He wrapped Johnny's right arm over his shoulder and easily stood up, hoisting Johnny up like a piece of cargo with him. McVane hollered as the crippling pain in his legs began to pierce his body, but Darkskull encouraged him to hold it in and bare with him until they could get out of there. When Johnny continued to scream, Delmaria ripped the towel away from his temple and stuffed it in to his mouth, bruskly ordering him to "Bite on that" while he used his left hand to cover the bruise on McVane's head.
Delmaria trudged back across the room with McVane's arm thrusted over his shoulder's, while the bartender bit in to the towel in excruciating agony. He shoved his foot in to the debris that blocked his immediate path to the staircase, trying to devise a method of action as to how to hoist the gelatinous body up the flight of stairs.
The lantern's light began to grow dim as they reached the steps, but it was still enough for Delmaria to guide McVane on to a sitting position on one of the bottom steps (after carefully checking for any glass.) He then walked up the stairs behind him, gripped Johnny from the arm pits, picked him up and then easily raised him up the stairs, trying not to bang his feet too much on the wood. McVane's fists began to clench in anger and pain, but he bit down on the blood-stained towel still, hoping Delmaria had enough strength to carry him to safety.
Eventually Darkskull finally got Johnny over the final step, and then swiftly turned him around the corner and dragged him over to the doors of the balcony, which he kicked open with a stern, backwards slam like a horse. Daylight filled the upper corridor of the tavern, and the bang of his boot on the door was enough to, this time, secure some of the pirate's attention without being drawn away by a gun.
McVane prayed under his breath as Delmaria eased him on to the floor and felt the sunlight wash over him, throwing the towel out of his mouth and bashing it back against the wound on his hand. Delmaria ran out to the outer railing of the balcony and shouted out in to the town square "Get me a doctor and a God-damn ladder!"
Within minutes the crowd in the square had mobilized. Pirates flocked from across the courtyard to the base of the King's Arm's balcony to see what the fuss was about, as the three pirates that Delmaria had spoken with earlier came running in from the marketplace with a ladder in tow. Two of them stood at the base of the ladder trying to keep the crowds back, while the third helped Delmaria ease Johnny over the railing and on to his shoulder. When the crowd gained first image of McVane covered in blood and grim, their only reaction was a mixture of horror and outrage as men and women called out accusations as to who was responsible. Even as Doc Grog came running through the street to the site of the crowd and tried to push his way to Johnny, the crowd only became more angry and, eventually, violent.
The men and women of Tortuga looked as if they were prepared to kill each other, clawing, climbing and yelling in outrage as they tried to get closer to Johnny, whether they wanted to help him or just get a better look at the center of excitement. The three pirates were doing their best to try and fight off the crowds to protect McVane, and even a few men popped out of the crowd to try and blockade them off from Johnny, but still the crowd pressed on them like a pack of savage wolves. No matter what role one played in the mob, one question still remained the highest, loudest vocal point - who did it?
It took not one, but two gunshots to subdue the roar of the crowd this time. The first one went up from the balcony in the sky, and had so much of an affect not even the birds whom the bullet flew by didn't even seem to care. The second one, however, went straight over the crowd in to the fountain in the center of the square, just barely grazing over the heads of a few startled women who nearly fell over from shock. The crowd quieted, and turned their eyes up to the balcony, where Delmaria stood, his face almost red with anger.
"You really want to know who did this?" Delmaria's voice was almost shaking with anger. His eyes panned out across the town square, looking for the one object he knew he could focus his anger on. He searched and searched as the moment of silence fell like a wet blanket over Tortuga, but just as he prepared to continue without a focal point, it crossed inward.
A group of six fresh-faced Navy soldiers, led by a grey-hair, chicken-necked Officer, marched off of the main street and in to the square, bayonets resting on their shoulders. Their bright red outfits stood out hotly against the glaring dirt roads of Tortuga, and as they turned in to the center their faces went flush at the size of the crowd that had gathered. Delmaria pointed his finger out to them, and barked "THEM!
"They are the men who have come to besiege and belittle us, corrupted by greed and scorn to 'purge' this island of the very foundations that have made our lives in this town so great! THEY have come here under the jurisdiction and betrayal of a man by the name of CAPTAIN EZEKIEL ROTT, who has made his best efforts to trick you all with his games and lies in believing that he is here to defend you - no, he has only come here to enslave you, to stomp on you, to regiment your lives!"
Delmaria swung his right leg over the balcony, his index finger still pointed sternly at the group of Navy cadets. "They will do anything in their power to convince you that they have come to protect you. They will freely call out the Brethren as the evildoers of these seas, who will stop at at nothing to destroy the livelihood the ports and their people - but they LIE to you!
"When it comes time to play a game of politics, and taxes, and power, they will snap at the opportunity to denounce us - but when it comes time for action, to defend the people of this great port, they will bow their heads and run for the hills, intent on saving THEMSELVES before they so much as raise a gun in your honor! Do not let them blind you, with their shiny badges, and their silver guns; they are not soldiers, they are showmen!"
As Delmaria swung the other leg over and began to walk down the ladder as though it were a set of stairs, the Officer stepped forward, raising his centipede of an eyebrow at the pirate. He was tall and skinny, with a grizzly grey beard sitting on his chin; and a voice as obnoxiously British as his attitude was snotty. "Quite the charming speech you can deliver, Captain. But do not let this man fool you either, gentlemen, ladies - Mister McVane got the greater justice of what he deserved."
