Dagger: Chapter Three

Chapter 3

Ariam was convinced the trances of various locations and visions of large creatures in colossal size tearing up the heavens, opening a vast portal to enter this realm to wreck destruction and death meant something significant with Sajib’s plan. The dream felt vivid and real, it felt like a looming definite future that was for sure abound to happen if she did not do anything to stop it.

            Obadiah was glad when she woke up, and now without further due, he stood in front of Ariam who sat up on the captain’s bed, rubbing her eyes, and then he started shouting, “What the hell were you thinking? You could have died! And what then?! You risked your life just to save this idiot.” Obadiah went on for quite a bit tearing Ariam’s ears off in the process, while Bernard in the other hand thanked and apologized to her.

            The captain’s cabin, where the four of them were in was considerably more impressive and cleaner than any part of the ship. You can learn a lot by being in a person’s room, for it’s like being right in their soul. Bernard kept his room tidy and spotless, and he even decorated the walls with his wanted posters. He loved looking at his face, even though it was drawn badly. He thought that something this good looking, even when drawn ugly, was still stunning. There were gold coins and notes on his desk, love letters from lovers, and pretty trinkets. Appealingly placed inside a casket was a knife, with a beautiful carved hilt. This knife, considering he put it in a coffer, and not carrying it around him must be meaningful to the young captain, a gift from a close friend perhaps. Or maybe a trophy he gained from a great victory. Whatever the reason maybe, it was important.

            Captain Bernard was the type of person to learn from his hands rather than his head, he was a doer, not a listener. He was not very smart, but he was self-assured of his abilities and knew what works well for him. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.

“I’m here you know, the polite way to insult somebody is behind their back so they don’t have to hear this hurtful things. And I’m not an idiot. I once tricked a woman to give away all her money to me just by three words. I have you know, no idiot could do such a thing,” said Bernard upon hearing Obadiah’s remark about him. Obadiah admired Ariam for her selfish deed, and he knew the dangers of being a Dagger, but he thought of her as a child still, his friends’ child nonetheless. After Obadiah was done with his rambling, it was Raewyn’s turn to say something.

            “You almost had us worried there for a moment, Ariam,” she said. “How are you feeling? The blast from the relic did a lot of damage to your head more than your body it seemed. I mean, I don’t actually know what is going on inside your body. I can sense great magical forces are surging through your veins. Something unearthly.”

            Ariam asked how long she was out, and they answered more than half a day, and then proceed on talking about her visions the ancient relic had installed in her head. “I saw huge monsters tear the clouds up, forcing their way through to this realm, they were big as maybe ten dragons in size. They kill and destroy everything in their path. Death, destruction, and chaos all around us. It was the end of everything we know of. And I saw locations, a city under a city, a mystical dark forest where the tree speaks to you, an ancient tomb of an old king, and an island filled with the restless dead. These places I saw had more ancient relics. And it’s all in Krajinyr. But these relics were different that the one in Kexhill. They were pieces of a door.”

            “Titans,” Obadiah exclaimed in a voice of immense alarm. “These monsters you speak of are Titans, the first entities the Gods created on this realm. They were evil and corrupted, and so the Gods banished them to Oblivion where they remained imprison. But this visions of yours, if it is true, then the Dagger who we met in Kexhill must be trying to bring the Titans back to this realm and it might mean the end of the world.” Obadiah as a child, before he joined the Daggers, was raised in the Sepulcher of Ultimate Truth’s orphanage, the Sepulcher of Ultimate Truth was the main religion practiced in the continent of Tanah. In there, he had learned many prophecies and tales he could not forget, one of them was the return of the Titans, and with them comes death and destruction.

            “Then the locations you dream of, the other relic pieces must be the gate to Oblivion. I think the relic that gave you these visions was a map, and the Dagger in Kexhill must be trying to open the gate to Oblivion and bring forth the Titans,” Raewyn drew reasoned from the information Ariam told them, and gave her input.

            They all considered this, and even Bernard questioned the whole group, “If the Dagger with the demonic looking face wanted to open the gate to Oblivion, why he dropped the map? That was a big mistake, I mean, now we know his plans.”

            “I don’t know,” Raewyn exclaimed. “Maybe he got what he wanted. And he now knows the locations of the other relics.”

It was clear what the gang needed to do. They had to stop Sajib, his army of free elves who were bizarrely helping him, the tainted beings he inflicted upon innocent souls that was spreading like wildfire, and also the forthcoming Titans Ariam dreamt about at all cost.

“Then, we need to stop him before he can bring destruction to this world,” said Obadiah, starting already a new quest. “We need to collect these relics before he does, but first we must get to Kina Shira and get assistance. Maybe Cameron or Odlanyar know of this Dagger, and the better we know who he is, the better we understand his motif for doing this.” Obadiah thought this was like Camley all over again, only this time, it seemed bigger.

“Can’t we just let the Empire handle this, I mean, this seems like an Empire, big army men sort of thing. Kexhill was an Empire village, and the free elves attacking it seemed like an act of war. I’m not a big fan of the Empire, but, don’t you think they need to know about this,” Bernard gave his input. “I only have one ship. And the Empire has more numbers my fingers could count.”

“It will take weeks to get to the Capital of Ditengah, and even more so weeks to convince the Empire to assemble an army,” Obadiah rebutted. “Politics delays everything even if we managed to convince them. And the Empire won’t simply believe everything we say based on visions alone. It’s faster if we handle this now, before this Dagger summons the Titans. And even with a large army, too many lives will be lost in fighting the Titans. It is better if we act now.”

