Cursed Draw

Despite the myriad beasts of its depths, its icy storms, and fickle winds I would call The Silver Sea the least dangerous among those I visited as part of my exhaustive research for this tome.

Do I hear you ponder why oh dear reader? The answer is simply the nature of its people. You will never encounter a pirate on The Silver Sea and mores the pity I say.

-The Audacious Deck Builder's Guide to: The Ocean, The Silver Sea

Chapter 24: A small misunderstanding.

Alabaster

Alley’s standard for what he considered ‘eventful’ had undergone some fairly significant adjustments of late. Even so, when he looked back at how the second morning of his journey had unfolded it really was the only word that fit.

‘Wait, the second day? Had it really only been twenty-four hours since he left Cursed Isle.’

They had departed mid-morning, then there had been the migrating Muck Dwell dragons, the krakens, the really big Kraken, then drifting through the night as the two of them alternated sleeping and keeping watch, The way the sea had lit up shining silver all around them at first light, now this. Yep, just a single day.

“What the fuck is going on with my life?”

“Shhhhh” came Darius’ hissed response.

Alley chided himself and nodded.

Despite having virtually no control of the Bay Runner the tiny ship had managed to beach itself on a crescent-shaped Island Alley was increasingly convinced was where they had planned to go after he had filled his Deck in the Rakino swamp. That should have been a good thing, except that the flag flying above the settlement at the center of the crescent depicted a Clash Ram Skull with three spears piercing it.

Even if Alley was right and this island was once home to the Silver Sea Deep Hunters league, It did not belong to them anymore. That was the flag of the Shattered Hull Raiders; a famously vicious coalition of pirates that even someone who had traveled as little as Alley had heard of.

So the pair found themselves creeping up a beach consisting of a thin layer of jagged gray rocks over gray mud doing its best sand impersonation.

Being sneaky is by nature almost always slow going and this was no different. Having taken a roundabout route inland, by the time the boys stood before an open and unguarded wooden gate that broke up a tall palisade of the same…oak? That surrounded the town.

With a little luck the pirates would have long since departed and whoever did live here just hadn’t bothered to get the flag down off the high pole. Of course, if Alley’s recent luck was anything to go by it would probably be the secret fortress of the Shattered Hull’s overall leader and he was about to creep into a town full of monstrously powerful, monstrously immorale raiders.

“It isn’t Luck, It's Doom.” Came the quarry deep voice from nowhere.

‘And what the hell does that mean?!’ He thought furiously back. But if the disembodied being Alley was starting to think of as ‘The Cursed King’ had any further insights, It didn’t share them.

A group of Deck-wielding marauders did not in fact leap out once they entered the town. No one jumped out, no one did anything. There would have had to have been people for that.

At least three times the size of Valeton the town wasn’t big exactly but it showed signs of long and recent habitation. It also showed signs of a short and brutal battle. Alley might not be a hunter like his friend but he could read basic signs. That skill was wholly unnecessary here. The devastation within the town’s walls was all too familiar, someone had come through here with a True Deck and wreaked all sorts of havoc.

It wasn’t quite on the level of destruction visited upon Alley’s tiny village, but any kingdom in the world would still lay a Curse Lock on the Deck used in a heartbeat. Best he could tell every last doorway in the entire town had been battered down by some immense force. Not the door, the doorways. Each and every one they passed was a gaping hole in the front of the buildings adorned by a mess of splinters, or spilling over with the remains of the shattered lives within.

Everywhere there were signs the locals had fought back; Shattered harpoons, and other more improvised weapons, even the occasional broken sword. No bodies though which Alley thought was more than a little strange. Why would raiders take the enemy slain with them?

Wordlessly Alley pulled his bladed hook from his belt and unlooped the CoreSteel chain from around his stomach a few times until the attached hook had enough slack to be usable. Readying his spear was a much simpler process for Darius, he just drew it from the loops it sat in on his back.

If anything the signs of conflict intensified as they approached the one stone building in the settlement. Older, larger, and more carefully built the structure was a circular hall supporting a bulbous dome of limestone green. It didn’t have windows but the hall possessed an oddly large number of doors. They seemed to sprout from its rounded sides every few feet, for what Alley could only assume was ritual purpose.

“Not a great place for a last stand.” Said Darius, though the density of dried blood, broken or discarded weapons and damage to the outside of the stone structure clearly showed it was where the locals had made one.

“I’m thinking they didn’t have much choice.” Replied Alley gravley.

“Yeah, probably not.”

Above each of the many entrances was an intricately wrought frieze depicting variations on the same theme; A man with a spear battling some kind of enormous sea beast. The monster in question was different in each example, but the human figure and the oceans behind them were virtually identical.

Past what had to be the hall of the Silver Sea Deep Hunters League. They could make out the tall masts of at least one presumably docked ship. There was noise coming from that direction too. The repeated ringing of a heavy bell was signaling….something to whoever was down there.

That seemed like the next logical thing to investigate but before they had the chance a man wearing the strangest suit of armor Alley had ever seen appeared.

He was clearly well past fifty with short white-blonde hair over a stern face and a stiffly waxed blonde mustache.

The armor was absurdly bulky, impractically so. It was covered in weird bronze tubes over thick iron and seemed to encase the man from neck to toe. Despite the suit's strange appearance, it must do something special, as a small Cerulean water crystal sat in its chest

Plate, one shoulder bore a Pressure crystal of deep green, and the other the shifting blue and white of a sky crystal. Either this man had an ego the size of TerraNullis itself, or his armor did something very interesting indeed.

At the same moment, Alley took in the device gripped in the man's armored hands. It was an odd tubular thing with a series of tiny deep green Pressure crystals running its length. At the end was the head of what had to be the smallest spear anyone had ever crafted.

‘Pressure crystals…’

“Shit!”

“Karak!”

Both boys swore in their native tongues, as the man raised what Alley now realized was a projectile weapon.

“I’m still alive you perfidious pirate gits!” The strangely armored man roared, activating the weapon.

Alley and Darius dived in opposite directions as the little metal spear launched at them with air-rippling force. From the ground, both boys stared in shock as the little spear converted the walkway they had been standing on into a small crater.

Shaking off his surprise, Alley shouted “Rush!” Which was precisely what they did, surging to their feet the boys rushed the elderly man. He attempted to both duck back inside the stone doorway and reload the Pressure Launcher simultaneously. The man’s bulky armor hindered his efforts and while he made it inside, it was while being tackled by both boys.

“We aren’t pirates!” Insisted Alley as the three of them fell into a large sparsely furnished hall. The old man’s only response was a sort of manic grin as he hissed.

“I challenge you.”

The magic of the man’s Dealer, whatever it was activated. An arm on each boy it wouldn’t matter what kind of deck he held, the challenge would begin. His left which had been awkwardly trying to push Alley off sparked with red lightning that drew a scream of pain from the old man.’ Well,’ Alley thought. ‘That answers that question.’ The strangely armored hunter wielded a Trials Deck.

“Say no-” The dark-haired boy tried to tell his friend, but it was too late. Darius responded in a way that seemed automatic, or instinctual.

“I accept.”