Yar Har! Chapter Tweedledee and Tweedle-oh-so-so-dumb

Quadrupeds, as it turns out, are no good at walking the plank. Actually, no, that’s an insult to quadrupeds, because even the least intelligent dogs can walk across a long, wooden board. These ponies couldn’t make it to the end of the plank if they sold their life to Davy Jones for basic movement... which is a tad ironic considering in the end they would just die anyway. As another winged, gagged and bound prisoner slipped and fell sideways off of the simple device and into the night air, Gangplank mulled over this idea.

It wasn’t like they weren’t used to sustaining balance, and some of these were probably used to flying so it made no sense why so few could even reach the end of the board before being shoved off by a crew members sword.

A unicorn wailed as she tripped forward, impaled the wood with her horn, then tumbled into the air with the plank in tow.

Ignoring this, Gangplank continued his thoughts. If anything, they should have an even easier time then bipeds at walking across the length as they have a whole four limbs and a tail to keep them steady. At least, that sounds like it would make it easier.

A few crew members peered past the broken wall to see the fate of the unicorn, only to find her stuck halfway down the outside wall. The plank had jammed into the stonework, and her horn wouldn’t break free.

The Sea Scourge glanced at his shipmates for an instant before diving back into his mind. Also, why did metal around the horn so easily block their magic? All they did was clamp an iron ring on the head extrusion and presto, no fancy spells. There was metal all around the ballroom, so it obviously didn’t affect them negatively outside of that; he had even seen a unicorn levitate metal. So why in the name of Davy Jones' left ballsack did it inhibit their abilities when clamped on their dickhead?

Gangplank snickered at his clever nickname for the unicorn’s horn as a ladder was flung down the windowless wall. The last rung smacked right above the extruding wood, giving the crew just enough room to climb back up.

The seamen looked at each other and silently nodded before taking up their hands and beginning a game of rock-paper-scissors; the ultimate decision maker. It was an intense match, containing no less than five acts of eye poking after failing with scissors, but a loser was crowned and sent down the ladder with the chuckles of his fellow buckos.

Halfway through his climb, a stone block above him came loose and violently spun downward through the air. Up top, his friends called down to him to watch out. Not quite hearing what they said, the shipmate raised his head to look up at them and was greeted with the sight of a brick impacting his face dead-center at a high velocity.

His hands released the ladder, and he entered free fall with the stone still attached to his face, only to land on the plank seconds later with the hyperventilating unicorn.

“Lads,” called Gangplank as he stood up from his pile of pony swag that had been accumulated through the crews search, “it has come to me attention that there be a vault in the lower reaches of this castle. I will be bringin’ most of ya with me as we... excavate it. You lot, bring out the TNT barrels, we might be needin’ ‘em. The rest of ya, get this loot aboard the ship and secure the grounds. We won’t be stayin’ long but I want to make sure nothing happens while we do.”

The crew set to work with their respective tasks; even the few members by the ladder forgot what they were doing and jogged to the ship to begin loading the fortune.

Gangplank followed the shipmate that had brought him the information. Behind him, he heard a thud and muffled yelp as one of the crew members attempted to pull a barrel off the ship without the plank. Three others came by to try and pry the explosive off of him while Gangplank kept pace, silently pondering why he had even bothered.

The crew member led him to what appeared to be a dark, downward-spiral staircase that had no discernible way to light the path. Gangplank raised an eyebrow at the lad who merely shrugged. Gangplank turned back to the stairway and shoved the man down it first. He heard the tell tale sounds of a person tumbling down several flights of stone block before being stopped by something. This meant it was stable. Smiling to himself, Gangplank began descending into the depths of the castle, his eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the darkness. It was too bad they didn't do it fast enough, otherwise Gangplank wouldn't have tripped over the unconscious shipmate halfway down.

Cursing to himself and giving the comatose man a hard thwack on the head with the end of his pistol, Gangplank resumed course downwards until he found a wrought-iron door barring him from continuing. He took one look at it, then drew his pistol and shot. The bullet impacted the door, bounced off and wildly flung around the tiny space as Gangplank flailed about, trying to dodge his own failed attempt at hammer diplomacy.

Gangplank flung himself to the ground and heard the whizzing ball travel up the staircase for a few moments before hitting something with a dull thud. He then heard a groan of pain echo from above but decided to ignore it as he simply checked the lock on the door. There was none.

Slapping a hand to his face he gently nudged the door forward with his other arm until it was wide open. Stepping out, he followed a corridor for a few moments before hearing a succession of impacts, swearing, and what sounded suspiciously like rolling. He turned back to see a number of red barrels rush out of the doorway in a sea of explosive energy. On top of some of these barrels were various crew members who were either attempting to maintain balance through fancy footwork or were hanging onto it for dear life as it routinely smacked their bodies against the floor.

The rolling squad slowly ground to a halt in front of an indifferent Gangplank who regarded them all with about as much interest as he would the dust on his bookshelf.

Leaving them to their own devices, Gangplank resumed strutting forward until he exited through an archway into a massive archives-esque vault. With a complicated wooden bridge system set on a stone pillar in the middle of the chamber and sets of doors lining the walls, it reminded him somewhat of how a hive of ant-people would construct a vault.

The man he had been following earlier slowly limped up to his side and gestured to the room. “Here be the vault, cap’n.”

Gangplank handed the man an orange, at which the man looked with a confused expression, before saying, “aye, bucko. Ya did good. Now, how do ya propose we operate this land lubber technology?”

The rotting flesh and blood of the crew member began to literally boil. Slowly dissolving into the air, the muscle and organic matter faded away, leaving only bone behind on the table.

Then, the man standing over the wooden fixture spoke in the driest monotone humanly possible, “welcome back to the world of the living, crew member number forty-three. Your stuff is still in your bunk, unless it has been stolen; if you have any questions, go fuck yourself. Bring in the next body!”

The skeleton, in a state of utter confusion, hurled itself off the table and impacted the wall, breaking apart into a pile of marrow. A shipmate with a dustpan and broom came by and quickly cleaned the mess up before dumping another body on the table. “Gunshot wound s-”

“I KNOW IT’S A BLOODY GUNSHOT WOUND! THEY’RE ALL FRIGGIN GUNSHOT WOUNDS! TELL ME WHEN IT’S DIFFERENT!”

“Aye, sir.”

The necromancer slapped a hand to his face and shifted an eye to a picture on the only clean table in the room. It was him and his brother Max, oh the adventures they had. If it wasn’t for the tomfoolery they had gotten into, he would never become such a prestigious user of the magics.

Of course, it all started with him turning his brother into an undead flesh eater, but things happen. Besides, he was sure his brother was very happy being chained up in his mother’s basement. Although, the necromancer had forgotten to feed his zombie brother before he last left... he also wasn’t quite sure he remembered to lock the chains after the last time he took the corpse for a walk either.

Oh well, no need to linger in the past. Back to the decomposing bodies.

