Although my original intention was to have this and the next chapter be one GIANT cluster of story, I decided against it due to the overwhelming size of the second half. So, I present to you all:
Influence with Death
The crickets of Tortuga played a quirky sonnet from unseen bandstands of the streets as the sky grew darker and darker over Tortuga. Above, it was a thick, heavy night - but below, the town had returned to its normal pace. The lights of the squares, shops and taverns lit up the night in a yellowish bar light from all corners, warm and engulfing. The fire flies flew about like wry sparks of fire blown off course, swishing in circles in to the air above in light groups. It had become a fiery, passionate place once more, home to the liveliness and chaos that had made it so infamous across corners of the world. They danced and sang in spur-of-the-moment quartets dazed in alcohol and pipery, tipping in and out of the fountain of the main square. The local mistresses in their dirtied and oversized dresses flirted under the balconies with men who seemed far enough from sober to spend their money on a few services, or at least so much so to call them pretty behind their layers of ratty make-up and perfume. The celebratory mood had spread to all corners of Tortuga once more, except at its very heart.
Father Molony stayed in the tavern the night after his minor stroke and then was brought back to Doctor Grogan, the local surgeon who couldn't even manage to hold a needle correctly, where he would be nursed back to health. The mood in the tavern, however, still remained awkwardly uncomfortable, many of them still offset by how Dedman had acted the night he had attacked the clergyman. They had created a small pile of rift raft over the door to the basement just for good measure, in the event he would have been able to slip out of his chains any further; this, in turn, kept anybody from turning the faucet over his head off.
After the basement had gone eerily quiet, one of the guards was reluctantly sent downstairs two days after the incident to find Jeremiah a cool, pale blue color, his body reeking of dirtied wine and his clothing drenched to a deep red. The tap to the massive canister ran dry, causing it to create a small flood of wine two inches high off the ground of the entire basement. Normally to any pirate this would be a dream, but to Dedman it was a nightmare - cobwebs, dirt, splinters, and rat drops floated across the surface of the water and created a lethally-nauseous mixture, and coupled with the stillness of the wine and lack of a source of heat it provided Dedman with the unfortunate condition of catching a bad case of pneumonia.
Because of this, Dedman was drawn up in to the surface of the tavern, every gun and sword pointed right at his chest as they dragged him up the steps by the chains that they had wrapped tightly around his chest. By the time he had reached ground-level and had been paraded to the middle of the room, a few drops of dark-red ran over his moldy skin. Many of the men were quick to suggest killing or dismembering the man right before them, but this was before they saw a major development in their case; Jeremiah Dedman began to plead for his life.
It was a truly sad sight, really. His tears were almost painful against his skin, but he cried nonetheless, begging to the pirates for some sort of treatment. The pain and hunger had finally overcome the rabid beast, and now he had crawled his way to the feet of the pirate crew, asking for help under the condition that he would tell them anything they wanted. Seeing a gate to freedom, the crew quickly confronted Delmaria, and after much hesitation and persuasion, he agreed, calling forth Doctor Grogan to make a special house call.
Doctor Grogan's initial survey not promising, however, despite how many the pirates had paid him out of their own pockets to come. It was likely according to him, that Dedman "Would live up to his name over night.", though this was unfortunately for the good doctor an answer the crew refused to accept. Doctor Grogan spent the next few days in the tavern as well, working and monitoring Jeremiah constantly to ensure his survival as groups of pirates ferried back and forth between his Offices to retrieve any supplies he needed.
And over the course of these next few days, Delmaria worked in the background to ensure that he could keep as much information in his den of knowledge as possible. A simple message was written down over dozens of sheets of parchment and passed hung in every tavern, inn, shipyard, and other places of major sociality:
"Captains and Privateers Loyal to the Brethren NEEDED." And over the next few days, groups of inquiring pirates were sent all over Tortuga in an elaborate game of espionage, meeting in a different location every day to come together for the common purpose of hunting the head of any members of the Casa de Muertos guild. Every building was searched, every stone unturned, but little to no information was found. Still, that information which was found, or what information had already existed, was written down and sent directly to the temporary desk of Delmaria Darkskull, stationed and commissioned in solace in the King's Arm Tavern.
