Thumbnail for The Hole in The Sea (art by Nada paincake101)
"The world famous Black Rose Pirates embark for one last adventure, whether they know it or not!" -The Hole in the Sea Official Description
Summary[]
“The air is fresh but salty, and the sky is painted with the orange and purple colors of sunset. Gliding across these pink tinted waters is a large rosewood ship, known infamously as the Midnight Rose, the home to your very own crew, the Black Rose Pirates. The ship itself hoists eight black colored sails. The masts are ordained with gold plates and rivets and, on top of each mast is a smaller red flag, which is decorated with the symbol of this crew: the top half of a human skull with a black rose protruding out of the dome. From the foremast to the mizzenmast, small spheres of glass holding tiny candles are stringed together along ropes. Hanging from the lower sails are larger terrarium-like jars with different color fireflies in them. The main deck stretches about forty feet and currently in the center, there’s an array of furniture, a few circular tables and barrels are set up, each holding the ass of a crewmate."
Captain Beau T. Rose, fearless leader of the Black Rose Pirates, is retiring. Aboard the Midnight Rose, a party ensues! Drey Ferin finally beats the helmsman in an arm wrestle. Arlin James loses a hot-dog eating contest. Finn Tidestrider gets hammered with some especially spicy beer. Bees. As the party dies down, the trio has a heart-to-heart with Captain Rose, which is interrupted by an incoming storm. The crew prepares, but gets caught off guard by large black tentacles. They fight back, kickflip a few crawfish, but eventually succumb to the hole in the sea.
Episode Events[]
PART I
Sailing across the open sea while the Sun sets, aboard the Midnight Rose is Finn Tidestrider, attempting to teach Drey Ferin about the various sea creatures he’s been researching and attempting to catch, including the legendary piss dolphin, the beehorse and the elusive crawfish, with Drey bearing doubts that several of these creatures even exist. As the pirate crew awaits for Captain Rose to reveal himself, at the end of the boat opposite to Drey and Finn, Arlin James hangs his arm around a young Chip and begins to talk to him about a certain important mission. However, Chip is quickly distracted by the smell of sizzling hotdogs being prepared on a portable bar & grill by the ship’s chef, Chey, a small, elderly yet joyful woman. As Finn and Drey continue to watch the various types of fish that the Midnight Rose passes by, Captain Rose exits his captain’s chambers, ordering a tankard of ale from Chey.
With the Black Rose Pirates grabbing their own drinks, Captain Rose announces tonight’s celebration, as well as his gratitude towards his crew and the greatest lifetime of pirating he could ever dream of, ordering the crew to party merrily until they reach land. With the crew clinking mugs and cheering, the Captain’s going-away festival begins. After the Captain’s speech, Arlin decides to break up a fight between Chip and Elizabeth, who were fighting over a hot dog, telling Chip to retrieve a box from his quarters. While Arlin hypes Chip up with Chip's own “adventure”, Finn attempts to steal the hot dog that Chip and Elizabeth were fighting over, rolling a 10 for a Sleight of Hand check. With Finn snatching the hot dog, he playfully feeds it to Elizabeth while Drey and Arlin talk about the Captain settling down, with Finn betting that he’ll come back to the ship within two months. Drey then challenges Jug, a rugged and brawny Tortle, to an arm-wrestling match. As Drey and Jug lock hands, Finn subtly casts Guidance on Drey, giving him a pat on the back as he casts the spell. Drey and Jug lock themselves in a stalemate for a good while, until Drey finally manages to slam Jug’s arm into the improvised barrel-table, shattering the barrel’s wood. With Jug bitterly walking away and up to the gundeck, Drey chugs all of his ale and slams it down, the adrenaline of the arm-wrestling match pumping through his veins.
After shortly discussing the prospect of potentially starting their own pirate crews, Arlin sits next to Elizabeth, who challenges Arlin to a hotdog eating contest. Promising to give Elizabeth everything in his (empty) pockets if Elizabeth wins, Finn casts Guidance on Elizabeth. Arlin begins to suck down hotdogs, however Elizabeth seemingly almost devours the hotdogs entirely without chewing, with Arlin pausing to marvel at this small child who devours an entire plate of hotdogs within a very short time. After Elizabeth emerges from the contest victorious, she orders that Arlin gives her his axe, however Arlin sticks to the deal and shows her his empty pockets. As Elizabeth’s eyes begin to water, Arlin hastily pulls off a small clip from his suspenders and gives it to Elizabeth. As Elizabeth runs off, disappointed that she won’t be able to kill anyone with a small clip, Chip returns to Arlin with a box containing a bottle of Bermuda pepper juice, the hottest pepper in the sea. Ordering two tankards of ale, Arlin pours the Bermuda pepper juice into one of the tankards, telling Chip to give the Bermuda-laced tankard to Finn. As Drey and Finn discuss sea pickles, sea cucumbers and pickled water, Chip gives the tankard to Finn, running away as he does so. Waving Arlin over and hosting a cheer with all three of them, Finn and Arlin lock eyes and begin to chug drinks in an mutual contest. Arlin subtly grins and winks at Drey, making Drey smirk and back away from Finn. Finn quickly realizes that the ale is so spicy that drinking the spiced ale is comparable to swallowing thumbtacks. Finn bursts into a spice-induced panic, while Arlin and Chip both roll on the ground from laughing. As Finn slowly subsides the spice, Finn wipes his beard and grabs a miniature eel from it, giving Arlin a small zap as they shake hands. As Finn tries to usher Arlin to sit down to discuss their last adventure, Finn sets down a small, bee-filled and fart-emitting burlap sack on Arlin’s seat. Arlin notices the sack immediately, however Arlin decides to play along and place all of his weight onto the bee sack, destroying the chair and making the water around the ship ripple. With the crew falling into dead silence then bursting into laughter, bees from within the sack begin to fly out and surround Arlin. Quickly taking advantage of the opportunity, Arlin runs to hug Drey with an aura of bees around him. Arlin manages to successfully bearhug Drey with the both of them screaming in fear of the bees. After the Bee Fiasco has settled, Finn, Drey, and Arlin idly talk as Captain Rose joins them, sparking discussion about the Captain’s wife and the Captain’s conflicting feelings about quitting the pirate life to settle down. As Finn, Drey, Arlin and Captain Rose look into the water, they notice the Moon’s reflection beginning to quiver much more rapidly, a blanket of grey clouds cloaking the moonlight and a subtle, baritone rumbling permeating the air.
