LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Eh! Well, ‘allo there, young ‘uns. Shouldn’t you cheeky little sprats already be a-bed? What’s that? You want a suppertime story from old One-Legged Lars, eh?

Alright, alright, just one ‘afore bed. Gather round. But I don’t wanna hear no cryin’ or whimperin’ this time. This is Bilgewater, after all, and even our bedtime tales have more’n a little darkness in ‘em.

Right. Now, you’ve heard of the Tidal Trickster, the little ocean sprite they call Fizz, ain’t ya? Ye have? Good, good. Well, this is a story about the time old Lars met him. What’s that? Must have been fun? Well, what sort o’ stories you been told? No it weren’t fun, thank you very much! He’s a malign little terror, that one, and you’ll be lucky if you never cross paths with ‘im in all your lives. But I’m gettin’ ahead of me self. Ahem.

Right, so there I was, clingin’ to a rock out in the Jagged Straits. Me ship was sunk don’t matter how it happened, there’s a tale for another night, maybe but that’s as it was. I clung to that rock for three days and nights, with fins a-circlin’.

And just when I was startin’ to give up all hope... he appeared.

All I seen at first were those two big, round eyes, pale as death, as he swam towards me. Them circling sharks took off right away, and no mistake they was a-feared of him, see, just as you all should be. Closer, and closer, and closer ‘e came. I don’t mind admittin’ I were scared, but he’d shooed off them hungry fishes, so I dove into the sea, and started swimmin’ for Bilgewater, as quick as ye like!

But every time I looks back, ‘e was there, with those big eyes peerin’ at me! I finally get to shore, and thought I’d lost ‘im... But how wrong old Lars was!

I got a room in a flea-ridden flophouse down Rat Town way, but it didn’t take long for me to realize... I weren’t alone. What first clued me was the creepin’ stink o’ seaweed and fish in me room. Oh, pooh! That and the little wet footprints on the stair when I awoke in the mornin’...

They call ‘im the Trickster, and he certainly lived up to the name. Put seawater in me porridge when I weren’t lookin’! Tied me bootlaces together, so I fell as soon as took a step! And slipped eels under me blankets! Give me a right proper scare when they started wrigglin’, I’ll tell ye!

And all the time, I hears ‘im laughing. Still makes me skin crawl, just to think of it. For a whole week Fizz haunted me. Drove me fairly to the brink o’ madness! “What do ye want, you little monster?” I screams!

But on the final night, I woke. I heared his webbed feet, flappin’ on the floor. Slap. Slap. Slap.

Closer, ‘e came, and closer. “This is it!” I thought. “He’s come to end me, once and for all,” and I hid me self under the covers.

Slap. Slap. Slap, went his cold, wet feet! And then... silence. I lay there, cowering, for what must’ve been an hour, ‘afore I dared a peek. Slowly, I reaches out, lights the lamp, and do you know what happened next?

Nothin’.

Aye, Fizz were gone, at long last. But he left something for me, on the wooden box ‘aside me bed. A coin, a gold Kraken, no less. This coin here, in fact! Eh, eh, look wi’ your eyes, not your ‘ands! That’s my lucky Kraken, ye know.

But I tell you, rather than make me happy for I hadn’t a penny to me name back then the sight of that coin filled me with dread. ‘Cos this were the very coin that our captain swore he tossed into the ocean, on our way out o’ port. That was his offering to the Bearded Lady for safe passage, but the Tidal Trickster had took it! That was the reason our ship’d sunk! That playful, hateful little imp, he’d doomed the whole crew, and done it with a wicked, fishy grin on his face.

So, I tell you little sprats now, pray you never encounter ‘im, ‘cos while ‘e might seem all fun and games, let me tell you now – he ain’t.

Now, off to bed with ye! And pray you don’t see no little wet footprints on the floorboards when you wake! Hah!

Raised in the wharf alleys of Bilgewater, Malcolm Graves quickly learned how to fight and how to steal, skills that would serve him very well in all the years ahead. He could always find work hauling contraband up from the smugglers’ skiffs that came into the bay each night—with a tidy side-gig as hired muscle for various other unsavory local characters, as they went about their business in the port.

But the alleys were small-time, and he craved more excitement than they could offer. Still little more than a youth, Graves stole a blunderbuss and smuggled himself aboard a ship headed out of Bilgewater to the Shuriman mainland, where he stole, lied, and gambled his way from place to place along the coast.

Across the table of a high-stakes—and highly illegal—card game in Mudtown, Graves met a man who would change the course of his life, and his career: the trickster now known to many as Twisted Fate.

Each immediately saw in the other the same reckless passion for danger and adventure, and together they formed a most lucrative partnership. Between Graves’ raw brawn and Twisted Fate’s ability to talk his way out of (and occasionally back into) almost any situation, they were an unusually effective team from the outset. Their mutual sense of roguish honor grew into genuine trust, and together they stole from the rich, swindled the foolish, handpicked skilled crews for specific jobs, and sold out their rivals whenever they could.

Though at times Twisted Fate would blow all their shares and leave them with nothing to show for it, Graves knew that the thrill of some new escapade was always just around the corner…

On the southern borderlands of Valoran, they set two renowned noble houses of Noxus at each other’s throats as cover for the rescue of a kidnapped heir. That they pocketed the reward money, only to ransom the vile young man to the highest bidder, should really have come as no surprise to their original employer. In Piltover, they still hold the distinction of being the only thieves ever to crack the supposedly impenetrable Clockwork Vault. Not only did the pair empty the vault of all its treasures, they also tricked the guards into loading the loot onto their hijacked schooner, for a quick getaway through the Sun Gates.

In almost every case, only once they and their accomplices were safely over the horizon were their crimes even discovered—usually along with one of Twisted Fate’s trademark calling cards left where it would be easily found.

But, eventually, their luck ran out.

During a heist that rapidly turned from complex to completely botched, Graves was taken by the local enforcers, while Twisted Fate merely turned tail and abandoned him.

Thrown into the infamous prison known as the Locker, Graves endured years of torture and solitary confinement, during which time he nursed his bitter anger toward his old partner. A lesser man would surely have been broken by all this, but not Malcolm Graves. He was determined to have his revenge.

When he finally clawed his way to freedom, with the prison warden’s brand new shotgun slung over his shoulder, Graves began his long-overdue pursuit of Twisted Fate.

The search led him back home to Bilgewater, where he found that the wily old cardsharp had acquired a few new bounties on his head—and Graves would be only too happy to claim them. However, just as he got Twisted Fate in his sights, they were forced to put aside their differences in order to escape almost certain death in the ongoing conflict between the reaver king Gangplank and his rival ship captains.

Once again, Graves found himself escaping his hometown… only this time, he had his old friend in tow. While both of them might have liked to pick up their partnership where they left off all those years ago, such resentment couldn't simply be forgotten overnight, and it would be a while before Graves could bring himself to trust Twisted Fate again.

Still, he feels Bilgewater calling to him once more. Maybe this time around, the pair of them will find their stride and be able to pull off the ultimate heist…

Ah, Bilgewater.

It’s a hateful, stinking cesspit of murder and treachery at the best of times… and damn, it’s good to be home.

My back’s to the open ocean as I row out across Bilgewater Bay, so I’m facing the lights of the port city, shining like fool’s gold in the distance.

We’d been running jobs in Valoran, in the City of Progress and its uglier, downtrodden sister, but things started getting hot. And besides, the Prince reached out to us with this contract, and the money was too good to ignore.

Far too good, really, for what looks to me like a wild-eel chase. There’s gotta be a catch—always is—but as I said, the coin on offer weren’t to be sniffed at.

Still can’t believe we’re back. Last time we were here, things got a little, well, explosive.

Sarah Fortune played us all like a fiddle—me, T.F., Gangplank. No one’d ever taken on that gods-damned psychopath like she did. Blew him and his ship to smithereens, with all Bilgewater watching. And T.F. and I, we got a close-up view. Just dumb luck we survived. Of course I hold a grudge against her, but I have to admit, it was mighty impressive what she pulled off. She’s running the place now, from what I hear. Just a few more captains to bring into line, or see to the bottom of Bilgewater Bay. Only a few left who still reckon they can make a play to claim the unofficial throne themselves. Like our old friend, the Prince…

“Can you at least try to keep your mind on the job? We’re drifting off course.”

I glower at T.F. While I’m working up a sweat, the smug bastard’s sitting back, absently flipping cards through his slippery fingers. He’s far too scrawny to be of use on an oar anyway, but him criticizing me while lounging like a fancy Demacian high lord rubs me the wrong way.

The fact that he’s right—current’s pulled us a couple hundred yards south, meaning I gotta row that extra bit harder to get us where we need to be—just riles me even more.

“Feel free to take over any time you want, m’lord,” I growl.

“Can’t,” he says, as he lays three cards face down on the upturned barrel in front of him. “Busy.”

Scowling, I glance over my shoulder to get my bearings. We’re passing through a forest of sharp rocks, jutting out of the ocean like knife blades. ’Course, it ain’t the ones above the surface that are the problem. Just like always, it’s the blades you can’t see that are the real killers.

They’re called the Widow Makers, and they’ve claimed scores of victims over the years. You can see the remnants of the ships that’ve smashed on ’em: broken masts wedged between rocks, shattered planks circling in eddies, rotted boarding nets strung up on razor-sharp pinnacles.

Most of those wrecks are caused by damned fool captains not wanting to pay a Buhru wave-whisperer to guide ’em into port. Not too clever, that choice.

Thankfully, we ain’t trying to navigate the Widow Makers in anything more than ten feet from bow to stern. The leaky rowboat’s name is Intrepid, and I must admit I’ve grown more than a little fond of her since we met an hour past. She’s not much to look at—a bit rusty around the edges, and she could use a lick of paint—but she hasn’t let us down yet, which is something. And she ain’t complained about my rowing.

T.F. turns over each of the three cards, one by one. He frowns, and shuffles ’em back up in his hands. He’s been doing this since we ghosted off the White Wharf. Something in the cards has got him spooked, but I don’t give it any more thought. Tonight’s little paddle into the harbor ain’t gonna amount to nothin’, but we gotta make a show of giving it a solid try. I’m just damn pleased we got half the gold Krakens up front.

Far as I’m concerned, that’s all we’ll be getting, and that’s fine by me. Easiest coin we’ve ever made.

A splash of seawater from my oars slaps T.F. in the face. He stops shuffling his cards and looks up, glaring. “Do you mind?” he says.

Nope, I don’t mind one bit.

“My bad.” I give him a shrug, and keep on rowing.

He takes off his hat and wipes his cheek. Once done, he gives me another glare and puts it back on. Pulls it down low in front, tryin’ to seem all mysterious. Looks like a damn fool to me.

I try to keep the smirk off my face as I dig one of my oars into the water again. Get him good this time, right in the side of the head. Smack.

“Oh, for Luck’s sake,” he snaps, glowering at me. Sticks one finger in his ear and gives it a good waggle. “You’re doing that on purpose.”

“Can’t help it,” I says. “It’s your own fault, tryin’ to look fancy, with your mighty fine coat and your having a bath once a week. Brings out somethin’ mean in me.”

I get him again, perhaps a little more than I intended to. Soaks him to the skin. Infuriated, he starts to stand up, leveling a finger at me, but that just sets Intrepid rocking wildly. He sits down in a hurry, clinging to the sides of the little rowboat, a hilariously terrified expression on his face. For all his show of fanciness, in that moment all T.F.’s cool just got thrown overboard.

I shake my head, chuckling. Still makes me laugh that he’s one of the river folk, one that lived half his life in Bilgewater, no less, and he still can’t swim.

He’s staring daggers at me, his perfumed and carefully oiled hair now hanging limp and dripping like seaweed. I try not to, but it sets me giggling again.

“You’re an imbecile,” he says.

I row on. After a time, the tolling of Third Bell reaches us, drifting across the harbor from Bilgewater.

“We’re here,” T.F. announces, finally, consulting his cards once more.

I look over my shoulder. A jagged rock big enough to be a small island is looming before us, but it doesn’t look much different from any of the others.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he replies, sharply. Still annoyed about the water, I guess. “I’ve checked and re-checked. The cards keep telling me this is the one.”

There’s quite a few little tricks T.F. can do with those cards of his. He can use ’em to get in and out of places we’d otherwise never have access to, which is mighty handy when tryin’ to pull off a job. I’ve even seen him hurl a card to make a wagon explode like it was packed with gunpowder. But what he’s been doin’ tonight is proper old-blood river folk stuff. Must say it’s usually pretty accurate.

At T.F.’s direction, I pull Intrepid in close, rowing around to the leeward side of the sheer rock face. The swell rises and falls, threatening to smack us against it, but I keep her steady and drop anchor when T.F. tells me we’re at the right spot.

The rock towers overhead.

“So… How do we get up there?” I ask.

“We don’t,” he says. “The cards tell me the shrine’s inside.”

“I don’t see no cave entrance.”

Then I see T.F.’s grin, and my heart sinks. He points overboard, down into the water.

“You ain’t serious,” I mutter.

Last time we were in Bilgewater, I thought I was gonna drown, chained to a cannon kicked overboard. T.F. saved me, but it was a close thing, and I ain’t too keen to relive the experience.

“’Fraid so, partner,” he says. “Unless you want me going in by my lonesome…”

“So you make off with the loot and claim the rest of those Krakens without me? I don’t think so.”

I ain’t forgotten that this son of a dung-worm has left me high and dry before, running off with the coin and leaving me to face the consequences. Those years locked up ain’t ones I’m getting back.

“I thought you didn’t believe the shrine existed,” says T.F. “If I recall correctly, you described it as a ‘wild-eel chase’, right?”

“Yeah, well, I still think it’s a load of superstitious horse manure, but on the off chance it ain’t, I want my cut.”

He’s the one smirking now, as I start taking off my coat and boots. I make sure my shells and cigars are secured and watertight. Then check and re-check that my big double-barreled shotgun, Destiny—newly forged in Piltover, to my own specifications—is tightly wrapped in oilskins, and strapped snugly across my back. I roll up my sleeves.

“So where’s this tunnel, then?”

I dive in. Hope I ain’t jumping right into a school of frenzied razorfish.

It’s bastard cold and bastard dark, but I kick down, going deeper. Fish and gods-know-what-else dart in front of me, flickering at the edge of my vision.

There. While it’s all dark down here, there’s a patch that’s, well, darker, further below. A tunnel entrance. Guess T.F.’s cards were right. I swim into it, and soon realize the water outside weren’t dark at all, not compared to this. I can’t even see my own hands in front of me. It ain’t too wide, neither—my fingertips scrape the smooth stone on either side with every pull.

