"Sail ho!" a lookout yelled. "Drifted canvas, starboard!"
Crew swarmed to the rail, voices tumbling over one another. Idran was already there, spyglass up.
Silas moved beside him, careful to keep his clerk mask in place. Through the glass he saw it—a shattered small boat riding the rough waves, mast snapped clean. A single figure clung to the hull, lips moving in what looked like a frantic chant—maybe a prayer, maybe a curse, maybe both at once.
"Castaway?" Silas asked.
"Or bait," First Mate Brell grunted. Scar from brow to jaw, voice like gravel.
Idran's jaw tightened. "We don't leave men to drown. Drop a line."
Lines flew. Hooks snagged the wreck. The castaway hauled himself hand over hand like muscle memory kept him alive.
He wore deep navy wool and a cheap belt pouch—maybe standard issue for sailors here. Silas logged the detail for later; every world had its own uniform logic.
Up close, the man moved like someone who'd climbed more rigging than office stairs. Cheekbones sharp enough to cut rope, eyes alert even while he pretended to sag.
His soaked shirt clung to his skin, torn at the seams, rope burn spiraling his arm. His fingers clenched a splintered bit of mast like it was the last piece of the world.
Spray flecked the deckhands' forearms as they leaned out with boat hooks. The castaway coughed up seawater and gratitude in equal measure when they hauled him over the rail.
"Bless the Crown," he rasped, collapsing onto the deck. "Wife caught me visiting a dockside fiddler—one of those tavern violinists. I stole our skiff and fled. Storm broke the mast, tossed me clear. Been floating two days."
Silas had no idea if "dockside fiddler" was code or confession, so he simply filed the phrase beside all the other Thalorian quirks he'd catalog later.
"Could be bait," Brell repeated.
"Then we cut the hook if pirates show," Idran said.
The crew traded nervous glances. Brell kept scanning the horizon, pirate-scenario drills clearly tattooed into her bones. Silas logged the caution; paranoia and prudence looked similar at sea.
Laughter rippled through the crew anyway. Even Brell snorted.
"Look at that—he's flashing a Gild," one deckhand muttered, half-wary, half-envious.
The man dug a coin out of the pouch still tied to his waist—a gleaming Gild stamped with Varis's profile on one face and the Crown's laurel ring on the other. No barnacles. No tarnish. Far too clean for someone adrift.
Gild. New word. Looked like gold, minted and proud. Silas filed it for later—new coin name, possible bribe tier, another detail to pry open when he had time.
The man pressed it into Idran's palm. "For the bunk," he said. "I may be a fool, but I pay my shame tax."
Idran weighed the coin, then closed his fist around it. "Fine. Spare cabin's next to Master Mora." He looked to Silas. "Clerk, you scream if he snores."
Perfect. Crown logistics still managed to bunk a rescued stranger next to him. Silas kept his smile polite and reminded himself he was here to observe, log, and learn—not start throwing accusations before he knew the local rules.
Still, better to learn the man's habits up close than lose track of him on a crowded deck.
Silas offered the rescued man a nod, curiosity edging out the unease crawling along his spine.
Few castaways on Earth kept their coin purse tied on. Maybe Thalorian sailors did things differently. Maybe Crown crews had standing rules about rescuing their own.
Either way, the story played well and the crew relaxed around it, so Silas smiled, noted the detail, and let the ship's momentum carry the moment away.
The man introduced himself between coughs. "Jed Roone. Shipwright. Terrible husband. Grateful survivor."
"Arlen Mora," Silas said smoothly. "Clerk. Mediocre sleeper. Keep the snoring down, and we'll get along."
Jed grinned, all uneven teeth and practiced charm. "Wouldn't dream of disturbing official work."
The words were harmless, but something in the rhythm plucked a string in Silas's memory—the tone of men who knew exactly which buttons to press back in Seattle's alleys.
He tucked the observation away with the rest of the day's curiosities and followed Jed back below decks, promising himself he'd map this ship the way he used to map courier routes.
He also counted the crew who helped haul Jed aboard, memorizing who looked away when the Gild changed hands. Clerks obsessed over ledgers; this was the same instinct, keeping mental columns of sailors and favors instead of ink and parchment.
Sleep would have to wait until he knew which sailor snored, which hatch creaked, and where a clerk could stand without getting pitched overboard.