Delmaria bounded off the rest of the ladder midway like a leopard, parting a path in the crowd that led straight to the Officer and his crew. McVane was heaving in pain off to the side, where he was comforted by Doctor Grogan and the three pirates under the balcony of the store Delmaria had intruded earlier. Darkskull stormed right up to the face of the Officer, and while the rest of the crowd gasped and the Cadets tightened their grips on their guns, the two of them didn't budge (even though Delmaria was barely tall enough to reach eye contact with the Officer's chin.)
Delmaria tilted his head up and breathed a heavy plume of rum-stenched breath in to the Officer's face. "And what exactly could a man do to be left for dead in the confined ruins of his own tavern?"
"Simple," the Officer finally took a step back, waving the smell of rum out of his face, "Mister McVane violated Clause Four of an official notice enacted under the jurisdiction of the British Royal Navy, which was even directly handed to him just a few weeks ago." The Officer reached in to his jacket and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment, from which he directly recited: "Any man who is found of distributing or aiding in the distribution of pirate propaganda, or a notice which suggests potential acts against the Crown, shall be subject to immediate jailing and/or... execution. Mister McVane violated this agreement under full abatement, and thusly was brought to justice."
Delmaria stepped forward, returning to his position face-to-face with the Officer. "I would not call pillaging a man's home and then beating him within an inch of his life an execution. And if you're so quick to punish Mister McVane, then should you not punish yourselves in the process?"
Delmaria reached in to his own pocket and pulled out another flier; one of the fliers plastered around town, calling forth pirates to join Rott's cause. "Captain Ezekiel Rott just over a week ago put these fliers all across Tortuga calling on 'pirates,'" Delmaria pointed to the specific use of the word on the paper "to aid in the cause of 'liberating the people of Tortuga.' So instead of persecuting a man who threatened to militarize his people to rule Tortuga, who you went so far as to give a pedestal to, you attack an innocent bartender?"
"Perhaps if you hadn't fled Tortuga like the dog you are, we would have been quicker to come after you instead," the Officer leaned over Delmaria "and finished the job."
Delmaria jolted forward, springing the Officer back to an upright standing. "I was out in a battlefield in the middle of this island fighting a war for the good people of this port, while all your men did was gallivant around this island like you own the place. This island does not belong to the British, and even if it did you're doing a pretty damn bad job of running the place."
"Justice is being served as justice should." The Officer peaked over Delmaria's feathered cap to the crowd, scanning over it. "We will let Mister McVane off on a warning, but he may NOT return to his business until he is brought to a hearing in Port Royal for his crimes. If this crowd does not disperse within the next half hour, my men will return to return order to this port." The Officer turned around on his boot, and began to march away.
Another flurry of whispers went through the crowd as they slowly began to part. The pirate Delmaria had spoken to earlier came running to his side as soon as he heard the words "Port Royal," and whispered in the captain's ear as he watched the Navy Officer strut away. "Captain Darkskull, if you let these men take Mister McVane off to Port Royal he'll be tried as a pirate, and God knows those trials go quick and unfairly!"
Delmaria sucked in a breath, and nodded. He had never attended a pirate trial where the accused had not been convicted within the first fifteen minutes, and hung within the next twenty-four hours. The only times he had witnessed a pirate be acquitted were at the trials of both himself, and Sparrow - both times, the trials had been rigged to the point where the judge was either drunk, or replaced with a decoy.
"Sir!" Delmaria called out. The crowd went silent once again and turned to watch as the Officer made a turn. Delmaria began walking forward slowly towards the Officer, who stood in the middle of his group of cadets. "I have always been a man of justice - I believe that in the end every man must be tried for his deeds, and must be done in for what had committed in his life. And though we obviously both come from different codes of conduct, I find that a man must always abide to what he believes, even if I do not believe it myself."
The Officer tilteded his head at the pirate just as Darkskull stood inches from him once again. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying," Delmaria smiled, "that justice needs to be served."
Delmaria planted a full-body punch square in the Officer's nose, delivering it with such a force that the old man launched back off his feet in to the arms of two of his men. Blood began to pour down his nose at an alarming rate, and his men grew both furious and startled as Delmaria threw off his hat and his coat, rolling up the sleeves of his long shirt to revealing rippling arm muscles eager to fight. "Which one of you pansies wants to go next?" he egged at the soldiers.
One by one they dropped their bayonets and ran at Delmaria, and one by one they were all turned away with equally punishing blows. The first was turned away at his jaw by a powerful jab straight to the neck that knocked him right to the ground, followed up by a kick that was shot straight in to his crotch as he fell. The crowd yelped in pain, but it was soon followed by a wave of enthusiasm as the men in the crowd cheered on the fight.
The second soldier, a burly, hairy man came barreling in with his fists up, and he took a strong haymaker that nearly clipped Delmaria by the arm. The pirate, however, quickly bent his back to devoid the blow, and returned it by rolling his torso towards the side, scooping up a handful of dirt with his right hand, and tossing it square in the soldier's face. He stumbled back as he screamed "That's cheatin'!", but before he could retaliate in protest Delmaria had knocked away his hand guards and sent a shovel hook directly in to his stomach, which subsequently forced the pig to throw up what he had eaten that morning on the side of the road.
Two more men approached, both of them about half the weight of the previous one. When the right one would make a punch, Delmaria would move out of the way just in time to deflect the one coming in from the left, and vice versa. He danced backward from the punches until he bumped in to the front of the crowd, which pushed him back in to the fight. The push sent Delmaria quickly running in between the two lackeys, who lost their coordination and in a dramatic attempt tried to hit Delmaria as he ran by - instead, they both hit one another in the arm, which provided Darkskull the perfect opportunity to grab them both by the back of the neck and shove both of their sweaty foreheads in to one another.
