Souls For Smuggler's Shiv
The Jenivere was some five days out of Senghor, crossing Desperation Bay towards its final port-of-call in Eleder. There were thirty-four souls aboard the vessel, including twenty-three crew, ten passengers, and the Captain, one Alizandru Kovack. The voyage, which began in Magnimar, and had taken the better part of four months, had been largely uneventful, with the exception of a harrowing circuit around the Eye of Abendego, and the fact that most of sailors weren’t exactly thrilled with the excessive number of half-orcs on board. Now, however, as the journey was nearing its end, the crew was on edge, for it was becoming increasingly clear to them that the ship was off course…many miles off course, in fact. If the Captain continued on their current heading, then the Jenivere was headed into waters known for dangerous currents, piracy, monsters and worse.
On the final night of the voyage, though none of the passengers were aware this was the case, dinner was served in the galley as it had been every night before, and the conversation was easy. It wasn’t long, however, before the lives of everyone on board were changed forever. There was nausea, panic, fear, and the feeling of drowning followed, finally, by darkness…
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Agnar felt something rough and grating under his back. Sand? His feet were wet and cold. That sound…waves? The ocean? There was pressure on his legs…something heavy, pressing down on him. Then…a sharp, searing pain in his left foot! His eyes flew open and he found himself eye-to-eye with a true monster! Two large pincers grasped at the air before the sleek creature, while a finned tail bristling with a long, thin stinger rose from behind it. It was like some freakish cross between a crab and a scorpion…and it had apparently just taken a bite out of the priest’s foot! He kicked the beast off of him, and leaped to his feet. As he did so, he was overcome by a sudden wave of nausea, and he doubled over, clutching his knees. The sea scorpion scuttled towards him, its claws snapping at his face.
“May the Ferryman take you, foul beast!” he cursed.
Black energy gathered around his hand, and he thrust it into the monster’s face. It shrieked, and then curled up into a shriveled husk on the beach. It was only then that Agnar noticed the bodies scattered across the sand…and the other pair of sea scorpions moving towards them.
Lyrissa thought she heard shouting and fighting. She opened her eyes, but her vision was blurred, and the sunlight above her was so very bright. She knew immediately that she was about to vomit, and she rolled to her side to empty her stomach. It was then that she saw the large crustacean scrabbling towards her. Instinctively, her hand went for her falchion…only to find her scabbard empty. She saw a pile of gear stacked haphazardly several feet away, and she kicked off with her feet and lunged for it. As her hand closed on the pommel of her blade, the sea scorpion’s claw clamped down on her wrist. She gritted her teeth to stifle the scream coming up in her throat. She had not shown outward signs of pain in a long time, and she wasn’t about to start now. Wrenching her arm loose, she made it to her knees and stabbed down as hard as she could, her sword gripped in both hands. Impaled, the creature rolled into a ball, dead. Lyrissa looked around, trying to wrap her mind around what she was seeing. Bodies were laying everywhere, but she couldn’t tell whether they were alive or dead. Then she saw the creepy priest standing several yards away, cursing to himself as blood ran down his face. Another dead scorpion lay at his feet. Finally, she saw the third crustacean making its way inexorably towards one of the other bodies. Was it Arioch? It didn’t matter. She wasn’t about to let anyone be possibly eaten alive. She climbed to her feet, and charged across the sand, her head spinning all the while. The animal turned towards her as she drew near, but she managed to driver her blade into its face before it could attack, and then she collapsed to her knees, her stomach threatening to revolt again.
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Slowly, as each one of them returned nauseatingly to consciousness, it became apparent that all of those upon the beach were still alive, though somewhat worse for wear. In addition to Agnar and Lyrissa, there were three crewmen present, and all of the other passengers, save one. There had been a rather plain-looking Varisian woman named Ieana on board. She had boarded the Jenivere in Magnimar, and though pleasant enough, had mostly kept to herself, leading to much speculation among the crew that she might be a secret Chelish agent, or perhaps the true owner of the ship, or even Captain Kovack’s secret lover. Whatever the actual truth, it appeared to be a moot point, since she had most likely drowned at sea.
