<span style="font-style: italic">"The Pearl is Beatiful. Beatiful i see it in my hed is a Beatiful Pearl in my dreams is a Beatiful Pearl of Atlantis is a Beaitful in my dreams it is a"-</span><br/><br/><br/>It did not make sense when Rotter calmed down and thought about the problem of the stolen clue, after he dismissed his crutch, Nana, to drink herself sillier or whatever else she fancied.<br/><br/>Most pirates could not read, so most had not thought of the torn pages from a diary as important, and saw no reason why Rotter chose them along with all other books from pirate raids, and no one cared because he was crazy. The clue he was missing was not these diary pages, because he managed to find them mixed into his own handwritten notes, held together by small splotches of turtle soup.<br/><br/>But the diary pages were written in code, and the cypher to the code was the last piece of evidence he had acquired shortly before his encounter with the Pirate Queen Efer, and this cypher was missing.<br/><br/>But why steal a cypher, but not the pages of diary that held the actual information? It was like stealing the key to a treasure chest, and leaving the actual chest untouched. It could be a coincidence, and some illiterate thief had just taken the first and the best piece of paper, but why would he (<span style="font-style: italic">or she</span>, Rotter reminded himself)?<br/><br/>So, it might not have been stolen. It could be around his private cabin, hidden like the pages of diary had been, and Rotter had turned his cabin upside down to find it, but it was not under his desks, behind the bookshelves, or inside his mattress, and it was fortunate for Nana she had left or Rotter would have split open his crutch in maddened searching.<br/><br/>Calm down.<br/><br/>First order of business was to search the entire ship. The newly recruited men had not settled into their quarters yet, so it was easy to have them search through every satchel, barrel and coffer that the old pirates had filled with stuff. They could keep anything they found from their old shipmates, but<span style="font-style: italic">any</span>pieces of paper were to be delivered directly to him.<br/>As he roared these orders to his men - still not fully calm - the Maiden doctor decided it was as good a time as any to examine him. She struggled with the bandages and the crew helped her, and Rotter had to restrain himself to not yell at them to get back to searching. Eventually Maiden managed to find the real Rotter below the many layers of bandages, and she touched him gently.<br/><br/>That was... not a new sensation, but a forgotten one, the touch of a woman. Her fingers were cold, and he winced as she touched the wound. She assured him it would heal with a change of bandages. That should be easy, cut off one thread and another one grew back. So, he would make a full recovery, she said, and his leg would start to function, too. Perfect news.<br/>Too perfect.<br/><br/>The thought did occur that Maiden was only saying what he wanted to hear. He was the captain and she had been kidnapped. It was within his power to pay her back tenfold for his injuries. If he broke a bone, she would break ten. If he lost a leg, she would lose ten of hers. It was a great incentive to make her work as hard as she could, but a terrible incentive to make her be truthful once there was nothing she could do.<br/>He had never threatened her, though, but she had been alone with Yagos for three days, and Yagos dealt only in spilling blood in liters.<br/><br/>"Walk with me," he said, and used her as support on his way back to his cabin. Hopefully Nana would not be too angry that he used another crutch.<br/>"I hope you have been well in the time I was... asleep. I know you were left with Yaaaarrgos, and he does have a habit of threatening others. Well, not so much threatening, as carrying out the threats he would make before he makes them. And then murdering. I mean, it would count as a prophylactic threat against others so they behave, except that he does tend to kill those others too. He's really, really good at that, you know, that's why he is the first mate. He does keep the crew in check if they do something really bad."<br/>Rotter was about to close the door to his cabin and resume his search for the cypher when he remembered he meant to actually give Maiden positive encouragement before he got sidetracked on the first mate's capacity for violence.<br/>"Oh, but, ehm... you are the ship's doctor. Special rules apply to you. Specifically, you can do pretty much anything and not be subjected to, well, whatever happens to the common crew. I'm not clear on what that is. I rarely have much to do with them except bossing them around. Usually for no reason whatsoever." Rotter snickered. "You should see their faces."<br/>"Anyway, if Yarrrgos has maltreated you, then tell me. I will make it stop, and I will compensate you. I am a bit busy right now, what with this whole Pearl of Atlantis business, but I can draw you up some agreement later if you wish, like, you having a right to pick third in the right of plunder or some such. Really, I want you to feel at home here, so you can treat my injuries if they take a turn for the worse. You will not be held accountable for damage done to the patients so long as I do not suspect you were... withholding information. Oh, and at the earliest convenience I would like you to tell me more about the Pirate Queen Efer. Like, what she is planning, and how she is doing, and what she likes and so on. Alright? Wonderful, until then, have fun doing whatever you do when not treating my wounds or getting entangled in bandages."