The rustling in the leaves grew from a whisper to a chorus. From the shadowy depths of the jungle, a new group of Kalanoro emerged, moving with a gravity that the previous, mischievous troupe lacked. At their head was a figure distinguished by age and authority, his fur shot through with silvery grey and a necklace of intricately carved crab shells draped around his neck. His glowing eyes held a deep, assessing wisdom as they swept over the scene—the tied-up youngsters, the looming pirates, and Marya sitting calmly on the rum.
"Well, stone the crows," Jannali muttered, her voice low. "Looks like someone important has come for a visit."
The tied-up Kalanoro immediately became a wriggling, chittering mass of excuses and accusations, each seemingly trying to blame the other for their predicament. The chief silenced them with a single, sharp bark that cut through the noise like a knife. They fell immediately quiet, looking down at their bound, backward feet in shame.
The chief then turned his full attention to Marya. He didn't look at the rum crates with greed, but with a curious, almost ceremonial interest. He moved forward and sat directly in front of her, cross-legged on the moss.
Marya, understanding the unspoken language of negotiations, kicked the crate beneath her gently. The glass bottles clinked inside. "Rum," she stated plainly. "For resin."
The chief looked at the crate, then back at her. He made a series of fluid gestures—pointing at the crate, then at his mouth, then sweeping a hand to encompass the entire crew. He wasn't just here to make a trade; he wanted to share. This was a test. To the Kalanoro, the joyless, rule-bound nobles in the high city were to be mocked and their goods stolen. But these strangers? They needed to prove they knew how to live.
Galit watched, baffled, as the chief's entourage scurried forward, adding more wood to the fire until it roared, and placing an assortment of carved wooden cups in a line between Marya and the chief. "What are they doing? Preparing for a ritual sacrifice?"
Atlas let out a low chuckle, his nubbed tail giving a lazy swish. "I think, Noodle Neck, they want to have a drinking contest."
The blossoming fire cast a great, dancing circle of light and heat, pushing back the jungle's chill and attracting a swirling cloud of night insects. This, in turn, sent Jelly into a frenzy of happy, bouncing consumption, his form elongating and snapping through the air like a blue rubber band.
Without a word, the Kalanoro chief handed Marya a cup. She took it, pulled a bottle from the crate, and poured a generous measure of the dark, spiced rum into both his cup and her own. They locked eyes, raised their cups, and drank. The liquor was fire and sweetness, a burn that settled into a warm glow.
As if this was the signal he'd been waiting for, one of the chief's entourage let out a whooping cry and launched into a wild, spinning dance around the fire, his backward feet making his movements a fascinating, unpredictable spectacle. Soon, a dozen more Kalanoro joined him, their disjointed, energetic forms creating a whirl of fur and flying limbs.
Eliane clapped her hands, her face alight with delight. "That looks like fun!" Before Jannali could protest, the young Lunarian grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the chaotic circle.
"Hey! Let go, you little ankle-biter! I'm not—oh, for pity's sake," Jannali sputtered, but was soon swept into the rhythm, her movements initially stiff before melting into the absurdity with a resigned, laughing shake of her head.
Seeing the scene, Mikasi smoothly shifted in Vesta's hands, the lute morphing into a wide-bodied drum. Vesta's eyes lit up. "Now that's a great idea!" she chirped, and began beating out a powerful, infectious rhythm that pulsed through the clearing, giving the wild dancing a cohesive heart. Soon, she too was moving, drumming and dancing simultaneously, her rainbow hair a blur of color.
Atlas shrugged, a wide grin splitting his features. "Can't beat 'em..." he said, and then he was in the midst of it, his powerful, lynx-like moves a strange but captivating contrast to the skittering Kalanoro.
Throughout the celebration, the chief and Marya sat like two calm monarchs, refilling their cups. The chief took a slow sip, his wise old eyes peering over the rim of his cup to land on Galit, who remained on the outskirts, his arms crossed tightly, a scowl etched on his face. The chief's gaze was a palpable, judging thing.
Galit felt the weight of that look. He saw his crew—the fierce tracker, the prodigy chef, the deadly warrior, the chaotic musician—all laughing and dancing like fools with a tribe of furry, backward-footed forest spirits. He let out a groan of utter defeat. "FINE!" he barked to no one in particular, and stomped over to the circle. His dancing was, predictably, a series of awkward, stiff-limbed jerks, but he was in the ring, and the Kalanoro around him chittered with approval.
