GoT: LB Chapter 14 (Patreon)

Third Person Point of View

Men in four ships headed toward their most likely death. All of them knew it; that was why their families were paid beforehand, so even if they died, their families' future would at least be secure. Four boats, the thought behind it was that with more than one ship, there would be a higher chance of one coming back home… But it was a fleeting chance.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of expeditions were launched, and none of them returned so far. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. There was enough to return that people still believed it wasn’t a death sentence. There was a sliver of a chance to come back, a ship full of enough wealth to fund a kingdom, and some of the most valuable and unique weaponry that would be the prized possession of any House.

It was only information gathered on those few ships that returned that the mission was even deemed possible. Months of searching through documents, learning every method to increase the odds of survival, and then they were finally ready. The first was what happened to those who did ‘survive’ their trip to the Smoking Sea.

That was why they were all wearing masks covering their face. Apparently, anyone who made it back died shortly after, their lungs filled with so many rock fragments that they no longer functioned, and they all suffocated to death. The longest someone had lived was a captain who stayed inside a room, and he lived all the way up until he was shanked to death by his crewmate's family when he was the sole survivor.

It was also the food and water. The men weren’t allowed to eat or drink anything on the islands; if they did land, there was a high likelihood that none of them would even land. Every ship that had docked only made very short trips inland; otherwise, they wouldn’t have returned, searching the coast for wreckage and other ships filled with loot they took from further on land was the plan.

The trip there went mostly fine. A man fell overboard on one of the ships, but it was because he was drunk, another did as well, but this time it was because he was pissing and slipped overboard. There were several other small injuries, but for how many people they had on the trip, it was within the normal parameters for long trips like this.

It was only once they started getting closer that things started to become strange. The men began to fish up strange-looking fish. They stopped fishing when one of them pulled a half-man, half-fish creature aboard. The young boy funding the expedition spoke as if it was nothing more than a man who a fish half ate, but that didn’t explain why the fisherman's line was wrapped around the fish man's hand as if he was trying to pull him in.

When they reached the coast and saw the stone men shuffling along it, some of the men were happy. At least the stone men were a known fear, as scary as they were, it wasn’t something far scarier that no one alive had ever seen and been able to tell the tale about. One of the ships broke off, they were mostly slaves, and the rebellion quickly landed as it made it’s way inland.

The three remaining ships watched as the men began to fall over dead, not taking the warning to wear the mask seriously, before a half dozen worm-like creatures the size of a man popped out of the ground to consume them. Most of the men had nightmares after that, some wearing two or even three masks to protect themselves from suffering a similar fate.

The next problem was that someone on the mercenary boat ate a fish he caught and didn’t tell anyone. It was only found out later, as the man began to shit out his guts filled with worms, did they realized what had happened and threw him overboard, but by then, most of the mercenaries wanted to go back. Truth be told, that was how most of the surviving expeditions went.

The moment something like that happened, the majority would return, out of all the failed trips, most likely went unreported, as the crew didn’t want anyone to know how cowardly they truly were. That was why when the mercenary ship turned to leave, the expedition leader let them. He spoke of how the share of treasure would need to be split fewer ways, how he’d make sure they regretted leaving, but by then, most of the men who weren’t loyal to him were ready to turn around.

Accident after accident happened from then on, as it seemed like the expedition was cursed. A stone man made it on board and managed to infect three people, who all wanted to be put out of their misery before they became like them. Something slammed into the bottom of one of the two remaining ships, causing the crew to need to bail water for hours as the hole was patched. A man spotted a large tentacle off the side of the ship, but it was already submerged by the time anyone else had shown up to verify it.

Almost everyone but the child was at their limit. If they hadn’t found anything in the next few days, there was likely to be a mutiny, even with half the remaining men loyal to the boy; the other ship might just leave, or fire on him so they wouldn’t be known for their cowardly nature. The remaining ship was captained by a seasoned privateer, and that was the only reason the other ship hadn’t left or mutinied by then.

They finally found it, after everything they went through, they found a boat off the coast, and after killing the stonemen nearby, they made their way inside to find that the boat was filled to the brim with loot and corpses. Inside were tapestries that hadn’t degraded even after all these years, from Valeria, tools, and other antiques, tens of thousands of gold, but the main prize was the twelve sets of Valerian armor, shields, and swords.

The young leader even recognized one of the swords that he said was brought here. Why would someone bring a Valerian sword with them? No one else knew, and many of the privateers didn’t believe him. The trip back was terrible. Many of the privateers began to die; the aftermath of breathing in the air was visible, as a quarter of the men were dead halfway back to Lis.

Little did they know something else was at play. While a good portion of the privateers died, almost none of the knights loyal to the boy did; it was as if they were bolstered with health beyond what should be possible for a normal human. When the knight crew finally struck, the privateers were already on their last legs of survival, the crew so worn down they might not have been able to make it back regardless.

The men weren’t slain outright; what happened to them was much worse, as their life force was burned to cure the few knights who suffered injuries. Something as small as rope burn was cured at the cost of one of the privateers’ lives. The captain who had remained loyal, who bet his career on the fame he’d gain from the trip, cured the boy. One moment he was roughly coughing, the next he spat out a glob a black liquid, showing his body had expelled the microscopic rocks that had found their way into his lungs.

It went down exactly as the child planned. It was far easier sharing a pie when fewer people got a piece after all. As ruthless and perhaps evil as it was, at the end of the day, history was written by the winners. And the story would tell the tale of how a ship braved the seas and was the only one to survive their trip to Valeria, the mercenaries who fled might live, those stupid enough to stick around Lis by the time their employer returned wouldn’t live much longer.