The two that remained were by now shaking at the knees, and using the excuse of aiding their Officer turned around and whisked him away in fear, with the other four being turned after them as the crowd kicked dirt in their faces and jeered. As the last of them ran around the corner out of the town square (the fat one, nevertheless,) the crowd roared in celebration, and ran up to pronounce Delmaria as their hero - only to find he had abandoned the "festivities" to join McVane at his side as Doctor Grogan began to bandage up his head.
Seeing his distraction, the crowd turned away and began to return to their normal stations of chatter, though still chattering and going on about the battle they had just witnessed. Delmaria nonchalantly brushed the dust off his knuckles and began returning his attire back to it's proper place as Johnny laughed (and coughed) in amusement. "You never cease to amaze me, you crazy son-of-a-gun."
Delmaria smiled, readjusting his belt. "I'm sure you'll find that the Navy will be more than eager to allow you to reopen your tavern; for the time being, at least." Delmaria fixed his hat and sat down in front of Johnny, taking a moment to thank the three pirates that had helped him. He especially shook the hand of the one he had been speaking too so frequently, and asked "Son, I'm mighty appreciative of your efforts. Would you mind me asking if you and your mates here would watch Mister McVane's tavern for me, at the expense of my tab?" Delmaria winked at Johnny, whose mouth opened as quick as Doctor Grogan snapped it shut.
"It would be our pleasure, Mister Darkskull!" Redrunner, as Delmaria found out his name, agreed with glee. He and his mates ran off with a spring in their step (and extra gold in their pockets,) as Delmaria turned back to McVane.
"You realize that's completely unnecessary." McVane smiled, wincing as the bandage pressed against his forehead.
"I'm a completely unnecessary person." Delmaria responded, polishing sapphire ring that sat on his left middle finger.
Johnny chuckled in the midst of a few cracked coughs. "I'm assuming you're here for a reason? I'd doubt you'd come to my tavern just for a drink, as always."
"Are you suggesting I don't care about our friendship? I assure you, I adore you much more than you do me."
"Oh will you shut it with the play talk," Grogan croaked as he slid some medicine on to the bandage around McVane's head. "You're going to make me want to bash in my own head at this rate."
Delmaria chuckled. "I hope you're finding that all the trouble we've been giving you these past few weeks has kept your business in tip-top shape, James."
Johnny rolled his eyes, finally becoming annoyed with Delmaria's indirectness. "Get on with it, already."
"As you wish," Delmaria did a small bow, leaning back so his hands supported his back against the dirt off the miniature wooden porch. "I've come under the knowledge that our dear friend Captain Rott is looking for a specific item that would give him a considerable advantage in the little war that is going on throughout the Caribbean; an item which I would be only able to find the direction to through a helping group of 'friends' within the City of Thieves."
McVane seemed perplexed by the issue. "The City of Thieves? I've never heard of that... what would that be?"
"Oh come now," Delmaria egged on, "Surely a bartender of a joint like yours would know something about the place. It has to have been a topic of discussion at least once."
Johnny waved his hand. "I pay attention only to topics of discussion that have the least likely chance to get me shot. If I don't know about something, it's for a good reason - and perhaps you should consider that as well."
Delmaria huffed, leaning over his legs. All the while they had been speaking on this topic of discussion, Grogan seemed to only bury his head deeper in to his work, as if he was doing his best to ignore them. When Delmaria leaned in to look at him, he edged away a little, like a schoolchild trying to play as if the schoolyard bully wasn't breathing down his neck. "Doctor," Delmaria leaned in, "you wouldn't happen to know anything on this topic, would you?"
Grogan inched further back towards the wall of the shop. "No sir, nothing of the subject. Please just allow me t-"
"You're sweating, Mister Grorgan."
Grogan hadn't even noticed that the mere mention of the subject had caused him to become hot, and he feverishly wiped away at it with the cuff of his sleeve as he edged away even more. "It's hot out today, isn't it?"
"Not exactly." Delmaria took his hat off his head and slowly began to fan Grogan with it, with long, exaggerated motions. The wind slowly licked against the Doctor's face, and Delmaria gave a devilish grin as he waited menacingly for Grogan's poker face to break.
"Ohh!" the Doctor huffed, sliding his back to the wall in a fit. "Fine, fine! But get that damn hat out of my face!"
Grogan explained that the City of Thieves was a network of old, abandoned sewers that once ran under Tortuga, now replaced by a newer system with less flaws and cracks. A band of thieves took hold in there around 1680 when the newer system had been installed, and ever since then it had grown in to a labyrinth of the black market; a sort of metropolis built solely for illegal transactions, though much darker in contrast to what already goes on above on the surface of Tortuga. While Tortuga is infamous for the trade of stolen goods and other piratable means of profit, the underbelly was land where not many men wanted to tread; it was full of hired assassins, drug traffickers, bloodthirsty cutthroats, and (much to the dismay of the Tortugan people) an illegal slave trade. If one could imagine what hell was like, the City of Thieves was the closest thing imaginable for the people of Tortuga.
He also explained that the reason why it is kept such a secret is that many of the actions that are preformed down there are much more "sensitive" to being exposed to the general public, and often anybody who is found snitching is the one who ends up in the water. The only reason he is involved in such affairs is because during a Navy sanction on Tortuga a few months back when he was unable to gather any medical supplies, he had to turn to the thieves to make sure his practice stayed afloat. He had never actually been to the City itself, or even met one of his providers face-to-face; all he knew was that "once you get involved, you don't leave."
"Do you have any idea how we would be able to come in contact with them?"
