The Spitfire emerged from the canyon and into the calm of Matagorda’s hidden harbor. Everyone on board felt the change, as the air grew quiet and heavier with moisture. They’d emerged into a wide, nearly circular expanse of dark green water. The edges were made up of high walls of the same gray granite shot through with veins of black glass.

Those high walls dimmed the light cast by the sun. They also threw unexpected echoes back across the water. Strangely, it made Caleb feel as if they’d sailed into a giant underground cavern.

Further accentuating the feeling were the multiple waterfalls that dotted the harbor’s perimeter. Water collecting on the jungle plateau above formed streams that cascaded off the edges of the cliffs. Each fall hissed like a sizzling-hot pan and threw off clouds of mist as they sailed past.

“Lir’s beard!” Donal exclaimed. “Captain, have you ever seen the like?”

Caleb shook his head and looked forward towards the port of Matagorda proper.

Caleb mentally compared it to the other two urban spaces he’d seen in Avalon. Deephold Port resembled a classic sprawling dockside town, though one with an iron fist that jammed through some city planning. The red-tiled roofs and courtyards gave it the quaint look of a seaside Caribbean village.

What Gilarska had lacked in port facilities, it made up in grandeur. Steep green roofs and flapping gold and purple banners announced the place from far out at sea. Between the knights in armor and the brightly gilded castle, it had the air of a fairy tale right out of the Brothers Grimm.

Here, Matagorda Port’s two and three-story buildings had been crammed into a long slope of land on the far side of the harbor. Each building had been constructed from medium-sized rubble stones and held together with lime mortar. Orange-tinged lanterns hung from every window to compensate for the harbor’s dim light.

A tangle of streets and long paved boulevards ran up the slope. The streets terminated at a squat building that sprawled near the top. As a whole, the heavy stone buildings and the dim light gave the place a stern, forbidding look.

The strange dragging sensation that tugged at Caleb’s consciousness had gone up another notch. He checked his Quest Window and saw the same red-ringed screen.

WARNING!

Your magic-related abilities are being suppressed by anti-magic talismans

or other dark magic sources. Spell effectiveness reduced 85% and increasing.

Looks like I’m down to my Corsair Sub-Specialties, Caleb thought sourly.

Just as he brushed that thought aside, a new screen flashed red as it popped up in turn.

WARNING!

Your Corsair-related abilities have begun to decline!

Current skills operating at 72% capacity.

Oh, come on! Never rains but it pours, does it? Caleb shook his head and let out a breath. But if I’m honest, the real limitation I’m feeling is not having Tavia and Shaw with me. It feels like going on a journey with only one shoe on. But I’m going to have to make do.

“Sienna,” he called, “Have Decklan Patrick join us on the quarterdeck.”

She gave him an Avalonian salute and a Yezzir. In a few moments, she and the curly-haired man came up to the helm, both decked out in dark blue Sea Viper uniforms. Patrick inclined his head and waited for his Captain to address him.

“Since neither Shaw nor Miss Morningstar are aboard for the moment,” Caleb said without preamble, “I need to make some temporary changes to the chain of command. Donal, you’ll be the ship’s Acting First Mate for now.”

Donal raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Aye, Captain.”

Caleb turned to Decklan Patrick. “Until our crew is re-united, I’m promoting you to Acting Second Mate.”

Patrick beamed at that. “Yezzir, Captain, thank you!”

“Don’t thank me yet. You’ll have some special duties for the duration.”

“Gladly, sir. What do you wish of me?”

“You’ll be remaining on the quarterdeck with me for the moment. Since you’re the only one of us who’s been here, you’ll know more about how it’s run. I also want you to accompany me and Sienna ashore to pick up the imprisoned Arrenmar.”

“Prayer’s up, I’ll be with you all the way.”

“Good man. Get yourself outfitted in a full Sea Viper’s outfit like me and Sienna. And stop by the armory, add a pair of pistols to your kit.

A Yezzir, and the man set off.

Two new screens popped up in the Quest Window.

New Bonus Level Mini-Quest: Forge new chain of command and/or divide up duties when original organization has been disrupted due to dismissal, separate missions, or death. XP Value of the next quest completed shall be increased by 10%. STATUS: COMPLETE. New Beginner’s Level Quest: Bring ship into a Protected Neutral Port for the first time. Select and successfully moor at a dock or quay. Convince harbormaster not to impound your ship or goods by paying a docking fee, showing the correct papers, providing a bribe, or forcing the issue by threat. STATUS: IN PROGRESS.

Caleb took out his spyglass again and looked ahead towards the dock proper.

“Donal, steady as she goes.”