“Does anyone remember anything about what happened, or how we got here?” Lyrissa asked the others.
Each of them all recounted similar memories of sitting down to dinner, and then a confusing jumble of events, all involving sickness, feelings of drowning, and then…nothing. The logical conclusion was that the Jenivere sank or wrecked, and the survivors washed up on shore of wherever they were.
“I think I can answer that part, at least,” said a gnome, who though he had
just been through the same trauma as everyone else, was dressed impeccably with not a smudge of dirt on him.
This was Gelik Aberwhinge. He’d boarded the ship in Magnimar as well, though in something of a rush. He’d entertained the passengers and crew with his quick wit during the voyage, though he had a vicious streak when it came to the misfortunes of others, and only his talent for fast-talking had saved him from a beating on several occasions.
“Unless I miss my guess,” Gelik continued, “this is Smuggler’s Shiv. It’s an island not marked on most maps, just north of Eleder. It has a reputation for its habit of wrecking ships that get too close…like ours. Of course, most of those ships are smugglers, hoping to avoid the Sargavan navy. Oh, and the island’s also supposed to be haunted.”
“Well,” Agnar smiled, “I’d be willing to be it wasn’t a ghost that dragged us out of the surf. Someone stacked our gear up rather neatly, and look here,” he pointed to a single set of footprints that went to and from the water, along with several sets of furrows in the sand. “That same someone pulled each of us up the beach. I wonder where our savior went.”
“Why do I feel like I was on the world’s worst bender last night, and then somebody threw up in my mouth?”
This from a trim, athletic woman with elvish blood somewhere in her lineage. She had short, dark hair, tanned skin and fierce blue eyes. She wore tight-fitting leathers, and had immediately fished a tricorn hat out of the pile of gear upon awakening. Aerys Mavato had joined the voyage in Port Peril, and
had immediately gotten into a fight with one of the ship’s crew when he made an ill-advised suggestion that he and she could share bunks. After beating the man unconscious with her bare hands, she’d spent much of the remainder of the trip isolated in her cabin.
“Poison,” Zavasta said.
“What?” Aerys asked sharply. “How would you know that?”
“Trust me,” the alchemist smiled, “I know poison, especially when I drink it. That explains why none of us can remember the past few hours. Amnesia’s a side-effect of oil of taggit.”
“Perfect,” the half-elf shook her head. “Poisoned and ship-wrecked. I could use a drink.”
“So now what do we do?” Sasha Nevah asked.
She was a striking young woman with tousled red hair and mischievous green eyes. She’d booked passage on the Jenivere in Ilizmagorti, and her wild tales of adventure had endeared her to the crew, though the fact that she was missing the pinky finger of her left hand, not to mention the conspicuous Red Mantis tattoo between her shoulder blades, also made them leery of her. She
also seemed a little too eager for tales of blood and mayhem, her enthusiasm sometimes bordering on the manic.
“Well, I would suggest we start with searching the ship,” Arioch offered. He nodded towards the sea
The others looked, and there was the Jenivere. She was listing badly to port, partially submerged, and her hull was a gaping ruin as she leaned against a jagged cliff side among several sharp rocks. It was obvious that she would never sail again.
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Only the fortuitous presence of a sharp ridge of rock near the side of the sheer cliff wall had prevented the remains of the Jenivere from sinking entirely into the sea, for only the ship’s stern seemed to have survived the wreck. That portion was wedged at an angle between the cliff and the rocks, and each wave shook and tossed the it alarmingly. It wouldn’t be long before the constant pounding of the surf dislodged the boat and allowed the hungry sea to claim the last of the once-fine sailing vessel.
Fortunately, the tide was low, exposing several slippery rocks that could be navigated up to a ledge on the cliff that overlooked the upper deck of the Jenivere. As the survivors drew nearer, they began to hear a terrible racket coming from somewhere on the lower deck.
“Maybe someone else made it,” Lyrissa said.
“Guess there’s only one way to find out,” Agnar said as he started down the cliff towards the deck.
