Author: Andre
Twitter: https://twitter.com/andre_sampa_7
ETH: 0xE341C14503fb951e117655249fBa0B235D19dA12
Adventure Interrupted Part 2
The captain slowly opened his eyes. His white hammock follows the sway of the ship as it crests gently across the waves, allowing the captain’s body a light rest. A few hours of sleep were necessary, and after the intense storm, the journey proceeded on calmly.
The captains hammock swayed with the ship as it crested over gentle waves. He need the rest. The storm was intense, but thankfully the journey afterwards had been uneventful. He opened his eyes slowly, but didn’t get up. He wanted to bask in that glorious place between waking and sleeping.
The sound of rope rubbing against metal blendedwith the calls of seagulls and the soft creaking of the ship. Soft sunlight filled the captain’s quarters through linen curtains covering the large bay of windows. The windows covered almost the entire back wall and each had it’s own ornate arches and moldings.
The captain’s room was austere, but contained an assortment of memoirs that reminded him of past adventures. In the middle of the large room, hung a big candleabrum made from the ship’s wheel of an old conquest. Below that, his impressive wood table with 6 chairs of varying ornateness. The table was his command post, where he strategized his routs and entertained his crew.
The captain was a daring man, but a sentimental one. Opposite the bay of windows he hung the Banners of his parents on either side of a stuffed mammoth head. His Mother’s (elements) on the right, and his father’s (elements) on the left. The mammoth head was a trophy from his frigid expedition on the North Black Sea. Other,more temperate mementos, included tropical bird feathers, shark teeth, pearl necklaces and a smattering of gold coins that had fallen out of a chest. Leaning upon the chest, the black tricorn hat of the glorious captain also rested.
A large bear-head rug reached almost all the way across the room to his bed. Captain Yagether had built a cot into the far side wooden wall. But apart from when he might have company when docked, , the captain much preferred to sleep in his hammock.
Beside the bed, holding his sextant and other navigation instruments, a small ironwood table was bolted to the floor. Ironwood was a dense material and could do significant damage to man and ship if it were to get tossed around in rough seas.
Ironwood cost a fortune, but a few tables and chairs wouldn’t allow Yagether to retire. , A Bag of Holding was his plan in that regard. But the beside stand was more than just furntiture. It was a souvenir, nay a reminder, of his first mission aboard a ship.
Yagether was part of the crew that extracted and transported the Ironwood needed to build the harbor [HARBOR NAME] in his hometown realm of (REALM).
[HARBOR NAME] was in a terrible state and the high-council had tasked Captain (OTHER CAPTAIN NAME) with procuring the Ironwood required for it’s renovation. (REALM) didn’t have any of the sturdy material and the nearest forests were across (SEA NAME) to (REALM).
When they returned, the young Yagether was given a choice for his payment. He could take the gold-wage or the wood-wage, and receive lumber in exchange for his services at sea. Payment in gold was a steep discount compared to the Ironwood, and so Yagether took the timber and rebuilt their family home and much of their furniture. That was the deaythat deck-hand Yagether had decided to become a captain Yagether. He vowed to search for new resources for the benefit his family and his realm. His last piece of the that ironwood reward , a small log, bark still intact, was bolted above the captain’s door to the deck. A reminder of why he took to sea and of thosewho awaited his return.
The seagulls, ropes and creaks were soon drowned out by a cacophony of voices and laughter from the deck.
“Pinky…!” thought the captain with exasperation,
The captain jumped out of the hammock, pulled on his boots, and kicked down on the corner of his tricon on the chest. It popped up in the air, and with a a slight duck, fell perfectly onto the captain’s head. Yagether stretched as he walked, toward the door to the deck. He reached and gave the ironwood branch a familiar pat then burst out to see about the commontion. . His crew, euphoric in their delight, were gathered under the mainmast’s foresail looking up.
“Jump or don’t jump?” yelled Pinky, cutting through the raucusness below him. He was balancing on one foot, on the rail of the crows nest.
The captain squinted into the afternoon sun but could see the old mage’s cheeks flushed red.
Pinky was certainly smiling, enjoying the audience, and his face was flushed.
