Chasing Shadows Ch. 1

Information

Class: History
Wc: 3,328

Publishing

Aut: Kaniovac ‘Andyda
Dt: 994 A.T.
Ogn: Sellsword

Related Links

• Skeli
• Mis’Kelin
• Davo

1.1

“I should say first that this isn’t my story to tell,” the avoc sat across from me, in his little house atop the hill.

I had been here a couple weeks now, and in that time he had left and returned, spending time to teach the son of a farmer whose farm he had ran in the last few years. Both the trip away and the return showed his character, teaching the farmer’s son the responsibilities of running his father’s farm, tending the crops and livestock when the son finally returned home. He could have stayed, fought for the farm he knew how to work, and finished his life out much like the farmer, but instead helped the farmer teach his son to keep the farm in the family. Then Mis’Kelin came back.

While he was out I had made a home of sorts within his, piling up bedding I had fetched from my ship on his floor. The small stone hut was cozy, cobbled together neatly. Nestled in the hills north of where I landed, the house was simple with a stone exterior and round wooden door that rolled in and out of place, and short grasses that grew on the roof. There were a smattering of short trees and shrubs that grew around the side of the house not built into a hill, and a thin path was worn from the door that wound down the hill. There was a bit of a fence between where the path split to go up the nearest peak and where his house was and I often leaned on it while Mis’Kelin was gone.

On the second day here I had followed him down the mountain, around the sea, and up another peak, and I followed that path alone in his absence. Small birds fluttered in and out of my path down into the river valley that my ship sat in, and in the sparse thickets that dotted the landscape I spied cervugi, and heard the cries of akkigavou in the distance. I followed the path, the hills sloped over and gave way to the sea here, stretching off further into the horizon than I could see both here in the delta and up at the house. I trekked on, following the path through the woods on the other side of the river to the base of another mountain, where the path finally turned to old worn stone steps.

The path was somewhat familiar on my second trip on these steps. Not too far off sea-level, the steps were cut into the side of the mountain itself, but the stone was clearly from somewhere else. The stone steps wound up the mountain, stopping on little cliffside rest points where the grass felt soft and cool on my paws. It was one one of these that I saw Mik’s ship return. I had still not yet made it up these steps to find what Mis’Kelin routinely travelled up here for, but that would wait for another day. I made my way back to his house, and today was going to be the day I got him to tell the story I came here for.
His words were true. This story is not about Mis’Kelin, and yet here we were in his little house telling me a story only he was left to tell.

1.2

“I’m only telling this story since the two who should aren’t able to.” The avoc shuffled around as he sat, keeping a cup of warm liquid in his hands ease his bones.

I knew of at least one he spoke of, another avoc called Skeli. He was born in the historic village of Ava, right on the GreatSea, between two neighboring mountain ranges, and split by the river that ran cool each spring from the nearest glacier. There was another town, further inland named Le where Skeli was known, though to be told he was known across all of Davo, and much of Pale Shores by the time I knew of the avoc.

The name he bore, Skeli, was given by a pirate lost to the records kept, on some unknown ship in his early days on a pirate crew where he was the only avoc in aboard, surrounded by xiruen and some turths. Unlike most who turn to piracy, Skeli came from a stable family, where his mother bore skill hands as a solarsail maker. His father, formerly an able-bodied sailor by all accounts, was a curt and tough pile of bones who came from a large family that toughened him up even before he broke his body down sailing. Like many other villages and towns across Pale shores, and especially with Skull’s small family there was much hard work to be done. Mis’Kelin, having met Skeli’s parents recounts specifically his mother’s care fondly, but there was no bringing up the child in tenderness there.

He grew up wild and tough, a short, quick avoc, loud and proud and full of the same temper found in many other bones. With the few other children of the village he helped out here and there until he grew tired of that, and before leaving he became quite skilled at sailboarding, giving his parents hope he could make at least something of his future.

But this story truly begins many years later, when Skeli finally returned to Davo in 962 A.T. “From what I remember, the landing was off. He wasn’t used to steering that big of a ship by himself. It took some time to get to his home port, fighting off some wind that was trying to push him into the cliffs.” When he arrived, well, Mis’Kelin trailed off there.

From what I can read between the lines, the people of Ava and particularly his parents were expecting Skeli to bring back his entire crew to deal with the problem at hand. A beacon had called him home, set up by his father to call the family ship home. Despite not having the expected crew, the Dunnage set back out on the GreatSea, searching for a beast that terrorized the planet-star that no one would explain to him.

1.3

Out in the GreatSea proper, the waves moved slowly. “Skeli said it was so quiet, you could hear the anchor lightly knock against the Dunnage’s hull as the ship rocked gently to and fro.”

It took a few more moments for Mik to continue. He put the cup of warm liquid down, and tapped on his skull with his boney fingers, trying to remember all the details.

“Suddenly, there was a flash, bright orange under the ship. It was visible even through the waves. Skeli ran back and forth across the deck before the ship made way, locking the wheel in a hard turn to port so he could move around on the deck. The beast was circling the ship, and the beast was circling back.”

