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In your small craft, you and some of your men paddle closer to the vessel in the middle of its fishing attempts. The slippery slime in the water as you get close makes movement more difficult, but so long as you get within shouting distance, you should be fine!
Eventually, you come to the feeding frenzy, the mass of hagfish just underneath the waters bumping and fighting for space beneath the bait thrown from the sides of the greater ship you see before you. Appearing in the water are great chunks of meat, just hidden underneath the dark waves, finding it concerning how many hagfish were brought up. You'd have to give up a whole catch of fish to attract this many. Then you see a pale bit of meat beneath the water, and another, looking closer, seeing no fish carcasses but instead long and thin bones being picked clean by the slimey eels in record time. On the ship, it sounds almost like a raucous party, laughter and giggling among moans and sighs of frustration, or perhaps defeat and exhaustion.
"Gah! This one died from the shock, dumb Crier."
The voice comes from the deck of the ship. To your growing horror, you realize with a start at the amount of blood, red fresh blood, pouring from the deck and down into the waters below. The churning hagfish are not here because of a great amount of fish bait or seed, but the tangle of human limbs being thrown one by one off the deck of the ship. Your paltry crew cry out when a larger thing is chucked from the deck of the ship, this time a human torso and head attached, face limp from death, splashing in the water just from your boat to feed the fishes.
Instantly, there is a silence for a moment, and then screams like your worse nightmares.
"RUN!"
"SAVE YOURSELVES!"
"DEATHLESS! AGGGHH!"
"KILL US! SAVE US!"
"SWIM AWAY!"
The voices of the crew of the ship scream out when they realize someone has come to investigate. Over the deck of the ship, a man's head peeks, his skin tanned like jerky from the sun, beyond which any normal man would be dead from the Sun-Death, despite this looking with deep set eyes with a soulless expression.
"Oh look! More Criers!"
"Could you get them for me dear?" A feminine voice calls after, matronly.
"Of course I can!"
