Gathering Mist​

While all those events on the Ironbell were taking place, somewhere beyond the sea to the north, in the Lotusia Kingdom, two certain Seekers were taking care of a certain mission...

"There it is, Miss Raiko!" A boy, only 14 years old, whispered as he pointed towards a strange creature.

Raiko, who was hiding in the same bush as the boy, narrowed her dark blue eyes at the creature. "That's a Mossback Boar." She whispered back.

The thing they were looking at was a Mossback Boar, creatures which got their names from the moss and small plants which grow across their backs, were known for being extremely territorial.

While they weren't the most scary monster in the lands, they could still cause a problem for villages unlucky enough to be built near their nesting grounds. Handling it was their little mission for today.

"Alright, I'll go take care of it!" The boy got his sword ready. It was slightly larger than the short blade Raiko herself used, but it was similar enough in style. "You just watch, Miss Raiko!" He spoke confidently, as if he had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

"Don't act recklessly, Kaito. You should be strong enough to take it out otherwise." Raiko gripped his shoulder before he could charge forward.

She did trust his skills, but she's also aware how overconfidence can be fatal.

The boy, Kaito, had short black hair and sharp hazel eyes which never seemed to settle down, always flickering between curiosity and determination. Right now, those hazel eyes looked back at Raiko.

"Don't worry, I got this!" Kaito flashed a grin. It was only lasted for two seconds, before he burst from the bush and Raiko could say anything else.

The Mossback Boar's head snapped up immediately, small eyes locking onto the sudden movement, and it let out a low huffing snort that sent tufts of moss and dirt scattering from its back.

It was large, larger than most boars, easily the size of a small cart, with thick curved tusks yellowed with age and a hide so overgrown with moss and creeping vines that it looked less like an animal and more like a hill that had decided to get up and walk around.

It charged at the young teen boy approaching, ready for battle.

Kaito met it head on, which Raiko privately thought was not the wisest opening move, but the boy had been improving steadily over the past year and she'd long since learned that letting him make his own mistakes within reason was part of how he learned at all.

"Kaito has been a Monster Seeker for a year now. He should be able to handle this." Raiko thought to herself, watching the battle. If things were to go south, she could always jump in and help.

Kaito sidestepped at the last possible moment, the boar's tusks nearly grazing his thigh.

The boy's sword was trailing lightning as he moved, a faint crackle of pale yellow sparks running along the blade's edge, nowhere near as dense or controlled as Raiko's own magic, nor do their lightnings even share the same color, but it was unmistakably the same family of power. He drove the blade into the boar's flank as it thundered past him.

The lightning discharged on contact. The boar shrieked, stumbling sideways, moss smoking faintly where the blade had connected.

"Got it!" Kaito called out, already moving to follow up.

"It's not down yet." Raiko said from the bush. "Pay attention."

The boar spun faster than its size suggested it should be able to, tusks swinging in a low arc that Kaito only barely cleared by throwing himself backward. He hit the ground, rolled, and was back on his feet in time to see the boar charging again.

This time he didn't meet it head on.

He waited. Raiko could see him counting, could see the small flex of concentration in his shoulders, and at the last moment he dropped low, sliding beneath the boar's tusks entirely, and drove his sword upward into its underside as he passed beneath it.

The lightning this time was stronger. Brighter and prettier. It arced through the boar's body and the creature went down in a heap of moss and dust, legs twitching once before going still.

The clearing went quiet.

Kaito stood up, brushing dirt off his clothes, and turned around with the biggest grin Raiko had seen on him in weeks. "Did you see that?! The sliding thing! I've been practicing that!"

"I saw." Raiko said, stepping out of the bush. The morning sun caught the strands of her black hair clinging to her neck as she moved, the thin fabric of her sleeveless tunic shifting against the curve of her hips with every step.

"And the lightning was way stronger that time, right? RIGHT?" Kaito bounced on his heels, cheeks flushed with exertion and excitement.

"It was stronger." Raiko agreed. "It shows your Seeker license isn't for nothing."

