Garrett spotted the book first. He stepped to the left just past the door and picked it up out of the broken crate it was in, holding it up to show to the group. He went to pocket it and Blue reached out for it. The book exchanged hands and she quickly, silently, read it.
"Nothing useful," she said, slamming it shut. Blue handed it to Rezin — for he still held her sling bag — and stepped forward, looking over the railing in front of them. "Oh my."
The group came along the edge as well as they could; she could sense Z looking over her shoulder. They stood in a great cylindrical room. There were stairs leading down below, but they were crumbling, some areas missing entirely.
"This is… daunting," Captain Montagne commented.
"The fires…" Bean could not resist pointing out the fresh lighting.
Blue rolled her eyes and stepped past everyone, going down the stairs and jumping over the first broken spot. She took the few steps she needed to reach the next one, jumping onto the next level platform. She looked up at the group for a moment, hoping they got the hint that it was embarrassing for the cripple in the group to be first. She didn't wait for them, though, instead only somewhat listened to the sound of them moving behind her as she continued downward.
The downward spiral would have been dizzying had it not been slowed by the broken stairs. Every single one of them was in poor condition. Some parts had fallen all the way down while some parts from above had dropped from above to clutter the path.
At the very bottom was a spike pit. Blue didn't look long at it, only long enough to notice that there were two people's worth of skeletons in it. She heard Bean make a small noise of disgust behind her.
Up ahead was a rather open room. In it, too, was a spike pit. More curious was the broken bridge that had once linked the side they stood on to the other.
"Well, that's unfortunate," Garrett said.
Blue thought that was putting it mildly. Z's lowered brow told her that he agreed. Something compelled her to take a closer look at the bridge and so she stepped over the cluttering of rocks, lantern in hand.
"This looks.. deliberate." She looked over to the group, no one having followed her.
Garrett was most curious. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, this does not look like it became old and weathered."
"Y' think somebody broke it on purpose?" Z asked.
"I do." She looked to the side and a glint caught her eye. She took a few steps along the furthest wall. In a corner was another book. "And here's another." Blue picked it up, skimmed the beginning of it and stopped. "Huh."
Z spoke up: "Come back over here and then read it."
There was an urge to tease him and ask if he was concerned about her being so close to the edge, but considering the spikes… Well, she was in no hurry to find out how sharp they were and returned to the group.
"Briggsy says in this one that there were no Trading Companies when she first came here."
"Ah yes, that was quite some time ago," Captain Montagne said.
Blue desperately wanted to ask what happened to that. A world without those evils seemed so pleasant in her mind, but they had a task to focus on. Instead, she only made a thoughtful noise and handed the journal to Rezin for storing.
The entire time they had been stood there, noises had been coming from the only way forward they had. Now that it was time to start heading in that direction, the crew of the Octavia all had similar expressions of concern and that was worrying. Z spoke about it first.
"What am I hearin'?"
"Traps," Rezin said simply.
Everyone watched, but no one tried to stop Kata from starting off without them.
"What he means," her captain said quickly, "is that they are most likely moving structures meant to, ah… stop… intruders."
Blue and Z looked to each other; Garrett was equally unenthused.
"It's more of that shit we saw on Sailor's Bounty!" Kata called from down the way.
Blue asked, "That being…?"
The captain sighed. "Probably moving spikes."
Blue paused to listen to the noises more closely. It sounded as though these traps triggered, reset, and went off again.
"Are you… Are y' sayin' that the walls are gonna try t' stab us?" Z asked.
"Impale is more like it," Captain Montagne said. She looked between him and Blue and Garrett. "I won't think less of you if you want to turn around—"
"We are already here, we might as well continue," Blue said, already heading through the tunnel. She heard them hesitate before following her.
She had not been joking in the least. Stopping just behind Kata, Blue could see spikes jutting out of the ground, walls, and ceiling in unison. They retracted before jutting out once more, repeating this cycle, ready to catch anyone too slow.
Blue wasn't sure if she had sworn out loud or not.
"I'll go first," Kata declared proudly.
With little effort, she watched the spikes' cycle, judged it correctly and was then stood on the other side, waiting for the next person to come through. Blue hesitated just long enough that Captain Montagne pushed past her and also ran through the danger zone. After her went Blue, then Bean, and then Z, followed by Rezin and finally Garrett. Now the sounds of moving spikes could be heard before and behind them.
