Rotter felt cold. He felt cold from his lips to his marrow, cold even in the fingers on his left side which he could not feel. His lips went blue as the blood left his body out the holes Efer had made him in. Those holes were the only parts of him that were not cold; they were warm and sticky, and his bandages were not saving his life. Or rather...<br/><br/>His lips were not blue at all, nor were they cold. His lips were red with his blood, and burning fiercely like he had kissed a girl of pepper. The kidnapped doctor was pouring something or the other into him and for a second it was just mildly strong, but invigorating. He felt alive for a second, and then he felt<span style="font-style: italic">too</span>alive! He made a strangled gurgling sound and swore loudly as a sensation of fire spread down his throat, through his lungs and into his frozen fingers, toes and buttocks; like taking a swig of rum on a cold winter's day while getting slapped by Rum-Skirts for not passing the bottle fast enough. The holes in his body burned so fiercely they cauterized, and little bursts of fire literally emitted from them with a<span style="font-style: italic">popping</span>sound, scorching the bandages. When he yelled obscenities smoke emitted from his mouth and for one moment he wondered if he had died and been reborn as a dragon.<br/><br/>To his great disappointment he had not, but to his equally great relief he was alive. To the greater relief of everyone else the Rotsman halted its descent and balanced neatly in the air, unblemished. Efer's cannons had been fruitless, the Rotsman too high in the air to be touched, her cannonballs flying in its direction and then dropping harmlessly below it. A single pirate had managed to fire pebbles with enough force to hit, but gravity slowed even these down and the stones had hit with no more force than a child's punch.<br/>Rotter's thoughts were not on his invincibility, or even much on revenge. He would love to destroy the Queen's ship from his untouchable position just below the clouds, but even more so he would love to get the hell away, heal up, find the Pearl of Atlantis and<span style="font-style: italic">then</span>come back and crush the Pervy Freedom from his untouchable sky-high position.<br/><br/>Unfortunately while Rotter was dying Yagos took charge of the ship, and the man was incapable of retreating. Death was his art, and all he could think of was how to paint the world red. He ordered the cannons to fire on Queen Efer, which meant everyone would manually throw cannonballs off the side of the ship. In fairness to him, it was a winning strategy, especially because Queen Efer was not shooting back. Her doctor was on board now, and the Queen did not want her dead.<br/><br/>Rotter got to his feet, a steady jet of fire was bursting from his leg-wound and two quick pirates dropped what they had in their hands and came to put out the fire. They dropped what they had over the side, to crash through the Freedom.<br/>It was a pretty sight, he admitted, feeling much steadier than he had before. He was still in pain, more so than when he was cold, because now he suspected his insides were literally made of fire. His vision was clear, though, as was his head, and he could think almost as straight as he could before, however little that meant to a man so crazy as him. He wanted to give the order to retreat but, honestly, when she was not shooting back he might as well sink her damn ship, slit the throats of her crew and get back the Crow and that other girl.<br/><br/>Efer seemed to think the same thing and the Pervy Freedom resumed shooting at him with cannons that could not reach his ship. Rotter smiled down with a pained, crooked grin, watching gravity pull back the cannonballs.<br/><br/>The Rotsman seemed to explode in a shower of splinters as a cannonball shot through the hull, through the third, second and first deck and exited through his well-swabbed pooping deck to the screams of the still-entangled pirates. A second, third and fourth cannonball zoomed past him so close to his ship he could feel the air currents and the fifth cannonball hit his ship again and tore through the hull, but and stayed somewhere below deck. He could feel them; he could feel the wounds on his ship. Each time she shot through the hull it was like a punch to the kidneys, and for each deck that got splintered he got a punch in another organ.<br/><br/>He did not waste a second on bravery or pride, he spun around where he stood, reopening the wound in his foot and a great belch of flame shot out. "Fly!" He called to the man at the helm, whose face Rotter did not care to recall. "Fly 'way, yer basterd! Climb! Climb up!"<br/><br/>Queen Efer could hit him because she had shot him, weakened him and sent the Rotsman plummeting, and even now, while stable, it was so much closer to the water that her cannons were not useless at all anymore. Her cannonballs were zooming up past his ship and one came zooming down again, hitting the deck and going through it, taking a pirate with it. The pirates still trapped beneath Rotter's bandages were screaming for help, but Yagos was too busy killing Queen Efer's men to care and Rotter was too busy shrieking at the helmsman to climb up.<br/><br/>"Climb! Climb, ye fecking 'ound, ye great basterd, yer getless eunuch, thou!" The helmsman was turning the ship around nicely, but seemed completely bewildered as to what else to do but sail away with Efer tracking them beneath, shooting at him and blowing great holes in all three decks of his beautiful Rotsman.