Nocturna League- Season One Box Set

by Kell Inkston

  After a second’s weakness, Jim raises his hand. “I’ll make my roll.”

  Colette, the one nearest Luisoix, reaches for the die and slides it across the table.

  “Uh, good luck?” Colette says facetiously, already sure she’s going to have to knock out her room mate before she can sleep soundly tonight.

  Jim grasps the die like its his destiny. “Thanks,” he says with complete seriousness as he entirely misses Colette’s tone.

  Irefall steeples her fingers thoughtfully and rests her petite chin upon them. “Why, I wonder who you’d like to bed with.” The Captain coughs, arms crossed and glassed glare pointed right at Irefall. She clears her throat. “A-as a fascinating conversational partner, of course!”

  Jim trembles under the sight of the others as he makes peace with fate. Very clearly in his mind, he envisions the sight of Grancis’ soft, resting face laid in bed with his own- the warmth of her flesh against his, the scent, the thrill of, just maybe, leaning into her.

  What a creep.

  Jim tosses the die, and it spins out to reveal his evening.

  He flinches, The Captain hums, Colette scoffs, Irefall sighs with disappointment, and Grancis sighs with quiet relief. He rolled a four - Irefall.

  With only a flicker’s moment, she puts on her guise just as quickly. “Well,” She starts, reaching with her foot under the table just far enough to stroke Jim’s leg. “I must say I am looking forward to having some words with you, Mister Masthaven.”

  He feels his heart sink, he’s not sure if he should be excited or horrified. “I… yeah, alright then.”

  She fetches three keys, places two on the table in front of The Captain, and gestures for Jim to follow along with her finger. “Now I trust you’ll all play fair,” She says, Jim hovering behind her nervously. She looks over to Cooking Minion with a trusting gaze, much to the offense of Jacqui. “You’ll be sure they will, won’t you?”

  Cooking Minion fires off a jaunty salute. “It’ll be as fair as it’s been all day, Mayoress,” he says with his usual cocky, adorable grin.

  She pats him on the head just before stroking her finger along Jim’s stubbled cheek. “This way, Mister Masthaven. We’ll see you all in the morning.”

  “Night,” Colette says, head resting against her hand with a snide smile. “This is a big day for you.”

  Grancis bows her head awkwardly. “Goodnight.”

  The Captain sips his tea and Martaine keeps his mouth shut.

  “Goodnight, Mayore-”

  “Sleep well, my dearest wonder of the mind,” Jacqui says with another over-annunciated bow, cutting off Cooking Minion as he’s so prone to do.

  Irefall waves off with a sugary sweet smile as she trails Jim along by just her thumb and index finger.

  Cooking Minion turns sharply to Jacqui. “That’s unnecessary, thanks.”

  Jacqui reaches up and begins with the dreaded pretentious mustache curling. “Oh, what might that be, little cookling?”

  “Interrupting me around her all the time, dude. Like, tomorrow she’ll know anyway.” Cooking Minion’s precious little antennae curl back crassly just as Jacqui’s tail straightens rigidly.

  “Know what. How terrible a chef you are and how badly you’re in need of improvement?”

  Cooking Minion sighs, looks over to the others and gestures for them to go on. “Okay, first of all, I’m a be-”

  As the two discuss which one is the superior cook, The Captain takes up the die. “So I suppose this is the one for all the salt, eh?”

  Colette rolls her eyes. “Yeah, salt. Get it over with so I can get some sleep.”

  The Captain looks to her as he tosses the die up from his palm continuously. “I’m sure you just want to get back to that evil propaganda box of yours.”

  She scoffs. “Cap, you know me. That stuff’s boring. I just want to figure out if I’m kickin’ Vangair’s ass tonight or tomorrow.”

  Vangair winces at the thought and Grancis looks to the floor awkwardly.

  “I suppose if that’s your story you’ll stick to it. I’ll let you get right on that.” The Captain raises the die, watched carefully by Grancis and Martaine, and he rolls it carelessly, like a predetermined, guaranteed winning hand in a card game. Neither Martaine nor Grancis would admit it, but they both very much care about the outcome of this roll. It spins and leaps across dramatically, lending itself to the very center of the group before it slows and shows its number. It floats between a four, a two, and a three, and then, as if by magic, rolls just a side more - a one.

