Chapter 6 - Part 2

“Two sails behind us,” Dennis called down. Delegado had finally learned his name, and was relieved to hear that the Second Mate owned an enchanted sling that he was quite good with. Apparently the halfling had been a decent slinger in the Talenta Plains, but had left for reasons he had not chosen to share with anyone. “We must have lost the third. These two are gaining a bit, though!”

“How can they be gaining?” Belliose demanded, slamming her hand on the railing. She had brought up two interesting items from below, a wonderfully made flute from when she had been a traveling entertainer, and a rapier that had a bound fire elemental writhing within it. “We’re one of the fastest things in the water!”

“The captain of the lead ship is a man wearing robes!” the halfling called down, gesturing with the ship’s spyglass. “I saw him casting from a scroll, making the ship move faster.”

Delegado swore. He really didn’t like wizards. Belliose used pretty much the same words, just in elvish, but he frankly found orcish obscenities more satisfying.

“And their ships are leaner, they hit the water with a narrower prow,” Dennis added. The little halfling bent over the edge of the crow’s nest to yell down. “I don’t know how many of those scrolls they have, but I think if they weren’t using them we could outrun them!”

“Keep an eye on them!” she said. She chewed her lip for a moment, then turned to the half-orc. “I’m sorry but if they keep gaining I’m going to have no choice but to turn south and try to lose them in Shargon’s Teeth.”

“Bell, I was in Stormreach only once, and I was a kid,” he told her. “I don’t remember the voyage much and I don’t know what Shargon’s Teeth means. What’s with the apology?”

“Shargon’s Teeth are a stretch of islands and reefs, a lot of them,” she told him. “Skippers usually go around it to get to Stormreach, or any other part of Xen’drik they’re crazy enough to visit.” She walked around checking weapons as she talked to him, reminding her nervous sailors not to fire crossbows, the ballista, or throw javelins until she gave the word.

“Dangerous place?” he asked. He noticed that the two human sailors were handling their crossbows with familiarity, and were equally confident with a pair of battleaxes that they had produced from their footlockers. Soldiers who had deserted their posts and fled to House Lyrandar, was his guess. You would have been safer on the mainland, he thought to himself. The half-orc stopped to show one very nervous half-elf how to hold a crossbow.

“Pirates, the more aggressive sahuagin, unknown and terrible sea beasts,” she explained. She turned to look at the huge water elemental that pushed her ship through the water. “And wild elementals that have somehow escaped their own plane of existence. Elementals that hate ships that have bound one of their own.”

“So if one spots us, we’re dead,” he said.

“Correct,” she told him. “That’s why I rarely make the Stormreach run, and when I do, I go around Shargon’s Teeth.” She turned to the rest of the crew. “Listen up, everyone! Once battle is joined, Delegado is the second-in-command!”

“Aye!” said Meddin. A chorus of other affirmatives followed.

“What?” he asked her. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you know more about fighting your way through a mess than anyone aboard,” she told him. “Dennis has some fighting experience, as do Jak and Hal.” She gestured to the two humans as she said this. “But not like you. If I fall, you need to direct things.”

“Why not Meddin?” he asked.

“Meddin is the only one besides me who can definitely force the elemental to obey,” she explained. “And he hasn’t been in as many tight spots as you either. Stop protesting, it’s my ship, and I already made the decision.”

“Alright,” he said, looking around. Dennis was in the crow’s nest with his enchanted sling and a knife. Two half-elves were manning the ballista, one aiming and one holding another longspear, ready to reload. They seemed to know what they were doing. The two human sailors stood at either side of the amidships area, just behind the mast. Aundair training, he finally realized. They must have bolted post in Passage. Meddin held onto the helm, which was at the front of the ship, but somehow connected to the Khyber dragonshard set in the copper ring at the stern of the vessel. The final two half-elven sailors were gripping their crossbows nervously, standing together under the mast.

“Get up!” he yelled at those two. They blinked at him. “Up! Up the rigging! You can fire a crossbow from there, the added height will give you more range and a clearer field of vision!” They nodded and began to scramble upwards. He looked back at the hobgoblin, briefly considered freeing him. But only briefly. Marcuiss wasn’t going to help him, even for this. “You only carry six crew and two other officers?” he asked.

“I usually don’t get attacked by three Riedran interceptors being captained by wizards,” she responded tartly. “Especially ones that dock in areas of Xen’drik I’m not familiar with.”

He caught what she meant. “You think that Riedra has another outpost in the Shattered Continent aside from their embassy in Stormreach.”