Turning his frail attention back to his work, the necromancer chanted his lines with about as much gusto as a kid eyes the meatloaf in the pantry. Once again, the squishy stuff dissolved until only the bone remained, and once again he told it to kindly get the fuck out of his room, which was always an odd thing for him to bear. His room was the necromancy hole. Yes, that is as bad as it sounds. His room was literally the den of rotting corpses and constant smells of pirate excrement.

It wasn’t like the necromancer chose it to be like that. Captain Gangplank (or as he liked to call him, “Captain GAY-plank”) refused him the extra room so that the Captain could stuff it full of collectible furby dolls.

Why he even had a furby in the first place was beyond the necromancer. The things were demons with creepy eyes, a tad ironic that he would find them disturbing, but screw it, those things looked like Satan’s little helpers.

It was by the fifty-first crew member that he realized he was on the last corpse. Giving a happy sigh, the necromancer helped the collection of smelly bones up then promptly bashed his boot into the small of its back straight out the door.

His eye caught the shape of the Captain’s door across the deck as the Phoenix-Downed shipmate attempted to return to the bipedal world. Earlier that night, he had seen a few of the other crew members drag a deep blue horse-thing of some kind into that same room. Now, this was the only thing he had seen outside of the ship ever since they had arrived in the new world.

He was much too busy reviving every sodding crew member Gangplank decided to brutally murder.

Taking a quick glance to his left, and then one to his right, the necromancer dropped to all fours and spider-walked to the opposite end of the ship. His arms and legs at ninety degree angles, the necromancer was the pinnacle of stealth, so it was obviously black magic when another shipmate spoke to him, “uh, Sam... what are you doing?”

Sam the necromancer straightened up to his full five foot three height and calmly adjusted his robe with a slight “ahem”. “Nothing, nothing at all.”

The crew member eyed him warily and pulled back slightly as if expecting the necromancer to suddenly turn and chomp down. “So you were doing nothing... while crawling on the floor?”

“Oh, well, you know. I was just... smelling it.” The necromancer mentally slapped himself, “smooth move death-lax!”

Another small step back, “you were... smelling it?”

A bead of sweat appeared on Sam’s head and trickled down over his eye; as it turned out, sweat is quite salty and burns just like seawater would. He tried to not let the pain enter his voice. “Oh yeah, you know, just in case there’s... ninjas.”

“Ninjas,” the crew member had reached the other end of the deck now. By this point he was yelling, “yeah, you keep doing that, buddy. You bat-shit insane necrophiliac.” He said the last part under his breath.

Wiping his brow and giving off a masterful “phew” the necromancer calmly snuck his way to the Captain’s door which he then slowly slid open as to peek inside. For a few moments he could see nothing, the candlelight on the deck giving off the only rays within the area.

It was then that he saw something sparkle, then zoom towards his eyeball like a slow bullet. With a girly whelp and the flailing of of his arms, the necromancer sprang backwards and landed on his ass with a dull thud.

Not one to receive threatening jabs to the eye, Sam pulled himself back up using the door handle, then swung the wooden construct open in an effort to shed some light inside the cabin. Strewn across the floor were various papers and objects in a mess he could only describe as "a cluster of such variety you would mistake it for an ‘It’s a Small World After All’ ride". This wasn't surprising; in fact, it had been expected.

No, what did surprise him was the dark-blue alacornu bound and chained on the floor. Well, on the floor is a bit of a generalization. It was more like standing on its hind hooves, forcing its front hooves into an awkward position from the chain, with its needle-like horn pointed on a testicular trajectory and looking about ready to spring... while on the floor.

Sam had only a moment to slam the door back into position before the demon horse struck its head appendage through the wood at crotch level. Sam went wide eyed and hid behind a barrel in pure terror, awaiting his ultimate demise at the hands of the eldritch abomination. But when pointy death didn't thrust itself upon him, he grew confused and steadily rose to peek above the barrel.

Attempting to free itself from the door was the aforementioned bringer of pointy doom. The horn shook and rattled inside its soft, wooden cage as if it was being held in place by the almighty power of Cthulhu. Sam raised an eyebrow at this event and slowly shuffled towards the door, making sure to keep his whimpers low.

Once at the barrier, Sam slowly inched his hand forward and grabbed the door handle before steadily pulling it open, revealing the opposite side to the deck lights. Attached to the door was the alacornu in all its frustrated power. It had a scowl plastered on its face that could melt any material that wasn't wood, and its hooves were digging furiously for a better grip on the floor.

"Uh," Sam began, adept in inter species relations, "you having trouble there?..."

The attempted conversing seemed to only raise its anger level beyond rational levels. Sam looked again on the outside of the cabin and realized why it was having such a hard time pulling its horn free; a small clamp of iron had been placed on the horn and had seemingly lodged itself into the wood.

Now, Sam knew Gangplank and the rest of the crew were a few damned souls short a circle of hell but he also knew that the Captain did things for a reason. So, without removing the clamp, Sam began to carve out a small circle around the alacornu’s horn with his bone knife before stepping behind another barrel in hope it would shield him from further harm.

The creature looked from him to the door in earnest surprise before settling back to an angry frown. It slowly trudged back into the room center with its chains rattling behind before sitting down with a mighty 'thump'.

Sam saw his opportunity and devised a plan of action to get the alacornu talking. First, he would slowly walk up and then explain his confusion as to why it is here. Second, he would show remorse for its situation and explain his hatred for the crew, which wasn't far from the truth. Third, he would slowly gain its trust by steadily getting closer until he was sitting near it. Fourth, he would begin the ancient ritual that had always evaded him before among different species and women alike: small talk.

The plan was brilliant, all he needed to do was begin walking.

Sam put his left foot forward and brought it down with a sickening 'schlik'. His body stiffened like a board and a deep rumbling began in his lungs. The chained creature looked on this in confusion and then covered its ears when a deafening screech shook the Earth.

Sam began flailing his arms and hopping on one foot while cradling the other with alternating hands. His scream could be heard from the heavens and all eyes in the area were on him. Slowly, oh so slowly, his inhuman shrieking died down to a girly whimper as he pulled out what looked to be a thumbtack from his boot. Being only an inch thick, the small, pointy object could not have done more than penetrate the skin. However, its effect had left many creatures and some small bacteria in the vicinity void of hearing.

The indigo occupant of the cabin rolled its eyes before beckoning the necromancer closer; Sam immediately complied with a limping hop. The alacornu gestured in front of itself and Sam sat, only to be rocked backwards by the mother of all slaps.

"That is what thou get for harming our royal ears!" Sam could feel the waves of pure vocals pass over his crumpled form on the floor. When he was sure the verbal assault had receded, he scrambled back into a sitting position, out of arm's length from the royally-pissed creature. "One thing’s for sure," thought the necromancer, "it’s definitely a she. No male can be such a bitch yet slap so hard."

Although there were many flaws in Sam's logic, it still jumped to the right conclusion; he was in the presence of a princess or queen alacornu. This brought up implications on Gangplank's actions that Sam began to reel over. For one thing, it wasn't bad enough that the Captain was holding hostage a mythical creature of royal status, but he was also practically declaring war on its nation by besieging what looked to be one of its castles. He was also pretty sure crashing its party was considered rude.

