InquisitorEisenhorn

The Boldest Measures

I don't know about you, Corvo, but I've had a lovely time. Intrigue and mystery, butchery and betrayal. The death throes of an Empire! And you were an avenging spirit, spreading chaos at every turn.

Dunwall's feeding on itself now, liars and merchants and nobles like maggots on a carcass. Soon there'll be nothing left for the rats.

It's just as well. The Empire was dying already. Completely rotten. All that was needed was the right man, to send it over the edge. But now, you'll be off over the horizon, on an outbound ship. I wonder, are you chasing something? Or running away?

Chapter One: Adrift

Somewhere at Sea

Two Years after the Death of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin

The Maiden of Tamarak was a fine ship, but it was no match for a storm the likes of which it struggled against now. Beneath the blinding flash of lightning, it rose and fell with each massive wave, the few members of the crew left on-deck attempting to secure anything they could as they were drenched by salty, bone-chilling seawater.

Corvo clung to the rungs of a cabin-side ladder for dear life, his face assaulted endlessly by the ocean's spray. One of the lifeboats had become unhinged from its place on deck, and if its remaining bindings snapped, it would fly freely across the deck's slick surface. Not wanting to lose one of their few remaining methods of escape, the quartermaster had ordered Corvo and another sailor to secure it before heading below-decks to wait out the storm in safety.

The other sailor had already given up, but Corvo pressed ahead. He no longer cared for his safety these days; nothing kept him going other than a dreadful desire to flee his own past and to find a fitting end. The Maiden of Tamarak had taken him as a crew-mate, its destination was circumnavigating the globe, to reach the far-side of the Pandyssian continent – a feat that had never been performed in recent history. Corvo had liked the idea of it – there was nowhere farther he could flee to other than the Moon, or the Void itself.

Holding on to whatever he could, Corvo advanced towards the lifeboat, feet and hands wrapped in rags. It was part of his cover – Corvo had claimed he was a burn victim, caught in an accident in his home country of Serkonos. In reality, the ruse was to safeguard the Outsider's Mark branded on his left hand, until such a time came when he could either make or purchase a pair of gloves and procure a decent reason to wear them at all times.

I wonder if I could transverse over to that boat, he thought, would anybody notice? He doubted it, but he didn't want to take the risk. He didn't fancy the idea of butchering every honest sailor on this ship just out of convenience. He would do it if he had to, but where would that leave him? Just one man, unable to run a ship of ghosts. That would be a long, slow death he would rather avoid.

No, he would have to push along, taking the water and the rain. A year or two ago, he might have been able to stop time, but that ability, along with his power to possess animals and humans, eluded him. Piero's elixir, the alchemical solution that restored his mana, was no longer in his possession, and without it, it failed to restore the source of his power. There were other ways to do so, such as eating white rats or making offerings to the Outsider, but he hadn't wanted anything to do with that black-eyed bastard in nearly two years.

If only he could get what's coming to him, Corvo thought, if only I could make him pay. But what could you do to a god?

Corvo didn't know the answer. Didn't matter though, the Outsider seemed to have lost interest in him anyway.

After much struggling, Corvo finally reached the lifeboat. He grabbed the severed rope and began tying a much stronger knot, while using the side of his calf to keep the boat in place. He was close to the water now and could breathe deep the salty scent of the ocean and see the shuddering ripples of rain on the surface of the waves. He coughed and sputtered, and squinted hard to focus on his task.

Void damn it! He cursed internally, if only I had some light!

Suddenly, the Maiden of Tamarak crashed into a huge wave, and began hurtling upwards as a wash of seawater engulfed Corvo. He groaned as he slipped from his post and began rolling back down the deck the way he came, sent flying into a metal railing and felt the wind get knocked out his lungs. He gasped in pain, feeling the hard metal bruise his legs and looked up into the illuminated sky.

"Forget it!" another sailor called to him, "Get inside now! These waves are too hairy!"

Corvo looked back to the stairs leading under the decks and nodded. It was folly to attempt any further, Quartermaster's orders be damned. He struggled to get up, still feeling pain from the ankles of his legs, but managed to rise as he firmly gripped the railing…

Wham!