Kaito practically glowed. He sheathed his sword with a flourish that was only slightly undercut by him almost missing the sheath entirely on the first attempt. He couldn't help but be happy, it's not everyday his dear teacher, Raiko, pays him a compliment.

Raiko walked over and looked down at the boar. Dead. Clean kill, more or less, with only the one wasted opening charge to account for. Better than his usual ratio.

"Good." She said simply.

For Kaito, this was apparently equivalent to a parade being thrown in his honor. He practically vibrated.

"Does this mean I'm ready?" Katio asked. "For the monster you became a Seeker to hunt, I mean?"

"...No, Kaito. You aren't anywhere close. Not yet." Raiko sighed.

Kaito couldn't hide his disappointment. He had really hoped he would be good enough for her by now. Good enough to be by her side.

"Let's head home." Raiko said, already turning to leave. "Our mission in this area is done."

Home, for Raiko, was a sprawling estate on the outskirts of the capital. It was more house than mansion in her own estimation, though most people who saw it for the first time used the word mansion regardless, usually accompanied by some variation of 'You live HERE?!'

It had belonged to her family for generations, large enough that entire wings of it went unused, with gardens that required more staff to maintain than Raiko felt entirely comfortable with but had long since stopped arguing about.

A boy was waiting for them at the gate when they arrived, sitting on the low stone wall with a book open on his knees that he closed the moment he saw them coming.

He was younger than Kaito, still 12, with well groomed light purple hair and fine, delicate features that somewhat made him look more like a pretty girl than a boy at first glance. His expression of perpetual mild anxiety only added to the impression. His name was Toma, and he had been with the household for about few years now.

"Lady Raiko!" Toma hopped down from the wall. "You're back early. Did it go well?"

"Boar's dead." Kaito announced, before Raiko could answer. "I got it in one hit. Well, two hits. The first one didn't count."

"It counted." Raiko said, flicking Kaito's forehead as she passed him.

The boy winced but didn't argue, rubbing the spot of where he'd been flicked. "It barely counted..." He whispered, blushing a little.

Toma looked between them with the patient expression of someone who had learned to let this particular dynamic run its course. "I got the baths ready." He began. "Figured you'd both want one after being out in the woods all day."

"You're a lifesaver, Toma!" Kaito spoke, already heading toward the house at considerably increased speed.

"Thank you, Toma. You are very kind." Raiko said, more quietly, and Toma's anxious expression eased very slightly into something warmer, the way it always did when she thanked him for things, as if he still wasn't quite used to it.

The bathhouse was one of the older parts of the estate, built generations ago by someone with more money than restraint, with separate sides for men and women divided by a stone wall. It was thick enough that you couldn't hear that well from the other side, unless someone was crazy enough to try and climb it (Which Kaito had done few times to spy on Raiko, much to her annoyance).

She sank into the water with the particular full body exhale of someone who had spent the day in a forest and was only now registering how much of the forest she'd brought back with her. The water was hot enough to ease the dull ache in her shoulders from the day's tracking, She watched as the steam slowly rose around her towards the wooden ceiling.

On the other side of the wall, considerably less gracefully, Kaito had just discovered that the water was, in fact, hot, and was making a series of noises about it.

"Ow — ow — okay — ow—" Kaito hissed between clenched teeth as he inched his way into the scalding water, limbs stiff.

"It's the same temperature it always is." Raiko called through the wall, not particularly loudly, but the acoustics of the bathhouse carried voices easily enough.

"I KNOW that, I'm just adjusting!" Kaito called back, with the dignity of someone who had absolutely yelped a moment ago and was hoping it hadn't been heard.

Sadly for him, It had been heard.

Raiko let her eyes close and leaned her head back against the smooth stone edge of the bath. "So Kaito wishes to join me on my hunt for The Hollow One... I don't want to involve him in that." She thought to herself.

She knew that student of hers had talent, so it's not that she doubted his abilities, but she also simply didn't wish to put him in any harm's way. This wasn't his fight, and it didn't need to be.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, a naked Toma has slipped into the bath, the scent of lavender oil clinging to his skin as he submerged himself silently.

