The Dreamer's Grace

The door to the fortress council room creaked open. Roy didn't look up, his gaze fixed on the intricate grain of the oak table, tracing a knot with his finger. The low murmur of Eryndra and Lutrian's conversation was a distant hum, doing nothing to quiet the frantic buzzing in his own head.

"Hi, Roy!"

Orden's cheerful voice sliced through the gloom. Roy's head snapped up as the small, crimson-clad figure bounded into the room, latching onto his arm with an unbreakable, enthusiastic grip.

"Are we done with the boring adult meeting yet?" Orden chirped, swinging from Roy's bicep.

Warrex, leaning against the far wall, let out a short bark of laughter. Roy just sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of too many sleepless nights and too many near-apocalypses. He gently tried to pry Orden's fingers loose. "Adult? You're thousands of years older than me! Regardless, we're done for now. Could you… give me some space?"

"Nope!" Orden declared, tightening his grip. "I have to explain why you didn't fall on your butt in the helicopter like everyone else! It's super, super important!"

Roy blinked. "What are you even talking about?"

Lutrian, who had been quietly observing, stiffened. A look of dawning, almost fearful recognition crossed his face. "The Dreamer's Grace," he breathed, his voice a hushed, reverent whisper. "Captain, is that true? Have you been visited by Cang in your dreams?"

Roy's mind flashed back to the abyss, to the crushing darkness, and to the single, colossal, luminous eye that had watched him with a strange, ancient compassion. "That giant, one-eyed... thing I saw when I was drowning? Yeah, randomly."

"Legends say to be visited by Cang is to be touched by fate itself," Lutrian explained, his excitement growing. "It's marked by a faint, almost imperceptible sparkle in the recipient's corneas." He leaned in, squinting at Roy's eyes with an unnerving intensity. "Yes! There it is! The shimmer!"

Orden, delighted, clapped his hands together. "And it gives you the best, craziest luck in the whole world! Cang's blessing makes reality itself your personal bodyguard!"

"Luck?" Roy asked, a cold knot of dread forming in his stomach.

"Uncanny luck," Lutrian clarified, his voice filled with awe. "For a day or two, you're a legend, virtually untouchable. Every clumsy stumble, every mistake, twists itself into a stroke of miraculous good fortune."

Orden, his eyes sparkling with a mischievous, almost fanatical glee, suddenly jumped to his feet. "Let's test it!" he declared cheerfully.

Before Roy could so much as form a protest, Orden, with a strength that was utterly at odds with his small frame, gave him a firm, decisive shove. The world tilted. Roy's chair toppled backward, and he was unceremoniously pushed right off the high balcony of the council room, a startled yelp torn from his throat as he plummeted towards the stone courtyard several stories below.

The crew screamed. Eryndra lunged for the railing, her face a mask of pure, horrified disbelief. Warrex roared in fury. But it was too late.

As Roy fell, a massive school of giant, silver-scaled river fish, which had been peacefully swimming in the fortress's decorative moat, were suddenly spooked by a loud, unseen splash at the far end of the waterway. In a panicked, silvery frenzy, they leaped from the water in a great, shimmering arc, directly into Roy's path. His fall was broken not by the unforgiving stone of the courtyard, but by the soft, squishy, and surprisingly supportive bodies of a hundred terrified fish. They landed in a writhing, slippery pile, gently depositing the stunned, and now very fish-scented, Roy onto the ground.

Orden peered over the edge of the balcony, beaming. "See?! It works!"

Later that day, Roy, now dry and pointedly avoiding any bodies of water, was in the lounge of the Nightshatter trying to explain the concept of a "comic book" to an intrigued Lutrian. He held up a digital copy on his datapad, swiping through panels.

"So, this man in the blue and red... he can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes simply because your sun is different from his?" Lutrian asked, his brow furrowed in deep, scholarly concentration. "Fascinating. The physiological implications are staggering."

Warrex, polishing one of his axes nearby, snorted. "Sounds dumb. Why doesn't he just slaughter all the bad dudes?"

"It's about hope, Warrex," Roy said, with the tired air of someone who had explained this many times. "He's a symbol!"

As they left the lounge, Skellbro, with a mischievous cackle, shot out from a side maintenance hatch, a bony blur of pure, chaotic energy intent on a classic tackle. But just as he lunged, a base-model Presidroid on the catwalk above them, carrying a precariously balanced crate of dwarven steel ingots, slipped.

The Presidroid and the crate tumbled from the ledge in a cascade. The heavy crate landed with a deafening CRUNCH directly on top of Skellbro, pinning him instantly to the deck. The Presidroid landed neatly on top of the crate, its optical sensors blinking.

"My sincerest apologies, Captain," it intoned. "I appear to have… slipped."

Skellbro just groaned from beneath the pile of steel.

