Emin the Pirate was at sea when the sky turned red for the first time. The Raggarusk had been in the northern seas, making its way to Tuggranoskr to spend its ill gotten gains. Emin had been in his characteristic position atop the crows nest, watching the ocean with the boredom that had begun to seep into pirate life after the first few months of excitement when the stars had begun to fall out onto the Fisher Plain, turning the sky red behind them.

He’d dutifully shouted down to the rest of the crew as was his task but halfway through he’d realised he had no idea what he was shouting about and the words died in his throat. The other pirates had noticed anyway and agreed with his wordless description with their own wordless assessments of “Huh?” and “Eh?”

Mangon Tull, the Storm Wolf and captain of their ship had seemed very concerned and had gone down to the brig to check on his lucky charm. They weren’t allowed down there, they weren’t allowed to see what his lucky charm actually was. Not that that had stopped Emin, he’d picked the lock and discovered a drugged mournful man down there. Mangon’s big secret, a secret Emin was willing to keep since if he revealed he’d disobeyed such direct orders he was likely to be punished almost as severely as the man locked in the brig.

They’d sailed on to Tuggranoskr and spent their ill gotten gains. Discussing the red sky all the way. None of them knew anything about it, even Mangon who explained his worry was about whether or not his lucky charm extended to storms of meteors. When they’d arrived there’d been a host of wild theories as to the magic that had caused it from demons to sorcerers to phoenixes and beyond. Most people believed the Hallowed Realm had been dabbling in too much black magic and this was some sort of divine punishment meted out against it. That was easy for the people of Tuggranoskr to say of course since they weren’t in the Hallowed Realm. What most of them failed to realise was that the Fisher Plain, where the meteors had actually struck, wasn’t in the Hallowed Realm either.

This minor detail had ceased to matter when only a few short weeks later, when the sky was just beginning to fade to pink and then blue, a second round of meteors had fallen down directly onto the capital of the Hallowed Realm. The Raggarusk had been at sea again at that point, sailing toward Nargathrum under false colours to conduct some trading with a smuggler. Emin had been below decks but he’d been drawn back outside with cries of the world ending and similar. That had been the prevailing attitude among the crew the whole rest of the trip as they sailed into Nargathrum. Mangon insisting that they’d likely be fine despite the hellish sky before them.

Things in Nargathrum were much worse. From what Emin could gather it had already been full of refugees from the war in the south when the various meteors hit. Those had led to certain groups taking up the same ideas as the pirates had had and deciding that the authorities in the Hallowed Realm were dabbling in black magic and needed to be punished before the meteors took matters into their own hands and descended on Nargathrum.

So there were riots and burnings and the whole thing was in absolute chaos. A saner man might have cut his losses and run but Mangon decided that such a chaotic environment was perfect for smuggling. So they sailed into the wharf in the dead of night with a lot of hidden cargo that was quite valuable. Emin had sailed in the night before but this time was different. There were no guards on the wharf, there were no harbourmasters or dockhands. But there were plenty of people lurking about, watching them, waiting. Emin didn’t especially like to be watched.

Mangon was unconcerned as he helmed the ship expertly into the wharf. The figures watching on the side began to move slowly in. Emin and the other pirates moved to the side of the ship and watched them come. As the figures drew closer the pirates began to stand in ways that made their weapons far more visible and the figures began to recede.

Mangon stood happily at the helm and looked out over the dock. Things were quiet, too quiet for a city that had seemingly fallen into chaos. Although Emin didn’t know much about cities fallen into chaos. All he’d seen so far were a few slightly destroyed buildings on the outskirts and a few completely destroyed buildings in the city as they’d sailed in. Maybe the city wasn’t in such bad shape after all.

A group of men walked up to the ship, each carrying a weapon like they knew how to use it. Men like that weren’t difficult to find, Emin had learned. Guards, soldiers, deserters. The world was full of them nowadays. What was harder was finding a man with a weapon who wanted to use it. Those men were the savage ones that weren’t quite right in the head and if you could get a few of those pointed in the right direction they could get most anything for you. If they fit into the first category too, even better.

As the figures drew closer Emin read their expressions. These men had weapons and wanted to use them. Mangon stepped down from the helm and leaned over the side to treat with them.

“Gentlemen, how can I help you?” he asked calmly.

“You lot the Raggarusk?” the man in the front asked. “Rising tide heralds the storm and all that.” He spoke the code gruffly and without much fanfare. Emin knew Mangon would hate it.

