Chef Bryardee
King of Condiments
Charity in Truth Ketch | Will 3,657 The smell of sea salt was thick in the crisp air streaming through the docks of Avelyn. Kicking up every now and then, the cool breeze provided a consistent reprieve from the heat waves that went unabated by the clear cast, blue sky. Where one might’ve been able to enjoy an astoundingly beautiful perspective of the blue horizon stretching all the way left and right, there were instead bulky hulls, towering masts and a proverbial network of mooring lines obstructing that picturesque view. The wide boardwalk between the edge of the long piers and the first row of buildings was thronged with citizens, migrants and seafaring importers and exporters alike. Pushing this way and that past one another, their paces and temperaments varied between those enjoying a leisurely stroll along the bustling coastline and those with no time to waste on those dawdling pedestrians; dozens of merchants heaved fully-loaded pushcarts to and from the many moored vessels under the blazing heat while their ship captains casually discussed terms of commerce with the local capitalists. Wandering just outside of the stampede was one of those meandering fools that couldn’t help but get in the way. The tall, dark-skinned individual sauntered with both hands in the pockets of his faded blue jeans, each footfall of his light brown, nubuck work boots sliding slowly over the wooden planks. He wore a faded jean jacket with the sleeveless ripped off, leaving the edges frayed. There was a thin, white t-shirt underneath that which left the myriad of tattoos covering his long and lean arms for the world to see. His shaggy dreadlocks were tied to a bun atop his head, spilling down and around his head to rest over either collarbone. There was a silver autorevolver situated not so discretely at his waist. Pitch-tinted, square-framed sunglasses guarded against the brilliant sunlight coming in from his right. It made scanning the hull of each ship much easier than without. A very particular nickname was repeated over and over again in his head. It was difficult to catch past the throngs of sailors rushing up and down the docks, but one of the ships bore the name, Whale's Iris. It was a double-masted schooner with triangular sails. Although built to be a fishing vessel, in recent years and under the threat of increasing, younger competition, the captain had converted the Iris into a passenger ship. The Sea of Occidens was where he made the most of his money; due to the ever-present threat of scouting ophidians, even velen would often rather travel by ship, above the surface of the water. More importantly, there were always new people going to or coming from Terminus. Not everyone could afford to charter an airship, after all. The Whale's Iris was loading up on supplies in preparation for its next trek. This would be a longer one, hugging the coast of the Aridus and crossing through the Pelagia Empire on the way to Excelsa. It was expensive to dock unnecessarily, so the captain was hoping to bring enough rations and fresh water that they would only need to make a single stop before arriving in the walled city. Captain Pius Rayes stood on the docks in front of his ship, giving an approving nod as his crew worked. By late that afternoon, they'd be fully stocked and prepared for tomorrow's voyage. The aging captain was a barrel-chested man, obviously no stranger to hard work, but the blue and white uniform he wore was crisp, clean. Getting on in years, Rayes' hair was more grey than not, both atop his head and in the beard that reached to the top of his chest. After a life spent out in the sun, his skin was permanently darkened to a ruddy bronze. "Steady boys," Rayes yelled out. "Don't be rushing now, save that energy for tomorrow! We've a full allotment of passengers for this trip so I'll be needing all of you at your best!" The captain smiled and added, "That said, if you lot finish this before the sun goes down, I'll be buying the first round tonight!" There was a laugh and a cheer from the crew as they, contrary to his orders, picked up their pace. Down at the bottom of the long gangway, amidst the hustle-and-bustle thronging the long pier, the tall and dark-skinned individual stood out in both his repose and observant stare. Both hands in his pockets, Tycho moved his eyes from the namesake painted along the hull to the crewmembers rushing left and right, every which way across the main deck. Just by the look of them, Tycho wasn’t able to place the authoritative voice that came from on high. Scaling the gangway, a few glances were spared but no one addressed him initially. Moving boxes here and there, they were all dutifully focused on the task at hand. Looking around, though, it took Tycho only moments to find the man in charge with the sea captain’s coat on. Shifting his way through the traffic, staying mostly out of the way even as his short patience withered away, the bounty hunter casually approached Pius. “Captain Rayes...” "Aye?" the burly captain acknowledged, still watching his sailors at work. Rayes took a moment to look