Part 1: curse of the mystical thingamajig whatsaname
As told: by now “Captain” Stinkglass as he passes time in the brig of an unknown vessel heading to an unknown location.
Actually………my names Richard Hawthorne Scuswald the second, and I’m the man who killed the Dread Pirate Fox. I mean……I kil…..I killed him before that, but, he’s definitely dead now………...probably. Anyway, news of my death had been greatly exaggerated, for you see when the men needed me the most, I had the common sense to jump ship and swim for the nearest island……..…some ten miles away. Then when I got there my survival instinct kicked in, and I curled up into a ball on the beach and began sobbing. After two hours of survival instinct, I picked myself up again and began to fashion a rowboat out of an existing rowboat that was already there. But after dismantling it I hit a snag………there wasn’t any labour workers available to put it back together. My survival instinct kicked in again.
Three months later, or maybe it was three minutes, a man walked by informing me that vandals had destroyed his rowboat and that this was in fact England. With haste I made my way back towards port, only stopping along the way for some food and shelter……and some new clothes…….and a new musket, some tailor made leather gloves, a clean shave and hair cut, an ebony eye of reach, admirals eye patch, ceremonial bucket, jewel encrusted shovel, swanky blue lantern, visit some friends, I toyed with the idea of writing a novel for a while, and then there was “that” summer. So one day later, or maybe it was two years, my orders came in from high command, and it appears a pirate with a very small spyglass…… excruciatingly small spyglass, had taken to the seas uniting pirates everywhere against the great British great navy of great England. I knew instantly who it was…….. after high command informed me.
The Dread Pirate Fox, the man who single-handedly accomplished a single-handed accomplishment. The man who sort fit to call me a bounder and a blaggard, when I clearly wasn’t a blaggard, the man who tried to steal my wealthy beloved responsible for my position in the navy……. who I then discarded immediately after getting what I wanted. My orders were simple, track down this vile cutthroat and then make an example out of him. Then others would see that sailing wasn’t all fun and shanties, but actually hard dedicated work that was only suitable for regimented men following a hierarchy system which put them in their place.
We received word that the Dread Pirate's ship “Conqueror’s Bad Firedrake” had been spotted near Thieves Haven, and so plotted a course with the intent of encountering it there. But along the way we were met by a fierce storm, so fierce that I was forced to spend the entirety of it in my cabin not getting wet. We lost several days to the storm, and maybe some men and things as well, but nothing of importance. Four days later we arrived at the island, but there were no ships there and I got bored so we left. On our way back to the closest outpost to acquire some more sipping brandy, essential to the act of making pirates walk the plank, we were attacked by pirates of all things.
As they attacked us by trying to sail away in the opposite direction, I could distinctly hear them crying out to us to leave them alone, claiming to be in the middle of something else. But we weren’t falling for their pirate tricks, and gave no quarter as they attacked us a second time by receiving our cannon fire to their ship. They continued to attack us in the same way over and over again, with each attack becoming more vicious and more unforgiving, until eventually we caught and sank them. But there was no more sipping brandy left so we had to silence their complaining with blunderbusses.
At this point we had become dangerously low on cannonballs and so began a quest to obtain some more from supply barrels at the nearest island. This is when the Firedrake intercepted us and the cowardly Dread Pirate Fox opened fire on our ship even though we hadn’t done anything to them. We tried to open up some sort of dialogue with the ship, crying out that we were in the middle of something and that they should just leave us alone, but they weren’t having any of it. We did our best to sail away from them avoiding cannon fire, but every attack became more vicious and more unforgiving, until eventually I ordered the men to give up and let them board us.
The Dread Pirate Fox stood before me and proceeded to call me a bounder and a blaggard, then offered the men the choice of sailing with a no good rotten captain, who was only interested in vengeance and becoming the darkest incarnation of man's black heart……..or they could join up with him. Moments before my men tried to place me in irons, I asked the Dread Pirate how it was that he came to still be living and breathing after our duel, to which he replied: “I’d spent the last couple of years prior to our duel building up a skin immunity to withstand even the strongest of projectile indentations………..oh……. and maybe this magical ring that prevents me from staying dead had something to do with it”.
At that moment their ship was attacked by even more pirates, and in the chaos of it all I was able to blend in with my men by urinating in my trousers and finding a safe place to cower in fear. Then, out of the corner of my eye through a spyglass that I happened to be pointing in the right direction, I witnessed the Dread Pirate boarding our ship alone and beginning to work the sails. No doubt he was trying to escape like a coward, so I followed him over to confront him in a place where we would have equal footing……… and also so I could escape like a coward.
Once the ship was safely on its way I called to the Dread Pirate demanding satisfaction in the form of a second gentlemen’s duel, except this time without him wearing the ring. He said “No”………then I asked him if we could please have a gentlemen’s duel with sporting and becoming conduct of gentlemen who don’t wear rings………He said “No” again, so I sliced off his hand that was wearing the ring with my sovereign cutlass. Now he absolutely wanted a duel, but before he could draw his pistol a giant fish grabbed him and started waving him around in the air……….or maybe it was a kraken or something. Anyway, my survival instinct kicked in, but whilst on the floor I caught a glimpse of the Dread Pirates hand and remembered the ring.
Moments later the ship was destroyed by the beast in a grand spectacle of brute force, before sinking to the depths of Davy Jones locker. It’s a bit hard to recall what happened after that, but I do remember awakening with the ring around my finger and you fellows dragging me onto the ship……….oh…….and, shooting the Dread Pirate Fox with my pistol……….that definitely happened……..I definitely remember doing that……….yeah, he’s dead now. So……… where are we going anyway?
The ship sailed off into the dark of night and was never seen again…………… until someone saw it later on. But where was it going? What ever happened to Stinkglass? And were there anymore questions that could be used to entice readers into wanting more?
