Lucy had always been a smart, unruly little girl. Her mother died in childbirth, and she was named after her by her father, Brian Sawyer, a sturdy and jovial man, who despite this held no ill will against Lucy, and loved her dearly. He was a kind soul and a gracious, soft-spoken man, and he held a dear place in her heart. He was a fisherman, and Lucy remembers how, as a small child, she needed to help him make ends meet by assisting him in catching, gutting, sorting and selling the fish at the market. She didn't mind at all, though - in fact, all of her memories spending time with her father either on his boat or in the harbour of their small town are good ones.
Then, however, her life took a turn for the worse. Her father fell in love. She was disgusted by this, and jealous, too. Not to mention, her new 'step-mother' was an absolute witch. She was disgusted by her father's trade, and didn't like Lucy one bit, either. But her father was infatuated, and Lucy couldn't change his mind, despite all the pranks she pulled on her and trouble she got in to get her father's attention back. He always stayed kind to her and defended her behaviour to Dalia (his new love interest), even if behind closed doors, he looked at Lucy with hurt and disappointment in his eyes.
But, Dalia's patience was wearing thin. Lucy was in the way and kept dumping her nicest perfumes in the sea and ripping her best dresses. The girl had to go, even if her father refused to get rid of her. So, one day, Dalia arranged for Lucy to be taken away on a ship to be taught some manners. It was a school ship, and Lucy would be away for six months, giving her some much-needed peace and quiet. Brian was apprehensive about it, but he didn't have a lot of money, and Dalia was kindly offering to pay for all of Lucy's schooling, something he wanted desperately for her. And at least she'd be out at sea - she loved the sea.
Lucy begged, kicked and screamed. She didn't want to go to stupid school. But, it was no use. At nine years old she was sent off on the ship. The school was pleasant enough, although they were trying to teach her manners, which she hated, and the other children (boys and girls) were all upper-class snobs, which she hated even more. She didn't have much time to get used to it, though, as a month after her arrival, pirates chased them, hijacked them, boarded them, and pilfered them.
It was chaos. The school teachers had no idea how to fight, the children had never even had a scuffed knee, let alone experienced any real danger before. They submitted extremely quickly, letting the pirates take whatever they wanted from the ship, as long as the children weren't harmed. But, when one of the pirates, reeking of rum and with obscene breath, tried to take away Lucy's lucky coin that her father had gifted her when she left, she bit him, scratched him, kicked and screamed like a wild animal, and just wouldn't let go of the damned thing.
This amused the pirates. In a cruel twist of fate, they decided to take Lucy with them, and the teachers were powerless to stop them. She was thrown below deck and became the chore-girl for the crew, scrubbing the decks, cleaning the sleeping quarters, washing dishes. The work was never-ending and arduous - she hated it, but survived, sometimes sneaking away extra food, and still having some moments to enjoy the sea spray on her face.
She worked on the ship for years, and despite their cruelty, the pirates found themselves charmed by the little girl. She was fiery and free-spirited, qualities they could all recognise inside themselves. They began letting her climb in the sails and pretending not to notice the food going missing. They became almost amicable towards her, and they began to grow on her, too.
One day, when she was a young teenager, a fierce storm began to rip through the sea towards them. The pirates manned the sails, but the winds were strong and the rain made it almost impossible to see. One of the men let go of one of the ropes of the sails and Lucy, not stopping to think, jumped after it, nearly falling into the churning waters as she grabbed onto the rope, swung over the side of the ship, and then managed to regain her footing and hold on with all her might.
Quickly, the pirates came and relieved her of the weight, and she realised her hands were soaked with her blood, the rope having torn through her flesh. Then, before she knew what was happening and a little delirious, she was struck in the head by a mast and fell unconscious. The pirates quickly took her below deck and cared for her until she came to. After the ship was tied down properly and they had managed to wait out the storm, they bandaged her hands for her and commended her on her bravery, willpower and commitment to the crew. They christened her Vice, for her vice-like grip, and this is the moment she truly began to belong, and she began her road to becoming a pirate.
