Legend of Grimrock: Destiny's Chance.

Tawmis stood, hands on the bars of the cage and rattled them as much as he could, as if hoping he could bend them. “I refuse to fight in a gladiator ring again. I refuse to be a slave.” Tawmis’ eyes drifted to Taren who had been unusually silent. For both of them, they met in a gladiator ring. Together, they fought side by side and earned their freedom. But the time as a Gladiator was harsh. They had witness so much death, so much brutality. “We will find a way out of this,” Tawmis assured the massive minotaur.

Taren turned and looked at Tawmis and gave him a weak smile. “I am sure we will. Our path is just unclear at the moment.”

Suddenly the ship lurched to the right unexpectedly, sending all of them crashing painfully into the metal bars, unable to adjust to the sudden shift in the ship’s direction. Blaz’tik tried to pull himself up, but the ship was still pulling hard to the right. “What -tic!- is going on?”

“I’ve been on enough ships,” Taren replied. “This is not natural. I don’t even hear any wind. Something is pulling the ship to the right. And pulling very hard.”

Coy peered through one of portholes of the ship. “You may not hear winds, but those skies have turned black! Look!”

Outside it was as if a grey bottle of paint was spilled across the sky. Slowly, it spread, devouring the once blue skies, and making them dark and grey. Accompanying the change, the sea also began to surge; large waves slammed up against the ship, which rocked the entire boat. Down below, Tawmis and others found themselves being batted around their prison cages. Above deck, the crew members were shouting; the voices of most were clearly drenched in just as much fear as they were wet. Tawmis turned to Blaz’tik, “This you’re doing?”

“I’m afraid not,” Blaz’tik replied, his mandibles clicking nervously.

“This is not a natural storm,” Taren stared out the porthole. The ship took a massive dive, her front piercing deep into the ocean as she came over the wave. As she came back over the next wave, an island came into view.

“That’s Nex,” Coy replied.

“Isn’t that where you’re from?” Tawmis asked.

“Yes,” Coy replied, though he didn’t sound excited.

Just then, someone in the crow’s nest shouted something about land.

Then came the crash; and the coral reef ripped through the bottom of the boat, cutting her open, filling her with water.

The last thing Tawmis heard before the water washed over him was Coy mentioning something about “The Master.”

Tawmis heaved a deep breath and took in grains of sand, deep into his lungs. He began coughing and sputtering, breathing in the fresh air. Groggily he looked around to see where he was, and was pleasantly surprised to see that he was still alive. He coughed and choked, his head a hazy mess. He tried to push himself upright but felt his arms quiver under his weight. “I’ll just lay here for a minute,” he finally said and collapsed again into the sand.

He heard a loud, gruff cough not too far from him and knew that Taren was alive. “You alive over there?” Tawmis called out.

“Indeed,” Taren’s deep voice replied. “Though,” he added after a moment, “with as much pain as I am in, I think I’d much prefer to be among the dead.”

“You see Blaz or that Rat?” Tawmis called out.

“My name is Coy,” the Ratling replied. “It’s not like you don’t know that!”

“Oh good,” Tawmis muttered, “you survived too.”

“As did -tic!- I,” Blaz’tik managed to call out.

As the sun began to set on the horizon, Tawmis and the others gathered and used the dry wood from the shattered ship to make a campfire. The night grew cold, the breeze biting into their skin through their soaked clothing. Tawmis turned to Coy, “So, you’re from here. What can you tell us about this place?”

“I can tell you that it’s a death trap,” Coy said. “I didn’t get exiled. I left here to survive. And now I am back on this cursed island.”

“What happened to the -tic!- rest of the crew?” Blaz’tik wondered.

“If the Master of Nex had his way, they’re shark food,” Coy replied.

“The Master,” Tawmis repeated. “I heard you say something about that just before the ship slammed into the coral reef,” Tawmis said, as he tore off a piece of his clothing and wrapped his arm, that had a deep cut from the very coral reef he was speaking of. “What’s the deal with that?”

