The Raven’s Shadow was not a particularly prominent vessel, and the crew left much to be desired on top of that. And even so, there was one specific little fucking shit they had picked up as a gunner. Entitled. Fucking. Prick. (Ignoring the fact that this man was older than Erskine himself. He was a dick.)
Erskine had hardly been aboard a day when some of the other members of the crew warned him about the gunner. It wasn’t much longer before he personally met Jack, and wondered how in the world he had managed to get the captain to agree to let him on. Had the captain really been that desperate?
Not only generally unpleasant to be around, trying to avail himself of others’ possessions, but also lazy. He thought this would be easy money. Thought he’d someday end up captain. Managing to tolerate him through the journey was trying. The dislike seemed to be mutual, luckily enough.
Erskine still decided to leave the crew as soon as he could.
They were supposed to reach port by morning, even with the storm that had whipped up in the middle of the night. This was not the reason Erskine had startled awake. Erskine had startled awake after a warning laid out in dreams- a dark shape looming over the horizon, blood flowing off the land and threatening to overtake the sea, buildings being completely unwound- their strings pulled toward the shape on the horizon. Erskine had woken coughing up seawater. He didn’t know how long had passed before he could get himself to search through the books he had brought with him, try to figure out what in the world this was about. Certainly, it had to mean something. There was no way it didn’t, with the nature of Eldershore. Not only the nature of the town, but the duty his family held. The answer was inconvenient. His uncle had missed a ritual. He would have to remedy it. Many of the ingredients would have to be substituted. There was already a list of suggested substitutions within the pages of his family grimoire. With the apparent chaos of other crew members rushing about the ship, performing the ritual shouldn’t be an issue. Picking a sacrifice definitely wasn’t an issue.
The storm and general din provided ample cover for dragging Jack to a space prepared for the ritual, bound and gagged. It didn’t make it any less nerve wracking. Hopefully no one else noticed he was missing until they had already docked. He’d have to find another ship either way.
It wouldn’t seem as if they did. Finding another crew should be easy, with his medical skillset.
