The dawn broke, a pale, ethereal light filtering through the canopy of the sky island. The Sea Serpent, a beast burdened with its prize, slipped away from the shore, its wake a long, white scar on the placid sea of clouds. They did not look back.
The journey down was the opposite of the journey up. It was not a violent, chaotic ascent, but a slow, controlled descent. Takeshi, using the ancient codex as a guide, identified a series of vertical air currents, 'waterfalls' of descending air that flowed from the island down to the sea below. It was a treacherous, winding staircase of wind, a path that required constant, delicate adjustments.
Arima was at the helm, his hand resting on the Sword of Triton. He wasn't fighting the currents; he was talking to them. His will, a cold, commanding force, guided the ship through the turbulent flows, a skilled pilot steering a vessel through a river of rapids. The ship responded, the animated rigging and sails making minute, impossible adjustments that a normal crew could never hope to achieve. They rode the windfalls down, a controlled plunge back to the world of men.
They broke through the bottom of the cloud-sea and emerged into the familiar, chaotic blues of the Grand Line. The transition was a shock, the sudden, brutal return of salt, and heat, and the crushing, familiar weight of the real world.
They had the mast. And they had lost a man. The balance of their journey was a red, bleeding number on a ledger of profit and loss.
The return voyage was a grim, silent affair. The Sea Serpent, with its new, heavy log lashed to its deck, was slower, more sluggish. The grief aboard was a physical presence, a damp, cold chill that no amount of sun could burn away. Lefty, now the de facto deck boss, was a transformed man. The boisterous, slightly dim-witted thug was gone, replaced by a hard, quiet professional who ran his crew with a grim, unsmiling efficiency. He had been promoted by blood, and he wore the responsibility like a shroud.
Arima spent the long days in the captain's quarters, cleaning his weapons, studying the charts, and staring at the cat. The scars from the sky-serpent's attack were a constant, nagging presence, a map of a failure he intended to rectify. The regeneration had healed the wounds, but it had left the memory of the pain, a ghost that lingered in the newly formed tissue. It was a reminder. A debt.
He also spent a significant amount of time in the system's shop. He had a mountain of Berry, but hoarding it was pointless. Gold was a tool, and tools were meant to be used. He scrolled through the endless, bizarre listings of the black market, not with the eye of a collector, but with the cold, calculating gaze of a general arming for war. He looked at the prices for Sea Prism Stone ammunition, for reinforced armour plating, for exotic alchemical compounds. He was building a shopping list, and the price was always measured in blood and Berry. He didn't buy anything yet. He was just learning the cost of the world.
When their island finally rose from the sea, a jagged, familiar shape on the horizon, it felt like a different world. The squalid chaos of Mock Town, the impossible beauty of the sky island, the silent, haunted grief on his own ship—it all made this small, brutal kingdom of his seem absurdly normal. Comforting, even.
The reception was subdued. Higgs was waiting at the pier, a pillar of stoic duty, but he took one look at the heavy, metallic-grey log on the deck and the grim, haunted faces of the crew, and he knew the price had been high. He didn't ask. He simply nodded, a curt, professional acknowledgement of a successful, but costly, operation.
Silas and Kairi were at the shipyard, their faces a mixture of awe and disbelief. The old shipwright, a man who had worked with wood for sixty years, approached the Ironwood log with the reverence of a pilgrim approaching a holy relic. He didn't touch it. He just stared, his eyes tracing the fine, metallic grain, his face a mask of grudging, defeated wonder.
"It's real," he whispered, running a hand through his greasy grey hair. "The legends are true. It's not wood. It's... it's solidified lightning. The density... I've never seen anything like it."
Kairi was already there, her codex in one hand, a small, intricate brass tool she had fashioned herself in the other. She was running the tool over the surface of the log, its needle making a faint, scratching sound against the metallic bark. "The resonant frequency is off the charts," she breathed, her eyes wide with a scholar's ecstatic discovery. "It's not just strong. It's... tuned. It vibrates in harmony with the planet's magnetic field. A mast made from this... it wouldn't just catch the wind. It would... it would conduct it."
Arima watched them, a silent, impatient observer. He didn't care about the science or the magic. He cared about results. "Can you use it?"
