JesseLowe/PirateMonkeySessionEmail1

With a last, desperate burst of energy, Monkey throws himself across the threshold of the corridor. Behind him, the corridor collapses with a crash and shoots out a cloud of dust. Coughing, he climbs to his feet. As the dust clears, He sees that he's in a tall shaft; above he can see the gleam of starlight. It's about twenty feet in diameter, circular, and the walls are made of closely laid stone. On the walls of the shaft are handholds, still sharp as if they were new-cut.

In the center of the shaft, a cage hangs from a chain that vanishes into the darkness above. By the starlight, he thinks he can see crossbeams about halfway up the shaft that hold the chain. The cage is tall and narrow, and he recalls seeing such cages used to hold prisoners in some towns he's passed through. It hangs about fifty feet off the ground. Someone is in it: their cloaked form is slumped on the floor of the cage, and a pale hand dangles and gleams in the starlight, still as a lily on a grave.

Monkey puts his hands on his waist as he looks up. The situation seems clear to him. There's only one way left. Up. So up shall he go. Even had there been a way back, he would not even consider it.

The shaft is not too wide and the cage is not that far up. Thus Monkey, disdaining mundane climbing as too slow, kicks off a nearby handhold to the opposite side and once there, bounces back to another side, gaining altitude in every hop. In that way, it does not take long before he grabs the bar of the cage.

As the cage sways back and forth from the momentum, Monkey pulls himself up a bit. Chin level with the cage's floor, he says, "Ahoy there, mate. Monkey's the name. What's yours and whatcha doing up here?" in his native Seatongue. He waits for an answer, fully expecting one real soon. After all, is this not the West? Likely the occupant knows the Tongue of The West. If he lives, perhaps Monkey can get some explanation on what exactly is supposed to be here. And if the prisoner's dead, well, is this not a shadowland? Surely his ghost still haunts the cage, trapped until the end of days. Either way, he'll get his answers, no?

Now that he's up close, Monkey can see that the prisoner is covered in a blue cloak, and that the bars of the cage are of soulsteel. They feel icky under his hands, but, well, it's not much worse than barnacles and seaweed, right? (Now that he thinks about it, Monkey's never been keelhauled. Maybe he should try that sometime.) The prisoner stirs at Monkey's voice. Or maybe it's the way the cage is swinging.

She says, "Monkey. Where have you been?"

The voice is familiar -- it's almost Monkey's own. The prisoner looks up and pulls back the hood of her cloak. Monkey looks into his own face.

"Oh," he says, "it's you."

"Of course it's me!" Still Moon says. "Who else would you find in this place?"

"Well--" begins Monkey, but Still Moon rudely interrupts. Now that her head is uncovered, Monkey can see her, and in rather better detail than he's yet been able to. She looks like his twin, if he had one and she were a she. On her forehead she wears a circlet of orichalcum, with an empty socket in the center of her brow, over where Monkey's caste mark would be if he were her, which he isn't. (Though Monkey wouldn't realize it, a second observer, one skilled body language, would note that Monkey's cocky self-confidence is replaced in Still Moon by a brazen assurance of superiority.)

"Look at this cage," Still Moon says, "look at it! I stick my neck out for you, and this is where I end up! Imprisoned by a jumped-up ghost with delusions of grandeur and an army. You'd better come and get me, if you know what's good for you..." There is a note of pleading in her voice at this last.

Monkey says, "I can get you out of here in a jiffy," looking for the latch.

She says, "Idiot! I'm not where you are! I'm back East. This was the only way I could reach you. Wake up!"

She reaches through the bars of the cage and slaps him, faster than he can blink. Startled, he loses his grasp on the bars and topples backward, his usual Essence-fueled nimbleness suddenly gone, as if leaden chains burdened his limbs.

"And take this," she shouts, throwing her crown down at him. "You'll need it!"

Monkey watches the crown flash toward him and reaches out for it -- and just as he braces for impact, there's a golden flash, like Kaizoku's anima flaring in the night, and the shaft vanishes from sight. Monkey feels the rough stone beneath his feet and looks around. He's on top of the wall, bathed in light from strangely glowing sigils on the wall. He glances down just in time to see them flare and burn out in a flash.