Kaito couldn't help but glance over. Toma's lean frame glistened under the warm light. If Kaito didn't see what was between Toma's legs right now, he really could have been fooled into thinking the boy was a girl for a second.

"Did you just oil yourself?" Kaito muttered.

"I'm just here to make sure you don't spy on Lady Raiko again." Toma murmured, fingers trailing through the water as he tilted his head back against the stone, exposing the delicate line of his throat.

"Spy?!" Kaito wasn't happy about being called out like that. "I was just..."

"You climbed it." Toma said, with the weary patience of someone repeating themselves for the hundredth time. "Last month. And the month before that. I am simply here to make sure it doesn't become a habit."

"It's NOT a habit!" Kaito hissed, sinking lower into the water, his face going red. "I was just— there was a noise! I was checking for danger! If Miss Raiko was in danger, I had to go help..."

"You climbed the wall, looked over for several minutes, and then said—and I quote—'wow.'" Toma's voice remained soft. For some reason, Kaito was one of the few people Toma wasn't so anxious around.

"I DIDN'T SAY THAT OUT LOUD—" Kaito's voice cracked mid-protest.

"You did. I was standing right there." Toma's lips curled slightly, he was finding all of this amusing.

"Wait, and why were YOU standing right there?!" Kaito splashed water in Toma's direction.

"To make sure you didn't climb the wall." Toma said, with the serene logic of someone who considered this entirely self-evident. "Which, as we've established, you did anyway. So now I have to sit closer."

Kaito spluttered, sliding down until the water covered his mouth, his words coming out in an indignant gurgle. "I hate it here." Truth to be told, getting a look or two at Raiko was one of his favorite things about bath time.

Was it a little creepy? Maybe, but he would always think "I'm a boy growing into a man, and she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Who wouldn't look?!" Whenever guilt clawed at him.

Toma watched Kaito sink deeper into the water, the steam curling around them both. "If you're that pent up... O-Oh, never mind." He murmured, voice low enough that Raiko wouldn't catch it through the wall, but in the end not even Kaito heard.

Back on the other side of the wall, Raiko's eyes were still closed, but her mouth had curved very slightly into something that wasn't quite a smile but was adjacent to one. She had heard all of that.

"I can't tell if the boys are getting along or not..." She couldn't help but let out a long, slow sigh, as she thought that to herself.

It was Toma who found her afterward, once both baths had emptied and the evening had settled in.

He found her in the small study off the main hall, where she usually retreated after missions to deal with correspondence she'd been putting off. A cup of tea had sat cooling at her elbow, untouched.

There was a soft knock against the open doorframe. "Lady Raiko!" Toma stood there, his hair still damp from the bath. There was small rolled parchment held carefully in both hands. "A hawk came in while you were out. I would have brought it sooner, but you were still bathing."

"It's fine, Toma." Raiko held out her hand.

He crossed the room and placed the letter in her palm, then hovered for a moment in the particular way he did when he wasn't sure whether he was meant to leave yet or not.

The seal was plain. No noble crest, no official sigil, and it was surely not from the Seekers Association. It was just a simple press of wax, the kind anyone might use. Raiko turned it over once, didn't recognize it immediately, and broke it open.

The handwriting inside was blunt and a little cramped. The writing of someone who didn't do much of it and resented every minute it took.

"Raiko —

Figured you'd want to know. The twins are taking the Seeker Exam. Left for Port Calden a few days back, on a ship called the Ironbell, out of our docks, which I bet is still under that fool.

Didn't try to stop them. Wouldn't have worked anyway, and you know as well as I do that staying wasn't really an option for them anymore. I imagine the words you left the boy with that day were taken to heart.

Figured you'd want to know."

— Soro Ashren

"...So they are taking the Seeker Exam then..." She said, quietly, mostly to herself.

"Lady Raiko, is something wrong?" Toma asked, still in the room.

"It's nothing urgent." Raiko answered.

Which was true, strictly speaking. There was nothing in the letter demanding immediate action.

"If they're taking the exam, I suppose I should make use of some contacts of mine..." She thought to herself, folding the letter shut. "I can only hope Maya's power won't attract anything else to her."