Glancing back, I see the little circle of blue marking the tunnel entrance. I reckon I’ve got just enough air to turn around and make for the surface. I go on any further, and I ain’t getting back out that way.

T.F. better be right about this. If I drown down here, I swear, next Harrowing I’ll be back to haunt the bastard.

There’s light up ahead, and I kick off the tunnel floor toward it, thinking I’ve found a way out… but no. It’s just a bastard glowing jellyfish, tentacles drifting like deadly towlines. Ain’t going near that thing.

I swim on, now completely blind. Panic’s slowly rising like a Blood Moon tide. I hit a wall in front, and for a horrible moment I think I’m at a dead end. Instinct kicks in, and I push straight up, searching for air, but all I achieve is smacking my head on the rock above. Hard. The cold numbs the pain, but I reckon there’s blood in the water. Not exactly ideal to be bleeding. Berserker sharks can smell that miles away…

I feel trapped, like a rat in a water-filled barrel. I might drown for real this time.

There’s gotta be a way through. I scrabble around desperately, feeling blindly at the walls. Seems like there’re curving spirals carved in the stone, but that ain’t too interesting right now. The air in my lungs feels like poison, and my strength’s starting to fade when I find the opening.

Kicking through, I suddenly see moonlight overhead. I swim up. Break the surface. Suck in a deep, ragged breath. I’m alive!

Treading water, I take stock of my surroundings. I’m inside a cave, partially open to the sky, with the moon shining down.

I paddle over to a rocky ledge and clamber out. Crabs the size of my head skitter out of my way. They’ve each got one overgrown blue claw, and they’re waving ’em at me like they begrudge my presence here. Well, that’s fine with me. Never liked crabs. Make my skin crawl, they do. Too many legs.

First things first. I unsling Destiny and unwrap her oilskins. In the moonlight I give her a quick inspection, checking the loading mechanism and trigger. Looks good. I load a couple of shells, and suddenly things feel a whole lot brighter. Not much that gives me the fear when I’ve got the good lady Destiny locked and loaded in my hands.

“Took you long enough,” says a voice.

I almost unleash both barrels before I realize it’s just T.F. He’s leaning against a rock, trying to look all detached and suave since he took the easy way in with his cards.

“Damn near shat myself, you stupid bastard,” I growl.

“You’re bleeding,” he says.

I touch my scalp. My hand comes away red. “I’ll live.” Hope I’m right about that.

He might try to play it cool, but T.F.’s still looking at me, and I can tell he’s concerned. I won’t admit it, but I appreciate that.

“Don’t get all excited. I’m fine!” I look around, noting that every inch of the walls is inscribed with curving patterns. Buhru carvings. Takes me a moment to realize what they are.

“That’s a lot of serpents,” I say, stating the obvious.

Huh. Maybe there’s something to this wild-eel chase after all.

“Still think this is nothing but a myth?” T.F. asks.

I just grunt in reply. Even if I am startin’ to come around, I ain’t giving him the satisfaction yet.

See, the thing we’ve been hired to find is a Bilgewater legend, something any sane individual would dismiss as no more real than the Tidal Trickster, or the legends of the Summoners.

The Abyssal Crown.

It’s said that whoever wears the crown commands the Beasts Below. And whoever commands the Beasts Below would control the waters around the Serpent Isles. Control them, and, well, you’d naturally control Bilgewater.

That’s why the Prince is so desperate to get his golden hands on it. Not much Missy Fortune could do to dispute his claim if he was wearing the Abyssal Crown.

“So, where’s the shrine?” I say.

“There’s a passage leading farther in, back over there,” T.F. says, gesturing deeper into the cave. “Perhaps it’s through there.”

“No more swimmin’, I hope,” I mutter.

The “passage” T.F. found ain’t much more than a crack in the rocks. He’s got no meat on his bones and slips through like a flounder. Mine is the more robust—and I daresay, more admirable—physique, and I lose a few buttons tryin’ to squeeze through.

I’m grumblin’ and swearin’ under my breath, cursing that double helping of chowder I scarfed down earlier in the night, when T.F. shushes me, forefinger tapping pointedly on his lips.

With a final grunt I’m through, almost falling flat on my face. Then the smell hits me like a fist. It’s a stink not dissimilar to the vile offal-and-fish-guts reek of the slaughter docks. Makes the eyes water. Brings back bad memories, too.

Moonlight filters down through a gap in the cave ceiling, but it’s still dark. Takes me a moment to register the sheer amount of flotsam and jetsam piled up around the place. It looks like a hoarder’s paradise, with all manner of junk and refuse filling every nook and cranny.

This cavern’s larger than the last, and every part of it—well, every part that doesn’t have random crap heaped up against it—is also covered in Buhru carvings. More serpents. I’m sensing a theme here…

There’s a big old pool of black water to one side, probably connected to the same bastard tunnel that tried to drown me, but there’s no way all this refuse and junk got washed in here. Nah, this was brought here by someone. In truth, there’s a strange kinda order to it, even if it’s the kinda order imposed by a mind twisted like a sailor’s knot.

There’re barrels and boxes, chests, and nets. Fishing tackle and rusted harpoons, lengths of long-rotted rope. Piles of shells and stones are arranged in strange stacks, and jars of fetid liquid and gods-know-what-else are lined up on crude shelves made from driftwood.

A rusted anchor leans against a wall, and a ship’s barnacle-covered figurehead—a buxom lass with a fish tail—is wedged between a couple of boulders. Her flaking paint makes it look like her skin is coming off.

Broken masts criss-cross overhead like crooked rafters. Seaweed hangs from them in long strands, alongside little bundles of slowly spinning fishbones and twigs, tied with twine and hair, and torn ribbons of rotting sails.

And there, in the shadows toward the far wall, half hidden among the bric-a-brac, there’s something that looks an awful lot like…

“You think that’s it?” I whisper.

It’s an altar of sorts, carved straight outta the stone wall. Made to look like a swarming mass of sea serpents—red fins, bile belchers, ebony spine-throats, the lot of ’em. It’s surrounded by hundreds of unlit candles, melted wax everywhere, as well as dozens of skulls from all manner of beasties. More than a few human skulls in there, too.

“The Abyssal Shrine.” There’s awe in T.F.’s voice. He’s always been a superstitious type, being river folk and all. “Yeah, that’s it, all right.”

T.F. starts picking his way over to the shrine. I follow a little more slowly, eyeing the shadows. Feels like about now is when something bad would usually happen. That tends to be the way these things go for us. ’Course, I’m also watching T.F.

“You better not be tryin’ to pocket that crown on the sly,” I growl. He gives me a dirty look, but doesn’t bother replying.

Something catches my eye, then, and I think my heart stops for a second.

There’s an elderly woman lying on a knee-high rock shelf nearby. I almost missed her, scanning right over her before I realized what I was seeing.

“Ah hells,” I breathe. Now my heart’s going again, beating like a Noxian war drum.

She’s on her back, hands clasped in front of her, like a statue of the dead. Actually, by the looks of her, she might well be dead, or damn close. Her clothes are half rotten, and she’s the color of a week-dead fish. Might be the light, or lack thereof, but it also looks mighty like the veins in her see-through skin are ink black.

“There’s, ah, an old lady over here,” I hiss.

T.F.’s at the shrine, giving it the once over. “Huh?” he says absently.

“I said there’s an old lady over here,” I repeat, a little louder, glancing over at her to see if she wakes up. She doesn’t.

T.F. glances back. “What’s she doing?”

“Sleepin’,” I whisper. “Or being dead. I dunno which.” I give her a sniff and almost retch. “But she stinks somethin’ fierce. So probably dead.”

T.F. is making his concerned face, his brows meeting in the middle. He usually reserves that for a really bad hand of cards, or finding a fresh stain on the ridiculously overpriced tailored jacket he got in Piltover.

“I guess… just leave her be, then?” he says.

Brilliant. I change the subject. “Any sign of the crown?”

“No.” He turns back to the shrine. “It should be here…”

I move toward him, to help with the search, when the woman gives a rasping snort behind me. I turn fast, shotgun leveled, but she doesn’t stir. Alive, then.

I look at what I’m doing, and shift my aim toward the sky. What was I gonna do, shoot a sleeping old grandma? No matter how bad she smells, that seems like it would just be inviting a whole shipload of bad luck down upon us.

Turning back, I keep a wary eye on the old bat, just in case. Then I step on something. Something that moves. Something that gives out a muffled shriek.

There’s another person in here, completely buried beneath a pile of rotting sailcloth.

He scrabbles away from me like a cornered dog, panicked eyes wild. By the cut of his clothes and the gold earring, he has the look of a sailor, but one that ain’t had a good feed in a while. It’s then that I see the rusted shackle around his leg, connected to a chain, which in turn is bolted to the wall nearby.

Seeing he’s no threat, I ease Destiny’s barrels up. I nod to T.F., who’d spun around, glowing cards at the ready.

“Easy now,” I say to the captive, holding up a hand. “Ain’t here to do you no harm.”

“Get me out of here,” he whispers, eyes dartin’ between me and the sleeping old woman. “I don’t want to be no sacrifice. Was just sent to look for the crown! Get me out of here, get me out of here, get me out—”

His voice is gettin’ louder as his panic builds. Who knows how long the poor fella’s been chained to a wall down here? Or why?

“Now then, son, keep it down,” I say, trying to be all calm like.

“—get me out of here, get me—”

“Shut him up,” hisses T.F.

“Why you always got to order me around, huh?” I snap, makin’ a show of turning toward my partner in crime and jabbing a finger at him. “I got this, alright? It’s just like when—”

It’s a simple misdirection technique, one I learned from T.F., actually. Get your mark’s attention with a sudden movement, direct their focus where you want ’em to look, and they won’t see the thing you don’t want ’em to see.

Case in point: the prisoner’s frantic gaze shifts to T.F., and he don’t notice me stepping in close ’til it’s too late. I slam the butt of Destiny square into his face. I ain’t tryin’ to kill him, but I want him to have a good long sleep.

I throw a glance over my shoulder, but it seems the old bird didn’t hear anything. Probably stone deaf. Still, the sailor seemed pretty worked up. I’m startin’ to get the feelin’ there’s somethin’ mighty wrong about her…

“Nicely done,” T.F. says.

I give him a nod, and kneel down beside the unconscious captive. He looks a bit familiar… “Think I recognize him,” I say. I yank down his collar, popping a few buttons. Yep, there it is—a small tattoo, a pair of crossed hand cannons. “Yeah, this is one of Missy Fortune’s boys. High-ranking one, too. Reckon she’d pay handsomely to have him back.”

T.F. grunts in amusement. “Seems the Prince isn’t the only one after the crown.”

“Looks like. Wonder if she’d pay better?”

“Need to find it first,” he says.

“What did he say about being a sacrifice?”

Far as I’m concerned, if that old woman is strong enough to overpower Miss Fortune’s man, she’s either got help—which could be close by—or there’s much more to her than it seems. Either way, I ain’t keen to stick around.

“Let’s just get out of here,” I mutter. “This don’t feel good.”

“But we’re so close!” T.F. says. “It’s right here, I know it! Give me a little longer.”

Feels strange, me wanting to cut and run and him wanting to stay. That ain’t the way these things usually play out.

I cast another uneasy glance at the old lady, but give a reluctant nod. “Alright. But be quick.”

T.F. seats himself on the floor, and starts dealing out cards before him, face down, in a symmetrical pattern. I leave him to it, and start poking around, prodding into dark spaces with Destiny’s barrels, and being a bit more cautious of where I plant my feet. I find some old, tarnished coins, and am more than a little surprised to see a few gold Krakens among ’em. I pocket those, sliding a glance over at T.F. to make sure he doesn’t notice.

“You certain it’s here?” I say.

T.F. lifts up a card so I can see it. The picture looks like… well, it looks like a gold crown in the shape of a serpent.

“Don’t think I’ve seen that card before,” I say.

“Nor have I,” says T.F. “It’s never existed, ’til now. The crown’s here. Somewhere.”

I’ll never really understand those cards of his.

I keep searching, but after a while, I get the sense we’re being watched. Can’t say I much like the feeling. I turn around in place, looking into the darkness. There’re flickers of movement at the corners of my vision, but it all goes still when I focus on them. I try to shake it off. Probably just more crabs. Still, it seems like getting out of here would be a good idea, sooner rather than later.

T.F. mutters to himself, then scoops up his cards. He looks around, frowning. “You get the feeling we’re being watched?”

Not just me, then. I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. I catch another glimpse of movement, and find my eye drawn to an upturned bucket on the floor.

Did it—did it just move?

I keep focused on it, and after a moment, the bucket does indeed inch along the floor, just a smidge, before stopping again. I reckon I’ve seen a few odd things in my life, but can’t say I’ve ever seen a bucket acting sneaky before.

I take a step closer, leaning down toward it. There’s a hole in the side of it, and it looks like… yep, there’s an eye staring out, right back at me. A big, yellow, staring eye.

“Got you now, you little—” I say, leveling Destiny at it.

Seeing its ruse is up, whatever’s within flips over the bucket and makes a break for it. I almost shoot, before I see it’s nothing but a damn octopus. I hear T.F. chortle as the rubbery thing goes squelching across the cave floor, hauling itself along with a surprising turn of speed.

It’s only got a single eye, and it’s still staring at me as it scoots backward.

“That’s… not something you see every day,” T.F. says.

The gangly green thing flops along to the base of the rock shelf where the old woman sleeps. It reaches up with a pair of tentacles and starts climbing.

“Well, don’t let it wake her up!” hisses T.F.

“What d’you want me to do, shoot it? Don’t you think that might just wake her up?”

T.F. has a card at the ready, but doesn’t throw, probably on account of not wanting to risk hitting the old woman. “I don’t know. Grab it or something!”

“I ain’t touchin’ no one-eyed octopus, Tobias.”

He gives me a look at the use of his real name. “I’ve told you not to call me that,” he says. “It’s Twisted Fate now, all right?”

I roll my eyes. “I ain’t callin’ you that. It’s stupid an’ pretentious an’—”

The old woman gives a shuddering snort, and we cease our bickering instantly. We look over to see the slimy beastie wrapping its tentacles around her face. There’s an unpleasant squelching sound as it pulls itself onto her head, like a grotesque bonnet, and attaches. Its big yellow eye blinks.

“That ain’t right,” I murmur.

Then the old woman sits bolt upright.

Now, I’m secure enough in myself to admit the sound I made when the old lady sat up was perhaps a little more shrill than I’m proud of. But to be fair, T.F.’s cry was even less dignified than mine.

The old woman’s eyes snap open. They’re as white as serpent milk. Blind she might be, but she turns toward us all the same.

