Ahoy!

None dared to lift their gaze. Even Faerin—he who once clung to ancient maps like holy scripture—said nothing. His hands, once so steady in tracing ancestral lines through frost-riddled charts, now hung limp at his sides. He stared at the icy ground as if ashamed of the hope he had offered.

Because deep down, they all feared the truth. There was no cure waiting at the end of this path. Only more paths. More ancient riddles carved into stone and bone, leading them deeper into a continent that wanted them dead. Each "clue" only another whisper, another cruel game played by time and the cold.

Ahab's breath spilled from his mouth in a thick mist, a sigh so long and exhausted it might've been torn from the lungs of the world itself. He closed his eyes for a moment. When they opened, they held none of the earlier fire—only a commanding weariness, the burden of a man who'd been king and fool both. "We go back," he said.

And that was it. No argument. No mutiny. Only a quiet rustle as the crew rose to their feet, one by one, boots crunching against permafrost, eyes cast toward the black horizon. Even Kalindra said nothing—only slipped her hand into Ahab's for a brief moment, their fingers stiff with cold but still warm enough to remember who they were before the frost.

The Leviathan awaited below the cliffs, blanketed in windblown snow, her sails folded like frozen wings, her hull crusted in rime. Yet the moment their feet returned to her deck, something shifted. The ship groaned like a beast stirred from hibernation, and her timbers sighed at the weight of her crew's return.

They worked in silence, their actions mechanical, practiced. Ropes unfurled. Anchors lifted. The sails cracked open against the sleet-streaked sky, catching wind like breath.

Ahab stood at the helm, jaw clenched, eyes toward the sea—away from the cursed continent, away from broken dreams. "Raise her nose," he barked. "We're done chasing ghosts."

The Leviathan creaked and turned her mighty bow to the southeast, where the waters were wild but free, and the frost's reach could not drown a soul.

Then, Ahab descended the creaking stairs of the Leviathan's lower deck, the wood groaning with every step as if echoing the weight of his dread. The deeper he went, the colder it became—unnaturally cold, as though the ship itself carried a shard of the cursed continent within its hull. Frost kissed the walls, thin sheets of ice veiling the lanterns, dimming their light to a ghostly shimmer. He stopped in front of Helga's door.

Pushing it open, the bitter air inside struck him like a slap. The warmth of the ship did not reach this place. The room had become a tomb.

Helga lay on the bed, still and silent. Blankets layered over her did nothing. Her skin had faded to an icy blue, and tiny flecks of frost had formed on her eyelashes. Her breath was shallow, barely visible, as if her soul was exhaling in pieces. Her lips were a bruised purple, her veins dark and pronounced against her translucent skin.

Faerin was already there, hunched beside her, his fingers gently pressed to her wrist. His brow was furrowed, his jaw tight.

"She's fading," he said, voice low, almost reverent.

Ahab stood still, hands clenched, face unreadable.

Faerin continued, "The Frost Curse is no simple affliction. It feeds not on flesh… but the soul. That's why no fire helps. No potion. No magic I know. It steals who she is, piece by piece. Soon, her memories will frost over. Her name. Her voice. And when nothing remains to be taken… only then will the body freeze entirely."

He turned to Ahab, his eyes solemn, ancient with inherited grief. "We may not have much time left."

Ahab approached her bedside, knees lowering him beside her as if something inside had broken. He reached for her hand. It was like grasping ice. Still, he held it tight. But even the dying are not afforded peace upon the Leviathan.

The walls groaned with sudden violence, then shook with a deafening thunder. The ship trembled as if struck by the hand of a god. Cannons roared through the air—booming death that shattered the silence and made the very boards of the vessel cry out.

The lanterns swung violently. Frost cracked and splintered from the ceiling, falling like snow. Then came a knock—rapid, panicked, heavy.

The door burst open and in stumbled Zarnak, a towering Zwarten with skin like midnight stone and dreadlocks swaying with his frantic motion. His shirt hung half-buttoned, golden chains clinking at his throat, and his boots stomped with rhythmic weight.

"Cap'n! Cap'n! Get yo'self up on deck, man! We under fire, ya hear me? Pirates, blood-hungry bastards with black sails an' no god in their hearts! They hittin' us broadside with iron balls like they tryna wake the dead!"

Ahab didn't speak—he was already moving, his hand releasing Helga's frostbitten fingers. He rose with storm in his bones.

"Come on now!" Zarnak shouted again, turning and bolting back up the stairs. "They gonna crack us open like a crab, Cap'n, if ya don't start throwin' back!"

