Potential

[INDK]

(closed)

Damon smiled. He liked the Anebrilith ports, if for no other reason than it was so rare to find the same kind of mix of smells anywhere else in the world. On good days at the harbor, it felt as though every beautiful smell had come together to create a savory smorgasboard of aroma. The earthy dry smell of the golden wheat fields cascaded against the salty tones of fresh surf, mixed in with all the exotic wares moving in and out of the harbor. Salvarian animal pelts, spices from Fallien, things that Damon hadn’t known existed were in Anebrilith now. The boy smiled. This was why kept coming to Raiaera. The continent supposedly held a great deal of his earlier conquests, but that had little to do with Anebrilith’s appeal. Ever since regaining his quickening ability, Damon had been traveling all over Althanas on a whim, ending up in some particularly odd locations. Now, he wanted to know what their was out there in the world for him to discover, and the stories that he heard from sailors at Anebrilith port always managed to whet his imagination.

Thus, Damon was quite satisfied as he sat on a barrel near the Gwalior, listening to a couple of young deckhands tell tall tales about their times at sea. The boy ate up every one of the stories, taking it for granted that the two storytellers had performed all the fantastic feats that they claimed they had. The boy occasionally interjected with questions, but he had been so enamored with the tales that he hadn’t even thought to question their veracity.

“Wow…” was all Damon said, and he said it very often. His eyes were wide and he was truly eager, only to be disappointed when the ship’s captain called the two deckhands back up onto the Gwalior.

“Hey there,” a blue eyed elf called out. “You kids get back on here and earn your keep. Rooms don’t clean themselves just because the crew’s out on shore leave you know…”

The two deckhands and alleged adventurers looked at each other sheepishly. “We uhh… we clean things in between our missions… yeah… that’s it” one of them said, fumbling over his explanation.

The other nodded. “Yeah… yeah… that’s it. Everyone has to clean from time to time.”

Damon merely nodded. “Okay, see you guys later… can you tell me more about when you defeated the Fallien Sandworm Seamonster?”

The two deckhands looked up to notice that their captain had continued to listen on, and ran straight back up the gangplank to their captain’s hearty laughter. Damon chuckled a bit, unsure why he was supposed to be laughing, but intent on joining in the fun.

“You know those kids are telling you tales straight out of their heads don’t you?” the captain replied warmly. “They’ve been on this ship for six months, and at the first sign of a storm, they head to lock themselves in a broom closet somewhere. If they weren’t good about their jobs, I’d have sent them back to work in an inn somewhere.”

Damon was shocked. He felt a bit betrayed by the deckhands, especially because they had told him such amazing tales. The boy had already made plans that after leaving Anebrilith he would visit the Golden City of Alerar and the Flying Mountains of Salvar. “All of them are made up?” Damon asked dejectedly, hoping that perhaps one of them contained a grain of truth. “Even about the sea ports of Haidia?”

The captain laughed even more heartily. “My boy, you can’t get to Haidia by sea. Precious few know how to get to Haidia at all. The High Bard knows well enough that I’d have no idea.” He chuckled profusely, tears of mirth streaming down from his blue eyes. In ten years of sailing, the captain had never heard a story so incredulous. However, the elf was not without sympathy. He noticed now that Damon was walking away from the Gwalior with his heart broken, as if his entire day had been a waste. Hoping to redeem the day in the boy’s out, the captain called out to Damon. “But you know what! Hop on board, I’ll show you a few maps and star charts, tell you about treasure I’ve found working for Tel’Aglarim’s navy. How’s that for you.”

Damon smiled. Perhaps it would be a good day after all.

“Just hop on up,” the captain said. “The pathway’s over there. I suppose I should introduce myself, I’m Captain Velinyal of the merchant ship Gwalior. Former member of Tel’Aglarim’s navy.”

With a smile, Damon responded. “I’m Glen Lambert,” he said. He had learned quickly enough he couldn’t introduce himself as Damon Kaosi in Raiaera without attracting unwanted attention. “And it’d be an honor to meet you.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you too,” Captain Velinyal replied. “You’re one of the politest boys I’ve met… especially for someone who isn’t an elf.”

Damon hoped that wouldn’t be followed with a question about what he was, for the truth was, the boy didn’t know. However, the moment he’d climbed up on board the ship, another elf came running down from inside the ship’s steerage.

“Captain… captain…” came the cries. “It’s gone… you know… the treasure, its missing.”

Velinyal’s eyes fell low and the smile on his face disappeared immediately. “Call Tel’Aglarim…” he said grimly. “Until they get here, we’ll have to solve this mystery by ourselves.”

[Iriah Caitrak]

Ira sighed pleasurably as the sun hit her face. Being out at sea had been an experience but she was glad to finally be upon solid ground now. Hopefully the country of Raiaera would be just as interesting as her own country had been and hopefully she would not be troubled by any Fallen anytime soon. She wanted to relax and enjoy herself, meet new and interesting people and races and just, well, go on an adventure!

Life was good right now, even though Ira didn’t have the money to pay for her passage, she’d managed to snag a place upon a merchant ship called Gwal…Gawl—Gwalior that was it. All she had to do was cook for the crew and do some cleaning. It wasn’t hard and though she wasn’t getting paid for it she didn’t care, it was free passage. She had received a few odd looks from some of the crew and had been kept busy making sure some of them kept their hands where they belonged, but that was alright. The Captain was this nice fellow from a race of elves. Ira didn’t know what elves were, but she’d come to like the guy.

A new country with new people. Already the sounds and smells here were different, heck it had taken her a few days to get used to smelling almost nothing but sea salt for their journey here. After all she’d never been to the ocean before and she was sure the look on her face had been priceless when they’d hit the open water and land had just disappeared. After all, she lived in a desert country, she’d never seen so much water before in her life and she’d wished she could have jumped off the side of the boat and the into the endless blue.

But she didn’t know how to swim and figured it would be a really bad idea in the end.

An odd noise filled her ears and Ira looked up to watch a few white and black birds sail above her head and through the masts of the ship. She didn’t see many birds in Fallien and these ones were beautiful to her eyes, even though one of the crewmembers spat something and called them shit-hawk, whatever that was.

Looking passed the ship; Ira saw a harbour full of people milling about doing their own business. There were small shops made of wood and cloth that displayed their wares to people coming on and off of ships. Food, weapons, armour, travel necessities, books, and other things that she couldn’t see through the crowd of bodies. She wanted to go over and examine this countries armour, their weapons, even though she had no use of them and even try some of their food. She wanted to see it all, experience it all and do everything right here and now. By the light of Sanctuary, she sounded like she was a child.

Adjusting the straps of her rucksack, Ira’s head turned towards the plank leading from the ship’s deck to the docks. A group of three boys were sitting down there on some barrels and crates, talking to each other, the two boys she recognized from the ship were telling stories that neither of them were old enough to experience. She almost laughed out loud when one of them mentioned a Sandstorm Seamonster from Fallien, which didn’t exist. They were just kids though, so she resisted the urge to walk over there and set them straight, especially when she saw Captain Velinyal walk over to yell at the kids for neglecting their duties and set the one straight about what they were talking about, who seemed extremely saddened by it.

She shook her head, she really shouldn’t be eavesdropping on them anyway and besides, she may have all the time in the world but she should get going for…where?

It kind of sunk in then that she had nowhere to go in this place, she was just here and that was it. No tribe, no home and no one that knew her. It was freedom at it’s highest point, something she’d never had before, but it was also a little scary to someone who was used to having a home and a tribe to go back to after every mission. People that knew her and people that cared whether or not she came back, she wasn’t going to get that in this foreign land. Still, she was not about to go back to Fallien, she’d made her choice and she was not wavering on it.

Just as she was about to leave the ship, the cries of some of the crew caught Ira’s ears.

“Captain…captain…it’s gone…you know, the treasure…it’s missing.”

She stopped and turned around looking from the panicked crew to Captain Velinyal who didn’t look any better for wear. She could just keep walking, she turn her face back towards the smells and sights of Raiaera and leave the crew to deal with it’s own problems but Ira wasn’t like that. Velinyal had helped her out when she’d needed it and now, even if he didn’t want it, she could offer whatever services she had for him.

Ira walked over to the Captain, the young boy and the crew, “It sounds like you could use some help, Captain Velinyal, and after all you did for me I’m not about to just walk off this ship without offering mine.”

She smiled at him; he may or may not turn her down. She didn’t know, but a little treasure hunting wasn’t going to slow her down and this may turn out to be an interesting adventure all on it’s own.

[INDK]

Captain Velinyal was certainly surprised that so many people seemed interested in helping out the Gwalior in their time of need. It was particularly surprising, simply because it was rare for sailors in Anebrilith to be all that friendly with each other. In general, the elf boats talked only with the other elf boats, the humans with the humans, the anthromorphs with the other anthromorphs and so on and so forth. That so many people of different types were so interested in his recent loss, Velinyal was naturally suspicious.

“Well, I suppose I could use a bit of help from you Ira,” he replied cordially, while looking over the other man who had volunteered to help. “But I am afraid I can’t give a tour anymore.”

Damon gulped, disappointed and wondering if he’d done something wrong. “I only came because you asked me to,” the boy said defensively. “I didn’t take anything, I promise, you can check over all of my things.”

The Captain shook his head, maintaining a surprising amount of calm for someone who had just had the pride of his cargo stolen. “It is not you Damon… there is just some work I have to do. Thievery is not a common occurrence here, and it is something I have to deal with now. I am sorry, I’m sure you all came with good intention, but this situation will be complicated enough for Tel’Aglarim without there being increased interference.”

