Farah looked at the marble, and so did Jordan. Piles of marble, cleanly polished, all in crates. Valuable, but extremely heavy. Below them, the ship moved up and down on the waves.
"Marble." said Farah.
"Explains why they were so slow." said Jordan. "I mean, that's 2 ducats worth of marble. Lots, really."
Farah sighed and held her head in her hands. "Marble. Who transports marble over the sea!?"
"Most people." said Jordan. "I don't think there's any marble on the Blackwater coast."
"That was a rhetorical fucking question!" said Farah. "I should have your tongue cut out so you don't keep answering questions like that! Now, we take the crewmembers, see if we can make a profit from th--"
"Problem, they're all dead."
"WHY?"
"Well, we saw you killing them, so we thought we'd join in."
"I specifically fucking ordered you not to kill all of them so we could have some prisoners to ransom off! Who's fucking idea was it to kill all of them?"
Jordan looked at Farah, thinking. "I think it was Jurgen. He killed the first man after you did."
"Did he?" said Farah, looking at Jordan.
"Yes." said Jordan, probably lying through his teeth, but Farah really needed someone to blame and Jordan was not someone you wanted against you. Besides, no-one was going to raise a mutiny about it as no-one really liked Jurgen. Farah sighed and walked up the stairs to the deck, where the crewmembers watched the cogs approach.
"Jurgen?" she called out, and one head turned to look at her. She smiled and walked over to Jurgen, a young lad with no real hair to speak of and a practical way of dressing which was really the only way to dress on the sea. Before, however, he could say Yes Captain, Farah punched him in the face and it was lights out for Jurgen.
*
When Jurgen awoke, he found himself at the wheel of the holk. Occasionally he fancied getting himself a ship and doing his own thing without needing to be bossed around by that drugee Farah, that loonie Jordan, or that weirdo Alexei. So really, he should have been happy that he was at the wheel. Problem was, he was roped to it.
"What in blazes?" he asked, then looked at the wheel where upon there was a note.
Hello, Jurgen! Just letting you know we really didn't like the fact you killed everyone on the holk when you were supposed to capture them, you total idiot. We needed a way to get away from the cogs and a way to punish you, so we hit two birds with the one stone and decided to load this ship with gunpowder in the hold then send it toward the cogs. As you'll notice, the deck's shiny clean so the cogs won't know it's been attacked. However, by the time you reach the cogs, this ship will be blown to kingdom come by the fuse leading to the explosives. As you may guess, this is a bad thing for you. Consider not disobeying your captain's direct orders while you're burning for eternity in hell.
- Your captain, Farah.
"Oh shit! OH SHIT!" yelled out Jurgen, trying to get untied, turn the wheel, anything at all. The wheel was nailed into position, and the cogs were approaching fast. "Help me! Someone, help me!"
On the cogs, a crewmember looked away from his spyglass, mouth agape. He yelled to his captain "There's someone on the holk! He's calling for help! We have to help them, god knows what those pirate bastards did to him!"
Adjustment to plan: take half the marble, which should only weigh down the cog somewhat, tie an insubordinate crewmember no-one likes to the wheel and then nail it into position, put gunpowder in the hold, then drive the holk towards the cogs. Make a fuse that will detonate once the holk has arrived if the timing's right. Otherwise, proceed with the escape plan made earlier.
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Topic: Blackwater Coast IC Thread (Read 9137 times)