"The sea is a fine lady with a nasty temper. Do her wrong even a small slight and your life is forfeit."

- Unknown

"To those who seek ludicrous profit. turn your eyes to the waters. As the more dangerous roads you trek, the higher the potential reward."

- A dwarf known as 'Collum'

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The boat rocked and groaned to the beat of the thunderclap. Shouting, falling, and orders were commonplace on board the storm trapped ship, making a desperate attempt to fight the arms of the tide. The supplies needed to continue the war were shaking within their straps, the quartermaster fearful they'd break any moment, causing further issues for the sailors.

Water leaped onto the deck of the ship knocking over loose articles within reach. Buckets of water were being swept and dumped as fast as the frantic sailors could manage.

The captain fought with the helm like an old lover, nearly hitting and smacking it around as he barked orders and muttered curses. He did so with one hand. In the other, drink was being poured to his lips, masterfully so even in the storm.

Below deck, the ship's quartermaster wrestled with the breaking straps on the cargo. Valuable pelts within wooden crates, and even a few exotic creatures in cells. Seven of them stood in the black iron cells. The hinges groaned with the ship. Whimpers and low roars were given by the six creatures, sick from the sea. All except the last. A drenched white skeleton.

The crew had found this creature in a scuba mission, they took it more as a novelty since they knew it was an undead without deaths stench. Though that wasn't to say everyone approved. Then again, when the captain is a drunkard and drinks a cow's weight in liquor and still mop the floor, so to speak, with pirates. Well, you really don't say anything.

Of course, the most valuable cargo was the weapons. The elven lands, not to be mistaken for the human one which had the great war, were undergoing their own age of aggression. Pacts and treatises were broken like bottles, Brother fought mother and father fought daughter. Death had plagues the lands for a nearly ironic twenty years, even more so it started the same day the kingdoms of man reconciled at last.

War never ends, when one began another shall begin. Of course, one might assume man, elf, and dwarf knew of the other's existence. However, such thoughts are of those who fail to grasp the size of this world. The diameter of the planet was over seventy-two thousand miles. a monster of mass and size. With the current technology. it would take decades to fully sail the world, let alone explore it. The skeleton alone had made a journey equivalent of fifteen years in three months from the turbulence of the water. Not even a dragon or a monster of the deep would have been able to survive like it had, then again, the skeleton is a skeleton after all.

The skeleton watched from its cell curiously as it saw the elven sailors go to and fro panicked. It recognized those sorts of expressions, though it didn't understand them, from when it killed those people. Though the mark was what drove it to kill and the skeleton itself had no instinct to kill beyond what it had garnered from Servnisia and taught by its 'mother'.

The skeleton padded to the front of the cell on all fours like a dog eyeing every curiosity it could, cellmates included. The beasts themselves gave no heed to the skeleton out of fear, the scent of the Mitocrasis proving its strength even in death.

A sailor bumbled down the wooden steps, rushing over to the quartermaster "Cap'n wants ya/"

In turn, the sailor was given a sour look "Tell the captain the bloody stick it right now, or we won't have a cargo to carry!"

"B-but the cap'n said."

The quartermaster caught a rope in the midst of it snapping, tying it back in a makeshift knot, praying it would hold "Do I give a Returna's left testicle what the captain has to say? No! I'm busy here trying to save the drunken fedlebeg's profit! So bucker off and get this water off the ship!"

Water had gradually risen within the hold of the ship, even now it was ankle deep and ever so slowly rising, but rising fast enough to spread worry between the two. The sailor opened his mouth to speak before closing and opening it again like a doll unsure how to respond.

The quartermaster glanced at him and then gave him a look of sorts "Well? Get the Freurek out of my hold!" The sailor got into motion returning back above deck.

Curses were sprung in the form of whispers from the quartermaster who continued to wrestle with the straps and ropes. Time passed with no sign of the storm stopping, the quartermaster spared a look to the cells, finding himself subject to the curious gaze of the skeleton.

The quartermaster swallowed instinctively, he was vehemently against the undead being onboard and basically preached the notion of tossing it back overboard. The quartermaster coughed a bit and tried to ignore the skeleton, but having noticed he felt the black orbs latched onto his every move like a hungry plague, waiting for him to mess up so it could swallow him whole.

However the whimpering of the, by this point. vomiting and generally sick beasts in the other six cells snapped him out of his self-induced paranoia. He gave a wry grin as the creatures reminded him of the fat merchants and nobles that rode onboard on occasion. As he wrestled with the cargo, the thoughts of fat pigs rolling across the deck filled his mind, amusing him in the rather dangerous situation.

Eventually, the storm ended and soon after the ship made port in the elvish city of Dre'stro'mas. The captain gave words of encouragement from surviving the turbulent waters they had faced and divided out pay, as sailors near ran to taverns and whore houses to spend their newly acquired coin. The captain himself, along with the quartermaster, welcomed onboard the local auction house leader, as well as the leader of the local forces to talk price points. Most of this was simply customary as the prices of most goods had long been set.

However, the more unusual cargo had to be discussed. That of course included a certain pure white skeleton, sitting in the dark of the ships hold, the orbs in its sockets lit with wonderment and curiosity.