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Saturday 19 August 2017

The Poisoned Sailor

A doctor is awakened in the middle of a rainy night by furious banging at his front door. If opened, a desperate, haggard-looking sailor will storm in, pleading for help. He rolls up his shirt’s sleeve, offering his horridly bulging arm for examination. Swelled and blackened, it appears to be affected by necrosis. The man begs for help, claiming he was poisoned by a rival.

“Duh bastar’ hates me guts cos my business runs strong, an’ he’s a lazy, warty ol’drunkar’ who can’t keep ep. He’s poison’ me drinks! Help me please, ain’t wanna die, oh Gawd!”

The arm responds to no medical treatment the doctor can come up with. Hospitals have no more success. The necrosis worsens by the hour.

Possibilities

1 The sailor is telling a half truth. The ‘rival’ isn’t simply jealous because of business competition, he’s seeking something the sailor has: an old trophy from a shipwreck, looking like a copper bracelet with intricate designs. The rival, actually a follower of Dagon, knows that it’s a piece of deep one jewellery, and badly wants it. Since the sailor refuses to part with it, the cultist has cursed the sailor, and will later contact the sailor for a bargain.

2 The sailor has tainted deep one blood, but is also cursed. His now-dead (human) mother found the strength of will to break free of the bonds imposed by her monstrous consort.

Furious by such unprecedent behaviour, the deep one asked Dagon to curse both she and any offspring she might have in the future. Any descendant would come to the world doomed to end his life, transformed into a ravenous human-eating monster, one far more horrible than the most degenerate deep one hybrid. Unfortunately for the sailor, the onset time for the transformation is over... but perhaps there is a way to reverse it.

3 The sailor really is poisoned, but it is incredibly potent. A creation of a serpent man sorcerer that the sailor had wronged. But how?

© Ricardo Christe

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