Marya watched it all, the firelight reflecting in her golden eyes. She swirled the rum in the bottle, a slow, satisfied motion. She met the chief's gaze across the flames, the sounds of joy and chaos filling the air between them.
"We have a deal?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper, but she already knew the answer.
The celebration whirled on, a vortex of flying fur, clumsy pirate dance moves, and Vesta's thunderous drumming that made the very air vibrate. Marya and the Kalanoro chief observed the chaos from their quiet center, a silent understanding passing between them with each shared sip of rum. Then, as if on an unseen cue, the drumming and dancing faltered. A group of Kalanoro emerged from the tree line, straining to carry three hefty, sealed clay barrels. With respectful grunts, they placed them carefully beside their chief. The resin. A hush fell, thick with anticipation.
Just as Marya leaned forward to seal the agreement, the chief raised a gnarled hand. He chittered a command, and his entourage scurried off again, returning moments later with a massive banana leaf held between them. On it lay the centerpiece of their "feast": a long, roasted, serpentine creature, its skin crisped to a golden brown, arranged in coiled segments. It was unmistakable.
Jannali's jaw went slack. "What in the seven blue hells is that?"
Atlas's eyes lit up, his predator instincts kicking in. He licked his lips, the scent of roasted meat overriding all else. "Looks like eel. A big one. Smells fantastic."
Eliane shot to her feet so fast her stool wobbled. "NO! Wait!" she cried, her voice cutting through the murmurs. Every head, human and Kalanoro, turned to her. She planted her small hands on her hips, her face a mask of frantic urgency. "We can't! Remember what the ship coater said! We can't eat eel, or he'll refuse to coat the ship! He said he'd throw us into the Razor Reefs himself!"
Marya's eyes narrowed, her relaxed posture gone in an instant. The delicate balance of the negotiation hung by a thread.
Galit groaned, running a hand down his face. "Then how the hell are we supposed to…? Refusing a chief's feast is a mortal insult!"
"I will check!" Eliane declared, her voice firm with a chef's authority. "Maybe… just maybe… Be right back!" She marched towards the banana leaf, the crowd parting for her. Everyone watched, breath held, as she knelt. Remembering the Pointing Fady at the last second, she didn't gesture, but instead leaned in close, her nose almost touching the roasted flesh. She sniffed deeply. Then, she peered at the texture, at the way the "skin" had split open during cooking.
A slow, dawning smile spread across her face. She looked up at the crew, her eyes sparkling with relieved laughter. "It's not eel!" she announced. "It's… it's a giant jungle yam! Carved and roasted to look exactly like one! Look, the 'scales' are knife cuts! The smell is from all the herbs they rubbed on it!"
A beat of stunned silence was shattered by a high-pitched, chittering sound that built into a chorus. The Kalanoro were laughing, a gleeful, squeaking Kikikiki! that echoed through the trees. They slapped their knees and each other's backs, pointing at the crew's horrified faces. The whole thing had been an elaborate prank, a test to see if these outsiders were both brave enough to seemingly flout a sacred taboo and clever enough to realize they weren't. They were mocking the island's stiff, joyless laws through the medium of culinary deception.
The tension broke like a wave. A collective sigh of relief swept through the pirates, followed by roaring laughter. They fell upon the "eel" with gusto, tearing off great chunks of the sweet, starchy, herb-crusted tuber. It was delicious.
The Kalanoro chief, his old eyes crinkled with mirth, watched them eat. Then, with a final nod of respect to Marya, he gestured to the three clay barrels. They glowed from within with a deep, warm, gold-colored light, the viscous Amber-Iron Resin waiting to be put to use. The trade was complete. The rum was theirs, the resin was theirs, and a pact had been sealed not with a handshake, but with a shared joke at the expense of a very silly rule.
*****
The air in the holding block of G-88 was thick and still, heavy with the scent of salt, old sweat, and the faint, ever-present tang of sulfur that seeped from the volcanic rock. The walls, smooth and dark, glistened from the light from the single, flickering Den Den Mushi lantern in the corridor, casting long, dancing shadows that made the cells feel like stone coffins. The only sounds were the distant, rhythmic crash of waves against the basalt walls outside and the frantic, muttered calculations of Charlie Leonard Wooley.
