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What Lay Beyond The Misty Sea


squakhawk
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Music:

 

 

 

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The closest they’d ever get to the Seven Skies, that’s what the captain told them. Nine months at sea was the longest Aymar had ever been, fed Baldwin’s stories over supper to satisfy his mind and belly. Five weeks since the last port, and three days without any signs of life, not a gull or cod to spy. A calloused hand shook Aymar from his daydreams. “Up, lad, be hush about it, said the deckhand, his long, greasy hair hiding his finer features in their poorly lit quarters.

 

What’s happened?” Aymar asked.

 

Land, boy.” A flicker of hesitation in the deckhand’s gravelly voice, and past the curtain of hair, Aymar caught a glimpse of the man’s eyes bubbling something close to fear. He crawls out of his hammock and trudges up the midnight deck. The panicked gales made gooseflesh of his bare arms, sails whipping overhead. Weather had served the Happy Harpy’s crew well, no riptides or storms sighted well over some months, but the biting chill had followed them through all the seasons. It kept the men fat with fabric, scurrying below deck like rodents whenever they could. All but Baldwin. Aymar spotted the little man by the rails, moonlight reflected in his gray whiskers.

 

Cork says there’s land,” Aymar said, “But there’s been no noise from the nest.” He had expected a sight like this to bring commotion, but the night was quiet and empty as it always was. Around them the night made shadows and husks of the men, but they were watching, bearing the deckhand’s same frightful glint.

 

Can’t blame them, no, but it’s there alright, across the waves, look.” Baldwin points a stubby finger over the water. “Stars and stars, and then black shadow swallows up the light. You can see shapes and the like. Mountains and woods, I can even see Dimazd from here.” At their last port, a grouchy dwarf had called it Wyrmos, and when saying Dimazd aloud caught a few dubious eyes at the tavern, one saw why. 

 

Tall tales,” Aymar said, eager for ignorance.

 

I see it well enough, lad. I feel it scratching me neck, hear it whispering in me ears, I do. The others see it too.

 

One of Aymar’s pointed ears twitch. Golden relics, ancient tomes, the story changed from lip to lip, but a degree of wealth was always guaranteed. The wealth came with other, less savory guarantees, guarded by things Aymar had heard tale of over flames.

 

Does it frighten you, Baldwin?

 

Frightens any man of salt,” he said. “It’s the marshes first. . . Zeke says there was an orc on his old crew who’d seen them. He said they needed an extra man with an oar on the rowboats to brush aside the things hiding in the water.

 

Things?

 

Fishfood, lad. Sailors go in, but they don’t come out. Making Zeke the first bastard dumb enough to come out and go back in.” Baldwin pressed his lips. “They call it the pleasant death, real peaceful-like. No pain,” he says, “A mercy, really, or the closest men like us will ever get to it.

 

Is that what you came here for? Mercy?

 

Baldwin doesn’t answer. They join the crew in silence, watching the dark mass crawl closer and closer above the waves.

 

 

 

All writing credit to @Bonito

 

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OOC: First.

 

Second good writing! 

 

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I lub this

 

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