Wooden boards were creaking and groaning all around them, an audible accompaniment to the back-and-forth rocking of the ship. The floor tilted this way and that, and the hallway seemed almost alive to Truss’ senses. He glanced at his sister. Between her recent injuries and her sea-sickness, he was worried about her health. Tress looked a bit pale, but otherwise seemed to be holding up alright.

“It’s just down here,” said Urahk. He led them down the hallway and down the stairs to the lowest level of the Menelen. The orc man pushed the door open, and the three adventurers he guided stepped forth into the hold.

It was dark, which didn’t surprise Truss. He held up a lantern, borrowed from Captain Klempt, in his left hand and let the light illuminate the cargo all around him. Crates lined the walls and barrels sat in stacks that looked like they could keel over at any moment but never did. Truss walked through the hold, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of movement, any sign of the assassin’s presence.

The crew had searched everywhere above decks, but Hil’sari was nowhere to be found. Either she had expected that her ruse would be discovered, or she had been watching the investigation closely and had realized she’d been made, or she simply had an overabundance or cautions. Whichever was the case, the elf had vanished. All that was left was to comb the ship from top to bottom in hopes of discovering her hiding place, and Truss had volunteered their group to search the hold.

“Do you really think she’s hiding down here?” Tress asked.

“It would be the most sensible place,” Truss told her. “Dark, and full of hiding spots. I’d hide down here, if I were an assassin.”

“Good thing you aren’t,” said his sister. “You’d be an awful assassin.”

Urahk held his lamp up and checked behind a stack of barrels. “Problem is, she could be anywhere,” he noted. “And what if she’s hidden herself inside a crate? We can’t just pop them all open and see if she’s there.”

“We’ll just have to check outside the cargo first,” Seahawk said. She strode down the hold, sweeping her lantern light across rows of barrels and crates, her dark hair tied behind her head and her eyes taking in every little detail.

“You heard her,” said Truss with a shrug. “And she’s right. Let’s get to work.”

He followed after the muscular woman, doing his best to check in every nook and cranny he came across. His attention, however, was often diverted by the sight of Seahawk’s behind. The shape of it could only barely be made out, between her loose-fitting trousers and her tough leather armor, but even so he found his imagination filling in the blanks.

Shaking his head, he tried to push such thoughts away. This was neither the time nor the place to ruminate on his companion’s body, as attractive as he might find it. He noticed a roughly human-sized shadow of space between two stacks of crates and pressed his lantern light against it.

Nothing. No one there.

Their party continued their search, checking anywhere that seemed like it might be a good hiding spot for the assassin, and doing their best to carry out this task in silence so that Hil’sari would not be alerted to their presence. Unfortunately, it was looking more and more like the assassin simply wasn’t down here.

Truss was just about to call it quits, when Seahawk found their quarry.

She stopped abruptly, eyes fixed on a wall of eight crates close to the bow of the ship. They were stacked so as to block off the front-end of the vessel—five crates on the deck, and three on top of those. This formed a gap in the crates, and it was into this gap that Seahawk stooped and peered.

In an instant, she was stumbling away from that space. She tripped and fell backward, landing flat on her ass and almost dropping her lantern. From the gap, Truss saw a pitch black arm and hand, wreathed in dark shadows, holding a sword whose blade Seahawk had only barely avoided.

The assassin leaped out from behind the crates, flying at Seahawk. Truss acted immediately, throwing out his free hand and unleashing his magic. An arc of lightning shot from his palm and struck Hil’sari’s blade. With a shout of pain, the elf dropped her weapon and twisted in the air, landing on her feet and turning her shadow-clouded gaze toward her newest attack.

“Hil’sari,” Truss said. “Give it up.”

“So you figured it out. Clever boy.” The shadows receded from her body, revealing the elf woman they had interrogated up in the captain’s cabin, the one who had faked an Air Magic domain with a bit of Chaos and a fortuitous gust of wind against the window. She flexed the fingers of the hand that dropped her sword, and in her other hand she held three necklaces—the symbols of that Blazing cult the healer had belonged to.

A smile spread over Hil’sari’s face when she saw that Truss had noticed them. “Caught a few more sailors while you were questioning all those women,” she explained. “Discreetly, of course. No one walked in on me this time. I imagine the bodies will be found soon. And I was sure to collect some souvenirs this time. Bounty’s no good without proof, after all.”

Truss frowned. “Bounty?”

“There’s a price on the head of Blazing Path followers,” Hil’sari told him. “I intend to collect.”

“Yeah, fat chance of that!”

Tress rushed up from behind Truss and blasted Hil’sari with a burst of air. The elf spun, dropped to the ground, and snatched up her fallen blade. As she did so, Seahawk climbed to her feet and drew her own weapon.

“Three on one then, is it?” the assassin asked.

“Four!” shouted Urahk from somewhere behind Truss.

Hil’sari glanced the orc’s way and smirked. “No, like I said: three on one. Very well. Let’s dance.”