“More little rats, sneaking and thieving?” she says. Her voice sounds like, well, exactly how you’d imagine an old sea witch with an octopus on her head would sound. “Naughty rats, nothing here for you, oh no…”

“Now hold on just one moment, lady,” I say, as she swings her legs around and plants her bare feet on the cave floor. I’ve got Destiny leveled at her, but she don’t seem to care. “We ain’t no rats, and we ain’t no thieves. Well, we are thieves, but, well—”

I look over at T.F.

“Help me out, would you?” I hiss.

“We’re looking for the Abyssal Crown,” T.F. says. “If you’d be so kind as to hand it over, there doesn’t need to be any trouble.”

The old witch stands up with the aid of a serpent-headed staff. Didn’t notice that earlier. She turns her blank, cloudy eyes toward us, and gives a toothless smile. “Silly, silly rats,” she says, drooling. “Already drowned. Promised to the Beasts Below, and don’t even know it.”

She slams her staff down on the floor. Reverberations shudder through the cave, and ripples spread across the black water. There’s a clicking sound, like lots of sticks and twigs breaking, and the walls come alive with movement.

Things detach from the surrounding darkness.

Big things.

“Crabs,” I mutter. “’Course it had to be crabs.”

These ain’t normal crabs, though—not that I’d describe anything with that many legs as normal under regular circumstances, but these things are something else. They’re about the size of small wagons, for starters, and they seem mighty intent on ripping us limb from limb.

They come skittering toward us, each waving a giant blue claw. Gotta say, it looks a whole lot more threatening when that claw’s big enough to snip a man in two. More of them break the surface of the water, chittering and snapping, scuttling sideward up into the cave.

“Eat this, you leggy son of a…!” I roar, and unleash both barrels into the first to come at us.

The blast is deafening, and hurls the giant crab backward with satisfying violence. A flash of red, and T.F. sends one of his cards slicing into the middle of a cluster of them. It explodes, catching the lot of ’em in a burst of sorcerous flames.

I reload just in time to pump a shot into another of the skittering beasts, blasting its overgrown claw to pieces. Shards of crab shell and wet meat splatter outward, and the behemoth staggers. My second shell disintegrates its eyestalks and clacking mandibles, and it’s thrown onto its back. Kicks like a damn mule, does Destiny.

One tries to flank T.F., and I give a shout of warning. He dives, sliding underneath a snapping claw, and flicks another card. It hits the creature with a golden flash. The crab goes instantly still, frozen in place. Freshly reloaded, I step up and blast it back into the water in a shower of crab bits.

“We gotta get out of here!” I holler.

“Not without the crown!” T.F. calls back, dodging a claw.

Feels to me like he’s trying to make a point. See, T.F.’s got a history of taking off as soon as things start to look dicey, leaving me to pick up the pieces. But he swears that’s not his way anymore, and I guess he’s willing to die to prove it. Well, that’s just damn stupid. Admirable, but stupid.

“Ain’t no good to us if we’re dead!” I shout.

I take another shot, but one of the damn crabs grabs Destiny in its claw as I squeeze the trigger. It drags my aim off, and I hit the Abyssal Shrine, blasting it apart.

The sea witch—who, I might add, has been cackling away like a fiend this whole time—screeches in fury.

I’m wrestlin’ with the crab that’s got Destiny in its claw. I ain’t releasing my grip, and the crab don’t seem inclined to, neither.

I snarl. “That’s mine, you scuttling—”

A pair of cards slices through the air, taking off each of the crab’s eye stalks. That makes it let go, and it staggers off blindly, bumping into walls and other scuttlers.

I nod my thanks, but T.F. ain’t lookin’. He’s starin’ over at the shrine. Well, where the shrine was. Now it’s mostly a pile of rocks. Seems it was hollow the whole time, and that my wayward shot bust it wide open.

“Well, would you look at that,” I say.

Seems someone was entombed inside. They’re nothing more than dried bones now, sticking out of the rubble. There’s a tarnished crown circling their skull, too, a crown that glints like gold, and is fashioned in the form of a hissing serpent…

I cast a glance over at the witch. She looks mighty displeased with this turn of events. Scowling, she starts to rise up off the floor. For a second I wonder if I hit my head harder than I first thought, and I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m seeing things right.

But I’m not imagining it. She’s now hovering a good two feet off the ground.

“Huh,” I say.

With a snarl, the witch jabs her staff toward us, and a hole opens up in the air. Now, admittedly that doesn’t make a lick of sense, but it’s the best I got to describe it. The hole’s about the size of a cannonball, at least to start with, but it quickly expands, like a rip in a ship’s hull. A torrent of frigid seawater spills through it, and I go down to one knee as I lose my footing.

There’s movement in the hole as well, and a massive yellow eye appears, iris contracting sharply as it peers through. Looks just like the eye of the octopus thing latched atop the witch’s head, only a hundred, no, a thousand times bigger. I get the feelin’ it’s somewhere deep, deep down in the darkest ocean depths, but here it is, eye-balling us like we’re bait on the end of a line.

Next I know, the eye pulls away, and two giant tentacles lash through the hole. I unleash both barrels, and blow one of those tentacles clean off. It flops to the cave floor, spraying blue blood all over as it thrashes and wriggles. The other one wraps around a giant crab, lifting it easily, and whips it back into the hole.

The old sea witch remains floating in place, with an evil grin. Seems she’s happy to hang back and watch her beast finish us off.

“Get the damn crown!” I bark, pushing back to my feet and fumbling with a pair of fresh shells.

Again the yellow eye races up to the hole, peering through. It looks at T.F., but I shout and wave my arms, and its giant pupil snaps toward me.

A tentacle darts through and wraps around me. Damn near crushes my ribcage as it squeezes and lifts me off my feet. It starts pulling me in, but before I’m dragged through the hole to gods-know-where, I manage to get Destiny up, and level it at the eye.

Seems to me there’s a certain level of intelligence in that gaze, more than one’d expect of a big ol’ sea monster. It sees Destiny and has an inkling of what’s coming, ’cause the eye pulls back, fast. Not fast enough, mind. Destiny roars, barking fire and brimstone, and I hear—and feel—the great beast’s roar of pain.

I’m dropped abruptly to the floor. Water continues to pour into the cave, sending me tumbling head over arse before I’m slammed against the wall. Thankfully, I’ve still got a hold of Destiny—I’m none too eager to head back to Piltover to get another made just yet—but she likely took some water during my little spill.

I come up spluttering. Feels like I’ve swallowed half of Bilgewater Bay. I see T.F. lift the crown off the skeleton, and he gives me a quick nod.

“Now we go,” he says.

I scramble to my feet. Seems like, for the moment at least, the beast behind the hole has backed off, though water keeps pouring through. The whole cave’s knee deep, and refuse and junk are floating around. The giant crabs—those few still here—are milling around, confused as to what’s going on.

The witch’s captive is awake now. He’s climbed up onto a rock, and is staring around him, terrified. Can’t say I blame him. He’s still chained up as well, which ain’t ideal for him with the rising water.

I aim Destiny at the chain and pull the trigger—least I can do is give the fella a fighting chance—but nothing happens. Seems water did get into her workings.

“Sorry, friend,” I say with a shrug.

The witch sees T.F. with the crown, and hisses in fury. She starts floating over toward us, toes dragging in the frigid brine.

T.F. tosses the crown to me, and I awkwardly catch it.

“Why you givin’ it to me?” I have to yell to be heard over the sound of the roaring water.

“Figured you wouldn’t want to let it out of your sight,” he shouts back. “That you wouldn’t trust me to shift out with it.”

I consider that for half a second. Gotta say, I’m a little surprised, and a little impressed. If T.F. keeps this up, I might just have to reassess my opinion of him.

Still, the witch is now focused on me, and it looks like she’s mouthing a curse. As I said, I ain’t the superstitious type, but I ain’t stupid, neither. I toss the crown back to him.

“I trust ya,” I shout. “More or less.”

I take another glance at the witch. Behind her, the big old yellow eye is peeking through the hole again. I feel a moment of satisfaction to see an angry red mark where Destiny bit.

T.F. flicks out a trio of cards, each trailing sorcerous flame, but the witch makes a dismissive gesture. An invisible force knocks them off course, and they fail to hit home. On she comes, floating closer.

She’s smiling her toothless grin now, exposing rotting gums. Seems to reason she thinks she’s got us dead to rights.

“Go, get out of here!” I shout to T.F., even as I swing Destiny over my shoulders. No time to see her wrapped and watertight. If I get out of this mess, she’ll need some tending.

“See you on the other side,” T.F. says with a wink. I believe him, too. Who would have thought?

“Take them, now!” shrieks the witch.

She points her staff at us, and the giant behemoth hurls itself forward, trying to push itself through the hole. A mass of tentacles squeeze out, reaching for us.

Time to leave. T.F. starts doing his thing, cards dancing, focusing on making his exit. Then he and the crown are gone.

My turn. I take a running jump into the dark pool even as tentacles whip toward me. Really hope this does connect to the tunnel I swam through, else that heroic leap’s gonna seem mighty daft.

I hit the water, diving deep, and start swimming. Can’t see anything worth a damn, but the time for caution is long past. If I smack straight into a wall, so be it. Right now that’s the least of my problems.

Thankfully, seems my hunch was right. I swim under a dark rock, blind, and come up on the other side. Back in the first cavern. I can hear the sea witch screeching in rage, echoing around the cave. Any moment, I expect some big damn tentacles to snake through and pull me back.

Sucking in a deep breath, I dive again.

I surface with a gasp. Shoulda been easier coming back, knowing where I was going, but it damn near killed me.

Hands grab me and haul me up. After more than a little swearing and grunting, both T.F. and I flop into the boat, Intrepid.

“Why you gotta be so damn heavy?” he groans.

“Why you gotta be so damn scrawny?” I throw back.

I have no idea if the sea witch or her pets are coming after us, but it don’t seem like a good idea to stick around and find out. I grab hold of the oars and start pulling.

There’s a ship waiting for us, just beyond the Widow Makers. It’s a sleek cutter, built for speed—the Ascended Empress. It’s a gaudy thing, decked out with gold leaf and a cat-headed woman for a figurehead, presumably the aforementioned empress.

“Guess the Prince’s eager to get a hold of his prize, eh?” says T.F, as the cutter turns toward us.

“Seems like.”

Within minutes, the Empress is alongside us. A net’s thrown down, and eager hands haul us aboard once we clamber to the top.

The Prince and his crew are there to greet us. He’s an odd one, the Prince, always has been. Claims to be descended from the lost rulers of the Shuriman sandlands, and waltzes around wearing gold paint caked on his face. Always pays well, though.

“You have it?” asks the Prince. He’s so eager, he’s practically licking his golden lips.

“You got our coin?” I say.

A pair of purses, bulging with Krakens, are thrown at our feet. I stoop down to inspect them. Got a good heft. Like I said, the Prince’s always been one to pay well.

T.F. hands over the crown, and the Prince takes it, full of reverence. “The Abyssal Crown,” he breathes. He stares at it a moment longer, then places it atop his smooth, golden head.

A broad smile creeps across his face. He gives us an appreciative nod, and strides onto the foredeck. He steps up to the bow and leans out, facing the open ocean, and lifts his arms high.

“Rise!” he bellows, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Hear my command, oh dwellers of the deep! Rise and come to me!”

The Prince’s crew are watching expectantly. I catch T.F.’s eye, and nod down toward Intrepid.

I really didn’t expect the crown to work—and part of me figured we’d best not be around when I was proved right—but after everything else I’d seen tonight, I wasn’t dismissing the chance that it might. And if it did, well, that seemed like an even better reason to be far, far away. Besides, that old sea witch probably ain’t gonna be too impressed with someone messin’ with her property.

Still, it’s more than a little surprising when the biggest damn creature I’ve ever seen breaches some hundred feet or so off the Ascended Empress’ starboard.

T.F. and I, we’re already half a league away, heading madly for port, but even from here, the scale of the thing is almost impossible to comprehend.

“Huh,” I grunt.

T.F. can’t even manage that. He stands, all fear of tipping overboard momentarily forgotten, and stares, mouth agape, at the distant sea monster.

I can just make out the tiny figure of the Prince, standing on the Ascended Empress’ deck, arms still lifted to the sky.

The beast continues to rise. It could be mistaken for a small island, though to be fair, not many islands have bloody great glowing lures atop their heads, or teeth the length of a ship’s keel, or masses of coiling tentacles, or pallid dead eyes the size of the moon.

Almost lazily, the gargantuan beast reaches out and wraps the Ascended Empress in its tentacles. The cutter lists to the side, cannons and crew falling into the sea. I can still see the Prince, clinging to the foredeck. Then the behemoth’s immense, distended jaw snaps, biting off the front half of the ship, swallowing it whole—along with the Prince.

It’s over in moments. Before Fifth Bell tolls, all evidence of the Ascended Empress is gone, and the great beast has disappeared beneath the surface.

“Huh,” I say again. Don’t think either of us expected that.

After a while, I start rowing. It’s only once we’re tied up at the White Wharf, and are back on solid ground, that we speak.

“Well, that was really… somethin’,” I say.

“It was.”

“Reckon that sea witch is gonna be comin’ after us?”

“I reckon so.”

I grunt, and we both stand in silence, staring back out across the bay.

“Drink?” says T.F., finally.

I suddenly remember those extra Krakens I pocketed in the witch’s cave. Might not be a bad idea to be rid of them sooner than later.

“Drink,” I agree, with a nod. “And it’s on me.”

Sarah Fortune reclines, boots up on the table. She sips from an ornate goblet, making a show of being casual… though hidden unseen in one of her deep coat pockets, she clasps a loaded hand cannon.

A veritable mother lode of old coins, artifacts, and precious gemstones are piled upon the table before her. Even encrusted in verdigris, barnacles, and dried seaweed, it’s clearly enough to buy up half the Slaughter Fleets. Nevertheless, Sarah Fortune pretends to be unimpressed. No need to seem too eager.

“So, in return for my man, and this lot,” she says, gesturing languidly at the treasure, “what exactly is it you want?”

The sea witch stares at her with her blank, milky gaze. The golden eye of the creature affixed to her head, however, blinks.

“Two rats, promised to the Beasts Below,” the witch hisses. “Find them for me, and all this, and more, shall be yours…”

In life, Kalista was a proud general, niece to the king of an empire that none now recall. She lived by a strict code of honor, serving the throne with utmost loyalty. The king had many enemies, and when they sent an assassin to slay him, it was Kalista’s vigilance that averted disaster.

But in saving the king, she damned the one he loved most—the assassin’s deflected blade was envenomed, and sliced the arm of the queen. The greatest priests and surgeons were summoned, but none could draw the poison from her body. Wracked with grief, the king dispatched Kalista in search of a cure, with Hecarim of the Iron Order taking her place at his side.