“That’s us,” Mangon replied. “But you don’t look like Artura, what’s happened to him?”

“We take orders from Rogo now. The Lord of Thieves.”

Mangon snorted so hard he almost choked. “That upstart?! The one with the plans as complicated as every straw in a haystack and just as fragile? Why are you taking orders from him?!”

The man looked angry at that, but mostly surprised. “Rogo conquered the Western side of the Undercity in two days. He’s stolen-”

“When the whole city was falling down around him? Anyone could conquer just about anything in this place right now I’ll bet. There’s probably someone else who’s conquered the Northern, Southern and Eastern sides of the Undercity in half the time.”

“Well...”

“Am I right?”

“Salara’s gangs have seized the rest of the Undercity but they are little more than a pack of rabid animals. They’ll fall to us in a matter of-”

“Salara?! Ha, you’re in trouble. Some of the gangs that follow him might be a bit of a mess but there’s no way you’re taking on Salara and coming out alive.”

Another man from the group stepped forward to face Mangon. This man was calmer and stood taller, staring up at them with a too-pretty face lined in a too-condescending smirk.

“You shouldn’t underestimate Rogo, pirate,” the man said and Mangon just grinned. “His plans can be complicated but they are effective. They say he robbed all the merchants of Rasarath blind. They say he plucked an onyx from the den of a witch. They say he was born and raised deep underground in a prison of a mine but he escaped and-”

“You know what else they say about your Rogo little man?” Mangon asked cruelly. “They say he is hunted by a man with a thousand shadows. A man with scars that bleed black magic. A man who cannot be killed. The minstrel they call him. Have you heard them say that?”

The smirking man didn’t reply, he did stop smirking though, which was kind of a reply.

“Now, I want to see Artura, and if I don’t see him in the next hour I am sailing out of this port and selling my wares elsewhere. I’d recommend that you tell Rogo that, he might want these things. The weapons especially. He’s sure to need them against Salara.”

The figures muttered angrily among themselves, clearly enraged at this infuriating pirate captain. Emin knew how they felt. Mangon had a way of getting on people’s nerves. Eventually though they agreed to fetch Artura and some of them went off to get him while some of them stayed behind to make sure they didn’t leave apparently. Not that they’d do much good if the pirates decided to leave. There wasn’t a lot that could stop Mangon doing something when he decided he wanted to do it. Emin wondered if this Rogo person had planned for that.

Eventually a rather short and mousy looking man was led up to the wharf and he conferred in secret with Mangon who jumped down to whisper in his ear. Emin did his best to look down at the other figures and look scary. He’d been growing taller recently and that helped but he was also very skinny and gangly which wasn’t doing him any favours as an intimidating pirate. Fey Rammon was a tall and skinny pirate, but he managed to make it work, he had a certain grace and litheness, like a cat stalking its prey. Emin did not have this, he moved more like a giraffe stalking its prey.

Mangon and what was presumably Artura eventually finished their discussions and Mangon gave the signal to start unloading the cargo. The pirates and the thugs from the city worked together to carry the crates from the ship and load them onto the dock. Emin stretched out his back, exhausted from the effort of carrying all those heavy boxes the whole way.

“Right,” Mangon said. “Apparently these folks need our help getting all this to the Undercity. Drengen, Fey stay here and guard the ship, the rest of you pick a crate and let’s get moving.”

Emin almost sagged into a forlorn slump and groaned but he remembered he was supposed to be looking intimidating and stopped himself, only letting a tiny high pitched whine escape his lips. Hopefully no one heard. He picked up a relatively small crate and started shuffling after the thugs who were walking in a line into the dark streets. Mangon and one of the thugs didn’t take crates and instead flitted about the outside of their little train, ensuring none of the figures that had been lurking on the dock earlier decided to launch some sort of attack.

“Time was we had horses to do this?” Mangon whispered to the previously smirking man. “Rogo’s clever plans not include those?”

The man looked furious but he held himself in. “We don’t have many horses left after the riots and those we do have are being used elsewhere.”

“Salara have all the horses then?”

The man didn’t reply.

Emin’s crate was small but he swore it must’ve been the heaviest one there. No one else seemed to be struggling with theirs’ quite as much as he was. Maybe it had been just his luck to get stuck with the crate that was full of solid gold or something. He lagged behind a bit and no one seemed to care. Perhaps not then. If there was one thing pirates and city thugs had in common, it was their love of gold.

