April 25, 1690 (Very shortly after the Aboleth attack in Session 2)

No sun pierced the veil of the Phantom Sea, and yet the sweat coated Corlissandro’s forehead the same as if they were on deck at midday. He squinted as he stared at one of the spots burnt by the aboleths’ acid, trying his best to make out the condition of the pitch between the deck boards by the meager light of a single candle. The beasts’ acid had either been mopped up or burned away, but that was only the beginning of the work. The next step was to assure the deck was still water tight, lest spray and rain above begin to leak down below. They could not build a good enough fire to heat the tar properly, which left him having to dip an old rag into the cold, viscous substance and smear it into the cracks by hand. It would suffice until they could properly repair it.

Corlissandro had the foresight to find some former crewman’s clothes to wear for the task, and thus he knelt on the deck wearing a pair of breaches a size too big and a shirt with the sleeves torn off. The black tar covered his fingers and spotted his clothes, but he would not complain about it. Everyone pulled their weight on a ship.

It was both a nostalgic thing to do and a reminder of how aged his joints and muscles had become.

Corlissandro rose up to his knees, taking a moment to breathe heavily as he wiped the sweat from his brow. It left a black smear across his forehead which might have seemed comical under other circumstances, but it seemed par for the course given the rest of his black-stained visage. He breathed out, and he glanced over at David. The man’s watch was not over simply because aboleths had invaded. Once the beasts were dispatched, his companion had summarily been lashed back into place and put back on duty.

Such was the way of things on a ship.

Corlissandro and David were not strangers, yet not quite friends. He vividly recalled meeting the man for the first time some years ago, and enough of an impression had been made that he recognized David all those years later in Port Cayonne. They had looked out for each other for a couple of months, sharing knowledge and being an extra pair of hands for each other as needed–yet Corlissandro had probably shared more words with the local baker than he had David.

“Compañero,” Corlissandro spoke the first word shared between them since boarding the Night Wind, “how does the sailor’s life suit you so far?”

---

David looked up from his mop and puddle of some unidentifiable liquid at his old acquaintance’s words squinting across the deck in a vain attempt to focus. He had removed his armor to aid in the cleanup/repairs, but otherwise was dressed in his normal ragedy clothes. He didn’t bother to maintain his attire anymore. Vanity was too close to pride.

He was not one to engage in idle small talk and hadn’t been for several years now. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for people. Far from it. Once upon a time he might have been considered quite a sociable fellow. That was then though, and this was now. He wondered f this was just something Corlissandro was doing to pass the time or if he was actually trying to make friends.

“It is proving to be challenging. I have seen darkness before, but never like this.” David paused for a minute before considering his next words. “This place does have one good thing going for it though, the monsters are not hiding in plain sight.”

He returned to his mopping before looking over at his crew mate again. He wished the he could see Corlissandro’s face to read his expression as he asked his next question, but darkness blocked his vision and his tether prevented him from moving much closer. “You have been on far more voyages than I. Am I fulfilling my role as a crewman?”

---

David’s comment about monsters in plain sight drew an amused huff from Corlissandro that bordered, for one glorious second, on the verge of becoming a chuckle. “If only the monsters back home in España were so honest.” It was a rare break in his stern demeanor that was earned solely by the virtue of a shared history between them, and Corlissandro enjoyed it more than he would admit to either himself or others. After all, the only people on the ship truly familiar to him were David and Scarlette–and, truth be told, he personally knew Scarlette the least of the two.

Corlissandro had started packing some more tar into the deck, covering a particularly pockmarked plank and its seams as David asked his question. He focused on his task and pondered for some moments, giving David the respect of a well considered response. His first instinct was to reply that David’s work was acceptable–for there was little to truly be learned or demonstrated after only five days at sea. Yet, as Corlissandro lifted his gaze to his acquaintance again, he was reminded of their circumstance. There were seasoned sailors who would certainly break after only five days in that forsaken place.

“You have much to learn, only by virtue of there being so little a skeleton crew can teach in less than a week.” Corlissandro carefully draped the rag over the small bucket of pitch, and he did his best to clean his hands on his breeches. “Yet your work is commendable. Any man can learn to tie knots, there are few born with the temperament to endure this place.”

Corlissandro snuffed out the candle and stood, stretching. Perhaps he had conversed with David to kindle friendship, or maybe it was to stave off loneliness–Corlissandro did not think about such things, but there was one concern that did cross his mind every day. He had played a hand in altering the destinies of David, Alethea, Gestra, and Ceiran. Not so much Chester, that boy chose his fate all on his own, but the rest had been approached by Scarlette by virtue of a single finger pointed at them by Corlissandro. They had all willingly agreed to board the Night Wind, but there was neither denying nor changing the fact that Corlissandro had some small amount of responsibility for what happened to them on the voyage.

He sighed into the eternal night air, twisting slightly to loosen up a particularly stubborn muscle in his back. Then, like a well placed rapier thrust, Corlissandro drove at the heart of his concern. “Do you think you will regret the decision to come here?”

---

David paused briefly while he considered his answer. “I have come to regret many things in this life Corlis. I do not think this will be one of them. There are several possibilities for how I can see this adventure playing out. The most likely one being that I die before I see the shores of Tortuga again. In that case I would regret leaving you short handed for the rest of the trip, but I would not regret my death. It would be God’s will if I were to leave this existence.”

David finished wiping up his puddle of slop dripped from something in the last battle before he continued his conversation. It wouldn’t be good to leave a job half finished especially in an environment where the success or failure depended heavily on people’s ability to complete their work.

“Forgive me if it is too late in the…” David looked toward the dark starless sky, “evening? for a question such as this, but what do you think is waiting for you when you have shuffled off this mortal coil?”

---

Corlissandro’s lips tightened into a pensive look as he considered David’s answer, but eventually he gave the man a nod. He had asked what weighed on his mind, and David had given him some measure of absolution. The burden of responsibility was still there, yet a little lighter, and there was little need to say more.

He was about to bend down to collect the bucket when David spoke again, and the question brought Corlissandro to a halt. He had grappled privately with his devil’s bargain for months, speaking of it to no one, and so he took a deep, ragged breath as he formed words to express it for the first time.

“Damnation.” Corlissandro admitted, and he felt a gnawing agony in his stomach as he said it. He finally found the strength to reach down and grasp the bucket’s handle. He stood, briefly considering calling that the end of their conversation, but curiosity won over in the end. “Yourself?”