1
September 6th, 1725
The King's Arm, Tortuga, Hispaniola
8:40 PM
Delmaria's room was encased in a blue darkness, not even a single candle lit to aid his eyesight - the lights from outside pouring out of his window were enough - as he continued to meticulously scan through paper after paper. Dozens of pieces of parchment littered his desk, many of them either unread or triple checked, sitting right before the small window that still peered out in to the festivities of the main square. It was his own somber corner of the world, the only noise being the murmured shouts and cat calls below in the square. He both enjoyed his own isolation, and loathed it.
The papers that crinkled in his hands were nearly useless to his cause. The majority of the papers that had been brought to him seemed to have little to no connection with the topic at hand, whether just random scribbling down on a piece of paper by a pirate desperate for money, to records of taxes and bills, and some were even the notices he had handed out returned to him. The lack of leads became more and more frustrating as time dragged on, and Jeremiah's poor condition still refrained him from speaking well.
Looking out in the square, Delmaria realized that his frustration was coming from his inability to find anything intertwined between the random fractions of paper down on his desk. Every moment was like Rott was slipping outside of his grasp, and every moment from there would thusly further and further distance himself from ridding the nuisance of his life. He didn't need Rott in his life, nor had he come in by himself; at this point stopping him had both become an activity, an obsession, and a dread.
As he looked down back in the square again as he shifted the paper underneath his hand aside, he caught a glimpse of something out of place. He couldn't even see it before he noticed it, it was simply one of those changes that offset the atmosphere. He scanned his eyes over every little spot he could see, eventually standing up and leaning in to the window to see what he was trying to find, until he finally saw it - a small, black gaucho cutting through the crowd, towards the King's Arm.
With a quick motion Delmaria was away from the table and threw the door to his room open, strutting down the small hallway and on to the walkway that led to the doors of the balcony. The guards had little time to react as they had been caught in a lazy daze, but seeing Delmaria they almost instantly clambered to their feet and did their best to open the door before he could reach it. By the time he stood before the door, they had loosened the boards enough to allow Delmaria to give it a stern push and swing it open.
Walking out on to the balcony was perhaps one of the first real breaths of fresh air Delmaria had received in roughly a week. The crispness of the night was a cool hand that caressed his unshaven, hardened skin, making him relax for just a moment under its embracing touch. It seemed that even the loud bang of the door and the guards on the balcony pointing their muskets down intimidating wasn't enough to break the mood outside in the square, but Delmaria was happy of that; it was good to be a part of the outside world again. He walked up to the edge of the balcony, in between his two guards, and down below there stood the little body of Ramona, looking up to the pirate with a certain silliness.
"If you're here for Dedman, you're not getting him." Delmaria barked downward.
"I'm not here to bargain, Delmaria, I'm here to make a proposition." she shouted back over the roar of Tortuga.
Delmaria leaned arrogantly over the railing. "And what would that be?"
"You give me Dedman -- and I'll give you Ezekiel."
Delmaria straightened himself slowly as he took in to account what she had just said. The single break in his case was sitting before him, but he knew he would have to take it slowly if he didn't want to compromise everything. He turned to the guard at his left and nodded, signaling to have them open the doors below.
Delmaria watched Ramona for a few more moments, staring down at the top of her black hat as he waited for her to quickly enter the opening in the tavern. The way she walked had a certain step to it that made you want to observe, to watch and learn about every little quirk and kink in her system to understand what made her tick. She tilted slightly back and forth whenever she tried to stand still, and her eye even twitched a little if you stared at her for long enough. She was crazy, psychotic even, but at the same time he could not help but fester a growing interest is what made her who she was - just as his case with Rott.
