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goodA piece of EverQuest fiction written for LJ friend Shrokk:
The bull gator floated slowly in the slow moving of the river. This was its favorite hunting spot, where the edge of the jungle gave way to the swamp. Prey was plentiful here and he’d driven off or devoured any others that would hunt here. This had allowed him to mature and grow to an astonishing eighteen feet in length.
The old bull turned as he scented the faint tang of blood on the water and heard something splashing slightly upriver. He flared his nostrils and took a better scent as he began slowly moving towards the disturbance.
Ah, a kobold was trying to swim his river. And a wounded one at that. The bull twitched his tail and swam faster towards his next meal. Within a few moments he had reached the frantically twitching kobold. With a sudden snap of his powerful jaws he took down the small humanoid.
As he began to swallow the tasty morsel the bull felt a sharp pain in the roof of his mouth. And next he noticed some kind of line leading from his mouth back to the shore. He attempted to swim to the opposite bank, but felt a painful tug from the pain in his mouth. Something was dragging him back towards the wrong shore.
The gator struggled; even attempting to roll and break whatever had caught him. But he was still slowly drawn towards the shoreline. As he was dragged up onto the land the bull saw a large ogre holding the other end of the line that had caught him.
The gator bellowed his challenge and charged his tormentor. The ogre roared in return, dropping the line and charging forward waving a huge hammer.
Shrokk leaned on his war maul and grinned down at the corpse of the giant gator. It had been a good fight. The beast had put up a hard struggle, but Shrokk had again proved himself to be the strongest. Slinging the animal’s tail over one broad shoulder he gathered up his heavy fishing line and dragged his kill back to the camp.
In his brute head Shrokk was already counting the silver Old Rocktooth would pay him for all this hide. And Grimeye the Shaman was always willing to buy teeth, especially from a bull gator this large. Plus plenty of meats for gator stew for the next several days. Yum!