And speaking of the twins, back on the Ironbell, it was the start of day 6 of their journey on it.

By midmorning, the chalk number on the lower corridor wall read 55. All of them out of the 227 candidates who wished to become Seekers.

Mika stood in front of it with Maya, Percy and Sera, and none of them said anything for a moment. The number itself didn't feel real, and yet...

"That's 14 more than last night..." Maya said quietly. She had hoped her eyes were playing tricks on her, that her sleepy eyes still needed more time to adjust, but the number was undeniable. It was freshly marked in white against the damp wood.

"It's getting faster." Sera said. Not a question, just simply an observation. "Or the mist is getting stronger. Both outcomes aren't good either way."

Above them, on deck, the sound of raised voices carried down through the boards. More of them than usual, and angrier.

The deck was chaos.

Not the loud argumentative chaos of the past two days, where people had complained and theorized about the strange situation they were in, only for it to go nowhere. This was different. This had direction. A cluster of candidates near the lifeboats were in the middle of an actual confrontation with crew members, voices raised, hands gesturing toward the small wooden boats lashed along the rail.

"—not staying on this ship another night, I don't care what the captain says—"

"You can't just take a lifeboat, that's not how this works—"

"Then how DOES it work?! More people fell asleep overnight and nobody's telling us why! How many is it now, 50?!"

"It's actually 55." Someone corrected, grimly.

"Ok, 55 then!! And the only thing anyone's told us is ' they are stable'! I have a wife waiting for me back home, I'm not ending up like them!"

A woman nearby, gripping a small bag she'd clearly already packed, was nodding along furiously. "My brother said the same thing. There's a fishing village two days back, we could make it there—"

"Two days in an open boat in THIS?" Another man gestured at the mist, which sat thick and low across the water in every direction, swallowing the horizon entirely. "You'll drown before the mist gets you."

"Better than just laying down and waiting for it!"

The arguments were loud and everywhere. Every person had a different idea on how they wanted to handle the situation.

Mika pushed through the edge of the crowd with Maya close behind him, holding his hand. He told her to never let him go, as he's afraid to lose sight of her in this crowd. Percy and Sera were trailing slightly behind them. Mika counted heads quickly, at least a dozen people clustered around the lifeboats, with more drifting over from elsewhere on deck, drawn by the noise the way crowds always were.

"They're actually going to do it." Maya said, her voice low. "They're going to leave." She couldn't really blame them, heck, a part of her was wondering if staying was the right choice at all.

"Some of them, yes." Sera nodded. "Not all. But some."

Percy was looking at the crowd with a thoughtful expression. "If a dozen people leave in lifeboats and the mist follows the ship rather than the boats..." He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to.

They all knew what it meant.

"That's not our problem to solve." Mika said, though he didn't sound entirely convinced of it. "We need to talk to the captain. Now. Before this gets worse. We need to know what he thinks of all of this, and then decide what to do from there."

They had pretty quickly figured out that none of the new people who fell asleep were part of the Ironbell crew. At this point, it couldn't be just a coincidence. Every single one had been a Seeker candidate, and with each passing night, the pattern became more obvious. Something or someone was targeting them specifically.

The four of them pushed back through the crowd, leaving the argument over the lifeboats behind them, though the noise of it followed them most of the way up toward the helm, raised voices carrying strangely through the mist the way sound did out here, distorted and directionless.

Captain Gaff was exactly where Mika expected him to be: At the wheel, pipe between his teeth, looking out at the grey water with an expression that suggested the chaos behind him on deck was, at most, a minor inconvenience to his afternoon. He had been at the sea for most of his life. It would take fare more than the chaos happening right now to distract him.

What was surprising, however, was the lack of guards around him. Perhaps all the crew was too busy dealing with the growing panic below. The captain exhaled smoke through his nose, the pipe bobbing slightly as he glanced at their approach. "Hmmm?"

"Captain Gaff." Mika said, stopping a respectful distance away. Maya was close behind him. Percy and Sera flanked slightly, Sera's bible tucked under one arm, Percy's hands in his pockets in a way that looked relaxed and wasn't.

