Kinsbane, Terror of the Southern Seas

[CRP Goon 71]

Kinsbane, Terror of the Southern Seas

 

 

Deep in the warm southern oceans, far beyond the reaches of Almaris, something stirred in the deep. A twisted soul, deviant and malicious. A creature so wretched, that even amongst her own ilk she was abhorrent. The sirens of the Southern Seas were like none Almaris had seen before. Islands far to the southeast, where trade routes ran aplenty and villages relied on the bounty of the sea, all who came to pass would hear of the tales. The Devils of the Sea. Those who made their living in the southern isles came to worship crueler gods than the descendants of Almaris, for the sea was unforgiving. Sirens, larger in size and twice as strong as their northern counterparts roamed the open oceans as well as the reefs. Powerful strokes and eerie calls carried them from first hatch to first kill. Still to come was the strongest among them.
 

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A century had passed since the emergence of her. A siren unlike any other. Her origin unknown, her purpose not clear, a demon sent by the very Gods of the sea is what the fishermen had declared. At first, she grew to twice the size of her siblings. Some feared her, some followed her, for wherever she went, blood was sure to spill. Strong, powerful, she outclassed all of even the largest southern sirens, and still she grew. As she grew, so did her hunger. The sirens of the Southern Seas were so great in number, that even the unprecedented bounty of the reefs and currents of the open ocean could not support them. They turned on each other, fighting for food and nesting caves. Such competition bred stronger and stronger creatures. Yet wherever she went, the tides turned in her favor. Hunting from below, and the swiftest of them all, she killed. Though, this one was different. She killed for sport, and consumed the very flesh of her kind. A hunger that none of the ocean’s bounties could satiate.

 

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Soon, the Southern Seas were unified under one terror. Kinsbane, the siren who consumed any and all who dared challenge her. Reefs fell motionless in her presence, her kind long since adopting a taste for descendant flesh. In the villages, day and night, her horde amassed. One by one, the villagers were starved out of their homes and onto ships where not a mast could be seen passing the horizon. For what lurked beneath the choppy waters was beyond what any of them had ever seen before. Kinsbane became a legend. A God. A Devil. Trade routes ran dry, shipwrecks only stacked higher. The once-bountiful waters of the Southern Seas had become black with the shadows of sunken ships. Some called it The Graveyard, others called it The Forest, for the sea of masts and bows protruding from the shallow waters was reminiscent of vast woodlands that had been burned to the ground - all life abandoned. 

 

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The horde of Kinsbane had become an army. Battle-hardened sirens with a taste for all flesh, unified under their hunger, and their fear of her whose own hunger was insatiable. The reefs could not sustain them, and rather than consume each-other, the army of Kinsbane migrated. They followed the trail of fleeing ships. The likes of which held the only ones who knew what horrors had befallen the once-flourishing isles of the Southern Seas. The army of Kinsbane made landfall even further south. The few surviving fishermen who had told tales of ruin and wrath had amassed a fleet. A thousand ships sailed out into the open waters to meet those foul monsters that had fated their allies. Armed with bows, fishing spears and axes, the islands’ best warriors took to the seas in their canoes and rowboats. A formidable army of fishermen, merchants and warriors from the surrounding waters had banded together to fight the incoming horde. The tides would soon run red.

 

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The bow of the first schooner cracked and its mast split. Kinsbane herself met the ship head-on, as lightning set its sails aflame. A storm had brewed, and the skies blackened. The screams of the first to succumb to the hunger of The Insatiable rang out across the water. Fear, terror, and fire sent the first men into the waters. They barely broke the surface before Kinsbane’s followers tore them to pieces. They were ravenous. The water was alive with death itself. Even louder than the screams of the dying men was the horrific call of Kinsbane, and even louder than the deafening, incessant rolls of thunder was the call of The Insatiable, answering their Devil’s cry. Thousands of drowned voices rising up from the sea as each and every one of the horrific sirens emitted a bio luminescent hue, singing and glowing in unison. A melancholy song to accompany the irradiant glow of death, insuperable. The spears of men, elves and dwarves alike splintered as their hulls did against the tide of Kinsbane’s army. War was upon them. 

 

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The thunder subsided. The break of a red dawn cast a light befittingly over the crimson waves. Miles away, blood lapped at the shores of the empty islands. The forces of the Descendants had risen against the Terror of the Southern Seas and broken. Not a creature stirred. Not whales, not fish, not sharks, not men. Wood from the wreckage spanned from the reddened beaches to the crest of the horizon - with not a survivor to be found. Kinsbane and The Insatiable had fed once again. Warmer waters carried them north. Past The Forest, and into the southeast bay of Almaris. The reefs, once flourishing, would soon begin to taint. All thriving in the shimmering summer waters would soon come to know fear and death as the hulking shadow of Kinsbane and the glow of The Insatiable left nothing but blood in their wake. The Terror of the Southern Seas had reached Nevaehlen, and it was time to feed.