For years, she worked on the ship, her memories of her past life with her father hazy, the knock on her head giving her forgetful spells and black blotches. She remembered him, but not his name, the name of their hometown or how she could find him anymore. So, she embraced her life on the sea. The sea meant freedom, and she loved it. The pirates treated her well now, and on her 16th birthday, when she officially became one of them, they gifted her back her father's coin, and to this day she wears it with pride.
She sailed with Calypso's Thunder for many years, pillaging and plundering, even losing her leg in a struggle with an immense electric eel with huge, yellow eyes. Her crewmates managed to pull her back from its jaws, but she will always remember the way its eyes glowed and it seemed to almost grin at her with its sharp teeth as she was hauled away.
Anyway, she continued doing things any proper pirate does, until one day, when she was twenty, things yet again took a turn for the worse. Their ship was spotted by members of the Trident Clasp - pirate hunters who work for the Dawn Legion. They fought bravely, but ultimately, were apprehended. Some of her crewmates were killed while the rest, along with herself, was branded, shackled, and awaited their fate.
The mercenaries thought it would be funny to hang the pirates from their own mast. As the storm clouds gathered and the ocean began to swell, one by one they were dropped from it - her crewmates, her family. She was the fifth out of eight to go, and when she dropped, her neck didn't snap. Thunder rumbled as she desperately kept a vice grip on the rope around her neck, the noose burning into her flesh, struggling to breathe, when suddenly, there was a flash of light, blinding, and lightning struck the mast, something that must have happened a million times before - but not like this.
The mast splintered as Vice felt the electricity shoot right through her. Everything seemed to stop in time, the rain, everything, going silent as the drops floated in mid-air, her body filled with light and energy, and strangely, the pain was all gone. She felt warm bliss, peace.
Then, she hit the water, and everything came back. Her lungs burned from lack of oxygen, her throat ached from the noose, the water was icy cold all around her, her hands bloody from clawing at the rope, but mostly, she felt white-hot pain everywhere inside her from where the lightning had struck. She managed, somehow, to reach the surface, and heard screams as the ship had been damaged heavily by the splintered mast and the lightning had ignited the oil lamp, now smashed, hanging from it. She managed to grab onto a piece of wood and cling, as always, for dear life, hoisting herself onto it and trying desperately to remain conscious.
She didn't last long, because the next thing she remembers is washing up on the shore, legless and sunburnt. She managed to crawl to a piece of driftwood and hoist herself up, using it as a crutch as she hobbled onwards to the nearest town. She managed to obtain a peg leg and a weapon, and has been wandering ever since.
She expected the Trident Clasp to be able to find her quickly, using the magical brands on her palms, but to her surprise even as she walked past town guard, they seemed none the wiser (although, of course, suspicious, since she looked the part). She remained invisible. She soon discovered, however, that something had happened that night to give her strange, magical powers - parlor tricks, mostly, but it confused her. She had never experienced a connection to anything magical before. It felt like whatever being saved her life still loomed over her, watching her. When she used any of her powers, however, the brands lit up, and she didn't understand why.
She wandered, mostly staying near the coast and the seas, her true home, stealing a small boat of her own and sailing from port to port, sometimes walking to the next town over. When storms grew close or thunder chimed, she felt restless, like her blood bubbled inside her, like something was reaching out for her. One night, two months after what happened on the ship, she was walking through the rain, tired, muddy and cold, the sky bright with lightning and thunder, everything inside her feeling violent. At the end of the road, she saw a figure. She felt compelled to call out to them.
The dark, cloaked figure turned towards her, sharp, jagged teeth glinting in the lightning and reaching out a hand towards her, and bright, glowing yellow eyes from underneath the hood. She felt a pull, a familiarity, and a violent hunger. "What do you want from me?" she called out, feeling this was the being that had chosen her, that had been watching her. The creature's hand convulsed, pointing a long, sharp finger towards her. "You gave me this power? Why? Am I meant to do something? Did you see something in me?"
