by Kell Inkston
“Wait for someone to die, as usual. I don’t have anything new for you if that’s what you were thinking.”
Marcus hums. “…And what do you have to do?”
The Captain scoffs. “You’d be so bold to ask?”
Marcus stares at The Captain through the soulless, pitch-black eyes of his mask, his silence serving as its own answer.
“I’ll be making plans, as usual. Now I’ll have your absence if you don’t mind.”
The cloaked something-or-other makes a small, slow, disgusted salute, and in the next blink of an eye, he’s gone.
The Captain sits about for a bit in thought, then gets up to look out the port window. The light shines drearily across his glasses. “Plans… yes… plans that they won’t believe,” he says, watching Colette splash a layer of soapy suds onto the deck down below.
-End of Episode One-
“Manipulation is the salt upon the dish of success.”
- Overlord Greed, Second Lord of Whihelmish
The Mist Rises
The sun has set, and while many of Lady Nocturna’s crew are resting soundly, midshipman Dunklestein, jobber Colette, and their captain: The Captain, finish a game of wits and luck—but mostly just wits.
With a scaled, greyish-blue hand, Dunklestein lays his cards. “Pair of fives, pair of twos. I’ll see you barnacles beat that,” he says with a wide, sharp grin.
Colette gently scans over to Dunk’s hand, and then over to the Captain. She clears her throat and lays down her own. “Three of a kind,” she says with a smirk, displaying her trio of kings.
“No!” Dunk leans over and spitefully looks at her cards. “Not again! How?”
“By being better at poker, obviously,” Colette says, reaching for the chips with the flair of a rockstar.
The Captain, lurched over and unmoving, speaks. “Not quite yet, little crepe. I have the winning hand this time,” The Captain says as he lays down his cards. “Look upon defeat and despair, shipmen! A joker, a one, a two, a three, and the instructions card. The forbidden flush!”
The other two groan in defeat and shell over the entirety of the pile, eighty percent of the game’s chips, over to The Captain. As Dunklestein speaks up, a spited Colette begins looking under the table.
“You’re way too good at this game, Cap,” Dunks says with a growl, “You always win with that flush- I’ve been playing cards since I was just a little kip, but I’ve never seen anyone but you win with that hand.”
“Well, my dear Dunklestein, that is simply because I am the best in the world at cards, and stopped losing once I-”
Still peeking under the table, Colette lets loose an incriminating laugh. She peeks up with a long, sly smirk. “Once you started cheating!” she says with a self-righteous tone of accusation.
The Captain readjusts his large, round glasses and leans back a bit. “Why, dearest Colette, whatever could you mean?”
She squints a hazel eye at The Captain. “Finally, I figured it out. You made up that hand and have been inserting those cards into your hand at the end of the game!”
The bandages around The Captain’s mouth arch up a bit; he’s smiling. “Oh? Could you have some sort of proof?”
With a snap of the leg she scrapes two cards from below The Captain’s chair, and strikes up for them to see, a seven and a five. “These yours?” she asks, winning a shocked, stricken expression from Dunks.
“C-captain! I trusted you!” Dunks the half-shark says, covering his eyes in the painful realization that The Captain’s a cheat.
The Captain leans back a bit more. “Yes- they are, and I switched them out when it was most convenient to me.”
“How does it feel, then,” Colette asks, “knowing that you didn’t deserve to win?!”
The Captain’s smile widens a tad. “Rather, my muffin, would you mind telling me since when was poker a game in which cheating was not part of the rules, and instead of accusing me of doing wrong, why are you not instead asking why you both did not cheat as well?”
Colette’s expression is dumbfounded. “Because it’s wrong!”
“What it is, is a higher level of playing. If you were more resourceful you would realize that poker, much like life, is many games in one. The one that all can see and understand, and the one that is played under the table by the professionals.”
Colette squints and points her nose up. “Except by playing the game you’ve agreed not to cheat!”
The Captain turns his head down. “Really? What made you think that? Sounds like a dangerous rule to me if you’re hoping to win. You must be willing to put aside anything for your goal.”
