Nocturna League- Season One Box Set

by Kell Inkston

  Colette points her finger as if she has the perfect response, but she lowers it back in line. “So you’re saying we’re done.”

  Dunks shrugs again. “I’m saying I’ve taught you all you can learn from me. Maybe you should talk to The Captain about learning under someone else. Maybe Estradia.”

  “Gross.” She scowls.

  “Or Boris.”

  “I don’t need to learn how to cook.”

  “As a sparring partner.”

  Colette cringes. “Thanks, but I think I’ll skip that.”

  Dunklestein nods with a superior grin. “Then that’s that. If you really want to keep sparring, maybe learn a few pointers from some of the other folks on the ship. If you’re looking for a sounder kicking that I can give you, I hear the dude in Enforcement’s a right good fi-…” Dunks inhales sharply.

  Colette’s indignant expression melts into a sort of blank curiosity. “Wait… Enforcement?”

  Dunklestein flinches, realizing he said something he shouldn’t have. “Uh, nevermind.”

  “You mean that room labeled ‘Enforcement’ on the third deck?”

  “Nevermind, lass.”

  Her features sharpen with intrigue. “The one that’s always locked, just like the lower decks?”

  Dunklestein takes a deep breath. “You didn’t hear it from me, got it?”

  Colette raises a blond brow and comes to a slow nod. “What guy in Enforcement?”

  Dunks’ smile returns as quickly as it had left, and he bumps her on the shoulder with his fist. “Right. Now I’m going to hang with the boys. It’s usually around this time that they’re up to no good anyway.” He puts one foot out the door. “Bit of advice: even if you know about the guy that doesn’t mean he could help you. If you ask me you’re as far as a human girl can get.” He disappears out the door, leaving a contested Colette.

  She tugs up the sleeve of her work clothes. Compacted, thick, trained musculature- the signs of a body put through incredible stress. She approaches the mirror and hums. Gone is the feminine softness she had only a small bearing of growing up, and to stay are the fruits of her training. Her fitness has gotten to a point that she’s rounding out like a bear. If someone didn’t inspect her closely enough, they might think her an effeminate male, or if they noticed her as a female, just overweight, when quite the opposite is true. She looks over the weight racks, those now-familiar tools of strain, wondering if she’s really at the peak of what her body will allow. Benching a grown man’s weight in kilos is more than a little impressive for a girl her age, but she must admit that her growth has slowed. A few weeks after the mist gauntlet incident she reached her physical max, a level that most would consider Olympian. Yet its been months since then, and she’s seen minimal improvements in comparison to that first month.

  Colette can’t bear to think of the possibility that this might be as far as she can get. If she’s going to kill the overlord and save her town, her friend, and herself, she’s going to need something more. She thinks back to all the relics and magic and monstrosities she’s seen on The Eversea, and then she nods. She knows she’s going to have to go beyond a point of no return to get the power she needs… but how?

  Colette leaves the gym and notices something gross that had flopped onto the deck and died some time ago- exuding a wonderfully-terrible stench. She gets her mop and starts cleaning when an explosion comes from the kitchen.Running from the event is a coughing Grancis, her hair tied into a messy, smoked bun.

  “BE OF THE TAKING OF THE BREAK, APPRENTICE MEAT, AND AS FOR YOU, DEMON OF THE COOKING, YOU SHALL BE OF THE LEARNING TO BE OF THE RESPECTING!” Screams Boris from inside the kitchen just as flames spew out capable of cooking any fleshly creature.

  “Burn in the fires of vengeance, crustacean tormentor scum! I’ll show you what real cooking is!” Another voice sounds from the kitchen as the flames rage out.

  Grancis wipes her face of soot as she steps over to Colette.

  “Having fun?” Colette asks as she wipes away a dozen-so eyes into the water.

  Grancis giggles. “Yeah.” She stretches with the railing. “The flame… demon… thing that Boris trapped in the stove to cook with finally got out and-”

  “LOBSTER IS NOT OF THE COOKING, DEMON OF THE COOKING, YOU ARE OF THE COOKING!” Boris yells out from within the flamethrower that is now kitchen

  “For the last time, you bastard. I’m a fire elemental!” the other voice responds just as the fire blazes out like a geyser of death.

