Nightsea Outlaw

Sayed stepped away from Alex and Erin and began to look for a vantage point. He wanted a place well in sight of the docks and the ship, but he also wanted a place where he could not easily be spotted in return. As in any battle, he knew his answer quickly enough.

"Height is always the greater advantage."

He looked up at the nearest building to him. It looked like a warehouse of sorts, with a long tiled roof that slanted with one side facing the docks and the other away. He could easily keep his watch by lying on the far side without being spotted.

"An easy feat for one such as me." Sayed laughed before he vaulted onto some nearby barrels and vaulted again to reach the top.

He lay down atop the roof and looked over the docks. Besides the metal ships in the harbor and the flurry of activity around the sunken one, the rest of the area was quiet. The other ships in the bay, regular ships from what he could tell, lay moored in their places, sinking and raising with each small wave in the water.

Sayed was not a man who liked to be bored, so the rest of his time on watch passed by with excruciating slowness. In time, he came to realize that he wanted anything but to be on watch and would much rather rush down and try and take the ship, even if he died in the attempt.

"But your brother asked that you do this important duty," he told himself as the men below thinned out and finished their work on the damaged ship. "You must keep your attention focused on what is happening, lest something slip through."

Scritch. Scratch. Pitter. Patter.

Sayed looked up from his watch to find the sudden source of the noise near the roof, and he saw the cause almost immediately. Across from him, approaching from the other side of the roof, was a shadowy four-legged creature that looked almost like a dog. Glowing yellow eyes looked up at him as he rose to one knee to face it, and it began wagging its tail.

"The creature from the fog," Sayed whispered.

Now, he could stay on watch, as Alex had requested. That would be the right thing to do to honor his brother's request. However, in every story, there was always a distraction that could prove advantageous, even if the original goal was lost. The creature was important, and Sayed would do anything not to be bored.

"What say you, beast?" he asked the dog-like creature. "Are you here to fight 'Sword Saint' Sayed, or are you here for some other cause? Speak what you want with word or action."

The beast sat on his haunches and tilted its head at Sayed again. Its tail wagged behind it before it gave a bark and ran along the rooftops. Sayed had not one moment of doubt. He ran after it and into the night.

Erin and Alex split up when they reached the crowd. Erin pointed toward a sign for the local tavern and gave Alex a nod before disappearing inside. Alex couldn't blame her. After their experiences outside tonight, even he wasn't sure about going out into the fog. He wasn't worried about fighting but didn't like whatever the creature had been in the fog.

However, he didn't have to worry about that for the moment.

He hung around the partying folks for a little while, observing them and how they acted first and foremost. Their masks still set his teeth on edge, but otherwise, they seemed to be normal people. If he had to describe it quickly, he would say that it wasn't that different from going to an Oktoberfest celebration. Lots of plaid, lots of people out having fun in silly clothes. Except for the masks.

It was while he was doing that he noticed the problem.

There was another person in the crowd without a mask, a boy who stood in the alley behind the man playing the trumpet. The boy was dirty and dressed in rags. He was also staring directly at Alex.

"That's as good a start as any," Alex whispered to himself as he started walking around the crowd.

The boy immediately ran off and down the alley.

Alex bit back a curse and picked up his pace. He didn't 'step' ahead, as he didn't want to draw attention to himself, and he was sure he could keep up with a kid. As he entered the alley, he broke out into a full run, and he could see the kid running ahead, down the narrow space between the stone buildings, and toward a turn.

"Hey, kid!" He didn't quite yell, but he raised his voice. "I don't want to hurt you. I just want to ask you some questions."

The kid didn't stop.

"Well, what did you expect?" Alex pushed his legs harder as he ran after the kid.

The kid jumped around the corner, and Alex sped up after him. By the time he hit the corner, the kid was already approaching the end of the alley and a second corner. Well, he had tried. It was time for a less subtle approach.

"Step."

Like a thousand footsteps compressed into a fraction of a second, he disappeared, jumping up as he did so and reappearing right in front of the kid as he landed on the ground. Alex turned and reached out, grabbing hold of the kid by his rags and holding on tight.

"Now," Alex said as he looked down at the boy. "I'm not going to hurt you, but I want you to stand still and answer some questions."

He had about a fraction of a second to notice the massive clawed arm that shot out of the alley and toward his face. Alex ducked instinctively. He pushed the kid behind him as he came up with his now free hand in a punch.

"Might."

Crack. Boom. Sploosh.

He punched hard into a muscled torso and felt the impact of his punch radiate out from his fist and into the creature, whatever it was. Black liquid spattered out from his punch, scattering like a popped water balloon through the alley.