“He’s drunk!” thought the captain.
The sailors on the deck pass the bottle of rum in a chain to each other while shouting:
“Come on Pinky, we don’t have all day!” stir up a sailor
“Beware of the shark” another one laughs hard!
The frightened captain, wary of losing his trump card, yells:
“Pinky! What are you doing up there? Get down, you crazy bastard!”
“Don’t worry captain, Pinky owes us an acrobatic jump. That was the bet!” lets out a thick voice in the midst of the crew.
“Sailor, you are on night watch for the next week. What part of “no betting with Pinky” did you not comprehend? " Captain Yagether, though scared, knew Pinky well enough to know that he probably had the situation in hand and was just humoring the bored sailors after their adrenaline had worn off.
Pinky holds the bottle of rum with his right hand, and with his left hand, despite the calm sea, he holds on to a rope. Carried by the back and forth of the rope, he shouts from above:
“You will thank me Yagether, as usual! I’ve been watching with the spyglass for three hours while your Lordship slept. We are close, I saw some reflections in the water, Sapphire Island is just ahead.”
Keeping his usual cocky demeanor: “And a promise is a debt, the bet with the gang predicted that if we arrived on the island today, I had to jump from the Main mast without getting tangled in any ropes or sails…” continues the wizard.
“You are drunk!” replied Yagether who senses trouble of some kind is possible “What island? I only see water, you crazy old man!”
Pinky lifts the fresh bottle from the sailors, throws the bottle up towards the sea. With the bottle still in the air, and a few hand motions, the cork popped out and a stream of alcohol formed in a line, with Pinky eating it like a whale on his way towards the water. He opened his arms in the form of a cross and falls perfectly on his tip into the water, not a drop of Rum spilled
From the deck, the shouts of celebration go off!
“Wooow!”
“Pinky! Pinky!”
“Yeeeaaahh, Incredible, how can an old man like that do this? Hahahah you are our hero Pinky!”
“Vote 8!” Says a sailor making fun, lifting his shirt and showing a number 8 written with coal in his belly
Regarding the sea, from the Seafarer family, there were countless times he participated in acrobatic jumps as a child, it was a near ritual past time for young Seafarers. Every young Seafarer prank of acrobatic jumping and Pinky as a young man, held many titles in very bizarre categories…
Specialty: jumping from the rocks in the shore of Chadsbech (lol thats one of my owned realms) . Even as time passed, he never stopped exercising, and never lost his agility. Eschewing the academic for the more practical, tempering the body was a constant process to avoid accidents, of which he had many. His healing magic was most oft employed upon himself as a youth.
And just to further increase the Captain’s blood pressure, Saphire Island, according to legend, is an invisible island. Many maps contained its position but there were many stories of those who tried to find the island by sailing for days and days and found nothing!
There are those who say that this island does not appear to everyone, or that it never existed at all. A sailors tale told to liven the spirits.
Pinky knew very well that the island existed, but it was probably hidden. Some form of magic kept her underwater! Pinky needed to be sure, wanted to dive in so he could see the unmistakable reflections of gemstones, and to see how deep it was.
On deck, the voices and laughter begin to be less and less present. It’s been almost two minutes and Pinky still hasn’t returned to the surface…
….there comes a moment when the silence is complete, the entire crew stares at the water in hopes of seeing the mage rising.
It’s finally happened, the captain thought, that crazy bastard bit off more than he could chew.
….
Some air bubbles appear to be rising to the surface. The relief was palpable and broke the agonizing silence.
First a large bubble, followed by some smaller ones. But then other bubbles rise, lots of bubbles, small and large!
One of the more experience divers spoke up “Something’s wrong, and only Gods know what. Bubbles don’t come like that from a person!”
Suddenly, a large arm of an octopus, about ten meters long, all gooey and with suction cups, comes out from under the water. The arm is not the only one, more bubbles surface, other arms come out of the water. There are eight arms that are confused with each other! Pinky is curled up in one of them. In the middle of the arms, a huge octopus head is half covered in the water.
“Kraken!”, shouts Captain Yagether! “Weapons read! On guard, now!"
