Death Trap Derelict
Death Trap Derelict
A tall ship with black sails and a crimson octopus flag is caught in a sudden squall at sea on a night when the triple moons are conspicuously absent from the sky. In the rigging a black furred lupursyn or wolf-bear with red hair and gray eyes a full nine foot six inches tall and four hundred fifty pound weight in dark shark leather armor an elaborate patch over his left eye and a complicated trident that replaces his right hand is helping his fellow furs keep the ship intact and on course. Lightning strikes the crow's nest and causes a lady bunny, a red and black harlequin with pink hair, to slip from her perch.
Without giving it a second thought, the wolf-bear swings out and grabs the bunny before she falls too far. Annie Read clings to her shipmate Kodyax Zavaj, burying her face in his dark fur. Once back in the relative safety of the rigging, Annie relates what she saw before taking a tumble.
"Ship on the horizon, me boyos!" Anne states excitedly while she is still clinging to Kodyax and is almost dry humping him in her mental state. "Big one too, bigger than our own ship!"
"How far out from this gale?" A gator asks.
"What kind of vessel?" An otter with bushy whiskers inquires.
"How much bigger?" A skunk asks.
"A few knots from us, Ali," Anne says to Ali Qatar, the gator, then to the otter Hanson Dutch: "Some kind of galley from the looks of her, Hans and Sven I almost mistook her fer an island."
"A galley the size of an island could indicate one of the long lost floating pleasure palaces of the ancient Pharaohs," Sven Galliard speculates. "Who knows what treasures it might still hold."
"The Pharaohs, especially the later dynasties are when they the understanding of sorcery to construct such things, were cursed with madness more often than not," Ali cautions.
"Or it could be a tomb, this far away from Ramziir I'm inclined to think that it's a pleasure palace designed to be a tomb if the Pharaoh-Captain so wished." Sven thinks aloud.
"Which also means it hasn't been seen for years!" Hanson says excitedly. "We'd be the first furs about in who knows ho long? We gotta tell the Cap'n!"
"And the old turtle is at the ship's wheel," Annie Read states, "Toss me down there, Kody? Please?"
"Alright, Annie," Kodyax says before hollering down: "Cap'n Buckner! Incoming!"
Captain Gwenneth Buckner almost doesn't hear the warning before Anne Read flies down and crashes into her.
"Confound it, Anni1" Captain Buckner thunders as she picks herself up from the deck and glares at the rabbit pirate. "This had better be good, girl!" Annie whispers her findings in the Captain's earhole. "Now that's worth getting knocked down fer! Blow me down!" She then grabs a speaking horn and screams: "ATTENTION LUBBERS! I know pickins been poor lately but we got us a fin fish ta catch! Kody ye one eyed devil-wolf! Yer leadin the scavenger hunt! I'll cut yer balls off if I think yer holdin out on me!"
It takes all night to sail through the storm to get to the derelict galley and that's with the crew working through the night. Annie climbs the rigging to get back to her perch and gets "stuck" halfway up. She gets plenty of "help" mainly in the way of males who help themselves to a trapped rump reads to get creamed.
This is nothing new aboard the Tax Collector since many of the female sailors get their needs met with similar "tricks" which helps keep things running smoothly for everyone. In fact Kali Ghandi, a Bengal tigress who is the ships quartermistess has a surprise gun check in which she gets groups of the male crew together to gang bang her to make sure their cannons are in good working order with a select few getting singled out for special inspections, one of those being Kodyax Zavaj whom she lets fondle her breasts and suckles at her titties as she rides his yardarm.
Ali Qatar spends the night in the Captain's quarters where she is less inclined to hear his arguments as much as she is wanting to sheath his sword in her scabbard. Under Captain's orders he remains there till morning. Hans and Sven double team double team Annie in her bunk dangling her so they can take turns at either end.
The morning proves Annie was underestimating the size of the other vessel by a bit as the galley dwarfs the Tax Collector by its sheer size. Five banks of oars on either side would have propelled the ship in its heyday with three masts above, a glittering jewel on a swivel mount that must have had some kind of enchanted ranged weapon and a quartet of rams in front if such actions where needed are among the amazing sights of the enormous nameless vessel. Each side also spots a huge eye that many of the crew swears is watching them.
Getting aboard proves to be exceptionally easy as twin doors st like jaws in the vessel's front open as they approach and allows the Tax Collector to sail right in but slam shut behind them. A team of otters is dispatched to see how deep the internal bay is and their report is the chamber is about as deep as deep as the ship is tall on the sides and double that on the bottom so it could not be easily found. Kodyax is sent to explore the interior with Kali and Annie among others while Ali, the Captain and other reptiles go to sun themselves upstairs.
A skeleton crew of rats and frogs are left to guard the Tax Collector and make necessary maintenance like the scraping off of barnacles. They make a show of doing their duties while the Captain and Master Marine are in sight but when they are gone long enough that their return is unlikely they stage a little orgy of their own on the decks and against the hull of the ship. Rat on rat, frog on frog and interspecies coupling commences in earnest as they enjoy their time together.
But these leftovers are the first to learn about true nature of the "ship" as tentacles slowly rise from the bottom to engage the crew manning the ship. One by one the rats are captured by tentacles and dragged into the waters of the internal bay where they eventually drown while being taken further into the ships flooded interior down a tube that is best described as a kind of esophagus. The frogs are taken too, it just takes longer for them to drown than the rats and both species find themselves sexually molested as the tentacles take them.
On top of the galley the reptiles strip to nothing and lay out on luxurious canvas lounge chairs in the opulence of the late dynasty Pharaohs before their own decadence proved to be their undoing. Golden automatons that have a vague primate look to them wait on the reptiles with fruits, vegetables and sweet meats served in abundance. The reptiles are treated as honored guests of the ship by these enchanted constructs who massage the guests to sleep as part of the pampering.
