Above the gay fog, the matter of my Captain's runaway lover ended.
After thought, Audrey, or Miss Justice, brought up the recent experience of tailing the tales of a mind dragon in the place she was at right now, diving into the surrounding village's collective sea of consciousness.
Of course, unlike others, I knew she was in her ancestral home, Lord Hall's fief in the East Chester County.
She questioned about how she could further explore these dreamscapes to learn more about the mind dragons, but was dissuaded by Mr. Hanged Man and Madam Hermit, who being more experienced, reminded her of the scale of the danger involved.
Since it was a mind dragon, it had to be at least a demigod. And that is why Mr. Hanged Man made sure to tell her to not make any further attempts until she was at least at Sequence 5.
Well, unsurprisingly, Miss Justice was disappointed, but she quickly did conceal any such expressions of emotions. From what I remembered of Audrey's character, she was sure to understand her situation, and not delve further into the matter until she had the power to safely travel through the collective sea of consciousness.
In reverence and hope, she turned to Mr. Fool, as if seeking his blessing to advance through further sequences fast.
Once Miss Justice settled, the stupid faced Emlyn impatiently cleared his throat, and spoke like an idiota.
"I've seriously researched the history handed down by us Sanguine..."
Targeting Derrick, he looked at him, and tipped his chin, "Before the Cataclysm, there was no City of Silver, only Kingdom of Silver!"
When Derrick offered no explanation, Emlyn clicked his tongue like an idiot, and continued, "The faith of the Kingdom of Silver wasn't originally Giant King Aurmir, but 'His' queen, Omebella."
Omebella...
Being a wiki larper in case of COI, I only had surface knowledge of major spoilers in the story. There was of course a lot I did not understand from those points, and they just stayed in my head like words.
Now that I was here, it was imperative that I try to gleam as much knowledge from them I possibly could. For example, I knew Omebella was the daughter of the Great Mother, and somehow Aucuses. How did it happen? I had no idea. How could Omebella be their daughter, while also having existed before as the Giant Queen, before Aucuses himself even became a god? I had no idea.
Omebella was quite a mystery. Since everything was shrouded in mystery for me in her case, I chose to keep my thoughts contained to myself.
Derrick turned his head towards Emlyn, "Our City of Silver has no records of this matter, nor are there any records of a queen named Omebella."
At this, Emly chucked and spread his hands.
"That's why, there's nothing wrong with me saying that your City of Silver's history is flawed and incomplete, right? Clearly, there are mistakes in your records of Sanguine History."
Just when Derrick was about to retort, Madam Hermit interjected.
"Omebella is the Goddess of Harvest from Second Epoch. She's also the queen of the Giant King's Court.
"Legend has it that she perished at the end of the Second Epoch, but it's impossible to verify since no one has seen her corpse or relics."
Surprisingly, Madam Hermit was quite correct. Now, I'm not sure if this is the knowledge she gained from her sugar mummy, or Hidden Sage, but Omebella did indeed die in the Second Epoch, only to have her fate be stolen by Lilith. The Mother Goddess of Beauty, and Fertility, if I may say so myself.
I made no interjections though. I had already done my fair share of taking initiative as a newcomer, taking in too much attention at this stage would not be best.
When all the exchanges had ended, Mr. Fool smiled and said.
"Everyone, we shall meet next week."
"By your will."
The devout Miss Justice was the first to stand up and bow. The rest followed quickly after her, including me.
...
A feeling of descending through clouds enveloped my sense, and I soon woke up in my bed again.
I pulled out the hunter pocket watch from my shirt's front pocket, and checked the time.
Currently it was only 3:49.
Almost an hour.
If I were to attend the gatherings while onboard a ship, whether it be Red Skull pirates, or Black Death, I was going to have to start making room for a 3 pm napping time window a few times a week, to not rouse suspicion.
I was quite satisfied with today's outcome, it had been quite a good day so far. Tomorrow, I would also be able to board the Red Skull pirates.
But for tonight, I had a new mission, one approved by Mr. Poor himself.
Spending a few hours lazing around in the bed, I finally got out when it was time for dinner.
With an excuse to have dinner together, I brought the Black Death's informant to the Puerto Copa inn, and inquired him about the local rebels' hideout and location.
So, apparently these guys did secret, semi-regular gatherings deep in the woods, and discussed their plans of 'anarchism', as the ruling government may call it.
