You went back to sleep in the jungle with Ahappi on guard. Ten tense minutes passed, then thirty, then the Captain was alerted by a thump nearby, and saw a little crater and disturbed leaves on the ground near him where Boamund was sleeping. As he paused to assess the situation, the Titan Mosquito's proboscis struck again, impaling Boamund in the side of his head! Ahappi sprung to action, leaping to slash sideways at the chitinous snout, and dealing it a wicked blow that left it kinked and leaking fluids. But Boamund was unconscious, and being lifted up into the shadows.
The others awoke to the commotion and rushed to help– Maugis struggled to find a leg to attack, the Baronet pounced wakefully up and over to help Ahappi… and Ciddar slept through it all, the lazy cur! Lord Shaven jumped to grab Boamund's rising body, and pulled it off the proboscis, leaving a horrible bloody wound that Boamund somehow survived. Damaged by two blows to its feeding-spear, the huge insect whirled aloft and departed. Shaven bandaged his friend's injury and you decided that this jungle was too hazardous to risk a longer stay. You packed up your things, hefted the two corpses and Boamund's insensate body onto makeshift stretchers or onto shoulders, and hiked/hewed your way on southward through the jungle, hoping to find a beach or other area free of those terrible trees in which the predaceous insects lurked so effectively.
You were dismayed to find that the jungle ended in a wall of tortuous vegetation right at the edge of a crumbling, 50-meter cliff over cold, angry seas. Ciddar and Ahappi swore that they knew where the closest port on Alatan must be, and led you that way. The others were not happy when they realized that this port was by the pirate fort you'd fled only 5 hours before! But the last remaining sailor pleaded with you to use the cover of darkness to creep down to the port and take a ship to flee Alatan. You relented, feeling too weakened and down one good fighter.
The fort was quiet but lit by torches, and as you snuck around the northern walls of the fort, past the back door you'd used, you only saw guards in the western tower of the fort, by the front gates and overlooking the path down to the port. You slipped past the fort and down the treacherous pebbly path, taking switchback after switchback until the port was visible in the light of a torch. Four ships were moored there in the deep harbour: three sleek pirate vessels and a fourth, The Muraenus, which made Maugis's heart grow with joy: it was the vessel that he'd been captured from. But the former slaves had made a racket coming down the slippery path, alerting a guard who the Baronet spotted slipping past the torchlight at the base of the docks, headed your way with Something Else, that crept spookily low to the ground, and yet was larger than a man…
The Baronet bravely ventured forward in the darkness, seeking to close with the guard while the others hung back. He concealed himself in shadows along the path just in time as the guard passed him with a horrid, tentacle-faced pinkish thing like a rat but with skin that showed its great pulsing blood vessels, and fierce claws but no face, just a blood-red tentacle like its masters'. Disgusted, he slashed its leg with his sword, cleaving deeply into it as a disproportionate jet of blood issued forth, coating everything for three metres around in slick fluid. The pirate swung his wicked barbed morningstar, which had already been magicked, but this was batted aside. The others husted carefully down the path, but it was a long distance to cover. Only Maugis felt nimble enough to run that distance, and it was well that he did!
Although Shaven managed to get in a skilful blow to cripple the pirate's shield arm, and the pirate fell on the slippery blood, the rat-thing used its front claws to slash Fraud's stomach wide open, and he too fell. But Maugis had reached them, and mounted a spirited offense, whacking the rat into stunned inaction and then the pirate, just as Ciddar and Ahappi reached him, into helplessness. Like the other pirates, this one fought bitterly to the death without a grunt of pain or sign of self-preservation, but was overwhelmed by force of arms, as was the rat-thing which erupted in a final fountain of gore as the Baronet struck it down.
But now you had three crippled warriors in your band- Ciddar, Baronet and Boamund. And time was short- soon, you wagered, the noise you'd made would alert the pirates in the fort. You rushed to the Muraenus, helping the Baronet along. On board the Muraenus you found its ravaged, unconscious captain, the Pithdaran “Miss Nettatoma”, whom Big Ron had commissioned to take Maugis to go find what was holding you up in Handra. Maugis incanted his last healing magic energy to help the Baronet and Boamund, while the Captain set light to two of the pirate ships and left one smouldering. He then masterfully took charge of the old Pithdaran vessel, in a frenzy of action. Soon you were slipping out of the harbour, as signs of alert came from the fort on the cliff above.
The captain deftly steered the Muraenus toward a fogbank as the commotion at the pirate fort grew, and echoed over the lapping waves of the ocean. You looked back and saw a figure stride out amongst a throng a pirates. The figure was wreathed in potent crimson sorceries and concealed within a suit of heavy armour, hands on his hips in a proud, taunting pose. And the voice was pure evil, which thundered in your hearts and nightmares for many nights thereafter:
“Yes, run, flee back to your flock of succulent Malkioni sheep! Flee and tell them! Tell them of me, Erythagulos the Defacer, and the Blooddrinkers! Tell them that our thirst grows! Yes our thirst grows! And we are coming! We are coming soon! In a whirlwind of blood! A tide of gore! AHAHAHAHAAHAAA! AHAHAHAHAHAAA!”
