Glade 70, 121
The morning sun rose, and the sky wasn’t really red.
There were reddish hues, of course, staining the clouds which mottled the empyrean vault. If a toddler had pointed one of their little fat toddler fingers up at a cloud and said “wed!”, you wouldn’t correct them. It just wasn’t unusually red in any meaningful way. The title, you see, is an aphorism, not meant as literally descriptive.
The origin of the phrase is, of course, “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” This is an ancient rhyme which works because high-pressure systems scatter particulates in the air, reflecting and refracting the blue light spectrum, resulting in an unusually reddish hue. If you see that color in the morning, the high-pressure system is moving east, and a low-pressure system is trailing in form the west- therefore, assuming the prevailing winds are moving west to east, your ship is likely moving into a storm. If you are in tropical climes, however, the prevailing winds seldom align this way, and the rhyme is useless.
Not that it matters- again, the sky wasn’t especially red, and Imogen Ward didn’t know anything about sailing anyway.
Imogen paused in her writing. What was the fish called? Redurm? Red lum? She was sure it had the word “red” in it, even though it looked more bronze to her eyes.
The Sunsinger and tourist sat at a small table meant to be shared by several guests, gathering her thoughts. She had found that writing was easiest without much hustle and bustle, so she had taken to rising early like the sailors did, in order to sneak a bit of alone time away from the other passengers. The table was tucked away in a little niche beneath a set of stairs, connecting the passenger halls to the decks of the ship, and thankfully it was all sized generously; not quite as large as an Orkhan might like, but as good as one could expect on a ship crewed mostly with humans.
”Red drum!”
Yes! That was what the fish was called. Unfortunately, her recollection wasn’t a total victory- she could see and hear movement in the passenger hall, as inhabitants of the private cabins and shared halls alike began to bestir themselves. It would seem that her piscine ruminations had cost her valuable writing time.
Thankfully, she was prepared. She gathered her pen and her booklet- she could simply tear the page out later for mailing, if she wanted- and hiked up to the deck, emerging into the brisk morning air. Even the night air wasn’t really chilly, this far south and this late in Glade, but the wind buffeting her face and arms nonetheless provided a little temperature shock. She relocated to one of the benches at the side of the ship’s midship superstructure, facing the open sea. In the near distance she could see one of the two ships of the Ecithian navy which dutifully escorted passenger ships to and from the port in Sangen.
the fish known as “red drum” which is prevalent and delicious in these waters.
As you know, I purchased a bow a few weeks ago so that I could be visibly armed, but I have had no opportunity to use it on the ship, as it is too cramped and any arrows fired into the ocean are, obviously, irretrievable. Perhaps I will have an opportunity in Ecith, though I do not intend to venture far into the jungles.
I have also seen-
Wait! Imogen’s attention left the paper immediately as a high-pitched chattering reached her ears. As the sun rose higher, she could see triangular fins cutting through the waves to the north. One broke the surface and kept going, revealing a broad, grey back, slick and shiny like rubber.
Rubbery blue-grey skin? Chittering noises? Long snouts? Why, this could be only one kind of animal!
”Mereswine!”
As Imogen cooed and prepared to sketch the pod of dolphins on the north side of the ship, a sea creature from another kingdom entirely was spotted to the south.
Like a dolphin, the first sign was a fin- unlike a dolphin, the fin rose a full meter from the water before the hide beneath was visible. From the lookout’s nest high atop one of the Ecithian ships, a cry rang out, followed by the literal ringing of an alarm bell. The clangor aboard that ship cut swiftly through the bright morning air, and it took only seconds for the crew of the Salt Crest to make it out.
The ships of the Ecithian navy did not make the journey for show, or out of some grand mistrust of Sangen. The signal bell would ring, slowly, deliberately; sets of one for natural hazards, sets of two for any pirates stupid enough to attack the passenger line, sets of three for a leviathan, and sets of four for a primal.
(None of the ships here had ever needed to ring four times, thankfully. Survival against one of the legendary fleet-wreckers was dubious at best.)
Three bells pealed out over the open sea, and after a moment the Salt Crest picked up the pattern and rang the same. Sailors rushed about, the captain rushing to the helm to begin barking orders which were already in progress.
