From that moment onwards, the captain tried his best to get Eknie to join his crew. Eknie did not agree to this, of course, and perhaps out of fear of being killed in his sleep, the captain gave up and apologized profusely. He even told his name – finally.
Nektep Ligurza, that was what he was called. He was from a lesser branch of the most famous pirate bloodline that had ever terrorized the oceans. He wasn't a big shot by any means, rather, his choice to engage in piracy in the skies instead of seas had permanently marked him as the last to get any inheritance from the great old ones.
His father had been the only son of the pirate captain who had ruled Sennas for a short while during the war. His mother had been from the cold south, and this had given him his name and some quite peculiar manners that Ted had struggled to point out. Now, there was a reasonable explanation for everything. All failures that the captain made when performing certain social niceties could be attributed to his southern heritage. Everyone said that the southern folk were strange and austere people, probably due to the necessary conditions for life being stricter, with houses actually needing proper warmth insulation and everything else that made everything much harder down in the cold parts of the continent.
Ted was quite eager to learn more about life in that cold darkness, but due to the worsening health of his father, the pirate captain had spent more time in the tropical areas.
It was revealed to Ted that this man was actually well over sixty years old, and this was a shocking thing to hear from someone who bought his bread by blood.
All fun things had to come to an end. They sneakily entered the station outside Neul, and while there was a certain atmosphere of saying goodbyes, Captain Nektep Ligurza assured Ted that if they were to meet again, it would be on good terms.
Ted, Eknie and Madorn sighed in unison and started dragging their weary bodies and suitcases towards the city of degeneracy.
"I don't know if I am depressed to return or relieved to shut myself in a dark room for two weeks," Ted mused.
He didn't get an opportunity to do that.
The Dragon and Junior, his two beloved empty shells, presented to him a cult that had grown to the ludicrous size of six hundred individuals. Someone had been capable of independent thought and recruited such a massive number of people by staging a little play in a marketplace. Ted was unsure about the details – apparently his cultists were not the best with verbal repetition of information. This was all good, yet of course it meant that Ted would be pretty much swamped with responsibilities for a long while. It wasn't the number of current cultists he had a problem with.
It was the number of those who had left the cult.
Ted had no problems finding out their names and addresses, but the ex-cultists had moved. They were nowhere to be found. This had been because of the torment the cultists had put them through, which had been exactly what Ted had thought as ideal. However, the ex-cultists remained in hiding, and no one knew if they were cowering in fear or arranging a horrible vengeance.
Ted had to recruit someone with eyes all over the town.
Tipsy, that was what he was called. This was because of all the tips he had. The man utilized all avenues of information and hardly ever discriminated when it came to customers. He had made himself rather easy to find. He had two mercenaries guarding him at all times, for such a profession was sure to gain him the hatred of almost every possible faction.
Ted met Tipsy in an inn downtown, where there were rich merchants dining with their wives. Tipsy didn't discriminate. He belonged to all possible classes at once.
His name also signified a penchant for stuff that was sold in bottles. Rarely, if ever, could one find Tipsy and claim that he was entirely coherent, let alone sober. Him being sober was so laughably out of question that it had become the root of many jokes.
"Hello, Tipsy," Ted said and pulled out a chair for himself. Eknie could deal with her own chair. She was a woman, not a handicapped person.
The restaurant of the inn was on the higher end of relatively fancy, with small golden details on the walls and chairs that were almost dainty enough to be truly and properly fancy.
It was a strange contrast to Tipsy, who looked out of place everywhere he went, being equally unfit for every inn, saloon and shack. He was a strange creature in his gray coat that probably had belonged to a man of an earlier manifestation of the city watch.
"You're not dead yet?" Ted asked.
"Cor, critters like me never die," Tipsy replied. "Heard anything tasty? Or are you perhaps…not selling, but buying instead, cor?"
"Ditch that cor stuff right now and talk business with me." Ted gave a nod to Eknie, who visibly prepared herself for the chance of the encounter getting rather physical.
Ted did not want to make her do it, but disposing of the mercenaries would have been easier than slicing a piece of bread for the master markswoman.
"Let's keep it as business and not bloodshed, then," Tipsy groaned, the booze oozing out of every syllable that he managed to mumble despite his drunken state. "I have all sorts of tips to give you. But the price has to be right."
"You ask for any number, you'll have it in silver, in gold, whatever you happen to need right now." Ted rubbed his hands together, but he stopped doing it as soon as he got a mental image in his head of himself as a fat fly rubbing its front legs together over a tasty carcass.
From that point onwards, the fates of the deserters were sealed.