Lost at Sea (Soup x Hamadryad)

It was nearly a full day before the storm abated. There had been no good options for the roguish crew; Behind them, a full force of the king's men with their finest ships and most powerful guns. At long last, they had been cornered... or so their attackers had thought. Their other option had been to sail straight into the cataclysm, a raging storm at sea that only a madman - or madwoman - might have hoped to brave. Rather than take their chances with the possibility of a life in prison, they had sailed straight into the madness. At least, in doing so, they had evaded their pursuers.

Their ship had been battered beyond belief. Wood had been splintered, sails shredded and blown out to sea, cannons tipped overboard in the maelstrom, and crew members had gone missing beneath the waves. However, the storm would pass. The ship would be damned near dead in the water once all was said and done, sadly. A proud vessel, laid low by mother nature's rage, yet not broken. Not yet.

What greeted them, however, was a strange sight indeed. A red sky loomed overhead, blazing and angry, utterly unlike the sky they knew. No sun to speak of, only a great, fearsome black orb. The sea was an inky dark slick, waves lapping at the side of the ship, and islands dotted it where none had been before...

There were no answers to be had about this place. All that was certain is that they were very much... somewhere else. The ship, battered and bruised as it was, could at the very least limp along. A port loomed on the horizon, a stone city in which they might find refuge... and answers.

Captain Aubrey was a stoic and strong captain, unwavering in her conviction and confident in her command, though this storm had rattled her nerves as nothing before. Multiple the times the ship nearly capsized, waves taking crew and cannon into the gaping maw of the sea. Once it was all over, her body was lathered in sweat, her clothes damp and smelly as she wiped condensation from her brow. Such a thing would be enough to lead a crew to question their Captain's capabilities, under normal circumstances. Though her reaction was one of the most controlled, one of the easiest, many of the crew had feinted or had mental breakdowns.

The Captain was shakily joined at the helm by her navigator, Leah, whose makeup showed the obvious signs of tears, water still resting in the woman's eyes. After a quick report, it became apparent that nobody on the ship had the faintest clue as to where they were. This troubling news ran a chill down Aubrey's spine, though she remained stoic for her crew.

"We best head for that port, then," the Captain said in her strong tone, "We have heavy repairs to be done and the crew needs to be replenished", she clarified, before relinquishing the helm to Leah and shakily stepping down the splintered steps from the bridge. Grace, the ship's doctor quickly shuffled after the Captain, meaning to attend to her personally in her quarters as the ship begun to slowly sail along towards the port.

There was nothing quick about their journey. It easily took the better part of the day to cross that distance, for there was little wind and their sails and mast were hardly in any usable state. Water was baled from the hull in haste, and long oars were used from the gunnery windows to propel the ship ever so slightly faster, but in the end it was still a terribly long journey. The water stirred only slightly in that low wind, and it was clear that there was much moving below the black surface... and that it was best not to go investigating. The ship would make its way to port, however, as the black orb of flame sank low in the sky. They passed between two great towers of stone with enormous chains that hung between them, said chains draped with lanterns of blue fire that burned bright against the coming dark.

Those towers proved to be the entrance to a black bay, upon which sat ships that were nothing like any they'd ever seen. Twisted, gnarled wood, iron sidings, outlandish things that may or may not have been guns... where on earth had they gotten to? Nevermind the strange shapes that stood at the dock, watching their ship - which must have seemed equally strange to the onlookers - as it pulled towards that dock. Monstrous things all, just visible in the fading light of the sky as torches of that same blue flame lit along the docks. It did seem, at least, that they were being permitted to dock... though they were clearly quite the curiosity.

Aubrey emerged from her cabin sometime after she originally entered it, freshly bathed and in a fresh set of clothing. The Captain ascended to the bridge and took a stand next to her navigator as the ship sailed along, inching ever so closer to the hellish looking city before them. She, like the entirety of her crew, was left with a lingering feeling of unease as the black waters below lapped against the ship's hull. Finally, the ship made it to the dock, and a rope was thrown overboard to tether the broken vessel to the boardwalk.

The lack of a welcoming party of any sort was awfully suspicious, and the brave Captain went ashore with her hardened Quartermaster, Scarlett, armed with pistol and sword. The remainder of the battered crew watched on from the deck as the two went looking for the port master, and disappeared into the shadows of the night.

There was motion in the city. Dark shapes moving between squat stone buildings and more of those tall towers, the night being fought back only by those flickering blue blazes. They cast the city in a serene light at least, though there was an eeriness to it, and the shadows seemed long and imposing in those twilight hours. Yet, their ship was not harassed as captain and quartermaster departed in search of aid. They'd find little and less of it, of course, but there was plenty else to find in the city. Chances were fair that they might, in fact, not be making it out of that city...

A thing shuffled past Aubrey in the dark, hardly stopping save for a brief moment when something brushed past her leg. If she looked, she'd see the heavily cloaked figure was resting not on legs, but upon a bundle of fat, rubbery tendrils that slithered across the cold stone ground. "Hmph. Watch where yer goin', human." There was a long pause then, as three bright red eyes glared at her from beneath a dark hood. "Hang on, now. Humans? Ain't nobody said we'd be gettin' humans 'round here... the hell you two up to?"

The pair was caught offguard by the monstrous being before them, to say the least. Their hands instinctively, yet delicately fell to the hilt of their blades out of paranoia and a desire for self preservation. Captain Aubrey stared upon the creature with unease as it spoke.

"Well, we were, uh, in search of crew and repairs, for ouf ship in the harbour," she responded, her voice quivered slightly and betrayed her unease.