Looking at the creature in a new light, Sam began to lay the groundwork for a conversation. "So, queen is it?" No response. "I'll just go with Queen Alacornu, I'll ask why-"

"No, we will ask why. Why art thy comrades destroying our castle and foalnapping us? Why art thou delivering thy company upon us in such a violent manner? What have we done to anger such otherworldly beasts?"

"Well... that could have gone better. But at least she's talking! That's gotta be a good sign." Sam opened his mouth to give an answer, and then shut it again. He then repeated this gesture until he figured out what was wrong; he had no freaking clue what to say to that. What do you say to a creature that your fellow crew has locked up after demolishing its home in front of its eyes while killing its friends? Nothing he could think of.

So instead of actually talking to each other they both sat silent, Sam being untrained in inter species negotiations and the prisoner feeling only contempt for every living thing on the ship.

It had been an uncomfortably long time before the creature spoke again, "thou called me 'alacornu'... thou doth know that is incorrect... right?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean incorrect? That's exactly how you say it."

"No, that is a mockery upon our species. The pronunciation is 'Al-ih-korn'. Not that senseless dribble spewing from thy tongue."

At this, Sam grew angry. "And I'm telling you, that is a generic butcher-ization of the two Latin words when put together! Ala being 'wing' and cornu being 'horn' it makes no sense to change them to 'alicorn' when you put them together. People like you are just lazy weirdos with no respect for old languages!" Sam nearly shouted the last sentence at her; his teeth clenched and his eyes bugged out; one could tell he was adamant about this sort of thing.

The indigo creature sat staring at the strange being in front of it. No amount of 'the fuck?' could describe the feeling sloshing around her head. She eventually let out a slow string of words, "... are all of Gangplank's crew this stupid?"

Sam sat back and tried to relax himself. "No, only most of them. A few, like myself, are smart enough to not act like an even dumber version of lemmings." The insult had sailed straight over his head, out the door and into the wild unknown with the ala-...ali-... whatever looking after it with an even more flabbergasted expression. She was pretty sure even a lemming would have understood what she said.

"FIRE IN THE-" A blast and yelp followed, as the crew member was sent sailing above the rest of the shipmates' heads from the explosion. Gangplank poked his head above the meat shield he had constructed from the still-living bodies of his comrades.

"Did it work?" Gangplank asked no-one in particular as the forced volunteer for the demolition squad limped his way up to the first vault.

He shuffled through the smoke and debris, disappearing for a few moments before calling back out, "clear! Blew the stone right nicely!"

Gangplank gave a whoop and a commanding shove to the wall of crew members in front of him before darting into the vault they had just blew wide open marked '3-D'. Now, none of the vault's actually seemed to have a logical order to them. For example, the vault he was running at was the one directly opposite the entrance, the bridge had already been extended to it and it was labeled '3-D' as mentioned before. No vault within its column or row was labeled anywhere near that. Not only was 3 never used again in either but it was also void from the three-by-three square it seemed to occupy with eight others.

And then it hit Gangplank like a moldy sack of citrus as he was running to the vacant vault entrance. The realization made him halt in his tracks, causing the line of shipmates behind him to stumble and even cause some to fall to the stone floor. This was structured as a Sudoku puzzle. Each row, column and three-by-three had the numbers one through nine without any repeats. The letters were randomly given to the numbers to just help memorizing contents. He was plundering something that made you SMARTER!

Gangplank felt his guts tighten in a knot, and his stomach began to heave. The very notion disgusted him to his very pirate core. It was almost as bad as being marooned. Scratch that, it was worse. Clenching his abdomen and slowly slinking forward, Gangplank pushed on, his love for booty overpowering his hatred of all things learned.

Eventually, he reached the treasure trove and peered inside. This time he actually did puke, but it was one of rage. Inside was nothing but a single pedestal that supported a glass case. Housed inside of the clear container laid a simple pair of plastic glasses, one side colored blue and the other red.

Wiping the vomit from his mighty beard, Gangplank trudged up to the stone object with the crew standing quizzically behind. He reached the small pillar, then took up the glass case before smashing it to pieces on the very stone it was just settled on.

Grabbing the fallen glasses in his hands, Gangplank turned them over once, twice, then a third time with little luck of understanding them. With a shrug he placed them over his eyes and immediately tore them off before throwing them to the ground and stomping them to a fine powder.

Gangplank angrily stalked past his bewildered crew who had parted to make way for him. When one of them asked why he had just destroyed the prize of their work all he could make out was "...fucking Teemo".

Once outside the inner vault, in what Gangplank had come to calling "the Heimer Archives" (because only someone like him could come up with something so needlessly complicated), Gangplank took one more look around the place and decided he was not needed there. Not only was the crew perfectly able to raid by themselves, but he was sure they would put whatever they find to good use... ok, he was at least hopeful they would.

He turned back to inner vault 3-D and gave a whistle, which the volunteer demolitionist replied to. Limping over to his captain, the shipmate listened to the relayed orders and only had one question, "by any means, sir?"

A night on the town is always a good thing to help the soul. Great fun with friends in an environment that you choose with outcomes that you can't predict. Of course, this also means that the night can become dangerous, resulting in ruined relationships or even awkward mornings where you wake up in said friends bed.

This night, however, was doomed from the start.

The window crashed outwards with a human form sailing through its frame. Glass rocketed left and right as the flying body kept its momentum for a few moments longer. Then immediately stopped and hit the ground like a sack of rocks.

"OWWWHOWHOWWWW! Oh god I think I have glass stuck in my face!" A second man stepped through the broken window and calmly walked onto the cool grass. The moon overhead shed little light on the scene, but he could see that his friend was hurt.

"And you'd be right to think that."

A third human opened a door two feet from the window and stepped through. After seeing the state of his companion, he shook his head in shame and relayed his thoughts, "you know there was a door. It was like, right there. Seriously, it wasn't even locked. Why did you jump through the freaking window?"

The injured shipmate's voice gurgled to his hearing level, "I thought it would end better! I thought it would look cool." He gave a few hacking coughs, then slowly brought himself up into a standing position. The second crew member to enter through the window decided to give him a heavy pat on the back causing him to falter and drop to a knee in pain.

"That's the spirit, do what's cool and not what's blindingly safe and smart. Of course it probably would have been a better idea to cover your head before you jumped in. It might even have worked if you hadn't dove straight head first like a skydiver. But I guess we all learned something in the end."

The first crew member looked up with a single eye and spoke through the obvious pain, "Fuck you, Levit. Seriously... Just, go fornicate yourself with an iron stick."

"Iron sounds like it would hurt. Can't it be rubber?"

"Or possibly a well sculpted piece of ice? It would melt afterwards."

Levit and the immobile shipmate looked to their third friend in a mixture of disgust and utter confusion. Shaking his head, Levit grabbed his downed companion and pulled him to his feet. "You know, Ishmael, people would find you less creepy if you didn't say such things. Like, everything that happens in that little mind of yours has to do with either dildos or the creation of such."