Even though the day was bright and the leviathan had been spotted as timely as any sailor could hope, the beast’s speed was intense. Less than a moment after the bell first rang, the leviathan erupted out of the sea and took a chunk out of the first Ecithian escort, the scaled belly of the serpent crashing against the wooden ship with a crackling retort. Most of the Orkhan sailors kept their distance, but two burly greenscales took the opportunity to beat about the snout with belaying pins. No simple panic this- the leviathans of the south sea had hide thicker than a shield, but the pink flesh around their nostrils (which opened to expel water, like blowholes) was tender, and a few good hits caused the snake to flinch away from the ship.
The dolphins danced wildly as Imogen watched, clutching the siderail with delight. Each leapt, one by one, then in groups of two, as though trying to get her attention. The Orkhan woman gladly gave it to them, clapping like a toddler and making shrill “whoop”-ing noises to egg them on in their oceanic ballet. The bells had begun ringing, presumably to wake the passengers so that they could see the pod at play, but Imogen was loath to take her eyes off the spectacle for even a moment.
As the Ecithian naval vessel rocked, reeling from the impact with the sea serpent’s belly, reinforcements arrived from the second escort.
Leviathans were an infrequent danger on such crossings, as the huge snakes did not prefer to hunt so close to the surface. The captains of each of the three ships separately cursed their luck, wondering if the snake had been drawn upward by fleeing whales or simply driven out of its native habitat by some other, worse threat. It was difficult to tell whether the aquatic menace was emaciated through the scaled armor it bore, but hunger was the most likely driver. Unless it was leviathan mating season, perhaps.
All these thoughts were on the mind of Ship’s Seer Geluct Von’said, standing at the prow of the far vessel. Strictly speaking, he was not an active-duty officer of the ship, simply riding along to pick up some treats for his grandchildren from the northern plantations. Practically speaking, no officer was retired in the middle of a leviathan attack.
Geluct’s relatively-illustrious career had seen him gifted with two Cardinal Runes, and he deployed the first without hesitation, calling upon the elements to turn against the Leviathan, to batter it and draw it out towards the open water, away from the vulnerable wooden hulls of the ships. As the leviathan tried to shake off the shock from the belaying strikes, it began to drift quickly away.
The other naval ship took the opportunity. It did not launch harpoons or arrows- the idea was to drive the beast away, not reel it in, and arrows would hardly tickle the monster- instead, the sailors began hauling ceramic jugs of alcohol to the deck. If the serpent made a second assault on the side, breaking a cask of high-proof alcohol on its head could render the beast blind. This still risked losing the ship to the leviathan’s mad thrashing, but the other two ships would be saved.
It was a worthy sacrifice, but Geluct had no desire to see the young sailors make it. It was unfortunate that the leviathan had chosen to surface on the other side of the Salt Crest, for he was possessed of a power which could drive the beast away and he was possessed of the power to move swiftly in the sea, but not both at once.
“You there, boy!”
Geluct singled out a young sailor, who gawped at him for a moment “Sir?”
“Ready a rowboat. You are about to earn a commendation.”
”Hello! Hello! Hi!”
Imogen excitedly shouted greetings to the merswine, who were bumping up against the side of the ship and making the most beautiful dulcet clicking noises anyone had ever heard. She tried to modulate her voice in the same way and failed miserably, but it was no matter. She had heard that these creatures were friendly, that they would keep pace with ships and jump and play and display the fearsome joy of life, but nobody had told her they were so desperate for attention.
As she chatted with the energetic pod, a small boat passed behind the Salt Crest, carrying two Orkhan men. She waved to them too, trying to direct their attention to the beautiful, life-changing miracle of a bunch of dolphins being silly nearby, but neither gave her the time of day.
Well, that was soldiers for you, Imogen supposed. Self-absorbed no matter what nation they called home.
It didn’t take long for the leviathan to recover from the sudden beating to its snout, but it did not strike the ship again. Not right away. The great serpent circled, studying the vessel from every angle, like a wolf might study a wounded doe. A meal for the taking, perhaps, but it had to be attacked in the right way, or it might still kick or trample in a deadly retort. The sea, too, seemed against the monster, so it chose to tack against the current, repositioning itself to strike the Ecithian naval vessel from the rear.
The sailors aboard the ship, by this time, had gotten out the heavy weaponry. If the leviathan attacked from the rear, the plan to blind it with alcohol was a bust, but if a few Orkhan men with pikes could survive the monster’s initial blow they could still open up its throat and see it dead.