  Colette sighs as she cracks her knuckles as Grancis and Martaine share a quick, subconscious glance of disappointment.

  “Wonderful. You’ll get to spend the night with your beloved nautical commander, Miss Vereyrty. Aren’t you excited?”

  She smiles awkwardly, as if she were just told she had a disease by an enthusiastic doctor. “I-… thrilled, sir!”

  The Captain looks over to the officer next. “And, Officer, that means you get to room with Colette by default. I’ll be listening carefully, mind you, so it would behoove you to be on your best behavior and keep your hands to yourself, understand?”

  A smiling Colette takes a sip of her water as she starts to really size up Martaine. “I’m not worried about him getting creative with his hands, Salt. Like you said, he’ll be on his best behavior.”

  Martaine clears his throat as he looks up. “Of course. The thought alone is nonsense, sir. I’ll be nothing more than an exemplary host for your apprentice.” He looks over to Grancis with a wide, honest, sad gaze. “I pray you both have a restful sleep.”

  She nods. “And you, Officer.”

  The Captain slides over the key and Martaine gets up with Colette.

  “Lead the way, cool guy,” Colette says with a superior smile, still not grasping the vibe of the moment at all - The Captain expects it to be the alcohol he told her not to drink, but did anyway.

  The Captain looks over to Grancis. Grancis looks over to The Captain.

  “Shall we?” He takes up the room key.

  Suddenly, it hits her. She’s going to be spending the night with The Captain, the thing. All at once her hair stands on end and she feels sick to her stomach- her body’s unsure if its feeling horror, weakness, or anticipation. With an expression that portrays both concern and the attempt at poise, she lightly raises up her glass of water. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to finish my drink.”

  The Captain nods. “Very well. Come along when you’re comfortable.” He leaves her with two bickering chefs.

  Grancis is certain this will be a weird night, but it will also be a good opportunity to catch up on their one little chat that they had the very first night they met- even so, she feels like she lost the game of dice tonight, and she also feels it was probably for the best. She takes the last gulp once Cooking Minion then accidentally spills the remaining bottle of wine on Jacqui’s snow-white chef’s coat. For fears of not being blamed by proxy somehow for just being there, she steps up. “Thank you both for the food.”

  Cooking Minion nods just as Jacqui takes a deep breath. She closes the door before he could damage her ears, thankfully, and she steps through the dark hall up to her room. She understands why people would want a room mate of most any kind here at night. There’s an inherently lurking feeling in the walls, as if the things below have cursed this manor alongside Irefall’s bevy of dark experiments. There’s a palpable feeling of dread, Grancis is certain, that wasn’t here during the day. She reaches for the door and creaks it open. The Captain is sitting on the two-person seat in front of the already made and lit fireplace. He has a glass of tea in hand, the rich bergamot scent swirling warmly from the cup.

  “There you are, Miss Vereyrty. I was starting to get worried.”

  She bows her head and enters. “Sorry, sir.”

  He pats on the seat next to him and stands up. “Please, take a seat.”

  She complies perfectly, and sets herself gracefully upon th
e striped seat. “Right here?”

  He walks for the door and closes it. “Right there will do fine.” He plunges Irefall’s key into the lock and turns it, producing a precise, loud click. “I’d like to have a talk with you.”

  Grancis and The Captain have a Talk About Cute Boys and Other Less-Interesting Subjects of Minor Importance such as the Nature of Eldritch Monstrosities

  As is usual for the young lady, Grancis smiles on impulse, her mannerism for displaying either pleasure or fear - and she’s not terribly pleased. “About what, sir?”

  He steps over to the tea accoutrements, glinting darkly in fire’s dance. “How do you like your tea?”

  She sits politely at attention. “With milk actually,” she says with a peep.

  “Oh?” He turns his head from the tea table just enough to peer at her with his dense, mirroring spectacles. “Is drinking tea with milk taboo?”

