Chapter Text
RETURN OF THE PIRATE QUEEN
Chapter One
In the year 1994, from out of space came a runaway planet, hurtling between The Earth and The Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. Man's civilization is cast in ruin. Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn. A strange new world rises from the old. A world of savagery, super science, and sorcery. In this world there are many new forms of life. One of the inhabitants of this new world are moks. Moks are large and powerful lionine humanoids. They combine the features of men and lions in much the same way the minotaurs of ancient Greek myth combine the features of men and bulls. They stand between 7' and 8' tall. Their bodies are covered with a sleek coat of fur, usually a light brown but grey, white and even black are not unheard of. Their faces are coloured with a pattern that vaguely resembles a skull, giving them a fairly fearsome visage. And their heads are covered with a mane of hair of a colour that's typically different than their body fur. Despite their fearsome appearance (or possibly because of it) moks tend to live in peace and harmony with their human neighbors. They make excellent warriors, but the bulk of their days are spent fishing, hunting, and herding wool bearing animals such as sheep and llamas, while their females tend to the homes and children, as well as their gardens, fruit orchards, and weaving cloth for making simple garments. Whatever a mok village cannot produce themselves, they trade with neighboring human settlements for.
One such mok village is the town of Knox, ruled by Chief Ogrot. Appearently, in the days before The Great Catastrophe, it was some sort of human fort. Now it is home to dozens of industrious moks. Chief Ogrot looks out over his people with pride in the early morning hours. He watches with great satisfaction as the males stand on the river bank and cast their weighted nets into the waters and spear fish with tridents. Other males wave goodbye to their loved ones as they head off into the forest with their powerful mok bows and quivers of arrows, hoping for a successful hunt. There are females sitting at looms weaving cloth or tending their vegetable gardens. Then he looks over to his own daughter and shakes his head with wonder as she goes through her morning exercises. Chief Ogrot loves his daughter, but Princess Eekra is very odd by mok standards. For one thing, most moks are illiterate. Not that they're unintelligent, but in a mok's day to day life the ability to read and write is considered unimportant. Besides which, the mok language doesn't translate very well to the written page, so no mok has ever bothered developing a written language for their people. Eekra, however, has become somewhat of the village scholar. She learned the art of literacy years ago from a pair of adventuring human teenagers, a female barbarian named Shara and her companion a male sorcerer named Merlik. They flew in on a giant bird named Yeek late one autumn and asked to winter in Knox. Chief Ogrot agreed, and over the long winter months Eekra and they became fast friends. She taught them to understand mokspeak so that they will be able to communicate with moks using more than just "yes/no" questions and pantomiming. In return, Merlik taught her to read and write in the common language of humans. Eekra picked up the skill quite quickly. When the two adventurers left in the spring, Merlik left Eekra some books. One was called 12th Grade History (though even Merlik wasn't sure what they meant by "12th Grade"), another was a collection of stories by a pair of brothers named Grimm, one was about someplace called Egypt, and the last one was called The Tao Of Jeet Kun Do by someone named Bruce Lee. After that, Eekra was hooked. She would trade with humans for any books she can get her hands on. Childrens stories, comic books, encyclopedias, textbooks, fictional novels, magazines, she doesn't care. Another thing that sets Eekra apart from other moks is that she is unsatisfied with the limitations in a mok females life. She insists that she can be as good a hunter and warrior as any male in the tribe, even better. And she's proven herself to be right. She can throw a knife or a tamahawk with lethal accuracy. Her aim with the sling and the bolos are unmatched by any in the tribe. And she has mastered the quarterstaff with which she is now practicing. But her idiosyncracies don't stop there. Most moks hate the water, some to the point of aquaphobia. Eekra loves a good swim. While moks have great hand eye co-ordination and are revered as great archers, they also are very clumsy and often trip over their own two feet. Eekra on the other hand is as graceful and agile as a cat. Even the way she looks is unusual for a mok. She's small, barely over 6' tall when most mok females average around 7'. Also most mok females are nearly indistinguishable from their male counterparts visually, except for their manner of dress and their busoms. Eekra has the shapely hourglass figure that human males find so pleasing, and wears a fur bikini rather than the more conservative cloth dresses that most females of her race wear. In virtually every way imaginable, Princess Eekra is the exact opposite of what a 'proper' female mok is supposed to be. Chief Ogrot shakes his head in disbelief. She is his only child, and because of this he indulges her odd behavior, but sometimes he can't help but wonder why she can't act 'properly'.