The Captain finds a viewing portal near the rear of the ship to show her parts of the ship on a raised dais that also features an ornate throne. She plays with the dials on the chair and eventually activates a function that fills her up nicely and vibrates pleasantly. Captain Buckner checks the screens around her until she gets to the bay below to see what is going on.
An orgy between the rats and frogs plays out before her eyes which greatly amuses her. The chair pleasures her as she watches in contentment. Her favorite fruits are also made readily available as she eats and sits in contentment.
Inside the boat is a maze of tunnel like corridors that feel like parts of some bio-mechanical machine. The halls are dimly lit with pale red lanterns dangling from the ceilings like the lures of an angler fish of the deep. Even more eerie is the simple fact that the whole place seems deserted, not even skeletons are found to suggest any living creature has ever been here before.
Shadows all around the explorers seem to randomly flicker as if in movement but upon investigation appear to be just a trick of the light. Everything appears to be "normal" to the pirates as they search for anything of value. But even if nothing appears out of the ordinary, Kody and several others in his search party can't shake the feeling that they're being watched.
Membranes like sphincters act as doorways to the various rooms of the interior which creeps out a few of the crew but the fear of what might happen to them if separated from the rest of the group goads them into following along. Kodyax is uneasy by what he sees around him as he touching the curving blades of his trident even as he pokes with its triangular blade to prod aspects of the walls as if he is ready for battle at any given moment. Something about all of this is oddly familiar to him but he can't say why or how just yet.
Kodyax, lime many of his fellow pirates was born to this life and even while training to be a ranger, legends of the sea monsters especially, greatly interested him. As a rogue sailor Kody is till something of an apprentice but one who is more seasoned than a raw recruit. He knows something about what is going on around him, he knows it but just what he can't be quite sure.
He stops the party when a stray thought meanders into his mind. He drops to one knee and then punches the short trident grafted to replace his lost right hand to tentatively stab the floor which causes a reaction as everybody else just stares at him incredulously. The floor shudders a little and Zavaj just nods to himself ominously.
"Alright, Kody," Kali growls, "What the Yiff was that all about?"
"I'm not sure yet," Kodyax answers honestly. "But this may not be a ship after all."
"If it's not a ship," Lillith Puritan, a scantily clad sheep with a visions and a libido that puts dockside whores to shame, asks of Kodyax as she comes up behind and fondles him. "What is it?"
"I'm just guessing," Zavaj replies, "But we could facing an immature faux port assassin."
"One of Dagon's Children?" Lillith asks fearfully. "But Faux Ports pretend to be islands..."
"More often than not, yes," Kodyax admits, "But there has been some talk of a variant that makes itself look like a massive ship...Lillith, this is not the time."
"Just let her, Kody," Kali giggles as Lillith undoes his pants and performs fellatio on him much to the tigress's amusement. "You know how she gets."
"I know," Kodyax says as he takes hold of her spiral horns and guides her head which amuses her no end. "I could walk around with her impaled as a cock warmer and she'd only be too willing to accommodate." Miss Puritan's eyes light up. "Uh, oh I've planted a notion in her head."
"She's been looking for a new way to ride, Kody," Kali says playfully as Lillith gets Kodyax nice and hard. Then she makes sure Kody can walk around with his raised pole inside of her tent, before she mounts him like a steed.
"That actually looks good," Kali finds herself reaching for her own crotch. "Lilly, I want a report later."
"Aye, aye, Quartermistress!" Lillith giggles in reply with a salute.
Lillith clings to Kodyax for dear lust as they continue to explore the ship. The deeper the team gets into the "ship" the less it seems like a true vessel and more like some sort of bio-mechanical creature as the start to notice that the lanterns look like lava lamps mounted on iron tentacles and give the impression of alien eyestalks more than anything else. Kodyax is disturbed by what he sees while Kali is more than a little creeped out even if Lillith is oblivious in her bliss.
The team enters a room at random and finds a kind of lounge with hookahs in the style of the pleasure palaces that they originally thought this place to be and a coffee bar just brewing up something fresh to drink. Ghostly fennec harem girls form from the smoke and make their collective way over to serve the away team. Kodyax is leery as something about all this doesn't quite smile right but a few of his fellow pirates are not as suspicious as he and a few males order some coffee before sitting around a hookah for a smoke.
Hans is lazing against the cushions, drinking exquisite coffee and smoking pure hashish from the hookah as the smoke vixens attend him. Kodyax is also drinking coffee as he looks out a tinted window to the outside as another tall ship approaches. The vessel sports the blood red sails of the Hobgoblin Empire with the skull and crossbones to indicate that the ship is a pirate hunter.
The scene is more spectacular above decks as Ali and the Captain watch the jeweled tail of the vessel glow and gathers light into itself. A corona of golden light surrounds the jewel for about a minute before a beam lances out to strike the goblin galleon. If the hunters saw it coming they gave no indication as their ship just explodes with a mushroom cloud on the water.
In the room where Kodyax and company are situated they see a flash of light and the explosion and that's about it except Kody notes shapes launch just after the fireworks just below the water line. The shapes are rather indistinct but serve as a distraction to enable murder. As all living eyes are riveted the smoke vixens attending Hans produce razors and slit his throat; opening a trap door below to further conceal their crime as they slide his corpse under the floor effortlessly.
Kodyax momentarily closes his eyes and whispers a prayer to Morrigan Undine, goddess of the sea and patroness of pirates and her mate Taranos, god of fishing and the then whether they be leviathans or sea monsters asking for the ability to see far from him. When he opens his eyes he can see the survivors as if her were using a pair of binoculars. What he witnesses is both alarming and confusing to him.
As a Warden of the Waves, and organization dedicated to keeping the seas in balance between order and chaos both in terms of relative safety and security but not so much that a journey upon the waves could be considered boring, Kodyax is committed to making sure that even the goblins who down all furries to sacrifice to their depraved god Orcus can ply their trade in all fairness. But while he himself has a vendetta against the monsters he wants the honor of slaughtering them himself. So to see this happen to one of their vessels fills him with mixed feelings.