The creature laughs a disgusting chortle, like tar bubbling up from a pit. It shakes its head slowly. It speaks to her in an old, deep voice, but its mouth doesn't move, just booms inside her skull. "Hungry." She shouts at it, squinting in the rain and the lightning. "What? You... you need me to feed you?" It laughs again, like screeching inside her. "You are tasty. I came for the rest." She blinks, suddenly realising what this meant, and anger exploding from her. "You want to fucking EAT ME?!"
Then, by the next flash, it was gone. Still, the voice boomed. "Grow strong for me. Seasoned meat is always better."
Vice refuses to develop her powers, connecting the dots now and understanding what this creature chose her for from the start. The eyes were those of the very same eel that had taken her leg. It didn't care about her, it didn't save her for her own sake or because she was strong or because she was destined for something. It just liked the taste, and wanted the rest of its meal. Fuck that. Fucking fuck that.
In her travels, about a year and a half since the ordeal on the ship, she passed through the gnomish region of Yorhana, looking for work. In a small town called High Hierva, she met a soft-spoken, blushing, intelligent gnome named Lilna Ciderbrook, whose father she worked for doing a job in the area. She and Lilna spent some time together, and Vice grew to have quite the crush on her, although she's not sure if Lilna feels the same, and she feels quite flustered and embarrassed around her (she tries not to show it, though).
Lilna, as payment for Vice's services, built a beautiful prosthetic leg for her, powered both by complex gears and a little bit of magic. The leg means a lot to Vice, not just because it gave her, after all this time, the ability to run and walk and jump just like she used to, but also because Lilna is the one that made it for her. She has noticed, however, that interference from her magical abilities could make the leg malfunction, and she's postulated that perhaps the being that imbued her with her magical powers also interferes with the magic of her brands. She doesn't pretend to understand it, but it seems to make sense.
After leaving Yorhana, Vice decided to head back to the Meyani coasts to see if she couldn't make some coin. A good amount of time went by as she messed around, scraping together money from small jobs, most of which weren't legal. After a month of this, a man she knew who goes by the name of Thorly Combs, drunk and losing at their game of cards, decides to throw in what he calls a 'valuable map'. Vice is intrigued, and after winning it Thorly, desperate to get it back, tries to tell her it's worthless, that he stole it from some Trident Clasp members. She is even more interested - after a short amount of deliberation, asking people around town about the location the map points to, she discovers treasure from a long time ago may be buried there, in a place called the Saltstone Mines. They say that when the Dawn Legion overthrew Issenkald, the mine was closed down, but that no one had ever been able to come back for the riches. She deduced that the map, scrawled on a dark brown fur she'd never seen used as parchment before, must have been created by whoever hid it there so they could find it back.
She jumped on the ship that departed for the north as soon as she could, a large dwarven barge that was making it's way to trade livestock with the few dwarven cities that still stand in the north. After about of week of travel northwards over the Sindevian Ocean, a week she spent sneaking around the ship unnoticed, the temperature began to drop and she realized she wasn't really properly equipped for this type of weather - she was forced to steal some warmer clothes from the ship's crew before taking a small rowboat and heading towards the coast in the dead of night. Fortunately, the night was calm - no storms, like there had been a few night back. Just as she approached the cove, she saw a ship, moored to the side of the jagged coastline precariously. Instantly recognizing it as a Trident Clasp ship, Vice realized she must not be the only one looking for this treasure.
Carefully bringing her small boat up on the coast, making sure to stay hidden from the large ship and it's crew, Vice spent the night exhausted and huddled by herself, warmed by the thick furs she wore. Awakening early the next morning, she snuck past the group of sailors sleeping on the coast and down into the enormous strip mine, far bigger than she had imagined it to be. Large statues dotted the hillside as a soft, cold wind blew across the snow. She was further north than she had ever been before. She carefully climbed down the icy rocks and headed into the shaft specified on the map, eager to find what she was looking for and then get the hell out of there.
Underground, things proved even more dangerous. Strange sounds and echoes filled the caves, and she couldn't shake the feeling that something was behind her. Looking at the walls of the cave didn't fill her with confidence, either, as they seemed unstable and dangerously close to collapsing, many of the wooden supports being rotten and damaged. After a while of walking and following the map, one of the indicated passages was blocked off. Vice wouldn't give up that easily, however, and she tried to find an alternative way around, using the map and her relative location to figure out where this treasure would be.