Silas looked from the impossible log to the scarred, silent captain. The old man's face was a battleground between a lifetime of ingrained craftsmanship and the soul-crushing reality of a world that made his experience obsolete. He let out a long, slow sigh, the sound of a man conceding a war he didn't even know he was fighting. "Use it? Son, this wood doesn't get 'used'. You make a petition to it, and it decides whether or not to grant it. The tools I have... they'd shatter on the first cut. We can't shape it. We can only... ask it to change its shape."
The 'asking' was a brutal, gruelling process that took over a month. It was a symphony of alchemy and engineering, a blend of the codex's ancient wisdom and Silas's begrudging, hard-won experience. They could not cut the Ironwood like any other wood. Instead, they used a process described in the Skinner's codex as 'singing the stone'. They built a series of massive, resonant chambers around the sections they needed, and using alchemical solutions derived from the treated Sea King tendons, they induced controlled vibrations. They literally played a note, a deep, subsonic hum that was felt more than heard, and the impossibly hard wood would, over days, fracture along a predetermined line, a clean break that was less a cut and more a geological fault line.
The shipyard became a 24-hour operation. The remaining crew, now a hardened unit of fifty men who had sailed into the belly of the abyss and stared down a goddess, worked with a fanatical, almost religious devotion. They had seen the cost of this wood. They had seen it carried back on the deck of a ship haunted by the ghost of their friend. Every drop of sweat, every strained muscle, was a payment on that debt.
Finally, the day came. The main mast, a colossal, spear-like spire of metallic-grey Ironwood, was winched into position. It was taller and thicker than the original mast, its surface a dark, swirling pattern that seemed to drink the light. Takeshi and a team of the strongest men guided the base into the mast-step, a custom-fitted socket carved from a single block of the petrified Adam Wood.
The moment the two woods connected, a deep, resonant hum filled the entire shipyard. It was the same note they had heard when the tendons were integrated, but louder, purer, more complex. The mast began to glow with a soft, internal luminescence, a faint, silvery light that seemed to flow down from its tip and into the keel, completing the circuit. The hairline fractures in the Adam Wood, long since healed, flared with a sympathetic golden light. The treated tendons within the hull pulsed in response, a slow, rhythmic heartbeat.
The Queen Anne's Revenge was no longer a skeleton. She was a living, breathing instrument of war.
The final cost of the expedition was tallied in a quiet meeting in the captain's quarters. Arima sat at the head of the table, a heavy, black box before him. Inside was the gold from the Serpent's Maw. The gold was real. Stumps was dead. The math was cold, simple, and brutal.
"The price of one mast was one man," he said, his voice a low, flat growl that left no room for sentiment. "The price of the other two masts, the yards, and the rigging will be paid in gold. Not in blood."
He slid the box to the centre of the table. "This is the operating budget. I'm putting a freeze on all personal spending. All profits from our current operations go into this ship. Every last berry."
Higgs, Lefty, and Rizzo nodded. There were no arguments. The price of the sky island had been seared into their souls. They were no longer just a crew. They were investors in a monument to their own mortality.
The weeks turned into a month. The work on the Queen Anne's Revenge continued, the shipyard a relentless 24-hour operation of focused, grim energy. They returned to the sky island twice more. The second trip was a purely business affair. No exploration. No hunting. They went, they cut, they collected. They returned with the second mast and the timber for the mizzenmast and the yards. The third trip was for the final pieces, the smaller but no less vital components. There were no more monster encounters. They had learned the forest's language, its rhythm. They moved through it like ghosts, paying their respects and taking what they needed with a cold, professional efficiency. The price was paid in gold, and the gold, after the initial cost of the pilot, was abundant. The treasure from the Serpent's Maw, carefully parcelled out by Higgs's most trusted men, bought them a license to print money in the black markets of the Grand Line.
Finally, the day came. The Queen Anne's Revenge stood complete in the dry dock, no longer a skeleton but a monstrous, beautiful predator of the seas. The three Ironwood masts rose like spears from a fortress of black and gold wood, their metallic-grey bark shimmering with a faint, internal light. The hull, a fusion of petrified Adam Wood and living, treated timber, was bound together by the sinewy, black tendons that pulsed with a slow, rhythmic heartbeat of power. The rigging, a complex web of hemp and steel, was not just rope; it was a nervous system, ready to conduct the will of its master through the Sword of Triton.
She sat there, a dark, silent, brooding presence that seemed to absorb the light around her, a ship that looked more like a weapon of war than a vessel of trade. She was an insult to the sea, a statement of intent made from the bones of monsters and the dreams of madmen.