  Grancis nods as the sounds of crashing and smashing ring out from the kitchen. “It’s been an eventful morning. How’ve you been?” She asks with a smile.

  Colette nods as another explosion bursts from the kitchen and Boris starts screaming in aquatic anger. “I don’t know. Dunks feels like I’ve gotten about as good as… a girl can be, I guess.”

  “Oh! That’s quite a compliment.”

  She shakes her head. “No. Like, I’m not strong enough to kill the overlord, not yet; and if Dunks is right and I’m as far as I can go… like this, then I’ll have to find some other way.” Colette looks out to the shifting Eversea, continuously confounding and terrible to her.

  Grancis’ smile dies the moment she hears Colette say “like this”. She knows where this is headed. “So… What do you intend to do about it?”

  “Well, Dunks told me abo- uh, well, about a way I might be able to get better by training under someone else.”

  Grancis hums. “Do I know this person?”

  “No, probably not.”

  “Are they… on the ship?”

  “Yes.” Colette looks aside, hoping with every part of her that Grancis doesn’t pry further.

  Grancis gains the sort of face an interrogator would have when testing for the weaknesses of a new captive- a very Captain-like look. “Oh?”

  Colette sighs. “Y-yeah.”

  “Okay, Colette, but I don’t want you to give up something important just so you can get a little more strength… It’d be better to be the overlord’s wife and still human, I think.”

  Suddenly, a spark lights in Colette’s eye and she looks to her friend. “Are you kidding me? I’d sooner die than be that bastard’s plaything. Why wouldn’t I sacrifice a part of myself, or even all of myself to kill him? Don’t you think it’d be worth it to spend one person to save hundreds more?”

  Grancis bites her lip. “N-no, Colette. The people of the village were fine.”

  Colette’s glare becomes considerably more vindictive. “Yeah, until I fucked it all up?”

  Grancis takes a deep breath. “I would be lying if I said you weren’t the cause of a lot of the town’s problems.”

  The ocean waves sing as the fire from the kitchen dies down in the silence.

  Colette puts her mop aside and leans over the railing. “Then… If I really am that much of a bother to everyone… why would you care that I decided to risk my life for ‘em?”

  Grancis weighs her words a moment. “People are in charge for a reason, Colette. The overlord… may have… hurt us in the past, but as bad as he might be, at least he lets us live our lives.”

  Colette stare on blankly. “You’ve lost hope, haven’t you?”

  Grancis focuses her gaze on Colette, who only stares out to sea. “Colette, we’re best friends. I know I’d want you to talk me out of a bad decision. I’d rather live with you as a slave in that guy’s castle than see you turn into something like the guys on this ship.”

  “…What do you mean?”

  “Like, part animal, part human. A monstrosity. It’s unnatural.”

  “So is slavery,” Colette says, peeking at Grancis from the side.

  Grancis looks down in thought. “You don’t care that much about what you become, so long as its still you, do you?”

  Colette thinks on it, and nods. “If you did it to save the people you love… wouldn’t you?”

  Grancis sighs, scans her eyes over the ocean, but can’t quite find the words. “Be careful… O
kay?”

  Colette stares out at the misted horizon, scoffs, and finally turns to her friend. “Of course I will. Someone like me better stay on her toes if all she does is screw others over.”

  “C-Colette! I didn’t mean it like tha-”

  “Then how did you mean it? Was it a problem I was born… or that my mom got sick… or that I decided that I was tired of seeing you get bullied and that you needed a friend?” Grancis inhales with a skewed sob. Colette ‘s gaze is mercilessly direct, with absolutely no room for empathy. “Well?” Colette adds.

  Grancis takes labored, poisoned breaths. “I-”

  “APPRENTICE MEAT! I AM OF THE TAMING OF THE DEMON OF THE COOKING!” Boris yells out loudly enough for the whole ship to hear it.

  “I told you I’m a flame elemental! You will rue this day!” Yells the now-muffled voice of the re-imprisoned elemental.

  Grancis, the beginning of tears on the brim of her eyes, straightens up. “I… I have to go and clean up.”

