Aj Atherii. Well met, Freelancers.

Captain Davius Tolvaren here to clear up some discourse among the throngs of armchair authorities on the Freelancer forums.

After my esteemed colleague’s report on the vaunted Shadow Ears, it’s been brought to my attention that this channel’s journalistic integrity has been called into question at their mere mention. While it’s a bit of a reach to attribute the disappearance of some naughty freelancers in Shogunate space to vengeful ninjas, as Ms. Ro’Shaer so brazenly did, I’m confident she’s more knowledgeable than the majority of those maligning her. While the thought of edgy karansi skulking around in the shadows wearing dark pajamas and wielding archaic weapons might seem like cheeseball theatre, the myths surrounding them have persisted for over 10,000 years for a reason.

With that in mind, Daddy Davius has another jewel of wisdom and experience to share.

Once upon a time, one of my fleet ships plundered a mysterious ark on a seemingly innocuous transport that turned out to be karansi smugglers. The big find was a mysterious ark secreted in a container of pungent herbs. A dark, discomforting thing that made many a superstitious yeoman feel uneasy. While they bragged of their lucky catch, a strange disturbance fouled our sensors and comms. Reactors groaned and fluctuated, causing our ships to go dark for a few minutes.

When our systems returned to normal, we noticed the braggadocios fleet ship floating as if derelict. The team sent to investigate reported the crew of over four dozen hardy corsairs all dead. Cut down where they stood. No survivors, even among their captives. Nigh an errant laser burn on the wall or a blade drawn from its scabbard in defence.

More suspicious to my pirate sensibilities, not a speck of valuable loot was missing. Except for the ark.

We live in a wondrous universe full of mystery and danger. After two centuries of mulling it over, the most reasonable explanation I have is my comrades were eliminated by an ancient order of mystic ninjas retrieving an artifact of their Nameless gods.

While I wouldn’t trust anyone who claims to be a Shadow Ear, it’s foolish to dismiss the unlikely as impossible. If you do something to earn someone’s ire, you should be ready for retribution. Whatever form it takes.

As the saying goes, “Zeiryysh avanu lin teirthan.” Tempt fate at your own peril.

The Lies We Tell

​

Immense solar collectors turned to soak the rays of dawn peeking over the horizon on the ocean world of Akua IV. While all but the early birds awoke, some unusual characters on the edge of the megacity-sized island, Soten City, ran for their lives. Gulls squawked and scattered as a trio of sharp-dressed hooligans sprinted down the pier of a small fishing village. Their fine shoes slipping on the wet planks, a bell rung as the first two leaped onto a tour boat heading out to sea. They turned and had to catch thire third companion before he splashed into the emerald waters.

After dragging their out of shape friend over the side, they ignored the strange looks they got from a few tourists and descended the steep stairs down to the tour boat’s bar.

Sliding down the railing, the group’s leader, a tall humanoid with a star-shaped faceplate of bone, smacked a row of exotic shells dangling from the ceiling as he went. He landed with a spin and clapped. “Aaand we’re clear, boys! Easiest score of the age. Time to party!”

A snake-like humanoid Sahalan slithered behind him, eyes darting about the small candle-lit room. “Take it down a notch, Sho! We’re not clear until we’re off this wet marble.”

The Torqun, Sho, tutted and took a seat at the bar. “Psssh, quit being a lil’ bitch and relax, Arwan. We just need to ride around these ruins for a few days. Ain’t nobody gonna look for us out here. That skank, Kuda, will have bigger fish to fry in no time and forget about us.” He slammed the bar. “Oi, oi! Let’s get some drinks, barkeep!”

His uneasy friend said, “I’m just saying, best keep as low a profile as possible. We weren’t counting on getting caught. I’ve heard stories about what happens to people who cross Bara Kuda.”

A shadow fell over them. Sho and Arwan looked up at the massive, muscled bulk of the frog-like Baogi bartender towering over them. He narrowed his eyes and spoke in a deep baritone. “You boys got tickets for this tour?”

Sho stood as tall as he could and still looked up to the beefy bartender. He adjusted the sunglasses covering his four eyes and looked the man square in the face. “Got your tickets right here, daiyo.” He flicked a handful of rinn sticks worth triple the cost of their fares on the counter. “Now make something fun and festive for us high rollers, and there’ll be more where that came.”