The group had to wade through a small pool to find the next set of spiked traps that Kata was eyeing. These ones only came from the walls of the gently curving tunnel but were equally deadly. Three of these trap lay before them, moving as one. Before she could say anything, Bean was pushing past her. A moment later and there was a simultaneous squishing and cracking noise from just out of view. Kata turned to look and if her face was anything to go by…
"Again?" Captain Montagne hesitantly asked, a hint of rhetoric in her voice.
Kata simply nodded; Rezin looked annoyed somehow. Blue looked to Z, who was already looking her way. She shook her head and put her hands on her hips. Down to six, they were.
With a sigh, Captain Montagne said sternly, "Everyone take it slowly and carefully. We don't need to lose anyone else."
That was a good way to spend the few moments needed to allow the Sea of the Damned to take away the body, Blue supposed. She had a strong stomach but she was sure that must have been quite a gruesome scene.
Getting the whole group past the trio of traps took some time as everyone was, just as asked of them, slow and careful, except for the very moment that required them to dash through the trap during its moment of reset. There was a sharper curve ahead of them and still could more traps be heard. No one said it, but Blue was sure everyone was wondering when — if? — it would end.
Next up was a pair of traps, each one made up of moving parts in the floor and ceiling. Blue thought that was rather ironic considering the last traps' design, and the ones before those ones. Again, the group was careful and everyone made it through.
Rather than there being more traps, they now stood at the beginning of a bridge. This one seemed to be fully intact and that led to more credence to Blue's suspicion that the other one had been broken. Beside them was a post, a bell hanging from it, earning curious looks from the group. Almost playfully, Z reached up and gave it a tap, producing a satisfying ring, and continuing onward. The others followed him until he abruptly stopped at the other side.
"Oh shit."
"What is it?" Captain Montagne hissed.
"Nothin' serious — it's jus' dark as hell here."
He was not wrong. On the original side of the bridge was a brazier; to their left was a stone wall with glowing fungus on it and the tiny ledge under it. The further they walked, the darker it got, until everyone had their lanterns in their hands. Blue was impressed to see multiple coloured lanterns but refrained from commenting, especially on Rezin's pink light.
Z took a few steps forward and then swore once more. "There's no bridge, jus' this rickety shit," he said, kicking with his pegleg at what appeared to once be part of a bridge. The way forward quickly turned into bits and pieces of wood, some of which appeared to be a mast, only just wide enough for feet. He looked down and sucked in a breath. "Oh, fuck this."
The group followed his line of sight downward to the massive pit full of upward-facing spikes. Blue didn't bother looking for skeletons in this one.
"Well, I have a suggestion," she said.
Everyone looked to her. It was Captain Montagne who spoke. "What is it?"
"Keep your eyes forward and don't slip," she said simply before pushing past everyone, moving quickly enough that no one could stop her.
The wood was sturdy. A little damp, but sturdy. As long as everyone kept their feet in the middle of the planks and posts, they would be fine. Considering Z's pegleg, she supposed that she knew why his reaction had been so visceral. For her and the others, though…
She reached a point where the path ended and when she lifted her lantern to see better, she saw that it dropped down. Such a notion was daunting and she found herself looking back for a moment — there was a safe distance between them, but Z had followed her. Their eyes met and he paused, looking to where she just had. He looked downright mad yet she wasn't entirely certain where it was directed at.
With a slow breath, she hopped down onto the post. It held steady. The next part required her to shimmy along a rock wall or make one hell of a jump. The ledge narrowed some towards the next post so she settled for shimmying some and then making a reasonable jump. Blue only listened for the sound of the others following now.
Following the way forward led her onto a small stone plateau. It was lit by two torches on high posts, and there was also a capstan. Blue stared at it for a long while as she waited for the others, perplexed. The way forward didn't seem right, the posts all misaligned. Unless…
"This is awful," she heard Z comment as he made it onto the platform with her. The others didn't take too long to get there.
"I think this—" Blue pointed at the capstan and then to the posts that resembled masts "—might move those."
A look of bewilderment took the group.