The mess hall smelled like salt, smoke, and cheap ale. Lanterns swung overhead, throwing gold light over the long tables.
Dinner was salted fish, boiled barley, and a stew so thin Silas could count the bottom of the bowl. Sailors swapped ghost stories about reefs that ate ships and patrons who paid with counterfeit copper.
Tin spoons clinked in imperfect rhythm, a beat he logged to match the ship's sway.
Silas chose a seat across from Jed Roone. He reintroduced himself loud enough for eavesdroppers—covers only stuck if other people repeated them—and because fishing a chatty survivor for intel beat drinking alone.
"Arlen Mora. Crown finally noticed Stoneveil's ledgers don't add up. They packed me in a crate and shipped me with the rest of the paperwork."
Jed's grin stayed easy until Silas added, "Crown." The man's eyelids flickered—a minuscule shuttering, gone before the next breath. Silas tucked it under Suspicious Twitch #1.
Jed lifted his tin cup in salute. "Jed Roone. Shipwright. Terrible husband. Gifted swimmer, apparently."
Up close, Jed's hands told a story his smile didn't.
Rope calluses screamed shipwright, sure, but a faint gray-green sheen clung to his cuticles — the same stain Silas had started seeing on stillstone crates and tools. Maybe harmless. Maybe not. He let the possibility hang while he chewed.
"What's Stoneveil's deal?" Silas asked, spearing a cube of barley. "Crown whispers make it sound lively for a Crown tax port on East Sea."
Jed leaned in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur.
"New regent, Varis Calder. Likes his plaza wet. Three heads a day keeps the fear in play. He orders extra rain gutters carved into the stone so the blood drains prettily. Man cares about spectacle more than mercy."
Silas pretended to focus on his stew so Jed couldn't read the calculations behind his eyes. Maybe Jed was just a gossip addict with timing that could get him killed.
"He's got folks dreaming, though," Jed went on. "Some whisper about Sparkweave—either a person or a crew, depends on who you buy eel from. Mostly dockhands, a scholar or two. They promise the spark of hope'll catch. Personally, I think it's just one firebrand with a flair for speeches using the name like a banner."
He smirked. "Name fits. Spark of hope, or spark that burns everything down."
Silas let curiosity lace his tone. "And if Varis keeps chopping heads?"
Jed's fingers whitened around his cup. "Maybe he should be the one under the blade." He blew the words out on a laugh, trying to make them lighter than they felt.
"But what do I know? I'm just a man who slept with the wrong fiddler."
"If he's that bad," Silas said lightly, "maybe the blade ought to swing toward him for a change."
Jed's smile thinned. "Careful, Clerk. In Stoneveil, the wrong wish is usually granted."
Silas clocked the double standard: Jed could vent in whispers and blame nerves; a Crown clerk mouthing the same wish would paint a target on his back.
Silas observed every micro-expression, each slip of tongue. Jed's stories painted Varis like an artist obsessed with arterial spray.
The rest of the crew roared at jokes about angry wives and gullible nobles, passing sardines down the table and slapping backs. Silas laughed along, told a sanitized story about counting coins for bureaucrats who thought math was an opinion, and let everyone underestimate him.
When the watch bells tolled midnight, Silas excused himself, returned to his cabin, and went to work.
Sleep refused to show up, so Silas bribed his brain with work. The ship's tiny reading alcove held a stack of Crown circulars wrapped in wax. He cracked two open on his bunk and let the lantern burn low.
The reports were dry—shipment tallies, plaza arrest warrants, weather logs—but patterns leaked through.
One safety circular sketched stillstone ore and its dust: gray-green grit that clung to nails, clogged lungs, and left miners coughing stone-flecked phlegm. Another listed 'approved stillstone restraints and seals' shipped out from Crown for East Sea export.
Stoneveil blasted bells for big events—curfew, executions, alarms—nothing fancy, just loud.
Regent Varis issued three execution orders on every rain-soaked plaza day. Stillstone quotas doubled the week before an uprising rumor spiked.
He spread the pages beside the porthole and mapped them against the mission UI glowing in his sigil. Seven days to kill the regent, spark an uprising, survive. Day one was already bleeding out under lantern light, and he still had a voyage to finish before Stoneveil.
