, to be feared and admired. We will soar! Down here in the mud and spores, you will not last. They will find you. But up in the air? Glory waits~”

And he bowed, yet again motioning towards the vessel… and letting a long, long silence linger as everyone else was left to process this speech of his. And as said silence stretched on, one had to wonder even he had to catch on that it wasn’t in his favor. The faces that surrounded him were all baffled, some affronted, some simply unsettled. Qarretzu’s was twisted by second-hand embarrassment, they knew that much. But Usherrimi herself looked… neutral. Steely even. Her gills were almost sagging, and the only indication she was even tensed up were her outstretched fingers…

“…I won’t last, you’re saying. They’ll find me, then? Suppose that’s true. Suppose all I can do is delay them, if I were to stay down here… They will reach me, and they might catch me.” She uttered that, yet her voice didn’t sound defeated. Quite the opposite. “But even then it won’t matter. Because if they get their hands on me, anywhere close, even if I was alone, they would be ashes.” Her tone was lighting up as much as her gills, which now bore a tiny flame at each tip, as she glared back at the captain. “Maybe then I’ll be burning someone in every nation, like you heard. Maybe then they’ll get it. If it comes to that, it’ll be on my own terms, with those I chose.”

And as if to drive the point home, her tail raised in the air and nudged the bat forwards, where one of her arms could wrap around her waist and pull her in. But there, the skink could see five more flames that the captain couldn’t, one on each fingertip…

Yet the captain didn’t seem bothered by this rejection at all. His eyes seemed brighter still, from a quick glance as he got up and approached the bat and the olm once more. “Hah! Hahah! That’s what I look for! That’s the spirit we could use! That’s the attitude I need! How could Midnight Alight even dream to bring light to this dark without you in her? No, she needs one with powerful waves, one with real light in them! A sun cannot swim in the mud, a sun should swim through skies!”

Said “sun” interrupted him, raising her voice over his next words. “There is no sky here, you tadpole of a captain-”

Then the captain practically barged into her personal space, his smile strained to the point of failure, as the strange insult – was that more biting in Ifchi? – seemingly landed true. “IT’S CLOSE ENOUGH”, he outright yelled, before his tone evened out, and his expression relaxed, walking back but never turning his back on her. “It’s like the night, darker than any night, and it needs light of its own, it needs a sunrise! And so it needs a sun, a proper sun and not just steel and magic! So I am giving you an invitation you will never get, and you will never find here: To join us, to join me, and be that sun yourself~!” Yet again he bowed, so low he could huff the spores beneath everyone, and motioned towards his own ship with both hands, seemingly in the most dramatic gesture he could manage.

But this time, he glanced up from under his hat until he could look Usherrimi in the eye. From their angle, however, Qarretzu saw that smile drop to a dour, affronted and perhaps slightly depressed frown, as he tacked on one last addendum. “It’s that or stomping in the mud. Chased by family forever as they keep finding you. No ship, just a rusty cart and these dull crawlers, who just know more mud.” He even waved dismissively at them all, carefully avoiding Ziv but very much including the skink themselves.

The looks on the crew… varied. The only reason Chitwy hadn’t shrieked something was Ziv’s hand holding her beak fast, while the bat herself looked perplexed… no, disgusted, that looked too disdainful to be mere confusion. And they couldn’t help but agree with that, by now. This captain… whatever he was even trying to do, whether some twisted flirt, some recruitment attempt, or a threat, if not all three at once, it was so far from right they could hardly call it a fumble, it had started as a mistake and went down from there! It was only clear, from looking at Usherrimi herself, who-

...seemed to be smiling, as what little light was in these caverns caught in her glasses and blocked her eyes from others’ sight. A tiny smile, a dark smile, you’d have to be a fool to think there was any mirth in there, except perhaps…

“A sun, you said. I think I like that, actually. But there’s one caveat to that.” Watching the captain stand up quickly, she strode over to him, calmly, slowly, her movements a little too fluid, as she made her way to right in front of him and his hopeful expression. “Now we miss suns, now we know what a blazing star in the sky was needed for, why its absence can kill a world.” She even reached out to perk up his chin, make sure he looked her in the eye – that brief moment of contact making his eyes gleam with expectation – all before she stepped back, her hands behind her back. “But the thing you forget, city boy, you fountain tadpole, the thing about suns, is that back then, and even now, once you’re before them, if you ever get too close, too careless...”

“...they burn.”

Usherrimi brought her hands forwards, and a tidal wave of flame and heat erupted from them as she clapped right in front of them. Like a towering, utterly vertical flame of fire that was sent forth, setting the spores beneath them ablaze where nothing else had, crashing into captain Shurrum and engulfing him entirely until not even his shadow could be seen. The remnants alone kept going as eyes followed them, catching several crewmembers and starting a fire on the hull, dangerously close to the cannon. All Qarretzu could think at first, witnessing this, was that it seemed even bigger than last time.

It took a moment of thought as Sherry then turned around and shoved everyone back towards the wagon, urging them all to leave quickly, a moment to take in the expressions of the others – had Chitwy never seen this before, with how startled she looked? And did Ziv enjoy seeing that, with that smile of hers? – and a moment to get on board to look back at this newly-spawned memory and realize the flames may have bulged as they traveled, right around where the target would be.

The skink looked back, leaning out one window of the wagon as it turned to flee, on a nervous whim.

The captain was there. Arms outstretched, fingertips singed to the knuckle, gills trimmed by the flames, and with his hat still ablaze, right above an utterly bewildered expression… and a startled, get strangely genuine smile.

And before they could alert the others, they witnessed him raise his own hands, and thrust them downwards at the spores, scattering the burnt, the burning and the intact alike as he was propelled backwards and upwards into the air, launching himself up as if he’d pushed right off the very air with that motion. As if he could… turn the wind just the same way Usherrimi could turn fire and flame. Another motion, and he sent himself backwards, landing right besides his own steering wheel, his expression steeling and his grin brimming with more little fangs than ever.

Now they choked out a warning, as best they could. “H-he’s alive, a-and he’s b-boarding again, miss Ziv-Ziri…! H-he’s g-got wind! He has wind in his…”
“Ah, fuck, it would’ve been too simple for that idiot to just die, wouldn’t it. He’s good at it, if he could turn that blast.” Usherrimi didn’t even give him the dignity of turning back to look.
“I think I speak for everyone here”, Ziv-Ziri said as she took the wheel and lit the engine, “when I ask: what the hell was up with that guy!?”
Chitwy grabbed the seats and barged her head into the front of the cabin just to shriek her answer: “I’ve been asking that from the moment I SAW the guy!” Though before she could continue, Qarretzu pulled her back so she wouldn’t distract the driver.

Sherry sighed, one pitch-black hand sliding over her face in aggravation. Her tone was more aggravated still. “My guess? This should be some… idiot princeling. Some scion of a big-name family that roped himself into a scheme. His accent, the way he talks, you can tell he barely knows Common, some Magus families do that on purpose thinking it’s beneath them.” She slid her glasses back into place, glancing into the rearview mirror – as Qarretzu turned back fully to see the ship starting to rise into the air, while the crew worked to put out the fires. “But he still turned my blast. He’s an idiot, but he’s either well-taught or talented. I’m betting on talented.”

As the skink turned around, they gulped, and tried as best they could to give their addendum. “W-what about p-piloting, do they t-teach that…? He’s g-good at that too, reckless, b-but good…” After the olm turned her head to glance at them, they gathered their wits to elaborate. “H-he almost t-threw his crew overboard from how fast he turned, b-but… he never g-got shot at or hit. Got that ship with both b-broadsides in a minute. Didn’t so much as brush a stalactite… a-and on a ship that fast, with a f-flame cannon and everything else, if he’s g-going to f-fly it low, e-even in… h-he might…”

They gulped again. With a terrible feeling, Qarretzu turned around, gazing through the back window to check on the sloop, just in case…

“...h-he- he’s- HE’S- HE’S AFTER US!”

And everyone was shoved back into their seats as Ziv’s wagon sped up, its engine belching a black plume as it roared to full throttle. “Already!? Guy left the engine running that’s for sure!” Nervous, but not panicking, the Vezarym thrust her ears forwards and narrowed her eyes, her claws firm on the wheel. Her smile thinned out to nothing, but her tone remained cheery, if steelier now. “It’s gonna be a rough path to lose this guy, but I know the route for it. Gonna be like driving into a crag monitor’s mouth but can’t think of a better place to lose an airship. If he shoots, I’ll be dodging, so hold fast!”

Qarretzu could only obey, digging their claws into their seat and slipping their tail under the one in front, turning around to keep an eye on the vessel trying to approach. They briefly grabbed their rifle, wondering if it’d be necessary, if only to go out fighting. Or maybe provide a different kind of distraction. This was a bad position, but the target was getting far closer. But that’s if they had a chance to set up, before they got turned into nothing but a smoking crater on this impacted, spore-strewn road.

Said chance wasn’t looking good, as they saw that a tiny, yet blinding fireball had just left the prow.

“FIRE! OPENED FIRE!”, they screamed, unable to look away – thankfully, as they noticed it was arcing far more than it should to hit them straight on, even leading the shot. “Ahead of us! H-he’s f-firing on t-the road…!” That’s what it looked like at least.

Ziv-Ziri lowered herself, humming louder and squinting at the road. Almost gritting her fangs, before relaxing enough to smirk. “Bet he’s trying to box us in. Thinks I won’t drive through a pit of flame – and I won’t! Sherry, if you please~!” At her word, Usherrimi quickly pulled the window down, leaning her head out and making sure one of her gills was exposed to the air outside. The bat then snapped her claws and pointed back at the Troxi, with a question on her tongue “How far ahead?”

Another look at the fireball before it disappeared above the wagon’s roof, then turning their head to look ahead at the road before them, curving around a hill of spores… They pointed right at the start of said curve as best they could, and barked out “Right where that s-starts!” just to be sure.

Now to hope they were right, as the bat hardly reacted other than getting all the speed she could… before swerving so hard Qarretzu almost flew into the still-closed window (where Chitwy did crash). They saw the flame cannon’s shot crash into the start of the curve, which had been right ahead just a moment ago before Ziv-Ziri swerved into the spores instead, thoroughly clouding the air with them as a wave of flames washed over towards the wagon-

Before shutting down completely, barely able to get past the spores they’d risen as Usherrimi reached through the window, concentrating. Could Ifchi shut down what they usually wielded, just like that? It was either that or the spores being too wet to light, which made little sense. Yet there they were, missing the fires by mere inches as the wagon went right over the incline, so inclined it almost tipped right into the expanding blaze. Then, another swerve towards the road proper, and they rushed right ahead of the wave of flames, picking up speed once more as the wagon found (relatively) solid ground.

All Ziv had to say to that was “Right you were, Rezu!”, with a big grin she actually turned to flash before focusing on the road again. Maybe that crash course in mortars back in the Legion hadn’t been a waste of time after all.

The pursuit was on, but they’d made it through the first salvo. And if they all shot ahead rather than directly, they might just want them alive after all – or maybe just Sherry. Lucky either way, unless they got caught. Up to them to keep an eye on what this ship was doing as it pursued them, advancing on them with ease. Catching up moment by moment, not firing yet, but shortening the distance. Soon enough, the Midnight Alight was close enough that Qarretzu could actually see Captain Shurrum, complete with big fanged grin, as he gripped the wheel and held the lever tight, lowering the ship inches at a time as it closed in. His gills weren’t even trailing in the wind, they were almost static, perhaps glimmering…

Was he trying to get close enough to blow them off the road, while he still could? It was insane, but he could pull it off, he was mad enough for that, and it’s not like they could fire back-

“Miss Ziv-Ziri, p-permission to break your window?” Better to ask for permission, adages aside she was the boss.
“What- wait no just lower it, pull the lever in the corner! Why?” She hadn’t caught on yet. If this worked it’d be a pleasant surprise.

One pull of the lever, and the back window lowered itself. Not entirely, but it’d do. Gently, quietly, they slid out their rifle through the opening, just enough to get their eye on its sights, before turning their attention to the vessel, and its crew. Quickly, they hovered their sights over the captain as best as they could in this rattling wagon, stuffing as much of their tail under a seat to anchor them better. This rattle was troubling, but manageable, all they had to do was hold steady, wait just a moment for the vessel to come closer. Already they could see the captain’s smile, the glint of his goggles, as he leaned to the side of his steering wheel with one hand raised towards them, rearing back…

But yet again they missed his first mate, who was already in the midst of tackling his own captain as they pulled the trigger.

BLAM

And a miss, unless a clear gash on the underside of the sloop’s liftbag counted as a hit. Sure had to for whatever unfortunate had to patch it up later.

The vessel wavered in place, and quickly fell back as the first mate was the first to get back up and yank the lever back. As they cycled the next bullet into the chamber (five left, was it?), they kept their eye on the retreating Midnight Alight, particularly on the captain they’d almost taken out and the first mate that prevented that. The latter was pulling the former up, and from the increasingly-blurry motions they could see, he wasn’t happy with his boss over that little stunt, berating him almost like one would a child. But the captain was on his feet, and… smiled it off, that was surprisingly hard to miss at this distance – before the sloop pulled up, hiding the two from view behind the deck.

They sighed, and cracked their neck while they waited for the next chance. That’d teach them to get close at least, better to keep them further away. And they’d bought the group time to reach the stalactites ahead – as Qarretzu found out when a violent swerve right behind the very first of them almost threw them into a window. The thing was barely a nub surging through the spores, but cover was cover, even just to throw their aim off before their boss surged the wagon down the road towards the rest.

“Alright”, Ziv-Ziri said from the cabin, glancing backwards for just a moment, “we should be closer to the clear now! These only get thicker and taller from here on out! Don’t think he’s that dedicated, even if he’s that good, right? Which is good ‘cause this isn’t a place to drive that fast. Keep an eye, warn me if he shoots anything outta spite or something!” Another swerve, and her driving stabilized, sticking to the road as it curved around the stalagmites – each a little taller than the last. It wasn’t a straightforward drive, but it had cover, at least…

Yet as the skink sighed and looked forwards, taking their eyes off the vessel, it was Chitwy who took the chance to look back at their pursuer, and deliver the bad news: “Boss, they ain’t slowing down. Like at ALL.”

A surge of speed almost sent Qarretzu face-first into the back seat before they’d finished turning around to confirm. But from a quick glance, the Midnight Alight had stopped falling back, and was again leaning forwards as it gained speed. How it intended to catch up with them, in this smaller wagon that could stick to the actual road, they didn’t know, yet there it was. And true to form, rather than just turn a little and let the stalagmite pass at its side, it damn near crashed into it before violently swerving around it, for no reason they could think of other than show off!

…and expose the broadside, for just a second.