I sat in the small house, hearing the wooden ceiling creak from the wind outside as Mik described what had been passed to him about the encounter. A dark picture was being painted by his words, and the weather was cooperating.

The sea creature moved in larger circles around the ship as it rose from the depths. Skeli panicked as the size of the beast became fully apparent beneath him. He watched, frozen as one of the beasts long arms reached out of the waves, covered in suckers lust as large as he was. It slapped the hull, wood buckling under the weight. The sound shocked him back to attention, and he ran back to the helm as fast as he could, slashing at the rope with his sword so that the wheel was set free. Skeli looked over his shoulder at the engines that refused to start only to see two more arms coming over the rear of the ship and onto the deck.

The former pirate attempted to turn the ship hard to starboard, but with one sharp pull from the beasts’ many arms, the ship was on its side. A loud slap deafened the avoc momentarily as the hull hit the waves and he dangled over, holding onto the wheel. He unsheathed and tried to swing his sword at the arms holding the ship down, but they were out of reach. Though it broke the port-side railing of the helm, Skeli was able to impale his sword on one of the beast’s arms that flailed his way. He heard a deep roar immediately, pulling his sword back as the arm hastily retreated beneath the surface.

The avoc tried to right the ship, firing off engines into the sea and though he was able to right the ship in the beast’s brief absence, four arms emerged from the waters before he could build up enough power to break free from the waves. Wrapping around the center of the ship between the two masts, the beast broke the ship in half, and the ships lurching inward sent Skeli flying into the waves nearby.

“Skeli said he spent a few minutes swimming around, trying to avoid the debris. He grabbed his hat, tucked it in his belt so he wouldn’t lose it and swam down after the beast, who was dragging the halves of his ship further underwater. He remembers having to avoid parts of masts and the arms themselves, and then…nothing.”

1.4

“Skeli said he woke up with a pounding headache, spitting out seawater.”
I made a face of confusion, and Mik noticed. “Avoc don’t need to breathe so being underwater is fine, as you might know. But that doesn’t mean we want a stomach full of it. That’s for food.”

Mik continued, explaining how two avoc found Skeli on the beach some time later. When Skeli found his hat on a weird pile of sand, the beach shook as it became clear that the beast had some how come partially ashore. Waterfalls were created in the shallow water as the beast pushed itself up above the beach on all eight of its arms, until suddenly the beast disappeared.

The other two avoc who had been dangling in the air after being grabbed by the arms fell to the beach and quickly ran away, not looking to investigate why they were dropped for fear of being grabbed again.

Where the beast should have been, there was only a small orange speck floating in the distance. Mik paused before looking me right in the eyes to capture my attention. “That spec was a tiny floating octopus, and Skeli fell to the ground in pain as he heard it screaming in his head that it was free!”

The room sat still for a few moments as I processed anything. Mik was a better storyteller than I was an investigator. I was still a researcher at heart and this would have been a time where I went for a walk while thinking about what I just found. “I’ll save you the guessing game everyone who heard this story has gone through. The small octopus and the beast in the GreatSea were one-in-the-same…sort of. The small octopus becomes his normal self out of the water, and the beast when submerged. Skeli started calling him Dreads because he couldn’t pronounce the clicks the octopus called himself, and since the avoc around the GreatSea called the beast Dreadlock. And no, Skeli couldn’t hear any other sea creatures so he doesn’t have any Watermouth blood.”

“I’m sorry, doesn’t have what?”

“One of the first children of Davoto, who could speak to aquatic creatures.”

“Oh, Ce. Right.” When Mik had told me he wasn’t very religious after I arrived, I had stopped trying to speed through the avoc pantheon. “So what happened next?”

“Skeli decided that Dreads—the small orange octopus—would go with him as he travelled around Davo to get a new ship.”

1.5

Mik went through the next few days quickly, and he was hazy on the details. That meant I was hazy on even more. From there the pair went fishing—Skeli dove in the river while Dreads watched his things, and the two ate some fish before continuing as the two got to know each other.

He remembered clearly that Skeli said the first town of Toc didn’t have what he was looking for. Skeli needed a way down to his ship at the bottom of the GreatSea, and there was no way he could swim all the way out there, and down. Why he still needed his ship, broken at the bottom of the GreatSea confused me.

“Really, what Skeli needed was a way off-planet. That meant a ship. And to get a ship, he needed money, which he had plenty of, or at least plenty he could use to get it on his ship, in a crevasse in the middle of the sea.”

From Toc, Skeli came up with a plan to take the duo to Ato, a city on the north side of the GreatSea. It was a larger town, one of the largest on Davo and a major shipping port. He had a rough plan in mind, though Mik says in hindsight it was based on information that was several years old. Skeli hadn’t been to that side of Davo in quite a while.

