Chapter Seventy-Seven: Butcher's Bill

Gwen Twymann's brow was creasing in a deep frown as she studied her navigation charts.

The Library Key, recovered from the Tomb of the Noble, turned out to be a very simple contraption. It offered a set of coordinates coupled with a specific time of day. When the Viridian Wind arrived at the proper time and place, the Library Key would begin to glow a certain color.

Gwen quickly figured out that the Key was showing them which way to go – there would always be a prism crystal formation (one of the eponymous features of the Land of Shores and Prisms) protruding from the ocean, somewhere in the visible distance, that shined primarily with a color corresponding to the color offered by the Key. Upon reaching that particular prism crystal, the Key would then offer a new set of coordinates, a new time of day.

The Viridian Wind had gone through this cycle six times, already. Six sets of coordinates, six prisms, six course alterations. Thus far. The first prism had been red, the second had been orange, and so on and so forth. Currently, the Viridian Wind was following a westward course, set by the most recent prism in the sequence – Prism Number Six. Indigo.

It stood to reason that Prism Number Seven would be violet.

The search for the Library of All was coming to a head. Gwen could feel it.

Aristophanes stood across the table, poring over those same navigation charts, a similar expression to Gwen's quickly forming on his own features. He was the first to look up. "Our next target coordinates will land us north of the Gray Shoals. You know what that means, Witch?"

"Marauder territory," Gwen muttered. "I'm aware. How long do we have?"

"At this speed?" Aristophanes calculated the Viridian Wind's velocity - a respectable five knots heading west - along with the distance between the ship and the Gray Shoals. "I estimate eight hours. Best get some rest before then. You'll want to be lucid if we're facing those necrophile shits."

"No." Gwen shook her head. "Well, yes and no. Yes, I'll want to be lucid; but no, I won't be resting up just yet. I need to alchemize, first. I've been working on something since we left the Metropolis, and I think it's high-time we installed it."

Several minutes passed by. Gwen took her leave and immediately found herself working furiously in her laboratory.

Calling it a 'laboratory', perhaps, may be a bit of a stretch.

In truth, Gwen's laboratory was merely a small concealed room belowdecks that had once been used for storing contraband. The Viridian Wind primarily smuggled rum and fragments of knowledge from the Library of All; both of which were branded as contraband by the Assembly.

Presently, the concealed room contained Gwen's Alchemiter.

Gwen's fingers moved across her Alchemiter's touch-screen with the speed and precision of a master pianist. Apart from the movement of her fingers and eyelids, Gwen might have appeared as would a statue to the outside observer. However, were that same outside observer to take a glimpse into Gwen's mind, they would have been gifted with a spectacular light show of ideas and creative implementation.

In the past, Gwen had two main hobbies that were able to really fire up her neurons in ways that video games fell miserably short: drawing up architectural designs for buildings, and repairing broken-down car engines. Something about figuring out the workings of complex systems had an effect on Gwen's mind similar to the effect Doritos might have on one's tastebuds.

Alchemizing was even better. Gwen quickly figured out how to 'hack' the Alchemiter and break build grist down into its base energetic components. Learning how to mathematically resolve those components into the items Gwen wished to create had not been so easy, and the experimentation was still ongoing.

However, Gwen had the Light Aspect on her side.

Before long, Gwen stopped playing around with items already listed under the Alchemiter's seemingly (though not quite) infinite registry, and started designing her own objects from scratch.

In her mind, Gwen could see each individual strand of data she was manipulating from the broken-down build grist. She had started by 'zooming in' all the way and using the potential energy of the broken-down grist to mimic the basic molecular structure of titanium, copied from an old Chemistry I textbook from freshman year, using this as a template of sorts for her design. Not all of the design would be made of titanium – there were three magnetic coils Gwen needed to add which could not be titanium, a nonmagnetic metal.

Today, Gwen was taking the programmed templates of these three magnetic coils and adding them into the larger design. When she was finished, an indeterminate amount of time later, Gwen uploaded her design (magnetic coils and all) directly into the Alchemiter's processing hub.

The Alchemiter's laser winked on.

The laser was mounted on the 'wrist' of a multi-jointed mechanical arm. The mechanical arm unfolded and turned the laser on its horizontal axis, holding it nearly flush with the Alchemiter's circular plate. The green laser beam started to quiver and pulsate.