Grogan sighed, leaning his head back against the wall behind him. "You've been trying very hard these past few weeks to get me killed, haven't you?"
"I'm afraid that if I wasn't so persistent, we'd all be killed soon enough, Mister Grogran. Tortuga lies in your hands."
The Doctor sighed again, wiping a shaking hand over his face. "I only know of a man who helped me reach them, and that's as far as I will take you. Other than that, Tortuga does not lie in mine, but
yours, Captain Darkskull."
2
Even the warehouses torn apart by floods and drunken party-goers were used more than the Tortugan jail, which sat in the farthest reaches of the left side of town. It was hidden behind the older district walls of the city, left to be batted by the overgrown vegetation of the jungles on it's left, and the murky, putrid mud of the swamps of Tortuga on it's right, far out of sight from any of the normal denizens of the island - and for good reason.
It was a sad, grey-brick, rectangular building, the cheapest kind of jail money could buy. The poor support from the grounds of the mire to it's right sucked it in to the ground on one side, leaving it on a slight slant that cracked the majority of the foundation. To make matters worse, the jail was actually in the basement of the small structure, so the spiral staircase that led down to the holding area felt more like a cave than a stairwell, vines and mud slipping in every-which-way from the gigantic cracks that sat on the inside. To many who ever thought of it, they viewed it as an inhospitable rambleshack of a building; but it was only a minor freckle on the face of the port.
In a town like Tortuga where the mere mention of an organized government is almost laughable, it was hard for even the idea of a frequently used jail to be put in to place to keep order. In the early years of the town's establishment in the early 17th century, when the port was still contested between French and Spanish hands, it was kept in quite a clean condition to be used as a place to store riftraft privateers and political enemies of whoever was in charge at the time. But as the era of Henry Morgan came about, and Tortuga fell in to the hands of the Brethren Court of Pirates, which was practically a government consisting of lawbreakers themselves, the jail became ignored almost completely, used more for drunken pranks and games of hide and seek with the local children than actually jailing men. Only on rare occasions were men ever sentenced to serve time, and often were left their unattended to rot.
That evening a light drizzle had fallen over Tortuga, unfortunately causing an extra bad stink to spur up from the mire that would make even a vulture turn away in repulse. A single, lonely torched sat just next to the old wooden door of the jail, that illuminated just enough ground to make out a good path to it over the rocks, treacherous passages of mud, and overgrown tree roots.
Delmaria was waiting underneath a small arch in a courtyard directly behind the Bowdash "Mansion" (or as Delmaria called it, the Bowdash "Two-story-house-with-a-few-bushes-out-front"), watching the small tree in the center bounce rain droplets off of her leaves and on to the ground below. Ever so often he would look out to the jail, watching it to make sure it didn't heave in to the swamp at any moment as it was so frequently joked, and impatiently waited for Doctor Grogan.
For half an hour Delmaria waited in the darkness until the Doctor arrived, cloaked in his usual blue overcoat that was covered in pockets of dried blood and smelled like ancient fecal medicine. He had always walked like he was in a hurry to get somewhere, but tonight he walked very slowly, exhausted from a day of what seemed like hard work.
"How's Mister McVane holding up?" Delmaria asked without introducing, tipping his soaked brimmed hat out of his vision.
"I had to rewrap his legs at least three times today; for such a gentleman he's quick to scream when he gets uncomfortable, or at least beg for a towel to bit in to."
Delmaria chuckled.
"Oh you think it's funny know, but I'd like to see you handle him while you try to tell a a man that he needs to stop biting on his wooden arm, and administering another medicine up his-"
"Please," Delmaria stuck out his hand, "the scent of your jacket only makes me imagine."
Grogan shrugged, secretly patting his jacket down with some mud from his boots to "dull" the smell as Delmaria turned towards the jail. "You're positive that your little friend is still in there? I can't name a man who hasn't stayed in that jail for more than a week without dying or breaking out."
"Oh, you'll see." Grogan nodded. "Follow me."
Grogan led the way across the corroded patch of land over to the jail, pounding his boots over the roots with authority back in to his normal pace. The smell of the swamp, while putrid to Delmaria, did not phase the Doctor at all - which, considering his profession, Delmaria figured should be a normality.
Doctor Grogan placed a hand on the moist, old door, his hand so heavy on the surface it almost felt as though he was leaving a handprint in wet cement. He pushed the door open in to the warm, murky air of the jail, and almost instantly walked in to a giant cobweb that hung down from a hole in the brick ceiling before Delmaria pulled him back. Delmaria pulled out his cutlass and swatted it out of the air, before checking for any tarantulas with a sharp eye, (he had a paralyzing fear of spiders as a child) and proceeding in before the Doctor.
The steps were curved inward, not only in the fact that the staircase was a spiral, but that the steps were actually slanted inward from the depressions in the ground structure, so much so that when walking they had to place their hand on the inside wall to keep them standing. The walls were wet and covered in a green, crunchy moss, and vines cracked out of spots in the wall that grew over large patches that looked like if you stepped on them, they would whip out and wrap around your ankle. The air was so humid and dense that Grogan had to lift his shirt up to his nose to breath properly, while Delmaria was more concerned with kicking away the rats that scurried around their feet.
They slid off the steps in to the holding area, whose floor was flat, yet whose ceiling looked as though a giant had been trying to punch holes in it. Numerous parts of the ceiling have caved way to ground above, leaving huge openings where mud and vines slowly slid their way in to the center of the room. The floor was covered in a thick layer of a combination between dust and moss, so much so that walking felt as though you were tip-toeing across a cloud, with the large displaced bricks from the ceiling acting as "stepping stones." Two huge wooden support beams sat with a space between them in the center of the broom, both with giant cracks across the middle as though they were about to collapse.
