Boarding Party • XII. Fort Night (Patreon)

“Where be yer treasure!?” Cain yelled to the tied-up Kodos officer, pointing the tip of a sword towards his ribcage. The officer only replied with a muffled “Mhmmm,” since Cain had forgotten that, in a fit of rage, he had shoved a rolled-up blouse into that guy’s blasted blabbering piehole. 

The skeleton cursed to himself as he daintily pulled out the saliva-covered shirt, making sure to touch as little of it as possible for as little time. Whenever he threw it behind him, it produced a wet thwack! as it landed on the cobblestone ground.

The officer gasped and cycled through several mouthfuls of air like his life depended on it. Thanks to the blouse, trickles of drool had seeped out of the corners of his mouth and traced the edges of his chin. Some dripped onto his chest while others trailed down his neck. He also had a runny nose, but that wasn’t as important.

Cain figured that the officer needed a minute or two before he could begin talking again. Any inquiries about where the Fort’s hidden treasury was were answered with deep inhales and coughing fits, which didn’t really help and, honestly, kinda wasted his time. 

The skeleton sighed. Some horrific violence would help raise his spirits, he figured. He leaned his skull out of a nearby window and saw how the rest of the pillage was fairing so far. Below, Kodos soldiers screamed out orders that were drowned out by the general mayhem unfolding all around them. A fire broke out in the northeast side of the fort, as seen by the billowing smoke and also a guy running around in flames. A horde of zombies shambled behind him, although they were the least of his worries at that particular moment. 

Meanwhile, the officer had finally caught his breath. With a clear mind once more, he was able to notice the drool for the first time. He tried to look down at it in horror, but quickly realized that it was impossible to see your chin without a mirror. At least, for most people it is. He winced and tried in vain to wipe it off with his shoulder. Once his neck began to ache from the effort, he finally broke down.

“Sir!” he pleaded to the captain. “Could you please wipe my chin?” 

“What?” Cain squawked. The unusual query broke his attention away from the window, which was a shame, because the zombies had finally caught up to the burned man. 

He squinted at the globs of spit on the officer’s face and sneered. “Eugh, nay!”

“Please, I’m begging you!” the officer screamed. “I-I can’t take it anymore!” 

The skeleton grinned. (Or, at least, tried to grin, it was hard to make facial expressions with just a skull). “Oh, ye can’t, can’t ye…?” he teased as he kneeled down to meet the officer eye-to-eye-socket. “Blech! It be like a waterfall, yer lips!” he prodded. “I didn’t know that a human bein’ could make that much bile!” 

“Stop it!” the officer screamed, banging his head back and forth. “Stop it, stop it!!” 

Cain twisted the knife. “Yer face be lookin’ like a dog’s chin after it quenches its thirst! Hell, just from yer cheeks alone, ye could’ve fooled me inta thinkin’ it had just rained or somethin’!” 

“STOP!” the officer screamed, thrashing even harder. The chair he was tied to began to creak from the intensity. Cain arched backward so as to not get hit by the strands of spit now flying from the officer’s face. 

“I’ll only stop when ye tell me tha location of yer treasure!” the skeleton yelled with a grimace. He usually liked to torture facisits like Konfederation lackeys, but the saliva element severely hindered his enjoyment of this one.

“I-in there!” the officer squealed, immediately motioning to a nearby dresser with his head. “My treasures are in there!” 

Cain looked behind at the dresser and turned back around just as quickly. “Bah, I’ve already searched that! Tha only things in there be jack an’ shit, which ye also happen to be filled with!” 

“I swear! I swear, I swear, I swear!” the officer cried in quick succession. “I-it’s in the righthand corner of the second-highest drawer, folded within the brown trousers!”

Cain crossed his arms. “Yer treasure be folded within trousers?”

The officer turned his head to the side, hoping to shield himself from the embarrassment. “Yes, I had to make sure it was well-hidden. It’s… private, you know?”

“Well, not anymore it is…” the skeleton chuckled to himself. Following the officer’s directions, he haphazardly tossed aside yellowed socks and stupid Kodos uniforms before reaching the described pair. He smiled to himself as he unfolded them and laid his eyes on a bundle of weathered papers tucked within. 

The papers were wrapped in a cracked leather folder, tied shut with stringy twine. Cain opened it to see if there was a picture or a map or something he could understand on his illiterate own. 