Secretly, the priest both hoped and feared that the noises they were hearing were what he thought they were. Slim. When he’d first boarded the Jenivere, Agnar had disguised his skeletal minion in a bulky cloak so as not to alarm his
fellow voyagers, and explained its presence away as a manservant. Throughout the cruise, he’d left Slim (as he’d taken to calling the skeleton) in his cabin, keeping it away from prying eyes. When Slim hadn’t been on the beach when he’d awoken, the priest had assumed it had been lost in the wreck. Now, he had renewed hope that the skeleton had survived, but it also concerned him, for how would he explain a walking corpse to the rest of the survivors?
Several of the others joined Agnar, including Zavasta, the Hellknight Arioch, Lyrissa, and the three surviving crew members, a hulking half-orc called Gorak, a half-blood elf whelp named Jack, and the quiet one who’d run the nightly dice game in the galley, Nessalin. Aerys, Gelik and Sasha remained on the beach, along with the old Tienese fellow, Ishirou, and the prisoner, of course. The deck was canted at a steep angle, so they had to be careful as they clambered towards the steps that led to the hold.
“Slim?” Agnar called out softly as he descended the stairs into the darkness.
“Priest, watch out!” Zavasta shouted from behind him.
Agnar instinctively ducked as the alchemist lobbed a fire bomb over his head, directly into the face of the sea scorpion that had been lurking at the bottom of the stairwell. The creature shrieked and scuttled backwards away from the
flames. The next thing Agnar knew, Arioch had pushed past him on the stairs and, holding his hands in front of him, seemingly opened a hole in the middle of the air. From this hole flew a screeching golden eagle. It swooped towards the sea scorpion, its beak snapping and its talons ripping. A moment later, Zavasta hucked a second bomb, and when this one exploded, it engulfed both the crustacean and the eagle, destroying them both.
“Sorry,” the alchemist shrugged when Arioch turned to glare at him.
Agnar’s hopes that Slim had survived the wreck were quickly dashed when he saw that his cabin was nowhere to be found. In fact, very little of the lower decks remained at all. Still they searched what they could. The captain’s cabin was still attached, but was a complete mess. A jagged hole in the side had allowed most of the room’s contents to spill out into the surf and wash away. Yet an overturned desk was too large to fit through the hole and had lodged there. One upper drawer contained a set of keys, which Nessalin was quick to drop into his pocket. Another drawer held several sea charts and maps, along with the captain’s log. Nessalin took this as well. A final drawer contained a bottle of fine brandy and a small coffer that held several hundred gold coins.
“That would be the payroll, wouldn’t it?” Jack asked.
“Appears so,” Nessalin said, reaching for it.
“Hold on there, boy,” Zavasta snarled. “Seems to me a payroll is meant to pay the crew of a ship. Since there’s no ship anymore, stands to reason there’s no need for a crew. That makes this salvage, and salvage is usually finders keepers. I think we should discuss the distribution of that money once we get it back to shore.”
Nessalin stared darkly at the half-orc, but merely nodded and stood aside.
The only other thing of use in the cabin was a large footlocker that looked to hold spare gear, including a well-made dagger, a suit of leather armor, and an amulet that bore the symbol of Nethys, god of magic.
“I don’t remember the cap being a particularly religious man,” Jack said.
“He wasn’t,” Nessalin agreed.
“If he was, then he chose his patron poorly,” Agnar chimed in. “Take it all and we’ll add it to the rest.”
The next area they found intact was the ship’s larder. It was there that, in addition to a fair amount of preserved rations, they found the body of the ship’s cook.
“Was he poisoned to?” Lyrissa asked.
“You could say that,” Agnar replied as he knelt beside the corpse. “Look at
his neck. See those two holes? Puncture wounds…maybe from a snake? Any of you boys remember Cookie here having a pet snake?” He looked at the crewmen.
“No,” Nessalin shook his head. “Captain didn’t allow pets on board.”
Agnar shrugged. “We got poisoned, he got bit. Strange goings-on, wouldn’t you say?”
