The Angler

Note: This is just a short little one off. A little something different on the menu. Enjoy!

Vespasian leapt from one rock to another, avoiding the worst of the spray from the rough waves crashing in. There were few sandy beaches on the Shield Islands, and nothing on the north end he called home looked like paradise. He slid down and around a large wet boulder, landing shin deep in a tidal pool. As a boy, he and all the other poor Northender kids had foraged for dinner in these pools, looking for stranded fish, but usually just getting hardshells. Poor folks ate mudbugs and clams on this island. Rich folk ate beef imported from the mainland.

It was dark still. To the east, the sun still had not risen over the mainland, but offered the first hope of dawn. Out to the west, was only darkness and the infinite sea. A bad storm was knocking around offshore, driving winds and waves at the seaward part of the Shield. The cliffs above kept the worst of it at bay, but down here among the rocks it could get deadly as the tides and winds shifted. Winds driving onshore from the deep sea meant game fish would be driven in close, close enough for him to catch.

He made it out to a rocky point, and knelt down to unsling his rig. The oilskin case contained his breakdown fishing rod, a clever thing his Gnomish friend Flywheel had created for him. Rather than have a line simply tied on the end of the pole, this one had a length of spider silk cable coiled around a wheel housing. You could attach a hook and bait to the end, and cast it out far into the surf, out where the big fish waited for treats to wash off the land.

He was able to assemble the rig with practiced ease. It was murky and dark out here, but he required no light. As a half breed, he was able to see in the dark, although only in shades of gray. According to his mother, full blooded Elves could see in color even in the blackest night. Of course, according to her, Elves could perform all manner of miracles, were champions of goodness and light, and basically were better than the Fates. After assembling the rod, he scanned the rough waters out there. This was how Vespasian made his living. The better taverns and highborn tables would pay good silver for fresh sea bass, snapper, and sailfish. He had become adept at landing from shore the sort of fish that most men needed a boat for. He'd had to.

When his mother had booked passage to the Shield Islands some twenty years ago, she had been a war weary adventurer. She had a purse thick with gold and silver, a magic lyre, and the bastard seed of a full blooded Elf in her belly. She'd used up her purse and bought title to the Murmuring Myrmidion before she had given birth to him. In this part of the world, bastards took the family name of Sail. Also in this part of the world, superstition reigned. Superstition kept the Fates from drowning your boats when they went out. Islanders had little respect for the pointy eared champions of the forests. It was widely regarded that Elves were bad luck on boats. So much so that these foolish Fates Damned crews wouldn't have them on board. The creatures of the sea had a taste for their sweet flesh, it was said.

So it was this halfbreed's dumb luck to be born on an island where no ship would have him. Vespasian Sail could find no work as a galleyman or on a fishing boat. He'd been raised on scraps thrown from the North Wharf. Inspired by his mother's sagas that she sang at the tavern, he tried his hand at being a scoundrel. Too thin to intimidate tough seafaring folk, and a bit too slow to pick pockets, he found that he could use his custom Gnomish pole to get more than fish. Scaling up on to the roofs of South Wharf, especially on hot summer nights, he could find open windows at the nicer houses. Using his Elven sight to guide his casts, he could snag all sorts of fancy items right out of people's bedrooms as they slept. Not enough to become rich, but enough to get by. It had even earned him a name for himself -- the street folk called him the Angler. He used the rod and reel like an adventurer used a rapier.

Vespasian took a last look at the sea, and decided it was too rough here even for him. He scuttled off farther north, where the angle of the winds would be a bit less brutal. The Angler. The man who could outsmart the fish, swipe the riches from out under the noses of the high born. He had his angle on escaping the Shield Islands as well. He had silver and a little gold saved up. Another season, perhaps two, and he could buy a sloop outright. Tamarra had been giving him lessons in secret on how to sail. It was only a two day run to the mainland. He would sail the Fates damned boat himself over there, and finally be free to roam the whole wide world. His thoughts of the future distracted him as he traversed the rocky terrain, or he would have been more wary. As he rounded another jumble of rocks, he saw her.

She sat in between two black rocks, her back to the sea. She was reclining back, as if she was looking up at Northpoint cliff above them. Her long hair hung down over her breasts, and concealed her face. He realized that even though the rest of the world was still shades of grey to his eyes, she was visible as having tinges of green about her.

Of course she would. She was a mermaid.

The young man wiped his mop of wet red hair aside to look more clearly. He wasn't hallucinating. Where a woman's hips would be, her body flared out and became scaled. She was fishlike from the waist down. Her tail undulated slowly, rhythmically. Erotically.

He realized the mermaid was touching herself. One hand began rubbing her full breasts beneath her thick green hair. The other slid downwards. He realized that she actually had two tails, or perhaps one that was split. He'd never heard the sailors' tales mention that before! Her twin tails split apart, still flexing in unison. They were much like a woman's legs, actually. And the mermaid was touching herself between her legs, as a woman would.

