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Peneloper's still asleep and the story progresses; they can do that, you know, continue, no heroine required. Captain Ire Stormholden, dreamboat of the written word, has been plucked from his story and pushed into the Refinery by none other than future antagonist, Gideon Darquish.

They're an odd pairing, most definitely- one towering and sun-kissed, muscular, limber and calloused, aesthetically appealing to a large swath of the female demographic (ages 16-56); the other is shorter, spindly and hunchbacked, with pitch-black skin, greasy black locks, and bird-skull adornments. His appeal is limited and niche.

Together they traverse the dusty landscape of the Refinery, heading for the lone building in the distance. They exchange nothing but glowers and silence. Gideon occasionally laughs while Stormholden finds nothing funny about the situation he's now in.

He follows Gideon's lead anyway, for what else could one do when finding oneself in a new world? 

• Invisible Touch •

The dirt ran on for miles and Stormholden felt like he'd been walking for years, when the pair finally spotted a building on the horizon. He was relieved at first, but as they approached it and the sign over the door read Dead Man's Song, the churning in Stormholden's stomach returned. Depicted below the name was a sloppily painted pint expelling a skull. 

No man in their right mind would name a pub something so nefarious. Immediately, Stormholden's hand swung down to his hip, his fingers tracing the lines of his hilt, his eyes on the horizon, scouring it for potential enemies. 

"Don't worry, Cap. No one's going to harm you in here," Gideon said, peeling back the Song's door. A splash of rust-hued light colored the captain's boots. Shadows caught on the sharp edges of Gideon's face. Like an inkblot on night silk, they disappeared into the boy's greased pallor, becoming yet another sliver of Gideon's all-black whole. "Unfortunately the proprietor's a bit of a lame ass." Stormholden's brows arched. Gideon blew out. "You know, a real stickler for rules. One of which happens to be no killing on the Song's grounds. Only thing you'll find in there is the Refinery's best liquor." He grinned, holding open the door for Stormholden. "Contains the least amount of grit. Perfect for curing mild dehydration."

The captain refused to move, standing instead, just outside of the door, light splashing over the toes of his boots. Again, Gideon nodded for the captain. "Come on, captains first."

Stormholden was all trepidation and nerves as he clenched the hilt of his saber and ascended the few creaky steps to the Song's front entrance. Gravelly laughter and rushed speech filled his ears. Smoke and musk and the acrid scent of soured spirits rushed up his nostrils.

Though these were all things Stormholden had grown familiar with—frequenting such establishments found at any port worth its place on a map—he found he gave pause, hesitating to go forward, as Gideon was at his back and the words he'd uttered offered little in the way of assurance.

He took a stilted step forward, shoulders drawn to his earlobes. Another. Fingers curled around his sword. Another. With an inhale, the Song's light swallowed Stormholden whole.

He found himself awash in a sea of light. Cool breezes wicked the sweat from his skin. It was eerily silent. He set his jaw, slid half his sword from his sheath, drew a breath and stilled his hammering heart as he waited for the enemy's attack.

Nothing happened. From somewhere in the light, Gideon cackled. Stormholden blinked, and then, the Song's patrons came into view. A gasp he couldn't stifle flew from his mouth.

Captain Stormholden found himself surrounded by all manner of oddity: creatures no bigger than his hand, some as large as his ship's prow, some mast-thin, others barrel-chested with beards down to their belly buttons. There were creatures with too many eyes, others without any.

All sorts of delusions-made-flesh sat at lopsided table tops, crammed in leather booths and slammed, shoulder to shoulder, beside one another at the bar top running the length of the room, throwing back shots of a smoking concoction served by a very, if not overly, animated skeleton sporting the finest mustache Stormholden had ever seen.

As if this waking nightmare hadn't already been enough to make him doubt his wits and the state of his mind–which it had, several times over–another oddity joined the collective.

Shuffling down a spiral staircase which led to a door marked "Proprietor," whose very existence, hovering mid-air and attached to nothing, shattered the laws of gravity and threatened to break Ire's perception of what he thought he knew, a rather dapper-looking gentleman in evening regalia, proceeded to make his entrance.