Unfortunately, Skeli returned from Toc with bad news. Nobody in Toc would take him to Ato, they were all scared of the beast in the GreatSea, and the waters on this side of the archipelago were harder to sail regardless of the beast. Skeli and Dreads argued for a while. Mik laughed as he remembered this part of the story.

“Dreads didn’t understand why they wouldn’t sail over the sea if he, well, the beast, wasn’t there any more. It took Skeli several minutes to explain why that was a problem.” It took me a minute too, but realized how absurd it was as Mik described Skeli’s suggestion of taking Dreads into town, holding him up and showing everyone that the giant beast in the sea was just a little octopus.

From Toc, they would go up stream, making it to Soyh then a ferry from there to the other side of Davo.On the journey to Soyh the two discussed how Dreads turned into the beast, since what he was above water was what most octopuses looked like under water but when he was underwater he was a giant beast, easily a couple hundred meters long. There was whirlpool, and once Dreads was brought to the surface a storm with clouds too close to the water. There was a figure above the waves, shooting red lights into the water, and nothing else he could remember.

The next day, Skeli mingled with the local merchants, haggling and bartering to secure a ride to the other side of the planet-star. This leg of the journey took much less time, despite being one of the longer portions in terms of distance.

“Honestly, traveling down this side of Davo was uneventful and I’ll spare you the details. Skeli was hungry a lot and it took another day to get down to Ato. Or up? I’m not exactly sure on the orientation of everything on Davo honestly.”

Mik’s hands clicked on the cup of hot liquid as his boney fingers tapped it in quick succession as he held the cup to help himself think. “Did I remember everything?” He looked at me when he said it, but I could tell his gaze was beyond me, as if asking Skeli somehow.

1.6

“The important part of the story is the next part anyway. Ate was a city where the jingling of a pocket-full of Lott was paramount, and no one wanted to give Skeli the time of day when he only had three coins in his pockets and only the promise of treasure. It took a while, but Skeli found an old family friend, one who was easily swayed by the promise of something big.”

It took a while, probably an hour for the raft with a crane and engines to get across the GreatSea. Once Skeli could see Ava at the horizon he got a feeling that the craft was roughly in the right spot. He knew, and Dreads knew.

“The next part is a little odd.” Mik looked at me with his eyes and they felt emptier, as if he himself still didn’t believe it, after all this time. “Skeli dove down, taking the diving tether down attached to himself, swimming further and further down until he arrived at the wreckage of the Dunnage. You might be wondering how he got the attention of Ja’Cal to haul everything back up. That’s the thing. According to Dreads, Skeli told him telepathically to get the other avoc’s attention. The only thing he could do was fly over to the crane mechanism and start flapping his nubby arms about, so that’s what he did.”

I tried to take it all in, and I’m sure my face bore some signs of confusion.

Mik continued, explaining how the group traveled back to Ava. It didn’t take long, and after a brief renegotiation on splitting the loot with Ja’Cal, Skeli went to an old friend of his own in Ava who still bought and sold illicit goods. “Well actually” Mik clarified, “according to Skeli the limitations on the goods had passed, meaning anyone could buy or sell them.” The deal took place after Astran had set, and Skeli was shipped off up river to the famed shipwright in Le.

Within a half-hour and with arms full of Lott-filled wallets, Skeli was getting off the small boat outside of the compound where the shipwright would make him a new vessel. He had built the Dunnage and The Dunnage before that. A master capable of building sailing vessels large and small, he built even the engines by hand. Skeli spent most of the Lott on the ship, but kept some on his person for future needs.

Over the eight days it would take to build the small schooner, Skeli went in and out of Le proper during the day, careful to leave Dreads with the shipwright rather than take the octopus into town. He bought some more appropriately sized wallets that wouldn’t attract too much attention, and a new wardrobe to replace what was still in the wreckage of the Dunnage.

“Skeli spoke briefly about these few days, taking the time to collect his thoughts and figuring out what his path ahead was. It weighed on him, a sense of obligation to help out Dreads born from some duty to his father and the avoc of Ava. Though, as he once told me, he could have just thrown Dreads in an empty sea on some uninhabited planet-star and everyone would be better off. Except, Dreads.”

“Anyway, after eight days Skeli got on his ship, expecting to leave from the docks inside the shipyard—where the shipwright had built it. However, the old avoc wouldn’t let Skeli leave without naming the ship. Skeli named it ‘To Ghost’ but what the shipwright branded into the hull was ‘AV KAVE SPAVT’ which means ‘one who disappears’ in Aevot. Just in case,” Mik nodded slowly as he finished up this part of the story, “you had seen the ship itself.”

Mik made note to tell me that Skeli hadn’t told him the next part, but that his parents had relayed it to him later. Before leaving Davo, Skeli spent the night in Ava and spent a brief time at his childhood home, trying to have a quick conversation with his parents. Skeli’s dad, Ashe wasn’t happy with his son’s return as it was further proof in his mind that his blood was cursed. Ashe was especially unimpressed with Skeli’s lack of a plan both in coming to Davo and leaving.