The only other location on the ship that had survived was the supply room. The first indication the intrepid explorers had that something was not right inside were the trickles of blood that ran from beneath it. The door was stuck, but one shoulder blow from big Gorak remedied that problem. As the door gave way, a second body tumbled out.
“It’s Alton,” Nessalin said quietly.
“Who?” Arioch asked.
“Alton Devers,” the sailor replied. “He was the first mate. He was a good man.”
Agnar bent to examine the dead seaman.
“Two different sets of wounds on this one,” he observed. “See here? These look a bit older…puncture wounds, but from a thin blade of some sort rather than our snake friend, I’d say. These newer marks, here,” he indicated the man’s chest, “look like inflamed stings. I guess the sea scorpion got to him before he locked himself in. Pity.”
“Can I have a look at the log?” Lyrissa asked Nessalin. “Maybe something in there will shed some light on just what in the Hells went on here.”
Nessalin pulled the book from his shirt and passed it to the bard.
As it turned out, the captain’s journal did indeed make for some interesting reading. The earliest entries, those from previous voyages, were precise in recording progress and events along the way, as were the entries from the first two-thirds of the current journey. Yet, as Lyrissa read on, the more recent the logs got, the less common they became. In some cases, several days were missing entries altogether. The ones that did appear were strangely short, and focused more and more on one of the passengers in particular…the Varisian scholar Ieana. It seemed as if Captain Kovack had become obsessed with her. Several entries were nothing more than poorly written love poems to her, while others bemoaned the captain’s inability to please her or catch her attention. Near the end of the log, the entries began to take on a more ominous tone, with the captain starting to complain that other members of the crew were eyeing ‘his Ieana.’ In particular, he
suspected his first mate was in love with her, and wrote several times about how he wished Alton would just ‘have an accident.’ The final entry was perhaps the most disturbing, for in it Kovack wrote of how he’d changed course for Smuggler’s Shiv at Ieana’s request. He hoped that the two of them could make a home on the remote island, but also noted that the crew was growing increasingly agitated at the ship’s new course. The captain mused that ‘something may need to be done about the crew’ if their suspicions got any worse.
“Well that explains a lot,” Arioch broke the silence once Lyrissa finished reading. “What kind of weapon did the captain carry?” he asked Nessalin.
“A rapier,” Ness replied. “Why?”
“The wounds on the first mate,” the summoner said. “Seems as if he and the captain may have come to blows before everything went pear-shaped. So none of this was accidental. It was all, in fact, deliberate. But why? What’s the purpose? Surely not something as inane as ‘true love.’”
“Men have done much stupider things for far less,” Lyrissa snorted.
“Let’s get back to the beach,” Arioch said. “We need to let the others know what we found, and decide what to do next.”
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The castaways quickly determined that their first priority should be setting up camp and shelter. It went without saying that the local fauna would definitely bear warding against, but there was also the stifling heat that only increased as the day went on. There would be no practical way to be fully armored and burdened, slogging around in that humid furnace all day. It would make more sense to rest during the hottest parts of the day, and confine any exploration they intended to do to the early morning and evening hours. Then there were the bugs: flying, crawling, biting, and stinging creatures ranging in size from all but invisible to as big as a man’s hand. Fortunately, with the rations they’d recovered from the Jenivere, food wouldn’t be an issue for a couple of days. In the same vein, Agnar knew a minor cantrip that allowed him to purify water, so with a whole ocean of it at their doorstep, they wouldn’t go thirsty. In addition to the first mate’s body, they also found a fair cache of useful material in the supply room, including some mosquito netting, oil, lanterns and shovels. None of them hoped they’d be on the island long term, but if it came down to it, they were as prepared as any could be.
Most of the rest of the day was spent assigning duties and preparing the campsite, and when evening came, they were all thoroughly exhausted.
“I could really use a drink about now,” Aerys groaned as she stretched her back. It was the second time that day that she made such a request, Arioch noted.
“You’re in luck,” he said as he produced the bottle of brandy they’d found in the captain’s cabin.
