A Pirate's Life

Captain Aenwyn stood and leaned against the mast of her ship, watching as her crew brought aboard what goods they had traded for that day. She was, as always, impeccably dressed—with her sapphire blue coat and fine linen shirt, she might have looked like any of the other merchants who had made port here, were it not for the sword and pistol strapped to her belt.

"Well, well, Faelyn," she hollered as she caught sight of the elf, "what are you dragging back home this time? You finally found them?"

"I did, captain," Faelyn responded, giving both Vivi and Owen a half-playful, half-annoyed whack on the head. "They got themselves into some trouble... again."

Aenwyn beamed, looking very proud. "What have you been up to now, Nerikas?" she asked, making her way down the gangway to stand in front of the three.

"Just a small misunderstanding with a few tincaps... they're just overreacting as always," Owen replied, waving his hands dismissively. "You know how these people are. Anything would set them off."

Aenwyn chuckled, ruffling Owen's soot-colored hair. "I'm sure you were nothing but civil," she said cheerily—Vivi had a hard time keeping a straight face at Faelyn's look of indignation.

"Respectfully, Captain," he began exasperatedly, "shouldn't we be at least a little worried? If the authorities are after them, they might give us some trouble."

"Not to worry," Aenwyn replied, shaking her head. "I figure we'll have set sail before too long—and even if anyone would follow us, the only way to catch the Ajdaha is to chase her to the end of the world."

"If you say so," Faelyn said with a sigh of resignation.

"I do." Aenwyn smiled warmly, clearly still more amused than concerned. "But enough of that," she continued, turning to Owen and Vivi. "Now I'd like to hear more about these escapades of yours."

"We found a message from the Thieves' Guild," Vivi piped up before Owen could go on yet another long-winded retelling of their adventure. "Maybe someone knew you were here and sent it to you?"

Faelyn, who seemed to have forgotten all about the message in his annoyance, took the scroll out of his pocket. "The police seemed very intent on getting their hands on it, too," he commented, handing it to Aenwyn.

"A message, indeed?" said the captain, taking out a pair of reading glasses from her coat pocket before studying the scroll closely. "No one seems to have read it yet, either," she added, breaking the seal. "Let's see..." She unrolled the scroll, and as she read, a grin slowly spread on her face. "From Zeren. He's not saying much, but he's asking for help—and he assures me he's got the job of a lifetime."

"The usual, then," Owen said casually, putting his hands in his pockets. "Are we gonna join him?"

Vivi felt a rush of excitement; it had been a while, but Zeren's "jobs" were always an adventure worth experiencing—not to mention the treasure one might get one's hands on.

"We'll put it to a vote, as usual," Aenwyn replied—then, after casting a look at Vivi, added, "and I figure I already know how you will vote."

"What gave it away?" Vivi said with a grin. "Zeren always has us searching for some hopelessly lost treasure or stealing artifacts from the houses of the rich—I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"All that aside, captain," Faelyn interrupted, "is it wise to throw our lot in with Zeren again? We're making a steady profit as merchants—why risk throwing that away for one of his dubious missions?"

"Our crew is a crew of adventurers," Aenwyn mused, starting to make her way back up the gangway. "Most of them have stayed this past year out of loyalty to me, but trading goods is not their calling." She paused, then turned back to face Faelyn with a grin. "Besides, I think a pirate's life suits me—don't you?"

Before Faelyn had time to either agree or protest, they were interrupted by shouting from further down the docks. Vivi jerked her head around and spotted the tincap they had talked to in the tavern—as well as the one whose face Faelyn had elected to redecorate. Neither looked particularly happy.

"Get on board!" Aenwyn barked, putting one hand on her pistol and shoving Vivi and Owen up the gangway with the other. "Are we ready to sail, Sarjeon?"

Sarjeon, the tall and serious-looking elf who served as Aenwyn's first mate, nodded. "At your command, captain."

Aenwyn backed up the gangway as the tincaps started swarming towards them—there were over a dozen of them now. "Then let's make it quick!"

Sarjeon barked a few quick orders, and the crew scrambled to raise the sails. Faelyn unmoored the ship with remarkable speed, then sprinted up the gangway after the captain.

"All right, boys!" Aenwyn shouted gleefully as the sails caught the wind, jerking the ship into motion. "We mustn't forget our manners; let's give these good fellows a hearty farewell!" She drew her pistol, and all those of her crew that had one did the same, sending the guards scurrying to take cover behind their shields as a thunderous salvo roared over their heads. After a brief moment of confusion, they collected themselves and returned fire, but the ship was already well on its way out of the harbor and down the river.

"Well, Nerikas," Aenwyn said, handing her gun to Morwen—the raven-haired little girl who usually cared for the guns on board and who immediately set about reloading it. "It seems you did make some enemies after all."

