Hero Quest, episode thirteen
Snakes on a boat.
Character Sheet
Race: elf
Class: bard
Background: scholar/street urchin
The snakes writhe around you, slick and slippery. The one draped over your shoulders coils itself around your neck, hissing into your ear and tickling your cheek with its tongue. You can hardly even hear the sound of your own voice.
For a moment you falter. Then you play on, louder than before, although still barely audible.
Your brother’s body helplessly pulls at the snakes slithering over him, desperate to be free, but their coiling grip is too strong, and there are so many.
They’re even beginning to wrap around the ferryman where he stands at the boat’s end, although he’s unperturbed. He simply poles on, nodding his head in time to your increasingly erratic song.
And so, weighed down by dozens of snakes, you play on as best you can.
The great serpent rises from the churning waters again and roars, soaking you with a spray of putrid spittle, ripe with the stench of rotting flesh.
You gag, then cough, then resume your song.
More snakes slither aboard, filling the hull until the deck cannot be seen, until your feet are completely engulfed by the writhing carpet. The ferry sits low in the water. The buffeting waves spill over the sides and the ferry sits lower still.
The snake tightens around your neck. Yet still you play on, forcing croaking lyrics through a constricted throat. Your shaking hands fumble at the strings, strumming clumsy chords. Your playing is hardly even music anymore, just random, discordant noise.
You play on. The serpent roars. A wave washes over the ferry, but of water or snakes you cannot say. Snakes are everywhere. Hissing. Writhing. Slithering.
And then the snakes are gone. The ferry sits high and steady in the still water.
You blink and look around, trying to still the wild beating of your heart.
You’re at the lake’s far side, moored at a narrow, stone quay. A cavernous archway is cut into the rock at the quay’s far end, through which the flickering orange glow of distant firelight pierces the darkness. Your brother’s disembodied voice whispers wordlessly within, beckoning.
The ferryman nods. “The price has been paid. The trade was good.” He pauses for a moment and when he speaks again his voice is somehow warmer and richer than it was before. “Thank you for your song. If ever you wish to make another trade, return. I would gladly have dealings with you again.”
Next episode - 15/01/25
Thank you for joining me on this adventure.