Seaborn

The Death’s Consort had disappeared to hunt once more. This time, I’d have to do something drastic enough to satisfy the being whose name was synonymous with ‘danger to your very soul’.

I wondered what I might do. The adventurer team behind Meg the mystery girl might have been an option, but ignoring that they were probably a well-sponsored, well-equipped and likely high level team, they were somewhere on land. Whatever spell or ability let Meg do her portaling, she’d disappeared inland and I had no means of tracking her there. Besides, while Jones had been intent on interrupting whatever she was telling me, he’d only been annoyed at her presence. It was me who was in trouble, who had to do something drastic to salvage my freedom. But what?

I didn’t wonder for more than a few hours, the sun scarcely having risen on the start of the day.

“Transport ship above, Captain.” Joash reported perfunctorily, snapping me from my bloody thoughts.

“What?”

“Transport ship,” he repeated. There was no interest in his voice, we’d passed many such ships. They held little interest to us since I got no experience from winning against a non-threatening ship and they didn’t have anyone onboard worth targeting for my crew to level their combat abilities. Aside from the first ship we’d captured in the Broken Isles, we’d left them alone.

We’d left them alone just as much for those reasons as we did because of my distaste for doing to civilians what we were doing to navy ships.

“You caused this whole mess with your bleeding heart … prove to me that you’re worthy of the profession I gifted you.”

I ordered us to come about.

“Captain?” Joash asked, startled.

“Come about alongside that transport,” I ordered, adjusting our depth to roughly a hundred feet. “Prepare to disable it.”

There were shocked expressions among the crew, many turning to each other for confirmation. Burdette stood at the helm at met the questioning glances coming at him with a blank expression.

“Come about!” I yelled. Whether because they realized I wasn’t jesting about my first order, or because I frightened them into doing so, they complied.

I moved below decks to where Sadeo was passively giving instructions to his teams to be ready. He was looking through an artillery port at the transport.

“Dom, what are we attacking that ship for? They have someone important on there?”

“They’re a target of opportunity.” I said. “They’re here, and I need to make a statement.”

“Dom,” the kitsune said, his tone heavy. “We’ve avoided civilian targets. Don’t change the rules now.”

“Sadeo, everything’s riding on this.”

“I signed up with you first!” The kitsune cried. “I swore to fight for you in grand battles, not gutter innocent ships like a common wayfaring bandit!”

“Storm it, Sadeo! If this doesn’t happen then everything I’ve given up on – everything we’ve given up on these last weeks – it all means nothing. What’s a little more blood in the water?”

“The blood matters, Domenic.” Sadeo said. He crossed his furry little arms and said quietly. “I’m not going to do it, Captain.”

I felt my blood freeze and boil. First Phillip, now Sadeo. I couldn’t count on any of my crew.

“Stand aside,” I said coldly. Not trusting any of Sadeo’s teams to follow orders, I loaded the ballista myself, targeted the ship’s rudder, and fired. I didn’t have Sadeo’s skills, or even the skills of the other artillerists, so it took me two shots to completely disable the rudder even at optimum range.

I stood and regarded the kitsune coldly. “You may stay below until this is through.” Turning, I left the artillery deck; one friend poorer than when I’d entered.

What was I doing? That was Sadeo, who’d never judged me for my curse or balked at danger. That was my friend! What was I doing, what was I doing, what was I doing?

I raised the ship to the surface, my flag breaking the water first with its chained, dagger clutching hands. The transport might have felt relatively safe in these waters, but by now everyone in the Broken Isles knew what that flag meant.

Rather than put up a fight, by the time we’d dropped a plank from our deck to theirs they had a white flag flying and everyone assembled above decks. One person who looked like a bodyguard kept his charge at the edge of the opposite rail, but all others had disarmed.

They were surrendering, hoping that I would be merciful. If not merciful, than at least leave half like the rumors said I did. I told my crew to have them all bound on deck. They were reluctant to obey but after a few minutes my orders had been complied with, minus the bodyguard, the woman he was guarding, and a few other holdouts. When they resisted I told my crew to move on.

43 people were on deck. I just needed them manageable.

“Voyagers of the …” I paused. “What ship is this?”