Out of nowhere, a horrifying snarl startled her, and a bipedal fishlike creature wielding a jagged spear attacked her. It's skin was sleek and pale, it's eyes large and bulbous, but a sense of fury and hunger seemed to drive it's body into attacking her faster and faster. It was an arduous fight, but in the end Vice was able to defeat the creature without suffering any injuries. As she stood for a moment, panting, she heard more snarls from where she came from, and she saw three more appear and give chase. She turned to run, dashing around a corner, before a loud bang echoed through the caves, originating not far behind her, and she heard cries of pain from the fish people. A quick glance around the corner revealed a pair of men making quick work of the three fish creatures, and her eyes widened as she recognized the blue and yellow of the Trident Clasp. The man, a human with a trimmed beard, wielded a peperbox and used it to kill the fish people swiftly. The other figure appeared to be smaller and robed, possibly some kind of magic user? More joined them, at least four or five other figures.
Shocked, Vice turned back around the corner and decided she needed to get out of her as soon as possible. But if she could just get that treasure... At this point, she heard the men talk, and she was even more shocked to realize she knew one of them - Royce Bentham. She didn't recognize him with the beard, but it made sense now. Years ago, she had spent a night with him. He had been somewhat annoying, and a real child despite his age, but he had been excited to set out onto the seas... Did he really join the Trident Clasp? She had left him the morning after, she remembered now, dashing his hopes of a longer relationship.
She turned to get out, but her movement was noticed, and she heard Royce shout if there was anyone there. Without a thought, she bolted, knowing if she was caught by these men they wouldn't forgive a pirate like her. Running as fast as she could, she managed to lose the men, but in the process, she lost her place on the map too. Her only hope was finding one of the landmarks noted on the map, or a way out of these mines. Somewhat shaken, Vice saunters onwards. She stops when she hears sounds ahead, snarling and chewing noises. Putting out her own light, she sneaks closer, realizing there are at least three fish creatures up ahead that seem to be moving around and fighting something, although she is not sure what. At this moment, another sound distracts her, a sound that comes from the other direction, and an unexpected coincidence occurs.
Then, however, her life took a turn for the worse. Her father fell in love. She was disgusted by this, and jealous, too. Not to mention, her new 'step-mother' was an absolute witch. She was disgusted by her father's trade, and didn't like Lucy one bit, either. But her father was infatuated, and Lucy couldn't change his mind, despite all the pranks she pulled on her and trouble she got in to get her father's attention back. He always stayed kind to her and defended her behaviour to Dalia (his new love interest), even if behind closed doors, he looked at Lucy with hurt and disappointment in his eyes.
But, Dalia's patience was wearing thin. Lucy was in the way and kept dumping her nicest perfumes in the sea and ripping her best dresses. The girl had to go, even if her father refused to get rid of her. So, one day, Dalia arranged for Lucy to be taken away on a ship to be taught some manners. It was a school ship, and Lucy would be away for six months, giving her some much-needed peace and quiet. Brian was apprehensive about it, but he didn't have a lot of money, and Dalia was kindly offering to pay for all of Lucy's schooling, something he wanted desperately for her. And at least she'd be out at sea - she loved the sea.
Lucy begged, kicked and screamed. She didn't want to go to stupid school. But, it was no use. At nine years old she was sent off on the ship. The school was pleasant enough, although they were trying to teach her manners, which she hated, and the other children (boys and girls) were all upper-class snobs, which she hated even more. She didn't have much time to get used to it, though, as a month after her arrival, pirates chased them, hijacked them, boarded them, and pilfered them.
It was chaos. The school teachers had no idea how to fight, the children had never even had a scuffed knee, let alone experienced any real danger before. They submitted extremely quickly, letting the pirates take whatever they wanted from the ship, as long as the children weren't harmed. But, when one of the pirates, reeking of rum and with obscene breath, tried to take away Lucy's lucky coin that her father had gifted her when she left, she bit him, scratched him, kicked and screamed like a wild animal, and just wouldn't let go of the damned thing.