“…B-B-BRACE”, they cried out, before the rattle of the sloop’s cannons drowned their words out momentarily. Multiple streaks of light and sparks shot from the vessel, crossing the spore-laden air above them at a high angle, an ample miss. But when they looked forwards, they saw the actual target: One of the stalactites ahead. All they could do was barge into the cabin to point at it, making sure Ziv-Ziri caught it…

…and she looked down under that stalactite, then back up. Then the engine roared, spewing smoke into the air as the whole wagon accelerated so violently the skink was thrown back into their seat again. “Still trying to wall us off, sneaky! Bet he thinks he’s the only one who knows their way around a wheel!” She sounded outright chipper. As everyone hurtled down the narrow road, a glance at the bat let them see a grin – a big, fanged, gleaming grin – as she gripped her own steering wheel tight, and her tone dropped to an outright growl heard even over the roar of crumbling stone: “And he’s dead wrong.”

She didn’t slow for the curve right ahead of them. She just turned anyways, the wheels skating over stone and spore alike as momentum alone carried them forwards – all their spinning did was keep them on the curve. Another swerve, and they were all back on the road, the wheels finding enough purchase to practically shoot them forwards into the path ahead…

A thunderous, crumbling impact deafened them all momentarily, and a rush of wind shot into the wagon from the back window, as the stalactite finally hit the ground behind them.

“Easy~!”, Ziv said, her voice lilting as if they hadn’t just outraced death. “But just to make sure I don’t have to keep doing that, never know when I’ll get it wrong… Chi, Rezu, could you both see if you can put a hole in that guy?”
“So long as you don’t leave me behind, boss! How’s the road ahead look!?” For the first time in a while Qarretzu had forgotten the swallow was even there, which was usually unthinkable.
“Curvier than a Toskar matron, as a friend used to say!”, Ziv answered, giggling, which got her an odd look from Sherry that stopped the giggling in its tracks. “Okay, better said: It’s gonna be twisty. Also downwards.”
“Works for me, right on it boss!” That was all Chitwy even said before pulling down the window and throwing herself off the wagon into the dark…
Nothing left for the Troxi to do but lock in place in this rattling wagon, get their eye on the sights and start looking for a shot. “...I’ll cover her, m-miss Ziv-Ziri, I’ll t-try to hit him this time…”

Time for a joint operation, then. From their sights, they could already see the airship turn just enough to straighten its path towards the wagon, closing in once more. Eyes on the prize, as the captain came into view… before stone blocked their sight once more. Another stalactite. Pulling back, they saw another narrow dodge to match it, sweeping right behind the hanging pillar. No hitting the captain on this one.

...but if another broadside was coming, Qarretzu thought, maybe they could do something there instead. The Midnight Alight had yet again presented its side, and its assorted cannons were pointed right ahead, angled from the rest of the ship. Their barrels glowed already, laying exactly where they were as they charged up the next salvo. And as the road smoothed out, just for a moment, they aimed for one glowing, sparking muzzle…

BLAM

Streaks of light shot through the air once more, aiming for another chunk of stone to drop on their way – but there was one less this time. Their sight lingered just long enough on the cannons to see one was sparking and smoking from its back; almost a shame they were gonna miss the look on that gunner’s face. Might make them hesitate a little next time.

Nevertheless, they turned around to track the shots that did fire and point right at the stalactite they’d hit, bracing themselves for a burst of speed – which came right on time, as the wagon’s wheels skated on a mass of spores at the edge of the next curve, the wheels practically launching the spores off the road as they kept everyone on track. Yet another tilt, and they all hurtled forwards into the next curve – where Ziv repeated the process almost flawlessly, whirring the engine until it practically screamed… so that when the wheels caught firmly on the path once more, they’d all be thrown right past the shadow of the collapsing stalactite.

A closer call than last time, but still made it with seconds to spare, much as they were fairly sure they heard pebbles bouncing off the roof.

“Got too close again”, they muttered to themselves with the faintest smirk, getting the next bullet in the chamber with a pull of the lever. “Maybe… m-maybe he’ll show his face this time”, they said a little louder, now scanning over the scene with one eye on their ironsights. Nothing seemed to be on fire on what little of the deck they could see, but that was asking for too much, perhaps. It was enough of a distraction, at least, that the Midnight Alight didn’t swerve to show that side once it passed the next formation, simply avoiding it as a sane captain should…

…and drifting slowly and continuously in that same direction, until it practically brushed a large pillar of stone on one side. There, the thing turned twice as violently as before, and ended up practically perpendicular to the road underneath it, and the road they themselves traversed. Leaving every last cannon on that side pointed right above them, starting to glow as the next salvo was readied…

But the skink’s gaze kept going to focus on the blue-and-red streak that swept dangerously close to the firing line before diving beneath the hull. A flick of the Troxi’s gaze, and they saw those manning the cannons drawing armaments, distracted from their duty. One of them, a white olm with red gills and a redder overcoat, even peered over the edge to try and keep track of her…

Big mistake.

BLAM

Was it a bullseye, or a ricochet off the hull? With this vehicle’s rattling jiggling their aim, they’d never completely know, but it mattered little: It was enough to make said Ifchi lose their footing on the deck, and immediately fall over the edge of the vessel to the ground below… Would they live? Hard to know, but it was one gunner out of their business.

The other gunners, however, would be a problem. As they pulled the lever, they saw a roil of activity behind the firing line, what looked like raised limbs shaken in their direction, before all suddenly scrambled behind each cannon once more.

And then, the salvo… far from a neat array of destruction streaking above them, this was a chaotic mess of sparks and light shooting either vaguely above them, or almost directly at their wagon – where it should’ve been, at least. “I p-pissed them off m-miss Ziv-Ziri, t-they shot everywhere!” was all Qarretzu could offer to that, before listlessly hiding behind the seat, as if it’d help…

Before a slimy hand hot enough to almost steam yanked them right back up. They found a pair of lidless violet eyes staring into theirs, before their head was almost shoved against the absent back window. “Find the pointless ones, ignore, then focus. You don’t get to panic, you’re our best pair of eyes”, Usherrimi said, her tone curt yet encouraging.

All they could do was nod, and get back to it. A second glance – they were too close for much reaction, but this meant the clear misses were clear. All that left were the ones overshooting, that ideally wouldn’t scatter much stone, and the one that was heading directly-

“TURN LEFT M-MISS ZIV-”

The whiplash got them before they could finish, though they at least didn’t hit the window (or the olm) this time. They raised their head just in time to see Sherry backlit by a wash of blue light streaming through the window behind her, as her lidless eyes went just a little wider. Whatever comment she had as she opened her mouth was drowned out by the crack of thunder, real or metaphorical, that came from the shot they’d narrowly dodged. By the time she’d actually turned to look at the impact zone, enough of their hearing had come back to hear the pebbles raining down from the other shots that had missed them more widely, or failed to bring down one of the bigger stalactites above.

With that moment over, Qarretzu peered at the Midnight Alight once more, watching it swerve back into place, parallel to them and slowly gaining once more. Then, it was oddly still. At a glance… they couldn’t quite see the captain, but they sure saw a dot, some distant object, get flung over from the prow where Shurrum ought to be towards the still-cooling cannons… before diving suddenly right behind them, as if the very winds had sent it down. “Captain’s mad”, they muttered to Sherry, before holding their breath to aim properly, and get a better view of the action…

Said action yet again involved a flash of blue and red right over the deck, and a far smaller streak lunging from it towards the front of the vessel – before swerving wildly to the side, enough to miss the ship entirely. Chitwy must’ve shot at the captain, who saw her coming and simply swung the winds in his favor. And she must’ve realized this, because she was trying to dive away from the front as fast as possible, from the looks of it, but had the very air under her wings turned against her until she damn near bounced off the liftbag.

The vessel turned, to either swerve the other way or just stay in pursuit after that failure of a broadside. It tilted just enough in the process to start seeing the captain once more, along with his first mate, seemingly focusing on driving once more and not looking their way. And – as they checked through their sights on a quick hunch – just enough to see the crew that delivered said broadside were quickly rushing to crowd under the Cheli. And was that a gun one of them raised-

No can do.

BLAM.

A simple snapshot, barely even aimed beyond making sure it’d hit the mass. But right on time, there was movement, enough that the pistol they could see was immediately lowered, if not dropped. They all scattered, diving out of sight under what should be their posts, as Chitwy took the distraction and zoomed away in moments, taking a far safer distance. Crisis averted, then…!

But the vessel was still coming for them, finishing its turn and coming straight for them. Lower and lower it went as the ceiling closed in; Qarretzu turned their head towards the road ahead of them all, and the ceiling only closed in further on the twists and turns to come, with many of the stalactites merging with their counterparts below. Yet the Midnight Alight kept coming, and wasn’t even slowing down as it found its narrow way through the incoming thicket of solid rock.

It rose in the air suddenly, nearly scraping its gasbag on the moss above, its prow alight with red, then orange, then a pure white… before a single tiny bead of blinding light shot across the air, trailing a mass of roiling fire. The flame cannon again, aimed high… way high, not even coming close to them or their route as it crashed into one of the natural columns far ahead, right under the ceiling. Leaning out the window, they could see the moss catch ablaze, and heard the stone crack under the shift of temperature, softening just enough for the whole mass below to shift. Not enough to measure, but definitely enough to form a faint cloud of dust all around it, shaken off its mossy cover…

“What is he doing?”, the skink mused out loud, as they turned their sights back to the sloop to find a chance to end this chase. As they’d expected, rather than simply steer between the stones, the captain yet again swerved it wildly once past one of the stalagmites, this time just enough to pass right between two more. A narrow, entirely unnecessary maneuver, yet one that thoroughly threw off their aim as they passed right behind the pillar, making them lose track of Shurrum himself for a few precious moments. Was that the intention, or was he just showing off? It could go either way; the fact they could only guess was strangely irritating…

Another barrage came from its side right as it emerged, its munitions pointed far lower than the last shot. They noted three things: It seemed smaller than before, its sparks illuminated Chitwy’s form flitting right above the gunners, and the shots seemed to fly in the same direction as the flames just had, despite being lower-

...he was gonna drop the whole pillar on the road, wasn’t he. Softened it above, and now aimed to cut it down like a stalk.

Qarretzu barged into the cabin and pointed right at it, motioning almost desperately even if it meant missing the chance for a shot. “T-that’s gonna d-drop, r-right on the road…!”
But Ziv-Ziri was smiling again, and gently nudged their snout back out of her territory with one finger. “Warned, thank ya! Now you take care to shoot his eye out if you can find it and I will take care of this~!”

They had little time to process her intense grip on the wheel or the sheer size of that grin before the roar of the engine drowned out all sound, and they were further smooshed into the seat by sudden acceleration. Scrambling back to their sniping position, they did not dare look where they were going, not just now, and tried to distract themselves with the next shot. Even as the shifts in inertia tried to throw off their aim in every direction, and the ground underneath the wagon got bumpier and… muddier, they hoped, they did not look behind them.

Instead, they focused on the Midnight Alight, looking it over as it counter-swerved to avoid crashing into one of the jutting walls of this narrowing passage. A turn so narrow it made them wonder how anyone up there (besides the gunner they shot) managed to stay on that deck. No one opened fire this time, but it brought the sloop far closer, and lower as well; it was practically scraping against the surrounding rock with each movement, yet its pilot was undeterred. Even Chitwy was forced to start dodging around the columns in this place just to stay aloft! A bigger target, sure, but at this rate, one had to wonder if he was going to crash this thing into them, or try that windy trick from before!

No, they had to focus, and see if there was anything they could shoot to put an end to this. Or even just delay it enough for them to get away, and trust their boss and Chitwy to do their parts. From the way the ground beneath them rattled, and from the outright screeches beneath them of wheels against the dunes (rather than the road), hopefully the former was happening.

So they took aimed, and while the vessel lowered its prow to keep away from the ceiling, it was taking a surprisingly straight shot through the air, no turns to leave them vulnerable or expose anyone. Just the cannons to the sides at this stage, and this was the wrong angle and the wrong moment to get a malfunction out of them. They focused, desperately trying to keep the roar of crumbling stone out of their hearing, and the shifting pillar in the corner of their eye away from mind. There was, at least, a smidge of the Flame Cannon – to be exact, the “boiler” of it, reinforced as could be, but still a target for a rifle of their caliber, if they were lucky enough, but would they-

“If you’re gonna take a shot”, Ziv-Ziri turned to yell, “it better be now ‘cause I’m gonna TURN!”

Damn it, no choice but to roll the dice.

BLAM

Oh, good, an elongated flash of white hot light that would’ve been blinding if this thing had a scope. At least that would buy them some time.

Then, Qarretzu’s train of thought was thoroughly derailed as the momentum of the wagon tossed them into Usherrimi – who’d shielded herself with her white tail knowing this would happen. Clawing for anything that wasn’t more olm or olm clothing, they tried to stabilize and look forwards at whatever they were doing – only to find themselves looking at the ship, again, through the front window.

Glancing between front and back, they tried to paint the picture of what the hell was happening: They weren’t driving backwards, but rather had simply spun the vehicle around so violently inertia was still carrying them in the same direction, and right now the bat was spinning the wheels to counter that momentum. Behind them, a deep incline of spores and a cavern wall, an actual ditch. Ahead of them, the road they left, and a road to follow – meaning they were right in the curve between them-

The wheels caught, and the wagon was launched forwards into the lower path, accelerating just enough to send the skink back into their seat again. Zooming down the road, with a glimpse of the Midnight Alight tilting down and the first mate’s eyes peering over the railing on one end, and a glimpse of mossy stone on the other disappearing behind the roof of the vehicle, lingering just long enough to notice it was moving.

Tentatively, if not fearfully, the skink looked out the back.

And they had to close their eyes and hold on, as a scouring wind full of dust and spores blew into the open wagon until they found the lever to slam the window shut.

They were busy wiping the dust from their eyes, but the deafening sound of stone crashing against stone and its echoes traveling through the cavern, made sure they didn’t need to. The stones that pelted the back of their vehicle, and the wind that scoured its steel and its path, only confirmed it. The great mass of crumbling rock captain Shurrum meant to wall them off with had almost crushed them, and it was only the bat’s maddened driving that both put them so close to death, and let them escape capture.

Then, as their ears stopped ringing, they heard a shrill giggle, practically mad with glee. “Gheehee, a perfect turn, outright flawless~!” It was Ziv-Ziri herself, proud of her own work. Her giggling cut off suddenly, however, and she added “Not sure I can pull it off that well next time though, so, if there’s a way to stop him from doing that again, please give it a shot?” She caught herself giggling again, perhaps she spotted her own pun.