  “Well, of course it isn’t.”

  “Then do not act like it, my dear Grancis. Speak your mind clearly and without reservation. Remember, you’re not spending the night with your commander, The Captain of The Nocturna after all.”

  Her smile widens just a tad. “I-I’m not sure I follow.”

  He turns about dramatically with her tea readied in hand. “No, you’re spending the evening with none other than your friend, The Captain of The Nocturna!” He hands her the tea and retakes his seat. “Now, tell me what’s on your mind, Grancis.”

  She sits senselessly with the warm steam of the tea caressing her chin. “… Is it safe for us to talk, Captain?”

  He hums, taps his knee, and nods. “Why yes.”

  “I mean, you said…” She realizes she’s going to have to invade her “friend’s” space a moment, and she hesitates.

  “Said what?”

  She takes a deep breath and enters whispering distance with The Captain. “Said that Irefall has ghostly servants. Couldn’t they be in this room right now?”

  The Captain lifts up a finger and pushes Grancis gently by the forehead back to her place. “Grancis, there’s no need to get so close. These aren’t tight quarters by any means.”

  “But couldn’t they listen? Aren’t ghosts invisible?”

  “Well, depends on the ghost.”

  “Then couldn’t they be here?”

  “No.”

  Grancis sighs. “Alright, sir, why not?”

  “I have already made arrangements before you came in. We’ll have no visitors tonight that I will not be ready for- besides, Irefall wouldn’t send anyone after us…” He looks to the window. It’s a storm outside, and rain is beating against the window like so many droplets of blood splattered against an eternal tower. “-yet,” he adds.

  Grancis diverts her attention to her cup and takes a sip. She’s never tasted Earl Grey, and she has no idea where it comes from, but she loves it. Ever so lightly, a smile crosses his face, and The Captain spots this. “So we can really just talk about anything we like?” she asks.

  The Captain raises the cup to his bandages and kicks back a sip as well. “Yes. Seeing as the plan’s going… well enough and Pertalaine has played her cards as expected, I am happy to say we can relax for the most part tonight, with the exception of Colette’s little reconnaissance mission.”

  Grancis raises a brow. “Colette’s doing something else tonight?”

  He reaches up to the brim of his cap. “She is. Though you shouldn’t worry about her- she’s been well briefed for this situation and will be ready for whatever’s thrown at her.” He takes it off and rests it aside, revealing his cleanly and fully-bandaged head.

  The answer doesn’t really make her feel all that more sure- not so much in that she doesn’t trust The Captain, so much as though she thinks he doesn’t quite understand Colette’s abilities. “Alright, sir.” She takes a sip. “But frankly, I’m still worried… Do you know what she’ll be up against?”

  The Captain takes a long, loud sip in a stretching, graceful motion. “Not precisely.”

  “Sorry but… could you be more specific?”

  “I’m sure Pertalaine still employs ghosts as the spiritual occult were one of her favorite subjects of study, but this mansion seems held by more than a simply phantasmal presence. I have a sinking feeling Colette will encounter something she simply won’t be able to go up against.”

  Grancis grips her cup tightly. “What?”

  “It’s still too soon to say for certain, and honestly I’m not sure if I’m comfortable… actually, oh, why the hell not.” He moves about on the chair to turn towards Grancis, his gaze locked fully on her as if he were about to get serious.

  A glint of fear sparks in her eye- not the real kind, but definitely some sort of unpleasant feeling greater than her usual unease with everything on the Eversea. She meets his gaze receptively- not ambitiously like Colette, but with a certain element of honesty and clarity that The Captain would be troubled to find in any other youth of her generation.

  “Have you heard the word, ‘Eldritch’ before?” The Captain says the word with such a graveness that if Grancis hadn’t heard it used as an adjective before, she might think it the name of someone horrible and secret.

  She nods once.

  “So you’re aware?”

  “Aware of what, sir?”

  The Captain sighs. “I guessed as much. Do you know what the word means?”

  “No, what is it?”