Ishmael gave a smirk to his friends. "Well, I'm just saying what everyone's thinking."

"No... no you aren't."

"Guys, I just jumped through a window. Can we please get on with this before someone shows up?" The two other pirates gave complaining whines but sullenly complied. Side by side, they sauntered down the street, one of them carrying an obvious limp.

Some time later

"And when I woke up, me skeleton was missing, and the doctor was never 'eard from again!" The stub legged man rolled his head back and unleashed a wave of salty laughter the likes of which Gangplank associated with what must come out of Cthulhu's mouth. Awkwardly, he poured himself and the hyperventilating pirate another glass of wine.

This time, however, he took out a small bag of colorless powder he had grabbed from his cabin when he snuck out. Well, snuck out fits pretty loosely here, it was more like he swaggered into his room in an attempt to look drunk (completely ignoring some giant device the crew was fiddling with), snatched the poison along with wine assets, and then made his escape along the outside of his window before slipping and falling into a pile of stacked chairs.

Oranges had fixed the pain easy enough; it was the splinters that got to him.

Anyway, Gangplank dumped the contents of the bag into one of the glasses while the pirate was too busy chortling to himself and then set it, along with its wine glass companion, in the center of the table. He made sure to place the poisoned behind his to avoid confusion; that way it was closer to his more-wood-than-man friend.

Gangplank sat back in his chair with a devious smile, and granted himself a moment to close his eyes in victory. As soon as the drink was drunk, the pirate would be fast asleep, then he would kill the accursed monkey riding upon his shoulder. He heard the sound of glass being moved upon wood as the crew members voice rose again, "now, 'ave you ever 'eard of the story where I took a trip with the father of that one blond haired lad?"

"No, I can't say I 'ave, buck-" Gangplank had been slowly opening his eyes as he talked and then completely stopped talking altogether. In the center of the table the two glasses were untouched, yet the pirate was leaning close to him. He remembered the sound though, it was unmistakable, it was the sound of a glass container being moved more than just a small amount.

He leaned in and looked a little closer, unconsciously moving his face a bit too close to the face of the stub legged man for comfort. The glasses had been moved; he could tell because the little features on each were different... but he couldn't tell if they were in the same positions and just turned slightly or had been switched. In fact, he had no idea whether or not those were still the same glasses.

"then, outta' nowhere, a giant snake wench, the likes of which you 'ave never seen, just slithers out of its belly-" Gangplank sat back in his seat and shook his head to clear his mind. During this process he heard the grating of glass amongst the droning of the pirate. He quickly opened his eyes and wished he hadn't. The glasses weren't in the middle of the table. They were on opposites sides, one on the left, one on the right.

Gangplank eyed the wood walker carefully as he sped along with his story. Blissfully unaware of what was happening. Then it hit Gangplank, the monkey wasn't on the pirates shoulder anymore. It was messing with him!

Oh, he would have none of that. Grabbing the glasses, he then mixed the liquids in each then placed them back on the table. "Ha! That'll teach the demon chimp."

"And that's 'ow I ended up losing me left nut and then immediately replacing it with an acorn," the pirate finished with another laugh and grabbed the nearest glass with both his stub arms. "Well, to us, Captain Gangplank. And to the Dead Pool!"

Gangplank smiled, the moment of truth. He raised his glass into the air next to its companion then made the same toast. Everything was going smoothly for him, he was finally going to rid the world of the furry Satan symbol. He brought the glass to his lips and faked a swallow as the other pirate gulped the entire drink in one try. Gangplank watched with wide-eyed aspiration as the stubby-legged shipmate slammed his empty container onto the table yelling, “that was good! Another round!” Completely ignoring the fact that he had just shattered his glass.

Then, not a moment later, his head impacted the table like a brick with a fairly loud snore. Gangplank gave a silent whoop and sat back with a victory smile. He was about to get out of his chair and search for the monkey when he felt the seat take an immediate exit from level ground. Flailing his arms for the table he slowly reeled backward and even ended up knocking the table into the air with an accidental jerk of his legs.

He hit the ground like an even heavier brick, but before he could even have time to be hurt he saw the table hover in the air for half a second then descend towards him with the wine glass on a trajectory for his mouth. Yelling out, “nononononoNO!” the table impacted his gut and the wine glass dumped its contents into his throat. He gave an involuntary swallow and lay there defeated and bruised from the assault as the monkey slid out from its hiding place and pointed a finger at him.

Gangplank felt his head begin to shut off, but managed a, “fuck you... ya furry bastard,” before letting his brain power down.

Back to the present

"The fuck is a 'foie gras'?!" levit screamed at the indifferent pony standing in front of him. Every quadruped in the room had cleared out screaming when the humans had entered; the workers had treated it like the door had been opened by a draft.

Levit slapped the fancy toupe clean off the host in anger, and was met with a face that gave little to no fucks. "It is a vegetarian meal prepared for those who wish to dine in a prench style. If you feel this is not for you, I would be happy to find you three gentlemen a table and a set of menus."

"I don't care if it's a soup you can eat with a fork, I just want a beer!"

Ishmael turned away from the wall he had been staring at for the past few minutes as the host and Levit argued. "It's not like he's told you, like, fifty times they don't serve beer," he glanced at his other friend, "that's an accurate guess right, O'Conner? Fifty times?"

O'Conner brought a hand to his chin and tapped it thoughtfully for a few moments. Deep in contemplation, he hadn't noticed Levit flip a table in an attempt to infuriate the pony. Not even a flinch. "Why yes, I think that would be quite the educated assumption."

Ishmael stared at him with indifference before giving a heavy sigh. "With that name, you would think at least a tiny bit of an accent would appear someday."

However, both of the pirates were whisked out of their conversation as Levit grabbed them by the necks and shoved them out of the door. "We are leaving this desolate place obviously built for the high and prissy."

"Thank you for your patronage; please come back when you feel the need for fine dining" called the pony from his place behind the stand.

"Fuck you!" And then Levit slammed the fancy wooden door.

From his place low upon the ground, O'Conner said with a smirk, "people would be more willing to sell you stuff if you didn't constantly curse their very souls... or if you had any money."

Ishmael gave a snicker. "He has a point there, Levit."

The broke pirate gave a harsh slap to O'Conner and pointed a finger at him accusingly. "You know that monkey rigged the game! If it was any of you I wouldn't be the one void of coin."

The hand assault didn't seem to deter O'Conner as he devolved into a chortling mess. "Nah, 'cus we would never be stupid enough to play a game of poker with an animal!" Both of the fallen pirates burst into laughter as the enraged companion stood over them.

"I swear one day I'm going to be captain and you'll all have to answer to me..." Levit began stalking down the night street with Ishmael and O'Conner slowly tagging behind, occasionally giving a slight chuckle.

Sam flung himself out the door with a shriek and landed with a pain-filled groan. Although the chains couldn’t even reach Gangplank’s bed within his chambers (why he never designed a better way to keep wenches was beyond Sam), they still had fairly good reach. In this case, he had narrowly escaped something of sex-change proportions with only a mild gash to show for it.

