Rotter dreamt of water. That was in itself not surprising; having spent centuries on a ship the howling wind and the distant sound of waves breaking had become background noise, ever-present in his mind and in his dreams. But in the last hours before he woke from two days of otherwise dreamless sleep Rotter dreamt he was below the sea. Such dreams had left him long ago, his world was confined to his Rotsman and it became rarer and rarer his dreams ever took place outside it. He still dreamt of mysteries, where he was a sleuth uncovering The Case of the Maltese Flagon; and he dreamt of being a bird circling around his ship as it thundered through the sky. Dreams of romance and carnal delights were getting rarer too.<br/><br/>But in these last hours Rotter was a fish, standing at the helm of his Rotsman, breathing the waters as he chased the undersea sun. It fled from him, that bright star, but it was slow and he was a bluefin tuna. Nothing in this world could out-speed a tuna on the Rotsman. Tunas were fast. Everyone knew that.<br/>Meanwhile the star was slow, but what else could you expect? It was stuck in the butt of a sea slug and suddenly Rotter wondered why he even wanted it. It was a magnificent jewel, certainly, that undersea star, but it kept such uncouth company. How did it even get up there? Surely the slug had not lodged it in itself. Rotter was getting confused and it was becoming harder to breathe. Tunas made for rotten captains. Everyone knew that.<br/><br/>He woke from his dream and for a second it all made perfect sense and he moved to get some paper to write it all down. His left leg did not respond and he crashed to the floor as naked as he could be, and the dream was forgotten. The last thing he remembered was a pickled herring telling him he had overdue fees to pay.<br/><br/>In reality Rotter only felt naked. From the ankles to the wrist and to the neck he was covered in his bandages. They were smelly and soaked in sweat, fever and blood so Rotter changed them by simply pulling the first and second layer off, and as always there was a clean third layer below and a hundred layers beneath that one. The only stains were two curious black marks where his wounds were, scorched bandages and warm to the touch. He did not feel like seeing how many layers he would have to pull off to remove those scorches, and decided to wear them as a mark of honour. His new crew wouldn't know he had earned them by stupidity.<br/><br/>He was hungry, but curiously not thirsty. The doctor must have tended to that need while he slept. His left leg was numb and he could not move his toes, which was more than a little frightening to him. He would have liked to wake up to a normal, working body, but he would have loved waking up to find a wooden leg. He felt cheated that he now had this half-form, wooden to the feeling, but without the aesthetics of a proper pirate peg leg.<br/><br/>He limped over to the door and opened it, his arm stiffening in pain from the bullet wound. A pirate could get a peg for a leg or a claw for a hand, but there was no peg shoulder or claw right-side-of-the-body. Rotter was becoming genuinely terrified his crazy airborne stunt had cost him something irreplaceable. Would he need to postpone his quest for the Pearl of Atlantis and look for some panacea to treat his wounds and allow him to live another 269 years without peg legs?<br/><br/>With his<span style="font-style: italic">left</span>hand he opened the door to his cabin and noticed someone had put a little sign on the outside.<br/>"Do not disturb, so bugger off."<br/>It was his own handwriting, which confused him. He did not recall writing it, and his right hand did not work anyhow. He would chalk it up to being an old note that the doctor had found in his quarters, but below hung an addendum saying:<br/>"Unless you are the doctor or one of her sexy prawn nurses. Thermometers for everyone!!!"<br/><br/>He shook his head and bellowed for the doctor. The roar sent another surge of pain through his right side, and he cursed the day they ever invented collarbones. Whatever god above was responsible for such shoddy workmanship should consider himself lucky Rotter was barred from entering heaven.<br/><br/>No one answered. The usual humdrum of the ship was gone, and like the sound of the ocean, that had become background noise for him too. It was unsettling to suddenly be without it. He supposed a new crew had yet to be found, which in turn made him wonder just how long he had been sleeping. By the beard stubbles that had begun to spring up on his face it was not just a night of rest. He would have expected to wake up to a brand new crew of names to not learn, but evidently it was not so. It appeared Yagos was a tardy captain, and Rotter supposed it was more than a little likely there had been a new crew on his ship, or two or three, and Yagos had simply slaughtered them all as soon as he realized he had the authority to do so. It mattered little, although Rotter did crave eggs, apples and prawn, the last of which he decided to save for dessert, and was annoyed not to have it brought when he bellowed for it.<br/><br/>Right, well, whether he had slept for two days or two minutes it was time to get back in action. He could mope about his lack of wooden leg once he had the Pearl of Atlantis. Or at least an hour from now when he knew whether the numbness was due to the wound or from his slumber. He refused to panic like a non-mystical person might do.<br/><br/>â€œA Portuguese skipper, the girls found him cuteâ€ Rotter hummed under his breath as he sifted left-handed through the maps and papers on his desk. Rotter was not sure where Tom Leumas was now, but he had his family and closest connections in Vila Nova de Gaia. Rotter had never harmed them, and had no intention to, but he could ask them more or less forcefully where the merry Captain Tom was doing piracy these days. With any luck he would be home for a social visit. If not, Rotter recalled with shock, no one said Captain Tom Leumas had to have the next clue to finding the Pearl. It was hidden in his bloodline; his family might be just as likely to have the next clue stored in a basement alongside other ancestral crap. Rotter had completely failed to think about them; the notion that the key to finding the greatest single piece of treasure there ever was or will be was in the basement of not-pirates was unthinkable. Rotterâ€™s mind worked in terms of grander stories, with only more important people being, well, important. Still, if he was going to Tom Leumasâ€™ hometown it would be just plain lazy not to pillage his motherâ€™s sock drawer. The sooner Rotter found the Pearl the sooner he could go look for the Peg Leg of Destiny, or whatever alternatives existed.