The bartender glowered at them, collected the chips, sucked his teeth, then went off to make their drinks.

The Torqun dropped back onto his stool and spoke softer to Arwan. “What were you yapping about?”

Arwan leaned close and whispered. “I’ve been thinking about why Bara Kuda’s security was so comparatively lax in that gambling den. Do you remember Beni Tasugi?”

The bartender stomped back and slammed two drinks in front of them. Sho flicked the parasol straw aside and marvelled at the fun beach scene made of salt and fruit on his drink before taking a sip. “Beni Tasugi? The Ripper? Dude who slashed up a whole neighbourhood, then bullied the cops into paying him protection money? How could I forget that psycho?”

The Sahalan continued, “Shoju the Snitch told me that Beni marched into Bara Kuda’s joint and tried to flex on her too. Apparently, she smiled, paid him a ton of scratch, then sent him on his way. Later that evening, some lone, albino karansi with inky black eyes appeared in their turf and shredded their whole crew.”

Sho made a face. “Pshhh, Shoju been telling you some tall tales to feel important. Smells like a load of toko shit to me.”

Their third companion, a sweat-soaked human named Dugg who finished being sick over the side from exertion, slumped against the bar. “No… It’s true. Worse than that even. My friend’s auntie lived near that hood. Said it was an unholy massacre. Some dark magic shit. Like dark dark magic. Infernal biz… Bodies turned to ash and ripped to pieces… Whole place burned to the ground with flames that gave you frostbite. Horror holo shit.” He searched for the bartender. “Could I get… some water… please?!”

Sho raised an eyebrow and looked between his buddies. “The hell you two saying? Kuda’s got witches on the payroll?”

Arwan leaned closer and whispered as soft as he could. “Worse. Shadow Ears.”

The Torqun scoffed. “Get outta here with that shit, man. Tryin’ to make me scared of some rat people bogeymen.”

Arwan said, “All I’m saying is, the details line up.”

Sho shook his head and looked around the bar. He noticed a short, older karansi, a rodent-like humanoid, sitting next to him. The Torqun gangster reached over and grabbed the man by his coat. “Hey, you a freakin’ ninja, old man? Huh?”

The gentleman tipped up his conical hat, held out his hands wrapped in cloth and smiled. “No need to fear me, young fellow. Unless you’re a tasty, non-sapient fish.” He tapped the tackle box and collapsed fishing rod next to his stool with his cane. “Though, my reputation as a master assassin of fish has waned lately.”

Sho looked back to his boys, locked eyes with the old man, then broke out laughing. He fixed the fisher’s coat and offered a bow. “Apologies, old timer. Just been an exciting time, and I get carried away. Life on the streets made me forget my manners. Want a drink?”

The karansi returned the bow, shook his head, and rubbed his back. “No, thank you. Not much of a drinker, unless you have something for aching, old bones.”

Still out of breath, Dugg said, “My friend’s auntie’s always having this tea they brew from… kelp nearby. Apparently, it works wonders for lubricating… and soothing…” He gestured to the parts of his bodied that still burned from exertion. “Maybe they have some here… along with some water for me before I die on this boat.”

Someone slid a cup of clear liquid next to him. Dugg thanked several deities before guzzling it down.

While Sho chatted with his new fisher friend, Arwan surveyed the room. “Uhhh, guys. Where did everyone go?” The few patrons in here beside the fisher were gone, including the bartender. Even the tour guide’s voice upstairs was absent.

The trio looked behind them, then turned back to the bar to see an albino karansi woman leaning on the bar. Colourful designs dyed into the white fur on her wiry arms resembled sleeve tattoos. She flashed her vibrant violet eyes and gave them a wicked grin. “Hi, boys. What can I get you?”

The trio screamed and jumped back, holding each other. The woman cackled and tossed back her mane of long, thick, wild white hair. “Ah, my favourite part about this job. The look on your faces is priceless. Like getting a mountain of candy on Hallow’s Veil. Delicious.” She clapped her hands together. “Wow, you really thought this bone-headed plan of yours would work? That low-level swindlers like you could rip off Bara Kuda in her own gambling den and get away with it? I’d admire your moxie if you had more than half a brain cell between you.”