“I can help too…” Damon asserted. He pointed towards the woman who had been allowed to help. “Just like Ira!”

Velinyal sighed. “You can help if you want to,” he agreed. “But be careful. There are parts of this ship a bit more dangerous than others. Ira knows.”

“I do,” answered Damon. The Captain had been nice to him, and the boy was often willing to undertake missions to help people he liked. This would just be one more job that he was going to have to do. “Where are we going to get started?”

A sudden scream was heard from down in the steerage, and soon a pair of shipmen came up, both of them covered in a mixture of blood and a slimy green liquid. “There is something!” one of them cried. “It’s a monster, a beast, there are many of them and they’re down in the cellar. They’re terrible, monstrous—“

“You’re not telling it right!” the other interjected. “It’s Eluriand undead! They have risen again.”

Velinyal shook his head. “We can’t wait for Tel’Aglarim then. I don’t know what this has to do with the robbery, but I’m sure they’re connected. Everyone else, if you choose to, you can follow me.”

“Aren’t you going to get the rest of your crew?” Damon asked.

Velinyal replied somberly. It was an answer that may have seemed cold, but he wanted to impress the nature of their task before they sought out on it. “Any crew down below is probably already dead,” the captain said. “Otherwise they would have been running up by now. I will get a team, some torches. Damon, Ira, I can use any hand I get at the moment, especially with so much of my crew off shore, but this could get dangerous. Are you both still willing to help.”

Damon nodded. “I’ve fought battles before,” the boy swore.

[Iriah Caitrak]

Ira was actually pleased when Captain Velinyal agreed to let her help, she wanted to pay back the man for allowing her on his ship and she could think of no better way, after all, it was much better than the cooking she had performed for the crew. The boy offering his help surprised her though, he may be equipped with weapons but she didn’t know how he knew how to use them. Then again, she shouldn’t be one to judge; at his age she’d already been training for a good nine, ten years and was well versed in how to use a sword.

The sudden scream that rent the air made every strand of hair on Ira’s neck stand on end and every muscle in her body tense. It was then that she realized she could sense souls below the deck of the ship. As the two sailors came running up the stairs rambling off something about monsters and then undead, Ira’s heart stopped for just a quick second.

”Undead? The name speaks for itself, but how is that possible…the soul leaves the body once it’s dead and though I’ve seen many try they have never successfully re-entered after the heart has stopped beating. What the heck is going on?”

“I wouldn’t resend my offer just because things suddenly got interesting, Velinyal.” Ira said with a grin.

She formed her Swallow in her hand, a metal pole with a blade at each end materializing in her hand from what seemed like nowhere. Racing down the stairs into the darkness below deck; she stopped after a few feet. Ahead of her were the body of three sailors who must have been running for the stairs, only they didn’t make it. All of them were dead, she could tell without even checking for a pulse because their souls were floating nearby their bodies, which were stained in blood and…something green that she’d never seen before and wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what it was.

The sight was not very disturbing to her eyes, after one lays eyes upon a Fallen and what havoc they can do to a single village a few bloodied sailors and some green shit did nothing to turn her stomach.

”Why, why? I didn’t want to die, my life was just starting to turn out right!”

Ira felt sorry for the sailors, but she didn’t pity them, there was a place of light they could go to if only they wanted to.

“Move on, souls, there is nothing for you here anymore. Go to Heaven and be free.”

”But my wife!”

“Regret not! If you regret you will be trapped in the world of Purgatory, in a place of pain and suffering. Let your regrets go with your mortal bodies and know that you will see your families again someday.”

The three souls looked at her for a few seconds before they turned into black and red butterflies and completely disappeared. The newly dead were usually in such shock that they lingered around their bodies, for what she didn’t know, she’d never asked, usually they just talked to themselves about how they shouldn’t be dead. It was sad, disturbing, and uncomfortable knowing one day she would be a helpless soul floating above her dead body, she only hoped she had enough sense to move on without coercion.

There were other souls still on the ship too, she didn’t know how many these ‘undead’ things had killed but by she was going to have her work cut out for her keeping these sailors out of Purgatory, as well as fighting off whatever was on this ship and returning a stolen treasure. Things just kept getting more and more complicated.

Stepping forward, Ira’s boot slid along the wooden plank as the green substance coated the sole of it making it slippery. Disgusting, whatever it was. Before she moved forward, Ira realized she had no idea where she was going. Though she could sense souls she couldn’t sense other living creatures…or unloving creatures and even though she spent some time on this ship, she didn’t know where every corridor led and she didn’t know where the creatures were!

Ira turned around and waited for Damon and Velinyal join her below deck.

[INDK]

“Right on,” Velinyal said. A few pair of ships men had come along with Velinyal, both of them elves armed with torches and crossbows. Damon felt a bit nervous, because he didn’t have particularly elaborate weaponry and now wondered if it would be necessary for this mission. There were five people now, and the boy couldn’t help but feel like he was justified in being the only one nervous. He would have wanted to ask questions about the history of the undead in Raiaera, but the way things were going, he didn’t know when he would have time. Down in the steerage, he was nauseated by what he saw. A few well enclosed kerosene lamps provided the place with adequate lighting, but it was still dark enough that Damon’s power was considerably diminished. With green goo smattered all around the room, it was particularly nauseating. Dead people were all over the place, some of whom had even begun to rot prematurely.

“Anyone rotting will have to be immolated before their families can see them,” Velinyal replied, his voice sounding like it was struggling to stay steady. “They have already got the taint in them, and that means that there’s nothing left for us to do… have some respect though. People have died here.”

Damon shuddered, his thoughts interrupted as another of their party had suddenly pinned an enemy up against the wall. Immediately, Velinyal stopped chastising the cynical man and had turned to address this creature without even taking the time to look and see if Ira was alright.

“Good work,” was all he muttered to the man who had pinned it, and looked on as a grey creature stood forward. It was a blood zombie. Mostly grey, looking like a decayed elf. Red portions of the creature’s body pulsed provocatively, deep red arteries around the neck and in the arms, and even the creature’s brains leaked out with a bright reddish hue.

Damon looked on at this beast and his fists clenched inexplicably. The boy had never seen anything like it before, but for some reason, he was enraged at the thought of it. “The undead were supposed to have been defeated,” the boy thought. “Raiaera was supposed to have won. If they won, you can’t go and change the rules. A win is supposed to be a win.”

Velinyal gulped. He didn’t say much. It looked for a few moments as if he’d seen a ghost, or perhaps someone from his past. The captain shook his head for a few minutes before muttering disjointedly that someone should kill the creature now. They weren’t going to be able to interrogate a blood zombie.

However, Damon had no particular interest in killing the undead that day. He hated the idea of its presence in Raiaera so much that he didn’t really even want to look at the foul zombie.

“Do it quick and lets get moving,” he said, more to himself than anyone else as he headed off into the darkness.

As he moved forward, the boy could hear the sounds of heavy breathing somewhere in the distance. One of Velinyal's men turned quickly and shoved a sword into the chest of an oncomming blood zombie. Damon looked on wide eyed as the creature was pinned back against the wall by a hard blow from the longsword. The zombie moaned.

"Well," Velinyal muttered dryly. "That's a blood zombie."

[Iriah Caitrak]

Ira turned and looked at the creature that one of Velinyal’s men had pinned up against the wall. She hadn’t sensed it, hadn’t even had an inkling that it was nearby and that disturbed her. She was so used to being able to sense her quarry but she was hunting the undead here and they didn’t have souls and she could only sense souls. The creature before her really was dead and had no soul whatsoever in its body, therefore she couldn’t sense it and that disturbed her. Perhaps she was too used to battling Fallen and always knowing where her enemy was but she wasn’t in Fallien anymore and she wasn’t battle lost souls, she was battling and the lost and damned.

She watched Velinyal approach the creature and the emotion that flickered across his face, not really understanding what was going on or why he was acting this way. Then again she didn’t know much at all about this strange land or what went on within it.

”Blood zombie? There were different classes of the undead? And I thought dealing with the dead themselves could be complicated…”

The boy muttering about them getting it over with and just killing the thing bugged her more than the captain asking someone to kill it. If it bothered him so much he should use his own weapon upon it and not expect others to step in and do it for him, however as the boy moved away Ira didn’t see that happening so she turned her Swallow into a sword and took the creatures head off with one slice. It’s head rolled away somewhere down the hall and the body slumped to the ground, though disturbing, Ira had seen worse when it came to Fallen. However she was used to something disappearing after she killed it, this thing fell to the ground in a heap and stayed there and Ira just watched it for a few seconds as if waiting for it to disappear like the all the Fallen she released in Purgatory, however this wasn’t Purgatory and it wasn’t going anywhere.

Ira dropped the sword she’d formed and watched it hit the ground and disappear. She couldn’t form her Swallow again and use it down here, the hallways of the ship were too narrow, there was a chance she’d hit one of the others or get her weapon stuck in the wood, not that she couldn’t just let it go and form something new, it would still leave her vulnerable for a few seconds. She’d cross that bridge when she got to it though, either with swords, which she wasn’t too fond of, or her Half Swallows.

Turning away from the creature, Ira walked further down the hallway where Damon had gone.

[INDK]

Damon wasn’t particularly pleased with what he saw now that they had a bit more light. All around them were wounded people, people who had been beaten almost to an inch of their lives and were now having the blood zombie virus take hold of them. With belabored breaths, these new undead wouldn’t be dangerous for at least another five hours. Velinyal shoved a dagger into the head of the blood zombie they had captured. The experienced elf gulped as he performed the action.

