text: Captain Samuel Wartsworth the greatest wiz-arh-d alive (a wiz-arh-d of course being a wizard who is also a pirate) and also the only wiz-arh-d alive, breathed a hearty lungful of salt air. He closed his eyes and let the orchestra that was his ship wash over him (also sea spray). The straining of rope, the rustle of the canvas in the wind, and the gentle creak of wood played in harmony with each other and the sounds of nature around them. Samuel like most wizards had spent most of his life in stuffy classrooms or stuffier offices surrounded by browning papers and dog-eared books. Look at me now he thought, out on the open waves, free of the bureaucracy and ungrateful students. Instead of chasing research grants he was chasing horizons. He was also chasing legends, one particular lagend took his fancy at the moment. Nezzarun’s golden skull. It was said to contain all of the late Nezzaruns secrets. Of course Samuel had no idea who Nezzarun was or what his secrets were (on account of them being secret) but it was made of gold which was good enough for him, and as a wiz-arh-d he was still eager to learn new things, secret or otherwise, so he set sail immediately. Not everyone was cut out for the pirate life, in fact most people were more inclined to stay on land where the fruit, veg, and comfortable beds were. As such when ancient, (or otherwise) treasure maps got discovered it was usually more profitable and sensible to just sell them to crazy boat dwelling weirdos then actually trying to follow the maps. Thus, map venders often hung out at sea front taverns and one such vender had supplied Captain Wartsworth with the map he now studied (for a reasonable price, and also supplied him with an elaborate and likely embellished story about Nezzarun for free). The map looked like an original which meant he was first on the trail, the issue was map vendors could easily copy the map and sell multiple copies to multiple pirates and was only a matter of time before the competition would move in. This was bad because there was a lot of competition. In fact the vast open ocean was getting increasingly crowded. First off, there was the royal fleet which often looked more like an attempt to plank over every body of water. It featured a huge number of ships all armed, and all eager to tax the daylights out of everything that floated, much to the alarm of the local seagulls. Being taxed was only slightly better than being robbed in that they left you a small portion of your stuff but was otherwise indistinguishable from piracy. The royal fleet was owned by the king, or ‘land king’ as he was known to piratical folks. Then there was the ‘royal fleet’ controlled by the pirate queen. Confusingly these ships were almost identical to the ships of the royal fleet on account of the fact the pirate queen stole them all from the king (the fact both fleets were referred to as the royal fleet with different inflections in the voice didn’t help the confusion either, conveying quote marks in a moment of urgency was no easy task). Their aim was to effectively make a new floating country and several large ships featured shops, schools and hospitals. In addition to fishing they actually grew crops both in the ocean and on barges. Access to such luxuries and the pirate queen’s tendency to leave other pirate with little other choice meant most notorious pirate now worked for her. Out side those two fleets were only a hand full of truly exceptional pirates. There was captain Finley and his crew who all died decades ago but continued sailing the seas anyway. His crew now shambling skeletons and Finley a ghost unable to interact with the real world but in complete control of his bony crew. There was also the dashing Silver-beard who will only join the ‘royal fleet’ if the pirate queen accepts his wedding proposal and the pirate queen will only accept him into the ‘royal fleet’ if he stops being a lusty creep. There were a couple others but none were so remarkable as Captain Samuel Wartsworth. He had avoided the clutches of both fleets and other pirates through his liberal use of magic. His ship the Peer Review was enchanted and could create a thick cloud of sea fog at will, (the captain also had an enchanted pair of glasses with a fog resistant coating allowing him to see through the fog) hiding his advance and retreat. Once per day the ship could also teleport up to 300 meters into an un occupied patch of water. Perfect for appearing on your oppositions opposite side. Now no ship was complete without a crew and the Peer Review was no exception, however the ship did effectively sail itself. Still Samuel was not alone. On the bottom deck where two wooden golems built to patch holes in the ship, as they were made of wood in extreme circumstances, they could use themselves to plug the gaps. They were made as simple automatons but as with all magical constructs they had begun developing more of a personality. Often late into the night they would sit awake and wonder, were they made of ship, or was the ship made of them. They shuddered for they did not know. On the deck above, the gun deck were 13 imps summoned from the shallowest depths of hell (if your employing demons you want the mildest flavour when you’re