Kalista traveled far, consulting learned scholars, hermits and mystics… but to no avail. Finally, she learned of a place protected from the outside world by shimmering pale mists, whose inhabitants were rumored to know the secrets of eternal life. She set sail on one last voyage of hope, to the almost legendary Blessed Isles.

The guardians of the capital city Helia saw the purity of Kalista’s intent, and parted the mists to allow her safe passage. She begged them to heal the queen, and after much consideration, the masters of the city agreed. Time was of the essence. While the queen yet breathed, there was hope for her in the fabled Waters of Life. Kalista was given a talisman that would allow her to return to Helia unaided, but was warned against sharing this knowledge with any other.

However, by the time Kalista reached the shores of her homeland, the queen was already dead.

The king had descended into madness, locking himself in his tower with the queen’s festering corpse. When he learned of Kalista’s return, he demanded to know what she had found. With a heavy heart, for she had never before failed him, she admitted that the cure she had found would be of no use. The king would not believe this, and condemned Kalista as a traitor to the crown.

It was Hecarim who persuaded her to lead them to the Blessed Isles, where her uncle could hear the truth of it from the masters themselves. Then, perhaps, he would find peace—even if only in accepting that the queen was gone, and allowing her to be laid to rest. Hesitantly, Kalista agreed.

And so the king set out with a flotilla of his fastest ships, and cried out in joy as the glittering city of Helia was revealed to him. However, they were met by the stern masters, who would not allow them to pass. Death, they insisted, was final. To cheat it would be to break the natural order of the world.

The king flew into a fevered rage, and commanded Kalista to slay any who opposed them. She refused, and called on Hecarim to stand with her… but instead he drove his spear through her armored back.

The Iron Order joined him in this treachery, piercing Kalista’s body a dozen times more as she fell. A brutal melee erupted, with those devoted to Kalista fighting desperately against Hecarim’s knights, but their numbers were too few. As Kalista’s life faded, and she watched her warriors die, swearing vengeance with her final breath…

When next Kalista opened her eyes, they were filled with the dark power of unnatural magic. She had no idea what had transpired, but the city of Helia had been transformed into a twisted mockery of its former beauty—indeed, the entirety of the Blessed Isles was now a place of shadow and darkness, filled with howling spirits trapped for all eternity in the nightmare of undeath.

Though she tried to cling to those fragmented memories of Hecarim’s monstrous betrayal, they have slowly faded in all the centuries since, and all that now remains is a thirst for revenge burning in Kalista’s ruined chest. She has become a specter, a figure of macabre folklore, often invoked by those who have suffered similar treacheries.

These wretched spirits are subsumed into hers, to pay the ultimate price—becoming one with the Spear of Vengeance.

Soon after King Jarvan III’s coronation, he addressed the people of Demacia. Even though there were still many foes beyond the borders of their proud kingdom, several of the noble families had begun to feud with one another, some even raising private militias to seek the favor of their new king.

This would not stand. Jarvan would not allow such dangerous rivalries to develop, and declared his intention to end the feuding by marriage. His bride, the Lady Catherine, was much beloved by the people—and courtly gossip had long held that the two shared some secret fondness for one another. The bells of the Great City rang for a day and a night in celebration, and by year’s end came the announcement that the royal couple were expecting their first son.

But all joy was forgotten when Catherine died in childbirth.

The infant, named for his father’s line, was declared heir apparent to the throne of Demacia. Torn between grief and elation, Jarvan III swore never to take another wife, and that all his hopes and dreams for the kingdom’s future would live on in his son.

With no memory of his mother, the young prince Jarvan was raised at court, groomed and guarded every moment of his life. The king insisted that he receive the finest Demacian education, learning from an early age the moral value of charity, the solemn burden of duty, and the honor of a life spent in service to one’s people. As he grew, he was also introduced to the history and politics of Valoran by his father’s seneschal, Xin Zhao. Hailing from distant Ionia, this loyal protector taught the prince about the world’s more spiritual philosophies, as well as the myriad arts of war.

During his military training, Prince Jarvan found himself facing a brash youth of the Crownguard family named Garen. The two were of similar age, and became a quick pair—Jarvan admired Garen’s sheer determination and fortitude, and Garen looked up to the prince’s tactical instincts.

When Jarvan came of age, his father rewarded him with the honorary rank of general. While it was not necessarily expected that the heir to the throne would take to the field of battle, Jarvan was determined to prove himself, with or without the king’s blessing. The lands beyond the Argent Mountains had long been contested by the empire of Noxus, creating an almost lawless frontier where foreign reavers and warring tribes threatened many of Demacia’s allies. The prince pledged to bring stability back to the region. His great grandfather had been slain by a foul Noxian brute many years ago, in the first clashes between their nations in the south. Now, that insult would finally be answered.

Jarvan’s armies won victory after victory… but the carnage he witnessed in the outlying towns troubled him deeply. When word came that the Gates of Mourning had fallen, he resolved to drive onward into Noxian territory, against the advice of his lieutenants.

Inevitably, with the battalions spread so thin, Jarvan was encircled and defeated by Noxian warbands before he even reached Trevale.

Refusing to surrender, the prince and a handful of other survivors fled into the forests, only to be hounded for days by enemy scouts. Eventually, pierced through his side by an arrow, Jarvan collapsed into the shade of a fallen tree, where he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was devastated. He had failed his family, his kingdom, and his brothers-in-arms.

Doubtless he would have died there, alone, were it not for Shyvana.

This strange, violet-skinned woman somehow carried Jarvan all the way back to Demacia, to the old castle at Wrenwall, where she proved herself a kind and worthy companion during his days of healing. At first taken aback by her outlandish appearance, the garrison commander could not deny that she had done a great service to the throne in saving Jarvan’s life.

Unfortunately, Shyvana was herself being pursued—by the monstrous elemental dragon Yvva. When the castle’s watchmen spotted the beast on the horizon, Jarvan saw a chance to redeem himself. As Shyvana prepared to meet the beast in the skies in her half-dragon form, the prince limped from his bed to marshal the garrison, and reinforce the walls. He took up his lance, and swore that they would return to the Great City with the head of Yvva, or not at all.

The battle was swift and deadly. When his men were driven in fear from their posts, it was Jarvan who rallied them. When they were wounded, it was Jarvan who directed healers to their aid. The fell creature was slain by Shyvana, but it was the prince’s leadership that had held the line. In that moment, Jarvan saw the true strength of the Demacian people—standing together as one in defense of their homeland, no matter their differences or misgivings. He promised Shyvana that she would always have a place among his guard, if she so chose.

With the dragon’s skull in tow, Jarvan journeyed to his father’s court in triumph, Shyvana at his side. Though the king was overcome with emotion at his son’s return, some of the gathered nobles quietly questioned the wisdom of allowing such a creature to stand with the prince… let alone serve as one of his protectors.

Even so, Jarvan resumed his position within the military, also playing a key role in stately matters beyond the defense of the realm. With his friend Garen now Sword-Captain of the elite Dauntless Vanguard, and Shyvana and the Wrenwall veterans training other border garrisons, the prince felt assured that Demacia could answer any emergent threat.

But the kingdom itself was changing.

The Mageseeker order had gained support among the noble families, leading to widespread imprisonment of anyone in Demacia possessing magical talents. Fear of persecution quickly gave way to resentment, and finally rebellion. When mages attacked the Great City, Jarvan was distraught to discover that his father, the king, had been killed.

Although the prince’s political stance toward mages has hardened significantly since then, he has yet to fully allay concerns over his suitability to rule. As such, he has taken the counsel of many prominent nobles—including Garen’s aunt, High Marshal Tianna Crownguard—and pledged to heed their wisdom and experience in the days ahead.

For he must examine his own conscience and allegiances carefully if he is ever to come into his inheritance, and be crowned King Jarvan IV of Demacia.

As unpredictable as he is brutal, the dethroned reaver king known as Gangplank is feared far and wide. Where he goes, death and ruin follow, and such is his infamy and reputation that the merest sight of his black sails on the horizon causes panic among even the hardiest crew.

Having grown rich preying upon the trade routes of the Twelve Seas, Gangplank has made himself many powerful enemies. In Ionia, he incurred the wrath of the deadly Order of Shadow after ransacking the Temple of the Jagged Knife, and it is said that the Grand General of Noxus himself has sworn to see Gangplank torn asunder after the pirate stole the Leviathan, Swain’s personal warship and the pride of the Noxian fleet.

While Gangplank has incurred the wrath of many, none have yet been able to bring him to justice, despite assassins, bounty hunters, and entire armadas being sent after him. He takes grim pleasure in the ever-increasing rewards posted for his head, and makes sure to nail them to the Bounty Board in Bilgewater for all to see whenever he returns to port, his ships heavy with loot.

In recent times, Gangplank has been brought down by the machinations of the bounty hunter Miss Fortune. His ship was destroyed with all of Bilgewater watching, killing his crew and shattering his aura of invincibility. Now that they have seen he is vulnerable, the gangs of Bilgewater have risen up, fighting amongst themselves to claim dominion over the port city.

Despite receiving horrific injuries in the explosion, Gangplank survived. Sporting a multitude of fresh scars, and with a newly crafted metal arm to replace his amputated limb, he is now determined to rebuild his strength, reclaim what he sees as rightfully his – and to ruthlessly punish all those who turned against him.

Nobody believed the girl. Even after they’d clothed her and calmed her down enough to speak in complete sentences, nothing she’d said made any sense.

The villagers had seen their fair share of otherworldly things – living at the foot of Mount Targon made this an inevitability – but the child’s story didn’t add up.

She’d described some sort of otherworldly humanoid who had risen from the sea that bordered their village. It sounded like a wanderer: one of the lost, confused celestial creatures who sometimes ventured from Targon’s summit. No one had ever heard of a celestial appearing from the ocean, though. More likely, the young girl was playing games.

But when a woman with crimson eyes swam into their village, held aloft by a pool of water that ebbed and flowed at her command, the villagers realized it was no game.

“Hello,” the stranger said. “I am Nami. I am a Marai, a creature of the blue. I mean you no harm.”

The villagers stared at her, mouths agape. Perhaps they were taken aback by her appearance. That would make sense, considering how unusual they looked to Nami’s eyes: flesh without scales and two backward arms where fins ought to be.

Though they weren’t much in the way of conversation, Nami did have their attention.

“I seek the Aspect of the Moon, for the Aspect has something my people require. Without it, they, and possibly all the world, will succumb to a hungry and merciless darkness.”

The villagers continued to stare at Nami, slack-jawed and mute. Only a sleepy, four-legged beast went unfazed by the appearance of the mermadic creature in the village, as it carried on pulling mouthfuls of dried grass from a wheeled cart and smacking its slobbery gums.

Nami stood in the silence, tapping her staff awkwardly.

“So, if anybody knows where the Aspect is, that would be, erm.” She sniffed, eager to create any noise to break the endless hush that had fallen over the crowd. “Most helpful. To me.”

It was as if the villagers had been frozen in place it was so quiet. Nami looked around the village and saw small, fluttering lights all around. Anchored to small pillars of wax or large, wooden sticks, the lights indeed seemed to be alive, but not sentient. They fluttered in the breeze and crackled with energy.

“What do you call that?” Nami asked, pointing at the light. “It’s lovely.”

An old man in golden robes stepped forward – the people of the oversky insisted on covering themselves, for reasons Nami couldn’t immediately understand – flanked by two sentinels. From the many layers of draped fabric, Nami deduced he must be some type of elder. Or perhaps he was just cold.

“You seek the moon?” he asked. “Is she your friend, or your foe?”

Nami narrowed her eyes. The man’s lip quivered with silent rage. The moon’s Aspect was clearly important to him – but in what way? Did he worship and wish to protect it, or did he consider it an enemy?

Nami weighed the options. Surely, she thought, no one would be so unwise as to make an enemy of the moon itself. She replied:

“Friend, of cour–”

“–HERETIC!” the elder shouted.

“–Fiend! I said fiend! You misheard me!” Nami shouted, but her pleas went unheard as the sentinels shouted orders. Many of the village’s people grabbed their weapons, dipping their spears into round containers of fluid and sparking them alight.

Nami stared at the tips of the spears now flickering with orange light spirits. Their dance was mesmerizing, but radiated heat. Nami suspected touching one would be incredibly unpleasant.

“You will leave this village at once! You spread FEAR and DECEIT, and we will have none of it!” the elder demanded.

Nami stared at them for a moment, her face hard. This was it – her first test as a landwalker. She knew, that if need be, she could defend herself against everyone in this village.

But that wouldn’t get her what she needed.

“I am scared,” she said.

The elder smiled. Nami did her best to ignore it.

“Not of you, mind. I’ve looked into the hungry, hateful maw of darkness and thought I would never feel joy again. Your spears can’t compare to that,” she said.

“And so, I’m not going to leave. Not while my people are still in danger,” she said. She moved forward and planted her staff in the ground.

She moved with such confidence and fearlessness the villagers were taken aback – physically, in one unfortunate case.

A young villager stumbled backward, his spear of heat skittering out of his hands, landing beneath the cart of dried grass. The dancing heat spirit grew taller. It licked the grass, spreading its own energy to the pile of dry hay. Within moments, the entire cart was ablaze with the hot, volatile energy.

The grazing beast brayed in terror and turned away from the blaze. It kicked its muscular legs in confusion, knocking the cart onto its side, launching the burning grass into the air.

The wisps of heat landed on the village’s thatched roofs and spread rapidly, consuming everything in its path with a voracious appetite.

The villagers scrambled to fetch bucketfuls of water from a nearby well. Nami watched in frightened fascination as they hurled the liquid at the hungry spirits. For a moment, their efforts seemed to beat back the spirits’ rage, transforming the flickering glow into a horrible cloud of hissing air that, unlike the rest of the air in the oversky, seemed to expand with weight and form. The hissing smoke swirled as the spirits drank up the water and danced on along the rooftops, turning the blue night orange.

“More water!” the villagers yelled. “Quickly!”

I can help with that, Nami thought.

Nami raised her Tidecaller staff, her knuckles tight.

Focusing her thoughts, the seawater lapping the village’s shore began to collect and vibrate.

Nami tightened her grip and closed her eyes, pulling back her staff to draw the seawater toward her.

The ocean roared. It stretched itself into the air high above the village, a sheer wall of tidal ferocity hovering at the ready. The people screamed.

Nami thrust her staff forward, pointing its headpiece toward the dancing heat.

“Please move,” she shouted to the villagers.

They did.

