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C H A P T E R O N E
The Fates will find a way
Exposition &Episode 001 (Eve&Romance Dawn)
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"NOTHING IS REAL."
The simple sentence stuck out sorely from between the posters detailing bounties, listing laws and advocating for the free and safe traverse of the ocean. The italic font was translucent with age and exposition to the sun, ink barely visible over the bronze leather of the parchment that it was roughly written on with. Under a variety of histrionic profiles crudely drawn or photographed in pamphlets pasted over the wall, such a small flyer with blurry text was insignificant. If anything, it was the normalcy and monotony of the handful of letters picking out from behind another paper that allowed Tyche to notice it was even there, glaring at her like a criminal to its executioner.
Her head shifted to face it instead of the small crowd walking beside her — they moved further into the labyrinth-like streets of the town without sparing their focus away, even robotically, and Tyche didn't want to imagine the toll of such tedious life under the tyranny of the marines.
The bone wall, eroded and worn with the immortal fight between pirates and marines, stretched high above into an unbecoming daguerreotype of a man whose name she couldn't bring herself to wonder or even care about insofar she planned to make her visit to his reign one short and swift — hopefully, one that was successful too.
Uninterested, she looked at the posters below it. She did so with feigned curiosity for the sake of remaining far away from any suspicion, the glint of a devotee of the mock peace of the marines implanted into her doubtful expression. It had been crafted after focus and observation for protection against the tyranny of the majority. Soon, she couldn't help looking at the statement whose glare she could feel and which constituted the only notice that called for her attention.
She let her eyes run over the streaks of the remaining letters with surgical care, eyes trailing the shape of the warning she assumed followed the direct statement that sat as a header. The text, a wide sea of characters in prose boldly occupying the rest of the paper, was barely a smudged square dripping into the wall after years of constant humidity and obvious neglect.
"Don't trust your senses."
Tyche pulled the poster down with a subtle motion of her hand, rolling the antique parchment and letting it drop into her rucksack without stopping her purported stroll or calling anyone's attention to herself; as far as she was aware, the only people barely interested in the wall of reprobation were a pair loudly bickering a handful of meters to the side, and, even then, she doubted that they were pious enough to throw the first stone. What was more, one of them was shaking like a leaf upon merely receiving a glare from a passing cadet as they left their dinghy.