Nevertheless, she was right. Even if all they had was a rifle, even if they only had one last bullet left (if they were counting right, and they sure hoped so, no time to check), that bullet in the right place would put an end to this ordeal. So they made sure it was cycled in, got their eye on the sights, and looked out the back…

Not one moment too late. This U-turn (if it could be called a turn, rather than a controlled spin-out of some kind) had left the Midnight Alight facing the wrong way, aiming towards the cavern wall. And true to form, it had to do a U-turn of its own… they were just in time to witness it. It barely slowed before tilting to the side and yet again swinging about in a turn so tight and narrow Qarretzu still didn’t understand how the crew remained standing. The deck had to stand like the steepest of hills during that twist, weaving the ship through the pillars and the stalactites…

They’d know. So tilted it was that they could see the whole thing, including Captain Shurrum himself twisting the wheel in a blur of hand motions. Just clear enough for one last shot. They’d have to account for every motion: The wagon’s movements, the vessel’s turn, gravity’s own pull at this distance, the meager breeze blowing from their destination, and the First Mate potentially ruining the shot again. Already he seemed to be peering this way, starting to move…

A tiny, elongated blur out the corner of their eye, a movement from the First Mate. and they saw him stumbling down, bleeding, with a long black speck through the base of their tail. An arrow… They’d need to thank Chitwy later.

And just in time, in the midst of it all, the captain turned to look at him! He did not let go of the steering wheel at all, but he was distracted nonetheless, his body stock-still even as his hands steered the vessel, just as it started to turn towards them all in another risky maneuver that’d scrape the cavern stone. Just as the road beneath the wagon smoothed and stilled, if only for a moment.

One bullet. Now or never.

BLAM

Ping…

Time seemed to freeze. They clung as tightly as they could to their post, letting their empty rifle drop on the seat. Was it done? Or where they done…?

Captain Shurrum was still standing. No blood to be seen, no falling motions. Yet he seemed to be struggling, his hands no longer a blur. His steering wheel wasn’t turning at all-

Now a falling motion, as the captain stumbled and fell to the side. Yet he got back up immediately… with the steering wheel still in his hands.

Qarretzu saw no sparks, no whirling from the spot where the captain stood a second ago. But the Midnight Alight slowed its turn, flattened its curve, stabilizing and plowing forward like nothing was wrong, bereft of Shurrum’s direction.

Now sparks flew. The sloop scraped the walls of the cavern, scattering dust and pebbles that hid all crew from view, and snagging its liftbags on the upper side, letting abrasion work away at them until they popped in a burst of flame that briefly lit the cavern. Was the captain trying to brake? It mattered not – the vessel started dropping, little by little, as it blind advance sped up, until they lost sight of it behind a column of natural stone…

Very briefly, as it turned out. A deafening crash and screech, worse than the scrape of the hull against the wall, rattled everyone’s ears, before the bent and cracked prow of the Midnight Alight plowed through the crumbling mass of rock, bereft of all lift, to finally drop out of the air and come aground against the spore-laden road beneath it. A mass of shattered, burning wood and bent metal, and the scorched tatters that remained from the liftbag that once let it sail… all partly buried under rubble of its own making.

It was over. If they had meant to do that it would’ve been absolutely brilliant, far more certain than even what they themselves had intended, but this had been a lucky miss. Joy of joys. At least Qarretzu could live with it – literally, who knows if the others would’ve spared them. One of those questions one was better off never having to answer. And so, they watched the rubble settle on the fallen ship, and let out their held breath as the dust cleared at last…

“Don’t know if that was you, his own idiocy, or both, but I don’t care. Perfect shot there, Qarretzu, thank you”. Usherrimi’s sheer relief was palpable, and they didn’t need to look to see the smile on her face from this angle. “Let that ship be his damn grave, I say.” Then, she turned towards Ziv-Ziri, with a less-than-confident gaze and a slight blush on their face, and began to speak in a far lower voice: “Anyhow, Ziv, about that little moment, back there, erm…”

Yet a distant shift in the rocks behind them all clued the skink in that Sherry’s hopes were misplaced. They saw a single copper-green limb rise, followed by the rest of the olm. “He’s… alive, still. J-just crawled out of the pile, and… ” They trailed off, watching their motions, as the captain seemed to still, stare back, and bring one hand to his snout to… “...d-did he j-just b-blow a kiss at me!?”

Their own olm’s groan of sheer exasperation did not wait, with her gills briefly lighting up in sheer frustration. “Of course. Of course he lived. As unkillable as an idiot would be. Of course he did.” Once her palm had left her face, she turned to Qarretzu to finish her thought. “He came for someone brilliant, and found much more than just one. Got far more than he bargained for. I should’ve guessed he’d like that. That… kiss wasn’t just for you, but he’d know it wasn’t me with that rifle, so… yes, bad news, it was for you too. Enmity’s… a little like that in Ishiss.”

That’s not a thought Qarretzu wanted in their head. They turned to answer, but it was a mess of an answer. “H-he almost d-dies and… l-liked that? H-he’ll know it was me! A-and it’s… n-not just you now b-but me t-too!? I-I’m n-not even-”
As their words came to a hard, sputtered stop, Ziv took over. “And I’m gonna guess me too? He did say you had good taste, and while I’m not gonna deny that it sure sounded like he’s including me on this little… thing of his. I mean he almost died here and he’s still flirting?” She was handling it better than they were…

Before they could put together something close to a reply, they were knocked over onto the seat by a feathered mass, one they had been far too distracted to see coming. They heard the twang of a bowstring before the feathers finally gave them space. It was Chitwy again, with the biggest smile they’d seen on her face so far… odd, how expressive a beak could be.

Yet all she had to say, after leaning in and laying one spurred wing on their shoulder, was “Good hunt, Qarretzu. Even I never brought down something that big.”

The silence stretched, as the skink couldn’t help but wilt a little at the praise, much as they had a smile of their own. Didn’t even have to force it, either. Hers was a nice voice when she wasn’t shrieking, was it…

But that smile came to an end, as they forced themselves to confess. “Brought down the ship, but not the captain. He’s… back there. And miss Usherrimi says he’ll come back for us. All of us this time…” Their next words were blurted, almost spat out, as they shivered slightly, their eyes staring at the floor. “H-he blew a kiss at me… a-at us, b-but I saw it. H-he’ll be back…”

When they looked back up, they flinched, finding a spur inches away from their snout, pointed at them, with Chitwy’s gleeful face right behind it. “Hah! My bad on THAT” she said, “but then again all the best hunts are the ones that keep coming back for MORE! Hope I’ll be there when the fucker finds us again! See who finally gets to land a shot through his actual heart!”

“Or head”, the skink answered before they could catch themselves… though then again, they did mean that. They turned towards the back window, closing it as they took a look outside one last time, at the stalagmites, the mossy walls, and the distant plume of dust and smoke they’d left behind, before adding, with a sigh and a small smile, “But next time… we should try not to miss.”

The pleasant silence between them was broken by their boss, who turned her head to look at the olm besides them. “Soooooo, Sherry, gonna guess we’ll need to keep our presence in Ishiss to a bare minimum, if this guy said they were looking for ya and now he ain’t coming back for a while? He didn’t exactly look like the sorta pirate to ransack their ships, if ya catch my drift. Someone’s gonna be looking for people outta place.”

Usherrimi sighed, leaning into the cabin. “They will. Whatever this scheme he leapt into is, if they’ve got the money to casually hand him a vessel like that one, they’ll notice its absence. And they’ll give it back, too much invested in it all. Whatever ‘it all’ is… either the Erudites are making a bigger push than usual somewhere and this is just a part of it, or the Clans finally did something to piss them off all at once. Took ‘em long enough.”

Ziv stifled a little giggle, and glanced back at Sherry briefly before seemingly remembering it was still driving even if it wasn’t the shrieking madness of earlier. “So to sum it up, we’re not crossing this border if we can help it, huh?” Her smile twitched slightly, and her ears drooped, before she muttered her next words. “And we can’t, since we gotta pick up Vel and Kal for their side of the haul. We’re gonna have to skirt the border for a while, huh. All the way until we can just barge up by one of the gorges, pick ‘em up at the Soddenvaults where we agreed and bail before anyone can see us.”

The Soddenvaults… pretty far North, at least for Ishiss. You could have the Custody breathing down your neck if you took a wrong turn, that’s how far North it was. “W-why that far, miss Ziv-Ziri”, Qarretzu asked with some trepidation.

“’cause that’s where their part of the haul was! If my client was right, and they usually are, they’ll be finding a train to open up right around… this time, I think! We’ll pick ‘em up away from the train lines though, don’t worry about that bit! ‘specially since they never did tell me whose train that was.” Her voice betrayed no worry at all, the trust she had in those two had to be something, alright. Especially if there was a non-zero chance that was a Custodial train they had to rob…

...still, if this detour was unplanned, Qarretzu thought to try and distract from that idea, then there’d need to be some sacrifices, or at least maneuvers, to make it on time, if a time was decided on. At the very least, they’d need to hurry, though after miss Ziv’s showing just now, that likely wouldn’t be a problem… at least, not a long term problem. In the moment, in the actual, nerve-wracking rocketing through tunnels and caverns to make the time, it might.

…they glanced at Ziv-Ziri’s reflection in the cabin glass, and saw her usual warm smile twisting slightly, like a snicker without the actual sound. Then, a plume of smoke from the engine outside… no, it would be a problem, would it?

At least she wouldn’t be racing death this time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the depths of a sodden cavern, two portly figures sat against a cracked pillar of natural green stone, with trickles of distant water flowing from cracks in the walls as the only sound to accompany them. Between them laid a large and heavy bag, with an ingot of a faintly yellow, sickly-looking metal poking an inch out of its neck. Their side of the haul, as their boss would've surely put it.

One, the biggest and tallest of the two, whose grey, leathery torso was bared to the world, turned to the other one. “If it’s alright to ask, Vi, though it’s fine if it’s not… Don’t think you told me about how you got outta that creek after getting stabbed. You’re here, so I know you got out, but bleeding face-down in the mud like you were…”

The mole waved him off, his perpetual smile far shinier than the dull iron that covered his form. “Ah, don’t you worry about it, Askal, it’s… perhaps the least interesting part of the tale, all in all, but it does deserve a mention anyhow, doesn’t it? And besides, it is where this whole new… life of mine began, and it deserves mention as such…” He laid back, with one claw behind his head and the other digging into the waterlogged stone beneath, sinking until it felt wet. “Settle down then, and I’ll finish it as I should’ve, mm?”

And so, Velardi began. “There I laid, bleeding face down in the mud just like you said. I understand that’s an idiom, in your land, for doom and utter defeat, I imagine it flows much better in your tongue. And… well, I remained there. Hardly saw much of who did it, I… suppose I felt it hardly mattered. For all I knew down there, it might as well have been him holding the blade in my lung. I didn’t even bother looking up, if you can imagine it, I just… laid there, hearing them splash as he ran off, and my assailant ran right after him, from the sound of it all. Must’ve thought I was already dead by then, limp and unmoving in the mud, sinking in…”

Then, a sigh. A forlorn, familiar sigh from the Ferigozi, as his gaze grew distant enough even the shadows in his helmet couldn’t hide it. “Close enough, I suppose. It did strike right through my heart, after all. Not literally, thankfully, but in so many other ways. Looking back… while I was down there, I couldn’t even think about fighting back. Or moving. Or much of anything at all, besides… Mm. I remember… feeling the cold, muddy water against my face, against my nostrils, and thinking… should I just breathe it in? Should I just be done with it? I considered it, outright, because… perhaps because I thought I’d earned it, by then, but mostly because… pain like that makes your mind wander down such places. Any option that would make it stop, no matter the cost, seems worth a shot… to the point a part of me wished that one hadn’t missed my heart. It took some time to fully quiet that one down…”

It took him a moment to continue, as he drummed his claws on his own helmet. Perhaps letting it sink in, or just gathering his wits. “But then, as it all went silent, as I held my breath, I just… pushed against the mud, raised my nose above the water, and took a breath of humid air instead. I’m… still not sure what pushed me to keep going, looking back. I couldn’t say it was spite, or anger, or anything of the sort. Certainly no need for vengeance, then or… now, I’ll admit…” Turning to face Askalim again, he drew breath to continue, but it took him a moment to actually find the words for it. “The only thought I can remember of that moment is… ‘To hell with it. To hell with all of it’. I was done with prospecting, with knighthood, with the family name, with… the kingdom as a whole. They didn’t want me, not even… not even the man that was closest to me, I’d… chased him off at last, I thought. No one was left…”

Askalim rubbed his snout, trying to hide a small smirk. “Guess it might’ve been a little spite after all”, he said. “Sure sounded like me when I got thrown out, ‘cept with less anger and way more heartache. Gave your all for ‘em, for your countrymen, for the country, for everyone, and this is what they do to ya. Damn right, ‘to hell with all of it’, they sure didn’t think twice to try and send us there. By then, might as well live for you, since that’s all you have left by then. Gonna guess there was something like that for ya.”

Again, the mole sighed, his claw moving over his helmet to rest on its forehead. “Suppose as much. Yet I didn’t even think of… living, much. No plans, no plots at all, nothing but the thought, ‘to hell with it’, as I stood up, and just… started walking, one step after the other, trudging through the mud with little idea where I was going. I didn’t have the map, after all, just a soaked backpack we’d mostly emptied out by then. I just knew, more or less, where the Kingdom was, and walked opposite to that, wherever it is that would take me…” After a moment, he let his smile return, tiny, but sincere and fond, and his voice softened. “I hardly know how long I walked like that, it took some time, but whether it was hours or days, I can’t say I remember, and I doubt I cared, back then, but… as luck would have it, I ended up at a little Ifchi town, some manner of river homestead, I believe. Suppose they took pity on me, this wounded, hollow-eyed young mole with nothing but the torn clothes on his back and a sodden backpack. Not even a weapon, by then. Hardly a threat, I bet they saw it on my face…”

Then, as the distant rumble of a familiar engine made itself known, and they both raised their heads, Velardi smiled a little wider. “Just in time, it seems…”. Standing up, and stretching audibly with both claws in the air, he turned to Askalim to finish the tale. “After that, with what meager common language we could find, I overheard some trouble they had with a raider from the East. I never found if it was a deserter, or just one of the more corrupt roadwardens, as they tend to be around the fringes, but… well, they offered a bounty on him. And from there, the rest is history, and the start of a long, and I suppose oddly illustrious career, heheh…”

“Illustrious enough if ya ask me, if you mean bounty huntin’”, Askalim answered, holding onto the stone behind him to pull his bulk up. “Most of the lot I’ve met were… not even assassins, word’s got a class they didn’t have an ounce of, they were just highwaymen with a license. Hardly worth telling apart. Even the ones that soldiered, once, it got real clear why they left. But you’re still a knight. I could tell at a glance, and it’s clear now. I mean that in the best of ways, mind you.”

