While Fenrir, Cassiel, Serra, and Rock roam around the festival’s grounds playing the part of inconspicuous guests, Oleander works his magic getting information out of some guards. It is more difficult now that he has to stay faithful to Corwin, meaning he cannot get too physical, but he’s still able to flirt and tease his way right into the minds of those he is prying information from.

Corwin and Bonekraka are helping Tabitha carry a strange, makeshift device up towards those colossal coastal batteries lining the cliffs around Port Tugator. They have learned that the batteries are only staffed when enemy fleets or sea monsters are reported approaching the city, meaning that they have no difficulty in digging a hole right next to one of the cannons for them to bury the strange contraption in.

With Fenrir and Serra occupying themselves with various games and food products, Cassiel flicks one of his ears to get his attention.

He turns around and sees her pointing at a gathering in the distance.

A large crowd has gathered around the elite honor guard of none other than Ull, the Forest King of the Northern Wardens.

Standing next to Ull is a man that Fenrir has never seen before, but given how close he is to the foreign king and the notable mustache curling away from his face, it can only be one man: Blackstache. Blackstache looks to be – well, Fenrir expected more of a big, burly pirate covered in hair with an eyepatch and peg leg. Instead, Blackstache just looks like a thirties-something man with a balding head, a rather average frame, and a massive handlebar mustache with the ends of it reaching down to his shoulders! Furthermore, he’s dressed more like some homeless, wandering bard rather than the leader of pirates. Rather than carrying around a cutlass and flintlock, he’s carrying around a large instrument on his back that looks like the combination of a lute and a crossbow.

The most pirate-y thing about him are the birds on his shoulders, but then again, they’re not parrots. They’re white-spotted, brown owls. One owl is perched on each shoulder and looking around at everybody nearby.

“He looks more like a fun uncle than a pirate king,” Fenrir says to Cassiel. “How’d he become the leader down here?”

“No idea. There’s tons of stories and legends about him, but everybody will tell you something different,” Cassiel answers.

A woman comes out from behind Blackstache into view. She has long and curly raven-colored hair that rolls down to her mid-back. While she may be wearing a corset that pushes her breasts up with an open leather vest around it, she doesn’t exactly look sexy. She just looks badass. Everything from the corset and leather vest to her form-fitting pants and tall, black boots gives her the appearance of some sort of mature, kickass pirate who doesn’t take shit from any man and is willing to kick anybody who looks at her wrong in the face. On her right hip hangs a pouch that looks like it’s overflowing, but Fenrir can’t tell what's in that. On her left hip is a rapier that occasionally has sparks of electricity shooting off from it.

Fenrir looks over at Cassiel to ask who she is, but who he sees is not Cassiel.

He sees a girl that has entered total fangirl mode.

With wide eyes and an excited smile, Cassiel looks like she’s about to scream for an autograph.

“Look! Fen! It’s her! It’s the Lightning Witch of the High Seas! I’ve heard so much abou—” Cassiel pauses when she turns and sees how Fenrir, Serra, and Rock are all staring at her.

“Since when do you call me ‘Fen,’ and since when do you act like a raging fangirl?” Fenrir asks.

This is normally when Fenrir expects her face to turn red. Instead, she looks down at the ground, wraps her hands around his collar, and pulls his head down so that it’s directly in front of her own. “I will kill you, you bastard,” she threatens.

She sounds more serious than she’s ever sounded before.

“I – uh, sorry?” Fenrir isn’t sure what to say. “What’s… what’s the deal with the witch lady?”

