Glory of the Forsaken

[Captain Del]

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."

[Robert Ironcastle]

Cliffhangers.
-cue dramatic music-

[Captain Del]

Through the Vines

Deviating from a norm is even more of an extreme circumstance when we try to return to it. Though not necessarily every regular life is at a normal, sometimes living in a norm other's may consider itself is deviation. In such a time of reflection and thought it is hard to image that the pace would change, but once it does, no matter how large of a buildup, the impact is sudden and sharp; a fierce return to reality. It leaves you almost in a daze, caught in a midway between fantasy and reality where the world is no longer physical, like an outer body experience in respect to the rest of the universe. And the world will rotate around you menacingly, not saying a word but still intimidating you as it spins on it's off-kilter track, deviously waiting to pounce and consume you the moment you attempt to step back on to it's train. It is a moment of limbo in the light; a spark of nirvana in the darkness. And you never want to leave, but you loathe being in it, as well.

It was odd watching the King's Arm being as lively as it was. The moment after Ramona ran off preparations had begun - tables and chairs were being returned to their normal place, soldiers running about to scavenge up supplies, boxes, barrels, and other rift-raft being pulled away from the barricade behind the main door, and even the good Doctor was packing his things with the help of a few men in to a box. At the same time a few of the crew had pulled up from the basement of the tavern a wooden wheel-barrow, which they intended to use to carry Jeremiah around in on their journey, him still being too weak to support himself. He could speak faintly, though, and this is why he cursed in pain every time somebody would pick him up, fix him around, or all of that, almost as if he was begging to be dropped on the floor. Johnny was busy tiding the bottles on his shelves and wiping down the bar, and even Father Molony, barely a week after his stroke, was fixing himself and preparing to come along for the journey, as much as Johnny and some of the other men tried to talk him out of it. And Delmaria just stood there, watching in awe.

It was a hard thought to escape the barricades in Delmaria's mind that they were actually preparing to make a move, and even more so that his entire minute-man militia was doing this without having to be directed or told. Such enthusiasm had not been seen from them in weeks, their loyalty overcoming the best of them. It was a true pleasure to Delmaria to see this going on, because he knew that he had done his job well; a good captain is one whose crew does not rely on for direction. Still, he felt as though he was caught in the middle of things, and found it best to just back up the stairs and in to his office to clear up his things, leaving behind the rest of the tavern.

It was eerie how such a small wooden door had the ability to muffle the entire sound of the bustling room behind him. The light from the clear, bright day outside illuminate his small corner of the world, much brighter than he had been seeing it; in the day he had preferred to walk around the bar, and at night he hardly ever lit any candles. It was a warm, fulfilling feeling to see the clutter of papers on the floor, the discarded bottles and foodstuffs, and marks of rage against the wall in full detail. He sighed and walked over to his bed, where there sat some of his essentials which required to be found.

Delmaria was both an extravagant and simple traveler. Most of the things he ever needed were kept on his person at all times, whether tied to his body with his assortment of belts and clothes, or tucked in to the recesses of his many pockets and hidden compartments. For the first time in perhaps a few months, he had been walking around the tavern with a lack of either his heavy, black long coat, nor his gold-topped feathered hat upon his head. He picked up his ostrich hat with an odd notice of mystery, spinning it around in his hand and observing it. It was a custom for warriors to add a feather to his or her hat every time they slayed an enemy, yet Delmaria still only kept one in his cap - he could only imagine what it was supposed to look like.

As he turned his wide-brow back on to his head and lugged his magnificent coat on to his shoulders, he patted himself down for anything he seemed to be missing. He felt two pistols, three daggers, two belts, a package of gunpowder, the small, crinkled coordinates tucked in to the pocket over his heart, and all that he lacked was his most valuable piece of weaponry. He turned about the room, looking and hunting for his cutlass, yet it escaped his gaze. He assumed that a sword with a gold-colored blade would be easy to pick out, but obviously not this time. Even in such a small room it would refuse to be found, as Delmaria walked around his room looking for it.

A misfortunate placement of his foot on top of a puddle of ink caused Delmaria's large black boot to curve right out from under him, kicking up and sending him down to the floor in an anti-climatic tumble. His backside hit the floor with a mellow, painful thud, before he laid back down with the force of the fall and just rested there for a moment. He almost wanted to laugh a little bit, taking humor in his own failure, nut as he tried to sit himself up he caught eye of a glisten right beneath his bed. Right beneath his bed sat a long, metal blade, to which he smiled when he made contact with.

He grabbed the sword by the hilt without any hesitation and examined it in his lap, checking for any scratches of bruises to its surface. He had finally learned how to control the powers of the blade, though it was more of a weakening of its supernatural powers than it was him becoming its master. He could touch the blade without a need for a rag or linen, because he rarely found it transforming him at any moment when he wielded it. Once night, when he had attempted to practice with it, he found that it refused to do anything out of the ordinary until he finally built up enough energy in to it, and only then did it last for only about twenty seconds before fading back off in to its usual state. Becoming an aura had even lost its spark of pain, coming as just a natural wash of unevenness. It was peculiar, but Delmaria appreciated it's submissiveness by now; he would rather have a predictable blade than one mad with power.

He tucked the sword back within the recesses of his belt, double-checked his body one final time, and stepped back out in to the hallway, closing the door to his room for the final time in what he hoped would be a long time. Walking back down the stairs to the tavern he noticed that everything had become hushed - the rush of the crowd had stopped, the roar had muffled down to a stiff silence. The men and women of the pirate army had finished packing up their belongings and necessities, and now that this routine was complete they finally looked for security and direction in their captain, who was equally hummed and mystified. No matter how great the crew, without one who will be there to guide them, they would only be as unified as the bitterest rivalry among them - yet at the same time, no matter how great the captain, without an equally matched crew he is equally as useless. Two sides of the same coin now waiting to be joined, and neither of them knew who would go forward first.

Though, it was evident that this ultimately came down under the jurisdiction of Delmaria. He reached in to his coat and pulled out the crinkled piece of paper that Ramona had slipped to him, the scent of her dark, purple perfume still lingering on its edges. Descending down the staircase his foremost crew members took their hats off and rested them against their chest, a formality that he despised. When he found himself in service of the French, Porc demanded that his 'inferiors' (in retrospect, everybody) remove their hats, a practice which Delmaria himself found extremely degrading. He glared at them until they put their hats back on their heads, and he rolled his eyes at the giggle of one of his veteran pirates, who knew that he despised such a motion. He unraveled the paper and began walking around in a waverly way to show his focus on the paper, before turning up and explaining their destination to the crew.

Rott and his allies had commandeered an area out in the far reaches of Tortuga known as Raphael's Vineyard, a place known only to the long-time citizens of Tortuga, and avid wine collectors. Hidden far enough in to the island to not be known by anybody who did not intend to do any serious journeying, where one would expect to find a large jungle in a large expanse of flat land in between an expanse of foothills instead found to their surprise an extremely wide and far vineyard, rows of grapes extending farther than one could ever expect. To those who have ever been to the place, they describe it as though they are not on Tortuga at all, as a mixture between fantasy, mystery, and horror. The journey would take roughly two to three days, and Delmaria made it clear they were "in no rush" as he smile deviously in concern to Dedman's deteriorating condition.

What concerned Delmaria most for the time being was not Rott, nor keeping Jeremiah alive, but instead their journey towards the vineyard. Knowing Rott, it could only be a scheme against their lives, the second them stepping out of the tavern their caravan being ambushed in the streets of Tortuga. That, or the people of Tortuga would turn against them out of sacrifice in honor of Dedman or Rott, leading to a massacre right in the middle of the town. It unfolded in Delmaria's mind; first one man would run at them only before being shot down right where he stood, resulting in a wave of angered civilians that would overrun them like a mad pack of deranged wolves. Delmaria made it clear to all of the soldiers that they were to keep their muskets as tight to their chests as possible, and not be afraid to shoot any person that step too close in to their path, to which they all reluctantly accepted.

Though Delmaria had overcompensated in thought. As they stepped out of the tavern, the entire crew assembled in to one giant cluster around Jeremiah, not many in the square seemed to even turn their head. To the Tortugans, what pertained to them was only what was current; currently, the hot topic of discussion was of a captain who had somehow managed to crash his ship in to the far side of Devil's Anvil in broad daylight, killing his entire crew in one foul swoop. Delmaria had done a good job at making the Caribbean lose interest in Jeremiah, because that was precisely what had happened - it had passed, and they had stopped caring.

The militia made their way out through the back gates of Tortuga without so much a flicker of concern. They pushed themselves along the main dirt road that cut out from the town, growing narrower and more hidden as they progressed, and the sounds and sights of Tortuga drifted off in the back distance. They were once again alone in their own journey.

And loneliness is what their journey was. For hours on end they trekked through the jungles of Tortuga, their minds set on their single destination of the vineyard. From Tortuga the jungles progressively became more and more narrow, the tree tops becoming denser overhead and the tree trunks and roots cutting over their paths. They would have to cut through the foothills if they wanted to reach the vineyard, which was something Delmaria would not look forward to considering they would have to haul their men, their equipment, Jeremiah, and the half-handicapped Father Molony, who seemed surprisingly youthful as he tried to keep at the head of the pack. The men of the group would continuously give Molony their shares of water and food, to which Delmaria gave them a stern eye in return; he felt that it was unfair that just because a friar had joined them, on his own accord, that he should get special treatment over the rest of his crew. He wasn't going to say anything, though - not yet.

A major concern of Delmaria's was if his crew would be safe along the road, especially at night. Raphael's Vineyard was abandoned due to large groups of looters and gangsters that would sit along the outskirts of the road, waiting for a caravan of fresh wine to pass along at night so they could swoop in to kill off it's passengers. Of course Delmaria would have numbers on his side, but he knew that his entire bargain with Rott relied on Jeremiah's survival until they at least reached the vineyard.

And then, of course, there was the possibility that Rott himself would try to compromise their mission. For all he knew, the Casa de Muertos would simply wait for them along the trail, picking off their crew in the wilderness and leaving them to die and decompose. The crew received minimal sleep, only just enough to keep them on their feet. Delmaria himself did not sleep at all, continuously scanning the jungle, waiting. He knew Rott was out there, waiting, too.

It was by the dusk of the second day that Delmaria's convoy finally reached their destination. A warm, scarlet blanket was slowly being pulled back over the horizon to reveal a bright, shining blue sky hidden behind the tree tops of the forest. The air was clear and fresh, not a single drop of humidity as the crew of early birds skidding gingerly down the side of the hill they had camped on that night. They had reached the end of the foothills, now making a swift descent down the side of the cap, densely covered in greenery. It was a surprise to not only Delmaria, but his crew when they stepped out in to the bright sunlight - and there, before them, was their destination.

Across a very short opening of land, a small curved patch of sand and dirt before it's landscape, the wide vineyard unfolded right in front of them, it's row's perpendicular before them and neat enough to allow them to see straight down the long, long aisles of the farm. The earth curved slightly downward as the tall grape vines progressed, and then steadily curved up in the far distance until it met the forest again, which surrounded it on all sides. The vineyard had to have been at least half a mile long down it's aisles, and three fourths of a mile across, confined only by the trees that loomed directly at it's borders.

While the crew admired the tall grape plants, Delmaria was far more interested in the image off in the background; or, moreover, the lack of a background. Though the vineyard was tall, wide and plentiful, and the forest's border was great and surrounding, there was no noticeable sign of humanity hidden anywhere over the background. But he knew that something was out there.

As he stepped down towards the vineyard he heard the yell and scream of a few shouts come out before him, and he tilted his head up to see some of his pirates surrounded over a single point in the ground as more of them ran forward to aid in their struggle. He could see in the patches of space between them that they were fighting to subdue something, and as he drew closer he saw them leaning over a man, trying to pick him up and cut his throat.

Delmaria stepped forward and pushed the pirates aside, dropping the man down to the ground. He was a tall, scrawny man with a ratty looking face, draped in brown, red and purple linens washed out of their original color. He coughed roughly as he gripped his unshaven neck, which had a small cut where one of his pirates had attempted to slit his throat. Delmaria took his boot and planted it square on the man's chest, pushing down with his weight as he demanded "Do you work for Rott?"

He tried to cough out "I work for no man," but he was cut off half sentence as Delmaria gave a jolt of his pressure. "Do you work for Rott, or not?" Delmaria demanded again.

The man patted his hand on his chest in a swerving motion, like he was trying to rub out the pain. "YES, I work for him!" he cried out as he tried to make his chest more comfortable.

Delmaria let his foot off the man's chest as he patted a patch of dirt off of his boot. "So what did he send you for? To try and stop us?"

The man shook his head, closing his eyes and rubbing his neck again in pain. "He wants me to take you too 'em!"

1

September 8th, 1725
Raphael's Vineyard, Tortuga
6:45 PM

It seemed as though they were walking through an illusion as they continued down the long aisles of the vineyard, the tall bushes lined at their sides and the the wide, expansive skies panning over their heads. The stars started to poke through the orange-pink hue of the twilight as the dark blue began to seep in to the sky like an ink. The sky reminded Delmaria of when he would sit out on the hills overlooking his hometown every spring evening with the old, wrinkled books his father would bring home to him and sit there, under the lights, wishing he too could bottle up the beauty that lingered over him. The twilight was perhaps his favorite moment of the day because he found in it the past, the present, and the future; the closing of an old day, but just before the brink of the new. It was bleak, but it was hopeful.

