Blue shifted as she slowly woke. A moment passed and she became aware of the pounding rain that had disturbed her. Letting a breath out, she curled up tighter, now also aware of the cold. Z sighed before adjusting the arm that was around her. It tickled a little, where exactly on her side he had his hand landed, but it wasn't unpleasant.

After what felt like forever and a half, she said, "We are not going anywhere."

"Nope."

She buried her face against his side until she felt him move again. The thought to yell at him occurred until she realised that he was pulling a blanket around her shoulders. She grunted at that.

"Go back t' sleep."

That got a small grumble out of her, too tired to argue; she had meant to be the one to say that.


The lightning streaking across the sky, the booming thunder — it all might have served Z as a good excuse to stay in bed, but for Blue, it was all the more reason to crawl out of bed. When he joined her on the mid-deck, she was pleasantly surprised. It was all the more surprising to see that he had grabbed himself a fishing pole without being asked.

Now both of them were sitting on the map table. Blue had her feet pressed against the wall that looked out the back of the sloop, bracing herself for the fights against the fish they sought. She didn't say anything, just glad to have another set of hands puling in stormfish. For how much he liked them and would certainly gorge himself, she was especially glad for his help.

Occasionally they reeled a fish in, but for a time, they just sat and enjoyed each other's company. Blue was happy to sit and fish, whereas Z eventually became uncomfortable and had to do something or speak, just as usual.

"How many'a these do y' want?"

She rolled her eyes. "As many as we can catch."

He gave her a thoughtful hum. "Y' sure we need that many?"

She looked between him and the pile of fish beside them; another set were hooked onto a chain that hung against the canopy's support beam. Perhaps Z had a point — they had caught quite a few. And yet…

"Just how many do you plan to eat?" she quipped. He gave her an annoyed look once he understood what she was getting at and she smirked. "Whatever we cannot use ourselves can be sold to the Plunder Outpost tavern." He made a thoughtful noise and Blue quickly added: "Hopefully."

Z chuckled. "Yeah, hopefully. Tanya's kind of a crazy bitch."

Blue simply made a noise of agreement.


"Stephen's Spoils?"

"That is what the barkeep said," Blue huffed.

She stomped past Z and back down into the sloop's hold to deposit the oversized sword-faced-fish into the food barrel. He followed her and waited for her to finish. Blue got the feeling that something was on his mind and gave him an expectant look, leaning against the wood barrel as she did.

"What?— err, what else did she say? Any directions or…?"

"She said to head north and look at my map if I felt lost." Blue grumbled and rolled her eyes. "She said to take them to a seapost…"

"Seapost?"

Blue shrugged and refused to acknowledge the pain that sent shooting down her arm. It took a moment before she said, "I have never heard of such a thing here."

She thought that might have been the end of that discussion — and that they were simply stuck with a barrel full of stormfish — until she realised what a curious expression Z held. It took another moment for him to realise she had been staring at him and he looked like he had been startled out of a thought.

"What?"

"You look like you are considering doing something stupid."

He rolled his eyes with exaggeration. "No. C'mere," he said, motioning for her to follow him to the map table. "She said it was north'a here?" Blue nodded. "Then…" Z trailed a finger up the map, north from Plunder Outpost and stopping at Snake Island, part of it directly north of the outpost. "So… it's prob'ly on one side'a Snake then, right?"

"Perhaps." From where they were, Blue couldn't simply look up and see what was north of them, a giant rock in the way.

"Well, when we went after that Fort'a the Damned thing, I noticed a little rock stickin' out'a the water east'a Snake." Blue gave him a curious look and Z spoke again before she could. "When we went t' Galleon's Grave with the gally guys, I noticed another rock south'a it. I ain't sure I've ever seen 'em before but they looked about the same."

"So you think they are… seaposts?" she asked. He nodded, then brought a hand to his chin. Blue held back the urge to tell him to shave and instead said, "What is it?"

"What is a seapost?"

"I am not sure." Blue made a face, stumped. After a moment's thought she said, "Well, I suppose we will simply have to go find out, won't we?"