over to see who was talking, then turned and offered a hand and a smile. "Captain Pius Rayes of the Whale's Iris. I don't believe we've met. If you've come to charter passage, you may be out of luck -- t' ain't but so much a ship this size can carry, and we're all booked up." Rayes turned to his crew, saw one of them stumble with a crate. "'Ey, now, be..." By the time he started yelling, the man had regained his balance, so the captain waved it off. Turning back to Tycho, Rayes offered, "There's times when people get cold feet, though, so it might be worth your while to show up tomorrow before we set sail. If there's an open spot and you've got the coin, you're welcome aboard. Unless you weren't here to request passage?" A shallow grin found its way onto the newcomer’s expression, affirming the sea captain’s second assumption. After shaking the old man’s weathered hand, Tycho turned around and backpedaled toward the railing, moving clear of the Whale’s Iris’s busy crewmembers until his back was set against the railing. He observed the strenuous laboring happening before him and further out across the deck. Both amber eyes slowly floated upward, following the towering masts as they reached high into the clearcast blue overhead. Tracing the riggings on either side, quietly savoring the pungent smell of sea salt in the air, Tycho found himself unexpectedly jealous of the seafaring souls like the men surrounding him. “No, I’m not,” the man finally confirmed, eyes still forward. He reached into his pocket, revealing a folded piece of parchment. Saying nothing else, Tycho offered it up to the captain. Rayes took the paper with a huff and unfolded it. There was a flash of disappointment in his eyes and he let out a long-suffering sigh as he looked at the bounty notice for Amgine. "Damn fool if there ever was one," he muttered. Rayes shoved the paper back into Tycho's hands, suddenly seeming angrier. "And me as well, for believing him." The burly captain folded his arms and looked at Tycho, raising one eyebrow. "Well, go on, then. You got questions, get to asking them." Tycho parted his mouth to speak, his latent curiosity initially leading him away from his true objective, but he checked himself. It wasn’t easy to discern whether or not the look of consternation on the old man was indeed true or, as Delphina suggested of his relationship with the elusive machina, it was a farce to conceal the whereabouts of Tycho’s quarry. The gunsmith had half a mind to go below decks and scour the dozens upon dozens of passengers aboard the Iris to find out for himself. As always, though, Tycho preferred going with the direct approach firstly. It worked well enough with Delphina. “Believing him,” Tycho repeated, leaning an elbow against the wet railing. “About what?” "Shows up on these docks, round about two years ago now, maybe a little longer," Rayes says, chafing a bit. "Not too far from where we are now. Says he's worked his way up in the Commercium and they got a special contract from the Arcanum. Big to-do for the damned five hundredth Nocte Nils, right? "He puts my name out there, he says. Secrecy is important, he says. They need someone, nor a normal courier, to pick up a package from Excelsa and deliver it to Avelyn before winter." Rayes shakes his head. "I'm all excited, right? There's a lot of money in it for me, there's a lot of prestige on the table. Fell for his bit hook, line, and sinker. It shames me that I got poor Del involved -- I figured the Arcanum folks would like that, a second secret courier. What a fool." Nodding along as Rayes spoke, what he heard wasn’t a far cry from what he’d already assumed himself; where the sea captain sourced the pen from remained the most telling piece of the puzzle until now. Tycho suspected he was far from the tail end of a goose chase a myriad others had apparently been wise enough to leave behind, judging from how long the bounty had been active. “We all trust a fool at least once in our lives,” Tycho remarked. He pushed himself off the rails, and squared his shoulders with Rayes. “Delphina seemed to think y’all were a lot closer than that, though. Said, given y’alls relationship, you might be the one person that’d know where he’s at.” Before the captain could speak on that, he added, “You ever think he might’ve be involved with them?” "Them?" the captain repeated, confused. "Oh. The Astra whatevers. Truth be told, I hadn't heard of them before things went down. After all that happened, I've been hearing they were making trouble down in Prendere for several years, but nothing quite so major." Rayes grunted. "As to me and Amgy, aye. We go way back, the two of us. Never would have figured him for a shifty sort, no matter his name. Del's pa, too, since you seem to know her. And another. Four of us started out in Prendere, years back. Amgy was already pretty old, taught the rest of us everything he knew about business, law, and trading. Smart, even for a clockwork fellow." Here, the older man laughed and wagged a finger. "There was a time, after we bought our first ship -- even smaller than the Iris -- and were on our first