Rott's henchman would only allow Delmaria to come with him, but under the generality of force he was persuaded to allow Delmaria to bring two body guards with him. The man also stated how Ezekiel wanted Jeremiah to be brought along, but Delmaria saw that as unnecessary; bringing the ransom in to enemy territory would only lead to his own demise. Instead the stonewall was being lead down the lanes of grapevines, which expanded down a distance much farther than he had anticipated. To keep himself entertained he would pick out a few of the grapes along the way, plump and still unwashed, and toss them in to his mouth. They weren't as strong tasting as Delmaria would have liked, but he figured that was the price of eating fruit from a patch years unkempt and left to the mercy of the seasons.

The only thing Delmaria was concerned about, however, was Rott. He almost shook in anger at the thought of having to speak with him, but it would have to be done unless things were to be taken out of hand. It was either torture himself with a conversation or torture thousands of others through a war in the Caribbean; he could easily go without either, but it was evident which one he felt he should choose. He only hoped that Rott would be open-minded, because Delmaria was not prepared to be walked over - and when two walls collide, the result is often disastrous.

"How much farther until we reach him?" Delmaria persisted, trying to look over the guide's shoulder to find a hint of humanity. He could see some lights at the end of the aisle off in the distance, but he wasn't to be too sure.

"Them." The guide corrected, continuing without a followup.

"Them? Who is 'Them?'" Delmaria harked, but the guide didn't say anything further, instead focusing on moving forward to the end of the grapevines. Delmaria could feel his muscles tense, and he found security in letting his hand slip to the hilt of his cutlass.

The change in atmosphere was almost palpable as Delmaria's boots stepped from the crinkled, dried grass on to a hard patch of dirt, the grapevines cutting off just at his side. Before him sat a small clearing of blank dirt, surrounded by the ends of a few other sections of grapes that cut in to the forest later than his. It was littered by tables, chairs, bowls, and crates, and directly twenty feet from where he stood, the flaps to a small, enclosed tent sat, akin to a general's camp right before they plunged in to battle.

Delmaria was horrified, however, by who surrounded him. Laying and walking about the camp had to have been at least seventy pirates, both male and female, dressed just as ratty and dirty as the guide who had brought him here, which was a far larger number than the some-odd seven men who consisted of the Casa de Muertos Guild. They all had devilishness looks on their face, as if they were eager to jump and kill at one another if it meant they would be able to rise through the ranks. They seemed to be underfed, and there were scares across the entirety of their bodies. The worst part, however, was that they all seemed like chillingly memorable faces to Delmaria, like he had seen them every day of his life, but never known their names; waywards from bars, revelers in the streets, and just average layabouts now turned against him, ever though they had never met.

Delmaria slowly trudged forward, towards the tent, as he felt the legions of eyes turn on him. The murmurs became silent whispers changed in between the groups of pirates, staring down ominously at Darkskull. He kept his posture upright and firm, not giving them any sort of idea of weakness. As far as they were concerned, he could care less of their presence, though in his mind they did. He proceeded through the small flap of leather that acted as the door to the tent by himself, closing off the world behind him.

A lingering smell of dank, dirty musk lifted to Delmaria's nose as he stepped inside, his feet transferring from a hard dirt floor to a soft, felt carpet. For the most part, the interior of the tent was bare, consumed by the darkness save for a single candle that sat in the middle of a rectangular wooden table, lined with all sorts of plates filled with fish, crabs, pork, vegetables, and overall a banquet fit for a king - or moreover, a glutton. Rott sat deviantly behind it, picking the meat off of a leg of chicken and shoving it in to his grey-bearded mouth as he looked up to see Delmaria standing there, watching him in disgust. He smiled a dirty, greasy smile, and threw the bone on to his plate.

"No, go ahead, continue eating. I find it to be a good hobby of mine." Delmaria sighed sarcastically.

"There's the humor I've missed hearing." Rott smiled, propping his feet up on the table. He motioned to the chair adjacent from him.

As Delmaria graciously took his seat he continued speaking. "Can you explain to me how you sleep at night as you sit in here like a king, while your crew swims in their own filth and sorrow?"

"Ah, so you took in to account my crew?" Rott played with an apple in between his hands. "I'm sure y-"

"Don't change the subject." Delmaria cut him off harshly.

Ezekiel rolled his eyes at Darkskull. "I assure you, they are more than happy with their situation. If they weren't they wouldn't be here, would they?"

"Maybe they're just too afraid to leave."

"Nonsense. My pirates have come here on their own free will, and are free to leave on their own free will as such. If they are unhappy with their situation and refuse to leave then they own it to their own ignorance." Rott slipped his teeth in to a side of the apple and bit extremely loud, chewing away like a donkey.

"There's a difference between choosing not to act out of stupidity, not acting out of fear, and not acting out of brainwashing. While I would not rule out the first of these possibilities for listening to you in the first place this doesn't mean your crew hasn't succumbed to the latter two."

"Why should they live in fear? I give them protection and a place to be. As for brainwashing, I've said it once and I'll say it again, they come on their own accord. If they freeze themselves here it is their own fault."

"You justify your means by definitions and books, not by a perception of humanity." Delmaria sat upright in his chair, and smirked. "Though I suppose you could use the same reasoning as to the time when my crew cornered you on Padres and beat you out of your senses a few years ago."

Rott let the apple roll out of his hand and on to the table. "I'm glad to see you won't stop meddling in the past."

"I wouldn't be the same person if I didn't." Delmaria gave him a little smile.

"Damn right you wouldn't." Rott leaned in over the table and grabbed a piece of pork from the table, plopping it in his lap. "So tell me, Delmaria, how have things been going for you these past few months?"

"Better than expected. And I already know how you've been having it."

"Oh but you don't." Rott slipped piece after piece off of the slab of meat and in to his mouth with his dark, jewel encrusted fingers. "Even though the surface may be ridden in my own defeat, which I will except, I have been growing stronger below it."

"I very much doubt seventy men will allow you to control the Caribbean."

"But if I already had it on the edge with just ten, what am I capable of sevenfold?"

Delmaria fell silent. As much as he did not want to admit it, Rott was still a strong person, and with his unhealthy growth in numbers he only became more of a threat. He sighed, and changed the subject slightly. "What do you want, Rott?"

Rott slide back in his chair. "You can imagine I haven't had much organization over the past few years. The Brethren think because of this they own the Caribbean, but they are much farther from that goal than they could possibly imagine. All I want is to make it evident that our side of the battle is not dead."

"And to do so you are willing to terrorize as many innocent lives as possible?"

"That's the name of the game. Haven't you played it before?"

"I have." Delmaria began to stand up. "But I pride myself in knowing I don't anymore."

As Delmaria turned around and began to walk out of the tent, Rott called from behind him. "You know you'll never be able to kill me, Delmaria."

"I may not be able to kill you, but I can cut off your head. Sleep with one eye open, Rott."

"You too, my friend." Rott smiled, watching as Delmaria slipped through the flap in the tent. "Let the fun begin!"

[Lumos]

Lovin' it so far, Del! I suppose this is when the good stuff starts happening, so make it happen. Hahaha. But really, keep up the good work!

[Captain Del]

A new chapter for you all to read up on, this time minus a very long delay! (Though for a certain somebody it must of felt like forever!) Here you are, mates, as I present to thee:

Ladies in Tortuga

Where the pirates had first made landing at Raphael's Vineyard, the patch of land nestled in between the borders of the forest and the aisles of grapevines had been turned in to a makeshift war camp. Out of the ground grew numerous dirty-white leather tents that dusted up patches of rough ground as the wind whipped and sent up plumes of gas that drifted off in to the confines of the hilly jungle. Every box the pirates had brought from Tortuga was unpacked, every weapon distributed, and every man who was able bodied was put under a regiment of preparation for the worst. The tents were formed in a circle, one facing towards the jungle, two facing the sides, and the foremost, which served as the captain's tent, faced directly out in to the vineyard to keep from any foreign invaders sneaking up on the pirates when they did not expect it. Though, this was unlikely considering Rott's flaccidity when it came to making a first move.

The smell of fresh gunpowder and burning steel was the only scent one could pick up for the first few days, as Delmaria's need for over-preparation and captain-like instincts took a hold of his subconscious. Out of the thirty-two pirates that made up his militia, which was scarily half of Rott's forces, Delmaria made sure at least two dozens of them were awake and prepared to defend the camp at all times, while the others were either resting or training; lollygagging was something Delmaria played no parley to. He knew from experience, however, that no matter how large the force it did not matter the number of men as it was how well-trained they were. There were times when he had witnessed a single ship overthrow a British fleet because half of the crew was drunkards and the other half was inexperienced; with Rott's forces being doubled, and yet drug-induced, Delmaria was confident enough work could give him a substantial upper hand.

And while Rott was devouring linens of pork and smoked turkey, Delmaria ran about the tent provided for his needy organizational skills, though it quickly became as messy as his quarter's aboard his ship within the first few hours of his mumbling. All that he had requested to keep in his tent was the essentials he needed - a single wooden table 2 feet long and 2 feet wide, a chair (though he barely even touched it) and an old, crumpled map of the vineyard that they had bought from the cartographer before they had left town. It was old and weathered, probably drawn at the time of the vineyard's conception itself, but otherwise it was still accurate in portrayal, having changed little over the years. He quickly took a quill to mark down where he was, and where Rott was, and from there he mapped out every possible scenario in his mind as to either playing offense or defense.

What Delmaria prided himself with was how experimental and scientific he was when it came to understanding the physics of war. Whenever he came out of the tent his appearance was like that of a madman, his clothes messed and crossing over and his hat tipping ever-so-slightly over the brow of his forehead. He would look around and grab the first pirate he could find, and then subject him to numerous tests to which the other crew mates watched with a silent, hidden giggle out of the corner of their eye. When he needed to test how the narrowness of the grapevine aisles would affect his soldier's accuracy, he made a pirate run down one for his life while Delmaria fired pellets out of his pistol (the unfortunate "volunteer" walked away with a few grazes on his leg, but nothing more.) Another time, he wanted to figure how long it would take his men to storm down the lanes; so, after taking measurements of the camp in retrospect to the length of the farm on the map, he forced three of his men to run back and forth until they met the distance requirements, and then had six more groups repeat the same test. The enthusiastic look that came over his face looked like a scientist hatching the egg of an ancient monster thousands of years old, like all of his work was unraveling before him, even though it was only the beginning.

Though Delmaria knew even with science on his side, Rott was still full of potential surprises. Delmaria wanted security in both experience and numbers, so in the dead of the night just after he met with Rott he sent out the youngest and quickest on his convoy with a single piece of paper, that he demanded was to not be opened or lost until it was placed in to the hands of the bartender Johnny McVane. The boy seemed scared, being told to run out in to the jungles in the dead of the night by himself, which was a thing not even Delmaria did frequently. This is why before anything, he sat the boy down in his tent, and did the only thing he knew that would ail the situation: talk.

He sat the boy, not much older than thirteen, down in the wooden chair next to the chart table and knelt to the ground before him. He gripped the boy's knees. "Listen, mate," he said, but he watched as the boy's fair blue eyes drifted away from his. "Don't turn your head, now." Delmaria beckoned in a comedic, yet father-like tone. It was a voice he used very rarely, because he didn't like thinking of himself as a father - not anymore.

Slowly the boy turned to him. "Why me?" he hushed in a squeaky, timid voice.

Delmaria sighed and turned his head, before looking back. "If you want the truth of it, I'm a tad too scared to do it."

The boy lowered his head and whispered "You're not scared..."

"Now boy, just because I've done this before doesn't mean I'm not scared. There have been plenty times in my life I have been too scared to follow through with something, and I'm sure there will never be a day where I won't be afraid. But look at you, here in the thick of this mess at your age; that's true bravery, mate."

Delmaria could make out under the boy's shadow a small smile come across his face, one like you would give when somebody was doing their best to cheer you up; because, that's exactly what Delmaria was doing.

"Now listen here," Delmaria said, as he reached on top of the table and grabbed the small, burnt envelope. "I need you to run as fast as you can through those trees, and get this to the King's Arm. Just follow the path directly over the hills and back in to town - you think you can do that for me?"

It took a moment, but the boy nodded quietly. Without a word, he took the envelope and began to make his way out of the tent, and Delmaria followed avidly behind him. As he turned the corner of the tent he stood and watched as the boy began to walk off in to the forest; and listened as, without any sort of initiative or direction, the rest of the crew cheered and clapped for the boy in support, as he began to dart up the hill, and in to the distance.

Luckily the boy had reached Tortuga by the next morning, and Johnny heeded the words of the letter dearly. He almost immediately passed the position at the bar to his apprentice and ran up to his room, where he furiously took his quill to paper and began spreading the word of Delmaria's needs in the form of fliers that were pinned to every wooden post all over Tortuga. They were a personal plea from Delmaria to ask any and all capable pirate captain's to come aid in the approaching battle, and Johnny made sure he slipped a piece of paper to every man and woman who entered the bar - and of course, he made sure to pin them right over Rott's recruitment papers.