The wave crashed forward as if to drown the entire village. Just before hitting the ground, the water twirled and twisted into an enormous, turbulent tentacle. It snaked through the air, sniffing out the ravenous trails of heat and rage.

The tendril of ocean water encircled the angry light, coiling around it like a serpent, constricting and squeezing the brightness in a suffocating collapse. With one last smoky gasp, the spirits fizzled, their glow replaced with the quiet blue of night.

Nami exhaled, loosening her grip on the staff. The tentacle of water lost its shape in an instant, and splashed to the ground to the startled delight of onlookers.

The elder and his sentinels dropped their buckets. They turned to Nami, the rage they’d carried moments before now but a memory. They looked upon their visitor with new eyes.

“Ionia,” the elder said.

“What?”

“The moon, look for her Aspect there – it’s a continent. That way,” he said, pointing out toward the sea in the direction Nami’s staff tugged her.

Of course. The moon and the tide were as brother and sister. Wherever the moon went, the Tidecaller staff would be drawn.

“Oh!” Nami exclaimed, her heart flush with hope. “That is – yes. Thank you. Sorry about the, er...,” she said, waving her hand noncommittally at the drenched, dripping village. “Anyway. Thank you.”

Nami raised her staff and a wave reared up from the shore wrapping her in a cocoon of water and carrying her back toward the ocean. The elder called after her.

“Fire!” he shouted.

“What?” Nami asked.

“The lights on our torches, our spears. It’s called fire. It keeps us safe, but it can be...irrational, sometimes.”

“Fire,” Nami said, smiling. “I like it.”

And with that, the Tidecaller returned to the oceans, headed for parts unknown.

The waterways of Valoran are old, but far older still is the demon Tahm Kench. From muddy gambling tents along the Serpentine River, through the salt-crusted dice halls of Bilgewater, to the gilded wagering tables of Piltover and Zaun—all those who have given a covetous glance to another’s wealth know the unending hunger that comes from an encounter with the River King.

The first tales of the creature were told by a traveling people who plied the Serpentine. They warned of a giant fish with a cavernous mouth, who would lure in the dissatisfied with the promise of more. One such story was that of a young man renowned for his honesty. Though born to the ways of a raftsman, he desired a life beyond the poor banks he knew so well, and the River King promised him an unforgettable experience if only he would tell one little lie. It seemed harmless enough, so the raftsman bent the truth in conversation with his own brother. That night the demon appeared, revealing a fork in the river the raftsman had never noticed before. He followed it to a camp of foreign folk who offered him food and drink, and fresh companionship. As dawn neared, and the raftsman was full and ready to return to his people, the demon appeared again, promising an even greater experience for another lie. His interested piqued, the man accepted the bargain, telling falsehoods to his hosts. The river parted again and he followed it to an evening of even greater luxury. This continued, night after night, until the once-honest raftsman’s deceits came as easily as breathing.

When the river finally emptied into the sea, he found himself alone and lost—there was no one left to lie to. So many dark choices, all of them his own, had left the raftsman with no way back home.

The brackish rivers of the mainland carried the tales of the River King to the Blue Flame Isles, where the creature gained a name as his legend grew—Tahm Kench. In Bilgewater, fortunes are boom or bust, with as much wealth going out with the tide as comes in. Many a tavern yarn tells of ol’ Tahm, a demon of the water with an unending appetite for games of chance, such that the loquacious beast became a symbol for many of the city’s gambling dens and houses of sin.

Once the Sun Gates opened easy trade from Bilgewater to Piltover, tales of Tahm Kench became more common in the City of Progress and its underbelly, Zaun. There, children know Tahm as “Two-Coats,” a fish so monstrously large that he wears two fine jackets stitched together. With a jaunty top hat and a smile wider than the Pilt itself, he drives the jealousies of young artificers. It is said he came one Progress Day to a struggling Piltovan inventor, and offered her an idea certain to make a wealthy clan take notice. All he asked in return was a single lock of her hair. The ambitious woman made the trade and, true enough, her work landed her a lucrative contract. But one invention would not satisfy, and Two-Coats wandered by, this time asking for all of her lovely braids. Not wishing to disappoint her new patrons, the inventor agreed—and Two-Coats ate them up on the spot. Still the woman was unable to find the one great innovation that would make her name. The demon came again, offering a deal that would take the tip of one finger. The following week it was an ear. A year passed, and by then there was little left of the woman to give. Finally she called Two-Coats herself, begging him to make it all stop.

He laughed as he opened his jaws wide, telling her he would protect her from herself, and promptly swallowed her whole.

The River King. The Great Waddler. Old Yawn-Belly. Two-Coats. The demon Tahm Kench is known by many names, but all who speak them have learned a singular truth: no matter how alluring his words may be, in his mouth you will be lost.

It was the stench of Bloodharbor that hit you first.

Like a gut-punch that took the wind right out of your sails.

The stink always got inside you, making you feel like you’d never get it out.

A noisome reek of opened leviathan bellies, dripping entrails you could crawl through, and weeks-old offal sticking to the cobbles like gory mortar left to rot in the sun. Mix that with the shit of ten thousand scavenging seabirds and the piss of the Slaughter Docks’ bloodied workers, and it was a smell strong enough to turn even the strongest stomach inside out.

You could wear a bandanna soaked in enough rum to souse the Bearded Lady herself, and it’d still get you.

Yes, it was awful, but Sarah Fortune loved what it represented.

It was the smell of prosperity, of a plentiful catch, and monster bounties earned.

A red tide meant people with coins in their pockets, ready to spend them all in the quayside taverns, gambling dens, and fleshpots, all of which paid a cut of their takings to Sarah.

Prosperity, yes—by the Bearded Lady, it was just the worst smell in the world.

Her small landing boat eased out into the sludgy water, its passage through the deepening evening lit by a storm lantern swaying from a wrought-iron tentacle at its bow.

Seated in the back of the boat, Sarah draped her hand over the gunwale and let her fingertips carve a path through the fatty layers on the water’s surface, drawing undulant spirals that rose and fell with the red tide.

“Even for you, that’s pretty damn reckless,” grunted Rafen, sweating as he leaned back and forth on the oars. Rafen was an old salt of the islands, with a craggy face weathered by ocean spray and hard winds, and a keen mind the rum hadn’t managed to take the edge off. He was, by turns, her conscience and right-hand man, and had seen pretty much every dark nook and cranny Bilgewater had to offer.

“How so?” asked Sarah.

“There’s ripper fish and flaying lampreys lurking just under the surface.”

“Scared I’ll get my fingers bitten off?” replied Sarah.

“Can’t pull a trigger without your fingers.”

“You worry too much, Rafen.”

“That’s my job, to worry about the things you don’t worry enough about.”

“Like this boat ride out to the Moon Serpent?”

“Exactly,” said Rafen. “I have a saying, and it ain’t steered me wrong none since I heard it at my papa’s knee. If it smells bad, leave it damn well alone, you idiot!”

Sarah shrugged. “Pretty much everything smells bad out here.”

“Maybe so, but that don’t change the truth of it,” said Rafen, glancing over his shoulder into the mist rising up from the water, where the Moon Serpent lurked like a dark secret. “The sea has an evil cast to it this night. Feels like hungry eyes are looking up from the deep.”

“Your bones talking to you again?”

“You mock, but I been listening to ’em for more’n forty years now, and I’m still alive, ain’t I?”

“Let it go, old man,” said Miss Fortune. “It’s a Captain’s Requiem, I have to be there. And if I have to be there in this ridiculous getup, then my second in command has to be there too.”

Said ridiculous getup consisted of a—literally—breathtaking whalebone corset of cobalt blue and golden lace beneath a gloriously long-tailed scarlet frock coat. In addition, she wore linen breeches of pale cream tucked into heeled boots of polished black leather with silver kraken buckles running from ankle to knee.

An absurdly impractical outfit, but in a gathering of captains it didn’t do to look anything less than obscenely wealthy. A poor captain was a weak captain, and like every kind of predator, Bilgewater reavers would ruthlessly prey on the weak.

Rafen hadn’t escaped the need to smarten up, either, and—under duress and threat of a demotion—wore a borrowed suit of sealskin leather, a scaled waistcoat whose buttons threatened to split from the fabric with every pull of the oars, and a stovepipe hat with a pressed tentacle headband.

“I might have to be there, but that don’t mean I got to like it,” said Rafen.

“True, but I need you to watch my back,” said Sarah. “Aligh had a large crew, and with him dead every captain will be circling like a wharf rat in heat. Last thing I need is his old crew going over to a rival captain or falling in with the likes of the Jackdaws or Butcher Blades.”

“Aye, there’s that,” begrudged Rafen. “Lot of powerful captains’ll likely be here to see Aligh off to the Bearded Lady, but do you really trust all of them to abide by the Truce?”

“Not even a little bit,” said Sarah, opening her coat to reveal a pair of exquisite ivory-handled pistols holstered under each armpit. “But it’s not like I’m going in unarmed.”

“They’ll take those off you, sure as eggs is eggs.”

“Please, you think they’re the only weapons I have?” she said, tapping the side of her head.

“Fair enough, but this still feels like a risk.”

“It surely is, but what’s life without a little risk?”

“I’ll remind you of that if this all goes under fast.”

Sarah grinned. “If it does, I promise you can haunt me from our watery grave.”

Rafen made a quick sign of the horns over his heart and shook his head, but returned his effort to rowing. He’d made his point, and Sarah had made sure he knew better than to press her when her mind was made up. Besides, she knew he was right, and there was nothing more irritating than a man who believed he was right.

But in deference to Rafen’s words, Sarah lifted her hand from the surface of the water and flicked the scum from her fingertips. Something toothy broke the surface where it landed and the old man raised his eyes in a told ya fashion.

Behind her, the ramshackle crags of Bilgewater shimmered in the fog, flickering anthills where people—her people—lived upon the flotsam and jetsam the ocean provided. Its structures clung to the rocks and mountains of the island chain like persistent barnacles that neither storm, Harrowing, nor the occasional probes of Noxian war-barques could ever entirely dislodge.

Like Sarah Fortune, Bilgewater was a survivor.

Since Gangplank’s death, she’d fought the unquiet spirits of the Shadow Isles and survived countless attempts on her life. Consolidating her rule over Bilgewater had been a messy, bloody affair, and her grip was still as shaky as an apprentice rigger on their first climb of the ropes. But she was still alive despite the venom—and firearms—aimed at her for putting her head above the parapet.

“Ship ahoy,” said Rafen.

Sarah looked past him to see a looming shape emerging from the rising mist.

Much like its former captain, the Moon Serpent was an old, unsubtle ship; broad in the beam and glowing with the dim light of dozens of hooded lanterns hanging from its many masts. The brigantine’s reinforced timbers were thickly caulked and carved with scales like a snake. Crusted salt in the grooves shone silver in the moonlight, and though its sails were still furled, Sarah knew they were woven from shimmering white cloth that must have cost Aligh a small fortune. Its ramming prow figurehead was a fanged serpent forged from the melted-down cannons of his enemies.

“By the Bearded Lady, I always forget how big it is…”

“She’s a beast sure enough,” said Rafen as the brigantine’s cold shadow fell across them.

“How in the world did a tight-fisted miser like Aligh pay for this?” said Sarah. “That cheapskate bastard never paid a kraken if he could spend a sprat. I heard he skipped out on his dues to the ocean, never so much as a drop of rum or a copper coin for the lords and ladies of the deep.”

“And ain’t that yet another reason for me to turn us around and not set foot on its deck,” said Rafen. “If even a bit of that’s true, then this here’s a doomed ship. The ocean needs its due, any captain worthy of the name knows that.”

“I gave a hex-carbine to the waters off White Wharf after claiming Jakmunt Zyglos’s bounty.”

“I remember,” said Rafen with a resigned shake of his head. “You promised that weapon to me.”

“Decent craftsmanship too. Wasn’t a Fortune Manstopper, but it was pretty nice.”

“Now you’re just being cruel.”

“A queen must be cruel only to be kind,” said Sarah with mock affectation, as Rafen eased the boat up to half a dozen others moored beneath a wide cargo net strung from the gunwale. The glossy hull of the Moon Serpent rose up like a black cliff and dark silhouettes moved through the lamplight high above.

“She’s sitting high in the water for such a big ship,” said Rafen, nodding toward the mottled green tide lines on the ship’s black hull as he tied the boat up with a loose slipknot.

“Her holds will be empty and most of the crew will be ashore getting three sheets to the wind on whatever cheap rotgut Aligh left them for his wake,” said Sarah.

“Lucky them,” said Rafen, pulling the oars in from the rowlocks and securing them along the gunwale. “You sure about this?”

Sarah rose and took hold of the cargo net, tipping her head back.

“Not really,” she said. “But when given the choice of going forward or back, a strong woman once told me that it’s always better to go forward, so let’s go.”

Hand over hand, Sarah and Rafen climbed to the Moon Serpent’s deck.

A pair of unsmiling twins in leather breeches and scaled shirts took Sarah’s guns and Rafen’s marlinspike dagger as soon as they clambered over the gunwale. Both women were heavily muscled and angrily sober, no doubt wishing they were ashore partaking in Aligh’s wake-rum instead of forming a skeleton crew for a bunch of captains who would, like as not, dance a jig to see one another dead.

One of the twins wore a helmet made from the skull of a scuttle-crab and matching patchwork armor of boiled shells, while the other had a face covered with tattoos of unblinking eyes. When the latter grinned at the sight of the gun-dame forged pistols, Sarah saw her mouth was filled with teeth prized from a razorscale’s jawbone.

Sarah followed them as they made their way to the raised foredeck, and marked which of the three chests they put the confiscated weapons into—cannonball dent in the right side.

An enormous bronze cannon sat on a carved ebony gun carriage just in front of the chests. The weapon’s flared muzzle was sealed with wax, and the sail-shrouded body of Captain Aligh would be entombed within, pickled in rum, vinegar, and camphor for its journey to the bottom of the sea.

“Shame to send something so beautiful to the deep,” said Sarah. “The cannon, I mean.”

“Aye,” agreed Rafen. “A finer thirty pounder I’ve yet to see, but it’s tradition, and you don’t go messing with traditions, right?”

“Right…” said Sarah, turning her attention to the broad-shouldered figure standing immobile next to the ship-wrecker. “Lady help us if we ever buck tradition, eh?”

He was swathed in a robe of iridescent scales with a wide-mouthed fish-head hood ringed in razor teeth. He carried a tentacle-wrapped billhook, and Sarah immediately knew him for what he was.

“A rare honor to have a serpent caller at a Captain’s Requiem,” she said.

“Amazing what enough gold krakens can buy you, eh?” replied Rafen.