Nipping at the heels of this man, came yet another - smaller, squatter, and with a mane of hair as crimson as the Reef's. The red-haired man acknowledged the captain with a clipped nod, pale, waxen fingers clawing at the silver cufflinks dimpling his shirtsleeves. The other man, glorious in all his finery, resembled little more than a dressed-up corpse.

While in the middle of this assessment, the red-haired man produced a mug of chunky liquid which was quickly thereafter hoisted into Stormholden's chest. "Mr. Pale," he began, and after calling a truce on his war with his cufflinks, went about fiddling with his tie knot, "wishes to welcome you to his fine establishment here in the Refinery."

Besides the captain, Gideon smirked and strode past the three of them, beelining for the deceased bartender, who held all manner of smoking, freezing, fire-breathing, and wailing drink in his arms. The red-haired man nodded at him but once. "Mr. Darquish."

Gideon replied, "Anderson," and set to wedging himself between two men, who had horns for hair, snouts for noses, and were twice the size of the werewolf atrocities Stormholden had put down back in the Reach.

The red-haired man, Anderson, returned his fullest attention to the captain. "Mr. Pale tells me you are not from around here."

The captain shifted his gaze to settle on the man referred to as Mr. Pale. He had not spoken since ambling down the stairs. Come to think on it, he had not done much of anything, nary a breath, sigh or eye roll.

Anderson chuckled. "Mr. Pale woefully regrets not being able to meet you in a more affable form, however, now is not his time."

Stormholden grazed the handle of his saber. Anderson threw up his arms in reproach and frowned. "Whatever manner of devil you believe is before your eyes, and present in this establishment," Anderson shook his head, "I warn you, they are no more dangerous than your traveling companion. Do desist, kind captain. Mr. Pale, being a generous and warm-hearted man when the need arises, wishes to keep this meeting within amiable parameters." Anderson thrust the mug out to Ire again. "Please drink. It is a rule of the house."

"And if I don't?"

Anderson nodded. "Agreed, Sir. Creations of the Retelling are certainly...stubborn when off-script."

Ire quirked a brow, tensed his jaw. "I know not of what it is you spew, vile—"

Anderson raised a hand. "Take a drink, Stormholden. You've been through a great deal, and this will help."

He released his grip on his hilt. "I refuse."

Anderson's gaze flicked to Mr. Pale, who at that moment, had seen fit to blink. Anderson paled, sweat rode down his brow in droves. "I beg you," he shook, "see reason. Do not so easily throw away your life because of a trifling sense of pride."

"Tis not pride," Ire rebuked, "but a sense of some great foulness afoot that fuels my refusal."

Anderson strode forward, reached for Stormholden's hands, and placed the mug gently in his palms. "I suggest you look toward your companion for the source of your perceived foulness and not the Barbatchula. Drink," he raised Stormholden's hands eye level, before releasing a grim warning into the air, "You will not leave here otherwise."

Stormholden contemplated this as he stared in the liquid – black and frothy, the consistency of overboiled pudding. He sniffed the steam rising off it – sickly sweet, reminiscent of honey but with a strong hint of underlying sourness that once inhaled, curdled his stomach.

These creatures wished to see him drink their poison. He'd be a fool to do so, that's what every bone, muscle, and thought screamed. He should deposit war on these fiends' doorstep, raise sword and pistol and give them hell.

However, Anderson, with his pleading, watery gray eyes, did not appear to be a man of secrets and sorcery, and evil intent. Unlike Gideon, he seemed to present himself as what he was, and what had stood before Stormholden was a straightforward, honest man, his boss of similar make and mindset. If drinking this rancid potion was what they wished, what was the worse that could befall him? He'd already had his world frozen, been tossed overboard and washed up in a world so unlike the one he'd known prior. Stormholden took the mug to his lips and made sure to swallow every damnable drop.

If concepts could be tasted, if things like hatred, jealousy, heartache, and regret could be cooked, brewed, bottled and then swallowed, then that was but a fraction of what Ire experienced as the Barbatchula flew down his throat with more purpose than a thief on their way to loot a king's treasury.

He became hot and hallucinatory. Screams bubbled from his lips only to die on his chin. His muscles tensed with an ache of a thousand journeys and his brain felt as though it was drilling through his skull. The scenery of the Song disappeared, and Ire found himself back on the shores of his world, his ship docked in the distance. Opposite him, Matilda ran in his direction, arms open, tears streaming down her cheeks. She apparated before him, a screaming, sobbing mess, her face carrying the ruptured veins of someone gripped with Red Blight.

