"I won't make ye listen to the long version, but a decade back when we's was still at war with the Tarnil devils across the border, the crown was looking for any advantage they could get that would push the war front back off our turf and make them damn Tarnils think twice about invading us ever again," the captain said. He had finished priming his pipe with tobacco and lit it with a series of deft strikes of flint.
"So the men of age was already all pressed into service in the army at the time when they found the first seams of metil in caverns directly beneath the foundation of the palace. Naturally it was a godsent for the kingdom at war. I remember, I spent my first two months here aboard the Lady as part of the crew, and we was ferrying metil from the palace to the troops holding the line," The captain's eyes sparkled with a glimmer of pride.
"Might well have won us the war, that metil did. But anyhow, to do the mining, the crown enlisted a team of female peasants from the countryside. One of those peasants was pregnant with child, but since the husband was away fighting, nobody knew who the real father was, and nobody wanted to ask," the old sailor stopped talking briefly enough to inhale deeply from the pipe and breathed a wreath of smoke that disintegrated in the chilly wind.
"And here we get to the answer to yer question, lad. When that mine was still small, the pregnant woman gave birth to a trollop. Right in the dark of the mine. Not a year later it had matured and there were reports of more attacks and rapes happening. Before anyone knew it, whole teams of female miners were going missing. They was kidnapped without a doubt. The new miners that they recruited found tunnels and shafts where there were supposed to be none on the plans. They found runnin' water, red lichens, and other evil things a-growing, and they also found the corpses of the guards assigned to defend the previous miners. Of all the unexpected stuff they found down there the only things they didnt find were the missing miners," The old sailor removed the pipe from his mouth and looked across the bow of the ship into the darkness.
"It was just a few years more and that hole had taken on a life of its own. Even the armed rescue parties they sent down there never came back out. Eventually the war ended and the crown sealed up the mine and did their best to hush up the things that happened in it. But for all anyone knows, there could now be a whole army of trollops still breeding in that abyss under the castle," The captain stopped and suddenly grinned at Aaralon, displaying again his decayed black teeth.
"But with a whole crew of you young wizards, there's probably nothing to be concerned about. During the war I saw a wizard roast an entire patrol of Tarnil soldiers like they was made of tinder or something. Poof, poof, poof and they was up in flames, and he didn't even break a sweat."
The captain took a last puff of his pipe and emptied its contents over the side of the ship, "The winds are lookin fine and we'll be putting in to port at the palace in a few hours. Ye'll probably want to catch a few winks of sleep before then. I know I will."
The pipe vanished back into it's holster next to the wicked-looking truncheon, and the captain retired to his cabin. The first mate, a wiry fellow in a red vest, took up the helm without comment.
Aaralon looked at his charges. Olive's beautiful face had gone pale, and Nora had put her cowl up over her head, but her hands were shaking in the chill wind. Stanton was hugging his knees and was the first to speak, "Do you think the captain was having us on? I'm sure instructor Memp wouldn't have knowingly sent us to a place as dangerous as the captain described."
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