Herrman's shop was a large eight-metre-wide barrel with an opening cut into one side. Ship fins, propellers, ballistae, harpoon-launchers, and all manner of airship parts and upgrades hung about on the walls. Although his name had brought to mind a wizened old tinkerer or mechanic, Adam was surprised to see a soot-and-oil-stained skinny teen standing in the opening, waiting for them. He wore a beige boilersuit that was two sizes too big, and his curly tangle of untamed brown hair was held down by the rubber strap of a pair of old rusted goggles.

"Herrman, this crew has been given a free upgrade by the captain," the guard said.

The kid singled out Emelia as their team's leader, staring intently at her for a moment before glancing at the guard. "Wossit for?"

"They're taking on the Golden Slug," she replied with a grin.

He looked back to Emelia. "Wot cannon you want?"

"I was thinking a hull upgrade would be better," she said. "Something that can take a beating without breaking too easily."

Herrman frowned. "Boring. Cannons are better."

Adam looked up at the stuff around them. None of those are cannons… Unless he's keeping the good stuff somewhere else.

The guard smacked Herrman in the back of the head. "The captain said they could pick."

"Ow! Fine! My boys'll install it," he said obediently.

"Thank you," Emelia replied.

"You want anything else?" he asked.

"We don't have any Doubloons to spend," she admitted.

Herrman's frown grew. "Why's Drew wasting time on bums?"

Emelia laughed and the guard smacked the kid again. He likely couldn't even feel it since she was hitting the back of his head where the hair acted like a cushion.

Herrman climbed up some ratlines that ran up the inside of the barrel-shaped shop, before reaching the top and going up a rope ladder that fell down from the ceiling of the settlement. Large and round glinting eyes stared down at them as Adam followed the kid's journey.

Maybe those aren't eyes, he realised. Maybe they're goggles, just like what Herrman wears.

That would explain why they're so big and round… Thought it was a bunch of weird homunculi or something up there, but instead it's just good old child labour…

"Do we go back to the ship now?" Maalia asked as the guard left them without word.

"Not yet," Emelia replied. "Adam and I have to go find a collector who has a special egg."

"Is that for your Patron Quest?" Ruimin asked her.

Emelia nodded. "That's right. I don't know if it's safe to do mine or not, but getting the egg is supposed to be easy at least."

None of the three said anything, but Maalia and Ruimin glanced at each other.

I don't like the tension over this whole Patron Quest thing…

"Are there other shops here?" Maalia asked. "Can we go look at what's for sale while you do your thing?"

"Sure," Emelia replied. "There's a Relic and a Weapon vendor, they're both below us if you follow the spiralling stairwell near the central pillar. There's also a vendor on this floor who sells ammunition for our ballistae."

"I want to see what weapons they have for sale," Leon said.

"I'm curious about the Relics," Ruimin added.

"We'll come find you," Adam told them.

"If we're not by the shops, then we'll be at the boat," Maalia replied.

With that, their team split up.

Adam and Emelia had to ask a dozen different denizens of Windtop Cove before they could even find someone who knew about the collector they were seeking. Most people had either not known or told them that the captain lived in the donut-shaped building. Apparently, he was the only collector that most people knew, but Adam got the sense that the one they were seeking was after a different sort of trophies than the pirates.

They ended up having to fly on Adam's barrier to the island that the settlement was tethered to, finding a large red-bricked lighthouse placed atop the grassy white crescent of chalk and rock. Before they even got to the island they spotted cat-sized slugs meandering around the tower in the grass. A heavy-set man with dark skin, white hair, and wearing a brown robe-coat full of pockets bursting with trinkets, tools, and snacks roamed amongst the creatures, like a shepherd with his flock.

Adam landed his barrier in front of the man, who didn't look very surprised to see them.

"You're here about the egg, aren't you?" he asked Emelia.

They both paused at his words. Then they saw his eyes. They were grey spirals with small pupils in the centre staring back at them.

"That's right," Emelia answered. "I am supposed to bring it home."

The collector stooped down and picked up a jet-black slug with a fluorescent neon-yellow on its underside and on the tips of two squishy horns growing from the top of its head. He stroked it gently as it covered his left sleeve in mucus and something that looked like liquid silk.

"The Whale Eaters took it," he said. "They plan to use it to lure out Mast-Chewer from her nest."

"The egg belongs to Mast-Chewer?" Emelia asked. "The Drakes' pet?"

