Cobal felt anxious as the Tidesetter quietly drifted up the river that led to Shark Tooth Island’s central lake. They’d waited patiently for the ghost ship to leave the island, with two of Eliana’s most capable crewmembers spending two days hidden in the jungle while keeping a close eye on the ship. Shark Tooth Island was a relatively large island, and sailing around it and to the entrance of the river took almost ten hours. Throughout this time they were worried that the ghosts would reappear, but it seemed like they were fortunate and that didn’t happen. The thick jungle allowed them to stay mostly out of sight while they approached and once they made their way up the river they sailed through several bends that would make great ambush spots. Eliana mapped all of them carefully and Cobal was impressed by her skill as a cartographer. The storm was still dying down, but it was much less intense than it was when the ship first came upon the island. Dense jungle covered all of the riverbanks from the moment they sailed onto it all the way until the central island. The ship came upon the central lake and started its circle around it before heading back down the river to dock at their ambush spot. Eliana was marking things on her map and relaying them to the crew. They’d picked their spot.
The Tidesetter quietly got into place, with many of the crew getting off the ship and taking place in the nearby jungle. The Tidesetter was parked diagonally so they were able to block most of the river off while still being able to quickly follow the other ship if it somehow came to a chase. Cobal had offered to go with the first round of attackers but Eliana refused to let him or Mana participate. Raiding a ship was her domain and she didn’t want amateurs participating. “We each have our role to play in this, and I’m not sending a dainty little prince onto a ghost ship with no experience in sea combat.”
Cobal protested, bringing up that she had no such complaints during their attack on Triban island last year or during their raid of Solin Manor. Eliana told him that this was different and that was the end of it. He was tasked – alongside a few others – to guard the Tidesetter in case it got boarded. Holding a defensive position required less seafaring skills after all. After some back and forth, Cobal agreed to her plans and stayed behind on the deck of the ship, alongside Mana. Cassandra stayed below deck. From where he was standing on the deck of the Tidesetter he was able to spot several of the crewmembers hidden amongst the brush. Some of them were so well hidden that even though he knew exactly where they were, he couldn’t spot them at all. Jarrod was close to the ship and Cobal kept an eye on him to gauge when the enemy ship would approach. At least he did so for a while, but it took longer than he expected. They’d done some preliminary scouting to make sure the ship was still nearby and was likely to return soon, but they had no way of really knowing. After about four hours of excruciatingly tense waiting, a signal was shown down the line to let everyone know that the enemy ship was coming.
The fighting was a blur from what Cobal could see. The ship came into view and started slowing down the moment its sailors spotted the Tidesetter, but it was already too late. Ropes with grappling hooks whizzed through the air and pirates darted and climbed along them, Cobal saw torches and heard the sound of metal clashing upon metal as the ghost pirates defended themselves. It was strange, they were able to make contact with the ghosts which was unexpected. The ship itself was rather small, smaller than the Tidesetter, and Cobal couldn’t help but wonder where they’d kept their captives. The fighting died down surprisingly quickly and not more than a couple of minutes later a fiery arrow shot up into the air, signifying the end of the fighting.
“Utterly pathetic,” Eliana’s voice boomed over the captured and bloodied pirates. Cobal winced, remembering when he had been on the receiving end of this when he was first traveling with Captain Ferla on the Chandecobra. He felt safer being on Eliana’s good side but also knew he was never truly safe. “You should have never allowed fate to put you in the path of Captain Tidescreecher.” She looked around. “You fight like a bunch of bakers and fishermen.”
“That’s because they are,” Cassandra said.
“What?”
“These are the missing people.” She pointed at a familiar face. “That’s uncle Fred.”
“Yes, it’s me, your uncle Fred, let me go.” Fred said.
“Wait a minute, if these are the villagers, then where are the ghost pirates?” He’d finished beating up what looked to be a young carpenter from Ravadier.
“They all left, now let us go,” the carpenter said, face bloodied but seemingly unperturbed by the beating he just took.
Eliana shook her head. “No, no, no, we will do no such thing. There’s something very fishy going on here and I want to have some answers before anyone walks away.” She turned to Cassandra. “Are you certain that is your uncle?”
