Re: Pirate Ship Mafia III
Epilogue
Yet Another Fine Morning in Nassau
Eight of them stepped off the Presence that morning, still looking a bit dazed at the turn of events that had taken them there, but overall they had varying looks of contentment on their faces. After all, despite their individual journeys to get there, each of them had two immutable things in common: One, that they were alive, and two, that they were rich. They looked to take advantage of both of these new facts of life in Nassau immediately.
Myrddraal, with 175 treasure to his name, made sure to set up camp in a bar far from the main district of town. The reason for this was that he had fabricated an entire backstory aboard the Presence about him being a well-known mercenary who required payment before he killed anyone at night. The rest of the crewmen had bought this and thus paid up pretty much every night aboard, giving him a sizeable total that would have been even larger had more of his murders gone through successfully.
While Myrddraal may not have had any mercenary talents whatsoever, one of the talents he *did* have was a sense of when to get out while he still could. He knew on the final day that the fabrication had been close to falling apart. He knew that greater scrutiny fell upon him, that his story would not hold up to it and the rest of the crew would assume the worst. He knew that it was time to bid his crewmates farewell. A very brief farewell, at that.
So Myrddraal sat in a relatively empty bar, sipping on his ale and ruminating over the events that had transpired for the past week-plus with a smile on his face in spite of everything. Yes, the crew would have figured out by now that he wasn't actually a mercenary. But really, who cared? He had enough treasure now to hire *real* mercenaries if anybody came after him. Life was good.
Closer to the center of town, in the main tavern, several of the crewmen gathered there to make their merriment, including Golden1Knight and Zack. The two had been allies for a short while, killing together on more than one occasion and Zack dissuading other groups from going after Golden at night, but like all things on the Presence, their alliance was fleeting, taking different approaches to finding the Frenchman during the day. However, gold and rum served to reignite all friendships, and soon the two of them were drinking and laughing again like nothing had happened. Double A would have joined in, but he was once again napping, having emptied out his entire sack of gold and used it as a very rough bed. Double A hadn't been the most active of Captains, but his steady leadership and refusal to change course in the heat of the moment certainly served the Presence well in the end, as even further chaos might have turned the tide in the Frenchman's favor. In his mind, Double A completely deserved the rest he was getting... his lavishly-displayed rest.
Elsewhere in the same same bar was Anne the Tavern Wench, BSmith, for once taking part in the festivities instead of seeing that they didn't get too rowdy. Anne, seizing an opportunity when she saw it back in New Tortuga, had made the most of her time aboard. And while she didn't quite succeed in her goal of becoming the most famous pirate in this part of the world, she certainly made a name for herself among the rest of the crewmen with her skills with a harpoon, fancy cutlass, and general proclivity to kill just for clothes. She would be treated with respect in certain circles from now on, and that, at least, was a start.
BSmith sat, drank, laughed, drank some more, and splashed ale (only the cheap kind, obviously) in the faces of anyone who tried to hit on her for the entire night, secure in her superiority. The Presence had been full of danger, but it was also a great start to her new life of adventuring.
The Officer's Club had always been the swankiest tavern in Nassau, the one bastion of Old World rationality and class superiority in the pirate haven. Reserved for the various captains and their lieutenants that called Nassau their main port-of-call, it provided a refuge for those who needed to step outside the boisterousness and raucous behavior of the main taverns and think. It was no surprise, then, to find Montmorency and dcmort93 make their way there at some point in the day after they got the initial partying vibe out of their systems.
At first, Monty wasn't sure if he was going to be allowed in. He was Captain upon the Presence's docking, yes, but he had also been somewhat poor. Being stolen from on multiple nights on board (including a staggering 33 gold on Night 6), not being entirely successful in his group killings, and spending lots of money in bribes in order to make his beloved Operation Blenheim go off without a hitch, Monty's gold had hovered around its starting total only one day before. But then, he struck some luck at last on the final day. First, he got elected Captain, with all of the salary benefits it provided. Secondly, he ended up being the sole benefactor of Csargo's will, receiving a cool 50 gold just because BSmith had chopped autolycus's head off with that fancy cutlass. As a result, Monty was sitting on a far more respectable 174 gold at the start of the day, definitely enough to enjoy the full benefits of the Officer's Club for quite some time.
dcmort, having been First Mate for a week, was much richer, but he didn't rub it in much. They were both in too contemplative of moods anyway. It had been a hectic ride for dcmort - a closely-contested Captaincy election, the mutiny which put him in as First Mate, trying to do good at night by figuring out who was French, trying to balance it with placating the town with his scans, a mild identity crisis in which he felt like he switched personalities about halfway through the voyage - yes, dcmort had had a heck of a trip, indeed. And now, as he returned the suggestive smiles of two buxom wenches, he figured he was going to have a heck of a night.
Elsewhere in the North Atlantic...
