by Marty Myers
“ This means I am here and also still back out searching the sea for more recruits. Once we get everyone raised I will give you a tour of the place and introduce you to my bonded demon Alastor, as well as my first wight recruit Birch. In the meantime, I am going to try speeding things up.” Hank took his second self over to the bones waiting for their own raising and tried to see if he could have both of copies of himself here simultaneously raise the skeleton warriors. He needed to know if he was capable of casting the ritual raising without lessening their potency. To Hanks satisfaction, he found he was now able to simulcast both raises and still stay focused on his far-off search. The boost in strength he had got from claiming the dwarfs as his own was already paying dividends.
Chapter 30
The Wreckers meanwhile were very happy with Hanks haul and were working on where to send him next. Hank had to shoot down a couple suggestions to go after truly staggering legendary treasures mentioned by some of the overeager younger wreckers. “ I need to stick to sites that are likely to get me minions for now and besides some of those treasures sound like they would be guarded even now by some truly dangerous magics. I am not as strong so far away from my dungeon and I don’t want to get caught in some mystical trap that I might not be able to break out of.”
Instead, Hank turned again to their apparent leader, the cleric Rhodes. “ The Dark Brotherhood are already proving to be a good choice. Do you have any more ideas about where I might find some more formidable Dark Ones to retrieve from the sea?” The sea cleric said, “ well have you considered going to check out the very incident that brought you here asking for our help and the Sea Lords forgiveness?” It took a moment for his words to make sense to him and then Hank was stunned by how obvious it was in retrospect. He would be fearful of checking out such a location if the very being who had cursed it had not just given him his forgiveness and permission to reclaim the Dark Ones. Still, he did not know what he would find at the site of the sinking of the Scarlock’s pirate fleet.
For that matter, he didn’t know where exactly that had happened either. Rhodes must have seen him work it out as he added. “ I will show you the way.” Hank prepared himself and had Birch bring Rhodes and Alastor into their shared mindscape. The priest looked around in interest and said. “ Very nice place you have here. I have never been to the actual great green halls of the elves so it is a bonus to be able to see it for myself, even second hand like this. Thank you, Birch.”
Hank waved towards the scrying pool and Alastor who was standing there. Hank was a bit concerned the cleric might have a problem seeing him in his spirit form but the old man merely nodded before looking intently into the pool. Hank and Alastor chanted activating the scrying and latched on to Rhodes directions and intent as their view sped off once again out onto the waters away from the cave. This trip took longer than the first but was still within their range. Or to be more accurate Hank’s range seemed to have grown a bit more since this afternoon. Hank found Rhodes mind and ability to aid the scrying to be far superior of their previous guide and they were soon submerged in the briny deep.
Hank peered all around as they sank further down but this time they were not deep enough to lose the light before they came across signs of the wrecks they had come for. Indeed they found a veritable graveyard of wrecked ships scattered upon the clear pale sands. Hank sensed much less Darkness here amongst the many broken vessels than he had found at the site of the dwarfs transport. He speculated that it might be partially due to the light being able to reach bathe these ships regularly in its radiance. Once he got closer to the bottom he found that the very sands here were giving off a holy Light infused aura that began to disrupt his dark magic workings before he worked to reinforce them.
He quickly went to the first ship and revised his opinion of what else might be behind the surprisingly little darkness he could sense here. It looked as if the ship had been picked up and then spiked into the sea bottom by an angry giant and Hank suspected that wasn’t too far from the literal truth of what had happened here. He found no surviving Dark Ones here. Indeed the few remains he could find were so broken that he doubted that they could be mended by his magics. They were also so soaked in the essence of the light from the sunlight above and the blessed sands below that he could hardly tell if they had belonged to a soul harboring darkness or not.
Hank supposed if he came across the remains of a true servant of light that its bones might even be truly holy relics by now. And he supposed a saint’s bones might have actually attained some even higher level of holiness by resting in this place. Truly Manuck the Lord of the Seas had chosen the place of his retribution wisely when planning to destroy the Dark’s undead pirate fleet here. Hank doubted much of anyone or anything connected to the dark could have managed to survive down here in this environment this long. He felt a bit drained already.
He decided he would need to speed things up quite a bit and he couldn’t use one of his normal tricks for searching because to pass himself through the ships or the sea bottom here would be extremely debilitating. Instead, he focused his powers and let forth a mighty call to reach any of the Dark who might yet remain. Hank was surprised when he was answered by a distant echo, a faint twin to his dark summons. He sped off in its direction and found one of the larger more intact ships still had a dark aura about it. He could feel others within as he extended his senses towards its hull.
Hank telepathically called out to the ship “ I am called Hank of the Graves and I have come to retrieve the remains of the dark dead lost at sea and any Dark Ones who wish a reprieve from the Sea Lords wraith and an escape from his domain.” When Hank finished speaking he found a large man in a great coat suddenly standing upon the ships slanted deck. “ I be Captain Cronolith. I am the last officer left to stand the watch of the dead here among Scarlock’s fleet.”
