Episode LVIII – The Prophet Speaks

The cliffs about the sea being inhospitable and prospects for a more genial climate being unpropitious, there was nothing for us but to plunge into the heavy jungle that seemed to cloak the entire interior of this accursed land. It was slow going, made even worse by horrid, stinging flying creatures of every sort as well as those that crawled and let forth filthy stinks, filling us with revulsion. And so it was, that our brave pilgrims were accosted in this terrible place by a prophet who spake thus: “For if you go among the unclean to spare them the burden of defilement and to do good, know that you will reap naught but fire and destruction upon your own head, your good intentions receiving nothing but anger and an empty wind in a dry place.” Undeterred, our pilgrims trudged on, driven by stubborn piety, the need for confession of guilt but certainly not by foolish greed.

Episode CLXI -- The Gemmie's Curse

We climbed the cliffs all night. Reaching the heights at dawn, we could see all about us that we were on an island in a sea of islands, each rocky and dark. Of our abandoned ship, infested as it was with Snaids, there was no sign. Snaids devour all before them and those that had besieged us certainly disappeared with our vessel, eating no doubt its very hull, until the sea rushed in, claiming them all.
And, so bedazzled as we were by our vantage point, we gazed outward to the far horizon to the rising sun, giving thanks for our deliverance from the perils of the sea and terrors of the beach far below and imagining what living thing we could find in order to prepare a blood sacrifice of gratitude.
It was then that it happened.
Before us suddenly, appearing just at cliff edge, loomed the image of a most terrible, ugly Geemie, spewing malodorous wrath and loathing and bellowing the promise of demons most foul and of fiendish fire.
Two of our bravest spearmen leapt forward to slay it, only to find their steel piercing nothing but a lingering reek. Carried forward by their charge and stumbling, they lost their footing and fell forward over cliff edge to their death on sharp rocks far below to the welcoming shrieks of sharp beaked, meat-eating birds and slithering, furry creatures. Almost as soon as it had been uttered, the Geemie’s curse had begun its work.