Boarding Party • 16. "The Show Must Go Wrong" Part I (Patreon)

D’anna sat in the galley of The Festering Wound, slicing a sack of potatoes for that night’s dinner. She carved the skins off each spud with a dagger she had found on the ship, unbeknownst to how many lives it had been used to take in the past. The little elf hummed a Masakan hymn to herself to keep her mind occupied; they weren’t as catchy as Vedeckai’s, but since her meeting with the bovine goddess, she had quickly pivoted her faith. 

A creak of a nearby floorplank shifted D’anna’s attention to the galley’s doorway. Majel stood beside it, red-cheeked and with a nervous smile on her face. “Uh, D’anna, can I ask you something?” 

The elf resumed her peeling. “Oh, I think I know what this is about!” 

The first mate raised an eyebrow. “You do?” 

“Don’t worry, Majel! Just because I refuse to use beef doesn’t mean that this is going to be a meat-free stew! You’re a cat person, meaning a carnivore-leaning omnivore. Just before we set sale, I made sure to get us a barrel of salted pork so—” 

“No, it’s not that…” the cat trudged. “I was just wondering if you’ve… seen something I misplaced in the latrine?” 

D’anna stopped peeling. She didn’t say anything for a few seconds before continuing once more. “I… think there’s a dirty rag near the washboard over there. I’d prefer it if you were the one to clean it afterwards, if you don’t mind.” 

Majel’s ears flattened. “No! Not like that! I mean something, not somethings.” 

D’anna squinted. “‘Something?’ I see. Well, uh… you’re already wearing gloves, but I think I have a pair somewhere I’m not using somewhere if you want to—” 

“ANY… any imagery you may have in your head right now, D’anna, is not even close to what I mean. I was just asking if you’ve seen a Fontaine’s around there.” 

“The magazine?” D’anna asked. “I… can’t say that I have. Maybe somebody else has it…?” 

Cain sat alone in his Captain’s Quarters, surrounded by large piles of gold that illustrated the fact that he had not learned a single lesson from his death. Flipping through the dog-eared copy of Fontaine’s he found, the skeleton scanned through the magazine’s pictures and glazed over any sort of prose. He began to grow frustrated as he flipped through page after page without finding anything the least bit torrid. 

Everybody on Saint Khan’s Port, from the salty dogs to the landlubbers, knew why you read Fontaine’s — it was for those who needed a void in their life filled, like a lonely sailor stuck at sea, longing for the pleasurable company of anybody else but their crewmates. Most of the intended audience couldn’t even read the damn thing, but words weren’t the focus of Fontaine’s. 

Although his flesh had rotted away years ago, “Sawbones” Sawyer Cain was still victim to those… certain desires that Fontaine’s catered to. Leonard would’ve hypothesized that he was acting on instinct, considering that such lustful feelings were caused by blood flow and dopamine, two things that Cain had lacked for some time now. Majel would’ve said he had “phantom willy,” and added a comment about its size. 

The skeleton flipped past an advertisement hawking a new flavor of spiced rum, an interview with somebody who claims to have seen Davy Jones and lived to tell the tale, and a list of recommended cutlasses for the summer season. The skeleton grumbled to himself before he flipped to a page that made him hunch over in his seat. 

It was a sketch of an auditorium, filled with all sorts of well-to-do individuals. They were packed in tight rows like sardines, gathered in a dark room where everybody’s attention was attuned to one specific area. They  sported pearl necklaces, shiny monocles, scarves made out of the corpses of exotic animals — and they wouldn’t be armed with anything but a pair of binoculars.

The skeleton began to cackle to himself as he rolled up the magazine and ran out of his quarters. 

D’anna winced and glared at Majel. Then, she sighed and dropped a pair of cards onto the table. “I fold again…” 

Majel leaned back in her chair, tossing her hand onto the table as well. “I don’t think that two-player poker works that well, D’anna.” 

“Maybe it’d work better if we had some chips to go bet with…” the elf sighed as Majel stole the blinds: two sea dollars.  

“Or an actual deck of cards,” Majel said, flipping over the cards D’anna had made out of old maps to reveal the Turn and the River: a King of Diamonds and an Eleven of Clubs. 

Cain rushed down the steps to the second deck, waving the magazine in the air like a soot-covered street urchin trying to hawk his wares. “D’anna! Majel! Feast yer eyes on THIS!” 

He opened the magazine and turned it towards them. Unfortunately it was the wrong page, which unfolded itself to reveal a multi-part pinup. D’anna screamed and covered her eyes. Majel spat out the mouthful of grog she’d just swigged, choking a “What the hell Sawyer?!” in between coughs. 

“Oh, NOW I find it!” he yelled. He ripped the fold-out free and shoved it underneath his arm before flipping back to the right page. “Nay, I was talkin’ about THIS!” 

Majel squinted her eyes at the magazine (not realizing that it was her magazine) as she began to read. “‘The Stewart Drama Company is proud to announce their residency in the Her Majesty’s Theatre—’” 

“Nay! I don't care about tha people makin’ tha show, look at tha people WATCHIN’ it!” 

Majel sighed when she realized what Cain was getting at. She began to rub her temples, “Sawyer, why do you always feel the need to hatch these — it’s okay, D’anna, you can look now…”

The elf lowered her hands from her eyes. 

“ — these daft, elaborate schemes of yours?” the cat continued. “Why can’t we just… you know, PIRATE for Gods’ sakes? We got a boat, a crew, and the open sea — why all these heists?” 

“This be piratin’! We’ll be robbin’, not a measly trader, but a whole theatre’s worth of fatcats dressed ta tha nines! Imagine tha payout!”

The cat began to pour herself another tankard. “Okay, let’s say that we go along with your plan — how do you even propose we go about robbing all those people at once? Even with swords and pistols on our side, it’ll be all of us versus all of them.” 

Cain dismissively waved a hand. “Please! I’ve already got it all worked out in me head: Ye two will join tha actin’ troupe under tha guise of strugglin’ actors, gaining their trust while takin’ note of every exit tha theater has ta offer. I’ll stick to tha shadows, makin’ sure that I pick up what ye two miss — which will probably be a lot, considering that D’anna is D’anna and ye be always drunk off yer ass. Anyway, at tha night of the robbery, I’ll lock every door and sneak in tha zombies — ”

Majel crossed her arms. “Isn’t the whole point of this to rob the audience?”

“No, it be ta give them the best performance they’ve ever seen before in their life. Of course it be!” “Well, wouldn’t that be hard to do when they’re all… oh, I dunno, eaten alive?”

“Fine, then! In that case, I’ll just sneak in weapons for tha three of us — YES, D’ANNA, THA THREE OF US — which we can use ta take the audience by force. It be three versus three hundred, but we'll make an example outta anybody that thinks about sneakin’ away or fightin’ back!” 

“Which I’m sure you’d want to happen just to get your jollies…” Majel grumbled. 

“Ye bet yer ass!” Cain grinned. He plopped the magazine onto the table. “Study everythin’ this here article dictates and relay it back ta me — make sure to find out anythin’ that might put a hitch in me plan. Once ye be done with that, do some roleplayin’ with D’anna to get your actin’ chops up-ta-par. We be settin’ sail after we wrap up this raid…”

The skeleton withdrew his cutlass and stormed back onto the Festering Wound’s deck, roaring a hearty laugh. Screams echoed from the burning merchant vessel beside the Wound as the undead ate its crew alive.

D’anna held her head in her hands. “I don’t want to do this…” she whined. 

“Me neither. This whole thing will end up just like that stupid coronet fiasco!”

“I was talking about being a pirate.”