Those at the front of the line reached a door and the smirking man unlocked it with a key. He let them all in and watched impatiently as they filed through. He soon realised that Emin was a full fifty odd metres behind and frustration filled his face as he looked angrily around to make sure they weren’t being watched. Emin tried to hurry but he wasn’t making much progress so the man left the door and rushed over to him, grabbing one end of the crate and lifting the burden, mercifully, off Emin’s shoulders.

Together they shuffled to the door and Emin stepped through into a large room, now bustling with pirates and thugs, setting their crates down on the ground. Mangon walked over to Emin silently and cuffed him painfully across the back of the head. Emin’s eyes went fuzzy and in the dark room it took a long time for him to be sure they’d readjusted. There seemed to be shadows at the corner of his vision for too long, something fast flitting by.

“What were you doing?” Mangon hissed quietly.

“Sorry, I... uh... It was heavy.” Emin opened the crate to reveal a collection of swords stacked on top of each other. Well at least they were metal so he felt somewhat justified in his tardiness.

“Well don’t do it again!” Mangon hissed once more and then stalked away.

Emin looked around the big dark room. They didn’t appear to be anywhere special. They weren’t under the city at all. But everyone had put their crates down, they must have arrived somewhere.

He moved over to Tommos Lisk and tapped his shoulder. The big pirate turned around, no longer leaning on his crate, which Emin was annoyed to see, seemed to contain piles of gold.

“W’ tis it boy?” he asked.

“Where are we? We’re not under the city.”

Tommos chuckled. “No, ha ha, no we’re not. Jist wait though. Ye’ll see.”

Emin waited for a bit and watched as the thugs went over the room, checking everything was in order. Then the smirking man who’d helped him carry his crate moved over to something on the wall. A strange shape buried under a cloth. He took away the cloth and then yanked it and the whole room started to tremble. It was a lever and as things shook a very quiet rumble sounded through the room.

Emin was slightly alarmed but he looked up at Tommos and saw that he was grinning. Then they began to descend. The whole room began to descend. Into the Undercity.

Jencer the Minstrel, Man of a Thousand Shadows, Fell Scarred Magi, Binder of Auriomauch, Master of Death itself, finished his fifth ale. They were starting to go to his head already, it had been a long time since he’d been this drunk. It was difficult though. He’d chased Rogo all the way to Nargathrum and now he’d disappeared into something called the Undercity. What was that supposed to mean? What made matters worse was that Wegrel, that silly little guard who’d tagged along with him. Had also disappeared, and probably had also somehow found his way to the Undercity. It seemed like everyone was going to the Undercity but him. Surely in all the chaos that had wracked the streets in the last few days someone would have been able to tell him how to get into it.

But they couldn’t. No amount of torture or threats could get anyone to give him any decent information. As much as this had caused his dreaded name to spread all throughout the city he was fairly confident that he was torturing the wrong people.

He sat back in his chair and considered ordering another ale. Then he looked out at the wharf and saw a ship come in. It was a monstrous ugly twisted ship, a pirate ship if he’d ever seen one, that was for sure. The men on it seemed to be arguing with the men on the wharf and he wondered idly what they were talking about. Then he heard a word. Filtered through the wharf and through his booze-addled skull. “Undercity.”

Jencer the Minstrel, Man of a Thousand Shadows, Fell Scarred Magi, Binder of Auriomauch, Master of Death itself stalked quietly out of the tavern, doing his best to remain as inconspicuous as possible. He didn’t give any thought to paying, he’d threatened the barkeep so many times he practically owned the place.

Even though he was drunk he still treaded carefully. These were trained pirates and mercenaries and even though he supposedly had mastery over death itself, now that he’d lost Auriomauch’s lute he was very much killable. So he stayed far away as they slowly unloaded their cargo. He stayed far away, just tailing them from a great distance as they walked through the streets of Nargathrum. He stayed far away as they all began to file slowly into an inconspicuous looking door.

He touched the amulet at his neck and summoned the dead spirit of some unimportant farmer he’d killed in some unimportant town. He got the farmer to fly up over the rooftops and wait just out of sight for an opportunity to flit in the door. He got one.

The mercenary manning the door stepped away for a moment to help one of the pirates who was lagging behind and the spirit flitted in to find somewhere to hide. Jencer the Minstrel, Man of a Thousand Shadows, Fell Scarred Magi, Binder of Auriomauch, Master of Death itself fell down in the cold alley and sat there to wait.