#and this one sounds like jormungandr from the gow games so

[mumms-the-word]

In Fathoms Below - Ch. 5

Ch. 5 - Dragon Turtle

Characters: Gale, Karlach, Wyll, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Astarion, Halsin, Minthara, Gortash + other OCs; pairing is Gale x fem!Tav Plot: The island city of Nautera disappeared over 4500 years ago, if it ever existed at all. Now not a single, legitimate record of Nautera exists, save for one. The Nauterran Account. Long thought lost, it has recently been retrieved from the depths of Candlekeep’s archives and placed into the capable hands of one Gale Dekarios. With the Nauterran Account in hand and an eclectic team of Baldurians and other allies mounting an official expedition, Gale journeys to find the ruins of Nautera…but hopes to find so much more. A/N: Dragon turtle alert!! Will the team make it out of this encounter alive? Will they find the entrance to Nautera before anything bad happens to them?? Read on to find out, intrepid readers!

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“Tribute?” 

Gale glanced over his shoulder at the room behind him. The submersible was tilted at a steep angle so that the floor sloped sharply downward, forcing most people to hang on to controls, pipes, and railings to try and stay standing. It was Minthara who voiced the question from where she crouched using the side of a control unit as her foundation. 

All heads turned to seek out the vampire. Karlach was holding him mostly upright with a strong grip around his upper arm, her other hand hanging on to a bit of railing. The vampire’s eyes widened as he noticed all eyes were on him.

“Well don’t look at me!”

“I don’t think it will accept lives as tribute,” Wyll said. He had one hand wrapped around a pipe and was leaning out like a swashbuckling pirate, completely at ease with the new angles in the room. “Especially undead ones. It’s a dragon—the only language it speaks is treasure.”

“Well we don’t have any treasure to give it,” Gortash snapped. 

“This entire submersible is coated in polished bronze and brass, Gortash,” Shadowheart said. “I doubt it will believe that.”

“Then our only course of action is to attack,” Minthara said.

“Attack a dragon turtle?” Halsin asked, twisting from where he was, his back flat to the nearly vertical floor and his feet on a series of pipes, to look up at her. “Are you mad?”

“Would you rather get eaten, druid?”

“It spoke to us first, perhaps we can respond!”

“I think it’s growing impatient,” Gale warned, as the dragon turtle turned its head again and narrowed its eyes. 

A hollow-sounding, panicked voice suddenly rang out from a trumpet-like fixture on the wall. “Saer! The outer walls are cracking back here and water is leaking in! I don’t know how much go longer the bulkheads can withstand the pressure!”

“Gods-damned monstrosities,” Gortash growled under his breath. He shifted from where he knelt against the main control panels, his foot nearly wedged in the ship’s wheel. “Gale. You can speak to it. Convince it to release us.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” Gale asked, irritation and disbelief making his tone sharp. “Ask it very nicely?”

“I was told you were intelligent. Figure it out. Quickly.” He turned his head toward the rest of the room. “The rest of you, ready yourselves!”

“Battle stations!” Minthara barked. “Send word to the others—be ready for anything.”

The dragon turtle spoke again, its impossibly deep voice once more causing the entire submersible to rattle and shake. 

Speak, creature. Who sends you?

Gale took a deep breath and got to his feet, planting one foot on the glass and the other on the metal control unit next to him. There was no way this dragon turtle could hear him inside the submersible, even if he shouted. It was clearly time for some good old-fashioned thaumaturgy. 

He touched a hand to his throat and cast the spell—Fortior!—and willed his voice to be three times louder, almost as loud as the dragon turtle’s. With another deep breath, he shouted in draconic, “We are priests of Umberlee! Release us so that we may offer our tribute to you!”

Surely a small lie wouldn't make things worse. They just needed to get free.

The dragon turtle narrowed its eyes again and then gave another deep, rumbling laugh.

Ahh…not a creature, but a vessel. Priests of Umberlee, you say?