Stephen's Spoils was a strange little… well, it wasn't an island, more just a tiny rock jutting out of the water. Despite the tiny amount of space, some people had decided that this rock was the perfect place to set up shop. Here, Stephen ran his shop, offering up, well, spoils, prizes from battles, things he had scavenged, the like. Blue was hardly interested in broken down garbage. The Hunter's Call, however… Well, Merry Merrick was a fairly delightful man. She wasn't one for hunting, but Blue could still appreciate the rewards to be had for it and fishing; his passion was far higher than she could ever manage. Nonetheless, she did enjoy the work and it had proven itself a boon to her health many times over, even if said health was now in a more than questionable state.

Merrick's family was apparently littering these tiny rocks across all the Sea of Thieves in the name of their Trading Company, the Hunter's Call, buying fish and meat from passing ships to turn into proper meals. Blue could appreciate that. Z, on the other hand, seemed downright bored. He was sitting on the nearest gunwale of the ship while she was on the dock, politely listening as old Merrick told a tale of summoning a megalodon that Blue wasn't sure she believed. She was polite still, smiling and occasionally asking a question; she wasn't sure if her behaviour or the story itself amused Z, small snuffles and head shakes coming from him. She eventually directed Merrick back to the matter at hand and she passed their excess stormfish along to him.

Z looked much less bored when a massive purse was passed to her. Blue almost dropped it in shock. She shook her head to recollect herself. She brought a book up and asked, "Might I have a receipt?"

Merrick looked somewhat stunned by her request but together they produced one anyhow, listing each fish and its value. Z, she came to understand, knew enough of the letters for numbers to be able to tell that one fish in particular had been worth twice what a Chest of Legends went for.

"What the hell." It wasn't a question, simply a statement of shock. Z had a dumb look on his face that Blue was beginning to find rather endearing.

"There was only one that was worth this much," she said, much less dumbstruck. She looked over the receipt, trailing a finger along the listings. "That, I think… yes, you caught the unique one, the one with the red stripes."

"That fucker put up a fight."

Blue chuckled. "Yes, well, it seems the more uncommon the fish, the more they will pay for it." She looked up from the paper to Z and blinked. She had seen that look on his face before, the one he got when he was thinking very hard about something and was going to be too headstrong to be talked out of it. It almost always involved making money. "Uh—?"

"The next time there's a storm," Z started, voice dripping with intent, "we need t' follow that thing 'til we're drownin' in those stormfish."

Blue just stared at him for the longest moment before blinking a few times, looking down at the list of their payout, then to the giant purse sitting on the table before totally understanding and failing to think of an argument.

"… I suppose that is not a bad idea."


The tiny rock that Stephen's Spoils was built on was too small to offer any refuge from the Sea's waves. Not wanting to get rocked out of bed, Blue had suggested they sit in the nearby calm waters of Crook's Hollow for the night.

There had been a little bit of daylight left when they had arrived. Dinner was made and eaten in the form of a splashtail — a far less interesting treat than a stormfish but filling nonetheless — and then they had lounged about the ship until nightfall. Z had disappeared downstairs at some point when she hadn't been watching him and Blue was considering joining him when she noticed something in the sky. She went up to the railing on the side of the quarter-deck, leaning on it as she contemplated what she saw. She'd seen it before and Z had been so mad when she hadn't immediately alerted him to it. She knew it now to be an active Fort of the Damned, the red of the eyes distinct, but they had also had the advantage of a brigantine and Jackson alongside them. Then again, despite the risks, they had come out of that fight with a Chest of Legends. Blue had only been able to glance at the rest of the loot in the cabin, and who knew what else might have been aboard the other galleon that they hadn't been able to recover?

Growling to herself, Blue turned away and made her way down the many stairs, down to where Z should have been. He was laid out flat on the bed, looking more or less like he was ready to stay there all night. Blue reconsidered whether or not to speak but he gave her a rather expectant look before she could decide against it and she could only sigh as he sat up on his elbows.

"What?"

"There is… something you should come see."

He rose a brow at her but rolled onto his feet nonetheless, pushing past her. Before she even caught up to him he made a noise that she wasn't quite sure what to make of. Blue could see on his face that he was thinking rather hard. Between that and what she knew of him, she expected him to be ready to go after this, but there was a moment of hesitation that made her wonder…

"You ready t' go?"