Meanwhile, the young sailor was rowing as though his life depended on it. It was worse than that, in fact; the lives of many others were what was at stake here, and no Orkhan in the service could fail to take that threat seriously. Sweat from his brow and neck intermixed with the splashing seawater, and he couldn’t tell which was dampening him the most. Still, hadn’t he won the last race up the Stair with his cohort? Wasn’t he the fifth landing’s pub champion at armwrestling? He pulled harder, his muscles and adrenaline shredding the surface of the waves.
Geluct would have liked to stop him, but he could not. He needed to get the boat right up against the leviathan, nearly touching the beast. There was no margin of error here; if he missed, the sailors of the ship would be forced to enact their last-ditch plan to kill the creature before it could get too many of them.
”Squeak, huh? Oh, and how about you? What’s your name? Squeak squeak, is it? Oooh, and how about-”
Imogen hung perilously from the side of the ship, with only her legs and one arm hooked around the banister to keep her from falling into the drink. With the other arm, she reached down to graze her fingers against the sleek, blubbery hides of the dolphins cavorting below.
Driven by duty, or conviction, or just an earnest concern for the safety of his people, the young Orkhan sailor accelerated the rowboat to new extremes. The tiny craft shot across the water, as Geluct prayed to Rakan, and then to the primals, and finally to the Sea itself. When at last he felt that they were close enough, he said nothing at all to the gasping young sailor, but simply leapt from the boat and onto the leviathan’s back.
There, Geluct returned his attention to his own aether and seized his anima, the shape of himself, tearing at it until he found the totem grafted to his soul. Quickly--perhaps more quickly than he’d ever done it before--Geluct began to shift his shape, the green skin and scales of his Ork-skin changing to an almost human tone of fleshy salmon before growing sickeningly translucent. The old mage transformed his scales and flesh to watery membrane, his bones liquifying, eyes collapsing into optic nerves. Seconds turned into a minute as the leviathan circled closer to the wounded ship, and Geluct’s mass fluctuated as the magic of his rune traded density for volume.
The translucent mass spread across the leviathan’s back, and it took a while for the beast to notice. At first, it was just a ghostly drag in the water, invisible to the eye and hardly sensible to the armored skin. Then, as the mass grew more defined, tendrils began to drift slowly down the serpent’s side, seeking out gaps in the leviathan’s armor.
And then one of the giant box jelly’s tentacles touched flesh.
The instant the first sting occurred, the serpent roared in protest. Leviathans were not prey to the huge underwater jellyfish, but some deep-seated memory in its brain surfaced, and it recalled the days of agony which had accompanied the last such encounter in the abyssal depths. It thrashed wildly in the water, having forgotten about its hunt, forgotten about its snout, caring for nothing but getting away from the nightmare which had unfolded into being around it. It surfaced several times, as though hoping the jellyfish would slide off against the meniscus of the water, but nothing seemed to shake the insensate bag of water and pain.
With no other option, the leviathan dove, swimming hard for the murky depths, hoping to either detach the jellyfish or scrape it off against the sea bottom.
The crew of all three ships took a minute to work out what had happened- when they did, there was silence. The leviathan had fled, but what of the officer who had put it to flight? Would he resurface, or was he lost now, to be devoured in the depths below?
Two minutes passed. Then three.
And then…
Imogen almost fell from her unstable sea perch as a sudden cheer went up from the ship, the sailors all screaming in unison at the top of their lungs. The ship’s bell went wild, ringing again and again across the wild blue yonder.
The Orkhan woman beamed.
”Hear that, you guys? They love you!”
The morning sun rose, and the sky wasn’t really red.
There were reddish hues, of course, staining the clouds which mottled the empyrean vault. If a toddler had pointed one of their little fat toddler fingers up at a cloud and said “wed!”, you wouldn’t correct them. It just wasn’t unusually red in any meaningful way. The title, you see, is an aphorism, not meant as literally descriptive.
The origin of the phrase is, of course, “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” This is an ancient rhyme which works because high-pressure systems scatter particulates in the air, reflecting and refracting the blue light spectrum, resulting in an unusually reddish hue. If you see that color in the morning, the high-pressure system is moving east, and a low-pressure system is trailing in form the west- therefore, assuming the prevailing winds are moving west to east, your ship is likely moving into a storm. If you are in tropical climes, however, the prevailing winds seldom align this way, and the rhyme is useless.
