Stepping over several sleeping bodies, they were able to catch up to Tressa before anything had the chance to go sideways, but with each snoozing pirate they crossed, Olberic thought, 'what's going to happen if they wake up?' whereas Primrose thought, 'what's going to happen when they do wake up?' This moment defined the differences between them.

Tressa began collecting up piles of goods, further revealing her poor planning skills. Primrose whispered, "how was she going to carry all that?" The swordsman blinked a few times in agreement as the two surveilled all the treasure the merchant had set out to sneak back with – the situation made all the more depressing when it was clear most of it was barely worth stealing in the first place.

Pulling her knife out, Primrose nudged Olberic and gestured to the two men sleeping closest to the treasure. Pirates seemed like the greedy and paranoid type so they both concluded one of unconscious pair must be the one in charge though it was unclear if it was the short fat one or his lanky companion.

"We could just kill them now. It would save us the trouble later." Primrose and Olberic both knew Tressa's plan had no chance of succeeding; a confrontation was inevitable and it would be, to put it delicately, decisive. The warrior grunted his objection and Primrose sighed, wondering how many times the noble man's morals would get in her way. "Can't blame a girl for trying."

He could blame her, and strongly considered it but Tressa needed help carrying giant sacks of flower so Olberic focused on that instead. Between the three of them, bringing back at least half was feasible, but they quickly ran out of time to do that. A belch of wine and sleepy, 'whosshat' came from one of the horizontal bodies.

Olberic dropped what was unfortunately, in fact, a brown and fowl smelling sack of flour; Tressa pulled her brown feathered hat over her face. The toxin was supposed to last longer than this. The merchant was sure she could talk her way out of this but all she could think of was lodging a complaint with Leon over the defective product.

Her companions had other things in mind. Primrose decided that if they were going to fight this fight on Olberic's terms, they might as well get it over with as quickly as possible. The dancer crept over to the pirate that was coming to and pulled him up by the collar - shouting at him in a way that was unladylike to the point of spitting.

"Get your friend on his feet so we can to the part of the show where we kill you!"

It wasn't in her nature to be so boorish, but delicacy didn't work on drunkards. She figured their responsiveness to a screaming nag was a latent fear of their own mothers. Her plan worked and both boys were up, though not having a good time doing it.

Olberic's small voice crept up to her. "Perhaps we should leave and come back when these men are sober. Fighting them like this seems no different than slaughtering them in their sleep."

Raising her dagger to grown man throat level, Primrose responded, "you must not have spent much time near the sea, Sir Olberic. There's no warrior more impotent than a sober pirate. If you want your honourable fight, now's your chance."

"Ha!" The first man to his feet seemed delighted at the prospect while the other steadied himself. "Youshink you be fightin' with honour? We show ya' what we think o' figh... What we think of horner ...Mateys!"

The drunken holler turned what should have been an easy fight in to a situation as it summoned nearly every sleeping body they had walked over on their trip through the cave.

The second of the two most important men had finally found most of his feet and yelled out, "The strong wake while the sleep quake!...Hold...Hold on, thas not it. The strong...Make?"

His friend cut him off. "Ah just killem all!"

Primrose growled. She knew her purpose in life was too high a cause to die at the hands of doped up man-children. The gods simply wouldn't allow it, but they didn't care enough about her to keep her without wound and the idea of scars hindering her weaponized beauty was off-putting. To herself she muttered, "I should have just slit their throats where they laid," before muttering slightly louder, "can you hold off the two while I deal with the rest?"

Olberic earned the right to be confident going into any battle, but he doubted Primrose's assessment that these drunkards were any kind of a threat. Were it not for his concern for Tressa, he would have had a hard time taking this seriously.

After nodding to Primrose, the warrior shouted out, "Tressa! Stay between us."


The intoxicated pirates had acceded Olberic's expectations. They were sloppy but in such a dangerous way that it seemed to be by design and the pair played off each other well. The warrior knew he could at least keep them at bay until they weakened with sobriety but until Primrose finished her task, it was a tossup between him holding the line or gaining an edge.

Meanwhile, Primrose was having difficulties of her own. Dark magic prayed on its targets emotions but an arcanist trying to tap into the mind of the drunk and drugged was no easier than riding an angry, blind horse.

