Limitless Seas, Chapter 10.

Chapter 10.

Larson’s mana had fully replenished by the time they made it into the jungle. Shada led them on a roundabout course through the trees, avoiding any large tangles of undergrowth as their path took them toward the center of the small island. Shada had the crew with her make note of any edibles they passed on their way; they would need every bite of food they could get if they wanted to make it back to port. It didn’t take long before Larson heard the booming voice, make that voices, of the ogre.

“Stay out of sight, but within earshot so I can call you if I need help,” Larson ordered before slithering his way toward the clearing. He was pretty sure that Shada would come running to help, but the other two crew looked terrified at the potential of having to face an ogre in combat.

“Hit it again brudder,” A voice boomed out.

“No Bartholomew, this endeavor requires finesse, not brute force,” A second voice called. Larson could hear a stone tapping against wood. He pushed his way as quietly as possible to edge of the clearing, looking at the huge creature in front of him. The ogre must have easily been a dozen feet tall; its flabby body belied the strength that Larson knew the creature possessed. Just as Shada had advised, a pair of heads sat atop its broad shoulders. With a wide smile plastered on both ogre faces, the two heads turned to look right where Larson was hiding.

“I smells it again, I says, smells yummy, it does,” the less eloquent head, which he believed was called Bartholomew said.

“Perhaps, but first let us see if we can reason with it. While I dearly love your company brother, I do yearn for more refined conversation. So, you there, skulking in the shrubbery, come on out. I promise not to eat you without fair warning. Don’t flee into the jungle like the other one that was lurking about earlier,” The more eloquent head offered. Pushing his way through the undergrowth and into the clearing, Larson stopped, well out of reach of the creature.

“Oh! It’s a snakey man thingy, I likes snakes, they’s delicious. Can we eatses him brudder, please?” Bartholomew pleaded.

“No, stay your hand for a moment, lets hear what it has to say. Well, what say you little snake? Are you a snack waiting to happen, or do you have something to offer in the way of conversation?” The smart head asked.

“Captain Larson, at your service, and I’d much prefer conversation to snacking, I hear that ogre is very tough to chew,” Larson offered with a smile, refusing to be intimidated.

“Oh, I thinkses I likes him, he’s funny,” Bartholomew said, a snort filled laugh echoing from his head. His brother looked annoyed as tendrils of snot from Bartholomew’s nose blew onto his face. One of the arms reached up and slapped Bartholomew, who looked both angry and cowed at the same time.

“Well, Captain Larson, we shall see if your bravado is deserved. This is my brother Bartholomew, and I am Bug, pleased to make your acquaintance. Bug replied.

“I can back up my bravado, but I hope that we can converse without bloodshed, tell me, Bug, what exactly are you doing here?” Larson asked, confused with the pair, they weren’t exactly native to this type of environment, at least he didn’t think so. Somewhere along the way, this Bug had an education, even if his brother was a dimwit.

“I suppose that is a fair place to start, but of course, I’ll shall ask the same of you in return. How about we do that for now, a question for a question, at least until we become more hungry than bored, agreed?” Bug asked. Larson nodded in agreement as the ogre motioned him closer. He moved toward the clearing; his vision focused on the monstrous humanoid. If it made any sudden moves, he was ready to flee or fight.

“Ohh, I wonders if each half tastes different?” Bartholomew asked.

“Quiet brother, though I too am curious as to the culinary ramifications of our guest’s racial makeup, we did agree to answer his question. Now, as to how we arrived here, it’s very simple, our ship sunk. How did you arrive, via the same route I suppose?” Bug asked.

“Sort of, our ship is aground with some damage we’re repairing. We were prisoners of pirates but turned the tables on them and took the ship. The storm, combined with damage from the battle, brought us here,” Larson answered, not sure how much detail this ogre wanted from his answers. He needed to keep him interested and talking.

“Hmm, I don’t think I’ve seen one of your kind in the flesh before,” Bug started, at mentioning flesh, Bartholomew licked his lips and gave a smacking sound with his mouth. “I can see you’re a naga, but what type and where did you come from?” Bug asked, leaning forward, either anticipation of his response, or as a prelude to a charge. Larson figured he needed to spill his true story if he wanted to keep this creature intrigued.

