Kroff

I.

When pirates intercepted us at sea,
and came aboard our ship with swords and grins,
demanding gold and treasure for our lives,
Llewellyn pled with them: “We could be friends,
for these dark waters teem with frightful monsters,
but we wield strong and varied sorcery,
so any who align themselves with us
may conquer all the dangers of the depths.”

“And yet,” the pirates said, “your sorcery
has failed to save you from our humble crew.”

“Not failed,” Llewellyn said, “but we forebore,
for needless killing suits us ill. And there
upon the distant shore New Shifton lies,
a village lately overcome with vampires,
whose evil more deserves our energies, and
whose death would benefit your livelihood,
for they would not have pirates in the waters
they claim to hold in safety and control.”

No response was given to Llewellyn,
for presently there climbed aboard the deck
the lizard Kroff, katana in his jaws,
until he drew it forth and cleaved the captain
in twain before the pirate saw his killer.
And hardly had the bloody sections fallen
when Kroff sliced off the pirate corpse’s head,
and holding it aloft, cried, “This your captain?”
And all the other pirates were afraid.

“Where have you been?” Llewellyn asked the victor.

“Punching their rudder,” Kroff said in return.

“We might have reached a truce with them. But then,
I know your lizard brain holds little room
for tact and sensibility, and rushes
instead to foolish acts of bloody violence.
My disappointment gives you too much credit,
for it assumes the chance of temperance.
I therefore will say nothing more to you;
my words are wasted on your wastrel ears.”

Llewellyn turned instead to the survivors,
and ushered them aboard their pirate ship,
with many a well wish and kind suggestion
that they leave piracy behind forthwith.

Now Kroff removed the pirate captain’s boot,
chopped off the toes, then took the biggest one,
and strung it on the necklace which he wore
to join the gruesome trophies dangling there.
The other toes he cast into the sea.

Then on the body Malfyre found a diamond
more valuable than any in the world,
for it contained the power to revive
the dead, though that would destroy the crystal.
He pocketed the diamond, but told no one.


II.

We then sailed to New Shifton, where we heard
the mystic strains of music from a lute:
the golden lute of Finnheart, vampire lord,
and leader of the village, whom we sought.
And hearing this Llewellyn was in awe,
while Kroff bit back his hatred. In the harbor
we left our ship, and no one gave us notice,
for no one was around in that grey town.
And in the silence every creak and footstep
resounded through the ominous still air.

Then, following the music to a chapel
decrepit in the mist, we tried the door,
but handles there were none; nor any knobs.
Instead its wood split into a toothy mouth
from which emerged a horrid licking tongue.
“To enter,” said the door, “give me three things:
first, a taste of you, to prove your worth.
Second, a part of you that I may keep.
Third, a fit of laughter. Then I’ll open.”

“Only if I can taste you first,” said Kroff.
And so he pressed his snout against the door
and bit a shard from off its wooden face,
and chewing it, said, “I’ve had better doors.”
The door licked back, then waited for more offers.

So Kroff, without a moment’s hesitation,
drew steel against his tail, cut off its tip,
and threw it at the door’s accepting face.

Finally, for the fit of laughter, Kroff 
kicked our comrade Ihsan in the crotch.
Then Ihsan doubled over, but the door
laughed and laughed, and opened to us all. 

Within we found a morbid congregation
listening like the dead to ghostly music
whose source remained a mystery to us.
Nobody turned to look upon our entrance,
even when Kroff walked boldly through the aisle.
“Where is the vampire?” yelled the warrior,
and from their pews they rose, and then advanced.
Llewellyn could not stop him. Kroff impaled
the nearest grim parishioner, whose body
dissolved into a thin and fishy mush.
And likewise did the other members fall
to Kroff, and Laeroth, and Ihsan too,
until the floor was slippery with pink.

“You murderer,” Llewellyn said. “You fiend!”

“They were just fishy things,” said Kroff, unmoved.

Llewellyn scooped a handful of remains
into his hand, a pungent, slimy mess,
breathed deeply, smelled the sea, and all its horrors,
and let the slush seep out between his fingers.

Then, following the music, we descended
into a chamber underneath the church
where Finnheart played his golden lute, alone.
“You found my followers,” he sadly said,
“such as they are. A foul force indeed
reduced them to abominable wretches:
the aboleth, that dread aquatic monster,
infects their flesh and overrules their minds.
The only influence which I retain
is limited to calming them with music.”