They weren't sure what the Captain was about to tell them, which made them all uncomfortable.

"If you're here about the lifeboats, take it up with whoever's down there shouting about it. Not my problem if people want to drown faster than they'd otherwise die." Gaff muttered around his pipe, exhaling smoke through his nose like an irritable dragon.

"We're not here about the lifeboats." Mika corrected. "We're here about the crew. Your crew."

That got his attention. Gaff turned, slowly, the pipe shifting between his teeth as his eyes moved over the four of them, before settling on Mika. He wasn't expecting a group of kids such as these to come to him directly for answers. He wasn't sure if it made them foolish or brave.

"...What the hell are you getting at, boy?" Gaff growled around his pipe, the smoke curling from his lips.

"Around 55 candidates can't wake up as of now." Mika said. "Zero of them are crew. In the 6 days since I've been on this ship, not one of your crew has fallen asleep and stayed that way. Only candidates. Only people hoping to take the exam." He held Gaff's gaze, which took more effort than he wanted to admit. "That's not luck, is it?"

Gaff was quiet for a long moment. The pipe didn't move. Behind them, the argument over the lifeboats had reached some kind of conclusion.

Mika could hear the particular splash and creak of a boat being lowered, and didn't look back to confirm it. He didn't need too to know that some people have dropped out.

"You hear that? That's the sound of cowards jumping ship." Gaff spat, the pipe trembling between his teeth as the distant splash echoed across the deck. "Fuckin' idiots. It's not too late to join them, you know."

Sera opened her mouth. "Captain, with all due respect—" Only for him to cut her off.

"The crew." Gaff said finally, slowly. "Isn't taking the exam."

"Not taking the exam?" Maya repeated. Her voice came out steadier than she expected. "Is that your answer to my brother's question?"

A muscle moved in Gaff's jaw. He looked at her for a moment, really looked, the way he hadn't looked at any of them yet, and something in his expression shifted slightly. Recalculation, maybe. The look of a man revising his estimate of who he was talking to. He wasn't sure who this girl is, but even he could feel something from her.

"Yeah, girlie. Not taking the exam." Gaff's pipe clattered against his teeth as he spoke, the ember glowing angrily. "Don't make me repeat my words."

"So who is it?" Percy asked this time around. His voice was light, but his golden eyes weren't. "Whoever's doing this. They're a candidate, same as the rest of us. Heading to Port Calden same as everyone else." He gestured vaguely toward the deck, toward the sound of the second lifeboat being readied. "And they're thinning the field. Before it even starts. Isn't that right?"

Gaff took the pipe out of his mouth. He looked at it for a moment, the way he always did, and then he looked back at the four of them.

"Smart lad. I was told the crew wouldn't be affected." He explained, for once. "I wasn't told why, and I didn't ask, because if the people on this boat can't survive this, they would never survive the Seekers Exam. It's better they drop out now and not waste anyone's time." He put the pipe back between his teeth. "That's all I know, and that's all I'm going to say. We reach Port Calden in a couple of days. What candidates do to each other isn't my problem."

"Not your problem, huh? So it's our problem alone, is what you're saying." Mika's fingers twitched. He wasn't sure what he expected, but he had hoped it wouldn't be this.

He almost wished he had brought his spear along, but also perhaps it was better he didn't. Something told him attack the captain of the ship would get him quickly kicked off of it.

"You heard me, boy." Gaff said, without any particular cruelty, which somehow made it worse. He turned back to the wheel. "That's all I have for you. Try your best not to be dead by the time we arrive at our destination, and if you can't handle this mist, get off my ship!"

The conversation was, apparently, over.

They walked away from the helm in silence. Behind them, the second lifeboat hit the water with a heavy splash, and the sound of it being rowed away faded quickly into the mist, swallowed whole within minutes.

"So he doesn't plan on getting involved..." Percy said eventually, once they were out of earshot. "I take it he doesn't care how many make it to the exam. I can only assume he gets paid to reach the location of the exam, not necessarily how many candidates he delivers alive."