This amused the pirates. In a cruel twist of fate, they decided to take Lucy with them, and the teachers were powerless to stop them. She was thrown below deck and became the chore-girl for the crew, scrubbing the decks, cleaning the sleeping quarters, washing dishes. The work was never-ending and arduous - she hated it, but survived, sometimes sneaking away extra food, and still having some moments to enjoy the sea spray on her face.
She worked on the ship for years, and despite their cruelty, the pirates found themselves charmed by the little girl. She was fiery and free-spirited, qualities they could all recognise inside themselves. They began letting her climb in the sails and pretending not to notice the food going missing. They became almost amicable towards her, and they began to grow on her, too.
One day, when she was a young teenager, a fierce storm began to rip through the sea towards them. The pirates manned the sails, but the winds were strong and the rain made it almost impossible to see. One of the men let go of one of the ropes of the sails and Lucy, not stopping to think, jumped after it, nearly falling into the churning waters as she grabbed onto the rope, swung over the side of the ship, and then managed to regain her footing and hold on with all her might.
Quickly, the pirates came and relieved her of the weight, and she realised her hands were soaked with her blood, the rope having torn through her flesh. Then, before she knew what was happening and a little delirious, she was struck in the head by a mast and fell unconscious. The pirates quickly took her below deck and cared for her until she came to. After the ship was tied down properly and they had managed to wait out the storm, they bandaged her hands for her and commended her on her bravery, willpower and commitment to the crew. They christened her Vice, for her vice-like grip, and this is the moment she truly began to belong, and she began her road to becoming a pirate.
For years, she worked on the ship, her memories of her past life with her father hazy, the knock on her head giving her forgetful spells and black blotches. She remembered him, but not his name, the name of their hometown or how she could find him anymore. So, she embraced her life on the sea. The sea meant freedom, and she loved it. The pirates treated her well now, and on her 16th birthday, when she officially became one of them, they gifted her back her father's coin, and to this day she wears it with pride.
She sailed with Calypso's Thunder for many years, pillaging and plundering, even losing her leg in a struggle with an immense electric eel with huge, yellow eyes. Her crewmates managed to pull her back from its jaws, but she will always remember the way its eyes glowed and it seemed to almost grin at her with its sharp teeth as she was hauled away.
Anyway, she continued doing things any proper pirate does, until one day, when she was twenty, things yet again took a turn for the worse. Their ship was spotted by members of the Trident Clasp - pirate hunters who work for the Dawn Legion. They fought bravely, but ultimately, were apprehended. Some of her crewmates were killed while the rest, along with herself, was branded, shackled, and awaited their fate.
The mercenaries thought it would be funny to hang the pirates from their own mast. As the storm clouds gathered and the ocean began to swell, one by one they were dropped from it - her crewmates, her family. She was the fifth out of eight to go, and when she dropped, her neck didn't snap. Thunder rumbled as she desperately kept a vice grip on the rope around her neck, the noose burning into her flesh, struggling to breathe, when suddenly, there was a flash of light, blinding, and lightning struck the mast, something that must have happened a million times before - but not like this.
The mast splintered as Vice felt the electricity shoot right through her. Everything seemed to stop in time, the rain, everything, going silent as the drops floated in mid-air, her body filled with light and energy, and strangely, the pain was all gone. She felt warm bliss, peace.
Then, she hit the water, and everything came back. Her lungs burned from lack of oxygen, her throat ached from the noose, the water was icy cold all around her, her hands bloody from clawing at the rope, but mostly, she felt white-hot pain everywhere inside her from where the lightning had struck. She managed, somehow, to reach the surface, and heard screams as the ship had been damaged heavily by the splintered mast and the lightning had ignited the oil lamp, now smashed, hanging from it. She managed to grab onto a piece of wood and cling, as always, for dear life, hoisting herself onto it and trying desperately to remain conscious.