Out on the open ocean goblins, the smallest adult members of this decadent empires, their larger and smarter cousins the hobgoblins, the hulking brutes known as bugaboos and those hobs so fervent in their worship of the dark god that they have devolved into the savage cannibals known as orcs cling for dear life to the debris that constitutes the remains of their once proud and mighty ship. A few pieces are large enough to serve as rafts but these are few and far between. Many are just treading water and it is these that are targeted first.
No shark fin breaks the surface of the sea before the first attacks, nor is there one after the carnival of carnage is done. Goblin sailors disappear under the waves as if they were grabbed and dragged under. The shapes Kody saw earlier rushing out from the ship are seen below just before a sailor slips beneath the waves ne'er to be seen again but shapes that go out come back in as if retrieving something or someone and then returning home.
Kodyax suddenly gets an idea and again prays to the powers of nature itself that sailors deal with in their trade to reveal any and all abominations around him. The spell works only too well as he sees aberrations everywhere around him, a revelation that shocks him.
Cries of alarm sound as the hookahs come a alive in the room with the hoses making attempts to suck in folks while faces suddenly appear in the jars of the hookahs that attempt to cast shrinking spells on their intended victims so as to better facilitate the devouring of the crew as their next set of victims to feed the hookah monsters themselves and through them the ship as well.
The illusion of the room has been shattered which puts Kodyax in full battle mode. His grafted weapon starts to glow aquamarine as his left hand deftly grabs a razor wired net that makes him look like some evil fisherman but nobody is laughing at the image due to the severity of the situation. Kali draws twin katars as Lillith grips a staff whose finial is a great bronze scalloped shell which opens to reveal a pearl emitting almost blinding light.
Shrink spells cast by the hookah monsters and especially those targeting Kodyax fail out right as he closes with the closest one to him. Zavaj howls ant the utterance is laced with magic that causes the monsters to shake where they stand. The trident arm shatters the glass of the thing that causes the fluid interior to flow out.
Lillth chants a dirge of the depths as a spiral of pale energy emanates from the pearl inside the scalloped clamshell finial of her staff. The water in the bodies of the hookah monsters freezes as the waves of energy from the staff washes over them. While frozen the hookah monsters are paralyzed and thus easy prey for the pirates who shatter their bodies with their weapons.
Above the battle with the false hookahs the reptiles have been somewhat easier prey for the ship. Here and there reptile crew members, snakes and lizards of varying types and genders as well as turtles nod off as they sun themselves in the buff. They nothing of the fact that the deck chairs are connected to the deck, at least not at first.
Captain Buckner soon discovers that the chair upon which she situated herself has retractable dildoes built in that she uses to pleasure herself. But what she doesn't expect is that the metal rods are really spit roasting poles that pleasure a victim as it skewers her. The canopy can close around the chair after the victim is secured and roast her as it recedes back into the ship.
At the height of her pleasure the pole jacks up through the Captain's anus and exit via her mouth. The other "rod" is lodged in her vagina as the canopy closes and seals away the corpse for future cooking both as meal for the lesser monster that hide out in the hold and as preserved meat to entice future victims.
Lounging lizards randomly have their canopies close on them too before inner mechanisms work to swallow the victims whole where undoubtedly something awaits them. Some of those gulped hear the whine of grinding gears far below as the tumble down a chute into a huge meat grinder that converts its victims into hamburger patty shape piles of ground meat. Those that are taken don't hear gears hear titillated laughter from high pitched voices below before landing in what one only be described as a butcher shop where creatures with all the worst features of goblins, shark and octopi await armed with butcher knives to chop up and eviscerate those unfortunates that drop in.
Ali has his rod polished by a cobra girl when the Captain meets her fate and lizards disappear around him Oblivious to all around him he is watched by the ship itself and when the serpent wraps herself around him to take his soft sword into her sheath when the ship strikes. A chute opens underneath them that neither reptile notices until the are well on their way but keep fucking all the while as the chute acts like a water ride that dumps its victim into a pool of acid.
The acid pool is also a nutrient tank for the ship which devours the poor souls, bones and all as they perish. Up above their absence is not notice as a kind of orgy gets started. One by one the reptiles above are processed below either to be consumed sooner or later as the vessel starts up its feeding cycle.
Kodyax hears the death screams as he goes exploring closer to the hold in the depths of the ship. The search for treasure is over; he knows he's not going to find it. Instead the Wave Warden is looking for the ship's heart so he can destroy it and slay this leviathan once and for all.
In a room dominated by tanks of transparent green water Kody watches Ali die as he drops in from above and the acid eats away at his tough hides and reduce him to a skeleton in the span of an hour. The act of watching yet another friend die while he can do nothing to save him puts Kody in a special kind of living Hell even as his righteous rage gets higher and higher. The explorer and pirate are gone now as the party of him dedicated to being an avenger and a wave warden comes to the forefront.
"ALI!!" Kali Ghandi screams. "Kody, we gotta do something."
"There's nothing we can do, Kali," Kodyax Zavaj states coldly, "We can't save him. We can only avenge him."
"This ship," Lillith Puritan asks tearfully, "It's alive isn't it? And it just ate Ali."
"Aye, Lilly," Kodyax answers coldly, "It did. I'm not going to like the report I'm going to have to write after this but my duty is clear now. As a Wave Warden it couldn't get any clearer what I need to do."
"I don't like it when he gets like this," Lillith whispers to Kali, "We knew he was a Wave Warden when he signed on..."
"I know," Kali whispers to Lillith, "The worst thing in situations like this I agree with him. There's nothing else to do. We can't plunder a ship that has no treasure."
"And this thing is a danger to the sea lanes," Lillith agrees with a loud sigh, "But the worse thing is that his libido is effectively been assassinated."
"Can you stop thinking with your crotch for a day!?!" Kali thunders in a whisper.
"Not really," Lillith admits shamefully.
"Part of the curse of your path?" Kali asks to Lillith just nods. "What are you going to do if he finds a nice vixen? One that can give him sons?"