Since the location always kept changing, and the information remained sparse, not many people were aware of their situation, including the governor of Tiana Port himself.
It was of course, not because they were stupid, or incompetent. Rather, the local resistance had been rendered toothless long ago, and whatever little gatherings they may have had posed no threats to the colonial government.
It was soon to end though. Now that the Rorsted's Resistance had Tarot Club's support, and they were actively spreading their own support out to neighbouring islands, soon enough the toothless rebels of Tiana Port will grow new teeth.
And what better way to accelerate the process, than some helpful instigation?
After learning the tonight's gathering's location and time during dinner, I bid farewell to the informant, and headed back up to my room with a bottle of Lanti Proof, and a single cigarette, that was locally produced.
The cigarette was actually a gift from my comrade, Wilson, the informant. His reasoning was that smelling like local cigarette would help me blend in better with the rebels.
Of course, I didn't have such considerations, since I myself was going to masquerade as a believer in Sea God, rather than a local. Which I could not, since I was a Loen born man with obvious blue eyes.
As for being a believer of the Sea God, I would make sure I show them the proof.
Since I had Mr. Fool's agreement, I planned to pray to the Sea God in today's gathering, and get a response as proof of my allegiance to the Sea God and the Resistance. Technically, I was a quasi member already, since I played a major role in returning Pilsey Island's lost money, which directly funded the Resistance.
So if the Resistance were to do any verification, they'd only discover a subordinate of a pirate Admiral helping them market their vision after having already helped them recover swindled money.
As for the cigarettes, let's say the relationship we had in the past was quite 'temperous?' 'Temperamental?' What was the word... right! 'Mercurial!'
It would be fair to say that my relationship with cigarettes had been quite mercurial in the past.
I only smoked on special occasions, which almost exclusively referred to the terrible days when something shit would have happened, and my mood would have had taken a vertical nosedive into the abyss of despair.
Still, I tried to stick with the rule of only smoking two sticks a month. Of course, sometimes it could go higher, to three or four, but sometimes it also stayed to just one, or even none.
Personally, I was a connoisseur of natural, unblemished, whole leaf tobacco. And none did it better than American Spirit.
But oh well, what I held in my hand right now was also quite an exotic piece. The white stick featured a line dividing it at about one fourth of the length, after which the paper switched to a light yellow shade. Inside the paper filter was stuffed fine cotton.
I took a dry whiff of the tobacco at the top, and felt my nose ring as the smell of my first cigarette in this life rejoiced me.
As the scent lingered in my olfactory cavities, I lit a match, and put the filter to my lips. I brought the flame to the tip of the cigarette and inhaled through the filter the cigg was set alight.
Throwing away the extinguished matchstick, I released a long breath. Taking another long breath of the natural, and preservative free tobacco, I exhaled again, this time morphing my lips in a certain shape, and letting the smoke come out in multiple bursts.
Soon, the room had several donuts floating about it.
Sigh... If only I had weed right now...
The filter wasn't great, but it wasn't too bad either. It certainly didn't compare to a Blue American Spirit in terms of smoothness, but it was still quite rad.
When the cigarette had burned itself almost to the line dividing the filter and the fill, I extinguished it on the ashtray, and left the butt there.
I waited a few hours until the time was approaching midnight, and the streets outside were only lit by sparse street lamps.
Melding into the shadows, I exited the suite from the window, and jumped down silently using the feather fall.
It was time to be a revolutionary.
___
Hello everyone, a good news, and a bad news.
Good news: Updates will return to previous few weeks' 3-4 chapters/week.
Bad news: This is happening because I'm unemployed yet again. But fuck it, if I'm gonna put all nighters writing, it might as well just be for my own writing projects. So, as a result of that, I will be updating the story frequently again.
Besides this, I'm gonna be trying to put in as much time I get into my personal projects only, so one or two new stories (fanfic and original), are to follow.
Besides this, while I never wanted to monetise a fanfic again, atp, I'll just start from there and move onto keeping it only for original works. Patreon announcement will be coming soon ig, I will try to write advanced chapters in the while.
Of course, more chapters are only going to be possible if I don't get exiled and disowned from my home, losing my access to internet and electricity. It is seeming to be a rather plausible future as things are. Either way, till then, thanks for reading y'all.