  Colette stares Grancis down for a few bitter seconds. “Yeah, fine.”

  Grancis turns back to the kitchen and Colette back to the ocean. Colette leans into herself spitefully as she mutters to herself. As she wonders just how much of what Grancis said was true, the side of a ship appears in the mist a kilometer out. She fails to register just what this appearance means for a second, and then her anger flashes into horror. She runs for the deck alarm and hits it for the very first time.

  A blaring, alien sound spouts from The Nocturna’s speakers, and crew-members of all sorts peek their heads from port-holes to behold the ship approaching rapidly. Colette looks forward at the new vessel. Made of wood, unlike the metallic Nocturna, and with a sinister red glow. Colette pulls in a long breath of eldritch sea air, equal parts salt and blood, and reaches for her revolver.

  “That will be quite unnecessary, Miss Ketiere,” a measured, refined voice says from behind. Colette checks and spots none other than The Captain, a bottle of Dugal’s scotch in one hand and two glasses in the other. “Shooting one’s guests is usually considered bad form, though I’m sure a lady of your abilities could make it the new hot thing if she really desired to.”

  Colette looks back with The Captain as the ship pulls up to the side and a floating aberration hails the two.

  “Ahoy me hearties! I trust yee have the libations prepared?”

  The Captain raises the bottle and clinks the glasses together. “As always, Captain Livingstone.”

  The Invitation and The Really-Quite-Obvious Trap

  “Salt,” Colette addresses as the man of the other ship, looking like the ghost of a skeleton that was at one time a ship captain, floats down onto the deck equal the others.

  “Cookie,” The Captain responds.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Allow me to introduce you to him.” The Captain places the two glasses atop the neck of the bottle and takes the ghost skeleton’s hand. “Captain Russhaw Livingstone,” The Captain says, shaking hands with the ghost like any mortal would to another.

  “The Captain,” Russhaw says with a distinctively ectoplasmic accent.

  It may just be her imagination, but Colette has a hunch that this ghost captain is at least a little bit afraid of The Captain- the aberration seems uneasy.

  “I trust you’ve come here to exchange more than simple pleasantries.”

  Russhaw releases a hearty laugh, sounding like the screams of a city being drowned in the sea. “Of course, me hearty! Seems our beloved mayor’s been sending out a missive bounty for ye.”

  The Captain hums. “I see… an attempt to have me put down and brought to justice, perhaps?”

  Russhaw shrugs. “Ay cannah say f’sure.” He pulls from his ghostly bounds a nice-smelling pinkish envelope with The Captain’s name on it, written with flowing, graceful penstrokes.

  The Captain takes the letter and shrugs. “All to be disclosed once we go up to the study, enjoy a few drinks, and read the letter together, yes?”

  Russhaw laughs again and takes up The Captain’s shoulder as the two ascend the steps to his study and open the door.

  “Captain!” Colette shouts up before he closes the door behind him and Russhaw.

  “Yes?” he calls back down.

  Colette shrugs out her arms as if she’s supposed to be let in on something, like just what the guy’s doing here, what she should be doing while they’re talking, or what Boris is cooking for dinner tonight - anybody’s guess.

  The Captain shrugs back, and closes the door without a word.

  “The hell,” she mutters under her breath as a few other crew members congregate near the side of the ship.

  “Outta’ the way!” Engineer Luisoix yells as he hauls a huge bin of random crap that he got from under his bunk. “Outta’ the way!” He says again in desperation as a small skull peeks out from the tall side of the other ship.

  “Ayyyyyy-” starts a small skeleton with his own bin full of crap.

  “Ayyyheyyyyyy!” Luisoix responds in an equally annoying manner. The skeleton comes down with all sorts of other creatures, both living and dead, each with something to trade.

  The unsure atmosphere shifts instantly to mercantilism as sailors from The Nocturna rush off to go get things of their own to trade, but Luisoix was ready the moment he spotted the ship.

  “Tell me you have it,” Luisoix demands as he pushes his bin in front of the skeleton and Colette.

  The small skeleton chuckles and digs around through his goods. “You mean…” with a flash he pulls out the latest issue of “Omniverse Biology” Magazine. This issue devoted entirely to beautiful pictures of aquatic life. “This?”