“Your music sucks,” said Kroff. “And now you’ll die.”

“But Diedrich is your enemy; not I.”

“Where is he?” Kroff demanded, sword outstretched.

“The tournament in Wellenburg,” said Finnheart.

“Then we’ll go there,” said Kroff. Llewellyn, though,
would not abandon that accursed village.
And so we sought the aboleth within
the sewers of New Shifton. 

     				               In the dark
and slimy passageways we trudged, until
Llewellyn heard strange voices in the distance
which soon were drowned by horrid rhythmic pounding,
and what before were tunnels swirled into
an underwater city which defied
geometry. And then he drew his crossbow,
and aiming it at Kroff, released a bolt
which Kroff deflected with his swift katana.
Llewellyn at his own head then took aim.
Kroff leapt upon the human, tackling him
onto the grimy ground, then said to Ihsan,
“The boy’s insane. Go do your magic stuff.”
So Ihsan placed his holy hand upon
his frothing friend, who then apologized.

“It’s fine,” said Kroff. “I know you didn’t mean it.
And now you know to guard your sanity;
never again will you betray your friends.”

Deeper in the sewers sat a man
naked in the sewage. When we approached
he raised his head to us, then clung to Kroff
and bit him on the leg. Kroff took his head.
But then the lizard gasped and choked as though
submerged in water. Now we saw the gills
which suddenly had sprouted on his neck.
“Ihsan,” said Llewellyn, “cure his curse!”

“I drained my magic curing you,” said Ihsan,
and pulled Kroff down to breathe the foul water.

Then from that water rose more naked figures
before us, and behind, their wretched bodies
lurching toward us. Kroff stood up to fight,
but could not fight for long out of the water.
Each time he stopped to breathe, their distance shrank.

And when he saw they would be overwhelmed,
Llewellyn touched his head to Kroff, and muttered
an incantation. Then he felt the gills
which heretofore had hindered Kroff. Llewellyn
submerged himself, while Kroff raised up his banner,
rallied us all against the zombie horde,
and fought unbridled that their headless bodies
fell back into the water as we charged,
Llewellyn dragged by Ihsan through the water.

The passage opened up into a chamber
whose center then erupted as a beast
rose from its monstrous depths: the aboleth.
Its tentacles whipped madly through the room,
entangling and constricting all they found,
so those of us not fighting the undead
were soon ensnared by its aquatic limbs.
But these Kroff sliced asunder with his blade
until its maimed appendages withdrew,
bleeding, and releasing whom they held,
and down into the water swam the monster
to flee the awful onslaught of the lizard.
So Kroff dove in to finish what he’d started.
In those black depths he brought a violence
unfit for mortal eyes upon the monster,
whose mutilated carcass sank in pieces,
the foulest filth the sewers ever held.
Kroff rose, katana first, from bloody water
which choked Llewellyn, now without his gills.

Then Finnheart’s followers returned to normal.
He gifted us a diamond. Malfyre stared
in wonder, for it was exactly like
the treasure which he’d taken from the pirate.

We sailed away, and found a hidden island,
and killed the giant crabs which haunted it,
and built a shelter with their massive shells.
And Kroff destroyed a shark within those seas.


III.

The tournament in Wellenburg brought all
the greatest warriors around the world.
And Kroff, undaunted, signed up for the battles
under Llewellyn’s name, to his distress.
“Why must you choose my name?” Llewellyn asked.
“I advocate for peace, not pointless fights.”

“If Diedrich knows I’m in the competition,
the coward won’t remain to face my wrath.”

“You might have picked another name instead.
But why attempt this battle on your own?
Your rivalry obscures your better judgment,
for all of us would see his evil ended.
Together, victory may be assured.”

Then Kroff looked at Llewellyn for a moment.
“You can read memories,” said Kroff.

					                     “I can.”

Kroff gave his hand. Llewellyn took it gently.
He saw a town of lizardfolk assailed
by vampires in the night, fiends led by Diedrich.
A noble lizard, struck by Diedrich’s blade,
fell to his knees. Llewellyn heard Kroff’s voice
shout, “Kazu!” as he rushed toward his friend.
He raised his blade to Diedrich, but the villain
cast some evil spell, and disappeared.
Where lizards were before, there now were vampires
grinning at Kroff, their wretched fangs exposed.
He slew them all. But then their hated forms
changed back into the lizards they had been,
with Kazu, felled as well by Kroff’s katana.
Llewllyn shuddered back into the present,
then said, “May victory be yours tonight.”