Back on Earth, his biggest deadline had been a courier run across Seattle traffic. Now the Void Citadel owned his spine and rented him out to topple tyrants. Somewhere between those realities he was supposed to stay human.
He pictured Seattle's rain reflected in office windows. He missed subway noise and greasy takeout, missed having a name that was just his.
But the ledger in front of him didn't care about nostalgia. Varis Calder had to die, and every note Silas gathered tonight lowered the odds of his own head rolling.
Only after he'd sketched the city's rough bell habits and tucked the reports under his pillow did he douse the lantern.
The porthole framed a slice of moonlit ocean. He let himself stare for five beats at the moonlit water. Survive long enough to make this insanity worth it, he told himself, then melted into the darkness he'd prepared.
[POV: Jed Roone]
Jed Roone woke in the gray hour before dawn, the night watch would swap and the ship still held its breath. Perfect.
He rolled from his cot in a practiced glide, toes landing silent on the boards.
The "shipwright" mask dropped with his first breath, but nerves still fluttered—Varis didn't hire second-rate blades, and failure carried a guillotine guarantee.
He whispered the mantra he always used before a job: Cut clean, disappear, forget the face of the one you will take so you can sleep later.
In the cramped glow of a hooded lantern he retrieved the dagger strapped inside his calf wrap, fingers moving by habit over the knotted cord that held it.
The blade was narrow and workmanlike, brass guard dulled by salt, spine nicked from prying open stubborn crates—nothing ornamental, everything meant to slip past ribs.
A small glass vial came next, pried from a waxed seam in the pack he'd smuggled from his skiff and wedged under his cot.
The fluid inside shined a swampy green, thick as syrup, smelling faintly of crushed mint and copper; a hand-labeled Crown apothecary sticker still clung to the glass. Crown poison for a Crown auditor. Regent Calder has quite the taste.
Jed levered the cork free with the dagger tip, let it clatter to the boards, and dipped only the edge.
The poison clung in a thin sheen that hissed when it touched air. Enough to stop a bull, more than enough for a sleepy clerk.
"Time to wipe the books clean," he reminded himself. Varis's phrase, not his. Calder was tired of Crown auditors sniffing his stillstone numbers; every missing crate got blamed on Leviathan raids while the real ore bled quietly into black-market holds.
Jed pictured Calder's cold eyes appraising his worth while commissioning him for this job and let the memory burn away hesitation.
He slipped a wire lockpick from the seam inside his sleeve and padded into the corridor.
Moonlight snuck through the companionway hatch, silvering nailheads and outlining the ladder up to the main deck.
He counted steps under his breath—three to the ladder he would use to flee if it went loud, five to the clerk's door. He flattened his palm on the rough door plank to steady his breathing.
The pick kissed the lock in a practiced rhythm: push, lift, twist. Tumblers sighed open on the third turn. He eased the door until the hinges barely whispered.
Arlen's bunk held a rise under the blanket, the shape of shoulders and a head turned toward the ship's wall. Jed crept close, dagger raised, breath shallow. No crunch of movement, no whispered prayers—just the quiet hush of surf against hull.
He hovered for half a heartbeat, ensuring the angle would pierce heart and lungs, then mouthed a quick harbor prayer sailors used whenever a life was lost on the sea, hoping the Tide Mother looked away tonight.
He'd long ago made peace with work like this—one day the knife would land on him instead. Begging wouldn't change the bill when it came due.
The covers exploded when he slashed. Feathers burst out, drifting in the thin moonlight leaking through the porthole.
The blade hit nothing solid—just pillows shaped into a body. Where's the real clerk? Ice slid under his ribs, then a metal spike answered from behind. Raw heat flooded his chest, stealing his air. Jed managed a wet, startled groan that died in his throat.
"Argh!"
[POV: Silas Quinn]
Minutes earlier, the soft complaint of metal in a lock had cracked Silas awake. He cursed himself for sleeping deep in a foreign world in a foreign hull with a regent on his kill list.
Floorboards sighed; hinges ticked. He threw the spare pillows into a crude Silas-shape, yanked the blanket over them, and slid into the corner behind the door, heart battering his ribs.
For a breath he was back in Seattle, Evan's guards closing in, alley slush on his boots, concussion ringing in his ears. I refuse to die stupid twice.
A broad shadow filled the doorway—the same outline he'd clocked standing on the skiff, the same "castaway" who flashed a too-clean Gild and traded jokes over stew.
