Iris sucked in a sharp breath of stale air. Rain rumbled against the intact hull of the Gaping Maw, but the cargo hold was still. For a moment, she wondered if it had been a dream.

  "Insufficient level," the voice that came from the locket around her neck wasn't quite her mother's, but a mechanical facsimile of it, "time reversal duration limited to five minutes."

  "Fuck!" she shouted, "armor!"

  A hole ripped open in the hull the instant before she blipped. When she appeared in the galley, Abby was cinching tight the straps of her leather cuirass and vambraces.

  "Everything's fucked, time to go," she announced without patience.

  "Go where?" Killup perked up in confusion.

  "Plan E?" Autumn asked, "why? What's going on?"

  An impact rocked the ship, just another in a long line of them. It wasn't a comforting sound or sensation, but it was far from the catastrophic circumstances that called for plan E

  "The ship's going down, I don't have time to explain. We have to leave now!"

  "Been through much worse," Killup waved her off dismissively, while Adan shifted his eyes between the two women.

  "Killup's right," Autumn said, "it's bad out there, but it's not--"

  "Autumn!" Iris shouted, "there's no time! Get in the bag or you're going to die!"

  Autumn was taken aback by the outburst, and looked around her galley with sad and uncertain eyes. Iris could see the conflict unfolding within her, but there wasn't time to wait.

  "I have a lot of people to save, Autumn," she said gravely, "it's now or never."

  Autumn said nothing.

  "I believe her," Adan said, then turned to Iris, "I'll retrieve my father, where should I meet you?"

  Iris raced through her memories of the last few moments, "main deck, find Titus and stick near him."

  Adan nodded and moved with a flash.

  "Autumn--" Iris began.

  "I'm coming," Autumn held up a hand, "just shut up. I'm coming."

  The chef panned one final gaze around her galley and whispered a quiet goodbye that only she could hear, and then spoke aloud, "go ahead, Abby."

  Tentacles erupted from the bottomless bag and stretched across the room and wrapped around the half-halfling, pulling her through the air and into the void. Killup looked up in surprise.

  "Abandoning post is treason," he warned.

  "You have one chance to come with us."

  He scoffed, "even if you're right, a pirate goes down with his ship."

  She nodded at him with a grim expression and blipped away.

  On the gundeck, Cameron was packing cannon barrels with custom mixtures of waterproof powder while other crew moved behind him to load the balls. At the far end, towards the bow, a pterosaur was poking its beak through a cannon port until a cannon ball was blasted through its chest. Cameron halted in surprise when Iris appeared blocking his way.

  "Move!" he shouted, attempting to shove her aside.

  She blipped just out of reach, still blocking his path to the next cannon, "this ship's going down in four minutes. Do you know about Plan E?"

  Cameron looked at her with confusion, and then glanced around at his fellow gunners, "do you have Eli yet?"

  "Yes. Are you in or out?"

  "How do you know--"

  "IN OR OUT, CAMERON?!"

  He steeled his expression, then nodded.

  "Hold still," she said flatly as tentacles shot out and wrapped around him.

  He let out of a surprised scream and all nearby eyes turned towards them, but an instant later he was pulled into the void and Iris disappeared. Her next stop was the quarterdeck, where she found Titus gripping Dorragth by the throat with a glowing hand as blood poured down from the orc's neck. When Titus released his grip, the orc stumbled back with a snarl as he felt the freshly formed scars across his throat, nodding at Titus in appreciation before rejoining the fight.

  "Titus, plan E!" Iris shouted over the wind.

  A pirate was picked up by a pterosaur and carried into the storm. Titus turned and threw a spear of lightning in its direction, then looked down at Iris as she blipped in front of him.

  "We have to go now!" she shouted.

  The captain looked over his shoulder with a growl, still gripping the chains he used to pilot the ship, "deserters?"

