Pirates of the Sorcerean: No Peace on the Rock

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"For the crime of killing a lieutenant, Nathaniel Hawks...you are hereby subjected to the laws of the ship." William begin.
"There's a law of the ship?" George muttered. William shot him a glance. George shutted up.
"And I therefore order her to be killed."
"Sir..." George said, thinking frantically. "Sir, it is believed bad luck to kill a woman on the ship."
"Which is why I am going to have her killed on Sorrow's Rock." William said. "I thought you said you wanted to go, George?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then you can go with her and kill her yourself. Ah, you two!" he said, calling out to two sailors walking past. "Go with George here and ensure that he kills her."
"Yes, sir!" the two replied in unison.
"And if he doesn't kill her," William said, shooting George another glance. "Kill him too. Once he is done, you two come back to me with proof."
"Yes, sir!"
"Go take a boat, George. Know that I am doing this for your sake, you are too kind-hearted for your own good."
George nodded slowly and leaded Kassandra and the two men to a boat.
"Row the boat, bastards, I have some killing to do later." George ordered and leaned back on the boat and made himself as comfortable as he could, plotting.

 

Tanner stood up on the crow's nest of the Ariel, and simply watched the battle below, occasionally shouting out random pieces of advice. As much as he would have liked to have gotten into the fight, there was no way he was going to leave his post for it.
And then he saw a boat being lowered over the side, and that woman, Kassandra, chained and gagged being pulled roughly into a boat.
'Oh ... s***,' he thought. 'That can't be a good thing, what are they up to now?'
He hesitated for a minute, once again torn between his duty in the crew and saving some random person he didn't know.
The boat began rowing away, and it was only then he decided to make up his mind. He grabbed one of the ever present, always useful ropes that was strung up between the masts and cut it with his dagger. Using it he swung in the general direction of the boat, and when he judged himself to be in a position roughly over it he let go.
It was only after his head bobbed back to the surface that he found that he was at least ten metres fromt he boat, and it was pulling away fast. He tried to yell out to it, but all that came out was an odd glubbing sound as water filled his mouth.
'Ahhhh, bugger.' He thought, wondering vaguely how he was going to explain this one away.

 

George heard the splash and looked back, but ignored it.
Within moments, they reached Sorrow's Rock, and George has a very crude plan ready. "Tie her to that tree!" he said, pointing to a random tree. The two goons, called Bob and Jim, complied mindlessly like robots.
George took the knife and stroded over to her. They haven't bothered to take the bandana covering her mouth out, so all she could do is say "mmmpf".
"Let me give her a hug before she die, no need in letting beautiful woman go to waste, eh?" George said as rascalishly as he could manage and hugged her, and therefore the tree (it was a very thin tree).
He whispered into her ear "I'll cut the rope with the knife, and I'll give it to you, and then we'll kill the two goons, okay?"
Kassandra mmmphed, and George took that as a yes. He cutted the rope slowly and stuck the dagger in her hand, and then turned and drawed his sword.
"Die, suckers!" he yelled, charging up to the two goons.

 

Kassandra quickly snapped off the already broken bonds, pulled the disgusting, nasty bandanna out of her mouth, and charged at the sailor that George had let for her to deal with. And that's when she let it out. All of her anger and hatred for the Navy sailors and how they had treated her on this trip, she let it all out on that unfortunate soul.

She cried out in pain as she sliced him across the chest with the dagger that George had supplied her with and watched as the man fell down to the ground, clutching his bloody chest in pain. Then, Kassandra fell down to her knees, and sank the dagger into the mortally wounded sailor's chest over and over again, each time she withdrew, the blood would splatter across her hands and face.

Finally, after numerous times of stabbing his already dead body, she raised the knife up one last time but caught herself staring into the dead sailor's face. His eyes were open, staring blankly at nothing, his skin splattered with his own blood. Kassandra let the knife slip out of her hands and scurried away from the body, rolling herself up into a little ball and rocking back and forth absently.

"What have I done," she whispered fiercely to herself. "What have I become?"

And even though she could have imagined it, she swore that she heard a voice whisper in her head, You have become Death...