Owen smiled innocently, ignoring Vivi and Faelyn's annoyed glares.

The rumor that something was afoot had spread quickly, and as soon as the ship was out of immediate danger, the crew congregated on deck. Aenwyn, who was clearly just as excited to share the news as her crew was to hear about it, hopped up to stand on a barrel and unrolled the scroll with a dramatic flourish.

"I see you're all hard at work," she said with a humorous glint in her eyes. "But as busy as you are, you'll want to take a moment to listen to this."

Vivi excitedly turned to listen to the captain, hoping she would disclose more details about Zeren's "job" than she'd had time for before their abrupt departure from the harbor.

"As you may have guessed, this message is indeed from Zeren," the captain continued. "He claims to have the 'job of a lifetime' for us. He says he can't reveal the exact nature of said job until we meet in person—apparently, he's afraid someone might have intercepted the message and claimed the bounty for themselves—but he insists the payment will be more than we could ever dream of."

"He should choose his words more wisely," said Sergius, a middle-aged swordsman who had sailed with Aenwyn for many years, "considering we have the king of dreamers himself on board." Owen, who very well knew this was referring to him, took a flamboyant bow as the rest of the crew chuckled.

"You have my word I'll fill my dreams with nothing but piles and piles of gold," he said solemnly. "I won't fail you."

"Quite so," Aenwyn chuckled. "Anyway. Zeren has told us to rendezvous with him south of Nar Badhir on the first day of the month of Haimai, which is in"—she paused for a split second, doing the math in her head—"three days, if I'm not mistaken." She turned to Sarjeon, who was standing at the helm. "What do you think? Can we make it in time?"

"If the wind stays with us, captain," Sarjeon responded. "And if we follow the currents."

"Very good," Aenwyn said, hopping down from the barrel and clapping her hands together. "Let's get to it, boys!"

By the time the sun started to set, they had made it to the coast, where the stream ended—and the abyss began. The ship passed quietly, almost unnoticeably, over the enchanted barrier separating the two, and soon, the water below them was no longer cheerfully clear and blue—but a dark and foreboding black. As the happy bubbling of the stream faded to give way to the slow sloshing of the abyssal waves, the ship turned due east, following the coastline of the little island.

Vivi sat on her hammock in the small room belowdecks where they usually spent their nights on board, occasionally looking out through the little window in the stern towards the sunset as she tinkered with her hopefully soon-to-be weapon. She had gathered parts from all over during the last few months—the remains of an old flintlock pistol from Bhadh, half of an old pressure tank from the workshops of Uinas, and at the heart of it all: a magical spark stone she had stolen from a merchant in Yaaldel.

She set to work in her quest to fiddle the pieces together but found herself stopping, again and again, to glance out through the window. In the gloom and silence of the dying daylight, the memories of the day replayed themselves. The memory of their far too narrow escape. Of the bullets that had whizzed past her ear. Of the deadly look in the tincap's eyes. Finally, she sighed and put down her handiwork, glancing over at Owen, who was lying in his own hammock, whistling a little tune without a care in the world.

What am I going to do with him? she thought to herself, smiling fondly—but the smile quickly dropped. Owen had always been confident in himself. Too confident, perhaps; the bullets today got too close, and if one of those tincaps had just aimed just so slightly the other way... she would be one less a friend.

"Really, though," she started as if she had been continuing a sentence, glancing over at Owen, "do you have to keep pissing off people with guns?"

Owen looked up at her for a second, then smiled as he let his head fall back down onto the hammock. "I don't know Vivi... it seems to have worked out pretty well for us so far."

Vivi chuckled. "Maybe. But we might not be so lucky every time someone pulls a gun on us."

"So what do you suggest?" Owen said, rolling out of his hammock to sit on the floor. "Do we go back to begging on the streets in Brolzo?"

"No, but..." Vivi sighed. Owen did make a point—they'd both rather have a bit of danger in their lives than suffer in silence under the injustices of her homeland. "I just wish we could get by without having to risk getting shot at."

"Eh, that might be asking too much," Owen replied with a grin. "Besides... since when was 'getting by' enough for you?" He scratched his head, as if trying to remember something. "You know, I met a girl called Vivi Blackwood once back in Bhadh... you know what she said?"

"Do tell," Vivi mumbled, bringing the pressure tank up to her face to study it. She was pretty sure she knew where he was going with this, but there was little use trying to stop him once he got going. "And if you make fun of my accent again, I'll convince Sarjeon to have you keelhauled."

"Well, it was honestly a little hard to follow," he said defensively. "But I do distinctly remember something about the 'rich, rotten nobility' and how it was up to us 'alley-dwellers' to 'change things'. Make them more fair."

"That does sound like me," Vivi admitted, putting the pressure tank back down. "But it's getting a bit more dangerous than I bargained for."

Owen smiled. "All part of the deal in a pirate's life."