"Either way..." Sera began. "It confirms what we already suspected. This is deliberate. Someone planned this, and we need to find them and deliver our judgment upon them." She gripped the cross hanging from her neck, her fingers tightening around it.

Now that they had a better idea what was going on, it was time to figure out what they should do about it.

First thing first, they wanted to find out how many have left the ship.

After asking around, the crew told them about 30 people dropped out.

And during all that mess, the number of people asleep went up from 55 to 60.

Meaning, 90 candidates out of the 227 are now out of the picture for good.

The four of them sat with that number for a while, perched along the lower deck railing where the air was at least marginally clearer than the corridors below. Nobody said much. There wasn't much left to say that hadn't already been said.

"I wish it wasn't so, but 90 is no small number." Percy said eventually, mostly to break the silence. "That's nearly half of us."

"It's not nearly half." Sera corrected, doing the math in her head. "It's a little over a third."

"...Well, It feels like nearly half." Percy muttered, kicking his heels against the railing.

"Feelings aren't math, Percy." Sera sighed. She really didn't see much in him, but she knew now wasn't the time to be picky about who to work with.

"No," Percy agreed. "But they're more fun to argue about!"

It wasn't much of a joke, but it was enough to make Maya's mouth twitch despite everything, and even Mika managed something that wasn't quite a laugh but was enough.

"Not to bring the mood down again, but.. You all know what it we must do now, right?" Mika asked, once again wishing inside his mind he had brought his spear along with him.

"...We must find the person behind the mist. We can't let them continue this." Maya's voice was quiet but sharp. "I can never forgive them for using water magic, even if it was a twisted variant, to harm others like this..."

To Maya, ever since she was a young girl, the idea of water magic has always been that of healing magic. The fact it could be manifested in someone in such a twisted and different way shocked her.

After all that was said, they split the rest of the afternoon between trying to be useful and trying to simply hold themselves together, which on a ship like this, had started to feel like the same task.

Maya went and checked on Bina again quickly, out of habit more than hope at this point. Still breathing. Still gone somewhere her healer's senses couldn't follow.

Mika ran towards his room and got his spear ready. He noticed none of his roommates were inside the bunk, including Drav, they probably are panicking somewhere else on the Ironbell, or at least, that's what he thought.

Sera, meanwhile, read her bible in a corner of the deck where she could see most of the ship at once. It was her way of trying to keep an eye out on anyone who acts strangely, while also getting to pray.

Percy somehow found himself close to Sera the whole time, which was probably not an accident.

"You pick your spots strategically!" He spoke, settling beside her without asking.

"I pick spots where people don't bother me." Sera said. "Or so I thought. You're currently disproving that."

"I contain multitudes!" Percy responded back. "Some of them bothersome."

Sera turned a page and said nothing. She really couldn't stand him, but there were bigger fish to fry at the moment.

"...So, is there anyone you suspect to be this mist mage?" Percy asked, curious what the older girl's answer will be. "Something tells me they wouldn't confess even if we asked them."

"You might find it hard to believe, but for a moment, I suspected Maya." Sera murmured without looking up from her scripture, her thumb tracing the edge of a page where the ink had bled slightly from sea damp.

Percy's eyebrows shot up. "Huh?! No way! Why would you suspect a cute girl like that?!"

"...You don't feel it, do you? The magical power she radiates. It's overwhelming... " Sera finally glanced up, her green eyes sharp and a little cold. "But I stopped suspecting her once I noticed how worried she was for Bina. I couldn't believe it was all an act."

"...Do you think the person behind this mist also feels whatever it is you feel from Maya?" Percy asked, rubbing his arms against the sudden chill that crept up his spine, whether from Sera's words or the ever-present damp, he couldn't tell.

"Now that you mention it... It wouldn't surprise me if that was the case." Was all Sera said, her mind wondering off somewhere else.

Sometime later, once the group got together back again... They started talking about what possible ways they could try and catch the culprit.

During those discussions, something happened.

It was Maya who noticed Drav first, in the late afternoon, though she didn't say anything about it right away.

