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Ahoy there, brave traveler. Cross carefully the creaking gang-plank, and come aboard our battle-scarred and weary vessel. Pray don't heed the gunner's body, strewn exsanguinated o'er his cannon, nor let yer gaze linger upon the bloodless eyes of the broken form which dangles in the rigging above ye. Step down upon the deck now and take a moment to get yer sea legs, and yer night eyes. Heed not that cracking bone unseen in the dark distance, or the clashings of cutlass which still ring thru the dense ocean fog. Nay! These be not the sights nor sounds ye came for.
Follow then, if ye durst, this way. Down, down beneath the splintered hatches, into the belly of the brig, to the treasures ye seek.
Aye, this prize we took, twenty leagues out from the port of Varna. A packet ~ the Demeter ~ bound for Whitby. We captured her after a broadside. When she did not return fire we boarded her, only to discover not a man upon her deck nor a living soul below. Gingerly, swords and pistols in hand, we descended into her hold, to examine her cargo and determine our prize. Visions of gold, rare spiced liquors, jewels, rum, crowded our minds as we went to our fortunes...
"Alack!" it was i who cried out first. "God's blood, what sorcery be this?" We were aghast to find her laden with only divers crates of an odd, grey soil. Worthless! All of it worthless! In our fury, we cursed Fate, we swore by Blackbeard's head, and by Neptune's scaly balls. Raging, we brought each of them on deck and chucked them o'erboard, crate after crate, into the black Mediteranean Sea, until i came to one unlike the others, for this contained the body of a man! Old, he seemed, gaunt and long of tooth. Ugly, to be sure, and most certainly dead.
But as i drew my whinyard, and reached to cut the finger from his hand, that i might take the jeweled ring he wore... the fiend awakened! He hissed and reached for me! Aye, it's true! i swear it's all true! He awakened and more - he struck with inhuman swiftness and sought to bite me with those sharp, misshapen teeth of his!
Godspeed i shoved the whinyard into his ribs and wasted no time running him thru with the nearest pike. i pressed it thru his heart with such passion that he was nigh to impaled on it! In my anger then, i drew my cutlass and hacked off his head for good measure! Pitching him o'erboard, along with the putrid casket of earth in which he'd slept, i then turned my attention to the deepest fathoms of the ship's hold. Where, by the flame of a hurricane lamp, my startled eyes beheld the plundered treasures of the Demeter; FUNCTIONAL COFFINS, MULTI-MEDIA COFFINS and COFFIN LID WALL HANGINGS!
Being that i was but a simple pyrate of simple ways; drinking, wenching, fighting, i immediately squandered my entire plundered fortune at the first port we laid anchor to. Spending it all on a fetching island wench called Nikki, who gave me the bite i'd escaped previously...
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