Six cells lined the outside of the jail, with a single torch sitting on the beam closest to the door. Two sat on either side of the wall, and the last two sat on the far wall, which sat slanted from the left and extended back to the right. Even in the darkness Delmaria could make out the outline of skeletal hands reaching out of their cells, frozen in time beginning for a sliver of hope. All of the cell doors were locked but one, which was the door that sat closest to them on the right wall. Grogan stepped ahead, and when he reached the open cell door, motioned for Delmaria.
The cell's floor was covered with a dirty yet regal red carpet, outline in a gold trim held down by a few chipped pieces of bricks. Four plush chairs sat around the edges of a small pine table on which a silver tea set sat, glimmering against a small half-melted candle. The back wall of the cell was line with small jewelry boxes, some open, some closed, some empty, and some filled to the brim with sparkling jewelry.
In the chair to the left of the table sat a dirty, yet finely dressed man. His dark-skinned face was covered in dirt, and from his face hung a long, unkept blonde beard that he petted with the hand that wasn't holding a bottle of rum. His teeth were as yellow as his hair, which was folded and tied in a mess underneath a bright red tricorne that he balanced on his forehead. He rubbed his grimy hands against a tightly-stitched, bright crimson vest that hugged against numerous layers of sweated, multicolored shirts with frilled trimmings sticking out of every slit and hole.
He took a deep swig of his rum as he waved to Grogan. "Grogan ye old piece of flotsam, haha, how ya been?"
"You better watch that tongue or else I'll gut it out of your mouth." Delmaria growled. The man hadn't even noticed Delmaria, but when he did, he sat straight up.
"Mister Grogan..." he said, standing up out of his chair. He was short, just about Grogan's height, except less stocky and plump, "it appears you've.. brought a visitor! A prospective customer, I hope?"
"Calm yourself, Retavick. He's a friend of ours."
"Ahh.. good, good." Retavick walked over to Delmaria and extended a hand. "Pleasure to meet you....?"
"Delmaria Darkskull." he returned with a firm handshake, which almost seemed to intimidate Retavick. "May I have a seat?"
"Feel free," Retavick invited, returning to his seat. Delmaria slid in to the chair in front of him, being enveloped by the cushion, while Grogan chose to stand. Retavick returned to his bottle of rum. "So Darkskull, whattaya looking fer down in a hole like this?"
"I was told you would be able to guide me in the direction of the City of Thieves."
Retavick stopped in the middle of his drink. Not even a minute in to the conversation he was already becoming extremely uncomfortable. He turned up to Grogan demanding an answer, but Grogan just shook his head. "Well, I uh, well..now.. Trust like that ain't freely given."
"I'm not the one who is looking to subterfuge your business, Mister Retavick - there are plenty of other men who will be coming seeking the same thing, and I hope you'll find I'm the more reasonable of the options."
"What's that supposed to be? Some kinda threat?"
"No; it's a warning. Unless you want the Navy to breath down your neck, I suggest you point me in the right direction."
Retavick looked around his cell precautious, as if he was trying to avoid the conversation through deserting eye contact. "What makes you say I can trust you?"
Delmaria leaned back in his chair, and began to fiddle slightly with the rings that ran across his fingers on his right hand with interest. "What makes you think you can afford to take that chance?"
Retavick looked back at Doctor Grogan, then at Delmaria, then back at Grogan. His fists grew clenched around the arms of his chair, until he stood up and began to unbutton his vest. "Get up!" he barked at Delmaria.
Delmaria slowly raised himself out of his chair with a raised eyebrow and stepped out of the cell, watching Retavick run about the enclosed space. He picked up the chairs from his rug one by one and shuffled them to the outside corners, then taking the table in the center, tea set and all, and carried it over to the side. With just the rug now lying on the floor of the dank space he grabbed it commandingly at the sides and flipped it over, revealing underneath where the table had sat a wooden hatch with a large, metal ring. He gripped the ring and threw it open, revealing a hole that led a small set of wooden stairs in to a wet, putrid sewer. "Get in."
Delmaria lowered himself in to the sewers, while Grogan waved his hat at him. "Thank you for your help, Doctor."
Retavick waved for Delmaria's attention as only his head poked out of the hole. "Follow this here tunnel down to the rotunda; DON'T cut down any other paths unless you see somebody, or worse, a group. Head through the entrance with the rat's nest near it and follow the cobblestone markers straight to the Cistern. If you see ANYBODY while going to the City, you don't stop to make a handshake - you either hide, run, or fight. Understood?"
Delmaria nodded, stepping further in to the sewers until he was completely under the floor. Without another word, Retavick gripped the large handle and slammed it shut over Delmaria, enclosing him in the darkness.
The sewer was tight and round, forcing Delmaria to crouch slightly so that he could fit entirely in it. The brown, discolored water at his feet was only up to the top of the heel of his boots, but it stunk with such a vile manner that Delmaria's face wrapped itself around his nose to try and block out the smell. There were torches, few, far and in-between that illuminated the path before him, and he could see where smaller branches cut perpendicular out of his passage in to smaller sections. There was very few sounds, but the lack of it was what made it so unsettling - the slight cracking of the ground above him, the pooling of water around his feet, the periodic drips off in the distance, and somewhere hidden from his vision the squeaking of rats. He had always hated rats.
