Young Writers Society

The Southern Isles and Northern Isles have been locked in a seven-year stalemate following the end of their brief but brutal war in 764. All that stands to change with the summit scheduled to take place at Eravur, an island situated almost exactly halfway between the two archipelagos. A lot is riding on the two nations’ premiers striking a peace agreement at Eravur, but even more is riding on the collapse of this summit. A number of third parties have explicit interest in continuing the stalemate, or even resuming war, and sabotaging this key summit is a goal of nearly all of them.

For this reason, Southern Isles Premier Jacea Salavee’s departure for Eravur is to be kept a secret. Rather than take a diplomatic vessel, she will be disguised as a passenger on the Brownwood, a luxury cruise ship which frequently docks at Eravur. But this is not the perfect solution; Brownwood cruises are highly publicized, and it’s possible that any number of interest groups might grow suspicious of its convenient timing in arriving at Eravur two days before the summit.





Salavee and her council are not foolish enough to risk her life on a single gamble. You will be disguised as average passengers on the Brownwood, just like Salavee, but you’ll be tasked with defending the premier at all costs. Your skills made the Harvesters a name for themselves as a mercenary guild during the war, so no other team is appropriate for the task you’ve been assigned. For a number of reasons, however, your presence on the Brownwood must be kept a secret at all costs.

For one, you being on the Brownwood could give away Salavee’s disguise. Even worse, if it comes out that the Premier hired the Harvesters as bodyguards, we can expect the people of the Southern Isles to riot en masse. Most of the populace doesn’t even know you were granted amnesty. And of course, the Northern Isles might call off the summit if they learned that a band of war criminals are accompanying Salavee.

For that reason, we’ll be withholding your payment until the end of the mission. If Salavee is killed or the summit is otherwise interrupted, you will naturally not be paid. But if you blow your cover, or Salavee’s, or any innocent passengers on the ship are killed, you will not be paid. And obviously, if anyone on the ship sees your incants or realizes that you’re Rajas, then you will not be paid. Public knowledge of your race would not go over well on a regal ship such as the Brownwood.

That’s the mission as it is assigned. The cruise will last for six days, and you will have to stay and guard Salavee while she is waiting for the summit to start on Eravur. The total time for the mission will be eight days, and the payment will be six-hundred thousand gold pieces. Your ride home on the Brownwood will be paid for by the council. Please report to the Brownwood port at sun-up on the third. That is all.





As Harvesters, your race is not human. You instead are member of the Raja clan, a race notorious for producing battle-hardened warriors. They are among the most ruthless of the Southern Isles people, so most citizens of the isles will be wary simply in the presence of one. Of the twelve stars, the Raja clan derives their incants from the Fouth Star, the Seventh Star, the Eighth Star, and the Eleventh Star.

⟴ Incants of the Fourth Star - Incants derived from the Fourth Star influence, or are influenced by nature. These incants will let users manipulate plant life, have connections to the wildlife around them, or something of the like. The attribute of incants of the Fourth Star is Natural.

⟴ Incants of the Seventh Star - Incants derived from the Seventh Star influence, or are influenced by gravity. These incants will let users increase or decrease gravity in a specified area, affect the weights of items, or something of the like. The attribute of incants of the Seventh Star is Physical.

⟴ Incants of the Eighth Star - Incants derived from the Eighth Star influence, or are influenced by health. These incants will let users heal or inflict injuries, transfer injuries, or something of the like. The attribute of incants of the Eighth Star is Physical.

⟴ Incants of the Eleventh Star - Incants derived from the Eleventh Star influence, or are influenced by water. These incants will let users manipulate water around them, generate mist or ice, or something of the like. The attribute of incants of the Eleventh Star is Natural.

Opening his eyes, Kauuri rose from his spot kneeling on the ground and approached the altar before him. “Iwan Nala Ha maqode o dalaqo oso bei babam,” he said seventeen times. With each time that he said it, he blew out one of the candles, only pausing briefly before blowing out the seventeenth candle. He crossed the space to a window and drew the curtain, filling the room with light. Once lit, the clock on the far wall could be read to make out that the time was 10:16 in the morning. Sighing, Kauuri threw on his disguise--an ornate brown jacket to cover his normal “commoner clothing”--and departed from his small home.

Fortunately for Kauuri, he didn’t live far from the docks. The streets were bustling, as was expected at this time of day for Anga. The port town was a strategic place to live for the wealth and the poor. Those with riches lived up the bluff, where their homes could look down onto the bay and enjoy the scenic view of the ocean and the peasants toiling away for some shred of prosperity. And those peasants came here in the hopes that the abnormally successful fishing industry from this island would offer them the funds they’d need to actually pay for housing here. Most of the time, that hope did not pan out, and in a curious twist of logic, the local law enforcement spent more on keeping the homeless out of sight than they did helping them off the streets.

