The Monster of Verdai Deep

Far away, the sounds were dull and low... like a rumbling quake as the tide thunders in, with Poseidons rage. Deep in the distance, but pervasive and consuming, the calls and cries for blood, could be bleakly heard. Like ravenous dogs they wanted it, deliriously needed it, filling the sea with their cries for that need to be satiated.

The pits stank of the blood in the water...

A shadow sat, clad in deteriorating coral fragment armor. A heavy broad blade, lazilly cast between his thighs, as he hunched over it, and the edge of the stone bench. From the shadowed cave that was the pit, seperated from the killing field by tall Myrgrrloth teeth, strong as Atlantean steel, erected as a gate. The teeth made an eerie groan whenever they withdrew into the cave ceiling, announcing the doom of another combatant. The slow and monstrous harbinger of your foreshadowed end... The cries renewed with vigor.

The blood was hard to see through, fogging everything in thick red haze, touching everything with its sweet coppery aroma... The dead Mer left the tale tell ribbon behind, testament to their sacrifice. The taste of it couldn't be avoided.

His gills flared, his mind fighting that primal urge to give in to the blood haze... He shrugged off the throbbing pulse above and in his left eye, the reminder from the last combatant that his reflexes needed work. With a heavy breath, and a Snort of determination, he rose from the stone ledge that was the "red row"... The bench so named for the blood that slowly stained it over the ages, from men bleeding, out, awaiting the fight that would be their last. His hulking frame blotted out the lights of the glow moss and crystals the killing field had to illuminate the deathly shows from the caves entrance. He could hear their cries, like they suddenly came into focus, through the static depths of the bloody waters...

"MONSTER!" "MONSTER!" "MONSTER!"

They chanted the name... In a cacophonous orgy of bloodlust and depravity. He hoped they choked on it... He stepped through the cave mouth, and they beheld the beast. The Monster of Verdai Deep. He was engulfed in the pale yellow and blue lights of the crystals, and the low greens of the glow moss. The swirling waters, basked him in striking streaks of bent watery light, that played across his ferocious features. His hulking frame stood head and shoulder over large merfolk. His scaled, stone-like flesh was wrought with half healed scars, and sharp whitened striping. His lowered head, was sloped, and flat, without hair, brutal sharp ridges ran down his neck to pointed ears, and jagged gills. He nearly drug the chipped and serrated broad blade in the sand of the killing field floor, disturbing the slowly settling foggy display as the sand slowly settled back to the ocean floor after the last bout. The spectators roared as he took his place upon the field, nearly orgasmic in the knowledge he may deliver another brutal kill or more...

Somehow through the volume of their cries, he could hear the far gate opening... but cared not to look upon his opponent, whatever it may be... The low, groan of the teeth on stone, and the ratchet of chain, was like a mistress' whispered muse, so familiar was her voice. His masters always found something new, something meaner to throw at him, ever eager to deliver something the great "monster" could not defeat. From the depths of the larger cave mouth, sand billowed forth in a fog, as something hurled it about in a fury. It spewed from the cave, like the snort of some cornered Kraken. The hulking gladiator made no move in the killing field, his head still lowered, the cave to his far right... The crowd slowly grew quieter, and for a moment time might have stood still. He could feel the water ambiently cool, and the pressure suddenly build in the vicinity, it was ready to lunge!

With a underwordly roar, and a black watery fog, the shadowy monster launched from its hole. Tendrils of nether energy trailed, like smoky ribbons behind its spined serpentine form, draining the warmth and life from the area. The Gladiator raised his blade first, to level, now ready to wield the steel, his companion, as a device of murder. Time slowed, and the leathery grip gave a low crunch in his mighty hand. He rose his head, with a scowl and a snarl, just in time to face its Horrid maw of razor teeth, and black web-like spines...

• back to Storyboards