Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: djb6@ellis.uchicago.edu (Dennis Brennan) Subject: Re: Kahayel: Re: TaleChaser's Return Message-ID: <1992May18.031509.11059@midway.uchicago.edu> References: <1992May18.004718.6881@midway.uchicago.edu> Date: Mon, 18 May 1992 03:15:09 GMT >>The quartermaster drops his mug in shock. "Great Scott! It's Talechaser! >>I swore he perished when the boat sank!" > >Kahayel hears this, and gives out a shout. >"Karl! I thought you were the one that had been swallowed up by a >Leviathan, or made to be the eternal consort of mermaids. Always the >lucky one. Ahh, Quartermaster, too long, too long...", Kahayel comes >over and grips Karl's tunic, and the two men hug. "Oh, dear." Karl smiles and rubs his knees thoughtfully, rocking gently back in his chair. "I guess now that we've gone and brought it up I have to tell the story about the _Coiran_. That was the ship that was going to take Talechaser here, and me, and our friend Ordorin (aside to Talechaser: Did you ever catch up with that old dog? He's still alive, ain't he?) from Eamoney, which is a country up near Vascondy to Gwynlanna, an island in the Great Blue. We had been...strongly encouraged to abbreviate our stay in Eamoney (remember that taxman, Talechaser? Ho ho ho!), but that is another story. Anyway, when the Coiran got a couple of hundred marches away from shore, this alarm gong goes off in the forecastle. Locathah! Locathah! Sure enough, a couple dozen of 'em bug eyed fish people pull themselves aboard. The Locathah don't generally start the fight, they just grab some of the cargo and throw it overboard. Generally they do this at night, unseen, which is why the crew of the Coiran was so surprised that they had showed up during the late morning. But instead of making for the cargo holds they just try to talk in their wierd blubdub talk. The first mate of the ship understood what they were saying. 'Oh no!' the guy said. Turns out that the Locathah were warning us that we were about to enter Sauhagin territory. Now, if the Locathah are annoying, the sauhagin are nasty. They worship Demogorgon and they hang out with these big black evil manta rays that cast spells on people. And sure enough, a few hours later there's this knocking on the bottom of the hull. The sauhagin had this huge saw-thing and they were trying to saw the boat in half. The captain ordered everybody to the lifeboats. Damn the pompous old fart if he didn't grab the biggest boat first, pushing members of his own crew aside to jump on! Well, Ordorin and I had gotten separated from Talechaser in the commotion, and we got on the second-to-last boat. And there weren't enough boats for all the people. We crammed enough people in and Ordorin even cast a spell to make the boat lighter but there were so many people in the boat that the waterline was an inch below the rim of the lifeboat. Damn that old captain, there weren't enough lifeboats to go around! As the Coiran split in half and began to rapidly sink I realized that there were still rather a lot of people on the ship. I would have given up my own spot, of course, but our lifeboat was just too far away from the main body of the ship and they couldn't have reached it by swimming, with all the sauhagin in the water. One of the sauhagin tried to grab someone in the lifeboat and drag her down but I chopped his head in half with my blade. They're cowardly things, those sauhagin, and they didn't bother our lifeboat again. But I ache when I think of what must have been the fates of those who were trapped on the Coiran when it sank... And, dear Talechaser, I swore _you_ never got onto one of the life- boats. Because the wind was blowing eastward that day, and of all the boats which reached the coast, I could not find you among the survivors? So, old friend, your half of the tale remains untold..." -- Dennis Brennan djb6@midway.uchicago.edu