There was dumb silence that I hadn’t even analyzed the name of the ship before attacking and boarding it. Having asked the question, I waited for an answer rather than simply remedying that.

“The Mockingbird, sir.” Someone supplied.

“Voyagers of the Mockingbird,” I restarted. “I want you all to say a simple phrase. This is not an oath of service, or anything else. It is a simple witness. Say ‘Davy Jones, bear witness to this’. Understood?”

They may have questioned the reasoning, but most obeyed. There were some that remained stubborn enough not to utter a peep, but that was fine. As far as statements went, this one had been made.

I was fulfilling my orders.

This was following orders, wasn’t it? I didn’t have a choice, did I?

I moved to the first person, an apprentice of some sort in his late teens. I looked him in the eyes.

“For the sake of others,” I said. Then I killed him.

There was an outcry from the others as the apprentice’s HP plummeted and his heels drummed the deck. Zander moved forward to pacify the struggling crewmen.

“No!” I shouted to him. “Stand back! This is my ordeal, my burden!” He obeyed, but the half-mad spearman seemed to think I was just hogging XP.

I moved to the next bound person; a sailor. He started hyperventilating. “So others might live,” I said. I claimed his life next.

There was an old wives’ tale that when someone dies, the levels of their profession return to whatever developed them. I was analyzing my fellow sailor as his HP bottomed out and for a moment could have sworn his levels spun down to zero before I was no longer able to analyze him.

Oh, sailor. You could have been a companion of mine. A brother on the waves. Now you were dead because I was clinging to the vestiges of my freedom the same way a drowning man pulls his rescuers down to claw for the surface.

Could I still be saved? Did I deserve to be?

I killed six more before someone wriggled free from their rope restraints. A thrown knife and grabbing him with a water whip before he went overboard stopped the escape attempt, but seemed to convince the whole crew that none of them were going to be spared.

The bodyguard, thinking my back being turned meant I wasn’t aware of him, tried to attack me. He had skill with his sword, but wasn’t a professional warrior. My blend of movement capabilities, spells to knock him off balance, and martial prowess meant he had little chance once his surprise attack failed. After slipping on some ice suddenly coating the deck, the man found himself disarmed and at my mercy. I had as much mercy for him as the previous 7.

“So others might have a chance,” I said to his body. I told each of the corpses why they had to die.

I stepped over several terrified prisoners, the scent of soiled trousers permeating the deck. The woman the bodyguard had been protecting trembled, but after a fearful glance over the side stiffened her back and met my eyes.

My eyes which suddenly had tears in them. Oh stars above, what was I doing? How could I be such a monster?

“For others free …” I choked. “For others …” I couldn’t say it. “For my freedom. Because I’m too cowardly to take another route … because I wasn’t able to swim the depths I found myself in.”

We were both crying. She lifted one hand to her face, the other half held up between us to ward me off.

“Close your eyes,” I said, reaching into my bag. I found a bag of I was looking for: a powder. It was a numbing agent. “Breathe,” I instructed. She couldn’t take deep breaths in her panic. “Breathe,” I said, tossing a handful of powder. She jerked back and coughed, opening her eyes, but moments later her mouth and throat were numb.

“Close your eyes,” I said, as gentle as I could.

She passed much easier than the others had.

I didn’t feel better about it.

I wished that I had a gas that could put them all to sleep, but my bag of tricks wasn’t that comprehensive, and I didn’t think Jones would have the same reaction if I peacefully killed them sleeping.

Each death gave me some XP, which I cursed more heavily than the 10 XP I’d gotten for killing Redmund. Back then I’d been careless, now I was evil.

Oh stars, oh depths of the sea, what was I doing, what was I doing?

I was being as hard as I had to be.

Was it worth it? Was my freedom worth it?

How could I look at this ship full of people and say ‘my freedom is more precious to me than your lives’?

How could I turn myself into this? I was letting fear rule me. Not fear of Jones, but fear of a cage. Because of my fear – my cowardice – I was turning myself into something the Domenic of a year ago would have hated.

I was turning into something the Domenic of today hated.

“Domenic, don’t you think anything’s worth fighting for?”