 

"Err, are you okay?" George's voice rang out from beside her. "Hello?"
Kassandra turned around to look at him slowly.
"Yeah, you looked like you were in a trance there. Are you alright? Tired?"
Then he saw the bloody body of Jim.
"You killed him? Ah, well I suppose...I wasn't going to kill them, but..."

George helped Kassandra get up. "Well, now, William would be wanting to kill us, so we better run, eh?"
They headed in the forest.

 

Archer bowed his head and closed his eyes, then nodded at Fabian's words.
"She would.. she was never the quitter. You're probably right."

He led them deeper into the bowels of the cold earth. The way continued down and they came at last to a forkroad, they ways looked identical and Archer turned to face Fabian.
"Well.. what do you think? Do you have any powers that might show the way?" he asked and made a puzzled frown.

***

Meanwhile in some distant place in the complex, Perry closed his eyes and let his awareness unfold to probe the island of visitors, with their combined memories it was easy to determine many of the names. The stewards, William, the pirate crew, and many unknowns.
Ahh, hah! They're nearly at the treasure, and my books that gather stewards like moth to the flame. The fools! Only the most determined will accept the ultimate power source, the hidden and forbidden soul-drain. You see, Tanya, you're determined, but wouldn't sacrifice for the course. I've sacrificed most of my humanity by absorbing the many treasure hunters that have come here through the years.
He felt a throb of screaming anger inside, but quenched it with a mere smirk.
What are you gonna do? Kill me? Hah! We're one now, Tanya, you can never be rid of me, nor I you. You're an amusing girl Tanya, but you should realize when you've suffered defeat!

With a circle movement of his hand around his face, he chanted a magical ward, "Ginet, tyseb tekreom aam!"
Darkness shrouded around him, and slowly dissipated into a grey shimmer, then disappeared from sight. Then he walked through one the shadow doors and appeared on a desolate hill of the island, far from the action at the beach. He looked over the plain and forest, catching the last aftermath of the battle upon the ship.

He looked to the sky, blue, a few clouds and the sun shining gently. How inconvenient..
With a deep breath, he let himself fall into trance-like state slowly raising his arms as he hummed. He stared upon the sky, yet saw not what was there, and slowly his eyes started to glow and he started to chant, "ed lafnel.." a circle gesture of his arm as if stirring up some invisible force, "miharf dli dal!" and he lowered his other arm as if trying to drag down the sky.
Clouds emerged from the sea and the crevices of Sorrow's Rock, rising to lay a carpet blocking the sun and a fresh wind started to come from the east. The spell would take some time to reach it's pinnacle, but soon the fire of his wrath would fall from the sky. There was no elemental force he didn't master, however fire always had been his favorite, it had a certain... chaotic, destructive pattern to it. A crooked smile crossed his lips as he looked up at the start of his doing, and thought back upon his teacher, Xartos, long ago when he was still part of the order.

"Every Apprentice wishes for mastery over the weather, and every Steward settles for something less" What a joke! Here is my proof of the opposite, Xartos! However, I am no longer apprentice or steward..

Summoning one of his shadow doors, he stepped through and once more appeared in his lair. Sensing only one danger, he made an illusionary figure of Tanya in every detail that only magic would reveal it was an illusion.
Bring them a warning, I would like to avoid any further backstabbing in the future..

The illusionary figure was then sucked through one of the doors and spit out in some random corridor. Tanya suddenly felt she could control it. How odd it felt! Looking around she saw a torch light down one of the corridors and ran towards it. She recognized the man holding it, it was Archer.

 

Mister Fabian is too preoccupied with trying to protect the pirates from themselves to do more than notice Tanya’s return. Good. Let her lead these men so I can focus on cleaning up after them. And when that task is done I can set to pulling Nimue out of whatever she’s run into, as usual… His thoughts are acid, and he doesn’t question the path Tanya chooses. Responsibility is a heavy blanket, weighing him down and dulling his senses.

It is Archer who first notices that something is wrong. “Mister Fabian? Sir? There be summat amiss wi’ Tanya. She’s just not right, Sir.”

