The shore, glimpsed through distant sea glass and hope on the eighth morning, proves to be a bitter illusion.
By the ninth day, the screaming gale dies away completely, leaving behind a heavy, smothering blanket of pale grey fog that hangs motionless over the sea. The water beneath the heavy oak hulls turns eerily calm and shallow, taking on a murky, jade-green hue. The four massive galleons—the Julia, the Cealina, the Maria, and the Amelia—drift at a agonizing crawl, their tattered canvas sails hanging limp against the dripping rigging. The silence across the fleet is absolute, broken only by the rhythmic drop of condensation from the yardarms and the soft, unnatural lap of still water against the bow.
As the pale morning sun begins to pierce the thick mist on the tenth day, golden rays burn through the grey shroud, illuminating the quiet sea. The galleons slow almost to a complete halt, their heavy rudders shuddering as strange, shimmering aquatic figures break the glassy surface, surrounding the four wooden warships in a wide, tightening circle.
They are not the delicate, gentle sea maidens of earthly fairy tales. These are the lethal, battle-hardened warriors of the Agena Chiefdom. Their sleek, powerful bodies are covered in thick, iridescent scales that glisten with hues of deep emerald, sapphire, and obsidian in the sunlight. Muscular torsos fade into long, muscular serpentine tails equipped with razor-sharp caudal fins that slice effortlessly through the water. Webbed fingers end in elongated, bone-white claws capable of tearing leather and flesh, while slick, dark hair falls around sharp, predatory faces. Across their torsos, they wear crude harness-straps fashioned from cured shark hide and dried sea-kelp, bearing heavy quivers of bone-tipped darts and jagged harpoons forged from sea-dragon ribs.
The leader of the aquatic warband swims up directly to the starboard side of the flagship Julia. Her scales are a deep, bruised violet, her sharp jawline scarred by old combat wounds. She thrusts her powerful tail through the water, lifting her upper body high out of the bay, her yellow, slit-pupiled eyes fixing upon the quarterdeck. She grips a long, iron-hard bone spear tipped with a jagged manta-ray barb, her webbed claws digging into the polished shaft.
When she speaks, her voice echoes across the still water in an ancient, harsh dialect—a guttural, clicking tongue that sounds like grinding coral and booming ocean surges.
"Halt, land-crawlers!" her voice booms, carrying an eerie, resonant vibration that rattles the wooden gunports of the Julia. "You drift through the sacred reefs of the Agena Chiefdom! Blood has been spilled upon these waters, and blood must be paid before your timber monsters take another span!"
Up on the quarterdeck, the female captain's face flushes a deep, angry red. Her thick veins bulge along her neck, her hands gripping the oak ship's wheel so hard the wood creaks under her palms. She spits furiously over the side, her boots thudding hard against the deck planks.
"Run out the broadside cannons!" the captain roars, her voice rough and wild as she turns toward the gundeck hatch. "Load with canister and grape! I'll not be held hostage by overgrown fish in our own coastal waters!"
Down below, gunport lids slam open with heavy wooden thuds. The iron snouts of twenty heavy cannons run out through the black openings, their ropes snapping taut as the crew frantically primes the touchholes.
"Captain, wait!" Lourdes shouts, leaping up the short flight of quarterdeck stairs two at a time. She steps directly between the enraged captain and the ship's wheel, her sharp, angular face set in a stern, unyielding expression. "We cannot waste powder, shot, or men in a sea fight right now! We need every single sword intact for Sapocitradansia!"
Aldo steps up quietly alongside Lourdes, his face pale and unreadable, his dark eyes calmly scanning the dozens of iridescent heads floating in the water around the four hulls. He gives a slow, firm nod.
"Conserve force," Aldo says, his voice flat, steady, and devoid of heat. "Negotiate."
The captain lets out an enraged grunt, her chest heaving, but she forcibly checks her momentum. She stomps over to the wooden railing, leaning her broad chest far over the side to glare down at the purple-scaled mermaid leader below.
"What blood-payment do you speak of, creature?" the captain screams down into the water, her voice trembling with suppressed rage. "The Republic of Ofliran has no quarrel with the Agena! We are traders and soldiers of the deep sea!"
The mermaid leader hisses, a spray of seawater flying from her sharp, pointed teeth. Her slit-pupiled eyes flash with an ancient, burning hatred as she thrusts her bone spear high into the air, pointing its jagged barb directly at the Julia's dark oak figurehead.
"Lies!" the leader shrieks, her voice echoing off the hulls of the four ships. "You ride in the timber ships of Bormon! The blood of five thousand Agena warriors spilled upon these very reefs screams for vengeance! The Kingdom of Bormon must pay its debt!"