The badger couldn’t help but smirk, seeing he had Velardi covering his face again, this time with a twitchy, but flattered smile. “Ahah! Askal, please, I do try but there’s no need for that, it wouldn’t do for Zi-Zi to catch me red-faced like this! Ah, lucky me that she’s still a good way away, if that really is her…”

But then, that smile faded, little by little, followed by Askal’s own… as they noted something odd about the sound. And Velardi himself was the first to bring it up: “Does that seem… louder to you, than it usually is? Or closer, perhaps?”

The Toskar didn’t answer. He hardly had the time for it, when the wagon that came roaring and screeching from behind one of the cliffsides, sliding sideways on its wheels before they caught on the road proper and sent it hurtling forwards in their direction, answered for him. He found himself just pointing at it with one thick index finger, as it rushed in their direction – close enough for him to see those big, glowing yellow eyes, unmistakably Ziv-Ziri’s. Reassuring, but the manic joy in them was just a little concerning…

And before either of them could comment on it, before they could do anything but smile and raise a hand to greet the arriving group, Ziv’s wagon made a skidding turn, swerving on the flat, rocky plain before them and stopping only once it had turned around completely, right in front of them all to the point the mole flinched at its arrival. Before even one word could leave his mouth, the doors had swung open. Qarretzu was inside, shifting over with rifle in hand to make some room, and Usherrimi was right behind them, looking almost pensive, for whatever reason, barely sparing them a glance.

But at the other end, right behind her, was Chitwy, who burst out the other door, flew over both them and the wagon in the blink of an eye, and started shoving against them, nudging her spurs into both of their backs as a shriek of “GET THE FUCK IN THERE!” pierced their ears far more painfully than her spurs.

Askal could stand his ground if he could, and he was almost tempted thanks to this greeting, but he just shook his head in disbelief, and squeezed in there with ingots in hand, his bulk sinking the seat until it creaked… and as soon as Velardi followed in, the Cheli shoved him inside so harshly he landed on the Toskar’s lap, before slamming the door right behind him. In moments, she had barged back into the wagon through the other side, shoving Usherrimi to make room for herself. At least there was no bias there.

The badger raised a finger, with a barb on the tip of his tongue, but the wagon launched itself forwards so fast and suddenly he had to swallow it as momentum shoved him back into his seat – and the rattling roar of the engine would’ve drowned it out if it had left his mouth.

Velardi, however, didn’t let that get in the way, and piped up with clear annoyance in his voice. “Well hello to you too! Fine greeting, all around! Dare I ask what the damned hurry is, that I had to be packed in here like luggage?” Throughout it all, he crawled off his lap, dropping onto his spot and almost smushing Qarretzu under his ironclad bulk in the process. “Apologies, and hello, shame we meet with this kind of haste”, he muttered, offering the skink a claw.

Usherrimi took a moment to glare at the bird at her side before answering. “We can’t linger in Ishiss right now, they’ll be looking for us. Specifically us. And it’ll be airships, minimum.”
“On the plus side”, Ziv replied, “it might take ‘em a while. We did knock the first of ‘em down, which is why! Well, kinda, it was a group effort between us and his, uh, stupid idea.”
“M-mostly the idea, a-all I did was get a lucky shot at the wheel, h-he crashed it all by h-himself…!” Still stuttering, this skink… but they lent their own hand to the now-smiling mole. “M-mister Velardi? Charmed…”

…airship, they said. With a rifle at best. An Ifchi airship, after what little he’d heard of those. Oh, he’d need the details on this. Turning towards the cabin, Askalim leaned in, and muttered close enough for the bat to hear, “I’m gonna need the details on all of this, ‘cause it’s sounding like you all had way more fun than we did.”

Her reply waited until she’d swerved down the way she came, so wildly and harshly even the Toskar himself was shoved against the door, and away from the cabin. “Plenty of time for that, Kal! It’s a long, long drive from here to the South, and from there on! But this part right here? From here to the border? You better hold tight for it~!”

…all he could do was glance at the others. At an apologetic Qarretzu, at a grinning Chitwy, and at Usherrimi, who was just… distant, staring at Ziv as if she had something on the tip of her tongue. “Not a side of you I knew about, Zee, but… alright then. Sure beats the train I bet, least the one we boarded.” It also beat climbing cliffs, trudging through ashes on foot, and wading through mud and spores, looking back.

And as the mole at his side settled in, still in armor yet oddly warm to the touch as Ferigozi often were… Mm, yes. Definitely better by miles.

Somewhere beneath a green plateau, in a dark and sodden crack far from prying eyes, far from a train whose alarms were yet to die down, a mole and a badger took the time to rest and hide, with nothing but the dripping water outside to break the silence. There was no light, with neither fire nor lamps to break through the murk as they made themselves as comfortable as they could within this half-natural, half-carved tunnel one of them had found and grown.

Then, a sigh from the mole, as he got up, reached out and nudged a rock towards the exit, just to make wholly sure they wouldn’t be seen. “Suppose I’ve stalled on this long enough, haven’t I?”, he asked, finding a stone to sit on at last. But he knew he was the only one that could answer. “Where to begin, then, you might need some context for it all, Askal, though if you’ve ever been to the Kingdom, perhaps that’ll… help”. Askalim himself could tell he hardly believed anything would help, from his tone.

But the badger just said, in the most reassuring tone he could muster: “Just take your time with it. Start earlier, even, might help to work up to it. I’ll just make myself comfortable. Much as it gets in here at least…” Finding a spot to actually sit or lay down was a challenge, especially for a Toskar of his size; ceding his armor to the Ferigozi hardly helped, either, as he found pebbles digging into his skin no matter where he tried to lie. But there’d be time to brush them off. Right now, there was one question in his mind, besides the obvious. A question to actually begin with, that he’d had in the back of his mind for some time. “Vi, I know you served, but as what? I know you were prospecting, part of a team, but you never did bring up your rank…”

A bitter chuckle in the dark, and Askalim could almost see that bitter smile in spite of it. “Heh. I never did tell anyone at all, did I? Suppose it didn’t feel right to say it, as if even saying it would’ve been an improper boast. A rank pull, rather than anything worth speaking, if it makes sense. Ah, but it’s as good a point as any… I was a knight, a proper Prospector Knight, by the time it all happened, and closing in on a promotion, for that matter. Though perhaps I was technically a Knight-Captain already by the time it all happened, I never… asked, at that stage.” He sighed, and as the badger’s eyes adjusted he could vaguely see him shake his head. “We’ll get to why in a moment, there’s some context right before it all that I should finally address.”

One last shift in the darkness, as pebbles plinked against metal and cracked under its weight, and he continued, his voice lower both physically and in volume. “This little talent of mine… It showed fairly early on, though not early enough to steer my tuition much. Then again, at that stage, being the fifth son of eight, I doubt anything much would’ve done so. I was treading tracks that had been carved long before me… Hardly the most fitting tracks, all in all.” A clink of one of his claws against the iron of his breastplate, before he continued. “The crafts weren’t my forte, and in all honesty, they still aren’t. Not when compared in any way with my siblings… before me or after. Weaponry, armor, art, even bloody furniture! I could hardly compete, never going beyond middling…”

There was a shift in the dark, and Askalim could barely see two glints in the dark, utterly tiny. “As it turns out, said, ah, talent was playing a part. I hardly know the specifics, but it seems whatever it is that seeps from my claws into anything I work is a little… different, from the usual. No strengthening, no infusions of the usual ambient energies, but rather…” The mole trailed off, spreading his claws in the shadows, before he sighed and finished in a bitterly amused tone. “It seems I just make iron and such malleable. As if I were filling it with all the same… properties, that make clay ever so reshapeable. It fades quickly, of course, but it leaves a mark, a… spoiling mark. Something only a crucible can get rid of, I believe… A perfectly ruinous little gift for one in a family like mine, heh. Heh…”

“Which is when you instead went into the Knights Excavant.” Askal thought it better to cut in early with that one, since the mole was already in a mood thinking back before whatever incident sent him down this path, and right into this crevice. And besides, may as well probe, and learn more; he always did find it a little odd that they had a straight-up knightly order just to prospect. It sounded… lofty, even by Ferigozi standards. “That’s what they were called, right? The formal ones, rather than the usual pebble-kickers just digging into cliffs and hoping to find things. We, ah, used to chase those off the borders sometimes, on slower days. But they didn’t have your… airs, I guess?” Damn it, he really needed a better word for that.

By the chuckle that followed, far less bitter, it seemed close enough. “Ah, I made the push, yes. If I couldn’t be a dignified ironworker, I thought, I’d instead be a dignified iron procurer, I’d be the part of the chain the others never looked at. At least that’s what I was telling myself at the time… often avoiding the thought that I’d need to be a proper soldier, with the bloodstained claws that implied.” Then, Velardi was back to the earlier tone, after a sigh. “Not quite what they would’ve wanted of me, but at that stage, I could hardly give them what they asked. I’d tried, but it was very clear by then that I’d only be treading old ground and leaving nothing worthy in it…”

Askal cleared his throat. Time to dig him out of it again. “You wanted to be you, yes. So you pushed to get in, and I’m guessing it worked. Did they have their tests, did they let you take tries at it, or just a one-or-forget it deal? And were you already bending iron like putty by then, or did you pick that one up on the job?” The Toskar shifted his body as he spoke, restlessly brushing off the pebbles that stuck to his thick quills, and the occasional one digging in his underbelly. He might need to ask for Vi to clear a bigger spot later, at this stage, but that could wait. This took priority.

The mole perked up at that. “During, actually! I had a greater interest in usage than making, when it comes to weapons and armor, so I felt perhaps if I dedicated myself to that instead, I’d stand out, I’d be someone worth the look. And so the tests began, battle and digging alike.” He idly sank one of his claws into a nearby boulder, dragging it down inch by inch, punctuating his words with the cracking of stone. “I proved myself fairly deft at the latter, sorting ores and carving earth was something I’d helped some old family friends with before. Quite often, in fact, it was almost restful, compared to being in there…”

Then, a pause. He stopped speaking and carving alike, and let the seconds tick by until he finally sighed, and let himself continue. “Fighting, however, was… rougher. I hardly scraped by, at the time, barely passing the evaluations, coasting at first on the excavation results. I needed to push myself, strain myself even, to pass each test, each spar, each evaluation they threw my way. And it still wasn’t looking especially good, much as in retrospect I could never be sure if I’d pass anyhow, or not… There is a need even for the lowest of squires, yet I wondered if I’d even make it so far, at one point.”

Another pause. A clink of armor… and the tell-tale groaning of iron sheathing itself around his claw, forced into shape by energies neither of them fully understood. “And then, during a spar I was losing, I grabbed my instructor’s hand through his shield, and almost cost him fingers that way.”

The newly-“forged” clawsheath was flicked away, clinking in the dark, as the mole’s tone got back its previous energy. “That certainly interested them. They wanted a closer look, of course, so after I found I had a hard time redoing the feat, the tests were extended, redoubled… they hardly told me I’d passed until I failed a test some time afterwards, and they let me know I was already in. That I’d been in for some time, in fact, the moment I showed I could actually control this little talent of mine, but that things like these need a little ‘tension’.” He put heavy emphasis on that last word, clenching one claw. “...now, troubled as I was by this deception, I suppose they had a point. It was only through the additional pressure that I could push myself into making it work consistently. Still, victory felt a little marred, by the idea I had won the moment I molded a crude blade together with my bare claws, when I’d kept going so much further than that.”

Askal couldn’t help but sigh, breaking the silence Velardi had seemingly expected. “Real typical of ‘em. The more any army unit prides itself on what it does, the prouder it is, the more you see them pull stunts like that. And I bet they didn’t even stop after it, either. All the Cobalt Guards I met, and all the Palace Keepers I ever heard about, got it just like that, and as soon as you got past the pride and the glory it showed.” Then, a moment after realizing this came less like a comment and more like an outburst, he tacked on, in a softer voice: “Though, honestly, you handled it much better than any I knew of…”

The little chuckle he heard from the mole was of genuine amusement, to his surprise. “Ahah! Aah, it does get like that, doesn’t it? On my part I heard some strange business about the King’s Claws, hardened as they were. I never did meet one, but Torrialde had his share of anecdotes…”

A pause. A whole half-minute’s worth of pause, in fact, where they both laid in silence, their breath so quiet only the gentle flow of water through stone could be heard. Askal almost forgot there was a search outside, he heard nothing of the sort. But eventually, the mole found his words. “...Torrialde. I tried not to get here this soon, yet this whole story led me there anyhow… But it’s about time. I’ve… stalled long enough, I’m afraid.” Already Askal felt a tinge of dread settling in – if that scar on his back had an actual name behind it, then the wound went deeper than it seemed.

After a deep breath, the Ferigozi continued, in a sullen tone. “They found a spot for me in one of the newer squads, replacing one that cracked under pressure. Would be a recurring theme, as I later found out, Torrialde and I were the only ones that lasted more than two years in there. But he’d been there from the beginning, he was already a little seasoned by then, with some missions under his belt… he showed me the ropes, let me hit the ground running. And from there, we excelled… even in our failures, even when there was nothing left to do but flee, we were outstanding…”

He was sounding a little too wistful now, time to poke him with a question. A genuine question, ideally, which took a second for Askalim to come up with. “What was this ‘Torrialde’ like? You’ve never brought him up before, and I’m guessing I’ll find out why, but just to know from the get go, and with… hindsight in mind, what kind of Ferigozi was he? I mean, if he was one, though I’m assuming he was.” That’d work… Torrialde, then. He wouldn’t have guessed Velardi had his own Captain Valkut, he seemed… too weathered, too stable for it. But there you have it.

Another sigh, just a little dramatic. Vi began again, with a voice that was hard to get a read on, as he reached for a pebble on the ground. “Definitely more of a… people-watcher, I’d say. Someone who never said he prided himself in how he could read others, but it was fairly clear he did. He always tried to… play along with others’ quirks, to read them and their traits, sometimes even… tried to teach me by example, on it. Even pushed to say things in his stead, knowing the reaction would be different, when it would be more welcomed.” Then, a huff, and the pebble cracked in his grasp. “Oh, I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve seen it, that someone that was so immersed in the whole… in webwork, and so openly at that… ah, I should’ve seen it for what it was, called it for what it is. But NO. I took him at his word. The right word for every occasion, he said! And when I had doubts, I remembered his guidance, and how he… stood his ground, how defiant I thought he was, and… a-and the way he looked at me…” Askal heard a flick, as the dusted remains of the pebble were cast away. “Suppose I just got lost in it all. Carried away into the little tale for himself he was weaving...”