“Yes? What do you see?” Mister Fabian is still distracted by his own resentments.

“She seems, mebbe, a little too much herself fer this place, if ye take me meanin’, Sir.” Archer squirms a little under Mister Fabian’s skeptical look. “Sir, she’s actin’ like nuthin’s wrong, like we’re out for a stroll in port. An’ she’s not even mentioned these – I figgered she’d’ve wanted ‘em back right off, but no…” Archer holds out the rings Tanya had left him.

Swearing under his breath, Mister Fabian looks at Tanya with Othersight, and sees the black void where her soul should have been. She knows immediately that her illusion had been found out, and her counterattack is swift. Before Mister Fabian could speak, she looses a blast of dark energy that is more than he can fight, his resources already stretched to their limit by caring for the men. He falls under the onslaught as she quickly herds the crew through an archway. His thoughts fade only moments behind his sight.

Nimue, where have you gone? Please, lass, come back, I can’t defeat this thing without you… Dearest Nimue, I need your help…

 

Kassandra was visibly shaken and quivering slightly as she let George lead her through the forested island. What had happened to her? That man, he was practically defenseless, and yet, she had killed him in cold blood. Sure, she had killed before, but only out of self-defense, but this time, it felt that some unseen force had temporarily taken control and done whatever it pleased. She didn't like that feeling and wanted to think that she would damn well make sure that it never happened again, but in this place, she couldn't even be sure anymore.

As she reluctantly gazed at her surroundings, she was constantly reminded of how much she despised this place. It felt like there was an invisible net surrounding her and George that was getting closer and closer with each breath. The air was heavy and damp, and every time she took it in, it felt that whatever foul magic inhabited this island was brought into her being, and poisoning her from the inside. Her skin tingled as she instinctively felt danger everywhere, but there was none in sight at all. It even seemed as if her very blood was on fire. Every part of this island was dangerous, she knew that, but she had to be here, she had to find out what happened to her father.

Why, Papa, why would you come to this haunted place? She sighed sadly as she remembered the last time she laid eyes on him. "This is the biggest booty I'll ever bring home, darling. You and me, we'll own the sea with all the gold, just you wait and see." Kassandra hurriedly wiped a falling tear away from the corner of her eye. She hadn't forgotten the day where she had faced facts that her father would not be coming home, and since then, she had vowed to find him, or at least find something that would put her soul at rest.

"Kassandra," came the soft whisper that made her stop dead in her tracks.

George felt her stop and looked back at her. "I'm sorry, miss, but we can't stop. We stop, we might as well kill ourselves now."

"Didn't you hear that," she said, looking around frantically for the source of the voice, her father's voice. It was faint, but she knew instinctively that it was him calling out to her.

"Miss, I didn't hear a thing, now come on, we got to hide or something before William finds us!"

"No, I heard him, I did, he was calling out to me."

"Who was? I didn't hear nothing!"

Kassandra ignored George's voice and shut her eyes, attempting to blot out all other interference and concentrating on the memory of her father. She didn't know what she was doing, or if it would even work, but it just felt right nonetheless.

"That's it, baby girl. This way..." Kassandra smiled at the warm voice that echoed in her ears. "Papa, is it really you," she asked aloud, but she got no reply. So, she did the only thing she could and began to walk in the direction that her very blood cried out for her to walk in.

"Miss, I don't think we should be going that way," George said uneasily, yet still following Kassandra's lead, not knowing what else to do.

"Well, I do," she replied softly. She led them both into a darker, deeper part of the overgrowth. Normally, she would balk at seeing such surroundings, but something bolstered her confidence, something inside, something she couldn't quite explain.

Eventually, they came to a small clearing, a spot that had remained untouched by the vegetation of the forest. "They were here," she said monotonely and sank down to her knees, clawing furiously at the sand by the voice that was now a bit stronger in her head.

"Almost, my daughter, almost..." was the voice that kept repeating in her head, that kept urging her on to dig and dig until she found it. Her hands, grimy and caked with darkened sand and sweat, wrapped around an old, tattered scabbard. Kassandra's eyebrows furrowed with determination as she brushed all the remaining sand clean away from the run down tool. She let out a cry of anguish as she saw the two initials that were still engraved in bright gold, B.T.