Though as they neared the end of the second week, it seemed that Tortugans stayed away from the papers and pieces of propaganda that lined the streets. Johnny was mesmerized, but he found out from a few tipsy frequents at his tavern that the only reason they strayed not was because they did not support Delmaria's effort, just they were too afraid to do anything about it. This angered Johnny, who was a very strongly opinioned person when you truly got to know him, and went on a rant about how "Not doing anything is just as bad as agreeing with the evils that are unfolding before us!" in the name of tacit agreement right in the middle of his tavern, which got him quite a few stares.

Though, Johnny's efforts did not go unnoticed. His rantings caught the ear of a quite jovial woman who happened to be passing the doors of the King's Arm while his rant went on, and she took joy in watching amusingly as he ran about with his ever-persistent rage. Even though she seemed to take it as a joke, she still kept in mind the seriousness of the moment and sucked it in like a vacuum, and when Johnny cried out at the end of his speech "Won't anybody listen to me!?" she raised her cap off her head with a chuckle, waving it around in the air.

And it was two days later, when Delmaria was sitting in his tent and scanning over his maps once more did he turn up to see her at his surprise, walking in with a few of her men in tow. She was a tall, strong-bodied woman, probably a few inches taller than Delmaria with her boots and all. She wore over a metallic-like dark black corset that came over the majority of her breasts a thick, black knee-length overcoat with a royal purple scrawling that curved upward like a dragon's claw up the sides, and then curving inward over the front of the coat to a stunning, almost royal design. Her legs were hugged by a deep, dark purple pair of pants with a silken shine, and her boots furred at the tops to give the illusion of a forest of prickled, yet soft spikes that bristled the skin at the touch. Her skin was tanned generously, but her shade did not match the deepness of her laughing, glittering brown eyes. And beneath a purple and blue feathered hat, elegantly turning upward at the left of her face, was her signature grin, showing just a sliver of her oddly white teeth.

"Well I'll be damned, look who it is!" Delmaria cheered, standing up out of his chair with a large smile on his face. "Safe to say I haven't seen you in God know's how long!"

"The pleasure is all mine." she smiled back with the tip of her hat as she stepped forward. Her voice was smooth like silk, yet seductively classy like the shine off of a porcelain statue, with the fine-tuning of a very light Portuguese accent at the tip of her tongue. She extended a hand with two purple rings sitting on her fingers opposite the middle, and Delmaria reached out, lifted it, and gave it a very soft kiss on the top of it.

"It's good to see you again, Lady Nayana." Delmaria said with a soft chuckle, to which they both giggled at their own inside joke.

As Delmaria patted the top of her hand and let her slip out, Delmaria gazed in to the glimmer of her eyes bouncing off of the candle light; and it took him back, just three years ago, when they had first met...

1

August 10th, 1722
The Ratskellar, Padres Del Fuego
10:11 PM

While many consider Tortuga the capital of piracy in the Caribbean, Padres Del Fuego is by far one of the most uncommunicative and social; meaning, its social circles are many, and the number of secrets it holds is vast. One such example is the Ratskellar; though the Ratskellar may seem as just a simple bar on its surface, many of the citizens and frequents in the bar have always failed to uncover the secrets that lay beneath its surface. Should you find yourself as part of an "inner circle" of a certain group of pirates, so to speak, they would allow you access to a hidden passage located behind a set of double-doors that sit in the back of the bar, which though may seem useless actually lead to a small tunnel that burrows underneath the tavern and in to a small basement-like area carved in to the dirt and rock that sits beneath the bar, leaving for a very ancient, rustic, and yet oddly homely feel.

Delmaria was one of these such people. He clapped with the joyfulness of a child as he slammed his cards down on to the table under the single lantern that hung overhead, and swept his arm across the table like a hawk's wing to sweep in the gold and personal affects that sat on top of the table, adding to the pile that sat directly to his left. The five other men who sat at the table, including Lawrence, who was doing his best to bluff against his own captain, moaned and groaned at the fact it was the third hand in a row Delmaria had swept through, and they were now becoming tired as their pockets became hollow.

"Easy now gentlemen. Just because you don't know how to hold your drinks and cards at the same time doesn't mean I'm guilty of anything." He taunted as he beckoned for the dealer to lay out the next hand, who rolled his eyes as he flipped the cards towards each of the pirates.

The lantern above them swung lightly as the noise and chatter from the tavern above pounded below, rocking the dull yellow light around the dirt enclave. The little hideout was like a hole in the ground, the size of a usual living room with a roof that curved like a dome, and the poker table sat directly underneath the highest point to provide the most amount of room possible. The outside of the room was lined with dirt-covered boxes and barrels that each contained bottles of stored alcohol, either aged or plundered to supply on the most high tier of pirates. Delmaria stood and walked his way over to a dark corner of the room where a grayish-green, open box sat, and he plucked out from inside a dark bottle of thick rum that swished around half-full as he examined it.

Just as he prepared to take a deep swig from the bottle, he heard a loud clacking of chains and wood from across the room. He turned his head, as did the rest of the room, to the small mouse hole where the tunnel led in to the room. A light filled the tunnel, most likely the one from upstairs, before it began to wither away and the loud bang of wood and chains closed again. Instead of the roar of cheers or hellos that usually came after the door opened, there was silence.

The room became tense as all eyes fell on the opening that waited there before the table. It was like a moment after you hear a noise in a house that has nobody in it but yourself; your body turns to stone as your lungs collapse in on themselves, under the pressure of overwhelming fear and anxiety. Though, they were not so much scared, as they were waiting for something to happen; after all, when you know something is going to happen, sometimes you would rather have it happen and deal with the consequences than let your imagination run at a fury. And this was exactly what happened to Delmaria; as more scenarios played out in his head, he snapped his fingers and motioned for the rest of his men to reach slowly for their guns.

As Delmaria reached the handle of his old, silver-plated pistol, he heard the rough sound of footsteps echoing against the dirt steps of the tunnel. His grip fastened quicker than he had wanted, and slowly he pulled out of his holster and extended his arm in aim towards the opening of the tunnel. He could make out a silhouette against the back wall of the staircase, and just as he saw the first tip of a shoe he wrapped his fingers around the trigger of his gun, and waited patiently as he rested his back against the wall.

Yet instead of a Navy brute forcing his way through the tavern, or a disgruntled enemy captain looking to settle a score, it was instead a fair-skinned girl, perhaps ten years younger than he. Despite her feminine beauty she wore very little makeup, far less than the women who lingered outside of the bar, and carried herself in clothing very much like a man's - a buckled riding coat, numerous vests and belts to push down her breasts, baggy sailor's pants, and a tricorne to which you could see the wisps of her hair falling down at the sides. She was trying to carry herself in the position of a male, tilting her head down to hide the female features of her face out of the candlelight and airing her coat out to hide her figure. It wasn’t fooling Delmaria; but it was fooling his crew.

“Eyo boy, who are you?” Minty McGingis called out from under the curly hide of blonde hair that was his beard. He scratched his dirty, red face with his black fingernails as he stared down the unfamiliar stranger in an unfriendly manner, like an old southern man sitting on a porch with a gun pointed right in your face.

“I am-“ the girl caught herself speaking in her normal tone, but coughed and continued in a deeper, testosterone-induced guise. “My name is Gaston.”

“Gaston?” Delmaria smirked, making a “I know you’re lying” sheen glisten over his eyes solely in the girl’s direction. She tipped her head, but Delmaria let it pass. “Have a seat, Gaston.”

Delmaria slipped back in to his seat, and slowly the girl awkwardly tip-toed over to the table and slipped on to the stool directly across from Delmaria, her body posture tight and closed with her cap still tilted over her head. Darkskull patted the dealer on the back, and as the cards were shuffled, Delmaria made conversation.

“We don’t play any fancy games around these parts, Mr. Gaston. We save the Pirates Dice and Up the Rivers for the formalities – down here, it’s just a group of us playing some good old poker.” Delmaria picked up his cards and chopped them on the table. “You know how to play?”

Another cough. “I’m not the best, but I know the basics.”

“Interesting.” Delmaria said. For his own amusement he was going to toy with her. “What’s your first name, Mr. Gaston?”

“Gaston.”

“Gaston Gaston is your name?” Delmaria tilted his head, chuckling.

“No, my first name is Gaston.”

“Then what’s your last name?”

“Gallivante.”

“Gallivante? Is that Italian?”

“No, it’-“

“I know lots of pirates that are Italian.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you!” Delmaria clapped, paying attention briefly to his hand to make out a King of Spades and a Jack of Hearts; adequate, though he wasn’t concerned with the cards as he was with the girl. “So what brings you to Tortuga, my Italian connoisseur?”

“I told you I’m not Italian!”

“My apologies, you’re obviously Sicilian.” He chortled. “So? What’s your business?”

“And more importantly, how did you manage to get in here?” Lawrence asked, leaning over the table with an eyebrow raised. Delmaria couldn’t tell if he was in on it or not too.

It looked like the girl started to open up more when Lawrence began speaking, as she quickly shot a small smile and then affixed herself. “I’ve come here looking for a few new crew mates of mine, as I have been doing every few months or so for the past few years. The gent at the bar is a friend of mine, get’s me my drinks for free; he figured if I was this frequent here that he would let me down here.”

Delmaria nodded slowly, moving a few coins on to the table as the pattern of the game began. “Tell you what, mate, I’ll make you a deal.” Delmaria motioned all around the table. “See these mates here? If you can beat me in this hand, they’re yours.”

The entire crew shot him glances of madness, and Lawrence, who was sipping his drink, backwashed in to his mug when he heard that and slammed it back on to the table, looking at Delmaria with a blank expression of anger and confusement. Before he could protest, however, Delmaria continued.

“BUT,” he interjected, “If I win, I want to see that fancy hat of yours.” he smiled devilishly.

Without a bit of hesitation, the girl smirked and beckoned forward, “You’re on.”

The other crew mates backed away from the table and watched in awe as the captain and the stranger went back and forth in meager conversation as they both tried to delay the game to convince their opponent to drop out. They chatted about things from crab shells, to the winds during the summer on Cuban beaches, to how hard it was for Delmaria to clean his ever-growing beard.

“Though, how do you shave such a monstrosity?”

“It does not so much grow as it does manifest. As long as there are no bird nests, I’m just fine.”

Their conversation had dragged on for about a half hour when the first card had slipped on to the table – a Jack of Spades. Delmaria kept his composure, however, and didn’t let her have the satisfaction of knowing what he was doing, regardless of bad or good – as much as he wanted her to fold, he wanted more of seeing her make it through the hand and then have her see defeat before her eyes. As two more cards fell on the table, a Ten of Diamonds and a King of Spades, Delmaria almost got the sense the hand was made for him, and slowly he rubbed his fingers against the cards.

Delmaria could see on the other end of the table, however, his friend was not doing so well. He could see a few drops of sweat pouring down her forehead, and like a hungry wolf he smiled with his teeth as he watched his prey become more and more uncomfortable under his gaze. She rubbed the back of her head, still balancing the hat gently on her head, and Delmaria’s urge to end the match and gain the satisfaction of revealing her true self pour over him. He gripped his fingers around the cards just a few more pushes tighter, tipped his hat up, took a swig of his rum, and then;

Just then a loud bang could be heard from the top of the staircase; but instead of the roar of the tavern filling in and then fading away; it was dead quiet, as though the tavern had been hushed. The heavy pound of footsteps led around the corner of the dirt staircase, and there in loose, blue, linen night-clothing, much like you would expect a lavished woman to sleep in, a tall Portuguese woman stormed down the steps and smacked the “girl” on the back of the head with an extreme force, letting the hat fall square off the top of her head – except, it wasn’t a woman, but moreover a man decked out in very shaded makeup.

“Dammit, Vincent! I told you to stop going through my stuff!” she yelled at him, grabbing him by the collar of the jacket and tossing him roughly back towards the staircase. He began to run with a giggle in his step, and as he rounded up the staircase she yelled to him “You’re lucky I don’t have you killed!”

She turned back to see Delmaria with a very big smile on his face, his eyes open, and her hat sitting neatly in his lap. “Nice crew mate you got there.”

“You could say that.” She huffed, with a smile on her face. “Name’s Nayana.” She extended a long arm and shook his, which also outreached.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~

“Delmaria?” the voice called back to him. Delmaria snapped out of his daydream to see Nayana waving a hand right in front of his face, her casual smile with a dash of intrigue on her face. “You daydreaming?”

Delmaria smiled, and rubbed his hand back over the map. “You could say that.”

[Lumos]

Love love love love love love LOVVEEE it. Hahahaha. You portrayed me quite well if I must say so myself. UPDATE SOON! Mesa wants to see what happens in this battle.

[Chalupa]

Lol, where is the like button?!?!! Very good story, can't wait to read more.

[Captain Del]

And a whooping 7,275 words later, I bring you all...

A Blow of Crisp Wind

September 9th, 1725
Raphael's Vineyard, Tortuga,
7:05 PM


The quiet sanctuary that was the night was ever-still this evening. The darkness was not a blanket over the sky as it was the mighty hand of God pressing down upon the atmosphere of the Earth, and by his force the air was so thick and opaque one could almost cut a knife through its buttery edges and watch as the wisps of pale white fog cut around it's blade like a piece of meat just gingerly peeling off a ham. Though, the fog itself was not which made the moment so heavy, but it was what enveloped the surroundings - the breaths and heaves of war.

