I hope you suffer great agony in the hellfire of the underworld after you perish to whatever blight dares to rear its miasmic gaze into the soulless orbs of your skull solely so that you might feel the excruciating pain brought to me by attempting to pen this letter. Firstly, attaining a quill should have been a dauntless task, considering you have one tucked sneakily away in your hat, and yet I found myself pelting a gull with rocks and pricking its plume, all for your sake! Holding the blasted feather is terrible. My webs are irritated, oozing a mire akin to the slop you named your vomitous brood. Ink was a handful, more than anything. I may dwell in the deep, dark depths of the ravaging ocean, but do you think squid are easy to contrive? Do you? Dwell on it, ponder on the voracious tentacles and suckers. I found myself wishing for them, solely so I might pluck your head from your shoulders all the easier. You don't think you'd crack if I swished a harpoon through your orbital socket, would you?
I jest, naturally. Of course I do! What would I do without you? I don't even think you can feel pain, anyway, so it seems rather trite to bother inflicting any when my energy could be spent elsewhere. My liver yearns for your agreeance on our dreary peace treaty once and for all, and yet your circuitous lashing of insults suggests my hope is all for naught. You just have to keep me around, don't you? However deeply my organs tremble for retirement, I concede I can't help but continue drudging around your lachrymose sack of marrow in my chest cage, either. Don't tell me otherwise, but I wouldn't be surprised if you laid a seed of your soul inside me while I was looking the other way, for what else can explain this unruly gravity between us? Surely we don't continue meeting on end because of pure circumstance.
No, indeed not. You most likely respawned carrion birds to stalk my every move. That would explain all the missing parchments from my chambers! Have the little towns then, for I shall scheme for far greater things! I'll have none of your meatballs today; however, I do crave a boon. A rock drake curls around the edges of Iksmere, in the wastelands due southwest. Clearly, we aren't allowed to have mountains without the gods cursing us with dwarves and other abominable creatures! Would you be so kind as to wipe the rodent from my kingdom, like the brave, kindred hero you are? (Imagine me batting my lashes here, the ones attached to my second pair of eye sheaths.)
I'll even let you keep its corpse for all your necromancing needs. You aren't afraid of fire, are you?
Yours,
Endellion
P.S. I am not afraid of fire! Don't even let the thought sink into your empty head.
Your calligraphy is the stuff of nightmares. I cannot fault you entirely, of course, a gull's quill is a poor instrument in the webbed hands of such unpracticed a scribbler. And squid ink, my dearest? I expected something more refined, more proper of such an accomplished warrior! Nevertheless, I'll grace your letter with one writ in kind, with a feather plucked from a gull and the ink squeezed from a squid - undoubtedly more fierce than the one you slayed, now that mine is under thralldom and such... How can a squid prove useful to me, I hear you ask through pursed, wanting lips? I find it better to live in excess than in want, I felt want for a squid and now I have an entire shoal, and you to blame for instigating this stupid desire for a stupid animal gifted only with the stupidest basest instincts. Squids are neither useful nor a hindrance, much like this treaty you keep attempting to force upon me. And do not get me started on the seagulls. Of the carrion birds, they are undoubtedly the worst, they only barely allow me to spy
Consider your damned treaty immediately signed if my continued dismissal of it troubled you so, in truth I had more pressing dealings with more impressive peoples. The Rusalka are majestic to be sure, but... so few in number. Fret not, the path to salvation of that dying little race of yours could not be clearer. Hybridizing with right kind of people, perhaps the extremely fecund northern sirens, would help bolster your ranks and return some semblance of importance to the titles you keep heaping upon your most royalest person. I just so happen to have bought a crate of northern sirens. More akin to seals than women, those ones, but all the more tolerable for it, no? Harhar! But I digress, it is not like you have some endless treasure in your lost city with which you could pay me to bring you the most exotic, ferocious, and refined sea-dwellers I can find. But we can haggle lives and bodies later, I am more interest in yours only at the moment.
'Tis no small accusation, the mere insinuation that I tore a shred of my soul and chose you as its vessel... Wishful thinking at best, I'm afraid, you'd be too obvious a choice for such a procedure. What's more, I'd have to kill you if I were to ever return to power in full. Can one be so foolish as to love the dead or the fish? There are worse passions, I feel. You are welcome to woo me then, as frivolous and brutish as your attempts will undoubtedly be. For now, however, my heart belongs to none other than myself - metaphorically speaking, of course, it has long rotted away.
On the topic of that little rock drake of yours, the little pest will be dealt with once I bother to chart a route. Until then, I request that you stave off your people's cannibalistic urges and pile up the dead for me, Rusalka or otherwise, as opposable thumbs will be key in felling the beast.