"He's not the only male out there," Lillith says with a smirk, "He's one of the few males on the crew that really prefers females."
"You and I both know that," Kali says with a giggle as Kodyax bangs the "glass" and the walls of the room with the claw like trident on his right hand. "Now what is he doing?"
"Probing I guess," Lillith responds, "looking for..."
He finds and opens a partial in the floor.
"A way down?" Kali asks incredulously, "He seriously wants to get deeper into this thing?"
"If this thing is even partially alive," Lillith reasons, "It's gotta have a heart and we have to find that heart in order to kill the beast, taking out the heart or some other vital organ will go long way to slaying the monster."
"If you ladies are through chatting," Kodyax growls as he starts to descend a ladder deeper into the belly of the beast, "I'll probably need your help"
"I'm coming along as well," Sven Galliard growls as he just joins them as wells as Anni.
"Kody," Annie asks, "What the fuck is going on? When I saw this ship I thought we found plunder..."
"I'm not exactly sure, Annie," Kodyax says by way of an answer, "The ship as its is, is alive in some way?"
"Like a faux port?" Sven asks incredulously. "According to what we've heard of their tactics this is similar if a little more complex."
"My thoughts exactly, Sven," Kodyax says as they descend the ladder as eyeballs flying on insect wings stop to observe them for a moment before flying off, "Spy eyes? Why are they here?"
"There is more here than meets the eye," Lillith states as her eyes go blank which means she's gone into a trance, "Elder entities are at work here with creature created when the world was new, before the elves and dwarves came and left, before humanity rose and fell in a blink of Eternity's eyes..." Her trance causes Lillith to lose her balance and fall from the ladder.
"Oh, no, you don't!" Kodyax growls as he throws his net and catches the falling prophet.
"Created to collect souls for the old ones to devour," Lillith continues unabated as if she were sitting on slid ground, "Forever prowling the seas on its profane mission. While ancient evil slumbers their servants toil tirelessly until the end of days when the entities of elder evil shall awaken to devour the world. Killing a slave such as this will cause its masters to stir in the eternal slumber but only from hunger pains. The stars are not right for then awaken just yet but things like this feed their eternal hunger as they lie in the death like sleep."
"And how might one destroy a vessel such as this?" Kodyax Zavaj inquires somewhat rhetorically.
"Destroy its neural center," Lillith replies immediately, "But in order to get there the heart, stomach and liver must be destroyed first. Than and only then will the passage to the brain be forced to open."
"Any particular order to which this must be done?" Kodyax asks.
"Slaughtering the stomach will make the rest got smoother," Lillith advises while still in her trance, "The liver stores someone important to you, Fisherman, but you need to pass through the stomach to get there when the heart dies the passage to the brain will open automatically but only if the other two have perished before hand. The stomach allows the other two to regenerate..."
"I get it," Kodyax growls with a smirk, "The stomach keeps the other two organs from being permanently destroyed. Where is the stomach?"
""In the hold," Lillith states as she comes out of her trance and realizes where she is, "I tranced again didn't I?"
"Ya, ye did," Sven says with a smirk, "But this was one of those times ye were actually coherent."
"Hey, Kody," Annie asks of the wolf-bear, "Now that the illusion has been dispelled, shouldn't there be more defenders?"
"I expect to see them anytime now," Kodyax relates as he watches out for any and all antibody entities. "We're also headed down to the hold so there could be something waiting for us there."
"Uh, Kody," Lillith asks, "Can I get out of this net? Unless you'd like to fuck me through it as a catch of the day that is."
"You just don't turn off do you?" Kody asks in an annoyed tone to which Lilly just gives him puppy dog eyes."
"Oh, Sven!" Annie coos at Master Galliard.
"Odd bitch out again," Kali growls as Annie mounts Sven and Lilly gets a ride on Kody's pole as they all make their way down to a lattice of porous mesh planks like the catwalks of modern day warehouses save they are obviously made of bones.
"What are those things?" Sven inquires in a whisper as the creatures that combine all the worst features of octopi, sharks and goblins mill about butchering reptiles from above as well as converting captured horde sailors into more of their kind in special vats.
"Squoblyns," Kodyax states with contempt; he makes sure Lillith is out of his net and refolds it with a dark glare to the being below, "I'll just bet these are the things I saw earlier upstairs."
"You were gazing rather intently out the window earlier," Kali states then inquires: "What were you looking at?"
"Horde Pirate Hunter was approaching," Kodyax explains, "The ship was blown to kingdom come and then something was picking off survivors."
They watch as a female goblin is brought in and raped by the squoblyns before she's escorted somewhere that can't be seen by the pirates. Another male is dragged in and thrown into a pit that seen fills with some green liquid to a level above his head.
"Squoblyns are mutated goblins?" Kodyax asks as he thinks aloud while the goblin drowns in the soup and emerges as a newly minted squoblyn. "I need to write that down."
"They just butchered our fellow crew members and you're taking notes on monster making?" Sven asks incredulously.
"I need to make sure I can report this right," Kodyax says in his own defense. "I may want a sample of that so it can be analyzed."
"So we can then down later?" Sven asks of Kodyax who just nods. "Now I'm intrigue, I want to do the analysis."
"As long as I get a copy of the results," Kody stipulates to which Sven smiles, nods and gives him a thumbs up. "We'll share that with others."
"Looks like some kind of transformation fluid," Sven speculates, "There's a lot of different formulae out there." One squoblyn meanders their way. "Are we made?"
"Time for Fisherman's Wrath," Kodyax growls as gets ready to toss his net.
Everyone is looking at the wolf-bear as he captures one of the creatures in his net and before it can cry out he hauls it up to promptly slaughter it with his claw. Jokes among the crew about Kodyax being a "Fisherman" because of his choice of weapons and tactics is coming into sharp focus as demonstrates just how brutally efficient the fighting style can be. The other pirates hang their heads in shame for all the previous bits of humor at his expense.