“We are going to have to head down to the lowest level of the ship,” the captain said. “Undead like dark most places, and there are not too many darker than the deep underbelly on a ship. That is where we’ll find the key to all of this.”

“What about your stolen goods?” Damon asked. “Aren’t you still worried about those?”

Velinyal didn’t say anything for a few moments. The elf bit his lip cautiously and looked around. “Not anymore,” he said.

“But you were so panicked earlier!” Damon insisted. The boy wasn’t sure why the thievery was such a priority to him. With undead running through the ship and potentially threatening Anebrilith, it would only be logical that a patriotic Raiaeran would shift priorities. “Does it not matter now, or do you think the zombies have it?”

“Just drop the subject,” Velinyal replied curtly. “We should be careful even speaking now, with zombies all around us. They could come out from anywhere with so much of the ship enveloped in darkness.”

It was a good point, and it silenced Damon for a bit. The boy remained on guard with his machete unsheathed, trying not mind the foul smells all around him as he continued on his journey. The ship smelled like rot and decay, so much so that the boy couldn’t imagine them ever being able to get the taste of zombie out from the boat. As it was, zombie blood had seeped into the wood of the ship, leaving deep red stains into the woodwork with only the slightest hint of green.

“They should just go ahead and set the boat on fire,” the boy thought. “That’d solve this problem right there.” However, Damon was well aware that if it had been his boat, then he might have been considerably more reluctant to see it go up in flames. Not only were sea faring vessels relatively rare on Althanas, but the bond between a ship and its captain was likely very strong. Damon could see how setting the ship up in flames would be something that was beyond consideration for the captain, though invariably one of the other members of the group would have asked about it.

The fact was though that the ship was already doomed. Velinyal knew it. With the massacre that had taken place below decks as severe as it seemed to be, there would be no way of ever cleaning it up. Zombie blood would seep into the wood, weakening it as it seeped its poison into the floorboards. In a few days time, the entire ship would be so rancid that there would be no choice but to set it on fire to burn out in the water.

Yet, Velinyal continued down towards the basement, for reasons that he wouldn’t reveal.

Soon, Damon approached a new set of stairs that led down to the damp storage areas of the ship. His feet creaked on stairs that were soaked in half congealed blood, and there was a sudden rush of feet and chatter as he took another step down.

Velinyal grabbed Damon’s shoulder before the boy could go any further. “For the sake of the Bard Council, I could never send a boy down their first,” the captain said, holding onto Damon’s shoulder tightly so that the boy had no option but to agree.

“Someone else go,” the elf mumbled, as if he’d grown increasingly dissatisfied with their expedition. “Someone with a light.”

Damon could have sworn the captain had mumbled something about “never again.”

[Iriah Caitrak]

The two elves that Velinyal brought with him hesitated. They were the ones carrying the torches and they were the ones glancing from the darkened passage and back to each other with fear in their eyes. It was clear they didn’t care for going down in the depths of this ship ad that pissed Ira off. What was the point of training yourself in skills of offence and defence if one was too scared to use them?

Marching over to one of the elves, Ira grabbed the torched out of his hand, snarling something along the lines of coward in her native tongue of Fallien, it was likely no one but her even knew what it meant. She didn’t care though. Forming a sword in her free hand, a weapon she knew how to use but took no pleasure in using, Ira stepped passed Velinyal and Damon and down into the ships depths.

Even with the torch her eyes had to adjust to the dim lighting. She already knew what awaited her below though, she could smell it, death, death and more death. Bodies rotting at an early stage and things that shouldn’t be walking were walking. Once she stepped off the last stair, Ira paused and moved the torch around trying to discern anything, but the only thing she could see was a larger expanse of something, and the blood of the zombies from earlier covering everything, even making the tough, worn soles of her boots slide against the wood.

But sight wasn’t the only sense one could use to their advantage.

Taking a few more steps into the darkened area, Ira suddenly paused and turned to her left, bringing up her sword with her she blocked an attack from another one of those blood zombies, cutting off it’s arm in the process. Though she couldn’t sense them she could hear them and they didn’t understand the concept of being quiet. The creature snarled something disgusting at her; blood dripping down from it’s wound onto the already saturated floorboards. When it attacked her again, Ira inadvertently swung at it with the torch, used to using two weapons instead of one, but she quickly correctly herself and used her mistake to her advantage to distract the creature away from the blade that took it’s head.

This time when the body slumped down to the floor it didn’t bother her so much. She just looked at it with no amount of pity in her eyes. It was not a living creature and it had no soul for her to direct to its rightful resting place. The person it had once been was long gone and hopefully their soul had found the right place to rest in peace.

Walking a few more paces in front of her, Ira listened and looked for other blood zombies but she didn’t hear or see them, but she knew there had to be more. They infected things, it was clear to see and there had been crew down here and she didn’t know how long it took for something to become a blood zombie but she guessed some of the very crew themselves might have already been turned. Odd though, Ira had been sailing on this ship all the way from Fallien, and though yes she hadn’t been allowed into the storage areas, she had no idea how a zombie could have just ambled onto the ship and started attacking crew, and from below at that. It was almost like the zombie would have had to have been aboard before hand and attacked at just this time but that didn’t make any sense either.

Ira didn’t know, she barely even understood the concept of zombies as it was but something about this wasn’t sitting right with her.

[INDK]

The stench was beginning to seem sickening. Damon could almost taste the sourness of undead on his tongue, and he shuddered. “Stay careful,” the boy thought to himself as he followed Velinyal down into the darkness. “There are going to be undead somewhere.”

And then there was a scream. A dull low roar that was halfway to a moan. Damon looked to the left and he saw a group of zombies. He looked to the right, and now he saw a bunch of zombies too. The boy unsheathed his sword, readying it for battle as the rest of Velinyal and his men had grabbed their weapons too.

“Everyone grab someone’s back,” Velinyal said. “And stay close together.”

It was only a matter of time before the zombies managed to coalesce around Velinyal and the rest of his crew. Damon gulped. He looked first towards the shipmen and then at Ira. The boy couldn’t help but feel a bit of empathy towards the purple haired lady. She was the only person who seemed as frightened of the undead as he.

“Everybody join up,” Velinyal shouted again. Damon gripped his sword and moved tight towards the captain, backs meeting each other. The other two elves held both torches and crossbows, and a few fiery arrows were fired out into the undead. It was almost superfluous to fire arrows, in a matter of seconds, at least fifteen zombies would be in striking distance. Damon’s entire body itched in anticipation. The boy was caught between fear and confusion. He couldn’t remember what it had felt like to have liberated Eluriand, but it only took a few quick glances around Anebrilith to know what Damon Kaosi had meant to Raiaera.

The boy now lacked Damon’s memories, but he still possessed Damon’s potential. If the undead hadn’t been eliminated yet, the boy knew now that it was his responsibility to settle the issue once and for all. Still, Damon was afraid to die. He had already died once, and while he didn’t know the reason for his return, the boy couldn’t help but to feel that he had been brought back for some purpose. Damon could hardly imagine that his purpose was nothing more than dying in the steerage of a dark and deadly ship.

Finally, Damon took a violent swipe forwards, running up a couple of steps to take a strike. He knew that Velinyal would not have approved, but there were no other options. The tired floorboards creaked below, weakened by the acidic blood of the undead. Damon cringed but steeled himself as his mythril sword glinted in the torchlight as it slashed straight across the chests of two methodically moving zombies.

“That’s it,” Velinyal said. “Move forward before they overcome us.”

One of the shipmen tossed his torch at one of the zombie’s head, lighting the creature on fire. The fight now had begun, and within seconds, Damon could see little more than a blur of zombie, flame and metal.

The boy was too overwrought with the oncoming tide of undead to wonder if Velinyal or Ira was alright.

[Iriah Caitrak]

Ira ducked down out of the way of a strike from one of the zombies, then thrust up with the torch she held in her hand. She was used to fighting two-handed and the torch was becoming a nuisance. However, embedding said nuisance in the stomach of a zombie was a great way to get rid of it. When the creature reared it’s ugly head in front of her and let out a painful cry, Ira lopped it off with the blade of her sword. An effective way to the shut the creature up.

However there were a lot more of them and she was stuck in the thick of the battle with everyone else. One minute that had all been back and back and Ira could feel the adrenaline pumping through the blood, the fear mixed with the excitement, the smell of blood, death, rot and decay in the air. Her fingers tightening on rough, worn leather and her boots sliding across the slicked wooden boards. This was where one found out just what kind of person they were, in the thick of battle and this was also where one learned just how much to appreciate the life they were given.

Forming a second sword in her now free hand, Ira attacked the closest zombie to her; though their numbers were great they were much like Fallen, weak and easy kills. She cut off the creature’s arm, and stabbed it through the chest. That didn’t kill it though, in fact the creature only cried out and took a swipe at her, she released her weapon, and formed a new one just as her first blade cut through the creature’s skull. There was definitely one different between them and Fallen though, stab a Fallen through the chest and you release it, stab a zombie through the chest and it only gets pissed off. Decapitation seemed like the best course of action in this case.

With another one coming at her, Ira went to move out of the way, however her boots slid on the congealed blood on the floor sending her flat on her ass. Cursing in Fallien, Ira kicked out the zombie’s legs, got into a kneeling position and quickly took its head off before standing up and seeing one of the elves go down out of the corner of her eye.