Kata was first to step forward and to the capstan. "One way to find out!" she said as she rubbed her hands together before taking hold of one handle. She only pushed for a few steps before Blue's hypothesis was proved correct and Rezin moved quickly to aid her.
Once the capstan was heard reaching its locked position, Blue stepped closer to the new path. "This looks fairly straightforward." She heard Z groan from just behind her and turned to look at him. "You can go back if you like."
"I don't think I can," he sneered. "And I'm not. This is still terrible, though," he complained as he pushed past her and started forward.
Blue wasn't wrong — this path was a little more straightforward than the last one had been, but it had gaps between the posts that required everyone to jump. Those with two working arms would be able to reach forward and climb up the second gap if they like. The third jump quickly turned into a thicker post that led back onto solid ground, a brazier's light welcoming them.
"That was terrible."
"Hush you," she chided as she stepped past Z.
Just around the corner were more traps, this time in the form of two swinging spiked logs with a line of spikes between them, requiring that they be jumped over at the right moment.
"Oh, come on!"
She didn't scold him this time.
"Let's take a few minutes to get our bearings," Captain Montagne quickly said.
A moment's respite was not a bad idea. Blue made her way to the wall where a few crates and an opened chest were at. The sight of the latter was rather peculiar and she realised she had never seen one opened before. Somehow she felt like she understood Briggsy's nightmare.
Before she could sit down, Blue spotted a journal pressed up against an interior corner of one of the crates. She gave an exasperated sigh before reaching down and recovering it.
"Another one of Briggsy's last messages?" Garrett asked, trying to make light of the situation.
Blue just side-eyed him. "Yes." She paused, wondering if it was even worth reading. Curiosity compelled her to open it; she read the first sentence, then repeated it aloud.
"I've made a huge mistake."
It seemed Briggsy, just like so many others, could not resist taking something as a keepsake to remind her of her adventure. If Blue hadn't known she had turned into a Skeleton Lord, the passage would have been quite confusing, but as it were, reading of Briggsy's lack of eating or sleeping in days and feeling good despite that only made her uncomfortable.
"So it was here that she fell from grace," Garrett said.
"Nothing that can be done about it now, is there?" Blue asked rhetorically as she handed Rezin the book. "We have ourselves to worry about."
"That we do," Captain Montagne said, nodding.
"Let's get moving," Rezin said, shifting on his feet. "I can't get comfortable with these things right next to us," he added, looking at the swinging logs. He had a point.
With a careful gaze, Z stood closest to the first log and then drew his sword.
"What are you doing?" Kata blurted out.
"They're just hangin' from some rope," he explained.
"And if you muck with them, they'll start swinging wildly, especially if you only cut one rope," Captain Montagne shot.
Z very clearly wanted to cut the rope very much. The galleon's captain was so staunchly against that notion that Blue wondered if they would come to blows about it. She decided to nip that in the bud by leaping forward. She landed on her knees on the other side of the spikes, drawing everyone's attention. When she looked back at them, she only offered a calm shrug that could have been seen as a challenge. She got to her feet and continued onward as they started assembling for their jumps.
From where she was, Blue could see that the path went around the wide, slightly cylindrical room, leading down to a tunnel. She wasn't able to wonder where it led when she realised skeletons of many variations were emerging from the sand way down there.
"Uh, we have a problem," she said loudly, refraining from allowing panic to more than slightly lace her words.
Concerned, Captain Montagne came up alongside her. Before she could voice her question, she understood, gasping slightly before drawing her cutlass. Blue looked back and saw the rest of the group also drawing their chosen weapons. As she pulled her musket into her grip, Z stood beside her, cutlass in hand, clearly intent on staying there. They looked hard at each other for a long moment before Blue pushed herself forward to join the others in the fight from the back. They had discussed this, that she couldn't outright join a fight. For as much as everyone had displayed their understanding, she wondered how much it bothered some of them…
But now wasn't the time for those thoughts. Rather, Blue lamented how Z's skill was being wasted watching her ass. She was distracted by a shadow skeleton in front of Captain Montagne, who thankfully already had her lantern out. Blue brought the sight of her gun up and shot it, exploding it into an inanimate pile of bones. When she caught sight of two skeletons rushing past the group down low, she reconsidered Z's wasted skill when he slaughtered them with ease.