  “The very reason people come to The Eversea. Surely, you’ve been wondering why the hell all these idiots congregate here.”

  Grancis’ eyes widen. Finally, the question is about to be answered. She’s asked people before. Some say it’s the wealth, and others say the adventure, but she knows it’s something more and it seemed like Martaine’s explanation held only half the answer. “Please.”

  The Captain takes another sip. “The dark curiosity of anti-humans.”

  As if by cue, the lightning strikes outside, casting a sharp, overwhelming shadow from The Captain.

  “Anti-… what?”

  “How very ironic that I’d be talking about this with you, but this is as good a time as any for you to know. ‘Anti-Human’ is a term attributed to beings, if one could even call them such, that not only do not have a soul, but possess, simply put the antitheses of a soul.”

  Grancis hums as she mulls the concept over. “But, isn’t a soul the… will and… I guess the personage of a person?”

  “It is, which means they are as far from humans as possible… tell me, do you think flowers are beautiful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I won’t tell you that these things, called eldritch don’t understand beauty like we do, but more so they don’t even possess the concept of beauty. To them it’s not a misunderstanding or a difference of opinion; they simply… don’t see beauty, or ugliness, or most any subjective, soulful trait for that matter. Concepts like love, hate, anger, sadness, art, fear, and death are not only irrelevant to them, but not even thoughts that would occur in their beings… How could I put this better… It wouldn’t be accurate to say they are the opposite of a human, but as far as the on-paper concept would go, that’s fairly close.”

  “So… they’re anti-human in that they’re completely alien in comparison to us?”

  “We could say that, yes. What we know of as a soul is something they lack so much, that they have something entirely against all that humans and their cultures allow. It is simply because humans have souls that these creatures appear so horrific, for they are the very polar opposite of what humans are in so many cases, so a human’s soul would react the second they see one.”

  Grancis looks to the gently-cracking fireplace — such a warm, at-home, human comfort for such a strange, horrible topic of discussion. “So they’re so terrifying that people can’t even bare to look at them?”

  The Captain nods. “That sums it up aptly. You’re a good listener, Grancis. These things trigger a naturally soulful reaction in humans, but that which is eldritch is
so far gone from humanness that every cognitive faculty that a human has, including his soul, reacts in utter repulsion. There’s a term coined by one of the great Eversea explorers, Jan Qus’ao: “Extra-Psychological Horror” — fear that stretches beyond the human psyche’s capacity to understand it, thus overloading the mind and more than likely causing either an intense panic attack, loss of consciousness, or in some rare cases instant death. These are the ones that stay deep, deep below the Eversea. They don’t simply reach up and grab people like all those fun animals you’ve had the pleasure of dealing with while fishing. The vast majority of people upon the Eversea have never even seen a true eldritch- but they love to throw the name around for what they’re afraid of or what they cannot understand.”

  “Why would a person look for that?” Grancis asks, in a cold sweat across from the warm fire.

  The Captain looks up to the bland, white ceiling, and back to her. “People are drawn here because they cannot understand what eldritch is— they feel great power in them, and that allures them like fish into the shark’s mouth. The shame in the matter, however, is that I cannot explain them to you either. I know what they are- I understand them, but that is because I am not the same kind of… I mean to say I simply can, and our human language actually is insufficient in describing them. Words do not exist for concepts that the minds of man are unable to grasp. They are something to be feared greatly. Humanity upon The Eversea is but a meaningless patch of sea foam, and one of them could swallow it up with absolute indifference. Everything could end in a single day, and the very vast majority will not be ready.”

  Grancis breaks into a cold sweat. “And you’re telling me this because you think Miss Irefall i- has one of these things?”

  The Captain finishes his tea and places his cup aside. “Yes. I imagine her criminal underworld in the soul trade has stretched so far that she’s been paying these creatures with human souls to do her bidding.”

  “And there’s nothing we can do to help Colette?”

  “Not in a manner that would actually be constructive, no.”

  She stares in blank horror at the fireplace, then puts aside her half-empty cup of tea. “I think…” She gets up. “I think I need to lie down, sir.”