“Revenge,” said Kroff. “Not victory. Revenge.”

The tournament began at dusk, but Diedrich
did not compete until the sun was down.
And Kroff, beneath the stadium, could hear
the clash and shouts of his competitors.
Each time Llewellyn’s name was called, Kroff battled:
he fought and felled an elf before they swung;
he cut an orc down with a callous courage;
he tore a tiefling’s tail with his katana;
he gored an ogre’s guts: a gruesome win.

Then Diedrich’s name was called, and Kroff looked fast
toward the door which hid his nemesis.
It opened slowly, slowly, while Kroff’s heart
beat faster, faster, while he salivated.
Then Diedrich’s loathsome figure sauntered forth,
his skin like sour milk poured onto bones,
a practiced smile upon his purple lips.
But when he saw the lizard-man he froze
as fear welled up from deep inside his guts.
Kroff did not wait to hear the starting bell,
but rushed upon his rival with a hatred
more terrible than death. And Diedrich fled
back through the passage he’d so smugly left,
with Kroff behind him, closer every second,
unhindered by the guards which shielded Diedrich.
The vampire sputtered words behind the guards,
and in a frenzy gestured through the air.
When Kroff’s katana reached him, he was gone.

And then Kroff heard Llewellyn scream without.
He paused a moment, looking for a sign
of Diedrich, then a moment more, before
rushing back to the tournament arena.

Impossible horror loomed above the field,
tentacles twisting, writhing ‘round the eyes,
the endless eyes that glared at all creation.
Beneath it lay Llewellyn all alone,
entwined within its ever-shifting form.
Kroff thrust his sword through one of its weird eyes,
which burst into pink mush that smelled of fish,
an echo of New Shifton. Kroff called out,
“I killed the aboleth. Was it your friend?
Fight me, and not this wimp, you fishy boy.”
Kroff severed tentacles beyond all measure,
and pierced more eyes than numbers can describe,
but never did the thing release Llewellyn.
Kroff too was caught in its appendages,
which from his noble body squeezed all air.
He saw Llewellyn’s lifeless form before
his vision and his life departed.

					             Then
within a massive graveyard, Kroff awoke
beside Llewellyn, terribly confused.
And Kroff, enraged, said, “What the fuck is this?”

“Farasma’s graveyard,” said Llewellyn. “We
are dead.

	    	   “Goddamnit. Diedrich’s still alive.”

Then Kroff espied a tiny compsognathus,
a dinosaur he’d once had as a pet:
Aggressive Cornelius, his faithful friend.
The little lizard leapt upon his shoulder
and chirped, and licked his face, and Kroff licked back.

Kazu was there as well. He came to Kroff,
who tried to give him some apology,
but Kazu silenced him, and gave a nod,
and gestured to a figure who’d appeared.

There stood a wondrous form, a sacred corpse
whose empty eyes stared deep into Kroff’s soul.
“My warrior,” she said, “you’ve given me
abundant souls, but not before their time.
To you I give a rare and earned reward:
not gold, for gold holds little value here,
nor love, for that’s another god’s domain,
but something which particularly suits you.”

Now leave we Kroff and friends within that graveyard,
returning to the tournament arena.
The monster still was there, and now to us
it turned its wrath. And Ihsan said to Malfyre,
“Without them we will die. Give me the diamond!”
And Malfyre did. Then Ihsan said, “With this
I shall revive strong Kroff, or else Llewellyn.”
And Malfyre paused a moment, then revealed
the other diamond, which he gravely gave
to Ihsan. Then the war-priest prayed, the diamonds
in sacred fists. And to the vacant bodies
of Kroff, and of Llewellyn, life returned.

When Kroff saw where he was, he said, “Kroff! Kroff!”
And then he raised his sword up to the sky,
and slammed his mighty tail against the ground,
and when the dust had cleared, he wore a suit
of dazzling white, and fitted perfectly
to his heroic figure, with a hat
that matched in every aspect. Then we saw
that each of us was likewise now attired.
And in the air above us angels flew,
whose statures mirrored our respective virtues.
Kroff raised his banner high and cried, “Destroy!”
His bravery emboldened all our hearts
to follow Kroff against the evil eyes.
And if I told you all the feats of valor
exhibited in that historic battle,
this poem would run longer than it needs.
But never was a victory achieved
by warriors more smartly dressed than these.

Yet even now Kroff was not satisfied,
for though he triumphed, Diedrich still survived.