(This is continuing the series that started HERE, and may become a bi-weekly thing here.)
Ridlee had just disembarked from The Monotropa, a Grassspears vessel captained by a man whose face was half-birch tree, half-human. The sight of him demanded questions—questions Ridlee had neither the energy nor the interest to ask. The captain’s bark-lined cheek shimmered faintly in the harbor’s morning light, his knotted, branch-like beard swaying in the breeze. It was the kind of face that screamed "long story," but Ridlee wasn’t in the mood for stories—long or short.
With a half-hearted wave, Ridlee turned away. The captain gave him an equally indifferent nod, the kind exchanged between people who had survived something together but didn't care to acknowledge it.
Ridlee carried little by necessity. His life, like the wind driving ships across the sea, was ever in motion. But even for a seasoned traveler, he felt exposed today. Half his spell components were gone—vials, herbs, chalks. His rations were reduced to crumbs. His patched robes clung to his wiry frame, salt-stained and stiff from the Monotropa’s damp lower decks. His boots were caked in grime from too many ports. Pouches at his belt jingled faintly, full of questionable ingredients. His backpack, a square bundle of scrolls and tomes, dragged unevenly at his shoulders.
His shaved head gleamed under the sun, marked with a single line and two dots tattooed above his left eye. The meaning was personal and rarely explained. From a distance, Ridlee looked deceptively young, but up close the truth revealed itself—a man weathered by road, ruin, and far too many schemes.
His hands, calloused from years of scribing runes and gripping wands, adjusted the pack. He needed supplies. His staff needed alignment and feeding. Reagents. Rations. Replacement chalk. And he needed it all before morning. Another ship would sail with the dawn, and he had to be on it.
The harbor swelled with noise—dockhands shouting, masts creaking, and languages from across the continent humming in unison. Ridlee weaved through the crowd, mind sharpening. No time for distractions. No time for stories.
But Borel had a way of pulling people into stories whether they wanted in or not.
The dock was a riot of voices, colors, and scents. Merchants cried the virtues of questionable spices. Street magicians bent gravity for copper coins. Pickpockets tested their sleight of hand. The tang of salt mingled with incense and roasting meat.
Borel was no ordinary port. It was the continent’s beating heart, the crossroads of the world. To the west lay the sea, where traders from the Pearl Isles and Obsidian Archipelago arrived. To the north, roads climbed into the Spine of Ivvar, where dwarves still hammered steel and stone into echoes of a lost empire. Southward, the Amaravati floodplains spread out like a green quilt, dotted with temples, rice fields, and ruins of gods best left forgotten.
And in the center of it all was Ridlee, hungry, tired, and half-sure he'd be mugged before midday.
He tugged his cloak tighter and moved like a man with too little patience and too many pockets. Borel was a wonder. It was also a scam. The Dockside Guild ran the trade, the Silent Knives collected debts, and anything not nailed down was fair game.
Still, nowhere else could you pass an orcish blacksmith hawking enchanted axes beside a masked elven noble bartering for powdered dragonbone. Nowhere else could you watch a minotaur haggle with a goblin alchemist over starfruit. For Ridlee, it was both a haven and a hazard—a place to resupply and vanish.
He was here for one reason: Mermoz.
"Get your ass over here. Big score. FUCK YOU. — MERMOZ."
If that wasn’t friendship, Ridlee didn’t know what was.
Mermoz never sent messages unless they were urgent. For him to burn coin and magic to reach Ridlee in Borel? It meant something huge. Possibly catastrophic.
They had grown up together in Alecrix, the crumbling northern city of secrets and snow. They were cutpurses, troublemakers, and occasionally heroes. Where Ridlee chased arcane power, Mermoz pursued profit and infamy. One took the high road. The other took shortcuts with knives. But every year, no matter what, they met up. Drank. Laughed. Lied about the people they’d become.
If Mermoz was calling him to Oceanforge, it meant they’d found something big. Maybe even something real.
Ridlee had once sold his soul and tricked a demon into giving it back. He'd studied magic under swamp witches and stolen books from a blind lich. The mark above his eye was from a shaman in the Amaravati backcountry, meant to symbolize the will required to master sorcery. Mostly, it just itched.
The world of Dragonbreath was old. Scarred. Shaped by gods who fought and died millennia ago. Civilization had clawed its way back from the brink more than once. Empires rose, fell, and left ruins for the curious and the desperate. Magic was no longer sacred. It was currency, weapon, curse.
Ridlee knew. He’d seen spells crack mountains and turn men into dust. He’d killed friends who lost control.
Now he was back in Borel. Wandering through its Market Row, where illusionists sold bottled rainstorms and pickpockets could sell your boots back to you. He visited Yomath the satyr alchemist, traded coins for powders and sarcasm, and still left feeling swindled.
He visited a crooked shop where the bell screamed instead of chimed. Bought questionable reagents. Argued over an enchanted feather.
He paid a visit to the Church of Indrasco. Let the priest insult him. Dipped his staff in the mana pool anyway. Felt the hum of magic run through the wood and into his fingers.
And then, night fell.
He met a woman. She was beautiful, sharp-eyed, and led him into an alley.
"Give it up, mage," a thug growled behind him. Four more stepped into view. The woman smiled sweetly.
Ridlee dropped his bag.
"It’s full of wonders," he warned.
The thug reached for it. The illusion activated.
Suddenly, they weren’t facing Ridlee. They were facing monsters—each other, twisted into nightmares by their own fears. They panicked. They screamed. They attacked.
When the city guard arrived, the gang was a heap of blood, bruises, and betrayal.
The woman tried to flee. Ridlee caught her by the wrist.
"Shame," he said. "You could’ve been fun."
She cursed. He whispered. Fire flared. She vanished.
A guard stared at the empty space. "Should I ask?"
"She had somewhere else to be," Ridlee replied.
The guard sighed. "Don’t make more work for me."
"Wouldn’t dream of it."
The next morning, Ridlee bought hot bread and bitter Korixian coffee. Watched the sun rise over mosaic rooftops. The world kept moving.
By the time the docks stirred fully to life, he stood before a sleek ship bearing the crest of the Violet Isles. The captain gave him a nod.
"Ready?"
Ridlee exhaled. "Are we ever?"
The sails snapped. The ship pulled away. Borel shrank behind him.
Ahead, the sea stretched wide. Somewhere across it, Mermoz waited.
Ridlee smiled.
The world was madness. But it was his madness to navigate.