Darkwater Revealed, Epilogue
Story Emits
A Valardin ship sails into the harbor at Arx, and a single crate is very carefully unloaded from the ship and taken to the Valardin Ward. At the docks, an altercation leaves Officer Sparte surprised, and Dame Esoka bloodied. A cult is destroyed, root and branch, by the Inquisition. High Lord Victus returns from his journey with grim tidings. The statue of Mangata is cleansed, but deeply scored.
Even as news of fleets sailing against the Compact filter through the city, the determination of each House in the Compact is heard. "We will not crumble," they say. "We will not give in. Together we stand, and we will protect our homes and our people." Bold words, flung defiantly into the teeth of the aggressor now, taunting him to come against the Compact if he dares. It's a brave stand.
But now more news comes, now with more concrete numbers. In each place the amount of longships, and galleys, and drommonds is numbered by hundreds - four hundred? Five hundred ships of varying types? At such numbers it's hard to get a firm estimate, and it is made more difficult by the random appearance of even more ships. They are released from the Darkwater, but perhaps still part of it. Sometimes ships appear, sometimes they vanish. One sailor swore off drinking and left the sea forever when his small fishing trawler sailed over the reflections of a fleet, visible only in the water below.
Crovane. The Lyceum. Darkwater Watch.
Arx.
What will be left standing? What will be lost?