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Chapter 128: The Lesser Of Two Evils
🕑 Added 2023-07-23 02:32:30 +0000 UTCYoung Talrik of the Bloodskull Tribe was always considered a meek boy.
Therefore, if eyebrows could be raised, all the matriarchs of the tribe would have done so when he declared he’d be leaving behind the homely comforts of the Doom Pits, the Arena of Blood and the Chimera Petting Zoo to seek a life of adventure instead.
This was seen as highly unusual.
Few ogres ever left their tribes. And for good reason.
At best, it was seen as a mark of eccentricity, and at worst, a badge of shame. Unless an ogre was exiled or bullied into foreign diplomatic duties, they were content to remain in their little patch of the world, usually nestled in a valley rented out at highly affordable rates by the trolls of Troll Country.
No, to be an ogre was to live a life of peace.
To enjoy sipping on blood ale while occasionally fighting off the manticores which preyed on their young. And so the matriarchs roundly dismissed any departure as a fanciful notion of youth.
He did not, they reasoned, understand the joy of home until he saw the despair of outside, and expected him to return in good order. Preferably with human bar snacks. A commodity the trolls refused to source out of principle.
Instead, Talrik of the Bloodskull Tribe didn’t just stay outside.
He went even further–out towards the open sea.
Now a self-made ogre, he had everything an entrepreneur of his calibre wished.
A ship to call his own. Wealth to dazzle friends and foes. And a crew of like-minded brethren to share it with. A sure achievement for any, not least one who couldn’t swim when he’d set off. His naivety had become everyone’s pride.
Especially since few knew the truth of his riches.
Namely, that he had none.
Talrik, the delight of the Bloodskull Tribe … was an utter con artist.
A precarious pyramid of financial schemes, loans, debts and memorandums made up the impressive numbers to his affluence. A shameless labyrinth of indecipherable dealings all leading to the same exit–an empty vault.
He was broke.
Not broke broke. He had crowns. Plenty of it. In his chest. In his hideaways and even sewn into his fine velvet tunic. No one could look at him and mistake him for the ragtag sailors he commanded.
But if his ledgers were unstrung and left to melt beneath the sun, it’d be clear to all that he hadn’t the wealth to pay for a scrounger’s meal, much less the demands of his creditors.
A state of affairs he finally decided to repair after one too many gulls bearing a politely worded but no-nonsense letter landed on his ship.
This, he’d realised later, was an extremely poor choice.
“... A human girl?” he said, repeating the words in disbelief.
Sat with him in the corner of the worst bar in Reitzlake was a man wearing the black garb of the Smuggler’s Guild.
Sweat rolled off the man’s pale face, joining the dried alcohol that had long formed a permanent skin of grease on these tables. But Talrik didn’t care for his dire complexion. Only his answers.
“A human girl,” confirmed his contact. “An adventurer … she … she came and just … it was horrible, Talrik.”
“What was horrible?”
“Everything. Everywhere. She destroyed it all. It was … It was awful.”
“What do you mean? What adventurer? What did she do?”
“A girl with black hair and a shiny sword … she confronted Lady Tolent. And just like that, it was all gone. Tables. Chairs. Windows … all gone.”
The man took a long swig from his watered down ale.
Then, he reached for Talrik’s and did the same. The ogre used all his willpower to stop his pleasant facade from failing.
“What’s all gone? Speak clearly please.”
“I … I … I don’t want to remember. There was vomit. So much vomit. It was horrific. The stuff was everywhere. I … I think it went into my mouth.”
Talrik tapped his fingers against the table.
He knew the look in the man’s eyes. The same look as one who’d stared into the maw of a depth leech and barely survived to relive the nightmares. That always left a scar.
Even so, he was no counsellor. He was a trader. Of sorts.
And he needed words he could comprehend.
“I hope you realise how little sense you’re currently making.”
“There’s no sense to make of it, Talrik. I’m telling you–it was … it was terrible! I still see it, feel it, when I close my eyes. The wind. The gale. I was lifted off my feet. We all were! This adventurer, this girl … she whipped out her sword and that was that. All I remember next is waking up in the barracks, covered in …”
The man shuddered and stopped speaking, a deathly lack of light in his eyes to match his pale face. And Talrik suddenly realised his contact wasn’t sweating because he was fearful of him.
He was sweating because he was fearful of her.
This unnamed adventurer, who he knew only to possess a sword technique powerful enough to destroy a room and all the plans budding in it.
Including his own.
“What of Lucina Tolent?” asked Talrik, his voice grave. “Where is she now?”