Not that it matters- again, the sky wasn’t especially red, and Imogen Ward didn’t know anything about sailing anyway.
Glade 70, 121
Dearest Carina,
It has now been several days since the Salt Crest left harbor in Sangen, but the trip hardly feels more than just begun. The sailors speak with a heavy drawl, and they can be hard to understand, but it is worth listening to them just for the stories. They tell me that storytelling is something of a national pastime in Ecith, and I hope to spend a few weeks just listening once I’ve retrieved the statuette.
The sea has mostly been calm, which is good. I haven’t been to sea for so long before, and I did fear that I might secretly harbor the seasickness, and spend much of the trip suffering for it. Thankfully, one or another of the several gods I importuned seem to have taken pity, and the salt air has been nothing but a delight. One of the sailors let me use a ship’s line and cast for-
Dearest Carina,
It has now been several days since the Salt Crest left harbor in Sangen, but the trip hardly feels more than just begun. The sailors speak with a heavy drawl, and they can be hard to understand, but it is worth listening to them just for the stories. They tell me that storytelling is something of a national pastime in Ecith, and I hope to spend a few weeks just listening once I’ve retrieved the statuette.
The sea has mostly been calm, which is good. I haven’t been to sea for so long before, and I did fear that I might secretly harbor the seasickness, and spend much of the trip suffering for it. Thankfully, one or another of the several gods I importuned seem to have taken pity, and the salt air has been nothing but a delight. One of the sailors let me use a ship’s line and cast for-
Imogen paused in her writing. What was the fish called? Redurm? Red lum? She was sure it had the word “red” in it, even though it looked more bronze to her eyes.
The Sunsinger and tourist sat at a small table meant to be shared by several guests, gathering her thoughts. She had found that writing was easiest without much hustle and bustle, so she had taken to rising early like the sailors did, in order to sneak a bit of alone time away from the other passengers. The table was tucked away in a little niche beneath a set of stairs, connecting the passenger halls to the decks of the ship, and thankfully it was all sized generously; not quite as large as an Orkhan might like, but as good as one could expect on a ship crewed mostly with humans.
”Red drum!”
Yes! That was what the fish was called. Unfortunately, her recollection wasn’t a total victory- she could see and hear movement in the passenger hall, as inhabitants of the private cabins and shared halls alike began to bestir themselves. It would seem that her piscine ruminations had cost her valuable writing time.
Thankfully, she was prepared. She gathered her pen and her booklet- she could simply tear the page out later for mailing, if she wanted- and hiked up to the deck, emerging into the brisk morning air. Even the night air wasn’t really chilly, this far south and this late in Glade, but the wind buffeting her face and arms nonetheless provided a little temperature shock. She relocated to one of the benches at the side of the ship’s midship superstructure, facing the open sea. In the near distance she could see one of the two ships of the Ecithian navy which dutifully escorted passenger ships to and from the port in Sangen.
the fish known as “red drum” which is prevalent and delicious in these waters.
As you know, I purchased a bow a few weeks ago so that I could be visibly armed, but I have had no opportunity to use it on the ship, as it is too cramped and any arrows fired into the ocean are, obviously, irretrievable. Perhaps I will have an opportunity in Ecith, though I do not intend to venture far into the jungles.
I have also seen-
Wait! Imogen’s attention left the paper immediately as a high-pitched chattering reached her ears. As the sun rose higher, she could see triangular fins cutting through the waves to the north. One broke the surface and kept going, revealing a broad, grey back, slick and shiny like rubber.
Rubbery blue-grey skin? Chittering noises? Long snouts? Why, this could be only one kind of animal!
”Mereswine!”
(Meanwhile...)
As Imogen cooed and prepared to sketch the pod of dolphins on the north side of the ship, a sea creature from another kingdom entirely was spotted to the south.
Like a dolphin, the first sign was a fin- unlike a dolphin, the fin rose a full meter from the water before the hide beneath was visible. From the lookout’s nest high atop one of the Ecithian ships, a cry rang out, followed by the literal ringing of an alarm bell. The clangor aboard that ship cut swiftly through the bright morning air, and it took only seconds for the crew of the Salt Crest to make it out.