<br/><br/>Without even having moved a surge of pain shot through him, and his leg was starting to pulsate badly. It had been numbed with sleep, but now that it was waking up the pain was only getting worse, and he still could not wiggle his toes.<br/><br/>Rotter swept the maps of the table with a disgruntled snort that turned into another gasp of pain. What the hell did he need all this crap for? To the abyss with the Pearl! Piss on the pirate queens, the whole long history of them. Rotter had been around for longer than the current harlot, and heâ€™d outlived the previous one and the one before that. History did not lack pirate queens, it only forgot their names. This newest one, Efer, had only just managed to get her mark in history this week when he crippled<span style="font-style: italic">the</span>Captain Rotter of the Flying Rotsman; the pirate other captains feared. When Edward Teach or Tom Leumas went to bed at night, they had nightmares about Rotter flying in to wreak havoc on their arses. And now after 269 years of violating the seven seas some upstart princess had managed to cripple him? To hell with the Pearl, it was not going anywhere. Whoever finds it might be the greatest pirate to ever live, but it had been gone for ages and Rotter had the only clue that might lead to it. Glory could be postponed; the Right Hand of Doom was a more pressing matter. He could find some suitably grand treasures to replace the limbs Efer had stolen from him, and then come back to claim the Pearl of Atlantis. He would show it to her, too, he would parade it in front of her, make her realize how great he was, and then he would show off his fancy new peg leg and make her realize how much stronger she had made him when she cut his real leg half-off.<br/><br/>He picked up the maps from the floor in slow, controlled motions. He needed to consult his books, make plans, and find information on magic prosthetics. Or he might wait a little longer for the feeling to come back in his toes. Or, if he was really sane, he would tell the Maiden to fix it. That was her job. She was a doctor of such renown she was supposed to be able to fix it, no problem, just like Rotter was supposed to be the kind of pirate who could find the Pearl of Atlantis when he went out to search for it.<br/><br/>The ennui was growing steadily. No one had come with his eggs, apples and prawns, so likely no one had heard him bellow. He could go back to sleep again and be a tuna.<br/>He put the maps back on the table and bowed down again to pick up the missing paper.<br/><br/>He froze.<br/><br/>Where was the missing paper!?<br/><br/>Where was the clue he had pulled from the booty? The old, worn piece of paper that spoke of the Pearl of Atlantis, and gave the key to breaking the code in Captain Leumasâ€™ diaries? The one clue in this world that talked about the Pearl of Atlantis, from a man who had devoted his life to finding that fabled treasure, only stopping to sleep and plunder? Who the hell had taken his precious clue!?<br/><br/>Rotter could not storm out, but he jumped on one leg out his cabin with all his available haste, down through the hall, where he heard the familiar moans of the doctorâ€™s apprentice, continued past him up on the deck and stared daggers at the new crew, that had apparently just joined the Rotsman. Rotterâ€™s face was red from anger and repressed pain; jumping on one leg sent as many surges from his broken collarbone as sweeping papers off his desk did.<br/><br/>They were all dead. All the old crewmen were dead. Anyone who could have taken his clue were dead. If they knew anything they were dead. If they had wanted to sell the clue or find the treasure they were dead now. He needed to find their bodies and search them. Every dead manâ€™s pocket until he found the thief. If not, there were only two people left on the ship who could have taken it. Yagos was beyond suspicion, he did not care for pearls or treasure; he cared for blood. That left the doctor. She was dead. If Yagos had not killed her already â€“ which would explain why Rotter was still wounded â€“ she would soon be dead. Heâ€™d pull her teeth from her mouth until she healed his wounds and then he would<span style="font-style: italic">really</span>work her over until she gave him back what she had stolen.<br/>Or any of the new crewmen? They were dead. He would sail out to open sea and then kill them all. If they had snuck into his cabin in the past couple of minutes they were dead.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Or soup girl!</span><br/><br/>The stowaway, whatâ€™s-her-face, had been in his cabin, dined with him, seen his maps. She might just be a turtle-cooker, but any orphan-boy dyerâ€™s apprentice knew of the Pearl of Atlantis, and any stinking stowaway would steal his paper!<br/>She was with Efer now. She would have sold the paper or have it taken from her by force. It didnâ€™t matter. Efer knew of the Pearl. The race was on. The soup girl had betrayed him, and the race was on.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I helped you. I jumped off the ship for you.</span><br/><br/>She was dead. They were all dead. Even Rum-Skirts who sauntered by, wearing his hat was dead. Why in the devil was she alive, anyway? Between her and scurvy-ridden doctorâ€™s apprentice below deck, Yagos was really losing his touch for omnicide. The fact that she wore his tricorn hat was not so much insulting as it was a reminder that he was standing on the deck as stark naked as an Egyptian mummy.<br/><br/>â€œRum-skirts,â€ he called, well aware she could have stolen the clue, and contemplating her death, but he honestly did not consider her sober enough to read or plot. Knowing about the Pearl of Atlantis was one thing, but distinguishing the name from a paper on a desk when you saw double gave her enough room for doubt that she was not dead quite yet.<br/>His legs wobbled, and he caught hold of her, flinging his left arm around her shoulder. When he spoke he wanted his voice to be stern but there was too much fatigue in it.<br/>â€œNana, ye sod. Gimme me hat back. Yeâ€™re no longer captain. Yeâ€™re demoted to crutch, full-time. Walk me back to me cabin.â€