Though the mighty sea-beast was slain, the damage wrought upon the proud ship of Diamond Cascade and his companions was grave. Valiantly though they worked, they could not save the stricken vessel and she sank slowly beneath the waves at the foot of the inhospitable Cliffs of Insanity. With all his strength, Diamond Cascade fought to save the lives of his companions from the cruel sea, yet even he was helpless against its strength as the current carried them inexhorably towards the cliffs – yet worse was to come! For it was not to dash them to pieces on the unforgiving rocks that was the sea’s intent, no, for they were carried, powerless despite their struggles, down the Great Channel towards the Dreaded Lagoon, sacred place of unholy Umberlee herself, from where no man has ever yet returned!

For companions, read horses. As in I got them out of the hold and tied some sealed barrels to them to keep them afloat and kicked them into the ocean before they got sucked down with the rest of the ship. And then I Alter Self’d into something that could swim and breath under water and dragged them, kicking and whinnying towards the shore. And my stuff, in another barrel. What, am I the only one who can Alter Self?

The thought of scaling the five-hundred feet sheer sides of the Cliffs of Insanity was a tempting one, just, well, just because there might have been some Spanish dude with a sword at the top and I could have shown off my off-handed fighting. Unfortunately horses don’t climb cliffs and by then I’d managed to un-lose my dear friends, who had apparently requisitioned the one and only longboat, kicked out all the sailors to swim for the shore (and presumably drown) and, more than luck than judgement, failed to capsize it.

What? Oh surely someone else can Spider Climb?

Before I left the ship, I dug out the old scarab token from the lot who work for the “Green Dragon” – I think they left it as a: ‘If you change your mind about working for evil, call us’ sort of thing, or maybe I just ripped it off one of them and was keeping my options open. Well no more. I bent it up as best I could and tried to smash it and pissed on it when that didn’t work and threw it into the sea with a great deal of shouting and cursing and generally yelling abuse at the powers of darkness and pledging myself to kicking their unholy butts at every possible opportunity.

In hindsight, this may have been a mistake.

NEXT WEEK: THE UNHOLY LAGOON OF THE BITCH QUEEN