“You’re crazy, equine lunatic!” Sam ducked his head back to the floor as the pony attempted to end his life with her impromptu head spear.

“And thou art nothing but a common braggart of immense bearing! Why one such as yourself is endowed with such mysterious powers is beyond our understanding!”

He poked his head back up and barked out a laugh, “HA! So you admit I’m talented!” The pony snarled at his prone form at continued jabbing at the air against all hope that she might hit something vital in his body.

Alas, her vengeance was not at hand as he quickly scrambled up and slammed the door shut before sighing in relief. He turned to walk away, and instantly raised an eyebrow at the image he was seeing. Off to the port side of the ship, the crew was standing over a fairly big cube that looked just small enough to fit in the staircase from the vaults he heard of below. The cube looked to be made of what seemed like a complicated series of gears, hydraulics, and exposed fuses. All this coated in a pitch black substance he hoped was just paint.

One of the crew members looked up at the ship and waved at him before calling out, “Oy there, Necromancer! Take a look at this device, might be useful!”

Sam took a few steps forward and tested the plank for stability before descending towards the complicated machinery. As he got closer, he realized the device itself was actually giving off a faint glow, not only could he see the light but he also felt a steady pulse of dark energy within. “Oh yes,” he thought, “this will be useful.”

He faced the crew member when he neared and ignored the other shipmates, who were either staring slack-jawed at the thing or finding objects to poke it with. “I think we can use this, but first, we need to at least find out what it is.” He looked to the cube and noticed details hinting that the machinery could move, and possibly unfold. “Try and see if you can move the parts around, we might know when it’s fully prepared.”

One crew member pulled his sword from his scabbard and thrust it inside the cube only to immediately scream in frantic terror and run to the edge of the room where he then threw himself out the vacant window. Right before he jumped, a crew member near him heard “EIGHT-LEGGED FREAKS!” among the senseless shrieks.

The Necromancer and the shipmate who called him down both stared off at the windowless wall with mixtures of confusion. The shipmate spoke slowly, as if it would help him comprehend the situation better, “so... I’ll tell them not to put things in it either than?”

“Yeah that would be a good idea.”

Slowly, in counter-clockwise circles, the unicorn began to free her horn from the wooden board. Above, the alien stirred in its comatose state, the brick obviously leaving quite the effect on whatever it had for a brain.

A bead of sweat dripped down from her forehead and stung her eye, but she powered through and eventually was rewarded with the sweet sensation of her horn breaking free from the plank. She quickly clambered up to the top of the impromptu walkway and sucked in a lungful of air. Hanging thousands of feet by ones horn with little chance of survival was not something to be considered “fun”.

She slowly tried to step around the sleeping biped in an effort to reach the ladder, which had been carelessly left hanging on the outer wall. It had all the logic of working; some ponies can be expertly stealthy on their hooves. It was too bad she forgot she was precariously perched on a single wooden beam suspended in the middle of the air above a literal cliff edge covered in clouds... it also didn’t help that most ponies also have terrible balance on it.

She immediately fell face forward onto the weak construct, and caused it to audibly crack. She winced and looked up, expecting the alien to have already awoken and be halfway to throttling her puny, pony neck. She was surprised when she found him to still be as gracefully asleep as he had been when he fell what looked to be two stories onto the board. She was also somehow surprised when another crack broke the silent night. Then another, and another.

She looked down where her head had smacked the board and saw the original break point, except now it had spread towards the far end on both sides. She gulped once and tentatively stood up, if she wasn’t careful then she would be wishing she was a pegasus.

Before she even brought a hoof forward, the alien stirred and brought a hand up to scratch at its opposite arm before swinging back to the other side with about as much tenderness as a pet alligator. Time slowed for the pony unicorn as she watched the falling hand make its way to the weak wood like a hammer. Then time, in an effort to bring her up to speed, doubled its usual pace and she screamed.

The hand hit the wood, and not even a second later, the entire thing broke apart like a Demacian made gun, giving the unicorn and human the ability to drop like rocks through the night sky.

Her wails of terror were acquainted with the snoring of the human (as she finally remembered they were called according to their leader) as they sped by the stonework of the mountainside, still above the cloud layer. She stopped for a moment when she thought she heard a second set of shrieks. She came to the realization that she was in fact hearing that and they were coming from above. Looking up she saw another human form flailing in the air and screaming something about spiders. The alien sped past her and continued wailing all the way down.

Taking a second to blink and wish she understood half of what was going on, the unicorn closed her eyes for what seemed to be the final time and awaited inevitable death on the cold, rocky edge.

Surprisingly, although most everything is to this equine, she did not feel the jagged embrace of death. Instead she felt the furry embrace of pony arms wrap around her midsection as she was gently lowered to the top of a cloud. She dared to open one eye and gasped at the sight of over a dozen winged guards circled around her. On another, near her, were the two humans, draped over his back like a pair of drunken hobos.

“You alright there, ma'am? That fall gave you quite the scare,” asked the guard currently holding her. She would have asked to be released, if not for the fact that that action would result in even more falling.

“Y-Ye-Yes... yes, sir. I am fine. But if you would be so kind, remove these clamps and chains. And also... please put me on ground.”

The pegasus guard gave a nervous chuckle, “oh, right. Sorry, sometimes forget what it’s like for you ground-hoofers in the air. Also, your screaming friend over there gave most of us headaches, the sleeping one was most cooperative though.”

The unicorn ignored the possible racism and instead decided to shut her eyes as the guard gave instructions to his subordinates, then brought her to ground level, along with the guard carrying the humans. It looked more like he was callously swerving in attempt to disturb the bipeds, but only succeeded in getting one to snort loudly before shifting into a more comfortable position on top of his companion.

Once on solid ground, the unicorn began rubbing her face in the dirt with glee befitting one who had just found the promise land, before remembering her class in society and shamefully stood straight. She looked around and noticed the situation at ground level; a camp had been sprung from small fires and all the ponies who had been attending the party were warming themselves in tight clusters. It seemed having the pegasus guards step off first had been an idea that had not only backfired spectacularly, but also led to the escape of every single prisoner.

The guard sidled up to her, giving a satisfactory smirk. “We castle guards swore to protect, and here are the results. We keep our promises.”

Although it was a small victory in what seemed like a giant mess, the unicorn couldn’t help but smile at this. Then, that got her thinking on what the humans could possibly be doing or even planningback up in the castle. She turned to the guard and relayed her dilemma.

“Oh, no need to worry about that. We already have a plan. And now, we have not one, but two prisoners.”

It took half an hour of nothing but swearing, the breaking of bones, and the destruction of shipmate bro-hood before the crew finally got the cube into its final form beside the ship... and boy, was it big. Easily the size of the ship’s underbelly, the gargantuan machine was an eight-legged monstrosity that radiated dark powers and looked to be plotting the ways it could eat each of the crew member’s faces. This, along with the craziness previously experienced in this land, made the crew fidgety around it. The shipmate who had originally called down the Necromancer even commented, “well now we know why that other man went off screaming. We basically have the unwanted lovechild of Elise and Blitzcrank right here.”

