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A stalwart ship swayed and danced over the angry waves east of Bemean, listless for the rage that the oceanic deities threw at it. At the helm of the proud ship stood an equally proud skipper, eyes as focused on the horizon as they were on the future; he knew in his heart of hearts that it would be but a few more expeditions before he crested his vest with honours unmatched. Running amok his ship was the proof of his managerial talent; a bewildering scramble of workmen scurried across, over, and under the deck, hurriedly pulling at ropes and pullies. The sight was incoherent to all but the skipper and one other passive onlooker of the chaos.

There was one individual in the sea of hurried people who was not partaking of the dance of the deck; rather, he casually meandered through the crowd towards the skipper with a mug of stout in his hand, liquid sloshing all about the deck along to the sway of the ship. The dropped ichor would mix with the biting waves that crashed against and over the ship's side, taken away and lost to the vast ocean. This noon drunkard was by far the most irritating member of the skipper's crew; it was a certainty that he had a lazy bone, and that bone was the most energetic bone in which all others were exponentially lazier. Add onto this that the man had nothing but his bones, and there was now nothing to hold back his exceptional lethargy. His spilt drink ran about the ship with more effort and drive than him.

The lazy drunkard made his way up to the skipper. "Ah weather, she ain't always the nicest. I still love her though." The drunkard was old, so astoundingly old that not even muscle remained on his body. His intense age and the segregation he had experienced from the world for so long caused him to have a strange dialect, a dialect created not by culture but by time.

"I didn't think a pile of bones like you would still have someone like that in their life… or death?" The skipper was unsure how to address the drunkard next to him. He was sure that one must show etiquette when speaking with the undead; he just lacked the experience to know what it was.

"Who? Oh yeah, she out thar somewhere, and soon I'll fish her out and give her one on the neck like she did me." The drunk skeleton haphazardly threw his drinking arm across his exposed ribs and pointed to an empty space where one would usually have their second arm. The partial remains of a shoulder no longer burdened with socketing its arm. There was a sharp indentation along its open edge as if some great sea beast had made a meal of him some eons ago. As he pointed to the gap, his brew briefly tilted beyond its critical point, and the alcohol dripped down through his exposed bones to the floor where the rest of his drink had fallen. He could no longer experience consumption since his organs passed on without him, but he enjoyed the nostalgic act regardless.

Of course, the diligent skipper was so focused on guiding the ship that he had not noticed any of this. The skipper stifled a laugh as he struggled to maintain composure and professionalism. "Oh yeah? What is she like?"

Although utterly useless in practical aid, the drunkard next to the skipper often made himself slightly tolerable as a jester to entertain upon tiresome journeys. "Ah great behemoth, of size unrivalled and ferocity even more so. A greater terror I have never met, she be the cause of who I am now, and all I long for is to meet her again to return my favours threefold."

The skipper, now unable to hide his surprise, replied through the unintended interruptions of his own chuckling, "You speak very colourfully of your… terror. What is she, the white witch?"

"The white which what?"

The skipper was so surprised by this response that he had to take a moment to look at the skeleton's face to confirm he was serious. Sadly, very little could be gleaned from a washed-out, empty skull. "I know that your five years back with the living have mostly been spent in isolation, but even then, to be so ignorant as to not know of the white witch."

"You, young'uns, always coming up with yar new sayins and meanings, it's hard to keep it all straight." The skipper could not believe his ears. He could not understand the minds of the powers-that-be who threw this excuse of a sailor on his crew for this mission. The drunkard may be of ancient age, but without modern experience, he was of juvenile wit. Surely, the powers-that-be understood that this skipper was of the best that the Pangean Entente had the grace of working with. If it were not for the words of his commanders, this pile of bones would have been left behind on Parapet Island before ever getting the chance to step foot on his ship.

"How on the Devadoot's wishes did you manage to get on my ship?"

"Has your memory be fading capt'n? I be on your crew since a week before we departed." The skipper no longer was paying attention to the skeleton at his side. He was too lost in the throes of grief that perhaps he was the dumping grounds of the undesirables of their militant force. Send all the hindrances on a ship and give them some long, arduous and far task like scanning the edge of the world for a growing hole and hope at least a few manage to not return. He should have known better; the edge of the world nearly never had a hole in it, and it surely never had one which grew.

"No, perhaps they're just testing me." The skipper mumbled to himself, solidifying his will and confidence. He looked out in the distance and noticed that the ocean had, at some point, become entirely still; it did not take long for the skipper to notice the oddity of the situation. The ocean was not calm but completely and inexplicably still, as if frozen in time. The crew had stopped their work as well, watching the stilled waters. Waves about to crash against the ship seemed hesitant, preferring to hold impossibly still.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The skeleton drunk emptied the remainder of his mug down his nonexistent throat before handing it over to the skipper.