“Please Bernard. We need your help,” Ariam said to the young captain. “This is one of the fastest ships in the world, and you’re its captain, you can take us to these places before this Dagger gets there.”

And with just those words ushered by those lips of hers, Bernard was persuaded, “Alright, I’ll help. Damn it, I’ll go tell my men their deaths are imminent, but hey at least they will be helping saving the world.” He left the cabin, leaving Obadiah and Raewyn with Ariam.

            Ariam tells them of the locations, trying her best to describe how the places looked like. “A city under a city? That must be Baixo, not far from where we are now. I heard tales that it was made from an ancient municipal, it’s our best shot,” said Raewyn. “The mystical forest you talk of must be the Tmavy Woods further east from here, it’s not too far from Baixo. I heard tales of trees that had eyes and mouth there, I don’t know if they can speak though. The tomb must be one of the ancient tombs of the Forgotten Kings in Krajinyr, the Tomb of King Hervarth, it lies further north. Lastly this island you speak of must be Zadbunyr Island, which lies to the west. This isn’t going to be easy, but I will help in this journey. It seems right that I should.”

            “Then it’s settled, we will head to Baixo first, and from there we will head to Tmavy Woods, and then Kina Shira. After that we head to the other locations,” Obadiah finally laid out his plan. “We will find these relics, and secure them before they can be used to summon the Titans.” He head out the cabin to inform Captain Bernard of the plan, leaving Raewyn and Ariam alone.

            With just the two of them present and alone in the cabin, Ariam got off the bed, she could barely stood up properly as her head was still spinning from the visions. She felt weak, but it was just a temporary feeling, her strength regained after a few moments. And she asked Raewyn suspiciously, “How did you know the relic was going to explode and could kill anyone who approached it?”

            “I didn’t know,” she said confidently. “I just guessed.”

            There was a long pause as they shared glares. And then with the release thought of how helpful she was back in Kexhill, Ariam gave the elf with the pointy ears a smile, and decided best of her to trust this mage. Her smile was the sweetest thing any sweet thing could ever be, the completest and fullest form of sweetness perhaps. “Thank you,” she said with that voice of hers, it was that kind of voice, the kind of voice with the great excellence of honesty that one would only come across when meeting a soul mate, the kind of voice you’re only going to hear once in a lifetime and this was the voice Raewyn heard from Ariam. This voice that belonged to Ariam, crept into Raewyn, and it accepted her as fast as a speeding arrow, or a shot of sunlight, and it made Raewyn felt belonged and welcomed. “We’ve could not have survive the attack if it wasn’t for you, your barrier saved us,” Ariam was respectful, and she found Raewyn as trustful as Raewyn found her.

The elf mage looked at Ariam with those twinkling eyes of her as though she wanted to say something important, but decided not to. And Ariam found that attractive, people are much more interesting when they kept a part of themselves hidden from the rest of the world, it makes people chase them. And that is probably why the stars are interesting, they are in the deep dark endless space, and we want to get to know them, but we just can’t. Raewyn smiled back, and went out to leave Ariam to her rest.

And that was when Bernard came back into his cabin to find himself alone with Ariam. His initial reason to enter in was to tell Ariam that they were on set course to Baixo, but upon seeing her, he turned to his base nature and said very vulgarly, “Sweet-face, if you’re going to continue looking the way you look, and that is beautiful, I’m afraid you’ll have to accompany me in bed tonight. I can’t do anything about this, this is the rule of the ship, you see.”

Ariam threw a pillow at Bernard’s face, shook her head as she strike down his offer, and gave him a disgusted look as she left the room. “You know you want it,” said the young pirate captain. “And when you want it, I’ll be right here waiting. I don’t mind playing games, games are fun.”

Once Ariam got out of the captain’s cabin, she was on the deck, and she could see the night sky with its bright stars. She took this opportunity to gait around the Grateful Dead, and familiarized herself with the ship’s crew considering she would be working with them for quite some time. Surprisingly the crew members, especially John Lockeheart, the first mate of the ship were very respectful towards the young Dagger, even though some of them were thinking of vulgar and perverted thoughts about her.

            John Lockeheart was this forty year old man with silver short hair and scruffy beard, he was muscularly build, he looked strong and intimidating, how he was not the captain of the Grateful Dead was such a mystery. To compare Lockeheart and the frisky Captain Bernard, Ariam thought Lockeheart should be the captain. He looked as if he should be taken seriously than the young blonde pirate captain. This Lockeheart was more dreaded than the Dreaded Pirate Bernard with his abundance of tattoos on his body. When Ariam asked the first mate why he let a young man be the captain, all Lockeheart said was, “He deserved it. He saved us all he did, that small little bugger. Nobody could do what he did, and because of that all of us would willingly sail to the ends of hell for that boy.”

            She began exploring the ship’s quarters under the deck, where many crew members rested. They drank and gambled, they were a jolly lot, and she would have joined them if not for their horrid smell.

            And then she went to the back of the quarters to see Obadiah reading books about monster lore, in hopes to learn more about the Titans, but considering the Titans were an extinct race, and if not just a myth, there was not much to read about them.

            She went back up to the deck and saw Raewyn practicing her magic undisturbed. They chatted a bit for a little longer, and after a few hours or so the day was late, and everyone was tired, so Ariam said her ‘goodnights’ and went to her private room where she had her rest, for the sail to Baixo will take one and a half day at least.