Ironside had found land fairly quickly, a deserted, medium-sized island that was clearly around the southernmost part of the Bahamas. At first, he was going to use it strictly as a resupply point before he continued his journey to civilization. But the more time he spent on that island, the more he realized two things. First, he really did not feel like rowing that cursed dinghy any further, especially not the night after that hurricane. Secondly, this island was actually not bad. Sure, it was deserted, but it had protection from the elements, a good source of fish nearby, and fertile farmland.
With time, this island could become a self-sustaining habitat for Ironside. The fish would sustain him until his first supply of crops were ready. In the meantime, the solitude would be good for him - he could reflect on his actions, and the fact that sometimes there were more important things than gold.
Choxorn, meanwhile, had found a good wind and followed it... and eventually found himself right back in New Tortuga, where the adventure of theirs had started. Cautiously making his way into the town and looking around, he find it to be more or less the same as it had been, although certainly a bit quieter than usual. Eventually Choxorn worked up the nerve to visit the tavern (alas, a certain favorite tavern wench of his wasn't working there when he walked in) and asked for some information.
"Ah yeah, the French scare about a week or two back?" the bartender said. "Aye, that was a bit o' a weird one, but all fer nothin' really. The bit of news that got all them pirates scurrying around and taking our stuff turned out to be a complete fake - there wasn't no French navy in sight. Methinks somebody used it as a big diversion or cover fer somethin' else, certainly someone more crafty than me anyway. Can't imagine what for, though. Anyways, we be takin' it in stride and spreadin' the world that New Tortuga still be open for business! We'll recover, laddie, don't you worry about that."
Choxorn nodded his thanks and stepped outside to take this news in. The French attack on New Tortuga a fabrication? Cover for something else? What on earth was going on around here?
The world was a weird and complicated place, he decided, and then went back inside to partake in the activity that usually made everything simpler for him. He ordered a drink.
After some hard rowing, Askthepizzaguy and El Barto reached Nassau about 15 hours after the Presence did, truly an accomplishment considering they had abandoned ship more than 24 hours before docking and only were in a dinghy as opposed to a sloop or any sort of real ship. It was the dead of night, but this had never stopped the people of Nassau from getting their party on in the past, and judging by the sounds emanating from the main district of the town, it wasn't stopping them tonight, either. They looked at each other and grinned.
"Party be windin' down, boys," said a dockworker who passed them by. "All the taverns in the area just ran completely out o' everything. Most of the revelers be nursin' what's left and then nodding off."
"Ah, hellfire!" Pizza said, clearly annoyed. "We up and missed the party! I told you you should have taken more turns rowing, ye had me totally exhausted by the end! Why'd I have to do most of the rowing, anyway?"
"Because, my lad," said El Barto, "I have more gold than ye! Money talks, aye? Ye should have learned that from me if nothing else. Anyways, no matter. My cousin's got a bank around here but I wanna keep you sober for another idea o' mine. It's guaranteed to make us even richer than me cousin and more popular with the locals. All we need is a bit o' capital investment, supplied mostly by you of course."
"What be this idea of yours?"
"Simple: A casino!"
A casino! In a pirate haven like Nassau, that would work almost too well. Pizza was instantly enamored. "I'm in," he said.
"Great! I'll be the owner an' big idea man, and ye can be the manager overseeing the mundane day-to-day affairs!"
"Waitaminute, why do you get to have the cool title while you leave me to be stuck with all the grunt work?" They paused for a bit, admiring the inanity of the question, before Pizza supplied the answer to his own question. "Because you have more gold than me, right."
Visorslash had eventually left all the taverns - including the Officer's Club - behind, saying his goodbyes and taking in the sights of the town, passing Pizza and El Barto by and nodding his greeting. His eight days and nights aboard the Presence had certainly been eventful, and he appreciated the need for solitude. It was fair to see that Visor had gotten the full Presence experience - having engineered a mutiny, becoming Quartermaster, working hard to find the Frenchman, having a bounty openly placed on his head, getting in an hours-long argument about the semantics of rounding, experiencing the joy of finding out that one of his targets was indeed working for the Frenchman, and now feeling utter relief that it was finally over, that they were all safe.
Visor had definitely made some enemies aboard, but a lot of them were dead. And he had made some friends too, especially the kind that left him money in their wills. Despite being stolen from on multiple occasions, these wills had left him the leader in terms of treasure among the survivors, to a cool total of 336.
He would spend it, obviously, but eventually. For now, this evening, he was content to walk around and take it all in. It was 1723 and piracy was clearly on the downswing, but for at least one night it remained alive and well. Regardless of the Presence's fate, that alone was cause for celebration. With this fact in mind, Visor walked back into the tavern, loudly greeted everyone hello, and called for a round of ale on him.