The mechanical arm drew the laser across the base of the alchemy plate, initiating the process of alchemizing Gwen's design, layer by layer. Gradually, the design was 'printed' by the laser into physical form.

The object that materialized was a seven-foot-long titanium railgun.

Gwen captchalogued the entire railgun within a single card, whisking it away from the alchemy plate. She then returned to the Alchemiter's touch-screen and uploaded the programming for the railgun's ammunition into the processing hub.

Before initiating the command, however, Gwen made two quick alterations - first, she put the alchemization process on a continuous loop; second, she programmed the printing laser to send the alchemized ammunition directly to her sylladex. This was something she would not normally do – it was a hazardous process, prone to glitches. However, it was relatively safe to use it for such a simple thing as ammunition mass-production.

Within seconds, cannon shells filled with pressurized Greek fire – or 'pyroshot', as the turtle-consorts called it – began to stack up within Gwen's sylladex space. When the stack counter reached fifty, Gwen halted the process and shut down the Alchemiter. The touch-screen went dark, the laser winked off, and the mechanical arm folded back into resting position.

Gwen had to pause for a deep breath before standing up. She was exhausted. Her brain felt like it had been kept awake all night studying for a calculus exam. Channeling the Light Aspect was sometimes very draining on the body.

Several more minutes passed by.

Gwen left her lab and returned to the deck, climbing several ladders up through the bowels of the Viridian Wind. She was greeted by a sky which had shifted color from a vibrant afternoon orange to a subdued maroon. Skaia had already set. It was now dusk, teetering on the very cusp of night.

Aristophanes was manning the Viridian Wind's helm, making minute adjustments to the ship's course in compensation for the ever-so-slightly shifting breeze. Crewmembers were scrubbing the decks and checking all the rope lines. Members of the gun crews were busy inspecting their cannons. If there was going to be a skirmish, they would not want their weapons malfunctioning.

Gwen patiently weaved her way through all the activity, approaching Aristophanes. "New cannon's almost ready," she told the Viridian Wind's first mate. "How much longer 'til we hit the Gray Shoals?"

"Three hours," the first mate replied, nudging the helm a bit to the left. "Provided the wind holds, that is. Be quick about your installation, Witch, so you might grab some sleep afterward."

"Yeah, will do." Gwen turned around and headed for the bow of the ship. Aristophanes was right, of course – she needed to sleep. Sleep, however, meant dreaming of Derse, where Gwen was never eager to go.

Pushing all thoughts of Derse aside for the moment, Gwen cleared a space towards the bow of the ship, just in front of the foremast. From this spot, the railgun would have a clear shot at anything approaching the Viridian Wind from the front or sides. Luckily, the Viridian Wind lacked a figurehead, which would have gotten in the railgun's way.

Gwen retrieved the captchalogue card containing the railgun from her sylladex, deploying the weapon straight onto the deck. She had designed the baseplate with many holes, allowing her to secure the railgun to the deck with a power drill and screws. Fortunately, the railgun itself was relatively lightweight – so long as it did not sustain a direct hit from a marauder cannon, it would not topple over.

Corsairs were beginning to gather round while Gwen opened up the insides of the railgun. While the Metropolis covertly utilized reverse-engineered Dersite technology, most of these corsairs had never set foot inside the capital city. This titanium weapon must have appeared all sorts of alien to them.

Gwen retrieved three more items from her sylladex – a hefty coil of wires, a pair of wire snips, and a metal fixture containing a suspended crystal shard that was glowing a bright cyan.

"What's the shiny thing, Witch?" one of the more inquisitive corsairs asked, drawn in by the alluring gleam of the cyan crystal.

"Mm?" Gwen grunted, jolted out of her focus by the question. She immediately connected the dots, however, and replied, "Oh, that's the power source. Omnicrystal shard. Wouldn't recommend touching it, not if you want to keep all your fingers."

Gwen installed the power source and went about connecting the wires to the control panel, the powered hinges, the trigger mechanism, and the magnetic coils. The corsairs continued to watch, utterly transfixed. Gwen found herself quietly wishing they were able to witness her working on a car – now that would have been a sight for them to see. For all the modesty Gwen tried to project around herself in order to make up for her IQ, she secretly loved having people watch her at work.

