Background: Nyl Crocodyls (Part 2) 2016-04-10 17:00

Previously on… Legend of the Crocodyls: Speck tugged on the rope. The cages opened. The Crocodyls chirped and jumped in surprise, then – at first slowly – started to leave the cages and run around the hold, exploring it. Two specimens were becoming interested in Speck, when a loud thud from the upper deck attracted their attention. And so all of the Crocodyls headed straight for the stairs. It had started – the Nyl Arena's destiny was sealed.

Episode IV – An Unexpected Treasure

Speck waited to hear the first screams from upstairs before freeing himself from his protective prison. The sound of the nearby carnage made him shudder. As he headed towards the stairs, he noticed a pale reflection in one of the cages that was still occupied up until a few minutes ago. His instinct whispered to him that it must be something important, something precious. His adventurer's spirit took over for a few seconds. He went towards the cage. There, amid the straw, some scaly sloughed skin and rotting carcasses – leftovers from the former occupant's meals – were two large bright white eggs, illuminated by the moonlight coming from a nearby porthole. One of the captured Crocodyls had to be a female, and fertile, what's more. At last, maybe he wasn't going to lose everything!

He had to retrieve them to take them to his zoo! With his mind still on what was waiting for him upstairs, he forgot all prudence. As he was reaching out to get the first egg, the second one moved. Speck froze on the spot. Was it going to hatch? Was he about to witness this marvelous yet rare event? The birth of a Wild Crocodyl was something that no one had witnessed in centuries, or maybe even never before!

In but a few seconds, the young reptile had released itself from its shell. In those seconds, Speck had gotten closer, and was already holding the remaining egg under his left arm. The young creature, already almost half the size of size of an adult human, watched the explorer curiously, opening and closing its jaws, bobbing its head in spurts while timidly chirping. Speck almost felt that the little Crocodyl was trying to talk to him, or at least communicate with him.

Hypnotized by the jerky movements of the little creature, with its red and golden eyes like round pearls, Speck was tempted to reach out to the creature. Which he did after putting his knife down…

Episode V - Pain

Today, all he remembers about this moment is the incomprehension, the flash of pain that blinded him for a second, then coming back to reality, and the thud of his arm hitting the floor, cut off clean at the elbow. What Speck didn't know at this point, but what has since become public knowledge, is that the first thing that Wild Crocodyls see when born is not – like with most other creatures in the World of Twelve – their mother, but rather their first prey.

While the young Crocodyl was starting to busy itself with the arm that had been transformed into a first meal, Speck somehow stumbled out of the cage, still in shock. He climbed the stairs in a daze, and fought his way through the crowds of sailors who were fighting the fast and fierce Wild Crocodyls. He almost instinctively joined the two mercenaries who were waiting for him in a lifeboat, ready to go.

They greeted him the best they could by improvising a tourniquet, then lowered the boat down to the water, and rowed with all their might to get as far away as they could from the ship. Speck stayed huddled up for several hours, keeping the second egg warm against his body. The ship seemed to move away towards the dark clouds, which looked more and more like a storm.

On board the Nyl Arena, it was a massacre. The sailors, even the ones who were neither drugged or drunk, were no match for such fierce and violent beasts as Wild Crocodyls. They were felled, one by one, by jaws, claws and tails. They all began to emerge from their drug- and alcohol-induced drowsiness, now under the influence of fear and adrenaline. The bravest among them fought, some threw themselves into the sea, while others tried to somehow release the remaining lifeboats. Captain Crook himself got on a boat, abandoning his ship and its men to the scaly monsters, leaving without further ado.

Epilogue

While the boats grouped together and the men were rescued, the ship drifted, pulled into the nascent storm. The last few survivors on board drew their last breath in a death rattle, torn to shreds by the Wild Crocodyls. The ship was lost. It would no doubt finish at the bottom, broken by the storm.

Crook cursed the day he had accepted Speck's contract.

These days, no one knows what became of the ship and its morbid cargo.

Some people suppose that the boat sunk in the storm. Others imagine that the Crocodyls still sail the seven seas, waiting for a new ship to approach, so they can board it and devour the crew. As for the craziest ones, they tremble at the idea that the bloodied ship could have crossed paths with Captain LeChouque, and that he could have turned the Wild Crocodyls into members of his crew, making him ever more deadly…

The mystery remains, and it is neither Speck nor Captain Crook who is the most curious about the Nyl Arena's fate.

The End

The last anyone heard, the Nyl Arena was roaming the oceans like a ghost ship, with a group of fierce Crocodyls for a crew… At the end of this story, some people are still searching for the link between Moon Island and the next patch. Others have their own ideas…

…and we want to hear those ideas! What did you think of the legend of Speck and the Crocodyls? Which chapter was your favourite and why? We've delivered this devblog in two parts to gather your thoughts, impressions and comments, so please share them with us!