Rushing over, Ira ripped the zombie off the elf and with a clean cut took the creature’s head off. Turning back, she gazed down at the dying elf with pity in her eyes. The zombie had ripped his throat open and he now lay on the already bloodied floor of the ship, his life flowing out of him. He tried to breathe, he tried but Ira could only watch as blood bubbled out of his mouth. It was the most disturbing sound she’d ever heard, someone choking on their own blood and before her eyes he stopped making that sound and the life went out of his eyes. And in that moment Ira saw something she never wanted to see again.

Though to anyone else’s eyes it would seem like the man just went pale and died, she watched as his soul was slowly torn away from it’s mortal shell, no wonder most souls stayed behind in confusion after they died.

Caught in the moment of watching the elf’s soul, Ira wasn’t paying attention to the battle raging behind her. One of the zombie’s snuck up on her and bit her in the arm, crying out, she elbow the creature in the chest then spun around and took his head off. Pissed off, she jumped back into the heat of the battle, taking out the two closest zombies to her with relative ease.

[INDK]

Despite the valiant efforts of Velinyal and his elves, the situation was growing dire. At least nine zombies now lay dismembered on the ground. Only the decapitated ones were completely defeated, other severed hands and legs continued to tremble, grabbing onto Damon’s shins and kicking him in the back of the legs. Sweat was covering Damon’s face and his straight black hair clung desperately to his face.

“Stay strong,” Velinyal shouted, though it seemed that the elf was trying to remind his allies that they needed to continue to hold up the line somehow. The captain had never imagined that this was going to get this severe, that the men who had served him loyally on his ship for so long would have fallen.

Damon nodded. He knew there wasn’t much time left for him to try a spell. The little light they had was dwindling forbodingly. Once the light was gone completely, they wouldn’t be able to see and would have been lucky to escape. In the interim, Damon had just so long to try a spell.

Still, the boy couldn’t know if he could afford to risk it. There were too many people close by for him to attempt the spell he was thinking of. Ira and Velinyal could just as easily be hurt as could the zombies. However, it was getting harder and harder for Damon to keep up the fight, and his forearm and biceps throbbed despite the light weight of the mythril longsword. It and his forearms were coated with the decaying blood of the zombies, and maggots had begun to attempt to burrow their way into the boy’s flesh.

It was a desperate time, and Damon was going to have to act now or watch as he and everyone around him died. His plan might have been reckless and likely to leave everyone in the lower steerage dead, but they had already lost a fighter and more losses seemed but immenent.

“Stay away from me!” the boy demanded as he began to weave more wildly with his sword. It had been the only thing that Damon had really said, but that had been to keep the rancid blood away from his mouth. Even with his heart beating and adrenaline pumping, the thought of getting a bit of that blood within his body made him sick to his stomach.

“We… have… to… stay… together…” Velinyal replied between desperate breaths for air. It was clear that the elf had grown quite weary now with the fight. Guilt was laced into every word he spoke.

“Trust me!” Damon managed back, shouting just to get his voice heard out over the roars of zombies that were readying for one last attack.

Normally, Velinyal wouldn’t have taken the boy up on that offer, but the desperate situation had left the elf with few other options. The tired sea captain had used practically all his energy, and his spirit had been broken after the death of one of his comrades. Damon’s plan may have been the only thing at this point that could somehow assuage the captain’s guilt over everything that had transpired.

“Alright… go!” Velinyal replied. It was seconds later that a zombie managed to drive its arm right into the elf’s chest and pull out a still beating lung.

Damon hadn’t seen this, because he had been too busy absorbing what light he could. Additionally, the boy had begun to sing and instead of holding his ground moved deeper into the mess of zombies so that he was completely surrounded by them. They moaned and hissed at him, but they were all a bit taller and with awkward motions that failed to match up with the agility of the younger boy. Still, it was a struggle for Damon, it took all his energy just to sing enough to get the light necessary to perform is spell, giving him very little to use his weary forearms and legs to dodge the continuing attacks. He would only have to hold on for so much longer.

Eventually, he had the light he needed, and with a determined glint of madness in his eyes, Damon punched the ground. The boy was soon enveloped in a tornado, one that covered around his body and let off all kinds of organic debris. Zombies were disintegrated in a matter of seconds when they came in contact with it. When it had stopped, there was no one left but one last zombie, Damon, Ira and Velinyal gasping for air.

Everyone else had been killed.

[Iriah Caitrak]

Ira backed away from the tornado, the constant swirl and the speed of the wind tearing away at anything that came within contact, friend and foe alike. Zombies were being ripped away and in seconds this one boy, or what seemed like a boy, defeated a horde of zombies that all of them with all their skills with the blade probably could not have done. When the wind faded, when the roar that was in her ears disappeared there were only four beings left standing, one zombie, Glen, Ira and Velinyal and Velinyal didn’t look like he was in that great of shape.

Blood was pouring down his chest from an open wound and if she looked close enough she swore she could see the white structure of his ribcage beyond and perhaps tissues of some very important organs. She didn’t want to look and turning away Ira did the one thing she could do, she cut off the head of the last zombie then dropped both her blades and watched them disappear before her eyes.

It was over, but not completely.

Rushing over to Velinyal, Ira caught the large elf in her arms as he fell back gasping for air he couldn’t seem to draw into his body. His hand was clutching at his chest as blood poured from the wound and his mouth continued to open and close as if he were trying to say something. A little bead of blood trickling down from the corner of his mouth. When she looked down at the wound she could see his the walls of his beating heart and she could watch as the beats grew slower and slower with every second.

“Do not fear death, Velinyal, do not regret what you didn’t accomplish in life. There is more out there…” There was no need to whisper and she didn’t know why she did it, perhaps in moments of sadness everyone lowered their voice, she didn’t know. She did know that she didn’t want the elf to die but there was nothing she could do for him and what she spoke was the truth, there was more out there, she’d seen some of it, perhaps not the good part but she knew something greater existed.

Ira sat amongst the carnage of their battle holding a dying man in her arms. His eyes never left hers and she only glanced away for a few seconds, one more time to watch the beating of his heart and when it stopped and back to his eyes to watch the light fade out of them. And just like before, she watched his soul come away from his mortal flesh and he looked exactly like he had moments before, only their was no gaping whole within his chest and she could no longer see inside of him for there was no inside of him. Instead there was a large black hole there where her enchanted weapon could pass through and forcefully send him to the other side.

Velinyal glanced down at his body and then to her and it took him a moment to realize that she was actually looking at him.

“I’m actually dead, aren’t I?”

Ira nodded her head.

“You can see me?”

“It’s my job, I’m a Calerian, we can see and talk to souls and we send those souls who are confused and who have lost their humanity to their rightful place. If you regret, Velinyal, you’ll eventually be sucked into the world of Purgatory where your humanity will be stripped from you and you will needlessly attack innocent people.”

He turned back to his body and then his eyes glanced around the rotting ship, his rotting ship but no more. He was dead anything that belonged to him in his life was no longer his.

Ira had a distinct feeling in the pit of her stomach that he wasn’t going to leave this world of his own free will. She gently laid his lifeless body down on the wooden floor and slowly stood up, her Swallow forming in her hand as she did so. She didn’t want to do this but she didn’t want him to be trapped in Purgatory.

[INDK]

Now that the zombies had been defeated, the level seemed eerily quiet. The chaos minutes ago had been deafening, though now it felt like Damon couldn’t find his knees. There last bit of light flickered, a solitary remaining flame on Velinyal’s torch. Damon ran to it and grabbed it, dropping his weapon as he attempted to bring the flame back to their one source of light.

“I don’t like what’s going on here one bit at all,” the boy muttered. He wasn’t sure what they should do now. Velinyal was dead, and the only reason that the boy hadn’t wanted the ship to have been destroyed earlier was because he had feared that the captain would have never been able to cope with the destruction of a prized piece of property. With Velinyal dead, there was no longer any such reason. True, it might be a bit disgraceful to the fallen elf, but at this point Damon was too rattled to be all that concerned about sentimentality.

Upstairs, it was likely that the zombies had not yet woken up, so that would have provided Damon with an easy plan of escape if he chose to use it. However, part of him wanted to press on further, not because of any false sense of bravado, but because of duty. The last spell had certainly sent the blood pumping through his body at a faster pace, but the fact remained that there was something going on aboard the Gwalior that could destroy the legacy of Damon Kaosi. That was something that the boy cherished, simply because he felt that the legend was something far greater than he would ever be able to accomplish. “Better to protect what I had before making anything new,” the boy had thought to himself soberly more than a few times. It was often unfortunate how sober Damon had to be for a boy who was effectively still a newborn.

However, in as much as Damon was normally torn between sobriety and innocence, they now mixed together to tell the boy that he had to go on. One part of him suggested what the fate could be for Anebrilith as a whole should the zombies attack the harbor en masse, the other wanted to protect a legend. Both of them knew the cost of failure would be too much to bear.

“We have to go on from here,” Damon said solemnly. “I suppose you are in charge now Ira…”

There really wasn’t any reason why Ira should have been in charge of Damon more than Damon should have been put in charge of Ira, or if they needed a leader at all. However, the boy just wanted the consolation of knowing that he could have someone else to rely on, that he wouldn’t be counted on to know all about the blood zombies and other Raiarean evils like his former self would have. It was all Damon could do just to keep his torch from burning out.

With a fairly solid flame established, the boy went and gathered his sword. “Looks like the only way out is through,” he muttered again, hoping that Ira would hear him and agree. “Just wish I could know how these creatures got here…”

[Iriah Caitrak]

Ira actually flinched slightly when the boy commented about her leading the two of them. She was capable of it, she knew she could but she didn’t want to. She knew nothing of this land and she knew nothing of its problems. Up until twenty minutes ago she hadn’t even known creatures like zombies existed. How was she supposed to lead the two of them safely through this mess she’d gotten herself into? If this were Purgatory she would have no problem, Purgatory she knew, Purgatory she understood. Zombies she didn’t know and zombies she didn’t understand.