  "Come back for me last," Titus ordered, turning to shoot bolts of healing magic at the mutated quartermaster as he leapt from the back of a spiraling pterosaur and landed hard on the quarterdeck.

  At the same time as a spectral Victoria rose up through the deck beside them, Adan leapt over the quarter deck railing and landed nearby with a flailing goblin in his arms.

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  "UNHAND ME, CHILD!" Grell shouted as Adan sprinted up to Iris and held him out like a screaming toddler.

  Tentacles snatched the goblin from Adan's grasp and pulled him into the void.

  "Plan E?" Victoria asked.

  The sail Iris had secured in the previous run through of events now ripped free of its final ropes and was sucked away by the storm. At the same time, the the limbs of an enormous tree came into view through the haze of the storm. The ship lurched to the side, but not fast enough, and the tip of a branch carved a deep gouge through the starboard side hull.

  "Everyone in the bag, let's go!" Iris shouted.

  "Come back for me," Titus insisted.

  "There isn't time!" Iris pleaded, "this ship's doomed! Eli's in the crow's nest, I'm getting him last and then we're leaving!"

  "Ignore the coward!" the captain growled, "she knows nothing of what this ship can handle!"

  Agents of Morose appeared amongst the group. A dagger shot towards Titus's face, but he leaned back and grasped the wrist of his attacker, twisting it to the side and slamming a fist into the brass mask. Adan moved with a flash and landed a flat-footed kick into the chest of an agent, crushing ribs and sending him stumbling back. A hand grasped Iris by the back of her collar and yanked her backwards to the ground, where an agent with a half smiling, half frowning mask stood over her with a short sword aimed for her throat.

  "Come quietly," he spoke flatly, "and we'll make it painless."

  The captain roared in anger at another god's intrusion on what he hoped would soon be his domain, but was powerless to stop them as he kept the ship in flight.

  Victoria shifted back to her physical form and drew her sword, stabbing it towards the agent's neck. He effortlessly parried it with a flash of movement, followed by a lunging strike aimed for Victoria's heart.

  Each of the agents froze in place. The tip of the sword hovered an inch from Victoria's chest, a hand hung half-outstretched towards Titus with a dagger about to be thrown, and Adan held a motionless agent in place with his arm twisted behind his back. Two others had been holding back Dorragth and the quartermaster, who now stood confused as their opponents stopped moving.

  Victoria's eyes were glowing a pale purple, while the veins surrounding them bulged and turned a deep auburn. When she spoke, there was another voice layered on top of her own.

  "Morose would strike at a demigod's first and only disciple?" the voices asked.

  "Angela?" the Shark Titan asked in surprise.

  "You interfere in their business," the agent with the sword responded.

  "Do you think I care?" The Dreamweaver responded.

  "An eye for an eye," the agent spoke, visibly struggling against the unseen force that locked his muscles in place, "that is the way of the gods."

  Victoria and the Dreamweaver laughed, "that was a very poor choice of words."

  A scream erupted behind each of the agents' masks as their weapons clattered to the floor. Their muscles were freed, but their only motion was to fall to their knees and clutch their heads. In the black pits of their masks, eyes became visible. Blood poured from the sockets as they threw their heads to the sky.

  The possessed Victoria looked down at Iris, "you seem to have a habit of getting my disciple into trouble. Make it up to me and finish these ones off."

  "You have made--" the agent with a half-frown, half-smile gasped, "--an enemy of morose."

  Iris met Victoria's glowing gaze but knew she was looking into the eyes of the Dreamweaver. She glanced at the kneeling agents, then back to the Dreamweaver. Her first and only thought was the experience she would gain from the kills. Her expression steeled, and she nodded.

  What followed was a flurry of blips and great sword strikes. One-by-one, but almost all at once, the agents collapsed to the deck. Iris stood among their corpses, the torrential rain washing the blood from her blade.

  The Dreamweaver laughed, "you would make a fine disciple, child. Try not to get this one killed, would you?"

