Maribel yawned deeply, quite relieved that she and High Sergeant Boldbounty were sitting in the back of the Cathedral sanctuary during its weekly open-door service. The massive room’s floor level and mezzanine were overflowing with civilians from the city of Dawnbreak who were looking to get closer to the Dreamer as the Laughing Buccaneer’s attack seemed inevitable.

  “I told you you could stay back and sleep in,” Boldbounty said with the practiced tone of a father. He was hushed, but loud enough for his voice to carry over the children’s choir singing at the front of the cathedral.

  “No, no,” Maribel said, shaking off her sleepiness. “I have to get a feel for the populace, right?”

  “They’ll be here tomorrow, Sister,” Boldbounty said, laughing as Maribel yawned again. “That fight at sea really kept you up all night?”

  “It was that Cadence, or whatever they call it,” she said, whispering with exasperation. “That sound is not something you can just go back to sleep after hearing. So loud, especially out over the open ocean.”

  “They really rushed that thing into the field,” Boldbounty said with a solemn shake of his head.

  “Shut up, you two,” an elderly man in the row in front of them hissed. The remark ended their conversation as the children’s choir continued to sing. The lay people sitting around the old man pat him on the back in thanks and Boldbounty chortled.

  “Not like you haven’t heard the song before,” he muttered before being shushed by several others. The two sat in silence, barring Maribel’s yawns, as the service continued. It continued to be silent all around as the audience strained to hear the performers, and so it was distracting when the someone in the back began muttering “excuse me” and “coming through.”

  Maribel was startled when a dark skinned man in an oversized linen robe gestured around her to get Boldbounty’s attention. Silently, the man mimed leaving the cathedral, and Boldbounty became very concerned.

  “Is everything okay, High Sergeant?” Maribel asked.

  “Come with us,” was all he said.

  The three met down a side corridor that ran along the cathedral. A mother was tending to a crying baby at the other end, but otherwise, the area was empty.

  “Sister Maribel, meet Cayd,” Boldbounty said, introducing them. “Cayd, this is Sister Maribel. She was sent here with the Coastal Dispatch.”

  “Wow,” the dark skinned man said with a smile. “You are quite young to be part of the dispatch.”

  Maribel sighed. “I’m not, actually. I was sent on a boat of theirs because I upset someone at the The Throne.”

  Cayd sized the young woman up and laughed. “Is Boldbounty starting a collection? Between me, his former trainee from the Abbey, and you, he is gathering all the misfits he can!”

  “Now now,” Boldbounty interjected. “You all aren’t misfits. At least, Maribel has not proven herself to be one yet. So, what was so important you needed to yank us from that profound service?” The sentence oozed Boldbounty’s playful sarcasm.

  When Cayd straightened up, Maribel could sense an immediate shift in the tone of the conversation between the two men. “It will be happening today, Enoch. When the Coastal Dispatch downed that boat before landing last night, she decided.”

  “The Sea Witch?” Maribel asked. “How did you know?”

  “Cayd here is a sorcerer. Used his blue magic to spy on our pirate,” Boldbounty explained. “What is their plan? Do you know?”

  Cayd grinned again, and the dire tone lightened a shade. “Tidus is observing the contracts with the Dreamer. So we do not have to worry about him forming in the harbor or under the cathedral. So Zora is taking it upon herself to break in and open the door.”

  “Gutsy!” Boldbounty laughed.

  “She said there is a tunnel that connects to the beaches north of the city?”

  “I don’t know anything about that, but the priests of the cathedral should. Get your lumineer in case we need any more proof or details for them. In the meantime, Maribel, would you gather the Coastal Dispatch?”

  “All of them?”

  “I think we will be needing all of them.” Cayd frowned at Boldbounty and Maribel. “Zora was not happy about what happened last night.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Boldbounty sighed as Maribel looked concerned. “I requested an Inquisition, but instead I got a ceremonial guard with a sick need to take the first shot,” Boldbounty said with a shake of his head.

  “And a misfit, High Sergeant,” Maribel added. “I will gather the paladins. Where shall we meet you?”

  “The courtyard.” Boldbounty was grinning ear to ear as he watched Cayd and Maribel head off to follow his commands. He had never realized that he had a way with misfits.

  After going to the barracks in the back of the cathedral and urging the paladins from their late sleep, Maribel hurried the forty armored soldiers to the courtyard to meet up with the Gavundar sorcerer and the High Sergeant. In the courtyard, a motley group of the Cathedral’s priests and paladins were already in place.

