The Vipers' Cove

Flax had found that coin in his hand, deep inside of his pocket where it turned over in the fingers and the thumb absently rubbed the imprint. "Aye well, I'm not akin to losing the gem she was and could be. I'm not giving up on her yet, but we -will- need aid." A rogue nation of pirates might even the odds, though. "I've considered...If we could recover the lost pieces we could offer them to those who could defend her." He pulled hi out since not a soul was on the streets near them, "There are seven of these, only Blackstone and myself hold responsive coins now." He either didn't know how it worked or wasn't willing to say out there. The look he gave it might urge one to lean towards the former though.

"Oh, I'm not saying to give up, just that even now it's not completely useless. Responsive--magical, then? Some sort of ward-key?"

The young Malache shook his head, "I've not a clue what all this thing does, but I do know what it's not doing..." He closed his fingers around it for a moment before reaching up to slide it into the inner chest pocket of his coat. "The one who gave me mine is gone with the others. I'm fairly sure they didn't run." He was certain but couldn't prove it so he -said- one thing and read the latter. "The Privateers Republic-" Neither a republic nor comprised of privateers, mind. "-were each formidable in their own rights. In some cases a whole crew is gone, leaving their ships to rest untouched." The isle wasn't large enough to lose that many people on.

"That's more than just vaguely disturbing. You mentioned the Naga the other evening--do we at least know which direction they're coming from? Has any scouting been done?"

Flaxin shook his head, "Aye but with little use. They come from all directions." They were on an island, after all. "There are ships attacked en route by sea all around as well but to the north, we fare worse. Most won't venture out now at all and I can't blame them." There were some gang-like movements, sure, but the civis weren't into that kind of shenanigans. "The people of Stonewater will fight if need be but the at least half of those that are left won't be more than fodder if we do."

"Sounds like it's on us to clear out the problem, then, if we want this place to come back. Or on you, rather: I can't swim."

"I know the reefs are riddled with caverns as are the shorelines. If they're here on the isle then we've yet to find them there. Someone ran their ship right up into the goddamned reef last week I saw. Reports said they don't remember much but there were more eerie songs and fog. They thought they were guided by the lighthouse but no one's willing to even go out there to keep it lit since the old guy out there went missing too."

"So now it's a hazard to navigation, too," Sam said with a sigh. "Great. Between that and what our friend said the other day, I'd move this up the priority list."

Flax nodded, "Aye, that's why I'm here. I knew it was bad but I hadn't been here as much lately. I thought..." Well, it was so fast it had to be an exaggeration. Not that they could have done anything in their situations prior. "If we don't move we'll lose this place...I swore I'd serve Stonewater Bay's interests as long as it served ours and I didn't mean I would run in times of trouble." The spirit of his words had referred to their betrayal, not a rough patch of water. "This isn't what I know how to do though...If my uncle shows his face here he'll be hung. Assuming there are enough people to hang him."

"I would imagine those who remain would be grateful enough over not being eaten to forgive any rescuer, no matter their identity. Nothing breeds welcome like desperation. I wish I could be more help in the fighting itself, but with it being underwater...like I said, I can't swim. Do you guys have some sort of control room? I could run that, free up someone better suited to the combat end of things."

Malache lofted a brow at his comrade with an incredulous snort, "Underwater? We'd be fools to go into the sea right now, I'm no master strategist but anyone can see the sea has turned nasty to us. She won't be our ally as it is and, without the key pieces we can't raise the main defenses of the port and we have no access to the keep where the Lady supposedly has secured herself away." He nearly snarled up the road as he said it, but he had no argument to give on the rest of it. It was true, they'd won soured hearts easily when the right situation came to hand. They knew better than to let something like this pass if they could deal with it.

"The priority would seem to be reclaiming those pieces, then, but if the Naga have captured--and likely killed, they're not really the sort to take prisoners often--the holders, that necessarily means a venture into their domain. Unless you intend to lay some sort of trap for them on land?"

Captain Malache didn't know if a trap would work or not but he had considered it. "We don't know if it's the pieces they're after, but we -do- have some bait left..." He and Kevin, though, that was pretty much it. He wasn't -actually- sure if Keven -had- a piece but he suspected he did.

Sam shakes his head vehemently. "--you? No. Absolutely not, as your bodyguard I absolutely forbid it. We'll think of something else."