Bianca Clark sat on the hard metal bench of her cell, picking at a fleck of dried grease on her thumbnail. "So, like, this is kind of ironic, you know?" she said, her voice cutting through the tense silence.
Charlie stopped his pacing, his hands gripping the cold iron bars of his own cell. "What are you talking about? What could possibly be ironic about our current predicament of being incarcerated by the World Government?"
Bianca glanced at him through the bars, her expression weary. "So, like, remember when we first got to the Typhon Cluster? They, like, threw us in jail too. It's, like, a whole thing with us and landing in cells."
From the adjacent cell, a low, amused chuckle escaped Kuro. He leaned against the wall, his posture deceptively relaxed. "That is a very observant bit of pattern recognition, Miss Clark."
Charlie spun around, his face a mask of exasperated fear. "How can you be so casual about this? We have been captured by the Marines! And out—" he gestured wildly, "—out of the cosmic frying pan and into the governmental fire!"
Aurélie, seated cross-legged on the floor of her cell in a state of deep meditation, did not open her eyes. Her voice was a calm, clear stream in the swamp of their anxiety. "We have returned to familiar territory. The rules here are written, the players known. That makes this situation fundamentally different from the Typhon Cluster."
Bianca's gaze drifted to the last cell, where Ember was stretching like a cat before reclining on her bench, a soft yawn escaping her lips. "You like, cool over there?" Bianca asked.
Ember nodded, snuggling into a more comfortable position. "Yeah. It's nice to be able to smell the sea again. And the air doesn't taste like metal and fear. Well," she amended, "not the same kind of fear."
Charlie threw his hands in the air, the sound of his palms slapping against his thighs echoing in the confined space. "How can you all be so infuriatingly calm! We are prisoners! Our fates are entirely in the hands of—"
The sharp, metallic creak of a heavy door swinging open at the end of the hall cut him off. All heads turned. The sound of boots on the obsidian floor was measured, deliberate. Captain Kai Sullivan stepped into the lantern light, his shaggy dark hair and thin-rimmed glasses giving him a scholarly air that was belied by the crisp Marine uniform and the two hulking guards flanking him. The keys jingled in his hand, a merry, threatening sound.
He stopped directly in front of Kuro's cell. Kuro merely raised a brow, a faint, knowing smirk playing on his lips.
Without a word, Kai selected a key and unlocked the door. The screech of metal on metal set teeth on edge. One of the escorts stepped inside, heavy seastone cuffs in hand.
"The Vice Admiral would like to have a word," Kai stated, his voice even, though his eyes, sharp behind his glasses, missed nothing. He subtly adjusted them with his middle finger.
Kuro offered his wrists willingly. "By all means," he said, his voice smooth as oil as the cuffs clicked shut with a sound of finality. "Lead the way."
Aurélie, Bianca, Charlie, and Ember watched in silence as Kuro was led out of his cell and down the corridor, the door groaning shut behind them. The silence they left behind was heavier than before.
Bianca was the first to break it, her voice a hushed whisper. "Like, what was that all about?"
Aurélie finally opened her luminous, storm-grey eyes, a deep understanding in their depths. She inhaled slowly, the sulfurous air seeming to fuel her clarity. "He is supposed to be a dead man. A pirate captain, long deceased. I am sure the Marines have... questions about his miraculous resurrection."
Bianca blinked, processing this. "Like, yeah," she replied, slumping back against the wall. "That, like, makes a twisted kind of sense."
In the sudden quiet, the distant, rhythmic hiss of a geothermal vent seemed to mock them, a reminder that they were trapped in the belly of The Iron Pearl, and that their most calculating ally had just been taken to face a woman who made volcanoes seem tame.
---
The humid air of the Caldera Harbor was thick with the smell of salt, volcanic sulfur, and the anxious sweat of confused Marines. The Consortium's submarine sat in the impound dock like a strange, aquatic beetle, its hull scarred from dimensions unknown. A team of Marine engineers clad in grease-stained overalls clambered over it, their tools clattering against its unfamiliar metal.
"Have you ever seen anything like it?" one engineer muttered, scratching his head with a wrench.
Another shook his head, peering at a console through a mess of wires. "Not a clue. What do you think this one does?" His grimy finger hovered over a prominent, glowing button.
A crisp, upper-class voice sliced through the industrial noise from the open hatch. "I say, do you think it wise to randomly push buttons when you have only the most rudimentary understanding of their function?"
