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# Waverider Expedition - Ashkar

Otto the Dwarf speaking his mind

The jungle swallowed the Waverider's boats whole.

Vines hung like curtains, insects swarmed in clouds, and the air was so thick with heat it felt alive. By the time the crew reached the clearing, the world had gone silent but for the slow drip of water and the rasp of their own breath.

Ashkar lay before them, not a city, not even a village, but a sprawl of shapes half-swallowed by the green. Mud huts with no roofs. Platforms built from thornwood. Smoke rising from pits where pale figures knelt among coals.

Selene was the first to speak. "They're burning themselves."

A figure turned toward her. Skin gray with ash, eyes calm, mouth sewn shut with fine vine thread. He bowed, slow and formal, then turned back to the fire. Another man, tall, robed in woven reeds, approached, his face a map of scars.

"I am Sorrowbound Ishan," he said. "You come from beyond Naraka."

Severin, immaculate even in the heat, forced a smile. "We come in peace. Trade, perhaps. Observation."

The monk's eyes flicked over them. "Peace is an illusion. Trade is indulgence. Observation is pride." He gestured toward a group of kneeling penitents, their backs bleeding from fresh stripes. "Still, you may walk. All souls walk their punishment."

They followed in silence.

Children sat in rows, hands bound with nettles, whispering hymns through clenched teeth. A woman carried a basket of leeches and pressed them to her skin, murmuring prayers as they drank. Two men dragged a third through the mud, singing about forgiveness as he sobbed.

Eira looked away. "They're hurting their own."

Venera's face was hard. "They think it makes them better."

"Better than what?"

"Than us."

They reached a wide pit surrounded by burning torches. Inside, hundreds of believers stood waist-deep in water thick with biting flies. A voice rose above the hum, an old monk on a wooden platform, arms raised, body wrapped in barbed vines. His flesh was streaked red, his tone serene.

"This life is the cage of the unworthy," he said. "Pain opens the lock. Joy is the rust that seals it."

The crowd whispered the words back, like a lullaby.

Captain Virellus watched without expression. The light from the torches flickered across his face, carving deep shadows under his eyes. "They believe every moment hurts for a reason," he said. "And if it doesn't, they find one."

Selene's hands shook. "This isn't belief. It's despair given order."

Severin adjusted his cravat, though it was soaked through with sweat. "Despair, yes - but structured despair. The most dangerous kind."

When the ceremony ended, the crew was offered no food, only water tinted with ash. The monks drank it gratefully. Virellus forced a sip, then set the cup down. "Enough. We've seen what we came to see."

No one argued.

They left before nightfall, the jungle closing behind them like a wound. By the time they reached the Waverider, the air smelled of rain and rot.

On deck, the crew gathered in the quiet. The sea was black and flat, the moon only a smear behind the clouds.

Eira spoke first. "They live every breath as punishment."

Selene nodded. "And they think they deserve it."

Severin's voice was low. "The terrifying part is that they're content. They've found peace in misery. You can't reason with that."

Venera looked toward the green line of the coast. "Maybe that's what faith looks like when it forgets mercy."

For a while, no one said anything. The only sound was the creak of the rigging and the low sigh of the waves.

Then Otto the Dwarf appeared from the companionway, wiping tar from his hands, beard sticking out at wild angles. He looked around at the solemn faces, snorted, and said, "If you ask me, they're batshit crazy. But no one ever asks me. That's why you're all so fucking stupid."

He wandered off toward the galley, muttering about "... a life without ale...".

The silence broke. A few of the crew laughed, not from humor, but from relief. Virellus allowed himself the smallest of smiles.

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