Sam couldn’t help but agree as he stared at the pitch black technology. Each part looked as good as new, possibly from whatever dark wizardry was put over the machine. He was about to open his mouth when captain Gangplank strolled into view, half drunkenly-limping, half tripping over his own feet. He began to climb the plank onto the ship when the crew member next to the Necromancer called out, “Captain Gangplank, sir! We found a device that could be of some use!”

The reply was immediate, half-assed, and contained all the notable details of someone who did not give two shits, “that’s nice, ‘ow about ya use it then, instead of askin’ me?” He immediately sauntered into his room and slammed the door shut, giving the final “fuck off” to his statement.

The crew member scratched his head and shrugged at Sam, before asking if he could do anything with it now. Sam nodded nervously and stepped forward. Although he was confident in his ability in all things dark, mysterious and otherwise sinister, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this particular piece was out of his league. Stopping within reaching distance of the flat body connecting all the legs, Sam put his hands forward, and delved into the dark energies within the mechanism, only to immediately pull them away and raise a curious eyebrow. He repeated moving his hands forward and back multiple times, before slowly backing up towards the crew.

Without taking his eyes off the device, he spoke to the shipmate next to him, “I think... I think it’s a vehicle.”

“What, like a ship or something?”

“No more like a land ship, it uses its legs to move on the ground.”

“And you saw this with your little hand thing?”

“It gave me images, mate. Freaky, possibly satanic images but images nonetheless. This thing is a land traveller. And we can use it.”

“How? How in all of Davy Jone’s locker do you expect us to use that thing?”

The Necromancer turned to the crew member with a smirk, “we put it under the ship.”

And with those words, the Necromancer set about working with the crew to haul the ship above the device using the sheer manly strength of a whole human crew, just as many skeletons (who are quite strong for those without muscles... or skin... or organs.... or anything that could be attributed to strength really), and the black magics of a fairly learned Necromancer. Knowledgeable in necromancy specifically, though, he skipped almost all of the other unimportant school teachings like mathor Valoran or, the most unimportant of all, science.

As he spoke his enchanted words, he heard a small crash of wood off the bow of the ship, but ignored it as the crew plus his power steadily lifted the ship off the ground in a cacophony of wooden groans, then gently placed it on the spider-like device’s back. More than a few fingers were bruised in the affair, and one Skeleton was left trapped underneath the ship itself, but the end result was a surprisingly stable ship on top of something that looked to be made by a mad scientist enlisting the help of an equally-mad user of the dark arts.

Sam looked over their work with a certain type of glee, before realizing they needed a way to control the thing. Thinking over the situation for a moment, he took another look at the images within the spider, and came up with an idea to magically wire the ship’s wheel into the spider’s movements. Of course, this meant the ship user could only make it rotate and not move forward or back, so the Necromancer compensated by adding a bit of telepathy to the deal. When one thought of something not capable of the wheel while holding onto it, the spider machine would follow the command. But the wheel was still needed for rotation, if only to make the process arbitrarily confusing.

Before he had time to test it, a skeleton crew member clumsily walked up to him and asked him an eyebrow-raising question.

After passing rows upon rows of high-salary households, whose residents were possibly panicking from their government being overthrown, the trio was stopped suddenly by a very odd feeling. Well, Levit was stopped by a very odd feeling. Ishmael and O'Conner were stopped by the feeling of Levit's back blocking their paths.

"Oy! What gives?" O'Conner peered around his friend to get a look at Levit, who was standing stiff-as-stone. Not one to usually act so strange, this gave Levit's friends cause to shuffle nervously and snap their fingers next to his ears.

"You there, buddy? You look like you just ran into a gorgon," Ishmael spoke as he began lightly slapping Levit across the face. Instantaneously, Levit's hand grabbed his and brought the slap back to him with full force. The slap was nothing short of cringe-worthy and left Ishmael doubled over while O'Conner held in a laugh.

Levit turned his head towards the source of the feeling and saw a carbon copy of the houses he and his friends were standing next to. All but one. Levit stared at the run-down building, its windows full of cracks and some even fully destroyed, the roof looking like it had been applied using duct tape, the lawn was... surprisingly well kept. With lots of pretty flowers and mowed grass, it was quite the contrast to the house and its ghoulish appearance. Disconcerting to say the least.

Levit almost dipped to the side of calm from seeing the lovely lawn, but immediately got the shivers when he noticed why he was feeling so odd. A weathered old pony with a beard to end all beards was standing in the doorway of the home and... he was staring right at them.

"Well that isn't at all terrifying..." Against all sane judgment, Levit began walking across the street towards the immobile pony. Ishmael and O'Conner stared after him, wondering how the hell one could keep such a good lawn.

A short time later

"Ok, so one final time," the winged guard eyed his brothers in arms steadily, "the pegasi will enter in from the now-destroyed windows, while the earth ponies lead the charge from the main entrance, with the unicorns keeping pace behind them. No-"

"Wait, so, where are the pegasus guards going?"

"They're going through the windows, I cannot say it enough. They. Are. Going. Through. The. Windows."

Another pegasus quickly spoke, "but won't that hurt, Captain?"

One more in the back, "yeah, I don't want to dive through a pane of glass for this!"

The captain began growling. "As I've said before, and before that, and even before that, as I have said almost ten times now, THE WINDOWS ARE NO LONGER THERE! THEY WERE DESTROYED!"

A collective "oooooohhhh" came up from the guards. An earth-pony guard shot his hoof up.

"Yes, private Iron Hoof?"

"So... we're going after the unicorns right?"

He felt like slapping the green right off the recruit, but kept his calm, and talked through clenched teeth, "... No, private. You and your company will be going BEFORE the unicorns. Now, does anypony else have any questions?" He hoped to dear Celestia there wasn't any.

Celestia wasn't with him, however, as another pegasus guard raised his hoof painstakingly slowly. The Captain watched it indifferently as it rose to its peak. When it finished its eventual ascent, he made sure to pump his words full of extra venom, "Yes... Lieutenant?"

"So what group am I in?"

The Captain let loose a furious roar that exploded the tense night, and was even accompanied by an actual explosion from within the castle that shook the ground outside. As he was frothing at the mouth in pure rage, the guards looked at him in pure awe with one saying, "wow, Captain's got some lungs... so were we going in at the same time as the unicorns?"

Present time

The clock ticked on the wall ever so slowly. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Until

The room they were situated in reeked of possibly illegal substances, and was adorned on all sides by things that the three crew members were too afraid to look at for too long, lest they be cursed with infertility or something.

O’Conner leaned, as slowly as the clock’s ticking, towards Ishmael, until he was close enough to smell the suicide thoughts. “He’s just standing there... menacingly!” The old pony immediately directed his gaze to O’Conner, who squeaked in fear and slid back into place. The death gaze slugged its way back onto Levit, who was seated between O’Conner and Ishmael, the good eye piercing through Levit’s skin like some sort of alien parasite, the other eye finding the room’s scenery much more fascinating than the actual aliens inside its house.