There is a fine space between the forces of good and evil, just small enough to keep the two within an uncomfortably close distance of one another, yet far apart enough to lay the significant boundaries that set them apart - for every mountaintop village undisturbed in its natural beauty, there is a volcano punched up from the earth to which is known to its inhabitants; for every metropolis of culture and finery, there is a cave lined by the efforts of thieves and cutthroats. It is as if they are positioned just out of reach, in the farthest reaches of border, and deepest corner of the eye; only a very silent reminder of the eternal borders than divides the two worlds of one. Though there are exceptions in this defined law of chemistry, where the spaces of these two forces draw closer, building a powerful energy between the two opposing forces like evenly charged magnets, until they reach a disastrous climax when they collide.

This was such the case of Raphael's Vineyard, Tortuga, on this evening. The two forces of good and evil grew closer and closer together as the time of night disclosed by the two priests of their words came near; on either side of the field of vines, the crews prepared all necessities for their upcoming battle. A silent and sly, yet ominously present hand wavered over them, taunting them with the mounting pressure that overcame them as the time of midnight grew near, when Delmaria and Rott were to meet in the center of their battlefield. It gestured over their shoulder, to the open aisles of emptiness, blended by a thickening fog, that would act as their graveyard - and in the shadows of that fog, Death.

"I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." ~Revelation 6:7-8

And such was the passage that Delmaria read from the book the hours before, trying to find his place in the old, weathered text that glided beneath his hands. He knew Death had reserved his seat, but that seat had been vacant for over twenty years. Often he wondered not about what it would be like to die, or when, but what it was like to be Death. Was he alone as Delmaria imagined him to be? Drifting the earth under a black clock, aboard a green horse, it must have been incredibly lonely. Out of all the angels, he could not imagine the feelings Death would go through for being the one, forsaken by his own father to walk the earth and reap it's souls for all of eternity. It was a decision that he had no part in, most likely - and in this, Delmaria felt that he and Death had a very strong relationship with one another; that they would chase each other to the ends of the earth, and that when Delmaria's time comes, it would not be a bitter end, as it would be embracing an old friend. Delmaria and Death had much in common - maybe when they finally met, they could keep one another company.

But that would be saved for his future. Delmaria tightened a dark blue bandanna around his forehead, concentrating on preparing himself in the most convenient and reasonable manner possible. Underneath a layering of shirts he wore a chest made of mail links; though medieval, he felt any sort of extra protection would aid his cause. Over his coat the crew had smeared a heavy, oily liquor that coated over it's black leather surface, creating a layer of rubber that would repel any sort of light ammunition by bouncing it right off the surface. He tightened the small braids that hung from his deep black beard, making sure they would stay secure, and he tapped at a metal wingtip fastened on his boots with a small hammer to ensure that they would stay on the boots while he moved about. When he secured the last of his belts underneath his long coat and tipped his black, gold feathered hat just over his brow, he took a deep breath and turned himself towards Nayana, who stood halfway through the flap of the tent

"Is everything ready?" Delmaria asked, stepping forward as the sounds of the camp came to his ear.

She flicked her hat up over her view and leaned her head out in to the open. "Just about." she called over her shoulder. She turned around and stepped back in, gracefully moving the left side of her coat from in front of her back to her side. He caught a quick glimpse of what appeared to be dark brown, leather belt positioned just at the side of her thick black vest, to which hung an assortment of silvery, curved throwing knives. "The fog is getting denser, which isn't going to help the fact it’s growing late."

"No need to fret over that." Delmaria shook his head. "If we trained them well they can take care of that easily." he said as he passed her by, sticking his head out of the tent. Truth be told, it was worse than he had assumed; the fog prevented you from seeing more than forty feet in front of you, and the darkness that came over it from the night gave you the sense of standing in a cavern, minus the congestion. Luckily torches that were scattered throughout the tent allowed him to see the pirates working diligently to prepare themselves, shining their swords, cleaning their muskets, and any other last-minute necessities. He nodded and turned back in to the tent, where Nayana finished tightening the tie in her hair, and then tucked it back under her hat.

"I suppose I'll sacrifice some beauty for practicality." she chuckled, stuffing it back in and tightening her hat back on her head.

"That's one of the things I needn't worry about." he smiled, to which she giggled a little. Delmaria loved it when Nayana smiled, because her smile reminded him of his daughter's - to him, she was a second daughter of his own, and as such he was just as protective of her, though she wasn't aware of this. "Are you ready, my Lady?"

"I suppose so." she smirked, motioning him to step out of the tent.

As the crisp night air hit his face, Delmaria hit the ground running. He barked orders to his crew in a demanding tone, which sent them all rocketing out of their seats and off to gather everything that they had been assigned, like a flock of birds scattered by a single stray cat. As he waved his hand at a group of slower pirates sitting around a campfire before him, one of his men ran up to him as he furiously tied his bandanna over his dreadlocks. "Cap'n, we wait for your orders."

"Silent the torches and send the men up their respective aisles a minute after Captain Nayana and I make our way to the designated meet up point. I want them all crawling, and they should be in earshot of one another - the farthest up line within earshot of me, but just out of vision. I don't want Rott to take notice and kill us all."

"And for Dedman?"

Delmaria froze from his place at the mere mention of Jeremiah's name, and gave thought to the fact for the first time in a few days that he had existed. He had heard just last night that his condition was worsening by the hour, but Delmaria hastily shrugged it off and went to prepare for the battle. He realized now that this entire battle had started because of Jeremiah, and that he was essentially what they would be fighting for; not for Jeremiah himself, but that he stood as the symbol of dominance at this stage. Morbid that he was reduced to an item, indeed, but better than nothing. Still, he would not take chances; if he couldn't have him, nobody could.

"Keep Father Molony and a few of the men here with him. If Rott's men try to save him, they can give him a proper burial on the spot." Delmaria nodded, and with that the man hurried away, off to relay the message.

Moments later, Nayana reunited herself with Delmaria at the edge of the vineyard, the shallowness of their vision mired by the fog that weaved in and out of the holes in the grapevines. The ends of the aisles was all that could be seen, and then from there in faded off in to quiet, opaque wall of grey, like the passageway to another dimension of existence. They looked off in to the lanes, staring off in to space for a few moments in silence, before they slowly stepped forward, down the grass, and in to the abyss.

Not minutes after they stepped in to the fog and the sights of the camp faded behind them did the sounds of it go as well, like a heavy door shutting them out from the outside world. It was one of those rare moments when the atmosphere was not just quietly, but completely isolated - not even the whispering of the wind or the crinkling of wet grass beneath their feet could be heard. It was so still even moving a muscle felt like shattering the sanctity of a sacred place, but even as they moved forward nothing had changed. Their surroundings did not move, their breaths would not carry; it was as if they were frozen in time.

But then, just after a few minutes of walking, Delmaria caught eye of some movement off in the distance. It was faint at first, fading in and out between the clouds of mist, but Delmaria extended his arm out and stopped Nayana, who had not taken notice. She looked at him in oddity, but then followed his line of sight to where he was looking, making eye contact with it as well - a ball of dim yellow light, swaying back and forth by just a few feet behind the mist. It was not so much a center of light as it was the aura of something being swung side to side, and as it poked through the air it was revealed to be a lantern, covered in a brown, rusted metal. Attached to the lantern's old, rustic handle, was a dark hand, and running back from that hand was a dirty-green long coat that lead right up to the face of Captain Ezekiel Rott, pushing his way through the air.

He was accompanied by two of his lackeys - on one side of him, Ramona, and the other, a sharp-headed nitwit by the name of William "Bill" Barrett. As many who have met him would describe the experience, he was one of the most dim-witted people you could ever meet in your entire life; even the mere mention of his name brought the idea of stupidity to a man's head. He was known for being a nightmare to any captain who had the displeasure of having him aboard his ship; tipping over barrels, overloading cannons, and tearing the sails were one of the most common skills in his arsenal, though none of them were ever done on purpose. And to say the least, how he presented himself was an accurate reflection of his level of intelligence - his clothes, discolored with shades of purple, gold, and swamp green, were far too tight for his six-foot-eight, two-hundred-seventy pound physique, and his dirty blonde hair was shaven in most parts of his round, gargantuan head except for a broad strip running from the back of his head right to the top of his forehead. His face was pierced at the lips, nose, and chin with poorly-smelted pieces of bronze jewelry (though it was most likely they were simply pieces of shrapnel lodged in his face) and underneath his eyes sat two patches of scribbled tattoos in a blackish-red ink that ran down his cheeks. The only thing that kept you from laughing at him like the circus bimbo he is was the fact he was stronger than any man should naturally be, acting as Rott's own muscle at the lack of his own. It wasn't a surprise to Delmaria he had brought two arms to replace his own.

Rott stopped just as he and his convoy had come in to vision, and smiled as he placed the lantern down on the grass at his feet. "Good evening Mister Darkskull... Good evening Miss Nayana."

"Captain Ezekiel Rott," Delmaria sighed, tilting his head to the side a little. "It is under the jurisdiction of the Pirate Lords of the Brethren Court that I ask you to surrender you and your forces over to me. Should you accept a complete surrender....." Delmaria paused, rolling his eyes before he continued, "you and your forces will not receive any harm."

"Oh I'm afraid that this cannot be done, Captain Delmaria. However, should you and your forces surrender to Jolly Roger's Army, you will be met with the same equal treatment." Rott responded with a snip at the tip of his tongue.

Delmaria chuckled. "You and I both know that Jolly Roger is long and dead, Ezekiel. It isn't much of his army anymore, if anything."

"Ah, but just because he is dead does not mean that he truly is! Sure, the man himself is six feet under, but that does not out rule the fact that his spirit and beliefs still live on in us, his humble followers."

"I don't exactly find thoughts of mass genocide and restriction of civil liberties to be something worth dying for, Rott. I thought the only reason you had allied with Roger in the first place was for eternal life, though it's obvious by now that he's made promises he couldn't keep."

"Oh? And why has Mr. Dedman not lived up to his name, yet?"

"How do you know he's still alive?" an eyebrow raised as he spoke.

"Some of your men are not as loyal as you would like to believe, Delmaria. Money has far greater value nowadays than your words."

The thought of Delmaria's own men turning against him boiled his blood, but he kept his composure - breaking down in front of Rott would only make matters worse. "I will not let my men be defined by a few wicked seeds among us."

"No, but shall we allow it to define you?" Rott snickered. He stepped forward; his hands crossed behind his back, and made his way towards Delmaria and Nayana. Darkskull could feel her weight being offset by him coming near, but he placed his hand on her back and steadied her. He came up to them, and began walking around in a circle, like a fish watching his prey.

"Miss Nayana... quite the reputation you have in these waters for being a strong-handed woman... but what about your father? You could say he was quite strong-handed, as well, yes?" Rott sneered, whispering in to her ear as he came around her.

"Shut your mouth, Rott..." Nayana growled at him.

"And Mr. Delmaria, you didn't even have much of a father, now did you? I guess you could say he's in the same boat as your mother, now, though.."

"At least I didn't have my own brother killed before my eyes in cold blood."

"Yes, but you killed somebody much more important... your own son, Delmaria! And by your own, black hand!" Rott gripped Delmaria's right hand, but Darkskull took his left hand and slapped Ezekiel right across the face, sending him back at least ten feet swirling on his leg. Barrett jumped forward a little, but Ramona stopped him before he could run after Delmaria - not like he had flinched. He took pleasure in watching the blood writhe from Rott's mouth.

Rott shook his head to bring his senses back, before turning back to Delmaria. He chuckled deeply, and began to backpedal to his group. "It seems that we have both learned to disagree to the point where we can get nothing done other than insult one another." He stepped back with his two groupies, but continued walking backward, having them follow him. "If that is the case, then let the fun begin." he beckoned, and in an instant he was shrouded back behind the mist.

At last Delmaria knew that it was time. He wouldn't let Ezekiel escape this time, and that was his only thought as he drew his cutlass and yelled out in to the openness "ROTT! Don't hide from me!" with a rough overtone in his force. "ROTT! ROTTTT!" He screamed over and over again, waiting for Ezekiel to come back to him so he could for once fight his own battle. His blood pumped through his veins like a firehouse, but as the silence fell back over the field, he thought as though he had lost him once more. But he was proven wrong.

From the mist two small, iron balls chained together at the sides came spinning out of the air in a whirlwind and wrapped right around Delmaria's legs, pushing him back and off his feet. He flipped forward with an immediate, rocketing thrust, and caught himself on his hands just as his torso came within inches of the ground. It was like he was hit by a truck, his body far from where his mind was, and as he waved his arms around and tried to find where he was his mind focused back on where he was and what was around him - and the group of men running towards him.

Nayana whipped the side of her coat over and grabbed three small, three-inch knives from the belt that hung at her waist and flicked her wrist, sending them off one at a time towards each of the men that made their way towards Delmaria. The first made contact to the foremost's neck the second to his thigh, and the third to his stomach, stopping each of them in their tracks and sending them to the ground. She moved herself forward and grabbed another just as the second man began to stumble back to his feet, waving his pitchfork over his head, and sent it at just ten feet away straight in to his left eye, where a river of blood gushed out as it collapsed on itself as he did. She slid to her knees and began untangling the chains around Delmaria's ankle, but as she did more of them began to file out of the abyss, towards her.

