The rhythm of crashing waves and the shrill cry of seagulls washed over the beach. As the serpent’s body remained lifeless, the five privateers took many deep breaths, collecting themselves. Ives walked over to Ray, inspecting their body for wounds.

“Are you really human?” the cloaked figure of Ives asked, “you don’t even have any fractures after a blow like that.”

“What did I say?” began Ray, “I’m tough.”

Ives paused, turning his head in a manner akin to a confused dog, before sighing and returning to the dinghy, at the front of which sat Porter. Porter looked over the group from his seated position before fixing his gaze on Cristin.

“Welp,” he said, “I guess that tells us what you can do then, Cristin.”

Cristin turned towards him with a tired expression before responding, “yeah… guess so.” He then walked over to where he had dropped a bullet, picking it up and dusting it off before placing it back in his ammo pouch. In addition, he removed his rifle from his back and returned it to the large rectangular case. As he turned back towards the group, he sharply inhaled and jolted back as the short frame of Porter stood in front of him, seemingly having approached him without making the slightest sound.

“Y’know,” said Porter with a sly tone, “there are a few people on the ship who use firearms, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen one like that.” His eyes moved from the box that now housed the rifle to Cristin’s eyes with a friendly expression.

Cristin broke the eye contact nervously, before picking up the box and slinging it over his back. “It’s custom made,” he said. Cristin then walked past Porter, back to the rest of the group, who were all looking over the corpse of the giant snake. He was sure, however, that Porter was watching him intently as he moved away.

Moving closer to the group, Cristin could hear Emery discussing something with Ray.

“I mean, of course there are stories about giant snakes and the like, but typically they have some kind of magical attunement. Nagas, for instance, are capable of instantaneously healing wounds not caused by fire. This? She said, kicking the snake’s corpse, “as far as I can tell, this is just a big albino snake.”

As she finished this thought, Ray interjected. “So… why the size then? I don’t know of any snake species that get this large.”

Emery sighed. “No clue, might ask Luc about it when we get back to the ship, he’s fairly knowledgeable about this kind of stuff.”

Cristin walked over to Ives, who had now taken to opening the snake's jaw and peering at its fangs. “That poison you had,” he began, “where did you get it?”

Ives looked up from the snake towards Cristin, “Oh… that’s something I made.”

“Why did you make a poison strong enough to kill something this large, that quickly?” replied Cristin.

Ives paused for a few moments before giving a shrug in response and turning back to the snake.

Cristin looked at the cloaked figure of Ives, concerned, before shaking his head softly and taking a seat on the smooth stones near the dinghy.

About a minute later, Porter returned to the small boat’s front and cleared his throat before speaking. “Alright then, if all of you are ready to continue, I would say it’s about time we did what we came here for.” Turning his gaze to Emery, he continued, “I was thinking that you could lead us through the forest, you tend to avoid attention after all.”

Emery nodded before picking up her pack and slinging it over her shoulder. “Alright then, let’s go.”

As Emery began moving towards the direction of the forest, the other four followed behind at a distance of about ten paces.

It was as Cristin neared the forest’s perimeter that something caught his eye.

“Hey, everyone, wait a second.”

In response, the group halted their steps, turning to look at Cristin, who was now pointing towards a section of the forest about fifty feet away.

“What is it?” asked Emery in an exasperated tone.

Without responding, Cristin moved to where he had been pointing and crouched down, the remaining four soon following suit. As they got closer, the others noticed the object of Cristin’s attention. The foliage in a section of the forest had clearly been distrubed; branches and such flora were snapped, and the detritus covering the ground was clearly trampled.

“Could an animal have done this?” asked Porter.

“No,” Emery responded, “it’s too irregular and large to be any animal I know of. This looks to be a large group of some kind.”

“Like the pirates that went missing…” Cristin said, continuing to observe the damaged area.

Emery looked into the forest, brushing aside a low-hanging branch as she did so. “It seems like they left quite the discernible trail as they were going through.”

Cristin followed Emery’s gaze, noticing the trail as well. “The guy I got this tip from said that they came here searching for something. Maybe we can figure out what that exactly is if we follow this trail?”

Emery turned back to him, clearly puzzled. “You want to follow the path of a group of fifteen people that all went missing in action? If we run into whatever they came across, we probably don’t stand a chance.”

“Five is much quieter than fifteen,” responded Cristin.

Emery bit down on the nail of her thumb, clearly considering the proposal.

“Could you follow this trail, Emery?” asked Porter.

“Easily,” she responded, “they didn’t seem to be trying to go unnoticed in any way, must not have been the smartest crew.”

“I say we do it then,” said Porter. “We can figure out what they were after, and if necessary, we can get more of the crew to come on land and assist us.”