As she stepped in to the tavern, disappearing underneath the balcony, Delmaria turned about and made his way back in to the tavern, an almost solemn reminder that he was not entirely free of his bonds just yet. He turned around the rail looking down in to the tavern, and just as he reached the steps he watched with a certain degree of amusement as Ramona ran forward to where the Doctor worked furiously on Jeremiah, only to have herself pushed back by a few of the men who stood behind him.
"Let me see him! LET ME SEE HIM DAMMIT!" she shouted, trying to look over their shoulders to Jeremiah. "Dedman,
Dedman can you hear me?!"
"He's trying to rest you bumbling idiot." Delmaria called as he hit the final step, continuing to walk towards her. "If you stopped shouting at him he may just say something in return." He had that smile on his face that made him look as though he was mocking her - because he was.
"Listen to me, you better not have done anything to him!" she shook a finger at him, before pointing another finger in his direction.
"Ah, so you're just going to ignore everything you all have done in the past? I'm simply returning the favor." Delmaria rocked back and forth on his toes.
"If you touch him again, then I'll have no business here, Darkskull." she growled, twitching an eye in Jeremiah's direction to make a quick check on him.
Delmaria stepped in Doctor Grogan's direction, walking around to the back of the table. "Do not worry, I'm sure the good doctor here will do everything in his power to ensure your friend's quick recovery. However...." Delmaria stopped, tapping his foot on the ground and turning dramatically to Ramona. "I can make no promises."
Guerra gritted her teeth as she fought back the urge to say something vicious and life-threatening. "Rott wants to make a deal with you, Delmaria."
"Ooh, I've been waiting to hear that." Delmaria walked over to the table next to him and leaned on top of it. "I'm listening."
"He believes it would be beneficial to both of us if we settled our differences for a few moments and met in a civilized meeting between both sides. Such a standstill in his eyes is obstructive to any sort of development."
"Sure. If you're going to burn the Caribbean to the ground why wait?"
Ramona rolled her eyes and continued. "If you agree to bring Jeremiah with you so we can make a trade, he'll be glad to discuss anything you want."
"Oh, so you're telling me I won't be receiving Rott as a sacrifice? In this case I find this trade disagreeable and hereby refute it." Delmaria waved his hand, checking his nails as they flew by.
"Your end of the trade comes in the form of information, Delmaria. Rott could sit in a cave all day and you'd never get an opportunity like the one you have now."
"I'd get much more pleasure out of Ezekiel sitting in the middle of a cave than having to see him face to face."
Ramona grumbled to herself. "I have better things to do than to sit around here and waste my time with you. If you would just be reasonable!" she shook her fist in his direction, agitated by his refusal to cooperate.
Delmaria simply pointed to the door with a smile on his face. "I couldn't care less if you left. Hell, go, run, fly! I assure you I wouldn't lose an ounce of sleep over the thought you couldn't give me a better reason to keep Jeremiah here alive."
"FINE,
dammit." Ramona stomped her feet on the ground towards Delmaria, but he rounded the table just in time to keep her from reaching Jeremiah. She stopped right before him and stared him down right in to the eyes, and he saw in them less a look of rage, and more concern, as though she was trying to tell him something that she couldn't tell him directly. She whispered lightly so only he could hear what she said; "If you don't do as Rott says he's going to become unreasonable as well. He's ready to set this whole god damn town on fire, and he has all that he needs to do it. This time he means it, you idiot."
Perhaps she was right. As much as Delmaria wanted to deny Rott's position as a threat, he knew that ignoring it would only dellusionize his perspective, which was an impossible proposition for somebody in his place. He turned his head around and rubbed his hand against his forehead, wiping a few drops of sweat that had accumulated because of the head of all the candles on his forehead. "Where shall we meet?"
"Neutral ground. We won't bring you to the caves but you won't bring us to the docks." she slipped a small piece of paper in to Delmaria's front left pocket on his dirtied, unwashed longcoat. "Bring Jeremiah."
Delmaria peered back in to her cold, unruly eyes. "Bring Ezekiel."