I looked down at Redmund as we pored over the chart, pausing my explanation of where I’d go and what I’d do to avoid naval warfare. I remembered this, I’d tried to explain to him I wasn’t a pacifist but there wasn’t any shame in avoiding fights. That wasn’t what I said now.

“Freedom is worth fighting for. Everyone should have that right.”

Redmund leaned forward and his eyes bored into me with an intensity no living juvenile had. “Then explain why – instead of fighting for your own true freedom – you are fighting against the very ideal of freedom?”

I snapped out of my memory – or vision, or dream, or stress-induced hallucination – and looked around the deck of the Mockingbird with horror. Fighting ships had men that had made their choice. They were free to do so and risk their fate. The only choice these people had made was to sail from one island to another. They were free to risk the tempests of the sea, but should not face me.

I stepped towards the next bound crewman in a haze. I don’t know whether I intended to kill him mechanically, cut his bonds, or fall to my knees beside him and beg his forgiveness. Before I took a second step; my head swam, the world tilted and I fell to my knees, vomit spilling from my lips in a thin bile from my empty stomach.

My crew shouted, some said poison and others said various skills. As Zander rushed to me, he slew all in his path with his spear. The man I’d been facing fell on his back to get away but that didn’t limit the reach of Zander’s weapon.

“Stop!” I choked out, spitting my mouth clear. Zander glanced at me – the man had heard me – but pretended not to, stabbing again and again to take lives and gain the XP he craved.

“Stop!” I said again, louder, getting unsteadily to my feet. I saw that Zander wasn’t the only one who’d begun to execute everyone who might be using a skill or casting a spell on me.

Zander paused, looking at me, then over my shoulder at someone on the Death’s Consort. He grinned at whatever he saw there, then turned and thrust his spear through the chest of another unfortunate.

My mouth seemed sealed shut. Why? How dare he countermand my order and lay another life at my feet!

The hands that were holding me up were shrugged off and I summoned a horde of water whips. My mana pool suddenly dropped by three quarters with the cost, and my nose began dribbling blood over my bile covered lips at the mental strain of controlling so many. My watery arms grabbed Zander’s limbs, chest, and neck, pulling him back even as the spear left his hand. They grabbed at the haft of the spear too, but not before its point dug into the throat of a merchant who’d been quailing before his executioner.

My other arms lashed out and grabbed anyone else with a raised or bloody weapon. Stillness and silence fell over the ship. We all stayed in our frozen or bound positions until the drain from maintaining so many water whips threatened to bottom out my mana pool and dropped the spell, dismissing my restrictive arms.

It didn’t matter. A handful of killers versus three dozen bound and unarmed prisoners was no contest. The crew of the Mockingbird was dead before I’d rallied myself and constrained my own crew. I realized that the shouts and whimpers weren’t out loud anymore, just in my head. Blood and bodies coated the deck.

Oh stars, what have we done.

Oh stars, what have I done?

“JONES!” I shouted, my howl echoing over the waves as the blood of innocents ran over the side. “See what I have done? Do you see? Are you satisfied with what I’ve proven? What you’ve driven me to?”

I didn’t hear any reply. Not a scoff at my weakness, not a condemnation, not a brackish remark, not a word of satisfaction.

Just me, the ghosts of the dead, and the crew who stared at me.

After we submerged, I scrubbed myself as clean of the blood as I could. Whatever I seemed to do, it wouldn’t come off. I scrubbed my hands so raw they were bleeding themselves, and still I wasn’t clean. My ears still rang with a discordant symphony of pleas and curses.

I set the ship to sail west, then stepped into my cabin without addressing the crew. I didn’t have the words for them. I didn’t have words for myself.

I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling. I foolishly tried to sleep, but sleep was impossible. My mind was too tied up in who I was and what I’d done.

I could justify the deaths of hundreds of naval sailors and port residents. I could justify the deaths I’d ordered, and the death’s I’d caused with my own hands. Most of them, I could. The victims of the Mockingbird? I couldn’t pass it off as Jones’ mandate. It was my own desperation.

Why should Jones’ mandate have ever made me do something so contrary to my nature? When I’d killed that woman, before seeing the vision of Redmund, I could have sworn I’d felt my perk Heart at Sea tearing away from me. I’d given my life to the sea, but gotten lost along the way and now somehow Jones was holding my heart instead, and I was letting him dictate my principles.