Ray stretched their arms upwards, looking towards Emery. “I agree, we were able to handle that snake weren’t we? I like our odds.”

Emery sighed and began to move into the forest, following the beaten path. “Alright then, give me a bit of space, I’ll make sure we don’t run into any trouble.”

Stepping into the forest, the dense canopy above shielded the five privateers from the navel’s rays. Thanks to Emery guiding the other four, traversing the dense foliage proved to be little trouble. Out of caution, Cristin drew a revolver from his coat’s interior; Porter noticed this and glanced at the gun before giving Cristin a friendly smile.

Occasionally, the group would stop as Emery held her hand outstretched towards the other four, indicating potential signs of danger. The first time this occurred, Emery helped the group to avoid a large bush bearing reddish-green leaves. In a hushed tone, she shared that when touched, the leaves of this bush would cause intense blistering of the skin. In response, Ives approached the bush and—using a set of large metallic tweezers— removed several leaves, placing them inside of a small pouch. After watching this with puzzled expressions, the group once again began traversing the forest.

After about an hour and a half of walking, the group took a short break to rest their legs and quench their growing thirst. As the group sat down, Cristin watched as Porter retrieved a waterskin from within his bag and began to drink. However, Cristin’s attention was more focused on the contents of his bag. He didn’t see anything particularly noteworthy inside: some dried food, socks, and a book. Before Cristin could see anything else in its interior, Porter sat down and closed the bag.

After taking a brief ten-minute rest, Emery once again stood and began leading the group slowly down the beaten path. Through the breaks in the trees, the group could see that it was now the early evening. The other four followed Emery, heeding her warnings, for about another hour. Their pace was broken, however, when Emery stopped completely in her tracks, gesturing for the group to do the same.

After ten or so seconds of silence, Ray spoke up. “What's wrong?” they asked.

Without turning around, Emery responded in a hushed tone. “Look around.”

Cristin took his eyes off Emery and looked at his surroundings. At first, he didn’t notice anything peculiar, there were no evident dangers or anything like that. However, he soon noticed what Emery was seemingly talking about, something that he would never have taken note of otherwise.

Despite the fact that it was the height of spring, about half of the trees were clearly dead, the trunks displaying signs of rot. In addition, without the group’s footsteps to distract him, Cristin became acutely aware of how quiet the surrounding woods were. When they had entered the forest, the calls of birds and sounds of other fauna were practically omnipresent. However, where they stood at the moment, the only sounds Cristin could hear were the rustling of trees and his own breathing.

“Hey uh, Emery,” Cristin began, “you know what’s going on here?”

Emery turned towards Cristin before crouching down and picking up a handful of soil, looking at it closely.

“My instincts tell me that the trees are suffering from some kind of blight, but that wouldn’t explain why we haven’t seen signs of it up until this point.”

Cristin was silent, ruminating on this abnormality.

Emery stood and brushed the dry dirt off of her hand. “Let’s just get this over with,” she said, once again moving to the front of the group.

The other four continued following Emery, however, Cristin made sure to be more perceptive of his surroundings from then on.

As the five continued to walk through the forest, it continued to display signs of death. The once damp soil was now dry, the bushes and grass that previously littered the ground were now replaced with weeds, and a continuously greater amount of observable trees were dead. Emery’s pace slowed, as the once obvious path now required significant effort to follow. However, she did not have to deal with this difficulty for long.

About two hours after they had rested, the group noticed a break in the dead trees, through which they could see the entrance to a clearing. The navel above was nearing its pass over the horizon, as indicated by the orange glow of the sky.

Emery pushed past the trees and looked into the clearing. As she halted, the other four had the chance to catch up and look into the clearing as well.

The clearing was as lifeless as the forest they were standing in; the dry dirt supported little but pathetic weeds, just barely clinging to life. In the center of the clearing stood a small stone building, on their side of which was a large metal door. However, the group paid little mind to these details; their focus was on something far more concerning.

Littering the clearing were the dead bodies of fifteen individuals, all suffering from various wounds. Cristin’s face went pale as he turned to look at the other four. None of the others were as stunned as he was, but from what he could gather, they all seemed concerned.

“Guess we know what happened to those pirates,” said Ray.

Emery stepped into the clearing and analyzed the bodies. “This was done by a group of people.”

“How can you tell?” asked Ray.

“Look at their wounds,” she responded, “most have slash wounds, indicating a blade was used, but that’s not the case for all of them.” She began pointing at various bodies. “Those two have arrows in them, and that one was killed with a spear.”

Porter then spoke up, “it looks like they weren’t expecting a fight either, only a few of them drew their weapons.”

“Can you tell where the other group went, Emery?” asked Cristin.

