7th Sea · Session of 12 September 2026

The Deep Vault

The company follows Ruprett's map into Agrilla. Getting to the King's physician proves possible. Getting him out is another matter.

Ilsa sleeps beneath her bandages while the company prepares to leave her again. Axel keeps her company for a while; elsewhere in the safe house, Grigori tries to go out preaching. Queen Almunda and Amanda make it clear that no sermon is worth exposing the people sheltering there. Aruma asks him to bless her equipment instead.

Henryk uses the evening to raise the question of Sarmatia. A restored King of Castille might make a useful friend, and a brigade of winged hussars would be useful friends in return. Almunda hears him out without promising anything. First they must find her son.

Fish for the Cardenal

Kodai wakes them before dawn. The boat is ready, the tide is falling, and five borrowed Inquisition uniforms are waiting. The uniforms are genuine, though wrong for Agrilla. Diego puts one under his raincoat. Aruma could get lost inside hers.

They leave in a wagon piled with fishing gear. Henryk has to accept both the wagon and the wretched horses pulling it. Grigori acquires a fishing rod. Diego brings a powder keg as well as his tools.

A roadblock nearly ends the expedition before they reach the water. Diego shows his uniform, Kodai produces papers, and the company explains that the Cardenal's fish must not be delayed. Axel becomes Don Pedro for the occasion. The soldiers look hard enough to make everyone uncomfortable, then let them through. Kodai is less pleased with the kick that helped sell Diego's performance.

A promise on the water

Andreas waits at the marsh landing with a small sailboat. He fled Eisen's religious violence for Castille, hoping to live nearer the Church. The Inquisition has made a poor refuge of it.

"I'm tired of people doing bad things and telling me that it's God's will."

Axel shows him the crest beneath his clothing. Andreas recognizes the house of von Dämmerung and its curse. The fisherman keeps his word and lets Axel aboard, clutching his holy symbol.

The next patrol wants wine and salted meat. Offered only cold fish, it leaves them alone. Grigori catches a black, oily fish of his own and hangs on to it.

Ruprett's directions hold. There is the bishop's head in the rock, the middle crack, the ledge exposed by low tide. The company jumps from the rocking boat and crawls into the island through seawater.

The passage that smells worse

Aruma leads through the narrow dark. The tunnel climbs, then descends. A sailor's skeleton lies face down with a cutlass in its back and an empty document case beside it.

In an abandoned cache, someone has written: God forgives, men do not. The company follows the fouler of the two passages and finds a cavern full of rats. Five of them are the size of dogs.

Grigori becomes a wolf. Diego cuts through four of the giant rats, and Henryk takes the last before pressing ahead to secure the exit. Aruma fights inside her ancestor's spectral shape while Axel uses the lantern to keep the swarm off her legs. When the smaller rats finally scatter, Grigori changes back in the filthy water.

Axel prises open the rusted gate. A little farther on, boards conceal the tunnel's mouth inside a working storeroom. They break through and begin sorting out their disguises. Then two guards come to investigate the smell.

Two hours

Axel catches the first guard by the throat. Diego kills the second in the corridor and lowers him quietly to the floor. The company brings both inside.

The survivor gives directions under an interrogation involving Grigori's fish. Coronel is in the vault, at the bottom. A hunchback carries the key. The guard warns them about the things below and says his next check-in is two hours away.

Some of the company start gathering rope to bind him. Axel snaps his neck before they finish.

The bodies go behind the broken wall, crates hide the opening, and Diego gets the clean prison uniform. Aruma will pass as their prisoner. Outside, Grigori and Aruma see a bloody arrow on the wall that the others cannot: This way to the exhibits.

The exhibits

The disguises work well enough to pass guards occupied with a prisoner who will not get up. Across the corridor, a bearded man commands a crew of dead cockroaches. Below that level, the cells grow quieter and farther apart.

Ruprett is delighted to see Antoinne. The prisoner calls him Shadow and answers a series of questions that leave little reason to consider opening his cell. He can hear Ruprett, though he cannot see him. Grigori and Aruma get the full conversation; the others hear enough to want to move on. Antoinne stays where he is.

Porzia Messore, the nun in the next cell, has covered the walls in scripture. At the mention of the shepherd, she begins a chant connected to an earlier vision. Ruprett turns white. Afterward, he warns Grigori and Aruma that too much faith will leave them in cells of their own, but they have already seen his reaction.

Then a courteous voice greets Diego by name. Capitan Edmundo Monet recognizes him, notices the poor disguises, and offers his help. Diego gives him no immediate bargain. The captain does supply the hunchback's name: Lazaro.

Just the doctor

At the bottom of the stairs, the stolen keys fail against the Deep Vault's iron door. Ruprett finds this very funny. Then he tells them to wait.

Lazaro descends with a basket, sees the strangers, and tries to turn back. The company catches him; Aruma takes a single black key from his belt. He begs them to take Coronel and leave the girl alone. His own work is tending the seals, replacing water, relighting candles, repairing anything that breaks. He insists they let him do it.

Beyond the door, four well-equipped guards are playing cards. Diego tells them there has been an emergency and they must collect the physician now. The guards expect a different escort, but Lazaro backs the request while pressing to get to his duties. The oak door opens. Aruma slips through behind him, screened by the others, and the latch closes behind them.

Silver spikes and holy symbols line the final passage. Axel grows pale and sick. A posted warning forbids removing silver or sacred vessels, or taking prisoners across the marked threshold without authority.

The first chamber has no bars. Salt, candles, and sacred markings enclose a little girl who asks to come out and play. Ruprett tells her to drop the act. Her answer comes in a guttural voice that shakes the room.

To Grigori and Aruma, he calls her Estafania and warns that one broken seal could be enough to release her. They let Lazaro tend his candles.

Irreplaceable

Coronel is next door. Unlike the other prisoners, he has books, writing materials, and a proper bed. When he sees the company beside the girl's chamber, he frantically writes a warning and holds it up: Do not open her chamber.

Diego picks his lock. The doctor starts gathering more books and papers than anyone can carry. Told to choose, he writes irreplaceable. A coat becomes a bundle for what he can take.

He wants to know who they are. They tell him they need his help to free the King. Coronel refers to the prison without walls and offers to tell them more once they get him out.

They are heading for the door when its latch moves. Lazaro looks terrified. Capitan Inquisidor Esteban Virello holds it open for Sister Ines Valcazar.

"After you, sister."

Four fresh guards follow them in.