As Gwen sealed the railgun back up, the gathered consorts were broken up and sent scurrying back to their tasks by Nothon – the crotchety old whip-wielding bosun. No one liked being at the receiving end of that whip. Interesting as the railgun was, nothing was worth the whip.

Left to her own devices once more, Gwen finally retired to her bunk belowdecks and went to sleep.

When the heavy rolling drumbeats of the ship's Cadence roused Gwen from her deep sleep, she could scarcely remember her dream on Derse. She retained vague flashes of planning for an upcoming assault of some sort. Something involving a TV station?

A moot point, since she had no time to try and recall – the sounding Cadence could mean only one thing:

Twelve different kinds of trouble – each equipped with its own capital T and exclamation point.

Gwen took the nearest ladder up to the deck, taking care not to get trampled by consorts hurrying to their stations. The ship's Captain was bellowing orders from the quarterdeck, though Gwen could not see him from her vantage point. She could, however, spot Aristophanes at the helm.

The wind had died down to a gentle breeze. The Viridian Wind was still moving at a good speed, but not as quickly as before.

Nothon was the one sounding the Cadence, striking the large drum with a pair of proportionately large padded mallets. He traded a quick nod with Gwen as she brushed past, taking her place at the railgun.

Gwen retrieved an artillery shell from her sylladex, slotting it into the railgun's chamber. She brought the weapon online. The railgun gave a quiet hum as the magnetic coils came to life.

Finally, Gwen looked out beyond the rails of the Viridian Wind. To the very distant south, the coastline had become a ragged system of rocky beaches, broken up by river mouths, tributaries, inlets of water. From the gray hue of the sand, Gwen assumed (correctly) that the Viridian Wind had arrived at the Gray Shoals.

To the west – the direction in which the Viridian Wind was sailing – was a looming bank of gray mist. The breeze was not powerful enough to disperse it. From that mist, three black ships had emerged, sailing on an intercept course. A shiver crept up Gwen's spine as she studied the ships. They were, without a doubt, marauder vessels.

Although Gwen had known that a second encounter with the marauders was inevitable in this part of the ocean, she had nevertheless nursed the hope that it would not come to pass.

A forlorn hope, as it turned out.

One ship versus three. Last time the Viridian Wind encountered marauders, it had been against only two of the vessels, and only one of those ships had managed to land boarding parties. This time around, the odds of the Viridian Wind's survival were even more dismal.

Gwen flipped out the railgun's sights – a simple crosshairs scope with mild magnification capability. There was a ball of nerves settling into her stomach – truth be told, although she'd designed and alchemized this railgun herself, Gwen had no idea if it was going to work. She had been working purely from theory, not experience. The only way to find out was going to be via live test.

Gwen was tempted to open fire immediately, but she was not quite sure what the range on her weapon was. Furthermore, the likelihood that she would miss her target was, at this distance, rather substantial. Better to wait a few minutes.

Nothon continued to sound the Cadence. Although everyone had gotten themselves situated on the top-deck, Gwen knew the gun crews below were still hauling the cannons into position.

Another shudder up the spine.

Even just thinking about the gun crews was enough to make Gwen nauseous – memories of the previous encounter with the marauders had not, by any means, vanished. The claustrophobic gun decks, awash with blood and urine, choked with smoke and gunpowder residue. The flying shards of splintered wood. And the screams. God, the screams…

Gwen took a deep breath, shaking her head in a semi-successful attempt to clear it.

The cry came from below. "Gun decks ready!" It was Tycho, the foulmouthed Master Gunner.

"Aye, Master Gunner, fire on my command!" the Captain roared in response.

The three marauder ships drew close, coming within two hundred yards.

Close enough for the railgun? Only one way to find out.

"Permission to open fire, Captain?" Gwen hollered back to the quarterdeck.

"Granted, Witch! Blow 'em to hell!"

Gwen peered through the crosshairs, aiming for the lead marauder ship's mainmast. She started to squeeze the trigger, but halted at the last moment. The Viridian Wind had crested a tall wave, throwing off Gwen's aim. She took another deep breath and reacquired her target. Before she could lose it a second time, Gwen squeezed the trigger.

The railgun's quiet hum grew loud for a brief moment while the magnetic coils amplified their charge. The pressurized pyroshot round was drawn forward and accelerated by the omnicrystal-powered magnetic charge, exiting the railgun at speeds close to Mach One. A bit tame for your average railgun, yet still nothing to turn one's nose up at.