"GO, GO! I've got it!" Delmaria shouted, gripping his cutlass and waving her towards the fight. She nodded, brandishing her thick, shining broadsword from under her coat and jumping over his crumpled body to repel the invaders. Delmaria gripped his hands around the iron chain between his ankles and slowly unraveled the clumped mess of heavy links until he freed his leather boots from their clutches, tossing it off to the side and then rolling over to grab his cutlass, which had moved just a few inches from his side. On his knees, he turned back up to the battle, where Nayana fought valiantly against five men who had managed to swarm around her in a circle, picking at her with their sabers, knives, and farmer's tools.

He stormed up to his feet and cut down the first man who stood with his back to him in ignorance, sending his blade across his back from shoulder to pelvis and leaving a rain of blood slowly trickling down his back before he gripped him by the shoulder and tossed him back behind him. He then flipped his cutlass over his side and nearly jutted it right in to the jaw of the next soldier, but he had luckily moved downward and jumped back before the golden blade could make contact with his bone. He took note of how skinny each of the men they had encountered thus far were so skinny, and thusly lean enough to be quick and agile - Rott had been starving them for a reason.

Delmaria lined his back up against Nayana, and he could feel the satisfaction perpetuate from her as her chest gave out a light breath of relaxation. They pushed on to one another and spun around in a circle, allowing Delmaria to catch one of the soldiers stepping out of line and quickly kicking his leg out from under him, sending him to the floor and then making two quick cuts across both of his knees to keep him there. When Delmaria left her backside Nayana pushed off and ran at the two before her, planting her heel in the ground and spinning her blade with her over her head before chopping it down before the two men in front of her. Their weapons - one held a shovel chiseled to the point, and another a thin, bent rapier - were knocked back with a superior force, which allowed Nayana to dig her sword underneath and cut them both across the fronts of their bodies with a single diagonal cut from bottom left to top right that left them both whimpering in pain as their grabbed for their afflicted wounds. The last of the five was taken care of by Delmaria, who had managed to grab a hold of his arm and cut right across his elbow with a decisive, miserable slash that cut through a thick tendon in the soldier's arm.

But as Delmaria turned back towards where his foes had spawned, he could tell more were on their way as their silhouettes began to poke through the fog. They came all at once, and in numbers much too overwhelming for two combatants no matter how powerful they were. Delmaria turned back towards the emptiness, and just by chance he caught a pair of two blue eyes hiding underneath one of the grapevines, sparkling like gems in the immersive sea of water droplets. One of his men had been watching in silence, waiting for his orders; but now, as Delmaria's eyes foretold, a verbal command was not needed.

Within seconds a ring of battle cries flowed through the air, with the ominous scent of gunpowder flooding back in to Darkskull's nose once more. Long lines of bullets cut through the air like hot knives through butter in the aisles opposite of Delmaria's side, sending down groups of Rott's men to the floor with a vicious thud. The grapevines were lit alive with a fierce, smoldering fire that ran along the lines of the plants, and a thick black smoke rose in the sky to replace the darkening grey above them. Their surroundings became as light as day, and before him Delmaria saw the faces of about thirty-five men and women in his lane alone; all lanky, dirty, and poorly armed, yet still they prided themselves with a face of ferocity and blood lust. And to his back, Delmaria could feel an equally driven presence, running forward with the stampeding of leather on dirt and the swishing of weaponry being raised in the air.

Delmaria gripped Nayana by the forearm and tossed her under the flames of one of the grapevines, rolling her under in to a less crowded aisle and then following behind her as the waves of pirates clashed in a heap of battle behind them. By the time he had squeezed himself through the vine Nayana had gotten her hand in to chopping down the soldiers who had unluckily passed by as she made her way through, by laying on her back and stabbing them upward one by one. As she cleared the third and final soldier in her immediate path, Delmaria had jostled up to his feet and wrapped a sturdy hand around her armpit, tugging her up to the ground and moving her in a walk opposite the direction they had come from.

“Rott?” she panted.

“Aye.”

They trucked their way down the aisle, avoiding the walls of vines as the fire crept through the fog along them like a massive serpent intertwined in the branches. They pushed aside any of Rott’s men who ran past them, but as they proceeded downward farther and farther and the emphatic roars of the weaponry and screams from the main part of the battle, the more unopposed they became. Their senses fell from the constant battery that they had succumbed to – the fog rolled gingerly back to their vision in it’s easy, peaceful fashion, the crisp smell of the wet leaves with a tint of the smoke from the expanses of land behind them just whispering under the tips of their noses. Their ran came back down from a run, to a steady walk.

Just a few moments after they slowed their pace, Delmaria stepped his foot in to what he realized to be Rott’s old war camp, now completely silent in the wake of his soldier’s march forward. The vapor of the moisture in the air was accompanied by a wicked companion – it was the exposure of the wicked. It wasn’t the atrocious scent of pig blood or sweat that lingered in the air so much as it was the very presence of an overturned evil, moved forward to offset the world from its balance. It left the place spinning and unstill, though the desolate closure of space was really not moving at all – tables and crates were left in a standstill in awkwardly thrown positions, the grass was pleated and meshed with the pounding of a horde of boots, and the lanky, thinned bodies of a few of the soldiers who had failed to survive through Rott’s test was piled up in the corner – appropriately next to the corner where wastes were displaced.

As Nayana and Delmaria stepped in to the confines of the camp, the flap of Rott’s tented moved itself over to the side with a large, tan hand. Underneath it stepped Ramona, and then following behind was Barrett, both of them making a quite rude facial expression as they met eye contact with the pair – though it seemed like they were expecting them.

“Where’s Rott?” Delmaria demanded, stepping forward with his hand clenched around the hilt of his sword.

“Captain ain’t heyur no more.” Bill muttered out in his monotone, lurching voice. “He gone off outta here.”

“Shows how much your captain really loves you if he leaves you here to die.” Nayana jabbed with the flick of her eyelash.

“I’m sure that he loves us more than any man has ever loved you, Miss. But it would be stupid for him to stay behind and risk his life out on the battlefield when he has more importantly places to be at the moment.” Ramona turned her head to Delmaria. “I’ll be the first to admit to you; he is known for his brains, not his grit.”

“I would think a pretty face like yours wouldn’t be left behind either without a purpose, though? It seems we’re fated on the same plane once more, Ramona.” Delmaria edged his cutlass

“If I have to lay my neck on the line to allow him to survive, so it be.” Ramona smiled. She rested her hand up on Bill’s shoulder, and patted him so that he could draw his dopey eyes to a wink bouncing off hers. It was obvious that Delmaria wasn’t going to be getting his wish of fighting Rott alone – not tonight.

Bill let out a brutish scream and slammed his feet in to the ground, running at a charge with his hands in fists towards Nayana and Delmaria. Delmaria pushed Nayana over to the side and drew out his sword, but as Barrett came forward he knew that it would be unable to do much of anything. He raised it off to the side and tried to chop down before him, but Barrett stopped a few inches too early for the blade to reach him, and instead lunged out as the blade passed him and gripped Delmaria’s hand with an anaconda-like grip. His tight, meaty fingers wrapped around Delmaria’s forearm with intent to crack the bone, but Barrett was already preparing to knock Delmaria with a clear shot across the head with his other hand. He clenched his opposite hand and took a swoop at Delmaria’s head, but the pirate dropped to his knees and Barrett’s swing just skidded the top of his hat, knocking it clean off his head.

Nayana reached back in to her coat and fished out a sharp, curved dagger with a golden brown hilt, but as she darted back towards Barrett, Ramona came down on top of her from the side and knocked her to the ground with a hard kick from her boot, sending the dagger out of her hand and in to obscurity. Delmaria finished for his cutlass in his left hand while he rested down on his knee, but Barrett shot his hand back down like a raven on to his back – Delmaria was sure that he heard at least one bone crack. His body trembled under the shock of his power, and at last Bill let go of his grip and let Delmaria hit the floor with a thud.

Ramona jumped on top of Nayana, hunching over her body and delivering a stern punch to Nayana’s face. Guerra brought her other hand around to move back in for another hit, but Nayana caught her fist and tossed it back with a thrash, then violently tossing her body over so Ramona would fall over on to the side. Guerra rolled across the grass a few yards from Nayana, who jumped herself back on her feet and threw her coat down to give her easy access to the weaponry latched across her torso. What she revealed was an arsenal of knives, small pistols, and shortblades, but she ignored them and went for her broadsword, pulling it out and waiting for Ramona as she too stammered to her feet and pull out her blade.

Barrett circled around Delmaria a few times, watching as the pirate lay there in a broken pain on the soft mud ground. Droplets of rain began to shoot through the mist like bullets at an increasing rate, bouncing around in puddles that formed in rivets in the ground that almost made it seem like the camp was becoming a set of sandbars in the middle of an inch-deep ocean.

“C’mon boy, get’up!” Bill called to Delmaria. The pirate still laid there motionless, a crumpled piece of paper just laying face down on the floor. Barrett became anxious, hoping that his prey would put up more of a fight. Though, it seemed he had knocked Delmaria cold with only a single blow, to which he patted himself on the back. He walked forward to claim his prize with a smile on his face, and grabbed Delmaria by the back of his coat, lifting him off the ground.

Delmaria then flung a handful of thick, brown mud straight in to Barrett’s face, enough to rocket up his nostrils and dig underneath his eyelids to blind him in a goopy mess. Delmaria wriggled free of his assailants grip and ran for his cutlass, sliding gingerly across the wet ground until he picked it up by it’s cold blue grip. He turned back as Barrett bumbled around the campground before he finally washed the mud off his face, and then moved back towards Delmaria once more.

Ramona jumped forward with her light black sword and cut down on top of Nayana, though she easily pushed Ramona away by the stature of her blade. When Guerra rebounded to swipe quickly at the side, her blade misjudged it’s landing and hit one of the daggers latched to Nayana’s side, acting like a piece of armor that clanging as metal met metal. Nayana stepped away and flung her sword in a turn that nearly topped at Ramona’s head, but she ducked underneath it in to the puddle and swiped at Nayana’s ankle, making a very light cut on the front of her pants. She disregarded it, however, and marched forward as she took through a few light chops (as light as possible with a broadsword) to keep Ramona scooting back across the wet ground before she finally spun around and ran back a few feet to gain her balance.

A nearby barrel that sat by the side of Rott’s tent became subject to Barrett’s arsenal. He grabbed the sturdy oak container, raised it above his head with little effort, and chucked it as hard as he could over him. It bounced the ground just once before it landed near Delmaria, but he shuffled to the side and ran as fast as he could up to Barrett, running right at his side and jutting out his sword to an attempt to make an impact. The cut ran about an inch in to Barrett’s side, but because of his thick, blubbery skin it wasn’t nearly as painful as it would be to a normal-sized man. Still, blood began to run down to his hip, and he limped everso slightly when he turned around to catch eye of Delmaria already making another cut in to his leg.

Barrett shrieked in not pain, but anger as he saw another drop of crimson run down from the cut that ran across the side of his left thigh. Delmaria’s way of fighting was not meant to overpower his opponent – moreover, to tire them to the point they can no longer go on. He remembered the nights in Tortuga when he was much younger where he had lost almost everything he owned in a fight because he tried to overpower somebody the same weight as he; in the end, it came down to who was able to work the other one down enough to deliver a final blow, and suffice to say, that was not Delmaria. He had learned his lesson from there.

But as Barrett became frustrated with his body becoming less and less efficient at squashing the “pest,” he swiped his hand in front of Delmaria and then made a dramatic turn in a dash towards the entrance to Rott’s tent. He quickly darted inside with a light whimper mixed underneath heavy grunts of hot breath, and Delmaria made his way after him.

Nayana clapped a set of small knives from her belt and tossed the first one just as Ramona struggled to gain her balance in the patch of slimy mud positioned beneath her boots. She managed to duck her head underneath the first, and then flicked the rest of them away like flies with incredible accuracy by blocking them with her thin yet stern blade. Even Nayana was impressed with how Ramona handled her blades, but that was due to a lack of prior knowledge of her foe to begin with.

While Rott worked the crowds, and Barrett and Dedman served as his “campaign managers,” per say, Ramona was tasked with the jobs away from the spotlight. The reason many people had never heard of her name was because of her incredibly elusive behavior – and, because she did her job correctly. Need it be scoping out an area of interest, infiltrating other bands of pirates, or simply taking down a threat to Rott’s “image,” she used her extreme flexibility with both body and words to carry out each of her objectives efficiently, and without much attachment. Her blades were as swift and sharp as her words, based on experience since an early age.

But in this case both women of experienced backgrounds met in a gridlock of battle. Ramona whirled her sabre in a spiral filled with twists in turns so random and elaborate she was convinced Nayana would become lost in its dance. But as she broke her blade away and feinted it towards Nayana’s side, she quickly punched the sword away with hers and spun back around to try and behead Guerra. The broadsword again nearly cleared her of her head, but this time she was close enough to slip a dagger down from the strap on her bicep and jabbed it right in to Nayana’s calf.

The Lady of Tortuga hobbled back a few inches, trying to work out the pain, but it became too much for her body to bare and from instinct it collapsed on itself. She fell on her back on to the mud, smearing her entire body with splatters and wipes of goop. Ramona flicked a dagger just as Nayana’s body pounded off the ground and it landed inches from where she had targeted, in to her shoulder – she had aimed for the neck. Nayana shrieked in pain, pounding her hand on to the ground as the rain fell harder and harder down on to her body.