She didn't last long, because the next thing she remembers is washing up on the shore, legless and sunburnt. She managed to crawl to a piece of driftwood and hoist herself up, using it as a crutch as she hobbled onwards to the nearest town. She managed to obtain a peg leg and a weapon, and has been wandering ever since.
She expected the Trident Clasp to be able to find her quickly, using the magical brands on her palms, but to her surprise even as she walked past town guard, they seemed none the wiser (although, of course, suspicious, since she looked the part). She remained invisible. She soon discovered, however, that something had happened that night to give her strange, magical powers - parlor tricks, mostly, but it confused her. She had never experienced a connection to anything magical before. It felt like whatever being saved her life still loomed over her, watching her. When she used any of her powers, however, the brands lit up, and she didn't understand why.
She wandered, mostly staying near the coast and the seas, her true home, stealing a small boat of her own and sailing from port to port, sometimes walking to the next town over. When storms grew close or thunder chimed, she felt restless, like her blood bubbled inside her, like something was reaching out for her. One night, two months after what happened on the ship, she was walking through the rain, tired, muddy and cold, the sky bright with lightning and thunder, everything inside her feeling violent. At the end of the road, she saw a figure. She felt compelled to call out to them.
The dark, cloaked figure turned towards her, sharp, jagged teeth glinting in the lightning and reaching out a hand towards her, and bright, glowing yellow eyes from underneath the hood. She felt a pull, a familiarity, and a violent hunger. "What do you want from me?" she called out, feeling this was the being that had chosen her, that had been watching her. The creature's hand convulsed, pointing a long, sharp finger towards her. "You gave me this power? Why? Am I meant to do something? Did you see something in me?"
The creature laughs a disgusting chortle, like tar bubbling up from a pit. It shakes its head slowly. It speaks to her in an old, deep voice, but its mouth doesn't move, just booms inside her skull. "Hungry." She shouts at it, squinting in the rain and the lightning. "What? You... you need me to feed you?" It laughs again, like screeching inside her. "You are tasty. I came for the rest." She blinks, suddenly realising what this meant, and anger exploding from her. "You want to fucking EAT ME?!"
Then, by the next flash, it was gone. Still, the voice boomed. "Grow strong for me. Seasoned meat is always better."
Vice refuses to develop her powers, connecting the dots now and understanding what this creature chose her for from the start. The eyes were those of the very same eel that had taken her leg. It didn't care about her, it didn't save her for her own sake or because she was strong or because she was destined for something. It just liked the taste, and wanted the rest of its meal. Fuck that. Fucking fuck that.
In her travels, about a year and a half since the ordeal on the ship, she passed through the gnomish region of Yorhana, looking for work. In a small town called High Hierva, she met a soft-spoken, blushing, intelligent gnome named Lilna Ciderbrook, whose father she worked for doing a job in the area. She and Lilna spent some time together, and Vice grew to have quite the crush on her, although she's not sure if Lilna feels the same, and she feels quite flustered and embarrassed around her (she tries not to show it, though).
Lilna, as payment for Vice's services, built a beautiful prosthetic leg for her, powered both by complex gears and a little bit of magic. The leg means a lot to Vice, not just because it gave her, after all this time, the ability to run and walk and jump just like she used to, but also because Lilna is the one that made it for her. She has noticed, however, that interference from her magical abilities could make the leg malfunction, and she's postulated that perhaps the being that imbued her with her magical powers also interferes with the magic of her brands. She doesn't pretend to understand it, but it seems to make sense.
After leaving Yorhana, Vice decided to head back to the Meyani coasts to see if she couldn't make some coin. A good amount of time went by as she messed around, scraping together money from small jobs, most of which weren't legal. After a month of this, a man she knew who goes by the name of Thorly Combs, drunk and losing at their game of cards, decides to throw in what he calls a 'valuable map'. Vice is intrigued, and after winning it Thorly, desperate to get it back, tries to tell her it's worthless, that he stole it from some Trident Clasp members. She is even more interested - after a short amount of deliberation, asking people around town about the location the map points to, she discovers treasure from a long time ago may be buried there, in a place called the Saltstone Mines. They say that when the Dawn Legion overthrew Issenkald, the mine was closed down, but that no one had ever been able to come back for the riches. She deduced that the map, scrawled on a dark brown fur she'd never seen used as parchment before, must have been created by whoever hid it there so they could find it back.