Cassandra nodded. “That is uncle Fred, without a doubt. He’s one of the villagers who went missing, but the way he was talking didn’t seem right.”
Eliana turned around. “Fareh, come here.”
The elderly woman who served as Eliana’s second in command came shuffling forward.
“Do you have any idea what might be going on here? Else I’ll just hold them underwater until they squeal.”
Cobal saw two of the captives wince at the thought, but none of them spoke. If it came to it, he at least knew where to start.
Fareh stepped close to Fred and looked at him carefully, specifically inspecting his eyes. “There’s something in there that doesn’t belong.”
Fred tried to look away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you just beat us up for no reason.”
“Remember the advice you gave me on the docks last year?” Cobal asked.
“That was a year ago, I can’t remember every conversation I have, boy.”
Cobal smiled. “That is most definitely not Fred. That looks like him, but that’s not him talking.”
That comment prompted a new strategy from Fred, which was complete silence and refusal to answer any more questions.
“Alight, tie them all up and get them aboard the Tidesetter. We’ll bring them back to the beach where we first landed and away from that damn tower looming over there. This place gives me the creeps.” She looked at Cassandra. “Can you identify all these people for me?”
Cassandra walked with Eliana and confirmed that most of them were indeed villagers she knew from Ravadier. She identified a total of ten people, among which were the young carpenter and Fred. There were two more people there that Cassandra didn’t know.
“Do you think they’re possessed?” Mana asked.
Eliana gave her an annoyed look. “I thought you were the expert on magic here.”
Mana gave an annoyed look back. “There are no ghosts in my world, do you think I’d just know how they work if I saw one?”
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But we’ll figure it out later, for now we need to get away from this creepy place.”
Cobal glanced back at the mage’s tower. It looked almost alien in the way it was built and it definitely gave credibility to the theory that the mage was someone from another world. For a moment he thought he saw something move in one of the windows but when he blinked there was nothing there. It was probably his imagination, he decided as the Tidesetter slowly sailed down the river.
“You look rattled,” Mana said to Cassandra. Her and Cobal had walked with Cassandra after they dealt with the pirate ship. Seeing her uncle act so strange had definitely made her anxious.
“Well, yeah, I don’t know what’s going on.”
Mana sat down next to her. “I understand that, but at least it looks like all of the villagers that were missing are still alive. They may be possessed, hypnotized or changed in some other way, but having confirmation that they’re still alive is ultimately a good thing.”
Cassandra smiled. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but I’ll be fine.”
“It was strange seeing Fred behave like that, it’s so unlike him. He’s normally such a warm person and he felt cold and angry in the way he looked at us and talked to us.”
Mana nodded. “I only met him once for a quick moment, but he seemed nice. I don’t know how ghosts or magic work in your world, but it sure looks like another personality has taken over in his body. I would assume that we’ll be able to also get that other personality out of him somehow, but I don’t know any holy magic. I don’t even know what constitutes holy magic if I’m totally honest with you.”
“You mean the magic that priests wield to heal and repair things? It’s just like regular magic at its core, but it’s very specialized. There are some necromancers out there and of course people who can undo necromantic magic, but I can’t say I know any,” Cobal said.
“We’ll have to figure things out ourselves then, I suppose,” Mana replied.
“What worries me more is that tower,” Cobal said.
Mana nodded in agreement. “That thing scares me.”
“Anything you can tell us about it?”
She shook her head. “No, not yet. We’d need to take a closer look at it first before I want to say anything.”
“But, it’s something from your world?”
“Hard to say, but I’m getting the vibe that it’s certainly not from this world, so it could be a combination of things. It’s not something immediately familiar to me, let’s put it that way.”
“If Might was from relatively far in the past in your world – like you’ve said before – is there a chance that this person is from the future of your world?”
Mana shuddered at the thought. “I really don’t want to think about it too much.”
“Then let’s drop the subject for now and worry about the things that are more immediate.”
They all agreed. The ship came to a halt at the northern beach of Shark Tooth Island and over the next few hours a camp was set up that could house everyone comfortably as well as keep the former Ravadier villagers locked up.
Opal Kaharis 