As a brawler, the agile young woman was too quick to get struck, but dancing around a sea of blades took too much focus to be able to go on the offensive. Both sides of the pincer were at a stalemate and both Primrose and Olberic knew that if it kept up, someone as reckless as Tressa would get too antsy. The only question was which side she would intervene in.

As it turned out, Tressa's grudge lay with the men that orchestrated the ransacking of her village.

Primrose heard a call of, "I've had it with you two!" behind her and was thankful. Olberic's knightly instincts would do much better keeping the girl safe, though the dancer suspected her partner didn't share her delight. As she continued to put on a show with her acrobatics, Primrose wanted more than anything to take a break and enjoy the spectacle happening behind her. Whatever Tressa was adding to the fight was drawing out an increasing flurry of angry grunts and insults from the two lead pirates.

It must have been worth watching as it distracted the goons just enough to give Primrose an opening. A slash across one of her opponent's face wasn't lethal, but it took his one remaining eye out of the equation. In a game of inches, she had gained a foot.

With the help of Tressa, Olberic was well on his way to gaining a full mile – much to his surprise. The young merchant's element of surprise was only the beginning of her worth; with ease, she used her spear to block the lanky pirate's swing of his sabre before taking advantage of her lengthy weapon to push him away.

Olberic glared at the shorter pirate. It wasn't a stare of anger or passion but the invitation to surrender. The idea seemed impossible moments ago but with Tressa in the fray, the fight was over, though his opponents had too much liquid courage to give up or to even realize their predicament.

The clash of steel between the two echoed through the caves no more than a dozen times before the warrior disarmed the chubby man. Now all that needed to be done is what needed to be done. The constellation of corpses was moments from taking shape before a quick set of footsteps and self-assured voice sounded behind Olberic.

"That's quite enough."


In a blur of blue and blonde, Primrose's opponents had been knocked flat. The only thing more stunning than his beauty was his precision. All the men she was fighting had been incapacitated but she could tell each of them had been dealt a non-lethal blow. The entire brawl had ceased and Primrose took exception to the idea that she needed help.

"Whoever you might be," she said coldly. "We had things under control."

"That you did." The new arrival brushed past her. His cocky stride and shining curls were both charming and condescending in their swagger. Primrose turned to follow his path and everyone behind her was frozen in place. The two lead pirates stared in awe, eventually stammering out his name – Leon Bastrallel which seemed to mean a lot to everyone in the room but her.

"Too far under control for my liking." He turned back to Primrose, his one visible blue eye every bit as strong as the rest of him. "Tressa told both of you she wanted no spilled blood and you joined her with the plan to defy her. This is her home, her rules."

Leon shifted his eyes to Olberic. "And I would expect better from you." Primrose noted they stood with the confidence of looking at a familiar face but eyed each other up and down with the suspicion of meeting someone new. The names of great warriors must have been passed on to each other.

"No fighting, no stealing. Everyone plays nice and any objections to this go through me."

The pirates that weren't already on the ground dropped to their knees along with Tressa's spear, Olberic's sword and Primrose's dagger.


Primrose and Olberic sat around a dining table with Tressa's parents. The young merchant had invited them to dinner and that seemed a much better plan than tavern food. They had finished eating and Tressa excused herself for 'just a minute.' to take a peak at a book she had acquired from Leon.

That had been two hours ago. The rest of the dinner party ran out of small talk but Olberic was too polite to leave without bidding Tressa farewell and too awkward to knock on her door. Primrose was too loyal to leave her friend behind to shoulder the uncomfortable burden on his own.

"Finished!" Tressa finally emerged from her bedroom to meet the four pairs of impatient eyes. She stared back blankly before noticing that the proud daylight had been fully replaced by a starry night. "I guess I was in there longer than I thought."

"Oh well. What's done is done," she continued on, ignoring the malice behind each gaze. "I have something I need to say. Ma, pa, I'm going to travel alongside Olberic and Primrose on their journey."

It was impossible to tell who in the room was most offended by the naive and blunt proposition. It would have been the kind of spirited debate that lasted until sunrise and only ended because all but one got tired of arguing. Primrose wasn't sure who it would be but she selfishly held firm that she would be the most inconvenienced by this proposition. The dancer was already having second thoughts about bringing Olberic's moral code with her, but at least he let her kill people.