"I hope ya get this refilled when I come back." he joked in a dry and undeniably bored tone. The skipper, confused, stood motionless as he watched the skeleton disappear below deck. Never before in his years of sailing had he witnessed the ocean stop. He had heard of the strange anomalies that plagued the waters nearing the edge of the world, but he always dismissed the stories as exaggerated fairytales.

Through the pressing silence, a loud, deafening moan bellowed, and the entire boat seemed to vibrate in panic, each plank of the ship brought to the limit of its durability. Then, silence fell once more: no rushing water, no creaking wood, no flapping sails, no howling winds; and then, a booming sound as a devilish face crashed through the still water, a grotesque oily body following behind as this impossible, thing, flew into the sky.

Above the ship's mast, the colossal monster loomed, its immense body extending far deeper into the ocean's depths than mortal eyes could fathom. Its countenance defied the laws of geometry, a concave visage collapsing into its head, defying the confines of its outer dimensions. From the depths of its cavernous maw, a lengthy, white proboscis snaked down to the ship's deck, its tip morphing into an ethereal hand poised to ensnare any hapless soul within reach. Like precious gems adorning the creature's yellowish stomach, a row of fist-sized eyes shimmered, each bearing three pupils and three interlocking irises, descending to the height of the crow's nest.

Perched in the crow's nest, a crewmate no longer in need of his spyglass stood frozen, locked in an eerie communion with one of the behemoth's eyes, which returned his gaze with an unsettling intensity. The beast's proboscis slithered methodically up the mast, closing in on the crow's nest. At the ethereal hand's approach, the air seemed to tremble with anticipation. It floated towards the petrified crewman, its spectral fingers reaching for the soft warmth of his skin. With an eerie tenderness, they caressed his cheek before descending towards his neck. The long, sinuous digits stretched and twirled around his throat, slowly tightening their grip, subjecting the unfortunate man's neck to unbearable pressure, the veins bulging ominously as they threatened to rupture from their organic confines.

Suddenly, a massive metal rod thrust through the proboscis, cleaving it in twain with a resounding clash. The monstrous behemoth recoiled, its agony manifesting in a deafening, ear-splitting cry so powerful it ruptured the eardrums of any unfortunate crew on deck. A taut cable, tethered to the violent metal rod, whirred to life as it rapidly descended toward the ship's deck. The cable continued its relentless descent until, with a decisive click, the metal rod secured itself in a perfectly fitted holster.

Standing amidst the chaos of writhing and bleeding seamen was a one-armed skeleton brandishing his favoured weapon—a steam-powered harpoon gun, its metallic frame glistening with the residue of its prey. Though this creature was not his destined foe, the occasional exercise was a necessary indulgence to keep his skills honed. Now identifying the source of its torment, the ferocious beast unleashed another explosive screech that reverberated through the ship, splintering planks and hurling supplies and tools in all directions. The skeleton, unlike the rest of the crew, was thankfully immune to these sonic assaults as he had no ears for which to rupture.

With a pull of the trigger, his harpoon gun whirred to life, spewing plumes of smoke from its protruding pipes. The harpoon shot from its holster, guided by the skeleton's expert aim, piercing the behemoth's uppermost eye and embedding itself deep within the creature's anatomy. A grayish cerebral matter oozed from the wounded eye, tracing a grotesque path down the serpent-like body. The cable whirred once more, pulling taut against the harpoon that was firmly lodged inside the beast. It was too deeply embedded to be retrieved, so the whirring cable propelled the skeleton toward the harpoon rod instead.

Just as the skeleton nearly reached the apogee of his path, the harpoon finally dislodged from the ravaged eye. Then, with a thunderous release of pent-up steam, the mechanism expelled an explosive burst of smoke downward, propelling the skeleton skyward over the colossal creature's head.

For what seemed like an eternity, the skeleton floated idly at the climax of his jump, waiting for gravity to finally overcome his momentum. In this brief tranquility in the middle of his fight, he thought he could hear the faint chime of a bell.

Gravity took hold of the skeleton and pulled him downwards with accelerant vigour. The pistons in his mechanism started to pump rapidly, and the barrel of his weapon glowed a dim orange. One final time, the mechanism expelled all its built-up steam from its back, launching the harpoon cleanly through the beast's head and lodging itself into the ship. The cable then retracted and, with the harpoon lodged, pulled the skeleton through the creature's head wound, bursting out the exit along with some pungent giblets and landing eloquently on the ship. The creature, without a sound, lifelessly sank into the ocean abyss.

The skeleton was waiting for his round of applause but was disappointed to see that his entire audience was incapacitated, all except one.

Directly ahead of the skeleton, there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards the skeleton, holding a glowing parchment: It read.

You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Sailor