… and it seemed that was a reasonable curiosity she had. Not just that, but his tone made her think that it was so much more of a question than he had outwardly put into words. She stared back at him before looking away, considering that. Taking a fight when it was only the two of them was not a great idea, not with her arm, but with the riches they could potentially take…

She huffed to herself and then nodded. "I will go change." Without waiting for Z's response she ducked down into the sloop's hold. It might have been too much trouble to dress as well as she used to, but she refused to wear all black on a daily basis like he did. Now, though, it would be more than a little useful in the dark.

That was another thing she wondered about: they knew nothing about the other party, if there were multiple crews on multiple ships or what, only that there most certainly was another party. Perhaps it would be better for them to be as stealthy as they could be, but what that might entail eluded her.

There was a gentle splash that piqued her curiosity. When Blue was back on the mid-deck, she could only just barely spy the top of Z's head from the rowboat he was sat on now. She approached its empty docking point and looked down at him.

"I cannot row, you know," she said plainly.

"Yeah, I know, I know." He did not sound happy about that, but neither did he sound or look like he was dissuaded from rowing what was quite a distance, Blue now realised.

She looked up for a moment, glancing around as though she could see through the darkness. From Crook's Hollow, there was no way to hide the approach of the Forlorn Phoenix to Old Boot Fort, little as she was; a whole sloop was just too obvious. But a rowboat…

"Are you sure you want to row such a distance? You do not have anyone to trade out with—"

"I'm sure."

Blue stared down at him for a moment before nodding. He would be tired after such a feat; she deeply hoped that they would not be spotted on their way in. They needed the advantage of stealth if they were going to pull off any part of this outrageous idea.

"Do you need anything besides food?" she asked.

A thoughtful expression crossed his face as he leaned forward in the oarsman's seat. A moment passed and then he said, "Yeah, a bit of everything, would ya? It's good t' have it all just in case."

Blue wrinkled her nose. Just in case? Stranger things had happened, she supposed.

After nodding to him, she stepped away and retrieved the requested items. She grabbed a few little fish for him, as well as a pineapple, and a few planks before returning. His things were given to him before she stepped away again to grab cannonballs.

In the dark, Blue couldn't help noticing the glowing spheres in the cannonball barrel. Cursed cannonballs, she recalled. She had handled a few herself, but usually she traded them for goods or her safety. The purple ones affected ships, and the green ones affected people, she had learned rather personally. Short of dislodging one of the sloop's cannons and placing it on the rowboat — assuming it would even float with it — there would be no way to use them. But, as Z had said, just in case… Who knew? Perhaps there was another alliance there and they could use one ship's cannons against the other.

Blue paused to consider that thought for a very long moment. What a very curious idea that was, and how very amusing such a scenario might be. Even more amusing was the mental image of throwing a green curseball at someone — Blue highly doubted that even Z could throw it hard enough to crack it and release its magic, but it was a very amusing idea.

"Just in case, right?" she said when she spotted Z's curious look at the curseshot she gave him. That got a giddy smirk out of him.

"Ready t' go then?"

Blue drummed her fingertips along the half-wall of the back of the sloop, mentally going over everything that she had collected for them. They had food, they had planks, they had ammunition for cannons… She glanced at him and took in the sight of his blunderbuss on his belt before looking over at the weapon box. Blue hadn't used her musket since the disastrous fight with the Gold Hoarder, but perhaps she was misplacing the blame for that incident; she should bring it anyway. Using a sword was also awkward, but she placed one on her hip nonetheless. A firm touch made certain that her dagger was well attached to the back of her belt.

"Now I'm ready," she said as she vaulted into the rowboat.

Z looked her over before nodding and beginning to row around the ship, angling them at the fortress.

In the calm of the night, there were no big waves churning that they could get stuck on the crest of to betray their presence, though that also meant that there were no waves to hide them in earnest. No, they were dependent on hiding within the darkness itself. The starlight would certainly betray them in the sloop, but in a rowboat, they had a chance of working with it.

Blue was nervous. If Z was, he hid it well, but judging by the way he rowed, he was rather excited. There was a moment of doubt where she wondered just what in the world they were doing before she pushed it away, finding the tiniest of excitement within herself.

They were mad. This was mad. And yet, on they went through the night. They stayed quiet throughout the row; Z was focused on where they were going and keeping a steady speed. Blue wasn't quite sure how she managed to stay quiet — thoughts were racing through her head: What would they find there at the fortress? Was it like a typical fortress when it was full of skeletons? Were those skellies something special? What the hell were they doing?