Delmaria began to step forward, immediately noticing the slight dips and cracks in the floor hidden beneath the water that caused him to stumble ever so often. The light in the sewer was dim, about a quarter of what you would expect to find in the darkest of taverns, but it supplied him with enough to keep him moving. He kept his left hand concealed in his coat, tight around the handle of his pistol, and his right hand extended against the slimy wall at his side to keep himself balanced. He could already begin to see an opening in the wall far ahead of him that seemed to open in to a large, well-lit room.
All the while he went forward he could only help by curse at Rott under his breath. He could of only imagined how different his fate would have been if he had taken the liberty of killing him all the times he had a chance to do so. Amusingly, the other half of the time where he was not complaining about being so inhumane and unfeeling, he was complaining about the shreds of dignity that would never leave his side forced him to follow a code of morale, even in the fact of little to none from others. Delmaria always promised himself that the next time he saw Rott, he would kill him with his bare hands; but only now did he realize how well that plan was really working out for him, as he stood in a sewer with boots covered in water filled with only God-knows-what.
He was only twenty feet away from the hole that led in to the rotunda when he heard a very unusual sound. He froze in his place, and listened in with a curved ear. It was faint, but against stone he could hear stone, being kicked along as if a child was playing with it like a ball. It came from the rotunda.
Slowly, Delmaria began to lean forward, looking for any sign of life. The noise grew louder and louder, but other than he heard nothing; no voices, no boots on the ground, not even breathing (including his own, which he held.) For as far as he knew, it could have simply been a gigantic rat - until he saw somebody approach the hole.
Delmaria instantly rolled silently in to the small passage that cut off from the sewer next to him. A grate blocked his path just a few feet in, but he pressed himself against it and drew his pistol, anticipating at any minute for an aggressor to come around the corner and attempt to subdue him; but, nothing.
Darkskull fell silent. He watched the water in the sewer ripple in unrest, disturbed by even the slightest motion of his step. He stilled himself with the most absolute concentration, and knew that it was a matter of not if, but when he would have to draw his pistol.
"See anything?" a whisper called out from around the corner.
"Nah, nothin'. Probably just a rat or somethin'."
Delmaria clenched his pistol even tighter, and extended it out so that the minute he saw any form of life it would be wiped off the planet. But as the seconds which felt like minutes, and minutes which felt like hours passed, nothing happened - no more voices, no more rocks, no more life. It was empty.
Delmaria crept back out of his hiding spot, looking both ways cautiously to make sure he was not walking in to an ambush. He slid his way back down the path where he had been going towards, feeling the ominous wind from the room ahead of him blowing against his face. He was looking forward to getting out of the damp, cramped space.
As he slid his legs slowly out of the hole, he could feel the crisp air of the open space brush against his soaking wet ankles. Even if he stepped on to a little more water, it was clear, giving way to the clean tile surface that hid under just a centimeter of protective layering. But before he had time to admire the room, he was already getting more up-close-and-personal with the water.
He was thrusted on to the ground face-first from behind, slamming chest-first on to the hard ground with force, losing grip on his pistol in the process. The cold, distasteful water splashed up in his face, and frantically he began to shake his body with force, trying to wiggle out from under the gigantic hands that he could feel pressing him down on the floor. He wailed his hands and legs as hard as he could, trying to wriggle free or at least gain contact on his attackers, until he felt the cold barrel of a musket rest against his neck.
"Who are you and what business you got down here?" a voice barked from behind him. It was the voice of the first whisper.
Delmaria grunted out his answer from against the floor, trying to spit out the water fighting to get in his mouth. "CAPTAIN Delmaria Darkskull, Pirate Lord of the Atlantic! Get your bloody hands off of me!"
"Pirate Lord my boot! Quit lying before we blow a hole through your head!"
"Calm yourselves, you two." a voice called out from the far side of the room. Delmaria could hear the splash of footsteps slowly moving towards them. "I believe that he's among friends, gentlemen. And he isn't lying." the voice grew stern.
Almost immediately Delmaria was grabbed by the arms and hoisted back up to his feet, water dripping down his entire face. The room remained a blur, but he was turned slightly by the guards to face where the voice was coming from.
A man covered in a black, heavy cloth armor stood before him, which hugged tightly to his entire body, with his shoulders and wrists protected by thicker leather padding. It defined and amplified the tone of the muscle underneath the protective layer, with numerous concealed pockets strapped tightly on his torso and arms. Two large, buckled belts ran across his chest, the inside lined with miniature daggers, pistols, poisons, and even grenades fastened for easy use, with two long, sheathed rapiers kept tightly at either of his hips. His face was very mysteriously handsome; he had very defined, strong features that were hidden underneath years of age and toil, though he couldn't have been older than fifty. His hair was like a white, clean know fallen upon the ground untouched, handling a white goatee and long hair that hung back and at the sides.
The man did an elegant bow, waving his arms delicately across his body. "It is a pleasure to be in your company, Mister Darkskull." his voice was deep yet stern even when he spoke lightly, like a teacher with very high standards of others. "What brings you to my city?"
Delmaria was shocked at the correlation between the man who stood before him and the books that Murdock had allowed him to course over. He was comforted by the fact that Langwood hadn't entirely kept him in the dark. "I was sent here to seek your help from a personal friend of yours.”
The man smiled, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. “Oh, I’m afraid I don’t keep many personal friends, Mister Darkskull. Perhaps I’ve just been superassociated with an acquaintance of mine.”
“His name is Murdock Langwood."
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My apologies to my readers, but unbeknownst to me the chapter ended up being so large that it got cut off! Unfortunately because of this I lost a part of the chapter, but lucky for us all it was just a walking scene that really had no purpose other than being filler. No conversation was carried on during the lost scene, so you don't have to worry about missing any information; instead, I'll just jump right to where Delmaria has been escorted through the sewers, to the center of the city. Enjoy!