She jumped on the ship that departed for the north as soon as she could, a large dwarven barge that was making it's way to trade livestock with the few dwarven cities that still stand in the north. After about of week of travel northwards over the Sindevian Ocean, a week she spent sneaking around the ship unnoticed, the temperature began to drop and she realized she wasn't really properly equipped for this type of weather - she was forced to steal some warmer clothes from the ship's crew before taking a small rowboat and heading towards the coast in the dead of night. Fortunately, the night was calm - no storms, like there had been a few night back. Just as she approached the cove, she saw a ship, moored to the side of the jagged coastline precariously. Instantly recognizing it as a Trident Clasp ship, Vice realized she must not be the only one looking for this treasure.
Carefully bringing her small boat up on the coast, making sure to stay hidden from the large ship and it's crew, Vice spent the night exhausted and huddled by herself, warmed by the thick furs she wore. Awakening early the next morning, she snuck past the group of sailors sleeping on the coast and down into the enormous strip mine, far bigger than she had imagined it to be. Large statues dotted the hillside as a soft, cold wind blew across the snow. She was further north than she had ever been before. She carefully climbed down the icy rocks and headed into the shaft specified on the map, eager to find what she was looking for and then get the hell out of there.
Underground, things proved even more dangerous. Strange sounds and echoes filled the caves, and she couldn't shake the feeling that something was behind her. Looking at the walls of the cave didn't fill her with confidence, either, as they seemed unstable and dangerously close to collapsing, many of the wooden supports being rotten and damaged. After a while of walking and following the map, one of the indicated passages was blocked off. Vice wouldn't give up that easily, however, and she tried to find an alternative way around, using the map and her relative location to figure out where this treasure would be.
Out of nowhere, a horrifying snarl startled her, and a bipedal fishlike creature wielding a jagged spear attacked her. It's skin was sleek and pale, it's eyes large and bulbous, but a sense of fury and hunger seemed to drive it's body into attacking her faster and faster. It was an arduous fight, but in the end Vice was able to defeat the creature without suffering any injuries. As she stood for a moment, panting, she heard more snarls from where she came from, and she saw three more appear and give chase. She turned to run, dashing around a corner, before a loud bang echoed through the caves, originating not far behind her, and she heard cries of pain from the fish people. A quick glance around the corner revealed a pair of men making quick work of the three fish creatures, and her eyes widened as she recognized the blue and yellow of the Trident Clasp. The man, a human with a trimmed beard, wielded a peperbox and used it to kill the fish people swiftly. The other figure appeared to be smaller and robed, possibly some kind of magic user? More joined them, at least four or five other figures.
Shocked, Vice turned back around the corner and decided she needed to get out of her as soon as possible. But if she could just get that treasure... At this point, she heard the men talk, and she was even more shocked to realize she knew one of them - Royce Bentham. She didn't recognize him with the beard, but it made sense now. Years ago, she had spent a night with him. He had been somewhat annoying, and a real child despite his age, but he had been excited to set out onto the seas... Did he really join the Trident Clasp? She had left him the morning after, she remembered now, dashing his hopes of a longer relationship.
She turned to get out, but her movement was noticed, and she heard Royce shout if there was anyone there. Without a thought, she bolted, knowing if she was caught by these men they wouldn't forgive a pirate like her. Running as fast as she could, she managed to lose the men, but in the process, she lost her place on the map too. Her only hope was finding one of the landmarks noted on the map, or a way out of these mines. Somewhat shaken, Vice saunters onwards. She stops when she hears sounds ahead, snarling and chewing noises. Putting out her own light, she sneaks closer, realizing there are at least three fish creatures up ahead that seem to be moving around and fighting something, although she is not sure what. At this moment, another sound distracts her, a sound that comes from the other direction, and an unexpected coincidence occurs.
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