“So you’re saying that a good Captain’s a cheater?”
The Captain flips a chip about his fingers with a lazy dexterity. “If that’s what it takes. Certainly, morals are useful for a safe society, but people of command must bear the burden of being able to make the decisions others cannot.”
“Captain?” Colette says.
“Yes?” Captain says.
“That is a total load of bulls-”
The room turns and tilts violently, throwing the three from the chairs, and leaving Colette and Dunks in an unfortunate pile with the seats and cards. Hanging on one of the room’s turbulence handles is The Captain, holding the heavy table from crashing into the two as well. The ship’s alarm sounds and sailors roused from their sleep dash out to check the damages. The mist is the thickest The Captain’s seen in years, and there’s a distinctly arcane feeling in the air.
The Captain sighs as the ship rights itself. “How very unpleasant. I wonder what that could have been,” he says as he steps out onto deck. Colette and Dunks join him shortly after.
“Sir!” An anglerfish seasort says, firing off a jaunty salute to The Captain.
“Engineer Luisoix. Damage report.”
“There’s fighting at the helm! We were redirected into a rock!” he says, his bobbing head light shining brightly.
The Captain turns around to the helm. “Dunklestein, Colette- let’s go.”
The three step up a flight of stairs to the helm room and the Captain reaches for the knob. At the touch, a shockingly-fast, grey figure bursts through the reinforced glass, and rushes down the stairs. The Captain is hot on the figure with Dunks right behind them. Colette takes a moment to feel for the new revolver at her side. The figure leaps into the blankets of rolling mist, and leaps out from the opposite direction, catching The Captain off guard and delivering a devastating kick to his back. The Captain turns to grasp the figure, but in the same instant the figure leaps off him, and again to the opposite side. At a speed Dunks can barely see, let alone react to, The Captain and the mist-walking figure exchange vicious, lightning-fast strikes between one another, but The Captain’s hits are too slow, and the figure’s are too weak. They trade consistently as other sailors join the brawl, but each one that comes forward receives a quick, mist-driven boot to the face from the figure.
As the two fire off scathing, powerful punches and kicks, the blond jobber takes aim. She draws a deep breath, rests one hand over her wrist, and pulls back the hammer. Watching The Captain struggle against the mist-walker, she can hear his voice: “Remember, little bun, when you draw the gun, it is not taking out a weapon, so much as it is a statement to your crew that the one you point it at shall be hit. It is an authoritative declaration of your position as captain, and a reassurance of the crew’s security. It is a simple rule: if you miss, you are not the captain of the situation at hand, and thus not the true captain of your crew. Do not leave it up to fate. Practice always.” His words ringing in her head, she pulls the trigger, and marks the Captain in his shoulder, missing her mark by only a semi-second. A strange, black-powder like substance leaks from The Captain’s wound, small, bead-like orbs of fantastical soot.
The Captain, giving no reservation to the pain, continues fighting, and Colette gets over her failure. The Captain isn’t reacting to her screw up, so neither will she. She takes aim, the crew w
atching, and even the elusive chef creaking open the kitchen door to take a look. With another click, she fires again and hits the misty assailant in the forearm. The figure smashes into the floor, realizes that its been shot, and then swipes the nearest person that looks like they would be easy to pick up. Amidst the chaos, young cook hand and best friend of Colette, Grancis Vereyrty, is the one taken. Her frying pan falls to the side as the figure pulls her lithe body up and leaps off the ship into the dark mist of the unforgiving night.
“Colette!” she screams in the shrouding fog, her voice fading quickly to silence.
“Gran! You dumbass!” Colette screams off the port bow, staring blindly into the mist with shock on her features. With a deep breath, she places the gun back in her holster, exhales, and goes up to The Captain, standing straight as he usually does. “We gotta get her back!” she exclaims.
Dunks gets to his feet, rubbing his head. “Damn, that dude was fast!”