“I’m a water naga, and as for where I come from, let’s just say my past is quite unique,” Larson said.

“Hmm, we’s more neek than the snake human,” Bartholomew huffed.

“My brother has a point, perhaps a bit of game then? A game of our pasts, yours, and mine. The more unique background shall be the winner. Now, a game like this deserves a fitting wager. How about this, if your background proves itself to be the more unique of the two, my brother and I agree not to eat you. If we win, we get to dine, no muss, no fuss, and no fighting, agreed?” Bug offered.

“Ya, I likeses eating people games, we’s gonna win, right bruddah?” Bartholomew asked.

“Quiet down, Bartholomew, let the man answer,” Bug added. It looked like the game would be his only option to avoid a fight, but he knew never to take the first offer in a negotiation.

“I’ll agree, so long as, win or lose, you promise to leave my crew alone,” Larson counteroffered.

“Hmm, that’s a much less attractive bargain,” Bug replied, pausing to scratch his chin while contemplating a response. Bartholomew occupied himself by pushing various fingers up his nose in a search for treasure. Larson waited; he knew the first one to speak in a negotiation loses. The two brothers bickered with each other in a language Larson didn’t understand. Having won the argument, Bug cleared his throat and continued.

“How about this, we make the wager all or nothing. If we win, we’ll feast on you and all your crew that we can catch. If you win, you live, and we’ll even help you fix your ship. I can assure you we’re very good at fixing things,” Bug said, motioning around their little clearing. For the first time Larson took a good look at something beside the giant ogre. Several things had been constructed from wood, palm fronds, and rocks. He couldn’t tell what the various contraptions did, but they looked well-constructed. An ogre this handy would be a great help in getting his ship back together.

“I agree, and since you offered, why don’t you go first, Bug” Larson said.

“Excellent, I can tell you’re a good sport Larson. Let’s begin. Obviously, this was not our home, nae, we hail from the mainland and were proud members of Grubtux clan. We were a simple people with simple needs. Raiding, pillaging, feasting on our victims, and the like filled our days. Our situation,” Bug said indicating their two heads. “is a bit rare with our race and when one of us is born, it is usually seen as a portent for some great event. As we grew, the village shaman, a half-wit charlatan as far as I’m concerned, kept casting his limited spells of divination to discern what our birth might mean for the tribe. While we were still children, the shaman decided we were a bad omen and that our tribe would suffer great loss due to our existence,” Bug said, looking over at his brother who looked a bit sad at whatever memories this conjured up for him.

“We were to be offered up to their gods in propitiation for whatever offence the tribe might have committed. Our father was the tribal leader and argued that we should just be banished from the clan, if we were forced from the clan, any curse would follow us away from them. After a heated discussion that, like most heated discussions among ogres, led to several deaths and maiming’s, our father won the argument. We were cast out into the mountains, alone and too small to survive on our own. We were starving when, out of desperation, we attacked a small caravan that was negotiating one of the narrow mountain passes. We were handily, and painfully defeated by the caravan guards, but our imminent execution was stayed by the man in charge of their little expedition.

“This man was a mage who wished to use us in his experiments. With the alternative being death, we agreed to become his test subjects, and he allowed us to join the caravan. While our accommodations left something to be desired,” Bug tried to continue but Bartholomew interrupted.

“We was in a cage, with pokey bars. I didn’t like it one bit,” Bartholomew complained. The interruption brought a corrective thump on the head from his brother.

“Pardon the interruption. Like I was saying, our accommodations were spartan, but the mage saw to it that we were fed well and had time for supervised exercise. It wasn’t all that bad, and we soon arrived at the wizard’s home, a tower set upon a treacherous mountain peak. I’m not sure why these mysterious wizards always feel the need to place their domicile in some out of the way area. Regardless, the caravan left after delivering us and the supplies they were carrying. We were now alone with the mage, causing my dear brother to make a rash decision. He tried to eat our benefactor, who used his powerful magic to easily thwart his attempt, leading to us being held in the dungeon for the rest of our stay.

