The Folly of Captain Dread

     Above it all, a skeletal Kiko hovered a few feet over the quarterdeck with his bony hands clasped behind his back and an expression of smug satisfaction on his skull. Captain Dread, the notorious pirate of the Coral Sea, surveyed his crew’s rowdy party like a king basking in the adoration of his subjects.

     With a slight bob in the air, Captain Dread turned to his first mate. “Still frowning, lad? In case yeh haven’t noticed, we be victorious over that waste of a kingdom. Ye of all pets should know.”

     The large Green Lupe stood impassively at his captain's side, his own arms clasped behind his back as his one good eye roved over the raucous revelry of his crewmates.

     “This all seems… frivolous to me, Captain,” he said, his voice a low grumble. “We may have beaten them, but we didn’t gain an ounce of treasure or tribute out of it. Wouldn’t we be better off moving on to a more profitable venture?”

     Dread barked out a short, sharp peal of laughter. A few of the closest pirates looked up, startled by the unexpected sound.

     “Frivolous, ‘he says,” the captain echoed with one last chuckle. “No, Jasper, this be nothing less than the first and greatest step in our conquest.”

     With that, he turned to the doorway into the quarters below deck and beckoned for the Lupe to follow. “Come. We have a lot to prepare, says I.”

     Jasper lingered a moment longer, casting his gaze back out over the partying crew. About a mile or so off the starboard side of the ship, he could still see an unnatural swirl in the currents of the water. The eddy had slowed from its once feverish pace by now, but the area that it covered far outsized even the Revenge. In the low light, he could only just make out bits of rubble still pulling briefly toward the surface before they disappeared back below.

     With a low growl of some emotion even he couldn’t quite place, he followed his superior below deck.

     “Maraqua was no simple fishing hamlet,” Captain Dread said the moment his first mate joined him. “The sea-pets had called it a marvel of underwater engineering, to build a city so large yet still able to weather ocean currents. That oafish king was a liar and a fool ta say a city like his could not spare the coin for me services. Heh. Well I showed ‘im what happens to liars and fools what try to swindle Captain Dread!”

     Jasper’s good eye narrowed in brief annoyance, and for just a moment it flashed with a low golden light. “I believe you mean I showed him, Captain.”

     Dread waved a dismissive hand. “Ye know what I mean, lad. O’ course, yer wizardry’s plumb near half the reason we’ll be ruling the seas, soon enough.”

     Before Jasper could respond, his captain held up a finger and swept his gaze around the hall to confirm that the two of them were still alone. Once satisfied, he said, “Speaking of, ye must be drained after castin’ a curse like that whirlpool. Ye can drop the illusion, I need yeh in top condition and thar won’t be nobody bothering us with the grog flowing up top.”

     With a shrug, Jasper waved a hand to dispel the illusion that hid Dread’s soft organs and rendered his already clear skin completely invisible. The Transparent Kiko shivered a little at the layer of magic peeling off his physical form, and he readjusted his tricorn hat to hide the sense of discomfort.

     “So if my magic is half the key to your plan, what is the other half?” Jasper asked.

     Captain Dread laughed again. “The sheer might of the Revenge’s forces, all spurred on by me brilliant leadership and intimidatin’ skills, o’course.”

     He floated over to the door of his personal quarters and took a moment to fish the key out from his coat. He unlocked the door with a low clunk, and his first mate dutifully followed him in. The captain’s quarters were a mess – peeling paint on the walls, books and a few dubloons scattered haphazardly about – but an old scarred desk with a map of Neopia stretched over its surface took pride of place in the centre of it all.

     Captain Dread snatched a dagger from atop his dresser and stabbed it through the map into the desk below, piercing right through the stretch of sea that detailed what were now the ruins of Maraqua.

     “That’s why teaching those ocean-dwellers a permanent lesson is cause fer celebration, even if there weren’t no treasure in it,” he said, driving in the point of the dagger until it was firmly embedded into the wood.

     “It’s all about putting on a show, ya see. Just like me deathly look, or me name. E’en yer own eyepatch and sword make a statement.”

     Jasper grumbled in acknowledgement, one paw reaching down to brush at the hilt of his old, battle-scarred blade.

     “All those are enough to bring the crew ta order and remind the merchant ships we do business with just what they’re in fer, but now the nations themselves will know that the Revenge does not make idle threats,” Dread went on. “And targets that are already afeared of us make for all the better pickin’s.”

     Jasper walked up to the map with a thoughtful frown. “I take it you already have something in mind, then?”

     Captain Dread’s transparent lips spread into a wicked grin, and with one claw he tapped on the largest island in the local sea. “Aye. Now’s we know just what we can do, we stay the course and make sure the big targets know that e’en their coasts aren’t safe from us. Tomorrow, we sail fer Mystery Island.”

     * * * * * * *

     Jasper couldn’t stop the nervous twitch of an ear as more defenders broke through the treeline and joined their fellows on Mystery Island’s southern shore. In his head, he reminded himself that it would only serve to make their victory all the sweeter. The Revenge had been moored just offshore for what was swiftly approaching longer than he liked, but still Captain Dread hovered just over the railing and bellowed his demands to the islanders below.

     “This be your last chance, lubbers!” he called out, his voice amplified by magic not unlike his false skeletal form. “Hand over the Maraquans and the treasure they kept from us, or yer precious island’ll join them at the bottom o’ the sea!”