That didn’t seem to matter though, Glen was a child she couldn’t expect him to lead the two of them. That didn’t make it any easier for her though.

”I’m not leaving yet…”

Ira turned back to the form of Velinyal, his soul casually floating a few inches off the floorboards of his old ship. She’d almost forgotten about him, almost, except for the fact that she could sense him. The boy hadn’t seem to notice she could commune with the dead yet, it wasn’t like she was trying to hide it from all appearances she probably looked crazy talking to no one but she didn’t care.

“You’re not moving on until you see the end of this, aren’t you?” Ira asked him.

Velinyal nodded his head, his eyes glancing towards the boy. He seemed pained that the child had gotten wrapped up in this. Ira wasn’t as bothered by it, he may look young but he had experience fighting and Ira wondered at his actual age. Looks could always be deceiving.

Ira dropped the weapon she’d formed to release Velinyal with. The swallow disappeared before it even hit the floorboards.

“There’s a box under the stairs, it’ll explain everything.”

“Glen, there’s a box under the stairs, go get it, it’ll explain everything.”

She shouldn’t be giving him orders but he’d put her in charge, funny how leaders never chose themselves but were chosen by others, by their peers.

“There’s a lot you weren’t telling us.”

It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact. Velinyal had been hiding something from the beginning and it looked like they were finally going to find out what it was. Unfortunately it only took the death of the elf for him to tell them.

[INDK]

“There’s a lot I wasn’t telling you?” Damon asked. He was a bit confused by that statement. Granted, he had offered Ira with the pseudonym Glen instead of his normal name, but that was standard for him in Raiaera. He also doubted that in a situation like this, issues of names would become more important than life or death. With a bit of trepidation, Damon flashed his torch underneath the stairs and found the box that Ira had been talking about. He bit his lip cautiously, pausing for a moment before deciding to do anything.

“How did she know about this…” Damon wondered. “She was part of the crew, perhaps part of some kind of plan.” Now that Velinyal had died, things were starting to seem a bit more suspicious. Originally, the boy hadn’t really thought about it, but Velinyal had been particularly unsurprised by the idea of undead rising. Now he wondered if Ira and the Captain hadn’t been in cahoots all along.

The lock on the trunk was fairly rusty, so it didn’t take too much of Damon’s effort to knock it loose. Inside was a few pieces of paper, a schematic and an elaborate drawing of the different levels of the ship. The bottom level had been starred and noted specially in red. Damon shuddered reflexively. It would only be two stories down, but if the undead were already this strong on the third level, the boy shuddered to think what would be waiting in the pits of the Gwalior.

However, most important to Damon was a note. It was written by Velinyal and labeled ‘confession’. The boy held his torch up to it closely, careful that he didn’t burn the page, and then began to read out loud.

“I have spent far too long in Raiaera to not know what I am doing is an affront against everything my people have believed as a culture. Yet, I am left with no choice. My family has been taken from me and are being held in Lindequalme. I have no knowledge if I will ever see them again if I fail in this task. As such, I am a traitor to my people, but I do so out of love… not out of malice.”

Damon frowned. “There is a lot of apology here,” he muttered. He scanned down the list for Ira’s name, finding her near the bottom of the list. “And lastly to Gwevne Bashalmith and Ira Shinkara, I am sorry. You both knew nothing but yet were complicit in my scheme.”

With that, Damon eyed his newfound ‘leader’ with a bit more respect. “There is more,” he said. “In the bottom deck lies a piece of the dias at the top of the Obsidian Spire. It’s pieces had fragmented and are contraband. Few shippers would have the trust to be allowed to see them. With my connections to the navy, I was one such shipper. I have been taken advantage of, and there is a huge risk my ship, and eventually Raiaera, will be reconsumed by the undead. Yet I must take this ship from New Aurient to Anebrilith and then on to Ettermire lest something happen to my family. Should I die however, the shipment should not be completed. My personal selfishness should not oblige others to follow through on this mission out of loyalty. If the undead have risen, do not destroy the ship. If you destroy the ship, you may contaminate the water of Anebrilith. It is not worth the risk. Go down to the lowest deck and destroy the dias I have made. It will be difficult, especially if the undead have gotten out of control. However, stopping me is a cause worth fighting for.”

Damon gulped. Tears were welling up in his eyes. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t like the thought of a family held somewhere in the Red Forest. “We have no choice,” he sighed.

[Iriah Caitrak]

It was hard for Ira to mask her surprise over Velinyal’s letter, but she was sure she did a good enough job. Apologizing to her? For what? She’d only been on his ship for a short time and she had done nothing to help him with this little task of his, all she’d done is cook and clean for free passage. Still, he’d apologized for whatever role she had in this and the entire time Glen had been reading the letter Ira had not been looking at him but at Velinyal and she watched the myriad of emotions cross his face, saddened anger to embarrassment.

Like Glen Ira had come to the conclusion that they really had no choice but to continue on. Ira was not a native to Raiaera but she was not cold hearted and she did care about what would happen to the unsuspecting nation. She would also not leave a child to fight this by himself no matter how skilled he was and how much her gut instincts told her the child probably had more power than she.

“I agree, it’s decided, we cannot leave Raiaera in this predicament.”

Her eyes never left Velinyal even though she was speaking to Glen and she watched the look of relief spread across his face and also maybe even unshed tears well in his eyes. She wasn’t sure but she turned away from the slightly transparent soul of the elf. Nodding her head to Glen, Ira walked over and took the torch from his hand. She also grabbed the schematic from the ship and gave it a quick look over realizing there was no easy way to get to the bottom level they had to travel through the others which were probably full of undead right now.

Folding up the schematic, Ira placed it one of the pockets on her pants then took a fortifying breath. She was going up against something she understood little if nothing about and she was being put in charge of a mission that could have devastating affects on this land if something went wrong. All in a days work…right?

Holding the torch up Ira watched as the flame illuminated some of the areas of the ship but not everything. Corners were kept in shadows, corners where anything could hide in them. This was not Purgatory, this was not her dead, this was not a place she was familiar with and the darkness was unsettling. Even in Fallien the stars and the moon provided plenty light and for a brief moment Ira had a panicked feeling where all she wanted to do was run to the surface and feel the sun on her face and see light. But she quickly stamped it out; she’d been through too many years of training for a little darkness to upset her equilibrium.

Walking to the back of the room Ira saw a small hallway leading to what she was pretty sure were a set of stairs. She didn’t need the schematic to tell her that, though the ship looked different right now she’d spent a little over a week on board and she knew some of the levels and had a basic understand of it, however Velinyal hadn’t let many people in the below decks.

Stopping at the top of the stairs Ira strained to hear anything, the sound of shuffling feet, moans, cries whatever she didn’t care but she didn’t hear a thing. If there were undead down there and she was sure there was she couldn’t hear them and they’d barely be able to see them either. Reaching up, Ira gently felt the wound on her arm where one of the undead had bit her—torn flesh—and her hand came away slick and covered in blood. It wasn’t too bad, in fact it felt like the bleeding had mostly stopped and one wound was not going to slow her down. She’d been through worse, trekking through a desert with multiple broken ribs, bleeding to death and completely corrupted.

Wiping those thoughts from her mind, Ira began taking the stairs down into the next level.

[INDK]

“Wait,” Damon said. “I don’t want to go about this too fast…” He grabbed at Ira’s shoulder as if to ask her to stop. The moans and groans beneath them were particularly loud. The boy knew that it would be particularly difficult for them to fight their way through. It seemed to be pitch black at the level below, and by the map he had been given, Damon knew they would have to go through to the center of the room. There would be the essence of what had led to the undead’s resurgence, a piece of the dais from the Obsidian Spire with a legendary weapon kept in the centre.

The task seemed almost impossible at the moment. Running down into the undead would be brave, but it was practically suicide. There would be no light for them, and it had been only thanks to Damon’s laser tornado that they had managed to get this far. If they were to sink the ship, it would be pointless, they would just taint the water.

However, an idea came quickly on the boy. Zombies were nothing if not flammable, and if they were really as dense as they seemed below, there might have been one opportunity. “I’m going to throw this torch down there,” Damon said. “It should create a massive fire as the zombies burn, they will probably run up the stairs after us, but it should give us some light and a chance to destroy the dias. Be careful, but this might just be our best chance.”

Damon didn’t wait to see what Ira thought of the plan. The boy threw his torch down into the mess, only to see a sudden glow and a chorus of shrieks. “They’re coming,” Damon muttered. “It will be chaos now, and we better move fast… we don’t want the fire to burn away.”

Flames began to cast light on the room, and Damon could now see what it was that they were searching after. In the midst of zombies shrieking and running up the steps towards him lay a rather large shard, at least a quarter of an earlier dias, beating like it was a severed heart. In the centre of it stood a weapon, a metal axe distinct from most others because its bottom shaft contained a wooden stake on the end. Had Damon possessed all the memories of his past, then he would have identified the weapon. It had belonged to him, and was the traditional weapon of Surat.

However, at that moment, there was a more pressing issue for the boy; survival. “Lets run,” he told Ira before readying his sword and charging into the flames.

[Iriah Caitrak]

Flammable zombies, just what she needed. She didn’t know if she liked the boy’s plan or not, it did give them light and the zombies were a lot easier to spot running up the stairs after them covered in flames, however in her mind that just made them more dangerous. Not only were they hell bent on killing them but now she couldn’t even physically touch one, not that she wanted to, without worrying about being set on fire herself. The idea had it’s pros and cons but it was too late to worry about it now, Glen had already done it and was already running into the thick of things and she was not about to leave him to do that alone.