<br/><br/>He was about to slam the door when some young squirt came running up to him, and was very clearly frightened to talk to the Captain himself. Rotter hated those types, he liked his pirates to be strong and unintimidated by most anything. In fact, it was preferable if they were only intimidated by whatever inevitably guarded whatever treasure he was seeking at the given time. If the normally gruff, surly crew was visibly frightened by a pirate minotaur only or a mighty pirate Uraken then it made the situation feel grander. If they were frightened of talking to their own crewmembers then the ability of a monster to scare them was not a useful reflection of the threat level.<br/>Then again, the new crew was assembled in speed with whoever wanted to come along. He would have to replace the gutless, whimpering crowd at the earliest convenience, but for now he had other things to worry about.<br/><br/>"Captain?" Said the small, freckled, boy with a runny nose in front of him, who had apparently been talking while Rotter considered what an absolute waste of a pirate he was. He wore rags, had buckteeth and his red hair did not seem to have ever been washed. Personal hygiene, really, was one of the major problems of the Rotsman. they were quite far away from water.<br/>"Right, if you just said something, then repeat it. I didn't hear it, I was judging you by your appearance."<br/>"The water's on fire."<br/>"That's called rum, son, learn to drink it."<br/>"No, it's..." somehow the freckled kid grew paler. Rotter was not unkind to his pirates and he did not shoot the messengers, but he absolutely hated this kid. "It's the ocean itself, cap'n, it's on fire. A little bit. Like, thar's this flame it's... it's... it's moving 'round. Below the ship. What'd we do cap'n?"<br/>"Have you tried pouring water on it?"<br/>The freckled boy shook his head and looked like he was about to go off and do it.<br/>"I don't know. I don't really care. Burning seas don't concern us. Have someone investigate if the crew is curious. We have spyglasses on the ship somewhere, look closer. Or lower someone down in a rope. I don't care."<br/>The freckled boy nodded again and wasted no time in running off.<br/>"And send someone with guts next time you want to talk to me!"<br/>-----<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"the greatest treasure sings to me. No one crew can claim iT IN MY HEad. It is the Moon but smooth is my Beaitiful Pearl of Atlantis sucked down and made Beatiful. It moves. I folLOW the SWeaRL of Atlantis when i close my eyes its Beai."-</span><br/><br/>Next time someone with guts was sent. Rotter was going through his notes frantically. If he could not get the cypher back, perhaps he had translated enough of the diary pages to decode what he was missing from that. Rotter did not have much of a mind for such things, which meant he would have to call in someone with brains. Except he did not have anyone with brains on his ship now that the Crow had deserted him.<br/>Tom Leumas' grandfather had not been in the best mental health. The pages were not in order, it seemed, and there was a definite worsening of his mental faculties across the pages, which was the best timeline he had for them, really. The first page had been lucid with only a scribble in the margin in a different color ink, which corresponded to ink used in the later, rambling pages. This first page was most useful, actually hinting somewhat consistently that the Pearl existed and could be found, referencing earlier pages and suggested research he would try and focus on later in the diary. The problem was his encounter with Efer had come before he had finished translating the page, and he was now stuck with only hints of the juicy bits rather than the whole thing. The actual, original note was missing too, either stolen, or stuck to the back of the cypher by a splotch of turtle soup.<br/><br/>At this moment Rotter hated the soup girl.<br/><br/>The later notes were more or less useless, except that one page finally dropped the name "Leumas", and one of the many, crazy rants that filled up more and more of the page margins as the author's mental state deteriorated mentioned a newborn grandchild named "Tom" and several mentions of trying to trade him in exchange for the Pearl. There were still pages left to translate, and madness to go through, but this was enough to give Rotter a definite goal, until the cypher could be retrieved or he could use his already translated parts to reverse-engineer the code.<br/>He had waited translating the remaining pages since they seemed to be mostly unreadable, the red ink not just filling the margins, but writing over the original text in suspiciously repeating symbols, so Rotter suspected the translation would spell out some form of madness mantra.<br/><br/>Honestly, it did not worry him that much. The loss of his pages, definitely infuriated him to the point of his own madness mantra playing in his head, consisting of just one word played over and over again.<br/><br/>"<span style="font-style: italic">Dead!</span>"<br/><br/>But the madness presented in the decrypted pages was more a sign of some old fart becoming obsessed with a shiny bauble than a threat to Rotter himself. Well, not some bauble, the greatest bauble in the collective lore of every sea-based culture worldwide, which Rotter<span style="font-style: italic">needed</span>himself, but Tom Leumas' grandfather had gone completely mad. At least Rotter had taken several decades of confinement on a floating boat to even become noticeably eccentric, or so he imagined.