Consolidation Zenithian War: Fire and Waves

[Anarian Nensk]

"Steady as she goes!" Captain Omadar Uldor's voice was strong enough to sound over the blowing of the ocean wind. The oak deck filled with crew, scrubbing, knotting, resting or maintaining the cannons held by thick ropes behind the closed gunports. Omadar did not enjoy the shower of sunlight upon his skin. The Black Sea was always a barrier he did not wish to overcome, for the very air was gnarling his very skin simply by exposing himself to it. The Kraken Sea provided a boon that the Black Sea did not: Clouds. Storm or shroud alike, the dark skies of the North blocked out most of the light washing down the waves, making sailing much more tolerable. The Black Sea, unfortunatelly, was not as forgiving... Clouds were rare, and far apart, with the sun burning throughout the day to the point Omadar had to wear a cloth to avoid blisters from the radiant light. Alas, at least the sea was calm. The hot wind perhaps calming the waves to oil, letting the keels slide over them like knives over butter heated by the stove.

It had been weeks at sea, before they finally spotted the first few islands scatterred North of the coastline of Asterias. Omadar's mission was simple: Harrass the trade routes between Espada and Eirelunn until the navy sails out the ports of Zenith. Omadar was Captain of the "Dragon's Belly", a Munrian Frigate with black sails and purple flags over the masts, signature of Omadar's crew of Darkling corsairs. This time it was different. Though a captain, Omadar was assigned as a commodore overseeing a flottila of eight frigates of privateers for the completion of his task. Unlike the ordinary commanders, usually seeking strength in numbers, Omadar chose instead to spread his ships across the shores, counting on their speed to avoid any Espadan or Zenithian pursuers.

The Dragon's Belly had been sailing along the northern coast of Guipui for over a week, having scored two Caravels, one of which was captured and manned before being sent back North to Munria. The other having posed a much more stiff opposition, was send beneath the waves. Besides looting for provisions and materials, Omadar had no interest in plunder, save for what his crew could carry themselves.

Besides... the Iron Cult was already generous with the contract signed, and the promise of transportation and raiding rights down the line...

This day, Omadar aimed to provoke the Zenithian fleet by approaching the northern ports and make his presence felt.

 

[Nepheli N. Tzunidahr]

The sun seared high over the Radiant Vow, glinting off her brass-clad hull like fire on a blade. From the forward observation deck, Nepheli stood beneath the shadow of her own golden effigy, eyes narrowed to the horizon. The calm of the Black Sea stretched before her like a held breath. She could smell it—salt, heat, and blood not yet spilled.

“He’s here.”

She did not need a spyglass. She had heard the reports: sails the color of mourning, flags dipped in indigo rot, prowling near Guipui like flies to a corpse. Omadar Uldor. A Darkling dog turned commodore, now loosed upon her waters by the Iron Cult. She had seen his work before—wounds cut shallow but wide. Harrier tactics. Coward’s strategy.

“So the Cult thinks to draw us out,” she murmured, the words laced with amusement and venom.

“They’ve mistaken patience for weakness.”

Behind her, brass boots clicked on deck. A Gildborn marine bowed low before straightening with pride.

“Admiral. The Sundaggers have engaged a Munrian picket east of Asterias. One escaped. We allowed it to. Your orders?”

Nepheli’s smile gleamed like the Vindicator holstered at her hip. Three barrels. One for each broken ship she would leave in Omadar’s wake.

“Signal the Gildclaw to flank the archipelago. The Oathwrought holds the southern strait. We move north. The Radiant Vow leads.” Her voice was flint on steel.

“Chainmasters to ready claws. Stormsingers to chart their currents. There will be no retreat.”

She turned to face the crew amassed along the upper deck. Her voice rose—not shouted, but cast, like a net of gold over iron hearts.

“The Cult sends mongrels to nip at our sails. Let them. We are not traders. We are not prey. We are the Wakened Sea, the Gilded Blade. They came for a fleet…”

She drew her Tri-Lock Flintcaster and raised it skyward.

”…they will find a storm.”

The paddlewheels churned. Sunsteel rigging sang in tension. The Vow began to move—not fast, not yet—but with the inevitability of judgment.

Somewhere ahead, Omadar played at war.

Nepheli came to teach him the shape of it.

Tag; @Anarian Nensk

 

[Anarian Nensk]

"Captain! Ships ten degrees South!!"