He started to creep closer. He had to. He didn't want to. How many stories had he heard back at the Myrmidion about things like this? They always ended the same. Mystical creatures lure unsuspecting men to their doom. He was smarter than that. He was the Angler. The man who outsmarted the fish. Yet still he crept forward in the shadows. She was glowing now, he was sure of it. A green light, soft and faint at first, then growing in intensity, lit her up in a pulsating pattern. It seemed to start in her midsection and radiate out to her head and tails. She had also started making noises. She moaned, softly, over and over.

"Come....Mmmmm......Come........Mmmmm...."

He had crept as close as he dared. He swallowed hard as he realized his mouth had gone dry. He was only thirty feet off or so. Her undulating body, her voice, the lights, all seemed to writhe in time with the surf as it pounded against the rocks. It was hypnotic. He realized he could smell her now, as well. The coarse old sailor's joke about a woman smelling like fish wasn't right. To Vespasian, a woman had a scent that had a spice to it, a tang in the air. He loved a woman's scent and taste. Exotic, enticing, exciting. A promise of pleasure to come. He thought about the first time he tasted Tamarra's pussy in the tent behind North Wharf, the way she smelled. He thought it was amazing then. This scent now was ten times as powerful, ten times as enticing.

So much so that he grew erect. So hard, in fact, that he had to untie his breeches to give himself relief. His pulled his cock out to let it breathe. To his surprise, his Elven foreskin was already retracting. The clamshell sheath began curling back to reveal his sensitive cock head, self lubricating with precum. His mother said a full blood Elf would only drop his hood when he wanted to father a child; Elven men could then pleasure a woman all night without ever tiring or spilling their seed if they wished. Vespasian found that his ancestral quirk made him last quite a bit longer than a full blood Human, and the way it made his head flare out a bit impressed the human ladies like Tamarra. He licked his fingers and teased the head, fighting not to make noise as he pleasured himself.

The mermaid was no longer just playing with herself; she was enthralled. Her entire body rolled and spasmed in time with the waves of bioluminescence. Her moans and pleading for him to come to her were growing more insistent. He took a step forward. Wait, that's madness, he thought. She can't be calling to me. She doesn't know I'm here. Does she? He still couldn't see her face. Her seaweed like green hair hung down over top of it.

He stroked himself faster now, his thumb and finger circled tight around his shaft, pumping and stroking. The pleasure was magnified, somehow more intense than it had ever been before. His hand started moving in time with the flashes of green light. He took another step closer. She must be putting this show on for him, he decided. Why else would she be here? He thought of how good that pussy would feel, wrapped around him. If the smell was this enticing, how might she taste? Another step closer. His eyes only registered the now blinding flashes of light pounding through her body. His night vision was spoiled by the periodic flashes. He saw only her glowing form among the black rocks. The way she bucked now, he thought she might come. What would the child of a mermaid and a half blood Elf look like, he wondered? That would be a tale for the ages! The sailors would sing of him for generations!

Another step, then another. He was so close now. His cock was so hard that it ached. His balls felt ready to burst. He had never been so horny in his young life. The mermaid's passion must carry some kind of enchantment. His mind lost all rational thought. He had to have her. It was meant to be. He took a final step forward, took her head in his hands, lifting the veil of hair from the woman like a bride.

And he screamed.

What he was holding was not the face of a beautiful mermaid maiden. It was a fleshy, bulbous thing, devoid of any hint of a face. No eyes, no mouth or nose. Touching it, he realized the entire body of the mermaid was nothing of the sort. It was all just a rubbery mass, pulsing with blinding green light, somehow vibrating with those enticing noises. An instant too late, he spied the black cord of tentacle leading out from the lure's backside into the rocks behind her.

A pair of whiplike tentacles shot out of the water. They coiled around his body tightly, lightning fast. They had small barbs that dug in and held fast, making escape impossible. One curled twice around his upper chest, pinning his arms to his torso. The other wrapped around his waist and dug in. As he felt himself being lifted off the ground, the mermaid lure that had attracted him now glowed bright green and stayed lit. And in that hellish light, he saw the mermaid lure was attached back by a third tentacle to the head of an immense, hideous creature. It was roughly round, jagged, shaped quite like the rocks it was hiding in. Big as a house, it had bulbous eyes the size of shields, and a vertical slit of a mouth that was easily six foot wide. Not just a single row of teeth, but an obscene crowd of sharp misshapen teeth lay in layers going into its maw. The lure, he now saw, was retracting back into the top of its head, nestling down into a crevice there, and growing dark.

With a vicious twist, the creature flexed its two tentacles in opposite directions. The violent force literally tore poor Vespasian in two. The pain of it was so overwhelming, so complete, that it allowed him to see the next few moments with clarity. He saw the monster pull his own spasming legs closer to that mouth. It turned his legs upside down, allowing the blood and his seed spurting out of his dying yet still hard cock to fall greedily into the toothy maw. A tentacle like tongue came out, licking up the fluids of blood and come, death and life, from his broken body.

The sailors' stories were true, he though as he felt himself be carried through the air towards that mouth. The sea creatures really do like the taste of Elves. As he looked at the vertical slit of a mouth, with its rows of teeth, his last thoughts were...

Fates be Damned, it looks just like a pussy...