Aery’s eyes lit up hungrily. She reached for the bottle, her hand only trembling slightly.
“Join me?” she asked the summoner.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said.
Aerys took a deep swig, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and sighed deeply. She passed the bottle back to Arioch and stared into the campfire flames for a long time.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked at length.
The half-orc shrugged. “I don’t see why not. We are stranded together on a desert island, after all.”
Aerys allowed herself a half smile. “You see I…have something of a problem. This,” she motioned towards the brandy. “Seems like I can’t, um, be without it, you know?”
“You’re saying you’re an alcoholic?” Arioch asked in a neutral tone. “I would say you’re in a bad situation to have such an affliction.”
“Tell me about it,” she laughed. “Still, I would like to do something about it. I’ve wanted to for a long time, and now it seems I don’t have much choice. But cold turkey?” She shivered. “I’m not looking forward to that. I’ve heard about a rare tropical plant, viper nettles I think they’re called. Might be there’re some on this island. Think you could keep an eye out for some for me?”
Arioch pursed his lips in thought.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll do you one better.”
He fished a small vial out of his pocket.
“Found this on board the ship while we were searching. Thought it might be
useful, what with all the bugs and such around. It’s a potion. It can cure diseases.”
“So?” Aerys said, looking confused.
“So,” Arioch continued, “you may not realize it, but your…addiction…is actually a disease, not a moral weakness as you probably thought.”
“Really?” she asked. “Are you sure?”
“What’ve you got to lose?” he shrugged.
Aery’s smile broadened as she took the vial from him and drank it down.
“I notice you didn’t exactly break a sweat today while the rest of us where working,” Nessalin snapped at Gelik.
The young magus was hot, tired and hungry, and the little dandy’s impeccably clean clothes were irritating him immensely.
“I figured that you were sweating enough like a pig for both of us,” the gnome quipped. “Why should two of us wallow in ignominy?”
Lyrissa smirked. “I doubt our little sailor boy knows what ‘ignominy’ means.”
“Oh yes,” Gelik chuckled, “I forgot we were among lay folk. Shall I elucidate?”
“Allow me to enlighten you, you smarmy little prig!” Nessalin snarled. “I can tell you horror stories of your so-called First World that would curl your pointed ears! I’m certain you’ve heard of the fall of Queen Nyrissa?”
Gelik’s face grew pale. “You…you shouldn’t speak of such…,”
“If you don’t get your purple-haired ass in motion tomorrow and start pitching in around here,” Nessalin continued, “you’ll wish your people had never left that land of wisps and faeries behind!”
Gelik gulped as he rose from his seat. His eyes were round as he scuffled off across the camp.
“A little hard on him, weren’t you?” Lyrissa asked.
Nessalin didn’t answer. ‘Trust no one,’ he thought.
“And that,” Sasha laughed, “is how I single-handedly took down four Korvosan Grey Maidens!”
Jack shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve heard some pretty incredible stories
about agents of the Red Mantis before, but that one takes the cake!”
Sasha instantly grew quiet, her eyes narrowed.
“I’m no Red Mantis,” she said bitterly.
“Oh,” Jack stammered. “I’m sorry…I just thought…,”
“Never mind,” Sasha brushed it aside, an easy smile returning to her lips. “Just a little touchy about my past I guess. My mother…now there is a true assassin of the Mantis. Ruthless bitch. Guess I was a little too wild for her and all of those strict matriarchs in Ilizmagorti. Her sending me to Eleder to look after Red Mantis ‘interests’ wasn’t exactly exile, I guess, but she made it clear what would happen to me if I ever returned home.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I didn’t know.”
“How could you?” Sasha slapped him on the shoulder. “Water under the bridge now. Hells, we’ll all be lucky just to get off of this rock, much less any of us see our homes again, right?”
“I guess,” Jack said. “Say, in any of your travelling, you’ve never come across a pirate named One-Eyed Clyde, have you?”
“Don’t think so,” Sasha mumbled around a mouthful of hard tack. “Did you notice those flying lizards moving around in the trees today?” she asked, going off on another tangent.