It tilted their submersible again, almost leveling it out. Gale had to scramble to jump down from the control unit back onto the floor without falling flat on his back. “Yes! Release us and we—”

The entire world suddenly tore out from underneath Gale and then slammed against him once more as the dragon turtle dragged the submersible through the water and smashed it against the rocky face of a cliff. Gale and several others flew through the helm, falling first to the floor and then crashing against controls, levers, wheels, and pipes as the submersible crunched against the rock. An explosion of pain bloomed in his side and chest as he was thrown against a set of controls, all sharp edges and hard metal, knocking the air from his lungs.

The dragon turtle let go of the submersible with a rumbling laugh. As they drifted downward, sinking slowly, black spots began to swirl in Gale's vision. He tried to find his breath again, willing his struggling lungs to take in air. As he struggled, he vaguely made out the dragon turtle's next words.

You lie.

“What the hells did you say to it?” Gortash yelled, climbing back up to his feet.

Gale clutched his side with a grimace and tried to sit up. “It—it doesn’t matter,” he gasped. “We’re free.”

Gortash stumbled over to a speaking horn on the wall and leaned in to yell, “Gunners! Launch the harpoons!”

“I don’t think harpoons are going do much against that guy,” Wyll warned. “Except make it angry.”

“I don’t care. Redhammer! All engines as high as they can go! If we can’t fight this thing, we’ll outpace it.”

But Redhammer, lying crumpled just a few feet from Gale, made no response. Gale’s stomach flipped as he noticed the unnatural angle of the dwarf’s neck. Across the room, two other pilots, a gnome and a human, lay deathly still, unconscious or killed by the brunt of being thrown about by the dragon turtle’s attack.

Outside, large spear-like harpoons shot through the water, launched from somewhere in the lower decks and sides of the submersible. Most of them bounced off or barely grazed the dragon turtle, but one shot forth right as the dragon turtle opened its mouth, sticking fast into the flesh of its gums. The creature growled, shrinking back, and lifted a clawed flipper to swipe at its face, clipping the submersible as it did. They tilted again, swaying and rocking.

“Redhammer!” Gortash twisted to look for the dwarf, then swore and took hold of the wheel himself, forcing the submersible to steady. “Pilots! Engines to—”

“Lord Gortash!” Another panicked, tinny voice burst from the horn on the wall. “Saer! The port side fins are damaged—bad. I don’t think—”

Another voice interrupted them, the voices mingling with a din until the second won over. “—starboard fins! I repeat, excessive damage to the starboard fins! Half of it’s torn off and—”

Yet another voice. “Saer! The rear bulkheads have burst and water is rushing towards the engine rooms! If we don’t get out of here fast we—”

“Gods damn them all!” With gritted teeth, Gortash let go of the wheel and dragged the dead human pilot over, wedging them beneath the outer spokes of the wheel to keep it from turning. “Evacuate the ship, now! All hands to the battle subs and cargo vessels!”

Flashes of light began to illuminate the waters as something else, cannonballs of some kind, shot toward the dragon turtle and exploded against its thick hide. Inside the submersible, the helm was a frenzy of activity as people rushed out of the room. Wyll swung down from where he’d been clinging to the pipes to help Gale to his feet as Karlach hefted the still-bound vampire over her shoulder.

“Come on, fangs, you’re with me!”

“Up you go, Gale, on your feet,” Wyll said, hauling him up. “Don’t fall behind!”

Gale didn’t bother gasping a response. He merely checked that his satchel was still around his body and that the Nauterran Account was still inside as he rushed after Wyll and the others. They clambered down ladders, down into a large cargo bay area. The vast space, now filling with water that already reached their calves, was lined with smaller submersibles and two medium-sized seacrafts—the cargo vessels. Each was shaped like a big metal fish in the same bronzy coating as the main submersible, but several of them were armed with harpoon guns and even a few cannons.

He saw Shadowheart and Lae’zel disappear into a smaller craft with another pilot while Wyll and Halsin ran ahead to help others. Gale swerved to follow Gortash, Minthara, Karlach, and her fanged hostage into a larger vessel alongside several others.

The minute they were inside, Karlach dumped the vampire into one of the seats that lined the wall and pointed to a seat on the opposite side. “Buckle in, soldier, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride! You,” she said pointing a clawed finger in the vampire’s face, “I’m unbinding you but you’re staying buckled in, got it?”

