16 - The First Step

A journey across the Incandescence, no matter the expertise of one’s captain, was a lengthy affair. Alto had informed the crew that, though it appeared they were sitting still, Victima was piercing headlong through the void at speeds none of them could ever comprehend. Prospero took note of how, in the first day of their travel, it became pleasantly warm, and would learn later on that Victima’s rising body temperature was heating the entire deck.

He learned as well of the Fleecers and their gristly - but necessary - work. Voidbeasts were prone to developing sores and lesions from the great wooden structures fitted to their spines. Fleecers were surgeons of a particular sort, disappearing beneath a hatch at the very bottom of the vessel every so often to wander and tend to the beasts’ injuries in a crawlspace half-crossed between wood and flesh that reeked of pus, blood, and other bodily discharges. The Fleecers were, among other things, also responsible for collecting Victima’s stools from the pouch wrapped around her anus - supposedly a commodity of great value.

They performed these tasks with no complaints, a discipline that Prospero had no other choice but to respect, especially given that he was under no obligation to participate. By the third day, he had found his interest fixated on the Realmstone engineers in the captain’s cabin, who spent much of their time discussing the vast intricacies of navigating a giant prawn across the precise celestial winds whistling between realms.

Alto remained perpetually in the centre of this chaos, instructing those with little experience and berating those with more while Aldruag exercised his authority to make sure that none of the Sunflowers were skipping out on their work. Prospero couldn’t tell how well they were operating as a crew, but the fact that nothing terrible had happened over a three-day period did well to ease his worry.

With his escape from the realm secured, he finally had time to consider his next move. Though the shadow of his father’s death lingered, he forced himself to focus on the future, and wondered how best to enact his vengeance on Orlok while evading the Vampire’s pursuit. In tandem with Alto, the two of them decided on a destination suited to Prospero’s needs.

“Most of the wild realms are just barren rocks with nothing going on,” Alto lectured. His jaundice had now faded, and the man beneath his swollen eyelids was growing more lucid by the day. “Some of them do have life, though. Only beasts and critters, but that’s exactly what you’re looking for, isn’t it?”

“The Beastblood fortifies itself by consuming the essence of living creatures,” Prospero replied. “It fills me with dread knowing that my only path to strength is one of mindless slaughter, but I have no other choice. I can only strive to spare where I find the opportunity, and kill when fate deems it necessary.”

“A Vampire with a conscience,” Aldruag, who stood nearby, shrugged his shoulders. “Haven’t heard that one before. Certainly didn’t stop you from slobbering over me like a home-cooked meal when I was on the back foot.”

“That was…” ashamed to discover that his temptation was obvious, Prospero lowered his head. “The shapeshifting… It changes me. I don’t feel like myself when I rely on it. This urge seems to be something that affects every Vampire, from what I’ve been told.”

“-Then who’s to say it won’t consume you?” unafraid of speaking his mind, Aldruag posed the one question Prospero did not want to hear. “Far be it from me to suggest that I understand a thing about Vampires, but if you can’t keep a lid on your ‘urge’, then it’ll cause more trouble than it’s worth in the long run.”

Prospero sighed. “It’s not as simple as ‘keeping a lid on it’. I can’t reject my own thoughts.”

“-A problem some of your own boys understand all too well, Aldraug,” Alto spoke up. “Baptista’s no different. We’re all struggling with one thing or another - myself most of all.”

“Mm… aye,” reluctant to agree, Aldraug grumbled. “You’re not wrong, much as I hate to admit it. Thing is…”

“Aldruag,” Prospero interrupted. “The System keeps me informed on how much I’ve overindulged in the Beastblood. I can keep it under control. I promise.”

For all the scars he’d earned, Aldraug was not a disagreeable man. Disregarding him as no more than a bandit during their first encounter was a hurtful assumption to make on Prospero’s part. The opportunity to leave Glassoph had softened him up considerably, and now he was even willing to go along with Alto’s rabid captaincy. The tempered familiarity in his working eye made Prospero wonder if Aldraug had a son of his own somewhere.

“...I’m just looking out for my men,” he started. “You understand.”

“I do,” Prospero nodded. “And I won’t betray that trust. You have my word.”

Nodding, he stood back to allow space for Alto, who gestured towards the cluster of realms sparkling in the air. “...As I was saying,” he began. “Vampiric Castles are slow as all get out, but unlike Voidbeasts, they don’t need to be fed and watered.. With all the stops we’ll make on our way, I’d bet it’s only a matter of time before Orlok closes the gap on us.”

Prospero crossed his arms. “And how long is that?”

He paused. “...A few weeks,” was the number he settled on. “Not the most educated estimate, but I doubt it’s far from the truth. And in that time, you’ve got to get yourself up to snuff, or else we’re both dead. So here’s the plan:”

He beckoned a few Sunflowers over, who performed somatic gestures to shrink the Realmstone’s map down to just a few realms. Alto pointed to one and said, “We drop you off on this little rock - it’ll only take a few hours to reach, while the rest of us take Victima over to the nearby realm of Voldr to barter for some supplies with Victima’s starseeds. We stock up, make the trip back-”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Starseeds?” Prospero asked.

“Uh- shit, Baptista,” He pursed his lips to accentuate the word. “Plenty of flowery names for it, but at the end of the day, It’s shit. Great big fucking sparkling Voidbeast turds. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“...No,” Prospero suppressed a childish smirk. “But why is it so valuable?”

