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Isoko gazed upon the worst of human atrocities in the blood painted on the walls and the tales told by ancient manacles that had never gone out of use, until now, and in a dirty mattress made of stained fabrics and moldy moss. Every room of the Whore’s Nest, a massive structure that might have been a palace in some ancient time, was like that. This place should have been beautiful. It was not beautiful anymore.
The walls, when they weren’t covered in filth, were polished bone. Ancient artisans had spent ages carving triangles and hexes and lovely swirls into the ceilings. The archways were wide enough for Sally to walk through, unimpeded, even in her sometimes-larger form. Isoko didn’t know when that started happening, but it kept happening over the last few days as they cleared out horror after horror.
Sally had pulped several more heads in the last few days, as people showed up to claim Captain Grey, Bone-Knife, or Mist Sister’s stuff. She just… reached out and crushed them, her entire body flickering gold in the moment. Every other person she killed had turned out to be in charge of some part of Trader’s Cove, and they had all expected the ‘new rulers’ to be just like the old ones.
None of them had ever experienced real Inquisitors before.
Isoko had stopped trying to understand any of it after the first day. It was too much. Just like this place. It was too much… but it could be something pretty, if someone made it pretty. David had done most of the work to clean it up, but Isoko wanted to actuallyclean something. Just… just to make it seem better.
Isoko took a breath and the world breathed with her.
The sky inside of Trader’s Cove whipped through the Whore’s Nest, through the ancient bone windows, down spiderweb-filled hallways, through refuse and stains that were never coming out, and across manacles still stuck in the walls, drilled into walls that had, at one point in time, been decorated with ornate, geometric designs. The people who installed the manacles didn’t care at all about installing them in nice locations —of course they didn’t— and so the designs were marred, and broken. The designs, the entire place, was still marred as Isoko turned refuse into dust and dust into green plants far outside of the Whore’s Nest.
But it looked a bit better. A bit cleaner.
Nicer.
Isoko went around grabbing those manacles stuck in the wall and she ripped them out, TT’ing carefully to grab just the strong iron. She damaged a few walls a bit more, but that was fine. Cracks in the bone and deep holes in the walls were better than manacles.
- -
Sally had gained a new sense of justice in her mind in the last few days. It had been building all throughout the meetings with the Chief of Raptor and especially with the Chief of Stronghold, but it boiled over when Mark met those 3 tyrants. Sally still felt good about executing Captain Grey, and especially Mist Sister, even beforeshe saw what the two of them had gotten up to behind closed doors. Sally felt good about executing everyone else that she had executed, too.
And the executing was done.
Sally sat on the roof of the observation dome of the Dreadnought, watching as Eliot detached a glowing section of hover-ring off of the flight ring that now surrounded the ship. It was a big section, but Eliot, Tartu, and Andria were handling it well. The whole thing had gone up pretty easily, but making it all work together was taking time.
Sally was glad for that time.
The world looked different to her, now. She looked upon Eliot, and saw a glow that no one else saw. Tartu had less of a glow by a lot, but it was still a nice glow. Andria had a bit of a brighter glow than Tartu.
Sally wasn’t sure what her new sense was, but it was Retribution-based, for sure. Eliot, Tartu, and Andria, were ‘nice’ to look at. It was a weird sense. What even was ‘nice’? Sally had no real idea.
But she had good guesses.
Sally glanced over to Mark who was coming in from the side, and from far away it was like looking at a sun. Too good. Too righteous. It was like looking at a miracle. Sally was uncomfortable at seeing someone look that good to her, but this was Mark, so had anything really changed at all? Not really.
Mark landed on the observation dome next to Sally, and looking at him up close was like looking at an eclipse. Solid black, rimmed in Righteousness.
… Maybe that’s what it was.
‘Righteousness’.
When Sally had looked at some of the people of Trader’s Cove she knew she needed to kill them. So she did. It was only afterward that Sally recognized what she had seen, and what she had acted upon. Captain Grey, Mist Sister, and tens of unnamed evils, had been rimmed in horror, like a depth that sucked everyone else in, that corrupted and harmed everyone that they touched. Sally was going to get a handle on this new sense, and soon, but she did not feel bad about being ‘led around by her Power’ when it came to those three. They wouldn’t be hurting anyone else, anymore.
