The Voyage of Legacy - Robert Louis Sorrel 14/7
Jul 15, 2022 17:34:56 GMT
Velania Kalugina, Derthaad, and 1 more like this
Post by stephena on Jul 15, 2022 17:34:56 GMT
Being the memoirs of one Sorrel Darkfire, onetime crew member of the Legacy.
This being a true and faithful account of the voyage of the Legacy to Treasure Island and the Mutiny of the Legacy, written by my Hand in the Salty Sea Shank this _ day of 1__
The captain
Kavel, Anåbæl, and the rest of this party having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen and go back to the time when my party met in the Salty Sea Shank inn and the old seaman first came under the roof.
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door — a tall, strong, nut-brown man, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails. I remember him breaking out in that old sea-song: “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest — Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
“Here you, matey,” he cried to us. “You look in need of a ship!”
“We are!” cried Kaval. “Do you have one?”
“I do!” he cried. “For I am Billy Bones by name and that’s exactly the sort of name you’d expect for a captain. She lies at anchor, ready for sea. You never imagined a sweeter schooner—a child might sail her—two hundred tons; name, Legacy. I’ll let you know a secret – you'll ask me how I got her I'll say, "I saved my money.” You'll say, "Isn't she pretty? That ship called Legacy…"
“That’s a very Generation X reference, old sea dog,” quoth I. “For surely Deacon Blue have been scattered to the winds.”
“I’m not the one cutting and pasting chunks from the Guttenberg version of Treasure Island,” he snorted.
Which was a fair point.
“How came you to be captain, Billy Bones, if that is indeed your name?” Kavel enquired.
“The previous captain was slaughtered,” said Bones significantly. “And the captain before that. And the captain before that. The last one had her legs cut off, then her arms cut off, then her head cut off.”
I did some rapid calculations, using my extensive combat and medical training.
“That would indeed be difficult to survive by my estimation,” I told the party. “I think particularly the head bit.”
The ship
“And what of the crew?” Derthaad leaned forward.
“What crew?”
“I was under the impression that it's common maritime practice for a ship to have a crew?”
“Opinion is divided on the subject.”
“Really.” Kelne’s tone was drier than a ships biscuit.
“Yarse. All the other captains say it is. I say it isn’t.”
“But who are all those people on the deck of the ship?” Anåbæl craned her head in the ship’s direction.
Billy Bones sighed. “Well, sir,” said the captain, “better speak plain, I believe, even at the risk of offence. I don’t like this cruise; I don’t like the men; and I don’t like my officer. That’s short and sweet.”
“Could have been shorter. You could have just said – I hate everything about this.”
“Right, and you’re Robert Louis Stephenson, are you? No? Then leave the quote alone.”
“We sail to Praxima Island!” cried Kavel.
The captain turned pale. “Don’t say that name in front of the crew! Have you ever heard of Captain Midnight? The greatest pirate? Plundered 1000 ships, vanished without trace – but had an island where he stored this Treasure. A Treasure Island, for want of a better term.”
“Well, it is mine now,” Kavel held up the deeds. “But to explain how would take too long and involve going to the moon.”
The captain took the deeds, turned them over, fished a lemon out of a nearby gin and tonic and squirted the lemon over the back with great care, and there came clear the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores.
It was about nine miles long and five across - this was the island, you understand, not the map.
The map itself was a normal sized piece of paper.
There were several additions of a later date, but above all, a cross of red ink and in a small, neat hand, these words: “Bulk of treasure here.”
Handy.
The crew
“It is many leagues away,” Derthaad observed.
“Well sirs, this ship is called Legacy because it has the legacy of being the fastest on the sea,” said Bones.
“May I suggest Speedy as a better name?” I offered.
“Or Captain Killer?” added Kavel.
“Don’t tell the crew of this,” Bones said in hushed tones. “I will tell them you are young bucks looking to sail. A fine adventure for a young ‘un like you, shortstuff, eh?” Bones patted Kelne’s head.
“I could kill you with my bare hands,” Kelne said politely.
“Join the crew… I mean queue…” Bones sighed.
We met this crew and the first mate, one Long John Silver, who had lost a leg. Silver was a man of substance and put us to work right away.
In short order Kelne was working the rigging, Derthaad into the galley, Kavel and Anåbæl into the hold and I claimed lookout, whereupon a Kenku with a broken beak mimed instructions and flew to the top of the mast.
I clambered swiftly and at the top offered him a warming seafarers tot of Peppermint Egg Nog from my Festive Cocktail of Plenty.
The voyage
The voyage proved fairly prosperous. The men were cheerful, and Silver took great pains to make and keep them so. All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking to each and doing everybody some particular service.