<br/><br/>The messenger with guts was an older man, with a big blonde beard that covered most of his face beneath the nose, except one odd, naked blotch on his left cheek. He was not as tall as Rotter, but much broader and Rotter applauded him for wearing a bandana, which they both felt any self-respecting pirate without rank should. The conversation also briefly fell on Rotter's wounded leg, and how they both thought peg legs were superior to real ones, but it would still be cheating to gain one without losing the original in combat. The almost-fully-bearded pirate said it was a damn shame queen Efer did not have the strength to cut a leg clean off, and Rotter agreed that if he had not dropped his own sword when she fought him he would have shown her a thing or two.<br/><br/>Talking to a man who did not seem the least bit afraid of him made Rotter feel better. The thoughts of Death receded and eventually he got around to asking what the hell the other man wanted, to which the other replied he would damn well speak to his captain whenever he damn well felt he had something to say, and Rotter then retorted he was damn well welcome, and the other nodded gruffly and turned to leave, stating as he walked away with his chest puffed out, that the fire on the water from earlier had turned out to be two little girls riding a demonic porpoise.<br/><br/>Apparently one of the two knew the doctor, Maiden, which was bad news, since it hinted at Efer's influence, and the other little girl had yelled at them all and told them that she knew the Captain and that she had served on his ship before. That did not sound like Efer, however.<br/>But then again... past work experiences on the Rotsman; riding water steeds of hellfire. That did sound like someone he knew.<br/><br/>"Rina!" Rotter said jovially as he came out on deck, where half his crew were pointing their cutlasses at the two porpoise-riders, whom they had somehow gotten hoisted onboard. "So you finally gave up and decided to come home. Didn't think you could get the-"<br/>The horrible thought struck him that Rina the demoness had already managed to get the Pearl of Atlantis. He could not say how, but maybe she sold her soul to get it. Or someone else's soul, assuming she did not have one of her own. If she had the Pearl of Atlantis and had managed to get it with only a month of trying he would...<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Dead!</span><br/><br/>"Cap'n!" one of the two girls shouted, the one who actually looked like a girl. Neither of them looked like Rina though, which was a relief. The hunt for the Pearl was still on. "It's me, Cap'n... Please don't throw me again."<br/>Rotter looked at her for a moment, then around the looks of his crew. None of them seemed to know her.<br/>"Rina?" He asked.<br/>"Aris. Chaos-heart. I didn't come all the way back here to get stabbed! Tell them to stand down."<br/>"Young lady, you do realize I am the captain of this ship right? I give the orders to stand down, and I certainly don't take the orders to order others around. Hell, this is my ship, I pretty much just do as I please. And on a rare basis what my crew wants to do, too, but only if there are no other pressing matters going on. Which there are. Throw her overboard! Again, apparently. When did I do that?"<br/>"You... You didn't, it was someone else. You jumped after me." That stirred his memory.<br/>"Soup girl!" Rotter exclaimed jubilantly and his eyes lit up with the same intensity as if Maiden's fire potion burned behind his eyes.<br/><span style="font-style: italic">Dead!</span><br/>"Come with me, soup girl," and he grabbed her arm and yanked her along as he took as long steps as his wounded leg would allow. Before he went below deck he turned and asked the other girl, whom he suspected of being very obviously a man:<br/>"And you? I don't know you do I?"<br/>"No." Jacoda answered simply and with a firm nod Rotter dragged Aris back to his cabin without giving his crew further orders.<br/><br/>"Where are my goddamn clues, Aris!? I had them before you vanished. You were the last one inside my cabin with your damnable turtle soup. You can read, probably, I guess, because you are not a pirate. I confided in you, and you alone, that I was after the Pearl of Atlantis. You would know... and then you took my things, and when you saw your chance, you joined the queen Efer and betrayed me. It was a good plan, yes, we both agree you are very clever," Rotter started pacing slowly around in his cabin, though his leg made it difficult to maneuver over the absolute mess he had made of his furniture. "You would have gotten away with it too, but you made one mistake, just one small mistake, when you returned to the scene of the crime! Now you will hand over the paper or you will die. I don't seem to have my cutlass on me to kill you with, I lost it in the fight with Efer, so if you returned that then you might live. Provided you give me back my papers! Now!"<br/><br/>"Captain!" Someone else shouted outside. It was a surprisingly busy day. No one had wanted him that much when he was in a coma.<br/>"Not now. I'm working. And bring me a cutlass!" Rotter shouted back.<br/>"It's Tom Leumas, captain. We think. The Port of Snakes and a ship with his Jolly Roger."<br/>Rotter's fingers were flexing in the air, as if he couldn't decide whether to make a claw or to strangle an invisible throat. In the end he glared viciously at Aris and stormed outside to do business with Captain Tom Leumas and his Mermaid Frigate.<br/>---------<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"[Portuguese ramblings]"</span><br/><br/>The Andalusian starling returned with Captain Tom Leumas' reply, and Rotter noted that he sounded suspiciously different from how he used to.