7th Sea · Session of 28 August 2026
In which a devil draws a map in blood, a princess is told no, a prophet fights naked, and a silver bullet finds the wrong shoulder on purpose.
A day has passed since the disaster at the ritual chamber. The company lies low in San Cristóbal, marked and hunted. The household is scattered. Ilsa sits in an Inquisition cell, being questioned by the Knight Inquisitor Friedrich — the same Eisen-born monster hunter who built the silver chair, and, we now know, the hand behind the masked Porté, the ball invitation, and the long hunt for the von Dämmerung line. And Otto? Fifteen guards were sent to take him. Seven came back. None of them brought Otto.
At the safe house: Princess Rocío — the Yellow Lady no longer, the King's own twin — with Queen Almudena, the ever-armed Amanda de la Rosa, and the fugitive ex-Inquisitor Emilio Crespo. The business: the King's physician, Coronel, held in the island fortress called the Dungeons of Agriola — the only thread leading to the King's "prison without walls." The problem: no schedule, an Inquisition coastline, and a garrison of fanatics who cannot be bought. Rocío, in frustration, swore she would bang on the gate herself; the Queen, gently and completely, stood her down. Castille must keep its spare heir.
Then a voice behind Grigori and Uruma: "I know a way."
Rupret — visible to exactly two people in the room — offered up the Dungeons of Agriola as if showing off his own estate. Not a prison, he insists. A museum. "Every exhibit on that island tells a story… some of them are even my own. Here — a prophet who looked too deeply. There — a man who finally stopped lying to himself. And of course, dearest Antoine."
He took Grigori's hand, raised blood on the fingertips like stigmata, and drew a map on a blank wall that only Grigori and Uruma could see — the island, the fortress, and a way in the builders never fixed: at low tide, beneath a rock like a bishop's head with a broken nose, the middle of three crevices. Climb, then descend. At the fork, take the tunnel that smells worse. An ancient iron gate — and then out, "right in the middle of all the exhibits." Grigori traced the invisible lines in charcoal for the room, in perfect perspective, and Amanda de la Rosa said what everyone was thinking: "You've been to the island."
The raid would have to wait — because Kodai came in, drank Axel's wine, and earned it: Ilsa is alive. Friedrich has finished with her, and tonight she rides in a caged wagon for the coast, bound for Eisen. Wait until morning — wait too long. So: a ruined pilgrim chapel on a sharp bend of the road. Nine men, a wagon, and the Inquisitor himself. Kodai drives the getaway — on one condition, remembering last time: "No wolf."
They were expected. Uruma found fresh loading-silk in the grass before the convoy ever appeared; scouts swept the ruins; and when Henryk rode out in full hussar wings to demand surrender, Friedrich only laughed past him into the stones: "I know he's here — come to get his doctor… I will run this through his lycanthrope heart."
Diego's shot took the driver from the chapel window, and the night came apart. Sergeant Mateo fired at the shape sharing Axel's saddle — Axel turned and took the ball himself, and learned the hard way that they had loaded silver. Grigori answered by sprinting out naked, arms raised, calling down Matushka's judgment, and the evening mist rose into a fog that blinded every musket on the road. Uruma leapt from the saddle wrapped in the glowing shape of her ancestor and clubbed the sergeant to the ground. Axel rode the escort down man by man, dug the silver out of his own shoulder with a dagger, and bellowed a blood debt into the fog. Grigori took the wagon's reins — "Hold on, Ilsa. The good guys are here."
Friedrich fought Henryk and Diego to a standstill, saw the night was lost, gathered his wounded sergeant, and rode off with a promise instead of a corpse:
"Count your days, von Dämmerung. Creatures of your ilk must return to the earth of their homeland. And Eisen is my homeland too. It is there that we shall finish this."
Axel threw his sword after him. It landed five feet away. Not even that cool. Just indignant.
The padlock came off under a musket barrel. Ilsa — one eye swollen shut, bruised everywhere — looked up through the lifting fog and managed, "You look terrible." Then, gripping Axel's hand, the words worth the whole night: "He asked little, but he knew much. He knows much about your father. Your grandfather. And your great-grandfather. Sometimes they wouldn't even ask me questions."
She is safe. She is broken. And Friedrich already knew.
Diego put a ball through the wagon driver at dusk range and then went blade-to-blade with a Knight Inquisitor and walked away.
Henryk rode vanguard in full wings, demanded the Inquisition's surrender to their faces, and held Friedrich in single combat until Diego joined. Your characters were in good hands. Mostly.
Next Session
The Dungeons of Agriola, at low tide.
The map is drawn in blood, and it has never lied to us.
Bring everyone.