The badger could feel those beady eyes in the dark now. “He… always looked at me like I was a bit of a puzzle, you know? Like he couldn’t figure me out. And that… intrigued him, I believe? I used to think I… fascinated him. And it… it was a pleasant thought back then, as you can imagine. To have someone so deeply… interested in you…” Again, the mole sighed deep… before stopping suddenly. Those eyes went wide enough to see even in the gloom, almost like they had the tiniest spark of their own. Then, the stammering, as his words began to fail him and his voice turned to a hissed, startled whisper. “O-of course, nothing of the sort that’s- it was by no means a- I mean, pleasant in a wholly-”

Pressing down on his snout like a silence button came almost natural to Askalim, he found himself doing it before he was even aware, before he’d even thought of any words. He’d have to ask himself why later, but right now… damn it, might as well. If he couldn’t in this company, then who? So he took a moment to gather his thoughts, and began. “Vi, you don’t have to hide that kind of thing from us. Not from me at least. I promise you, on my honor, not from me. If you’re drawn to males, you’re drawn to males, that’s that. Hell, I’ve been drawn to more than one, that hasn’t gone away with time… unlike what some idiots think.” That… was apropos of nothing, now that he thought of it, but whenever this little topic came up he couldn’t help but think of his ex-sergeant back when he was but a recruit. That was the least of his idiocies though.

Still, it worked. Velardi let out a held breath, and gently laid his hand on the one that’d shut his snout. His voice wavered a little more with every word. “That… saves me time. And so many worries. So many worries, Askal! Here I was, thinking I’d trapped myself into a corner with something I should’ve never said, after telling myself I’d have to dance around it, twist the details to bury it all and still offer something close enough to the truth, and…! And here I am, the fool, having tried, and failed, when I never had to… Ah, I never get this right, do I…”

The badger offered a smile. “It’s complicated, ain’t that easy to be rational about this. Lords know our nations have a hard time with it… still, much as I suspect Zee’s fine with it too, same with the others, still safe with me, won’t tell unless you do. Hardly changes much, honestly.” After a moment, he had to wonder if that last bit was the right thing to say. It didn’t change his opinion much, sure, but this was still a promise, trust on each other, even if a little one-sided since Askal’d confessed rather casually to the point he didn’t even know if Velardi noticed. Though with that in mind, if he knew the mole had his preferences, part of Askalim did wonder if he was in any way eye-catching to him…

But he brushed that off as best he could. He couldn’t think of that now, this was a terrible time to start looking at Vi like that, and an especially awful time for any realizations that might come from it. No, this wasn’t the time! Back on track, where were they, what to ask? Something came quickly, something useful, if a little tragic: “Though with that in mind, I’m going to guess this Torrialde wasn’t just a brother in arms…”

No, very tragic. None of those who turned their backs on Askalim were this close. Valkut himself – Worm take his ass – had always been a bit of a bastard at best, he’d never opened his heart wide to any of the involved, especially not him. That might’ve been too heavy a swerve back into the topic. But then again, he needed to hear it, and Vi needed to say it, so…

And so the mole resumed – not with a sigh, but with a different, uncomfortable little sound. “I’ll… get to that, it plays a part in this matter. The answer to that is, in fact, the crux of the matter. But if you’ll let me get there, cover a little context on the way, first…” After a motion in the dark from the Toskar, he took a deep breath, and continued. “It was complicated. We locked our steps fairly quickly, working with each other in battle quite well, in fact, though outside it things were murkier. Still, when you have to face battle with another by your side, there needs to be some trust, and that little seed always grows a little beyond once steel stops singing. But… I suppose neither of us knew exactly what was growing.”

A sweeping motion of his claws that briefly touched the ceiling above preceded his next words, as his tone turned wistful again. “But grow it did. And oh, how it grew… On his end, I can only imagine what he thought, piece it together from what I saw then, and know now. But clearly he trusted me to have his back, to aid him as he’d aided me before and since… but beyond that, in retrospect, I cannot say. I can hardly guess. Because one thing I do know, is he seemingly trusted me enough to get in my personal space. He was a… touchy one, you could say. Not a hugging sort, of course, but… at first, he just had no real qualms nudging me, even for the mildest things, a hand on my back or my side, unexpected, just to turn me towards what he needed me to. Not just on the field, either, even for something like a sign on the wall, his hands would be on me.”

Then, Velardi’s tone got… stranger. Distant. “…that deepened, just a little bit. He had this… habit, of getting his arm all over my shoulders, and pulling me in to tell me something with my snout inches from his. He did that… often. And the… names, too, the sort you’d expect from… from…” It took him a second to continue, to actually gather his thoughts and skip ahead to what he could say. “Not at first, obviously, but soon enough, months in, after it became clear we were the closest thing to the unit’s veterans, and maybe earlier, when I hardly noticed… with this… tone he had, too, even slurred the Rs a little bit just to… sometimes he called the whole unit that, when addressing us all, but only if I was there, and the slurring was only with-”

“Slurred the Rs on what, Vi?” Askalim blurted out before he could catch himself. He’d been drawing it out long enough, he thought, right before he realized there was probably a reason for that.

The mole’s next word came with actual difficulty, like pronouncing them was an ordeal. Through teeth so gritted each sound was practically extruded through them by his tongue. “Ulramai”, he finally said, letting out a held breath after that. Askal tilted his head, and Velardi sensed that enough to elaborate, now that the worst for him was out. “It’s an… archaic one. Back in old times it was something you said to the King alone. But it means ‘my king’ if you just translate it directly, and it’s… it’s…” The badger could feel those beady eyes on him again, as his voice rose and cracked. “Askal, I’ve heard couples say that to each other! Partner to partner, wives to husbands! W-why would he, if…!?”

Now he suddenly wondered if interrupting him with a touch to his face had been the right idea. But now he knew exactly what to never say… “If he wasn’t interested? Lords know about that one. Maybe he was just one of those real affectionate sorts, too close with everyone, too… showy. Never got close to any of those, but you saw it in the barracks, sometimes, some were handsier than others. But calling you ‘my king’, that’s… new. That one’d throw me off…” He thought of something else to add, but couldn’t find anything. Knowing this whole business ended in that scar… this was heading down a darker path with every word. Nothing left to do but to tear off this bandage. “Not bringing that word up again. What… happened with this all? Did you tell him about this, did he clear anything up…?”

The silence that followed seemed to stretch forever, with both of them lying in the dark waiting for the other to speak, hardly able to see each other… but Velardi took a deep breath, and broke it. “Sorry, it’s… I needed to gather myself. You’ll understand why, I’m sure, but… mm.” Askalim heard the sound of one of the mole’s claws scraping along the metal, making it creak as the tip sunk right through, yet left it unharmed. “For a while, I was quiet on the matter. For a little over a year, I believe. Utterly quiet, with him and everyone else. Never bringing up the questions this made me ask myself, the… way it made me wonder if I should pick up on it. At the time, I guess I thought I just couldn’t believe someone would… say something like that to me. Or maybe something within me was catching on about what he truly thought…?”

Another creak of metal before he sighed, and continued. “And I should’ve listened. I should’ve been quiet, and believed these hunches. I should’ve realized that in this Kingdom that’d disrespected me like this… In this Kingdom that had buried some of its best and brightest because they chose the wrong associate… In this damnable Kingdom where no man should love another… such thoughts were just wishful thinking.” Now the mole’s voice cracked, just slightly. “But each time, it happened again, and I… looked at him again, got lost in it all, and I started to believe, maybe… maybe I should pick up on it. Maybe I really did hear that right! Maybe he meant it! And little by little, I ended up convinced that there was something there, and I’d been missing the signals the whole time. And that still he hadn’t stopped, so there was… still a chance. That we could be discreet, just enough that our records, our… ever-growing records, would keep suspicions away. Oh, we were good enough that they wouldn’t want to know, I thought. And so, they wouldn’t ask!

Then, the single most bitter little chuckle Askalim ever heard, as Velardi finished that thought, barely audible. “I painted a whole fantasy for myself that way, and dove headfirst into it until it was all I could see, heh. Heh…”

Askal gulped, and steeled himself to ask the inevitable question. The inevitable turning point that turned a promising soldier, an up and coming Knight-Captain, into the scarred bounty hunter hiding with him in this cave, just as disgraced as he and everyone else, if not more so. “I’m… going to guess this is the part where you brought it up. Maybe told him you… liked him, outright.” Catching a nod in the darkness, he went on. “Told him outright, then. How… how badly did that go? How did he react?”

Silence again. Then, a shuffling sound, as Velardi got closer, just close enough to see his face in what little light was there… with those bright, beady, wet eyes looking straight at him.
“...he was disgusted.”

Stammering, the mole tried to… clarify? Elaborate? Continue from there, as if he couldn’t bear to linger on that thought. “O-of course, it was but a passing expression, very quick, just… just a flash! He… very much pretended not to hear that, and never brought it up, but…” A quick and shaky breath, giving away his barely-held composure. “But I saw it. In his eyes, in just the faintest twitch in his expression, and in… everything that followed after that, faintly. But it was clearest when I told him, right as he processed, as he realized, and… a-and… even as he settled his expression, as best he could, I… I-I could see it in his eyes… I could see it in his eyes, and it never left. Not completely… and not ever.”

Yet before Askalim could say something, anything, before he could even raise a hand, Velardi kept going, no matter how much his voice shook. “Like I said, he pretended not to hear it, pretended it… never happened, but it was never the same after that. Not while it lasted. There was a tension now, a cold distance, even when inches apart in the most cramped of tunnels. Greetings he didn’t return… hardly called me by my name, even if his tone seemed the same. And sometimes, I caught him… staring at me from the edge of his sight. And whenever I did… I couldn’t read his face. Not in the least. Far from blank, but… I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, not anymore.”

He slowed down, at least for a moment, but that couldn’t hide the pain in his voice. “I… wonder sometimes, if he was still trying to read me. If I had blindsided him so badly with… something he never expected of me. That he somehow… never saw coming. Except instead of looking at a puzzle, he was looking at… at a malfunction. Like… he thought he knew me well enough, and that just… didn’t mesh in his eyes.” Once again, his little eyes fixed on Askalim’s, asking a question he knew the badger couldn’t answer. “I wonder, sometimes, did he… think I had changed, under the pressures of our work? Or that I’d been… replaced, that day, or entirely, and thus couldn’t be trusted anymore? That I was gone now…? Or did he realize who I was, who I truly was, and… a-and it made him sick…? Did he even try to reconcile it…?”

Askal wracked his brain for something polite to say. He wanted to tell him: ‘It doesn’t matter what he thought’. He didn’t care whether Valkut had a right to be suspicious of him and only later fell to corruption, or was just throwing him into the cold just to deflect any suspicion on something he was doing. The captain did what he did. And just as much, it doesn’t matter if Torrialde thought he was justified on doing what he did because he thought a moth or a flayer-bug was wearing Vi’s face, or because he thought he deserved it for being a… whatever slur the Kingdom used for this. It didn’t even matter if he thought he was justified or not. What mattered was he did what he did.
...whatever it was. Now that took his thoughts, as he tried and failed to find a polite way to ask that instead.

Yet Velardi was one step ahead of him on that, interrupting his train of thought with a long, shuddering sigh. “I’ve… meandered long enough, haven’t I…? Eventually, context just becomes… dodging the point. And I’m long past that point, aren’t I…? Just… one more moment to gather my thoughts, please. To get back to the… point. To the scar. To the start of all… this.” The badger could see his claws motioning towards the gashes in the tunnel that he’d carved, remnants of his earlier panic.

It took a deep, deep breath for him to muster the courage to continue. “First of all… a confession. I’m terribly sorry, Askalim, but… I do know how to swim. I did learn, but…”
But Askal shook his head. “No need, not by now. I figured something was up, but if it’s this deep…”
“No”, the mole answered, “I lied to your face, you deserve an apology for that alone, and over something of this importance, in a mission like this… in any mission! It’s-”
“Apology accepted”, the badger interjected, stopping himself from reaching out and pinching his mouth shut himself. “You’ve got enough on your plate, Vi.”

Velardi let out a breath… a shuddering breath, that almost sounded like a whimper at the end. “I… you’re right, I should… I’m still meandering, aren’t I? No, back to where we were, back to the matter.” Another creak of iron as he sunk his claws into his own breastplate, as if reminding himself it was still there. “It all… came to a head in this one outing, right outside the Kingdom. East of it, close enough to the Hollow-Lands to be waterlogged. Full of wide, muddy rivers, just slow enough to keep their mud, yet quick enough that their currents were still an issue. Sinking in was a very real risk, if we didn’t take things carefully, and so, we brought little more than our light uniforms. Something to cover the skin, but nothing to weigh us down. I… hardly remember what we were meant to find, just that we needed to sift through the mud for its pebbles, and then go upstream to find where we should dig. And I remember so clearly that the earth was so… thick with water, over there, that even scratching it drew water, as if it bled…”

More creaking metal. The Ferigozi was practically hugging himself, as if his armor might escape the moment he let go of it. “It felt… colder than it should, but in retrospect, I’ll never know if it truly was a colder day, or if it was an ill feeling about the outing that I couldn’t cast off. But it was a long trek, and a longer roam to find even a single pebble. Even with our unburdened selves, we were near-exhausted by the time we’d found a good waterflow…” Then, his voice started trembling again. “Oh, we should’ve known how far it was. How far we were from… h-home. We were long past that, right into Consortium lands… well past them, as it turned out, because what we found was not… them. Oh, no, a Vezarym patrol, or even bandits, we- I would’ve seen coming, b-but…”

Velardi swallowed nothing, trying to settle himself, trying to find words that wouldn’t shake his voice as he said them. “Up we went. Up this… so-called creek, this slow and muddy flow. On we marched, as it… narrowed, deepened, as it became its own little canyon. As we found little to no way through but into it, and upwards, wading up it from rock to rock, then from puddle to puddle… Mmh. It was a terrible place to be in, when you know there may be others on the prowl. Surrounded by high rocks, slowed down, hardly able to reach…” No can do, his voice started to crack again. “B-but even then, it was… still us two, and we had our backs, I thought! Even after… t-that, h-he’d warn me if he saw anything, if he felt anything off, so that we may adapt and stay on top of it all! I would’ve done the same for him after all, j-just like so many times before…! I misstepped, misjudged, sure, b-but this wasn’t the barracks, this was the field! And he was still Torri, even after everything! We were still proud knights, we were still… us…!”

He’d backed away towards the walls, towards the darkest, furthest corner of this cave he’d carved for the two of them. But by now, he was talking to himself alone. “But NO! When the ambush finally came, and we can both feel it’s coming? When we find ourselves flanked by stone on both sides, waist deep in water with our boots full of mud? When I look behind him, just in case, and he turns around to face me, giving me those… those EYES he gave me by then?! Not an ounce of concern! Even as he saw something, whatever it was, even as something tipped him off that it was coming, and it’d be right behind me, he said nothing, DID nothing, he just stared! He saw it, I know he saw it, yet he did nothing, nothing!”