…Nope.

Eh, he figured that they were probably an unorthodox map of some kind, like a series of riddles that would lead him somewhere. “On the cliff, watch your step, dig at the spot twelve paces left,” that sort of thing. Perhaps they were one of those ship schedules Fontaine loves so much. With one of those, you didn’t even need to chase a ship—you could just sit there and have them come to you.

Well, whatever the hell they were—coordinates, directions, longitudes, latitudes, riddles—Cain knew that they’d all lead to gold in short time. He tied the bundle back up and slipped it against his belt. 

“I thank ye fer yer cooperation, Major Drool Problem…”

“What?!” the wet-faced officer panicked. “No! You can’t leave! You promised to wipe my face off!”

“Do it yerself!” the skeleton said as he picked up the soggy blouse from the floor and threw it onto the officer’s lap. He cackled to himself as he sauntered out of the room, reveling in his cruelty. His silhouette darkened and darkened until it blended into the bleak hallway. 

“Wait! Don’t leave me like this!” the officer screamed. “Oh gods, I can feel another glob!”

Majel woke up with a sharp pain stabbing at her brain and a strong urge to throw up. Cain stood above her, nudging her face with the tip of his boot while angrily repeating her name. 

“Majel! Maaajel! MAJEL!!” the skeleton yelled.

“Wha…?” she mumbled. She tried to sit up, but something was blocking her way—her stomach. It was distended and had a shiny, crimson hue. Shades of red smeared across it like she had been finger painting with herself as the canvas. The pain in her head pulsated, causing her to flop back down to the cold brick floor and groan.

Cain nudged her belly with his boot. “Ye be no better than a tick, ye know that?”  

He put his hands on his hip bone and looked around the ruined wine cellar. “Now that I be thinkin’ about it, this might be tha record fer tha fastest ye’ve ever gotten shitfaced durin’ a pillage. I swear, yer like tha world’s most depressin’ bloodhound.”

Majel belched a reply—one of those acidic burps dangerously close to being vomit—and looked around as well. She was surrounded by wine bottles. Shattered or in-tact, red or white, it didn’t matter—they were all empty. After double checking the closest ones (just in case they weren’t actually empty), she turned to her side, fumbled herself up, and leaned against the nearest wall for support. She huffed quick breaths and supported her gut with a hand.  

Cain walked to the doorway. “Head on over to tha Wound when ye’ve got yer shit tagether. I plan on settin’ sail soon, and D’anna won’t let us leave without ya on board.”

Majel belched another reply. 

Cain groaned, shaking his head as he left the room. 

He couldn’t believe he used to be married to that.

D’anna hobbled through the halls of the fort, beaming from pointy-ear-to-pointy-ear. She had managed to find enough trinkets throughout the fort to fill up a whole treasure chest all by herself! 

She dragged it behind her, twisting and turning through the labyrinthine stone-brick hallways in an effort to get back to the Wound. She hoped that Cain would be satisfied with her haul, deciding to let her retire to the galley for the remainder of the pillage—away from all the death and destruction. Plus, it would also be nice to get a head-start on dinner. 

Suddenly, her path was cut short when a tall, slender elf jumped in front of her, sword drawn and pointed towards her neck.

“Oh ho ho! A fellow elf, I see?” he cooed. 

He looked her up and down and raised an eyebrow. “And one with such a… unique appearance, too. It’s unfortunate that the two of us have to meet under such tragic circumstances—what, with you being a filthy pirate and I, a noble soldier…” 

D’anna gave a nervous chuckle. “Heh, well, I’m not really a pirate. I just do most of the cook—” 

“If you are not really a pirate,” the soldier interrupted, lifting the chest’s lid open with the tip of his sword, “then may I ask, what is this and where did you find it…?” 

D’anna looked down. “Oh! Uh, well… I… uh…” 

Without an immediate answer, the soldier arched into a fighting stance. “I’m sorry, but it is my duty to protect the seas from scum the likes of you—en gaurde!” 

“Uh… uh…” D’anna faltered before suddenly laughing. “Oh-ho-ho! How primitive!"

The soldier's ears drooped down in confusion. “Primative?” 

D’anna continued her haughty act while she nonchalantly tried to unsheathe her own sword. “You’d really brandish one of those clumsy human weapons against a fellow elf? My, my, how far you’ve fallen from your roots, sir!” 