Alex had a second to look up before the creature fell apart. It looked like a classic conception of a werewolf from horror movies but made from an inky substance. Yellow eyes stared down at him as the creature deformed, its muscular body reduced to black goo on the ground.

"The hell was that?" he whispered as he looked back for the kid.

The kid had backed away across the ground and now rested with his back against the wall in the corner. He looked up at Alex with wide eyes as Alex turned to him, and he might have been on the verge of screaming for help.

"Stay away!" he yelled, looking up at Alex. "I don't want to hurt you!"

Alex raised an eyebrow as a black, inky substance fell out from the kid's hands in droplets and pooled onto the ground. A wolf-like form rose from that substance, standing protectively around the kid as it looked at him with those same yellow eyes.

"Well, imagine that," Alex whispered as he looked down at the kid. "You're cursed."

Erin walked into the tavern and saw much the same as she had seen outside. Several people wearing those porcelain masks sat around tables, mugs in hand or on their table as they spoke closely with each other. Again, it felt like they were all looking at her as she walked in, and she made sure she had her hood pulled up over her head as she entered.

She first approached the barkeep, who stood at his post with the same mask as everyone else. He polished a mug with a towel as he looked down at her, and again, Erin felt like eyes were staring into her back.

"One mug of your preference," she said.

"A silver doler." The man nodded as he turned behind him and filled up a mug from one of his barrels.

Erin pulled a gold doler from her pocket and set it on the bar. When the barkeep turned back to her and saw it, she couldn't see his expression, but he reached out and took it nonetheless before depositing the mug on the bar.

"You want something more, I take it," he said softly.

"I just want to know more about this town," she said. "I've been to a lot of places, and I've never seen anything like this."

"Far too true." The man snorted as he picked up another mug and began to polish it. "You won't find many places out there like Cragg Hollow. However, I understand that most islands have their own oddities."

"Does everyone here have one of those?" Erin whispered.

"The mask?" The barkeep tapped his chin. "They keep the monsters away. If you've been out in the fog, you've probably seen or heard them. If they catch you without a mask, they'll attack you."

Erin raised her eyebrow at that. She doubted that a mask would keep anything from attacking anyone. She looked over all the people in the room, and again, a tickle of fear ran up her spine and shook her shoulders.

"Yet, they wear them inside," Erin said. "Why?"

Clatter. Smash.

The barkeep froze in his movements. Behind Erin, a glass mug crashed to the ground. She turned to look and saw a person, still wearing a mask, rubbing their head as they picked the mug up.

"Sorry," the man said, nodding toward the barkeep. "I'll clean it up."

"For sure," the barkeep said and resumed cleaning the mug in his hands. "Sorry about that."

"It's alright," Erin said, reaching down to pick up her mug. "What's it like being an outpost?"

She was choosing to ignore her previous question. The barkeep had frozen up before the sound, and her instincts told her not to push there. Instead, she would go for a distraction and hope for the best.

"Keeps the trouble away," the barkeep said. "Especially useful for us because we have Dr. Livesay. He's saved the town so many times from the various sicknesses and ailments of the young and old. Without the base here, we'd lose a lot of people."

Erin nodded and took a sip of the drink. The alcohol stung on her tongue and burned as it went down, but she wasn't going to drink much of it, just enough to keep the barkeep off guard.

"They seemed to have some trouble tonight," she said. "There's a crashed ship out in the bay."

"It was more of a surprise because of the fog." The barkeep laughed. "Took everyone as a surprise because no one could see it coming. Also emptied the tavern of any of the normal guards. Tonight was a slow night because of that."

"The guards come here a lot then?"

"On a normal night, they'd be out here off their ship, yelling and partying. Dr. Livesay would be here with them, too. He's always been the best patron of the bar for as long as the bar has been here."

Erin's hand tilted, and some of her beer spilled to the floor. She quickly corrected her grip and did her best to focus on the barkeep. He seemed to be moving in her vision, swaying from side to side.

"Not much of a drinker, eh?" The barkeep laughed as Erin reached out her hand to steady herself on the bar.

Something was horribly wrong. She felt it as surely as a rock being dropped in her gut. She set the mug on the bar but only ended up spilling it. The floor rushed up to her, and she hit the hard wooden floor. The cool surface rested against her face as the room stopped spinning.

"Don't worry, Felix, keep manning the bar." A voice rattled through Erin as she closed her eyes. "She was asking a lot of questions, and I want to see what she knows before I hand her over to the doctor."

"Take your time," the barkeep said as Erin tried desperately to force her eyes open. "The business at the dock will keep the doctor busy for a while."