"It's not a pet," the man corrected her. "Slug Dragons are not beholden to anyone. The Drakes' captain is on friendly terms with her though, hence why she often aids them."

"Is the egg aboard the Whale Eaters' ship?" Adam asked. "The Golden Slug?"

The collector nodded. "I would imagine so."

"So much for the egg being easy to retrieve," Adam commented.

They left the shepherd to his flock and started walking towards a wooden bridge that joined the island to the settlement.

"I guess we have no choice but to board their ship," Emelia said. "Not that I was planning for us to avoid it, but I had thought that maybe we could sink it to cut our losses, but that'll be an issue if we can't find the egg quickly."

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"Do you think we got the pattern you were talking about because you have this specific quest?" Adam asked.

"I think you might be right," she replied.

"Are you going to be alright if we don't finish your quest?"

Emelia sighed. "I don't want to risk it if I don't have to, but the punishments aren't as bad as Ruimin said. They only last a single Stage."

"You should've told her that," Adam said.

"Yeah… I was just thinking. Ruimin died in this Stage the first time I came through. Back when you saved me. Past you. In my last loop she died in Stage Eight. I guess I gave up trying to convince her that it would be okay, because I assumed she wouldn't survive…"

"That's kind of fucked up," Adam commented. "But I get how you can fall into a mindset like that."

"I think at some point you just stop seeing people as people once you've looped enough," Emelia said. "They just become like numbers. Arturo chose me to succeed him because he said that out of 20 loops, I made it to the end 18 times, no matter what he changed. If I hadn't, then he wouldn't have picked me. Even as he chose me and explained the burden, he never truly looked at me as a person. To him I was just that number. The most promising successor…"

Adam sighed. "I don't know if I would've done it differently were I in his shoes."

"Exactly," she replied. "That's what's so scary about it."

"Let's go back to the others," he said.

They flew back into the settlement atop Adam's barrier, aiming low to reach the part near the bottom where the Relic and Weapon vendors were located.

The guy who sold weapons was a proper pirate through and through, with a pegleg made of carved bone, a metal claw on his left forearm where the hand had been cut off, and a nasty scar running from the left corner of his mouth and up through his left eye, which was milky-white. He had racks of harpoon spears, displays with swords made from chains, stands with bucklers, and a box within which lay an actual grappling hook.

Next to him was a golden skeleton in human clothes with a stall that showed Relics. Adam thought the skeleton was a prop until it turned and looked directly at him.

Holy fuck.

"That's a Gold-cursed," Emelia explained. "Although he hasn't lost his mind, which is exceptionally rare, so they allow him to sell his stuff in this settlement under close scrutiny."

Sure enough, there were three guards nearby watching the lower part of Windtop Cove.

"What is that curse about?" he asked. "I get that it makes you mad and violent, but is that it?"

"It's like extreme greed," Emelia said. "Hoarding too much wealth in this world taints you, making your skin start to rot on your bones, while golden veins move through them like a disease slowly replacing your skeleton with actual gold. If we end up getting about 1.000 Doubloons, then we will become afflicted with the Gold-cursed status. It slowly builds up over time, taking about 12 hours to reach full potency. Spending the money will make it go away. Or we can jettison it into the sea."

"So, is Fallow's Fallen named that because they had too much wealth and all got cursed?" Adam asked.

"That's right," she replied, sounding impressed. "Fallow was a famous pirate captain who stumbled upon a treasure trove unlike any other. Using his wealth, he established a stronghold on an island and drew many pirates to his crew, eventually forming his own faction. But then the Gold-curse took hold, and everyone turned into violent monsters. According to the stories that the people of this Stage tell, the White Flags rallied the other factions to them, all just to take down Fallow. They succeeded in killing him, but his prized sword, Golden Prince, was lost in the battle. That same sword is the one that'll drive any Player mad if they wield it. It's like instant Gold-cursed status, but at the maximum level, plus the special skill lets you turn your entire body to gold, making you able to shrug off basically all physical attacks."

"Damn… I can see why you said we should avoid it."

"We should probably still defeat the current owner of the sword, since it's an optional objective, but no one can pick it up, otherwise we'll have to fight them," she cautioned.

"How is it that the Fallen are still a faction if their captain is dead?" Adam wondered.

"They're all drawn to the same thing, so that's probably why they roam around together, looking for a fight. It doesn't have anything to do with them being ordered. It goes without saying, but allying with them is basically insanity, hence Captain Drew's reaction."

"Should we take a look at the Relics?" Adam asked.