The soldier’s face burned red. “Hmph. Even though you’re a pillaging blackheart, I must admit, I respect your devotion to elven culture.” He dropped his weapon to the ground. “Then let us settle this like intellectuals, like the true elves we are! A game of wits it shall be, th—” 

His words came to an abrupt halt as D’anna swung the chest into his stomach. As he collapsed onto the floor, the panicking pirate stepped over him and booked it back to the ship, hyperventilating “Ohmigods, ohmigods, ohmigods!” all the way. 

Outside of the fort, The Festering Wound was preparing to make way. Treasure was being loaded from the dock while new crewmembers were given a brief tour of the ship by a fellow zombie. So, it sounded like “Aruuugh, graggghhh, burrggh, laoooohhhhuh…” 

Standing near the helm, Cain slipped the sheet of papers from his belt, unwrapped them, and handed the stack to Majel. “How about ye make yerself useful an’ tell me what these say?” 

The cat took them, shifted her body around for a second or two, and then leaned over the railing of the ship. Her ears flattened as she vacated the reddish-purple contents of her stomach, which took a couple seconds to fall through the air before finally splashing into the water. 

Cain ripped the papers from her reddish-purple stained hand and handed them to D’anna. “Here, what do these say?” 

D’anna squinted at one and read, “My dearest Angelica, I long for your tender touch and the taste of your lips. The sea is beautiful, but your dimples are more so. My heart belongs to you, so come and claim your prize.”

Cain stroked his chin in thought. “Hmm… do ye know any islands named ‘Angelica’?” 

D’anna shook her head. 

“Then perhaps ‘Angelica’ be tha name of some vessel… one that carried a lot of treasure once. Or, maybe it be referrin’ ta some cap’an what goes by ‘Angelica.’” 

The elf shrugged. “The only Angelica I know is that lady who works at Fontaine’s.” 

“Which lady at Fontaine’s? There be a ton of ‘em.” 

“The one who got scratched by Majel that one time?” 

Cain motioned for her to continue.

“Because she had to cut her off?”

Cain continued to motion.

“That blonde girl who has to wear that eyepatch now?”

“Ohh!” Cain said before waving his hand dismissively. “Nay, I don’t think they be referrin’ ta her. Eh, we can figure it out later…” 

He handed her another one. “Here, what about this?” 

D’anna took the slip of paper and read, “Angelica… Angelica… the word slips out so well. Your heavenly looks are ironic, given you’re hot as hell. Your ample rear can commandeer—Captain, are you sure these are riddles? These sound a lot like poems that probably weren’t meant to be read by us…” 

“Ye might be correct ‘bout those, but not all of ‘em be like that… right?” asked Cain. He handed her another piece. “M-maybe this one be it!”

“Angelica, Angelica, why did you leave me so? A life without you, dear, is one I hope to never know. Angelica, Angelica, your love I can never lose, so sail down so I can touch your—”   

“Dammit!” yelled the skeleton, snatching the paper from D’anna’s hand and tearing it into tiny pieces. “All that interrogatin’ fer some stupid, schmaltzy shit like that?! That be it! I’m goin’ back in there ta give that spittlin’ Kodos bastard a piece of me mind!” 

As soon as Cain turned around, the officer was right there—still covered in drool, still tied to his chair, and now a member of the undead. 

The captain threw his arms up in defeat. “Oh, that be just great! What’d I tell ye guys, DON’T TURN THE PEOPLE I BE INTEROGATTIN’!” 

He turned around and pointed to one zombie in particular. “I knew it was ye what did that, Swanson!” 

“Mrgh?” a heavier zombie asked, dripping-red and pointing to himself with a limp finger.  

“Don’t act coy, it be not yer first offense!”

The skeleton turned to the rest of the crew. “Finish loadin’ up tha plunder so we can drop canvas an’ finally get tha hell out of here!”

Someone was missing. He squinted and turned to D’anna. “Where be Majel?” 

“Uhh, she went that way,” D’anna said, pointing back to the fort. “She was mumbling about something but I didn’t really catch it. It sounded like some guy named Peter Newar?” 

“Godsdammit…” groaned Cain. “Swanson, fetch that stupid cat from tha wine cellar! Drag her back ta tha ship if ye have ta!”

“Graghhh…” 

“Yes, I know that she scratches, that be why I’m having ye do it!”