effectively floating on a flammable bit of wood). They manned the cannons, these could have been easily enchanted but cannons are incredibly effective already, more so then most spells and hence needed no improvement. Demons are generally unpredictable and so periodically at random intervals a cannon would occasionally fire without warning but this was the price of cheap labour and meant most people would generally give the ship a wide birth. Finally, the deck hands, these both belonged to Frank who was the entirety of the above deck crew. Frank was a failed wizard but as it turns out and equally terribly sailor, fortunately the ship did most of the actual sailing itself so Frank mainly swabbed and un-swabbed decks. Sometimes the captain would bark an order, and Frank would repeat it as if passing it down a chain of command. The path to Nezzarun’s skull was basically a straight line, on account of the ocean not having any obstacles to sail around, all the same Samuel wiggled the wheel every now and then for something to do. “we nearly there yet?”, asked Frank, the captain pulled out a compass, yep they were still heading north a fact that had no bearing on how close they were, “nope” replied the captain. “want to play a game? Pass the time?” “don’t you have swabbing to do?” “I’ve swabbed every inch of this ship twice, also why do we call it swabbing anyway?” “no idea, ok, wonna have a friendly wizard duel?” “no you always win on account of the fact I cant use magic” “yes that’s why its so fun”. Boom! Sploosh. A cannon fired without warning, “hold your fire!” yelled the captain stamping his feet “hold your fire!” reiterated Frank, a faint chittering could be heard in the decks below. A few minutes passed. “well a minor wind spell wouldn’t do too much harm” the captain announced, waving his hand in a complex arcane motion. Suddenly the wind picked up and the ship lurched forward at a greater pace knocking all but Samuel to the ground. A few more minutes passed. “well a major wind spell wouldn’t-“ “no! I mean why don’t you check the map again? You love looking at maps”, Frank pleaded “hmm, I do like looking at maps, ok, lets see, we’re here, and the skull is on bullet hole island, so called because it’s the same shape as a bullet hole” “never heard of it” “it what you get when you shoot a bullet through something” “no I’ve never heard of the island” “no one has, legends say Nezzarun pulled it from the sea itself, probably, no ones ever seen it because no one has any reason to sail this way” “erm” Frank pointed a little way north east, Samuel followed his digit. Royal ships! (or possibly ‘royal’ ships) just the two small sloops, quick, shooty, and ahead of him. Samuel quickly turned over the map, in the bottom left corner was printed the word ‘replica’. “Damn it, brace the main sail, tie off the rigging, run out the guns!”, ordered the captain. Frank didn’t know what any of that meant so tied some rope to some other rope while the ship readied itself for combat. Sneaking up on someone at sea is difficult given the high level of visibility but all the pirates on the ‘royal’ sloops saw was a fast moving front of sea fog. A magic wielding pirate doesn’t go unnoticed and rumour had spread of the ship that struck out of a thick fog. So as the fog began to loom on their port side the pirates ran out their cannons and readied to fire into the fog. The captain of the sloop (the captain was called Bague-beard the sloop was called the Bague Trimmings) held his nerve, drew his sword and staired into the fog. His eyes strained for a target, and his ears desperately sort some indication. The sound of water lapping against his own hull grew louder as if joined by the sound from a second ship. “FIRE!!” he ordered and had scarcely finished the syllable when a great chorus of controlled explosions screamed from the deck below. At the same time a faint flash of blue light flicked in the clouds. To the sloop’s starboard side, the Peer Review materialised in a similar blue flash and instantly opened fire. It did so about half a second before Samuel got chance scream fire which he found quite disappointing. The sloop was already taking on water, but the other ship seeing its comrade in trouble had come along side and several angry men swung across onto the deck brandishing cutlasses. Samuel was ready, he slapped his hands together and drew them apart and as he did illusionary duplicates of himself appeared all over the deck. Some made obscene gestures while chanting “ner ner ner” the most cutting of pirate jibes, others rolled up their sleaves as if ready to engage in fisty cuffs and others ran around the deck in a mad panic. The attackers swiped at the figures impotently, their blade passing through the illusions only for that illusion to immediately blend in to the crowd. This went of for a few moments until one of the assailants stopped scratched his chin for a moment and said, “wait why don’t we go after the one standing by the wheel the one what did the clapping and all”. Instantly all the illusions stopped, looked at this man and then at the captain who replied, “oh bugger, MAJOR WIND SPELL!”