Chapter 4 – Part 13

The wood attacked the monk as he cleared the last step. He tumbled, rolling into a somersault, and easily escaped the curled planks that reached like fingers. As he left them, they fell flat again.

The deck was rippling as if it was water, not wood. There was sun, and sky. And plenty of sea. A quick look in all directions showed that they were nowhere near land.

A fined lay unconscious near a ship’s wheel. Delegado lay prone on the deck, gripping the hilt of his sword, which was embedded into the deck. The rippling was keeping the half-orc from getting to his feet. Orphan could see the great composite longbow further on down the deck, very close to the railing.

He wanted to call out to Delegado, but a loud explosion near the front of the ship distracted him. Seconds later the ship began to list.

“Delegado!” he called out. “What’s going on?”

“Damn you’re a sight for sore eyes!” the half-orc called out. “Cast me a rope, I have to get up!”

Instinct took over, as the Orphan felt a drop in pressure behind him. The warforged ducked, and something, a spinning ball of liquid so frozen he could not credit it, blew over him.

The freezing liquid ball hit the mast, and blew apart a yardarm. Ropes once taut now whipped about, and splinters mixed with tiny shards of ice. The Crimson Ship, already listing with damage near the waterline, began to spin lazily to starboard.

The warforged turned, ready to fight, his last two shiruken in his hands.

A figure sat atop a column of moving water, some twenty feet aaway fromt eh ship and fifteen feet above it. The top of the column had fashioned itself into a shimmering, throne-like chair. The figure sitting in the chair was humanoid. In fact it was the spitting image of a hobgoblin. Unlike a hobgoblin it had blue skin, a deep dark blue that seemed partially translucent. Orphan could also make out gills on the water-hobgoblin’s neck, and frills of fins. It seemed naked, but at the same time clothed in sheets of water.

“What a prize,” the water-hobgoblin burbled. It spoke in Aquan, and the warforged’s ring translated. “The Crimson Ship itself. And it was thought gone and disintegrated weeks agone.”

The warforged threw his shiruken, but the water-hobgoblin waved his hand lazily, not even stirring from his throne, and a wave of water rose up to knock the spinning blades aside.

Orphan jumped, grabbing a loose rope from the shattered yardarm, and swinging over to Delegado’s bow. “Can you stand?” he yelled to his half-orc companion.

“Trying!” the half-orc snarled. But his boots could not get purchase.

“Feed this ship to the Devourer I shall,” chortled the water-hobgoblin in Aquan. “And a pretty price for the corpses shall the rakshasa pay.”

The water-hobgoblin reached a hand into the column of water that held it aloft, and drew out another frozen ball of liquid. Still laughing, it threw the missile again, this time at the trapped half-orc.