<br/><br/>Rotter staggered to the helm and he would have cut the incompetent helmsman down if he had not lost his sword in the air above the Freedom. The helmsman fled hastily as he approached, as if there was anywhere on the ship that was safer than anywhere else. Yagos kept ordering the crew to attack.<br/><br/>Rotter took hold of the wheel and spun it left and right, making evasive actions. He turned left and the cannon fire below turned left with him, and he turned right and placed himself directly where the cannon fire had been trailing him. Five or more cannonballs blew up through his deck and the pain of it brought Rotter to his knees. The last cannonball splintered the middle of the three masts and for a second it swayed in place, trying to decide which way to fall, until Rotter spun the wheel around left and the Rotsman almost tilted to the side, men falling, dropping their cannonballs, one or two gliding off the side and the mast fell too. The cordage grew taught for an instant then snapped by the weight of the riggings and whipped about the Rotsman before it all fell off the side, flying like a titan's javelin straight towards the Pervy Freedom.<br/><br/>"Climb! Climb, yer ol', cheap, stinkin' bowl of whale oil!" He shouted at the ship and he pulled back at the wheel hard to make his ship fly upwards, out of the Queen's range, despite the wheel not being made for such actions at all. The Rotsman did not climb, no matter how hard Rotter pulled the wheel or how crude his taunts, it stayed suicidally within range of the cannon fire.<br/><br/>But Rotter was steering the Rotsman south-east, not out into open ocean where the strong waves might slow the Freedom more than the strong winds would slow the Rotsman, letting him escape, instead he was sailing into the Bay of Naples, with Italy forming a border over which the Rotsman would not fly.<br/><br/>And yet he continued, swearing, re-blinded by the new pain and dark smoke coming out of his ears from Maidenâ€™s concoction.<br/>He was flying in a drunken line towards land, towards the archbishopric of Sorrento on the eponymous peninsula, an important, if small, trade city that was only worth raiding if you had a fascination with uncut lapis lazuli, which Rotter did not. He had no interest in the city except it marked the narrowest point of the peninsula.<br/><br/><br/>It must have been some sight for the people of Sorrento, as they on a lazy Sunday felt their church shake as a great cloud shadowed their sermon. When they ran outside they saw a giant ship fly over their city and knock over their steeple, and parents covered their children's ears as Rotter's insults were shrieked even over the screaming of his crew, the laughter of Yagos and the sound of his ship creaking in protest.<br/>"Cut yer fer feckin' scallops 'n serve yer tits wit' yet arse on a platter fer thar fishers, queenie! Oi'll skewer yer up the bung'ole and spin yer o'er the pyre Oiâ€™ll make a yer ship, 'long side â€˜e rest o' yer crew, Efer!"<br/>But Efer was left behind, unable to travel over land or smash through church towers and unable to keep tossing cannonballs down over the innocent city.<br/><br/>For that matter, so was Rotter. His ship did not like land and the creaking intensified by the second and the ship slowly, but steadily lost altitude. When he destroyed Aris' home he had strafed over her village and kept close to the ocean, but there was no part of it he could not reach. He could strafe over land, but not stay afloat over it.<br/><br/>The peninsula was flat and mercifully short of more than one church tower to smash into, and Rotter only made the journey by a hair's width. If the peninsula had been ten feet wider the Rotsman would have beached. Even so, the stern hit something on the beach, shaking the entire ship, but he did not know if it was the beach itself. He did not even know if his Rotsman could touch land any more than it could ocean.<br/>The Rotsman almost â€“<span style="font-style: italic">almost</span>â€“ touched the waters in the Gulf of Salerno, which lay on the other side of the peninsula, and to catch them now Efer had to take the slightly longer route around. If Rotter wanted to he could jump off the ship now and he was not sure his bandages would have enough reaction time to pull him back. The Rotsman floated just inches above the water, and a few of the men took the opportunity to jump ship and leave his madness. The Rotsman quickly started elevating again, wanting nothing to do with water, but if anyone had looked they would see the larger waves sweeping towards the hull, tall enough to touch but flatten only around the Rotsman and pass beneath.<br/><br/>The Rotsman never touched the ocean.<br/><br/>He wanted to jump and test his curse, but jumping required energy and Rotter had none left. He staggered off the helm, falling before the end of the stairs and was caught by Rum-skirts. He felt like that European cheese with holes blasted through it, and the potion the doctor had given him was liquid fire. It melted his cheesy body, and then Queen Efer shot new holes in him. The new holes did not belch flames, but it was all too much, even for a mystical pirate captain.<br/><br/>â€œCabinâ€¦â€ he said in barely more than a whisper. â€œBring doctorâ€¦ Yagos in chargeâ€¦ â€ He struggled to keep his eyes open. The peninsula had bought them an escape, but not time to waste. It was not a much longer way around the land than it was across it, and he had to get them going.<br/><br/>â€œFind a harbor with supplies. Buy them, donâ€™t stealâ€¦ Fix the ship while we flyâ€¦ Sail for Tom Leumas andâ€¦ and his Sunken Fleet. Think heâ€™s near Portugalâ€¦ a Portuguese skipperâ€¦ the girls found â€˜im cuteâ€¦ Sail there. And Yagosâ€¦ this crewâ€¦ They have a right to be mad at meâ€¦ Kill them all.â€<br/>Captain Rotter closed his eyes and slept for two days.