Ramona walked up to her prey with the pleasure of watching it squander in its own filth and revilement. “Poor baby girl.” She shook her head, toying with her sabre in her hand. She taunted Nayana with a smile as the pirate looked up her with utter disgust through her suffering. “If only your father had loved you just a little bit more.”

As Delmaria approached the flap of Rott’s tent, he was knocked back by the sudden appearance of a flat, wooden surface that mowed him underneath Barrett’s feet like a truck. Bill had taken the table from inside the tent and used it as a ram, plowing it straight in to Delmaria and then fumbling over him like a baboon. The sheer shock and force of the blunt surface left Darkskull with a numbing, pounding pain in his chest and his head that made it grievous for him to even attempt at sitting up, but he knew that he had to.

The battle had finally worked its way back to Rott’s encampment. His forces proved to be quite the match for Delmaria’s well-trained militia, but their agility couldn’t keep them from running back for long from the bullets that grazed through the vines. Both forces came running back in depleted numbers, drastically torn apart by the fierceness of the short battle that had been taking place – 15 men from Delmaria’s crew, and 27 from Rott’s still remained standing, but just barely as the hot rain burned holes where the cuts in their clothes and skin wallowed in between streaks of dirt and linen. They had been fighting straight through even as Rott’s forces fell back to the camp, and now as the lines of men poured back in to the openness it returned to its full swing; matches between man on man and group on group reformed, blood trickled back down from wailing foreheads at the same graphic pace, and the stillness that once lingered just outside of the battle around the four pirates had now been pushed completely outside.

And the fires came, too.

It seemed that now every grapevine that surrounded the tent was consumed by a nipping, fierce fire that bit at every little fragment of human being that came near. The battle became illuminated in a bright, crimson-orange light that cornered them on all sides, like the lights of a massive arena breathing down with all its fierceness on a single point. The fog lifted to reveal a scene of gruesome horror in its most fulfilled form; a painting not yet finished now landscaped out before you in all of its greatness and demony.

“In this time that we have here left on Earth, it is that we hope to make the best of our lives. Know that in taking your life, I do it not out of personal hatred – you simply crossed my path on the road to happiness, with intent to stop me in my tracks.” Ramona weaved her blade like a snake as she pointed it’s elongated tip right at the base of Nayana’s neck.

Barrett screamed with pleasure as he beckoned to soldier’s from his side with his table, showing it off almost like a trophy as the weapon that he intended to use to smite Delmaria. Darkskull planted a foot in to the ground, and struck his sword at his side to use as a cane to help himself up. Barrett bounced up and down with glee, seeing Darkskull’s pain, and waited eagerly at a distance to perform his strike one more time to send Delmaria to a chilling, dark sleep.

“Whenever you see your father again, please tell him thank you for exploiting your weaknesses for you. It made it so much easier on me.” Ramona grinned as she pulled back her sword. “See you in hell.”

Barrett charged at Delmaria with all the power his massive body could push, and with all his two-hundred seventy pound weight he leaned against the table as it came down upon the old captain’s beaten body. And as he came within inches of Delmaria, he saw a flash of gold metal cut up from its stick in the ground and hide itself behind his mount; by the time he had realized, it was too late.

And again Barrett let out a bloodcurdling yell as he tried to get his arms to push the sword-shacked table off of his body. The blood that spurted on to the bottom of the table bounced off and washed down with the rain in to the puddles below, brown mixing with red to form a blackish-crimson pile of muck. The sword’s hilt just barely made contact with the table that was now impaled directly to Barrett’s chest, and with a final heave he fell backward, allowing the legs of the table to hit the ground first, snap, and then close over him like a burial blanket.

Ramona turned in shock as her pack mule fell to the ground, and she let out a horrid scream. Though some would say that it was two consecutive screams instead of one prolonged one; one to signify her distraught in Bill’s sudden and unpredictable death at what may has well have been David’s slingshot, and another to express her own pain in the dagger that Nayana freed from her collar bone and stuck in to the back of Guerra’s neck.

And with the blow of a crisp wind, Ramona’s body splashed in to a puddle of crimson red before her; the last of Rott’s men, bested by the eight pirates that still stood tall from the battle, chopped to bits by their overpowering presence; and the hush of the sizzling fire as the downpour of rain quieted the charred remains of the grapevines.

And with the blow of a crisp wind, the vineyard fell silent once more.

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

Some important news, mates!

From now on my story is going to be posted somewhere else, where I will be able to type this more freely. If you would like the link to where the story is, just message me, but as of now this is the last story update that you will see on this thread! The new location will pick up from this point.

Thanks, mates!

[Lumos]

Once again, EXCELLENT update!! I love reading this story.
Tis quite interesting if I must say so myself! You are quite the writer, Mr. Darkskull.

I am curious to see what happens next and if Delmaria ends up killing off Rott or not.
Also, I am veeerrry interested in hearing more about Delmaria's background.

Now I shall go back to nagging you to update again. So... UPADTE ASAP. K? k.

[Robert Ironcastle]

Could you send me the site link by PM?And quite the story Del.Rott's forces were savaged.

[Captain Del]

.....and on....

Spoiler for City of Thieves [Continued]:

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."

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

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!

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

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."

And there you have it! Hopefully after all of that you've finally caught up with me story, and now we're reading to continue on with the adventures of Delmaria Darkskull!

[Captain Del]

It took nearly two months, but I finally finished it! Here you are mates, as I present to thee:

The Battle of Tortuga

Beneath the commonality of Tortuga laid a new blanket of distrust and deceit, having been woven just after Delmaria's conversation with Reverent had ended. They parted their separate ways for the time being, agreeing to follow through with their plans and contact one another on the evening before their advance was to be made. Both of them realized the urgency of the matter before them, and neither of them wasted any time in preparing for what would unfold before them.

That evening Delmaria made a stop around every tavern in Tortuga, approaching every bartender and demanding the name and location of every pirate captain who was patronizing the tavern on that particular evening. He made his way across every floor of every bar and made quick conversation with every pirate who wasn't too drunk or too disgruntled to speak with him. Each conversation started with the same statement that no pirate ever wanted to hear; "The Crow's Nest calls."

In technical pirate language, "The Crow's Nest calls" was a dreaded term used only during times of dire need, often enacted by a pirate of higher standing within a particular port. In the most basic of senses it "translated" to "The Brethren is in need of your assistance," a question that many pirates did not like hearing simply because it implied that they were being called forth by an organization many pirates did not take heed to. Even with war being declared against pirates through declaration of war against the Brethren Court, many pirates thought that the idea of a government leading freebooters was detrimental to the very cause of being a "free"-booter.

Delmaria was one of those pirates for many years, in fact. Only when Leanne had awarded her Piece of Eight to him did he feel a connection with the Court, and even then did he feel more obligation than honor. On numerous occasions he had even gotten in to bar fights, duels, and ship battles with Brethren recruiters and captains for passing along the phrase to him that he was now passing along to others, but now he actually understood the purpose of this call.

Unfortunately many others had still not grasped the concept. The reactions to his call often came within the first few seconds of the conversation, and ranged from spits of alcohol and repeated jeering towards Delmaria to full-on rants against the authority of the Brethren, many of which often garnered applause and cheers from the pirates that were in the vicinity of them. Even as Delmaria tried to call out his side of the argument, trying to spread awareness of what was to come, none would listen to him.

Only a small portion of the pirates who Delmaria approached listened to him, and luckily those who did often in majority agreed to come and aid the Brethren. In total, from the twelve taverns he visited and the four-dozen pirate captains he spoke to, only ten of them were prepared to fight for the Court; a sad number in perspective, but it would have to be made due.

Within that night a campaign was run across Tortuga just as before. Doctor Grogan worked tirelessly throughout the night (Delmaria had paid him a substantial amount of gold to close his shop early for the night) creating a myriad of fliers calling forth pirates to attend a meeting within the King's Arm tavern the next afternoon, and directly after he finished Delmaria himself went around Tortuga and nailed the posters to every corner of Tortuga; the faces of taverns, shops, streetlights, market stands, dockyards, and even resting a few against the torsos of pirates left drunk out in the middle of the streets to wallow in the mud with the pigs. Meanwhile, the King's Arm was flooded with pirate volunteers who worked furiously throughout the night to clean the destruction in the tavern as quickly as possible, so that it would look mildly presentable even for rag-tag scallywags.

That morning as the Navy patrols began to walk the streets, pirate patrols followed. Every time a poster was taken down, another almost immediately took its place. Every time a Navy soldier shot a glance, three were shot back at him. And every time a Navy soldier so much as came within twenty yards of the King's Arm, whose doors were guarded top and bottom by the burliest pirates Darkskull could get his hands on, every able gunman motioned towards his pistol. Even without any violence, the tension that grew throughout the day as each side became more and more aware of his enemies' movements grew.

In the Town Hall of Tortuga, which had been renovated in to the Navy's base of operations, (and still lacked an official Governor months after Anne's death) British soldiers ran each and every way across the floor scrambling to keep up with reports of "increased pirate activity" that had been flooding in to the hall since earlier than morning from peeved citizens, worrisome spies and traitorous pirates looking for a form of immunity. Navy investigators lined up every "eyewitness" and questioned them one by one, trying to see what they could gather to secretly stack up information against the Brethren forces conjugating throughout Tortuga. Little did the Navy know, however, that Delmaria had taken the initiative of sending fake informants to flood the information lines and pass along false information, from telling the Navy that the Brethren's hideout was in the middle of the jungle to saying the pirates were stacking up supplies of pastries in the cargo holds of British cargo ships.

Ezekiel Rott hung over the banister of the Town Hall's second floor, draped in none other than Anne Bonny's old Governor's coat. Originally the heavy, fiery gold coat was designed for a man; she would throw it over herself like a blanket and wrap it around her using a long piece of cloth that she would use as a belt. She always kept it in the finest condition as one of her proudest possessions - now it sat on the shoulders of the least deserving man in Tortuga, smeared in dirt and food stains and reeking like pigs blood.

He twirled in his right hand a single gold coin that he had been rubbing in between his fingers for hours on end. His eyes were cold, and moreover angry at what he saw before him. He had anticipated that by now the floor below him would be covered in legions of men bowing and tipping their hats before him, not running around in their own chaos because of a few men that he had spent the past year trying so desperately to swipe under the rug. Not only had Delmaria managed to destroy the highest form of order within Rott's army, but he had made a mockery of him over the course of that entire summer, constantly wiping away effort after effort of attempting to gain a footing. Rott knew he wasn't the only man in the Caribbean; and he didn't like it.

"Sir," the reporting Officer (the one who Delmaria had so kindly punched in the face, and now had a bandage wrapped around his nose to prove it) shuffled his way to Rott's side after running up the stairs, sweat breaking on his forehead, "we've gotten fifteen more reports of pirates putting up fliers up and down Main Street. Shall we send a battalion to the King's Arm?"

Rott turned as quickly as his blood rate shot up from sitting on a stack on unbridled anger. "I'd rather not given the fact I don't want another one of my group soldiers single-handedly having their asses handed to them." he stepped back and looked back down at the masses in the parlor of the hall, throwing his coin down to the first floor with a careless flick of the wrist. He turned around and began to walk down the hallway leading to the Governor's office, calling over his shoulder "Keep the reports flowing and keep those soldiers away from that tavern. If Delmaria's smart, we'll hear from him first."

And sure enough, they did; later that afternoon as dusk began to break over the horizon, a single messenger was sent to the Town Hall with a message from Delmaria in hand - the very boy who Delmaria had spoken to just before the battle at Raphael's Vineyard. The boy walked quickly through the main street, cautiously ignoring the turning of every heard in Tortuga as he went forward. Rott, much as he had anticipated, stood at the doors of the Town Hall and snatched the note out of the boys hand as he approached:

Mister Rott,

It appears that both of our paths have unfortunately converged not side-by-side, but head on, resulting in a collision course that perhaps both you and I have anticipated for quiet a while. We have both attempted to prolong this in as many ways possible - or perhaps just simply you have - but never the less it seems the time has come.

Perhaps you're anticipating that your forces will smother me as you had so desperately hoped only a week ago. And in good reason; your troops are well-trained, your munitions are plentiful, your swords are sharper, and essentially you control the ground we walk on. But unfortunately, I hate to note to you, 'Governor,' that you're sitting atop an empty thrown.

As you have before, you clearly underestimate the ability of such a 'unruly' port. What we have is something you will never be able to attain, nor understand; we hold the courage of thousands of legions, and the spirit of a million men. Your guns and your munitions are dangerous, yes; but there is nothing more dangerous than an idea whose time has come.

~ Delmaria Darkskull

At the very second he closed the letter Rott's fingers enveloped angrily around the parchment, squeezing it so hard in his palm it looked as though he was trying to wring the ink right out of it. He threw the letter to the ground and abruptly turned around to retreat back in to Town Hall, where he brought life back to the scene through loud, rampant yelling.