. Thrusting his palm forward the ship lurched forward at an unreasonable speed. The Peer Review’s timbers groaned in pain and several of the attacker and somehow several of the illusions fell overboard. Frank who had been cowering at the bow of the ship was suddenly sprawled face down at the stern. The two sloops one listing sadly to one side began receding into the distance and an island began rapidly approaching ahead of them. Samuel waved a hand and got to his feet as the wind he had conjured died down. “uuuurgh” commented Frank from his prone position “we’re here, bullet whole island” “isn’t a bullet hole just a circle?” asked Frank as the captain was already making his way into a row boat. Samuel had no intention of rowing but instead pulled out a wand and placed the tip in the water, a jet of water irrupted from it and the row boat come speed boat shot towards the white sandy beach. “I’ll just, do some more swabbing”, said Frank, as number of unfortunate pirate stragglers left behind from the previous combat were being tied up and jabbed by the cannon imps. The rowboat rammed into the chalky white beach and Samuel leapt from the boat landing dramatically on the sand. He looked behind him to see if anyone had witnessed his cool moves but no one had. The sand was abnormally white, but Samuel didn’t give this much thought, instead he consulted the map, hmm, he thought, by the looks of this map Nezzaruns skull is located in the only building on the island. He looked up to see the top a stone temple jutting above the tree line. Probably could have guessed that, he thought as he began striding inland to his prize. The temple was overgrown with all manner of stubborn fern making a living out of solid stone. For such a large building it had very little interior, just a single room. There in the centre was a golden skull, with gems for eyes. Gingerly Samuel went to pick it up, then given the fact it was made of gold, and weighed a ton, less gingerly yanked it up into his grasp. The gems in its eye sockets began to glow and suddenly a golden skeleton (minus the head) leapt up. “oi” said the skull “aah” said Samuel and began running away, but he still held the skull which was the scariest bit so continued to scream as he ran. Running as fast as you can while staring into the glowing eyes of Nezzarun (who had just had his head stolen by a creaming nut case so was also screaming as is the appropriate response) is not a safe way to travel. By some miracle Samuel missed the many tangled trees and was instead tripped over a rock. He hit the ground with a dull thud, and the skull landed a few feet head of him. Then two feet appeared ahead of him. These feet where attached, via all the usual bits, to one Captain Silver-beard. He bent down and picked up the skull, and despite its immense weight held it in one hand, his arm shaking with the effort of trying to look cool and effortless. “well, well, if it isn’t my arch nemesis Captain Wartsworth, world renowned wiz-arg-d” he said handsomely, periodically swishing his luscious silver hair for no reason. “I’m your arch nemesis? I’ve met you like one time and I just ran away”, replied Samuel while thinking, ‘gosh he is annoyingly handsome’. “I’m just being kind, and it is kind of you to fetch me the skull of Nezzarun, now its secrets will be mine!” “hey not so fast”, Samuel jumped to his feet but Silver-beard drew his sword. Samuel narrowed his eyes and pulled out his wand again and thrust if forward, and after a brief moment said, “erm, sorry this never happens just give it a moment” and he started rubbing his wand until a green spectral sword blade immerged from its tip, “have at you Jerk”. The battle would have been epic and intricately described, except at that moment the rest of Nezzarun laid out Silver-beard with a haymaker to the dome. He then picked his skull up and put it back on. Crack. It snapped back into place, “oh look”, the skull said, “the second-best wiz-arh-d” “second best!?”, at this the skeleton pulled out a wand of its own, except his was made of bone and had a number of gems imbedded in it. Before Samuel could react, skeletal hands had erupted from the ground around him and seized his feet. The golden skeleton tapped his metallic bony finger to his head with a pleasant clinking sound, “after these secrets eh, too bad”. Samuel was actually after the gold that he didn’t seem likely to get either, which was also too bad. In the distance the sound of angry pirates could be heard, likely searching for their captain. The walking bullion sighed, “game recognises game, so I’ll let you go, but leave me body bits alone” and with that he waved his wand and vanished in a puff of black smoke, as did the arms binding him. It was time to leave, though not before robbing Silver-beard of everything he had on him, as was the pirate way. That was a bust, mostly, he thought as he climbed back onto the Peer Review clutching Silver-beards coin purse. A number of ships were appearing on the horizon and Silver-beards ship was already starting to move. Everyone had heard of the treasure, and now everyone was watching him running away from Silver-beard. It struck him they would all find the island now devoid of Nezzarun and would assume he had the goods. He sighed, “Frank, bring me that horizon”. Frank smiled and hoped the ship knew what that meant. The End.