She held the scabbard up to George and said, "Heh, my father's. I gave this to him just before he left for this barren rock. They camped out here, but no one slept. No, no one ever slept again."

"Look, Miss, that's all well and good, but can we please get moving? This place is really starting to get to me."

Kassandra got to her feet and looked into George's eyes, her own revealing a wisdom and knowledge that was not hers. "George, this place is cursed, and it only wants one thing, our deaths. Do you want to die here?"

"What, how do you know?"

"That's not important now. Do you want to die here?"

"No, no ma'am."

"Good. Now, I don't know how, but, I feel that my father's trying to tell me something, but I still need you to help me. I can't survive here on my own."

"I'll help you, I don't want to die here."

"Good, then follow me."

 

"How could this have happened? What did I miss? They couldn't have escaped so easily! But now's not the time to think of it, William!" he thought, as he ran his sword through one of the pirates.

They had been taken by surprise. There was a big bang and the next thing William knew the ship was been over run, by what seemed, like ten times the amount of pirates they had locked away.

And then there was that dratted girl they had saved. William had no idea what had gotten into her to kill one of his crew. But George would deal with her, he always did his job properly. For a brief second William began to wonder where George had got to, and why he hadn't reported back yet, before the battle over took him again.

Quickly analyzing the situation William decided that the pirates could be over run again. But this time they were in opposite shoes from last time. When they had boarded the pirates weren't expecting them, but this time the pirates had taken them by surprise. Knowing that to overrun the pirates he would sustained too many losses, William quickly called a retreat.

In the orderly way, which the navy was well known for, the soldiers filed into the row boats, while others attempted to hold the pirates back. The first one got off al right, and was well on its way before the second could pull out. Knowing that no more could be saved, William himself jumped onto the second rowboat just as it was leaving.

The boat was pushed away as the guns began to fire, making splashes in the water all around them. William could only hold his breath, but then the bullets stopped coming. With a deep sigh of relief William began counting the numbers that had got away.

"11 got off on the first boat, and then there are 2, 4, 6" William counted allowed. "7, 8. Which leaves 11 back on the ship. Minus of course the ones George took, which means we lost..."

"Sir! The boat's been hit! We're taking in water and quickly!"

William swore. He'd been sure that they had got away from the fire. "Will we make it?" he asked, at the same time as he felt water getting into his boots.

"I don't think so Sir," one of the soldiers replied.

William couldn't believe it! Everything had gone so smoothly before, and now they were in a sinking row boat, next to a manned pirate ship, with 7 people still aboard it.

"We have to swim," he announced. Pointing to a place on the shore William continued, "Make for the shore, and assemble by that rock there."

As the last soldier slowly jumped into the cold water William swore yet again before jumping after him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The shock only stunned Meatloaf for a moment before he dived forward covering Mister Fabian's fallen body with his own as the attack of that darkness continued. It surged though his body. His head ached. His whole body ached. But he couldn't let Fabian die, not after all he had done for the crew. And what's a cook worth anyway, when compared to a great Steward like Mister Fabian.

 

"So...anyways, Miss." George said, somewhat uneasy. "What is your name?"

 

Kassandra stared at George, utterly flabbergasted. Out of all the questions that she expected him to ask, she was blown away when he asked her name, which was the furthest, most inconsequential question in her mind.

"Not that it matters at this point in time, but they call me Kassandra Taylor. Is your curiousity satisfied?"

 

George nodded. "Alright, Kassandra. Why...did you kill Nathaniel Hawks?"

 

Kassandra felt like banging her head against a wall. What was with this sailor? Why did he even care about someone who was already dead, and why didn't he care more about his own life? But, if she had to entertain his asinine inquiries to finally get him to move, then so be it.

She looked down at her tattered clothing and then back up at George. "Do you see the ill repair of my apparel? That's because that sailor," she said, practically spitting the words out, "decided that he wanted to take what wasn't his by force. That's why I ended his life, and I have absolutely no regrets in doing so. However, I highly suggest you stop worrying about someone who's already dead and concentrate on making sure that you don't join him. Understand?"