Levit cleared his throat and placed his arms on the table in a diplomatic gesture. The stallion immediately produced a ruler from the aether and used his magic to rapp the human’s knuckles. Levit gave a yelp and slid his hands back, rubbing them in silent hate. “No appendages on the table.” It was the first time the crypt keeper had spoke, and it sounded like he hadn’t done so since he was born. His voice came out in a raspy boom, if that was even possible. O’Conner raised an eyebrow and Ishmael visibly paled; somehow they had expected him to not sound like he looked: absolutely terrifying.

Levit placed his hands neatly at his sides in an attempt to not touch a damn thing and slowly began to formulate a sentence, “well, I am sorry if I-” Unfortunately, the gods of this land are cruel gods, as they had deemed him worthy for another Catholic-style punishment, as the old pony materialized the ruler once again and delivered a might *thwack* to Levit’s pie-hole.

“No talk. I will do the talking.” The old pony’s good eye remained fixed on Levit as he slowly nodded, his hands covering his mouth in shock. O’Conner actually began to snicker but immediately forced himself to shut the fuck up when the doom-bringer brought his gaze to bear on him. He then swiveled his head to look at Ishmael, who zipped his mouth closed and held his heart on his hand with the other raised in Scout’s Honor.

For once, the old pony actually seemed to approve of something as he gave an ever-so-slight nod to Ishmael, before settling back into position and gracing them with his pleasant voice, “so... you come to me. Like sheep to the herder, for power.”

Levit gained a bright look in his eyes and eagerly nodded; O’Conner and Ishmael kept themselves locked to their chairs in attempt to avoid rapture. “Yes... I cahn seeense eeet. The powah.”

O’Conner leaned towards Ishmael with a perplexed expression. “Did his accent just change?” he whispered. The old pony didn’t seem to hear him as he stared at Levit and continued being borderline demonic.

“You... are ah wizahd!”

“YES!” Levit screamed a little too loudly. O’Conner flinched away and covered his ears. Ishmael continued to hold his vow of silence in case of death, curse, and tarot magic alike. Levit seemed to be leaning as close as possible to the table without touching it; his eyes were practically bulging and his body was visibly shaking.

The pony smiled a sly smile, his fake eye settling on Levit like a missile locking on target. O’Conner began to suspect something was off about this ancient relic of flesh... well, more off anyway, it wasn’t like he was already setting off any and all “creep-o” alarms available.

From wherever the hell he was getting his whacking sticks, the old pony pulled out an iron rod, the tip literally glowing red from heat. “Dis will give you all dah powah ya hold, me lad.”

O’Conner spoke up this time, “ok, I swear this time his accent changed in the middle of that sentence! Does no one else notice this?” Being thoroughly ignored, O’Conner crossed his arms over his chest and muttered dark curses upon those in the immediate vicinity. Ishmael glanced at him and the old pony in turn, before settling back to looking at anything else.

Levit eyed the object that looked suspiciously like a cattle prod for not even a second before exclaiming, “I’ll do it! I knew I had powers beyond the norm! Unlock my potential, wise one.”

“Geeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwd,” the pony drawled for what seemed like a minute. He began levitating the rod towards the head of the pirate who was at the point of leaning over the table past the halfway mark. Right before the mutilation could begin, however, he spoke again, “ah, I forgot, what is thy name?”

In the back O’Conner muttered, “again with the speaking different...”

“Levit... Levit and nothing else, my lord.”

“The hell is his problem? I seriously need to find out more about my friends before I follow them into creepy houses,” O’Conner thought, as he listened to Levit turn into a medieval squire.

The old pony actually seemed shocked for a second; he kept the rod suspended in mid-air, as he broke whatever character he had been keeping, in order to stare in awe. Then he let out half of a snicker and immediately turned back into “srs bizness” mode. O’Conner saw it, registered it, and then promptly ignored it to let Levit deal with his own damn problems. No need to tell the brain dead moron that letting old strangers brand him in the face was a bad thing, just let him turn into livestock like his intellectual level suggests he is. Ishmael was busy studying a particularly interesting shrunken head of what looked to be an older female pony. It was about the size of a grape, and when he went out to feel it, the eyes sprang open and the muzzle attempted to gather information on the taste of human phalanges. While he was busy wrenching the thing off the fingers he was quite literally attached to, Levit was busy going cross-eyed watching the rod slowly slink forward until it began carving his forehead like a freaking wooden post.

He was too busy trying to hold back a scream as the rod slowly slunk down then to the left to hear O’Conner mutter in the background, “I told you so, didn’t I tell him so? I’m pretty sure I said something like this would happen, if not, then I at least said this was a bad idea, or even that the old pony is probably a rapist, but noooooo-” and so on. When the crone was finished, he rocketed the rod behind himself, into the wall, where it slunk into oblivion, before checking his hoofwork.

“Well, well, well, seems I did good. The mark has been applied, now you have the powah. You just need me special powdah now, it’s not that costly...”

“Again! I swear, it’s like he’s not even trying anymore... wait, powder?”

Levit began pawing at his head, trying to feel where the burning had infused him with the powah. The old pony levitated a mirror to his face, and he scrambled to look upon the new him. He gasped, his eyes filling with tears, and he began laughing an evil laugh of one who had just emerged victorious.

O’Conner gave an impatient growl from behind and slapped at Ishmael, before motioning to Levit. “Well come on then, turn around and let us see what kind of magic wielding superhero you’ve turned into.”

Levit did just that, and proudly displayed the mark for all to see, for upon his forehead was the mighty first initial of his name, the letter “L” scrawled in badly written hoof writing with a hot iron rod. Permanently, in case that needed to be said.

Ishmael ripped the head off his fingers in a final struggle and flung it across the room like a lame animal, before swiveling to look upon Levit. He slowly let his mouth slide down until it was a suitable habitat for breeding flies, while O’Conner began to transition from hating indifference to manic laughter. He guffawed like a madman as he let his head roll back and his voice fill the creepy room. He couldn’t breathe; the implications were too much for him. He rolled out of his chair and settled on the floor in a chortling heap.

“You’re just jealous I’m a badass warlock now, and not like that wimpy Necromancer. No, I’m a full fledged powerhouse now! KABOOM,” he screamed as he unleashed his hands forward to display his awesome might. And right at that moment, right when it all seemed too ridiculous already, an explosion rocked the house. The building was at least two blocks from the castle, and at that moment they all felt the destructive power that had occurred there. Of course, they all interpreted it differently.

Ishmael, exclaiming, “okay, fuck it, I’m out,” rose from his chair and proceeded to bolt out of the house, kicking the door open, then subsequently slamming it once safe. O’Connner stared at Levit with all the “What in the holy Davy Jones’ tits?” a man could muster. And Levit just sat there staring at his hands. He could practically feel the nonexistent power thrumming within those hands that had just went through having a part of their body spasm in intense pain. And the old pony sat there staring open mouthed at the same pirate he had just felt up with an iron rod, his fake eye once more seemed to actually realize what was important in the room.