Then, the captain came upon a girl, brown-haired and oddly dressed in a man's trousers and shirt. She sat, legs folded under herself, scribbling like mad on a collection of parchment, her expression that of serene joy. She fell away, and the captain became engulfed by darkness. His brain screeched inside his head, screamed at him to get away, but Ire didn't have time to react before the darkness relented and flashed him its teeth.

He awoke with the start and found himself teetering on the edge of a barstool. A shot of ale slid his way. The skeletal bartender, whose name tag read, "Barnabones," nodded at the glass while he cleaned the rim of another with a dusty, stained washcloth. "Compliments of the house," he said, "Best dust-whiskey a secret can buy. Go on, sate yer thirst."

He stared at the liquid set before him. Muddy brown with flies frozen inside a few of the ice chips. Gauzy, milk-white smoke rose off its surface. Stormholden grimaced and pushed the drink aside.

Barnabones finished cleaning the glass, put it on a stack to his left that threatened to topple, then, after shoving the washcloth between his apron strings, placed both elbows on the bar top and leaned in. He wore little in terms of clothing: tattered breeches kept in place over his pelvis by a ratty-looking belt looped around three times, and a stained apron of clear plastic that showcased a thin tunic draped over his spin and shoulders. Ire could count the ribs.

The skeleton prodded one of them. "Got 'em all, Mister Ire." It could have been Stormholden's imagination, but he thought the skeleton's spine grew taller, straighter. "Ain't no small feat to be so dead and yet complete."

Stormholden nodded at the curious cadaver, his focus drawn to its mustache. Full and bushy with wax on the ends, it followed the lines of a mouth long since decomposed. It acted as a replacement smile, giving the skeleton an appearance of kindness, despite the empty eye sockets, hollowed cheeks, and missing ears and nose.

"You seemed to have had a time of it," Barnabones continued, his tone jovial if not a little ancient. With a creak and scrape of elbow, he leaned closer to the captain, mustache hairs bristling. "Pale's drink, that Barbatchula, it's never been drunk by one of you word-uns 'fore." He smirked at the others seated around, all with mugs of strange drink clenched in hands or hooves or talons. "All us had bets on whether or not it'd kill ya."

"And it didn't so—" Gideon's voice caught in the captain's ear and he turned. The boy now wore a long, black duster. As it was, it served as a perfect addition to the boy's already all-black wardrobe, though the captain remained befuddled as to where it could have originated from - Gideon had not left his side, to his knowledge, once and no one in the Song looked to peddle such bizarre wares.

Gideon, catching all this unfolding in the turbulent waves of the captain's pale blue aura, said nothing on the subject and simply slid between Stormholden and Barnabones, palm out and eager for his boon.

Barnabones grumbled something incoherent, and then, after a moment of fidgeting with his bowler cap, slid a hand into his apron pocket and tossed a dozen crumpled papers onto the bar top. "Aye, you were right. Take yer winnings and get gone."

Gideon took up the papers, opened a few, and smiled. "And they're all true?"

Barnabones spat, "You know the deal." He pointed to a sign behind him with one bony finger. Verified, vetted secrets only. "Them in your hand," the skeleton thrust his finger Gideon's way, "are as real and honest as only secrets are. Guaranteed."

The boy smiled and pocketed them. "Well, then." He eyed the captain. "Another noose of your finest for me and my companion here, Barney."

The skeleton narrowed its eye sockets and muttering, turned, disappearing behind a maroon curtain leading to a sectioned-off portion of the Song.

Gideon nudged the captain. "How about you and I have a seat?" Having nothing left to lose, the captain took his shot and tossed it back. Liquid seared his mouth and throat, but as his vision grew hazy, his cheeks flush, he found his quills smoothing, his trepidation and caution flung to the wind.

"These brews make quick work," Stormholden said, tongue still reeling from the burn of hard liquor.

Gideon planted a hand on his back and pushed the captain forward. "They sure do," he smiled as he directed Stormholden through the throng, toward a vacant back booth, "The things we need to discuss, Cap, ought to be done in the shadows."