Nightsea Outlaw

Alex sensed Sayed before the man dropped down beside him in the alley. Sayed was cut up and bruised, but he wasn't bleeding. Alex hoped he looked better, but he doubted it. He knew he had been lucky that Captain Hawkins had been masked. Alex would have been a goner in a one-on-one fight where the man might have used some strategy with his almost endless strength.

"Good to see you, brother." Sayed slapped him hard on the back as he started walking beside Alex.

Alex almost fell over, and lines of pain shot through his shoulder and back, but he managed to keep his feet under himself. Already, his body had started working through fixing him back up to normal. He could take a hit or two from Sayed.

"You too," Alex said. "It looks like you took some nasty cuts."

"My opponent was strong." Sayed nodded, a frown cutting across his normal smile. "But he was not himself, so I was able to defeat him. If he had been like the man I faced on the roof before, I am unsure if I could have won."

Alex shook his head.

"We need to think about how we can get stronger," Alex said. "We're nowhere near Lucien, but even captains and lieutenants can give us trouble. We'll run into the Military Police more and more out here at some point. We won't always be so lucky."

"Very true." Sayed nodded, a smile cutting across his face again. "Perhaps we will find it along the way in our next journey and our next island. It is only by forging ahead that we can make progress!"

Alex had to appreciate that attitude in Sayed. He had been focusing on his breathing recently in his spare time, but he hadn't made any breakthroughs in gaining the Path of Breath. The other option was for his curse to evolve, but he didn't know how that happened. He had only seen it when he faced off with Lucien back on Glory Plateau. He hadn't even known it was possible before that.

"Information is what we're missing," Alex said. "Ten years in this world, and I barely understand it. I didn't even know it was called Erth until recently. With all these islands across the nightsea, no one seems to talk to each other. What I need to find is a library."

"Maybe Erin has access to some information," Sayed said. "She is part of an organization of some sort, is she not?"

"True." Alex sighed as they turned the corner.

In front of them, down the clear streets, townspeople shambled forward in their masks, clawing and grabbing at the air as they ran. In front of them, Erin ran carrying Klaus, and Erick, the guard, stumbled behind them. That would have been odd, but between them and the townspeople, a massive muscular wolfman made of a dark, inky substance fought through the crowd of townspeople, ripping and throwing as many as it could as it was overwhelmed.

"Well," Alex said. "We might have to deal with this first."

"Run," Erin gasped as she ran past both of them.

"What do you think, Sayed?" Alex asked.

"I do not wish to add unnecessary deaths to my blade," Sayed said, grabbing hold of the stumbling guard, throwing him over his shoulder, and running after Erin. "I say we run!"

"I don't disagree," Alex said, turning and taking off after Sayed.

They ran for what felt like an hour, but it was probably only ten or so minutes. While the townsfolk were ubiquitous across the town, they didn't appear to be coordinated when the doctor wasn't part of the equation. Alex had no idea what happened to the doctor, but he didn't have time to think about it. Instead, he focused on avoiding the mass of townspeople around the docks, and soon, they were clear of them and close to the hill that Alex had talked to Klaus on earlier in the night.

Erin sat Klaus down as soon as she got there before collapsing to the ground, gasping for breath. Sayed sat Erick down nearby and Alex found a tree to lean on as he and Sayed waited for them all to recover. He was tired, for sure, but nowhere near as pushed as he had been during his fight with Goldfist or Lucien. Those had torn him up badly.

"You guys going to be alright?" Alex asked after a while of the three of them catching their breath.

"I hate all of you," Erin groaned, rolling to get up first as green energy glowed through her body. "Why in sha-om did you think it was a good idea to take those people on instead of running?"

"Hey, we made it through," Alex said.

"And we won our battles," Sayed finished.

"What if you hadn't?" Erin asked. "I had to fight that monster of a doctor, and he nearly killed me!"

"So you did beat him?" Alex asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Now that has to be a tale worthy of being told, brother," Sayed said with a smile, clapping one hand down on Erin's shoulder.

"Not now, Sayed." Erin staggered but was able to stabilize herself. "We need to get out of here, now. No arguing this time."

Alex looked out over the town below. To the east, the sun was rising, and the fog was gone. It felt good for the sun's rays to hit his skin. The one night in Cragg Hollow had been long, but it was finally over. He looked over to Klaus.

"You okay, kid?" Alex asked.

Klaus stood up from the ground and nodded to Alex before he went over to Erick and helped the man up. The guard didn't seem to be in any position to move, and Alex realized he would have been part of the garrison at Cragg Hollow. He was with the Military Police.

"Thank you all for getting us out of there," Erick said, looking between the three of them. "What happened to the others?"

"Dead," Alex said.

"Tanis fell to my blade," Sayed said next.

"You killed them?" Erick's breath came in a stuttered gasp. "Did anyone survive but Klaus and me?"

"I'm not sure," Alex said, looking out over the town.

