Diamond Cascade: Black Pearl? What Black Pearl?
With the great evil of the North Coast slain and put behind them, Diamond Cascade turned his thoughts to the even greater evil that plagued the whole land. What force was it that drove the dark elves, the foul orcs and all their kin from their dank places far beneath the earth? Throughout the sages of the north, Diamond Cascade sought wisdom and enlightenment, and through the wise words of an old elf, found the clue for which he had sought, that would unlock the riddle left to him by the sly king of the gnomes. To sea he would go, to the south! To the ruins of once great Mektropika, destroyed long ago by the vengeful sea-goddess Umberlee, famous for its three great bells, where an ancient artefact awaited the one who would restore peace and balance to the land! So there would be our destination, steered by none other than the great Captain Mimosa!
Where a great treasure awaited more like. Maybe. Damn but I’m glad to see the back of this place. I’d have thought, from everything I’d heard, that the North Coast would be heaven. A real home from home, a place where a man like me could have whiled away his life in an endless parade of one debauched orgy after the next. And maybe it could, if we hadn’t managed to piss off such a spectacularly large number of different people in such a spectacularly short space of time. So now there’s a bunch of pirates who think we owe them a ship, the bloke who runs the harbour who turns out to have more clout than I care to think about and who thinks we owe him a black pearl, and then there’s all the people who hate him but think we must have been working with him to go and stuff Mr Were-shark. So we’ve about burned all the bridges we could possibly have had in this place in the space of about three days. Way to go. And I don’t even quite know how we did it.
Krystal’s gone. Off chasing after the vampire that killed her parents. I sort of wish I’d gone with her. The half-git, Lena , she’s gone mad. Apparently she took a big lungful of some poison gas cloud trap on one of Mr Were-Shark’s treasure chests. We have about enough money from that fiasco to buy ourselves a tent and a blanket. Yay. With Stalker and Holly gone as well, Shifty’s the only one left.
He’s the one who gets our ship sorted out. We never found the magic black pearl we were supposed to be looking for, or at least that’s what everyone thinks, but I reckon I know better. I reckon that’s what got us a ship out of there. I don’t know what it was, what it does, and I don’t care. I’m just glad to be gone. One last night spending as much gold as I can on every vice I can possibly find and then we’re down to the docks, in a hangover haze, down to the ship that Shifty’s friends have waiting for us to take us to Mektropika. There’s some trouble with us leaving. Apparently our new good friend Captain Mimosa has no truck with paying harbour dues and tithes and whatnot to our recently acquired enemy the harbour-master. For once, we get to stand and watch while other people shout at each other and it’s not our fault. At least, I don’t think it is. Damn but this hangover hurts.
There’s some shouting about how our good captain doesn’t give a fig for the queen of the sea, Umberlee, and her servants. That name rings some sort of bell. Don’t know what. Can’t think. Bad things are said. Threats are made. Nothing to do with us.
The sea. Never been to sea, not unless you count that one day. Not sure what to do, but at least the sea has fewer intervening hordes of darkness.
Probably.
I have a bad feeling about this. Me and Shifty and a whole bunch of folk I barely know, half of them elves, all bound on some quest now that none of us understand except there’s supposed to be some treasure at the end that none of us will want to share or have the first idea what to do with. Bound to end well then. I have a bad feeling about that name, too. What the captain said. Can’t place it though. Gods but I need to lie down in a dark place.
Isn’t Mimosa some sort of drink?