“The Master,” Coy replied, “is a mysterious figure who has made this island the death trap that it is.”

“What can you tell us about him?” Taren asked.

“Nothing,” Coy shrugged. “I literally know nothing about him. Only that he is a powerful mage of some kind. And his hobby is experimenting and creating death traps. He believes that only the strong will survive. In his mind, he thinks this benefits those who shipwreck on this island. He thinks he’s making the world a better place by removing the weak.”

“So,” Tawmis sighed and laid back on the sand, “we escape from Grimrock to land here, on this pleasant island of death?”

“We escaped Grimrock,” Taren growled, “we can get through this.”

“You don’t know this island,” Coy said, “our luck is going to run out.”

“No prisoner ever escaped Grimrock, but we did,” Taren replied.

“I suspect that’s exactly why the Master shipwrecked us here, and ensured our survival, and only ours,” Coy said. “Because we did escape Grimrock – in the Master’s eyes, we are strong. But are we strong enough to survive the island?”

“This Master sounds like a pleasant fellow,” Tawmis sighed. “Can’t wait to meet him face to face.” He paused, and finally added, “So I can run my sword through him.”

Tawmis grabbed a shell that sat, perched on the beach sand. He looked around and shattered a portion of it against a large boulder.

“What are you doing?” Coy asked.

“We’ve got no weapons because they sank with the ship,” Tawmis replied. “So I am going to make some weapons.”

“A shell is not going to be much defense against the horrors of this island,” Coy said, sitting back down.

“Neither is sitting there hoping some ship is going to come by and rescue us,” Tawmis retorted. Coy shot Tawmis a foul look.

Taren returned from the waters, holding an assortment of fractured panels of wood that had washed ashore from the sundered remains of the ship. Tawmis took one and began using the shattered shell to sharpen the point of one of them, creating a crude spear.

“You’re more resourceful than I would have given you credit for,” Coy admired. “Though I should have known, considering you managed to survive Grimrock as well.”

Taren chuckled. “You should hear some of the stories we could share,” the gruff minotaur said. “We have been through a lot, he and I. We have been in more predicaments than I can possibly ever hope to recall.” Taren looked over at Tawmis, “He has a habit of either bedding the wrong women, opening his big mouth, or wanting to help someone out, who is clearly in more trouble than they can handle.”

“You sound like a man with mix morals,” Coy said.

“I prefer to say that I am a complex individual,” Tawmis retorted, as he threw one of the panels of wood towards Coy. “Now if you’re doing trying to figure out the person that I am, we could use your help forging some weapons against this,” Tawmis tone changed to mimic Coy’s, “island of death.”

Coy picked up the wood and began carving away at the tip, “I still say this is a useless idea.”

“You’d probably get more done if you talked less,” Tawmis smiled. Tawmis turned to Blaz’tik, “Any luck recalling any of that wild magic you were casting before the explosion of Grimrock?”

“I am afraid not,” Blaz’tik admitted. “It’s as if I can see them there; whispering in my mind – but they have yet to come forward.”

“That’s all right,” Tawmis admitted. In truth, Tawmis was partially relieved that Blaz’tik could not recall all the wild magic. When they had found Blaz’tik, and he had absorbed all the magic of the Undying One into himself; Tawmis saw that the friendly humanoid-insect no longer resided behind those eyes; instead there was something there that craved even more power. It was almost a relief to know that Blaz’tik was back to being his normal, humble, less magical self.

Blaz’tik emerged from a small brush and help up a large sized egg. “Look what I found! There’s a few others here.”

“Something laid those eggs,” Taren noted. “Something fairly large.”

“Turtles,” Coy replied. “The western coast of this island is full of them.”

“Well that means we eat something other than these little crabs,” Tawmis nudged several crabs that had been skittering by his foot. “And now that we sort of have weapons; we start moving into the island itself and see if we can’t find a way off of here.”