All of the skeletons had been dispatched and another batch began rising to take their place.
"This is a problem!" Garrett called sternly.
"Rez, Kata, up front!" Captain Montagne called.
Curious, Blue scanned the area before them. In the shallow tunnel was a large door; beside it, another capstan. This one had four handles. She nudged Z's shoulder and pointed it out to him. He simply nodded and made his way to the others. Blue shot another skelly along his way.
As they moved forward, the two pirates before Captain Montagne came to quickly understand the task at hand. With her and Z and Garrett behind them with Blue providing overwatch from up the hill, they took to the capstan and began turning it. Just as expected, the door began to lift.
Another wave of skeletons had been cleared. It was unsurprising that another began springing up from the dirt. Blue wondered just how long this could keep up for it couldn't have lasted forever. Eventually, surely, the room would run out of skeletons to throw at them. She didn't linger on the thought before bringing her musket up to her good shoulder again and firing. While all of them thus far had fallen easily, this one did not, what with it being a shadow skeleton in a dark cave, and she had succeeded in only pissing it off.
Blue was only slightly surprised to see Z so quickly pick up on this and drive his sword through the back of its ribs, taking control of it and trying to twist it apart. She took this time to run by, the door nearly all the way up. The upright locking click of the capstan coincided with her arrival.
Z was kicking the skeleton away before Captain Montagne called for them to run. He was next to last to pass through the door, grabbing Blue by her good arm and dragging her along with him. She still managed to shoot the capstan and lower the door before the horde could follow them.
With a deep sigh, Rezin said, "Now I could use a break."
Blue would have been happy to agree if she hadn't heard something up ahead. She noticed Z looking that way, too, then Garrett and the others.
They were not done.
"Ah, piss."
"Don't get cornered!" Captain Montagne hollered before launching herself forward. Her remaining crew quickly followed.
There was no slope down into the room, no hard turn to go past. The centre of it was unfortunately close to them and already spewing more skeletons.
They did just as they had before, fighting with Blue in the back, Z near her, Kata and Rezin on the capstan to open the door, and Captain Montagne and Garrett taking the main fight. This time they were quicker, requiring half the time to fight, open the door, and get through it. Just as before, Blue was the last through and shot the capstan out of its locked position.
There was barely any room for the six of them to stand. Before them were two contraptions in the floor, a blade swinging upward from one side to the other through its opening.
"I'm with him," Rezin said, pointing a thumb at Z; "This is awful."
"You're welcome to lift that gate and go back," Captain Montagne deadpanned. Kata also shot him a dirty look.
Garrett was paying no attention to their bickering. This time it was he who went first, half-jumping-half-running over the trap when it was safe. Blue felt like these weren't as bad as the spikes in the walls. Still terrible and awful, but not as bad.
After the traps was the way into another room. This one had a plank path that went left before going up the slope and to the right. There were other things made of planks all over the floor, some rather well covered by sand.
Garrett took a step away from the next room to look over the group. "I think we can rest now. This room is not erupting with skeletons."
That was a breath of relief for everyone. There was not much space between the traps and the next room, but it was enough. There were even some rocks that a few of them could sit on, which many did, though Blue opted to stand and observe the area beside them for a moment. It appeared to her that there had been another passage that had long since collapsed. Whether or not that was right, there was nothing to be done about it so Blue sat herself down in the sand, leaning back against the wall beside Z. He had already started tearing into a piece of shark meat and offered her half of what remained, which she shook her head at, instead deciding to eat the entirety of one of her own pieces of meat. A good diet had already saved her once.
No one said anything in the time that they rested there. It wasn't that long, Blue knew, but it felt like they could have been there forever. The way back was long and treacherous, if not impossible. The way forward could have been just as long or longer; the island was huge and who knew how many layers there might have been to the underground tunnels.
No wonder Briggsy went mad.
The next room was not as much of an issue as the previous ones had been. The planks turned out to be pressure plates, a discovery made by Captain Montagne after she threw a rock onto one. From it emerged spikes, to the surprise of no one. Navigating the room was surprisingly easy. The door, however, was not controlled by a capstan. Beside it was a lever, which when flipped produced a noise. It did not take long for them to spot two more levers.