And so, the voyage passed most pleasantly, Derthaad labouring hard in the heat of the galley with a surly and inept youth Jimmy, Kelne hauling ropes fore, aft and ift, Kavel and Anåbæl lugging heavy stores hither and yon and the Kenku, whose name was Quark, and I getting so shitfaced that he acquired a strange charm.
(This, I note, is a Clever Pun, dear reader, for Quarks are a type of elementary particle to do with the Hadrons and they have – look, strange charm is a physics joke. Let’s just leave it at that.)
One night, Derthaad called us together and told us the crew were evil, in league against the captain and that the kitchen boy was a water genasi.
I examined the original text but could find very little of use. Maybe the bit about hiding in a barrel of apples and finding out they were all pirates?
Anyway, we soon sighted land – ‘Land ho!’ I cried – and the crew killed the captain by breaking his neck.
This was not ideal.
“The treasure is mine!” cried Jimmy who was now, indeed, a water genasi.
In the confusion I was able to whisper to the party that we were able to count five of us against nineteen.
“Scarper,” Kavel instructed, and we made for the shore by means diverse and various.
The island
“Allow me Kavel,” Anåbæl took the map, hummed and hawed and finally pointed. “That away.”
Behind us, like a storm at sea, we could hear Jimmy roaring after us.
I must say the island was an attractive prospect with many fine vistas. Had I time to avoid the rampaging monster set on slaughtering us all, I might have found the journey pleasant.
Eventually we found a cave, nipped inside and Derthaad flung a wall of force up to prevent further entry.
By dint of magic we couldn’t see shit, but spells and tricks flew like spittle on a pirate’s beard and eventually we could make out a deadly trap with our names on it. Metaphorically.
This being a well-briefed adventuring party fleeing almost certain death we spent a long time debating the best strategy for the trap before finally stepping over it.
The treasure
And then we came upon a deep black pit which we flung ourselves down with glee – and a feather fall spell – to find vast halls filled with the most pointless tat I have seen in my live long day.
I have been to some terrible monuments in my time – the Shrieking Chasm, which shrieks almost exactly like the wind going down a chasm but still supports a small army of souvenir sellers, or the Gates of Doom, an ancient and very loud pair of metal doors so old that part of the lettering had rubbed away which, since no-one would pay to see the Gates of Boom, locals hadn’t bothered to fix as there was a lucrative market in tiny tin replicas, or even the Invisible Mountain, which was most definitively impossible to see by dint of not actually being there in any way but nonetheless shifted an actual mountain of amusing novelty gifts.
I’m sure there was something from all of those places buried somewhere in these vaults.
I picked up a razor that was so blunt you could use it as a truncheon with the words – freeze before using. Breaks the ice a parties I suppose. Then a diary which, when rattled, filled its pages with demonstrably useless revelations about everyone within 30 feet. “Kavel is secretly keen on someone,” or “Derthaad is secretly thinking about boats” or “the dangerous genasi about to attack you has a secret middle name…” wait, what?
Just as the pirates crashed to the floor beside us, four things happened – Dertaad worked out the caves were covered in explosive runes, Kavel found a secret wall and smashed his way through it, Anåbæl triggered the runes and Kelne spotted the path to the beach through the new hole in the cavern wall.
As the tat hoard detonated behind us, we fled to the Legacy.
As I ran I saw a dark figure leaping ahead of me. When they stopped I walked up saw Kelne had carved the words KAVEL LAND in the cliff overlooking the Legacy’s simple harbour.
It seemed a fitting symbol. Perhaps one day he would return and sell time-share accommodation to retiring adventurers.
The return
Well, to make a long story short, we made a good cruise home, and the Legacy reached Port Ffirst just as some man was trying to shake us down for mooring. I arranged to negotiate mooring and ownership rights with the admirable Mr Mace as soon as feasible which put paid to that little rumble.
All of us had an ample share of the tat and used it wisely or foolishly, according to our natures.
Captain Kavel is now retired from the sea until the next time.
Anåbæl not only saved her money, but being suddenly smit with the desire to rise, also decided to multiclass.
As for Kelne and Derthaad, they lost or hid their treasures in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen days, for they were back adventuring on the twentieth.
The tat and the genasi still lie on the island, for all that I know, where the exploding glyphs buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me.
Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Quark the Kenku still ringing in my ears: “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”*
The End
*This is a narrative stretch as Quark couldn’t speak but the book does end with reference to a parrot and the Kenku was the nearest bird to hand. I suppose as the ship’s watch, Quark was up and down the rigging to his nest at the top and now he was at the bottom of the cave. Strange bird but not without charm. I was certainly never anti-quark.