“Whatever gets me out of this madness intact,” he said, nodding quickly. She quickly cut through the bindings on his arms and then buckled him in tight as he was rubbing his wrists. She left his ankles bound and strapped herself into the seat next to him.

Gale collapsed into the other seat opposite them, fumbling with the buckles with shaking hands, sweat beading his brow. The pain in his side was impossible to ignore now and every breath sent a new wave of pain. The orb marking in his chest hadn’t stopped glowing since he’d stared down the dragon turtle through the glass, but now it throbbed in time with the waves of pain coursing through him. Outside the vessel, the main submersible shook again, as if something had broken or ruptured.

“Get us free of this damnable ship before it kills us! What are you waiting for?” Minthara barked from where she and Gortash sat in the cockpit of the submersible.

“Damn you, woman, I’m working on it!” he snapped, flicking a series of switches and pulling one of the levers. 

Dimly outside they could hear the roar of the dragon turtle and feel the submersible shaking as the gunners continued to load and launch harpoons and cannonballs. A loud bang blasted toward them as two massive metal doors on the far side of the cargo bay swung open and then crumpled under the pressure of the oncoming flood. A torrent of water rushed over them, lifting them up, nearly toppling them over, sweeping away several people still scrambling to get inside the smaller subs. Within seconds they were completely submerged in seawater.

“Finally! Took them long enough,” Gortash said. He pulled another lever and something—the cargo vessel's engines—roared to life. 

Gale twisted to look out of the front windows of their vessel just as they launched out from the cargo bay. Gortash steered them sharply downward from the submersible, deftly dodging around another vessel and dipping toward the sea floor. A great flash of light illuminated the waters around them, followed by the barely muffled sound of a massive explosion, sending out a wave of force that rocked their vessel violently. The dragon turtle gave a piercing screech.

“The submersible!” Karlach yelled, turning to look through a porthole on her side.

“Good,” Minthara said viciously. “Let’s hope it harmed the creature and bought us some time.”

The depths outside were chaos. Gale watched through the glass as the wave of force from the submersible explosion sent a gunner ship careening to the side and straight into a rock tower. The vessel hit the rocks and crumpled like tin. Before its lights flickered out, he saw the tower begin to crumble down over it.

All around them, the trenches were filled with a frenzy of flashing explosions and high-speed metal subs veering around stone columns, cliffs, and other submersibles, all pursued by an angry dragon turtle the size of a large fortress. Everything came in glimpses as lights from the subs swung wildly about, attempting to pierce the inky darkness enough to avoid the hazards all around them. Gale tried desperately to think of some spell to help in a situation like this, but his pain-addled mind was useless—inside an underwater submersible flying around at reckless speeds, he was useless.

“Gale!” Gortash yelled, over his shoulder, shouting to be heard over the din of others attacking the dragon turtle and its angry roars.  His voice snapped Gale out of his thoughts. “What are our chances that this dragon turtle is guarding your entrance to Nautera?”

“Given all these destroyed ships, extraordinarily high but not a guarantee,” Gale shouted back. They swerved sharply again to avoid crashing into one of the dragon turtle’s legs as it turned in the water. Smaller gunner ships were flitting around it like flies, trying to shoot harpoons and exploding cannonballs at it. The beast swiped a clawed arm at them, catching one of them and sending it crashing into another. Gale forced himself to look away from the gruesome sight and back out toward the front of their cargo vessel. “If it’s here, the statues are lying on the sea floor—look for a stone head or an arm worn down by time and the currents!”

“And then?”

“You’re looking for a crack in the rock—a crevice or a wide split that tunnels downward into the bedrock! Follow it down and around and we should end up in the Underdark!”

“There!” Minthara pointed. “I see something amid the broken ships!”

Gale craned his neck to peer through the front windows. In the distance, faintly seen in the lights of their vessel, two giant statue heads rested against the rocky sea floor, one lying on its side. They were worn smooth by time, but there were still a few features that were instantly recognizable as humanoid features, marking them as distinctly different than the rocks and boulders around them.