The Leviathan shuddered once more. Above them, the clash of steel, the shouting of panicked crew, and the wild screech of gulls split the frigid air. The fight had come to their doorstep.

Ahab stormed out onto the deck, the cold biting his face, his coat flaring like wings of a furious beast. The snow didn't dare fall on him. The wind itself pulled back.

He roared, voice like the Leviathan's own soul awakened. "Who DARES fire upon my ship?!" he bellowed, fists clenched, eyes blazing. "I'll gut every last bastard and salt their souls!"

His crew sprang to action. Cannons rolled into position, powder flew, ironballs loaded. Muskets raised. Crossbows drawn. Sails adjusted for sharp maneuvering. The Leviathan began to bite back.

But Faerin… Faerin stood frozen at the stern, pale as the curse he studied. His ancient eyes locked on the enemy flag rising through the mist.

A black sail. A torn crimson spiral at its center. And upon it, a skull crowned with icicles, fangs bared, behind it twin axes crossed like a war god's promise. He whispered it. "…No."

Ahab turned his head, breath steaming. "What?"

Faerin's voice cracked under the weight of what he saw. "That… that's Vorrugal's Jolly Roger."

"Pirate King of the Frost Reign Regions," Faerin continued, nearly in a daze. "His fleet darkens the waters like a plague. If one ship is here… then more will follow. He never sails alone."

Thunder cracked—not from the sky, but from a second barrage of cannonfire. And beyond the mist… more black sails began to emerge. Like the wings of death opening wide.

Before Ahab could utter a word, before the crew could load their breath into their lungs, a voice split the air—jagged, booming, drunk on madness and blood. A laugh.

Not the laugh of a man, but the shrieking bellow of something that had drowned in cruelty and clawed its way back up from the depths. It echoed across the frozen waves like a curse older than the sea. And then they saw him. Atop the deck of the black-flagged warship, standing at the helm like a king of ruin, was Vorrugal.

He was monstrous in build, nearly seven feet tall, his flesh a patchwork of frostbitten scars and stitched wounds that never properly healed. His left eye was missing—replaced by a jagged chunk of sapphire embedded into his skull, glowing faintly with cursed light. His beard, long and matted with frost, clinked with the teeth of fallen enemies braided into the strands. One of his arms—clearly not human—was forged from rusted iron and bone, wrapped in thick chains like a weapon of war.

He wore no shirt—just a fur-lined coat left open, exposing his pale, rotted torso inked with runes that pulsed like veins. His breath steamed out in clouds, and on his back, a massive axe made of blackened steel hung like a tombstone.

He leaned over the helm, wild-eyed and grinning wide, cracked lips split open to reveal sharpened, yellow teeth. "WHO DARES… cross MY waters?!"

The waves seemed to recoil. "Who's the dead man steering that rustbucket they call a ship?! Come out, little captain!" he roared, raising his axe to the sky. "Let me kiss your bones and gut your sails!"

Cannons behind him thundered again, and more black flags began rising around him like wolves answering their alpha's howl. The sea boiled with chaos.

From every mist-veiled direction, black sails tore through the fog, rising like nightmares from the deep. The Leviathan—proud and mighty—now looked like a lone plank of driftwood swallowed by an endless, swirling maw of destruction. Hundreds of ships, war-beasts of iron and bone, surrounded her like vultures circling the dying.

Each vessel bore a different sigil, each flag a variation of the dreaded Jolly Roger twisted by madness—skulls grinning with fangs, eye sockets bleeding ink, bones reshaped into spears. War drums echoed, cannons bellowed, anchors dragged through the sea like claws scraping a coffin lid. The crew of the Leviathan went dead silent.

Ahab stood still on the deck, hands clenched so tight his knuckles cracked beneath the leather gloves. His breath came cold and hollow. He could taste it now—not snow, not salt—but defeat. A rare taste for a man like him. His pirate's heart, tempered in blood and smoke, clenched. He couldn't win this.

And from atop the largest ship—a fortress built on water—Vorrugal howled with laughter so mad it cracked through the stormclouds.

He pointed a rusted hook-hand straight at Ahab, his other arm raised the monstrous axe, letting it rest on his shoulder like a toy.

"You!" he bellowed, voice like shattering glaciers, "You there with the sad excuse for a beard and ship smaller than my dinghy! Who in the frosty fuck are you supposed to be?! A fisher lost at sea? Or some pond-leech who stole a helm?"