“Experiment after experiment were attempted on us and, during the process, we acquired exceptional strength, even for one of our kind, and I was blessed with a superior intellect. Now, Bartholomew wasn’t left out either, he inherited a mechanical aptitude that rivals that of a gnome. With our prospects of long-term survival under the constant experimentation being poor, I hatched a plan for our escape,” Bug said, stopping to catch his breath.

“I opened our cage and we ate’ses the wizard,” Bartholomew added.

“Yes, in a nutshell we used our combined strengths, my brother created a key for the lock from some scrap metal while I discerned the proper time to burst out of the cage in order to surprise the mage, who did indeed seem very surprised when we ripped off his arms, preventing him from casting any spells,” Bug told him.

“I have some experience ripping off the arms of a mage, it is very effective,” Larson commented, thinking back to his fight against the pirates.

“Yes, well we stayed at the mages tower for a time, until the larder began to run low. Once that happened, we set out to find our own path in this harsh world. I lost track of time during our imprisonment, but it was long enough for us to become fully grown. We tried to find food, but there are lean pickings in the mountains, so we headed down to the flatlands. By chance, the first settlement we encountered was a gnomish one. Bartholomew and I agreed the little people looked tasty, so we proceeded to do what ogres do, we raided their village.

“There was the usual screaming and panic, which led to our overconfidence. It turns out that these gnomes were no strangers to ogre, gnoll, and goblin raids, in fact, our old clan was one of the ones that harassed this village on a somewhat regular basis. As our earth-shaking charge brought us to the outskirts of the village, and nearly within reach of the plump and tasty gnomes, we met a minor setback,” Bug advised.

“We falls into a trap, a good one with lots of spiky bits,” Bartholomew added.

“Yes, we fell into a mechanized pit trap that the gnomes had placed to protect them from unwanted visitors. As soon as we set foot on it, the oversized doors opened and plunged us thirty feet down to a spike lined pit. As the doors closed, we noticed they were connected to a mechanism that forces the spikes deeper into the pit. Using our prodigious strength, we pushed back against the spikes long enough for my brother to devise a workaround. In no time, we had reverse engineered the simple trap, nullifying the danger and using the spikes as handholds to climb our way out of the pit.

“When we made our way out, instead of finding gnomes fleeing in terror or brandishing weapons, they stood there clapping and cheering for us. We were so taken aback at their reaction that we forgot to kill them. It turns out, this village of tinkers were impressed with our ingenuity and offered to let us live there so long as we agreed to not eat them and help with some heaving lifting now and again. Seeing that the gnomes had ample food supplies, we agreed to their offer. We had a great time living in that little village and we learned much from them. Sadly, all things come to an end, and the end of the gnomish village occurred when our old tribe, the Grubtux clan, attacked in force.

“We had some advance warning of the attack and created dozens of devious traps and mechanical defenses. Our old tribe was in a frenzy, ignoring losses as they attacked the gnomes. Bartholomew and I fought like demons, enacting revenge upon those who had cast us out. With our help, and the gnome’s ingenuity, we gained the upper hand in this battle. I even had the pleasure of crushing the life from the shaman who caused us all this trouble in the first place. It turns out he wasn’t such a charlatan, after all, and his prediction was correct; we were the cause of our tribe suffering great loss, I’m happy to say.

“Only a few of the gnomes survived, not enough to keep the village going, so they left to find new towns and cities. We were forced to find our own way once again, eventually making our way to a seaport town where, once the locals were convinced that we weren’t going to eat them, we took what work we could find. I signed us up for our ill-fated voyage to search for some lost tinkering artifact that we believ lies on one of the islands hereabouts. After a disagreement over provisions,” Bug said before being interrupted by his brother once more.

“They gots mads because we ates a couple of them,” Bartholomew said before going back to his nasal explorations.

“Well, yes, that was at least some of the cause of their ire. Now during the scuffle, our ship was catastrophically damaged, and we barely had time to craft a floatation device and paddle our way to the island. Since then, we’ve eaten most of the animals and are forced to live upon fruits and vegetables. It’s horrifying, but now that you’re here, I feel our diet is about to improve. So little naga, we were cast from our home, experimented upon to create a unique being, escaped our captor, found a new home, destroyed our old tribe, and were shipwrecked here, can you beat that?” Bug said with confidence.