The watchman pointed over the crow's nest of the mizzenmast, to the distant horizon, where the silhouettes of the Zenithian ships begun to form. Umadar, taking notice of the watchman's report, pulled the spyglass from his coat's pocket and crossed the quarterdeck, to the starboard side rails, where he scanned the distant view in search of the target. He located it quickly, as if his muscles knew already where to guide his gaze.

"The Radiant Bow..." he declared. The First-Mate, another Darkling corsair, with a wide floppy hat covering most of his head, decorated by swan feathers.

"They outgun us, Captain..." the First-Mate hissed, his lips twisting, revealing the several golden teeth behind them.

"That is the idea, my friend..." Omadar smirked, lowering the spyglass. "Get the ship ready. Every gun at the ready. We go through like snake, pepper them from starboard."

Omadar looked up, to the masts, his eyes picking to the motion of the flags.

"The wind favours us." the Firstmate nodded. "I will get the ship ready."

Omadar nodded, his mind already running calculations of wind, wave patterns and possible maneuvers the Dragon's Belly could conduct. There was little to no islands nearby... It would be an open battle, in which indeed he would not have the advantage, unless he played his cards right.

"Let us see what these Zenithians are made of...!"

Sails stretched, ropes tightened and powder barrels brought on deck, as the ship made ready for battle. The black sails a declaration and challenge to any who approached. The Frigate pierced through the waves, sails turned to an angle to give her further speed.

 

[Nepheli N. Tzunidahr]

“Contact, Admiral—bearing ten degrees North by West! The Darkling sails!”

The call rang out from the crow’s roost high above, followed by the shriek of a brass whistle as the Sundagger cutters began to shift formation. The Radiant Vow was already at half-steam, her turbines whining softly beneath the chant of pistons and chain. From her vantage upon the gilded bridge, Nepheli did not flinch. She did not squint. She simply extended her hand, and a watch-officer placed the longscope in her grasp without a word.

Through the glass, she saw it: the black-bellied silhouette of the Dragon’s Belly, cutting through wave and wind like a blade.

“He brings her straight on,” she said, voice calm as a chapel bell. “Foolish. Or desperate. Perhaps both.”

“Frigate pattern, Munrian design. High rudder, flat keel. She’ll swing wide, sharp turn to starboard,” noted the Stormsinger beside her, voice low, as if reciting verses from a holy book. “They mean to rake us. Harass and flee.”

Nepheli smiled, and it was not kind. “Let him try.”

She turned her gaze from the scope and addressed her officers.

“Chainmasters, prepare the claws. Load deck mortars with shredshot—wide burst pattern. I want the Sundaggers to drag a crescent pattern behind us. Drive him toward the center.”

She drew her Vindicator Mk.II, flipping it once in her hand before slotting it into her sun-etched holster.

“I want him close. I want him boarded.”

A Gildborn officer nearby—a tall woman with a blade the length of a pike—grinned as she barked to the engine-reeves below.

The Radiant Vow’s paddlewheels surged, pushing her forward with sudden fury, brass vanes slicing water like serrated teeth. Steam vented from her storm-funnels in two great gouts, casting rainbows in the heat shimmer as the sun struck her golden flanks.

In the heart of the deck, the bow-mounted Solar Lance clicked into position, its crystal prism beginning to gather the blaze of the day.

“He wants to test us,” Nepheli said, as the wind caught her coat and flared it behind her like wings.

“So let the test begin. Bring me his bones and his sails. Burn the rest.”

Around her, the crew roared. The sea would soon bear witness.

The Zenithians were not prey.

They were the flame that followed judgment.

Tag; @Anarian Nensk

 

[Anarian Nensk]

"Steam clouds, Captain!" the watchman shouted from the crow's nest, up the mast. Worrying all the more evident in his voice. Steam-powered warships had been a bane to many a ship in the huge river networks of Erova and the Inner Sea. In the Kraken Sea, however, such technology was rare, if not near impossible, to encounter. The Zenithian navy had invested in their fleet. That, was true. It was Omadar's mission, after all, to lure out the fleet and evaluate their capabilities...

Omadar himself did not speak. He picked the spyglass again and again and tracked the course of the Zenithian ships, each time another report came in. His eyes narrowed, observing the enemy as they developped into a crescent behind the awe-inspiring flagship. Their speed considerable. Their skill credible. To push for a direct confrontation would be to find himself trapped between overlapping fields of fire, resulting most likely in his own demise. It was too early, he thought. And his own skin too precious, not truly bound by codes of loyalty or even trust to his Iron Cult employers.

"Tak to starboard."

