Recourse for Revenge

After the fight, I explained to the group who I was -- at first I was worried when they didn't recognize me, but I am just a Champion of the Sister Isles, and we never really met. The Fatecarvers took a step back to discuss, leaving Fathom and I alone to our own devices. When the returned (and I prepared to take my leave) we were instead met by a working group of dockworkers led by Ralhonn, whom Fathom knew through Sebastian.
 

Daddy Shark

One of the dockworkers -- the leader Ralhonn -- made a comment claiming he's the father of late Luce. Though a human, it checks out: he expressed some kind of remorse for Luce, nothing more.



 
First it was Lord Rohrouk who offered to Brom to join the Fatecarvers. He refused, but Eragon was the one to show Brom an allegiance to Tier Shannigray and thusly the party.
 
Hefting the tezkeleh captive, he and his newfound "friends" headed back to Sebastian to complete the request. Sebastian spoke with Fathom alone for a while before the group headed (back) to the Shortreef.
 
At the ship, Cassandra intervened to "speed up" the hiring process for new seamen. Brom tried to help -- what he saw as bolstering the recruits' spirits, but what Cassandra saw as subverting her authority. They spoke in private, both trying to pull at the other's heartstrings, trauma, and reason. Neither was particularly swayed towards the other, and they remain some kind of cold.
 
In that moment, the Hollow Spirit came across Brom in a cold shiver of hollow anger. Directed at Cassandra? Maybe.
 

The Shortreef, once more

 
Fathom and Brom introduced themselves to the captain just as she introduced the new first mate Ranald, from Lucidaour (across the western seas).
 
While Brom went to take a nap and rest, the remainder of the party accompanied Rohrouk to below-below-decks to interrogate the captured tezkeleh.



 
As the day drew to a close, Cassandra went to Brom to speak with him. To make peace. He did what he could to explain -- and she didn't understand -- but that was as much as he felt he could do. As she left, that anger, the cold burn of hate and retribution, swelled within him.
 
As his invisible self, Brom was accidentally privy to Eragon casting silent image, conjuring the image of Avrios. The elf poured his heart out to Avrios, with a listening-in (and bewildered) Brom. They spoke honestly to one another, and a bond was forged (or begun).
 

Eragon's dream

Eragon dreamt of a burned landscape where it rained ash. He found a raccoon, who led Eragon to a dead, scorched tree. There the raccoon gave him an acorn. He heard then a low, hollow laughter, before the dream ended.
 
That night, I believe the Hollow Spirit called my new elvish friend to that place, the burned landscape where it rains ash like black snow. A raccoon there led him to the Hollow Spirit, where it offered Eragon an offering.
 

My dream

I myself dreamt of fire and blood, a beach engulfed in fire. In this hell I bled and bled onto the sand, and a few feet away the Karekedai reenacted their crime. One, tall and muscular and shrouded by his helm, pieced together the crosses that would take the lives of the Champions of the Sister Isles. I heard the screams, our screams and pleading. First, Mikael...
 
I blacked out before they could finish, my mind taking me to the slow falling underwater. Drowning, with a dull drumbeat in the background. I reached what I thought was the bottom, the black plains of the ocean floor. There, skeletal and out-of-place, the Hollow Spirit stood before me. Carved with axe marks and scorched from long-gone fires, I shared its pain for a moment. I felt that rage that I had never felt before, never since. The Hollow Spirit's rage may be ancient, immortal, but it stayed with me until I woke.
 

Cass' dream

I am not sure the magics, but we shared Cassandra's dream last night.
 
It felt at first like losing one's sight -- darkness and nothing. But then I could feel the ship beneath me, and impossibly so I knew the moon was dark and black overhead. Blindly, I knew that a twisted mockery of a lighthouse was far off -- within vision but not close to the ship. Again, in some way, I knew that my new companions were on the ship, and as we called out to one another the line between dream and reality was gone, in that moment.
 
From behind a man emerged from the cabin below. Cassandra knew him -- she shrunk back as he appeared -- and from underneath his heavy black overcoat wet tears of ebon coal left the black pools that are his eyes. He spoke of Cassandra feeling alone, and how he brought us here to keep her company.
 
"Why are you doing this to her?" The man only pointed to me: what even are you? Though I repeated myself, he ignore me. I wanted to speak -- he tempted her with the loss of the orc, with her broken heart -- but I couldn't. Cassandra explained herself, explained that she was at peace with Luce: "he was ready to die, even when I was afraid of death". I believe her. He turned to Rohrouk, taunting him of bringing back those lost to death. Then to Fathom. He returned to Cassandra and her lost orc.
 
"Abyssal is a good language. One you'll need. You will need the cards; you will need abyssal; you will need the things I'm getting for you now. Then I will find you, and we will have a very reasonable discussion. Swear to me now, and I'll tell you everything I know."
 
"I will never help you. I don't need you. You're the one who needs me," was Cassandra's reply. His threat: to make her take him, to kill us (the living party members).
 
He is the one who took her sight.