Tressa's eager eyes seemed to be directing the request toward the two adventurers rather than her parents which Primrose found the most objectionable. A child so blatantly disregarding her parents would not have been allowed in the Azelhart household. Primrose figured this at least meant the right of refusal lay with her and Olberic. The young woman felt a man as stoic as the hardened warrior was designed to say no to children so the dancer silently pleaded with her partner to do his duty.

He sighed quietly. "That decision lies with your parents, Tressa."

How diplomatic, Primrose thought to herself angrily. How can a man dedicated to honing power give it up so willingly?

Pouting, Tressa argued with ma and pa. Both Primrose and Olberic tuned it out, mentally mapping their next moves, but like a giant sign flashing with neon magic, they both heard clear as day, "you have my blessing."


Tressa's family may have had extra seats for dinner, but thankfully they had no extra beds – though that did not stop Tressa from offering up the corner with some pillows. Primrose and Olberic never agreed to take Tressa along with them, but they never explicitly turned her down either and there was no doubt the girl would take their silence as acceptance.

So Primrose waited outside the inn for the girl to show up, probably insisting they forgo sleep and leave immediately. The silver lining to this scene was that the dancer greatly favoured Rippletide over Sunshade. The stars were always mostly obscured by the mountains in her former home, but out here, constellations shimmered with grand beauty.

More importantly, in Rippletide, she could stand alone outside without being asked, 'how much' every five minutes.


It took Tressa longer than Primrose had expected to come running to the inn at full speed. Well passed her bedtime I'm sure, she thought as the girl keeled over panting in front of her. The young woman gave the merchant time to catch her breath. Primrose knew Tressa wanted to get the first word in.

"What's the plan, partner!?"

Primrose calculated just how guilty she would feel if she ditched Olberic under cover of nightfall. She took the time to consider all kinds of variables but groaned when she realized it didn't add up. "Tressa, you're undeniably formidable and sharp."

"Darn right I am!"

"None of that matters though." Primrose spoke with a quiet calm to signal Tressa to take it down a notch. She was hoping Olberic was getting some sleep inside and didn't want to wake him – more so, the excitement of the merchant made the situation seem more intolerable. "My journey is one of bloodshed. There will be dead bodies behind me as I go."

"Maybe you don't have to kill any-"

"I want to," Primrose cut the girl off sternly. "There are men that need to die, and if all goes according to plan, I'll be the one washing my hands in their blood."

Tressa's eyes widened with awe. "That's pretty intense." Primrose wanted to pump her fist in celebration. She had phrased that so morbidly to discourage the girl and it sounded like it had worked

Of course, it hadn't.

Tressa responded confidently, "We'll see how things really go down. I think you're nicer than you believe you are, Primrose."

The girl was undeniably incorrect, but Primrose appreciated the naive remark and was beginning to warm to the girl. Tressa's innocent confidence wasn't unlike a cat and the dancer had always been a cat person. Bonus: this cat had a spear and knew how to use it.

"Very well," Primrose said sweetly. "Get some rest. We set out North in the morning." Before the girl could run home, the older woman wanted to say something chummy. Unfortunately, years in her profession left her with only crude lines of thinking. "So, that book. You must have been quite enthralled. It must be very...Captivating," she finished with a wink.

Tressa didn't get it.

"Good gods," Primrose muttered before patting the girl's hat. "Sleep well, Tressa."


Unsurprisingly, Primrose found their room's candle still lit along with an upright Olberic enjoying nothingness. She took special note that the window was open before gently falling into bed.

Olberic spoke before she could or wanted to. "We can take solace that the journey will be good for her. Difficult adventures craft boys into men and girls into women." He said this with such poetic purpose that Primrose had a feeling he had been rehearsing the one line for the past hour.

"Who knows. Maybe it will be good for us too." Primrose considered the levelheaded - boring, she corrected herself – Olberic who was as sweet a man as any, but maybe what she needed was someone irresponsibly curious to grant her the chance to come out of the shell she had forged over the years.

Although, she would never admit it.