The ships of the Ecithian navy did not make the journey for show, or out of some grand mistrust of Sangen. The signal bell would ring, slowly, deliberately; sets of one for natural hazards, sets of two for any pirates stupid enough to attack the passenger line, sets of three for a leviathan, and sets of four for a primal.
(None of the ships here had ever needed to ring four times, thankfully. Survival against one of the legendary fleet-wreckers was dubious at best.)
Three bells pealed out over the open sea, and after a moment the Salt Crest picked up the pattern and rang the same. Sailors rushed about, the captain rushing to the helm to begin barking orders which were already in progress.
Even though the day was bright and the leviathan had been spotted as timely as any sailor could hope, the beast’s speed was intense. Less than a moment after the bell first rang, the leviathan erupted out of the sea and took a chunk out of the first Ecithian escort, the scaled belly of the serpent crashing against the wooden ship with a crackling retort. Most of the Orkhan sailors kept their distance, but two burly greenscales took the opportunity to beat about the snout with belaying pins. No simple panic this- the leviathans of the south sea had hide thicker than a shield, but the pink flesh around their nostrils (which opened to expel water, like blowholes) was tender, and a few good hits caused the snake to flinch away from the ship.
(Imogen)
The dolphins danced wildly as Imogen watched, clutching the siderail with delight. Each leapt, one by one, then in groups of two, as though trying to get her attention. The Orkhan woman gladly gave it to them, clapping like a toddler and making shrill “whoop”-ing noises to egg them on in their oceanic ballet. The bells had begun ringing, presumably to wake the passengers so that they could see the pod at play, but Imogen was loath to take her eyes off the spectacle for even a moment.
(Meanwhile...)
As the Ecithian naval vessel rocked, reeling from the impact with the sea serpent’s belly, reinforcements arrived from the second escort.
Leviathans were an infrequent danger on such crossings, as the huge snakes did not prefer to hunt so close to the surface. The captains of each of the three ships separately cursed their luck, wondering if the snake had been drawn upward by fleeing whales or simply driven out of its native habitat by some other, worse threat. It was difficult to tell whether the aquatic menace was emaciated through the scaled armor it bore, but hunger was the most likely driver. Unless it was leviathan mating season, perhaps.
All these thoughts were on the mind of Ship’s Seer Geluct Von’said, standing at the prow of the far vessel. Strictly speaking, he was not an active-duty officer of the ship, simply riding along to pick up some treats for his grandchildren from the northern plantations. Practically speaking, no officer was retired in the middle of a leviathan attack.
Geluct’s relatively-illustrious career had seen him gifted with two Cardinal Runes, and he deployed the first without hesitation, calling upon the elements to turn against the Leviathan, to batter it and draw it out towards the open water, away from the vulnerable wooden hulls of the ships. As the leviathan tried to shake off the shock from the belaying strikes, it began to drift quickly away.
The other naval ship took the opportunity. It did not launch harpoons or arrows- the idea was to drive the beast away, not reel it in, and arrows would hardly tickle the monster- instead, the sailors began hauling ceramic jugs of alcohol to the deck. If the serpent made a second assault on the side, breaking a cask of high-proof alcohol on its head could render the beast blind. This still risked losing the ship to the leviathan’s mad thrashing, but the other two ships would be saved.
It was a worthy sacrifice, but Geluct had no desire to see the young sailors make it. It was unfortunate that the leviathan had chosen to surface on the other side of the Salt Crest, for he was possessed of a power which could drive the beast away and he was possessed of the power to move swiftly in the sea, but not both at once.
“You there, boy!”
Geluct singled out a young sailor, who gawped at him for a moment “Sir?”
“Ready a rowboat. You are about to earn a commendation.”
(Imogen!!)
”Hello! Hello! Hi!”
Imogen excitedly shouted greetings to the merswine, who were bumping up against the side of the ship and making the most beautiful dulcet clicking noises anyone had ever heard. She tried to modulate her voice in the same way and failed miserably, but it was no matter. She had heard that these creatures were friendly, that they would keep pace with ships and jump and play and display the fearsome joy of life, but nobody had told her they were so desperate for attention.
As she chatted with the energetic pod, a small boat passed behind the Salt Crest, carrying two Orkhan men. She waved to them too, trying to direct their attention to the beautiful, life-changing miracle of a bunch of dolphins being silly nearby, but neither gave her the time of day.
Well, that was soldiers for you, Imogen supposed. Self-absorbed no matter what nation they called home.