The entire ship had hit something, and the force of the impact sent Corvo flying back in the same direction he had just been flung from. It was starting to anger him now, but there was nothing he could do as he and the other sailor slid towards the port side of the ship. He grasped its railing to steady himself as barrels and crates began flying, and he realized the ship was now tipped at a forty-five degree angle, and the sailor beside him had been tossed over the edge of the ship and was flying into the ocean!

A low, moaning noise emerged from behind Corvo's head. Slowly, he turned to face the source of this tone, and found himself facing a massive, dark shape poking out of the surface of the water. A bright, luminescent eye was staring up into Corvo's face, and it was only then, when the lightning above rendered its leviathan features in stark clarity, that Corvo realized what he was faced with. It was a whale, but a whale the size of which Corvo did not even think was possible. A truly giant terror of the seas.

Incredible…everything they say about them is true.

These were Corvo's last thoughts before a massive wave caught the entire ship from behind and capsized it.

The Maiden was a small ship, a caravel with a modern whale-oil engine. It had been no match for the storm. Corvo fell deep into the dark heart of the ocean and saw the expanse of the leviathan's body pass overhead. Its massive flippers, the size of a locomotive, flapped up and down through the ghostly water as the storm continued to light the sky above. Its fluked tail sailed behind it, and it passed over the Maiden's wreckage as if oblivious to its presence at all.

Corvo had always been good at holding his breath. But he could feel himself sinking into the depths, and not wanting to become food for the sharks, he forced himself to ascend, higher and higher to the surface of the ocean. He pulled himself to the top and flung his head over the edge of the water, gasping a new breath and filling his strained lungs with air once more. He tread water for a bit, looking around for any sign of survivors. He called out the names of some men he knew, but there was no answer. Feeling fatigue creep into his bones, he began swimming towards the nearest piece of floating wreckage – the lifeboat he had tried to save, still intact despite all this mayhem.

He hauled himself inside and squatted down in a deep puddle of seawater. Once he had recovered, he cried out for other sailors until his voice was hoarse. He paddled around, watched as all trace of the Leviathan disappeared from view, and his boat began to drift further west, away from the wreckage until he was too tired to call out anymore and lay on the bottom of the boat.

He closed his eyes and felt himself rise and fall with the waves. He waited for the moment his rescue boat would fall apart and capsize, but it never came. Before he finally passed out from exhaustion, he thought…

…figures…figures I would be the only one to make it…

When he woke, it was daytime, and the skies had cleared. He could hear seagulls squawking as they hovered around his boat, waiting to see if he would die and they could start tearing into his succulent flesh. To their disappointment, he stirred, rising up from the bottom of the boat to stare out into the wide, open ocean to which there was no end.

"Curse me," he muttered, before coughing up a splatter of sea-water. He had nothing but the rags on his body, no canteen of water, no rations…no pistol should things go sour and he feel the need to end it all.

Ever since he learned the Outsider was real, the thought of death scared him. The Outsider had marked him, and according to the Abbey of the Everyman, that meant he would wander the Void forever, never to receive eternal rest. If the Outsider was real, then maybe they were right. Then again, they said that women who read too many books were likely to become evil witches, so they said a lot of things that weren't true.

Yet the odds of help coming were slim; this was the middle of an ocean that stretched across the entire world. Corvo had figured this would most likely be a one-way trip, that's what he liked it about it. But their Captain had been a fool to take this route. Other expeditions to Pandyssia had gone east, to the deserts and ruined villages of savage tribes. Anton Sokolov, an old Ally of Corvo's had supposedly been there himself as well.

Nobody had ever tried getting there by going west, and their Captain claimed he would be the first. Corvo assumed there had to be land in the way, that the world had to be bigger than just Pandyssia and the Isles. But so far, it didn't appear to be that way, and that was starting to get to him. He wasn't afraid to die, so long as it was quick and in battle, but not like this. Not slowly, wasting away from lack of food and water.

The first day he smacked his lips and listened to his stomach rumble, but he was alright. The second day, he felt his lips become parched and his throat dry, and his stomach continued to lighten, but he managed to get through it. At this point, the real enemy was boredom, allied with his foe uncertainty. He tried to catch a seagull, but it was to no avail. The only powers he had right now were transversals and dark vision, if only he could possess a fish and kill it so he could have something to eat!