I entered Tadra, hoping that the mental realm would give Jones the opportunity he needed to pull me into his own mindscape so we could be done with this. I didn’t want to wait the hours until nightfall. However, the dark ship that was the center of my mindscape had skeletons hanging from the yardarm and the rigging by chains, each one belonging to the crew of the Mockingbird. The sea around me was the same red color the deck of the ship had been.

I fled.

I sat on the edge of my bed, clutching my knees and rocking back and forth when I got the prompt.

The average morale of your crew has dropped to Mutinous!

So that was it. My crew had been spiteful. They’d skipped hateful and dropped straight to mutinous.

I stopped rocking. Very well, if I was to have a mutinous crew, I wouldn’t wait to face them when they stormed my cabin.

I stood before the mirror, making sure that my Captain’s outfit was in perfect order. The tricorne hat seemed too large for my skeletal features, and there were some bloodstains I’d been unable to launder. I was still Captain, though. I would face down this rebellion with dignity, since not a single one of those now rebelling could claim they were doing less than I had.

I opened my door to an empty deck. I went to the quarterdeck where Joash stood at the helm, not meeting my eyes. I paced to the side of him, daring him to meet my gaze. He dropped his eyes from the horizon to the deck.

“Joash, you are relieved.”

He nodded, shuffling away before going below.

Holding the helm steady, I took a deep breath of the salt air. I had done many hard things. Today was a day that would remain etched in my mind as one of – if not the very – worst. I would show that I had what it took to remain Captain, though.

When the time came, the mutineers flooded the decks like they were storming an enemy ship, racing to cordon me off before I had a chance to escape. I made no move besides keeping the ship steady. I could have done this business deep underwater, but on the surface under the light of the sun seemed fitting.

I can’t say I was surprised when Burdette stepped forward, his ringed fists clutching a curved blade. The shaven-headed bulldog of a man was showing more glee on his face than I’d ever seen before.

“Mr. Burdette,” I said curtly.

“Domenic,” he sneered in reply, cutting my title. He gestured at the mob. “This is what we are calling a ‘change of command’.”

“I’m not abdicating,” I said simply. “And you haven’t the power to take my profession … from …”

There were a lot of my crewmen on deck

There were all of my crewmen on deck!

When I saw that the average morale had dropped to mutinous, I’d thought that I had a mutiny to repress, after which I could make some examples and force everyone back into line. What I hadn’t realized was that all were involved!

There was Joash, still ashamed even if he now met my eyes.

There was Phillip, the man who’d tried to be a friend but whom I’d scared off, then broken the spirit of.

There was Varinya, the leonid former slave prostitute, who’d once exulted in the freedom being in my crew meant.

There was Zander, the bloodthirsty man who’d I’d freed from slavery and given a spear – only to have the spear kill those I wished to live.

There was Kuko, the man I’d saved from the sirens and who had never quite forgiven me for it.

There was Myota, the gentle surgeon who’d objected to the violence I’d used against Burdette on behalf of the slaves.

There was Arnnaith, the half-elf boy who’d been my shadow, but who had withdrawn from me as he found friendship in the others I’d pushed him towards.

There was Rhistel, the elf who I’d liberated from Burdette, who I’d helped recover the profession that was stripped from him, and given the opportunity to bond with the juvenile sea monster Cherry – which was even now stalking through these isles.

There was Sadeo! The one whom I’d rescued from the slave auction, who I’d first recruited, who’d voluntarily served me and sworn to fight my battles with me … who now held a sorrowful, but firm countenance as he beheld my removal.

“Now you see,” Burdette said quietly to me. “Every one of us has their own reason. Some still hate you for what you first did, tricking us into being your crew forever! Some are tired of fighting and killing at sea. Some only just realized that whatever ideals you hold you’ll break. A few are even learning what you and I knew from the start: that you don’t have what it takes to be a Captain!”

So it was. I had betrayed my crew when I broke my promise to free them. I had betrayed the tenants of my own principles. Now my crew was betraying me.

“You think to replace me?” I said quietly, my voice more hoarse than I’d expected. “I’m the only thing standing between you and Davy Jones.”