The captain looked very bad off as ragged strips of flesh hung off of his frame much like his tattered clothes. So deep were the rips that Hank could actually see places where his whitened bones shown through from within his body. Still there was a considerably powerful aura still wrapped about him. Indeed his aura matched perfectly with the dark aura about the ship which was shielding him from the Lights reach. To Hanks perceptive eyes it looked as if a similar ritual to the binding of soul and dungeon had perhaps been worked upon this captain and his ship.
“ Hail captain Cronolith,” he said, “ I would parlay with you.” The captain replied, “ and what would you want with the likes of me?” Hank said, “ I am in need of more crew for my dungeon which I fear may be raided soon. I have been gathering up the lost Dark Ones and the dead from the seas to raise up to fill my ranks.” The captain looked Hank over for a few before saying.“ I worked with a dungeon once. He was an alright fella and he tried to do right by his crews. You are not yet a shadow of what he was and even with him in command look where it got us.” Hank nodded, “ yes I have heard that Scarlock was a fine dungeon indeed and I admit I am not he. And well I know that the Lord Darkness tends to eat people up and spit them out. I know I am in the middle of the process of being digested myself.” The captain looked at him again and then laughed bitterly. “ Ho there, you may just have the right tack to your sails with that attitude. I have a few crew here in need of getting off this ship and making land again.” Hank looked at the captain. “ Not interested for yourself?” “ Lad,” he said, “ like you and your dungeon I am bound here to my fate. I be my ship and she be me. If not for her and I none would have made it long enough to be met by you, as only our combined strength has managed to hold the blessed Light at bay all this time.” Hank grimaced as he imagined trying to hold out against the holy tide here forever. He could see the strain that had etched itself into the man before him.
“ How did you manage to come all this way for us anyway,” the captain asked. “ Well,” Hank said, “ I took a risk and went to ask permission from Manuck the Lord of the Seas through the Wrecker Guild and then ask for forgiveness for Scarlo
ck’s trespass on his domain.” The Captain face looked stormy as Hank spoke and he worried he had said too much, but finally, it settled on out. “ Aye, you have the right of it. Scarlock knew he was in the wrong but could not deny the Lord Darkness’ orders.” “ I know how it is,” Hank said. “ In a way I stand right where Scarlock stood those many years ago, or at least within a few paces of his position.” Hank went on to explain what was going on which made the captain even grimmer. “ It sounds like its going to end up badly for you young dungeon master.” “ Yeah, it’s likely to. But I still think I have a chance at least of pulling it off,” Hank said. “ I am working on stacking the deck in my favor by finding you guys and other older Dark Ones who have been forgotten about to bolster my defenses. I already got lucky and brought up the remains of more than 300 dark dwarves to fight for me including several who turned into wights to act as their officers.”
The captain nodded his head at hearing this and then called out for his crew to come up on deck. There were no more than a dozen figures coming to stand before him. From over a hundred ships these paltry few pirates were all that remained of the Dark’s fleet. Looking at them Hank thought to himself there never was a crew so odd looking as this one. First was a darkly handsome, elvish vampire named Lytol Ghastprey. Next, a freakishly tall emaciated Lich who called himself The Death of Souls, and only spoke of himself in the third person and appeared to be covered in a carpet of zombie rats with all different colored glowing eyes that clung to his robed and crawled along his bones. The way they climbed over him with their glowing eyes shining, Hank thought he looked like some kind of macabre nightmarish Christmas tree.
Next, a trio of tall fierce female wight triplets named Mori, Riga, and Ann with long red hair and fine figures were introduced by the captain. They often spoke with one voice finishing each other’s sentences and all of them had a powerful madness dancing in their eyes. Then there were the six spectral brothers Blight, Theobald, Jeb, Cyrus, Dagmar, Ivor and Esmond who seemed far too jovial for all the darkness Hank saw swirling within their souls. Lastly, there was a thing they called Mung and Hank wasn’t sure what exactly it was. Most of the time It appeared even to his soul sight senses to be nothing more than an empty patch of stormy boiling darkness which occasionally produced floating eyes in different sizes and shapes to peer around from within the cloud and then once in a while a pair of skeletal bird legs similar to those of an ostrich would poke out for it to stand upon with wickedly sharp talons before they were pulled back in and the cloud would float around again. Hank wondered if it was like some kind of parrot analog/mascot and thought if it went over and perched on anyone’s shoulder that he would lose it.
They were all disturbing in their own ways and Hank was actually a little hesitant to take them in. But their situation was hopeless otherwise if he didn’t rescue them. He reminded himself that he too was now living a completely freaky existence that would disturb regular people just with his mere presence at this point. Hank gave them all a similar spiel as he had given the dark dwarfs previously and awaited their decision. The conditions down here were bad enough he didn’t think many of them would refuse. But the madness he saw from some of them made him a bit less than sure about what they would choose to do. So he kept his defenses up just in case someone snapped while they were negotiating for their deliverance.