You are so spiteful and vindictive, and I find your abhorrence appalling. How noxious of you to insult my penmanship after all the strife I went through for your sake! I shall have you know, the beast I wrangled was far scarier in stature than any pet you could conjure, for, indeed, it was... Very large! Stack twenty of you on top of the other and six of you wide, and then add a beak of ivory to match. How very inconsiderate of you to doubt my enormous fortitude. I'm sure you'll find some use for that tentacled creature, should you configure a way to make the sea engulf the mountaintops. Do your creatures prance around mists like you? I do think I should like to see a flying kraken. Methinks you should rope it around your flock of feathers, let the raptors carry it into the sky and spew poison like a thunderous rain down below. Or, I suppose, you could simply drop it and let its gargantuan stature crush cottages. You'll figure something out, surely you didn't raise a deep sea beast for nothing.
Speaking of, your taunts at my people mean nothing! Numbers will grow, maybe, and if not, then damn you! Part of me wonders whether you'll reap their skins for your army, but surely you can't be that cruel and heartless, no? I wouldn't care either way! Just keep my departed would-be fiancee away, I shan't fall victim to his corroded charms now. Something else glimmers in my pupil, far greater than the whims of whatever plot you intend to torture me with. As for the sirens... I offer my thanks at your attempts to promote cross breeding, but my clutch is to be saved on another date. Bring me the nest, nonetheless, I'll arrange an exhibit for the lesser folk to indulge in. Let it be known now, it is not my fault should anyone lose their limbs!
You'll have your dead, I guess. The bodies in the marshes are actually preserved quite well, though I am unaware of how you prefer your armies. Are pickled mummies ideal, or would you like raw bone and marrow? And do be specific on your order, I'd hate to revise my orders after I put my men to work. You won't mind if the flesh is punctured, or littered with nibbles, will you? The midnight munchies are a terrible thing, you know.
As to your question, I landed in the town of Myrefall weeks ago, and I saw a ball of corpses huddled together on a cart and couldn't help but think of you. Well, I did until it went up in flames. If you were curious, it smelled horrendous, much like burnt leather mixed with the inside of a leopard spotted seal. Regardless, the sentiment convinced me to write you! I tied it to one of those birds circling my castle, and considering it made it to you, I see I was correct in accusing you of your peeping nature. I forgive you, fret not, as I cannot blame you in being obsessed with me. I just hope you never do love me. The rejection would be quite awkward. Do me a favor and don't take too long. My gills are already shriveling at the thought of that fire breathing critter veering any closer to the mainland. I have a reward waiting for you, should you truly be successful -- and don't try to squeeze it out of me! You'll simply have to wait and see what my spelunking has in store.
You always rise to challenges, don't you?
Curmudgeonly awaiting your glistering presence, Endellion
Once more I found myself enduring great pains to understand that which you scratched upon innocent vellum, there was improvement and so it must be noted, I only had to divine parts of your letter rather than the whole thrice damned thing! So congratulations, my sweet and terrible Endellion, your calligraphic finesse is on par with the common dung-house stable boy, either that or I just have grown used to the way you twist and curl every single letter into abominable and unfamiliar shapes, which can only be a terrible sign of my encroaching dementia. Do the Rusalka have an alphabet, is the concept of literacy entirely alien to you? Either way, it shows. Congratulations on slaying an overgrown squid, by the way, and no, only I am able to prance in mists, the stratagems you suggest are just plain silly.
And of course I will spellbind your people once they extinguish! Why wouldn't I? Flesh is flesh, bone is bone, and the Rusalka have enough of both to serve me for a century, perhaps two! Take this as a compliment, little Queen, or don't. Know only this, I want my northern sirens as they are now, for every limb lost in the revelry I will be pilfering a clutch from your people, and for every life lost I will be taking a breeding pair of Rusalka with me. I never deal at a loss and I will not start now. But speaking of loss, death, decay, and what-have-yous, I would prefer my future garrison to remain unnibbled, or with just enough scraps of meat over their bones to incite your little lizard to come out of its cave... That is to say, eat their fins and cartilage and eyes and whatever else that isn't the flesh and bone that will stand before you and swift immolation. If you are to die, Endellion my dear, I would much prefer having aught of you that I can use, the control over ash belongs to a school other than necromancy, and what self-respecting school strives to control burnt particulates? If you are to die in the near future kindly do so as a whole, or in manageable chunks.