Burdette shrugged. “There’s been argument on that, too. See, most realized real quick that our curse didn’t link us to Davy Jones, like your curse did. Our curse tied us to you. Now, some are hoping that with your death we’ll be free.”

“But not you.”

He grinned. “Not me. The way I figure it, Davy Jones needs someone to be his lieutenant. He’s been putting up with your sputtering for months. I think I could do a better job! I kill you, and if I don’t get your profession myself, then I make my own deal with Jones.”

I shook my head. “Here I thought I’d overestimated your greed and the promise of skill levels I made to you. It turns out I underestimated it.”

“You underestimated a lot of things about me,” Burdette said. “You forgot that I was Captain of this ship! I’ve had skills I’ve developed for years related to running her, more tied to my job as a slaver. And you put me as second in command! It was borderline easy to turn the crew against you, even the ones who’d been loyal to you since you pulled that stunt with getting whipped for them.”

Then he was the one I needed to remove. How much of the cancerous growth of sedition had been fueled by this man? How much better might morale have remained without his input? Cut him down, then those around me, then … then …

Was I to slay my entire crew? If I slayed half, how would I convince the rest to obey my orders short of flaying their souls?

Where do I stop this madness?

I only realized I’d spoken that last thought aloud when Burdette answered me. “You can’t. You didn’t do what you should have done over the last weeks, and now you’re out of options.” He grinned while lifting his blade. “Now I take back what’s mine!”

Even as he swung his blade for my neck, I turned and looked him in the eye. “No,” I stated. I refused to let him do this. I refused to let him take this ship from me however much I hated it. I refused to let him even move.

And he froze.

He was shocked, and I was a little bit too. I had suspected I could do as much for a long time, even back to the time when I’d been injured and heard my crew couldn’t find it in them to finish me off. They were tied to me, and their curse meant that I just needed to repress their freedom should I so choose.

If only I’d done this before they’d slayed the rest of the Mockingbird’s crew.

A pair of Burdette’s accomplices attacked from behind, and they froze too. It strained my mental capacities to their limit, but I froze each one of my crew. Some were much harder to keep restrained than others. I felt blood trickle from my nose for the second time that day.

Now what?

“What have you hoped to accomplish?” I demanded with a shout. “Why do you force me further down a path I don’t want to go?”

It dawned on me that Davy Jones hadn’t passed his final judgement on me yet because he knew this was coming. My slaughter this morning had only been the first act, and he wanted to see how I handled my crew.

Did he want me to slaughter them too? No, that would be a waste and leave me crippled, a Captain without a crew, adrift to be picked up at the Emerald’s leisure. He wanted me to repress their freedom permanently, make them into the slaves he made his own crew into aboard the Perdition. He wanted me to deny others what I held so dear myself.

And in the back of my mind it started as a whisper, a whisper that grew into a shout that escaped my lips before every witness.

“I REFUSE!”

I refused to betray my principles any more. I would not take from my crew the freedom that I so desperately craved. I stalked to the aft of the ship, stepped on the gunwale and dropped into the sea. I wasn’t going to kill my crew. I wasn’t going to surrender to them. I needed a moment to think, process, and commune with the sea.

I just … I just needed a moment …

The weight of betrayal had hit me hard – both my crew’s betrayal of me and my betrayal of them. The fire of my adamant refusal to secede this moral battle – even so late in the war on my tattered morals – remained.

When I received the notification and felt the portal of deep magic forming, I nearly welcomed it. It was time Jones and I had another talk.

Water sucked me forward, darkness blurred my vision and the water temperature changed. I was suddenly somewhere else. Not in Jones pocket dimension, but in the sea somewhere in the northwest.

There was a galleon sinking even as I watched. Jones’ level 100 kraken was pulling orcs and Tarish bodies from it.

“What in the name of the six depths do you be thinking?” Jones shouted from behind me. I turned and noted for the first time how similar we looked. Not our features; he’d cursed me to be uglier than him, but we were standing the same way, we had the same height, and our outfits nearly matched.

“You surrendered to your crew!” Jones continued, his face red with anger. “Surrender! I gave you many chances, boy, but what am I to think of you being a Captain under me when you can’t even manage a mangy lot like that?”

