Daka sms his boot on a crate, shirt half-torn, holding a half-empty bottle of something that definitely isn’t legal.

  “Oi! You’re missing the boat party — literally!”

  “We fought squiddy freaks in robes, the kind that pray to seafood and smell like guilt! I punched a man so hard he converted midair! Mel grew a forest in the cargo hold, Krummar lit up the deck like a divine rave, and Melodia—well, she sang someone’s soul out their body, I think. Whole boat smelled like ocean, ozone, and regret.”

  He pauses, gives a surprisingly genuine nod.

  “Won’t be the same without ya, though. No dumb questions mid-fight. No panic-healing when someone ‘accidentally’ dives off the side. No bad dice rolls that somehow save us anyway.”

  “We’re savin’ you a dram and a dagger for next time. Don’t be te — the sea’s still hungry, and we’ve got more cultists to drown.”

  He grins, fshing a gold tooth he definitely didn’t have before.

  “Storm King’s Thunder don’t roar right without the full storm.”