“Voidbeasts graze on the celestial winds, so the stuff’s practically pure mana,” he answered. “Magi love it, so it’s always in high demand. I’ve made it through many a stellar winter selling nothing but starseeds, and if you don’t mind me saying, Victima’s excretions just so happen to be of a particularly high grade.”

“Okay. I think I’ve heard enough,” Prospero nodded. “Let’s never speak of this again.”

“Point is, we can keep ourselves afloat on it, plus whatever we can pawn off between Ports,” Alto continued. “Once we’re stocked up for the long haul, we’ll come and pick you off this realm before Orlok can gain ground. You can spend that time doing… whatever it is you need to do.”

“Killing,” Aldraug mused. “And feeding.”

“Keep your lips clamped, you fucking-”

“No… He’s right,” Prospero said. “Let’s not split hairs. If I want to become stronger, I need to come to terms with the means. It’s not glamorous, but this is the burden I’ve been shackled with.”

“...Right,” Alto relaxed his scow. “Should take us a week or so to make the round trip. We’ll make landfall nearabouts where we set you down, so remember that place well.”

“You make it sound like Aldraug will be coming back with you,” Prospero said. “I thought the plan was to leave him and the Sunflowers behind on the first Port you visited?”

“We’ve had some time to discuss it,” Aldruag took a step forward and leaned his hands on the desk. “Provided my boys can prove themselves worth a damn, then Alto will keep us on board. Honest work’s difficult to find in this day and age, so none of us have any complaints - beyond the captain himself, that is.”

“Shut it, you,” Alto sniffed. “What about the plan, Baptista? Sound good?”

“Hm,” Prospero frowned. “You will come back, won’t you?”

“Gods above, lad. You landed me right back in a captain’s seat - I couldn’t be happier with how this business of ours turned out, and you’re worried that I’m going to leave you to waste on a wild realm?” Alto seemed genuinely offended by the question. “Short of having our throats slit by pirates, you can bet your silver we’ll be there when the time comes. Still got my own promises to keep, you know.”

Whether or not Alto could be trusted with the burden of ferrying Prospero across the Incandescence had yet to be proven, but there was certainly a lot of conviction in his words - moreso than Prospero had found in his drunken ramblings a matter of days ago.

“Yes… you’re right,” he nodded. “If I had any doubts, I would have never boarded this Voidbeast to begin with. I’m not sure why I bothered asking.”

“Then that’s that!” Alto yelled, “You lot - send us well along the route to that wild realm! And Aldruag - keep your boys’ heads on a swivel! No telling what sort of scum could be sweeping this wind! Get to work, lads!”

The crew’s bellow of ‘Yes, Captain!’ hadn’t been so vigorous on the first day of their voyage, but enthusiasm for a better life elsewhere in the cosmos had enlightened the Sunflowers with fresh purpose, and their cry was now filled with manifested pride. Prospero felt a twinge of joy in his chest knowing that he contributed to the betterment of their lives, and felt for the first time since Innsworm that things were finally taking a step in the right direction.

In the hours that followed, he assisted with what few chores on the vessel he was qualified to perform, and spent the remainder of the trip gazing over the deck and into the surrounding darkness of the Incandescence. The occasional spark of light or shadow passing over distant nebulae had him pondering the untold mysteries hidden in the void.

A single star brightened on the stellar horizon until it took shape as a beacon of fire in the heavens, illuminating orbital giants of marvelous colours and bathing the deck in a dark, crimson light. With Alto’s guidance, they hovered close to the third of six realms in the system - a planet which, by his own inexperienced observation, didn’t seem at all different from Prospero’s own. The sight of it growing before his very eyes set off alarms in his head. He imagined Victima hurtling down from the sky like some great meteorite, but the beast decelerated with practised ease on her way towards the realm, and by the time she was breaking into the atmosphere, they were moving at a pace infinitesimally slower than on the celestial winds. A few of the Sunflowers, rattled by their warped perception of distance, emptied the contents of their stomachs overboard.

The bubble dissolved, and Prospero reacted just quickly enough to draw his cloak up before the bare sunlight turned him to ash. “Couldn’t we have landed on the other side of the realm!?” he yelled over the wind.

“Ah, too much effort! You made it all the way to Glassoph in the sun, didn’t you!?” Alto barged out of the captain’s cabin. “Time is a luxury we can’t afford, Baptista!”

They tore past the cloudline and levelled out over a taiga on the realm’s northern hemisphere. Prospero made out the vascular rivers and miles of pine forests on the way down. He couldn’t convince himself, no matter how true it was, that the lands below were those of another planet.

The Sunflowers vanished below deck for warmth as temperatures plummeted, though Prospero’s blood continued to trail hotter than ever through his body. Once they were suitably low, Alto kicked down the ladder at one end of the deck and watched his breath freezing on the air. “A week, remember,” he said. “An Incandescent week, that is. Realmstone says this realm’s a slow-turner, so the days and nights will be longer for you - only three days will have passed by the time we’re on our way back.”

“I won’t keep you,” Prospero replied. “You have my gratitude for seeing me this far, Alto. I’m not sure what I could have done if you hadn’t come to my aid.”

“Got the feeling this is only the first step on a long, long journey, Baptista,” Alto rubbed his nose for warmth. “Do me and favour and keep yourself alive down there. Wouldn’t want to meet Gaspar in the Great Dream with your death on my hands. Now go on - fuck off.”

Prospero smiled and lowered himself down the ladder. Once he touched foot to soil, the ladder was brought up and Victima was soon on her way back towards the skyline. In a matter of minutes, the Voidbeast had vanished, and Prospero was truly alone.