The corpse of his victim is hidden in the shadows securely before Kodyax goes hunting for another after folding the net properly. There are roughly a hundred of the little bastards running around the hold and after about a quarter of them are killed the rest take notice. Roughly half of the original number clamber up to the platform where the pirates are and these are welcomed by the girls as Sven lights a bomb and tosses it below.
Kodyax goes to help the three femmes as Sven starts bombing the hold like a fiend to try and prevent more of them from being produced. Fumes start to rise as the chemicals mix and become very volatile in and of itself. The smell threatens to become positively toxic very quickly as the pirates begin to gag from the fumes but Lillith quickly chants a spell that conjures the odor of gallons of perfume dumped into the area in an attempt to counteract the toxic gas.
Sven hands out primitive gas masks to his fellow pirates as a longer lasting counter measure as the zone of sweet air Lillith imposed starts to dissipate half a minute after it was invoked. Their opponents are actually immune to the chemicals in the air but they cannot press this advantage as Kodyax is too effective in the counter measures he knows that work against them specifically. The others adopt his tactics as best they can to gain semi-identical results.
The squoblyns aim crossbows at the pirates and fire off a fusillade of bolts which would be troublesome if not for the fact that they based on goblin bodies and their aim shows for it. About a third of the shots make it through the grating and even these shots mainly miss their marks. The remaining bolts ricochet around the room outright killing a fifth of the goblins and setting another fifth on fire which causes still another fifth to start laughing as the ones on fire run around screaming and squealing.
Kodyax leads the pirates in finishing off the squoblyns at hand before going down to finish off the rest of the beasties. The objective ultimately gets complicated by the goblins already on hand that have yet to be converted. Imperial Navy rank and file of the Hobgoblin Empire are not too pleased at the prospect of having been saved by furries.
Goblin marines attack the squoblyns when they manage to catch but those freed by Annie take a swing at her to show their gratefulness. Sven tosses a few bombs into the cells holding the wretches to further cut down on potential foes while they are still relatively helpless. The screams of the dying actively curse the furry pirates, blaming them for their own demise.
Once the chamber is cleared of creatures that can actively attack the pirates, Kodyax starts to examine the room in detail. There are more squoblyns coming in but they sense the carnage and decide to wait until the pirates leave until they bring in the drowned sailors they are still collecting from the Imperial warship that was destroyed earlier. Sven sealed the moon pool from which the scouting squoblyns would have emerges with their prey for their fellow squoblyns to process.
Kodyax starts smashing things at random and Lillith soon joins in the carnage as Sven and Kali are still analyzing things. Unfortunately neither one can make heads or tails of the equipment to say what is and isn't important and what's worse is that no matter how hard the pirates try, nothing says broken for long as the room repairs itself. This gets Kody in a strange mood as he starts to stare intently at nothing.
Motes of light surround Kodyax as he seems to go into a trance of his own but unlike when Lillith goes into a trance, Kody does not vocalize his findings. In actuality what Kodyax is doing is conversing with the spirits of the seas as a Warden of the Waves and asking a specific question about the rooms beyond the two doors at either end of the room. Kodyax has his suspicions where they need to go next and seeks advice in how well he has things planed out.
When the motes disperse, Kodyax moves towards the aft membrane and forces it open. Everyone else looks askance of him but he does not explain his actions and only motions for them to follow him. Kali opens the other membrane and goes through it instead with Sven and Annie following her but Lillith senses that Kody is on the right track and chooses to follow him to the passage leading to the liver.
Each corridor is mirror images of what they traversed above save for a white line of light on the ground. Kali, Annie and Sven find themselves in the heart of the monster while Kody and Lilly find their way to the liver. Both chambers are fantastic in how they are set up.
The heart is a huge techno-organic pumping station with pipes going everywhere seemingly without rhyme or reason. Octopod creatures move around the room constantly attending this and that minor detail that ensures the proper flow of whatever fluids keep this monster alive. They travel about on their tentacles each one terminates in a robotic claw like appendage to help it do whatever works need doing.
Each creature in the heart chamber is exactly the same with a beak and two eyes forming what constitutes a face on the thing. All three wish Kody was with them to identify the monstrosities and while the things are too intent on their tasks to notice the intruders the tool on one of them becomes a buzz saw to cut into a pipe for inspection, an event witnessed that impresses upon all three pirates that maybe they should have followed Kodyax. One of the maintenance monsters finally takes notice of the pirates and demands an authorization code phrase none of them can provide; at which pint it sounds an alert and all five hundred of them move to attack.
It takes Kali, Annie and Sven all of three seconds to look at each other and non-verbally agree to turn tail and run. Pirates can be bold but each one is a veteran and fighting odds that look heavily stacked in the column of "you're pretty much fucked if you try and fight this" are avoided as much as possible. They are scoundrels and they know it; Kody maybe a little more noble being that he is a Wave Warden but the rest of them are interested primarily in two things: Gold and Living long enough to spend it.
A vast chamber opens before Kodyax Zavaj as he enters the liver, as if the liver for the creature is a warehouse for stuff the stomach can't process or just wants to keep for later. Tube like columns stretch from floor to ceiling for as far as the eye can see. Some of these columns are of solid material whose contends are hidden from casual view but others are fully transparent and show naked prisoners floating in some solution in suspended animation.
Lillth and Kodyax practically drool at the gorgeous forms encapsulated in some of the columns although a few incense Kodyax with their contents. Everything and one in the tubes are still very much alive as the furs stirs and the abominations moves to observe the intruders or try to attack them. However, one of the prisoners moves Kodyax to action in a kind of desperation.
The prisoner in question is a sea green lady fox-wolf with sea blue hair and markings on her body of waves and other sea creatures that look like tribal tattoos. Kodyax sees her as someone he lost a long time ago. He weeps for joy at the prospect of finding his beloved Aurora Oceania once again.