He had no tools, no implements. His mask and folding blade he had left at Emily's tomb in Dunwall before turning his back on that cursed city forever. The long hours of sitting in the boat, staring up into a lifeless sky gave him plenty of time to think about all his terrible mistakes, culminating in the greatest failure of his life – the inability to protect his daughter, Emily Kaldwin.

He remembered chasing Admiral Havelock up to the top of Kingsparrow Lighthouse, blinking through the guards, chopping them into pieces like rats as he pursued his prey with murderous rage. It had been a dark and stormy night, just like the one that had left him stranded here. He had followed them up to the top of the lighthouse, to a long catwalk jutting out over the fortress about a hundred feet high.

Emily was fighting Havelock, struggling to break free from the huge man's grasp. Havelock was taunting her, telling her that Empresses were nothing but a piece on the board, and that she was soon to die. Before Corvo even had a second to react, to stop time or possess Havelock or to loose a bolt into the traitor's head, Havelock tripped on the edge of the catwalk, taking Emily down with him into a watery grave, just in time for Corvo to witness it and be unable to do anything about it.

Corvo remembered being in shock, dropping to his knees and screaming, cursing the Outsider, the Loyalists, anybody he felt had wronged him. For the first time since maybe he had been a child, he let tears run down his face as he begged for Jessamine's forgiveness from beyond the grave. All his power, all his fury, and it had not been enough to protect their daughter.

Emily…Corvo thought as he listened to the incessant cry of gulls overhead, Emily, I'm so sorry.

The third day, he began to feel weak, and a pain began to flare in his stomach. The fourth day, he found it hard to do anything but lay and look up at the sky. So, this is how it ends, he began to think, I should have just flung myself off that Lighthouse. His life, as of late, seemed mostly a collection of should haves and could haves.

I could have spared the Pendleton twins. But instead I decapitated one and burned the face off the other. I could have exposed the corruption of the Lord Regent, maybe saved the city. But I decided instead to feed him to a swarm of rats. And where did that lead me? Here, to be food for the gulls.

They continued to circle around on the fifth day, and he wished they would attack and just get it over with. But they had the luxury of time, and he did not. He was on their schedule now, and knew things were really bad on the sixth day, when a familiar voice began to speak to him in his dreams.

"Corvo, my dear friend," the Outsider said, standing before him in the dark, wearing his typical tailored suit, eyes ringed in soot, "How did it come to this? So proud you were, brought down low by the Lord Regent only to rise up and tip his city over the edge, once and for all. Now you're here, about to become food for the birds. Is this how you repay my kindness? Do I have to step in and save you every time your life goes down the gutter?"

"Let me die," Corvo groaned, "Let me die and be done with it."

The Outsider clicked his tongue and crossed his arms, "Corvo, if you truly wanted to die you would have taken your own life. No, even now, you have too much pride as a warrior to simply pass from this life quietly. You want a soldier's death…a warrior's death. You want punishment for your sins, don't you? And since you have entertained me so well in the past, I'll help you out, one last time."

Despite the situation, Corvo laughed grimly, "Don't be doing me any favors. You couldn't even help me save my daughter."

The Outsider ignored the jab and instead, told Corvo this, "You are headed to a realm beyond my influence. After today, I will no longer be able to help you beyond what gifts I have given you already. But I can still see your futures, and if you truly seek a glorious death…find the crimson-eyed girl, whose sword can kill in a single stroke."

The Outsider stretched out his palm and with a flash of light, three items appeared in front of Corvo, items he had hoped never to see again. His mask, his folding blade, and the Heart. The mask and the blade had been crafted by Corvo's friend, Piero Joplin, and had been useful tools he had felt no use for. But the Heart was something else. It spoke truths that made him uncomfortable and its origins he could only speculate on left him cold. Even now, its familiar, slow beating unnerved him just as much as the faint song it emitted just from its presence in the material world, similar to the song of the runes and bone charms he had once collected.

"Goodbye Corvo," the Outsider said, "We will not meet again."

I'll hold you to that, you black-eyed bastard.

I'll hold you to that, he thought, passing out again as the Outsider faded out of his view into a miasma of dark smoke. When he woke up again, on the seventh day, he woke to the sight of several sailors looking down at him, speaking in foreign tongues. He couldn't understand them, but he saw the look of shock at their faces as he weakly rose his arm, beckoning for fresh water.

It had never tasted so good as it did in that moment.