The King's Arm, on the contrary, needed no push to be energetic. It had been transformed in to a military headquarters overnight, with pirates flowing freely in and out of it's doors as they were sent out on different, individualized orders across Tortuga as Delmaria furiously threw his plans together. He sat at a table in the center of the tavern covered in a gigantic map of Tortuga with letterings and markings lining every inch of the street plan, and from there he would bark quick orders at every pirate who came to the table looking for work. The tables that circled around him were lined with all different sorts of weaponry, ranging from blunderbusses, to cutlasses, to bows and arrows. Once again, anything that could be used as a weapon was put to use, and the Brethren hurried to evade Navy patrols across town as they tried to gather weapons.

It seemed as though as the day progressed the shift towards battle became more and more apparent. The townspeople who were the most exposed to gossip (mainly store clerks and socialites) were the first to flood the general supply stores and strip them of all the wood they could get their hands on. Warehouses were broken in to and stripped, dockyards were left bare, and even pieces of driftwood washed away by the wrecks of old ships lining the outskirts of the swamp (unfortunate vessels that had drifted too far from the port) were salvaged for anything that could be used to board up windows, doors, and any easy gates to the havoc that would be unleashed.

Some also chose to take it up a notch. Tortuga's bay in the late afternoon was crowded with ships of all sizes fleeing towards the small channel that opened up to the sea. They were mainly merchant vessels, not too connected with any place in particular so that it was easy to flee and island if need, and smart enough to know what came from battle, no matter the outcome, was looting. Other vessels were simply family-owned ships as small as rowboats that hoped to seek refuge from the destruction, even if that meant spending the afternoon maneuvering around waking waters filled with war ships. Some would flee as far as the surrounding islands; some would simply sail to the other end of the bay and hope fires did not rip across the island; only the smart ones, often the pirates who had turned down the opportunity to fight, kept their ships in the middle of the bay and waited for after the battle when the spoils would be ripe for the picking.

Ironically that day was the first time in years the Tortuga jail was actually used. Even though Delmaria and Rott had both threatened the Navy to not enforce any violence against the Brethren who ran around the port, many back alley arrests occurred in hopes of enforcing the Navy's previous calls against Brethren propaganda. The jail was flooded with pirates, many who found themselves being in jail for the first time - and many whose anger only erupted as they were shoved behind bars. The screaming, violence, and riots the jail guards had to put up with allowed for Retavick to have enough time to toss all of his finery in to the sewers bellow his cell, and caking the trap door over with a layer of cement to tragically hide the evidence.

And in the City of Thieves itself, the mobilization of a war effort was just as notable, if not more. Reverent stood in his same post at the center of the city as he watched barrels of gunpowder, munitions, rum, and anything that could cause an explosion worthy of wiping out an entire island being rolled around as quickly as possible like giant boulders thundering down the side of a hill. He smoked a box of cigars that he held against his side, a giant grin on his face.

"You seem to be proud of the little operation you're running here." were the words that caused Delmaria to nearly topple out of his chair amidst his frustration and anxiety. He turned around to see Nayana making her way from the back door of the King's Arm, weaving her way through the pirates sprinting back and forth across the tavern.

Delmaria rose to his feet and greeted Nayana with a hug; she was one of the few people he ever greeted with such a manner. "And tell me that you enjoyed your few days travelling through the forests while I was here dealing with all of this?"

Nayana rolled her eyes and strolled past him back to the map. "Hardly. You would imagine that those out in the 'countryside' would take us in, but word travels quicker than we had anticipated. We headed back to Tortuga practically right after you did."

Delmaria joined her, looking back over the map. "And where's Maudie?"

"Enjoying her time getting herself settled on a ship far away from port." she turned to Delmaria. "Right now my Shark is making it's way out of port so it doesn't fall victim to the looting spree that will ensue shortly after all of this passes over, and suppose your ship should do the same."

Delmaria shook his head. "An open dockyard is all it would take for Rott to make a nice, clean exit. I'm not letting him leave Tortuga a free man, let alone an alive one."

Nayana sighed, taking a seat in the chair Delmaria had been sitting in. "Del, perhaps if you were not so bent on killing Ezekiel you could focus yourself without as much cloudiness in your mind."

Delmaria sighed. "There isn't a night that goes by where I don't regret killing Rott when I had the chance. All I had to do was just... push..."

"You didn't do it because it was the right thing to do, Delmaria. It's not your fault you have honor and he doesn't. He surrendered himself to the Brethren, and took advantage of it when you stepped down; at least you had the dignity to not kill him then and there, even if his parley was false."

"This time won't be so easy for him, I assure you." Delmaria ran his fingers over the map of Tortuga, and muttered under his breath "unfortunately this won't be as easy for us either..."


Delmaria turned his head and watched as the late afternoon began to envelope the town square just outside the large open doors to the Kings Arm. The dirt slowly became washed in a dull orange light that crept in from the bright blue sky slowly turning purple. It was like a satin curtain being closed over a stage before the theater opened before the show; and within a few hours, the stage would be set.

Nayana stood up from her chair and leaned up against the table right next to Delmaria. "I have the strangest feeling history is prepared to repeat itself, Nayana." Darkskull said as he stared out in to the fountain in the center of the town square. The sky grew a darker shade of red, and reflecting against the babbling waters of the fountain it almost seemed as though the basin was filled with blood.

1

Captain Ezekiel Rott seemed so proud walking down a runway with nobody to watch him. He walked with a strut as the shimmering gold inscriptions on the coat danced like wisps of a wildfire, and he brushed his grimy finger nails against the sleeve of the coat to wash away any remainders of the pigs blood that he had tried so carelessly to rid of. His high wigged hat had been patched up with poorly matched tanned leather, and looked so aged as if it had been hidden in an old sea captain's footlocker at the bottom of the sea. His chest was bare, revealing a large tattoo that crossed his body; a skull snickering a wicked smile with a black tricorne tipped over it's head, and two scimitars crossed downward behind its head. His hands were covered in jewels that glimmered against the torchlight from the balconies. He felt as though he was dressed like a king; though nobody came to recognize his regality, for good reason.

Behind Ezekiel Rott marched the largest British parade of soldiers Tortuga had ever recognized. They spanned across the entire width of the street, moving like a brick sliding down a shoot with just barely enough space to slide down. Twelve men marched across divided in to two halves, one walking in a line to the left of Rott and the other to the right so an aisle stood behind him. The rows ran down eighteen fold, all of the uniformly-issued strapped boots clicking on the ground at a single rate. Two-hundred-sixteen well-trained British arms men, led by a glorified drunkard, and seen by none.

Every window and door in Tortuga, no matter the size of the structure or distance from the town square, was boarded and holed up with every piece of wood that was scavenged. It was one of the rare times Tortuga fell silent; smaller skirmishes and brawls were shrugged off, but true battles were a spectacle that made the world freeze. The only exception this evening was that this time, the Brethren was not expected to win by a favorable standard.

Delmaria sat at the edge of the fountain facing the approaching forces. The brim of his hat was tipped over his brow; his left leg was bent and planted on the fountain's rim, and the right hung just off the side. Her left arm kept him supported as he leaned back like an artist's doll, and in his right he toyed with the two interlinked rings he took out of his ear. He always kept his jewelry and ornaments off of his person during battle, but his most prized possession was never left behind for sentimental value.

The two bands though rusted still glimmered in the faintest of light, as they always had. "It's a sign," Delmaria would always reiterate to Mister McVane whenever Delmaria kept up conversation on sleepless nights in port, "as if she's trying to pass on that same message of 'hope' like she always did when she was alive." he scoffed. "She never did give up hope, even in the worst of times, you know."

"Or perhaps it's just of admirable make." Johnny would roll back, too tired or distracted to keep up mystic conversation.

"Nay!" he shook his head back in enthusiasm, not realizing he was running monologue. "Before I got these two bound this here one" he tapped his finger on his "coronation ring," "it wouldn’t shine in the light of the most brilliant of days. But ever since, the two have shined like the sun of the southern sea."

And even as much as he was assaulted by those who wished to back him out of the belief the fact his jewelry shined was divine intervention, it gave Delmaria a sense of hope. He wasn't a religious man, but to Delmaria religion was anything that gave him the feeling that everything would be alright at the end of the day; so to him, his wife was his religion.

"Captain Darkskull!" Rott called out across the square as his troops came to a halt. Rott looked around the square, examining the desolance of the space, and throwing his hands down at his sides. "I assume you've been anticipating defeat?"

"I never anticipate anything Captain Rott." Delmaria swung his leg around, turning himself to face him. "I either know or I don't. It would be foolish to throw my faith around."

Rott raised an eyebrow. "So then how does fate swing this evening, Mister Darkskull?"

Delmaria flipped up his hat to reveal his eyes. "If I told you it wouldn't be much of a surprise."

"Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of things that you don't know, you're just too scared to admit it."

"You have no idea." he smiled.

Rott rolled his neck, letting his hat roll back slightly on his scalp. "Captain Delmaria Darkskull, under the jurisdiction of His Maj-"

"Oh, I see how quickly one is willing to throw about his loyalties for power."

"-Majesty King George the First, I hereby place you, and all affiliated captains, privateers, and pirates under the name of the Brethren Court of Pirates, under arrest."

Delmaria clapped his hands together as loudly as possible, like a stubbornly smug audience member watching a theater performance. "Well done! How many times did you practice that in the mirror?"

Rott's frustration had remained quelled up until then. Realizing Delmaria would continue this game for as long as possible, he moved directly to drawing his sword, hoping to add the intimidation factor. His deep black broadsword almost reflected like ebony against the strip of torchlight that beamed down the cut in the black that ran from the tip down to the hilt, which basketed around the hand in heavy morphs of metal that almost resembled twisted pieces of bone wrapped around the hand. The sword was in pale darkness against even the bright streets of Tortuga - it was as if the sword consumed itself in the night, taking darkness from the sky and enveloping it around it. It gave off a sense of dread even if it were simply in your presence; an uneasy feeling that led men to step off their balance, no matter how strong.

Unbeknownst to Rott, however, he had just triggered "the signal." Delmaria slipped the two conjoined rings in to his boot as he stood himself off, prompting the pirate who watched with a close eye from the corridors of the King's Arm to abruptly turn around and begin sprinting out of Delmaria's room and down the stairs, pushing his way through the masses of pirates that flooded the floor as they waited for the battle to transpire. Delmaria had seemed to be alone in his fight, but it was quite the contrary - across the town's square dozens of pirates holed themselves up in the buildings, watching from the windows and balconies in secret with their guns and swords propped up against their chests. Each of them watched the courtyard with intensity, praying to themselves that Rott's men did not shoot down Delmaria; they only hoped that Darkskull knew what he was doing, for in their minds if not, Tortuga had already been damned.

The messenger, a scrawny, young-hearted pirate with legs faster and more agile than many of the rusted pirates on the island, sprinted out the back entrance of the King's Arm and through the courtyard where Delmaria and Rott had fought, cutting up through the entrance with the building overhang that led further in to the city. Unlike the main streets of Tortuga, which were illuminated by dozens of lanterns and torches placed in every dark corner, the further one progressed in to Tortuga the less lighting there was. Only if you progressed in to the southwestern part of town far behind the Governor's Mansion - where many of the port's most profitable businesses took hold and the streets were lined with cobblestone instead of dirt - was there substantial lighting to give the eerie feeling of a walk through London in a much more tropical climate.

He cut a right at the break in the road and waved down to the next pirate who stood at the end of the short road, who was equally fast as he, which prompted him to turn on his heel up further south. Gathered just near him by the small wooden walkway that hung over the main street was a small brigade of roughly seven pirates, led by Lady Nayana. As she watched the messenger run by her, she commanded the pirates to begin slowly and carefully positioning large crates of gunpowder just before the bridge, while she waved her hat at the passing pirate. She stared off with both anxiety and eagerness as the palm of her hand slowly rubbed against her gun. She could feel the tension in the air building.

"Have you any idea what you have done to me, Delmaria? Do you know the torment you have caused me? I have been made a mockery of by you and the Brethren, and I'll be damned if I'm forced to walk this earth with your noses hanging over me!" Rott screamed, pointing the edge of his sword with a hand shaken by fury.

"You've brought this all upon yourself, Ezekiel. You turned your back on the Court the day you signed with Rott's side, and you alone are responsible for that treachery. You've only escalated that by bringing the Navy in to this - and you dare call yourself a pirate.." Delmaria tried his best to remain collected, even though the nature of Rott's argument boiled his blood. His fingers slowly unfurled from his fist, edging against the pommel of his sword.

The second pirate ran up through the courtyard that housed the Faithful Bride, run quiet by the war-like activity to come outside. He passed through the archway to it's left and ran in to the enclosure lined with a few small stone buildings, waving through the grounds to the third messenger, who then darted up the cobblestone streets that the heel of his heel clicked against.

"Roger would have made a damn fine Pirate Lord, and you know that better than you'll ever be willing to admit!"

"Is that what this is all about? All Renveil ever cared about was himself Ezekiel, but you were so driven by your need to be in a seat that you let him corrupt you." Delmaria drew back, belittling. "His lies have become your reality."

"I AM my own reality! Perhaps then I was weak, perhaps then I did not understand my potential, but now" Rott turned around with a misstep, waving his hands out to the crowd of soldiers behind him as his stomach buckled like an unstrapped boot, "I'M the one who controls my fate! And if I can control myself, I can control anybody!"