The Captain, concerned, shouts at Roofus, the crew’s scout and lookout, who confirms the presence of a brewing storm. Arlin and Chip begin to secure the ship’s ropes, while Finn reefs the mainsails and Drey attempts to bring up the Midnight Rose’s jib. Finn is successful, going off to help the other crew members raise up the sails, while Drey realizes that the jib is jammed. Rolling a 10 for an Investigation check to find the source of the jam, Drey can’t find what’s jamming the jib, slowly becoming frustrated at what is otherwise an easy deckhand-grade job. Thankfully, Jug helps Drey crank the pulleys to pull up the jib. Before Drey leaves to go assist with the safety ropes, Jug gives Drey a shell bracelet as a token of respect. Jug departs back to the ship’s wheel, as Drey, Finn and Arlin regroup at the middle of the deck, putting on harnesses of safety ropes. Finn refuses to put on safety ropes, making the claim that he’ll be able to swim back to the ship if he’s thrown off. As Arlin and Finn argue, Chey takes Elizabeth to the crew’s quarters, as Chip secures himself in his own safety rope harness. Drey properly secures his safety rope, while Arlin doesn't. While Drey and Arlin secure themselves, the air goes still. The waters calm slightly as the clouds swirl, with soft rumbling as the storm begins to kick up. Suddenly, sounds of wood splintering and snapping explode from the front of the Midnight Rose as a massive, gluttonous, charcoal-grey tentacle impales the ship's hull and slowly begins to tilt the Midnight Rose upwards. Arlin's safety rope promptly snaps, as his knot wasn't tight nor secure enough. Drey manages to hold his ground as his rope secures him to the main mast, while Arlin slides backwards about 5 feet before catching himself on one of the ship's handles, Chip dangles from from the main mast, and Finn is knocked to the ground and slides 15 feet down the main deck until he hits the wall of the gun deck. The tentacle slowly sinks downwards, bringing the ship back down to be level. Noticing serrated, jagged shark-like teeth on the inside of the suction cups of the tentacle, Finn fails to recollect any knowledge about the tentacle. Snapping himself out of shock, Drey yells to Chey that the ship's been damaged and to get someone working on repairs, while two more giant tentacles rise from the water at both the Port and Starboard sides of the ship, with dark, bony humanoid creatures ride up the tentacles, with two of the creatures jumping each side of the ship.
As Arlin roars a promise that the Midnight Rose won't fall, he pulls his Giant Slayer Greataxe from his back, receiving a resounding "Aye!" from the rest of the crew. Taking a closer look at the creatures revealed that their leathery black skin and elongated, skeletal limbs. Their skulls geared sunken, hollowed-out eyes, with a black & red visceral liquid oozing out their odorous pores and within the centre of each of their chests is embedded, metallic object. Arlin begins a running charge at the skeletal creatures, leaping upwards with his Greataxe and slams it into a nearby creature, splintering some of ship's wood from the impact before heaving his Greataxe back and swinging it over his head at the same creature. However, the skeletal creature manages to swiftly dodge the slash as Arlin's Greataxe hacks into the deck of the ship. Drey then spins as he draws his flintlock Sureshot Pistol, aiming for one of the creature's metallic objects that are embedded in their chests. Firing his Sureshot Pistol, Drey watches as his bullet flies through the back of the creature, the flesh itself appearing to be alive as it tries to mend together the bullet wound. Jug runs up the ship's deck to the tentacle that impaled the hull and begins to punch it rapidly and vigorously. A skeletal creature (referred to as "Yuckies" from now on), looks up to Arlin, revealing it's soulless eyes before thrusting his arm outwards, morphing his arm into a black, spear-like tendril before stabbing it into Arlin. As Drey watches the Yuckie he shot mend its own wound, the Yuckie peers back and straightens its body out, shooting sharp, tar-like sickles out from a large, empty cavity in its stomach, however Drey manages to dodge the sickles as they sickles blow right by him. Finn then reorientates himself amongst the rocking ship, drawing his golden Trident of Fish Command adorned with spiral etchings and various sea creatures engravings. Finn casts Dominate Beast, and while the spell fails, an Abyssal voice booms inside of Finn's mind, speaking only one word: "DESIRE."
PART II
WIP
Transcription[]
A Google Doc of this episode's transcription is available here.
This was created by pistolwaltz and their transcription team on Discord.
Trivia[]
- This one-shot takes place about a decade before the main storyline of Riptide.
- In this episode, Finn Tidestrider canonizes various sea creatures such as: Piss Dolphin, Cum Shark, Elusive Crawfish, Beehorse, Zeehorse, Peehorse, (as well as every other horse of the alphabet), Sea Pickles (like the food), Underwater Bees, Fog Frogs, Scream Fish, and The Bass (pronounced like the instrument, cousin to the bass fish).