Blue never did quite find the will to say anything on her mind. Instead, they reached the exterior of the fog that now surrounded Old Boot Fort, now dubbed Fort of the Damned, and skirted further north around it. She briefly wondered what exactly Z was doing until she recalled that the dock was on the southern side of the island; she could just make out the silhouette of a sloop there. She was just glad it wasn't a pair of allied galleons again.

When the island was directly south of them, Z pointed them at the back of the island and took them through the fog. The entire island was sloped and at this angle, no one would see them unless they stood on the edge and was specifically looking for ne'er-do-wells; no one was doing that. Hell, even from way up there, a rowboat might go unnoticed — the vantage point, as far as Blue felt, lent itself better to distant viewing, and from way up there, no one would hear them either, she decided.

Which was all to say that they had gone entirely unnoticed. Blue looked to Z once he pulled the oars in such a way so as to slow the rowboat to a stop beside a rock that was just barely out of the water. They looked at each other before he decided to take the lead and disembarked, stepping onto the rock. They both peered up and still no one stood above them. Gunshots could be heard, however.

Z continued on to the west side of the island and Blue found herself somewhat annoyed. She was already fairly wet from the rowboat ride, but somehow she managed to find irritation in having to submerge herself in the water, as though she hadn't considered that beforehand. Then again, doing anything off the ship did often involve swimming when not at an outpost, she supposed.

They swam around to a point where they could see the dock area, confirming without a doubt the presence of a sloop at it. Blue was tempted to glance at Z but refrained, instead scouring the deck of the ship for pirates. She spotted none, heard none aboard it, instead only continued to hear the noise of fighting up on the highest point of the island. Rather than going for the ship, Z pulled himself into the shallowest of the water beside them. She followed. It wasn't the most comfortable area, said area uncertain whether or not it wanted to be flat rocky patches or water, a few punji sticks surrounding them. It sufficed as a place for them to rest and chat, though.

"What is your plan now?" she inquired lowly.

"Well—"

Blue flinched. Had Z? She didn't know if he did, only knowing that she had heard a sound she'd heard twice before. That, she was fairly certain of, was the sound of a Skeleton Lord blasting someone away from it.

Blue looked to Z — he had recognised it as well. They looked at each other with reserved horror before Z looked away.

"We should wait for them to finish it for us."

Blue didn't recover quite as easily as he did. She heard him, but she was still frozen, considering the truth of what was happening up there. A hand on her shoulder made her flinch and look to him again. She took a breath and nodded. She was fine, and he was right.

All they could do was wait and so wait they did. The sun was rising by the time the noise ceased and the clouds above the island faded with the wind. Z was already staring at her when she looked to him, both of them gauging the other's mood. Blue was still for a moment before nodding once; he immediately nodded back and moved off of the rocks they had climbed upon, almost silently trudging through the shallow water towards the sloop.

"I'm gonna check the ship," Z had declared.

Just in case, Blue figured. There were plenty of reasons for him to do that — to make absolute certain that there was no one on the ship, to check its supplies and general status, to hide away and wait for the owners to come back… Plenty of reasons. She did also note that Z did not look back at her, not even after climbing up the ship's ladder.

She wondered about that but forced herself to move onto thinking about doing something more useful.

Moving forward, Blue situated herself on a rock slightly higher up on the island, pressing herself against the outside of the ruined fence to shield herself from the eyes of any other parties. There didn't seem to be any, none anywhere near their level, at least. Far above them, however, up at the top of the island, she was aware that there was a presence. Blue swore she could hear the sliding of a fortress' vault door, and she was more certain of that when she heard distant exclamations of excitement. They both sounded female to her, but there were definitely two distinct voices.

Uncertain if Z had heard, Blue turned her attention back to the sloop he had fully committed himself to. When she got a thumb up from him, she simply assumed that had there been anyone aboard it, they were no more. Whatever the case, Blue felt she had no reason to believe that there was anyone at this island other than them and their targets.