The Dragon's Belly turned her bow, embracing her sofrano side and sliding against the wind, her speed increasing drastically, as she broke off from the collision course, forming a ninty degree angle with the coming Zenithian ships. Her port broadside presented to them. An open challenge to approach.

"They have bow-mounted cannons." Omadar tilted his head. His red eyes fixated on the enemy flagship, although they were yet too far for any detail to be visible, besides the blinding reflection of the Black Sea sun.

 

[Nepheli N. Tzunidahr]

“They’re breaking off,” the Stormsinger reported, eyes like tideglass, glinting in the light. “Slipping away at an angle—portside broadside exposed.”

Nepheli did not answer at once. She stood still, bathed in the shimmering heat of the upper deck, her whiskey brown eyes narrowed to slits as the enemy frigate veered like a serpent’s feint. All around her, the Radiant Vow pulsed with purpose. Steam churned. Gears clicked. Every movement of her crew came like clockwork—refined, ritualized. As if even this chase, even this threat, was merely a moment long foreseen.

“It’s a lure,” murmured the Brass-Captain at her flank. “He wants us to bite. Draw in close and cut free.”

“Of course he does,” Nepheli said quietly, brushing a gloved hand across the gilded railing. “The moment his fangs fail, he slithers. No heart in that one. No fire. Just black water in his veins.”

She turned and stepped down to the lower helm platform, where a sun-dial etched into the brass deck began to glow softly beneath her boots. The Radiant Vow hummed in response, as if feeling the shift in her posture, her command.

“Bring us to intercept course. Forty-five degrees. Cut his retreat and keep the Sundaggers to either flank—he’ll look for a gap, not a fight.”

The order echoed across the bridge, and steamhorns bellowed out like leviathan cries. The cutters split wide, threading the waves in glimmering trails. The Oathwrought Bastion, still crawling behind the formation like a lumbering citadel, locked into place with the thudding sounds of chain-brakes.

The Dragon’s Belly now lay in full sight.

Nepheli stared at it—black sails, iron beak, proud and stubborn in its retreat. She tilted her chin slightly.

“You picked the wrong sun to challenge, pirate.”

She reached forward and touched the brass sunburst lever beside the Solar Lance housing.

“Open the gate.”

With a scream of pressured steel and venting flame, the bow-mounted Solar Lance split its housing. Twin curved shields parted like wings unfolding, revealing the mirrored core—crystal-lined and inscribed with runes in the Zenithian tongue. A chorus of harmonics pulsed through the air as sunlight condensed into a single, focused beam within the lens.

And then—

The beam fired.

A lance of concentrated solar fury erupted from the prow of the Radiant Vow, cleaving across the sea like the sword of a god. Where it passed, the water boiled. The light was pure, white-gold and howling, its scream louder than thunder. It struck the sea in a column as wide as a house, vaporizing the air and scorching a gouge across the waves.

It did not aim to sink.

It aimed to warn. To sear the shadow from the eyes of the defiant.

Let Omadar decide what he saw in that fire.

Let him decide if he belonged.

Tag; @Anarian Nensk

 

[Anarian Nensk]

The Dragon's Belly cut through the waves, preserving her course true in an effort to force the Zenithian ships to "Cross the T", facing Umadar's full broadside while themselves could only aim their bow and forecastle guns. If there were more than just the Dragon's Belly, such a tactic would be a winning strategy. But in this case, the sheer firepower the Zenithians possessed made any prolonged engagement a suicidal undertaking. And Umadar knew it.

"The Radiant Vow is shifting, captain!" the quartermaster reported, while looking through the spyglass. Umadar's attention soon picked. He grabbed the spyglass and aimed at the enemy flagship. Her very bow was openning like a gaping maw.

"What the-"

"They are trying to intercept us!" the First-Mate barked, pointing his gloved hand to the Sundagger ships that accelerated by the flank of the Zenithian flottila. "They want us down the locker, Captain."

"They want a show of force." Umadar murmured. "Ten to starboard."

"Ten to starboard, sir!" the helm master shouted, his voice driven by the pressure of turning the heavy helm.

The Dragon's Belly openning the gap between them and the flottila, increasing the angle to add to the distance inbetween. Umadar turned and looked at the sails above the masts. His red eyes gateways to a mind of experience in the high seas.

"Get that sail stretched, we need speed!" he demanded, pointing to the top sail of the main mast.

Before he managed to finish his sentance, a sudden beam of blinding light burned the horizon, cast right behind the Dragon's Belly's poop deck. By sheer reflexes, every single hand on deck fell down and braced.

