In the City of Sunlit Night, Paradox

  Lux's P.O.V

  ...

  It had been about three weeks of time here in Paradox and during that time Kien had been uncomfortably silent, no dreams, no visions, and no call upon my power. Noble has been able to watch over him and confirmed he was still alive. Their was just some time misalignment between paradox and the specific part of the mortal realms that Kien was bobbing around in.

  During the first week I had been really working on getting more in tune with Void Fire. I was essentially turning the ship I was on into a Byzantine Dromon that would act as a naval skirmisher darting between the larger galleons and lighting them up in flame. After the main naval force that patrolled was defeated my ship would be departing to the fleet and attacking one of the smaller outlying islands. Once I defeated the captain and claimed the island then I report back to main fleet.

  Flicking my wrist a flickering human sized taint rose beside me. I had learned how to summon a taint here in Paradox, which was harder due to competing paradoxical energy. So I was limited to one at a time but they where much stronger actually able to some damage rather then just being high-level cannon fodder. Now I stood at the docks of Sunlit Night, a long thin channel that would deposit into the sea. The fleet consisted of a large galleon acting as the flagship Merciful Domination, and the five galleons, one for each of the top five lieutenants. Then their were five schooners for the rest of Lieutenants with the rest of the fleet having brigantines which were armoured cargo and countless sloops which made up most of the fleet.

  My ship was the Night's Ferryman I was the 'Captain' but the first mate would be one actually steering the dam thing. My ship only contained twelve entities but they could each summon a taint that could act as additional crew. Unfortunately even though a lot of the lingo was similar to pirates they lacked cannons. Turns out magic makes all but extremely expensive ones obsolete. Which meant their was a single cannon in the whole fleet.

  "Oight, Lux Lieutenant's meetin' Infin wants ya der, its on the Biggin'" an entity called out and I tipped my head in acknowledgement before moving towards the docked behemoth. Its wood was a pale white shining in the brackish water Entities and Taints moved around the top of the ship. Cargo and shuffle of supplies created a dull but lively background music. Practically musical in its rhythm, as I ascended up the series of ramps careful not to get in the way. Once I made it to the deck I saw the commotion as a hole deep into the cargo bay loaded the supplies deep into the bowels of the ship. Most of the supplies where meant to develop the islands once we took it from its current inhabitants.

  Weaving through the hustle of Eldritch sailors I made it to the ornately decorated doorway and rapped on the door.

  "Who is it?" A voice called out the door muffled it so I didn't quite recognize the voice. Knowing the Despotissa who preferred discreet enchantments the door was probably the cause.

  "It's Lux" I raised my voice to be heard over the nearby scraping of a wooden crate.

  "Come in" the voice stated and I turned the knob and slipped into the cabin. Their a few feet away was a simple table laden with papers and maps. The other nine lieutenants hovered over the table in low conversation. At the head sitting upon a mci between a captains chair and a throne was the Despotissa out of her fine silks and In chainmail.

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  "Come there's and empty seat, we have much to discuss" the Despotissa stated and I saw the empty seat at the table. Standing at the table as I followed the mannerisms of my fellow lieutenants. The Despotissa stood up and summoned a series of small crystal balls.

  "In these are all of the confirmed and unconfirmed information for your primary targets" the Despotissa stated and with a flick of her wrist a crystal went to each of us. Catching it I saw the eyes of the other cloud and I followed I absorbed the information.

  I saw a series of flashes and visions, I saw a crowfolk captain with every move their was a rattling of enemy bones that we wore as jewelry. He had deep black feathers and his eyes black and beady, his ship the Sea Vulture had series of nests and far to many masts as his whole crew was in the form of bird folk and they they like to swoop down and pick off sailors form their ship one on one. Then I saw a scrawled writing In my vision, the name of my target. The Wasteful Scavenger, what followed was a series of tragedies wrought by the Scavenger's hand.

  Apparently they had away to project down to the mortal realms and liked to raid and I saw images of various cities burning under the shadow of a crow. I watched an image of a bustling city made of towering quartz. Ships tried to stop the Sea Vulture but their wooden corpses and red water was all was left. I watched as the Scavenger rose form his ship and the vision came to a young boy that appeared to be elvish. An ornate crown sat upon his head, and the boy king watched in horror as the sounds of terrified screams from his guards. Next the hall doors blasted opened and a the vision cut out with a shadow looming over the boy king.

  Then I snapped out of the view, and I watched as the other lieutenants had air of annoyance.

  "These Idiots are thy trying to give the Dam Divines a reason to invade Paradox!" One Lieutenant stated. He was rank 7th of the Lieutenants and had the form of a textbook dwarf with exception of being made entirely of stone.

  "I feel like missing some context here" I stated as I could see how a bunch of raiders might piss off some divines but I didn't see how that could cause them to invade.

  "When the systems were crafted the Higher planes closest to the mortal plains agreed to limit our intervention on the mortal realms so these entities raiding them could give the other planes cause to invade Paradox, though really it would mean a condemnation which is annoying to deal with" the Despotissa explained to me before she continued.

  "Alright now we have to kill them all, we have enough supplies on us to restore some of the infrastructure after victory at which point my father will send us settlers to actually live in our new lands remember we are trying to make this the staging point to our invasion of further territory." The Despotissa warned before the meeting devolved into a supply and logistics briefing. Entities didn't need a whole lot but for morales sake they wanted for much. Turns out without a need to sleep most needed something to take up their access time.

  After the meeting ended we broke apart the, fleet would depart in six hours. I decided to take the time and meet my crew. Walking up my schooner, Night's Ferryman was literally built for my usage its wooden exterior was steely grey that matched the sea and sky. The sails where the same color, and along the deck of the ship were braizers that could be lighted with a thought. I found out it was easier to turn a pre-existing fire into Void Fire then to summon it. My whole crew also had abilities that related to fire, and as we sailed I had an ability I was trying to master that could make my already camouflaged ship even harder to spot in the haze of war. Luckily my fellow captains had the ability to sense my ship to avoid friendly fire.

  Reaching out with my will I pressed my understanding upon Paradox and slowly the door to my cabin turned slightly opaque before reality resisted and snapped back into place.

  "Hey Cap" a cheery voice asked and I turned to see my first mate. A burly Entity made of smoking ash giving his skin slight grayscale and granulated look. His paradox was burning growth, which allowed him to turn ash to wood and vice versa which was going to be a life saver in case me or my crew caught sloppy.

  "Hey Burney, just so to be clear the ship's got to be ready in six hours" I stated and my first angel nodded and called out a few order to the one of the crew, a mass of tentacles that formed the shape of humanoid.

  "Oight, Wriggy check the ropes again" Burney called out and the aforementioned crew member waffled his hand before he broke his humanoid visage and scaled the main mast.