The engineers spun around, snapping to attention as Commander Alistair Reginald Finch descended into the vessel. He was a vision of naval absurdity, his bespoke uniform impossibly crisp, a silk cravat peeking from his collar. He adjusted his leather gloves, his hawkish features set in an expression of profound, and likely unwarranted, contemplation.
"At ease, gentlemen," he said, his eyes scanning the interior. "Good heavens. Looks like this thing has been on quite a few adventures." As he spoke, a single, solitary locust buzzed in through the hatch and landed on a console, its antennae twitching. Finch gave the insect a fleeting, knowing glance, a smirk playing on his lips before he returned his attention to the engineers.
He took a theatrical step forward, leaning over the console the first engineer had been examining. "This is certainly a unique design. A fascinating, if brutish, amalgamation of principles."
"Sir!" a voice called from a deeper chamber, its tone laced with awe. "You need to come and see this!"
Finch turned without haste. "Don't touch anything!" he called back, his voice echoing in the metallic space. "For all you know, it could be the self-destruct sequence for a small island!"
The engineers replied in a ragged chorus: "Yes, sir!"
The locust, as if on cue, took flight and followed Finch as he strode towards the engine room. Inside, another engineer was waist-deep in an open access panel, the air shimmering with a deep, crimson light from within.
"Sir, I have never seen a power source like this," the engineer said, his voice muffled. "It's not a standard combustion engine, it's not a Dial system... it's just... glowing."
Finch knelt, his knees cracking politely. "Step back, let a professional have a look." The engineer scrambled aside. Finch peered into the pulsating heart of the Minovsky-Ionesco core, his eyes wide. He pulled back after a moment, a look of pure, unadulterated bluff on his face. He leaned in conspiratorially to the engineer.
"Well, I'll be damned," Finch whispered. "You know what this is? A Mark IV Hyper-Culinary Reactor. I've only read about them in classified briefs. Why, this thing could make really excellent toast."
The engineer stared, his mouth slightly agape. "...Sir?"
Finch stood, brushing non-existent dust from his immaculate trousers. "This is far, far out of our depth. We should have it transported to Marine Headquarters where they are better equipped for something of this... culinary caliber." He began to refit the panel with an air of finality.
The engineer opened his mouth to protest this toast-making assessment when a new voice, energetic and slightly breathless, called from the dock.
"Commander Finch!"
Finch stepped out of the submarine to see Captain Nuri Evander standing there, his flame-red hair a disaster zone, his uniform already looking slept in. He was nervously tapping his custom steel bat against his leg.
"Yes, what is it?" Finch asked, his tone implying a great man had been interrupted.
"Sir, the Vice Admiral requires a status report. Immediately."
Finch's eyes widened in theatrical offense. "A status report! We just got here! What does she think we are, miracle workers? You tell her I will furnish a status report when I have a status to report!"
Nuri shifted his weight, gripping his bat tighter. "Sir, I just think—"
"If you want it faster," Finch interrupted, waving a dismissive hand, "then I require access to the prisoners. The ones you so efficiently rounded up. Someone had to pilot and maintain this... contraption. I would think the people currently occupying your holding cells would know a thing or two about its operational quirks, wouldn't you?"
Nuri's brow furrowed as he processed this, his head nodding absently for a few moments.
Finch watched him, his patience a visibly thinning thread. "Well?!" he snapped, making Nuri jump.
"Y-yes sir! Right away!" Nuri yelped, and scurried off like a startled crab.
Commander Alistair Reginald Finch allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. He glanced back at the submarine just in time to see the lone locust buzz out of the hatch and disappear into the steamy air of the harbor. He straightened his cravat, the very picture of a man who had everything perfectly under control.
If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider giving Dracule Marya Zaleska a Power Stone! It helps the novel climb the rankings and get more eyes on our story!
Thank you for sailing with us! 🏴☠️ Your support means so much!
Want to see the Dreadnought Thalassa blueprints? Or unlock the true power of Goddess Achlys?
Join the Dracule Marya Zaleska crew on Patreon to get exclusive concept art, deep-dive lore notes, and access to our private Discord community! You make the New World adventure possible.
Become a Crewmate and Unlock the Lore:
https://patreon.com/An1m3N3rd?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Thanks so much for your support and loving this story as much as I do!