Stillwater Deep

[Admin Acacia]

You all know we have the dungeon of Stillwater Deep, but most of you may never have heard the story of how it came to be.    The following was written by a great story teller named Bain who once walked our lands.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Legend of Stillwater Deep

   Cold sea spray lashed across his face as he stared broodingly over the tumultous waters from the upper balcony. The chilling water dripped slowly down the hard planed face and long, tangled gray locks of hair. The steel gray eyes almost matched the roiled surface of the sea below and his thin lips were compressed into a bitter slash.  Lord Erik Caulmar's family had founded this city of Stillwater Deep over 500 years ago. Back then, his ancestors had been hard working fishermen and merchants, building rude hovels to shelter in as they reaped the bounty of the sea and traded it inland to more populous cities. As the profits flowed in from the rich pearl beds, fisheries and kelp plantations, the hovels transformed into stately houses and eventually into a massively constructed tower that reared high above the town.

   Lord Erik was a tall, slender man who was more at home with books and laboratories than with ships or store balances. His brothers and sisters oversaw the day to day operation of the family interests as he pursued the arcane knowledge of the world. From a very early age he had been fascinated with magic and conjuring, a fascination that became an obsession as years rolled by. Lord Erik had all the earthly comforts and security he might want, but his mind stretched far beyong wordly things and focused on the mysteries that could not be touched.

   These interests had stood him in good stead over his seventy years of life for there were many times that pirates or land going armies had attempted to attack and take the city. With the arcane powers he had accumulated, Lord Erik had been able to throw back all contesters and Stillwater Deep remained profitable and powerful. Although the powers that had assailed the city were often fierce and the outcome chancy at times, he had always managed to overcome them in the end. But now, there was this peculiar storm.

   Wind lashed the battlements of the tower and shredded the streaming golden pennants into confetti as the entire structure of the keep itself seemed to groan and complain. Violent, oversized waves rolled menacingly into the bay and exploded upon the stone breakwater hedging the town. Lightning lashed into the sea far away and thunder tumbled echoingly across the surging, black clouds that filled the sky.  Lord Erik knew this was not a normal storm. Certainly storms had been as violent and abrupt as this one in the past but there was a feel in the air, a prickling of the skin that sent tendrils of shuddering malaise over the townsfolk who huddled in their well built homes.

   Lord Erik ignored the fury of the storm and continued to gaze outwards. There, just rounding the curve of the bay, a dark ship slid into the more sheltered waters as a knife slips into a body. The motion of the ship was smooth and controlled and stank of dark sorcery. As Erik's eyes narrowed further, three more dim hued hulls followed the first as if they were attached by hawsers. The lead ship continued inland on an unwavering course and Lord Erik sensed the presence of a malign necromancer aboard.

   Turning suddenly, Lord Erik strode back into the dim stone chamber to a massive wooden chest. He lifted the lid and reached down to grasp a slim wand that appeared to be made of some dark crystalline material. It glittered coldly with reflected light and vibrated in his hand as he walked back to his post. He breathed slowly, his eyes closed and could feel the hundreds of human lives sheltered below in the stone cottages of Stillwater Deep. The resonance of the crystal rod in his hand soured his stomach and set his nerves flaring with flame but this was his place, this was his duty, this was what he had been born for. The crystal wand was locked inextricably into the very foundations of Stillwater Deep and with the earth power available to him, nothing could prevail.

   Aboard the leading ship, Torian the necromancer grinned as he felt the resonance between the far off figure of Lord Erika and the wand. It was something that no truly skilled mage could mistake, this bonding of human flesh and elemental forces. Torian had once been an inhabitant of Stillwater Deep until he had been banished by Erik's father for delving into dark sorceries that no right thinking man would investigate. But then, whoever said Torian was a right thinking man? Nay, he scorned the human inhibitions and lanced deep through societal mores and fears into the very heart of dark power. His was the power of negative energies and undead forces. He had spent a lifetime after leaving the seabound city, exploring the blackest mysteries of life and death.

   Behind him, the trailing ships were not filled with hordes of eager reavers, ready to rush out to slay and pillage but huddled forms of misery and torment. Hundreds of scarcely recognizable human forms lay sprawled throughout the following ships, linked to the lead craft by invisible bonds of evil mastery and command. He bled out their life force grudgingly, feeding the arcane storm he had raised and waiting to bleed them dry for the moment he touched land.
   
   Torian pulled again on the life force of the herds he had gathered and then sensed something even more powerful...and intriguing. Deep below, uncountable fathoms beneath the keel of his black ship, a presence stirred. Perhaps angered or intrigued by the arcance energies that were concentrating and building, the presence moved.