  A squat, wooden stage at the end of the courtyard was where Maribel found Cayd and Boldbounty. “High Sergeant,” Maribel called up to him from off of the stage. “What else can I do for you?”

  “Ah, thank you sister!” Boldbounty said with a nod to her. “I have nothing for you right now.”

  Maribel bowed slightly and went to step away before Boldbounty called to her again.

  “Sister, I said I had nothing for you to do, not that you were dismissed. Step up here. I’m going to be calling the group to attention.”

  Confused for a second, but thinking better of it, Maribel moved to the stairs for the stage and Boldbounty walked to the platform’s edge.

  “Cathedral Paladins, Coastal Dispatch, attention!” With Boldbounty’s call, the entire courtyard came to a halt. The paladins’ armor clanked as they shot into stiff stances facing the platform. The priests, not beholden to the command, but still respectful of the High Sergeant, went silent.

  “Today you have been called to this courtyard in preparation for our big event. We were expecting it to come soon, but it may be coming sooner than we had hoped.

  “Our friend here, Cayd, has found some keen intelligence that the Sea Witch will be attacking today. Maybe some of our older priests and priestesses will remember Bastilla’s Washway?”

  Silence from the crowd.

  “Thought not. There’s a caved-in waterway under the city, and our pirate princess hopes to sneak up through it to let her divine friend in to flood the city and smash the boats. So, we’re going to dig out the washway and get ready for her to arrive.”

  “All due respect, High Sergeant, we’re going to clear the invader’s tunnel for her?”

  “Nothing will be stopping the Sea Witch after you all sank her ship last night.” Cayd’s remark was sudden, sharp, and damning. The Coastal Dispatch shifted awkwardly in its wake.

  “Mister Cayd is right. If we dig out the tunnel, we face her on our terms. And our terms are the ones that don’t have sea gods screaming through the city. Better terms, aye, sister?”

  Maribel was taken aback that Boldbounty asked her at all. “Uh… Yes High Sergeant.”

  “You all know how you fight together so I won’t concern myself bossing you around on such a nitpicky topic. So how about anyone Sergeant or higher, coming on to the stage and we’ll better develop our plan?”

  “Yes High Sergeant,” the paladins responded in one, impressive voice, saluting crisply with their right gauntlets across their chests before the groups began to shuffle, and eight sergeants made their way to the stage.

  Two hours later, the noon sun was high over Dawnbreak, but the paladins in Bastilla’s Washway would not know. Buckets, prayers, shovels, and Cayd’s blue magic were all used in equal parts at cleaning the rubble from the tight catacomb tunnels. The Gavundari sorcerer stood at the leading edge of the group, eager to finally meet the woman on the other end of the lumineer.

  High Sergeant Boldbounty and Maribel were at the inconspicuous entrance to the washway. It rested at the bottom of a dried out man-made pond in a park at the city’s heart. Boldbounty’s children had played in the park ten or twenty times, and he had never noticed the cave-like entrance amongst the stones. The priestess and paladin watched with interest, and no small amount of nerves, as everyone worked. They two assisted where they could, but the harsh corridor was barely wide enough for two paladins to stand shoulder to shoulder.

  “High Sergeant?” Maribel asked after a moment of quiet work had passed.

  “Yes, sister?”

  “I am curious. Why was the Coastal Dispatch sent? Why mobilize forty paladins for one pirate? With a god or not, you still asked to activate an Inquisition against her? What is it that makes this woman so dangerous?”

  “Well,” Boldbounty thought for a moment, then chuckled. “Much like yourself. Like Mister Cayd. And like my trainee from before. The Sea Witch appears to be a bit of a misfit.”

  At the far end of the tunnel, Cayd and the leading paladins broke through into a long, square, and moss-covered pathway. The sorcerer muttered to himself something about the energy to light ten paces ahead, and his hand began to take on a deep blue glow that became brighter and brighter.

  Cayd looked at the first paladins. “The two of you, with me, please. The rest of you, run down the chain and get hold of the High Sergeant. He will give us our commands.”

  “Will we not wait, sir?” one of the two asked.

  “I need some fresh air. Enoch will understand.” Cayd began walking down the washway, and the two, grumbling about the Dawnbreak leadership, followed.

  After several minutes of walking down the damp tunnel, the sound of waves rang against the mucked-slicked walls. A few minutes more, and sand offered a gritty footing for the three as they pushed, finally, onto open beach. The afternoon sun took a moment of adjustment, but when Cayd was able to see out to sea once more, he noticed four high-masted ships bobbing on the horizon.