     From among the forces gathered on the shore, an old Techo with a hard and determined look to him stepped forward. “Stop this foolishness at once,” he replied, his own voice equally enhanced yet alarmingly soft. He was confident. “You gain nothing from tormenting refugees, and you will gain nothing by attacking us. Leave this place while your ship and crew remain intact.”

     Captain Dread scowled, but Jasper could see the glint of malicious glee in his expression. “Big words fer an island without a proper navy,” he muttered too low for the amplification spell, “And yet I knew ye’d say that all the same.”

     Drawing his sword, he returned to a shout with, “Very well then! Crew, show these island lubbers why we call ourselves the Revenge!”

     A series of shouts and splashes erupted as pirates dropped skiffs into the water below or even dove straight into the sea. Jasper’s paws itched to grab his own sword and join them, but another look back at the shoreline was enough to remind him why that was a bad idea. The Captain had a very specific plan in mind, and all of his posturing had ensured that the Revenge’s targets were now well enough prepared that in a fair fight, they were already well outmatched.

     That was why Jasper’s role in the plan was to ensure it was not a fair fight.

     As the first group of attackers rowed and swam for shore, he reached out with his arcane senses and felt the ebb and flow of the tide. His captain was not completely reckless – he knew Jasper’s powers well enough to plan this attack for the rising tide, when the ocean swelled and lapped hungrily at the shore. It was nearing its peak, now, and it took only a moment for him to sense the flood current that pushed the seawater ever further inland. So he raised his arms and, just as the rolling waves built up and passed him by, he took hold of one and poured his power into helping that current along.

     The Revenge rocked as the wave he’d grabbed built itself up higher and faster, and the pirates ahead of him were soon swept up in a swell of water that pushed itself and everything in its wake with an intensity that defied natural water flow. In moments, the wave crested and broke over the beach, scattering and sweeping up Mystery Island’s soldiers even as it deposited pirates right on top of them.

     Jasper allowed himself a smirk as he shifted his focus to the next wave. His crew had been warded and prepared to do battle in these conditions, but the Mystery Islanders had not expected for the sea itself to turn against them. The next wave caused further chaos, grasping unwary defenders and pulling them out to sea even as it barely slowed the pirates down. Several islanders were getting wise and pulling back to positions where the water couldn’t reach even with his guidance, but he surmised that he would only need another round or two to upset things enough for the crew to push inland after them.

     Again, the tide surged. Again Jasper fed it with magic that built it into a great swell. Cerulean light shimmered faintly around his paws as he drew them slowly forward with the wave, and for just a moment he basked in his own power.

     Then the moment ended, and he found something else pushing back against him.

     Jasper growled in the back of his throat as his guiding spell suddenly became a strain. His concentration broke under the unexpected resistance, and the wave that was rolling to shore began to lose its unnatural momentum.

     “What are ye doin’?” Captain Dread barked at him. “The ones ye washed out are gettin’ back in the fight!”

     Jasper grabbed the ship’s railing and scanned Mystery Island’s shoreline for the sorcerer who had dared challenge him. At first, all he could see were physical fighters engaging in battle or regrouping or struggling their way out of the brine. But as he watched, an almost imperceptible glow of sea-green magic suffused the water around a group of stragglers, pulling at them far more gently than his own spell had to deposit them onto dry land. He followed the sharp tang of magic upward to find the Island Faerie hovering just beyond the treetops. She looked up from her work, and they locked eyes.

     Jasper scowled. Jhuidah may have been a faerie, but she was an Earth Faerie. Water was his element.

     At the next surge, he poured everything he had left into building it as much as possible. Resistance met him again, as the Island Faerie threw her hands forward and cast a spell to counter his. But Jasper was ready this time, and between his elemental affinity and the wave’s own momentum, her resistance gave out after a few more moments. The Revenge dipped and rolled in the choppy waters that pulled themselves into the wave, and as it swelled and crested he could hear shouts of panic and dismay from a shoreline now hidden from view.

     But then the Revenge rolled again, and he sensed more than saw that it was from more than his influence on the tide. Something was pulling itself out from underneath them, though at first he could not tell what. His own wall of water kept him from seeing what exactly was happening, but he didn’t have long to worry about that before Jhuidah demonstrated just why Mystery Island didn’t need a navy.

     All at once, the wave Jasper had conjured broke against something thick and tall and sturdy that had not been there moments ago. Some water flowed over the obstruction and rolled on, but most of it rushed back to its proper place with a speed and force that slammed into the Revenge. Jasper’s concentration snapped in two, and it was all he could do to cling desperately to the railing while new chaos erupted around him. He could just make out Dread’s bellowed profanities over the mad scramble of pirates who had stayed onboard to prepare the ship for the next stage of their assault – pirates who were now putting everything they had into keeping the ship from capsizing.

     When the world finally stopped swaying enough for him to look up, he beheld a massive wall made of nothing more than sand and kelp. Held in place by the Island Faerie’s power, it may as well have been pure Maractite.

     And then it was decidedly not being held in place, and the mountain of seafloor collapsed quite pointedly in the direction of the Revenge, and it was all Jasper could do to raise the waters enough to steady his ship against the onslaught. He was on the defensive, now – a lone sea sorcerer who had dared challenge a faerie who claimed the island itself as her domain.

     And with him on the defensive, the fight ashore was rapidly starting to turn fair.

To be continued…