Jed Roone. Not just lucked into a bunk; planted himself next door. Silas's grip tightened. If Jed was here for Arlen Mora, who had sent him over?
A bitter thought flickered. I haven't even started on Varis yet—who did I anger enough on my day one in Thaloria to send a blade my way?
When Jed's blade tore through the decoy blanket, Silas moved. He rammed his dagger between Jed's shoulder blades first, aiming for center mass and feeling it slide between ribs—too low for the heart, just deep enough to steal breath.
Jed snarled and slashed backward on reflex; the poisoned blade carved a molten line through the bunk post instead of Silas's ribs.
When his dagger scraped along the bunk rail, a droplet fell. It hit iron and sizzled.
Acid? Poison? Silas shoved the fear aside—miss and you die—and only then slammed his shoulder into Jed, pinning him in the narrow space.
Not again, Silas thought, teeth clenched. You don't get to be the one who finishes me.
Adrenaline roared in his ears; sweat needled down his spine; the ship's gentle sway turned into a pendulum of risk. He slammed the assassin against the bulkhead hard enough to make the planks groan.
He shoved his dagger toward soft parts, praying he'd picked the right angle. Silas bared his teeth, breath hot on Jed's ear, and drove the point home.
Metal scraped along a rib before biting through with a wet crunch; hot blood slicked his hand and the nausea hit like a punch. Jed convulsed, breath blasting out, grip faltering and going slack under Silas's weight.
"Who sent you?" Silas demanded, voice coming out hoarse. Rage, panic, and disbelief tangled in his throat—first world or second, betrayal always wore a friendly face. His arms shook and he couldn't tell if it was fear or muscle fatigue.
"A regent who hates foreigners messing with his ledgers," Jed choked. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth, yet his eyes stayed sharp—calculating angles, watching Silas's grip, hunting for a weakness even with a dagger in his ribs.
"Said you'd notice the stillstone math. Asked me to wipe the books clean."
Jed tried to jerk the dagger toward his own throat, maybe to deny Silas the kill or take him with it.
Silas, who had exactly one failed assassination attempt on his resume, reacted on instinct: he stripped the blade with a hook-and-twist he'd learned watching bar fights, then smashed Jed's wrist against the wall until bones ground together. Pain loosened Jed's grip. Silas pinned the arm with his forearm, muscles screaming, whatever hissed on that blade burned his nose.
"Why me?" he asked, mostly to fill the air so he wouldn't focus on the blood soaking his sleeve. "I just want to count rocks."
Stillstone's 'strategic mineral' now? Worth assassin money? What is this, unicorn poop? If the Crown calls it strategic, Varis skimming it explains a lot.
If rocks sparked kill orders, Thaloria's ledgers were stranger than Seattle's black books.
Jed coughed laughter that sprayed red.
"Calder says Crown clerks see missing stillstone like blood on snow," Jed rasped. "He doesn't like ledger rats who notice where the ore goes."
There was no plea in Jed's eyes now—just the flat, tired understanding of a man who'd always known his job ended with someone else's blade. Whatever fear he had, he'd buried it under acceptance a long time ago.
The poison fumes made Silas's eyes water. He slammed the dagger back into Jed's chest to end the conversation.
The body sagged, weight heavy enough to drag his arm down. Silence rushed in, broken only by the ship's spine creaking and his own heart hammering.
The System reacted faster than his stomach.
[Talent: Devourer — Activated]
[You have defeated: Jed Roone (Rank 1 - Level 7).]
[Fractional Free Attribute Points acquired: 0.52]
[First Kill Bonus: Sigil Storage unlocked (2m³). Access via forearm brand.]
[Loot Credited: 30 Void Coins.]
[Skill Card Acquired: Dagger Mastery — Common (White).]
[Skill Seed Acquired: Toxin Mastery — Uncommon (Green).]
He braced a hand on the bunk, knuckles white. Useful talent, sure, but this Citadel never lets me forget I'm eating stolen pieces of a living person who just died.
He glanced at Jed's body to make sure all limbs were still attached—nothing missing, yet Devourer had definitely taken something. Memories? Strength? Whatever it was, it made his skin crawl.
He counted slow until the chill receded and his stomach stopped threatening mutiny. "Congrats," he muttered. "You're officially a cannibal made of math."