The crew was efficient and even in the fun, everyone had a weapon in the scabbard and it’s a matter of seconds that the crew is ready for battle.
As the sailors try to fend off the Kraken’s attacks, Yagether focuses on freeing Pinky. The captain runs and carries a crossbow and shoots a thick arrow right into the arm holding Pinky.
The arrow passes within an inch of Pinky’s head, but enters exactly into an octopus’ suction cup. The Kraken’s arm hurls Pinky back to the ship with violence. The impact is strong but Pinky is conscious.
His entire cloak are covered in octopus goo. He gets up slowly and looking disgusted, he cleaned himself very slowly of all this sticky goo that the Kraken had covered him in. He had read far too many picture books, the kind sold in back alley stores of the Eastern shores, as a young mage, where ocean creatures met virtuos young women on voyages over the seas. From the tales they told, he was not particularly keen on even the slighest chance of… giving birth to a kraken.
The fight continues, the Kraken flows swiftly in the sea tossing the waves to rock the ship in a frenetic way.
The captain himself drives towards Pinky with a certain calm. He notices all the goo and with a mocking face, he cleaned some goo from Pinky’s clothes while talking:
“Well, Pinky, now that you’ve created this problem, either you fix it or this giant octopus will end up sinking our ship!”
“It’s down here captain, I saw it, I saw it!” says Pinky repeatedly
“How do you figure that? Are you sure?" asks the captain trying to understand if Pinky was raving or if he was serious.
“Our Loot captain, our Loot, the island is here! We found it!” replies pinky with a laugh. “We fooound it! By the beard of the prophet’s sake! Hahaha, we found it! WE FOUND IT!”
“Pinky, it’s ok, I believe it!” responds the captain hastily, unsure where on the insanity spectrum Pinky currently was… “But for the love of the Divines, SHOW me why I took a risk on your drunk ass! Only a spell can save us now!”
“Save us again, you mean! Again!" answers Pinky with a smile and zero shame, delaying the captain’s haste. “It won’t be the first or the last time I save us. What would Temkyran Kraken Moon be without me?”
“We don’t have time now, cast some fucking magic!”
“What arrogance, I think a more polite tone would be propitious” insists Pinky, it took the Captain a lot of restraint to not slap him at this point.
“Pinky! We don’t have time you lazy drunk! DO whatever YOU CAN DO to save the ship!!"
Pinky wiped some of the goo off his clothes with his hands without any hurry, and with his dirty hands, he wipes himself on the captain’s shirt who watches without reaction and without words!
"It’s all right! Leave it to me, watch and learn!” Says Pinky in a mocking tone as he begins his ritual.
Pinky starts moving his hands and around the mage a vortex of energy builds up. Meanwhile, the crew struggles with the octopus’ arms trying to invade the ship. With their swords they try to cut the arms but the difficulty is evident, and the defeat seems certain. Some sails have already been torn and the nets also delay the Kraken’s movements.
The energy around Pinky grows ever stronger. The mage raises his hands in the air and concludes the ritual by shouting, “Divine Lightning bolt!”
Captain Yagether, who was following closely, was already calming down when he realised:
“What?!” shouts the terrified captain “Lightning bolt?! Pinky, what are you thinking?”
Pinky loses concentration, looks at the captain out of the corner of his eye and while the magic is already forming, asks distractedly: “What was that?”
The distraction is enough for the lightning to go out without control. A bolt of lightning strikes the water without hitting the Kraken, another strikes between Pinky and the captain, setting a barrel on fire. The third beam hits the ship’s mainmast right in the middle! The mast, a long beam of 15 meters in height, breaks in the middle dragging sails and nets. The impact is strong and the damage is immeasurable!
But luckily, the top of the mast falls directly towards the Kraken, who receives a blow to the head from IronWood that sends him back to the bottom of the sea!
The water calms down and the Kraken disappears along with air bubbles that continually rise to the surface.
The small fire signals are promptly extinguished by the crew who, even without orders, know how to deal with unforeseen circumstances.
