It's dark. Llyana wakes up on the Scourge, the ship of captains Saumer and Veldan Karran, the Karran Twins?, though she has no clue where she is. The last thing she remembers is the last slaver's 'stables' where she and the last of her tribeswomen were planning an escape.
Llyana, finds herself is chained up on the ship. The captains bought her from their business partner Jarran, who told them there's something... special about Llyana. Jarran?'s never been wrong before, so ofcourse Saumer and Veldan agreed to the sale and couldn't wait to find out what made this slave special.
After several beatings, during which Llyana ends up in shackles that hang from the ceiling of the hold, Llyana continues to ignore the pirates' attempts to get her to talk. In the end, annoyed with her continued silence, Saumer and first mate Tatjana Blacksail? decide to put her to work in the ships' kitchen, to recoup some of their expenses.
After dragging her to an upper deck, Tatjana puts Lljana to work in Crids' kitchen peeling potatoes. The shackles around her feet were undone, but the ones around her wrists are still there (with plenty of room).
After peeling for a while, Llyana decides to try to make a run for it and tries to get her chains around the neck of the chef, barely reaching the 6'6" cook. The chef grabs the chain around his neck before she can tighten it too much and throws her and the chains forward over his head.
After attempt to attack the cook, Llyana gets flung against a wall again, out of breath. Velden enters the kitchen and demands to know what the hell is going on; after the explanation, Tatjana and Lan drag the ungreatful slave down to the basement, chaining her to the ceiling again. Just before she passes out, she notices a glow around the key on a necklace on the angry Velden's neck.
Zerak and Uri were discussing what they should go trade for and where to go next. Zerak said they should go west but didn't say where.
Uri went out to look for furniture and decided he wanted furniture that he could sell to the more wealthy common people, so he went for the more well-crafted, solid & sturdy, but not the ornate ones.
Meanwhile, Drake was watching him because he was looking for a merchant to help him get off the Isle. and while looking, when he saw Uri, he had a vision of the First Age in Chiaro Scuro, City of Glass, where he was going to visit one of his Circle-mates, who owned a really nice shop where he sold First Age artifacts and Wonders and other exceptional items. When he came out of his vision, he felt a sense of familiarity with Uri.
Uri was going to pay a decent, but not a great price for the furniture, when Drake stepped up and haggled with the merchant, bringing him down to half the price. Uri quickly decided that Drake would be a useful person to have and went back to talk to Zerak. About where they were going next, specifically, so they could trade more specific goods. They end up going to Abalone.
Zerak and Uri meet -- Uri introduces Drake as a useful person and suggests that he could maybe come along as a passenger or maybe work for Uri and/or Zerak. Drake offers his services in return for passage. Uri mentions to Zerak, behind Drakes back, that Drake appears to be in some trouble, but doesn't know what it is.
They went back out, looking for fancy clothing for royalty, when Drake spotted his brother who was actually quite near the clothing stall Drake and Uri were going to, so Drake abruptly said "You know--we don't really need these clothes.Why don't we go and get some weapons, because where we are going people will pay a good price for weapons".
Uri sensed that something was going on but agreed and didn't push for more information, being of rather shady background himself. So, they went to the weapons stall, when Drake noticed yet another member of his house, and guided Uri to another weapons stall.
The guy there knew Drake, questioned why he was buying so many, they made some smalltalk and mentioned House Ledaal?, which Drake then asked him to keep quiet about, hinting at internal politics.
Finally, they go back to the ship with the weapons, the salesman taking a bribe to not tell anyone about this purchase.
They went back to the ship and to their quarters. Drake's brother shows up on the dock and tries to get information from the captains on Drake. Zerak lies to [name brother], causing some suspicion but they sail without incident after [name brother] puts a guard outside on the dock by Zerak's ship.
They set sail. At the beginning of the journey, Zerak questions Uri about what he knows about Drake and his troubles with House Ledaal. Uri suggests that Zerak invites Drake to join him for dinner if he really wants to know more.
Drake and Uri check out the weapon shipment and are quite pleased with their purchases. There are a few exceptional weapons, but they are mostly regular weapons like bows, axes, maces, andshort swords.
Zerak invites Drake to dinner. After some smalltalk Zerak confronts Drake about his problems with house Ledaal; Drake brushes it off as internal politics -- faction versus faction within house Ledaal.
[Weeks go by]
Zerak sees something on the horizon, looks closer and discovers it's pirates, headed straight at the ship.
The crew is alarmed and the weapons that were supposed to be traded in Abalone? are pulled out and distributed among the crew.
Uri notices the commition and comes out to find out what's going on. He ends up grabbing a set of throwing daggers to prepare for the upcoming battle. Drake also gets involved and grabs an exceptional bow and two quivers of broadhead arrows.
When the pirates get close and are preparing to board, Zerak pulls out his Characters/Scythe? from Elsewhere. None of the crew flinch, having known about Zerak's Exaltedness as long as Zerak himself, but the others are quite surprised. However, they don't get the chance to ask questions as they are quickly boarded after the ship is bombarded by one of the two firedust cannons on the pirate ship. Zerak's ship is hit and starts taking on water.
Drake is able to take out a few of the pirates from afar, but this doesn't stop the boarding party as five of the pirates make it onto Zerak's ship. Drake slowly but steadily wounds the captain more and more. In the end, Drake kills the captain before the boarding party even comes close, however, to his surprise, a new captain takes the wheel, who looks exactly like the captain Drake just slew.
Meanwhile, during all the commotion, Llyana slowly comes to, with Naffer the rat sniffing at her feet. She tries to break free but cannot break the shackles in her weakened state. Suddenly, she has a vision of the Unconquered Sun, who tells her she has been chosen to rid the world of evil. Llyana exalts and the entire ship lights up from her anima as she shatters the chains.
Meanwhile, the fight on deck continues as Zerak takes out several pirates and Drake starts taking out the new captain. Uri takes out the rigging using Cascade of Cutting Terror, summoning knives of Essence that destroy the rigging on the pirate ship.
Llyana starts making her way to the deck, however, her path is crossed by Crids and Naffer. Crids notices her inhuman glow and tries to stop her using a cast-iron frying pan. Llyana dodges, grabs a skillet of her own and plasters Crids' body across the wall in one fell swoop.
Close to the top of the stairs, Naffer lunges for her ankles, but is quickly dodged and flattened by the same cooking utensil that killed his Master.
On deck, the Exalts continue to take out the pirate crew. Llyana remembers the glowing key on one of the captains' chain and decides to go after it. On her way to the upper deck, she is attacked from behind by one of the pirates; attempting to dodge his thrust, she leaps backwards, straight into the path of another pirates' weapon. This pirate's slow blow is also dodged, however Llyana is still in the uncomfortable situation of having two angry pirates blocking her way.
The pirate slaying continues.
In the end, after the First Mate Tatjana dodges several attacks, the Exalts overpower the remaining pirates and Tatjana surrenders.
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