Quickly rummaging through a pack, he pulled out of whatever pocket dimension he had power over a small medallion before chucking it at Levit’s head. He then stood up and proceeded to shove the two pirates out with his magic, scraping O’Conner along the floor and keeping Levit in mid-air, as he hadn’t broken his freaking hand trance.

Once out the door, the trio were among several stages of “WTF?”, Ishmael had skipped to the end and was helping O’Conner up, as Levit refused to move so he could stare at his hands that were inexplicably holding onto the medallion just a little bit longer. Feeling a need to hurry back to their shipmates, who had probably just exploded, the two who were still able to formulate basic thoughts began literally dragging Levit down the street towards the castle.

Not that long before but still far enough back for the timeline to make sense

“AND I SAID ‘WAIT FOR THE SIGNAL’! BUT DID YOU WAIT?! NOOOOOOOO!” The human stood there furiously waving his arms above his head at the skeleton crew. His screaming intensified as he rattled on, complaining about the explosion going off before its time. To be fair, the skeletons didn’t much care, considering they didn’t have eardrums to damage, but to the Necromancer it was like someone had covered his head with a bucket of gelatin.

He looked back to ground zero as of a few seconds ago. As was expected, debris littered the area, burnt from what one could assume was the massive explosion that had just been set off. The stairway was now buried among the rubble, the overuse of red barrels seeming to have paid off. He then remembered to ask a question that should probably have been asked at any time beforehand, “HEY,” his hearing hadn’t quite returned, “WE MADE SURE THE CREW WAS STILL DOWN THERE RIGHT?!”

The skeletons looked amongst themselves; even without the help of facial expressions, the Necromancer could still tell they had not done so. And if his luck was anything of consistency, the crew was probably standing directly behind him, armed to the teeth with their pistols aimed at his squishy, mortal skull.

“What in the whole of Valoran is going on here?!” He was partly right.

The Necromancer turned to face the second-in-command who had stumbled upon their event. “DON’T WORRY,” he ‘whispered’ to the armed crew, “I’LL TALK TO HIM! HE WON’T EVEN KNOW ANYTHING HAPPENED!” Sam turned to the man, who still held his aggressive stance towards the Necromancer and skeletons alike. Obviously, he did not realize that a good fifty or so men standing next to a recently demolished area were a peaceful people. Sam attempted to start the conversation three times, each ending in a failure-induced sputter as the temporary commander of the ship grew more bemused. When he finally was able to open his mouth and form a coherent thought, it came out as, “WE ARE CURRENTLY UNDERGOING A MUTINY!”

The man then ran for his precious life while the whole of the skeleton crew looked to their impromptu leader in genuine awe. It is hard to imagine just how fast some people can destroy a situation. They quickly raised their arms with swords held high and charged down the corridor after the sprinting replacement Captain, with the Necromancer lagging behind.

“GET THAT FREAK OF NATURE MOVING,” Tarbos screamed to the crew, as they busied themselves with the ship’s supplies. The crew members on the ship’s deck could clearly see Tarbos exiting a hallway at the edge of the room with a tribe of angry skeletons hot on his heels. Some say words can motivate people to do great things. People who know what they’re talking about say seeing images like that motivate people to get the fuck outta Dodge.

The crew went into full panic mode; those carting supplies onto the ship finished whatever they were in the middle of doing, then climbed onto the deck like frantic monkeys, while anyone already on the ship itself prepped the thing for flight, fight being out of the question when the possibility of being stabbed by a skeleton was in the equation.

Tarbos had made it halfway to the ship, the skeleton crew steadily gaining ground on him from behind, when he heard the unmistakable sounds of wings beating and giant doors being slammed open. Now, this could mean anything, but since there was only one pair of giant doors in the vicinity, and wings meant flying animal, then any situation this could lead to was a bad one. Especially when your Captain is out cold from a normal night of intensive drinking and murder.

He slid to a screeching halt when he found his way barred by the muscle wall that was a good ten-or-so pegasus creatures. Behind him, he heard the skeleton crew come to a more jumbling stop as one or two of them promptly fell apart. He risked a nervous glance behind the undead crew and saw a third party introduce itself to the fray, consisting of horned-ponies and the ones who seemed like nothing special. It had seemed unfair to him beforehand, until he, and most of the crew along with him, noticed that they were quite simply freaking gigantic versions of their mutated brethren.

It was at this point of frantic pondering that he heard a massive boom and crack coming from the ship. He turned his head around with a desperate look of “oh, please, Davy Jones no!” and saw to his surprise that it in fact hadn’t blown up, and that the sound was actually the product of the monstrous machine standing up.

Deciding that he didn’t like standing between dozens of furious animals and the undead bodies of his former crew, he quickly snatched the nearest skeleton in both hands and held it in front of himself like a shield. He gave a fierce battle cry as the entire ensemble devolved into a state of mass confusion, and proceeded to bull rush out of the collapsing group like a football player on the ten-yard stretch.

From atop the deck, it looked like an insane man holding a human skeleton was bashing ponies from all sides as he made his way towards salvation. Of course that was what was happening, but it seemed better at the time for the crew to believe they were just slowly dipping into madness. Reality isn’t supposed to bend that way.

Tarbos ended his mad streak by chucking the confused dry-bones on board, then shortly thereafter, launching himself onto the ship’s side with just as much care. Once latched onto the ropes like a crazed animal, he shouted to the crew in a hysterical voice, “MOVEMOVEMOVE!” And the spider-like device began doing just that. Just, a little bit faster than they had imagined. So much faster that anyone on deck was thrown to the ground hard enough to elicit cursing, even the shipmate on the wheel was knocked off his balance.

The device, following commands from the crew member controlling it at the moment, then did its job and flung itself backwards. The ship had originally faced the wall absent of windows when it had came in, and hadn’t been moved since then. Because of this, the ship now was rocketing backwards into the opposite wall adjacent to the double door entrance. The wood held surprisingly well as the device slammed itself into the stone structure. The crew member at the wheel took it a little worse. His body already flung backwards from the initial movement was now sent reeling port side... towards the vacant windows.

Tarbos, being on the opposite side when he had jumped on, could only yell up one sentence, “WHERE ARE YOU GUYS TAKING THIS THING,” before the massive vehicle hurled itself through the wall and off the side of the mountain, the crew and the others holding on for whatever dear life they had when they arrived in this land.

Author's Note

This thing took a bit longer because I was waiting on people who didn't seem to ever respond. I was able to receive critique from one guy who hated reading about pirates and one guy who did quite a fine job at tuning everything down. Both shall receive nameless credit. Now on with the actual author note.

Now, this is when the story gains some momentum, I had a plan going into the chapter and everything seemed to fall into place as I expected it. You may have noticed so far I'm really attempting a certain style of comedic tone with this story and I'll say I'm trying to copy how "Human" does it because that and Blueshift's "X-COM" story are my favorite things on this site.

Not much I can say about this other than I hope it continues to do well enough.

Cheers, big ears!