Emery began to scan the perimeter of the clearing, looking for anything noteworthy. Eventually, about fifteen feet from where the party had broken into the clearing, she found something. From a thorny bush, she picked up a piece of loose white cloth, seemingly having been forcibly torn from a garment.

“None of these pirates are wearing white, correct?” she asked.

Looking over the bodies, Cristin failed to find any white clothing. Considering the difficulty of keeping white clothing clean, it made sense that most would be wearing darker shades.

“None,” he responded.

Natalie nodded, before stepping into the forest near where she had found the piece of cloth. After going about fifty feet into the dry flora, she returned.

“Alright, I found their trail. Far less obvious than what we’ve been following, but I can make it out. It seems to be going in the direction of the coast.”

“That’s a relief,” said Porter, “I was worried they might be in that building.”

At the mention of the structure, Cristin walked over to its metal door, looking it over. After a few seconds, he crouched down, looking at the ground in front of it. “They might not be in there now, but it looks like they went in at some point.”

Ray walked over to Cristin and peered over his shoulder. “How can you tell?” they asked.

“Look at the dirt, it's flattened as if the door has been opened fairly recently. Going off the assumption they’ve left by this point, they must have gone in there for some reason. If I had to guess, it’s probably the same reason these pirates were here.”

“Damn,” said Emery, “looks like someone beat us to it.”

“Not necessarily,” began Porter, “we don’t even really know what it is these pirates were after; the informant just referred to it as loot. That makes me think that these pirates didn’t know what exactly they were looking for either. At the very least, we can check it out. If we come up empty, it’s not much trouble.”

“That sounds great,” responded Ray, “but do you think we could maybe do that in the morning? Not gonna lie, all that walking has me a bit exhausted.”

Porter smiled at Ray and looked up towards the sky. The Navel had now fallen over the horizon and was slowly being replaced by the Eye.

“That sounds like a great idea,” he said, looking towards the other four. After clapping his hands together, he spoke out to the group. “Alright then everybody, we’ll set up camp near here and wake up early for tomorrow.”

At this, the group began to retrieve their sleeping arrangements from their bags and organize them in the nearby area. Emery soon made a fire for the group, and everyone began to eat from their rations. During this, watches were organized, and the group finally got some rest after a long day of travel.

During his watch, Cristin couldn’t prevent himself from staring in Porter’s direction; the orange glow of the flame illuminated his small form. It was hard to believe that someone like him would be capable of doing something as gruesome as what Cristin had seen in Saltstead; it even caused Cristin to question if it was all some infinitesimally unlikely coincidence. As he was thinking on this subject, his eyes fell on Porter’s bag. He hadn’t been able to see the man’s belongings before, but now they were completely unprotected.

Cristin looked at the sleeping figures of each of the other four privateers. As far as he could tell, they were all asleep. Slowly, Cristin crept towards Porter’s belongings and placed a hand on the bag. Flipping the metal latch upwards, Cristin saw what it held. Nothing immediately jumped out to him, he saw all the basic requirements for an expedition such as this, as well as some other personal effects. Just as he was preparing to close the bag, he looked towards the book he had seen earlier. Getting a closer look, he saw that it was quite plain in terms of appearance, and had no text on the cover or the spine. The aspect of the book that intrigued Cristin, however, was that it was locked shut.

He grabbed the book and moved over to his own personal belongings. From a small box, Cristin retrieved two thin metal rods. He placed each into the lock, and after a few seconds, managed to open it. As Cristin flipped the book open to the first page, he saw writing that he didn’t fully understand. Written down were various names, descriptions of physical appearances, and locations, all of which were crossed off. Rapidly, Cristin flipped through the book’s pages, finding they all bore similar information. However, when Cristin got to the fifth page, he found something that caught his attention. One crossed-off section of info on this page read: William Grayson, male with tan skin in his mid-thirties, Twin’s Spigot in Steckson. Immediately upon seeing this information, Cristin let out an audible gasp, forgetting to mind his volume. Cristin watched Porter begin to stir from his position, having been woken up by the noise. In a panic, he closed the book and rapidly placed it in Porter’s bag before closing it and moving back to where he had been sitting. Just as he sat down, Porter turned around and looked and Cristin.

“What’s wrong?” asked Porter.

Cristin slowed his breathing before responding, “nothing, I just… thought I saw something.”

Porter continued to keep his gaze on Cristin before looking towards his bag. He stared at it for multiple seconds before once again turning away from Cristin and lying down.

“Alright then, wake me up when it’s my watch,” he said, beginning to fall asleep once again.

“...right,” replied Cristin.

Cristin’s watch soon ended; he woke up Porter and moved to his own Bedroll, lying down. However, despite feeling exhausted, he couldn’t bring himself to sleep.