your city lies in dust my friends

The boy gently landed on a pile of rubble to get a ground view of the devastation he had caused. Infernos raged throughout the city of Baltimore from where the airships fell. Brown columns of smoke rose and floated towards northwards. He pulled the fabric of his black burial shroud closer to his cheest. His thumbs idly flipped the pages of the almanac he had found back and forth.

"Betrayed...and revived after twenty-five years...nothing left to inherit...no one left for revenge..." A voice echoed from above, a deep rumbling pitch that strained for a higher register in its eagerness.

"Ahoy, Young Prince! Come aboard!"

Marcus watched in stunned silence as a black ship the size of a city block floated slowly downwards to nest in a pile of shattered bricks the was once a building. The profile resembled a trireme as depicted on ancient vases, but built on a frightening scale with an alien, sinister ingenuity. A Rows of oars rotated upwards and locked in place.

"We be the Midas! Last of the Founder's Fleet!" He stared upwards at the yellow banner high above the mast. The demon wings gules upon a ziggurat sable on a field or. "Ye did all this, didn't ya boy? Ye cut a swath from Mason Hill clear to port while wearin' the Black Toga of the rightful heir! We saw ye!" A figure leaned over the bow, head covered in a resplendent bronze helmet. Other figures lined the deck, a gleaming row of brass. "We'll be yer revenge! We'll be yer floatin' Foundation! Let us serve ye with the scrap of honor we got left and the choicest plunders of this orb we'll share with ye! Lower the gangplank, boys!"

The protesting squeal of ebon-stained wood and gears accompanied the platform that stretched from the deck, which suddenly dropped on one end to hit the ground with a thunderclap, leaving a footpath at a steep angle directly up to the demonship. Blue eyes stared upwards at the collection of monsters waiting for him on deck. Quietly, he nodded, and planted his bare feet on the edge of the plank. The timbers reacheted upwards, carrying him towards his crew as the monsters roared and cheered, their inhuman voices echoing through the ruined city.