"No." Delmaria shook his head. "Men themselves are weak, Rott. They see overcoming themselves as a sign of strength, but it is only them striding over a fence of their own inability. We must first rule ourselves before we may rule others; but I'm afraid many men find by the time they reign over the hearts of others that they do not reign over their own."

The messenger bolted his way From West to East across the Southern part of town, the back of the Governors Mansion looming in silence in the distance behind a canopy of palm trees that stuck out from the sides of buildings. Wary eyes of children peeped out of the boarded windows of their homes only to be pulled back forcefully in defense by the hands of their fathers and mothers. The music that once lined the streets had fallen silent, leaving only the prickle of a torch's flame against wood and a hollow whisper of wind to echo through the streets.

The pirate darted in to the entrance of the Faithful Bride, for once thrown open in to the dank night air instead of being closed shut. "Carver" ushered the boy across the floor of the tavern, past the bar, and in to the back storage room, from where underneath a crate of old, dusty boxes an aged latch appeared, descending in to the sewers below.

"You act as though the path you have chosen in life has been more righteous than mine, Delmaria. How many lives have you ended? How many shortfalls have you caused? Would Maria still be alive if you had-"

Delmaria drew his cutlass, aiming it straight at Rott's gullet. "Do not bring Maria in to this, Ezekiel."

"The 'fairest maiden in all the Caribbean,' shot down in cold blood because a hardened sea veteran couldn't maintain his composure." Rott edged his way closer to Delmaria, tilting his head with slight premonition to slowly destroy his adversary from inside. "Oh but how men allow their tempers to light such destructive flames."

"Speak for yourself."

"Oh, but I do! I take full accord for every crime and wrong I have committed, but at least I have the self-satisfaction of doing so! Who do you think you are, Delmaria? A general? A king? A crusader? None fit the suit you hold - you're a filthy, mongrelling pirate, and no matter how much you glorify yourself, no matter how much you try to right the wrongs of your past, your time will remain clear to all; you are a harbinger of death, just as I."

"I never chose to go down this path. But if I am stuck on it for eternity I may as well do what I can to alleviate the pain of walking it for myself."

"Then how can you stand there and choose to never understand the pain I seath in? Are you that selfish?"

"I'm not the one who betrayed his brethren for power."

The pirate nearly slid in to the hole in the ground as he clambered down the small set of wooden stairs in to one of the more immediate tunnels of the rat's city. For a change the underground channels of Tortuga were lit by a single path of torches that illuminated the way to where Reverent waited, smoking a cigar in between his front teeth.

Delmaria's eyes drifted discretely to the foot of a Navy soldier in the very middle of the crowd that blocked the main street. He stood uneven on top of a copper metal plate partially unexposed from the dirt that always hid it from the knowledge of the outside world. It led down a steep tunnel that poked in to a chamber that sat in the heart of the City of Thieves; the very chamber where Delmaria's hidden weapon waited.

The last crate of gunpowder was thrown on top of the giant cascade of containers, leaving what Reverent described as a "majestic weapon of destruction;" dozens upon dozens of barrels and crates of gunpowder, rum (unfortunately) and any other highly volatile substance that was smuggled out of the warehouses across Tortuga in a manner of mere hours. It was enough gunpowder to make a general of an army drool, and it sat in discord in a dank cistern beneath the streets of Tortuga.

"It's a good thing we never put this room to good use," Reverent said as he examined his surroundings, "or else somebody would be quite upset."

The last of his servants (the last one to run madly out of the room) tapped Reverent on the shoulder out of curiosity. "How much gunpowder do you think we,ve got here?"

Just then they turned to the splatter of water against the weathered stone floor, where the messenger turned himself through the cracked archway. He was breathing heavily, unable to spit out a word, but he nodded to relay a single message; "Now!"

"Enough to blow a hole in the map." Reverent clasped his hand on the shoulder of his portly servant, who nodded as he took out his pistol.

Rott chuckled. He kicked the wingtip of his shoes on the dirt, turning the point of his sword around and around as it followed his foot. Rott now had moved himself to a distance of ten feet from Delmaria, but instead of raising his guard, Darkskull lowered his cutlass. His eyes drifted as Rott drew closer to the right end of the overhang that sat above the street, where he caught eye of the tiniest sliver of a wooden barrel transposed just before the curve of the building.

"Easy..." Nayana whispered over the shoulder of the quickly sweating pirate that sat just before the edge of the bridge. He rolled his palm over the head of a barrel of East India Trading Company industrial hand-grenades, though all of his senses were fixed on the heads of the Navy soldiers that stood just beneath the curved walkway. Nayana's ears almost twitched as she waited in the silence for the sharp, piercing signal that would cause all of Tortuga to turn inside out.

"You know Delmaria, you seem to be under the misconception that you and I are two opposite evils. In truth, there is no such thing as a 'shade of gray' in the spectrum; there is only black and white - good, and evil." Rott walked side to side, shifting his weight between his legs as he drew closer to Delmaria. Darkskull didn't move.

Reverent's assistant positioned himself just underneath a hole that came down from the ceiling of the room in which one of the few beams of light that illuminated the room came down from. It led up a short stone shaft to a weathered copper sewer top that sat right in the middle of the road where the group of soldiers stood, unbeknownst to what was going on directly beneath their noises - literally.

"As much as you will try to justify yourself, Delmaria, there will always be that beating in the back of your head that reminds you you will always lie on the opposite side of the spectrum from the light - my side."

Rott has transgressed the space between himself and Delmaria, reducing to only a matter of a few feet. They now stood face to face for the first time in months, if not years; they may had seen each other's presence or even crossed swords, but for such a long time they had never been as close to each other as they were now. Delmaria could feel the musk of Rott's skin still emanating under his coat - the smell of blood, rotted flesh, and uncooked meat.

Their blades now were inches from touching one another - the tips of their swords, hanging at their sides, scrapped pieces of dirt and dust in one another's direction. The surmount of Delmaria's misery lied before him, and all it would take to end it all was to raise his blade and strike him down. Doing so would be a dishonor to the Code - but in this moment, Delmaria felt disregarding the Code would be the honorable thing to do.

Reverent took a final puff of his cigar and nodded to his assistant, backing slowly towards the archway that led out of the room. The red tip of his cigar vibrated a low hum as he stuck it out of his mouth and waved it through the air, and as his shoulder hit the doorway he extended his arm.

"And no matter what reconciliations you try to admit, Delmaria, it will always remain clear;"

Nayana leaned her hand on the back of her crewmate and took a heavy breath.

Reverent flicked his wrist, sending the cigar like a fiery arrow on to the trail of gunpowder that ignited itself across the floor.

The pistol clicked with a soft, preemptive warning, before charging the gunpowder in it's barrel to explode with all the force it's soul could muster.

Delmaria clenched his fist with all the muscle in his arm concentrated on the knuckles of his right hand.

And Rott leaned in, whispering slightly in to Delmaria's ear, "You're just like me."

The gunshot that blasted through Tortuga that day was the loudest noise that had ever rippled through the Caribbean. It did not only echo within the ears of every pirate in the city, whether of the utmost attention or relaxed in the deepest slumber, but within the heart and soul of every living being in the Southern Sea; on that day, at that very moment, the final weight was tipped on to a table prepared to collapse, and the second that it was shot was as if Lucifer himself had plunged a fist upon the Earth.

The bullet shot up through the sewer plate in to the boot of the Navy soldier who stood on top of it, sending a shockwave through his body that would only last for a few moments. "NOW!" the Lady of Tortuga roared, as with all of her crew's might their barrels of East India Industrially Smuggled gunpowder trampled across the walkway that sat over the main street of Tortuga. Rott only had a few seconds to turn around and look at the sliver of hysteria that was to come, as Delmaria grabbed him by the shoulder, whipped him around, and rocketed his fist straight for Rott's nose.

The only proper description that you could acquire from somebody who was anywhere within a four-hundred foot radius of the blast was a complete whitewash of deafening, overwhelming energy, before an immediate plunge in to indescribable mayhem. An explosion of black smoke ripped up from the opposite sides of the main street from where the Navy soldiers stood, shaking the ground as though the Titan Atlas dropped the Earth from his palms. In a matter of seconds a gigantic fire ravaged the enormous hole that had formed in the middle of Tortuga, plunging dozens of British soldiers in to its fiery, gluttonous mouth, while dividing the remaining battalion on to two sides of the city.

For those who stood near but had not been engulfed by the ravine, the explosion was enough to send all the men nearby back off their feet ten, twenty, even thirty feet from where they once had stood. The force from the explosion propelled Delmaria and Rott back in to the waters of the fountain, where the blood dripping from Ezekiel's nose pooled around him as his face slammed in to the cool waters.

The barrels that had floated across the walkway ignited a second yet immediate explosion that nearly disintegrated the bridge upon contact with the flames from below, sending up ashes, stone, brick, and even barrels that had failed to ignited stories of feet above Tortuga before they crashed back to the Earth upon nearby stores, unsuspecting soldiers, and even in to the center of the square. Nayana and her crew scampered to their feet and made a run from their spot to desperately escape the debris that feel down upon them as the buildings near the impact site shook and crumbled, quaking from a lack of support beneath the ground and toppling in to the pit.

The cool, turning waters of the fountain provided an eerily cool sanctuary for Delmaria in the seconds he submerged himself to avoid the flames that blistered the night sky. It was in these waters that Roger had stood, where Anne was slayed in the very coat Ezekiel wore now. He considered, perhaps, that it was fate that had brought those who had killed the coat's rightful owner back to the land where the crime was committed - he figured now it was telling him to right the wrong.

Every window and door around the square of Tortuga bursted open, with each building revealing a concealed group of soldiers from both of the opposing sides. Brethren pirates, British soldiers, and a fresh batch of Rott's newest recruits, draped in the signature torn and meshed rags, flooded out in to the grounds and balconies, firing off crossfire from every point on the circle of buildings that created a frenzy of bloodshed. The smoke from the explosion now only acted as a dark, sickening backdrop to the white plumes of smoke and sparks of sword strikes that coated the battleground at the center of Tortuga.

Delmaria submersed himself out of the water and in to the powerful chaos of Tortuga just as Rott did, his coat now dripping wet and his face smeared with the undertone of blood. Both of them had managed to keep a hold on their swords, and while Rott heaved over to pick his up, Delmaria overshadowed the formality of swordplay for a stern punch with his left hand right in to Ezekiel's forehead, tumbling him back in to the waters.

Delmaria took a few steps forward to follow up, but he felt a hand latch around his arm. He was slinked back in to a crouch and turned to face Nayana, who had quickly dove in to the fountain to retrieve Delmaria from being caught immediately in the center of the battle. "Come with me!"

"NO!" Delmaria wrestled his arm in her grasp, but Nayana's hands had become so strong over the years that she could have been equally as strong as him. She restrained him even as he turned his head to watch Rott slither out of the edge on the other side and run to a group of his crew mates waiting for him at a doorway across the courtyard.

Nayana took another tug at the reluctant Delmaria as he fought the urge to break away across the field of fire after him, instead grunting as Nayana pulled him out of the fountain. The two hit the ground running as they dashed towards the open doors of the King's Arm, guarded by two pirates with blunderbusses who fired them off in the general direction of the enemy as they guided the two pirates inward. Around them Tortuga had been transformed in to a plain of iron and fire, the normally jovial town square now consumed by clusters of soldiers and pirates falling left and right to one another's swords. Even though it was early on in the battle, there seemed to be no decisive notion as to who would be gaining an advantage - though many of the Navy were savaged by the explosion and the Brethren held the higher ground aboard the balconies, Rott's men worked with a rabid efficiency despite their gloomy appearance. They seemed almost awakened by the sight of blood on their skin, as though with each drop that fell upon the ground they waked they gained a larger stride.

A last pitch of fire nipped at the bottom of Delmaria's coat as he tripped his way in to the King's Arm, just behind Nayana. Three more pirates, refreshed and washed with a determined glare that reflected in the light of their blades, pushed Delmaria further in to the tavern as they passed. They paused at the foot of the balcony, surveying the field, before the one at the head of the group - the shortest and smallest of the three - let out a roaring battle cry, bursting in to the field with the other two closing the door to the tavern behind them. In the split between the doors as they watched them closed, Delmaria could see a bullet clip right through the valiant boy's collarbone.

Even with the door closed the feel of the battle did not escape them. The windows at the front of the tavern had been busted through, and the heat from the fighting outside radiated in through them. Johnny McVane was helping Doctor Grogan ferry medicine in to the basement to set up a small hospital that would be run beneath the tavern, while the guards positioned themselves near the backdoor and on the upper level near the balcony. Ever so often they would fire down at the enemies who came close to the building, but they were instructed not to waste their ammunition on picking off men in the courtyard with such a risk of taking out their allies.

"God damn Delmaria," Nayana panted as she leaned herself again a table. "Now is not the time to try and settle a rivalry!"

Delmaria got to his feet and walked forcefully towards Nayana, bringing a heavy air with him. "It's more than a rivalry, I could have killed the whole damn war in its first battle if it wasn't for your need to play the heroin and save me!"

Nayana was going to protest, but she was too overcome by her shortness of breath, and wavered under the idea of sparking Delmaria's shortening temper. "You could have been killed out there before you landed your third punch. You'll get your chance before the night is dead, trust me."

[Captain Gas]

Holy cow, my eyes got dizzy reading this. Great job, Del!