“I agree that you’ve all been through a lot in your life, and I would be hard pressed to top what you’ve experienced in the time that I have lived on this world,” Larson said, laying some bait for the ogres.

“Yes, so, now that you agree, come a bit closer so that we can take a taste,” Bug said, licking his lips in anticipation of the first bite.

“Woah, I’m not done, I said I agree that it would be hard to top what you’ve done in the time I’ve lived on this world. Unfortunately for you, this isn’t my first life. This is, in fact, my second life. I lived an entire life on another world where I died, a task I don’t believe you could hope to accomplish,” Larson said, waiting for their reply.

“Hey, e’s lying, right, bruddah,” Bartholomew said. Bug looked intently at Larson who stood his ground and returned the stare of the ogre.

“You know, Bartholomew, as much as I would like to say he’s lying and claim the prize, I can’t help but feel he’s telling us the truth. While we can’t top living a second life, was your previous life one of any import? If you were a farmer that did nothing but muck about in his fields, or a shopkeeper selling trinkets, I’d say that even a dozen of those lives don’t make up for what we’ve done,” Bug said.

“Nice try, Bug, but that wasn’t he wager, our wager was on the most unique background. While the pair of you have experienced many amazing life events, you could never die and come back to life on another world, could you?” Larson argued.

“True, but there are very few of my kind, we’re rare enough of an event to cause our own people go to take such extreme acts when one of us is born,” Bug countered.

“Your kind is rare, I agree, but rare is not unique, is it? Sure, you were experimented on by a wizard, but that sort of thing happens from time to time, not exactly a unique event. I’m the only of my kind, a man from another world who died and was reborn as a naga in this one. How many of those have you heard of?” Larson said. Bug seemed frustrated; the ogre probably wasn’t used to someone beating him at a battle of wits. To his own credit, the ogre seemed to be creature of honor, trying hard to win, but at the same time feeling obliged to keep his word. Larson had halfway expected them to attack as soon as he got within range, but the ogre brothers were resolute in living up to their end of the bargain, something that he couldn’t say would happen with many people from a more civilized background.

“Hey brudder, we’s gots two heads, does that beat two lives?” Bartholomew asked.

“A good argument Bartholomew, but that would just, once again, make you rare, not unique,” Larson replied.

“Perhaps, we call it a draw? After all, while I’m inclined to believe you’re being honest about your past, there really is no way to verify your claim,” Bug offered.

“I’m not sure, how do you see a draw playing out?” Larson asked.

“We gets to gobble up a few of youse, and leaves the rest alone,” Bartholomew offered.

“No, I don’t think I can go with that plan, how about I come up with a compromise of sorts?” Larson asked. The ogre stood, and despite Bartholomew grinning as they cracked their knuckles, Bug looked thoughtful.

“I’ll hear you out, what’s your compromise Larson?” Bug asked. After hearing their story and seeing the skill they had at construction, Larson thought he had an answer.

“How about you help us repair our ship and we’ll give you a ride out of here. I know you like a bit of fresh meat, who doesn’t? Tell me guys,” Larson said leaning forward in a conspiratorial manner. The ogres leaned in as well, and Larson wasn’t sure if it was because they were interested or if they wanted to be closer for their first bite. “Do you like fish?” Larson asked. If they agreed he could kill two birds, or in this case, two sharks, with one ogre.

“I likes fishies, they’s delicious,” Bartholomew offered.

“I do enjoy seafood as well, so I’ll agree, provided you supply us with enough seafood to satisfy our appetite,” Bug said.

“Deal, but I have to ask, how did you end up with Bug as a name,” Larson asked. It had been bothering him since he had heard it. The more intelligent of the two had the simplest, and perhaps, somewhat derogatory name.

“The mage’s doing, I fear. You see, we had never been given a name by our tribe, at least none that I can recall. He asked us to name each other, in order to prevent any confusion over which head he was speaking to, I assume. I chose Bartholomew for my dear brother and he named me the first thing he spotted, a bug. It’s kind of a touchy subject for me, please don’t bring it up again,” Bug answered. Larson made a note not to bring it up again, it never paid to antagonize a giant two-headed ogre.