“And then it slithered right out of the water behind me! All I hear is a splash, and all I see is him j-just… staring at it all, still as can be! He did NOTHING! As it drove a blade into my back, deep as it could go, he did NOTHING! HE JUST WATCHED! Shoved into the water, bleeding and winded, by this… this river raider, this olm he could’ve dispatched like nothing, and he watched, and he just… he just LEFT! He left me to die, he LEFT ME TO DIE!”

Askalim finally had his answer… it was a battle wound, but only physically. And it hadn’t been this Torrialde himself plunging the blade into Velardi’s back. The knife itself, and the presumable Ifchi colonist that held it, they were just… incidental. And they left an open wound that he could hardly imagine, somewhere under the actual scar…

But more importantly, Askalim now had a Ferigozi, his own colleague and friend, falling apart somewhere in the dark. Shivering and trying desperately not to sob, his stuttered breaths the only sound in the tunnel. He couldn’t just watch that, but what would even help here? Words seemed hollow right now, he’d need to…

Without a word, Askal got up, and keeping his head low he walked over to the ball of misery Vi had curled into, before sitting down and laying one enormous, webbed hand on his armored shoulder, tapping the iron with his fingernail. A familiar noise, but one to let him know he was there. He hadn’t left him behind.

After that, after seeing the mole slowly turn to face him, eyes streamed with tears, he offered a small smile, but no words. No, the silence and the darkness, so far from anything and anyone, but with two rather than one, would… hopefully help. It might be familiar enough…

Minutes passed in the dark. Those quick, stuttered breaths were gone, replaced with deeper ones, quieter ones, as they sat there in an unremarkable crag, in the middle of nowhere, with a satchel full of valuable metal… Just like old times. Just like when life was looking up, because he didn’t know his partner in arms was… who he was. But that part was in the past… Askal didn’t know how to tell him that, but he wasn’t walking away. All he could do right now, while the mole found his words again, was sit with him, and be the proof of it.

Eventally, the mole sighed… a long sigh, as he turned to look at the battered pebbles in front of him. His voice was exhausted, outright spent, as he finally found something to say. “...I should give you back your armor. I… can’t have you walking away like this. It’s your armor, not… mine, I just… need a moment, is all. I’ll be fine! I’ll… be fine…”

Sidetracked again. The badger shook his head, and leaned in closer, using the softest voice he could. “Nah. You keep it until we can hammer something out. It’ll do ya better than it does me. And besides, I know you have my back, if anyone wanted a cut on the way out. That’s all we’ll need.” After a blink, an afterthought, and a glance into Velardi’s eyes, he blurted out, almost in a hurry: “Also we’re not leaving yet, don’t think the search’s called off. Okay, might be, but, better safe than sorry.”

Little late for that. He’d already touched enough of a nerve that the mole was rubbing his eyes again, then full-on covering them under his claws. But this time, at least, he could still answer, even offer an ironic, slightly bitter chuckle. “Ghah. Hah… D-damn it, Askal, you can’t… you can’t just keep making an old mole cry like that.” Right before the badger could open his mouth, he just raised his other claw in the air to shush him. “I know, ‘you’re not that old’, I’m aware, just… ah, damn it if I don’t feel the part sometimes. But… I suppose the little ordeal I just told you about shaved some years off my life. Some of the early ones, it’d seem…”

“If it’s any consolation, at least from where I’m standing”, Askalim replied, leaning back against the wall to stretch his legs, “being in this whole… thing, in Zee’s little enterprise? One of the good things about this all is, something like that ain’t gonna happen again. Not at that level. She’s not gonna throw me out into the cold, I’m sure of that at least… And she ain’t about to strand you in some mudhole and leave you behind.” Then, he considered the unthinkable, just in case, and finished: “I’ll wring her neck myself if she does, ya hear?”

He waved a claw dismissively, just a little too hard. “No. No need for that, thankfully, I believe you. On all three accounts, mind you. Ah, it’s… perhaps fortunate this all happened with you, rather than her, however.”
Yet the badger tilted his head, almost absentmindedly, rather than nod. “What do you mean by that?”
Vi took a few moments to piece together his reply. “I… mm, I’m not dismissing her at all, mind you, but… Zi-Zi’s not a woman of war, not in the least. She’s bled for us, but I feel… you understand the field a little better, and thus… get, this whole incident a little more. And she’s thought me unbreakable, too…”
This time, it was Askal’s turn for a dismissive wave. “Pah, she’d get it. If anything, she might’ve known the right words earlier than I did. Never been good at this whole… thing. Never really had to, at least.”

Velardi had no reply for that, other than a glance, and the first genuine smile he had to offer since he came in… maybe, just maybe, he’d been good enough this time.

…right before a yawn, and a slump. The mole was looking just a little dour again. “...that… took more out of me than I thought. But then again, I never… thought about it. I tried not to, for… all these years. But I suppose that would only work for so long.”
The badger shook his head. “Never mind that, Vi. You needed that, I could tell. Maybe that scar of yours will ache a little less now, I’m hoping as much.”

And once the smile was back, he took a moment to stand up, and move closer to the exit, with his back against a boulder, one hand over the spot where his axe had been. “Though, you know what? If you’re tired, since we’re gonna be here a while, how about you lay down for a bit? I’ll keep guard. They shouldn’t come in here, but I’ll have ya on your feet the moment I hear anything.” With a quick look into their shared bag, he tossed an old, ragged blanket over at the mole, letting him catch it. “How’s that sound?”

Velardi caught it, glancing at it, then at Askalim, almost in disbelief. “B-but… wouldn’t you need one? You wrestled that metal beast in the train, I hardly-”
He was shushed by one great, webbed finger pushed gently against his snout. “Nope”, Askal said, grabbing the blanket and tossing it over him, “that was just business as usual for us. That needs a breather, what you need is some rest.”

Then, a chuckle from beneath the fabric, one far less bitter than the rest. “Alright, very well, if you insist, Sergeant. Just… please do wake me up if anything happens. I’d rather you not go off alone. May as well be of better use than I just was. And besides, I am the one with the armor, since you insist on that too.” With a few movements, he curled up right underneath, with metal scraping against stone until he was presumably comfortable…

“I dunno how how do that, I never could. But then again, suppose it’s more comfortable like that for ya.” Askal shook his head, suppressing a little laugh himself. ‘Maybe one day’, he thought, ‘he might not need a ton of steel around him just to catch a nap’.

And so, he sat back, keeping his ears peeled for any sounds that weren’t the flowing water outside, or the soft snoring and turning of the mole once he finally slept. Thinking about today… it felt successful, in a way. They got what they came for, but, when he thought about it, looking at the mole… They say there’s a story behind every scar, but rarely do they have a still-bleeding wound right underneath. One Velardi had just refused to treat, refused to even acknowledge, as he went from job to job, task to task. He hid it well, like any veteran would, hiding their true wounds just to make sure the new recruits wouldn’t be terrified. Hid it so well he outright forgot about it, also like some veterans he knew… Right up until they tore open once more, reminding them and everyone else that they were still there.

Maybe, just maybe, this bleeding had finally stopped.

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Far away, on the other side of the Subterraneum, deep into the foggy heartland of the Kingdom, a squire of the Knights Excavant curiously peered into the open door of an old office. Knight Lord Torrialde of Torcasia was there, in full ceremonial armor, surrounded by the trophies of his work: Maps of mines he’d prospected for, statues made from the ingots they’d found in there, gems he’d found and handed raw, and received polished, and the occasional skull of those that’d tried to stop him. All par for the course.

What seemed far stranger at a glance was the medal held between his claws, rolled around and inspected from every angle by the Knight Lord’s narrowed eye. A Knight-Captain’s medal. She’d been told Lord Torrialde had a piercing gaze, and an expression as impassive as raw granite, but right now he looked… pensive. Lost in thought, examining it almost as if he saw right past the thing, and into another place entirely. He wasn’t even admiring it, all she saw was intrigue, as if he was looking for answers in it. But the medal looked… old, its ribbons worn and bleached by time. Why was he holding it? Torrialde had long passed that rank, and he still had his own medal with him – for some odd reason – so why was he playing around with this trinket?

The Lord’s eye shifted, and glared at the squire in the hall. Suddenly his gaze went past piercing, and became outright venomous, as if he briefly tried to strike her down on the spot. The medal was set down quickly, just a little too quickly, as he turned to fully stare her down.

“Move. Along.”

The Squire saluted, and left, outright fleeing down to where she should be, as if she thought his gaze would chase her. She had questions, but she was fully aware she might never get her answers. But even now, with that quick glance into this very private, ever-evasive Knight Lord, she had to ask herself if he would find any answers himself.

Seven clans, seven banners, seven versions to make one. Indeed, the story that follows has been compiled from Bannerbound sources, much to the presumable chagrin of some of my readers in the Great Dust Gyre. To them I say: I apologize, but I know a common narrative when I see one.
If it helps, I must commend the effort each of the seven clans put into the preservation of their particular version. All the usual work of collecting the scattered scraps, combing through the dust and dirt of pre-Refuge history and scouring the embellishments of overenthusiastic or agenda-driven writers and tellers? All practically done for me before I got started. It’s preservation done right, in a way a jaded soul like me can appreciate and even celebrate. I will say: If retaining all you can of who you used to be is truly what the Seven are looking for, you are doing it right.
It’s thus almost a shame that the work I had to do was to find the parallels and common themes, and step forwards with the apparent sacrilege of weaving them into one. All I’ll say is this: Someone had to.

They say death is one of the only things we all have in common, but they barely know how right they are! It hardly matters where you were born, where you moved, where you died, and where you’ll go, everyone gets plucked off the world. And more importantly, one thing we can all agree on? We all get reaped by the same Harvester[1]. Pits, Skies and whatever else the others have, wherever you’re going, you’ll be sent on your way by the exact same fellow as everyone else. And she’ll[2] find ya anywhere and everywhere.

But is that all she is? One who lives for the job and nothing else? You would think so, and dare I say even she might have, once. But in those rare lulls between each passing? In those quiet times between wars where all flourish, or in those places where there’s nothing left to drop? In those time well before us, even? Turns out there’s a lot of time to fill. And even those diligent, stone-minded sorts who live to work have to find something to do in those bits of meantime.

Of course, someone like her took a long while to realize this. Still well before our time, but plenty had stood up and fallen by the time she started to wonder, maybe there was more to these interims than waiting. One can guess the thought caught her right as she was looking at the bones of someone she’d sent off a little later than usual, on a busy day. Maybe a catch-up sort of day. It was one of those fellas that never got sent off right, though, that one’s clear[3]. One of those fellas that scatter their bones all over her foyer, so to speak, because they came right along with the part of ‘em that mattered most. She just shooed ‘em along before that, made the lot take those bones with ‘em to whatever came next. But that one time, something must’ve happened for her to start wondering, maybe she could do something with those, with the wait ahead of her.

Quick as she is – don’t need to waste time moving when you’re already there – she’d have them tucked away before the next one came in, saving them up in some forgotten corner, some place so dead, so bereft of anything that she had to pluck it from the rest of the realm like a common soul. But the pile seemed disorderly, chaotic, didn’t seem like it was making the most of its space, so she tidied it up. Then did it again, after the thought there’d be more bones crossed her mind, they’d need to fit somewhere, may as well make them support each other! Halfway through making the base of a decent pillar before duty called again. Or at least, that’s what she saw it as when she got back to it later… How much later? Doesn’t matter. What matters is she had another handful of bones with her once she did, from another poor fool who dropped dead where no one but her would find ‘em.

Something about this caught her, practically entranced her. Maybe she finally realized there was something else other than her job and the wait. Or maybe she saw a future in these shapes she was putting together, or the potential ones in her head now that she had something to think about. But before she’d realized, she had built herself a room. A proper, actual foyer, where the metaphorical one had been. That’s the one you see in paintings[4], though she’d done work on it since then. And she thought what any of us would’ve, by then: “Maybe I could build a big house to go with this”. And so, she got started on that, and what was once a house became a manor, and then a proper Castle. Oh, she had to wait for wars to sweep across the olden lands for it, for drought and ice and plague to sweep by a few times, but sooner than she or anyone would realize, she had a Castle to herself, that would put anything we’ve built to shame. All of it from the bones of the forgotten.

As she who reaps us all took a moment of peace once the living had found accords, and the passings slowed down, she started to notice a few things amiss. For even the cleanest, most bleached of bones still have their scraps – bits of carrion, the little pests that feast on it, whispers of mourning, all wisps of clingy life. Very little of it manages to hold on when passing into her realm, but something always does when you move enough bones to dwarf even the tallest of Ironbound Keeps[5]. These scraps of rot and life had piled on enough that she could see figments of actual life in her realm, skittering and wandering the halls, taking shape little by little as it found more to shape itself. And the more scraps they found, the closer each little wisp could get to becoming something…

And it fascinated her. As someone who’d seen life come and go, but never stay, the keeper of a threshold where no one lingered more than a few moments, the idea of having something in her realm even remotely close to alive was thrillingly new. She had something to look forward to beyond her job now! Even if every realm fell, and her work came to an end, there would be something still!

So she committed to these collections, these architectures, more than ever before. She looked forwards to those neglected souls that weren’t sent off right, because there would be more for another Castle, one greater than the last. More scraps for the entities that slowly came to be within these structures. Now even a simple delay could mean she’d get there before the mortals could do their part, and rake as much of life’s detritus as she could into her ever-greater foyer.

Well, it paid off. Castle after Castle arose by her hands, each far greater and more luxurious than the one before it – luxurious as bone can be, at least. But when the time came to assemble her next masterpiece, with a bundle of ivory where her shears usually were, she turned around and found there was no room. She’d gotten deeply invested in these Castles when there was no harvest to pursue, that she had utterly filled her own liminal realm. It seemed so utterly empty once, she never thought it would happen!

Then she looked back towards mortal lands. Not towards those places where all the dying had been done – those were hers already – but those that were almost there. Those that just needed a few more lives to go, a little push, and they would be right in her realm, too dead to contest. She turned her gaze towards one island in particular, surrounded by so many, greater than the rest and yet so much emptier, with but a few souls still standing upon it.

She reached for her shears once more.

And just like that, the island was gone[6].

The Castle she built after that was magnificent, and perhaps the liveliest of all. After all, it had come pre-inhabited, hadn’t it? And there was still plenty of room left for more. She had the ideas, too, the grand architecture for the next one whirling together in her immortal mind. All she needed was material.

You wonder why we take all the time and measures with the dead, no matter who? Strangers on the roads, enemies slain by our hand? You ever asked yourself why we bothered? This is why.