Flax sighed, amused by the use of the word, "...forbid?" He was probably not supposed to be smiling like that and the higher his brow and ears perked, the more tempted he was. "I'll entertain other ideas but you -do- know you've chosen to guard a rather hands-on sort of fellow, don't you?"

"Oh, I've no doubt it will alter your plans none at all. But it gives me plenty of room to say 'I told you so' after and gloat over having been right all along and be hopeful that you'll listen a bit better the next time. Where, once again, I'll be disappointed."

Flax pulled the grin that had crept in into a smirk as he pulled a smoke free and leaned into the rail on his forearms to light it. "I'm glad you've come to terms with it then. You'll be surprised how often I fail to learn in certain circumstances." Come on now, Sam, a little danger never hurt anyone. "I'd rather go smarter than harder though, so I assure you there will be a plan if it comes to that."

Sam snorts a bit. "There's nothing for pragmatism like a few years guarding Wrynns. Light, it's worse than trying to catch a wave, and they're slippier than a greased hog to boot."

Malache chuckled, "Well I'll try not to leave you behind and we both know eventually I'll run out of breath and fall over anyway." Ah but that was a bit dark and it turned his smirk into something wry as his eye shifted out to the streets that were all but abandoned in the night. "It is likely up to us, though. I can't imagine the Alliance would suddenly take interest in what is now not only a near-forgotten but also -failing- island port. There are individuals we could reach out to I imagine." He could call out to any number of them but nothing was ever so simple as that. Then there was the song. He could hear it even then, though it wasn't likely Sam could. Maybe though, it was difficult to tell or guess what he could or couldn't hear. It pierced through the whispers like a harpoon through the depths but brought them all screaming in its wake. It was as mesmerizing as it was horrific and it had begun to tug bits and pieces of his attention free. It was with a rather absent voice then, that he added, "...Do you...hear that..?"

Sam looks up the road. "Hear what--is someone calling for one of us?"

Flaxin strained as if he did, indeed, hear something. He pushed up off the rail and came down around the steps into the abandoned nighttime market but he stopped there looking for the source. He couldn't figure out which direction it was coming from, as soon as he thought he had it he'd be drawn another way. This all resulted in a rather cautious rooting in place after the third pass. He...Really looked a bit like a lunatic down there.

Sam fetches up his lance and vaults down off the rail. "What do you hear?" he asks, following Flaxin around.

Flax felt a bit like a lunatic, too, really. All things considered, he looked down upon himself with a building awareness. He came to the conclusion that he might possibly be losing his mind as he studied Same there in the half-light of torches cast about by coastal winds. "I don't know..." He did know, but he didn't know if he was hearing it or just losing his mind again. He slowed his own heavy breath as he tried to center, reaching for the goggles at his hip. "...singing...?" He had to be losing it. No one in their right minds would be out singing in the middle of the night. Not here. "You...You don't...?" He asked that one as if he already suspected the answer and said suspicions were running him like a long-tailed cat in a room full of ravenous worgs. He took a few steps one way and then paused, straining before he shifted towards the courtyard and then fell still again to try and catch the fleeting tease. Taunt. He wasn't in a spell but he was very much snatched hold of by his own dangerous curiosities.

"Singing? I don't think Naga sing--but there are these *things* in Kul Tiras that sing, I've heard the sailors talking about them. Sirens? They sing to lure people in. No clue if they're related to Naga or not--Ryleyth, were *you* singing?"

Ryleyth blinked for a moment. "Lovely greeting...But no. I haven't sung since weeks hence back in the cove, and before that when I played my harp and nearly broke it on an errant Illidari's horns." He huffed indignantly, finishing his approach with a touch of apprehension.

Sam leans on his lance. "Who's singing, then, because I don't hear it. And how are you? Have you chosen a place in Boralus yet?"

Flax wasn't greeting Ryley, though his gaze did pass over or through him as he meandered like a lost old man about the empty market. It began to die off, and he was akin to follow, though which way? If it had been an attempt to lure him it had gone horribly, for there was no way of telling which way to even go. That voice, it echoed off the stones and the inside of his skull. It took hold of his ribcage and slowly squeezed the breath from him, or so he might describe it. There obviously no grip upon him and he was -holding- his breath to the outside observer. Just...Staring past them to the shore beyond.

