The city square of Dawnbreak was a world renown architectural marvel. With the city built on a river delta, most of its structures were erected over dredged lands, or the mud exposed from redirected waterways. The cathedral and city square however are built immediately adjacent to the harbor.

  This allowed the cathedral access to its highly defended naval shipyard, and it allowed the square to be readily repurposed as a military or cargo staging ground.

  The square itself was special, though, because it was a brick plaza laid across a flying deck over the harbor’s calm waters. Grates and vents were dotted throughout to relieve pressure from any rogue waves or higher tides.

  The square was usually full, though, of young people drinking coffee together, or older people playing Divine Intervention. And as the crowds enjoyed the evening in the square, they were unaware that to the west, hidden behind Dawnbreak’s buildings, the sun was setting.

  The sky was a tangy twilight-pink when the square began to tremble. There was no time to react when suddenly, pillars of briny water erupted from every grate throughout the square at a single time.

  Citizens ran screaming before being knocked off of their feet by the torrent. Furniture and flower beds were sloshed across the ground as the deluge roared up from below the city.

  And the rush of floodwater stopped just as quickly as it came. Displaced, confused fish and humans alike lay about the square, sputtering and gasping, doing their best to get their bearings once more.

  The center of the square was now littered with detritus from the sea. For those on the square, still flabbergasted by the sudden burst of water, it was just a pile of displaced rocks, coral, and seaweed.

  But on the wall of the Cathedral, Cayd and been watching the sun set when the explosion of water occurred below him. “Hey, hey!” he shouted to the paladin. “Go get the high sergeant!”

  In the center of the square, the Laughing Buccaneer had left the people of Dawnbreak a message. The dripping sea life read “Get Ready!”

  “What are we waiting for?” Tidus asked as he watched one of Zora’s crewmembers stack cannonballs beside one of the ship’s few cannons. After all, their magic was usually enough to sink a ship.

  “I told you, Tidus,” Zora responded. “The Church is sending reinforcements by sea and I won’t be letting them arrive.”

  “Why not just take the fortress now?” Tidus asked, almost whining. “Hitting the square was just… So fun.”

  “Because once I’m in the fortress, will you be of much help? I would rather have you on hand to sink their boats. The church is in some sort of panic right now. I guess they are having some form of riots up in the north. And they have lost Bridgefort.”

  “Ha! Truly?” Tidus asked, baffled.

  “That’s what I’ve heard at least,” Zora said, shrugging. “Evidently some slavers from the center of the Frozen Wastes have seized the fortress. We may be looking at the final days of the Will of Gessel.”

  Tidus suddenly grimaced.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Gessel’s a nice guy, Zora. Don’t do this to hurt him.”

  “Tell him it’s nothing personal,” she said dismissively. “And thank him for having his followers keep so much treasure on hand.

  “Do you know what kind of reinforcements they are getting?”

  “The message said three ships. Not a lot, but enough to make our day kind of rough. I want this operation to be smooth and painless.”

  Boldbounty and Cayd were standing side by side while the Cathedral’s Mother Superior paced behind them.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “So, how do you fight an avatar, Mr. Cayd?”

  “Me? Or anyone?”

  “Either way as long as it gets me home safe,” Boldbounty said laughing.

  “Oh, I’m really very glad the two of you can laugh about this,” the fanged folk priestess hissed. “We are being threatened by a god!”

  “I mean,isn’t there Dorvan? He’s right next door, right?” Boldbounty asked with a shrug. But the priestess continued to fume. “Sorry, I’m just trying to stay a little positive, is all.”

  “I know, I know,” she said. “But my people are at risk here, High Sergeant.”

  “We do have some things working in our favor, least of which are the reinforcements on their way,” Boldbounty said.

  “Reinforcements? From where?”

  “From the Throne, had you not heard?”

  “There is no official notice, High Sergeant. Where have you heard this?”

  “Trust me, the source is a good one,” Boldbounty assured. “Ordered directly from the Council.”

  “Even though their missions are burning?”

  Cayd listened to the back and forth with a grin. “I think we will be alright, Mother Superior. After all, doesn’t Gessel provide for things like this?”

  “Faith does little for the nerves, Cayd,” she said, looking down. “Take my habit and focus for my saying that, but it’s the damned truth. Tidus isn’t known for pulling his punches, nor is the Sea Witch.”

  “But she hasn’t come directly for a cathedral yet,” Boldbounty reminded her. “The trick is going to be staying informed about what she is doing, and luckily, Mr. Cayd has something for that. Mind showing her what we bought?”

  Cayd grinned widely and reached down beside him, where up to then, an iron lantern was resting inconsequentially on the cathedral’s wall. He held the lantern up and waved his free hand. A thick, blue sphere enveloped the lantern. Cayd released it, and it continued to hover and head-level.

  “Is this from that trinket peddler?”

  “You mean that brilliant practitioner of blue magic?” Cayd corrected coyly. “Yes, I bought it from him. And after some research, I found out what it was originally designed for.

  “It’s called a lumineer. The Duskfall Scholastic Rebellion used them to communicate with other lumineer holders, but it is really just a matter of syncing up with magical potential and then it should work.

  “The good news is, your pirate queen doesn’t have a lumineer, but we do know that she has a few enchanted trophies from people she has defeated.”

  The mother superior began to look bored, and so Cayd moved his explanation along. “So, then it was a matter of locating the magic items, right? The one I like to use is her flag. Watch this, Mother Superior.”

  Cayd smiled as he held two open hands at the lumineer, his palms beginning to glow blue. There was a hint of the same blue light showing up in the tattoos on Cayd’s wrists.

  Then, the sphere around the lumineer began to swell until it was three times larger than before. And in the midst of the blue glow, an image began to appear. The point of view was on the ground, looking up and off slightly, as though the flag were in storage. But sure enough, before them was the shape of a woman in a long cotton coat with a beaten leather hat in her hands.

  She was gesturing playfully at a mass of cloudy color immediately in front of her.

  “What is this?” the Mother Superior asked in awe.

  “Blue magic,” Boldbounty answered. “Brutal, barbaric, sinful blue magic.”

  “Cut it, High sergeant,” she snarked. “Mr. Cayd. Why did we not start doing this earlier?”

  “The math is,” Cayd grunted, doing his best to maintain channeling the spell. “The math is hard. I have to continuously shift the calculations to make sure I stay honed in on it.”

  “And what is the blob of color there?”

  “An avatar, we presume. The Laughing Buccaneer,” Boldbounty answered for Cayd. “The form is messing with the mana. Mr. Cayd, that’s all we need right now. Unless she looks like she is about to attack us.”

  “We won’t be monitoring it permanently?” the priestess asked, seeming to miss Cayd beginning to look distressed.

  “Until Cayd is on our payroll, I’m not making him do anything,” Boldbounty laughed. “We will need to be paying closer attention, though, now that we have this little threat.” The High Sergeant looked back down at the note from Tidus. Now that it was darker, the colors and shapes all blended together to simply make the words, making the message that much more foreboding.