The Saga of Captain Wereshark, Part 4

Summary

 * Location: Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, Gold Coast
 * Author: Anonymous
 * Collection: Gold Coast Tomes

Content
With our debts settled, we bid goodbye to Gnarlnose and Steggofins, left the frozen shores of Skyrim, and set sail laden with treasures twice as heavy as all the brave sailors we lost. The Pale Spirit was so laden with Nordic booty she plowed through the sea like a harbor seal, but we made port without so much as a sailor overboard. Unknown to us, our next expedition would be our most dangerous yet.

We reached the port in Wayrest, and it took only a few days before Captain Wereshark made the acquaintance of Duke Gignac, the aging Breton adventurer. He purchased many of our Nordic relics and, impressed by my captain's legendary charisma (and, more importantly, the urging of his oldest daughter, Lucette) my captain suckered the old man into funding the Pale Spirit's next expedition to the Maormer islands of Pyandonea. Wearing a new red feather from Lucette in his crown, the Wereshark returned us to sea.

Our stated purpose was to do what we could to open permanent trade relations with the Sea Elves, but the Wereshark, as always, intended merely to plunder all we could. Aside the war galleons Cliff Racer and Silver Arrow (hired from Beldros Hlaalu for a decent fee and percentage of the booty) we sailed with a wind at our backs and enough supplies to feed an army of ravenous Nords for months. As with all our expeditions, things went just fine until they didn't. Those Maormer sea serpents? They aren't just legends.

Our first encounter came shortly after we first sighted a jungle isle common to Sea Elves, in the distance cloaked by a dense fog. The sound of snapping wood and screaming men drifted across the sea as the Wereshark, myself, and every armed sailor rushed to the Pale Spirit's deck. We were just in time to see the Cliff Racer's broken hull sinking below the waves, wrapped in the scaled coils of an enormous snake.

Never one for half measures, the Wereshark shouted for every archer on the boat to loose arrows. Arrows peppered the slimy beast as it dragged the Cliff Racer to her grave, yet no shaft could penetrate the beast's thick scales. That's when that old lizard Hard-Scales grabbed his poison daggers and leapt into the sea, shouting something about Sithis. That crazy Argonian has had a death wish since the day he signed on.

Wouldn't you know it, as Mighty Flicka boomed warnings to the Silver Arrow from atop the mainmast and the Wereshark rallied every sailor capable of swinging a sword, something surfaced on the frothing sea. Old Hard-Scales, covered in glistening black serpent blood, and behind him, the bobbing length of a massive Maormer serpent. Stiff and dead as something dragged in by a barn cat.

Now, don't ask me how Hard-Scales managed to get his daggers through its scales, or how he managed to breath under the sea for all that time, or how he knew his poison was vile enough to drop a snake twice as long as a galleon. All I know is Hard-Scales never talked about it, after, save for expressions of disappointment over failing to meet Sithis once more. As we took on survivors from the Cliff Racer, the Wereshark pledged a full chest of booty to Hard-Scales. No one complained.

Wary of more serpents, the Wereshark gave orders to anchor off the shore of the fog-cloaked jungle isle, in shallow water where we could see anything between us and the sea floor. Pale Spirit and Silver Arrow sent four boats ashore with the Wereshark at their head. Yet not one water-colored Sea Elf showed his face when we made landing.

We all thought the island abandoned. We could not have been more wrong.