Afterwards all but the captain had finally chosen to join his dungeon crew and had been transferred home. Hank asked him again. “ Would you not be willing to try coming with me?” The Captain replied, “ I Cronolith led my men into this doom you see here before you. I have stood the longest watch to try to save those I could from the fleet I could. Thanks to you, some of them at least will be saved from this fate. Yet I can not and will not abandon my ship even if the alternative is to expire down here in this light sunny hell. No Hank you have my thanks, but there is nothing to be done for me,” he said. “ I will stand upon my ship until she and I lose the fight together at long last.”
Hank knew this was a bad idea, but he decided he could try to be just as stubborn as the man before him. After all, he regularly threw caution to the winds on a daily basis in his new existence. One of Hanks other selves was even now quickly preparing a cavern chamber for the new arrivals. Once that was done and he could focus all of his attention here once more. Hank took stock of his condition, gathered his strength and carefully studied the man’s aura as the captain stood calmly awaiting what may. Hank drew upon all of his power and strained mightily to encompass the entire ship in one massive teleport. He felt Alastor become mad at him and then alarmed through their bond at what he was doing. but the imp still backed him up to the hilt, but it wasn’t until the captain and the ship itself joined in with them that Hank finally managed to pull it off.
He was so exhausted that for a moment he floundered at the graveyard of ships before regaining the energy to properly stabilize and hold to his scrying. He took a brief look at another nearby shipwreck to gather enough treasure to keep his bargain with the Wreckers and then sent it back to their cave before collapsing the scrying circle and returning each member of the circle to their proper places. Once he, Birch and Rhodes were back released from the mindscape he immediately excused himself and his wight from the Wreckers Guild cave and returned to his own dungeon to rest and recuperate.
Meanwhile, the Captain found himself smiling and at a loss for words for the first time in longer than even he remembered. They were all free of the blessed sands and Blasted Light at last. They had appeared in a pitch black cave after the rough teleport trip. The crazy dungeon had taken an unbelievable risk to save him and his ship. If he hadn’t been able to pitch in on the attempt they could have been stranded mid-teleport or worse they could have all been ripped to pieces and had half of them left behind scattered on the sea floor for miles. There were even a few more dire possibilities that could have happened that Cronolith didn’t even want to think about. He had had to pitch in the vast remainder of the last of his ships dark essence to push the teleport through. Still, the boy had guts even to try saving them like that and he was willing to go right over the line into danger for his people. Those traits counted for a lot in his book.
He decided that once the dungeon had recovered enough to talk to him he was going to accept his offer to serve him. What part a pirate ship and its captain would play within a landlocked dungeon under a mountain he wasn’t sure, but that would be a question for later. Looking around the cavern that he found himself in. It reminded him of the old secret drydock cave he had sometimes taken shelter in long ago when they had been sorely pressed by the fleets of the of Light. It was a bit eerie how similar the caves appearance was actually, but it somehow was fitting to be here and that after all these years of being doomed by following the orders of a dungeon of the dead that he and his crew should then be rescued by another one he thought. Fate was surely a fickle thing. In the meantime, while he waited for Hank to recover and approach him he began repairing his beloved ship Justininiann and recovering from their long ordeal.
Hank felt wrung out. He had taken too much on just now and he knew it. He immediately left Birch’s body and shut his multiple selves down and went to just one perspective. Then he found Alastor and collapsed nearby. “ Oh, so the conquering dark hero returns,” the imp said. Looking up Hank could see the strain written on Alastor’s face from their herculean efforts to move the whole ship and its captain from their watery grave. “ Hank listen to me, your either going to have to accept that you can’t save everyone you encounter or you’re going to have to accept that you’re going to kill one or both of us in your attempt while you’re doing this stuff. Because there is no way that we are going to keep pulling this type of thing off again and again before the odds catch up to us and we end up paying the price.”
“ The second best outcome of what we just did was that both of us may have lived through it while permanently crippling our teleportation talent. And don’t mistake me on this. We would have surely
failed and found out what that price was if it hadn’t turned out the captain and his ship have a modicum of talent of their own akin to ours and risked throwing it into backing our efforts. Their talent is much more limited but it was just enough to tip the scales in our favor this time.” Hank felt anger frustration and despair coming to him in waves as his partner spoke. In the end, Hank could only hang his head and agree. “ I know, Llywelyn has said much the same thing and she is planning to look me over tomorrow and see if she can help me reign it in. I don’t know why I am like this now. I didn’t used to risk everything heedless of the consequences. I swear I am trying to do better.”
Alastor could feel Hanks sincerity and his miserable feelings flowing back through their bond. He answered back, “ Hank we are a team, where you dare to go so too do I. Just talk to me first so we can both be prepared before you leap into danger next time okay.” “ Okay Hank said in a small voice, I will.” Alastor said, “ I am going now to go take care of getting the guards their meat for their meals before we get behind on that and they start acting up again. How about you meditate and recenter yourself for a while before we go back out again.” Hank agreed and began his meditation. He felt all out of sorts and had a hard time bringing himself into a state where he could even begin but eventually, he settled down and centered himself.