Within the jagged hood, the serpent caller wore a mask of perforated coral over the lower half of his face, while his eyes and forehead were obscured by a dried-out squid’s body with crudely cut eye-holes through which the priest surveyed the gathered captains.

The wide deck was thronged with a host of Bilgewater reavers in all their finery: long coats, polished boots, tall hats, and archaic pieces of armor that would drag them straight to the ocean floor if they fell overboard. Sarah saw a wealth of gold and silver sigils and medals, Buhru fishhook amulets, and lucky talismans to honor the lords and ladies of the deeps.

Some captains she knew from fighting or drinking—often both—and some she knew only by reputation.

They, of course, all knew her.

With her blood-red hair, creamy skin, and confident swagger, Sarah Fortune would be a hard woman to miss in any circumstance, but on this ship she was a wild rose among poisoned thorns.

“Quite the gathering, eh?” said Rafen.

“Nothing like death to really bring people together,” said Sarah.

Rafen nodded and said, “Now I know how a fat waverider feels when it finds itself surrounded by a pack of hungry longtooths.”

Sarah shook her head. “You have it backward, old man. I’m the longtooth here.”

Rafen didn’t reply as Sarah marched to the ship’s centerline and back, adjusting each stride for the motion of the ship’s deck. Just as every pistol had its own unique character, so too did every ship; its own way to crest the tides and heed the wind. She moved with the anchored ship’s roll and sway, letting the creak and groan of seasoned timbers tell their secrets from her boots on up.

“A shallow-riding wallower,” she said. “Surprising for such a wide-beamed vessel.”

“I like ’em broad in the beam,” said Rafen, instinctively adjusting the width of his stance.

“So I heard.”

“Not as nimble as a cutter,” said Rafen, ignoring her jibe, “but I’ll wager a bottle of Myron’s Dark she’ll hold you tight to her bosom in rough seas.”

“That she will, Rafen,” said a slender woman dressed in a long coat of pale blue, with gold edging at the cuffs and bronze fringed epaulettes. “She’s a grand old dame, right sure. Sank Darkwill’s Glory and even poked a few holes in the Red Noxtoraa before the Mudtown fogs closed in and saved its cursed hide.”

A salt-stiffened bicorn flopped at a rakish angle on the woman’s shaven head, and the state of her eyes—two poached eggs wobbling in a bowl of fish soup—told Sarah she’d been hitting the rum hard already. Her skin had the waxy, yellowish complexion of someone only recently returned from a long sea voyage.

“Captain Blaxton,” said Rafen. “I heard you were dead.”

“Rumors of my death fly around Bilgewater with every sunset,” said the woman. “And with them, men weep, and their wives curse the morn of their disproving. I assure you, I am in the rudest of health.”

She turned to Sarah and gave her an elaborate bow before offering her a hand.

Sarah took it and was instantly on guard. Despite Blaxton’s drunken appearance and feather-light grip, she felt hard-earned calluses and powder burn ridges on the heel of her palm.

“Marla Blaxton, at your service, Captain Fortune,” she said, releasing Sarah’s hand. “Recently returned from a year of raiding the Amarantine Coast, where the sea is clear, the sky blue, and the coastal settlements fat with more gold than a captain could spend in ten lifetimes.”

“How wonderful,” said Sarah. “Why would you ever choose to return from that?”

“Good times can only last so long, you know. The inhabitants of said settlements had some strange ideas about ‘ownership’ and ‘not being dead’. Also, they were able to summon some curious mage-types who turned the sea and sky against me in ways I’d never seen before.”

“Ah, so you lost all your ships,” said Rafen.

“A few,” allowed Blaxton, waving her hand dismissively. “A temporary setback, Rafen. One from which I expect to bounce back any day now.”

“Perhaps with a new crew and a shallow-riding wallower of a brigantine?” suggested Sarah.

Blaxton laughed and said, “Anything is possible,” before giving her another bow and rejoining a group of captains gathered around a leaking barrel of rum by the foremast.

And Sarah’s heart skipped a beat as she saw a face she recognised, an enemy face.

Rafen saw him too and gripped her arm.

“Remember the Truce,” he hissed urgently.

Sarah didn’t answer, too focused on the man before her.

She pulled her arm free and strode toward him, keeping her face expressionless.

Blond hair, tied back in a rough ponytail, a loose strand hanging, just so, over his handsome, clean-shaven features. He looked up and met her gaze, the ice in his eyes frosting at her approach.

“Sarah,” he said, opening his arms to her. “Look, I know we—”

She didn’t let him finish, hammering her fist into his gut without breaking stride.

He buckled like he’d been hit by one of the twenty-four pounder balls, and his handsome face met her rising knee with a sickening crunch of bone.

He flew back and Sarah pounced on him before he could rise, straddling him and reaching for her pistol before remembering it was locked in a chest next to the mainmast.

Cannonball dent in the right side.

Instead of shooting him, she hauled his head up by his collar and cocked her fist back for another punch. He coughed blood, and lifted a forge-crafted hand of whirring bronze cogs, leather straps, and clicking mechanics out in front him.

“Please,” he wheezed through a broken nose and a mouthful of blood.

“Hello, Petyr,” she said. “I told you what would happen if I saw you again, didn’t I?”

Captain Petyr Harker.

The last time she’d seen him, he’d been cradling the splintered, bloody ruin of his hand, the hand he’d always boasted killed the Crimson Blade.

Petyr, along with Captains Crow and Bragg, had conspired to strip her of her hard-won gains in the wake of her killing Gangplank. Both Crow and Bragg were now dead, one from a pistol ball to the head, the other with one lodged in his liver.

Her pistol balls.

Walking out of the gunfight at MacGregan’s Killhouse, she’d promised to take more than Petyr’s other hand if she ever saw him again.

The Truce of the Sinking Soul was a long-standing tradition in Bilgewater.

More of an unwritten rule than a strictly enforced custom, but it allowed rival crews to gather without bloodshed when their captains attended the all too frequent funerals of old sea-legends.

That violent men and women would abide by such an archaic custom always struck Sarah as somewhat quaint, and until now she’d always kept it in the if it ain’t broken… part of her mind.

An iron grip seized her right elbow and pulled her clenched fist back.

Rafen appeared on her left, dragging her off Petyr.

“Easy, captain,” he said. “Easy now…”

Part of her wanted to land another punch, but by the time Rafen had her back on her feet, the anger had gone out of Sarah. She’d made her point, and so let herself be pulled away.

“Upon our last descent,” said a rum-sodden voice in her ear. “All gathered heed this oath.”

“Peace be upon us all,” she repeated automatically. “No harm to body or soul.”

“No shot nor blade, no serpent nor spell,” added Rafen.

“Observe the Truce of the Sinking Soul!” finished Petyr, scrambling away from her.

Sarah let out a long breath, and turned to see who, along with Rafen, had pulled her off.

A hunched wretch in an expensive kraken-skin coat, fresh octopus-tentacle tie, and glistening stingray flat-cap that was well above the tattered sackcloth she normally saw him wearing.

“Thorne?” she said, shrugging off Rafen’s touch.

“It’s Captain Thorne these days,” he said, spitting a wad of expensive dried-seaweed tobacco to the deck and missing the polished toe of her boot by a finger’s breadth.

Sarah laughed. “You? A captain? Since when?”

Thorne preened, looking like a powder monkey with a freshly stolen mango. “Got me a ship now, and a crew of hearty sea-rats off the back of what you done to Crow and Bragg.”

His breath was like a bucket of rotten clams. Thorne could parade in expensive clothes, but he could never change who he truly was.

“You always were a bottom feeder, weren’t you?” said Sarah. “Now get out of my way.”

Thorne stood aside, and said, “Mark my words, Sarah Fortune, you’ll get what’s comin’ to ya.”

“Promises, promises,” said Sarah, and in two quick steps she was standing over Petyr Harker.

She held her arm out and rippled her fingers, like she was flipping a coin along her knuckles.

“Can I give you a hand?” she said with a grin.

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“It is funny,” said Sarah. “Look how I’m smiling.”

Petyr looked at her gloved hand through an eye that was already swollen and purple. Despite the obvious pain of his bleeding nose and winded gut, he grinned.

“If I give you my good hand, are you going to shoot it off?” he asked.

“I’m not planning to, but the day’s yet young.”

He took her hand, and Sarah hauled him to his feet.

“Why are you here, Petyr?” she asked.

“There might not be a Corsair’s Conclave anymore, but traditions need to be upheld, yes?”

“So I keep hearing,” said Sarah, glancing at Rafen.

She pulled a handkerchief from her coat and handed it to Petyr. He nodded gratefully and wiped the blood from his lips and chin before handing it back.

“Keep it,” she said, then nodded admiringly at his new hand. “Nice work. Doesn’t look like Bilgewater craft.”

“It’s not,” said Petyr. “Well, it is and it isn’t. A new apprentice down at Bitterbelt’s forge made it for me. Zaunite lad named Gysbert.”

“Looks expensive.”

“It was.”

Sarah looked him up and down, taking in his tailored clothing, the well-fed cheeks, and the empty scabbard that looked like it might hold a fine blade. Whatever had become of Petyr after losing his hand, he’d clearly bounced back well enough.

“I keep wondering if I should have killed you back at MacGregan’s,” said Sarah.

“I’ve often wondered why you let me live,” said Petyr. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you didn’t kill me, but let’s be honest, I’m just the sort of fellow to seek dramatic revenge in some stupidly elaborate scheme.”

Despite herself, Sarah laughed. “That you are, Petyr, that you are. But if you want the truth, I didn’t kill you because killing you would have been Gangplank’s way of doing things, and I always try to be better than he was.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“It’s a work in progress,” admitted Sarah as Rafen stepped between them, holding tin mugs hooked over his fingers in one hand, and a large bottle of rum in the other.

“Here,” he said. “If the Truce is holding, and we’re not going to start killing each other, then we might as well have a swig of Aligh’s rum, eh?”

Sarah passed a mug to Petyr before taking one for herself as Rafen poured them all two fingers of the syrupy brown liquid.

“Keep your powder dry and your cutlass sharp,” said Rafen.

“And the world will turn,” finished Sarah, and the three of them touched mugs.

Sarah tipped her head back and took a mouthful, wincing at the gritty, overly sweet taste.

“Oh, that’s bad. That’s really bad,” she said. “You sure they didn’t put Aligh’s body in the rum barrel instead of the cannon barrel?”

“Aligh was known for many things—being a cruel old bastard, a ruthless captain, and a seasoned killer—but one thing he wasn’t known for was his largesse in vittles,” said Petyr, pouring the remains of his rum onto the deck.

“I didn’t know you knew Aligh.”

Petyr shook his head vigorously. “I didn’t. I mean, I knew him by reputation, of course, but it’s not like I ever set foot on the Moon Serpent before today.”

“The man was an enigma,” said Thorne, sidling up to Rafen and holding out his own mug. “A regular man of mystery, but who cares about that? He’s dead, and we ain’t.”

Sarah shrugged and nodded to Rafen, who poured Thorne a generous measure.

“Aye,” continued Thorne. “There’s none here gathered who knows much of the man. They say he never came ashore neither. Always sent one of them vicious twins. So, did you hear how he died?”

“I heard he was stabbed in his sleep by a cabin boy who’d taken one too many beatings,” said Captain Blaxton, arriving mug in hand.

Rafen duly poured her a measure.

“May all your lookouts be sober,” she said, taking a drink. “Ah, some of the good stuff.”

“That’s what you heard?” said Sarah. “I heard he choked to death on a barb-squid that wasn’t quite dead in his dinner.”

Rafen shook his head. “No, that’s just what the cutters on the Slaughter Docks are saying. I heard it from one of the chandlers down the grottoes that he was so drunk he fell overboard. His pockets were so laden with gold that he sank all the way down, straight into the waiting grasp of the Bearded Lady.”

Instinctively, they all looked over the gunwale to the ocean far below.

The waters swirled around the ship, deep and black like a liquid mirror. She saw her wavering reflection, splintered by the water and lapping at the barnacled hull. Hard waves broke against the hull—the kind you saw when something large was coming up from below.

“Told you it had an evil cast to it tonight,” said Rafen.

Sarah let out a breath and tapped her left eye twice with her right thumb, an old sailor’s tradition to ward off evil influences.

“Ach, he was an old man, maybe he just died,” said Sarah. “That’s what old men do best.”

“Fog’s rolling in,” said Blaxton, nodding out to sea.

A chill passed through Sarah as she saw the fog was coming in from the southeast; cold, clammy, and freighted with the smell of the deepest ocean trenches.

“Don’t matter none how the old bastard died,” said Thorne. “All that matters is what happens to his ship and his crew. That’s why we’re all here, ain’t it? Every one of us wants to claim that big prize, don’t we?”

All four captains studied one another, each knowing that was exactly why they were here.

“No one ever found his serpent sigil, did they?” said Blaxton.

“His sigil?” scoffed Rafen. “Like as not, it’s sealed away in that cannon with him. Doesn’t matter anyway, no one pays any heed to a captain’s sigil these days.”

“Maybe they should,” said Sarah. “Maybe there’d be a lot less bloodshed if you could just claim a ship and crew with the previous captain’s sigil.”

“Scared of a little blood, are ya?” grinned Thorne. “Not got the stomach for it, eh?”

Sarah took a step toward him and said, “Truce or not, talk to me like that again and I’ll show you how much stomach I have for bloodshed.”

“Didn’t mean to go upsettin’ ya, Captain Fortune,” laughed Thorne, exposing black teeth and rotten gums. “Just wondering how many of ’em here gathered would have even the slightest hesitation of trying to claim Aligh’s crew if they could get their hands on that sigil…?”

Sarah looked past Thorne at the other captains gathered on the Moon Serpent’s deck, wondering the same thing. Most of them were small fry, with crews that were too green to make a serious play for Aligh’s ship, but the three drinking rum with her… Now that was a motley crew indeed, and any one of them might be a rival she needed to worry about sticking a knife in her back.

Before any of them could say anything in answer to Thorne’s question, Sarah felt the deck shift underfoot, a slow roll and dip.

She reached inside her coat and pulled out a silver coin, flicking it over the side of the ship.

Thorne watched it tumble end over end to the waters, and for a moment she wondered if he might dive in after it.

“Why’d ya do that?” he said. “This ain’t your ship.”

“Someone has to,” said Sarah, as the Moon Serpent’s white sails unfurled. “We’re getting underway.”

The ship sailed eastward out of Bilgewater Bay, taking a gently curving route to avoid the many jagged reefs, treacherous sandbanks, and jutting wrecks that could see a ship foundered. The fog Blaxton had spotted had fully enveloped them now, and the ship sailed in an almost dead silence, interrupted only by the occasional shout between the skeleton crew.