Forming the two halves of her Swallow, Ira charged into the foray right behind Glen, it was chaos. There were zombies all around them and Ira couldn’t even begin to count how many, she didn’t even want to think bout it. Flaming arms reached out for flesh and load cries and moans rang in her ears. She slashed at anything that got too close to her but mostly she was struggling to reach that dias. It was their goal, she didn’t really understand what it was but she knew one thing it had to be destroyed.

A hand grabbed onto her arm, flames licking at her skin, Ira bit back the involuntary cry of pain as her skin was burned. Spinning around she slashed at the zombies, taking his head off in one clean move and watching him fall to the floor the flames continuing to eat away at his body and set even more of the zombies on fire that came in contact with him. But with one down, Ira watched as three more took it’s place, there were just too many of them. Attacking swiftly and dodging their flaming limbs as best she could, Ira took care of the zombies then raced closer to Glen.

“You destroy the dias, I’ll take care of the zombies and buy you as much time as possible. And don’t die on me, you’re one soul I’d rather not send to the afterlife!”

The soul of Velinyal was still with her; she could feel it hovering about the area, helplessly watching the scene unfolding from whatever vantage point he had. She didn’t try to look for him though, he couldn’t help her, she had to rely on her own skills to get her out of this mess and keep both her and Glen alive. How she wished she knew magic, in this situation it could really help. But this was not a time to dwell on what she did and didn’t know this was a time to act.

A group was zombies was approaching Ira from the right, moving slightly away from Glen she hit them head on not waiting for them to attack her. A boot to the face, a kick to the neck snapping it like a twig and flew slashes with her half swallows left the zombies all finally and truly dead at her feet. They were fragile creatures. Breathing heavily, Ira ran for the next group, flames licking at her clothing and skin from the attacking zombies, she ignore the heat and the pain where they touched her and trudged onward, taking out as many of them as possible. If only she could buy whatever time Glen needed she didn’t care, she’d continue to carry on until she was a soul floating above her cold, dead body.

[INDK]

Damon had every intention of obliging Ira. He didn’t want to die. With his sword, the boy cut violently through the burning embers, moving quickly and purposefully. Though the boy didn’t know enough about zombies to say it with any certainty, Damon hoped that if he was rapid enough in his movements he would mostly be missed by a group of undead that should have had self preservation top on their list. Still, the base of the ship was hot, with flames everywhere. Soaked with the juices of undead, the fire had taken to the floorboards as well, and Damon knew that they would have to move quickly through the ship if they were going to survive beyond this.

As Damon neared the podium, he found that the undead were in a considerably denser formation. Perhaps this was because the flames were beginning to grow brighter around the walls, or because they knew that this was their most prized possession. There would be no way for Damon past them but through. However, the boy was not so unimaginative that he didn’t think to stop and attempt to lure them out.

“Alright,” he said, shouting at them as if they understood the common speak of the living. “You think you’re so tough… I’m ready to take you on… I’m ready…” And he truly was. He was ready to purge Raiaera from these last remnants of the undead, to make sure that the Liberation of Eluriand counted more in people’s lives than just another hero story passed around from generation to generation. Damon Kaosi was going to do what the Damon Kaosi before him had done; he was going to be a hero.

Quickly, the boy ducked underneath the first flaming outstretched arm of a zombie, and split through another pair with a determined run straight between them. That left him with but one, and now Damon sheathed his sword and rolled straight under the creature’s legs, only extending out a hand to pull the weapon away from the podium.

Suddenly everything changed. The dias continued to pulse malevolently, but it no longer spun. Instead of seeming like a gear that churned a powerful machine, the dias now beat like a heart, as if it was the last chance at power the undead had in Raiaera.

“It must be destroyed,” Damon realized. Without waiting another moment, the boy grabbed ahold of the axe by its lower handle and drove the weapon straight through the dias, splintering it in half. Noxious black ooze spurted out, spraying Damon all over, but the undead all collapsed.

Taking only a moment to heave a sigh of relief, Damon turned towards Ira. “We have to get out of here fast though…” he said. “The undead might be gone but the ship’s in flames…”

Now that Damon had survived the first ordeal, he was beginning to wonder if setting the base of the ship on fire had been a good idea after all. It would only be a matter of time before the hull burned through.

[Iriah Caitrak]

Ira had been in the middle of fighting off a few of her own undead when they all suddenly dropped to the ground, lifeless finally. Her intended swing at one enemy hit nothing and threw her off balance, her boot sliding against the slick floorboards and she fell on her ass. Turning her head she say Glen holding the axe that had been embedded in the dias, the dias itself split in half and Glen was covered in something she would rather not think about.

“We have to get out of here fast though…the undead might be gone but the ship’s still in flames…”

She nodded her head in agreement and scrambled her way up to her feet. Dropping her now useless weapons to the floor and letting them disappear. The bodies of the fallen zombies were all around them and though she was sure they weren’t going to get back up she could imagine hands crawling at her legs as she began to run for safety. But where did one run for safety on a burning ship? Ira didn’t have time to look at the schematics and pick the best path for them to follow either; they had to get out of here now!

Wood was cracking and deteriorating into ash and coal even as she was stuck there thinking.

”Ira, this way!”

Ira looked up to see the soul of Velinyal, the stubborn elf still clinging to this plane of existence and for one she was glad about that.

“Glen, follow me!”

The soles of her boots slid against the floorboards as Ira raced to the stairs at the opposite end of the room. Velinyal’s soul was floating there just above the ground waiting for her. She waited for Glen to reach the staircase before her feet began to carry her up into the next room as fast as they could. Velinyal was ahead of her leading the way and though once they were out of the bottom storage area there wasn’t as much fire she could still see it licking through the floorboards.

Running through the next room was even more hazardous though. There was no light but Ira could see the flames through the floorboards where they had eaten through. She could also see the glow from the fire through small cracks in the wood and knew that this floor wasn’t going to last for much longer. Stepping on a wrong board, Ira was sent plummeting back down into the room she’d just run from. Thinking quickly, she grabbed onto one of the floorboards, the weight of her body falling snapping her arms and pulling muscles in her shoulders. Flames licked at her from all sides of the burning ceiling and she could feel the heat on her fingers. Using her strength to hoist herself back up, Ira gave herself two seconds f breathing room before she stood back up.

“Let’s not repeat that experience.”

Nodding her head to Velinyal that she was all right, Ira took off after the elf once again, racing for the stairs to the next floor, which would lead them to a final staircase to the deck of the ship, or so she was hoping if she remembered correctly.

[INDK]

Damon began to move quickly. The hull seemed like it was growing increasingly weaker with every moment. The boughs that held the ship together moaned viciously, nails that held boards together popped out in the heat like cork from bottles of wine. The fire was going to consume the ship, there was no question of it. Even though he knew there was no time to waste, Damon retrieved the mythril sword that Ashiakin had given him. The boy also kept onto the weapon he’d found down in the steerage of the ship. He found it curious, and knew that at the very least, it would allow him to cut through any fiery timber as needed.

The boy followed Ira, and he was moving so quickly that he could have easily passed her by. Initially, he hesitated. After all, it had been Damon’s choice to make her the leader. However, in the darkness he was afraid of running into her. There was little light by which to look for stairs or potential pitfalls, or even a zombie that had somehow managed to stay alive.

However, just before Damon reached the stairs for the deck, a huge beam came crashing down. It crushed the stairs, leaving the boy and Ira a good fifteen feet below where they could jump for safety. Up on deck, Damon could hear the confused discussion among Tel’Aglarim, as they asked questions about the robbery and whether or not they could do anything to save the people who were trapped inside.

“Hello!!!” Damon called out, frantically waving his hands. Drops of hot sweat rolled off his forehead like he had just come out from a shower. “Save us! Save us!”

“Get him some rope!” someone shouted. That was soon drowned out by a cacophony of confusion as people scrambled for some kind of solution. Damon shuddered. Afraid it wouldn’t come in time.

“I’m going to cut my way through,” Damon figured. With that, he began to hack into the side of the ship, being strategic as he cut away at the rotten and burned out pieces of wood as he struggled to create a hole big enough for him.

“Ira help me!” Damon shouted. The flames were growing bigger, feasting on what was left of the undead blood. Like liquid wax the blood stoked the flames, with undead bodies lighting up in a spectacular blaze. It was growing increasingly unlikely anyone would be able to bring a rope down. Smoke stung Damon’s eyes, and he wondered how long anyone above would be able to see him. With the cackling flames, the boy didn’t doubt he could just as easily burn to death as he shouted in vain.

[Iriah Caitrak]

Ira rushed over to where Glen was standing, hacking away at the hull in a desperate attempt to free them from the burning wreckage. It reminded her of the times she’d seen the souls of those departed desperately trying to re-enter their dead bodies. For some reason she found it so heartbreaking, perhaps it reminded her too much of the desperation one faces once they realize they are dead, she didn’t know, she didn’t want to dwell on it.

Forming an axe in her hands, Ira began chopping into the wood of the ship. Each strike measure in how much she could carve away into, how much was still left there to carve into. They didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, no matter how much they hacked away at it, no matter how much the muscles in their arms began to protest it wasn’t working. The others above them were not going to get down here in time and it didn’t seem like they could hack away at the hull of this ship fast enough.