"The crew," Higgs said, standing with Arima on the pier, looking at the finished ship. "We have a core of fifty veterans. The men who have been with us since the beginning, and the ones who proved their worth on the sky island. But she's a big ship, Captain. For a full sailing complement, for marines, for gun crews... we'll need at least another hundred. A hundred and fifty to be at full strength."
"We'll hire," Arima grunted, his gaze fixed on the ship. He was not looking at the wood or the rigging. He was looking at the potential. At the weapon. "Not locals. They're soft. Tavern-scrap. We need men who understand the price of things. Mercenaries. Veterans from the Grand Line. Men who have fought and killed for a living and are looking for a better paycheck."
"Men like that have loyalty to one thing: the money," Higgs countered, his pragmatic soldier's mind running the numbers. "The moment the pay runs out, or someone offers more, they'll turn. We can't trust them."
"We don't," Arima said, a cold, hard certainty in his voice. "We don't hire them for their loyalty. We hire them for their greed. We'll pay them better than anyone else. We'll give them a share of the profits that will make them kings in their own right. A mercenary will die for gold if you make him believe that gold is his heaven. And if he turns... we'll make an example of him. Greed is a chain, Higgs. You just have to know how to hold it."
Higgs nodded. It was a brutal, cynical logic he understood. "There's a place. An island a few weeks sail from our usual entrance to the Grand Line from the Eel's Nest route. It's a free port, a neutral ground run by a syndicate of information brokers. Not a navy or a Yonko's territory. Every kind of scum and sellsail in this sector of the Grand Line passes through there eventually, looking for work, or a place to spend their blood money. It's a slave market with a paycheck."
"Good," Arima said. "Ready the Queen for her maiden voyage. Rizzo, you're navigating. Takeshi, you're with me. Higgs, you have the island. And Lefty, get your new deck crew ready. This ship has a taste for blood. Don't disappoint her."
The next dawn was a different kind of departure. There was no fear of the unknown, no nervous energy. There was a cold, hard pride. The pier was lined with the entire population of their small kingdom, the shipwrights, the labourers, the merchants. They stood in a silent, reverent crowd, watching the ship that their work, their sweat, and in one case, their blood, had built. They were not just looking at a ship. They were looking at their power made manifest.
The Queen Anne's Revenge slid out of the dry dock, a dark, silent, seamless predator. She didn't move with the clumsy, ponderous grace of a normal ship. She flowed. The ropes and sails, animated by the unseen will of the Sword of Triton, moved with a silent, liquid efficiency, a perfect, coordinated symphony that required no shouted commands or deck-gang labour. She was a ghost ship in every sense of the word, a vessel that lived without a crew, and killed without a conscience.
Arima stood at the helm, his hand resting on the pommel of the Sword of Triton. He could feel it. The ship was no longer a collection of wood and iron. It was a single, unified entity. He could feel the thrum of the living hull, the resonance of the Ironwood masts, the pulse of the sinewy tendons. He could feel the deck beneath his feet as if it were his own skin, the mast as if it were a bone in his arm. The Sword was not a tool anymore. It was a nervous system, and he was the brain.
Ch30
The voyage to the free port was a revelation. The Queen Anne's Revenge was not a ship that sailed; she hunted. They encountered a storm, a savage, roiling typhoon that would have sent any other vessel running for cover. Arima simply sailed into it. He could feel the wind and the waves not as obstacles, but as energy to be harnessed, currents to be commanded. The ship responded, the rigging shifting to form a perfect aerodynamic shape, the hull flexing to absorb the force of the waves, turning the storm's fury into their own propulsion. They cut through the heart of the tempest, a black shard of indifferent violence, and emerged on the other side without a single rag out of place.
They encountered a pirate crew, a fleet of five sloops flying a crude, blood-red banner. They were hunters, preying on the merchant lanes. When they saw the Queen Anne's Revenge, a lone, dark ship moving with an impossible, silent speed, they mistook her for a straggler, easy prey. They moved to encircle her, their cannons run out, their crews leering from the decks, their bloodlust a stink on the wind.
Arima didn't even give an order. He just felt the intent. Kill.
The ship moved. Not a turn, but a lunge. One of the sloops, a scruffy-looking vessel with a crew of a hundred, was simply... gone. There was no cannon fire, no grappling hooks, no boarding party. The Queen Anne's Revenge flowed past it, and the ropes, animated by the sword's will, lashed out. They weren't just ropes. They were serpents. They coiled around the sloop's mast, snapping it like a twig. They wrapped around its hull, cracking the timbers, tearing it apart. The sloop was dismembered in the space of a single, silent heartbeat, its crew screaming as they were dumped into the churning sea.