“Umm, no,” Jack shook his head.
“Hmmm,” the girl mused. “I sure would like to catch me one of those…,”
“So what do you think his story is?” Zavasta asked, jerking his thumb towards the prisoner.
None of the survivors knew the man’s real name. He was Garundi, that much was obvious, and his best days were certainly behind him. His matted hair was graying, and he was dressed in tattered rags, with his wrists shackled
behind his back. He’d boarded the Jenivere in Corentyn, or rather he’d been brought on board there. A Sargavan agent had handed him over to Captain Kovack with instructions to return him to Sargava for trial. The captain hadn’t said anything more about the matter to the passengers or the crew.
Agnar shrugged. “I suppose when he dies of starvation I can always reanimate him.”
“That’s hardly sporting, now is it?” Lyrissa asked as she walked up out of the darkness.
“And we’re not killing one of our own,” Arioch added as he joined her. “We need all the help we can get right now.”
“Who said anything about killing him?” Agnar asked. “I said let him die.”
“We’re not doing that either,” the summoner said tightly.
“Yeah? And who are you to judge?” Zavasta snapped. “You and your devil-worshipping buddies don’t seem to have any problem sacrificing slaves when it serves your purposes.”
“You’re mistaken,” Arioch replied. “My order does not practice human sacrifice.”
“Whatever you say, Hellknight,” the alchemist snorted. “You just keep your distance from me, if you know what’s good for you.”
“All I’m suggesting,” Arioch said, “is that we give this man a fair chance.”
He turned towards the prisoner.
“What’s your name?”
“Jask,” the prisoner said in a dry, husky voice. “Jask Derindi.”
“Well Mr. Derindi,” Arioch said, “why don’t you give us a reason to let you live?”
“Do you think I could have some water before I plead for my life?” Jask asked.
Arioch passed him a flask of water, which he drank greedily.
“Thank you,” he said. “Well, for starters, I’m not guilty of the crime of which I’ve been accused.”
“Spoken like a true criminal,” Agnar laughed.
Jask shrugged. “It’s true. You can believe it or not. I was once employed by the Sargavan government, but I was too smart for my own good. In my investigations into local corruption, I found evidence of my superior’s illicit dealings with the Free Captains. When I confronted him, he had me framed for the crime. I fled Sargava, all the way to Corentyn. I lived a modest life there as a scribe for over a decade before they caught up to me. So here I am.”
Arioch nodded. “Sounds plausible to me. Sargavans aren’t known for their scruples.”
“Bah, do what you want with him,” Agnar waved his hand. “I’m sure there will be a lot more corpses for me to choose from before all of this is over.”
Much later in the evening, as Arioch prepared to try and get some rest, he was surprised to find the old Tienese man standing over him.
“Something I can help you with, friend?” he asked.
“Ishirou,” the old-timer said.
“Pardon?” Arioch asked again.
“My name…Ishirou,” the man replied.
“Charmed,” the summoner said. “What do you need?”
“The woman,” Ishirou nodded towards where Aerys had already bedded down for the night. “She you friend?”
“As much as any of us are friends out here,” Arioch shrugged.
“Huh,” Ishirou grunted, and then turned and walked away.
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The next morning, as they packed up their camp, the survivors came to a decision to stick to the coastline in their initial explorations. There was a well-known tale of a group of colonists that tried to settle Smuggler’s Shiv many years past. They were never found nor heard from. The castaways reasoned that such a group would likely have placed their settlement on the coast, and that fact guided their decision. Perhaps they would find some clue as to what became of the lost colony.
Gelik remained sullen and uncommunicative throughout the day, and showed no inclination to assist the others in any way. Consequently, Nessalin refused the gnome food whenever the group stopped to rest. By contrast, as the day wore on towards evening again, Ishirou and Aerys found they had something
in common…a love of the sea. He told her how he’d grown up on his father’s ship as a child, but when the ship burned and his father died in the fire, he’d run away and hidden on board an Aspis Consortium ship bound for Bloodcove. He’d served the Consortium from then until now, when he’d finally worked off his debt to them. He’d hoped to come to Sargava to start a new life. He certainly hadn’t planned on his current situation, however. Still, he confided to Aerys that he was not entirely unhappy about their predicament. He’d acquired many maps over the course of his voyages, some supposedly leading to hidden treasures. As it so happened, one of those treasures was rumored to be buried on Smuggler’s Shiv.