Not all who dwell in the village of Knox are happy though. Years ago, when Princess Eekra was but a child, a band of river pirates led by Captain Corden: Queen Of The River Pirates attacked the mok village in hopes of stealing the legendary Treasure Of The Moks. Thanks to the intervention of a barbarian named Thundarr and his companions Ookla The Mok and the sorceress Princess Ariel, she failed in her quest and no mok lives were lost. Today she and most of her crew are imprisoned in the very vault where she believed the fabled treasure lay hidden. She has had to fight off some attempted mutinies over the years, as many of her crew had become frustrated with cptivity and blame her for their imprisonment. With her most loyal crewmen and her own fighting prowess, she has managed to maintain her position as their captain, even while in prison. Now when the moks feed them, she takes a third of everyones' portions. The extra food is then divided between her and her most trusted bodyguards. This has the added benefit of keeping the others too weak to stage another coup. For entertainment, she arranges for weekly fights between crewmen. The winner gets to spend the week sharing the captain's meals, as well as her bed. This weeks match is between the current champion, a huge crewman nearly as large as a mok named Ogre who may very well have some mutant blood in his ancestry. He's fighting a newcomer, a small man only a little taller than 5', who was caught poaching the moks' sheep and trying to steal one of their equarts. Ogre throws punch after punch at the little thief, but the nimble little man ducks and dodges every blow. The other prisoners cheer and shout, enjoying the spectacle, and wagering meals on the outcome. Ogre's attacks are coming less and less frequently, his breath becoming more and more ragged as he begins to tire. Suddenly the smaller man goes on the offensive, striking the much larger man with kicks and knees, his attacks coming lightning quick. Ogre tries desperately to block the kicks, but always moves too slowly. The smaller man hits Ogre in the knees with a rapid succession of kicks, then a swift kick to the groin. Then he drives his knee into Ogre's face and then follows up with a spin kick to the back of the head, knocking Ogre unconcious. There's a chorus of cheers from those who had bet on the newcomer to win, boos from those who bet on Ogre, and applaus from those who didn't bet but enjoyed the fight. The new champion walks up to Captain Corden.
"Congradulations," she tells him, "you fight very well. I don't think I've ever seen Ogre bested so soundly. Who are you?"
"They call me Squeek," he tells her.
"How'd you get that name?" Asks the captain.
"It's short for 'Pipsqueek'," he replies.
"Well 'Squeek'," she says, "you've earned your reward. Come, join me for a nice hardy meal."
Later that night, Squeek and Captain Corden are lying together under her blankets. Squeek is sound asleep, quite exhausted from the evenings fight and his subsequent reward. Captain Corden lies next to him, satisfied with this newcomers skills as both a fighter and a lover. She watches him sleep, admiring his high cheekbones, narrow chin, and chiseled physique. He rolls over onto his side and she notices for the first time that he has a tattoo on his back, right between the shoulder blades. She takes a closer look and sees that the tattoo is actually a map. There's also writing and the map, in an obscure but familiar looking language. Captain Corden rolls Squeek over onto his stomach so she can get a better look.
"Wha..." Squeek stammers as he wakes up, "What's going on?"
"Shut up and lie still!" Captain Corden orders. Then she takes a closer look at the map.
"What is it Captan Corden?" Ogre asks eagerly, hoping for a little payback, "Do you need us to dispose of him for you?"
"Shut up and bring me some light," she says.
Ogre collects some lit candles from the other prisoners and brings them to his captain. She uses the additional light to look at the map more closely. Then she looks up with a smile.
"Do you know what this is?" She asks.
"A tattoo?" Ogre replies.
"No you oaf," she corrects him, "it's a map to the stronghold of the great wizard Korath, rumored to have the greatest collection of magical weapons and spells known to exist. With such an arsenal at my disposal, I will be able to take my revenge against that cursed barbarian Thundarr and all of his friends and allies!"
"What are you saying Captain?"
"I'm saying, it's time we broke out of here!"
"You have a plan?" He asks.
"Aye," she says, "It's dangerous. Not all of us will escape, or even survive, but I tell you this. Those of you who are left behind will not be imprisoned long. We will return with the weapons we need to slaughter these acursed moks. Then you will be freed and we will sell the moks' hides on the black market for a tidy profit. And I know of several wizards who will pay handsomely for the cubs to be raised as slaves. But first we must break out. Here's my plan..."
Then the other prisoners gather around and listen carfully as Captain Corden explains her plan to them.