The other four sloops froze. The leers on their faces had vanished, replaced by a wide-eyed, primal terror. This was not a battle. This was an execution.
"Rizzo," Arima said, his voice a calm, conversational tone that was more terrifying than any roar. "Take us away. Leave them to their terror."
The Queen Anne's Revenge turned, a single, fluid motion that defied the wind and the waves, and sailed on, leaving behind four crippled pirate crews and a sea full of drowning, screaming men. They hadn't even fired a single shot. The weapon was the ship itself.
The free port was a cesspool called "Siren's Call," a festering pustule on the rump of a nameless, jungle-choked island. It wasn't a town; it was a sprawling, chaotic shantytown built on a natural harbour, a collection of ramshackle piers, floating markets, and leaning, multi-story bordellos that looked like they were held together by grime and desperation. It was a place without laws, a temporary haven where the only rule was that you could do anything you wanted, as long as you could pay the price.
The Queen Anne's Revenge drew a crowd the moment she entered the harbour. She was a ghost ship, a myth given form, and the hardened, cynical sellsails and mercenaries of the Grand Line stared at her with a mixture of avarice and primal fear. They had all heard the whispers over the last few weeks, the ghost stories told in taverns about a dark ship that moved without a crew and tore fleets apart without firing a shot. Now the ghost was in their harbour.
Arima didn't bother with a longboat. He walked to the railing, and a rope, a sinewy black tendril from the ship's rigging, uncoiled and lowered itself to the pier, forming a perfect, stable ladder. He descended, followed by Takeshi, and Lefty, who was flanked by four of his most trusted, hard-faced deckhands. They were a walking statement of power, an invasion force of five.
The crowd on the pier parted, a sea of scarred, tattooed humanity making way for the men they knew, with an instinctive certainty, were not to be trifled with. The air was thick with the stench of rot, cheap liquor, and cheap ambition.
They made their way to a three-story, stone building that was the most solid structure in the entire port. This was the "Auction House," not of goods, but of men. It was run by a broker, a neutral party who guaranteed the contracts and took a hefty cut. The broker was a man named "Silas," a weaselly little creature with a permanently ingratiating smile and eyes that missed nothing. He was not to be confused with their shipwright; this was a different, altogether more unpleasant breed of parasite.
"Arima-san!" the broker simpered, bowing so low his nose almost touched the floor. He knew who Arima was. News travelled fast in the Grand Line, especially news of a man with a new, terrifying ship and a bottomless purse. "An honour! A true honour! Your arrival... it has... livened up the market! Your ship, she is a legend! A masterpiece!"
"She's looking for a crew," Arima said, his voice a flat, bored monotone that cut through the broker's sycophantic babble. He didn't break stride, walking past the little man and into the main hall of the auction house.
The hall was a cavernous room, a chaotic marketplace of human misery. Cages, pens, and iron collars lined the walls. But these were not the wretched, broken slaves of a common market. These were mercenaries, sellsails, and bounty hunters. Men and women, hardened by a life of violence, now reduced to livestock, their skills and histories listed on chalkboards beside their pens like the attributes of a prized bull. They were here by choice, selling their sword for a term of service, a gamble that the next contract would be the one that made them rich, or at least kept them from a debtor's grave.
"I have specimens, Arima-san! The very best!" the broker chirped, scurrying to keep up. "Former Marines dishonourably discharged! Veteran crews from defeated pirate fleets! Master gunners from the East Blue! Even a few... specialities. Individuals with... unique talents."
Arima ignored him. He walked the rows of the market, his scarred, tattooed face an unreadable mask. He wasn't looking at the chalkboards or the braggarts who were flexing their muscles and shouting their qualifications. He was looking at their eyes. He was looking for the one thing the broker couldn't sell: the cold, hard emptiness of a professional killer. The dead-eyed look of a man who had long ago traded his soul for a sharper blade or a faster gun.
He stopped in front of a pen holding a dozen men. They were a crew, a tight-knit unit that had obviously sailed together for years. They were hard, wiry men, with the weathered, salt-etched faces of men who had spent their lives on the sea. Their leader, a huge, bald man with a brutal scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to the corner of his mouth, stared back at him, a look of pure, defiant pride in his eyes.