But for Kauuri, none of that was all that important. Anga was just another town he had stayed at, and if not for the offer he had received, he wouldn’t be living here any longer. It reeked of the wealth divide he most despised. At the very least, he would be long out of it by tonight, when the Brownstone departed and he was back to sailing the seas. Even if this time it was in the context of work as opposed to leisurely vacation. The pay for this job would be able to pay for whatever place he wanted to sail to, and no one would be able to stop him.

The docks were just as busy as the streets, but one pier was sparsely occupied. It was there that the wealthy socialites of Anga could board the Brownstone, a massive cruise ship that would take them to Eravur. There in Eravur, they could enjoy the beautiful sights. Tickets were naturally far more expensive than the majority of Anga citizens could pay for, so instead the looming ship served as a constant reminder of the wealth they did not have, and almost certainly would never have.

There were, however, two individuals standing on the Brownstone’s pier. They were both dressed formally, and the quality of their clothing betrayed its cost. Despite her disguise, Kauuri recognized one instantly. He approached the two, offering a cool nod to the woman that he knew. “General Orvin, I’m so very pleased to see you again,” he said, dry sarcasm dripping through his tone. “Has your conscience turned guilty yet? Or have you just accepted that the orders you gave were strictly necessary?”

“Neibrus, you’re in the presence of the 36th Premier of the Southern Isles. I am not the first one you should be greeting,” she replied, and so instead Kauuri turned to the woman beside General Orvin.

The first thing that Kauuri noticed was her age. She was much younger than he had expected, probably due to his assumption that politicians were lifeless elders who had never really worked a day in their life. As it would seem, the 36th Premier of the Southern Isles was far from the stereotype. Though her delicate hands suggested nonetheless that she had still never really worked a day in her life. “Premier Salavee, it’s an honor to meet you,” Kauuri said with a brief bow. “I’m told you’re a very capable leader.”

“Told?”

Kauuri shrugged nonchalantly. “Politics isn’t the type of thing I pay much attention to. You’ll have to forgive me.”

“It isn’t for everyone. For you especially; once you finish this job and get paid, the last thing you’ll be concerned with is how much you’re being taxed,” she said, and Kauuri chuckled. The second surprise he found in his observations of the Premier was how she held no wariness of Kauuri, despite his history and his crimes. General Orvin didn’t fear him or the other Harvesters, but she had no reason to. After all, the crimes they had committed came mostly from her orders. But for a woman like Premier Salavee, who by all accounts was just a glorified civilian with too large a salary, hesitant wariness should have been the norm.

“So, when do we board?” Kauuri asked, directing his question to General Orvin.
Instead, the Premier answered, and Kauuri remembered that the power dynamic here was different from the battlefield. General Orvin was no longer the dominant force. “As soon as the other two Harvesters arrive, we’ll board. And I’m sure they’ll be here any minute.”

As though Premier Salavee could predict the future, Kauuri heard footsteps walking down the pier behind him. They had the same rhythmic force that soldiers were taught to march with, a force that translated itself into daily walking. He turned around to see which Harvester had just arrived.

Lena Fletcher

As Lena peered through her spyglass at the city from her perch on a roof, she thought she could actually hear its pulse. The markets rang with shouts from vendors and gossip and bartering aplenty, the streets hummed with children’s laughter, the harbor buzzed with loading and unloading and all the hullabaloo it causes. The war had silenced Anga for years, but now life had almost crept back to normal.

Lena wouldn’t have believed there had been a war had she not seen a strangely sparse pier, with only a big ship nearby. The opulent Brownstone, which she would board to protect the Premier on her journey to Eravur. She sighed. Enough dillydallying—she had to go meet them at the ship.

Lena stood up and made a running jump to the next roof. She disliked navigating crowded streets, and besides, the wind felt good up here, like a friend’s touch. She took a moment to lift her head and breathe in the salty and fishy smell of the sea before continuing her zigzag across the roofs. Near the harbor, she shinnied down the gutter, dropped into the street, and made her way toward the docks.

Sailors and officers dashed this way and that and carts pulling cargo plodded along. Lena dodged them and jogged over to the empty pier, hands in pockets. There were three figures waiting. The Premier, the general, and—ah—Kauuri. He was as she had remembered, with his burly figure and his pale pink club.

“Premier Salavee. General Orvin.” Lena dipped her head in a quick bow, knowing government officials’ fondness of respect and formalities. “It is a pleasure to meet.”

The premier brushed back a strand of blond hair. “A pleasure as well, Fletcher. Ah. So I presume you and the General know each other?”

“We worked for her during the war,” Lena said, nodding to Kauuri as well. Both she and Kauuri were members of the Harvesters, an elite mercenary group battling against the Northern Isles. The general was a driven, no-nonsense woman with the ability to get things done. Remarkable, really, in a world where people either fought or talked to a stalemate.