Arwan tapped Sho on the shoulder and pointed at her with wide eyes. “It’s… it’s…” He dared not speak it aloud, but made a stabbing gesture followed by wizard hands and placed his fingers on the side of his head like long ears.

Without looking, her tail picked up a bottle from the back wall and she poured herself a drink. “Even the staff of this dinky tour boat all the way on the other end of the city knew better and cleared out on the escape raft without question when I mentioned who sent me. Cone of truth: I’m a little upset Bara even bothered me with this. I’m starting to suspect she’s abusing our special relationship.”

She sipped the drink she made and continued, “Dumb as you are, you three understand how things work. If you don’t get respect, you dig deep, reach in, and reap it out of someone’s rib cage for everyone else to see. Beni, who lacked brains like you, but made up for it with muscle, went waaay too far and needed to be burned out, body and soul, as an example. So unless you three want to join him, I suggest you come quietly and chat with Bara Kuda about paying back what you stole with interest.”

The trio tensed up and exchanged glances.

The karansi woman stopped sipping her drink and dancing when she caught their looks. She flipped some hair out of her face, planted a fist on her hip, and frowned at them. “No. No! Listen… I can hear the fight-or-flight rattling around in that half brain cell you’re sharing. For your own good, listen to me. The correct option is neither. Even if turning yourself in feels bad, the alternatives are so much worse. Even if I didn’t poison your boy here, you wouldn’t make it far.”

Dugg looked at his cup and dropped it. On cue, his breathing came in wheezing gasps as his throat seized up.

As he collapsed to the floor, she said, “There’s one.”

Seeing his friend fall, Sho clenched his teeth and rushed forward. Candle light glinted off his blade as he thrust it toward her chest.

In the blink of an eye, she trapped his hand and slammed his face into the bar, shattering his drink across his bony faceplate and breaking his sunglasses. Before he could fall, she grabbed his knife and impaled his hand to the counter.

As he screamed in pain, she said, “There’s two.”

Arwan extended a quivering hand holding a makeshift pistol and pointed it at her. As he pulled the trigger, she grinned, repeating the sound his firing mechanism made in unison. “Click!” She tossed the weapon’s magazine she lifted off of him earlier behind Arwan. As he turned, she flipped over the counter and used her tail to hurl a bottle at the back of his head, dropping him to the floor.

“And that’s three.” She sighed.

In one smooth motion, the women completed her flip and sauntered around the bar toward the fisher. She smiled, offering an apologetic bow. “So sorry, sir. It wasn’t my intention to interrupt your trip, but do you happen to know how to drive this boat?”

The man spun in his stool and regarded her for a long moment. “Why? Are you lost, girl?”

She cocked her head to the side. He narrowed his eyes and spoke in a long forgotten karansi tongue. “The clans spread word of one matching your description. One who made a pact with tainted powers and betrayed her clan. Abandoned her family, her oath, and fled. Surely, this person wouldn’t have sunken so low as to sell our sacred services to common criminals for coin.”

The air in the room grew thick with tension as waves outside crashed against the boat’s hull. Still impaled to the counter, Sho turned around and spoke through gritted teeth. “What the fuck is going on?”

Previously hunched over, the fisher straightened and carried himself more assertively. A cloth wrapped hand hovered over the handle of his cane as they stared daggers at each other.

The young white-furred karansi’s breathing elevated. Her hand wandered to her chest as an irregular heart pounded inside.

As the man’s cane flicked open enough to expose an inch of steel, she held out her hands and stepped back. “Wait, wait, wait, stop! I’m not actually a Shadow Ear! It’s an act I pulled to get in with Bara Kuda. Ha haaa, you got me! I’m good, b-but I’m not whoever you think I am, mister. Please.”

She dropped to her knees and placed her forehead to the floor. After removing the blade from his hand, Sho kicked her side as hard as he could. With the wind knocked out of her, she rolled over and clutched her bruised ribs.

Sho pointed his bloody knife at her and spat, “You’re gonna get what’s coming to you, you bitch. Right after you fix what you did to Dugg, we’re gonna have words.” He picked up a stunned Arwan and slapped him a few times to regain his senses.

The fisher stepped over her, a hand still on his cane. She looked up, then avoided his gaze, curling up into a ball on the floor. He grimaced. “You’re going to come with me to make sure. But whoever you are, you bring shame to yourself and your family. Such a disappointment.”