Cassiel lets go of him and turns away during her explanation. “She’s called the ‘Lightning Witch of the High Seas.’ She’s supposed to be one of the strongest magic users of the game and is a direct rival to Indra, but she specializes solely in lightning magic. Basically, she’s Blackstache’s direct counter to Indra. I’ve heard that the Lightning Witch and Indra used to be friends back when Blackstache had an alliance with Indra, but not anymore. Now they’re rivals,” Cassiel’s tone of voice begins returning to the previously excited fangirl from earlier, “and she’s one of the most badass women in-game. She’s Blackstache’s first mate, has the strongest lightning magic out of all players and known NPCs including elite raid bosses, and I hear that she’s never died a single time! She refuses to sleep with anybody, too, because she doesn’t need rebirth counters since she never dies. Some say that she’s the highest tier player to have never died.”

“You sure know a lot about her,” Fenrir says, trying not to say so much that she realizes how she’s behaving.

“Of course I do! Us angel recruits always talked about all the top women in-game. Indra and the Lightning Witch are the two most powerful. Empress Livia is strong, but she’s more of a strategist. She would easily lose any one-on-one fight against Indra or the Lightning Witch. But, the head of the archangels could hold her own against them. She’s the master of holy magic and can create barriers impossible to break through, and she can heal almost any wound instantly. Her spear, Longinus, can shoot rays that can wipe out hundreds of enemy soldiers in a single shot!”

“Sooo, a laser spear?”

Cassiel doesn’t turn to face him, but she nods her head excitedly.

None of them have ever seen this side of Cassiel. It’s almost… it’s almost as if she’s a – no, there’s no way. Not Cass Cass.

Blackstache is about to poke Ull’s deer-half when the Lightning Witch smacks his hand. He turns to her and pouts before looking back over the crowd and then up at Ull. “So, how’s this here crowd for ya? It good enough for tha grand Forest King?” Blackstache asks, his voice just as raggedy as his appearance.

“It is wonderful, thank you! Everybody back at Valhalla acts so dull and serious all the time. I get that we have the whole Viking motif going on, but they need to learn to relax and have parties like this! Part of being a Viking is having fun after all the pillaging, isn’t it?” Ull asks, his voice sounding surprisingly young despite his mature and wise appearance.

“Guess ‘at’s what happens when ya try combinin’ elves and Vikings. Ya get the seriousness of the elves and the fightiness of the Vikings without any of the fun stuff from either side! Ya know what we should do? Go and get drunk! I know the perfect bar.”

The Lightning Witch smacks Blackstache on the back of his head. “Can you not speak properly around another faction leader? Learn your manners, you fool of a man. Do not make me trim your mustache again,” she scolds him.

At this moment, Fenrir forms a bond with Blackstache.

They may not know each other, they may not have ever even looked at each other, Blackstache doesn’t even know of Fenrir’s existence, but there is a bond.

They are brothers in arms in having to deal with tsunderes.

“Why are you looking at him like that?” Cassiel asks Fenrir.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he says.

“Haah?” She pinches him by the ear. “I wouldn’t understand what, exactly?”

Serra pokes Cassiel’s side.

Cassiel never fails to squeak when that happens.

For now, Fenrir’s ear is safe thanks to Serra.

“As much as I hate to admit it, this Ull guy actually… doesn’t seem that bad just from listening to him,” Fenrir says.

Just after saying it, Ull looks directly at him and makes eye contact.

Fenrir wants to believe that it’s accidental – that it’s just by chance, but Ull looks directly into his eyes with purposeful intent.

The look sends shivers down his spine.

Ull smiles and looks away.

“He can hear us,” Fenrir says.

“Who?” Serra asks.

“The king. He just looked right at me after saying that.”

“There’s no way he could hear how quiet we are over this crowd,” Cassiel suggests.

“No. He definitely looked at me. I felt him stare directly into me.”

Fenrir pulls the girls away and signs to them both.

He figured that while sign language may not be necessary in-game for Serra, Saya isn’t blocking the knowledge of using it from him, so he’s now using what he learned to communicate in silence.

Serra taught the rest of the crew just enough basic signs to be able to communicate simple messages with one another.

Let’s meet up with the others. They should be done now.

Both girls nod.

Fenrir, Rock, Serra, and Cassiel head for the designated rendezvous location.