Dreams and Commands

Lazy Nights

Wisps of clouds overhead concealed the stars for brief moments as the Belle Femme cut through the coastal waters on its way to the carnival's next stop. Pierre Henry was asleep or drinking in his cabin. Victoria had the helm and having sailed these waters many times, did not need any assistance.

Laying on some cargo, listening to the waves lapping off the hull of the ship, and thinking about the strange supernatural storm they had encountered, Timm drifted off to sleep.

Wet Dreams

The tentacles wrapped around him as he floated several feet off the ocean floor, binding his arms and legs while leaving his sight unobscured. The thing from the deep rotated Timm towards the wreckage of a ship…an ancient ship.

“Go. Find what is lost. Search the depths.” A thought, not his own, spoke in his mind.

The tentacles withdrew, leaving Timm facing the old sunken ship and free to swim. Was it odd that he wasn’t disturbed by the thing from the deep or being bound, he thought to himself as he swam towards the wreck?

Approaching the ship with caution, Timm surveyed the surroundings. Broken in two large parts, it looked as if it had been underwater for generations. It was difficult to discern what nation or culture the ship had come from. Covered in barnacles, lichen, and moss the medium-sized ship was barely recognizable as a ship.

A quick tour of the hold didn’t produce much of value. Large stone blocks of the type you’d build a castle or large structure with along with other construction materials and some containers that had long ago lost their contents.

Swimming through the small kelp grove that had grown between the two halves of the ship had obscured him just enough to escape the notice of the large, and possibly undead shark that swam by in the direction of the hold Timm had just been in.

With the shark swimming off, Timm sped towards the door to the captain’s cabin slamming into it with his left shoulder. The door didn’t budge. Timm looked about for the shark and seeing nothing, reached over to check the window to the captain’s room. A couple pulls is all it took before the old window frame snapped, releasing the old window panes that had somehow survived all these years. Timm grabbed the inside of the frame and pulled himself into the captain’s room.  

Untouched for all these years at the bottom of the bay, the captain’s possessions were strewn all about. The captain was pinned against the far wall by a large desk that seems to have shifted during whatever event caused the ship to sink, fist still gripping a blue marble sphere in his left hand and a large stein in the other. If the long beard and short stature weren’t enough, the runes that softly glowed in the strange underwater light as Timm pried the sphere from the long-dead Captain's hand, confirmed the ship's Dwarven origins.

Runes still shimmering in the odd light, Timm slipped out the window and swam towards the edge of the bay where a steep cliff dropped off into the darkness…the fathomless depths. Swimming as far down as he could, the darkness began to engulf him. With only the softest dim glow above Timm stopped. It was getting cold, too cold for him, and he couldn’t see.

“Leave it.” the watery deep voice said in his mind, followed shortly by Timm’s hand dropping the sphere into the darkness below.

In Control?

The large gull crying and announcing the onset of the rising sun woke Timm from his dreams. Still thinking about the dwarven wreck, the odd sphere, and the instructions to search the deep, Timm only slowly registered how cold and wet he was. Sitting up and leaning on his elbow, Timm could see the trail of dripping water and wet footsteps heading straight from the railing of the ship to the spot where he was now.