Prison Island (D&D/Pathfinder Snippet) (Patreon)

Aiden knew his muttering was going to get him killed one of these days. It had gotten him the belt from his father more than once, gotten the guard captain shouting at him a few dozen times, and then the Trade Prince heard his muttering. Two weeks later he was crammed into a ship’s too-small hold with at least a hundred other sods.

Three weeks of hard sailing had allowed him to figure out the common thread of everyone’s story: each of them had done some crime and found themselves stuffed in here. Elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, even a few orcs, they had broken some law, no rapists or murderers thankfully, and no one knew where the crew were taking them.

Halfway through the third week, Aiden managed to overhear some of the crew above talking. To his shock and slight horror, there were ten other ships in this fleet of prisoners. Eleven ships, each one with more than a hundred prisoners! He could scarcely imagine such a voyage, yet he was a part of it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Shouts and the sound of feet running across the upper deck woke Aiden from a restless sleep. Looking up at the ceiling, a glimmer of curiosity made its way through the grey fog that had suffused his mind. His gaze was drawn to the door to the hold when there was a loud *CLATCH* from the other side.

“For whatever i's worth, I’m sorry for this. Figur’ ya deserve ta see i' comin’ at tha least,” the voice of the cabin boy (thick with...sorrow?) came from the far side of the door.

The glimmer had grown, and with slowness born more of weakness than caution Aiden threaded his way through the crowd. Reaching the door, he tested the handle, and was shocked to find it unlocked. Gingerly pushing it open, he peeked outside. No one.

From the top deck, came a loud sound unlike any he had heard before. Like the tearing of fabric, only air. Now bright as a bonfire, curiosity drove Aiden up to the top deck, while others slowly followed him. The deck was empty, with nothing more than some sort of ritual circle burned into the middle.

“What did he mean, ‘see it coming’?” Maya, one of the other prisoners, asked from behind him.

Turning around, Aiden was about to respond when he saw exactly what the cabin boy had been talking about. While the skies to the rear of the ship were a bright, cheerful blue, the front of the ship was headed right into a black, angry, furious storm.

“That,” was all Aiden said before racing behind her to the other prisoners. Coming to the doorway to the hold, he bellowed at the top of his lungs, “ANYONE WHO CAN SAIL A SHIP GET UP HERE NOW!!!”

Several prisoners jolted and started pushing their way forward, the closest one a half-elf with scars on his cheeks leading from lip to ear. The half-elf pushed past Aiden and raced up the stairs, leaping up four at a time, before racing with lightning speed to the wheel and bellowing orders to the prisoners with ship experience.

None of the terms made any sense to Aiden, but one of the prisoners being shouted at grabbed his arm and hauled him towards the center mast. The next fifteen minutes were the most harrowing of his life, as he pulled ropes, tied knots, untied knots, and did his best to keep up with what he was being told, all while the ship tossed and the rain came down like a giant’s club.

“Everyone grab hold to something, we’re gonna ground!” the half-elf bellowed from his position at the wheel, his face red with exertion as he held the wheel steady.

‘Gonna what?’ Aiden briefly thought before the ship came to a sudden stop, sending him flying over the edge into the sea. Kicking his feet, Aiden breached the surface and took a gasp of air. Looking around, he saw several others that had been thrown overboard into the...calm waters?

Swimming to the front of the ship, he caught sight of the storm. It formed a line across the horizon, stretching as far as the eye could see. Following the line of storm clouds, he caught sight of what was apparently their prison: an island.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

An hour later saw Aiden on a lifeboat rowing to shore, still puzzling with the whole situation. It made little sense, why would anyone send eleven ships, each one at least a galleon, full of prisoners and then just abandon ship at the first sign of a storm? Ships were expensive! Especially ships with the amount of extravagance as these, the rails looked to have gold in them!

That half-elf, who had introduced himself as Evergin, had scrambled up the ropes to try to see the other ships as most were preparing the lifeboats. To Aiden’s knowledge, he was still there.

“Almost there,” the halfling at the front of the lifeboat called out, pulling Aiden from his thoughts.

Jumping out at the same time as the other rowers, they pushed the boat onto the sandy shore. Looking around, it seemed like any other beach on Sylvanor, except the trees were different. Walking up to one, bits of brown bark rolling away from a bluish grey underbark, he pulled the brown bark off, the dry material crumbling in his hand.

“At least we’ll have kindling for fires,” Aiden muttered to himself.

“Oh we have kindling, sure, but unless someone found some flint n’ steel on the ship there won’t be any fire,” a human man griped behind Aiden.

“Sure there will, my grampa taught me an’ ma brothers how ta make fire without any tools incase we had ta run from tha hobs,” another retorted as he gathered dry sticks and bark.

“And what to do for food? We have no supplies, no weapons to hunt with, we’re marooned on this gods-forsaken island, the crew left us to die, and that storm means no one is coming back!”

That didn’t make…

“What are you talking about? Ships are expensive, even if they don’t send anyone specifically for us someone will come to recover the ships,” Aiden pointed out.

The panicking human turned to Aiden, a glint of madness tinged with despair in his eyes, “You didn’t feel it? That storm is not natural! It was created and put there! It was full of magic, soaked in the blood of tens of thousands to make it as large as it is! We are trapped here!”