Battle Bosses Lore - "The Storm Arrives"

by Kevin Herman

Splintered driftwood, much of it burning, was all that remained of a ragingly violent yet swiftly concluded battle; cannons, the remains of those who resisted until the end, and anything else less buoyant that did not catch the avaricious eye of Captain Boat had long sunk to the bottom of the sea. In most lines of work, they say you have to spend to receive, but the Captain found he was doing just fine with receiving and aimed to keep it that way.

The Captain felt enormously pleased with himself, the freshly swelled ranks of his pirate army in tow and the most recent spoils of glorious combat hidden safely away. He and his men sailed with a fresh feeling of triumph after the utter destruction delivered unto their most recent victims, a large merchant fleet and their supposedly unstoppable mercenary escorts. The Captain set up, over, and beyond the swells in search of more treasure and more men to command with an iron (although in actuality wooden) fist.

           Idly he noticed a whirlpool some distance off of the starboard bow. It had certainly not been there moments earlier and, despite the danger such an anomaly posed to even the most powerful of seafaring craft (supernatural or otherwise) he turned deftly and approached it as his crew prepared for possible battle and hopefully more riches. With not inconsiderable effort, Captain Boat managed to dip just over the rim of the aquatic cyclone while resisting its pull and peered down. The Cyclone was vast, completely exposing the sea floor to the open sky. Surprisingly, at the base the whirling sea , stood the lone figure of one of his own men.

              The pirate swayed slightly and seemed to be muttering to himself. His aura seemed…off. Not the power and avarice that radiated from the rest of his men but something darker and more menacing. "PIRATE, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS? BY WHAT MEANS DID YOU DESCEND TO SUCH DEPTHS? ARE YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS UNNATURAL PHENOMENON?”

              The pirate slowly looked up in a stilted manner like a wind-up toy rusting from age. His quickly decaying eyes casting a purple glow as he stared at something that was not there. He seemed to be repeating the same phrase over and over. As his skin seemed to boil over in front of the Captain’s single glowing blue eye.

               Surprisingly, despite the roar of the oceanic disturbance, the Captain and his crew could hear his words – if they could be called that – as though the deteriorating pirate was standing on the deck whispering to the boat and his Crew. The pirate, now a deformed zombie, continued to chant, growing louder and more frenzied, as his swaying gave way to violent shaking, faster and faster until abruptly it stopped. The sea floor beneath the clearly possessed pirate crumbled and a brilliant purple beam of energy shot upward into the sky, drawing storm clouds from nowhere to it and forcing them into a swirl mirroring that of the water below.
             A deafening crack shook the air and could be heard hundreds of miles away as the very fabric of reality itself seemed to tear halfway between sea and clouds, sending Captain Boat tumbling across the surf and crashing hard into the water, flinging men and treasure alike into the angry sea. What appeared to be an armored, gargantuan octopus of deep violet with yellow eyes emerged from the shimmering rift.

          Captain Boat quickly reacted, commanding his men to brace for combat as the body belonging to the tentacled head, heralded by the thunderous beating of enormous bat-like wings, slipped from that unknown void into this reality.
              The purple beam vanished, the whirlpool ceased to be, and the storm above settled into a low rumble, as if waiting for instructions from its new master. Captain Boat watched as the now calm swell gently beat upon the gigantic armored titan’s legs like waves against an indifferent cliff face. 
              Narrowing its eyes, the gigantic monster – although more fair to say something akin to a god that made monsters tremble – surveyed the vast collection of beings before him and in the middle of it all, Captain Boat himself. After eons of pillaging on all of the 13 depths, the immortal ship had grown familiar with nearly all forms of elder magic and curse; he had known it inevitable that the eldritch god would return someday and was prepared.           

Captain Boat, Eternal Pirate

             As awesome and terrifying the spectacle of the Void-being returning to the mortal plane had been, Captain Boat would not be intimidated. The blue flames in his eyes flared brilliantly and as one, his men drew their weapons “Your mortals,” Cthulhu boomed through his tentacle maw, the sound of its voice something straight out of nightmares, “I think I will take them.”