Don’t haul on the rope!


    Don’t climb up the mast!


    And if you see a sailin’ ship


    It might be your last!


    Just get your civies ready


    For another run ashore!


    A sailor ain’t a sailor ain’t a sailor anymore!


    “Is it the prospect of bein’ with a scarlet lady then?” Teutna asked, seeing no reason not to test her theory now. She hadn’t brought it up before then in order to be polite, but politeness could only hold back curiosity for so long. “Don’t tell me it’s your first time or else I’ll drag ye to the Boulevard myself! Stuff your scruffy head ‘neath me arm and toss you on the first natator I see I will!”


    things – could have come from, and vanished back to, are down those tunnels! Some dark part of me has wanted to go and see for myself what lies in wait in the shadows there, but we all learned five years ago, did we not? There are some places in Mirage where you are not meant to go… but I will tell you something else!”


    have seen: members of the city guard. Patrolling. Guarding. What could they be guarding down there, hm? What is there to watch over down below?”


    What indeed,’ thought William.


    to Mirage for a change! Of course you wellermen are always receiving shipments of food and water for emergency storage, necessities of living in the desert, you know, that sort of thing, but I distinctly remember that we were handing off shipments of glass and metal as well! Things created on the mainland or Golem’s Isle, if memory serves. Busy, busy, busy we were! Yes, indeed. This civil war has got things feeling much like they did then. Oh, if only that wonderful lad Lucifer would show his face again! Now there was a ningen worth his salt!”The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Lucifer. They’d managed to lower three crates down over the side of the Andros up until that point but the instant that the name reached his ears William froze in place, head snapping to look down at the bloodling as he spoke.


    more essential than what he’d been doing three thousand years ago… give or take?


    These guards were not meant to open the door,’ he quickly concluded in his thoughts, beginning to pace back and forth like a predator.