As he turned away, she rocked back and forth on the floor. She clawed at her head as her breathing and heart raced even faster. The fisher’s words cut deeper than he could imagine.

Sho picked up Arwan. “Hey, wake up. Shake it off. She's not actually some freaky ninja. I told you, we’re clear. This old dude’s a real one, though.”

Arwan furrowed his brow. “Huh? If she’s not the one, then what happened to Beni?”

Sho, Arwan, and the fisher froze as the woman, still curled up on the floor, laughed in between pulses of pain wracking her. The candles in the room flickered as her voice took on an unnatural timbre. “Oh, Beni. Bara Kuda wasn’t pleased about that one. Said it was too much. You wouldn’t believe how hard I work to contain it. But sometimes… people push a little. Too. Much.” She spoke more and more through gritted teeth.

A deep chill washed over the room. The fisher exhaled a frosty breath he could see in the air. “No…”

Sho dropped Arwan and stomped toward her, knife in hand. “Fuck this. I’ve had enough of this freak show.”

The fisher cried for him to stay back. As he approached, she moved with unnatural speed, wrenching his hand and held him up in the air by his neck. Her hands, now fearsome, blackened claws. Her eyes, an inky abyss burning with dark flames.

A frigid numbing sensation gripped Sho’s neck that somehow still burned. His nerve endings didn’t know how to interpret the feeling other than to fly into a panic at how wrong it felt.

She spoke in a voice now laced with something otherworldly. “It’s good practice to leave a witness or two so Shoju can spread more wild stories. But this time, I think everyone’s just going to die.”

Sho screamed as dark flames poured out of his face and consumed him. When she hurled his body to the side, it disintegrated into ash.

The fisher leaped through the mayhem and slashed with the sword concealed in his cane. “Abomination!”

His blade cut cold flame and smoke where she was. He turned just in time to catch her scything sickle as she reappeared behind him wearing a wicked snarl. She faded back into shadow as Arwan emptied his pistol in her direction. A reaping blade attached to a chain swung from the darkness and ripped the Sahalan open. The fisher jumped as it spun around the room, obliterating Dugg and spreading more dark flame.

To his credit, the fisher parried and dodged the first four strikes launched at him before being cut in half at the waist.

She reappeared over him as he crawled away. He sputtered, “This isn’t over.”

With the dark flames washing over the room, she stood over him, spinning the sickle end of her kusarigama. “Maybe one day, one of you will take the time to listen and recognize that I’m not a monster. I’m chosen. This is a gift.”

He stared at her, aghast. “Heretic. It’s just devilry. You touched what is forbidden. One way… or another… we’ll stop you.”

Light faded further from the room even as flames consumed it. She narrowed her burning inky eyes. “All I wanted was to live my life and be happy. But you stubborn assholes and your rules, your traditions, your oaths. Punishing your own for being different. I never asked for any of it. But I’m finally out now. So leave. Me. Alone!”

So much rage filled her strike that it cut through the floor and ruptured the bottom of the boat. Rushing waves of emerald sea surged inside to combat the dark flames.

***

As authorities and rescue boats swarmed the wreckage, a sole survivor emerged from the water outside their search radius. The albino karansi named Willow, barely in her late teens and on the run for a quarter of her life, pulled herself onto a piece of flotsam gasping for air. She tried to catch her breath among the lapping waves and fallen skyscrapers of a sunken city. The transformation took its toll as pain wracked her body. It had been a while since she’d let loose. It behoved her to keep a low profile.

The fisher’s words replayed in her head as she floated along. She tossed her thick, wet hair out of her face and pushed the painful thoughts aside. There were enough problems waiting for her in Soten City since Bara Kuda explicitly ordered her to bring those buffoons in alive with the credits they stole. And she had confirmation that the wider Shadow Ear network hadn’t given up the hunt.

It was an enormous risk doing what she did to gain this power. It almost consumed her the first time, and threatened to do it again every time she let it in, but there weren’t any other ways out. At least, none that she could see.

Willow closed her eyes and went back to her breathing, focusing like her loving father taught her to when she felt overwhelmed. She thought, I’m chosen. I’m fine. I’m in control.

She didn’t notice the beads of frost forming on the surface of the warm water around her.