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The center of the city was a gigantic cistern, where the main tunnels of the sewer system poured out in to a grand tile dome that looked worthy of Roman architecture. The room's outer edge, which was large enough to be a road circling around a town square, was lined with stands shaded in eccentric tapestries, chests, stands, and even cages where exotic animals were held. It was as flooded as the busiest market place in Port Royal if not more so, like the crowded streets of a cramped city that required one to weave his way in and out of the flow of people. They all seemed to be treating the business they were handling very regularly; the exchange of *****, stolen goods, and mercenary deeds was not only taken with the levity of buying tomatoes and cabbage, but it was treated as openly and even celebrated and commended among those that mingled around a certain area. The citizens of this underground city were dressed either morbidly or loudly, clothed in black robes or wrapped in silken gowns embedded with brave or humorous styling, seeking to either pronounce their darkness or their richness. Some of them looked his way and turned their heads in mystique and shame; others, waved a fond hello.
The center of the cistern was a gigantic circular pool of water a few feet below the path that hugged the walls of the room, constantly flowing from little portholes in the base of the walkway in to a hole that sat at the very bottom. The water was not clear, but not murky - it was only slightly opaque, and in much better of a condition than the majority of the water beneath Tortuga, minus the few eroded body parts that Delmaria turned his head from floating nonchalantly in to the water; he even watched as on the opposite side of the cistern a large piece of elongated cloth was unraveled, revealing a bloody, beaten shape of a female corpse. He watched as a man, halfway between shaken and gratified, payed an amount of money to a man dressed in a plague doctor's uniform who had revealed the body, and plucked a small golden ring that had sat on the woman's finger, and examined it.
The man's eyes seemed locked completely on the ring, and though there was a smile on his face it was dimming away to a look of dread at a very, very fast rate. He didn't even lift his head as the plague doctor wheeled the body off a wheel-barrel and dumped it heavily in to the swirling waters before them. As the body was sucked in to the maelstrom, however, the man almost immediately slipped the ring on his finger and jumped in after the body. Nobody, even the plague doctor, took mind of it.
The white-haired man proceeded to walk out on to a four-way walkway that crossed over the water below, stone arches that rose easily to a center area that served as a small stage, of sorts. In contrast to the merchant stands, the pathways were nearly completely empty, as if they had been cleared for the man to walk across. The two guards pushed Delmaria forward to follow, but they themselves did not continue forward - they simply stood their like stalwarts, and the second Darkskull took a step forward they turned around, heading back down the tunnel they had come down.
Delmaria walked across and joined the white-haired man in the center of the cistern, as he admired the large iron chandeliers that hung down from the ceiling above. The man stood watching the entirety of the city flush around him, crossing his arms behind his back as if he was proud. "Do you see what is around you? An entire level of society hidden beneath those who do not accept us. This place; it is a home for those that society casts their hammers down upon."
"Perhaps for a good reason." Delmaria said. "We wouldn't want to have all of these men and women carrying out their.. personal interests in the world above, now would we?"
"-That's not to say that they don't conduct themselves in the world above, Mister Darkskull. Yes, as you said, this is where men come to fulfill their darkest dreams and desires - truly a coven worthy of this island's nature to begin with. But the men you see around you are not highly skilled assassins or thieves; not for the most part. Instead of you tear away these guises the men you see before you are lawyers, merchants, beggars, smiths, sailors, navy men; oh, and
of course pirates.
"This place is not evil, Mister Darkskull; in fact, it is good. Without a place for the darkest factions of the world to mingle it would be destructive to the very core of the outside world, and these deviants would be able to roam the streets without mercy. And while yes, the actions they preform do relay to the outside world, at least it is better to centralize it here than in the grounds above."
Delmaria smiled. "I never got your name."
"Reverent." the man smiled back. "Reverent Cervantes." he extended a gloved hand.
Delmaria latched out and gave a firm shake. His hands were chilled. "Glad we can finally put ourselves in speaking terms."
Reverent chuckled. He walked around within a few feet back and forth, like he was listening intently to somebody speak. "So Mister Darkskull, you say a "Murdock Langwood" sent you?"
"Indeed he did. Perhaps you would know him better as the Black Hand?"
"Indeed I would. But I would prefer if we referred to the deceased by their real names, as a dying courtesy; Thomas, if you would."
"Thomas?- How did you know he was dead?"
Reverent chortled again, shifting his feet. "He made an agreement with me many years ago that he would never make an attempt to contact the outside world for as long as he could - and that if we ever heard from each other again, it would be by a missionary sent forth from beyond the grave. I never supposed that he would send somebody like you to be his pilgrim."
"Pilgrim? No," Delmaria shook his head, "the world 'pilgrim' gives the implication of following. The last thing I want to do is follow in his footsteps - I'm only here because he told me you could help me."
"You're still under the impression you were brought here by your own doing?" Reverent stepped closer to Delmaria. "I realize that the world you come from does not believe as deeply in the arcane, but down here the things of fantasy are more than real for us. Down here, everything happens for a reason; and you're only here because of us."
"I find it hard to believe that Miste- James knew I was coming to be his 'missionary' long before we ever met."
"Oh, certainly not! But fate had decided for him his past, and it has decided for you many paths - whichever one you take will lead you down that road, and in some cases you may never turn back. This is one of those roads."
"Oh?" Delmaria said, feeling threatened.