That night when they camped, Nessalin had a dream. More a nightmare, really. He was back aboard the Jenivere, bent over the railing being seasick. After his latest bout of retching, he slumped back and saw the rest of the passengers and crew on the deck as well, all of them sick save for the captain and the quiet Varisian scholar, Ieana. She whispered in the captain’s ear, then gave him a kiss on the cheek. At that point the captain held up a wooden soup spoon, and Nessalin realized that he was holding one as well. In fact, everyone had a spoon. The ship was sinking, and the only way to stop it was to bail out the hold with the spoon! He worked feverishly, but the waters kept rushing in. Just before he awoke, he could see monstrous things with pincers in the water trying to claw their way into the ship…
He woke with a start, unsure whether or not he’d cried out in his sleep. He lay staring up at the stars, listening to the jungle noises all around. It was then that he heard the sound of large wings flapping by in the darkness overhead…
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The following day was more of the same…oppressive heat broken only by a brief, mid-day shower, and endless hours of walking, searching, yet finding nothing. The monotony of the day was broken, however, sometime around mid-afternoon. A high-pitched shriek pierced the air as one of Sasha’s ‘flying lizards’ swooped down from a nearby tree. It was a brightly colored creature with an overly large head, a mouth full of sharp teeth, and bright, shiny eyes. It shrieked once more, lashed its long thin tail, then folded its leathery wings and dove at the group.
“Don’t kill it!” Sasha shouted as Arioch opened one of his portals in the air and a screeching eagle flew through.
“What?” the summoner asked. “Are you crazy?”
“I want it!” the girl shouted petulantly.
“Too late now,” Arioch shrugged.
It was indeed too late…for Arioch’s summoned pet. The eagle flew towards the pterosaur, which caught the bird in its jaws in mid-air. As it clamped its teeth down on the eagle’s neck, the bird simply vanished, returned to the realm from which it was called.
“Hah!” Sasha laughed, clapping her hands in excitement.
“Gorak kill funny bird,” the hulking barbarian growled as he hefted his massive blade.
“No!” Sasha cried as the pterosaur swooped down and the half-orc prepared to strike it down.
Just as Gorak’s blade began to swing, however, Jack leaped in front of him. He rolled nimbly beneath the swing and came up with his own sword in motion, slamming the flat of blade into the pterosaur’s head. It dropped to the ground like a stone, stunned. Quickly, Jack stuffed it neatly into a sack and tied the mouth shut.
“My lady,” he sketched an exaggerated bow as he presented it to Sasha.
“I’m going to name him Polly!” she exclaimed, grinning like a school-girl.
As the castaways prepared to make camp again for the night, Nessalin noticed Gelik surreptitiously gathering wood for the fire. The gnome had gone a second day without food.
“Glad to see you get with the program,” the magus sneered, but he tossed some of his rations to the little man anyway. Gelik devoured it in less than a minute.
Later that night, it was Zavasta’s turn to dream. In it, he was sitting down in the galley aboard the Jenivere, getting ready for his meal. The ship’s cook had given him a steaming bowl of soup, but Zav dropped his spoon. He saw that the deck below was covered with sea water up to his ankles, and his dropped spoon had sunk into the water and washed out to sea through a hole. He was forced to lift his delicious bowl of soup to his lips and drink. Something big went into his mouth as he did so, and he felt a sharp bite on his tongue. He dropped the bowl, only to reveal a serpent had hidden in his soup, and now dangled from his tongue as it chewed furiously. He started awake, biting his own tongue in an attempt to bite through the dream snake’s body. As he looked around in confusion, he saw another pair of eyes staring vacantly back at him from just a few feet away. It was a monkey, very obviously dead, and drained entirely of blood…
