Balduran the Sailor
[Excerpt from Zeinzifel's swashbuckling novel] Not long after he'd waylaid passage across the straits on the Good Ship Sapphiren, Balduran found himself beaten and strapped to an oar. Quick-thinking Balduran spent not two days at that oar before he had staged a mutiny. Soon the masters found themselves rowing, and the slaves (captured sailors all) were the new crew of the ship. Modest as ever, Balduran did not assume the role of captain. Instead he played a lyre and entertained the crew, further attracting the attention of some extremely generous merfolk, from whom most of the crew contracted various embarrassing rashes. Escaping the merfolk with his skin as clear and pure as ever, Balduran had the crew trawl the water, for he had been told by a raving but oddly coherent soothsayer that there might be treasure found there. Indeed there was, only its disturbance caused a nearby kraken with jaws like apertures to the very gates of hell! Balduran's treasure revealed itself to contain a sword, and he took it up and leapt from the stern, disappearing down the monster's gullet, only to give it a fatal case of indigestion thereafter...