Rood & Vash #1

The way I heard it, they didn't even know each other before that. I like to think they had heard of one another, but I guess some people make it out that they just had no idea, whatsoever. Doesn't really matter.

I guess there's a few different ways of telling this story, about what they were after, girls or gold, but I'm just going to tell it my way, about how Rood and Vash met that first time.

It was all down in Devils' Bay and word was there was a ship by the name of the Golden Hart being careened a little piece away from the mouth. Now the Hart was a big girl, she was a slaver for one of the southern empires, usually dealt in hobgobs but Kord knows what else.

Usually the kobolds that worked the docks would be in a frenzy when a ship the size of the Hart came in needing careened, means a good bit of extra money for serps that can scamper up and down a hull like they can. But it come down the line that the Hart didn't want anybody but their own crew working on the ship, which you can imagine how happy that must'a made those men. No shore leave in a port like Devils' Bay? Surprised they didn't have a mutiny, sooner, anyways.

On top of that it was taking forever. Now anyone who's watched someone else do the work, any work, can just as well assume they'd do it better and faster. And if anyone could understand Draconic, they'd be getting an earful about that very degree of human, or otherwise, nature, just about every night from any serp sober enough to slither. But the Golden Hart was taking so long I figured I could'a done it with just two bugbears at my side.

Day after day she stayed up on her side while the crew dug the barnacles off her. They looked hardy enough but there was a kind of misery about them. Mark that up to Captain's orders if you want, but unhappy men means loose lips. Wasn't long before the crew was whispering all their problems into any lunar's ear that would listen. Soon enough the lunar ladies heard enough to sell to any cutthroat comin' or goin'.

In one special case, some particular lunar let Rood the half-elf know just about everything she ever knew. Some say they were in love, or more likely, he had some elf spell over her, seeing as how she was human, but don't matter none. Rood still left that bed knowing a good deal more about the world, and especially about what was in the hold of the Hart.

Word spread fast that the reason they'd been careening just the one side was on account of a massive nagging hole on the other. The captain was in a roar that the men were going into town without orders but he knew he needed them, I 'spect, and wasn't like he could hang the whole lot of 'em. What kept him from abandoning ship, shuffling off up the Hurry, I'm not sure. Some would guess honor, but that don't strike me right, since we're talking about a slaver. I think it was fear more than anything. It's hard to say of what though, since I've heard just about all there was concerning what was in that ship.

A lot of people just say it was gold, and a good deal of it, that wasn't getting to where it was going. So the captain had to make it right and was awful scared he wasn't going to be able. Then there's how he had a necromancer on there to sell to some king that had a dead son, rightful heir, all that. Lads like to tell that one when they're taking their girls down the docks. My favorite one is how the crew had landed that ship just square on top of the very spot they were supposed to dig down to wake up the dragon under Devils' Bay.

Rood knew, though, what I'm about to tell you: they had a beholder in the hold and about twenty thousand fairies. I don't know if they were slaving fairies, when they were outfitted to haul hobgobs, but they were in there just the same. The beholder was keeping them all asleep, or dormant at least, and they must've been keeping it happy, some ways. In any case they had already been ashore for a good while by then and Rood, rightly so, felt like the time would be up very soon.

You may be wondering what interest some halfer would have in a beholder or a drifter's tug of fairies, and I wonder that myself. The problem is, when Rood started making a crew for the job he had planned, he told them all different reasons. That's why there's so many stories as to what was on that ship, because he knew he would just have to get his crew to the brink, right to the edge, and hoped it would be too late for them to turn back once he got them there.