Several watches later a lookout on the Dardak spots a white shape emerging from between two asteroids. As they draw a little closer they see that it is a white kindori! And it is charging towards their ship at top speed. As they come even closer, the Hagfish comes out from behind an asteroid. The kindori turns towards the Hagfish. The ship fires some desperate shots which have little effect. The kindori rams it. The ship is lucky and only takes light damage from the collision. Fingle, on the Dardak, nicks the kindori with a ballista bolt. The Dardak meanwhile is trying to maneuver around an asteroid. The kindori begins to grow translucent and wavery, and it swims right through the asteroid and closes with the Dardak. Mojo gets lucky with a creative use of Warp Wood to quickly cock the ship's heavy ballista. Then Mojo panics and starts interrogating crew members to see if any more have unusual powers. Axel responds to this strange request by mumbling something about knowing some spells. When the whale is within a few ship lengths, Fingle sights the whale with the now reloaded ballista and scores a solid hit, but it keeps coming. A few moments later, Axel pops up and delivers a magic spell that begins to burn a hole in the creatures flesh.

This does not deter it either, and an instant later it plows into the tail section, inflicting heavy damage on the little ship. Crew caught off guard are thrown to the deck. Axel climbs to his feet and hits the whale with a magic missile as it turns to move away. At the same time, Fingle leaps from the ballista station, grabs Mojo, and swoops onto the kindori's back. Mojo acts first, weaving a Flame Blade spell, and then thrusting it deep into the whale. The injury is minor, but it has received many such and is beginning to weaken. It is moving swiftly away from the Dardak and it is starting to go translucent around the edges. Then Fingle steps forward until he can see the impaled ballista bolt. For a moment he concentrates, and then the bolt explodes. The bolts head is driven deep into the kindori's body, and the splinters of the shaft drive outwards like shrapnel, hemorrhaging flesh. The kindori convulses violently, and Mojo and Fingle are sent spinning into the void. Lucky for them, they are familiar with the sensations of freefall and can arrest their spins. Looking back, they see the kindori's edges grow solid and opaque again as its spasms die down.

The Hagfish moves over to the whale to deliver the coup de grace, passing by Fingle floating in space. The Dardak moves to intercept Mojo, but catches him with the edge of the air envelope, and he is almost breaks a leg of his own falling onto one of the wasp's legs. Fingle flaps back to the Dardak on his own.

The Hagfish tows the kindori back to Bral. En route, they have to fight off some hungry scavvers. Mojo briefly befriends one with a spell, but another tries to eat him. Camen drives it off with a well placed spear thrust.

On Bral, customers interested in the whale quickly appear on the docks. While Hound watches in a drunken stupor, the Dardak crew takes over the selling and rejects bids from a Chendor Brothers representative and Bin A'kar the Alchemist. After some haggling, they accept Randall Stein's bid of 7250 g.p.. They split the price evenly with the Hagfish. Counting their new treasure, they contemplate the future. A suggestion arises to change the name Dardak, believed to be an orcish word. Mojo rejects this as very bad luck. Another suggestion come up, to incorporate the Dardak as some kind of guild or company, but further discussion is left for later.
 
Last modified: Wed Jul 21 17:03:54 MDT