He was up near the rigging, higher than most candidates bothered to climb, sitting in the crook where one of the lower masts met its supporting beam.

From up there he had a clear view of most of the deck, the clusters of candidates, the chalk number being checked obsessively by passersby, the four of them sitting near the railing.

He wasn't doing anything. Wasn't approaching anyone, wasn't speaking to anyone. Just sitting, watching, as if he was someone who had nowhere else to be and nothing was needed from him.

Maya followed his line of sight without meaning to and found, with a small cold drop in her stomach, that it was directed roughly toward them.

She didn't point him out. She just shifted slightly closer to Mika, who noticed, he always noticed, and followed her gaze upward.

His jaw tightened. He didn't say anything either. He had hoped Drav was one of the many who had dropped out earlier in the day.

The twins looked at each other for a second, and then, when they looked back up, Drav was gone, as if he was never there.

"Huh? He's gone?" Maya thought to herself. She didn't know when he'd left. That bothered her more than him being there in the first place.

And that wasn't all.

"Mika, Percy... I don't think you two should sleep in your room tonight." Maya murmured, fingers tightening around her brother's sleeve.

"Huh? How come?" Percy blinked, then followed Maya's gaze to the empty rigging above.

"I think... I found out who the person behind this mist is." Was all Maya said, her fingers curling tighter around Mika's sleeve like she was afraid he'd vanish if she let go. "It's someone who's been watching me for a while. It's Drav. I felt it just now, the same feeling I get from the mist. I felt it from him."

Percy didn't know what to say. He was almost dumbfounded that someone who he had shared a room with all this time, was, in fact, the culprit behind this mess they were in.

While Maya was talking to her friends, Drav had managed to find a quiet corner of the lower deck, away from everyone.

He leaned against the hull with his arms crossed, looking out at the mist he'd built drifting low across the black water, patient and obedient, exactly the way he'd shaped it to be.

"What a beautiful misty night today is..." He thought to himself, a smug look on his face. "Did I make it too obvious? Should I have played more under the raider for longer? Nah. 90 are down, much more to go... It's still not enough, but it's close." Drav murmured. "Soon enough, that girl... Will be mine. I can't let such a jewel go free. I'd be a fool to do so."

He knew Mika, the jewel's brother, would be annoying to deal with, but he wasn't worried.

"I'm sure of it. She sensed me just now, and if she did, she's going to tell that brother of hers who the one behind the mist is. Oh well, it was about time for the game to begin anyway." Drav sighed, rolling his shoulders as he stepped away from the hull.

His boots made no sound against the damp wood, a habit from years of moving unseen.

The rest of the night passed without incident, though none of the four of them slept easily.

Mika and Percy did, in the end, abandon their usual cabin. Cord was tracked down and badgered into submission somewhere around midnight, grudgingly allowed them to bring their things into a room which found itself empty after everyone in it dropped off the ship.

Mika sat against the door with his spear across his knees again. Percy, for once, didn't make a single joke, at least not yet, as he settled down beside him with his back to the wall.

"Guess we won't be sharing a bed tonight, huh? Shame." Percy whispered. "I'll miss it."

"It's no time for jokes!" Mika hissed back, gripping his spear tighter as the ship groaned around them. "...You believe her?" Mika asked quietly, at some point. "About Drav."

"I don't have a reason not to believe her. That guy has always been weird. Yes, he's been my roommate for a while longer than you, but I never liked him." Percy's usual playfulness was gone, replaced by a quiet tension.

Mika nodded slowly in the dark. He was happy to know they believed in his sister, but he wasn't about to show them that.

Day 7 began grey and quiet, the mist no thinner than it had been the night before, and if anything, it became heavier.

Maya woke early, as she had two mornings running now, and lay still for a moment listening to the others breathe around her. One of her roommates left yesterday, but the others were still here. It was a small comfort for her being in a room full of people instead of being on her own.

She pressed her palm against the cold porthole glass and reached outward. There was no mistaking it now. She was sure who was behind this, now she just had to stop him.

What she, and everyone else aboard the Ironbell, did not yet know was that something deep beneath the sea was stirring awake, and it had already started watching them.