By evening, Roy was starting to feel like a puppet in a cosmic comedy. The final proof came in his own private quarters within the fortress. He had just sat down, desperate for a single, solitary moment of peace, when the door burst open. It was Takara. Her face was a mask of fierce, blushing determination.

"Alright, Captain," she said, her voice trembling slightly but firm. She slammed the door shut and locked it with a decisive, echoing click. "It's time you paid your debt."

Roy blinked. "Debt? What debt?"

"The kiss debt!" she declared, her cheeks a brilliant shade of crimson. "You promised, after the fight with Caliban! No more running. No more excuses. It's time."

She leaned forward, her eyes squeezed shut, her lips puckered. Roy, his mind a swirling vortex of panic and social anxiety, froze, utterly trapped. But as she moved in for the kiss, a violent shudder, the aftershock of a distant, unrelated dwarven construction blast, rocked the entire fortress. A single, previously unnoticed loose floor tile was jarred from its setting.

Takara's foot caught on the edge of the dislodged tile. She yelped, stumbling forward, her arms windmilling frantically. She reached for the edge of a nearby table, but it was just out of reach. She grabbed for a curtain, but her fingers slipped. With a final, resigned groan, she pitched forward, bonking her head soundly on the corner of Roy's bed. She was out cold before she even hit the floor.

Roy stared down at her unconscious form, then at the locked door, then back at Takara. He awkwardly, and with a considerable amount of guilt, stepped over her, unlocked the door, and quietly slipped out.

He found the rest of the crew training on the flight deck, a grim determination on their faces.

"Okay, I need to know how far this goes," Roy said, his voice a mixture of dread and morbid curiosity. He stood in the center of the ship's training room, facing down his crew. "All of you. Against me. Just fists."

What followed was not a fight; it was a cosmic comedy. Roy, a man whose physical stats were generously described as "pathetic," effortlessly evaded their best attempts.

Warrex threw a punch that would have shattered the bulkhead, only for a sudden, violent muscle cramp in his shoulder to send the blow spiraling wide. He howled in frustration, clutching the spasming muscle. Lutrian lunged, his fists a blur of radiant light, but he tripped over his own feet with impossible clumsiness, landing in a graceless heap. Zehrina and Eryndra attempted to coordinate a pincer attack from opposite sides, a maneuver they had perfected. But just as they closed in, two maintenance hatches directly beside them, which had been securely bolted for months, inexplicably rattled loose. The heavy steel plate swung open, scaring them both and making them leap back.

Eryndra, her patience finally obliterated, let out a furious roar and activated her Apparition Mode. The air itself hummed with a terrifying, low-frequency thrum as she became a flickering, translucent phantom. She phased straight through Roy, a ghostly wisp of silver and black, then solidified behind him, her fist already arcing in for a decisive, disabling blow.

But at that exact, critical instant, the entire Nightshatter lurched.

Eryndra's intangible form, moving at an incredible velocity, failed to fully re-solidify in the correct plane of existence. She passed harmlessly through Roy, but then continued phasing directly through the armored floor. A moment later, a muffled crash and a furious shriek echoed up from the mess hall kitchen one deck below.

She stormed back up the stairwell seconds later, her armor dripping with what looked suspiciously like yesterday's stew, her face a mask of pure, murderous fury. "AGAIN!" she bellowed, and charged at Roy once more.

And again, just as her fist was inches from his face, the ship lurched.

Eryndra phased directly through the floor again, this time ending up in the laundry room amidst a pile of Washington's freshly cleaned uniforms.

Roy just stood there in the center of the deck, completely untouched, a bewildered expression on his face, as his companions lay scattered around him.

That night, Roy finally tried to unwind in his quarters. He sank onto a simple mat, checking messages on a console. A soft snore made him look up. Orden, as he had the night before, lay curled in the open dresser drawer, fast asleep. With a sigh, Roy carefully lifted the small, sleeping figure into the main bed, tucking him in.

He stretched out on his own mat on the floor, letting out a satisfied breath. Finally. He flicked off the lamp. Barely a minute passed before he heard a second, softer snore. From… the wardrobe.

"Oh, no," he whispered. He dragged the wardrobe door open. Eryndra.

"Did you seriously just copy Orden's idea?" he hissed.

Her eyes fluttered open. "If he gets to stay, so do I," she muttered drowsily. "Someone has to protect you from rogue goblins and homicidal vampires."

"You have your own room," Roy insisted.

"Nope," she said. "Either I stay in here, or... I stay in here. Your choice, Captain."

Defeated, Roy mumbled a string of curses, and layed back down. He settled, pulling his blanket over himself with a final, martyred groan.

Eryndra, with surprising grace, flopped free of the wardrobe, landing on the bed beside him. She then casually scooted a little too close for comfort.

"That's... yep... long day. Good night," Roy said in a panic.

She just grumbled something incoherent, but eventually, her breathing evened out. Roy closed his eyes, the tension still coiled in his shoulders. To his left, Eryndra. In the drawer, Orden. He sighed.