The Captain was hit with a revelation– all the events of the past day fell into perspective. Blood-drinking, blood-bathing, blood-obsessed pirates with nasty sorceries and demonic bloody horrors serving them… on the far western corner of a mysterious pirate-haunted island… speaking of “Malkioni sheep” and with a gross disregard for human life and dignity… these bore all the hallmarks of one race, one mythical people, once thought extinct but rumoured to be clawing their way back into Glorantha. The Red Vadeli. Warrior-skins of the people of the sinner Vadel; atheists and sin-worshippers like all their ilk; but pirates and corsairs of the worst sort. And they had announced their return to you.
The Captain told tales of the Red Vadeli, what tales could be told, since their nature was only known from fragmentary stories and ancient myth. These tales filled you with immense dread. The Brown Vadeli were foul, and unworthy of the slightest trust. But these were killers, not usurers or bad-deal-makers, these Red Vadeli. Murderers who ate children, including their own, and had intercourse with the wounds of their captives and victims, and did much worse! They had helped their masters to almost destroy the world once, maybe twice, and were sworn to try again!
But you lost the last pirate ship in the blowing fog, and soon Miss Nettastoma awoke, as your journey west for Giraine began. You reflected on how far the Vomiter had hurled you- hundreds of keymiles west of Handra, almost halfway home. You were nearing very familiar waters: the Orninior Coast. But it was still at least 2 days, maybe 3 or more, judging from storms looming on the horizon. But Miss Nettastoma, weary as she was from wounds and more (she described her experience as being “mined for chocolatl”), and sad as she was over the loss of all her crew (now filling the bloodbath-tubs of the Vadeli!), did not flinch from her duty to get you home, whatever the obstacle. Your respect for her grew swiftly, to transcend the wiles of her rough beauty and long curled locks.
She was a good captain, even if she didn't like being called the name, and her spirit shone through her recent ordeals, buoying you all up. She and Maugis pieced together events: they had drawn alongside a struggling fishing boat to find that it was aswarm with bloodthirsty pirates, and they were overwhelmed so quickly, with the Miss knocked out early in the fray, that hardly any resistance could be prepared. Maugis and a couple of others, whom he'd never seen again, were captured with little harm and enslaved, or taken for other fell purposes.
Miss Nettastoma had moments of consciousness during her day of captivity, glimpsing a great fat, unctuous man whom she recognized from St Thosos port… had he slipped on board the Muraenus as a stowaway somehow? Perhaps that would explain the pungent stench that the crew had complained of, as he reeked of it. Reeked like that foul chocolatl he gnawed on frequently. But where had he gone after having his none-too-gentle time with her? She soon changed the conversation, her face betraying some discomfort.
You did what resting and healing you could, with Maugis lending a skilled hand at surgeries on the worst wounds, but Boamund, Ciddar and Baronet still had weeks of healing to do unless they could find stronger magics. Another injury and they could slide back into mortal danger. As your fatigue ebbed and your magical energy returned, so did your thoughts of past events grown in their profundity. The Captain had a lingering feeling that his, or your, quest with the Vomiter had not finished, that there was still work to be done, or trials to be suffered.
And Miss Nettastoma related another dreadful fact: the year 1621 had just ended over the past day or two, if her sense of time was accurate. It was Sacred Time. Time not to be on the high seas and in dire health with almost no provisions or gear on the ship. Time to be home, with family, with religious leaders, praying to keep evil at bay for the coming year, and to heal past rifts and resolve old conflicts on this two-week, magically powerful holiday. What harm would come from your absence from home, from your Churches? You had spent the past year battering back the forces of Chaos from Giraine- could this accidental time away from ritual duties undo what good you'd done? And what else might come of sailing the stormy waters of the Ornininor Coast at this time? It was said that in Sacred Time, you could slip into foreign heroquests or be drawn as enemies/sacrifices into cultists' quests. Or even gods could see you and enact their own cruel machinations upon you. Really it seemed anything could happen, but seldom good things.
Whatever might come, your determination was strong: get home. Get news of the Vadeli to Big Ron. Be with those you love, and recover. Then bring mighty vengeance back to those pirates as soon as you could, to regain what you'd lost and stop their depredations before they grew too strong. Even if it meant killing a Vadeli and bringing the curses of Malkioni himself upon you for kin-slaying, although even the bravest of you quelled at the thought. Perhaps you'd find another way.
But the seas did not care about your ways and determination, as they soon showed. They did not cry one salty tear for your miseries. The Muraenus was storm-tossed, at first lightly, then worse and worse until a stinging, lashing hail beset the vessel, and the ship blundered into a vast sea of kelp and weeds that slowly strangled it to a halt. The danger of the hail and the hopelessness of the seaweed mats, along with the black of night convinced Miss Nettastoma to call the crew into their quarters or below decks for cover until the menace passed, then to deal with the weeds. Yet the weeds were not empty of their own dealings, as you would see… trouble arrived soon after.
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