Ryleyth raised a brow, eyeing the Captain for a moment longer as he sidled up next to Sam. His ears twitched on occasion as if straining to hear whatever it was that tormented Flaxin, Though sea foam eyes shimmered in confusion. At the next comment from Sam, his ears twitched in the human's direction. "I have thought of a few places, though they warrant more exploration. What in the world is wrong with Flaxin?"

"He's hearing singing, of all things. We've been talking about the Naga infestation mostly, and a minute or two before you walked up, he started hearing the voices. No idea if it's male or female, or what the song is..."

"Talking about Naga...and hearing voices."

Sam nods. "Yeah. Bit creepy."

Ryleyth sighed quietly, before closing his eyes for a moment. The area nearest him began to warm slightly, his aura becoming warmer. but not uncomfortably so. When his eyes opened again, they were golden and glowed with flame. He seemed to concentrate all the more, ears twitching as his lips moved without sound, attempting to track nearby magic.

Sam watches Ryleyth carefully but makes no sound so as not to disturb...whatever he's doing.

Flax breathed, slowly stepping back a few aces as he struggled past the haze of wherever his mind had gone. He wasn't back yet, gaze shifting as if he were watching motes or sunspots dance...But he was beginning to hear them again.

Ryleyth snapped his gaze to Flaxin after a few moments, before a hiss of breath left his lips. "It's not external. He is being...taunted? Tormented? From within."

Was. Flax was being tormented or taunted from within. In a way. He was shaking free of the thick, foggy webbing that had held him there. He put his eye on Sam with little focus but there was sharpness once more by the time he shifted to Ryley a moment later. A slow breath went in through his nose...And out. His head bowed and he counted backward in his head, listening to the beat of the lapping waves. Those were real, he knew that much.

Sam turns his gaze back to Flaxin. "Is it related to...to the other thing that's affecting him, do you think? After the issues he had here the other week, that would be very concerning, that it seems to get worse at the Bay specifically."

Ryley nodded quietly. "I can hear the specific beat of his heart, Sam...It is...shifting back to normal now, however." His golden orbs shimmered, before falling back to their previously seafoam glow, his aura cooling slightly once more.

Sam reaches out towards Flaxin, taking the nearer hand between his own, tapping a thumb along the backs of his knuckles arrhythmically: touch, the great grounder, and a hope that the lack of a pattern will break through the beat of the song.

Flax muttered for them that they could stop talking about him now that he could hear him as his gaze shifted to the tapping a few moments into that. It may or may not have been the touch alone, but it helped a good deal. He blinked slowly, lifting his head as he patted for a smoke slowly...Even though he had one between his middle and ring finger. He was definitely coming back around, though he was putting off some weird radiation to the sensitive. It faded about as quickly as his lucidity was gained, though, and so there was still a trace of it here and there to torment Ryley and his worry.

Ryleyth cleared his throat sharply, before pointing at the cigar between his fingertips. "Flaxin. You are going to light your coat on fire." He pushed past the taunting willow-wisps of the mind to focus on the conversation, though there was a slight flicker of golden in the back of that seafoam gaze.

"Sitting down is probably a good idea," Sam says, letting go of Flaxin's hand once it's clear he's wholly himself again. "The way back can be...disorienting."

Flaxin knew that. He made a show of knowing that, though they all knew he'd lost track of a lot more than his smoke. "Let's...Let's get the Trade House locked up and head down to the-" Beach? "-house." It was closer to the beach, yes, but it wasn't there and it locked. From both sides, if need be.

Sam nods. "Of course. Key? I can take care of it."

Flax took a moment there, searching for the proper ring but he did hand it to him by the key he thought it was. Sam was going to likely have to try a couple of them because it was not the right one.

Ryleyth watched the two of them for a moment before shaking his head slightly. Pointing at the correct key without saying a damned word, as he moved to step closer to Flaxin, more for if he stumbled than anything else.

Captain Malache was fine. He was fine. This was fine. He didn't stumble but he didn't see the exchange either. He needed something of a head start to pick up a normal pace. He was unsteady, aye, but he managed it. Sam was still likely to catch them before they made it, though.

Sam takes the right key and goes to lock up.

Ryley continued towards the beach house, his gaze shifting about the beach before padding down the shoreline in front of the pirate. He seemed somewhat distracted himself.

OOC Stuff: Thanks for the RP guys, I’m really excited about all the cool stuff coming up!