  The glow faded from Victoria's eyes, as did the color from her veins. She sucked in a breath and looked around in horror. The ship shuttered as it punched through the eyewall of the storm, bathing one half of the deck in sunlight and misty air.

  "Brace yourselves!" the captain roared as he yanked one chain and relaxed the other.

  The ship tilted almost horizontally and began riding the inside of the eyewall as it had before. Corpses slid across the deck and tumbled over the railing, Victoria shifted to her ghostly form, Dorragth grasped the upper railing, and the beastly quartermaster dug his long claws into the deck.

  Titus tumbled through the air with nothing to grab hold of, but tentacles shot out to grab him and pulled him into the void. Adan ran along the side-ways deck as he might run along a wall before leaping and diving towards Iris, who held the bag out towards him even as she herself was flung through the air. He dove into it and slipped into the void, followed immediately by Victoria. Iris pulled her broom-staff from her palm and wrapped herself around it, dumping mana into it to rocket upwards.

  A serene voice sang from every direction, "Captain Clement, I genuinely hoped you wouldn't make it this far."

  "Petresca!" the captain roared, "you selfish bitch! In league with Morose, too! I thought better of you!"

  Petresca laughed, "it was only a favor, I am in league with only myself."

  Iris spun and spiraled through the air, dodging errant wind-blades erupting from the eyewall and swooping pterosaurs seeking to pluck her from the sky. Eventually, she managed to loop around above the tilting ship and get eyes on Eli, who was flying on the back of Glimmer as he had done before. She hunkered down on her broom-staff and shot towards him.

  "Iris?" he asked in surprise as she blipped up beside him just out of reach of the griffin's flapping wings, "what's happening down there?"

  "Plan E!" she shouted, "I have the others!"

  He looked down at Glimmer with a heartbroken expression, then glanced to Iris as desperate hope crossed his face.

  Iris returned a remorseful look, "she won't fit."

  Tears formed in Eli's eyes, "there has to be another way! We'll fly up through the eye and over the storm!"

  "We're not safe near the storm," Iris called out, "Agents of Morose are after me, they're working with that goddess!"

  "What about the ship?" he begged.

  "You're too late," the Shark Titan called out far below, "you've delivered me godhood on a platter!"

  "We shall see," Petresca announced.

  A wind-blade carved into the Gaping Maw, though this time at a different angle than before. It ripped through the bow and shot out of the port side, taking two masts with it and tearing open the hydra's prison, but the ship remained mostly intact as it fell from the eyewall and tumbled through the air towards the waters below.

  Eli looked down in horror for a moment, before turning back to his griffin. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her feathery neck, speaking quietly into her ear.

  "This is the end of the road."

  The griffin let out a pained screech that rung out across the eye of the storm.

  "Can you get out of here safely?"

  Glimmer released a pained chirp.

  "Good. We'll see each other again one day, I promise. Thanks for everything."

  Glimmer screeched again, this time drawing it out into a long, pain-filled cry.

  With tears streaming down his face, Eli stroked his companion's feathers one last time, and then turned to Iris and ever-so-slightly nodded. She rose up and banked to the right, flying over Eli's head as tentacles reached out, lifted him from the griffin and pulled him into the void.

  Iris leveled out with Glimmer once more, "I wish we could have flown together more!"

  Glimmer chirped sadly in response.

  "Take care of yourself!" Iris shouted before turning down and away.

  She raced down through the eye of the storm, scanning the skies for the perfect way out. She spotted a large wind-blade carving through the eyewall behind the goddess, who was lost in the throws of maniacal laughter. With a large breath to calm her nerves, Iris flew close along the eyewall as she dove towards the wind-blade, angling herself to meet it head on.

  It raced towards her with blinding speed, leaving her only a second to hope her plan would work. With eyes locked onto the wind-blade, she braced herself for either death or escape. At the last possible instant, reality shrank away and the void enveloped her.