  Luisoix’s angler-fish lure perks up in a way Colette could only describe at the moment as “sketchy.”

  “Th-that’s it! Oh yes! Yes!” A foaming Luisoix grasps for the magazine just as the skeleton pulls back with a grin.

  “Gonna cost ya’.”

  “Y-yeah, of course!” Luisoix desperately piles out all sorts of baubles, items of magic, a folder of Omni-deck(TM) trading cards, rare foods and medicines and a few magazines containing some especially questionable material that the narrator would not be all that comfortable describing.

  The dwarf skeleton coos in wonder as he looks through the mountain of stuff in front of a confused Colette who is unsure if she should be fascinated or disgusted. “This stuff’s sorta normz,” the skeleton says with an unimpressed tone as he finishes his initial observation.

  Luisoix trembles. “Come on! This stuff is priceless!”

  “Sure, but I know how much you want it, right?” The skeleton opens the marine biology magazine just enough for a poster flap to unfold and float from the pages enticingly. Colette hums as Luisoix gasps in adoration: it’s a poster pin up of a colorful fish laying eggs in a smoothed out nest- it really is a pretty picture, Colette thinks, but it’s not that pretty. Several of The Nocturna’s sailors nearby exclaim in shock upon seeing the image- as if some priceless work of art is being displayed to a crowd of cultured onlookers. Colette assumes she just can’t understand the taste. It must be some pretty high-class art if they’re reacting this way. “I’m waiting,” the skeleton says.

  “Nice!” A salivating sailor from behind Colette says.

  “All those eggs!” Another one says in a frustrated tone that reminds Colette of some of the boys back at the village when discussing Grancis.

  Luisoix takes a deep, finalizing breath, and opens up the card folder. He pulls out a card that has the likeness of an angular, blacker-than-pitch figure that Colette thinks looks sort of like it has sharp, thin bunny ears- “a book character?”, she wonders as she looks over its wide, senseless smile and its glowing, soul-imprisoning gaze. There’s no way something like that could exist in real life.

  The skeleton flinches and looks on in awe. “No shit… This real?”

  “See for yourself!” Luisoix hands the skeleton the small, shiny card.

  “I never thought I’d get to see a th
ird gen Chaos… That is, if it really is legit… May I?”

  Luisoix nods, and the skeleton slowly folds the card. Colette looks on in curiosity, assuming that the skeleton would rather keep the card undamaged, but after the skeleton crumbled the card into a ball, the card unfolds by itself, eliminating any creases and looking as good as the day it was enchanted with preservation magic hundreds of years ago.

  The skeleton grips the card like the deed to a well-earned home. “Yeah, it’s real alright… This for the mag? Really?”

  Luisoix nods with a sobered up tone. “Like you said, I want it bad- besides, I’ve quit playing.”

  “My man…” The skeleton scoffs, nods and hands over the marine life magazine. Luisoix’s composure erupts back into perverted euphoria as he takes the magazine, packs up his stuff and rushes off back to his bunk.

  Colette watches Luisoix shut the door behind him and she turns to the skeleton.

  “So people trade things between vessels.”

  The skeleton nods with a few satisfying *clack* sounds. “Yeah. Luisoix and I trade each time Ol’ Stones and The Reaper have a drink to exchange news.”

  Colette squints an eye. “The Reaper?” She asks in an amused tone.

  The skeleton chuckles. “ Yeah, you know: “The Nocturnal Reaper”? What do you call ‘em?”

  “Uh, The Captain?”

  The skeleton shrugs. “Yeah, makes sense I guess… So do you want anything or are you just gonna hold up the line?”

  Colette looks behind herself and finally notices the four other sailors that have their arms filled with stuff for bartering. “Uh… what all do you have?” she asks, looking over everything.

  “Well,” the trader starts as he begins pointing things out, starting with a bunch of vials filled with suspicious-looking fluids and dried things, “I got you month-long supplies of hash, rickity, deadeye, and a single shot of weir for the same value.” He points across a row of baubles next, “soul gems, filled or empty, last names, first names, eye colors, most any body-transfigurator short of seasortage, enchanted bullets for any thirty cal-”