Session09

The sounds of wood breaking and falling down on itself rang deafeningly loud to my water-filled ears. As I watched over the port side, I witnessed the complete destruction of The Emperor of the Waves, once a large majestic ship, reduced to the mere timber it was made from. The gargantuan tentacles thrashed wildly, making light work of the ship. I questioned my own sanity in taking up this challenge; asking whether after all my years did I really know enough about the world out there?

I stared at it till the small islands of rubble that was the Emperor of the Waves disappeared over the horizon. Released from my trance, I found Kversace & Dracrath were next to me with the same wide-eyed look. My gaze finally settled on two bodies laid next to each other, Durin and Dane.

We didn't speak much on our five-day voyage back home, it was a long and solemn ride with many an introspection. As night crawled around on day four, the captain came up to me and asked; Nemo, what the devil happened on that boat?

Unwilling to speak yet wanting to share the tale, I began reciting to the Captian the story of Durin's last few hours.

"After we killed all but one of the eight-legged freaks, the last one attempted to run away from us. We chased it to the upper decks of the ship only to find that it had found a more giant friend. We killed them both quickly enough.

Happy with our conquest, we headed back below deck to explore and find Ander's Heirloom Box, the ship was full of many dangers - we narrowly escaped a brush with fowl demons.

Unable to find the box we headed to the lowest deck through a hatch in the floor, I peeped inside and saw nothing but a partially sunken floor. Durin and I jumped in to further explore the sunken floor. Unknown to us, a group of Ghasts laid waiting.

They jumped Durin, surrounding him and began thrashing him. Kversace and I rushed to his side while Dracrath thought he was better useful towards the back. We managed to push back the Ghasts and defeat them, but not before Durin fell in combat.

We stabilized Durin and found what we were looking for, the box. Just as we picked up the gilded chest, the entire ship shook ominously. Before we could react, the hull suffered a breach and water began pouring in from the hole at an alarming rate.

I yelled for Dracrath and Kversache to head-on with the box and that I would follow with the now unconscious but breathing Durin. Dracrath and Kversache made quick time to get to the ladder, me and Durin, on the other hand, struggled to wade through the hip-deep water.

Just as they disappeared to the deck above, a giant monstrous tentacle burst through the hull. I grimaced at its sight, only now realized the dire situation we were in. I decided that to make way for the ladder was no longer possible, and so I plunged into the water swimming towards the breach in the hull.

Emerging from it, I swam upwards dodging the flailing tentacles. Sharing my breath with Durin in a desperate effort to keep him alive, I swam towards what I thought was up. It felt like an eternity of swimming, more than I had ever done in my fishing career. As my head broke through the surface of the water, I saw a capsizing Emperor of the Waves. On it was an unconscious Dracrath and a Kversache struggling to hold onto both the box and the ship.

I swam aboard the swiftly sinking ship, to find your men climbing on from the other side, helping my companions and carrying the box back. Unfortunately, Dane strayed too close to a tentacle. As I pulled the limp body of Durin onto the ship, distraught to find that he was no longer breathing. "