Mark was, of course, worried.
Sally was kinda worried, too. But… not overmuch.
Mark asked, “How’s that new sense treating you?”
“I’m getting the hang of it.”
“Want another tour around the city?”
“Nah. I cleared out everything I saw that was wrong.” Sally frowned. “Everything that was too wrong to abide, anyway.”
Trader’s Cove was full of terrible people in terrible circumstances.
Did that excuse what they did to each other?
Not at all.
But Sally had cleared out the worst offenses and Raptor had come in with few boats and they were instituting order again. You couldn’t just kill people and expect the world to be a better place; Sally knew that. Order had to be installed, one way or another.
“You good?” Mark asked, almost in a passing manner, but it was a deep, serious question.
Sally countered, “Are you?”
“Not really, but I will be.”
Sally nodded. “Same.”
The two of them looked up as Eliot finished up yet another section of the Dreadnought’s flight ring.
- -
Eliot rested on his chair in the main command center of the Dreadnought. Kabberjaw was behind them, vanishing over the horizon like an impossible skeleton half-submerged in an equally impossible ocean. Everyone was ready to go, and everyone was present inside of the command center…
Except for Mark.
He was out there on the forecastle, prepared to ego shield them. Eliot had made a backup ego shield as a part of Dreadnought’s new flight ring, so strictly speaking Mark didn’t need to be out there. He certainly didn’t need to shoulder everything himself, but more and more often, that’s what Mark was doing. He had secured the grav crystal, been the indestructible forward-spear that ended some threats and which allowed Sally and David come in and do more, he had healed people, brought in some amazing little plants that Tartu, Andria, and Eliot were all gushing over, and now they were leaving behind a civilization that was much better off than before.
… Mostly better than before.
Stronghold wanted to scuttle every single trader’s ship with an ego shield because they didn’t want anyone being able to leave Kabberjaw without their permission. Raptor hadn’t let them inside of Trader’s Cove at all. There was going to be a conflict there, but it was going to happen among them, and not among the Dreadnought’s crew at all.
Raptor had split off from Stronghold 70 years ago for a lot of good reasons, most of them having to do with outsiders and Kabberjaw and religion and all of that. It was a big tangle of history. Skybones wanted no one to have anycontact with the outside world at all, which was a step too far for practically everyone.
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… The people of Kabberjaw would either survive and thrive, or die fast.
Eliot bet on survival, especially because Derek had left behind a few bodies in Raptor.
Eliot said to Derek, “I’m kinda jealous.”
Derek grinned, sarcastically asking, “Whatever for?”
“Because that place is awesome,” Sally said, sitting down to the side, buckled in.
“I’m getting together with some pearl divers tomorrow to go hunting for spell-pearls,” Derek said.
“A spell-pearl?” Andria asked, worried she had missed something crucial. “Did you actually find one?”
Sally asked, “What are those?”
Derek said, “They’re once-per-day magical items!”
Another Derek said, “Like spellbreakers; the spell condenses into the pearl and then the mollusk uses the pearl to make magic.”
“Where’d you find one?” Andria asked.
Derek said. “I’m going hunting; haven’t found one at all. It’s just the two that Chief Ariku showed us.”
“Ahhh,” Andria said, “I was really hoping to buy that house cleaner pearl.”
“You didn’t get to buy it?” Eliot asked. He wanted to turn back around at that moment, but…
“Nah,” Andria said, “But if you find any, Derek?”
“You can bid for it,” Derek said, grinning.
Andria nodded. “That’s all I ask.”
“Every part about that place is a disaster waiting to happen,” Tartu said, looking at some screens to the side, measuring the destructive thaumic resonance of the ring and all the other ship systems. “We got what we came for, did a lot of good, and now they can live their own lives.”
Eliot glanced at the ship systems and saw that everything was good. Deep in the green. The new brightspeed/grav flight ring was a work of art, just as much as it was a work of function. The Dreadnought actually looked like a real ship, now. One of the best ships Eliot had ever seen, too.