Kodyax works feverishly to break through the glass calling "Aurora!" all the while. Lillith hears the name and racks her brain to puzzle out who Kody is talking about and then she remembers a time when Annie got him drunk enough to loosen his tongue about his own past and as he told it, her name is Aurora Oceania and she died in a training mission when he was still an apprentice.
Aurora Oceania opens her eyes for the first time in many years as Kody's efforts finally cracks open her crystal cage. Her tattoos start to glow as she glares at him and the water around her starts to boil with her apparent anger. She is somehow able to use the water to push against the glass and worsen the cracks.
"Who are you!?!" Aurora inquires with wrath and rancor. "Where am I!?!"
"RORY!!!" Kody beams enthusiastically as he moves to hug her. "It's me, Kody!"
"Nobody calls me, Rory that respects me!" Aurora thunders and quickly chants a spell to make her shove truly shocking as she pushes him away. "And I certainly don't have crippled acquaintances! You look like a Gods damned pirate!"
"Kody," Lilly asks behind Kody's back, "Wasn't your Rory a pirate herself?"
"Me, a pirate!?!" Rory yells. "I've never been so insulted! By the Holy power of Morrigan Undine and Taranos the Storm Lord..."
"Calling the God and the Goddess won't help you, Rory," Kodyax counters. "I'm a Wave Warden and a fully empowered ranger." He advances on her. "You're still a Sea Witch of some stripe and I'm going to reacquaint you with me."
"STORM SPEAR!!!!" Aurora screams and a lightning bolt surges from her hands like a thrust spear that just misses Kodyax. "I missed? You dodged? I never miss!"
Winds in the chamber pick up, especially around Aurora as she begins to levitate. "I don't who you are but I have dedicated my life to hunting down pirate scum and..." A mote of light lifts from Kodyax's ear to orbit Aurora's head. "What is this?"
"Look like she's Hell bent on killing you, Kody," Lillith whispers in Kodyax's ear.
"Yeah," Kodyax agrees tentatively, "I think I know what's going on. This is an earlier incarnation of Aurora, I just need to get her up to speed."
"You're not going to defend yourself?" Lilly asks incredulously.
"I'm not saying that," Kody says with a smirk, "The trick is going to be to get her back to where she was when I knew her without her killing me. I can take some abuse gladly but I'll need to convince her before she gets murderous."
"Good luck," Lillith says and the she notes the mote," Kody, what is that?"
"A spirit orb," Kodyax answers plainly. "I've noticed it after certain wet dreams. I wonder what it could be."
The mote enters Aurora's mouth and a conversation takes place in Aurora's mind between the spirit of the slaughtered version of Kody's memory and the version ready to kill him.
"What is this?" Living Aurora inquires of her dead counterpart. "Who are you? And why do you look like me?"
"I AM you!" Dead Aurora answers loudly. "A future you that is. I am the spirit of you in this lifetime."
"A future incarnation?" Living Aurora asks then growls: "Did he kill us?"
"No!" Dead Aurora thunders. "He loves us..."
"How did we die?" Living Aurora asks.
"A ghost cult leader force me out and took over our body and foght Kody," Dead Aurora explains.
"And forced him to kill?" Living Aurora asks.
"No, I fled and robbed her of much of her power," Dead Aurora explains. "She killed us to bring him pain."
"You couldn't go back could you?" Living Aurora inquires.
"No, I couldn't," Dead Aurora admits.
"So, what now?" Living Aurora asks. "What do you want?"
"My body back," Dead Aurora answers honestly. "I was going to breed with Kodyax Zavaj..."
"Breed!?!" Living Aurora asks in an alarmed tone. "Oh, No!"
"What are you afraid of?"" Dead Aurora asks. "You're still a virgin aren't you?"
"What!?!" Living Aurora inquires at full volume with a stance of righteous indignation which her other self just gives her a look of consternation and expectation. "I never! Is this incarnation of me..."
"Answer the damn question, bitch!" Dead Aurora fires back with a defiant stance that tell her earlier incarnations that she will be having none of her prudish pretensions of being a prim and proper lady, "Before you ended up here did you even have a mate?"
"No," Living Aurora admits shamefacedly, her face in her hand as if the admonishing is a deep dark secret she has been trying to hide even from herself.
"You were so afraid of being raped..." Dead Aurora starts with a sassy tone that mocks her other incarnation into responding angrily.
"YES!!" Living Aurora yells ashamed to her current self at admitting this fact to her future self. "Are you happy now?!"
"Not really," Dead Aurora states with her eyes rolled as if she cannot believe any incarnation of herself could be this pathetic. "Did you ever..."
"You know I did!" Living Aurora growls her face a mask of righteous indignation as only one who denies one's desire for the sake of socially imposed morality can display in all its false fury, "But men..."
"Don't hand me that!" Dead Aurora yells. "That's a cowardly excuse! Did any male catch your eye?"
"I saw a few," Living Aurora admits lowly and shuffles her feet aimlessly as if she was embarrassed by the inquiry. .
"Any like him?" Dead Aurora asks pointedly as a window in their collective consciousness in the inky void of their mind opens to display Kodyax looking at them with the hope that the lover he know so long ago will eventually return to him.
"I...don't remember," Living Aurora admits honestly, unwilling to really open to the shame of remember the pain of never taking the chance and seeing male after male she took a fancy to take a fancy to someone else because she chose to act the proper lady, "it's been so long..."
"He can be very gentle," Dead Aurora says firmly and sensually, "We saw others but always got back together."
"What are you suggesting?" Living Aurora asks with an eye to her other self that speaks volumes of how little she trusts her piratical self.
"A merger," Dead Aurora states and extends a hand. "We are the same person of two different time frames. I've watched him for years and wished I could have him between my legs again."
"I'd get knowledge of this modern world and someone I can trust?" Living Aurora asks the other nods. "I'll try," She takes her hand the two versions of Aurora Oceania become one as her hymen spontaneously burst. "Ah! That hurt!" The other self giggles. "I had hoped that would happen, now we can actually enjoy sex." The other self is unconvinced. "I have an urge now I have never had before." To which her self chides her: "Just fuck him!"