Don't waste your time on the stupid quark jokes
This being a true and faithful account of the voyage of the Legacy to Treasure Island and the Mutiny of the Legacy, written by my Hand in the Salty Sea Shank this _ day of 1__
The captain
Kavel, Anåbæl, and the rest of this party having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen and go back to the time when my party met in the Salty Sea Shank inn and the old seaman first came under the roof.
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door — a tall, strong, nut-brown man, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails. I remember him breaking out in that old sea-song: “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest — Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
“Here you, matey,” he cried to us. “You look in need of a ship!”
“We are!” cried Kaval. “Do you have one?”
“I do!” he cried. “For I am Billy Bones by name and that’s exactly the sort of name you’d expect for a captain. She lies at anchor, ready for sea. You never imagined a sweeter schooner—a child might sail her—two hundred tons; name, Legacy. I’ll let you know a secret – you'll ask me how I got her I'll say, "I saved my money.” You'll say, "Isn't she pretty? That ship called Legacy…"
“That’s a very Generation X reference, old sea dog,” quoth I. “For surely Deacon Blue have been scattered to the winds.”
“I’m not the one cutting and pasting chunks from the Guttenberg version of Treasure Island,” he snorted.
Which was a fair point.
“How came you to be captain, Billy Bones, if that is indeed your name?” Kavel enquired.
“The previous captain was slaughtered,” said Bones significantly. “And the captain before that. And the captain before that. The last one had her legs cut off, then her arms cut off, then her head cut off.”
I did some rapid calculations, using my extensive combat and medical training.
“That would indeed be difficult to survive by my estimation,” I told the party. “I think particularly the head bit.”
The ship
“And what of the crew?” Derthaad leaned forward.
“What crew?”
“I was under the impression that it's common maritime practice for a ship to have a crew?”
“Opinion is divided on the subject.”
“Really.” Kelne’s tone was drier than a ships biscuit.
“Yarse. All the other captains say it is. I say it isn’t.”
“But who are all those people on the deck of the ship?” Anåbæl craned her head in the ship’s direction.
Billy Bones sighed. “Well, sir,” said the captain, “better speak plain, I believe, even at the risk of offence. I don’t like this cruise; I don’t like the men; and I don’t like my officer. That’s short and sweet.”
“Could have been shorter. You could have just said – I hate everything about this.”
“Right, and you’re Robert Louis Stephenson, are you? No? Then leave the quote alone.”
“We sail to Praxima Island!” cried Kavel.
The captain turned pale. “Don’t say that name in front of the crew! Have you ever heard of Captain Midnight? The greatest pirate? Plundered 1000 ships, vanished without trace – but had an island where he stored this Treasure. A Treasure Island, for want of a better term.”
“Well, it is mine now,” Kavel held up the deeds. “But to explain how would take too long and involve going to the moon.”
The captain took the deeds, turned them over, fished a lemon out of a nearby gin and tonic and squirted the lemon over the back with great care, and there came clear the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores.
It was about nine miles long and five across - this was the island, you understand, not the map.
The map itself was a normal sized piece of paper.
There were several additions of a later date, but above all, a cross of red ink and in a small, neat hand, these words: “Bulk of treasure here.”
Handy.
The crew
“It is many leagues away,” Derthaad observed.
“Well sirs, this ship is called Legacy because it has the legacy of being the fastest on the sea,” said Bones.
“May I suggest Speedy as a better name?” I offered.
“Or Captain Killer?” added Kavel.
“Don’t tell the crew of this,” Bones said in hushed tones. “I will tell them you are young bucks looking to sail. A fine adventure for a young ‘un like you, shortstuff, eh?” Bones patted Kelne’s head.
“I could kill you with my bare hands,” Kelne said politely.
“Join the crew… I mean queue…” Bones sighed.
We met this crew and the first mate, one Long John Silver, who had lost a leg. Silver was a man of substance and put us to work right away.
In short order Kelne was working the rigging, Derthaad into the galley, Kavel and Anåbæl into the hold and I claimed lookout, whereupon a Kenku with a broken beak mimed instructions and flew to the top of the mast.
I clambered swiftly and at the top offered him a warming seafarers tot of Peppermint Egg Nog from my Festive Cocktail of Plenty.
The voyage
The voyage proved fairly prosperous. The men were cheerful, and Silver took great pains to make and keep them so. All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking to each and doing everybody some particular service.