"The 'Riptide' crew," the broker whispered, reading the look. "Good men. Loyal to each other. Their captain got himself killed in a bar fight over a woman. Without a ship or a captain, they're broke. Solid sailors, all of them. A bargain at... five million for the lot."
Arima walked to the front of the pen. "Your captain was a fool who died for nothing," he said, his flat, emotionless voice carrying through the cage. The men bristled, their hands clenching into fists. "You followed a fool. That makes you fools. I don't hire fools."
The scarred leader's face flushed with anger. "We served under 'Gallows' Garrick for ten years! He was a good captain! We took a dozen Marine galleons and put the fear of the sea into half the East Blue!"
"And now he's dead," Arima countered, his voice dropping to a low, menacing growl. "And you're in a cage selling yourself. A good captain keeps his men out of cages. A good captain makes sure that when he falls, his men are set for life. Your captain was an idiot who got himself shanked over a piece of tail, and he left you with nothing. You are not loyal. You are stupid. I have no use for you."
He turned and walked away, leaving the Riptide crew sputtering with impotent rage, their pride a more effective cage than the iron bars.
The broker, flustered, scurried to keep up. "A-an astute observation, Arima-san! A very... very keen insight! Perhaps you're looking for a different... quality? A different skillset?"
Arima continued down the line, ignoring the shouted boasts and the flexed muscles. He was looking for a specific quality, a rare one in this place of peacocks and thugs. He was looking for a professional.
He found it in a corner, in a pen holding a single person. A woman. She was tall and lean, dressed in practical, dark leathers that were worn but meticulously clean. Her hair was cut short, a severe, practical style that framed a face that was handsome rather than pretty, with high cheekbones and a long, thin scar that ran along her jawline. She wasn't posturing or glaring. She was just sitting on a simple wooden bench, sharpening a long, thin-bladed knife with a whetstone, the slow, rhythmic shhhh... shhhh... of the stone on steel a steady, hypnotic beat in the chaotic noise of the market. Her movements were economical, precise. The work of a person who had done this a thousand times and would do it a thousand more, a ritual of focus, not of vanity.
"Ah," the broker said, his sycophantic smile tightening slightly. "That one. Her name is 'Shiv'. She's... an asset. But a... particular one. She works alone. A contract killer. An information specialist. Extremely expensive. And... particular about her employers. She turned down an offer from a Warlord's lieutenant last season."
Arima walked to the pen, ignoring the broker's nervous chatter. He watched her work for a long moment. The slow, steady rhythm. The focus. The utter lack of concern for her surroundings. She was a shark in a sardine tin, and she knew it.
"What's your specialty?" he asked, his voice a flat, conversational monotone.
The woman, Shiv, didn't look up from her work. The rhythmic shhhh... shhhh... of the whetstone didn't falter. "I find things. And I make people stop being a problem," she said, her voice a low, husky murmur, each word clear and precise, like a drop of water in a silent cave. "What's the pay?"
"Good," Arima said. "The work is... dangerous."
"Most things that pay well are," she replied, finally looking up. Her eyes were a startling, pale grey, the colour of a winter sea, and they were as empty and as deep as the ocean itself. They held no fear, no anger, no greed. Just a cold, patient curiosity. She sized him up in a single, dismissive glance, taking in the Yakuza tattoos, the scarred face, the aura of controlled violence. "You're the captain of that ghost ship. The one that tore the Red Sails fleet apart last week. You're building a crew."
"I'm building a weapon," Arima corrected, his tone unchanging.
"A crew is a component of a weapon," she countered, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. "I'm not a sailor. I get seasick on calm lakes."
"You won't be sailing," he said. "You'll be an officer. My Chief of... Security. Your job won't be to swab the deck. It will be to make sure the crew doesn't get any stupid ideas. And to handle problems that cannons and swords can't."
The rhythmic sharpening stopped. Shiv laid the knife and whetstone down on the bench beside her with a soft, deliberate click. The change in her posture was subtle but absolute. The professional observer became the focused predator.
"A spy-master and an executioner," she stated, her pale grey eyes locking onto his. "That requires a level of trust. I don't trust you, and you're clearly not a man who trusts easily."