She turned to Kauuri. “It’s been awhile, don’t you think? Good to see you.”

“Almost seven years,” he acknowledged. After the war had ended, she had left Kauuri and Skylar, the only Harvesters still alive, and had struck out on her own as a thief. Her tales of notoriety had indeed spread across the Southern Isles, and she suspected he wouldn’t approve of such goings-on. A life filled with too much risk.

“Where’s Skylar anyway?”

“She should be coming soon.” Kauuri tapped at his club. “I doubt she’s one to make us wait.”

“Well, ship’s not going anytime soon, so it should be alright,” the general said, but she glanced around the pier as if expecting her.

While the two officials exchanged a few words, Lena sidled up to Kauuri. “How you’ve been?”

“Doing fine,” he said. “Odd jobs and the usual. You know me. If it keeps my pocket full and my mouth fed, then I’ll take it.”

“Ah, so back to those,” Lena said. “Sometimes, in calmer times like this—”

“Calmer times?” He snorted. Just a bit. “For you?”

So the rumors had spread to him.

“Well, anything compared to that rubbish of a war is a picnic,” she said. “An exciting one, but. Anyway. As I was saying, sometimes if you’re not busy trying to survive, you think of...things.”

Kauuri tilted his head.

She couldn’t help it. She blurted out, “Do you miss Brandon?”

Brandon was her adopted brother and an old friend of Kauuri. The two of them had met when Lena’s family had still been adventuring around Southern Isles and become good friends, each helping each other with errands and getting known for their strength and reliability. Lena had loved to sneak after and spy on them.

Years later, the war happened. Brandon fought in it and died, a blade thrust through his back, his corpse buried beneath thousands. She had run from Kauuri, from her family, from everyone who had known Brandon even a little, to not think about him till she thought her heart had healed—but it had not worked. For the first thing she thought of when she reunited with her old friend and leader? Brandon, of course, and that muffled pulse of pain and wrath.

Before Kauuri could answer, though, the Premier cleared her throat. “I think we have our third one coming.”

Lena turned, and sure enough, she saw Skylar approaching. She realized that moment that the old Harvesters was finally going to come together, after years and years, ready to fight—but to bring peace this time. And beyond that, she knew a new adventure was unfurling its pages, and her heart beat with that knowledge as she waved to that tall, familiar figure.

The paved streets gave way to wood planks underneath Skylar's feet. Her knee-high black boots slapped against the planks in perfect rhythm. She kept her back straight, eyes forward, and chin up as she pressed through the traffic of the docks. A man with a scruffy beard and weathered face leered at her; she ignored him and kept her head held high. The pretense of dignity, of commanding respect, of importance, was her best protection, but not her only protection. Close to her hip she carried a five-inch blade that she kept polished and sharpened. Strapped to her ankle was another blade, and yet another was secured underneath the long-sleeved leather jacket she wore.

Her head was on a swivel as she navigated the pier. Two fishermen with ragged pants pushed up past their knees were wading in the ocean, carrying a heavy net between them. A small sailboat was slightly further out, with four hefty men aboard sharing laughs between net casts. Sailors carrying heavy barrels and unloading carts of steel, crates of food and beer, and all the other imports due to arrive today mingled with pedestrians in search of something.

Skylar's eyes landed on two particularly well-dressed officials, and she strode towards them. Two others, dressed in common clothes, were already next to them. She swore under her breath when she realized she was the last of the Harvesters to arrive. Bad first impressions were hard to recover from, and she hated starting at a disadvantage.

She drew in a deep breath as she approached them. "Premier Salavee, General Orvin, I apologize that I kept you waiting." She watched their faces carefully and saw the corner of Premier Salavee's mouth turn upwards. "I am glad to see you are well." She looked at the General as she said this and saw the familiar softening at the corner of her eyes.

"It is no matter," the Premier said. "General, a word?"

The General nodded, and the two stepped out of earshot for a moment. Their conversation was lost among the thousands of others being carried on in simultaneity.

Skylar turned to Kauuri and Lena. "It's been so long," she said, forcing warmth into her tone, even though she had emotionally detached herself from the events of the war. For several months after the war had ended, she had carried the weight of what she had done to survive on her shoulders like a yoke. She had finally pushed it far away from the thoughts she allowed to influence her, but of course, it was the only thing she had in common with these two.

"Indeed," Kauuri said, dipping his head. "What have you done since then?"

For a moment, Skylar debated telling them the truth: that she had done odd jobs, including working as a bodyguard for a flashy politician, making trinkets out of the scrap metal she found on the streets for tourists, and even building a motorcycle upon commission. Yet, she was embarrassed by the fact that she had been living in such poverty when she was sure that Kauuri and Lena had opportunities galore to build a small fortune.