“Question my place under you as you wish,” I said coldly, my voice steadily rising. “But you do not get to question my right to Captainship. I may have made many mistakes these last weeks, but my worst was thinking that I needed to turn into you. I will be true to my own tenets. I don’t know how you rationalize your oppression with whatever perk or blessing from the ocean you claim to have, but I will not abandon the spirit of mine!”

A ripple went out from us, reaching distant shores and catching the attention of any beings or creatures attuned to such things.

Jones scowled and flourished his arm. With an appearance like a sleight of hand trick, my heart was suddenly clutched in his fist. “I won’t release you, boy. You’re too far in to be a wild card in the game now.” His grasp tightened, and I felt it crushing my heart, my very being. “You … will … BOW!”

“I will not!” I shouted back. If I was standing I’d have fallen, but the ocean supported me in her embrace. “I will not surrender my freedom to you anymore! I don’t care if you scourge my very soul … I will not surrender!”

My heart burst into blue, liquid flames in Jones’ grasp. I gasped at the maddening sensations of torment and – and relief – that I was feeling inside me. Jones seemed as shocked as I, and with a wave of his arm my heart disappeared, along with the crushing weight and flames.

His gaze upon me now wasn’t the same angry look as before. Nor was he cold, as I’d seen he could also be. Now he was imperious … with a touch of warning?

“Domenic, you want to be careful about the powers you invoke. Choose your path with more wisdom.”

“I have been set upon my path,” I said, readying myself for whatever conflict between us came next. “I will finish this now, even if it means my death or doom.”

Jones raised his arms, his empty hands readying to cast stronger magics than I’d ever seen. I hadn’t a hope of winning but I would be defiant in the end this time. I would rather die than take on shackles again.

Before Jones destroyed me, the water around us was … disturbed. I couldn’t sense any physical presence, but the fact something new had arrived was unmistakable. It was powerful. The kraken – which had glanced my way when the ripple went out but continued its feast – now curled each of its arms tightly and shrunk itself down, activating a camouflage ability to hide itself from sight and mask its signature from detection. Other monsters even remotely nearby similarly fled, but small, less sentient creatures turned towards it.

Jones straightened and lowered his arms, his signature scowl back in place. “It’s time for you to go, Domenic.” He turned his back on me and faced a point where my own eyes seemed to both be drawn and averted. “Mommy and daddy need to have a little discussion.”

I moved forward. “I’m not leaving until this is finished …”

'Spirit of the Ocean’ hits you with an unknown spell!

When Jones had teleported me, he had accessed his link to me to draw upon my mana to complete half of the required matrix for the spell. The result was a simple portal that I passed through easily, if it was a bit disorienting.

This … this was something else.

I felt like I was pulled into a vortex that spun me into a tightly wrapped ball, then shot me through the water. I’d gone through the water with speed before, but nothing like this. The water stripped the flesh from my bones but even as it did, I was healed with powerful restorative magic. But then the water was stripping that flesh away too. The pain was unbearable, but I couldn’t draw breath to scream. I wished to pass out, either from the torment or lack of air, but the magic that restored my body fed my body whatever it needed to stay conscious.

When would this end? Oh, please let it end!

After the thousandth time I’d thought that and hoped it would finally be true, the spell did end. I flopped and spun through the water at a speed that didn’t cut my body apart. I even came to a stop.

My body felt like … like it was uncomfortably new. I had all my hair, scars … my outfit wasn’t even out of place, but my body felt like I’d been sent over the falls at the edge of the world only to have a legendary healer restore me from the drop of blood that had remained.

I had prompts waiting for my perusal, but I was so out of it I spent several minutes in numb awareness of not being jettisoned …

What shook me from my stupor was a mast that sank slowly to my right. A tattered flag of Nilfheim was still attached to it. I looked up and I saw wreckage. I swam to the surface and I saw a battlefield. There were burning wrecks, frozen wrecks, splintered remains where wrecks had once been, and the battered survivors of ships that had avoided becoming wrecks themselves, by however narrow a margin.

I wasn’t in the same place Jones had summoned me. I wasn’t back with the Death’s Consort, either. The ocean had sent me somewhere else.

Somewhere adrift in the flotsam of a battlefield.