"Rory?" Kody asks as Aurora drops into his arms exhausted but with pheromones of being in heat wafting up almost overpoweringly. "Are you alright?"
"Kodyax" Aurora asks as she pushes herself up against him. "You name is Kodyax. Where am I?"
"Someplace we don't want to be, Rory," Kody states while he hugs her. "But you're back to me, that the Gods you're back in my arms!"
"I don't understand," Aurora says haltingly, "I feel...loved? I...love?" Then it's as if she switches personalities, "This may take awhile, Kody, I'm getting her up to speed, but I have missed your love and the love we've made. I can't tell you how frustrating it's been."
"I've missed you, too," Kodyax states stoically as he fights through his tears of joy at being able to hold his lover in the flesh after being so long apart.
"I know, love, more than you may ever know," Aurora returns through her own tears of joy of finally having a body that she can intimate with Kodyax with after realizing after she died how much they meant to each other before she gets a lustful smirk and asks: "Fuck me?"
Kodyax grins as Lilltih groans and rolls her eyes while Aurora rubs her lover's groin with a half practiced-half stiff gesture as the twin spirits struggle to control their action. Anne and Kali burst in as Kody pins Rory to a column to fuck her to make up for last time. Kali glares at Aurora and Lillth's explanation only makes her even more angry.
Aurora's twin spirits moan and groan as she wraps herself around Kodyax while she just lets go and lets him do whatever he wants. For one of them this is completely new, an experience that is rocking her world even if the other is just enjoying the feeling as something she has wanted to experience once again for years since her death. Sven, Kali and Anne are a little freaked out by what seems like twin moans coming out of the same person even if Lillith can sort of see that's almost like two souls of the same person inhabiting the same body making all the noise and finds it disturbing and amusing at the same time.
The lust in the room is contagious as Anne paws at Sven's crotch as both Lillith and Kali glare indignantly at the two as neither one of them have much in the way of lesbian leanings and since there are only 2 males in the room Anne is helping herself to Sven's cock which leaves them on the outside looking in. Both females cross their arms over their chests simultaneously and tap their feet in the exact same way with the exact same pout on each of their muzzles. Unfortunately for the ewe and tigress the other two couples aren't paying much attention.
Sven just shrugs his shoulders as there is little he can really do about that situation but Anne gives them both rude gestures as Kody and Rory just ignore everything but each other. Lillith notes something as Kodyax pounds Aurora into the pillar in that the trident claw on Kody's right hand changes into a heavy bar mace head. Aurora and Kodyax howl together in climax as their voices intertwine as well as their bodies.
"Hello," Kodyax says as he notices his right hand's new configuration, "What's this?" Then it goes back to the claw. "Apparently I just got a modification to my weapon but is that it?" The mace returns and the goes back to its original form. "I can control the change, that's good" Then he forms a proper sword blade. "An arming blade form? Great, I've needed that actually. But the strident claw works best with a net. I wonder what else is hidden here?"
"Smash the chamber!" Kali orders at full volume: "Smash the columns if you have to. It's looting time!"
"Be mindful of the creatures trapped here!" Kodyax adds: "Most what's here looks nasty! As much as I hate abominations we need to wreck the chamber and move one. Grab what you can before we move on!"
Pirates rarely need a reason to start pillaging and causing general mayhem as everyone but Aurora gets to work. Aurora has another internal argument as the surviving mindset was a pirate hunter before she was captured whereas the version Kodyax fell in love with is a pirate herself. Ultimately revenge for being locked away for so many years finally wins over the pirate hunter personage to participate in the pillaging of the chamber and causing as much damage as possible.
The room shudders as the pirates ransack it; destroying columns when they discover some hide caches of weapons, armor, jewelry and gems when the monsters held in stasis are released as the brains of the vessel calls upon them to act as antibodies to destroy the invaders. Kodyax gets a malicious gleam in his eye as if the situation just got better in his twisted mindset.
One of the columns releases a rather large horseshoe crab who skitters across the floor and makes a beeline for Kodyax, leaping at him as he slices at a mass of mouths and eyes and tentacles with the arming sword version of his weapon hand. It latches onto his left arm and acts as a shield. Kodyax receives telepathic communication from the entity that reveals itself as a servant of the deities he serves and that they have selected him as their champion on this mortal plane.
He feels a pinch on his wrist as Nemo feeds on his blood as a way to attune the two psyches. The back spike migrates to the front to provide Kodyax another weapon with which to fight. Kodyax fights like a lupursyn possessed slicing and dicing all who dare come near.
Ann and Sven are scooping as much wealth as they can get their paws on and shove it into their enchanted sacks while Kodyax and Aurora do the majority of the fighting while Kali goes on a wrecking spree. The chamber starts to collapse as Kody kills the last defender with great flourish. Everyone makes a mad dash for the door to ensure they escape with their lives.
The team runs into the stomach from the liver with the tunnel collapsing around them as they rush forth to the other chamber. Much of what was destroyed is almost fully repaired but any self replication that was in operation has stopped cold. Kodyax smirks as he can guess that the liver was storing raw materials for the stomach to repair the rest of the ship and now that this archive is no more then it does not have the supplies to heal itself.
Dark thoughts run through Kodyax's head as he hears the ship itself softly whine in pain. It complains in a whispered voice with an alien tongue which Kodyax guesses is cursing at him and the surviving pirates. The ranger has no sympathy and has everyone thrash the place with an eye to collapsing it like they did the liver.
Octopod creatures invade the stomach from the heart that Kali, Anne and Sven recognize as what chased them out of that chamber when they split from Kodyax.
"You're the expert on weird things, Kody," Sven asks, "What are these creatures?"
"Drone golems," Kody replies, "Things like this ship use them as we e uses carpenters as well as guards."
"So they repair and maintain the ship?" Kali asks. "As well as act as internal security?"