“There was a lot more we could have done, or gotten,” Andria said. “Those flowers are going to revolutionize mana crystal production.”
“As long as Okuana doesn’t come after us for releasing it to the world,” Sally added.
All of them were worried about what came after the trip. No one said a word about it.
Tartu moved on, saying, “Destructive thaumic resonance is remarkably low. I say we’re clear to go.”
Mark asked on the comms, “Didwe do enough? Dowe need to turn back around?”
Eliot could have done so much more, and yet...
Lola answered, “We did as much as we should.”
David said, “We did enough.”
Silence, for a moment.
And then Mark said, “Okay. Andria’s target is next, yes?”
Isoko put some joy in her voice as she spoke up for navigation, “Andria’s target is next, maybe 4 days travel with the new systems. Then Sally after that, thanks to her new mana coalescing capability. Wooo, Sally~ Finally got it!”
Sally blushed a little. “Thank you.”
Isoko injected more levity into the moment by announcing, “And then we have Eliot, who barely managed to figure out mana coalescing at all.”
Eliot said, “I was busy!”
“Excuses excuses,” Isoko continued, “And then Tartu is going to be in there somewhere, probably, because he’s loving those plants and he’s going to commit to Verdago as soon as we get out of Kabberjaw, because he’s scared of dragons.”
Tartu snorted. “Committing to one god in a land already occupied by the dead body of a different god is dangerous and I have not taken complete leave of my senses, so yes, I did not commit yet.”
Isoko continued, “Tartu getting Chosen might change the schedule as we end up pointing somewhere a lot closer, or further; who knows. And then we got Mark, bringing up the rear like ten tons of dead weight.”
“Anchoring, you mean,” Mark said.
“Sure, sure.” Isoko added, “We couldgo in the other direction and do yours first, Mark. Then you can take a nap.”
Eliot hoped Mark would take the option.
But of course he wouldn’t.
Mark said, “Once Andria has True Prosperity she can upgrade all of the machines, and then we can explore deeper and better and plot around any potentially dangerous kaiju, so Andria is next. I’m last.”
- -
Mark centered himself, standing on the forecastle of the Dreadnought, as Kabberjaw became a misty, hidden thing just beyond sight. Soon, he would need to start the Union of Purpose… But...
He could have done so much more for Kabberjaw.
He felt like he needed to go back. They didn’t even talk to Elkatracks, to make sure that the dragons had accepted that they had fulfilled their bargain for hunting rights. But… no news was probably good news, and the dragons had been gossiping about what Mark and his crew had been doing the whole time they had been in there. Quark kept Mark apprised of Dragon Radio, and there was a lot to be said in all of that.
Mark had expected that dragon that oversaw Trader’s Cove, Madakarva, to start some shit. The people of Trader’s Cove had expected him to come to their rescue. But through Dragon Radio, Mark had heard Madakarva talking about how it sucked that ‘his experiment was over’. Trader’s Cove as a whole, including the horrors in the back rooms and Captain Grey at the front stomping down the biggest problems, had been an experiment to the green dragon. Madakarva wanted to see if a strong enough leader could keep the cultists contained and useful. ‘Someone had to tell the youngsters about the dangers of demons, after all’.
Madakarva thought of himself as a scientist and Trader’s Cove as a social experiment.
It was disgusting on a level that Mark was glad to have cleaned up and then left behind… because he was fucking exhausted, mentally. Physically he was fine. Mentally? He needed a week of sleep.
Would he get a week?
No.
When he got back to Daihoon, to the settlement, there would be a reckoning with First Prince Doomo, the Aluatha Empire, and Walaria…
But maybe they could come back here first? For a week? That might be nice.
… Yeah.
Mark mentally made a plan to return to Kabberjaw when they got everyone superhero’d, and then he Unioned with Purpose, aiming toward Andria’s kaiju target.
The waters of Kabberjaw gradually vanished into mist, and then into nothing, as the dreamlands appeared in a slow cacophony of rivers, oceans, mountains, and sky. A thousand imagined fragments of reality passed by as the Dreadnought sailed on, toward Prosperity.