"INCOMING!" some screamed out, to warn their comrades.

Umadar himself ducked, his hand bracing the rail by him. After the beam vanished, Umadar jumped up and aimed his spyglass to the Radiant Vow.

"What the HELL was that!?" the First-Mate roared, jumping down from the bridge to the quarterdeck, where Umadar stood.

"A weapon..." the captain growled. He placed the spyglass away, in his coat. "We need speed. Now." he urged the First-Mate, before rushing up to the helm. He pushed the helm master to the side, taking personal control of the ship's steering.

"Portside guns AT THE READY!" determination showered the crew by the captain's order.

Umadar turned the helm, the ship adjusting course.

"Come and get me, you shortfin swine!" he muttered to himself, as if the commander of the Zenithian fleet was there to hear his taunting.

 

[Nepheli N. Tzunidahr]

The lance dispersed.

The silence afterward was devouring.

Only the hiss of steam and the quiet creaking of brass filled the deck of the Radiant Vow, where Nepheli stood like a figurehead herself—hands clasped behind her back, her whiskey brown eyes watching the black-sailed silhouette tumble away like a spider retreating from fire.

Her lips curled—not in amusement, but in expectation met. A test of nerve, and he had blinked.

“He lives,” she said, not to anyone in particular. “Good.”

The Stormsinger at her right tilted her head, curls of incense smoke wreathing from the copper censor affixed to her belt. “Your will, Admiral?”

“We do not break him yet,” Nepheli replied, stepping down from the helm dais. Her cloak billowed with the sea-wind, the golden trim catching fire in the afternoon light. “The Sea does not crush the clever—it corners them.”

She paused beside the forequarter brass chart table, where the shifting etched map of their position began to update itself through mechanisms unseen. The Sundaggers were in motion, lines like snakes moving to flank. The pirate ship—a clever creature, built more for slithering than striking—was pivoting again. Its guns showed teeth. A bluff? Perhaps. But even a wounded eel could bite.

“Sundagger Two, pull back ten knots, turn her bow. Don’t box him yet.”

The order carried out across comm-pipes and horns. A measured response, neither too quick nor too slow. It would not do to spring the trap now—not when the creature still thought it had some writhing left in it.

“Signal the Bastion: charge the starboard plate. If he comes about, he gets the hammer.” She turned slightly, her eyes not leaving the fleeing shape. “And keep the Lance warm. He’s not done testing us.”

One of the Gildborn—resplendent in their brass-plated cuirass, standing like statues—stepped to her side, visor down. “Admiral. Permission to deploy a cutter from the port davits? We can land a boarding crew should he attempt to run for island cover.”

Nepheli considered it. “No. He wants attention. Let’s give it.” A pause. Then: “But dispatch the St. Cire. Quietly. Southwards and out of his sight. We’ll close the claw when he least expects it.”

The Gildborn nodded and saluted. “As the Wake wills.”

And finally, Nepheli returned to the prow, just beneath the Lance’s cradle, her boots ringing with each step. The wind tossed strands of her dark hair across her cheek as she whispered—not to her crew, not to the sea, but to the man she could not yet see.

“Your boldness buys you time, Omadar. But time is not mercy. And the Deep watches all things that drift…”

She raised one hand and closed it into a fist.

“Let him run.”

Tag; @Anarian Nensk

 

[Anarian Nensk]

Omadar climbed up the poop deck and held onto one of the ropes that held the driver boom in place. His red eyes turned to the side of the bay, where the Zenithian flottila made course towards him.

"Their ships are heavy, captain." the First-Mate voiced. A thought both had already made, though Omadar chose against speaking his mind. He usually did. But the First-Mate was not planning on ignoring the obviousness of their situation. "They outgun us. By alot."

"I know, Danu." Omadar did not care enough to turn his gaze. His coat flapping by the wind, while his body leaning outward, over the cut waves. His attention commited to the thoughts that swarmed his mind, plotting courses through the very fleet, evaluating whether the Dragon's Belly's speed would get her through without suffering excess punishment. Whether the wind could grant him the advantage, and if his guns were sufficient to contest the waters against such a large force.

"We don't need to face them, Captain. They are too many. As soon as we lose speed, we are dead men."

"Then better keep my ship in shape, Danu." Omadar intoned, jumping down on deck. "They will follow us until we leave their waters. Steady as she goes." he then instructed. The plan finally settled in his mind. "We are going to the Homenmorto Bay." Certainty fountained from the captain, making his statement all the more worrying to the First-mate's ears.