“I’m not the only one,” she said. “It’s just whispers, but it makes economic sense, from what little we know of their commerce. They don’t like outsiders.”

“Yeah, they don’t care much for us either it seems,” he muttered. “I’d like to know why, if you have a guess.”

“Sometimes knowledge is dangerous,” she said.

“Never as dangerous as ignorance,” he responded. “Now it’s only ten of us and over forty of them, maybe thirty on the two boats closing in on us alone. I got where I am today by planning ahead, not by flying by the seat of my pants. Talk.” He got no response for a few long moments.

“We have another passenger,” she admitted finally. “But I would rather he stay hidden.”

“You’ve got a Riedran stowaway in the hold, is that it?” he asked.

“No, he’s not from Riedra,” she said.

“But you’ve got someone in the hold that they want?”

“Yes.” She plainly did not want to say more.

“F’test!” he yelled. “Why didn’t you tell me about this when we made travel arrangements two months ago!”

“Because I didn’t know then!” she shouted back. “And I didn’t think they would come after him once he got to Khorvaire! And I have no idea how they found him!”

“Who is ‘he,’ Bell?” he asked. “Refugee? One of those kalash-whatever refugees?”

“Del, it’s not important,” she said.

“Like Khyber it isn’t,” he said bluntly. “You want me to be a general but you’re holding resources from me.” He tossed his hand up, and Feather took off. “Dennis, how far off are they?”

“Mile and a-half!” the halfling responded.

“Feather will look for the third ship and circle back,” Delegado said. “We’ll have to fight them if they keep gaining, so I think we could use every hand on deck, don’t you? I’m surprised that your crew hasn’t asked for him to join us, is it that he can’t use a weapon?”

She sighed. “Not all of the crew know about him,” she said. “Just me, Meddin, and Dennis.”

“What, they don’t notice the missing food and rum?” he asked. “Your crew isn’t stupid, Bell.”

“He doesn’t eat.”

“He doesn’t what?” Comprehension dawned on him. “Bell, you have undead on your ship? Are you crazy?”

“He’s not undead!” she snapped.

He looked into her eyes. “One of us has been drinking a lot.”

She grabbed his arm. “Alright, you can talk to him and decide if you want to use him, but then deal with the consequences of knowing about him,” she snapped. “Meddin, we’re going below! All hands stay ready! Dennis if our pursuers started gaining too much more call us up from the hold!”

Delegado jerked his arm free, but followed her down the narrow wooden steps. She tapped an amulet she wore as she descended, illuminating the ship’s interior wherever the portholes did not reach. He didn’t need it of course.

They went past the crew quarters, a set of hammocks and two small cabins for the nine souls that usually ran the ship, and down deeper into the hold. She led him past stores of dried fruit and kegs of rum, past the shipment from the Marches she was selling in Sharn, and all the way to the area of the hold deepest under the prow of the vessel. There a lit lamp was sitting on a large crate that stood before a bunch of larger crates. An open book about the city of Sharn lay next to the lamp.

Delegado frowned. Someone had been here, and was now hiding, but he could not tell where. He hadn’t heard anyone down here, and he had sharp ears, even if the pounding of the water was making such a racket.

“Equilibrium!” Belliose was yelling. “Equilibrium!”

“Yes, it’s a fine thing, you sailors have very good balance,” the half-orc told her sarcastically.

“It’s a name, you lackbrain,” she snapped at him. “Equilibrium, come out, please!”

One of the very large crates opened from the inside, via hidden hinges. Delegado gaped as Equilibrium stepped out.

He was tall, over six feet in height, just like Delegado. A heavy series of stone and metal plates looped around flexing wood cords that made up his muscular structure. His face was a metal mask, with a hinged mouth and eyes that glowed slightly. Ridges of crystals, some blue-white, some green, and some amber, jutted out from his body. His joints, his brow, his sides and back, and even his three-fingered hands were covered in the small, glowing stones. Most warforged didn’t wear clothes, but he had on a hooded cloak made of black wool that could easily be drawn forward around his frame.

“Equilibrium, this is Delegado,” she said, introducing them. “Delegado is a member of House Tharashk. He’s a half-human, half-orc hybrid, and a bounty hunter. I’ve also just made him second-in-command for the upcoming battle.”

Delegado swore. He wondered if the whole weird story about the golem being a stowaway was just a bad cover for an unknown alliance between Lyrandar and Cannith.

