Tales from Beyond the Spider Moon

 Most of the crew leapt to their feet, chains rattling. Alina seemed to pull her sword from the space between the bars, and Turok dropped into a low, unarmed fighting stance. Only Dox remained calm, barely moving from her seat against the wall. Delamagne cursed, and Covey pressed himself into a corner.     The tortle looked around at them all, then relaxed, standing from his attack posture, though his staff continued to glow. “This doesn’t seem to be my ship,” he said. “And, you folks all seem to be in chains.”     “Your powers of deduction are astounding,” Alina said. She allowed her blade to drop when the tortle relaxed, but held it at the ready.     “Well, we’re in the hold of a ship, and you are quite a motley bunch. I suppose it would be ridiculous to ask you whether your incarceration was legal, or at least, just?”     Dox laughed. Turok stepped as far as his leg irons would allow. “We’re the crew and passengers of the Reizoko no Tsuma,...

 When the assassin came to, she was lying on her side in the corner of a small cell in the dank hold of the ship, she was in chains, and the survivors of the Reizoko no Tsuma were huddled against the far wall, watching her warily.     Turok was tending to Alina, helping her to sit up. It had been the commanding voice of his magic that woke the assassin, and she sat up at the same time. Everyone turned to watch her, a mixture of curiosity, anger, and fear in their expressions.     It was Delamagne, one of the able seamen who was nursing a broken arm and a black eye who spoke up first, “what are you doing down here, shark?”     The assassin chuckled, “yeah. You’re probably as confused as the sharks are.” She shifted in her seat and propped her meaty arms up on her knees. This was distasteful; but not unheard of. When the faceless men revealed themselves, it generally only added to the mystery and the legend; but she would have to survive for the story to...

Chapter Seven: Sea Stories Ceru and Mookee were looking at the blazing sun in the distance, trying to spot the tiny world of Ashen, somewhere in its orbit when the bell rang and the halfling bid her good night. She climbed down from the rigging and stretched a little, turned her head to crack her neck and headed below deck. There she found Oquee, Bob, and the other regulars on her watch, lounging around, playing cards and shooting the breeze.     She fell in with the other humans, who dealt her into their game. After losing a fair bit of coin over the past few nights, she was ready to make it back tonight. Someone chuckled at that. Oquee sat in the corner, on his bedding, drawing on his pipe, snout stuck in one of the large tomes he often carried down from the great cabin. After a while, and into her second cup, someone asked about Ashen - the planet to which they were sailing.     “I know Ashen,” the half-orc Bob said. “The old sages called it Cindre, and it’s the...

Part Two: The Void I Chapter Five: Spelljamming In the darkness of the crew quarters, below the galley, Ceru and Oquee were lounging on their palettes. A small chess board lay between them. Lost pieces were strewn about on either side of the board, but the white king - Ceru’s king - lay on its side.      The game, now largely forgotten, had been the foundation on which they had built a conversation, and even though that the game was over, the conversation continued.      “I like you, Oquee. I never had a chance to meet the wizards on my last voyage,” Ceru took a swig out of the bottle she'd swiped from the galley. “I have to admit, though, I don’t really understand how it all works.” She passed the bottle over.      “Oh,” Oquee said, his long neck stretching to its full length in an unsettling way. “Spelljamming, you mean?” She nodded. “Well, the basics are the same. You know that. The magic makes the function of just about everything onboard...

Oquee on DeviantArt "The great, green tortle stood on the deck of his ship. No hint of expression on his snapper-turtle face. "'Why is he just standing there,' the pirate captain bellowed. 'Kill him!' "In answer to this, the tortle furrowed his brow and cocked his head, then took a single step to the left. Just then, a crack of lightning from the ship's mage shot out across the deck, missing the captain but striking the mast behind him. "With a creaking grown, the fallen mast took out the captain and a half-dozen pirates, collapsing into the forecastle where the tortle had been standing. Calmly, he looked at the ruin wood. "'Hrm,' he grunted." Oquee Ocquee is a Diviniation Wizard from the village of Maluhia on the Snout of Ongmar, on the planet Quelya. He is young, for a PyreSpace Tortle, and is only about 20 years into his Odyssey - the extended journey every Tortle takes as a rite of passage into adulthood. After a b...

Chapter Four - The Elf In no time at all, the Black Ophelia was pulling away from the Spelldocks of Madinat Alnnahas, the City of Brass - tossing their mooring lines and easing out into the blackness of space. The sensation was totally unlike being on a ship at sea. There was no rocking of the ocean waves, no noticeable wind (though Ceru was certain there must be wind, since the ship was moving and the sails were full), and there was little to indicate movement. Only the slowly diminishing asteroid behind them, burning red against the black, starry void, quietly slipping away into the darkness.      When Tormund had led Ceru and Oquee out onto the weather deck, they found an elf talking with the Captain. When he saw the three of them, though, the elf excused himself and approached. “Are you a tortle,” he asked Oquee, “from Ongmar, on the WorldSea?”      Oquee nodded. “Indeed, Master Elf, I am.”      Ceru had never met an elf, but just abou...

Chapter Three - The Black Ophelia The tortle led Ceru through the stacked shelves of the Spelldocks, up and down stairs and ladders, through crowds of sailors, dockworkers, and guild merchants loading and offloading ship after ship in the busy port. They passed by and through crowds of people from every race, each more exotic than the last.      Ceru was aware that the ‘Verse was filled with more races than she’d ever encountered, but being here, walking through the City of Brass amidst actual elves, and dwarves, and the blue-skinned vedalken, and all manner of creature - it was more than reading about them, or listening to tavern stories from old-timers who probably never actually set foot among the stars.      She was brought up short when she came across a pair of five-foot tall owls with massive wingspans, and long, flowing robes of cotton and canvas. The birdmen turned their heads in her direction. Round, black eyes watched her intently.    ...

Chapter Two: The Spelldocks At the end of the alley, Ceru came up short. She was still a grounder, and the sight of the open void struck a chord of fear in her heart. An unwanted rush of adrenaline made her take a deep breath of that foul, hot air, and she choked on it, grabbing the warm, metal railing and taking a knee. She tried to balance herself against the sight of all that infinity.      “This must be your first time away from home,” a voice said behind her. The words were Aquan, Quelyan - the tongue of the Seas, the language of her homeworld. The voice was gravelly, slow, and deep. Ceru didn’t recognize it, but she knew what sort of creature spoke in those tones. As she reclaimed her feet, she turned away from the swallowing darkness of open space, wearing an uneasy grin.      Sure enough, standing against a metal wall braced with stone and plastered with notices and want ads, and calls to adventure, there stood a six-foot tall, 400 pound, upright to...