Another beam from the ceiling fell down and crashed through the floor and onto the deck below them. The floor groaned and sounded as if it was about to give way and drop both her and Glen into those fiery depths. Smoke was rising, making invisibility almost impossible, it was also choking all the oxygen out of the air and it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. Ira had not battled her way through amass of undead, blood zombies to get this far and then die in a burning ship.

“It’s not working, Glen!”

Her eyes were tearing from the smoke and she was having a difficult time seeing. She’d blink and clear the blurred vision away only to have it come back stinging twice as bad.

Damn it, there was only one way out of this place and she wasn’t sure if it would be safe or if she’d get them in over their head. Dropping her weapon, Ira placed her hand on Glen’s shoulder and summoned the other world. Everything suddenly froze except for her and Glen and then the world they were standing in began to melt away. The flames on the ship disappeared; parts of the ship itself began to disappear leaving a rotting hull that stood motionless in waves that never moved in a harbour that didn’t exist. They were in Purgatory, everything here was black and white and grey, except for them, and everything here was dead, except for them.

The Serena crystal hidden on the underside of her leather armguard kicked in the moment it sensed Purgatory, covering her upper torso in armour, her left arm in complete armour and thickening the armour on her right and both her shins. A mask of fabric even came down and covered half of her face.

There were Fallen nearby.

She could sense them, souls that had remained for too long in Purgatory, souls that were corrupted and no longer held any kind of humanity. They were much like the zombies Gen and her had been fighting on the ship, however Fallen were usually covered in rotting black flesh, and weapons were grown into their bodies. Hands were sickles, backs covered in quills that could shoot at a person. They were dangerous, mindless creatures and Glen was utterly defenceless against them.

[INDK]

Damon was confused. He didn’t know where they were and for the first few seconds, the boy could have cared less. His face was covered with soot and sweat, and the overwhelming heat from the flames had subsided. The boy breathed lightly, grateful that he had managed to survive somehow. He had no idea as to how he had got there.

Once Damon had got his bearings, he knew they were in trouble. There were strange black creatures all around that seemed to move exactly like the undead. “Uhh… Ira… where are we?” Damon asked nervously. “I don’t know how we got here…” Completely confused, Damon didn’t figure that she knew any more than he did. The boy figured that this was a result of what he had destroyed in the steerage of the ship, that somehow, the magic that had created the undead now worked to transport him into this strange scenario.

For a moment, Damon wondered if he had died. He had been trapped in the fire for a while, perhaps his oxygen had run out. The boy felt like he should have had some memories of death, after all he had died before. But that wasn’t the case, things that happened in the planes of the dead left little to no memories with the boy.

However, now Damon had no idea how to fight. He was too tired to think of much of anything really to do, so he just held the axe stoically, muscles tense as he waited nervously for the end.

Perhaps he’d already been to heaven, so this was his chance to be in hell.

[Iriah Caitrak]

“You’re not dead…” Ira said to boy, knowing that was most likely the first thought to come to his mind, if not, well, she was just stating the obvious then.

Her eyes trailed over the Fallen, lost souls without humanity who had spent too much time in Purgatory. There were only five of them, easy pickings, if it weren’t for the fact that she was so tired and every muscle in her body ached. She’d been trained for this though, from an early age she’d been grown to deal with situations like this where the body wanted to give up but the mind had to force it to continue. The mind could do amazing things when it needed to and the human body could endure much without collapsing. She had endured much without collapsing. This was nothing; this was a walk in the park.

That’s what she kept telling herself within the confines of her skull.

“You’re in Purgatory, Glen…I’m sorry, it was either this or die a rather slow horrible death in the bowels of that ship and I figured you’d vote for this one.” Her voice was slightly muffled through the material covering the lower half of her face.

Taking a fortifying breath, Ira formed her Naginata, the single blade gleaming on the end of the long metal pole. With a glance at the weapon Glen was holding, Ira made an exact replica of it and handed it over to the boy.

“Your weapons will have no effect here, but ones formed by me will. Sheath your axe and use this one but do not drop it or it will disappear. To release the souls attack the black holes in their chest!”

Not giving the Fallen the chance for a first strike, Ira made her move on them. Muscles in her legs tensed and she balanced on her toes, then took off for the souls. The rotting wood of what was the Gwalior in the physical plane groaned in protest but neither moved nor gave way. It was but backdrop that would never change. Putting herself into the thick of it, Ira ducked under a clawed hand coming in for her face and swung her massive weapon around, the blade catching the creature in the leg and sending him tumbling to the ground.

Fallen were mindless and weak and only posed a threat in great numbers.

Standing up from her crouched position, Ira blocked the blade of a Fallen, grown into it’s very arm, then kicked him in the gut sending him tumbling backwards. Before he could reach the ground she slashed the blade of her Naginata through the black hole in the creatures chest. Where the heart should be, where humanity lay. The creature disappeared in a flash of light and left a black and red butterfly in its place, which soon disappeared as well.

Seeing the fall of one of their ‘comrades’ did not stop the rest of the fallen from attacking. Two broke off from her to go after the boy but Ira had a distinct feeling that he could handle himself. When both Fallen charged her at once, Ira grabbed her Naginata around the middle, splitting it in half and forming another blade on the bare end. Each attack blocked by her blade under tense muscles that gave way slightly from the force of it, tired from all that had happened.

[INDK]

Still dumbfounded by what was going on, Damon accepted the axe. Damon figured this would be a bad time for him to mention that he had no idea what to do with the axe he had been given. However, once the boy clutched the weapon in his hands and began working with it, he found that he was able to move particularly gracefully with it. It seemed like every motion in his instincts was somehow particularly attuned for using the axe, and that all the parries and swipes he had attempted only to find were inappropriate for the sword, were suddenly perfect here.

In Damon’s very first sincere attack, he had lopped the head off one of the Fallen. It was a bit of luck, the creature had charged at Damon with complete abandon, as if assuming that the boy would have been unable to defend himself. Right onto that moment it would have been, but now he had gotten lucky.

Lucky or not, it was not a kill. The head regenerated. Still, it was encouraging. Momentum was becoming Damon's ally now, and he quickly capitalized on the decapitation by driving the stake end of the weapon straight into the Fallen's chest, destroying it. Damon’s naturally enhanced reflexes were still working in purgatory, he still saw events before they happened. It made fighting considerably easier than he would have thought.

However, the rest of the Fallen were beginning to learn from him. The boy who had been nothing but dead meat was now a legitimate threat to their existence. They adjusted accordingly, keeping their distance and trying to counter after some lusty blows from Damon’s axe. It was an annoying game of waiting. Damon would strike, the Fallen would counter but be unable to reach the boy before he had readied another blow. It was a stalemate, but a tiring one for Damon. The muscles in his forearm ached and sweat began to cake his body.

“I would think sweat would work differently in Pergatory…” he mused to himself as he continued the fight. Eventually, he got another to fall. One of the Fallen had been a bit too eager and had ended up being caught by a quick maneuver where Damon manipulated his weapon to drive the stake end straight into the creature’s chest.

Still, this kill didn’t come with the same exhilaration that the other ones did. There were still two left for Ira and with everything he had been forced to endure, the young boy was running on nothing more than fumes. Somehow, he took a deep breath and steadied his hands. "What would a general do?" he asked himself, hoping that thought might provide him with some sense of encouragement.

"Need help?" Damon asked breathlessly. He truly hoped Ira would answer in the negative.

[Iriah Caitrak]

Ira breathed heavily as she stepped out of the way of an attack, none too gracefully. She was too tired for grace. Her muscles were sore, the bite wound on her arm was throbbing and whenever she tensed muscles on that area it stretched the skin and ripped the wound back open allowing more blood to flow down her arm. If only more adrenaline would kick into her system and take away the pain and bring about that wonderful numbness. But the adrenaline was gone she was running on nothing.

Spinning her half swallow around, Ira cut off the arm of one of the Fallen then moved in with another quick attack and sliced the blade through his chest. He disappeared leaving her with only one. At this point in time Glen’s voice came out asking if she needed anymore help but Ira knew the boy was just as exhausted as she was and she knew how to handle Fallen better than he did.

Without answering him she attacked the last one. Just one more to go and she could take them both of out here and they could rest for a moment. As the creature advanced on her, Ira formed her half Swallows into one, then changed that into her Naginata, all in one fluid motion. It gave her just enough reach to slice through the creatures arm and into his chest, releasing him from this dreadful world and into a place where he belongs.

“Finished…” She breathed the word out as no more than a whisper between her heavy breathing.

But that was when it hit her. The crystal in the centre of the armour covering her chest changed from the peaceful blue it had been to pure red, signifying the fact that she was corrupted with the regrets and evils these souls had done while trapped in purgatory. Clenching her teeth and stopping herself from screaming, Ira fell down on one knee, and clutched at the crystal as if clawing it from the armour would help her. She’d only release five souls, how could that have corrupted her?

Just as quickly as the pain appeared it disappeared, leaving Ira in a state of confusion. Corruption is not something that should come and go as easily as it just happened there. She really needed to do some soul searching, however now was not the time for it.

Standing up, Ira acted as if nothing had happened and motioned for Glen to follow her off the ship and onto the waves of Purgatory, waves that never moved and water that was not water at all. She didn’t know where the docks were since there were none here and she could really only guess.

“We need to get away from the ship to journey back to the physical plane. We won’t come out where we entered, we’ll come out in the physical world where we’re standing parallel to it in Purgatory, which is a good thing in our situation.”

She didn’t tell him that she didn’t really know where they were going to end up. Right now she just wanted to get the heck out of here and fast before they attracted other Fallen.