Coda
Ishmael, the Frenchman, was in parts unknown, starving, dehydrated, and bleeding from multiple wounds. The number of slashes he had taken meant that his initial dip in the Atlantic after being tossed overboard was extraordinarily painful, but even that had numbed over the next several days. He vaguely remembered a cannon going off an instant he went over, depositing a large chunk of wood into the ocean next to him. Ishmael had been clinging to this piece for dear life for several days now.
Floating in the ocean, too weak to attempt to paddle or steer to any particular destination, gave Ishmael quite a lot of time to think. This entire adventure had started eight years ago, shortly after Louis XIV died, when it became clear that life at Versailles would no longer be the same. Seeking fulfillment from other sources, the Frenchman acquired a brand new ship, the Presence, and sailed it to the New World to experience life on the frontier.
The times he had on the voyage over as well as the first year in the Americas were nothing short of amazing. Many of the Frenchman's greatest memories were formed on that boat. From experiencing sunrise in the Crow's Nest the morning after a bad storm, from feeling the spray of the sea on him after the ship was rocked by a wave, to sailing out into the unknown on *his* ship with the possibilities stretched out on the horizon before him, the Frenchman felt that he was truly making the most of all that life had to offer.
And then, it ended. He made port in some town he couldn't quite remember now, possibly Nassau itself, and went down to one of the local taverns. He got caught up in a game of chance, got drunker than he was expecting, and lost a wager he wasn't willing to part with: the Presence itself. Just like that, the good times were over. Keeping those good memories in mind were what sustained him for the next year, as he formulated a plan to get his beloved ship back. In 1717, he snuck aboard in the aftermath of the ship's sack of Charleston and made a play for the Captaincy. He failed, but he would make two important connections during that voyage. The first was the man who would eventually become the Captain of the Maven, a competing pirate ship whose crew was always up for sticking it to their more famous brethren. The second was the love of his life.
The Frenchman and his consort spent the next three years in bliss, married in all but name, as they taught each other the ways of the world. These were the happiest years of his life, with memories that even now worked to take his current pains away, but something was missing. It wasn't quite perfect yet. The two of them had a built a life for themselves, but they both agreed that the only way to make it better is if they sailed the world together on the Presence. Never settling for "great" when "perfect" was in sight, the Frenchman once again worked to smuggle himself on board, this time with his consort.
In 1720 he did so in the confusion of the attack on the Spanish Treasure Fleet. They were both capable fighters and cunning planners, ready to take on all comers... but on the second night, his consort died. It wasn't an ultimate sacrifice for the cause, it wasn't a final act of defiance before the inevitable, it was just a random killing from the ship's First Mate at the time. He didn't even get to say goodbye. The Frenchman got his revenge, but emotionally spent, his heart wasn't in the takeover. His better half had departed him, and though he tried to reclaim the ship, he fell short once again, ultimately paraded around by the current Captain as his ultimate act of triumph.
Grief led to anger. Anger led to a plan. He tracked down his old friend, the Captain of the Maven, and sought out his help. He hired out two of the Maven's best crewmen and waited for the time to be right. He had always wanted his ship back, but this time it was personal.
But for a third and final time, things didn't go to plan. He had survived for far longer than he had any right to, continuing to display a trait he had shown on the previous two occasions he had tried to reclaim the ship, but eventually even he had to succumb to the inevitable. And thus the events on the seventh day happened, leading to his current situation.
Still... it had been a good life. It hadn't been as long as he had liked, but it had definitely been full. Better this than some of his peers in the Old World, getting fat off the taxes of their subjects and endlessly scheming against each other. He had learned, he had loved, and he had lived.
And now he could feel the darkness about to overtake him. Sparing one last glance down at the chunk of wood that was holding him up, he murmured the softest of gasps. Staring back at him was something that had not caught his eye until now: A minor piece of vandalism, carved into the wood: a love declaration between the Frenchman and his consort, dated 1720, the first night they were aboard the Presence together in his second attempt to retake the ship, the last night before she died. How fitting.
Clinging to the two great loves of his life, the Frenchman passed into the great beyond.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The victorious crewmen:
Visorslash - 336 (first place)
Double A - 248
dcmort93 - 229
Zack - 199
Golden1Knight - 186
Myrddraal - 175
Montmorency - 174
Xiahou - 152
Ituralde - 149
Andres - 142
Gaius Scribonius Curio - 137
johnhughthom - 102
seireikhaan - 101
landlubber - 98
Lissa - 83
Ice - 62
TFT - 30
Kagemusha - 0
Would have scored higher, if not for those meddling thieves:
BSmith - 163
Abandoned ship, for better or for worse:
El Barto - 218
Askthepizzaguy - 198
Choxorn - 160
Ironside - 96
Would have made it off alive, if not for those meddling clothes:
autolycus - 337
Csargo - 134
Died in the line of duty:
spaceman98 - 93
Absent from next year's AGM of shareholders:
TheFlax - 79
Adieu, mon amour:
Ishmael - 76
Originally Posted by TosaInu
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