“Somewhere … Somewhere else. She didn’t get taken to the barracks. Went straight to the castle instead. The Crown Prince has her now.”
Talrik clicked his tongue.
A disappointment.
Though more accustomed to ferrying fine sons and daughters whose heads were wanted by other malcontents, the Henrietta also offered bespoke passage to those wishing to avoid Reitzlake’s gates and the eyes trained upon them.
His quarry had promised enough crowns to wipe away his debts. And all he needed to do was have his sails unfurled at all hours of the night.
A tiring task. She was planning something wretched, of course. And so the price of his ceaseless readiness was high. Still, she met it. And that’s all Talrik needed. What drove a human noblewoman to seek the insurance of a swift exit did not concern him. Simply the daily crowns which came from it.
Crowns which failed to be delivered the next day.
He sensed something was wrong by the smell in the air.
Indeed … it tasted very much like vomit.
He sat back and sighed. A shame. This wasn’t the first job to end in disappointment. Most of them did. But most of his clients were also not as wealthy as queens.
So lucrative and reliable was the Tolent woman’s purse, he’d abandoned his previous task without a second thought. She was the golden unicorn to be squeezed dry. Now she’d been swept aside like his hopes for a new set of sails.
And so–
He shrugged.
In the end, it was just another day. Or so he believed.
Taking the loss like the businessman he was, Talrik departed the Royal Capital, cursing only the absurdity of adventurers while he left his creditors behind him.
He came to Trierport to ply his trade and humour his curiosity instead.
There were few reasons for him to enter a branch of the Adventurer’s Guild. But 127,892 gold crowns and counting was each one of them. A fantastical number worthy of a dream. And like all the others, he had little means to turn it into reality.
While the Golden Prince was yet another whelp from the Principalities, gifted with a ship in his mouth while Talrik had needed to win his, the fact remained that the Henrietta was outclassed.
Her swift sails sufficed for his usual work, but the Golden Pearl was a true warship, and the man who captained it was no runaway fugitive or absconding nobility.
The difference in strength was quantifiable. At least 80 cannons’ worth, multiple decks and several hundred sailors. And though Talrik was adept at the cutlass, he was no rope swinging raider. And he was certainly no tornado of doom.
Unlike her, that is.
“... The people of this town have called, and I have answered. I shall remove the pirate threat endangering Trierport’s shores!”
His jaw dropped upon sight of her.
The ogre captain never expected to see the girl in Trierport’s branch. Even less to recognise her from description alone. And yet the confidence she exuded left no doubt as to her identity.
Here was the source of his lost earnings.
The terror of Reitzlake.
And now she wished to end the siege upon these shores.
A ridiculous declaration. Ordinarily. And yet Talrik knew who she was. And how maybe, just maybe, she could possibly do it.
But not alone.
Thus, Talrik of the Bloodskull Tribe smiled his captain’s smile, endearing himself while getting Beanieboo back in the process.
His plan was simple. As it should be. He’d seen enough needlessly complicated schemes to know how that resulted. And so he sought the straightforward, if unimaginative approach.
Deliver the girl directly into the maw of the leviathan, followed by a swift betrayal and breakfast at The Featherless Hen.
He didn’t know quite what to expect, of course. The real world was always lovingly erratic. He imagined she’d die horrifically or the whelp would. Both in an ideal world. But he expected to be disappointed as both turned out to be cousins instead.
“... aaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa …”
What he didn’t quite expect was the sight of the Golden Prince sailing overhead, past his own ship and out into the horizon like a shooting star.
He marvelled at what he saw.
A fittingly inglorious end to someone who’d proved a nuisance to wherever he went. But he did not care about the pup. Only the prize his demise offered.
127,892 gold crowns and the galleon of war along with it.
But first–betrayal.
“Captain?”
He did not spare a moment to hesitate.
“Take us in, all portside cannons primed.”
“Against the Golden Pearl, sir?”
“No … against a small human girl.”
Talrik chuckled as he watched the bedlam through his telescope. As expected of scum from the Principalities, they knew more of looting than they did of loyalty.
Good.
It wasn’t an adventurer with a penchant for wind techniques which frightened him. It was the 52 starboard cannons and the seasoned sailors which could have readied them.
Was the girl powerful? Of course.
But this was no field of battle where dancing footwork and poised swordplay could avail her. Upon the water, he had supremacy. And while the finest of blademasters could swat aside the odd arrow, absolutely none could parry an entire salvo of fireball orbs enchanted with unerring aim.