“Yes! That has to be them! Look for a deep crevice—”

Another explosion, this one much smaller, rocked their vessel as another gunner was destroyed. 

“Shit!” Karlach said, looking out of the portholes. “Gortash you gotta push this thing faster or we’re gonna be dinner for the big guy!”

The dragon turtle roared again, much closer and much louder, the sound one of rage and pain. Gale could vaguely make out words in the cacophony, which rang so loudly he and the others had to clamp their hands over their ears.

I WILL CRUSH YOUR METAL SHELLS AND SCATTER YOUR BONES TO THE DEPTHS!

It yelled something else, but Gale stopped trying to translate in his head. He gripped his satchel with one hand and the edge of his seat with the other, trying to keep himself from rattling around as Gortash pushed their ship to its limits, veering sharply around rocks and other vessels.

“Gortash! It’s gaining on us!”

“There!” Minthara yelled, pointing ahead. 

Gortash didn’t respond. He dipped them suddenly downward, aiming for a wide cleft in the bedrock.

Gale clutched tighter to his seat, trying to talk himself out of a rising panic as visions of crashing at full speed into the rock clouded his mind. “Just rudimentary plumbing, it’s just like rudimentary plumbing, it’s—”

The vampire looked at him like he was going mad.

The roar of the dragon turtle was right behind them as they dove down into the darkness of the crevice. Its giant clawed flipper reached in after them, scraping them and causing them nearly to crash into the tunnel walls, but soon they were free—and driving dangerously fast in a very narrow tunnel.

“Gortash, watch it!” Karlach yelled.

Gortash pulled a lever and the vessel's side fins turned suddenly vertical, creating a drag effect that acted like a harsh brake, abruptly slowing them as the tunnel took a sharp turn upward. Gale and everyone else buckled into the vessel's seats were flattened to their seats and then banged around as they clipped the tunnel walls trying to turn and follow the snaking tunnels upward. Behind them, some unfortunate gunner wasn’t so lucky, crashing directly into the tunnel walls with another bright explosion. Gortash threw the lever again, manipulating the fins and engines to make it through the tunnels as they twisted and turned.

For one terrifying moment, Gale was convinced he’d been wrong. That these tunnels went nowhere except to a dead end and that they would crash into bedrock with enough force to spell instant death for everyone inside. He clenched his teeth so hard together he thought they would crack as they hurtled upward into deeper and deeper darkness—

And then all at once, they shot free of the tunnels, rocketing into open water. Gortash flattened the side fins again, dragging them through the depths and slowing them quickly. Seconds later, the water came to an abrupt end as they surfaced with an explosive spray. Gortash killed the engines, leaving them to bob up and down in the waves their abrupt surfacing had created.

Then…silence. Silence and darkness, save for the lights beaming out from the front of the cargo vessel.

“Did…did we make it?” Karlach asked, running a slightly shaking hand through her hair. Beside her, the vampire looked like he regretted ever climbing aboard the submersible in the first place.

“I think so,” Gale said, his voice somewhat weak. He pressed a hand to his aching side and turned carefully to peer out of the portholes on his side of the cargo vessel. Water lapped against the window, only coming about halfway up the glass. Overhead, there seemed to be nothing but space. This was no small cave or air pocket. It was a large cavern.

A moment later, two of the small gunner ships surfaced beside them, followed by a battered-looking third. Shadowheart and Lae’zel climbed out of the top, standing on the roof to look around. They bent their heads together for a moment before Shadowheart cast a spell on something in Lae’zel’s hands, creating a wide aura of light. Lae’zel threw the illuminated object into the darkness. 

As it sailed through the cavern in a high arc, piercing the darkness around them, Gale could see arching rocky walls and hundreds of stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Just before the illuminated object plopped into the water and sank, still glowing, into the depths, Gale spied a rocky beach and the ruins of four towering, carved columns framing a series of hewn stone steps. The evidence of humanoid craftsmanship, though ancient, couldn't be more obvious.

These must be the ancient roads to Nautera.

They had found the Underdark path to the lost city. Just as the Nauterran Account said they would.

[zenlesszonezero]