[1]An aggregated sort of translation from various different terms, with most referring to one whose job is to cut down and gather crops once grown and ready. Zau and Issouf are exceptions, both going with something closer to Gardener, with emphasis on trimming rather than reaping. In this, I am afraid I had to resort to the majority “vote”.
[2]Most of the seven Clans (Zau, Heese, Norrish, Vesnor) refer to this Harvester by female pronouns and terminology, while the remaining ones either use gender-neutral terms (Vesh, Issouf) or go far out of their way linguistically to not bring the matter up at all (Sofize).
[3]A branching point, with every clan referring to a different funerary method as the proper, loss-less way to send off the dead; all of them either permanently confine or destroy the body entirely. Levels of acceptance for other methodologies varied, but non-Clan methods were generally seen as passable, just not ideal.
[4]There are no less than 15 known artworks by the title of Atrium of the Harvest in the history of the Urul Peaks Clans and their predecessors, and it receives repeated mention and description in their fiction. Descriptions and details vary wildly beyond the ample use of bone, and even individual clans don’t have a unified vision of how it would look.
[5]Similar terminology is used in Bannerbound language to refer to the Ironbound Keep that gives their capital its name. The way it’s used seems to imply Ironbound Keeps were a class of fortification outright, and while the one the Seven currently occupy is the greatest of all, it’s by no means the only one (assuming, of course, that the ones in their realm still stand).
[6]This coincides with certain tales from Sofize, Norrish and Vesnor about “Azure Barrens”, a patch of water at the center of an archipelago where no wind stirred the waves, and where by all metrics there should be land, but they couldn’t find any. Given the current glacial state of the Urul Peaks realm, I imagine it’s become something of a moot point since then.

Target is believed to be in the Western side of the Lusterhills. A token force is to accompany the Tracker to facilitate apprehension, though they must be informed to prioritize mobility over protection, as the target is believed to be alone and highly mobile. After capture, the target is to be brought in alive for trial. Recommendation to set off as quickly as possible to minimize possibilities of escape.

It had all gone completely, utterly wrong.

It had been going wrong for months already, but only now could Qarretzu see it. In the moment, they hadn’t even come close to considering signing into the Legionary Exchange would’ve led to getting marched across these rolling hills of stone so flat it almost seemed polished, but there you had it. Looking back, starting their stint by having an altercation with another Legionnaire, let alone with the quartermaster and the… higher up that defended him, could barely remember that one’s rank, had to earn the Troxi a spot in someone’s shitlist. Even if they were right then and continue to be right.

But the trip from that, to asking to leave and being denied, to leaving anyways, to this bit? That was more of a blur. Hard to decide what they could’ve done differently there, would’ve meant mostly just… not being Qarretzu. Maybe, in the end, they really just weren’t cut to be in any kind of Legion. Even one away from the capital and all its crowds. And in the end, thinking they could even be one cost them what little they had, and this would be the last moment out in the open before they got imprisoned, slammed in together with a bunch of dangerous strangers, never to see the outside world again… not even this subterranean wilderness, let alone what laid so far away now.

The skink turned to their captors, one of them holding the leash to their neck like a damned animal. The Legionnaires were to be expected, at least, even if they seemed underprepared for the occasion. Almost insultingly so, barely an ounce of metal on them. Even for fellow Troxi, packing light as they usually did, they didn’t seem ready for an actual fight, which made the smug look they got in return from one of the five sting even worse. But their current, likely temporary “boss” was the bigger problem… Literally in fact. The Shumhaq that held the chain was barely taller than the skinks, but far wider, and far stockier, with an exoskeleton that was almost bulbous with what Qarretzu could only assume was muscle, not knowing what exactly Hive sorts had for muscle. But with massive pincers like hers, and that stinging tail in the back that could stab right through their chest, it was clear she had plenty of it, neatly packed in a shell of pitch black chitin…

…And she caught her looking, with those compound eyes shifting their tones into the best impression of a scowl. The sandhusk twisted the pincer that held their chain, giving them a sudden yank that forced them to stumble closer, and almost fall. “Whatever you’re thinking of, don’t”, she warned, before taking the lead once more with the other five – two of them giggling – trailing behind. Couldn’t even get one glance past this… tracker of theirs, could they?

It would only keep going downhill from this moment forward, where they’d miss these limestone hills, wouldn’t it? Just because they might be the last bit of the outside world the Troxi ever sees before being locked away for desertion, somewhere in… It didn’t matter where. Somewhere in the Gyre, with dust creeping through the bars being the only thing to remind them that there’s still a Subterraneum out there. Damn it all…

Nothing else to do but march. And look about with wide open eyes, trying not to tear up so these last visions would be as clear as possible. Something to remember in the dark. These windswept limestone hills – or were they swept by rain instead? It had to be both, there were creeks cutting deep into the stone, carving their way in through the years and making slopes and even little cliffsides in the process. The group was walking right next to the top of one such little cliffside, and if they looked at the bottom, past this flat of stone that almost shined, they could see the tiniest stream of running water, glistening under the meager light of their lamps…

…with two fairly large figures – comparatively speaking – right next to it.

Qarretzu blinked, then immediately faced forwards, only side-eyeing the two at the bottom. It wouldn’t do to be spotted this time, these captors were impatient as it was, but they had to make sure this was at least a possibility. Even the most remote. They were neither Troxi nor Shumhaq; rather, they looked like some very distant strangers indeed, an olm and a shard-badger, with the former seemingly fetching water off the creek. But they’d need to lean in to get a better look, as they were all passing right over those two…

They heard the chain on their neck jangle, maybe from a single misstep, a simple error in coordination. It should’ve been minor, but under their watchful eyes, and in this moment where they’d gotten distracted again, having no idea there were people down there? With both danger and opportunity opening at the exact same time? When this may be the last chance they get to be anything other than a prisoner? They didn’t even think about it.

And so, feigning a stumble, and yanking the chain as hard as they could manage to get it off the husk’s distracted grasp – successfully, thank the Lords – Qarretzu sent themselves soaring off the little cliff, cried out well past the edge of it, and braced for impact, hoping not to hit their head, but knowing either way they’d land right next to these two strangers. Nothing left to do but hope-

And, as they found out upon contact with the ground – thanks to a very audible crack somewhere within – try very, very hard not to scream. Easier said than done, of course, all they could do was limit it to several seconds of agonized groan, twisting in place as the other two just stared at the suffering skink before them. Several seconds of silence, with the Toskar raising one webbed finger as if to say something, but not finding the words for a stranger that had just fallen on them out of nowhere, and was squirming in pain right before them, unable to say anything.

Right, damn it, they needed to actually say something, even just one word! With some effort, they twisted themselves onto their back to actually see the two, getting a better look at them – and a better feeling of where the pain was coming from at that – while taking a sharp breath and holding it, trying to focus…

What they saw was some good news at least: Neither of these two looked like they had official business of any kind. No badges, no uniforms, weathered clothing, really mismatched species… Hell, even individually they didn’t look the part. By the glasses and the tunic with the fancy color, the Ifchi might’ve had money or status, once, but by the wear and tear on both that was probably in the past. And the Toskar was straight-up wearing a patchwork of different armor pieces, kludged together for coherence in a way their eye couldn’t miss; even accounting for his unusual size wouldn’t lead to that kind of improvisation if he was being backed by anyone. He could well be just like Qarretzu, another soldier on the run!

But when the time came to release that breath, they jolted at the distant sound of falling pebbles, quickly turning back towards the sound – before the flash of pain that followed nearly made them go limp. Yet even now, out the corner of the eye, the skink saw a distinctly arachnid figure crawling down towards the creek over a distant passage to make her way towards them. They couldn’t see the other five, but they had to be coming right along, too. Damn it, they hadn’t seen that passage! Misfortune to go with the fortune of these two being there, but…

All this skink could do was turn back to the badger and olm, wincing, and hiss out through battered lungs: “Help me…!”

Both of them looked at each other; the Toskar looked more baffled than anything, but the Ifchi seemed concerned, almost like she’d been threatened; she glanced around, and when her eyes focused up the creek and spotted Qarretzu’s pursuers, seemingly relaxed, as if expecting something bigger. Promising, perhaps? Or was she just resigning herself…? “Just our luck, isn’t it, Askalim?”, she finally said in a low, refined tone – confirming the skink’s guess – with more irony than any fear or irritation. No fear, that was a good sign! Hopefully…!

The badger’s response was to step forwards, in front of her, and in front of them in turn, sparing the skink a disbelieving, slightly irritated glance. As if he still couldn’t convince himself this entire situation had just fallen on him out of seemingly nowhere… They could apologize for imposing later, when they weren’t about to get locked away. If this worked, at least, but even if it didn’t, they tried, and that had to count for something. It’d be all they’d have left by then…

Still, soon as the Toskar stepped forwards – with a stride suggesting they would’ve gotten shoved aside if they dared stand up – and crossed his bulging arms, the Ifchi was there, right behind him with fingers tented, and gills flared… It was easier to get a better look at the two as they took up position, watching the approaching party with wariness, but no actual fear.
The former was big even by Toskar standards, for sure, and wearing this… patchwork of metal for an armor, that let some quills show at the back of his neck; young, but not that young. Still fluffed, with fur striped black and white- no, it was a light cyan almost like snow, still a strong contrast. Green, oddly piercing eyes, very judgemental from the look he shot at them. Experienced fighter, by the scars, but hard to tell if he had any formal experience or it was all… this kind of thing. He stood at the front with crossed arms, not reaching for the oversized, roughly-made axe at his side yet…
The latter, though? That one was intriguing. Finding Ifchi this close to the Great Dust Gyre was always an endeavor, but this one seemed straight from one of their big cities! At least some time ago, that wine-red dress had seen way better days. Intriguing palette, too: Violet eyes, scarlet gills, and a pitch-black body that abruptly turned white from the tail onwards. Qarretzu didn’t know olms came in those colors at all. And her attitude was interesting too: She looked more insulted than anything else, every movement practiced and filled with a worrying confidence…

And when they found themselves standing before the tracker and her five momentary cohorts, it almost seemed like it could go either way… But then again, the skink didn’t know the whole story. All they could do was let it play out, and perhaps steer it a little.

Of course, the tracker was the first to speak, crawling right ahead of the other five. “I’m going to request you hand over this Troxi you have. This one is a criminal, a cunning one. Don’t believe anything you’ve been told.” Opening strong, it seems, with a pointed glare at the “cunning criminal” in question.
But the Toskar just turned, staring long and hard at them with one raised eyebrow – the same eyebrow the Shumhaq could see – then turned back to her, just a little incredulous. “This one?”, he answered, clearly skeptical… making Qarretzu hope that was just a bit, they weren’t too bad a legionnaire, right?
One of the five in the back cut in, snickering: “Believe it or not! I guess when this one can’t cut it as an actual soldier he just had to go cutthroat instead!” And there it was. Neither a he nor a cut-throat, and already this smug little bitch was-
“Legion’s more of a ‘ranger’ thing than ‘soldier’, don’t you think? And I always thought this one looked more like a she.” Oh for Lords’ sake that one was wrong on both accounts too! Just had to sound all teacher-like about it, too! Getting caught was bad enough, but getting dragged back by these idiots-

A glance at the two wayward travelers stopped that thought in its tracks. The big guy seemed deep in thought, especially after a glance back at the “criminal”; seemed to want to hide something in his expression with that glance. Maybe they’d been right in thinking this was some kind of deserter too… But it was the Ifchi that stepped ahead. Looking serene, almost a little haughty in fact, and speaking with an impeccably polite tone: “If you wouldn’t mind, may I know what, exactly, is this one’s crime? In this state they’re in they barely even look like a common pickpocket, let alone some dangerous outlaw.” Great. While pointing out this ragged getup of theirs was useful, it was hardly any less embarrassing, even knowing there were good reasons for it, like being on the run for way too long for example.

“That isn’t your business, ma’am”, answered the tracker, who looked like she’d narrow her eyes if she had lids on them; the colors there very much looked the part. But she was glancing towards the other five as she said it, as if she wanted them to hear that instead of the olm.
And yet the little squad just couldn’t help it, and the giggliest one stepped forwards, shoving aside the pincer that tried to shush her. She was grinning as she spoke. “Cowardice! He fought his own more than he fought anyone else, and even that was just yelling matches!” They clenched one fist impotently at those words… Words twist even quicker than they spread.
Another one, shaking his head, stepped right in front of her – and right ahead of the tracker’s pincer as well, to clarify: “To be specific, the charges were dereliction of duty and insubordination. Not in that order of course.” Suppose that is the closest thing to true any of these five idiots have said.

Again, the “criminal”’s attention drifted back to the two, if only to stop looking at their fellow Troxi in the face. They were looking discreetly at each other, and side-eyeing Qarretzu in turn, muttering words to each other in a language they couldn’t recognize. Flighty, vowel-laden, they would’ve bet it was Ferigozi if they were a betting sort. Then the Toskar looked back at the five, directly at the five and at the last interlocutor in particular, with an unimpressed look. Then, he snorted audibly, and said: “Sounds like someone fucked it by signing this one up then. No one saw that coming? However many eyes over this in the Republics of all places and no one saw that one coming?” He even crossed his arms as he stood back with a sardonic grin… before glancing back at them for just a moment, a glance that came just in time before they could get more offended than they already were.

But it seemed this last pencil-pusher that’d decided to clarify was even more offended. Maybe the big guy really was a soldier. “Performance during testing and field performance are very different things, unlike what you’d believe, and just because this one couldn’t-”
That was as far as he got before the Shumhaq lunged like black lightning, crossing the distance in moments, to pinch that Troxi’s jaws shut with her inner pincers, the outer ones lingering menacingly to remind him to shut up lest he get them sheared off. The other four were startled, for sure, and even the two at Qarretzu’s side seemed a little put off. Faster than she looks, and they knew it, though at least the two found out without getting captured by her.

And yet, the tracker’s glare was directly fixed on the Toskar. Daring him to try something, her other pincer raised in the air. Her mandibles opened only to hiss out three words, low and furious: “Hand. Them. Over.”