Fortunately, the BOOM was not loud enough to burst Gwen's eardrums. That being said, it was still pretty damn loud. Enough to make her ears ring like tuning forks.

The explosion caused by the railgun was even louder. The shell struck the marauder ship's mainmast, just as Gwen intended, resulting in a spectacular conflagration of deep red fire. The entire mainmast of the marauder ship was instantly reduced to splinters – it might as well have been a toothpick trying to stand up to a shotgun blast. A huge chunk of the marauder ship's deck had been gouged out, flames eating away at the edges.

Gwen could see dozens of dead marauders scattered about the deck of the enemy ship. Still, there were dozens more who were very much alive. If anything, their bloodlust had only increased. They gnashed their teeth, howling with rage, shaking their weapons, baring their teeth and claws at the corsairs.

The corsairs were shouting, too, though not in response to the marauders' vulgar displays. They had just received rather a shock, rocked to the core by the devastating display of firepower shown to them by Gwen's railgun. They had never seen the likes of it before.

"Skaia's Light, boys, look at 'em burning shitwads!" Inaros, one of the younger crewmembers, was shouting.

"Never seen anything like that, before…"

"Could probably sink the bastards with a second shot!"

"Gods above…"

This went on for less than five seconds before Nothon screamed at the crew to shut the hell up.

"Again, Witch!" the Captain yelled. "Hit them again!"

Gwen was all too happy to oblige. She opened up the railgun chamber once more, retrieved another shell from her sylladex, and slotted it into place. After sealing the chamber, Gwen used the crosshairs to take aim a second time. "Firing!" she exclaimed. "Plug your ears!"

When Gwen squeezed the trigger, she received a surprise in the form of a nasty shock. The railgun seemed to do something akin to blowing a fuse, overloading with energy and shooting cyan sparks. The surge of energy reacted less than favorably with Gwen's body, blasting her back across the deck. Her feet left the ground and she flew through the air, slamming painfully into the starboard rail.

Gwen must have lost consciousness for several minutes. She deduced this because when she opened her eyes, it was not to the soft yellow morning sky, but rather to an uncomfortably close-up view of canvas fabric. Someone had thrown a tarp over her.

Throwing the canvas tarp off, Gwen blinked several times, regaining her bearings. She was in the captain's cabin. More blinking. The confusion clouding her mind lifted slightly. There were sounds of fighting raging just beyond the doors – clashing metal, sharp reports from pistols, and more screams…

The marauders must have boarded.

For a few moments, Gwen was sorely tempted to cover herself back up with the canvas tarp and curl into a tight ball. She knew, however, that this would only result in death. A slow, horrific, painful death by skinning.

Gwen stood up and made her way outside. The first sight to greet her upon leaving the captain's cabin was the Captain himself. He was slumped against the cabin doors, blood flowing freely down his body, staining his clothes, his shell. The Captain's head was nowhere to be found.

Gwen needed only a few moments to take in what was happening and make her own deductions.

The corsairs had not been idle while she was unconscious – one of the marauder ships was on fire and in the process of sinking beneath the emerald waves. The second ship was dead in the water, more or less – this was the ship whose mainmast Gwen had managed to destroy. The marauders on this ship had only just started to begin rowing towards the Viridian Wind. They would arrive within minutes.

The third ship was drawn up right along the Viridian Wind's starboard side. Even now, marauders were swinging reinforcements onto the corsair ship. The fight to hold the Viridian Wind was devolving rapidly into another chaotic, frenzied melee.

Aristophanes, in command after the Captain's demise, was doing his best to salvage the situation. Though if the remaining marauder ship managed to reach the Viridian Wind, his best would not be good enough. Presently, the one-eyed turtle-consort was mired in combat against a particularly brutish ogre. This ogre was armed with two wickedly-sharp scimitars, and it was taking all of Aristophanes's skill to keep those scimitars at bay.

The former first mate caught sight of Gwen stumbling out of the captain's cabin and immediately called out to her. "What the hell happened with your design?"

Gwen stared blankly at Aristophanes for half a second. An imp, who must have been climbing about the rigging, landed on the deck right in front of Gwen, shocking her out of her daze. The imp hissed, baring its claws, readying itself to pounce. Gwen had less than a second. She accessed her strife specibus and recovered her Walther, quickly took aim, shot the imp between the eyes just as it was leaping into the air. Then she looked back over to Aristophanes. "It broke!" she shouted back.