Being the most nimble of the group, Blue and Kata stepped around the pressure plates to reach those levers. She was glad to have taken the further one and been able to peer at the platform above the middle one.
"There's another journal up there."
Kata made a face but climbed it anyway. Rather than read it then and there, she returned to the main group by the door and handed it to her captain, who waited for Blue to return before reading it.
"He?"
"She must mean the Gold Hoarder," Captain Montagne said. "It's the only thing that makes sense."
Blue made a face. "But… a cure?"
"I've never heard'a one," Z said with a shrug.
Garrett hadn't said anything but there was a peculiar look on his face. Blue almost asked him about it before he shook himself free of it and started forward.
Before them were quite a lot of wooden structures, a fence along the rock wall and a plank walkway, both appearing out of place to Blue. There was a platform on their left that they passed, then one on their right — she checked both of them for anything of interest out of habit and was rewarded with another writing of Captain Briggsy's.
"I expect nothing useful in this one as well," she said to the group as she stepped off the part of the platform that was on ground level and took in their expressions; "but I will read it nonetheless.
"I was commanded to destroy the relic. He doesn't want pirates reaching here unexpectedly, when he might be sleeping."
Blue looked up from the journal to find Garrett looking at her with a similar realisation. She continued on, then:
"I'll be a slave. I'll be a villain. I'll be a monster. At least now I know what the feeling inside of me is. Shame."
She shut the book and looked away, wrinkling her nose in discomfort.
"So I was right," Garrett said. "Briggsy gave into the curse."
"It's not like there was any other option for her," Rezin said. He got some looks and shrugged. "It's not like skellies can just walk on into a tavern, is it?"
The conversation made Blue wonder: what did happen to someone who was cursed? Did they change? Or did they simply give in because there was no alternative? She didn't dare speak these thoughts aloud.
"Be that as it may," Captain Montagne said thoughtfully, "there is nothing to be done about it now. Let's continue on."
She stepped forward and the others followed her. A cursory glance indicated that they were on the other side of the broken bridge that had been spotted when they had first entered the tunnels. Blue made note of that as they went around a gentle turn.
At some point, the path had been fully covered with wooden planks and surrounded by a stone wall. Part of that wall had come down and they had to step over it. After that, the way opened up into a stone tunnel. On either side of it were more wooden scaffoldings; the end of the way was blocked by what appeared to be a raised drawbridge that went over yet another drop filled with spikes. Near it was yet another capstan.
"This is ridiculous," Kata said as they approached it. "How do these things even work?"
"There is probably a system of pulleys hidden throughout the inner workings of the tunnels," Garrett said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Blue scrunched her nose up at him while the other four turned the capstan. It did indeed control the bridge, which was split into two halves that came together in the middle. The room it led to was huge and misty, but more strikingly, quite a distance away, was a Skeleton Lord sat on a grand throne, hunched over.
She spotted it first, then Z who followed her line of sight when she froze up. The others stopped their chatter and also looked. It did not appear to notice them, and upon slightly closer inspection through a spyglass, Blue thought it appeared to be in quite a lot of discomfort.
Captain Montagne took a good look at the group before motioning to be followed, stepping forward with a forced bravado. Kata had no problem following her, and just behind was Rezin. Garrett had started but turned to make sure she and Z were behind him, and when they weren't, he stopped.
It had seemed fine to her before, but now that Blue was actually faced with the prospect of fighting another Skeleton Lord, she found herself frozen. It was only when Z put his hand on her shoulder that she realised he was standing beside her, eyes intensely focused on her.
"You can—"
"I'm fine," she interjected.
She wasn't, and she knew it and so did he, but it was what had come out of her mouth. No way was she going to turn tail and run from a Skeleton Lord lesser to Graymarrow. If she could face him after hearing all the terrible things he had done, she could face this one, too.
Z still hadn't removed his hand so she grabbed him by the sleeve, lifting his arm away from hers and returning it to his side. She didn't immediately let go, pausing to linger for a moment. He didn't seem convinced and she couldn't blame him.
Vaguely aware of the crew having stopped on the drawbridge to see what was keeping them, Blue forced a small grin.
"Come now, we shouldn't keep our host waiting."
