Tuesday, October 20
Part 5 – The Great Betrayal
Kham watched in utter shock from the deck of his ship, the Emma, as Francisco’s fleet was utterly obliterated by the collective Continental fleet. Only he wasn’t Kham anymore, he was Zoltan Zaska, a vain, swaggering, swashbuckler.
“Drac betrayed Francisco!” shouted the beautiful Black Jenny Ramsey, the love of Zoltan’s life. She was a flighty, fiery heiress whom Zoltan had initiated into the life of piracy. “He betrayed us!”
Carthy was there, shaking his head, chuckling to himself. “I should have seen it.” The explosions were deafening. Pirates abandoned their ships, swimming desperately to nowhere. “Drac must have made some sort of deal with Coryan. He’s getting rid of his enemies and making Freeport legitimate in one fell swoop!”
“Our fleets will be destroyed,” his Daen Danud, a proud, cruel captain. “All of my plans…lost…”
Moab Cys’varion, the elorii, shook his head. “I owe a blood debt to Francisco. And this is how he repays me?”
“We are running out of options,” said Zoltan. “Perhaps it is time to reconsider His offer.”
Cannonfire tore through plank and sail. Pirates screamed all around them.
“Would he…would He offer it again?” asked Daen, suddenly hopeful. “We all had the same dream…”
“Perhaps,” said Carthy. “If we all swore an oath together, He might reconsider.”
“Then I so swear!” shouted Moab, his face twisted into a hideous expression of rage. “Leviathan! If you save me now I will serve you!”
“As will I!” shouted Daen.
“And I,” said Carthy, a little less enthusiastically.
Seeing her lover make such an oath, Jenny grabbed his hand and shouted into the storm of fire and death. “As do I.”
Zoltan was overcome with jealousy. But he managed to keep his voice steady. “I do so swear,” he said as heroically as he could muster.
Suddenly, the explosions stopped. They were standing upon a coastline of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which could be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth's supreme terror - the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh, that was built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars. Only a single mountaintop, the hideous monolith-crowned citadel whereon great Leviathan was buried, actually emerged from the waters. more
Labels: arcanis
posted by Mike Tresca at
9:37 PM
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