(Meanwhile...)
It didn’t take long for the leviathan to recover from the sudden beating to its snout, but it did not strike the ship again. Not right away. The great serpent circled, studying the vessel from every angle, like a wolf might study a wounded doe. A meal for the taking, perhaps, but it had to be attacked in the right way, or it might still kick or trample in a deadly retort. The sea, too, seemed against the monster, so it chose to tack against the current, repositioning itself to strike the Ecithian naval vessel from the rear.
The sailors aboard the ship, by this time, had gotten out the heavy weaponry. If the leviathan attacked from the rear, the plan to blind it with alcohol was a bust, but if a few Orkhan men with pikes could survive the monster’s initial blow they could still open up its throat and see it dead.
Meanwhile, the young sailor was rowing as though his life depended on it. It was worse than that, in fact; the lives of many others were what was at stake here, and no Orkhan in the service could fail to take that threat seriously. Sweat from his brow and neck intermixed with the splashing seawater, and he couldn’t tell which was dampening him the most. Still, hadn’t he won the last race up the Stair with his cohort? Wasn’t he the fifth landing’s pub champion at armwrestling? He pulled harder, his muscles and adrenaline shredding the surface of the waves.
Geluct would have liked to stop him, but he could not. He needed to get the boat right up against the leviathan, nearly touching the beast. There was no margin of error here; if he missed, the sailors of the ship would be forced to enact their last-ditch plan to kill the creature before it could get too many of them.
(Imogen)
”Squeak, huh? Oh, and how about you? What’s your name? Squeak squeak, is it? Oooh, and how about-”
Imogen hung perilously from the side of the ship, with only her legs and one arm hooked around the banister to keep her from falling into the drink. With the other arm, she reached down to graze her fingers against the sleek, blubbery hides of the dolphins cavorting below.
(Meanwhile...)
Driven by duty, or conviction, or just an earnest concern for the safety of his people, the young Orkhan sailor accelerated the rowboat to new extremes. The tiny craft shot across the water, as Geluct prayed to Rakan, and then to the primals, and finally to the Sea itself. When at last he felt that they were close enough, he said nothing at all to the gasping young sailor, but simply leapt from the boat and onto the leviathan’s back.
There, Geluct returned his attention to his own aether and seized his anima, the shape of himself, tearing at it until he found the totem grafted to his soul. Quickly--perhaps more quickly than he’d ever done it before--Geluct began to shift his shape, the green skin and scales of his Ork-skin changing to an almost human tone of fleshy salmon before growing sickeningly translucent. The old mage transformed his scales and flesh to watery membrane, his bones liquifying, eyes collapsing into optic nerves. Seconds turned into a minute as the leviathan circled closer to the wounded ship, and Geluct’s mass fluctuated as the magic of his rune traded density for volume.
The translucent mass spread across the leviathan’s back, and it took a while for the beast to notice. At first, it was just a ghostly drag in the water, invisible to the eye and hardly sensible to the armored skin. Then, as the mass grew more defined, tendrils began to drift slowly down the serpent’s side, seeking out gaps in the leviathan’s armor.
And then one of the giant box jelly’s tentacles touched flesh.
The instant the first sting occurred, the serpent roared in protest. Leviathans were not prey to the huge underwater jellyfish, but some deep-seated memory in its brain surfaced, and it recalled the days of agony which had accompanied the last such encounter in the abyssal depths. It thrashed wildly in the water, having forgotten about its hunt, forgotten about its snout, caring for nothing but getting away from the nightmare which had unfolded into being around it. It surfaced several times, as though hoping the jellyfish would slide off against the meniscus of the water, but nothing seemed to shake the insensate bag of water and pain.
With no other option, the leviathan dove, swimming hard for the murky depths, hoping to either detach the jellyfish or scrape it off against the sea bottom.
The crew of all three ships took a minute to work out what had happened- when they did, there was silence. The leviathan had fled, but what of the officer who had put it to flight? Would he resurface, or was he lost now, to be devoured in the depths below?
Two minutes passed. Then three.
And then…
(Endmogen)
Imogen almost fell from her unstable sea perch as a sudden cheer went up from the ship, the sailors all screaming in unison at the top of their lungs. The ship’s bell went wild, ringing again and again across the wild blue yonder.
The Orkhan woman beamed.
”Hear that, you guys? They love you!”