 

George blinked. Talk about having a bad temper. He was slightly annoyed: "Kassandra, I did save your life back there, at the risk of my own...and now you're threatening me?"

 

This is going to take a while, Kassandra thought to herself as she slowly took in several deep breaths to calm herself.

"Alright, George, let's start at the beginning. This island, it's evil, can't you feel it? It wants to kill us both, not just you or just me, the both of us. I have no intention of dying here, do you? Now, can we please dispense with the formalities and get the hell out of here?"

 

"Of course I know this place is evil, who bloody well DOESN'T?!" George said. "But it also holds the treasure of Ruthbarb. The greatest treasure...ever. Don't you want the treasure? Because believe me, I'm did not come all the way here for nothing. I risked my life, position, everything I have, for the treasure. And I'll get it. Trust me."

 

"You can have all the treasure you can carry, George. I'd prefer to leave with my life and soul intact." Kassandra shrugged as she took her father's scabbard and attached it on to her belt as a reminder of what happens to those that would seek the so called treasure on the cursed rock. "But, to each his own, I suppose. Now, let's get moving and see if we can find your treasure."

 

"Thank you." George said, leading the way now. "I'm sure you won't have to give your soul, though, the treasure isn't...THAT...scary. I hope."

 

Dante leapt forward, sabre drawn and dancing into the attack on Tanya. He gasped in shock as his blade whistled through her body, and passed straight through. He swore, then called "Mister Fabian!" in the hope that the Steward could use his magic to put an end to this. But then the dark energy struck him and he was hurled back with tremendous force to collide with the rock wall. Though barely conscious and suffering great pain, he still gained his feet, "We need find Nimue." He said to anyone still listening "Unless Mister Fabian gets up soon, we'll need her."

 

<some time before>

The shadowy figure solidified, and a deep, malicious chuckle seemed to shake the stones around her. Nimue started and looked up into a face of nightmares, the face of a demon.... Who the HELL let an abyssal entity loose in Sorrow's Rock? she thought vaguely. As if she needed help to figure out whose tainted spirit was steeped in the ground and stained the pure energy.

The laughter woke her mind up. She was most definitely afraid. In the monster's eyes she could see a compilation of all the evil men she had ever known; it was the embodiment of one of her deepest fears.

"You are helpless," the monster said. "You are too weak to move, too afraid to cast, you are utterly within my power. And it came closer and closer, pawed at her, its filthy claws tore long parallel slashes on her arms....

And Nimue remembered. The past was no longer separate from the future, they were no longer distinct entities, but her entire life took place in one instant. Time past and time future, what might have been and what has been, point to one end, which is always present.... she thought vaguely, her body limp. They come together here. This was the beginning and the end of it. Here my path was made.

Her father was bending over her, eyes glazed with madness....
"Rinya," he said, "Rinya, come back to me! Rinya...." He reached out to touch her.
"Papa, it's me! It's me! Mama is gone, they took her away, a very long time ago...."
"My Rinya, you came back...."
And she had screamed, and screamed, and screamed, too helpless to do anything. It had happened then. It happened now. So much pain...so much blood...so much filth.
And the demon was her father, and her father was the demon, and it no longer mattered which was which because she was helpless. She was powerless. She could not stop them, she could not even fight her fear enough to muster up the strength for a token struggle. Her walls came crashing down. She was afraid.

She remembered blood...so much blood....
<THUD-THUD> a beating heart
<THUD-THUD> memories of blood....
<THUD-THUD> we remember the Fall.
<THUD-THUD> the overwhelming memories of her ancestors, her heritage, her family...and those who loved her. Fabian? Dearest Nimue, I need your help...
<THUD-THUD> her family, they were out there somewhere. Some of the Blood yet lived. We are waiting for you...live, child, live.
Blood.... She awoke.

Only to realize that the only blood was on her arms. Those scratches, they were real...but the rest, it had all been in her imagination. She laughed, her cheeks hurting with dry tears. All in her imagination....

She picked herself up off the ground and tried to find her way back to the others.