A stand-off, then. If this was to end in Qarretzu’s favor, then this Toskar better be even more capable than he looked, because that match was rough enough as it was, and with five others… That, or the Ifchi better have something to surprise them. Either or. None of them was looking, though, so they took the moment to roll onto their belly, just in case they needed to scamper. But they couldn’t hold in the grunt of pain from landing right on a fracture, which made the Shumhaq turn to them-

Which was exactly the right distraction to provide, for the Ifchi to indeed prove she had a surprise for them, in the form of a blinding pillar of flame and heat that exploded from her hands and gills with but a single motion, blasting sideways into the six captors with a roar that drowned out every other sound. Ifchi could do that!? They’d heard of plenty of things they could move and control, but it was usually just water, and in less cataclysmic manners; this lady just went off on them like a volcano, so fast and hard they didn’t even hear the screams! Oh, no, wait, there they were. Very weak, barely a gurgle somewhere in the roaring of the flames, but there they were, as the silhouettes of the six were all that remained in the smoke, the smaller ones still ablaze and falling one by one, while the biggest one-

Lunged out of the flames, thoroughly singed and covered in crackling chitin, yet utterly furious, going right for the one that burned her. The olm was fast enough to flip her tail in front of her, trying to catch her pincers in thick flesh and bone that was presumably expendable – but not fast enough to pull her hands away from said tail before the pincers caught them alongside it. They could see them dig into her flesh, hear the cracking of bones big and small and a groan of contained pain that was slowly failing the “contained” part. They could witness, a moment in, what looked like digits falling off, leaking and covered in blood as the claws dug past them…

With the Toskar shoulder-slamming the tracker right off, raising his iron axe and burying it into the softened chitin of her chest, right where a bonier sort’s lungs would be. Driving it in deep, as deep as he could, until the blade just snapped off its shaft and was left in place.

As Qarretzu scampered through the chaos for something, anything to do, they kept the fight in the corner of their eye as it proceeded. The wounded olm, doing her best to stop her own bleeding with mutilated hands. The sandhusk throwing herself at her new opponent, trying to stab him with her tail only to find the heat had softened her stinger until it bent it half against his helm. The ensuing struggle as she went for him anyhow, trying to grab him with her pincers only to get both caught on the shaft of his broken axe. And all the while, they scampered through the scorched remains of the five legionnaires that thought this would barely need any preparation, as the two fought it out…

Finding the burning remains of the affronted one, the one that apparently made Qarretzu worth saving, they found a spear to his back… A softened spear whose shaft had bent on impact with the ground. Wouldn’t do, especially with an upper half still very much ablaze making it hard to retrieve. When they glanced back to see if they still had time, the olm was backing up towards the water, and the Toskar was trying to bend the shaft upwards and around, perhaps attempting to trap both his enemy’s pincers in one place. Yep, still time.

On they went, as the adrenaline of another’s battle let them keep going in spite of the fall. Already they could see none of the other four had survived the blast either – and if they did, would’ve preferred not to – leaving them ripe for looting whatever was left… which wasn’t much, clearly. The bitchy one had gotten it especially bad, and they couldn’t tell if she had even brought a weapon along or not. It was all just a heap of ashes and burnt bones. Darn it.
Then, a sharp sound from the fight; they, and they saw the handle had either been snapped or shorn in half, leaving a rough cut as the Shumhaq grappled with the Toskar, one pincer on his helmet and the other on his wrist.

Clearly, they needed to hurry, and so they did. Scurrying towards the one with the teacher-esque voice, they found that one’s body was mostly spared, catching just the head and shoulders. Obviously not nearly enough to survive, but enough to hope for something as they turned the corpse around… And found it was their lucky day: A repeater rifle, strapped to the back, with only the tip anywhere near affected by the heat! Truly fortunate, especially when it was perfectly possible for the ammunition inside, or anywhere else on this unlucky casualty’s clothes, might’ve cooked off just from being too close by. They took it right off, and started checking if it was loaded, pausing only to check on the tactical situation: The tracker couldn’t quite clamp on the badger’s helmet, trying again and again to grasp it, but could try and crush his wrist, undeterred as he stabbed her with the broken shaft again, and again, and again. Even breaking past the chitin and digging it in as deep as he could wasn’t stopping her…

Focus. A quick inspection into the chamber, and they found there was indeed one round. But was it the only round in there? A quick check of the magazine, as fast as they could manage, showed there was at least one other, but before they could even turn it around to look deeper, they heard a scream. Their hands busied themselves with putting the magazine back in and working the whole mess back together, as they watched the Shumhaq finally gain some purchase on his helm – and his head – and start squeezing. He let go of his half of the iron handle, immediately trying to yank that pincer off his head, failing to do so, while his other hand was busy getting its wrist crunched, little by little, held away from it all. And even as the quills on the back of his head started emitting little sparks of light, and she saw tiny puffs of smoke rise from the tracker, she was undeterred. She’d crack his skull open, right in front of his wounded partner. Just needed to get through the helmet first…

So Qarretzu did not allow it. They threw themselves back against the nearest boulder with an agonized grunt, bracing their back to it and hefting the rifle into position, just as they had before it all went to hell. Just as they had well before they even signed up for what would become perdition – if they missed this shot. One hand on the grip, another on the trigger, flicking the safety off, cocking their head on their side to set their gaze upon the sights, and the round, compound target right behind them, tilt the thing a little to compensate for the scorched barrel-tip…

BLAM

The first thing they noticed is that the thing had one hell of a kick, even more than its size would suggest. It cut right through the adrenaline to make those fractures hurt all over again, to the point it was hard for Qarretzu to keep their eyes open… And yet, they did, to notice a second thing: Their shot was right on the mark. The tracker’s vice grip was broken, and both pincers were busy trying to hold in the sudden, searing pain of having an entire “eye” blown right off her face, ichor leaking down her forearms. The Toskar backed away immediately, and started pulling off his helmet almost desperately, staining his own hands with blood in the process…

Then she turned her head back towards the Troxi that just shot her, glaring as best as one compound eye could. “YOU…”, she began, rumbling like an incoming avalanche as she swiveled on the spot, showing her scorched, cleaved and gouged front. “They said they wanted you alive, but they won’t need *any of your limbs.*” Then, she ducked low to the ground, one claw in front of her face and the other held high. A massive target, but an armored one, and as far as they knew they might only have one shot to take down this plated behemoth with no clear weak spo-

And as she lunged one more time, the Troxi realized there was a clear weak spot. Under the pressure of actual battle, and their adrenaline spiking, all they could do was rely on their reflexes, lower their aim, and fire at it.

BLAM

The bullet shot across the creek in a cloud of smoke and fire, towards its chitinous target, this oversized tank of a Shumhaq. One bullet would not be enough to stop her, not if it was forced to crack her plating; there wouldn’t be enough left in it to give her pause… Unless, of course, it found an opening in it. And of course, the Toskar had been so kind as to carve one out himself with the remains of his axe.

And so, it went right in there, plunging right into the flesh beneath in a splatter of ichor. The tracker seized, tripping and falling as her legs failed her momentarily, and held one pincer to the wound, and another to the middle of her chest. She started scraping it, inner pincers jabbing into her exoskeleton as if they could find the bullet that had gone so deep in and refused to come out, not even through the other side. And, after a gurgle and a spatter of blue through her mandibles, the Shumhaq just crumbled, limp as an unstrung puppet.

Then, silence. Nothing but quiet, groaning breathing and the whispers of the creek that flowed in their midst. But they were alive… as far as they knew, they were alive.

The Ifchi was the first to break the silence, her voice pained, yet utterly sardonic: “Those of you who yet live, please raise your hands. Or what’s left of them.” And to go with it, she raised one hand herself… One bloodied, utterly mangled hand with only a thumb and an index left to it, though one that was at least not bleeding anymore. The Toskar followed, raising a far more intact claw – though a glance at the pincered wrist it was on made Qarretzu wince. Still, live they did, and so they finally raised their own hand – showing their own bloody injury, an abrasion on their elbow taken during the fall. They were lucky the damn thing didn’t snap backwards.

She raised her brow at the sights before her. “Mm. Better than I expected for how that was going. Definitely nothing permanent”.
The Troxi finally found some words, now that they’d settled with their injuries and heard something that they couldn’t let pass. “P-permanent…? But your hands…!”
She turned to face them, unfazed. “This?”, she asked, raising them both before her, showing the other hand was in an even worse state. “I’m Ifchi. This’ll grow back”, she said, before smirking and pointing with the index she had left at the scorched scatter of five, just to add: “That won’t.”
“I didn’t know-” was as far as Qarretzu got before coughing up and groaning in pain. No bloodstain on their hands, thankfully.
The Toskar held his head in both hands, wiping traces of blood from his temples. “Ush, just because you can grow those back doesn’t mean you should just shrug it off. We ought to get back to camp now. We got Vi and Zee this time, but we gotta see ‘em.”
“Ush” looked at her mangled digits once more, and sighed. She’d had it worst and still she seemed far less bothered than him… Or them, for that matter. “Suppose we should, this was only meant to be a water run after all. They had to hear that. She’ll be… less than happy about it all.”
“Eh, maybe not. We made it through, we got the water, and we got a surprise.” Wait, surprise? What did he mean by that? Were they the surprise!?
The Ifchi turned to look at them, catching that startled look, and smirking slightly. “Mm~. I’d say you and us haven’t agreed to a thing, but everything this husk here said sounded so typical. This was Askalim’s idea”.

Their big, slitted eyes drifted back to the water again, unfocusing. This was a jump off the frying pan, but had they landed on the fire, or not? Who were these two, anyhow? The other five got toasted without a thought while they got saved, so they weren’t gathering Troxi in particular, and they didn’t try to round everyone up, or run away, or hand them back over, so it couldn’t be… terrible. Not compared to prison, at the very least. And where would they even crawl if they were just left here? Lost, too close to the law for comfort, and without any food, not that they needed much…

Our of curiosity, they tried to get up, only to find themselves faceplanting on their looted rifle, groaning in a brief spike of agony. Their legs were still weak, and refused to keep them up. From this beaten position, they looked up almost pitifully, and mumbled: “...f-fine, b-but… what do you all even do…?”

“Askalim” was the one to go forwards, picking the skink up effortlessly – and a little painfully – and hefting them into his arms, while putting the rifle away on his pack. Seems that was theirs now, hopefully they could get the barrel fixed somehow… Nevertheless, he answered: “Little bit of everything by now. It started at just a little border-jumping, sneaking goods around where the law wouldn’t see them, but then Vi joined in and we stretched a bit towards bounties, and then things went from there.”
“Ush” joined up with him in turn as they started to walk downstream, keeping her tail above the ground. “Not so much, it’s still almost wholly smuggling, we simply range further than most. In both work and territory.”
“D-did you say territory…?” Qarretzu piped up, suppressing a cough. Smuggling… that was manageable, suppose they already were an outlaw just by existing, but did these people get to wander far? Did they get to see the lands, like the Troxi once intended…?
The Toskar smirked. He motioned with one claw, as if outstretching a map, as he replied. “Been all over the caverns. Never thought I’d see the Hollow-Lands, yet soon as I started there I was.”
The Ifchi leaned in, adjusting her glasses with the one finger she could use for it. “In fact, I believe Ziv wanted to take us Southwest after this. And we just came out of the Gyre, we didn’t have to spend long in there this time. Thankfully.”

All over the caverns… the words rang in their head. This would be a tough living, alright, but they’d barely need to see a city again. Or rather, not the same city all the time, every time. And if they wandered from nation to nation, place to place, cavern to cavern? If they could see it all in time, and all they had to do was play their part, and maybe actually take a shot every once in a while?

“...s-sold. I’m sold. That shot was a good resume, right?” They could only hope so, it did at least cut down on their injuries, if not save them outright.
“You mean both shots”, the Ifchi replied with a raised brow and a smirk. “Close as I am with Ziv, I dare say in her behalf, it was well above expectations.”
The Toskar nodded, and spoke, though in a far more serious tone. “They were gonna squander you, little fella, just like I got squandered. I know what you were getting thrown into, I’ve been there.”
“...d-don’t have to s-sell me further on it.” They allowed themselves a smile, the first one in a long while… and decided, after this all, they may as well. “...since we’re in this… my name’s Qarretzu. N-nice to meet you two… a-and thank you. T-thank you so much”.
“Might do well to rest your voice for a while, Qarretzu, you may have struck a rib. But the pleasure is mine. Call me Usherrimi.” The olm offered a smile of her own, warmer and less barbed than the last few.
“Askalim’s mine. Welcome aboard, feel comfortable saying that. Just try not to move much on the way, we’ll get ourselves fixed up”. The Toskar was powering through his own wounds fairly well, though perhaps they were not quite as terrible. Then again, maybe these two were just used to this.

Nevertheless, they stilled on his advice, moving only their head as the now-trio made their way towards the camp, letting this Askalim wade through this creek that had saved their life. With water glistening in the light, meandering across the limestone and pooling here and there…

Out of curiosity, lowered their gaze towards one of the stilled pools at the side of the creek, illuminated by the meager lamps they had… It was just a quick glimpse in an imperfect mirror, but all the colors they knew were still there; dark green for the back, the dulled cyan for the neck, chin and underbelly, that bright, feathered crest, with its bright turquoise no amount of dust and grime could cut through, and those big, slitted blue eyes, just as the day they set off… and just as the day they last looked in a mirror, right before all of this. Still them, all in all. In spite of being a criminal now, from the looks of it… Still the same bright-eyed Troxi that wanted to see the caverns, and get away from the hurly-burly of the Republics and their crawling, overburdened cities. And in spite of everything, they might still get to do it after all.

…maybe all had only gone a little bit wrong.

Tracker Rhyvadush returned 39 hours after search parties were dispatched (due to failure to show up at appointed rendezvous). Immediate medical attention required and provided, still ongoing due to gravity of her injuries. Squad accompanying tracker confirmed lost from unexpected enemy action. The full transcript is in progress, but enough has been provided to begin immediate identification efforts, in order to find the target, the culprits and any links they may have to known organizations. Suggesting focus on the Ifchi pyromancer, as this combination is rare enough to significantly narrow possibilities.

Rhyvadush has sworn to collaborate in any and all future efforts to find this particular target, as well as the culprits and associates.

This particular tale will upset some of my most avid, yet quietest readers, of this I am sure. For its origins are less than certain, contested between the Burnt and Bellbound hives, and the resulting struggles of ownership have whittled it down to uselessness with revisions and accusations within their respective territories. I find this contrary to the pursuit of knowledge as a whole, to the point I will throw caution to the wind and state the Bellbound should be ashamed for letting it reach such low points. Any who object to my statement may come to me, as they surely know my dwelling by now, and I wish to tell them my grievances in person for once.
Nevertheless, the following tale’s origin is as obfuscated as the Hives’ own, and I could find nothing I could satisfactorily call an original. Instead, I was forced to piece it together from different translations in different languages, acquired all across the caverns and compiled together into a single version. I suspect Bellbounds (that's the Nirhaq, for those not yet aware) that objected to the aforementioned squabble much like I did spread these out by themselves, but that is beyond the scope of this volume.

(And the last one from the archives that I want to put up - from this point forwards it's all gonna be new. Main crew once more, and based on a prompt from Make Up A Criminal on Cohost, which I will very much miss. I thank them for giving me the ideas that spun off into some of my most loved characters)

(Another from the archives, back to two of the earliest members, having a quiet moment adrift. Prompt by Impressions of Detail back on Cohost)

(another from the archive, another main crew story, introducing the oldest of our enforcers. Prompt by Make Up a Criminal on Cohost)