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  (Bob)

  The meat-thing must move. Don your crown. Time to feed.

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  Cold came first. Not the sting of sea air, but something older—a deep cold that had settled into marrow centuries ago and never left.

  Ainmire became aware of this cold before he became aware of himself. Before he knew he had lungs filled with seawater, muscles locked rigid, veins frozen still. Before he understood that he was trying to breathe through a throat choked with brine.

  Move. The thought wasn't his. It arrived from somewhere behind his eyes, a presence that felt like pressure against his skull. The meat-thing must move.

  Sounds filtered through: hushed voices, shuffling feet. He lay on hard planks. Wet fabric clung to skin that felt wrong—too large, too heavy, too dead.

  "A shame," someone said. "Musta been too late."

  "How long's you reckon he's been dead?"

  "Dunno. But he's damn cold. Colder than a—"

  "Colder than a witch's tit," Ainmire croaked.

  Silence.

  He forced his eyes open. Light seared, but he endured, blinking at the shapes before him. Men. Three of them, frozen mid-motion, staring. And radiating from them—something he could almost see. Warmth. Light. Life. It disgusted him, though he didn't know why.

  Living Humans (3).

  Your new nature causes instinctual aversion from the living. This is not their fault. This is not your fault. This simply is.

  Memory came in fragments: fire on moonlit water, screams choked by smoke, the weight of something in his hand—

  The hat.

  He sat up. Joints ground like stones. Water sloshed inside his chest. The men stumbled back as he looked down at himself: pale, swollen limbs; tattered clothing; the stench of brine and rot and something else, something ancient that clung to him like a second skin.

  In his hand: a sodden tricorne. Frayed. Mangled. Against all reason, he had held onto it through drowning, through death, through whatever came after.

  He didn't know why. But relief washed through him anyway—profound, disorienting, wrong.

  Bonded Item: Captain's Tricorne

  This object is Soul-Anchored. You have carried it through death. You do not remember why.

  Boots on wood. Heavy. Approaching.

  The men parted for a new figure: tall, composed, studying Ainmire with careful eyes. A captain's bearing. A captain's coat.

  Human

  Name: Lanson

  Occupation: Ship Captain

  Disposition: Cautious. He is not afraid of you yet.

  "I am Captain Lanson." He stopped several paces away. "My men claim they pulled a corpse from the sea. I tend to believe my own eyes." A pause. "Currently, they're telling me you're either not a corpse, or my boatswain is a liar."

  Ainmire looked at the hat in his hands. Something painful stabbed through him—sadness, sudden and invasive—then vanished. He shrugged and placed the wet thing on his head.

  Bonded Item: Equipped

  "Funny thing. I've got a fancy hat here. Makes me a captain too." He grinned. "So here's the thing, Lanson—"

  "T-that's Captain Lanson." A thin man stepped forward, voice trembling. "Show some respect."

  Ainmire's grin faltered. Something stirred behind his eyes—that pressure, that presence—and for a moment he wasn't looking at the thin man. He was looking at an insect.

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  (Bob)

  This insignificant thing dares—

  Lanson raised a hand. "Pay him no mind. But he's not wrong about respect." He studied Ainmire again, from the ridiculous hat to the bloated body. "You look distressed, Captain. My men claim to recognize you. They name you as a wanted man—Ainmire. Supposedly very dead."

  Saviors. The word echoed in Ainmire's hollow skull. He turned to look at the other men, still clustered at the edges of the lamplight. Concern on their faces. Then shock. Then horror, as they truly saw him: the pallor, the eyes that held a sliver of drowned green, the chest that didn't move with breath.

  He stared back at them. At their warmth. Their light. Their fragile little lives.

  (Bob)

  They are in danger. This captain cannot protect them. But you could. If only they weren't so... bright.

  Class Instinct: Protector (Dormant) Triggered

  You have spent your existence stepping between danger and the weak. This instinct does not die.

  Current Target: Crew of the unnamed vessel

  Goal: Unknown. But you are here now. That changes things.

  And Ainmire understood. He knew exactly what needed to be done.

  He stood. The movement was wrong—too many joints bending too far, too slowly, as if he were learning to operate this body from a great distance. He towered over Lanson. The smaller men cowered behind their captain.

  But not Lanson. His hand shook on his cutlass, but he held his ground.

  Ainmire appreciated that. Something else was disgusted.

  He raised his hands to his protruding stomach and began to drum—a slow, playful rhythm on taut flesh. The men stared in confusion. Indents formed beneath his fingers and remained, pressed into discolored skin.

  "Sir." Lanson's voice strained for calm. "This is highly irregular. I'm trying to understand our situation."

  Savvy failure.

  You are drumming on your own dead stomach. This is not a thing corpses usually do. The humans are appropriately unsettled.

  "I've never seen your little friends before." Ainmire kept drumming. "But I like that name. Ainmire. Captain Ainmire." He stopped drumming, slapped his belly twice—a final chord. "Lanson, you've been polite. So I'll be straight with you: we're not gonna get along. So now we're gonna fight."

  Before Lanson could respond, Ainmire's arm shot out with impossible speed. His hand closed around a wooden pillar—part of a makeshift medical bed—and squeezed. Wood splintered. He wrenched it free, staggered, found his footing.

  Mettle Success

  You are stronger than you remember. You are stronger than you should be.

  Then he looked at his hands and saw water seeping from the broken wood, freezing instantly. Rime crawled up his arms, across his shoulders, down to the club itself. Within seconds, he held a weapon of gleaming ice.

  (Bob)

  Do not be hasty. Watch. Learn.

  "Make up your mind." Ainmire sighed, massive frame going slack. He slumped back onto the planks, dropping the cudgel of ice. The wood splintered beneath its weight.

  The pistol shot deafened him.

  Smoke bloomed—acrid, choking. One of the cowering men stood trembling at Lanson's side, a spent flintlock in his hand. The young sailor's face was white with terror.

  Ainmire could not help admiring the make of the weapon as he felt the impact against his forehead. Then nothing.

  Incoming Attack: Flintlock Pistol (Point Blank)

  Damage: 45 (Lethal to living creatures)

  Your Status: Undead - Damage reduced by 80%

  Final Damage: 9

  Your HP: 36/45

  Peace.

  He drifted above lonely darkness. No confusion. No presence. Just the memory of what peace felt like: the slow rhythm of a ship at sea, cool wind on his skin, silence that belonged only to him.

  Then: fragmented memories again, Screaming. A voice begging for mercy. Smoke forcing into his lungs, scorching from within. That ancient cold in his veins, older than memory, older than death.

  (Bob)

  Not yet, meat-thing.

  "Oh, fuck off." Ainmire's voice echoed in the void. "I was having a nice time in all this nothing. And you had to go and ruin it!"

  (Bob)

  You will respect. You exist because it is demanded. You die when it is allowed.

  "I know." He sighed. "I know you are just gonna be a whole lotta fun."

  Status: Reviving.

  Something requires your continued existence.

  Time to unconsciousness: 3... 2... 1...

  The screaming continued. The smoke burned. And somewhere above, in a body that wouldn't stay dead, Ainmire felt himself being pulled back toward the light.