Along the rim of dark water that fringed the buildings lay a series of sturdy wooden quays. These were dotted at intervals with gold-colored bladders of some plant or animal. Each had been inflated to basketball size and lashed to the planks to act as floats.

The quays sectioned off the harbor into twenty separate ship’s berths. Yet most of them had been sealed off with red-painted ropes. Others used piles of barrels to block the lengths of the quay. Only the largest quays in the middle remained open, and only two had already been filled.

The southernmost two quays lay empty. The next one was taken up by a broad-beamed merchant vessel with the impertinent name Flogging Molly. To the Molly’s steerboard side lay another empty quay, but the next had been filled by a stout-hulled vessel of sixteen guns.

The name Sculpin had been neatly lettered below a triple set of stern lanterns. The ship’s combination of both square and fore-and-aft rigging told Caleb it was a brig. The mass of cannon, almost triple that of the Spitfire, marked it as a massive brig of war.

But what put the flutter in Caleb’s chest was the sight of the ship’s scarlet and black banner. The black skull emblazoned on it was a twin to the flag flown by his own ship. He’d hoped beyond hope that they’d be the only Myrkur ship in port.

Lir and Danu hadn’t been kind enough to give them that kind of luck.

There were empty quays on either side of the Sculpin. But Caleb wasn’t about to risk putting his disguised, stolen ship directly in view of another Myrkur vessel if he could help it. He scanned the area once more before giving orders to Donal.

“Bring us in on the larboard side of the Molly,” he said.

“Aye, Captain,” Donal said, as he made for the open space. “Don’t verrah much like sailing past that Myrkur brig, though.”

“Yeah, I hear you. Just sail…casually.”

The re-painted Damsel cruised past the Sculpin’s stern without incident. The few Sea Vipers on deck were busy splicing ropes and scrubbing down the afterdeck’s planks. None so much as gave their sister ship a second glance.

“Captain,” Donal said, as he brought them into the quay, “I think I see a welcoming committee. The harbor master and his local goon squad, I’d say.”

Sure enough, a plump, rosy cheeked fellow in an outlandish looking purple coat limped his way down the dock. The man was accompanied by two cutlass and rifle-bearing guards. He also carried a well-worn leather log book in his arms.

I guess that’s not too far off point, given the man’s position, Caleb admitted.

“Very well,” Sienna acknowledged, “I’ll have the crew get the gangplank ready,”

“Nay, bide a moment!” Patrick said, as he hurried up the steps to rejoin them. “That’s not how it’s done here. You don’t throw out the gangplank until the harbor master gives you leave to dock here.”

“All right, then. What are we supposed to do?”

“We converse from the main deck. Lower down any documents we have, and any bribe that he may want.”

“Any guesses as to what that might be?” Caleb asked.

Patrick shook his head. “I think it’s whatever the man’s in the mood for that day. If he takes a dislike to you, then the fee gets a lot steeper.”

With that, Caleb grabbed up the selected parchments he’d taken out of the original Damsel’s great cabin. He then led Sienna and Patrick down to the larboard-side railing on the main deck. Donal called out for men stationed at the fore and aft to throw out lines to the dock workers below. But those same lines were only wrapped once or twice about the iron cleats set into the quay’s reinforced planks.

“Ahoy the sloop!” the purple-jacketed man called from below. His voice was both wheedling and imperious at the same time. “I am Harbormaster Finnobarr! Identify yourself and your business in Matagorda. Be quick now, you’re takin’ up my time, as well as one of my quays!”

Caleb had prepared for this after looking through the Damsel’s texts and talking with Patrick. He took and let out a breath.

Here goes nothing. Make your performance count.

“Ahoy the dock, and ahoy Master Finnobarr!” Caleb called down. “I am Komtur Gortak, of the Myrkur vessel Disgraced Damsel. We’re here to pick up a consignment of human chattel.”

That got a snort out of the Harbormaster.

“Gortak, eh?”

Caleb’s gut turned to ice at the man’s next words.

“That’s a right fine tale,” Finnobarr said. “A real kip-and-a-half, in fact. The last time I met a ‘Komtur Gortak’, a cannon shot had taken away an eye. And damn near half his face, to boot.”

Damn it, Caleb cursed to himself. Of course this fellow would have to know the one Komtur out this way!

“Oh, I hear the tales the sailors spill about Lord High-Captain Delacroix or Lady Ravencrow, ‘least when they’re tanked on rum and have the jingle in their pipeweed,” Finnobarr went on. “But in all my years, I’ve never known a mere Komtur to be able to do such a thing! So tell me, Gortak: What miracle have you been hidin’ from all of us out there on the sea?”