“Well, the good thing is that all our men are ashore, so let us away from this haunted place.”

The admiral was about to gesture for the fleet to move out when he stopped mid-motion and put his palm to his face.

“Urgh! We forgot to send the supplies! Alright, everyone, let’s speed this up. I’ve got a bad feeling about this place and, if my hunch is correct, which it often is, we need to leave as soon as possible.”

The crewmen of the ships were, of course, none too happy about this change in plan, but they did realize that they had essentially doomed the soldiers they had sent by ferrying the soldiers across so quickly that they (both sailor and soldier) had forgotten to send all the food, tents, clothes, water, and more that the ground forces were supposed to have alongside them. Now, as the boats were lowered into the water yet again, now carrying the needed supplies, everyone began to have the sneaking suspicion that this new plan had an unknown time limit that was gradually counting down to something horrible.

“Faster! We need to leave quickly! Get everything you can out in as few trips as possible!” the Admiral bellowed with growing fear and anxiety. He could tell by the change in the air that something was coming, and that it was coming in fast. However, even as he and several others scanned the surface of the placid waters and the visible portion of the ground for enemies, they could not spot even a single, solitary foe. There was not even a shadow of something under the water, and the complete lack of anything for people to latch onto and focus their ever-growing fear on only made the tension grow ever larger and more pronounced in all who felt it.

Finally, the last of the rowboats carrying the supplies for the ground forces began to make their way towards the shore, leaving their motherships behind as their fearful crew rowed harder than they had ever done before. However, fate would not be so kind as to let the Sultanate invade this land of the dead and damned without them suffering a heavy price. Not to mention, there was another individual who intended to exact a grim payment from these people, and that being’s name was Pluton.

…

The rowboats were halfway across when a massive shadow swept over the men on the beach and then flew over the rowboats and finally the Sultanate’s ships. This was the tipping point that pushed the ever-increasing dread in everyone over the limit and sent the ground forces running for any kind of solid shelter that they could find. This was all while the men on the rowboats panicked and the crews of the larger ships began to rapidly make the needed action to run far, far away as fast as they possibly could.

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However, each of these three groups had its own issues to deal with. The rowboats were in the middle, trapped between going a decent distance back to the ships that may not take them back or going an equal distance to the shore where they would be sitting ducks. The larger naval craft had their own issues, which included the fact that they needed to raise their anchors and unfurl their sails, among other things. As for those on the beach itself, the meager cover that the blasted ruins on the coast provided were not nearly enough to safeguard the army that had been forced to take refuge in them.

Overall, this was a bad situation for the Sultanate to be in, and the shadow that had passed over them was coming back around. The eyes of the living mortal men looked up and past the fleet. All of their bearers ceasing their actions and thoughts for a moment as they beheld a beast spawned from myth and legend flying low over the unnervingly tranquil waters like some kind of massive, undead, reptilian Close Air Support. The eyes of the dragon gleamed with hate and fury, and as it opened its mouth one could swear that the screams of the condemned could be heard echoing from down its throat.

Unfortunately, hearing the cries of the black dragon’s perpetually tormented victims was soon to be the least of the Sultanate Military’s concerns, as from the pitch-black inside of its maw a growing mass of sinister force was swelling. Before the shock completely wore off, the massive monster unleashed a gout of blackish miasma and flame that seemed not only to burn and melt anything it touched but also to literally strip the ‘life’ out of inanimate objects. An entire line of the Sultanate’s potent warships and transports went up in a sea of black and purple magical dragonfire, the screams of those exposed to it snapping everyone else out of their trance.

Immediately, the ships attempted to simply cut their losses and run, even going so far as to simply attempt to abandon their fellows who either had not finished their preparations as fast or were still on the rowboats. As they ran, the dragon came around again and targeted them intentionally, reducing their wooden boats to so much debris with another singular breath attack. It was at this point that the crews aboard the remaining warships and transports realized that to stay on their ships was beyond suicidal, and one by one every crewman, from the lowest cabin boy to the admiral himself, abandoned ship and began to try and swim to shore.

It was a few miles from their position to the beaches, and at first, they were concerned that the dragon would pick them off as they swam for their lives, but the warship-sized monstrosity ignored them and instead reduced their last ship to driftwood and scrap before soaring off and vanishing in the clouds.

By the end of the day, the number of people on the beach had grown by a not insubstantial number, however, the situation that all were in was now exponentially direr. The knowledge that the monstrous black dragon could come at any time and from any direction drove some to despair. Perhaps they would have avoided much further suffering if they had decided to all commit suicide as the more despondent had suggested. However, their torment would end up being dragged out due to the impassioned speeches from the Army’s General, the (now sunken) Fleet’s Admiral, and the head of the Clerics who had come along to ‘preach the good word’.

The end was postponed, for now, but little did these influential and charismatic people know that they were playing right into Pluton’s claws.