I decided that it’s wisest to investigate the area first. What were these filthy kobolds doing on a ship crewed by humans? Or was the crew manifest more diverse than I initially thought?

“Excusemee, Masta!” came a poorly vocalized request from knee height. I dropped down low to meet a kobold dragging a bright yellow “Wet Floor” sign into the middle of the vast chamber.

He adjusted the sign until he was satisfied with its position, then leaned on his mop with a satisfied sigh.

“You there, uh…kobold,” I grabbed the pint-sized kobold by the scruff of its neck. He resisted, smacking me with his mop, but I easily overpowered him. “What is this place? What’s going on here?”

I plopped him back down, and he tugged at his blue overalls in an attempt to adjust them. “That two questions too many!”

I was unsure if there was any punctuation missing in that statement, but the kobold continued after a long “Hmmm…”

“This is Primary Ballast Tank. Very important to ship function,” he said, seeming to recall an orientation meeting he might’ve had at his job training. “Help ship steer.”

There was another long, guttural vowel sound spewing forth from the kobold’s snout.

“And what is going on here?” Eshami kindly repeated.

“Oh! Yes! Second question!”

I tapped my nose at the priestess.

The kobold leaned in close to me, and softly growled an answer. His breath reeked of rotten fish.

“Miishlo taken control of ballast tanks. Miishlo controls all kobolds. Miishlo will not be defeated. Miishlo…eh” He scratched his head with the tip of the mop handle in frustration. “Oh! Remembers! Miishlo wants to eats all the humanses.”

“You’re a human,” Eshami leaned in to remind me in a quiet whisper. I swore her elven ears wiggled in jest!

“What is Miishlo? Where is Miishlo?” I asked, hating to cause so many of this seemingly innocent kobold’s brain cells to fire up.

He stretched his arms out as far as they could go, then he tried to do the same with his stumpy tail. “Miishlo big. Mean.” He leaned in to whisper again. “Only one who in own head. Miishlo has others ‘install’.”

Install? I ran the word through my multi-brain-celled kobold translator — my brain — and came up with ‘in his thrall’ as the most likely answer. I passed this information on to Eshami in a whisper, who nodded.

I patted the kobold on the head and he hissed. “Oh, second question!” I reminded the little dragonling.

The kobold stamped his feet proudly, waving his mop around. “Secondary Ballast Tank!” He pointed over to a hatch set into the floor in one corner of the room.

“Thank you, honorable kobold,” Eshami beamed, leaning over to scratch the creature’s soft, bearded chin. He cooed in delight.

I gently pulled her away from the kobold, and the janitor seemed happy to just go back to work mopping the puddles.

“What do you make of that?” she asked me. “Something with mind-control abilities that is also rather large… and possibly aquatic?”

I remembered fighting such a creature, once, but I remained silent for fear that I was correct.

Eshami and I walked over to the hatch leading below decks. I removed my boots, and prayed my enemy wasn’t a swarm of flesh-eating piranha as I lifted open the hatch.

“Hmm… delivered right to my door!” a sinister male voice suddenly boomed, nearly pulling me down into the black water.

“Hero?” Eshami asked, concerned, but I could barely hear her words.

“Come to me, Manling,” the voice commanded.

“Can you hear me?” I thought it was Eshami again, but I couldn’t be certain.