#and with the shark race & dhampir climb speed. he can do everything but fly

[ben-drabbles]

Henry Drowned

(cw: violence, blood, death)

"Sardior's gleaming ruby taint," swore Red Henry. "What is that?"

"Not sure, but it's big. We might need you on the ballista," responded the ship's spelljammer, Mariath. She waved a quick hand and a bubble of air appeared around Henry's head.

"Right. On it," said Henry, heading back through the turtle ship Reliquary and towards the weapon platform. He passed by a few of the other crew scrambling to their stations as the Reliquary shook - apparently, the creature had started its attack.

Brigham nodded sharply from across the way as Henry ascended the custom waterlock. "Just drive it off, big guy," said the captain, also sporting an air bubble. "We'll see how bad it is and if we can still descend once it's gone." Henry nodded in return, before the ice cold water surrounded him.

"Alright, you void-breather. Come and get some," said Henry to himself as he grabbed onto the ballista, pre-loaded for situations just like this. Mariath's darkvision spell was also still active, meaning Henry could finally see what was coming for them. Specifically, as he swiveled the ballista to try to pinpoint the attacking creature, he caught sight of the ground rocketing right towards him.

------

Henry woke up in darkness and in pain. He sucked in a breath - good, the air bubble was still going - and looked around. He was underwater, he could feel himself floating gently. It was dark, and nothing was moving. He looked down and groaned. His head and left arm were free, but everything else was pinned under the ballista, which in turn was pinned under the full weight of the overturned Reliquary. "Fuck."

He tried to shift his weight as he yelled out. "Anybody else out there? Any surviv- shit," he swore as the ballistae finally loosed its bolt. Unluckily for Henry, it only pinned him worse, and the bolt went right through his leg. "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck FUCK fuck!" He tried in vain to shift the weight of the ship, or at least move the ballista - but no such luck. He was well and truly stuck. At least, he thought bitterly, the weight kept the bleeding down.

It took Henry 24 hours to die.

He tried to claw at the ground - no dice. He tried to bite through the ballista enough to free his other arm - only barely, and it was well and truly fucked. He called out for anyone, anyone else in the crew. He begged the Reliquary to move, he cried to the ocean to just shift it, just slightly. Gods, it was cold. It was cold, and lonely, and dark. He watched morosely as his blood trickled out of his leg, as breathing got harder and harder.

"Please," he croaked, as the last of his air him. "Anything. Anyone listening. Please. Don't let me die. I don't want to die." He sucked in a last lungful of ice cold water.

He remembered blacking out - he remembered.....moving? Something...dragging him? All the way down to the Hells, he thought. This is what it is to die.

-----

The next thing Henry felt was hungry.

He opened his eyes and sat up gingerly. He drifted slightly upward - still underwater. His arms weren't healed, but he could move them - same for his legs, after he undid some straps holding them down. He was sitting on some kind of stone slab, red lines marking strange symbols into it. Across the ocean floor, he could see the overturned Reliquary, loaded with all they'd gathered so far - and, presumably, what was left of the crew. He blinked - this certainly didn't *feel* like hell. And damn, he was HUNGRY.

He swung off the altar, heading back to the Reliquary - hopefully, someone else was still alive, hopefully someone who could Spelljam them out of here. He kicked off something soft on the sea floor. He looked down into the gaunt, dead face of Brigham. "Well, damn," said Henry, watching captain's body drift through the water. "I was hoping you'd know what to do." He sighed, and kept swimming, giving that strange altar one last glance.

It was surrounded by bodies.

More crew - some strange deep-ocean fish - all gaunt, all drowned, all very very dead. Henry stared. "What....what the fuck did I do?" He stopped. "And how the SHIT am I talking? And seeing? And...and why...." He shook his head. Sure, they looked tasty, but he wasn't about to interrogate that.

"Time to go," he said to himself after a long moment. He'd hoped to sound confident, assured, but it came out as a whimper. He turned back towards the ship. Mariath wasn't among the bodies, so maybe she was just waiting on him?

He smelled blood. It smelled good.

Before he knew it, he'd broken into a predator's sprint. Eyes black, foaming at the mouth - there was food in that ship. He NEEDED it. He passed by the spot he'd been pinned with barely a glance, drag marks showing that he had been moved, the ballista broken beyond repair, but that wasn't important right now. He bashed through the busted waterlock and grabbed at the food on the other side - the other icebreaker, Tevran. He bit into the drowned corpse and finally, blissfully, drank.

The bloodlust faded, and Henry let go, swimming back a bit. Not the first time he'd bitten something - just the first time he hadn't been...in control. Weird. Best get to a mage, they'd probably know what was going on. He kept swimming through the ship, passing by other floating bodies - suddenly, now that he wasn't hungry, it struck him as pretty damn gruesome. He shivered, despite himself.

The helm door was open - he swam inside. Mariath wasn't there. "Tiamat's tits," he swore. "Now what?"

He spent a while searching the ship, but no survivors or signs of Mariath's location presented themselves. "Fuck," he said. "I guess that's it. Apparently I don't need to breathe, so....I guess I'll just, try and swim out?" As good a plan as any, he figured. He gathered what equipment he could, prayed to all the stars in Wildspace that the creature that attacked them was gone, and left.

------

"It's been a while since then," said Drowned Henry to his prospective ocean delvers. His wounds had never healed, but he'd stopped caring. He'd found a taste for flesh and blood, but what else was new? This was a fresh start - and he was a new sailor, just like when he'd left the Razorfang to start mining the ice. "I don't know if Reliquary is still under there, or if anybody else found our loot, or what the Hells happened to Mariath." He grinned, revealing rows and rows of razor-sharp Dhampir teeth. "Worth a look, though, don't you think?"

#writing #drabble #short story #fantasy #spelljammer #dnd #backstory for a new campaign starting up #the build. it's so stupid. #he's a barbarian/rogue. he reckless attacks to proc sneak attacks #and with the shark race & dhampir climb speed. he can do everything but fly #horror movie monster guy #but also he's kinda a dumbass. hopefully that came across lol #anyway enjoy