 

[Anarian Nensk]

"Homenmorto?!" Danu exclaimed. His eyes quickly darting to the view beyond the ship's prow. The shores of Guipui blurry in the distance. "That's suicide! Again!!"

"Yes, it will be!" Omadar laughed. "If they want a piece of the Dragon's Belly, they will have to claim it in there."

"Captain, these are dangerous waters. There are reefs, shallows-"

"Yes, Danu! Alot of reefs indeed! Take a good look at their ships, mate. They are heavy. You said so! We get through there, they have to choose. Breaking pursuit and be humiliated... Or follow through and ground on the reefs!"

The Dragon's Belly continued her course to the South-West, gradually tracing an arched course, hinting to her intent in reaching the coastline. Sails were stretched, and the deep purple colours of Captain Omadar always dancing above the masts, taunting her pursuers ever more.

It would be a long shot to reach the Bay. Should she made it, her route of escape would be charted. If not...

The Dragon's Belly would have to fight for it...!

 

[Nepheli N. Tzunidahr]

There are three kinds of men who run: the coward, the gambler, and the wounded.

Nepheli narrowed her eyes as the Dragon’s Belly veered sharply, peeling away from the Zenithian crescent with the arrogance of a beast that believed it still had teeth.

She watched the arc of the pirate’s maneuver—not with rage, but with calculation. Her whiskey brown gaze followed the angle, followed the wind, followed the growing gleam of the southern coast.

Her lips parted as realization struck.

“Homenmorto.”

A single word, uttered like a diagnosis.

The Stormsinger beside her shuddered. “The Gravewater Bay? Admiral, it is—”

“—A coral-choked tomb. Yes.” Nepheli stepped away from the prow, her cloak fluttering behind her like a banner of dusk. “And now, a stage.”

She descended to the main deck, where crew and officers parted before her like reverent waves. She moved not with haste, but with precision—her every motion a declaration of control.

“He thinks himself clever,” she said, sweeping her arm toward the chart table where the etched brass plates were already redrawing the contours of the coast. The teeth of the Guipui Reefs extended like the fangs of a drowned god.

“He is clever,” offered one of the shipmasters. “He knows we won’t follow. We’ve never dared it.”

“That,” Nepheli replied, “is why he must believe we won’t.”

There was a long pause. The silence of tension.

Then she turned toward the helmsman.

“Hold our course. Keep us wide—pressure him. But do not pursue into the shallows. Let the Dragon’s Belly taste the bay first.”

Her command flowed through the ranks like current. The crew adjusted sails, drew tighter their formation, flared their speed. The Radiant Vow glided like a cathedral at sea, vast and deliberate.

“Dispatch the Scribe’s Folly and the Halberd’s Rake. Fast, shallow cutters. Let them tail the pirate from a distance. They are not to engage—only to watch.”

“And if he runs aground?” the Gildborn captain of the Bastion asked over the brass-link vox.

“Then we burn him where he lies.” Nepheli’s voice was steel and salt. “We light the bay with his bones.”

But privately, in the quiet of her heart, she marveled.

He means to thread the needle… and bait us into the eye.

“Very well, Omadar,” she murmured, raising a spyglass to the vanishing silhouette of his ship, her breath misting the lens. “Let the reefs sing. But know this: even if you reach the Gravewater’s mouth… I’ll be waiting at its throat.”

She lowered the glass.

“Sound the horns.”

And behind her, the Radiant Vow cried out like a judgment.

Tag; @Anarian Nensk

 

[Military NPC]

Salt clung to every breath, thick and heavy, as though the Black Sea itself meant to remind them where they were.

The crew stood tense, boots braced against the slow roll of the ship. The last exchange had left no casualties on the Vow, but it had left something else behind—a mood. A chill. That damnable ship, The Dragon’s Belly, was still ahead of them, sliding like an eel toward the jagged grin of Homenmorto Bay.

It was a place few had spoken of with confidence, and none with fondness.

“He’s going in,” one of the forward lookouts muttered. His voice barely carried over the wind, but it didn’t need to be loud. Everyone already saw it. Everyone already knew. That mad pirate had chosen the Gravewater.

“Captain’s gonna wedge himself between reef and doom,” growled Gunner Petrel, rubbing his calloused thumb over the fuse-end of his slow match. “Even the sea wants him dead in there.”

“You sure it’s not us he’s countin’ on?” said another, wiping brine from his beard. “Thinks we won’t follow. Thinks we’re too proud to risk the hull.”