"I trust competence," Arima said, the words a flat, unarguable truth. "And a clear contract. The pay is a million Berry a month, plus a percentage of the take on any... 'special operations' you run for me. You have free rein to hire your own people. Two, maybe three. No more. They answer to you. You answer to me. You betray me, I'll kill you. If you fail, I'll kill you. If a crewman so much as looks at me sideways, you kill him. The contract is for a one-year term. We renegotiate then. Understood?"
It was a brutal, blunt offer. A cage with gilded bars and a dragon for a keeper.
Shiv was silent for a long moment, her pale grey eyes calculating. She wasn't weighing the risk. She was calculating the profit margin. A steady, high-income job with a powerful, if terrifying, employer. The opportunity to build her own small power base under his protection. The chance to work with a weapon like the Queen Anne's Revenge... that was a variable that changed the entire equation.
"Two million," she countered, her voice as calm and steady as her knife work. "And I choose my people from the market. Their contracts are my responsibility. I want a writ of authority, signed by you. And my own cabin."
Arima grunted. A haggle. He respected that. It meant she understood value. "Done."
He turned to the broker, who was sweating profusely, a weasel caught between two wolves. "Her contract. Her people. And ten of the hardest-looking bastards you have. Not crews. Solo operators. Ex-Marines, ex-bounty hunters. Men who are used to taking orders and getting paid. I want a full complement of one hundred and fifty. Have them at the main pier by sundown. And get me a decent cook. I'm tired of sailors' slop."
He tossed a heavy bag of Berry to the broker. "That's for the contracts. The rest is paid to them, in cash, on the ship. You skim from that, and I'll make a necklace out of your teeth."
The broker, whose smile had vanished entirely, simply bowed and scurried away, a man with a very dangerous, very profitable task to perform.
"Lefty," Arima said, turning to his new deck boss. "Take four men. Go to the armourer and the gunsmith. I want this ship armed. Top of the line. I don't care about the cost. Cannon, swivels, pistols, rifles. Enough to wage a small war. And get a supply of those alchemical fire-pots Kairi was working on."
"Aye, Captain," Lefty rumbled, a hard, eager light in his eyes. He was a man with a purpose now, and that purpose was to turn the Queen Anne's Revenge into a floating fortress. He and his men marched off, a grim, determined squad moving through the chaos of the port.
"Takeshi," Arima said, turning to the swordsman. "You're on recruiting duty. Follow the broker. Vet the men. I don't want thugs who look good in a fight. I want cold-blooded professionals who understand that discipline is the only thing that stands between them and a shallow grave. If they so much as hesitate to follow an order, leave them. We're not building a gang. We're building a crew for the Queen Anne's Revenge."
Takeshi gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. "Understood." He turned and walked away, a silent, deadly shadow moving through the crowded market, his calm, observational presence a far more intimidating filter than any loud-mouthed recruiter.
Arima was left alone with Shiv. The woman had not moved, her pale grey eyes watching the entire exchange with an unnerving, predatory stillness.
"I'll need a full manifest of the crew, their skills, and their debts," she said, her voice a low, practical murmur. "A crew's loyalty is a function of their fear of their captain and their fear of poverty. I need to know which way they'll jump when the shooting starts."
"You'll have it," Arima replied. "And I'll need a list of your people."
"I saw two," she said, her gaze shifting, pinpointing two other pens across the hall. "One. A giant of a North Blue man. Ex-Marine Gunnery Sergeant. Dishonourably discharged for refusing to fire on a civilian ship that was being used as a shield by pirates. A problem with authority, but a crack shot with anything that goes boom. His name is Borin. He won't take orders from a man he doesn't respect. You'll have to break him, or earn him."
"Two," she continued, her gaze moving to another cage. "The small, wiry one with the braided beard. Name's 'Quill'. He's not a fighter. He's a cartographer and a linguist. He charted half of the Grand Line before he got shipwrecked and lost all his maps. He's selling himself to raise the capital to start again. He's a coward, but he's a genius. A ship like this... a captain like you... you don't just need a map of the sea. You need a map of the world."
Arima followed her gaze. The first man, Borin, was a mountain of scarred muscle, a man who looked like he had been carved from granite and then beaten with a rock. He was staring at the floor, a look of sullen, simmering anger on his face. The second, Quill, was small and twitchy, with nervous, darting eyes and fingers that were constantly moving, tracing imaginary coastlines on the floor of his cage. He was exactly the kind of weak, clever little rat that a strong organisation needed to handle its brains.
"Done," Arima said. "Get them. The rest are your problem."