We have spent the last few days and nights on Rouges Retreat, an isle where the very rocks sparkle with riches beneath your boots. Gemstones are said to run like rivers through the bedrock, but I’ve no time for glittering distractions. My mind’s stuck on Skalebreaker and the twisted path the Gypsy King sent us down.
He spoke in riddles, but his meaning was clear enough—seek out a mambo here on the isle. When I found her and showed her the ring Rom Baro gave me, she hardly looked twice before setting me off on some fool’s errand. “Climb the peak, bring back the flower that grows near the top,” she said, her eyes far away like she saw something I couldn’t.
That climb… it nearly finished me. Three days to the summit, each one colder than the last as the air thinned and the wind cut through me like a blade. I had little food—just scraps to keep me going—and more than once, I thought I’d be joining the skeletons of other fools who’d dared to brave the heights. But I pressed on, teeth chattering, hands raw from the cold. When I finally found the damned flower clinging to a crack in the rock, I tore it loose and made my way back down, one foot in front of the other, nary more than a ghost by the time I returned.
The mambo barely looked at me before she snatched the flower from my hands and set to work. She moved like lightning, grabbing vials and jars from her shelves, muttering under her breath. Moonlit Nectar, Voidwalker’s Philter, Eclipse Brew, Golem’s Mercy, Dragon’s Breath Tonic, Essence of Cosmic Dust, and a single petal from the flower I’d nearly died to fetch—she mixed them all into a bubbling concoction. The brew glowed like molten metal, swirling with colors that seemed to shift whenever I blinked.
“Consume the spirits and navigate the web to find the dragon’s den,” she said, thrusting the potion into my hands. Her eyes were wild, her voice carrying a sharp edge, and just as quickly as she’d brewed it, she shooed us out, mumbling in a tongue I couldn’t make sense of. Whatever she was saying, it had the ring of a curse about it, like she was sealing our fate with every word.
Now, I sit here staring at this potion, the light from the brew casting strange shadows over my face. Elias stands nearby, looking just as uncertain as I feel. How in all the seas is this supposed to help us find Skalebreaker? There’s no telling what will happen when I drink this, but there’s only one way to find out.
Here’s to fate, whatever form it takes. Bottoms up.