“Mister Delegado,” Equilibrium said in a monotonic voice. “I apologize for putting you in danger.”

“You have a warforged?” the bounty hunter asked Belliose, ignoring the machine.

“A psiforged,” Equilibrium said. “Although House Cannith did make me.”

“Can he fight?” Delegado asked Belliose skeptically. “Because if he can, or even if he can’t, there’s no good reason for him to be down here.”

“Mister Delegado,” Equilibrium said in an overly patient tone. “I am right here and I am capable of speech. You may ask me your questions.”

“Okay, fine,” Delegado said. “Can you fight?”

“I have certain capabilities,” Equilibrium told him. “Can you?”

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Belliose told them both. “Please get topside, both of you, within five minutes. They’re still getting closer.” She touched Delegado’s shoulder once and then left the hold.

“Why are you being kept secret from the crew, and from me?” Delegado demanded.

“There are Riedrans who can read the thoughts of others,” the psiforged explained. “I can partially shield myself, but they have tracked me through those that know of me.” The thing tilted his head to the side. “And I assumed you were focused on the hobgoblin prisoner.”

“Yeah, was,” the half-orc snorted. “Now I’m about to get into the most dangerous battle I’ve ever been involved in that I can remember. And the lives of everyone up on deck depends on how I spend the next ten to twenty minutes planning. So no more secrets and no more hiding. They’re found you anyway. Tell me everything so we have a shot at surviving this.”

“What do you wish to know?” Equilibrium responded.

“Why do the Riedrans have so many soldiers after you?” Delegado asked. “What are you to them?”

“They infiltrated House Cannith to make me,” Equilibrium said. “I was forged about a year ago in Stormreach, in a secret ceremony. It is a long tale, but eventually their infiltration was discovered. I fled to the jungle for a while as Cannith purged itself. The embassy of Riedra kept looking for me, however. I do not know why, but they were persistent. I believe they used magic or mind-powers to find me in the jungle, successfully doing so three times.” The psiforged paused, then continued. “They used a half-orc to find me once, I don’t know know how he did it.”

“Not my contract,” Delegado said. “You hurt that half-orc?”

“No! I barely fled my attackers. The half-orc did not hrut me or raise a weapon, only pointed out where I was.”

“Are there others like you?” Delegado asked, curious in spite of himself.

“I do not know,” Equilibrium told him. “I suspect from some Cannith notes that I stole that I am not unique, and other models may be found in Khorvaire. I was fleeing the Riedrans and trying to get to Khorvaire to find out if that is true. I ended up in the Shadow Marches.”

“How?”

“I clung to the bottom of a boat full of human and half-orc sailors leaving Stormreach,” Equilibrium explained. “They were prospectors.”

“Yeah,” Delegado said. “Tharashk does a regular run for Syberis shards. I guess you really don’t need to breathe, huh?”

“I do not,” the psiforged confirmed. “Anyway, I wish to go to Zilargo. I have been told there is a great library there, and the people who call themselves gnomes may be able to help me understand my predicament.”

“They might at that,” Delegado said. “Okay, business.” He looked the psiforged over, noting a pair of knives in a belt it wore. “Can you use those?”

“Yes, but not well,” Equilibrium explained. “I have little familiarity with weapons, save my own fists. I do have my own powers, however.”

“You do magic?” the half-orc asked. “Wizardry?”

“Mind-powers,” Equilibrium corrected.

“Call it what you like, you have it, and we need it,” Delegado said. “Tell me what you can do.”

In response, a barely visible greenish field lit up under the book and lamp, lifting them in the air and spinning them around. The book closed itself, and the two objects settled down again on the crate. “I can manipulate heavier objects than this,” the psiforged explained “For one and a quarter hundred feet or so outwards. I can hide my own thoughts and manipulate light levels, and briefly create a screen around myself that works as well as any shield. I can overwhelm the mind of an assailant, increase the power of my physical punches, and create a swarm of crystal shards.”

“Range on the mind and crystal attacks?” Delegado asked, looking around the hold. He found two barrels of lamp oil.

“Forty feet and line of sight on one individual for the mental assault, under half that for a cone spread for the crystals,” it told him. “I do not enjoy hurting others, however.”

“Don’t care whether you enjoy it, I just care that you can and will do it,” the half-orc said. He walked over to one of the barrels of lamp oil and hefted it. It was heavy. “Get the other barrel. We’re going topside.”

The psiforged nodded and picked the other barrel up, though not as easily as the half-orc had, and followed Delegado out of the hold.