trading voyage. We ran into pirates, if you can believe it. Amgy, he convinced us not to fight, said it would only make things worse. Then he talked to the captain, really sold the guy on how inexperienced and terrified we all were. Tough old sod, scars all over his arms, a pretty mean one on his face, doesn't look like he's buying any of it. Then all of a sudden he just tells his crew to leave the cargo, but says, 'We'll be taking all of your booze and rations for wasting our time.'" Rayes laughed again and shrugged. "We weren't that far from port, so it weren't leaving us in any danger. If we'd lost that cargo or the ship or any of our crew, though, like as not we'd never have gotten a second chance." The mirth faded as he glanced down at the paper in Tycho's hands. "Amgy was always like that, always the type to talk his way out of a situation. Never seen him throw a punch or even push someone. Hard to think of him being party to an assassination or being involved with revolutionary types." Rayes sighed, rubbing his brow. He was silent for a long moment. "But he was. Said as much himself. "Del's not far wrong, and I'll be straight with you: I wouldn't be saying this much if I thought it'd do you much good." The captain shrugged, looking back at his crew. "Sure you'd get what you're looking for from one of my crew, anywise. It wasn't until last Nocte Nils that I saw Amgy myself. Over a year since that assassination. I can't fathom it, but somehow he stayed in Terminus the whole time and never got caught. Comes to me and says he needs to get to Aridus, matter of life and death. I'm like to refuse, right? Far as I'm concerned, our friendship means I won't turn him in myself, but no way am I going to help him after the way he used me. But like I said, he tells me straight out that it was all true, he was involved with the Astras, but get this: he says no one was supposed to die. Someone changes the plan at the last minute, and it completely silences their message, he says. And if I don't get him to Aridus, it's going to happen again. "I still don't know if I shoulda, but I believed him. I dropped him off in Concha Litus, across the Occidens. That was half a year ago, now, and about two months ago, another pair came through asking similar questions. I told them the same thing." A sort of sinking feeling ballooned in the novice bounty hunter’s gut. Having unearthed more than he would’ve thought, and not at all what he would’ve expected, there were a myriad questions swimming through his head in the short silence that followed behind the captain’s revelations. Being the self-concerned narcissist and struggling entrepreneur that he was, the assassination attempt itself and all the details surrounding it and Astra either passed through one ear and out the other, or over his head altogether. Still more curious than he was provoked, Tycho absorbed that bit of information and moved on. He had what he needed, but Rayes was definitely a little more receptive than their mutual, aquatic acquaintance. “Alright.” Tycho turned on a heel, facing the Iris’s crew as they continue to toil away. He looked skyward at the crow’s nest, pensively, before asking, “He mention anywhere specific in Aridus? A town? Someone he knew there? Anybody you might think he’d be lookin’ for there?” Rayes shrugged. "Del's father is over there, not too far south of Concha Litus. Town of Alga Natans. His name's Squalus Muraena. The four of us were together for twenty-odd years, so it's possible he'd go looking. "More likely in my book, he'd be making his way to Eleutheria. The demvir, their cities are all sovereign, so if they choose to, they can grant him asylum, even from the Arcanum. Legally, no one would be able to arrest him, and even a bounty hunter'd have to be clever enough to either get him out of the city or not get caught. Ha, the worst we could do would be if the Commercium imposed some kind of trade sanctions, but they're all machines, what're we gonna do, starve 'em? They're already in the middle of a desert, they have to be pretty self-sufficient." The captain paused and seemed uncomfortable for a moment. "You know, kid, Eleutheria seems the most logical place to me, if he's in Aridus, but given the way he's pulled the wool over my eyes, I half wonder if he didn't just have me take him to Concha Litus to throw young dogs like you off his scent. He stayed in Terminus for a year with half the world looking for him, what's to stop him from sneaking onto any other boat where people don't know him, eh? But he came straight to me, didn't even try to hide. "I'd like to believe it's because he trusted me, but damn sure didn't trust me when he played me for a fool." The man with the long dreadlocks gave a thoughtful hum in response, though the sound was drowned out by all the commotion adjacent and the white water splashing against the hull down below. His rigid and speculative cast was hidden partially by the few strands framing his sweaty temples and pronounced cheekbones. Delphina mentioned Amgine wearing a different mask the last time he visited her shop; that would explain his uncanny