[New Title gained! Reign of silence!

You defeated the sirens and their patriarch, known as the Scourge of the Easthook, who cursed and lured thousands of sailors to their demise. Not only was the danger for your people ended by your own hands, you also freed the tormented slaves of the patriarch from their eternal damnation.

It‘s acts like these the aeons, heavens and hells recognize and reward!

Skills unlocked: [Luring Charm], [Cacophonous Screech]

Reward: 500 Essence, 28 Shards of Essence]

The reward was a very welcome surprise, as I was, as so often, scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to my Essence. I had spent it as fast as it came in, mostly to empower the men and women of the Unbound Rangers and the Knights of the Wyld.

For the new Skills, I could immediately see useful applications. What If I were to combine my [Murder of Crows], which was a disorienting Skill on its own, with [Cacophonous Screech]? The impact of my Skill on the tide of a battle would be even more devastating. If I were to learn [Luring Charm], I was not sure how to use it most effectively. Most strong enemies would have a countermeasure in their arsenal, I reckoned, but it would help me gather and fight weaker enemies.

Which could be very useful while training my forces and that had been the focus and goal of most of my decisions lately.

I went somewhat cross-eyed as I read the small notification that Lily had sent me after the battle, but Simue brought me back to the present as she touched me on the shoulder.

Together we pried the wax of our ears, carefully helping each other until the sounds came back in full force, now just the muted sound of battle far away and one yelling and screaming man bound to the wall.

He fell silent as I walked over, something like hope blooming in his watery eyes.

“Who are you?“ I asked, prodding at the strange substance binding him to the wall. It felt like steel, despite looking like silk.

“I can‘t hear you!“ He said way too loud. “The screams made me deaf a long time ago!“ There was a slur to his voice like you would expect someone to have who could not understand the words coming out of his own mouth.

Under the translucent silk, I could see a dangerously thin body and, what I had not seen from afar, his advanced age. He looked somewhat like a man of 35, but his skin was wrinkled, paper-thin, and dry like parchment. As If someone had sucked the life right out of him.

I frowned, thinking, then made a gesture for him to keep on talking, while I settled in a more relaxed stance to invite him to speak openly.

“Listen,“ he yelled, “I am a dead man. Was the second we met the sirens. Kill me, please. End the torment.“

I made a stern gesture, interrupting his hoarse pleas.

“No!“ I said with determination. That, he understood, deaf as he might have been.

“You cannot save my life. I died long ago. I don‘t know what this is, but it keeps me here.“ He tried moving around, to look at the stuff that was imprisoning him, but his head was too restricted to even turn.

I once again tried to pry one of the strands loose, but it did not budge even a little. There was a crystalline quality to the substance, I thought. That or metal.

A heavy sigh, like wind blowing leaves through abandoned ruins, escaped the bound breast of the man, his lips, crested by a wild moustache, quivered in what I assumed to be the last bit of irrational hope he still had clung onto dying. His eyes had been watery all along, but now they lost their shine, their life, as the man prepared to finally rest.

“Please, end me.“ He whispered once more.

I summoned Kingsbane into my clenched fist, the dark blade hovering above us like an answer waiting to be spoken aloud.

I knew the sword cold cut anything. It could cut the web, of that I was sure. But the one time I had seen Kingsbane‘s power invoked, the Betrayer had guided my hand with a force too strong for my body to handle. I could not carefully saw at the roots of the webbing, the cut had to be forceful, swift and, more important than anything else, precise.

I prayed to the only god I knew, the Wanderer, to give me a steady hand, just this once, to save a soul.

Both hands on the handle of the sword forged for a being twice my size, I calmed my breathing, calmed the subtle vibrations of my muscles lifting the heavy sword high above my head. I tried to remember what the Betrayer had told me.

The Blade is just an extension of your arm. Be one with it. No, that wasn‘t it.

The sword is heavy and long. The smaller your movement, the less work you have to do.

If you do strike, be sure you are ready to gamble your life on this one moment, because if you miss, you will be wide open.

The Betrayer had known the blade like no one else. A master in his own right, he wielded the sword as a mortal and awakened its powers, even if he hadn‘t known what he was doing. Be precise. Be sure. Put everything you have on the line for the one cut, even if it is your life. Let the blade do the rest.

I measured the distance with an extended arm, the tip of the blade touching the alien webbing.

As I looked to the prisoner, trying to convey the meaning that I wanted to save him but begged for forgiveness at the same time if I failed, he sighed again, closing his eyes. He failed to catch my meaning, just gracefully accepted that it was a merciful death I would grant him. I hoped he was wrong.