Emelia shrugged. "You can, but they only sell Common and Uncommon ones today. Tomorrow they'll sell some Rares, and on the third day they'll sell Rares and Epics."

"What about the weapons? Are they any good?" he asked.

"The harpoon spear is really strong if you pick the throwing-based evolution. It's similar to Lancer but has a unique evolution that applies a special affliction if it hits an enemy and penetrates the skin. Using it alongside the Javelineer evolution of Lancer and Relics like the Boomerang Necklace makes it incredibly powerful."

Adam frowned, remembering how that exact Relic had been the end of his last run.

"Anyway, you ca­—," she started to say before shouting interrupted her. It came from above, accompanied by the stomping of running feet.

After a moment, something that he couldn't quite hear was yelled down from above, and the sound of a hammer hitting a metal pan rang out around them at the various levels of the settlement.

The three nearby guards locked onto Adam and Emelia, striding towards them with angry glares in their eyes.

"Are you fucking kidding me…" Emelia muttered in disbelief.

"What?" Adam asked. "Are we fighting?"

"Don't bring your weapons out," she told him. "And dismiss your barrier."

He quickly did as she said.

"Just play it cool and let me do the talking."

The guards came up to them, two more surrounding them from the back.

"What's happening?" Emelia asked them.

None of the guards said anything, but they were all holding their harpoon spear like they were ready to stab them full of holes if they moved in any way that could be considered hostile.

Concussive booms sounded from above, but because of how the layers of the intertwining bridges and walkways were positioned, it was impossible for Adam to tell what was happening up there. Something like screaming and tearing metal joined the cacophony of sounds.

"They're making a goddamn run for it! In my ship!" Emelia exclaimed.

The guards shifted in response to her outburst.

Adam glanced at her.

"Let me guess," Emelia said. "Our lunatic crewmembers just did something illegal and then ran off in our airship, right?"

None of the guards responded.

Shit! Why would they do that!?

Fuck, fuck, fuck! I knew we should have tried to defuse the tension!

Adam had no doubts that Maalia was the one who'd decided on whatever it was that they'd done, but Ruimin's situation clearly played a big role in the trio splitting away from them.

They don't understand what they're doing.

But they're scared and want to survive, and they probably see Emelia as a dangerous psycho because she killed that Player before he could attack me.

No doubt they also think I'm a mimic…

What a fucking mess.

A minute passed with the sounds above continuing, but then they quickly died down. The thrum of propellers then could be heard, only to quickly disappear as well.

Adam and Emelia waited for what felt like ages, while the silent guards were ringed around them.

Then Captain Drew and the female guard who'd taken them to Herrman came down to the bottom of the settlement.

"You lousy curs!" the captain shouted at them. "How dare you steal from me! I thought we had a deal! Give me one good reason why I don't skin you two and hang you out for the Slug Dragons to feast on!"

"We didn't steal anything!" Emelia protested.

"Ask the vendors!" Adam added. "We've only been here, Herrman's shop, and the lighthouse outside Windtop Cove."

"It's true," said the golden skeleton vendor. "They was here. I seen't it."

The guards backed away as the captain approached.

"Then why did your friends steal my map?" he leaned in and asked in a dangerous tone. He was holding a large sword made from chains in his right hand, hefting it against his shoulder.

"Our friends must have been Gold-cursed," Emelia said. "Their greed is the proof of their sickness."

Captain Drew paused but then nodded. "I see."

The female guard came over. "What's to say you lot aren't cursed too?"

"You heard her earlier, didn't you?" Adam retorted. "We don't have a penny to our name."

"We'll find our cursed crew and get your map back," Emelia told the captain.

"By tonight," he replied, his voice sharp like the edge of his sword. "If I don't see you with my map before tonight, then I will make sure you'll never find safe haven anywhere across this sea."

< < Quest Unlocked > >

< Stolen Map >

< Return Captain Drew's map >

Emelia nodded. "We're leaving right away."

"How?" he asked. "They stole your vessel too, those spineless turds."

"We have our ways," she told her and put her hand on Adam's shoulder.

He took it as his cue to summon his barriers.

The guards took a step back.

"A barrier mage," Captain Drew acknowledged. "Those are rare around here."

"Correction, a flying barrier mage," she said with a grin.

Then they got on the magical midnight-blue glass and flew out from under the settlement, skirting below the iron wall and island, searching through the cloudscape of gold-tinged fluffy white for the Creaking Madam.

Those three will get a proper punishment when we catch them.

Bunch of fucking idiots.

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