ability in subterfuge. Such a simple deception very well meant he could easily work among those out for his head. It could even mean any one of the countless demvir Tycho or even Rayes had encountered in the last year might’ve been the three thousand-exa automaton himself. If not for the fact Amgine was purportedly harmless, the notion might’ve creeped Tycho out more than it already did. Up until a short few months before he picked up the bounty, Tycho was in Excelsa, searching the shadowy alleyways and reclusive complexes one like his quarry might’ve found safe haven in -- though his target at that point was one far more personal, and didn’t have a thousand-plus reward looming over his head. “Well, if he trusted you, it means you ain’t got shit to worry about,” Tycho surmised, thumbing his closely-shaven beard. “As far as anybody’s concerned, you’re just another somebody that got caught in the crossfire like she did.” He didn’t pause to consider what it might’ve sounded like -- the gunsmith assuming ill of the captain’s character merely by association without just cause -- but he let it go, simply hoping Rayes would as well. “He went to Delphina, askin’ about you. Didn’t say where he was going.” He shrugged. “Actually, I ain’t bother to ask if he did, but...” A deep sigh escaped his full lips, and his next words were spoken aloud but it was doubtful Rayes could tell whether or not they were directed at him or simply just vented for the world to hear. “Starting to wonder if this shit’s even worth it. Might just wait until they bump the bounty up again or somethin’. “I’ll probably spend more money travelin’ and lookin’ for him than I will bookin’ his ass and bringin’ ‘em in.” Stowing his complaints, the novice tracker continued to ruminate, conjecturing, “I don’t really know enough about them to say so matter of factly, but I doubt they’d do so much for someone who supposedly tried to kill the damn magister. The bounty says he’s wanted alive, so it ain’t like he’s in a lot of danger, necessarily.” Falling back against railing again, Tycho crossed his arms, looking up to admire the Iris once again. The numerous possibilities ran through his head. Eleutheria. Concha Litus. Anywhere else in the entire world. Without looking to him, he asked, “You know him best, cap, so I’ll bet on your instincts. Where am I going?” "Take your pick, because I've told you as best I can figure it. Regardless of where he went off to next, he stopped in Concha Litus. I'd ask around there, see if maybe anyone knows he hopped onto another ship straight away or if he trekked off south or headed west. The western trade routes end up turning south toward Eleutheria, and the southern ones will make their way all the way to Vanus Junction." Here, Rayes gave Tycho a sympathetic pat on the back. "And hey, if the trail dries up there, Concha's a relatively cheap place to visit and a short ride back home." The gunsmith gave a nod. “Yeah...” Tycho pushed himself forward, and slipped both hands back into his vest pockets again. He took a deep breath, reviewing everything he had learned so far and contemplating his next move. Concha Litus was another place the recluse had never been before, but Tycho prayed that would be as far as he needed to go to find the fugitive demvir. The remote, machina outpost might draw the line in the sand for him. Tycho used to prey upon travelling caravans journeying through the middle of nowhere with little to no hope of a nearby calvary coming to the rescue. He wasn’t too enthusiastic about voluntarily throwing himself in karma’s path. “Appreciate the help,” Tycho said, absently waving a hand in farewell over his shoulder. Then, he paused, shifting his chin toward his shoulder and asking, “You said he’s harmless, but the bounty’s been out for over a year now.” He swiveled his shoulder toward the captain, giving him a sideways glance. “You said yourself a few other people already went lookin’ for ‘em...” "Truth is, I just don't know anymore. If they're still on the trail, though, that gives you more of a lead to follow." With that, the captain stepped away and began calling out some encouragement to his crew, reminding them that drinks were on the line I they finished before the waning sunlight hit the water. Though he still felt a bit of loyalty to his old friend, he wasn't quite sure how much of the machina was still that old friend. It left him with some unsatisfying questions about the time they had spent together decades back. A low grunt came through the gunsmith’s pursed lips. Not what he was hoping for, but his arsenal was up for however hostile the demvir was or wasn’t; Tycho would stay at a tavern overnight, where his newly-crafted heavy rifle was safely stowed away. He regretted not working on the sidearm he drafted a few designs for the day before leaving the metropolis. Considerin what Rayes said about Eleutheria, Tycho began to consider what approach would be ‘clever’ enough to get in and out of there alive with the fugitive in tow. Turning his back to the captain of the Iris, the gunsmith bid him a final farewell. “Have a safe trip, cap...” |