On Stranger Tides

[MadEmperor]

[ Continued From ]

A week into the voyage aboard the Adamant Lady, Hana and Thrax were given the rare opportunity to enjoy each other's company on deck. The bard held her close as they watched the waves roll by. Remarkably, his seasickness had yet to rear its ugly head.

[DragonSong]

Hana leaned back into his chest, both because she enjoyed the contact and to partially use the gnoll as a windbreaker against the seaborne breezes.

"Surprised Gracie let you off the hook for that," she noted with a small smile and a nod toward the opposite rail, where a handful of sailors were hauling in a small net of fish.

[MadEmperor]

"Me too, if I'm honest." Thrax smiled contentedly. "Not that I'm not grateful for the breather. She's really making us work for our low fare, isn't she?"

He had never had to really put his back into manual labor before. Sure, he did the odd physical job to get by from time to time, but not as much as the last week had required. Muscles hurt that he didn't even know he had.

[DragonSong]

Eyes lighting up with mischief, Hana leaned back into him a little bit more and tipped her head up against his chest so she could see his face.

"Sore, huh?" she asked with a flick of one tail; Gracia's crew was diverse enough that she'd felt comfortable to stay in her halfway form during their voyage. "Maybe I could help you with that—I've been getting better at massages."

[MadEmperor]

Thrax smirked down at her. "Have you now?"

A mist rolled over the waves, strangely unnoticed by the crew. With it came an unusual chill and a feeling of unease.

[DragonSong]

"Mhm..." She smirked and reached up with one hand to cup his jaw. "Though I am rather hoping you'll return the favor—"

Her ears suddenly perked straight up, and she twisted her head to look back out over the water.

"...Do you smell that?" She sniffed at the air—not realizing that the sense she was using wasn't actually scent, but magic.

[MadEmperor]

Thrax sniffed along with her. It smelled wrong, somehow. Unnatural. Not familiar exactly, but it reminded him of something he just couldn't quite grasp.

"Yeah... What is that? Fog doesn't smell like that. And shouldn't we be steering away from a fog bank? Why aren't we?" It was concerning.

The fog was thickening quickly, so quickly that the Lady was enveloped just as those less attuned to magic began superstitious murmurs.

Thrax's eyes widened and he suddenly called out, "We need to turn around! Now!"

[DragonSong]

Hana nodded swiftly in agreement, ducking out from under his arm and trying to wave the pilot's attention.

"Hey!" she called, then louder when the man at the wheel didn't seem to hear her, "Hey!"

The fog around them felt...stale. Dead. But not like the scent of decay, it was...something else.

And it seemed to be affecting the crew; the men who had been hauling in the fish were now staring listlessly out over the rail.

[MadEmperor]

"We're going to have to steer ourselves," Thrax said, scrambling up the stairs to the quarter deck. The helmsman, like the men with the net, seemed transfixed by something.

"Find Gracia! I'll work on getting us turning!" he called back to Hana. Moving the helmsman aside, he turned the wheel hard to port.

[DragonSong]

Hana had no idea why whatever was affecting the rest of the crew didn't seem to be affecting her and Thrax, but it meant they were the only people who seemed to be able to do anything.

"Gracie!" She went tearing down below decks, making a beeline for the captain's quarters. "Gracie, we've got a problem!"

[MadEmperor]

She found the captain like everyone else, staring out of the stern windows in anticipation of something. Gracia didn't notice her enter or call her name. Then, out of the blue, she started to speak in an eerie monotone.

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest..."


"Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum..." the crew continued, sending an odd shiver up Thrax's spine. It wasn't an unusual song, but between the emotionless delivery and the bizarre context, it was damned creepy.

[DragonSong]

"Gracie, what the hells?" Hana demanded, even as her stomach dropped in an instinctive warning against...whatever this was.

Shaking herself, she approached the other woman and shook her shoulder firmly. "Captain, your ship is in danger. Pull yourself together!"

[MadEmperor]

Gracia just stared blankly ahead. "Drink and the devil had done be the rest..."

A voice behind her spoke up. "They're all like this," said Lars, the ship's resident mage, his dark eyes nervous as he wrung his hands. "This does not bode well."

[DragonSong]

Hana whirled around, a ball of bluish fire already igniting in one hand before she saw who it was.

"All of them?" she repeated, frowning. "So...why not us?" She looked to Gracia, then back to the mage. "This...whatever it is in the fog—you think it doesn't affect folks with magic?"

[MadEmperor]

"Being attuned to magic does grant a certain resistance to it," the wiry man answered.

Gracia kept speaking. "The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike..."

Lars frowned at the dark turn of the words. "Could that be a song? Perhaps your man, the bard, knows of it?"

[DragonSong]

Hana frowned, but nodded sharply. "It sounds like poetry...and maybe a bit familiar. Hold on, I'll get him."

She started to run for the deck, then stopped and looked back to Lars. "Ah—maybe you should tell him to come down here? Someone is going to have to steer the ship, and if it's not Thrax you've got a better shot at it than I do."

[MadEmperor]

"M-me? Up there... alone?" the man responded nervously.

Shaking himself, he straightened and looked her in the eyes with a nod. "Yes. I can do that."

He disappeared out the door to the deck with fresh determination.

Thrax hurried through a few minutes later. "Yes, now that I think about it, I think I've heard it at least once before. Nothing good happens in that song."

[DragonSong]

While Lars went to fetch the bard, Hana moved to try to physically drag Gracia away from the stern window. The captain actually moved easily enough, but the second Hana released her she drifted right back to the spot where she'd been standing, like there were magnets in her boots.

"Nothing good, like it's a tragic ballad?" she huffed, turning to Thrax as he came in. "Or nothing good like, everyone dies?"

[MadEmperor]

Thrax's worried expression told her everything, even before he opened his mouth. "Everybody dies... violently.""

He glanced over at Gracia. "But we're not going to let that happ—"

A pair of cannon shots rang out and the ship shook from two impacts.

The gnoll's eyes went wide and he raced out onto the deck to discover what happened.  There was a giant iron harpoon stuck in the deck, attached to a chain that was drawing tight.

[DragonSong]

Hana was a step behind him as he sped onto the deck, and she swore under her breath when she saw the harpoon.

"Can you get that out?" she asked as she ran to the rail, knowing it was a lot to ask even of someone with Thrax's physicality. She tried to follow the length of the chain back through the fog to its source, but it was so thick. She couldn't see more than a few yards.