Playing With Fire

Chapter 9: Left Behind

"Months before Regan left, he came to Nisha and me, telling us about the crate of fragments and what his sister had done... And that he was still 'considering his options.' He didn't say what that meant, only alluding to the fact that he was planning something..." Naomi starts.

As the months passed, Naomi and Nisha had sat on the information Regan relayed to them. So many questions thrown forward between the two of them. Why did Regan decide to only tell them? What does his family know? Where the hell did his sister get entire crates of Schism Fragments, when just ten years ago they were nearly impossible to find?

What was Regan planning?

As soon as Varagores was brought up, Nisha wanted nothing to do with it. Naomi could tell Nisha started getting a little pissed with Regan when he was telling them all of this, but she did her best to keep her partner from losing her cool. Until they knew what Regan planned to do with the fragments, they had to refrain from holding judgment. They didn't know the full story or where he was going to take it.

"After your fight with Regan... Well, after he left, he came to us again. He asked Nisha to stow the crate on her ship, and to take him to Varagores to deliver it. And that's when things got... heated. Nisha refused, while Regan insisted it's what needed to be done. The argument finally ended when I proposed an alternative option than just bringing Regan to the most dangerous place in the world with a crate of the most dangerous magic items in the world..."

Naomi suggested a middle-ground. In the past, she and Nisha have sailed all over the world. They've dealt with lots of thieves, pirates, smugglers. You name it. But there was one smuggler in particular who was up for dangerous work like what they would later bring to her table.

Sereia Nekane. The name was heavy in Conarita, and known by every pirate on the Orinas and Cordaian Seas. There used to be many more smugglers like her who operated centrally out of Narvadin, but since Varagores invaded, most of the biggest crime lords had been bought out, or moved. Most of them.

"Sereia was who you went to when you needed to make a risky trade. And nothing was riskier than dealing with Varagores. She would no doubt take the job after enough persuasion that it would be worth her time. Regan was okay with this plan. And after a lot of consideration, Nisha agreed too."

Naomi sat on the bowsprit of the merchant brig while Nisha focused from behind the wheel, her attention alert the whole way to Conarita, where Sereia operated out of. To get there, they had to sail past both Varagores and Narvadin.

"I knew Nisha didn't want to be there. In truth, I didn't either. We both had a horrible feeling about anything to do with Varagores. But Regan was determined. If he was afraid, he didn't show it."

They sailed for just over a week when they arrived at the port of Waesterial. When they got to Conarita, as soon as the sails were raised and the anchor was dropped, Nisha declared that was the farthest she would go. She wouldn't go with Regan and Naomi to meet with the smuggler, so she decided to stay with the ship and the crate.

"Until we knew Sereia would agree to help, we felt it best to leave the crate of fragments below deck. Just because we had done business with her in the past didn't mean we trusted her. She was a criminal, and a good one. She was admirable to thieves, but also a threat if someone offered her a better deal..."

Naomi led Regan through Conarita, knowing the streets like the back of her hand. Some faces she recognized, others she'd never seen before in her life. But for business like what they were dealing with that day, they all had to be as much strangers to her as she had to be to them. And Regan being as famous as he is drew an occasional second glance as they passed, but neither of them thought anything of it in the moment. Which would be their first mistake after walking into that bathhouse.