“Should the girl threaten a tornado, her destruction must be assured. Be ready to fire on my signal. You may order the helmsman to bring us about. Have the master cannoneer launch a negotiating pitch. I intend to make a fine second impression.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Talric smiled, collapsing his telescope as the Henrietta neared the mouth of the cove.
Denting his new ship wasn’t on his list of priorities. But a point needed to be made.
If the galleon needed to be seriously damaged to evict the adventurer, then so be it. A legitimate threat would allow her an out. If she was at all sensible, she’d wear a look of indignation, then agree to the compromise he’d never keep.
He only saw his own warding amulet instead.
“I’ll be keeping this, as a memento of my ability to endlessly distract you from the underwater monstrosity circling underneath your vessel.”
In that moment, shock blanketed Talrik’s mind as his eyes were drawn towards the stone. The one which could have belonged to any other. And so his instinct was to reject it.
After all, that couldn’t be his. The one he carried was safely tucked away inside his cabin … the same one visited by the girl before him.
Talrik knew he didn’t need a mirror to see what expression he was making
He could feel it. The blood draining from his face as he considered the very real possibility that this girl had predicted his actions.
Questions and terror alternated throughout his mind as he wondered how long she’d been aware. Had she seized the warding amulet at the first opportunity and then left him to the mercy of the sea? How long had he unknowingly tempted the darkness below? How long had she been toying with him?
Pwooooosh!
He stopped thinking as his beloved vessel careened like a bottle in a storm.
The first of the kraken’s great limbs soared overhead like towering adjudicators of death. And then he had only one question remaining.
How to survive.
As the first dollop of black acid dripped from unseeing eyes layering the kraken’s limbs, he spared no time for deliberation.
He dived. As did they all.
Crrreraaaaccccckkkkk.
Just in time to hear the death throes of his livelihood being crushed from behind.
Raising his head above the water, he looked back to witness a dozen grotesque limbs entangling around the frame of his life’s earnings, winnings and duplicity.
All the sails and the hull crashed towards each other like a child’s plaything, the woodwork and fabric pulled into a vortex of suctioning arms … and into the nightmare only now breaking the water’s surface.
Talrik almost drowned on the spot, his body seizing up as a colossal head of wrinkled flesh dotted with sunken eyes began to raise itself.
But more than anything, he saw that widening maw prepared to meet him.
“Heeeeeeeelllppp meeeeeeeeeeee!!”
“Nooooooooo … I don’t wanna be eaaaaten … maaake it stooopp!!”
“AAaaahhhhhhhh … I onnllyy wanted to bee a faaarrmmer … !!!!”
Talrik tore his eyes away as the screams filled the air.
He could feel himself being dragged backwards, the water surging towards the waiting oblivion like rain seeping towards a gutter.
In that moment, he prayed to the stars as he’d never done before. He reached for a barrel kicked over during the desperate dive, hanging on for dear life even as it still swept towards the same doom.
Then, the maw closed. The twisted head briefly submerged. And the rush towards oblivion stalled.
In those wild few seconds, Talrik turned towards The Golden Pearl safely anchored within the cove’s shallower waters. And like all those around him, he aimed to throw himself at its hull like a barnacle to a raft.
Despair turned to hope.
But then his eyes latched onto the silhouette standing calmly in the gap high above, her figure lit by the gleaming light of her sword … and her terrible smile.
She raised her hand to her mouth, barely covering her lips.
“Ohohohohohohohohohohohohohoho!”
And laughed.
An unfeeling, mocking gloat ricocheting endlessly around the cove.
The girl’s wicked smile widened as she watched the stricken ogres paddling towards her like a line of insects. And Talrik realised that’s all they were to her. Fleas drowning in the water, clawing at life.
And that he, as leader, would not be afforded the fate of his minions.
Talrik blinked as the water dribbled down his face.
He turned around. At the kraken. At the colossal maw and the countless eyes dredged from the abyss as it all began to open once again.
He swallowed a gulp.
And then he swam towards it, out towards the sea, deciding to take his chances with the lesser monster instead.
Comments
phantom
I would feel sorry for the ogre. but like. Immediately jumping to treachery he deserves it. Also while his plan does have minor credibility as the Snow Dancer would not be able to deflect those shots even if she would live. she could just wait till they board the new vessel then take them out.
Pratish Sungum
Thus the navy of this minuscule kingdom ended before it was even started
Alexey Gladkich
What war to be waged with a fruit slime?
Vega
Since Juliette is a princess, and she declared that single ship her new navy, doesn’t that make what the prince did an act of war?