<br/>"This is Captain Ned the Dread, Captain of the Whopping Molly. The upstart mutineer 'Captain' Tom Leumas has failed in his mutiny. The pretend captain formerly known as 'Captain' Tom Leumas has sadly found his way off my ship and here I thought he would have made a nice figurehead for my ship. Say who the hell are you anyway?" Rotter had explained who he was in his initial bird to Captain Ned, and the bird helpfully imitated the voice of someone informing Ned. "He's Cap'n Rotter, Cap'n. Never heard of him! He's the Cap'n of the flying ship there. Never heard of it! Listen here, you rotting captain, it took me only five minutes to take over one actually legendary ex-captain's ship how long do you think it'll take me to take over yours? I, Captain Ned the Dread the only pirate so famous that no one has heard of me, took this ship with no resources. You had a whale, Cap'n. Just think how long it'll take me to take over your non-legendary boat with the added resources of my new ship and my seemingly loyal crew. My day of captaining has left a loyalty in their hearts that will give them the strength of ten men each and the courage of a bottle of rum! Now where is my rum!?"<br/><br/>Rotten had to admit, he quite liked this Captain Ned. It was enough to make Rotter want to give the poor, inexperienced sod a chance to not die horribly. Not to mention, Rotter did not actually need his ship or his animosity. He just needed Tom Leumas, and, more importantly, he needed the collective book shelves of the former captain. But as for Ned, Rotter was almost impressed a rambling punk like that could overthrow a legendary pirate captain like Tom Leumas and gain control of his vessel.<br/>"What a damn moron, he can't even operate the starling" The Andalusian starling said to Ned in Rotter's voice. "Alright, men. Let's show him how it's done."<br/>The bird closed its beak and stared blankly at Ned, its message apparently over.<br/><br/>"You're a goddamn moron, Rotter, you forgot to send a message. I wanted to say that! As boatswain I am probably in charge of diplomatic negotiations. But I'm the captain! You're both morons." The Andalusian starling continued to repeat an apparent argument featuring at least three participants. By the end the starling just sat still and stared at Rotter, awaiting his response.<br/><br/>"Damn that Ned, he has a boatswain, who is also their communications officer. He sounds multi-talented, even if he got demoted to boatswain somewhere in the fight. I had better play this carefully. Maybe this Ned the Dread is not the threat. Let me think..." The starling relayed a few minutes of pause, and mimicked the sounds of feet dragging about the wooden deck and Rotter occasionally mumbling to himself, making up and rehearsing a speech. Then finally, for the first time, Rotter's voice was repeated clearly by the starling, as he finally spoke to it intentionally.<br/>"Captain Ned the Dread, I tire of you. I am 269 years old, and I hear these upstart captain speeches so wearily often. I have tried to make them stop being overly confident by crushing them, but it never seems to prevent new ones from cropping up. I suppose the power vacuum I leave on the seas whenever I destroy another pirate ship makes it lucrative for others to move in. Regardless, it is time to try a new tactic, and not engage in an orgy of murder, cannonballs and all the other stuff that usually follow in the Rotsman's wake."<br/>"Boatswain! I speak to you and the rest of the crew now. Since you just disposed of Tom Leumas I assume you don't really like him. And since it just happened two hours ago, I assume you have no real bonds to the new captain either. I, Captain Rotter of the Flying Rotsman, 269 years without suffering a mutiny, simply desire the former Captain Tom Leumas. He's an old friend, you see, and my friendly rival. Appoint a new captain, who is less prone to challenging my ability to murder you all, and do with ex-captain Ned as you please. I just want him put  in his place, a little. Then let me take Tom Leumas from you, so you don't have to worry about him causing you any more trouble and spreading sedition, and give me his diaries and other books and such so I get all his juicy personal secrets to taunt him with. Do that and I will pay you the weight of it all in gold. I am a very successful pirate and I have a lot of treasure up here, which, if you try to fight me, you will not get, because either I murder you, or my ship falls down, smashes and the treasure aboard sinks to the bottom of the sea. So, yes, where was I? Right, hand over Tom Leumas, his stuff, slap Rina and say "I'm winning" for me, and replace Ned the Dead as captain and you may do so in whichever order you find fitting. Then you'll get rich and we are all happy. Do we have a deal? You have half an hour to make all this mutiny stuff happen. Meanwhile my ship and I will be flying in circles over there."<br/>The Andalusian starling sat still for a moment and you could hear Rotter shout to his men "It's my gold, screw you." before someone tapped the bird on the beak to end its mimicry.<br/><br/>For once, everything was going his way. He had gotten his thieving soup girl back, possibly with the stolen papers, and was about to get all the remaining hints he needed from the Molly Whop. Possession of the Pearl would have been secured if the lookout, Raven, had not suddenly started sounding very excited going "Oooh, oooh!" and waving her hands to get his attention. With one sentence she ruined everything:<br/>"The Pretty Freedom is coming!"