Walking a good distance from the ship, Ira called upon the physical plane from deep within her. Colour began to return to everything and before she realized it the hard waves of purgatory turned into the water of the physical plane and Ira was sent plummeting into it. This wouldn’t but such a big problem, except for the simple fact that she’d overlooked, she couldn’t swim. Kicking her feet any which way she could, Ira made it to the surface to take one gulp of air before a wave crashed into her and forced her under the water again.

[INDK]

Damon was a bit surprised that that they had ended up in the water. Up until that moment, he had been too tired to protest. Now, as salt water filled his mouth and nose, he was flailing irritably. Damon didn’t ever recall swimming before, but the same instincts that seemed to know how to fight, seemed to tell him how to keep himself afloat as well. Seeing that Ira lacked those instincts, Damon grabbed her. He held her to his chest, a bit roughly, but at the very least he was keeping her alive as he treaded in the water.

“Looks like we made it…” Damon said, smiling weakly. The burning ship was still within eyesight. It was quite a scene. There were people all around it, talking confusedly. People whose loved ones who had worked on the vessel were crying, accompanied by constant screams of names that Damon had never known. “Maybe they were the henchmen who died down there,” the boy thought. Perhaps most heart wrenching were the cries for Velinyal. It seemed that the elven captain had a good number of friends in Anebrilith. Damon knew that they would eventually find out about the treason. Everything they had thought they knew would have been discredited. Velinyal’s memory would be turned to dust.

Damon wasn’t sure what to think. “I guess he deserved better than that…” the boy thought. “At the very least, he was kind to me…” Soon, a rescue boat had come towards him and Ira. Damon smiled.

“Looks like we’re done here,” Damon said. He exhaled deeply, grateful to be alive.

A pair of strong elves pulled him up onto the lifeboat. They were both wearing insignia of Tel’Algarim’s navy. However, they were accompanied by a pair of brigadiers from the normal Tel’Aglarim. “We have been watching the Gwalior for a while, we suspect they may have had stolen goods,” one of them said. “We would like it if you told us what you know…”

Damon bit his lip. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. Rationally, he knew that all of Raiaera would suffer if he told anything but the truth. None the less, Damon felt as if he didn’t want to be the one who spoiled the name of Velinyal. However, there was a niggling feeling about the legacy that Damon had went out on the adventure to protect. If he said nothing about the undead, what would happen to his own legend?

“Sacrifice one to save another,” he realized. “It’s a damned shame…” With that, Damon began to speak, narrating what had happened, including everything he had seen down below.

“Just like Devon’s sword,” they agreed.

By the time Damon showed them the stake axe he had found, they were already aghast at amazement. Somehow, these people had replaced the weapon of Devon Starslayer with that of perhaps the only comparable hero available; Damon Kaosi. “That’s Damon’s weapon…” one of the members of Tel Aglarim navy said. “It belongs in a museum…”

Damon cleared his throat irritably. “It belongs with me,” the boy said. “Because I AM Damon Kaosi…”

There was suddenly silence on the boat.

[Iriah Caitrak]

The declaration was lost on Ira. Though the others in the boat grew silent with this truth Ira had no idea what it truly meant. When Damon Kaosi had been fighting the legions of the dead and saving Raiaera from it’s clutches, she had still been training in Fallien to become a Calerian. The significance, whatever it was, just did not fall into her head. The only thing that did was the fact that the boy had lied to her about his name. That stung. They’d fought and nearly died together and had both saved one another’s lives probably quite a few times, the last one being him keeping her afloat, but he’d never even told her his real name.

Pushing back the wet hair from her face, Ira eyed the child warrior that she knew was much more than that before her. Why he just hadn’t given his real name she would never know and never understand. In Fallien tribal names were everything and lying about something like that was not something you did.

Still, the rest of Althanas was different than where she came from and perhaps there was some kind of reason for what he had done.

Remaining silent, Ira turned her head and looked out towards the burning Gwalior. On the docks behind it she saw the transparent figure of Velinyal. His eyes were on his ship watching it slowly burn down into nothing. And then she felt them on her and watched the slow smile appear on his face, the slight tilt of his head. Ira gave a small smile back and nodded her head as well. They’d destroyed the dias and all the zombies were finally and truly dead. There was a small worry about the waters being corrupted by what might still be in the ship, but if luck was on their side the fire would take care of that and the harbour would suffer no ill effects of this mission.

Ira sighed in relief as she watched the soul of Velinyal burst into light and change into a small red and black butterfly before that too disappeared on its final journey to Sanctuary. She hoped he found his peace there.

Now she just wanted off this small boat and out of these wet clothes. She wanted a room where she could sleep for the next two days and do nothing, then maybe she’d finally get the chance to explore Raiaera without almost getting herself killed. At least Althanas was shaping up to be an interesting place that was going to keep her on her toes wherever she went.

[INDK]

“You’re Damon?” one of the sailors asked incredulously. “You… you boy, you’re Damon Kaosi.”

Damon didn’t know how to respond to this. He was Damon Kaosi, at least in as much as anyone on the planet was. That said, he was more than aware that he couldn’t exactly prove it to a skeptic. This elf also looked particularly prone to take a skeptical approach to Damon’s claim. The boy took a deep sigh before trying to explain. “I have some of his memories, and I think his soul, some of his abilities, and I can use the Slayer Songbook,” Damon said. “Plus, like the other Damon Kaosi, I just saved Raiaera…”

All Tel Aglarim members on the boat looked at each other somewhat confusedly, as if they weren’t sure what to make of the claim.

“I don’t want to be your General though,” Damon continued, as if that was the issue they would have. “I don’t suppose I deserve the position any more. I’d like to keep this weapon though. Especially if it is supposed to be mine by birthright.”

The brigadiers looked at each other, as did the members of Tel Aglarim Navy. It was clear that all four of them found the claim incredulous, but even then, they weren’t willing to dismiss it. There seemed to be an implicit willingness among them to want to believe this boy’s claim. Raiaera was sorely hurting for a hero. Every since Damon Kaosi had died, there had been increased fractionalization within the army, people had wondered what they were supposed to do now that Eluriand was liberated. There were rumors of wars with Alerar, routing out the humans from the Red Forest, the army even attempting to wrest control from the high bard council. Raiaera was going to need someone new.

And once again, it seemed that Raiaera’s best hopes lay in the hands of a mere boy. It was hardly fair.

“You can keep the weapon,” one of the soldiers said connivingly. “But you can’t ignore your responsibility…”

“You mean you want me to be a general?” Damon asked nervously. He didn’t want to be a general. He wasn’t smart enough. Everything important he had ever learned he had been taught by Ashiakin.

“Not exactly,” the soldier said. “But you’ll have to come to Eluriand.”

If Damon hadn’t been so naïve, he would have never agreed to those terms.

(Spoils= Damon receives the stake axe, made of steel and trakym. Somehow, the weapon has gained some of Damon's magic. If Damon strikes the ground with it, he can summon vines up from the ground. Also, he can imbue the head with a coating of laser.)

[Ashiakin]

I know y'all wanted Madison to judge this, but I took it since I'm pretty familiar with Raiaera and it had been sitting there untouched for a couple of weeks.

[ Introduction - 6 ] You managed to avoid a lot of the Althanas clichés that plague most people’s introductions, but this wasn’t long enough to be worth more than a 6. I liked the way you didn’t introduce the characters at first, but rather did it slowly over the course of the thread. I thought that was more literary than immediate character intros.
[ Setting - 8 ] Everything about your use of setting fit together. I always got a sense of what the ship was like and how it was affecting the thread. You included references to places in Raiaera correctly and referenced the recent zombie mess and tied it in.
[ Strategy - 6 ] This was all right, enough though most of your problem was standard hack-and-slash stuff. What bumped it up from a 5 to a 6 was Damon throwing the torch down where the zombies were. While maybe that represented a lack of strategy, the fact that it was a mistake was realistic and added to the believability of the thread.
[ Writing Style - 6.5 ] This was good. My main complain was that sometimes Ira’s writing felt too casual—the use of phrases like “pissed off” when not in dialogue felt jarring—but otherwise I didn’t see any real problems with either of you.
[ Rising Action - 6 ] Your rising action basically went from about post two to the late middle of the thread. I didn’t get much of a sense of purpose from this thread until the bit with the captain’s true intentions. Your rising action was better in retrospect, though, since you saw what the clues that you dropped about the captain had been for.
[ Dialogue - 7 ] Both of you did a good job with making your dialogue seem representative of your characters. I didn’t spot any major problems.
[ Climax - 9 ] When you found out the captain’s true intentions as far as the zombies and the piece of the Obsidian Spire and all, I was really impressed. You had dropped hints that something was up all along without making it totally obvious. Ira’s character also helped give the climax a unique perspective with the inclusion of the captain’s spirit.
[ Character – 6.5 ] Both of you seemed to be true to your characters and consistent with them, but I didn’t get a good sense of character interaction in this thread. Even when your characters were interacting, it felt obligatory and lacked enthusiasm.
[ Conclusion - 6 ] I felt like you’d done all you really needed to in your rising action and climax, so your conclusion felt lackluster in comparison. It almost felt like a continuation of your rising action, but without the buildup to another climatic event.
[ Wild Card – 7 ] Overall, I liked this thread. Zombies on a boat!

[ Total - 68 ]

[ EXP ]
INDK gains 4720 EXP.
Ira Shinkara gains 840 EXP.

[ Reputation ]
INDK gains 5 reputation in Raiaera.
Ira Shinkara gains 5 reputation in Raiaera.

[ Rewards ]
INDK gains the axe he requested.
Ira Shinkara gains 500 GP.