The Captain nods. “Indeed, though we cannot very well pursue with the Nocturna, her hull having been breached, we’ll have to send a small party across as the others work on repairs.”
Colette sighs. “But, Captain! The Nocturna’s fine with a few holes, its not like its sinkable!”
He scoffs as if he’s privy to something that she isn’t.
“Only because we have maintained her so well. You don’t really believe that tall tale that the ship’s alive, do you?” The Captain raises a brow under his bandages as a couple of crew mates sweep up the black powder and return it to him.
Another sigh. “You honestly believe I’d think otherwise? Come on, do you really think just three folks could take that thing? We need the guns!”
“We certainly do not need the guns, dearest bagel. If you have any doubts, you can join me on the away trip. You missed one shot, but you hit with the other, marked improvement considering the speed of your target.”
Colette looks to the mists of the port bow as they fade into a clear, starry night. She shrugs. “Thanks, but I didn’t slow it down much.”
The Captain draws back. “I gave you a compliment. I suggest you receive it properly, miss Ketiere.”
Colette Ketiere takes a deep breath, and nods in submission. “Wow, thanks Captain. I’ve gotten better but shot you,” she says with no small amount of sarcasm.
“You shouldn’t let that discourage you. Enough of your warbling and let’s get our third and be on our way. Jim-”
Jim, his malefic tattoo sticking out and shifting on his arm, struts nervously over. “A-alright! Reporting for dut-”
“Sir! You cannot be serious!” Colette quickly cuts Jim off.
The Captain hums. “About bringing him along? Of course I am.”
“But last time he almost killed us!”
The Captain is silent a moment. “Did he really come with us on that expedition for that witching book?”
“Yes!”
Another pause from The Captain as he presses the rest of the black something back into his shoulder. “Ahh yes, I suppose he did. I truly was not expecting him to tie us up like that. Mr. Masthaven.”
Jim Masthaven winces. “C-come on, sir! That wasn’t me! It was the other me!”
“Which can emerge at any time. I think you actually would be better off waiting on the ship….”
“S-Sir, no!”
“…Unconscious in the brig.” With a snap of The Captain’s fingers a group of sailors run up and beat the ever-sailing crap out of Jim. The Captain watches the out-cold Jim get carried off with a smirk as Colette looks on in shock.
“C-Captain what the hell!?”
“I would remind you not to use such foul language, after all that deck hand’s had it coming.”
“Captain, Jim’s your son!”
There’s another silence. “N-no that’s ridiculous… I think,” The Captain says, taking a flask out from his coat pocket and downing a gulp. Colette just stares at him dumbfoundedly as he goes on: “Now then, the other person… I think Boris would be the most sensible choice.”
Colette spreads her hands out in confusion and emotion as if expecting a lightning strike to take her. “What?! The cook? Boris the cook? The creepy dude that Gran has to suffer with and test all his weird garbage?!”
The Captain, hands behind his back in uniform professionalism, nods. “Absolutely. He’s the one for this operation,” he says. The Captain turns to the creaked open kitchen door. “Mr. Boris, your apprentice chef has been captured. You will accompany us on the expedition to retrieve her.”
As Boris, a giant lobster seasort with an apron and a chef’s hat, bursts from his lair, Colette waves her hands in spite and confusion. “Why?! Please don’t take him with us! He’s… he’s-”
“I AM OF THE SAVING!” Boris exclaims, both human-sized claws clapping with righteous indignation.
The Captain nods. “Boris, while territorial and eccentric, is a valued member of our crew. Besides, he has her scent memorized, he’ll be perfect at tracking her down.”
Colette trembles in vicious rejection. “He thought she was food the first time they met. He was asking you if you had a cut chart of her.”
The Captain shrugs. “A simple mistake. Besides, that’s usually what I mean when I tell him to ‘take care’ of someone.”
Colette, again with a dumbfounded look on her face, is quickly hugged by Boris, who also hugs The Captain. “I AM OF THE READY! MUCH SAVING OF THE ASSISTANT, YES?”
