The Tangled Depths - part iii, The Bloodfane

Old Mudgob had run for most of the night, ranting incomprehensibly and chasing the black smoke they had inadvertently released from the Hidden Vault. Deeper and deeper into the woods, with the rest of the crew close behind him. The crew of the Swordfysh followed without a second thought - it seemed perfectly natural to them in that moment.

They did not notice the clawing branches that dragged at them as they rushed past. They did not notice the encroaching darkness that enveloped them. They did not tire, or hunger, or even think about where they were going.

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The Swordfyshes burst out of the trees into a wide clearing around a small village.

The 'smoke' hung in the air around the tower of the tallest building. As dawn broke the light seemed to become red, unnaturally and ominously red, even though the sky was heavy with black thunderous clouds.

A Bloodbound warband were gathered around the tower, frothing blood-worshipping madmen, who had apparently been waiting for the orruks' arrival.

After a momentary pause when they each first saw the other warband, the pirates and Bloodbound fell upon one-another in a frenzy of violent blood-letting.

The Swordfyshes laid into the worshipers of the Blood God with toothy grins on their faces!

Old Mudgob, Lugger and Docker Goff pounced on a small group of Bloodreavers who were accompanied by a Fatemaster as they tried to make their way around the left side of the tower - but the sorcerer recoiled from the orruks, on a daemonic flying disk.

Krashhart, Leeway, Yardarm and Hook fought almost shoulder-to-shoulder, jammed into an alleyway between the smoke-wrapped tower and a cluster of mausoleums. The bottleneck funnelled the Bloodbound toward them and the pirates used the small space to their best advantage. The pirates first took down the Bloodbound's heavily-armoured champion.

Then the leader of the Chaos warband, a Wrathmaster, charged into the fray with whirling flails. But he managed to tangle himself up in his own weapons so the pirates focused on killing all of his followers.

Old Mudgob and his group roared in triumph as the last of the Bloodreavers they faced fell, and chased after the Fatemaster as he backed around the tower; trapping him between themselves and Krashhart's mob. The Fatemaster panicked and, with a sound like distant screeching and a flash of pink-blue light, he translocated himself and the Wrathmaster far away from the village.

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As the Chaos Marauders’ blood drained into the soil around the tower the curse on the pirates lifted (for that is what it was; they could see it clearly now!)

A bell suspended in a makeshift scaffold on the roof of the tower sounded once, like a death-knell. Cold laughter echoed around the village. A hard, cold face briefly coalesced in the black smoke and it drifted away, heading west.

The Swordfyshes realised they had been manipulated - the Slann’s warnings suddenly made sense - he had been trying to stop them freeing some kind of cursed spirit from the Vault. Some of the orruks wondered if the Bloodbound might have been cursed too but it was always hard to tell with that lot.

Krashhart and Old Mudgob looked at one-another and they both knew what their next move should be: the whole crew wanted to keep following the smoke. They all wanted to get their revenge on that thing for using them.

And if there wasn't any loot to be found at least there seemed to be some good fights wherever it went. And they wanted to know what the zog was going on so, at the very least, they would be able to get a good tale to tell out of all this.

~ ⦽ ~