“Aye,” came the gruff voice of Quartermaster Hurne. “And maybe he’s right.”

No one argued.

The charts—spread now across the brass plotting table middeck—told a grim story. Shallows. Sandbars that shifted with the tide. Reefs that tore ships apart like kindling. Even with steam and iron under them, even with layered hulls and reinforced keels, no Zenithian ship had ever entered Homenmorto willingly.

“It’s a graveyard,” someone whispered.

“Then let the dead have him,” Hurne said. “We’ll stand off. Keep our range. He gets stuck, we’ll have the tide and the guns both.”

The helmsman adjusted course slightly, angling the Radiant Vow into a flanking arc. The other ships of the flotilla followed suit, fanning wider, slower now, sails half-furled—not withdrawing, but waiting. Watching.

The flag officers aboard the other vessels were already signaling one another. No pursuit into the bay. Maintain pressure from beyond the reef-line. Let him think he’s outrun them.

Let him think he’s won.

The wind shifted. A single gull screamed above the masts. And still they watched.

“Mad bastard,” muttered Petrel. “If he makes it through, I’ll drink sea-brine and kiss a barnacle.”

“If he doesn’t,” came another voice, low and grim, “we’ll see him burn on the rocks.”

A long silence followed. The crew of the Radiant Vow said nothing more. Eyes forward. Fingers tight on rope and steel.

The chase was not over. But it had changed.

Now it was a matter of patience. Let the sea do her part.

Let The Dragon’s Belly prove how clever she truly was.

Tag; @Anarian Nensk

 

[KingofGreed]

The coast of Guipui jutted from the sea like a broken jawbone, its crooked rocks blackened by centuries of brine and fury. At its heart lay Homenmorto Bay—“the Bay of the Dead Men” in the old tongue. It was a natural harbor shaped like a crooked hook, bordered by jagged reefs and tidal traps that shifted with every season. Sailors swore the bay changed shape at will, luring ships inward with placid waters before dashing them against its teeth.

From afar, it looked like any other shelter: a calm stretch of gray-green sea flanked by low cliffs and forested bluffs. But for those who knew its waters, it was a grave dressed in silk.

Long ago—two centuries before Zenith unfurled its sails in the Black Sea—the bay had been a safe haven for smugglers, pirates, and warlords fleeing the first merchant cartels. Homenmorto was sanctuary to none, but it served those clever enough to chart its paths. And so it gained a reputation: a place of last resort, of desperate gambits and mad escapes. Dozens of ships over the years disappeared there. Some were claimed by reefs. Some by storms. Others were said to have been taken by things that moved beneath the water, unseen but always felt.

When Zenith rose from obscurity to naval power, it brought order to the sea in steel and sail. Its fleet doctrine prized structure and discipline, elegant battle lines and firing arcs perfected by geometry and cold reason. Their ships—built heavier, broader, and now steam-assisted—were meant to dominate open water, not dart through coral mazes and tidal quicksand.

For the Zenithian Admiralty, Homenmorto was a blind spot. It represented unpredictability, the very antithesis of their doctrine. In the years of Zenithian expansion, they had tried—twice—to chart and claim the bay. Both times had ended in disaster. The first survey flotilla, led by the warship Sun’s Temper, lost three vessels and a fourth limped home with its keel shattered. The second, twenty years later, avoided reefs only to find that something—some natural phenomenon, perhaps—played havoc with compasses and chronometers alike. The entire bay distorted navigation, warping sound and echo. Guns misfired. Commands went unheard. The fleet retreated again.

It was declared cursed, and left unclaimed.

Yet even so, Zenith watched it. Towers were built on distant ridges to spy on comings and goings. Patrols were sent to monitor its waters from afar. No Zenithian captain worth their flag entered it willingly, but none could deny its strategic value: tucked just outside Zenith’s sphere of control, the bay offered sanctuary to any who dared to test the fleet’s dominion.

And now, a ship had.

The Dragon’s Belly, a pirate’s blade sharpened on the bones of better ships, had made its course for the bay. The Zenithians watched from afar—flagships afloat, steam valves hissing, engines idling like beasts in their cages. The flotilla had the numbers. It had the guns. But it did not have the will to follow. Not into that place.

The eyes of every sailor in the Zenithian fleet turned now to Homenmorto, its waves dappled gold by the dying sun, and the sliver of a ship threading the needle between ruin and escape.

It was not just a chase anymore.

It was a contest between Zenithian certainty and seaborne chaos—between a fleet that ruled the open seas and a bay that answered to none.

Tag; @Anarian Nensk