Aristophanes drew his scaly lips back in a snarl, landing a powerful kick square in the ogre's chest, throwing it off balance. He then followed up with a lightning-fast stroke of his sword, neatly opening the ogre's throat. It collapsed to its knees, choking on its own blood.

He was then free to roar, "What do you mean it broke?!" back to Gwen.

"I mean the damn thing nearly blew up in my face! It fucking broke!"

"You're the Witch of Light, girl! Fix it!"

Before Gwen could reply, she was set upon by another imp. Rather than shoot it, Gwen leaped into action. She sidestepped the charging marauder and sprinted right into the fray. She had to duck and dodge her way through the melee, stepping over sprawled bodies of consorts and underlings alike. Twice, she nearly slipped on pools of blood.

It was a miracle in of itself that Gwen was able to reach the railgun without losing any body parts.

The weapon was no longer humming with energy. Gwen knelt down and opened up the railgun's insides. Surprisingly enough, the innards of the weapon were more or less intact. The omnicrystal shard power source was still in place, as were the magnetic coils. For this, Gwen silently thanked whatever god or gods, if any, who happened to be listening in.

It was the wires that had been fried.

Gwen suppressed the urge to smack herself in the forehead. Idiot. Stupid.

She had not considered the possibility that her wires might not be able to handle the raw power of omnicrystal energy. They seemed to have been able to handle the first shot well enough, but the second shot had blown them out. There was too much of a residual charge after the first shot – she hadn't waited long enough for that charge to fully disperse.

This left Gwen no choice but to rewire the railgun.

She retrieved her coil of wires from the sylladex, along with the wire snips. After ripping out the ruined ones, Gwen went about rewiring the railgun, her mouth set in a hard, determined line. She continued to ignore the fighting that was happening all around her – it was too distracting, and she needed to focus.

Gwen never felt the bite of imp teeth sinking into her neck, so she assumed there was a corsair or two watching her back.

Half a minute later, Gwen had the railgun rewired. She brought it back online and swiveled it around to starboard. She slipped her finger into the trigger guard. Before Gwen could open fire, however, she was interrupted by a hoarse shout from behind.

"The powder magazine, Witch!" It was Aristophanes. He was the one who had been keeping the marauders off Gwen's back, having carved his own path through the fighting. "The fools left their powder on the deck! Hit those barrels! Hit them now!"

Gwen peeked up from the crosshairs, taking a moment to sweep her gaze across the rotting deck of the marauder ship. She quickly spotted the stack of heavy black barrels to which Aristophanes was referring, piled against the mizzenmast. "Got you," Gwen crowed triumphantly, adjusting her aim and firing.

The detonation of the pressurized Greek fire combined with the exploding gunpowder was nearly enough to rend the marauder ship in two. The BOOM rippled across the waves, echoing off the shoals to the south. Chunks of wooden debris and bloodied bits of ripped-up underling corpse started to rain gently from the sky.

An arm that had once belonged to an ogre struck Gwen on the shoulder, leaving a bloodstain on her shirt. She gagged, concentrating for a moment to keep the nausea in her stomach from turning into fully-fledged projectile vomit. A pang of disappointment tugged at her chest – she'd liked that shirt…

"Black sails to the north!" the lookout screamed down from the crow's nest. "There's more of 'em comin' right at us!"

Aristophanes swore several of the blackest oaths he knew. And after peering through his spyglass in the direction indicated by the lookout, he swore a few more. Sure enough, three more black ships had appeared on the horizon off the starboard aft, moving in pursuit of the corsair vessel.

Aristophanes wondered for a moment just how the marauders were able to sniff out prey so well. His silent question was answered when he lowered his spyglass – the smoke from the two burning marauder ships had already risen high into the air. It must have been acting like a beacon.

No matter. The Viridian Wind had one thing in her favor, if not numbers: the weather.

"Lower the sails!" Aristophanes ordered. He was briefly interrupted by a charging imp. The former first mate merely held his ground and pointed his rapier forward, allowing the imp to skewer itself through the neck. He placed a boot on the twitching underling's corpse and nudged it off his blade. He turned his attention upwards once more. "Get the vermin out of the rigging and lower the bloody sails!"