Despite the awfulness of the rum, Sarah, Rafen, Thorne, Petyr, and Blaxton worked their way through the rest of the bottle. After a couple of shots, the sweetness became bearable, and Sarah felt her mood loosening.

With the bottle empty, Rafen threw it overboard and Sarah sent him below deck to find another.

The Moon Serpent sailed onward, deeper into the fog.

More theories as to how Aligh had died were offered, each more ridiculous than the last, and Sarah found herself wiping tears of laughter from her eyes as Petyr finished a preposterous tale of Aligh falling afoul of the Trickster and being led out to sea in a golden narwhal costume only to be carved up by the Bloodharbor Ripper in a tragic case of mistaken identity.

A distant voice, muffled by the fog, called out from the crow’s nest.

“What did he say?” she asked, peering up through the rigging. She held on to the gunwale rail as her vision spun a tad. The rum was bad, but it was strong. Time to ease up.

“I think he said ‘Land ho!’ or possibly ‘Sand Lo!’” said Blaxton, bleary eyed from the rum.

Sarah blinked. “Sand Lo? Why would he say that?”

“I believe it’s a traditional Shuriman greeting,” giggled Petyr, taking another belt of rum.

Sarah fought the laughter bubbling up from her gut as she heard the clatter of iron chains spilling off the deck, swiftly followed by the heavy splash of an anchor hitting the water.

“We’re here,” said Thorne, spitting a viscous wad of tobacco into the sea.

Sarah peered through the mist, seeing a craggy spur of black rock rearing out of the water. Salt crystals glittered in the weak light of the stars.

“Moonshard Reef,” she said. “Why in the name of the Lady’s Beard are we here?”

“Aligh always claimed he was part Marai on his mother’s side,” said Petyr.

“Horse dung!” said Thorne. “The man’s never even seen a Marai, let alone been birthed from one.”

“Makes for an exotic tale though,” said Blaxton. “Mystic origins, magical blood, that sort of thing. Kind of backstory every captain wishes they had. Wish I’d thought of it.”

The thumping of wood on wood halted further discussions, and Sarah turned to see the serpent caller hammering the raised foredeck with his tentacle-wrapped billhook.

In his other hand, he held a flaming torch that burned with a brilliant silver light.

“The sea is this world’s cemetery, and its souls sleep best without monument,” said the serpent caller, his voice a grating hiss through the coral mask. “All other graveyards show symbols of distinction between great and small, rich and poor—but the king, the fool, the prince, and the peasant are all the same to the ocean. Now, fellow travelers of the Sea… heed my words, it is time to pay the ocean its due!”

“About damn time,” said Sarah. “Let’s get this done and go home.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Petyr.

Sarah and the other captains gathered before the wax-stoppered cannon as the serpent caller’s eyes swept over them all. She felt the potency of the rum swimming around her body, and saw a number of the other captains swaying with more than the motion of the ship.

Where in the eight seas is Rafen?

She didn’t want any more rum. She just wanted him here by her side.

The twins who’d met her and Rafen as they came aboard to confiscate their weapons worked a block and tackle over to the center of the deck. An enormous hook on a thick rope loop was lowered and secured to the lifting ring on the cannon just behind the oiled fuse.

“What a waste,” said Blaxton, tears streaming down her face.

“I didn’t realise you and Aligh were close,” said Sarah.

“What? Gods, no! I mean the cannon. That’s an Orban thirty pounder,” said Blaxton. “Probably one of only a handful left in existence. One hit from that would punch a hole clean through a Noxian warship from stem to stern. Crying shame to see it go to waste.”

Thanks to her mother’s teachings, Sarah knew more about pistols and rifles than she did about the intricacies of ship-borne weapons, but even she had to agree the bronze cannon was far too good for the likes of a miserly soul like Aligh. Was that a final insult to those left behind, that his most beautiful weapon would serve as his tomb and never belong to anyone else?

Something niggled about that, though—a nagging feeling she was missing something.

Crab Hat secured the hook to the cannon, then she and her twin stood back as the serpent caller began to speak.

“Captains of Bilgewater, it does my heart proud to see so many of you here today,” he said. “The best and the worst, the scum and the cream of our city’s reaver-kind.”

A few mutters went through the captains at so harsh an opening, but serpent callers were known to be touched by the Bearded Lady, and their ways were unknowable to most people.

“Our fair isles stand at a pivotal moment in their history, and many paths lead into the future, as tangled and inconstant as the many limbs of Nagakabouros, but I have seen the way forward! On many of these paths, I see the peaks and coves of the Serpent Isles ablaze, its people dying as our enemies close in. But on one path, one singular path, I see us proud, stronger than ever, a united people under a great leader!”

Sarah’s brow furrowed. Yes, the serpent callers were a strange bunch, but this was beyond anything she’d heard any of them say before.

“You have gathered here to see Captain Aligh down to the depths, a man whose boots none of you were fit to clean. A man of vision, a man who knew what needed to be done!”

The twins began hauling on the pulley ropes to lift the cannon, their muscles bunching and straining as the rear end of the cannon, gun carriage and all, began lifting from the deck. The barrel tilted downward, and were it not for the waxed stopper, Sarah felt she could have looked right down its length to see Aligh’s dead body.

“You all have failed Nagakabouros! You all have fought and betrayed one another, like Rat Town scum scrabbling over a copper sprat. None of you has the vision to raise a fleet like the ones of old and make Bilgewater ruler of the waves! You all throw your coins and your tributes into the water, and for what? For safety? A blessing? No, it’s a sacrifice you’re offering, a blood price for the ocean to lend you its wrath. But what does the ocean care for copper coins or the smallest fish of the catch? No, for Bilgewater to prosper, it needs a red tide of offerings!”

Sarah surreptitiously glanced around at the other captains to see what they were making of the serpent caller’s lunacy, but clearly the rum had numbed them to just how insane this was. She felt eyes upon her and saw Petyr looking right at her.

He gave her a terse smile, and her unease ratcheted up several notches.

She saw he was easing, half-step by half-step, toward the gunwale.

Sarah looked back down the cannon barrel.

And then she knew.

“Oh no…”

She ran toward the raised foredeck, tearing off her hat and reaching up to pull out twin stilettos masquerading as hairpins. Each was a slender needle of blackened steel with a rounded skull-pommel, and she knew just where to stick them to kill a man stone dead.

“So I offer the sea your blood, your sacrifice!” screamed the serpent caller, tearing off his mask and hood so everyone could see him. So everyone would know who had brought them here to die.

Sarah saw a grey-bearded face, furrowed by old age and aglow with madness. A long scar bisected his leathery face from right eyebrow to left cheek, and the wisps of his beard were twisted into thin braids entwined with pearls and fishhooks.

His eyes were the eyes of a man who never paid a kraken if he could spend a sprat.

Who skipped out on the ocean’s tithe on every voyage.

A man she knew from reputation and decades of bloody legend.

“Aligh, you treacherous bastard!” she yelled.

The twins saw her coming, but couldn’t yet release the chains holding the cannon’s rear aloft.

Time slowed for Sarah, her heartbeat like the slow tolling of the bell upon the Widow’s Manse whenever a ship was lost to the ocean. It felt like she was running knee deep in sticky guts in the carving bays of the Slaughter Docks.

“You’re too late, Captain Fortune,” said Aligh.

He swept the torch down to the back of the cannon, and roared in triumph.

She pulled back her hand to throw one of her stilettos.

She knew she wouldn’t make it.

The silver flame lit the oiled touchpaper.

And the world exploded in a deafening blast of fire and thunder.

That she wasn’t dead was Sarah’s first surprise.

Her second was that the Moon Serpent was still afloat.

A cannon that big ought to have holed the ship all the way down to the ocean, and broken its keel.

She couldn’t hear anything, not really. Her ears were filled with a high-pitched whine, maddeningly shrill and muffled at the same time.

She rolled onto her side, wincing as she felt blood streaming down her arm.

A dull awareness of foggy, distant sounds coming from behind made Sarah turn her head.

A scene of utter carnage, worse than anything she’d seen in a long time.

And suddenly she knew why the ship wasn’t sinking. The cannon had been primed with canister shot.

It was a load designed to shred and maim flesh, but leave a vessel intact, and it had worked its lethal power with horrifying potency.

Sarah’s mad dash toward Aligh had carried her mostly clear of the wide fan of red-hot fragments, but the other captains weren’t so lucky.

Men and women lay sprawled on a deck slick with blood.

Those closest to the gun were almost unrecognisable, transformed from living, breathing human beings into scraps of bloody meat. Shorn arms and legs lay scattered in gory heaps, and it was all but impossible to tell which limb belonged to which body.

But not everyone was dead.

Those captains toward the rear of the throng writhed in agony, bleeding from scores of deep lacerations and screaming the name of the Bearded Lady. Sarah could still barely hear them.

She saw Blaxton lying in a lake of blood, her fine blue coat cut to pieces, as if someone had given her a hundred lashes from a barbed cat-o’-nine-tails. Sarah couldn’t tell if she was dead or alive, but she was lying very still. Thorne slithered out from beneath her, and with the luck typical of that lowlife, it looked like he’d escaped the worst of the blast using Blaxton as a human shield.

Rafen! Where’s Rafen?

She couldn’t see him, and could only hope that he’d found a way to survive.

He must have, he’s Rafen. He survives everything, doesn’t he?

Then her eyes settled on a figure lying sprawled against the railings, bloodied, but mostly unhurt.

Petyr Harker.

He grinned, and hate filled Sarah as she knew that somehow, in some way, that smug, conniving sea-slug had known about Aligh’s trap. He had to have been part of setting it up, a glittering, silver-tongued lure for captains who didn’t know him well enough to send him packing.

Sarah saw the deck hatch swing open, and the skeleton crew that had sailed them out to Moonshard Reef emerged with long gutting knives to finish what their vile captain had begun. They moved as if in a languid dream, skewering bellies and cutting throats with sadistic relish.

Anger surged through Sarah, and she sat upright, blinking through tears of pain.

You’re alive, damn it! Do something!

With that thought blazing in her mind, sounds rushed back and her vision cleared.

The screams of the dying drove her to her feet, and she swept up her stilettos once again.

Aligh stood far behind the smoking cannon, arms aloft and surveying his bloody handiwork with the eyes of a zealot. Sarah sprinted toward him again, but this time the twins rushed past their captain to intercept her.

She vaulted over the cannon, and hammered her boots into the face of the twin with the tattooed eyes all across her skull. Razorscale teeth splintered under Sarah’s iron hard boot-heels, and sent the woman flying backward.

Sarah landed lightly and leapt to the side as Crab Hat swung a monstrous, fang-toothed club at her head. It smashed the deck boards to splinters, and Sarah rolled to her feet hammering her daggered fist into the woman’s back. The crab-shell armor was hard and smooth and the stiletto slid clear without penetrating.

The woman wrenched the club from the deck and spun around, the weapon slashing just over Sarah’s head. Her tattooed twin was back up, blood streaming down her face of many eyes, turning it into a hideous grimace. She held a pair of long punch daggers with razor-toothed sawfish blades.

She came at Sarah in a flurry of blows, elbows, and high kicks.

Sarah tried to parry and dodge, only barely avoiding each killing blow. She could hold her own in a fight, but she’d take a pistol over a pair of thin daggers any day. By the time they’d backed up toward the cannon, Sarah’s shirt was soaked in blood and she was seriously reconsidering the wisdom of her plan to fight hand to hand.

From the corner of her eye she saw the armored twin winding up for another strike.

Two to one, this fight would only end badly for Sarah.

Tattooed Eyes slashed her dagger low, and Sarah grunted as it cut a line of fire across the side of her thigh. She dropped to one knee as a reverse stroke came for her throat.

She lifted her arm to parry, and the slashing blade cut straight through the fabric of her coat.

The impact sent searing bolts of pain up Sarah’s arm, but the iron rods specially woven into the back of the sleeve halted the blade before it bit flesh.

Her foe let out a “Ha!” of triumph, but the grin fell from her face as she realised Sarah was unhurt.

“Gedian and Sons, Battle Tailors and War Clothiers,” said Sarah, and hammered her stiletto up through the soft flesh on the underside of her foe’s jaw. Her eyes flew wide in shock, and Sarah saw the black needle of the blade behind her razor teeth as it punched up into her brain.

Sarah rose and kicked the dead body away as her twin screamed in anguish.

Stiletto versus war-club—bad odds. Really bad odds.

Sarah risked a glance behind her.

Cannonball dent in the right side…

This was her chance to even those odds.

The armored twin launched herself at Sarah in fury, her huge, toothed club rising up for a strike. The weapon slashed down in an executioner’s arc, and Sarah dived aside at the last instant.

The iron head of the club smashed the chest behind Sarah apart. She spun inside the twin’s guard and drove her blade into a gap between the plates of crab-shell armor.

The woman grunted and stumbled backward, tearing the weapon from Sarah’s hand.

Sarah turned and began frantically searching through the shattered ruin of the chest, sweeping aside damaged knives, brass-knuckles, and iron-tipped cudgels.

“Come on, come on, where are you…?” she hissed, hearing the scrape of a club being lifted from the deck. A broken handle, a bent blade.

Had one of the twins hidden them somewhere else, hoping to keep them for themselves…?

No, no, no…

And then her palm closed on the smooth, ivory-handled grips she knew better than anything.

Sarah spun the twin pistols into her grip, and snapped the firing mechanism into place.

She twisted and dived to the side, pulling the triggers in a storm of shot.

Crab-shell armor was proof against blades and hooks, but against gun-dame-forged weapons, the tattooed woman might as well have been naked.

Red-hot pistol balls blasted through her armor, and she toppled over the cannon, leaking vital fluids from more than a dozen neat holes.

Sarah rose to her feet and tensed as she felt the roll and sway of the deck change. It was a subtle change, almost unnoticeable, a change in the angle of the anchored ship’s prow as the swell of the ocean shifted…

“Oh, now that’s not good…” she said, as Aligh limped toward her, distraught at the sight of the dead twins.

“You killed them!” he cried.

Sarah fired a shot into each of his kneecaps. “That’s for all the captains you killed tonight.”

Aligh screamed, writhing on the deck. He wept and feebly tried to swing his billhook at her.

Sarah easily batted it aside and jammed a pistol under his chin.

“Any last words?” she asked. “Now this really is your funeral.”

The deck shifted again, and a deathly silence fell over the ship.

Even the wounded seemed to recognize the strange quality of the darkness closing in around them as a deep rumbling sound rose up from the water.

Sarah sensed fearful tremors running through the ship’s timbers.

“What’s happening?” she demanded, jabbing the pistol harder into Aligh’s throat. “What else did you have planned tonight?”

