I'm new to seafaring, barely 6 hours spent aboard a sloop. Throughout my fledgling career, I've considered myself a sailor rather than a pirate. An enterprising individual seeking modest riches on the waves, running errands for the companies. I keep my distance from others, taking flight at the first sight of sails on the horizon (the need for caution was instilled in me on my second ever voyage, after a bushwhacking from a galleon while I was ashore digging up a chest). My clumsy fingers make me ill-suited to swashbuckling and I'll freely admit that I've no taste for blood. However, to my shame, I can no longer declare myself innocent of misdeeds...
Two nights ago, I was on a Gold Picaroon voyage for the Gold Hoarders. Three maps for four treasures. After digging up two chests at the nearest of the three markers, the second stop took me to Shiver Retreat - a lonely, forsaken spur of rock. As I approached, I spied a figure in the shallows. He fired a pistol into the water, where a shadow lurked. A shark, I reckoned. There were no sails in sight (perhaps the shark had eaten this fellow's vessel and he was seeking revenge?), but experience made me wary. I thought I would continue to my third destination and come back later on.
After digging up my next prize, I returned to Shiver Retreat to find the marooned sailor still there. Still no ship to be seen, but I now recognised a mermaid off shore, beckoning to the stranger. I observed through my spyglass that this man was dressed in the same rags as myself. He must have been as new to these waters as I. Cautiously, I brought my ship in close and hailed the figure. There was no response. I waved. No response. I disembarked and approached the sailor. He drew his pistol and raised it in my direction. I took several steps backwards towards my vessel, although he did not fire (it occurs to me now that he had likely already unloaded all of his ammunition into the shark). After trying to explain how to use the mermaid and in turn receiving no reply, I boarded my sloop again and circled the island - unsure whether he had a crewmate returning with his ship. I needed to get onto that island and dig up my last treasure, but I was loathe to do harm to this fellow novice.
After two circuits of the island, matters took an unexpected turn. The dead suddenly rose from the sands and surrounded that unfortunate fellow! One skeleton carried a barrel of gunpowder and, before I could intervene, sent the lot of them to Davey Jones' Locker. As the mermaid vanished from the shoreline, I cursed in anguish.
Hopping ashore, I finally realised why he had been reluctant to leave the island with the mermaid. I approached his fiercely guarded treasure... two Foul Skulls.
Now I faced a dilemma; should I take this meagre bounty for myself, or leave them on the chance that the sailor was able to find his way back to claim them? I mulled on this while I dug up my chest for the voyage, before finally deciding on a course of action. I would rob him of one skull and leave him the other.
All the long voyage to the outpost, that skull watched me with its baleful stare. Judging me as a thief. And I must confess that the hundred or so pieces gained as a bounty were later ill-spent.
I know that this act of shameful larceny will appear pitiful compared to the acts of hardened pirates, but I fear this may well be the beginning of a slide towards villainy. Perhaps there are a few marauders on these seas whose own storied tales of violence began with such a minor misdeed?