"I know the war didn't have the best end for you," Lena offered as a push at conversation.

Skylar just shrugged her shoulders. "I rebuilt," she said simply, which was true. She was standing here, wasn't she?

Plus, if they were going to work together, mutual respect was a must. Another failure was not an option for her, not when she had hit the lowest of lows and been embarrassed to walk the streets. She needed to prove that she was not the war criminal Anga had painted her as.

She needed to secure that reward.

Kaiki Shishigami

By the time the last familiar face arrived, Kaiki was already at the harbor.

Actually, to be honest, Kaiki had already been there since early in the morning, even before the ex-Harvesters and the client this time around showed up.

But as one might notice, he didn't go earlier because he wanted to be the first one to show up, but because he wanted to make sure he would be the last one.

Why? There were two main reasons:
The first being that arriving at a time in which there would still be people to come meant more social interaction, which meant more unnecessary courtesies and dialogues which culminated in a huge waste of time and energy;
The second: this meeting, or maybe the better term would be 'reunion', had the potential to be quite chaotic, since to the group in question except to his client, and maybe Orvin, he should be dead. And if he had to explain himself and talk to them one by one it would take a considerable amount of time, that could very well be spared if he just went when everyone was already there and dealt with them all at once.

If he had to explain it with a single sentence, it would be:
The only thing more valuable then money is time, and I don't have enough to spare.

Or maybe those thoughts were all just lies and excuses, and he was simply too afraid of their reaction towards his act so he wanted to delay their meeting as much as possible.
Or maybe it was both, even he didn't know.

Anyhow,
Normally in a situation like this, Kaiki would think about his relationship with the people involved, and then try to imagine how long he could realistically make them wait before it became 'rude'. Then he would wait in the hotel until it came the hour when he had to leave to reach his destination at the hour that he calculated.
But of course, people can be fickle, so there was always the chance of a miscalculation, and you also never know what will find you on your way, so you can always be late, and both of these scenarios absolutely couldn't happen this time around, after all, it could greatly impact his businesses if things went wrong here,
Who knows? He might even have to 'die' again.
So because of that, he spent quite some time last night wondering about how to approach this situation,
And then he recalled about those high-quality hand-maiden sculptures he had bought at that impoverished village for one gold piece and five silver ones,
It was a beautiful set of ten small statues of birds there were common around that area, but a rarity at Anga. If you were to give a value to it by parameters such as beauty, technique, and quality of the base material, those statues should be worth way more than the price Kaiki paid, in fact, with a bit of work you could even pass it as a piece from some grand dead artist and sell it for a good fortune.
Kaiki felt sorry for the salesman for not noticing this opportunity, but in the end, his stupidity would give Kaiki more money, so there's nothing to complain here, in fact, he even was glad at it. Next time Kaiki visited that village, if it was still standing, he would give some compensation to the old man who sold him those.
At the end of the night, he decided that the next morning he would sell half of those statues at different pawn shops along the city, saying that it was from some grand-parent that happened to be some famous sculptor. After that, he would pose as an aspiring sculptor at the harbor and try to sell the others for some spare change.
This should kill enough time for everyone to show up, and also, give some good forfeit in the process.
And thus we are back to today.
Before he went to sleep, he added some details to the five sculptures he intended to sell to give the superficial look of old age, and while the owners of the different pawn shops were examining the items, he distracted them with some fabricated sad backstory to gain a sympathy raise if the forgery was discovered. In the end, of the five pawnshops, only two didn't notice that the details were forged, but because of 'the effort' and quite a fair amount of pitty, they paid him a fair amount of silver coins, and from the ones that were deceived,
Well.
To his surprise (in a good way), he even was able to gain a bit in the harbor, but it didn't take long until the last familiar face he was aware of showed up,
And the time to make his appearance seems to have come.
He sighed at the thought of the mess this reunion could escalate to and was already tired just from imagining having to interact with those people,
But he wanted that reward, so he would go anyway.
With a fake smile and look of enthusiasm, he carefully wrapped the statues around the tissues he was using to display them and guarded them inside a wooden-box backpack that was full of 'original items' that he always carried with him.
After that, he went to the nearest bathroom with the wooden box in his back, and after entering one of the bathroom boxes, he took from the bottom of the box a formal suit, then he traded clothes and placed his 'city look' in the same place the suit once was, and after three or so minutes, he had already completely changed his looks, you could even argue that in this world, that meant even changing his identity, from 'wannabe artisan' to a 'good honorable member of high-society', and after that, he left the bathroom, and walked towards those familiar faces that he hadn't seen in years.

"Hello, good morning, Skylar, Kauuri, Selena. It has been a long time"
Kaiki greeted with a formal tone his astonished looking group of ex-companions.