"If they have a mask on, they're already gone," Erin said. "I've seen what the masks do to a person. In order to control them, they have to penetrate into the brain. While a person can gain control in some ways, I think that is temporary."

"Tanis did ask me to kill him after I cracked away the mask, and he did not seem in control of himself," Sayed said after a moment.

"One of our people was able to rip his off but died right after," Erin said. "I don't see any hope here."

"What's that?" Alex pointed out over to the bay.

A massive slipship with light sails concentrated on its back rose from the bay, floating high above the waters as it shed water down below. If Alex remembered right, it was the ship that had been beside the wrecked one in the bay and was definitely a ship of the Military Police.

"That's the Little February," Erick said, rising to his knees and looking out over the bay. "It's coming this way."

The ship floated toward them, and as it grew closer, Alex saw soldiers looking out over them with binoculars. He didn't see any masks on them and saw a few waving down to them on the hill.

"Looks like you have a ride," Alex said.

"I thought Doctor Livesay killed them," Erick said. "He must have left them to come after me when I ran away."

"Well, there's your hope, Erin," Alex said. "Though, I don't want to be around when a slipship full of Military Police comes around."

"No need for another fight this morning," Sayed agreed.

"We're still going to talk after this," Erin said, standing up and taking a deep breath.

"Who are you people?" Erick asked as Klaus helped him stand. "You showed up out of nowhere and killed all my officers. Now you're running."

Alex looked him over, but the guard looked too tired to even think. He had probably forgotten they they had already introduced themselves, and the welling bruises on his head told Alex that he might have hit his head.

"We're outlaws," Alex said with a smile. "And we got what we came here for. Getting you and Klaus out was just something that happened along the way."

"Outlaws?"

"'Tin Man' Ortega." Alex smiled, clapping the man on the shoulder as he walked away.

"'Sword Saint' Sayed." Sayed did the same behind him before following.

"Idiots," Erin said as she followed after them.

The ship lowered down a rope ladder when it was close enough, and Alex made sure that he saw Erick climb up the ladder with Klaus before he turned back to Sayed and Erin. They stood in the shadows of a nearby building as the ship rose and flew away from the island. Now, they just needed to settle things between themselves.

"So, let's solve this now," Alex said, taking the book out of his duster's pocket.

It was still in one piece, a metal rectangular cube with a red button on its front. Alex looked it over in his hands as the three of them stood in the shadow of the building. It seemed like a small thing to be worth so much money.

"When I hit the button earlier, it didn't open at all," Erin said.

"Yeah, access denied." Alex ran his finger across the cover. "If we turn it over now, you won't be able to get any information out of it."

"But that is the end of this quest," Sayed said, crossing his arms. "Unless we wish to betray our client."

"It says it's a logbook, but it isn't much of a book at all," Alex said. "You can read a book. To me, this seems closer to a computer."

He hit the button, expecting the same message Erin had heard earlier that night. However, the book did nothing of the sort. Instead, it beeped and glowed with a blue light.

Beep. Beep. Authorized user detected. Beep. Beep.

A single circle opened up in the book's center, and a lens popped up from inside. Light projected in a cone from that lense, and several numbers flickered across the air above the book. Alex nearly dropped it, and Erin immediately came in close to look at the light.

"Shades," she whispered as she read the numbers. "Those are coordinates."

"Well, that's surprising," Alex said as the light flashed again, showing the image of a face before flickering off.

The lens closed on the book, and the light left it. The logbook lay silent in Alex's hands. Erin looked between him and the book like he knew what was happening. Alex, of course, had no idea what was happening. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Let me try it," Erin said, pressing the button.

Beep. Beep. Unauthorized user detected. Beep. Beep.

"Now you," Erin said.

Alex pressed the button, and the book repeated that he was authorized and displayed the coordinates again. When it was finished, Erin's face was twisted in confusion. It looked like she was trying to make sense of something, but there were no connecting threads.

"Why would you be an authorized user?" Erin asked.

"No idea," Alex said.

"Maybe I should try," Sayed said, reaching out and touching the button.

Beep. Beep. Unauthorized user detected. Beep. Beep.

"This doesn't make any sense," Erin said, tapping her chin.

"Nothing has made any sense since I came here." Alex sighed. "What's more important is what we should do about these coordinates and if we should keep the book."

"You keep saying 'we,'" Erin said, shaking her head. "We're not working together."

"What do you mean?" Sayed asked, reaching down and hugging the three of them together. "We have fought together twice now and are brothers. We should go after this place together and continue the adventure. What else is there to do?"

Erin's grumpy face was right next to Alex's, but he couldn't help but smile. Sayed had a point. They had already worked together for two islands now, and he didn't doubt that Erin would want to tag along for a third island. Giving back the book could wait. He wanted to know where it went just as much as Erin seemed to.

Sayed put them both on the ground after a few moments, beaming a bright smile with his hands on his hips.

"We'll go for it," Alex said, shaking his head at Sayed. "Do you want to come with us, Erin?"

Erin let out a sigh, raising her hands in defeat. "Fine, but don't make me regret this."