Captain Yagether watched it all in disbelief, before finally his heart rate had settled enough to try and make sense of the situation…
“You’re welcome, Captain!” Says Pinky like an enthusiastic puppy dog, as he approaches Yagether.
“You’re welcome?! You’re welcome? I hope you have a resurrect spell because I’m going to strangle you, you freak!”
The Captain lost his composure and launched for Pinky but was blocked by some sailors who recognize that the Captain might be a little too close to forgetting why they were still alive. Understandable, a Ship is to a Captain as a Babe to a Mother.:
“Don’t worry captain, we’ll get out of this too!” heard in the middle of the class
“We are close, very close. Look at the reflection in the water, it’s a sapphire coral reef.” points Pinky.
The sun was already setting, and at the bottom of the water you could see some pink reflections.
Overhearing the talk about sapphires under the sea and not the slightest concern for the Kraken, one of the veteran sailors approaches with a dagger in his mouth:
“Where do I dive?”
The crew breaks out in laughter! Yagether knew, good humor was necessary and in the end they always got away with everything.
Having faced a Kraken, having the ship half whole and no one of the crew injured could only be a protection of the Kraken Sigil and a perfect baptism of adventure for the Temkyran Kraken Moon.
“Land in sight!” shouts a sailor in the bow, “Land in sight!”
The crew looks on in disbelief! On the horizon a ledge begins to appear, like the top of a huge mountain.
“The mountain is coming out of the water!” heard in the midst of the chatter
Yagether notices that a slight rotation of the ship begins and quickly casts his gaze to the sky.
“Drop the anchors, now!” shouts the captain
"What happens? Why such a hurry? retorts a sailor
“Run, throw the anchors! Now!" retorts the captain again
The sailors leave immediately and drop 5 anchors in the still very calm sea. 5 freshly brewed Cold Iron anchors. Without much understanding, the sailors follow the orders of the captain they absolutely trust.
The sun was still setting but night was approaching. The waning moon was already visible in the sky. Captain Yagether knew exactly what was going on. It was indeed the fate of the Temkyran Kraken Moon, and the moon came to show destiny full circle. It was all clear now.
The tides!
During the waning moon, vortexes and low tide were common. The so famous invisible island was covered by water for 3 moons, only to surface when the combination of tide and vortex discovered it.
On all sides of the ship, far on the horizon, crests of mountains can be seen emerging. Temkyran lies right in the middle, surrounded by these new lands that spring from the water.
Not far from the ship, an immense vortex in the sea! The water spins in a mill net with force! As the water turns, the tide ebbs, and rapidly in all directions, they could see huge mountains that reflected the last orange rays of the sunset as if they were covered with precious stones.
The ship rocks and the force of the water tries to make it roll. But the readiness of having thrown the anchors at the right moment kept them from being sucked straight into the vortex.
Yagether’s wit had just saved his crew and what was left of the ship!
Even Pinky sent him a nod of appreciation at the Captain’s quick thinking. Tidal forces were not something he could even think of combatting, yet, he thought to himself. The Captain had seen it all in seconds and acted fast enough, to save the ship, without setting it ablaze or other such things. Pinkys plan was to levitate the boat in the air where the sea had receded, and use the ropes to climb down, but this was a MUCH smarter and safer option.
The water continued to recede, and the massive mountains of Saphire circle the horizon. More vortexes open up in the sea.
In a matter of minutes, the Temkyran Kraken Moon is completely out of the water, supported by a huge sapphire mountain that reveals an entire valley. All the surrounding water has dried up! In the gingiva of the valley, at the end of the descent of the nearly 200-meter mountain that now holds the ship, a hole in the sapphire wall leads the way to what appears to be an entrance.
“Rich, we are rich, hahaha!” says the sailor who wanted to dive with the dagger in his mouth
“Grot of [NAME crypt and caverns]” says the amazed captain in a low voice. Yagether gazes at this incredible valley of sapphires, knowing he’s never been so close to conquering his most ambitious treasure.
“And now my friend, let’s get our Genesis Bag!” says Pinky with a smile as he cleans himself again on the captain’s shoulder with his hand still smeared with Kraken goo and heads towards the cave.