“This is none of my doing,” wept Aligh, and despite his obvious agony, he laughed with the hysteria of a man who knew his time had come. “My bill to the sea is due. And you’re going to pay it with me…”

Sarah had felt something like this in the bones of a ship once before.

Nine years ago, just north of Bilgewater and making the last, hooking sprint to the inner bay. They’d been returning from a bounty run up by Drakkengate and spotted a smuggler running a slimmed-down carrack out of the Ironwater coves, fleeing the Serpent Isles with treasures looted from a Buhru temple.

She still remembered the mournful rumble of the titanic serpent horns as they echoed over the ocean, and the terror as her crew watched an abyssal kraken rear up from the water to smash the carrack to matchwood and drag all aboard to their deaths.

The shift in the deck as the kraken had passed under their ship felt just like this.

She ran to the gunwale and searched the fog and ocean.

The sea swirled around the crags of Moonshard Reef, dark and keeping their secrets. No one knew just how deep it got around here, but any ship that sank out this way was never seen again, never washed up on the isles.

What’s out there…?

And then she saw it.

Two hundred yards out, huge and unyielding, a titan rising from the deep.

The vast dome of its helmeted head broke the water, twin eyes glowing with the orange light of a smelting furnace. The water boiled around it, frothed to madness by a dark miasma surrounding its wavering outline, and leaving an oily slick in its wake.

Its body was huge, encased in plates of corroded iron, looped with chains torn from countless sunken vessels. Across one shoulder it carried a colossal, hook-bladed anchor, dripping with black water and garlanded with rotten weeds from the deepest, darkest abyss.

Sarah’s mind refused to process what she was seeing.

This is impossible.

It was a dark legend come to life, a scare story told around the beer-soaked tables of the wharf-side taverns by drunken rakes hoping for a free drink. She knew its name, had even laughed at the impossibility of its existence.

But here it was, rising from the ocean with booming, ponderous strides.

The drowned tallyman, come to claim the ocean’s due.

Even his name was said to be a curse.

“Nautilus…”

The water exploded as Nautilus hurled his anchor at the Moon Serpent.

A tidal wave made stagnant and rotten by its time in the darkness washed over the ship, as the anchor crashed into the deck. It smashed clear through the timbers, and the ship tilted wildly to port as the impossible weight of it pulled it over.

Sarah fell against the railing and jammed her pistols home in their shoulder holsters as the ship tilted downward. Crew screamed as they slid down the angled deck or were thrown overboard. The anchor ripped clear of the ship’s side, and the ship violently righted itself. Sarah looked up at the sound of splintering masts overhead. Silver sails billowed as the topmast and mizzen snapped like twigs, falling to the shattered deck to crush a dozen men or more.

She struggled to her feet, hearing the groan of a keel bending under stresses it had never been designed to endure. Caulked timbers split and geysers of black water erupted all along the length of the deck.

Sarah turned to Aligh, who clung to the bronze cannon that ought to have served as his tomb.

“You did this!” she yelled, as the looming shadow of Nautilus reared up from the water.

The carved wooden railing smashed to splinters as a massive hand, surely too large to have once been mortal, slammed down on the foredeck. Another swiftly followed, trailing a length of chain that slithered with a black, oily substance.

“He’s not real!” screamed Aligh, his mind undone by the sight of Nautilus. “It was just a story!”

“He looks pretty damn real to me!” shouted Sarah over the cacophony of smashing wood, tearing sails, and terrified screams. Fiery heat washed over her as Nautilus hauled his bulk over the gunwale, and turned his infernal gaze upon her.

She felt the deathly heat of it crawling over her skin, its touch loathsome and invasive, as if the titan of the deeps could see into her very soul.

His titanic weight heeled the ship over again, and Sarah grabbed hold of the looped pulley ropes as the deck tilted crazily. The front of the cannon slid sideways as the block and tackle swung wildly and its knotted end strained to bear its colossal weight. The wooden pegs securing the wheels of the gun carriage in place creaked ominously.

Aligh pulled his way along the cannon toward her.

“I won’t go alone!” he screamed. “If the ocean wants me, I’ll drag you down with me!”

The man was a lunatic, like the crippled sailors raving in Bilgewater’s alleys with a mind destroyed by the foulest rotgut. His fraudulent serpent caller robes had come loose, and dangling from his neck on a leather thong was a silver-and-brass sigil of three intertwined serpents.

Swinging on the pulley, Sarah tried to kick him away, but he had a madman’s strength, clawing at her throat with his free hand. Cracked fingernails drew blood, and she struggled to find purchase as the ship tipped over onto its side, its port side now completely underwater.

Far above them, Nautilus drew back his anchor once again and brought it down like a colossal woodsman’s axe.

Its unnatural mass sheared through the deck amidships, and Sarah heard the thunderous crack of the keel finally splitting. The vessel’s stern rose up sharply, and the sounds of Aligh’s screaming crew echoed in the mist.

On the ocean, we are all equal, went the old saying, but right now Sarah didn’t give a wharf-rat’s shit for those murderous, traitorous bastards.

Let them all drown.

The front half of the ship sprang up with the force of the blow, then slammed back down onto the ocean, tilting back upright as seawater poured into the bow section. The weight of it was dragging the prow deeper underwater with every passing second.

In moments, nothing would remain on the surface.

A body slammed into the deck next to her; Aligh’s tattooed daughter, the one with Sarah’s stiletto still jammed in her brain.

Slicks of black fluid spilled from her mouth and swirled in her eyes.

With a groan of screeching metal, Nautilus reached for Aligh with a massive, corroded gauntlet. His crushing grip fastened on the treacherous captain’s torso and pulled. Aligh held fast to Sarah with lunatic strength, as though they embraced like lovers.

She couldn’t shake him loose.

“All because you wouldn’t pay the damn tithe,” snarled Sarah, as Aligh fought to hold on to her.

“The ocean will take you as well as me!” he screamed.

“Not today,” said Sarah, reaching up and back to grip the skull-pommel of the stiletto wedged in the soft tissue under the tattooed twin’s jaw.

She pulled hard, and the blade slid free in a welter of fluids.

“You want him?” said Sarah, reversing her grip on the weapon. “He’s all yours!”

She rammed the blade into the side of Aligh’s neck, driving it hard through to the other side. His head snapped back and Sarah’s hand flashed out to catch a falling leather thong cut loose from around Aligh’s throat. His grip spasmed, and the metal titan wrenched him back just as the deck hook securing Sarah’s rope loop snapped.

The full weight of the cannon yanked on the block and tackle, lifting Sarah away from the weapon and Aligh. Swinging wildly above the sinking ship, she watched as Nautilus turned and sank back into the ocean, the screaming Aligh clutched in one iron fist.

The water closed over him, a trail of frantic bubbles following Aligh down as Nautilus returned to the darkness below with his bounty. As Aligh was dragged down, Sarah took grim pleasure in seeing the look of terror in his eyes at his fate; condemned to an eternity in darkness without so much as a pauper’s marker to his name.

The Moon Serpent’s prow rose almost vertically in the ocean, and Sarah swung on the rope to reach the jutting, serpent figurehead. Her booted feet caught the silver fangs, and she managed to remain upright as the ship slowly sank into the ocean.

With a moment’s pause, she saw the back half of the boat was almost entirely underwater, with only a few sailors crowded in around the upright stern, so close she could likely have swung over to reach them. One of the survivors was Petyr Harker, and she felt bilious hatred rise in her gorge.

“I did tell you I was just the sort of fellow to seek dramatic revenge in some stupidly elaborate scheme,” said Petyr. “Admittedly, I didn’t quite see it turning out like this, but at least—”

Sarah didn’t give him a chance to finish, throwing the rope loop toward him like a lasso, and no harpooner had ever cast so perfect a throw.

The loop settled around Petyr’s neck like a noose, but before he could lift it clear, Sarah drew her pistol and aimed upward.

“Say hello to Aligh on the way down, Petyr,” she said, and pulled the trigger.

The shot smashed the block and tackle straining to hold the cannon’s enormous weight, and it immediately fell into the ocean. Sarah had a fraction of a second to savor the look of horror in Petyr’s eyes before the rope snapped taut and wrenched him from his perch.

His scream was cut short as he hit the water and vanished into the depths as the cannon dragged him all the way down.

Standing atop the serpent figurehead, Sarah watched the Moon Serpent’s stern finally go under in a swirl of foaming water and cracking timbers. The few sailors still clinging to the wreckage paddled frantically on the surface before the suction of the wreck finally pulled them down with it.

Looking down, she reckoned she had a few seconds at best before the prow did the same to her.

“Shame to send something so beautiful to the deep,” said a voice behind her, and Sarah smiled.

She looked over her shoulder to see Rafen in their landing boat, soaked to the skin and covered in cuts, bruises, and bites. The storm lamp on the prow bobbed like a welcome beacon of safety.

“Thank you kindly, old man,” she said.

“I meant the cannon,” said Rafen, carefully rowing toward her. “A finer thirty pounder I’ve yet to see.”

“Aye,” agreed Sarah, “but it’s tradition, and you don’t go messing with traditions, right?”

“Right indeed,” said Rafen.

“So where in the name of the Bearded Lady did you get to?” asked Sarah, “I needed you on the damn deck when everything went to shit.”

Rafen shrugged and said, “Went below to get another bottle of rum and ran into Aligh’s crew fixing to get a-murderin’. They didn’t take kindly to being discovered and tried to cut my damn head off. Managed to gut a couple with some borrowed steel, but had to jump out of a gunport before they shanked me good. Swam around to get our boat, getting feasted on by all that lives under the surface, thank you very much. But I’m here now, so do you want to get on board or are you planning to go down with the ship?”

“This ship’s captain’s already gone with her,” said Sarah, stepping casually from the figurehead to the landing boat.

With her safely aboard, Rafen rowed them away from the doomed Moon Serpent as the figurehead and its topmost mast finally went under in a swirl of bubbles, rope, and broken spars.

Sarah moved to the back of the landing boat, now seeing she wasn’t the only passenger Rafen had picked up. A bloodied body in a lacerated coat of pale blue, gold cuffs, and frayed bronze epaulettes lay slumped in the landing boat’s bilges.

“Blaxton?” said Sarah. “She’s still alive?”

“Just about,” said Rafen. “She’s a blowhard, but she didn’t deserve to go down with scum like Aligh. Didn’t feel right to leave her to drown, right?”

Sarah said nothing, too exhausted to do more than nod.

“So you going to tell me what in the eight seas happened up there?” asked Rafen.

“You’d never believe me,” said Sarah.

“I’m guessing it was you that sank the ship firing the damn cannon into the deck?” said Rafen.

“Wasn’t me. What happened up there was all Aligh’s doing,” said Sarah, with a look that told him not to ask more.

“Fair enough.”

“Though I did manage to get this.” She opened her palm to reveal a disc stamped with three intertwined serpents of silver and brass.

“Aligh’s sigil,” said Rafen.

“Might not mean much these days, but we’ll see what happens when I show it to the rest of his crew, once they’ve sobered up.”

Rafen grinned. “Well, at least this trip wasn’t a total waste of time.”

Sarah slumped in the back of the boat and watched as the rearing crag of Moonshard Reef began to fade into the mist. She narrowed her eyes as she saw a lone figure climb from the water and shake itself dry.

A hunched wretch in an expensive kraken-skin coat.

“Thorne,” she whispered. “It’s always the bloody rats that make it out.”

“What’s that?” said Rafen, mid-row. “Someone else made it out?”

“No,” said Sarah, turning away. “No one at all.”

A headstrong young vastaya of the seas, Nami uses her mystical Tidecaller staff to reshape the tides and defend her fellow Marai from danger. The first of her kind to leave the ocean and venture onto dry land, Nami faces the unthinkable with grit, determination, and daring mettle.

In the seas to the west of Mount Targon dwells a tribe of vastaya known as the Marai. Long ago, these mermadic creatures discovered a rift in the depths. The rift bore a horrible, creeping darkness which sought to exterminate all forms of life.

At the center of their village, the Marai placed a glowing rock known as a moonstone, which is said to be infused with the celestial magic of the heavens. Its haunting, ethereal light protects the Marai from the creatures that crawl from the abyss. Every hundred years or so, the moonstone’s light begins to dim. At that moment, the tribe chooses their fiercest warrior and bestows upon them the title of Tidecaller.

The Tidecaller must plunge into the icy darkness of the rift, survive the horrors within and retrieve an abyssal pearl. If successful, the Tidecaller rises to shore where a luminous wanderer from Targon’s peak awaits with a moonstone to trade for the pearl. It is an arduous ritual that holds the fate of many in its illusive hands, but the exchange has kept the creatures of the dark contained. In the past, the Marai had sent troops of their most elite warriors to collect the pearl, but they learned the more forces they sent into the rift, the stronger the monsters became, as if it fed on their energy. While an army would be annihilated by the abominations below, a single scout – armed with a legendary Marai staff capable of controlling the tides – could potentially elude the dangers of the deep long enough to escape with the pearl.

Nami had always wanted to be the Tidecaller, but she was impulsive and young. A fierce fighter, she was known amongst the Marai for her stubborn determination, which often got her in trouble. In Nami’s adolescence, the moonstone once again dimmed for the first time in a century. Nami attempted the trial of the Tidecaller. Due to her impulsiveness, however, the elders chose Rasho, a prudent warrior known for his level head in battle, as their Tidecaller.

Rasho dove into the depths of the abyss. A week passed, then another. An entire month the Marai waited for their Tidecaller’s return, but there was no sign of Rasho. No Tidecaller had ever failed to return.

The elders waited and argued while the moonstone grew faint, but Nami knew SOMEONE had to take up the mantle of Tidecaller soon, or all would be lost.

It might as well be her.

Nami grabbed her mother’s bathystaff and plunged into the abyss. After several days, she returned with the pearl, the fallen Tidecaller’s staff, and a look of quiet horror in her eyes. Though furious at her impertinence, the village elders nonetheless admired Nami’s bravery and officially designated her Tidecaller. Nami ascended to the surface and rode the tide to shore to meet the landwalker.

The stonebearer, however, was nowhere to be found. Instead, an elderly woman waited on the beach.

The woman, whose grandparents bore witness to the last Tidecaller exchange, explained that there was no moonstone. The Aspect of the Moon was the only being who could conjure a moonstone, but she had fled Targon.

Nami was unwilling to accept this. She vowed to find the Aspect and retrieve the moonstone. The lives of her people depended on it.

Using the power of the mystical Tidecaller staff to summon a perpetual pool of moving water beneath her fins, Nami took to land to continue her quest.

Determined, the Tidecaller swam into a brand new world.