"More or less," Kodyax accedes. "There shouldn't be as many of them now or at least when we smash them there will be fewer if any replacements."
"One of those things put me in my prison," Aurora growls. "Time for some payback! They killed my companions but captured me. They shall be avenged!"
Water begins to overflow from the moon pool and flood the chamber before turning to ice as Aurora weaves magic all around her. The ice entraps the golems but not the pirates as Aurora levitates above it all curiously the ice soon turns to lava as the drones hum in concert with ne another as the pirates move to destroy them.
Kodyax uses his arming sword along with Nemo acting as a shield to slaughter golems left and right. However, as he finishes the last one the region starts to melt from the heat and the need to rush into the heart with the lava rising behind them. In the heart chamber there is a screen window showing the molten heat of an active volcano as an indicator of where the lava is coming from.
Drone golems come out of the woodwork to attack the pirates with their tentacle limbs. Eyeballs like helium filled party balloons float about to take in the scenario as the pirates fight for their very lives. Only Kodyax and Aurora notice the floating eyeballs and they both know enough to be wary of them.
In the center of the room is a gigantic pump that looks like an iron gray techno organic heart for a giant creature. The drone golems draw strength from the iron heart and are more difficult to fight because of it. However, Aurora and Kodyax realizes this as the other pirates just fight on.
Aurora brings down the absolute cold of outer space to the iron heart while Kodyax nets a golem to whirl around his head until he gets a nod from the folf. Kodyax flings the golem to slam into the iron heart with tremendous force. The iron heart shudders tremendously as the drones switch their focus to Kodyax and Aurora specifically which is not exactly a smart move on their part.
Kodyax snare drones one by one to throw at the iron hear and since the room has an unending supply of them since it recycles those that are destroyed into new drone golems, he has an unlimited supply of ammunition. It never dawns on the intelligence that this is not a good strategy as Kodyax ends up destroying the iron heart with this plan of attack. The room shudders as an unused portal opens up where the iron heart once stood.
The portal closes after the pirates enter and they drop into an aquarium control room where a huge blocky tadpole like creature with an armored head and ten tentacles around that head swims about in menacing fashion. Kodyax recognizes it instantly as an elder abhorrynth, an older, more powerful variation on the standard monster. Without hesitation, Kodyax lays into the sea monster with righteous fury.
Everyone else in Kody's party is treading water in fear which is what it was expecting as it reels from the ranger's attack. The blows are also much more powerful than it would be otherwise expect as if some deific power was attacking it through the lupursyn. A certain gleam reflects off of his trident had that fills Aurora with hope and pride.
Aurora suddenly recognizes Kodyax as a champion of Morrigan Undine, fully empowered to wreak her bloody wrath against monsters such as this. The elder abhorrynth lashes its tentacles against Kodyax to little effect as Nemo shields his master as best he can. Tentacles beat on the crab's shell harmlessly and those that reach under to pry it loose get bit.
Four tentacles wrap around Kody's legs only to be sliced off by the bladed sides of his hand trident. Another pair grab at his wrists only to be gnawed off by Nemo. Then shards of ice with an electrified core pierce its scales as Aurora unleashes her own enchanted attacks against the thing.
Aurora's attack stuns it long enough for Kodyax to eviscerate it but the elder abhorrynth has a surprise in store for its killers as arcane glyphs appear to orbit its head. Neither Aurora nor Kodyax fully understand what is happening but they can gleam enough to know that it can't be good for them. The ship starts to shudder as the master goes through its death throes whi8le the pirates look for a means of escape.
Far below in the chamber is a stainless steel vessel that to us looks like the classic flying saucer but to them just looks weird but offers a means of escape. Aurora's magic allows them to access the craft which includes a membrane the pirates must pass through to get inside. Once inside the myriad of blinking lights and the sounds of machines idling disturbs them no end.
Sven puzzles out the controls eventually as the larger ship tears itself apart around them. The craft has plenty of power and they are in no danger as long as they remain inside. Before the alchemist can figure out the controls to make it fly the ship has started to skink to the bottom of the ocean.
A kraken looking for an easy meal provides the breach needed to escape the confines of the sunken vessel and it feasts on the dead while the living leaves their would-be tomb. They break the surface easily but then they run into another problem as a goblin galleon attacks them shortly after they get airborne. Cannonballs have no power to breach the vessels hull but the constant pounding plays havoc with Sven's concentration.
Eventually the pirates escape by flying into the carved mouth of a volcano on some tropical island. The volcano has been carved to resemble a moai like those on Easter Island on our world. Upon entering the shaft of the volcano however the saucer loses power and crashes into the lava pool below.
The pirates escape the flying saucer just in time to be almost captured by the island's inhabitants. Human like savaged with no heads but snarling visages in their chests attack them with crude spears and nets but the crew is able to escape into the underground where the humanoids refuse to follow. Giant spiders almost succeed where the humanoids failed by Aurora has enough magic left to scare them off.
They come out on the other side of the island and build a fort in the trees to keep away from marauding tribes and other things on the ground. Kodyax and Aurora make efforts to befriend the local monkey tribes of the trees to avoid trouble down the line and even take out an alien octopus that had been terrorizing them for years as a means of both securing their cooperation and impressing upon them that they were beings not to trifle with. After befriending the natives, Kody and Rory got a tour of the jungle and learned what was safe to eat and what was not which Kodyax was eager to note in his journals to report back to the Wave Wardens.
Kali and Anne get less and less access to Kodyax as time goes on since Aurora's warring personalities agree on one thing: sleeping with the lupursyn is a definite want. Sven works on means of getting them off the island while Kody does a lot of exploring. Everyone else among the pirates questions his sanity but the ranger pays them no mind.
Eventually the island is found by a Wave Warden patrol who came here to collect Kodyax and takes the others on his say so. The information Kodyax gathered on the island is taken to be archived with warnings to the rest of the world about this place.. Aurora and the rest are jointly annoyed that Kodyax gets a promotion within the organization while they are merely rescued.