The Wet God's Directive

Previously: Esmiralda and her companions have discovered that the shattered ship--found upside-down and in the middle of a forest—was once captained by Harfirgorn the Merciless, a pirate of some repute that had long ago vanished. They find an old log book in the captain's quarters and decide to take it into the light, where they hope to discover more clues to his final resting place—and the treasure that he is most likely buried with...


I tried to focus on the book spread across the large rock in front of me. Seymurh continued to be a distraction, tearing into the roasted spiders with a childish abandon. I cringed at every pop of scorched flesh, slurp of leaking juices and belch of intestinal protest.


Merrick leaned in, a curled spider limb protruding from the corner of his mouth like a pipe. He chewed on it noisily.


"'North to the hills' is a vague direction," he said. He wiped a smear of gray ichor from the side of his mouth and licked the spider juice off his fingers. My stomach protested. I was hungry and disgusted at the same time.


"True. And any path they may have followed has long since been swallowed by the forest," I said.


"Path?" Seymurh approached, another curled spider leg in his grimy hand. "If you ask me, all of this is a waste of time. There's no way of knowing how long this wreck has been here. This is a legend now, not a danger."


"It could be," Merrick acknowledged. "But it has been my experience that evil does not fade on its own."


Seymuhr belched and snorted.


I turned away, looking to the north and the mountains that rose above the treetops. Their peaks were shrouded in mist, their slopes scattered with brush. It would take a lifetime to search them--even if we knew what we were looking for. Still, Merrick's words rang true. I envisioned some ancient, hateful thing growing beneath the surface of those majestic peaks and shuddered.


"There are towns up that way," I suggested. "We may find some clues along the way. A library or temple, perhaps, that would hold some record of their passing."


"Are you...sure you are not hun...gry?" Broo Fang held up a twisted spider the size of a small dog. The fire had not burned all of the fuzz from its legs and he absently plucked the hairs with his other hand. "We have pl...enty, and can always get.....................more."


"I ate some leaves earlier. I'm not really hungry."


He shrugged. "The taste is not so bad, a bit like pick......led beets."


"Thank you for the insight, but not right now."


"They are....bet....ter when they're warm," he added, wiggling the dead thing slightly.


"I can only imagine."


He shrugged and buried his face in the belly of the thing and I turned away from the dreadful crunch of charred, breaking skin.


"We should strike north then," Merrick said. He held up a hairless spider leg and I took it, reluctant but grateful. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad with the spines removed. "I have a feeling that we working toward a higher purpose here. Perhaps Sluth, in his rage, tossed this vessel too far from his own domain to exact his own vengeance. He had to wait for someone to carry it out."


I was skeptical. I looked at Broo Fang, slight and quiet, Seymuhr prodigious in strength, no doubt, but of questionable mind. Merrick seemed the only one with a proper head on his shoulders, but he was no fighter. If the Wet God Sluth was waiting for the likes of us the world was in greater peril than anyone thought.