The Dungeoneers: Blackfog Island by Russell Jeffery

Author:Russell, Jeffery [Russell, Jeffery]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2016-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

***

“Magic,” Mungo said. “We’re practically swimming in it, would be my guess.”

“You’re guessing?” Thud asked.

They’d built the fire on the ground in the crack between the halves of the ship. The seating area around the fire was all unpredictable angles but it had the distinct advantage of a deck or two between their heads and any gravitationally challenged sea life. Thud had asked traps-team to “gather ‘round and toast some sausages”, his favorite euphemism for a meeting. It would have been better had they any sausages. Hunks of mackerel were a dubious substitute.

“Need to see more to be certain,” Mungo said. “But this portion we’re occupying shows no sign of design or purpose which suggests that it’s some sort of supernatural phenomena.”

“You don’t think it’s a deliberate ship trap?” Ginny asked.

Mungo shook his head. “If it were a trap why not a single big hole? Why interconnected canyons?”

“Spread out it can cover more ground, so to speak,” Ginny said. “Might also be the nature of the enchantment. Maybe the spell name was ‘Mordenkainen’s Noodly Passages in the Sea’.”

“Magic on this scale would take considerable effort and require an equally considerable purpose,” Mungo said. “It would take a plethora of wizards to fabricate this. A lot of effort to make a pile of shipwrecks.”

“We don’t know the purpose yet,” Ginny said. “Maybe this is some big magic knot keeping the world from unraveling, maybe it’s-”

“Yes, maybe, maybe, maybe,” Mungo said. “The existing data does not adequately demonstrate purpose. Until new data is obtained indicating otherwise we should not assume an intended function is all I’m saying.”

Thud tuned out of the squabble to think. The sorts of places the Dungeoneers tended to go on jobs were often hard to reach. If they’d been easy then everyone else would already have been there. Lost cities, secret temples, buried tombs; all had the defining characteristic of ‘difficult to go to’. Over the course of his career Thud had rock-climbed, bushwhacked, rappelled, surveyed, traversed, trail-blazed and detonated but this was the first parasloop-drop and it had been particularly tough. They had broken and missing gear and multiple wounded. Plus they were currently sitting in the shattered remains of their ride home.

Acquisitions team had been out scavenging the immediate area. Nibbly had a sharp eye for anything of any value. Leery had an amazing knack for finding crossbow bolts and bandages just laying around behind rocks and such. Tuft was there for anything heavy and Dadger Ben, well, Dadger was probably mostly telling jokes–his idea of ‘morale enhancement’. Dadger was the expert in the ‘talk people into giving you things’ sort of skill set and not as much in the ‘do anything that might muddy your clothes’ set. Thud had sent the elf along with, figuring that his skill-set of taking things that didn’t belong to him fit right in with acquisitions team’s mission statement. They hadn’t gone far, inspecting only the closest of the wrecks. Until the area ahead was properly scouted no one was going out of sight of the campfire.

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