Reverent backed away and turned, looking out to the crowd at the edges of the cistern going about their business. "You may be astonished at the sights before you now, but you should have only seen it just a few years, if not months ago." Reverent's voice spoke with rapidly withering enthusiasm. "The masses that would revel in this society of ours were double the size now, if not tripled, quadrupled! Entire branches of sewers used to be alive with bartering and bargaining, but now.... now it has all but disintegrated in to this around you, a mere shadow of itself - glorious as it is.
"But it has been laid waste by the lands above - namely the very men that we once trusted, the ones that I had guided as a matter of fact, have turned against us by the ambitions of their own greed. They have sold us out, and now as the days roll on and more and more men become aware of our persecution, I fear that we are being killed without a single gun having been raised."
"Rott then, I assume?" Delmaria took a few steps forward.
"Indeed." Reverent turned about face. "I was blind in allowing him a sliver of influence within these halls. All it took was that for him to turn my own men against me, and in a matter of days he had recruited nearly three-fourths of my guardsmen to his own cause. Not to mention he had been using the city shallows as his backyard recruiting grounds for any passerby looking for a profit. I've tried to fight back - but a thieve can only do so much."
"I assure you, Rott has only been trying to do the same thing with the Brethren. Seems he'll do anything these days to support his cause."
"That he will...." Reverent sighed, and returned to walking around the outer edge of the center platform. He rubbed his hand along his chiseled chin.
He turned briskly to Delmaria. "Are you aware of the name Moctezuma?"
"Well, I haven't been brushing up on my history very recently, but yes, I'm aware of him."
Reverent nodded, and returned to pacing, his face deeply riddled in to thought. "His most pristine general was a man by the name of Cuitláhuac, who just so happened to be his younger brother. Legend has it that the last time the two brothers spoke, before the emperor was killed at the hands of the Spaniards, that if something were ever to happen to him that Cuitláhuac would have the "blessing of the gods" upon him, and that he would lead the people to a new era in Aztec rule.
"Surely enough Moctezuma was killed by the conquistadors, and Cuitláhuac ascended the throne as the new king. Enraged by his brother's death, Cuitláhuac set a heed that Cortes would be dead before he would be able to flee back to Spanish-welcoming territory; though Cortes was still under the impression a cease fire had been reached. In the dead of the night Cuitláhuac and a small group of troops managed to ambush the Spaniards in a compound, wiping out a large portion of Cortes's troops; which was, for the time, an outstanding victory. But, the story does not end there.
"It has been said that the night of Moctezuma's death, Cuitláhuac was given a brilliantly crafted pair of earrings from a gypsy who appeared at the foot of the temple he sat in. It is said that they were the objects that carried Moctezuma's blessing, and that any man who wears them will be as equally powerful in battle as Cuitláhuac's forces were that night."
"Wait," Delmaria extended his hand. "So the object that James spoke of-- that was the ear rings?"
Reverent nodded. "In fact, I had given them to him; I had stolen them from a Spanish galleon, and gave them to him not knowing what they truly were. I remember watching him transform over the months as he became more and more murderous;.. the worst mistake of my life, I'd judge."
Delmaria registered the facts as they began to click off in his head, one by one. "So you were a part of the House, as well?"
Reverent sighed, turned away from Delmaria and walked down the ramp that he had walked up. He watched as Cervantes slowly paced back and forth on the bridge before coming back over. "I've noticed you enjoy walking." Delmaria commented.
Reverent shrugged it off. "James and I worked together, I'll admit to that. I was the one who had tried to calm him; I was the one who tried to convince the others to stay calm. Even as he was expelled by the guild I knew that it would boil down to my actions as to why he had ruined himself; so I expelled myself.
"I slit the throat of every last one of those bastards. All they ever cared about was killing anyway, so I gave it them as a last rite. I almost immediately went searching for James to make sure they hadn't sent out any assassins after him; it took a while, but I found him, and stopped him only days after he had assassinated Culliford. Obviously I was too late; but we could still set each other free.
"We traveled deep in to the center of the island, down a path only the two of us had ever explored, and buried the earrings as far away from civilization as we could. We made a pact that we would never speak of our past, and moreover, never speak again; we became new people, living under new identities. Our finally words to one another was that if something were ever to happen to either of us, that we would do anything in our power to warn the other." Reverent turned around to face Delmaria, as he tried to wipe away the red that was gathering on his cheeks. "Glad to see he still remembered his promise."
"Why did he go mad? What was all that rambling about...'the Beast?'"
A chill ran through the air between them, as if Delmaria had mentioned something that never should have been brought up. Regardless, Reverent answered as if he felt obligated: "I'm not quite sure to be quite honest. I have never seen such evil infiltrate a man's eyes... it seemed... overworldly."
The pirate interjected. "Then I suppose all we do know is that if Rott manages to gain a hold of them, then Tortuga is as good as damned."
"Indeed it is. Which is why you are here - and why we will help."
"Help? Who is 'we?'"
Reverent extended an arm, waving it across the marketplace. "If Rott gains, control of Tortuga, he gains control of everything - including this. I'm afraid it would only be a matter of time before he came storming down here and looted anything he could grab.
But, if we manage to flood Rott out of Tortuga, then your island is secured, and my city is saved."
"Such power that lies in a common enemy." Darkskull smirked.
Reverent smiled back. "Rott's militia could not simply defend Tortuga by itself, however, and he knows that - he relies on the aid of those Navy rats he's been sneaking on to this island for the past few months. If we take out the Navy, then we disable Rott's backing-"
"And in turn we disable Rott, and can drive him off of Tortuga before he can even think about getting those earrings."
"My men and I will do everything in our power to aid your men, so long as you come halfway across the table; you help us expel Rott from Tortuga and save my city, and I'll point you straight in the direction of those earrings."