Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

Sayed opened his eyes, and forgotten knowledge filled him. He was Sayed, from the land of Hajh, blessed with the fires of God that he could channel into his blade. He knew himself now.

He stood from the bank's floor and opened his gate, only to be subsumed by another memory.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Sayed cut a long green stick into small pieces before sliding it from the cutting board to the side. He quickly took another large red pepper and sliced it down the sides. Clearly, he was preparing food in the Nighthawk's kitchen.

Internally, trapped in his memory, he frowned. Every moment he spent trapped in his own thoughts increased the danger outside for himself. However, he knew no way to speed it up. He could only follow the story as it had happened.

"Another night for a festive feast!" his voice boomed out through the kitchen, and he turned to face his guests after dicing the peppers and adding them to the pile of vegetables.

"I don't like it." Alex's face was no longer shadowed at the table. "That fog is too thick."

"Do you think it's a trap?" Erin asked, though her face was still covered in shadows.

"For us?" Alex raised an eyebrow. "No, not specifically."

"For the entire island to be wrapped in mist." A knight in a formal blue and grey tunic leaned on the table. "A ruse, a sign, to guess I would be remiss."

Sayed did not recognize the light, even though his memories were partially restored. Internally, that piqued his interest, but he wished for the onslaught of recollections to end. Outside, he had a fight and a newly reclaimed blessing to use.

"From what Artur keeps telling us, the docks should be straight ahead of the ship, but we've seen no movement in or out in a day."

Wen had a face and leaned back in her chair with her feet propped up on the table. Her hands rested behind her head as she looked up at the ceiling. Sayed pursed his lips, crossing the room and smacking her boots with a wooden spoon.

"No feet on the table!" he barked before turning to the counter.

Click.

He turned the knob activating the stove's heating plate, and plopped a curved pan on top. He raised the heat to the maximum the dial would allow before returning to prepping the food. The conversation behind him continued as he worked.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

"We'll have to see what Jean saw when he comes back," Alex said. "After seeing the outside of the Core again, I forgot how weird this all could be."

"A bunch of unmoving fog isn't even that weird," Wen said. "I'd put that on the level of seeing a curse for the first time."

"It could be someone's curse," Erin said. "The doctor on Cragg Hollow did that."

"Doctor Livesay?"

"I don't want to deal with crabs again."

"That's the point, though; maybe there's a person with a curse maintaining the fog," Wen said. "The question is, why would they?"

Skitter.

Sayed stopped chopping up the meat he had pulled out as a line of claws crawled up his spine. He looked around, his eyes checking the floor on both sides, but nothing was there. He shrugged his wide shoulders and started chopping again.

"Let's just wait for Jean to get back." Alex sighed. "Sitting here speculating isn't doing anything."

"Should I get Mari from the bridge?" the knight asked. "Even machines should eat, just a smidge."

"Not yet," Alex said, standing up and looking down the hall. "We might still need to run fast depending on how Jean comes back. We'll keep it warm for her until we confirm everything is safe."

Sayed nodded. While it was regrettable, keeping Mari safe kept them all safer. She was the key to the ship. Without her, the Nighthawk was as useless as a broken blunt blade.

"He is going to be very wet when he climbs back up from beneath the water." Sayed shook his head. "I hope he comes back hungry. This 'stir fry' you have told me about will be delicious!"

Skitter.

Movement above Sayed's head caught his attention, and he turned to the ceiling. The sound that had been bothering him had come from there, but Sayed could not have expected to see a giant spider crawling on the ceiling. A singular glowing gem covered its back, and multiple glowing red eyes glared down at Sayed.

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"What—"

Hiss.

Sayed brought up the knife as the spider dropped down, and his knife scored it down the side with a single slash. However,r he couldn't avoid the spider's fangs. Long red lines of blood dripped down his arm as he fell to his knees. Unlike the flames of his blessing, a fire burned down his arm, and the knife fell to the floor from limp fingers.

Clatter. Splat.

Across from him, Alex slapped down another spider with his arm, though he had already earned a cut of his own. More spiders descended from the ceiling, jumping and catching all of them in a flurry of hairy legs.

"Brother!" Sayed tried to stand but fell to the side, his legs refusing to listen.

Hundreds of spiny legs cut across his skin. Sticky material wrapped around his body as he fought against the binds. Gray filled his visions as the spiders crawled over it. Sayed realized it in his internal vision before he realized it in his memory. The spiders had managed to capture them by taking them all by surprise and swarming them.

That did leave the question of Jean and how he had fared with the spiders, but Sayed didn't need much to answer that question. Jean would have been taken while trying to scout out the docks. That only left Mari, who would have been on the bridge in her protected area.

His vision faded as the spiders completed their wrappings, and the air left his lungs.

Sayed blinked as he returned to his body, his arms at his sides as he knelt on the ground. Cool aether filled his lungs again as he took in a deep breath. He was still alive, and that would be the ruin of his enemies.

