Aboard the Star bite, the sky still rippled with the faint green shimmer from the barnacle-eye compass. It gently emitted a green pulse. I strode to the helm, raptor feathers swaying, Felicity in tow with her frost rapier sheathed at her left hip like a hungry red icicle. Faeluxe stood there already—arms folded, white-blonde hair tangled in the wind, one foot up on the compass wheel's base. Her chrysalis armor shone and reflected the moon light like a fire opal. Her wings covered her presently like a cloak, clasped at the collar bones.
She glanced over her shoulder. "We're being pulled off course by something, were off by a few leagues, we're running diagonal. Did You feel it too?" I didn't answer right away. I stepped beside her and pulled the compass free from my hip. Its needle spun slowly, erratically—until it locked due south, toward the distant and forbidden Isles of the Gorgons. "It wont stop until we turn," I said. Faeluxe's expression sharpened, "Are you out of your mind? That's cursed territory. The thousand leaves clan left those waters to rot."
"Something's calling from the tomb," Felicity added. "And we think it's calling Ash specifically." Faeluxe raised an eyebrow. "A siren?" I shook my head, "Could be? I don't know for sure, maybe Something worse. But we wont know unless we go and find out for ourselves." "So we're flying into a deathtrap, lovely."
Faeluxe muttered, already kicking the helm sideways. " Hail 1-0-8! "
The helm made a rattling pedal noise of wood below deck as Faeluxe corrected. The Star bite groaned as Wisp shifted course above, his dragon form adjusting their air path. "A trap that knows my name," I replied. "That means it's worth checking." Faeluxe grinned, a savage curve of the lips, "It worth it just so long as I get to stab something ugly before we leave."
Far beneath the sea and tombstone cliffs of the Gorgon Isles, Marla sat once more before the barnacle-eye dias, twelve of her serpent-locks coiled around her shoulders like regal scarves.
The dias trembled now, alive with open channels. She had seen Ash. Tasted his aura. "Spirit-man," she murmured. "Burdened. Branded. Strong. Claimed." She said that last word with a bit of...envy. She sat down cross legged and closed her eye's circulating the wicked breath technique, increasing her animus and focus.
Then using her mental energy she casted gorgans glamor transforming her demonic serpentine form into that of a comely young female adventurer. "You are like me, Ash. Trapped. Forgotten. Come to me. Let me help you break it." Back in the tomb, Marla's serpents hissed in synchronized harmony, their mouths dripping with qi-venom. "He'll come," she whispered to herself. "And when he does… I'll give him a choice." Behind her, an entire wall peeled open like old scabbed skin, revealing a gorgon forge gate—sealed for ages, now pulsing in time with her growing power.
"Let the boy feel lonely long enough... and even monsters seem like friends." The Star bite soared through thickening cloud. Below, the gorgon Isles came into view—not a tropical paradise, but a shattered archipelago of jagged rock formations and bone-colored cliffs that jutted from the sea like teeth.
I stood at the bow. A haze blanketed the islands, dense with spiritual residue. Purple lightning crackled occasionally between pillars of wind-bent obsidian. The air shimmered oddly—light refracting as though peering through broken glass. "We're in the boundary fog," Faeluxe muttered.
"This isn't natural.
Even the qi here tastes like rust." Felicity pressed her palm to the railing, her breath visible despite the heat. "It's not fog. It's rejection. The island's spirit doesn't want us here." Above them, Wisp flew tightly coiled, the wind dragon circling nervously as he warded off spectral birds.
The main island loomed ahead: a sprawling ruin veined in gold and ivy, topped with ancient coliseums and cratered towers. Black statues of gorgons flanked the mountain-path up the center like guardians from a forgotten world. "Bring us low, but no higher than the bone spire peaks," I ordered. The tomb was close. The compass spun again.
Far to the east, in a sun-dappled chamber of wood and silk, the Thousand Leaves Clan Council was not at rest. Below the cherry-draped balconies of their temple citadel, their Vanguard Squad assembled—four cultivators in cloaked armor marked by jade tattoos and living wooden grafts. The spy who escaped the gorgon isles kneeled before them, robes torn, eyes shadowed with trauma. "He's going there," the spy rasped. "The dream-walker. Ash. The Crimson Typhoon's disciple. I saw the glamour. He's heading straight to her." Councilor Akari tapped her long brush against the stone map. "He's a wild variable. We've no idea if he intends to free her or destroy her."
"Either is bad," said Master Thorn, the oldest among them. "If Medusa Marla escapes her seal, the old wars begin anew. We quarantined the Gorgon Isles for a reason."
"Too late for that," murmured another. "The seal was already breached." With a silent nod, four elite warriors stepped forward. Ibara, with the bark-mask helm and the Thorn Chain staff. Yurei, a mist-walker trained to silence souls. Kinji, wielding the Seed Blade that bloomed with poison and light. And Eiko, a seal master whose tattoos glowed like scripture. "Your orders," said Councilor Akari, "are to intercept Ash. Block access to the tomb. If he resists.' She let the silence speak.
"You are authorized to bind."
The Star bite hovered in low flight, sails furled, and wind-dragon wings curled in tight silence. A storm brewed across the horizon—unnatural, stagnant, as though the sky refused to shift above this place. The prow kissed down near a shattered amphitheater where roots had cracked apart the foundation of ancient stone. The mist parted just enough to reveal a path, spiraling like a serpent's coil into the valley below.
I stepped out first, circulating my Intent, my condensed qi shimmered faintly around my internal organs, pushing the cursed essence away with each step. My eyes flicked over a weathered sundial fused with barnacles and sigils. "It's feeding off temporal distortions," I muttered. "This place has been frozen, but it's waking up." Felicity descended after me, now cloaked in a velvet blood-shroud that hissed.
The blood frost rapier hung at her waist, still tasting the memory of old wars. She knelt briefly and pressed a hand to the stone, "The whole island is a womb, Something deep beneath us is crowning."
"Are you saying something is trying to give birth?" I said. "Or something worse." A sharp, cheerful twang broke the tension as Faeluxe skipped down the ramp, her ever pure-ribbon fluttering and winking with defensive Fae light. "I give this place a zero on the hospitality scale. No birds. No sun. No flowers. What did this tomb ever do to deserve me?"
I ignored her and let out a low, animus infused two-toned whistle. The sound echoed off the cliffs and into the bones of the mountain itself. Moments passed and then a little later, the sea trembled. Then rose. From the foamy surf and broken coral ridges emerged Hammer head—barnacle-crusted shoulders rising like a reefed god. The yellow saw fish snout blade hung at his back, and a dozen glowing tattoos blinked over his torso like slow, angry eyes. He stomped ashore, cracking open a drowned crab shell underfoot. "You rang" Hammer head rumbled, water steaming off him. "This a ghost hunt or are we burnin' gods again?"
"Both," I replied. "You're on perimeter. If something tries to sneak up behind us… make it regret being born." Hammer head grunted approval and trudged off, slamming a fist into a half-collapsed statue smashing it into dust as a warning to the dead. Felicity tilted her head. "The tomb's entrance is bleeding qi. See it?" They followed her finger to a nearby cliff face, half-swallowed by tree roots. An entrance yawed open—a coffin-shaped breach into the mountain, exhaling air like old parchment and moss-covered teeth.
The boundary glyphs were shattered. Time-stamped warding runes peeled like old skin. Something—someone—had broken the locks from the inside. Faeluxe gave a theatrical shiver, "We're officially past the threshold of bad decisions." I stepped in first.
"O believe me" I said half cocky "It can get much worse."