Do not mistake this as a declaration of harboring anything towards you. Not love or spite or any ill-feeling of that sort, you are merely one of the very few people that openly deals with someone that styles himself 'the Dread Captain' and spends most of his time growing his fleet with bodies of common folk - quantity has a quality all its own, to coin a phrase. And how dare you invade Myrefall! I plundered it but a decade ago, they were supposed to be ripe for the taking in ten more years! Well, enjoy their plague-worn bodies, you uninhibited glutton.
The route is charted and my ships at full mast, expect me - and my puppets - to arrive soon. Do not eat my carrion birds in the meanwhile, please and thank you.
Aim higher, damn you! I await in agony for the day your own stranglehold will loom in the distance, menacing and dauntless in the face of humanity, when you're surrounded by golden pillars and thrones of skulls instead of tormenting me about my chicken scratch. Shall I lop my hand off in an act of desperate rage and marinate it so that you might trumpet around a trophy of your superior handwriting? Perhaps you would be kinder if your bare bone appendages were bound together with slimy flesh and inhibited you from actually holding the cuss without slicing your hand in two, then you would know my plight and clamp your ugly maw shut! I'll just have to fashion a muzzle to keep my fins from gushing at the sound of your tremendous laughter at my own expense. To think I'm going so terribly out of my convenience for you only to be lashed without savior, you should be far more grateful to have me as contact.
Truth be told, I do hope for brighter horizons on your end. Even if you are a miserable wretch damned to eternity with nothing but unlimited power to revive husks, further condemning yourself to lonesomeness are you delve further into a fiery pit of madness, you're a wonderful host! I appreciate your jeers and romance, though do not be mistaken, I will certainly end you. All I'm saying is I want for it to be, you know, difficult. It won't be any fun sinking your ships and tearing your entourage of undead apart if you're without golems and dragons and giant crabs standing in my way. You have time to wrangle up an army, naturally, I'm not completely crazy enough to take you on just yet. In the meantime, I have a people to regrow and a city to rebuild. We'll have to just stick to arm wrestling. (Don't worry, I will continue to let you win so you can enjoy this facade of superiority.)
I'll refrain from eating leftovers just for your sake, since you asked so nicely and so prettily. I'm not begging you for help, make no mistake, I'm simply making up an excuse to regurgitate my meal in your lap, just like old times. Don't you see this is a give and take situation? And, please, do you really think me incapable of squashing a bug?! I wouldn't want to risk my fashionable hairdo or my fins for the sake of whatever castaways live in the silver mountains eradicating this little hiccup, naturally, but I am not incompetent. Do hurry up, though, if my curls are singed because you decided to run around some silly port town again, you won't hear the end of it!
I ate your birds, Endellion
P.S.: Just know, from the deepest pit of my water pumping lungs, that I abhor you entirely and only care about your magicking and dapper scarf.
There is nothing inside my skull but the purest rawest essence, yet your last letter could have fooled me into thinking that I once again had a facsimile of a brain, such was the migraine I suffered as your writ descended into a fin-measuring contest. For my sake, your much adored Méchanteau, kidnap one capable of producing an instrument with which you can write your sea monkey jeering in a way immediately perceptible to my eyes! Or learn how to write like people, damn you! I know of a half-breed rhetor that could serve you well in that last regard, and a crone from the East who has invented some rather ingenious writing implements, dip-pens I believe they're called... It just so happens that I can bring both to you in short order! My price is a negligible one. Grant me the right to make port and colonize your islands, and through them open a route. The people already fear what lurks below these waters, and the people will fear those that sail through them - your city will be under my protection and supplied with exotic foodstuffs, such as elves and duendes and even your much adored dwarves! But this talk will be one better had in your chambers, no? And decided with the inevitable arm wrestle. Savage.
A savage you may be but I must still thank you for your well-wishing. I do not share this bestial desire to wage war once we are both in equal footing, but I understand that violence is the only way your primitive brain can even conceptualize the future. You are closer to fish than sirens, and fish are not terribly savvy, are they? So demonstrated the lone Rusalka I sent against the rock drake. Thankfully the flesh apparatus was not that much different from your average human. A set of arms, of legs, and enough within it to occupy such a beast as it was pelted with arrows and cannonballs and boulders. In short, the drake is slain and my new favorite thing in this world, baptized Sweet Endellion for its brutality and inability of higher thought. To think you feared such a creature... Well, should you ever hinder my plans be sure you'll become well-acquainted with your namesake's fire, so promises I.
This critter and the retinue of Rusalka almost make up for the thralls sent down your gullet. I had half a mind to have them peck you from the inside, but I had better things to do with my time. Melding the squid shoal into one, for instance. Oh, it is fearsome! But terribly useless above water. I bestow it upon you as a gift, to use in whatever sordid way a writing mass of tentacles can please you. Dinner, perhaps?
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