Night of the Gnashers
How Peg-leg Lost His Stem
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"Old Peg-Leg spoke a rash of shite, did old Peg-Leg. I never did get his real name, not afore he leapt into the sea one night after a storm. Nope. Nor where he was from, even. Couldn't place his accent, neither; he'd been afloat so long his gibberish sounded like everyone else's. But he did like his rum, did old Peg-leg, and he liked to share it and tell stories with his mates. "He was actually a pretty solid bloke, saved my arse in a storm off of Stilton Head, once. I never even saw the wave coming, but he grabbed me by the oil jacket an' held on like a crab clamped on your hindquarters. An' even after all that here I am, but here he ain't, if you catch my meaning. "But old Peg-leg told us this story about how he lost his leg, and you tell me from bollocks, if you you think you can. Anyways, so Peg-leg says, he said he'd been" |
And here, the narrator's voice changes to a fair impression of an elderly gentleman's...
| 'running timber up and down the coast of Feynor, with a good outfit hailing out of Greynor, and got a contract to take a whole ship full of hardware clear across the southern sea to Port Kalimahari, in Taisha.'
"Then Peg-leg says, he says 'we picked up the cargo north of Feynor, in Cotnor, and the contract specified that we weren't to make landfall in Feynor or Greynor on the way to Kalimahari. We was to sail straight on down the whole of the eastern ocean, and all the way down the coast of Taisha to Kalimahari. O' course, we all knew that meant the skipper was smuggling, but we kept our mouth shut and our eyes down, and did our jobs. The money was just too good to pass up. But anyhow, a nor'easter spun up and blew us westerly straight past Greynor into the eastern side of the The Warmwind Sea, over the merfolk territory. Yeah, them merfolk are none too friendly, but the ship was limping along fresh out of a killer storm. So, we rolled the dice, and put in at the closest ait we could find, to repair and restock. All of our fresh water, but for fifteen barrels, had been broke open or spoilt with sea water. The hardtack was all okay, of course. It's hardtack. But the salt pork and the lion's share of the beans went right over the rail, so we needed to hunt us up some grub in a hurry. I was on a water detail, seein' as how I knew how to make and fix barrels...' |
Here, the narrator gesticulates wildly with his pipe while embarking on a lengthy tangent about how old Peg-leg apparently knew how to do everything, having been taught all of it by the very best in their fields...
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"So to get back to it, Peg-leg says, he says, 'We set up by a spring flowing out of a cave after making sure the water was good. Sometimes the water coming out of volcano caves and fissures can be wonky, you got to test it afore you drink it, or drop a Purification Stone into it. But anyways, I had the bright idea to roll the barrels right into the cave, and fill 'em all up at whatever lake or spring it was that was the source of the water. That was night, it was, after all the barrels were filt, that we all felt like someone had their deadlights pinned on us, an' whatever it was weren't friendly. Nary a soul could sleep; we all kept havin' the same dream over and over again. A dream about a devil, and a big lizard skeleton, with a long tail and gigantic jaws, and the smell of brimstone hangin' in the air when we awoke. I tells you, we was spooked to all get-out. One of the other men sent with the water detail was gone in the morning. Ran back to the ship, he did, leavin' us behind to lump all that water by ourselfs. But that's when we figured out we was missing almost half of our barrels. Not that the barrels had leaked, but they were just gone! I saw drag marks in the mud, I did, and grabbing a torch, I followed them for a ways before it happened. Wham! the torch was knocked outta my hand. Bam!I was smacked sideways like I was a ragdoll. Something big turned toward me, and I see these eyes, right? Big, round eyes. The size of grapefruits, they were, but made of glass, like. I yelped, I'm not ashamed to say, but it drew attention to me from more of the critters. Them it was, as bit my leg clean off at the knee. I don't know how I lived; all I know is, I heard a voice say "Return!" in Infernal. Oh yeah, I was taught infernal by the Bardic College itself! But I'll tell you this for free; them as bit my leg off? They stole our water, and it was them as stole a bunch of our food. Of course, the mate had to undergo a full instigation of the facts and finding afore we was cleared of any wrongdoing. All except me an' my stump, o' course. They knew I was innocent on account of the grievous wound I had attained... |
And here the story ends. It is interesting in how it matches up with the Pre-Tolmec folklore of devils riding reanimated dinosoar skeletons.
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