The former first mate's plan was obvious to Gwen. He intended to make for the mist up ahead. Disappear before the marauder reinforcements could enter the equation. It was the Viridian Wind's only shot at survival.

Luckily enough, not too many of the marauders had made their way into the rigging. One by one, those who had managed to do so were knocked back down to the deck by the sharpshooters stationed on the high platforms. Once this was done, the sharpshooters put down their rifles and crawled out onto the booms, unfurling the sails to their fullest extent.

The sails ballooned out as the gentle wind filled them, propelling the Viridian Wind past the burning husk of the black ship whose powder magazine Gwen had detonated.

As the mist drew near, Gwen abandoned the railgun and made her way across the deck, assisting the corsairs in dispatching the remaining boarders. By this point, most of the marauders had been killed, yet there were still a few stubbornly clinging to life, taking chunks out of any who came too close.

The corsairs wised up real fast. They backed off and slaughtered the remaining marauders with pistol shot.

Gwen's Walther came in great handy for this grim task.

At long last, after the final marauder fell, the Viridian Wind was silent. Silence promptly shattered by cheering. Over two-hundred voices contributed to the cheering – some jeered and hurled insults at the remaining marauder ship, some praised Skaia for their good fortune, and others merely wailed.

The gray mist enveloped the Viridian Wind, obscuring it from the view of the three pursuing marauder ships.

Aristophanes sagged against the nearest rail, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. He was exhausted. Once he'd regained his breath, he sheathed his sword and sought out Nothon. The old bosun was up towards the bow, organizing a group of younger crewmembers to start tipping the bodies of dead marauders overboard.

Nothon straightened up, nodding in deference to Aristophanes. "I hear the Cap'n went an' lost 'is head."

"Afraid so," Aristophanes replied. "Beheaded from behind by one of the ogres."

Nothon grunted, hocking up a ball of phlegm and spitting it over the rail. "Quick death, that. Quick death. Lucky shit, that Cap'n, lucky shit he was, dyin' such a quick death."

"No. Were he a lucky shit, he would still possess a head," Aristophanes muttered. "What's the butcher's bill, Nothon?"

"Six dead, fifteen wounded," Nothon replied. Then he hesitated, quickly adding, "Well, make that seven dead, includin' the former Cap'n."

"A light bill," Aristophanes remarked. Usually the death toll from a brush with the marauders was much higher. Still, the meager silver lining did little to alleviate the sour taste in the former first mate's mouth.

"Permission to speak, sir," Nothon rumbled.

"Granted."

"Does the Witch know what the hell she's doin'?"

Aristophanes gave the bosun a sharp glance. "Yes, Nothon, she does." The former first mate might have left it at that, but something impelled him to press the issue. "What spurs the lack of faith?"

"No lack o' faith on me own part, sir," Nothon answered. "I believe in the old myths, same as you. All the same… It's folly to sail past the Gray Shoals, sir, downright folly it is… Some o' the lads are beginnin' to grumble. They see the cap'n's death as a right bad omen, they do. If we rack up too many more butcher's bills without leavin' these shoals behind, we might bloody well lose the crew. You know as well as I, sir, a mutiny in these particular waters means death for all concerned."

Aristophanes was quiet, watching Gwen help out with the cleanup while Nothon spoke. When the bosun was finished, the former first mate gave a single nod. "You speak the truth, bosun. Consider your truths heard. Now see to the dead – we'll send them to the deeps once repairs are underway."

Nothon touched a fist to his forehead, turning away and leaving the quarterdeck.

Aristophanes drummed his fingers against the starboard rail, taking in a deep breath through his nostrils. He exhaled, watching the mist directly in front of his face swirl and eddy in reaction to the released breath.

He left the rail and descended one of the flights of stairs connecting the quarterdeck to the main deck below. He stepped over the headless corpse of the deceased skipper and walked into the captain's cabin. His cabin, now.

Sitting in one of the desk drawers was a dusty old bottle of rum. The old captain would only sip from it after surviving a battle. Aristophanes held the bottle up to eye-level, watching the brownish-red liquid slosh around in endless circles, never again to be sipped by its previous owner.

"To you, old friend." Aristophanes raised the bottle to the deceased captain. He unstoppered the bottle, brought it to his lips...yet hesitated before taking a drink.

Coming to a decision, the new captain of the Viridian Wind replaced the cork and put the bottle back and closed the drawer, hiding it away.