Reborn From the Cosmos

Miniarc-Bad Tidings 04

One didn’t keep a captain waiting when called for.

Jack gave her the leeway to decide when they left, but it wasn’t a kind gesture. Each wasted minute risked invoking her sponsor’s wrath and she was sure his lackey would be eager to report it. As such, she didn’t waste a moment, quickly returning to the main floor. She took some small pleasure in making Jack abandon his drink, as he was just as loathed to waste his boss’ time as she was.

Maxine wasn’t happy about being led toward the docks. Graywatch wasn’t a pretty place. The roads were sloppy, having been put down as needed rather than planned, and the buildings were squat, ugly things made of drab stone in most places, wood in the poorer areas. Approaching the city, the smell of the sea reached a traveler before the smell of squalidness, but it was a short reprieve.

The docks were the source of the stench. Fresh fish wasn’t pleasant when fresh. It didn’t take long under even a mild heat to make it unbearable. Adding to it were the hauls brought in by smaller crews that couldn’t afford enough casters to properly preserve their catches. Baths also weren’t common on the sea. A haze of funk lingered over the area, remnants of it spreading to the rest of the city. Unfortunately, it was the place where captains spent the most time ashore, the men appreciating the short distance to the water and their ships.

Thankfully, her sponsor wasn’t the unreasonable type that forced visitors to wait outside his building, so she only had to endure the foul air for a few moments after hopping off the carriage. Witnesses snickered as she passed them while holding her nose but didn’t dare utter a word in the face of the threats surrounded her. She knew from experience that such an experience was a luxury.

Her first day in the city, her escorts stopped an eye-opening half dozen pickpockets in the short time it took her to find a room to her liking. Walking into the small bar, the sign with a long, sinuous body crawling out of an empty eye socket of a skull hanging over the door, no one bothered her. Partially because there was no one to bother her.

The bars close to the dock were different than those in the rest of the city. They were sovereign territory, each one belonging to a specific crew. Without the usual mix of debts and grudges under one roof, they were less tense and rowdy. With the captains frequently in residence, trouble was kept to a minimum. They were the only places someone could have a peaceful drink, or at least as close as Graywatch came to such a thing.

The ambient noise was set to a soft thrum that didn’t fluctuate when they entered. Jack made eye contact with the man behind the bar and they walked to the discreet door that led to the back. A heavyset man stepped aside to let them through, shutting the door firmly behind her.

“Max, good.”

They stepped into a large if stereotypical office; a large desk burdened by mounds of paper and tools with shelving all along the side walls. A tall man with thick dark hair and a thicker beard, neatly cut a finger length from his chin, sat in the oversized chair behind the desk, no trace of a proper education in the way he slouched. The seafarers were fond of dark leathers that didn’t stain and withstood the frequent rains well. It was rare to catch them in fine, delicate fabrics like the man wore. The deep V-shaped neckline exposed a hairy chest, a thin golden chain gleaming from within the darkness. Every finger held a ring, the precious metal thick and the gems understated. He was a treasure in a field of trash, his wealth and authority pouring off him in waves.

“Hollow, go get a chair,” Artor huffed as he pulled a clear bottle filled with brown liquid from his desk along with two glasses. “You three can go get a drink.”

Maxine’s escorts immediately followed the subtle order, Briar squeezing Maxine’s shoulder as she passed. Protecting her didn’t always mean fighting. Nothing would happen to her in “Big Shrimp’s” office unless he explicitly ordered it and if he was their enemy, there wouldn’t be much point in fighting. He was the kind of legend that gave the city its reputation; he had made a name for himself on a hauler fighting abyssal creatures before being blooded in the land raids. His wealth was invested in himself rather than vices, first in his personal strength and then into a ship of his own.

Tens of ambitious men started crews every year. The number that survived could be counted on one hand. It was a meat grinder. Those that survived weren’t only the strongest, they were the meanest and the craftiest. Several decades on, the man was a pillar of the dubious community and had stretched the tendrils of his influence far beyond the coast.

That was why she chose him. He was used to dealing with the other powers of the kingdom and respected titles more than his peers.

He was still a pirate at heart though and it would be perilous to forget it.

Jack returned in short order with her chair. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sent out of the room like her guards. It made her uncomfortable, but she did her best to keep it off her face.

“Hollow should have told you this is about Quest.”

“Is the city really gone?” she blurted out. She knew the answer but some part of her refused to let go of her disbelief. It was fantastical. There were times when remote villages were evacuated when threatened by powerful manabeasts, but it hadn’t happened in decades. An entire city being destroyed? Hard to conceptualize, let alone believe.

“Not completely. The attack was aimed at the guilds, so they avoided the northside of the city.”

Maxine sighed softly. Howie’s bar was located in the Myriad Zone, so he was safe. Her greatest fear was the brewer losing his life. Any other complication could be handed by throwing enough money at it and her venture in Graywatch had been profitable enough that she wouldn’t be broken by a few unexpected expenses. “Do you know what happened?”

“The big idea but not the details. Seems the guilds got into it with a noblewoman and got their collective asses handed to them by a creature that sounds like it crawled out of the darkest hole in the sea.” His dark brown eyes narrowed. “A Lourianne Tome.”

“Ah. If I’m here to validate that information—"

“No, my sources are good. One of them is my son. He’s got connections to this Tome woman. Says he’s in her crew, the damn idiot. I didn’t care, thinking he was chasing a skirt as usual, but then the idiot lost his mind and started saying things about how I needed to cooperate with this woman in the future. Defied me to stay close to her. I was going to string the boy up by his toes the second I got my hands on him but now…now that woman has just taken on a whole city and utterly crushed them. Crazy as it sounds, I’m thinking my boy might have his head on straight for a change. You’re going to clear this mess up.”

“I…know of Lou, more than most, but if I don’t know her closest secrets.”

“You know anything about a city-destroying beast?”

“No, but I know how she might have come across it.” Maxine licked her lips. This was an opportunity. Maxine’s biggest vulnerability was lack of combat potential. The more successful she was, the bigger the target she would paint on her back and she didn’t have sufficient deterrents to warn off the animals around her.

She didn’t trust her sponsor either. For now, Big Shrimp indulged her ideas of partnership but if the profit was big enough, he’d strong arm her and there wasn’t a thing her last name could do about it.

It was known she had a relationship with Lou. If the pirates were afraid of the noblewoman and she framed that relationship the right way, it’d go a long way to securing her future.

“Have you heard of summoning?”