On the crowded main deck below, the mercenaries and earthling slave-soldiers look at each other in utter, bewildered confusion. Men scratch their heads, muttering under their breath as they glance back and forth between the armed mermaids and their own officers.
"Who the hell is Bormon?" Hano mutters, pushing his sliding spectacles up his nose with a smudged finger as he peers over the bulwark.
Lei Delun steps quietly up to the wooden railing behind Hano, his hands tucked neatly into the wide sleeves of his long robe. He looks down at the agitated mermaids with a quiet, solemn expression.
"Bormon was an ancient human kingdom that once ruled along the Gertrudian coast," Lei Delun explains softly, his calm voice soothing the tense air around the young boys. "It collapsed roughly fifteen hundred to eleven hundred years ago—long before the Republic of Ofliran was ever conceived."
Comtois narrows his dark eyes, his brow furrowing as his mind rapidly works through the historical timeline.
"Wait a second..." Comtois says, his voice dropping as he processes the math. "Fifteen hundred years ago? The current calendar year in this world is 1300 A.H.M.—After Human Migration! That means Bormon existed even before the main human migration wave crossed over to Valoria thirteen hundred years ago!"
Down in the green water, the mermaid leader continues her bitter grievance, her voice rising in a shrill, piercing cadence that makes the sailors cover their ears. She recounts how the ancient Kings of Bormon had forged a treacherous alliance with the Agena, only to secretly arm the Sahuagins—the vicious, razor-toothed goblins of the deep sea—with iron blades and heavy nets. The Bormon fleet had driven the Agena from their ancestral coral reefs, tricking them into sending their finest warriors into a deadly ambush where thousands were slaughtered in a single night of blood and foam.
"Bormon has been dust for twelve centuries!" the female captain screams back furiously, her last shred of patience snapping like a brittle hemp cord. She shakes her heavy fist at the sea. "The Republic of Ofliran owes you nothing for ancient history, you scaled devil! Get out of our way before I paint this bay red with your blood!"
Around the four galleons, the mermaids raise their bone spears in unison, their powerful tails churning the sea into a froth of white foam. They let out a chilling, high-pitched war cry that echoes off the fog banks, their webbed claws tightening on their weapons as they prepare to dive beneath the hulls to cut the rudders.
The tension on deck breaks like a drawn bowstring. The gunners blow on their slow-matches, the glowing coals sparkling in the mist as they hover inches above the cannon touchholes.
Before the captain can give the final order to fire, Aldo steps forward calmly. His face is completely emotionless. He reaches inside his heavy woolen vest, pulls out a small, supple leather pouch bound with silver thread, and unties the drawstring with a swift flick of his fingers.
He steps up to the wooden bulwark, raises his hand high, and tosses the entire pouch far out into the ocean.
The leather pouch bursts open in mid-air, scattering dozens of heavy, gleaming gold solidi across the sky. The coins catch the bright sunlight, spinning and shimmering like falling stars before hitting the jade water with a series of sharp, rhythmic splashes.
The heavy gold coins sink slowly through the crystal-clear water, catching the light as they drift down toward the white sand sea floor below.
The mermaid leader freezes mid-shriek. Her yellow, slit-pupiled eyes track the falling gold as it glitters in the emerald depths. She looks up at Aldo, her sharp features tightening in a mixture of surprise, suspicion, and cold calculation.
Without another word, the leader raises her clawed hand, signaling to her floating warriors. With a synchronized, fluid splash, the dozens of iridescent figures dive backward into the ocean, their long tails flashing once against the surface before vanishing completely into the dark blue depths.
The silence returns to the bay, heavy and absolute.
The female captain lets out a breath she seems to have been holding for a thousand years. She turns her head slowly toward Aldo, staring at the small teenage commander with a mixture of utter disbelief and quiet respect.
"You just threw thirty Croeseids into the ocean, kid," the captain grunts, shaking her head as she wipes salt spray from her brow.
"Thirty gold Croeseids is a tiny fraction of our remaining pay," Aldo replies flatly, turning his back to the sea and adjusting the collar of his coat. "A battle with the Agena would have cost us fifty gunpowder charges, three hundred iron balls, and the lives of twenty men we cannot replace before Sapocitradansia. It was a bargain. Most importantly, it is my coins, not yours."
The captain stares at him for a moment longer, then breaks into a short, rough chuckle. She turns toward her crew, her booming voice restoring order across the ship.
"Stand down the guns!" she bellows. "Raise the sails! We still have a continent to reach!"
The four heavy galleons creak as their sails catch the rising coastal wind, pushing slowly out of the foggy bay and continuing their long voyage toward the unknown shore.