And so, the voyage passed most pleasantly, Derthaad labouring hard in the heat of the galley with a surly and inept youth Jimmy, Kelne hauling ropes fore, aft and ift, Kavel and Anåbæl lugging heavy stores hither and yon and the Kenku, whose name was Quark, and I getting so shitfaced that he acquired a strange charm.
(This, I note, is a Clever Pun, dear reader, for Quarks are a type of elementary particle to do with the Hadrons and they have – look, strange charm is a physics joke. Let’s just leave it at that.)
One night, Derthaad called us together and told us the crew were evil, in league against the captain and that the kitchen boy was a water genasi.
I examined the original text but could find very little of use. Maybe the bit about hiding in a barrel of apples and finding out they were all pirates?
Anyway, we soon sighted land – ‘Land ho!’ I cried – and the crew killed the captain by breaking his neck.
This was not ideal.
“The treasure is mine!” cried Jimmy who was now, indeed, a water genasi.
In the confusion I was able to whisper to the party that we were able to count five of us against nineteen.
“Scarper,” Kavel instructed, and we made for the shore by means diverse and various.
The island
“Allow me Kavel,” Anåbæl took the map, hummed and hawed and finally pointed. “That away.”
Behind us, like a storm at sea, we could hear Jimmy roaring after us.
I must say the island was an attractive prospect with many fine vistas. Had I time to avoid the rampaging monster set on slaughtering us all, I might have found the journey pleasant.
Eventually we found a cave, nipped inside and Derthaad flung a wall of force up to prevent further entry.
By dint of magic we couldn’t see shit, but spells and tricks flew like spittle on a pirate’s beard and eventually we could make out a deadly trap with our names on it. Metaphorically.
This being a well-briefed adventuring party fleeing almost certain death we spent a long time debating the best strategy for the trap before finally stepping over it.
The treasure
And then we came upon a deep black pit which we flung ourselves down with glee – and a feather fall spell – to find vast halls filled with the most pointless tat I have seen in my live long day.
I have been to some terrible monuments in my time – the Shrieking Chasm, which shrieks almost exactly like the wind going down a chasm but still supports a small army of souvenir sellers, or the Gates of Doom, an ancient and very loud pair of metal doors so old that part of the lettering had rubbed away which, since no-one would pay to see the Gates of Boom, locals hadn’t bothered to fix as there was a lucrative market in tiny tin replicas, or even the Invisible Mountain, which was most definitively impossible to see by dint of not actually being there in any way but nonetheless shifted an actual mountain of amusing novelty gifts.
I’m sure there was something from all of those places buried somewhere in these vaults.
I picked up a razor that was so blunt you could use it as a truncheon with the words – freeze before using. Breaks the ice a parties I suppose. Then a diary which, when rattled, filled its pages with demonstrably useless revelations about everyone within 30 feet. “Kavel is secretly keen on someone,” or “Derthaad is secretly thinking about boats” or “the dangerous genasi about to attack you has a secret middle name…” wait, what?
Just as the pirates crashed to the floor beside us, four things happened – Dertaad worked out the caves were covered in explosive runes, Kavel found a secret wall and smashed his way through it, Anåbæl triggered the runes and Kelne spotted the path to the beach through the new hole in the cavern wall.
As the tat hoard detonated behind us, we fled to the Legacy.
As I ran I saw a dark figure leaping ahead of me. When they stopped I walked up saw Kelne had carved the words KAVEL LAND in the cliff overlooking the Legacy’s simple harbour.
It seemed a fitting symbol. Perhaps one day he would return and sell time-share accommodation to retiring adventurers.
The return
Well, to make a long story short, we made a good cruise home, and the Legacy reached Port Ffirst just as some man was trying to shake us down for mooring. I arranged to negotiate mooring and ownership rights with the admirable Mr Mace as soon as feasible which put paid to that little rumble.
All of us had an ample share of the tat and used it wisely or foolishly, according to our natures.
Captain Kavel is now retired from the sea until the next time.
Anåbæl not only saved her money, but being suddenly smit with the desire to rise, also decided to multiclass.
As for Kelne and Derthaad, they lost or hid their treasures in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen days, for they were back adventuring on the twentieth.
The tat and the genasi still lie on the island, for all that I know, where the exploding glyphs buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me.
Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Quark the Kenku still ringing in my ears: “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”*
The End
*This is a narrative stretch as Quark couldn’t speak but the book does end with reference to a parrot and the Kenku was the nearest bird to hand. I suppose as the ship’s watch, Quark was up and down the rigging to his nest at the top and now he was at the bottom of the cave. Strange bird but not without charm. I was certainly never anti-quark.
Don't waste your time on the stupid quark jokes