A noise caught her attention and Blue ducked down against the fence out of reflex. When she looked again, Z had disappeared from her sight. A moment later and she was aware of at least two people coming down the ramps that were built up along the island's elevated section. When she heard them pass her, Blue hazarded a peek at them from behind — she was right that there were two, just as to be expected with a sloop crew, and they both appeared to be women. They carried treasure in their arms: one was what Blue understood to be referred to as a stronghold chest, the other a container for carrying smaller pieces of loot. She tucked herself out of view as they set the items on the dock and began to head back up the ramps.

It was somewhat surprising to her that Z had done nothing. A moment's thought and Blue realised that they could simply wait for these pirates to bring everything down to the dock for them. There was still the matter of taking the treasure from them, but it also occurred to Blue that Z might be able to do something with a cannon on one side of the sloop. That would… certainly be something, she supposed… Quick, easy for them, and nearly painless for their prey.

Blue wasn't really sure how she was feeling about all of this. Then again, now wasn't the time, so she forced the thoughts more or less out of her mind. More would have been better, though.

By the time that Blue realised Yes, there were four, they were down on the dock and the women she was spying on were beginning to get their sloop loaded up properly.

Stronghold gunpowder kegs could be found throughout the Sea of Thieves, if you knew how to find them. The vault of a conquered skeleton fortress was just one place to find them. Normally, there would be just one of them and a handful of lesser kegs in a vault, but Fort of the Damned was no typical fort in any sense of the matter. Four had been brought down from the island's peak. They were very valuable, but not as much as they were a risk for a ship to carry, especially a little sloop. Blue was certain that the explosion from one of those megakegs was bigger than a sloop, bigger than a galleon, even, and this crew had decided to risk ferrying four of them.

That was a particularly bad choice on the women's part. If Z had not just revealed himself, blunderbuss pointed in the general direction of them and their loot, Blue would still have a clear shot at the kegs on their deck, and her gun's accuracy was far more true than his was.

There was a bit of excitement on the deck; she did not clearly hear what was said. Z was threatening them, they were surprised — the words did not matter at the moment, not while Blue was getting her Eye of Reach into her arms.

She flinched when she heard the blunderbuss go off. She was just about ready to bring her musket up to aim and shoot, so she finally looked up from it and back to the deck of the sloop. If it had been a woman that Z had fired at, he hadn't succeeded in even injuring one in a way that mattered. He was a decent fighter with his sword, but a fight with two-to-one odds was not a great situation to be in.

Z did not fight especially hard; she met his gaze, which had gone past the pirates and loot until it landed on her. It seemed they were of the same mind.

A moment after Z was disarmed, Blue lifted her musket and pressed it into her shoulder properly, ignoring the pain. Before the sword was pulled out of his side, she pulled the trigger.

The next thing Blue knew, she was on the ground, looking up at the sky with an awful pain radiating through her body from her back. It didn't compare to when Graymarrow's sword had cut through her shoulder, though, so she forced herself to sit up.

The island's dock was surprisingly intact. The wood making up the fence-line looked a little worse than it had previously, but really, who would notice or care? The sloop, however, was gone, bits of planks left floating in its place. Treasure had been thrown about the area from the blast, mermaid gems and skulls strewn about the larger items. Once on her feet, Blue looked about for any bodies — or rather, parts of them, because certainly even a Skeleton Lord could not withstand an explosion that powerful — in the water and found nothing. Then again, she might have spent more time on the ground than she realised and the Sea of the Damned could have claimed their remains already.

The rival crew was dead. Whatever exactly had happened in the skirmish, Z's death had been ensured, too. One way or another, Blue would have been left alone; having made the decision to shoot the megakegs, she would be alone for much longer than if she hadn't. This meant she was going to have to pull all of the treasure out of the water, out from gods knew where it had been blown to, back onto the dock, then go get the Forlorn Phoenix, load it up herself, offload it…

She spied the Chest of Legends just before it briefly dipped below a wave, bobbing gently as though nothing were amiss. A moment passed and Blue spied a shark fin breaching the water's surface for a few seconds. She shot the water where she last spied it and the water's surface undulated, perhaps to indicate the creature darting away.

Z had been right — Who knew what might have been there to take? Blue had wondered that, too. As it turned out, there was a lot of mermaid gems and stronghold loot. Despite the risk and what it took to claim it, it had been worth it. Still, Blue wasn't happy about having to move it all on her own…

Yeah, that was it. That was definitely what bothered her most about this.