   Lord Erik gasped as he felt the overwhelming mental presence of the submerged being. It was alive and yet not. It was something elemental and indescribably powerful, and hungry. He felt the presence of the evil mage on the oncoming ship and finally recognized it as the once boy he had known so  many decades ago. It seemed to be Torian, the one that had dared with him and yet went beyond. No matter how changed or warped the man was, surely he would not disturb the barely slumbering thing that lay in the deepest hollows of the bay.

   Torian shuddered with a dark ecstasy and sent a ethereal hook of mind numbing power downwards into the bay. Here was a surety, you know. Here was power without compare. There would be no guesswork when he commanded the thing on the floor of the bay. Stillwater Deep would be his and the long ago humiliation washed away by the blood and life force of every single being in the city.

   Lord Erik groaned as he saw the hook seek downward with his astral eyes and raised the crystal rod high. This could not be borne, could not be allowed!  He summoned the earth power of the city of Stillwater Deep and sent a coruscating bolt of blinding fire at the lead ship.

   Torian muttered a word of Caution and the bolt passed beyond to incinerate his slaves in the ships beyond. The release of the lives surged along the intricately constructed bands he had hooked into him and he glowed with a deep purple radiance. His body shifted and creaked as it struggled to contain the inrushing life forces and with a deft parry, he sent the surplus energies down the darkly radiant line he had plunged below the waters. 

   Erik shifted his aim to intercept the malign force plummeting deep into the bay. If he could not stop it then he could push the dark power off course, surely. Simultaneously, the dark energies of Torian and the earth bound magery of Erik blended together as they reached the floor of the bay.

   IT awoke. Pain filled IT and miniscule and yet powerful entities far above it strove for dominion. IT opened ITs single eye and spoke a single WORD. High above, the bay and city seemed to explode into a maelstrom of stone and water and with the fading of the irritating presences, IT turned over and sank into slumber once again.

   Above, only broken rock remained of the once proud city of Stillwater Deep. Tumbled stones along the long, gentle curve of golden sand. As years and decades passed, even the rumors of the city faded into legend.

   ========

   Captain Roberts was a pirate, yes, but he wasn't a bad pirate even though they called him "Dread". He didn't kill unless absolutely necessary, or unless he was in bad temper, and he always was gracious to the ladies, especially princesses. It was fortunate that there were no current captives aboard his ship at the moment though because he was in a very bad mood.
   
   The storm had swept over them, sending them reeling ahead of it, far off course. For days it had swept them along like dust before a broom and there was no lessening of the cruel wind.  From high above in the crows nest, a faint cry sounded. "Land Ho!!" Roberts stalked his way to the prow of his dark masted ship and his eyes widened at the sight of rain swept rock gleaming in the intermittent luminescence of lighting flashes. There wasn't a prayer they could avoid being shipwrecked, not that pirate Roberts was the type to pray anyway.

   When Roberts awoke, he found himself on a beach of golden sand, the storm long gone. Broken, water worn rock littered the waters edge and behind him rose impassable, cruel mountains of stone. Only a narrow strand of beach and several huddled, drenched bodies of his crew. Oh yes, his ship as well, wrecked and destroyed. Just lovely. A few of the half drowned crew stirred and he took them in hand gently, kicking them awake and sending them out to find fresh water and food. He turned and regarded his flagship that was crushed and sunk on the edge of the beach, impaled on the rocky shore. Letting out a deep sigh, he shook his head.

If only he had listened to his mother who had urged him throughout his childhood in Lakeshire to  take up bookkeeping or medicine or even lawyering. With that last thought, he shuddered. No, he was not THAT dreadful.

   Time passed and the grim truth was realized. There was no way off this beach and no way to repair the ship. No fresh water and no food except what could be caught from the sea. There was no escape except, perhaps, drowning oneself in that alarming whirlpool that perpetually spun in a hole in his once proud ship. Several men had already taken that route, claiming they heard voices or smelled gold. HA! Smelled gold, they said. More likely they wanted to smell rashers of bacon and platters of eggs and kippers and bouncy barmaids bearing mugs of ale and rum. Ahhh, the dread pirate Roberts would not take that coward's way out, not he.

   Someday, someone would come and he would force them to take him away from this desolate beach. He patted his breast pocket and felt the valuable jewelry inside. He would bribe his way aboard with these and then cut as many throats as needed to recover them. He would sail again, and land lubbers would whisper his name in fear once more....