Headed by a Snake

The ship creaked and groaned a conversation with its single living passenger.

"Don't talk to me like that..."

Tarquin Wroe stood defiantly on the ghost ship's main deck, reprimanding the central mast.

"I raised you, and this is how you repay me?"

Through a series of fortunate-- but mostly unfortunate events where Tarquin very nearly died, he managed to arrange for a ship for Guild Invictus to sail upon.

The merchant ship he had contracted was transporting a forbidden artifact of the sea god. One aquatic leviathan attack later, the ship was dragged under the waves.

He washed ashore some time later, but was picked up by a different merchant's ship that was returning to Caractere after a long voyage.

The ship was transporting millions of silver's worth of trade goods from the Holy Country. One pirate attack later, all of its sailors were killed and the ship was left to drift.

Wroe was then picked up by the freebooters, who welcomed him as a temporary addition to the crew. Including the Captain, who dangerously wielded two pistols, the crew seemed to enjoy his poetry.

One attack by the Royal Navy later, the ship was sunk to the depths.

...Wroe wiped his eyes before a tear could fall. What was important was that he had a ship, now! The Unfortunate cut through the choppy waves almost silently, surrounded by cloudy mist and illuminated by moonlight and stars.

Spirits and skeletons on the ship's deck moved with rote remembrance of their living duties. Wroe watched as many pantomimed with confused gestures. Ropes for rigging had long ago rotted away, as did any semblance of stairs. Even so, ghostly white sails rose up the mast and skeletons tirelessly climbed to where their memories guided.

He found it a chore trying to order the undead around. He felt their thoughts, but it was difficult to sort those from the ceaseless groans of lingering emotions or otherworldly pain. This evening, the mutterings of the ship contained anxious rambling and excitement.

Wroe was left staring at the crack-ridden mast-- the point where he felt the ship's soul the clearest. He pressed his forehead to the structure with force, creating a muffled thud. Long at the mercy of the ocean's depths, the wood was soft and stank of sea-rot, covered in dead and dying barnacles and sea-dwelling parasites.

The endless voices Wroe ceased.

"We've arrived. Port City Caractere."

Wroe walked to the bow. Waving his hand to the side, the mists split apart, granting him full view of the beautiful nighttime city.

"Now all I've gotta do is find Boss! My luck's finally turning around!"

...

Lightning struck the ocean waters. Dark rain clouds were closing quickly upon the small city, threatening to rob the light of the moon from the city's defenders.

Hundreds of lanterns and braziers illuminated the port. Hundreds more of the Kingdom's sailors stood, ready with ballistas, anxiously carrying sword and crossbow.

Capitaine Geroux frowned. It was the middle of the night, but the entire city was set in a panic as soon as the ghost ship was spotted off the coast. With the tension in the air, Geroux couldn't sleep even if he wanted to.

A ghost ship was a serious threat, a portent of a larger invasion. Most of the young officers and enlisted didn't experience the horrors of naval warfare against the undead of the Sleeping Country.

But Geroux knew.

"Grand-Capitaine... There is still time. Shall we send word to the Sea Wolves?"

A heavy wave crashed against the stone walkway, licking Grand-Capitaine Chantal's boots and the bottom of her military coat. She glared at the Geroux with her one eye, the other hidden behind a riveted eyepatch, "You mean to call upon the 'boy'?"

She swept back her full, wavy, and unapologetically pink hair with annoyance, "Don't bother. I can handle this *alone*."

Geroux felt a cold sweat of worry chill his back. As a young Naval officer, he had seen the undeniable power of her predecessor, Guillaume De la Croix, crushing entire ships with impunity during battles with the Sleeping Country. If Grand-Capitaine Chantal was even half the woman her adoptive father was, Port City Caractere would see another sunrise. But if she wasn't...

Chantal walked to the edge of the docks, impervious to the hurricane winds and the titanic battering of the waves. She raised her arms to the storming skies.

The sailors held their collective breaths... At least old Geroux knew he did.

Flashes of lightning illuminated white waves rumbling, at least 2 malms off the coast. Black, sinewy twists of flesh rose from the depths... slowly, deliberately... until the faceless, toothy maw of the creature nearly touched the clouds. All around it, churling, misshapen tentacles whipped chaotically, each taller than 3 or 4 main masts, and thicker than 10 around.

As a thick wave began to form, the Sea Mages stepped forward to shield the city.

Geroux shuddered from a deep, instinctual fear. The woman had done it. She had summoned a leviathan... He had never seen its main body before, and the dozens of red, staring eyes struck horror in him at a primitive level. Guillaume had only summoned its tentacles, each of the writhing black masses easily able to smash several ships in close proximity. The main body, with over a dozen of the ship-destroying appendages, could fend off an entire fleet.

The leviathan stretched up to the sky, curving its body.

Light.

A harsh bluish-white light, not dissimilar to moonlight began to form in a sphere in front of its mouth. As a resident of the Kingdom, Geroux knew it well. The leviathan-- an existence impossible to measure by the adventurer guilds' Metal-Rank standards... was channeling an obscene amount of mana.

Capitaine Geroux stared helplessly at Grand-Capitaine Chantal with a new fear. The woman wasn't a single, ship-destroying force. She, alone, was a force equal to the entire Darktide Fleet.

The leviathan shot the beam of energy at the ghost ship, a white blaze of devastating mana, cutting through both the ocean and the night sky. Though Geroux and the sailors were forced to shield their eyes, he knew that Chantal stood and watched to ensure her enemies were annihilated.

It took several moments for the light to dissipate. The earth lightly shook as the leviathan slowly sunk back into the ocean depths, its impossible size being hidden away by the night's black waters.

The ghost ship was nowhere to be seen. With the leviathan's disappearance, the seas had turned strangely calm and the storm clouds were nowhere in sight. At the very end of the horizon, dawn was beginning to break.

Port City Caractere had lived to see another sunrise.

Geroux forced his shaking hands still, his heart still pounding. If only so much of the creature surfaced above the water... how much was hidden?

The destroyed scout ship was a powerful warning to any potential invaders.

Grand-Capitaine Chantal was not to be trifled with.