The Captain nods as he forces himself out of Boris’ vice-like grasp. “That’s right, Boris. Let’s be on our way.”
The Captain, Chef Boris, previously known as “Tyrant-Butcher of the Waves” Boris, and a huffy Miss Ketiere step into the four-man shore-boat. Boris is the size of three people, so The Captain and Colette have to lean on the rim of the boat as they start up the motor and head off for the only body of land in view, hot on the Grancis-thief’s trail.
Whitewave Cove
An hour later the three are close enough to the island to make out all the lights:
Before them is a shining town of many colorful lights nestled in a wide, miles-long cove. The lighthouse is the brightest structure by only a lumen’s worth. Two towering mansions, both at opposing sides of the cove, flare out their own lights, one of a light, aquatic blue, and the other of a powerful, burgundy red.
Colette squints at the glowing port. “Salt, you know this place?”
The Captain hums as he looks over the lights, his glasses mixing the yellow, red and blue colors into a colorful sheen. “I have not. I’ve been to many ports, but not this one.”
Colette scoffs. “But knowing you, you probably forgot, considering you can’t remember when was the last time you-”
The Captain accidentally pushes Colette off the boat. “Oh my, Boris, it seems Miss Ketiere fell off into the freezing midnight waters. We’ll have to turn around and retrieve her,” The Captain says in a dead serious tone. A few seconds later, a shivering, cussing Colette is pulled back on board. She decides she’ll stop bringing up The Captain’s capacity at thought for now.
“Boris, please warm her up,” The Captain says bluntly.
“N-no that’s quite unne-”
“THE WARMING WILL BE ME, YES?” Boris gurgles as he squeezes her with his bulking red arms. Of course, Boris being a manner of crustacean, his embrace is less “warm and soft” and more “spiky and hard”. Sailing for the island, Colette seriously questions if all this suffering will make her a more formidable person, and whether or not the world truly belongs to overlords, monsters, evil men, and those who have forgone their sanity in the pursuit of strength.
They dock at the commercial sector and tie up their ship. A short, official-looking man with a wig steps up with a pen and ledger in hand. “Good morning. It is twenty sins to tie the ship for a d-” Once he looked down at the people climbing up to the dock, however, he sees it is in fact a giant lobster, a soaking wet woman with a military holster strap around her side, and an official-looking, bandaged
captain to a ship of horrors.
“Truly? I would appreciate it if you were to let us dock here for free until we’ve finished our business. It was one of your island’s inhabitants that kidnapped one of our crew-persons, after all,” The Captain says, towering over the official as he adjusts his glasses.
The man fixes about with his hands nervously. “W-well that would be quite the exceptional case, especially as you know that rules are indeed the rules and that we cannot simply-”
“Of course, I would be perfectly willing to state our case in less amicable manners,” The Captain interrupts. His face, angled at the red mansion, gains a deep crimson sheen against the black contrast of the night—a demonic, blood-stained appearance.
“Uh… um, yes, please go right on ahead! I would like a name to put down, though!” The official says, stepping aside quickly to allow them up.
“The Captain,” The Captain says, nodding politely to the man and heading down the dock.
“N-no, sir. Your name.”
“The Captain.”
“S-… Oh, damn it all!” The official storms back to his post after writing something very rude in place of The Captain’s name.
The three walk to a nearby canteen, open the door, and the musical, lively bar instantly goes silent.
“Good day, ladies and gentlemen. We’re searching for the head of this port. Would anyone be willing to help?” The Captain asks with perfect posture.
A mix of laughter and sighs are heard among the patrons, and one particularly brawny sailor speaks up. “You a captain?”
“The Captain, actually,” The Captain lilts with a confident tone.
The man gets up from his seat and approaches the three. He stops just an inch from The Captain’s face. “You didn’t hear about the travel embargo? You’re probably one of those hired Kalamest hands.”
The Captain hums in thought. “Kalamest? I cannot say I’m familiar.”
“Why else would you come to this gods forsaken sea-rock?” The man says, cracking his knuckles while others join him in the stand.