"I walk with you again," he whispered, his numb fingers grabbing his sword's hilt as he stood. "Bring your blessing, and I will smite my enemies."

He opened his gate. Fire raced through his veins like burning oil, sending heat out through his arm and into his blade. The edge burned a hot orange as he searched the room for his opponent, but all that greeted him was a path of destruction across the room.

Someone else had engaged Cragg and taken the fight away from Sayed. He did not have time to pause and think about it. He ran for the stairs, blade held low.

The railing was broken going up to the second floor, but at least it gave Sayed an easy path to follow. He skulked up the stairs, slowing as he passed a hole in the wall on the landing. The hole reminded him of the other fighter in the conflict. Perhaps more than the ground was dangerous.

It did not matter. Sayed had a fight to finish.

"You shouldn't play with your food."

Bolton lay on the ground as Sayed came up the stairs, a tall, red-headed woman holding him to the ground with a long shovel. She wore a heavy jacket and had a yellow, rounded helmet. Beside her stood Cragg, hammer in his hands as he faced the stairs. Sayed and Cragg saw each other in the same instant, and a frown creased the big man's face as he pointed toward Sayed. Sayed did not hesitate. He already had two opponents to deal with.

"Demon's Thrust!"

Ting.

He shot out toward Cragg, thrusting with his sword as he jumped across the room. Cragg brought his hammer up, interposing it between Sayed's sword and his body with a small movement. Sayed didn't allow himself to be topped, lashing out with his fingers as heat bled into his nails.

"Demon's Claw!"

Heat burned across his fingers, turning them the same orange hot as his blade. He would pay for that later, but for a moment, it allowed him a second weapon. He slashed across Cragg's chest, leaving long bleeding lines.

"Argh!"

Cragg fell back, clutching at his chest as the burns started beneath his skin. Sayed jumped at the woman next, swinging down his blade on her head as he took in a breath. His blade blurred as he swung down on her.

"Demon's Divide!"

Klong.

The woman spun on one leg, swinging her shovel around and slamming it into the side of Sayed's blade. His sword crashed into the floor below, cutting a long line across the floor with the strength of his strike.

Crack

"Now, what do we have here?" the woman jumped back, creating some distance between them and leaving the fallen Bolton behind. "I thought you were down for the count."

"I have come just in time, as all great heroes should." Sayed smiled, stepping over Bolton and facing the woman. "Let us finish this fight once and for all!"

Crumble.

Behind him, Cragg stood, drawing up his hammer again in both hands. Sayed was glad he was not alone. Whatever he could say about Bolton, the man had come to his aid when he was out. He was no longer fighting alone.

"Come on, broth—"

He looked down to where Bolton had been, but the man was gone.

"Hah." The woman snorted, spinning her shovel around her body in a few quick twirls. "You're in the same bad situation as before. I think it's about time we both end you."

"Revenge for Bragg!" Cragg yelled behind Sayed. "Hammer Festival!"

Whir.

Cragg swung his hammer harder than he should, and out of Sayed's peripheral vision, he saw the man keep going. He swung his hammer into a mighty circle until he was a blur. A tornado of steel came for Sayed.

"Shovel Walk!"

Crunch.

At the same time, the woman lunged forward with her shovel, one leg pushing down on the edge as she slammed it into the floor. She skimmed forward with it, riding it with one leg like she was sliding down a slippery hill. Sayed had never seen anything like it before in his life.

However, he did not have time to ponder what strange blessing the woman had.

"Demon's Twister!"

He swung his blade in a wide arc around him, calling up a storm of slashes around his body. He was not aiming for either combatant with his attack, though. His entire focus was on the building around him. A heavy wind blasted up and down from him, crashing into the ceiling above and the floor below.

Crack. Boom.

The floor around him broke from the force of his strike, and Sayed fell. However, he was not the only one. Cragg and the woman fell with him as the floor around them shattered. His earlier attack had weakened the floor enough that his gambit was possible. Now, he just needed to land solidly.

Thump. Thud.

Sayed caught himself on his legs and one arm, holding his blade to the side as his muscles burned. All around him, debris fell, strewing the surrounding floor with wooden desks and floorboards. The woman and Cragg landed soon after him, but Sayed paid them no mind. He took in a deep breath and opened his gate further, feeding it more aether to unlock the next level of his blessing.

"Desert Mirage!"

Hiss.

Sweat poured out from his body, creating a mist as it boiled out of him. The flames inside him burned dry and hot as he focused on his power, and the air around him shimmered as he called the next level of his blessing.

When he was done, he stood, ready to fight off Cragg and the woman. Bolton may not have stayed to fight, but he bought Sayed the time he needed. Now, he could face them with all his blessing and show them why God favored him.

"Come now, let me show you why they call me 'Sword Saint.'"

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