Once more, I swallowed. The last human thing I allowed myself before I steeled my mind. It would be the Raven swinging the sword, and the Raven would not allow a soul to pass on in his realm if there was a chance for it to be saved. I was a Twice-Born. I would not fail. I would not allow it. I was the blade. My thoughts were empty, I would not...

With the ringing of a clear bell, the sword had split the air. Not even consciously, I had turned my upper body with the forceful slash that had taken the sword to the ground, where it had split solid stone and embedded itself a couple of inches. My muscles burned. Faint blue runes burnt on the blade of the Kingsbane, fading away as I saw them.

The prison of webbing burst open, crackling and raining to the ground with more force than I had expected. Out of the sundered cage fell the man, swiftly caught by Simue who swept around me with blinding speed. The body was frail, thin, malnourished, and cut with a paper-thin line of red, droplets of scarlet red blood blooming along the seam, leading from the neck of the man to his bowels. I had cut him. Just.

Hastily, I bent over, touching the man’s shoulder and casting [Reinvigoration] with most of the Mana I had left. The man fell into unconsciousness immediately.

As we returned to the battle at last, the fight was already over, more or less. With the death of the patriarch the coordinated will to fight had left the warped sailors. They were dangerous still because they were raving mad and lashing out in confusion and pain, but slowly we freed every one of them from the shackles of their doomed existence.

We swept the ship, which was rotten by time and the moist air, not to speak of the giant hole in the bow where it had been run onto the ground of the cavern, and found stragglers so twisted and without coherent form that they had been unable to move to the battle. Some of them seemed to be grown into the ship itself, their existence reduced to nothing but hissing and clawing at passers-by.

„Wearing the Dragonamber, I kind of forgot how dangerous the Wyld can be...is, really.“ Higgins murmured as we filed back onto the longboat.

I nodded. “This is the curse and the blessing we are living with.“ I said. “The source of constant danger but also the source of our greatest strength.“

“What would that be, my lord?“

“Protection and struggle. Dangerous surroundings produce dangerous men.“

“I would argue, but it is not like we had a choice.“ Higgins sighed. “What do you want us to do here?“

“Can we bring the bodies out to the open sea for a proper funeral at sea? I do not want to burn them in the cave with all the crates and who knows what. Might be valuable.“

“It is.“ Higgins said. “We opened some up. Trade goods, mostly. Silk and such.“

“Then we stay the day, start clearing out the mess. I will send for the reinforcements and the rebels to come help us out.“

“Aye, Raven.“ Higgins saluted, walking back and slapping the shoulders of some of his men, gathering them.

I summoned my [Bearer of Bad News], and whispered a brief message of 14 words into its ear, my eyes following the smooth black of the Raven as he ascended into the clear sky, heading for Ravenport.

The man we had freed from the prison of the patriarch did not open his eyes until we had returned to Ravenport, where he was being nursed. He was awake, and the doctor even made progress healing his shattered ears with Skills and ointments, but he was weak, old, and malnourished, so every day I feared him to not open his eyes once more.

But he did, on the third day of warmth and nursing in Ravenport, he asked for me, as a runner told me breathlessly on the deck of the Raven's Nest.

After I came to his bed, the stranger smiled a smile that crackled his dry and wrinkly skin as he saw me. There was so much gratitude in that look that I immediately felt uncomfortable.

“Come, come, my saviour, sit with an old man for a while.“ He said weakly.

“How do you feel?“ I sat down next to him, busy getting out of the thick, snowed-upon cloak I was wearing against the winter winds.

“Awful.“ He cackled. “Like an old man learning to listen for the first time. Every sound hurts. Your doctors are miracle workers. I am Valny. I was the [Stargazer] on board of the Manticore. I guess the old lady is gone by now?“

“She is. We are taking her apart, she was rotten and foul to the core.“

A passing moment of sadness washed over the wrinkles of the old man's face, but he moved on with just a glistening in his eyes. “I served onboard the Manticore for 20 years...before we fell for the cursed song that is and time lost all meaning.“ He stared into the distance, then focussed back on me. “The nurses tell me you are a Twice-Born, a godling, and a lord as well.“

“I am, even if I do not like them talking so much.“

“Then I can give you something, to repay you for saving my life. See, [Stargazers] of the Fjelgarder Seaforce are not only there to read the stars for direction and help, we care for the spiritual well-being of the crew.“ He coughed. “Take them. Take them all. I give them to you.“

[New Title gained! Save Our Souls!

You saved the old [Stargazer] who, instead of letting the souls of his old crewmen getting washed away with the tide to haunt the ocean forever, gave them to you to look after. There is a universal promise among men and women of the sea to save the souls of the lost and you have played your part.

It‘s acts like these the aeons, heavens and hells recognize and reward!

Skill unlocked: [Whistle of the Starbound Shepherd]

Reward: 300 Essence, 10 Shards of Essence]