From the journal of Namor, First Mate of The Phoenix:
Dec 29: Our prize was rebranded The Phoenix and is an upgrade over The Bill. We are all excited with our fiery colored sails and new paint job.
Dec 30: Met with Soto's man Corey. Shared some tales, set him on digging up some rowers that have seen the ghost ship, and bought a comically fancy saber from him. He was adamant that Bala Soto, leader of Bastia, had a job worth our time. I told him we'd look into it.
Jan 4: Bastia. Slipped the steward a few coins at the stronghold to jump the line and get in to see the big man. First meeting with someone that's not Hollander. He seemed like kind of a dope, little disorganized, maybe even a little dull. But his people like him so that's something.
Meeting went ok. He wanted us to investigate the slave revolt on Jetsom Island, off the coast east of Monmurg. He thought his man Bacon was involved. He was paying well for information and doubly well for rescue. I accepted and told him we'd depart within a few days.
We checked in on our project out at the Skull and to our delight found three of the captives broken and ready to move. We packed them up and shipped out en route to Pearlshire, the port town on Jetsom.
Jan 5: Two merchant vessels spotted from the crow's nest by Lazlo. No escort and only one ballista between them. Captain Morgan gave the order to intercept. The prey split, we boarded and captured the unarmed one while we assumed the other was running for safety but the brave bastard turned back on us and engaged. We offered a flag of quarter if he'd just let us rob him, but his flaming ballista shots showed his intentions. We closed with him, boarded, and killed him for his audacity.
Turns out they were slavers of no known allegiance. There were a mess of pilgrims on board one as passengers and a hold of slaves on the other. The pilgrims joined the slaves in the hold and their crews were addressed by Captain Morgan. The options were simple and they saw reason, having only lost one helmsman in the fighting to Lazlo's sniping. Meet the new boss.
The surviving captain of the first vessel couldn't really be trusted or ransomed, so he walked the plank. He pissed himself and wouldn't jump so I had to prod him into the waves with my blade. Coward. We collected our new ships and diverted from our original course towards Monmurg. We had merchandise to move.
Shit winds kept us at sea for a few days. I captained The Frick while Usopp captained The Frack. Some of the others claimed interaction with spiritual or elemental beings and ended up with weird items to show for it. A gemstone ring, a glowing trucker hat, and a winged cat. Whatever, man, I just work here. I shudder to think of the madness that could beset us on an extended voyage.
We fished a fighting man out of the drink just outside of the city. He thanked us with a gem. Said his ship was destroyed by The Shadow. That thing is always around.
Jan 7: Monmurg. V the Venturer was delighted to receive our good news and profitable wares. He and the Quartermaster took care of warehousing and such. The rest of us drank.
Jan 8: Sail The Phoenix for Pearlshire on the NE side of Jetsom. Procan be praised we arrived without incident to a town with a good harbor, small fort, and decent sized market. Rumor had it adventurers were wanted to put down the revolt. If we could get paid twice for a single job? Yeah, we're doin' that.
Sgt Pepper at the garrison offered a bounty on "Toby", the revolt leader, along with a bounty on each slave returned to their master. I could see the path to profit here but we needed more info. Others of the crew dug up some rumors, mostly that Toby was from off the island and a general location. It seemed foolish to just march off directly at him, especially since we suspected that Toby was actually Bacon, but we left vague impressions of interest with Pepper before sailing to scout the northern and western coastline of the island.
We made landfall and our away party of adventurers quickly learned we were on the right path. We found plantations turtled up in fear of the insurgents. We also found a former slave owner with the vapors who gave us excellent information including a solid description of Toby. Yep, it's Bacon.
We pushed inland and found a patrol of insurgents, worn out ex-slaves with spears, a little jumpy but surprisingly disciplined considering. I showed them the token Soto gave me to identify us as his agents and they sent a runner to fetch Toby/Bacon. He returned and was distraught to see me there, as we have some history. I laughed in his face and it was just beautiful that his fate rested in my hands.
Turns out Bacon had ~100 fighters and ~200 civilians that he wanted to extract. That certainly complicated matters as our mission was only for him. But a good pirate knows how to adapt the situation to his advantage. We declined, repeatedly, his stupid insistence that we could just take Pearlshire and cause a full blown revolution on the island. Dipshit tryin' to get us at odds with Monmurg and also risk getting himself killed. We had no idea what the political situation was and his appeals to "making the world a better place" had us laughing, full belly laughs, wheezing and everything.
Eventually we told him we could move ~1000 people, but he'd have to hold out for us to get our other ships. Off we went back to Monmurg.
Jan 9: The Shadow was spotted on the horizon as we approached the coast. Morgan squinted real hard and wiggled that ring she got from thin air at it. It turned as though to approach and she looked surprised and a little panicked. More squinting and it went away. What the hell was that?
We're gonna pay for a message to Soto with an offer to sell him the slaves as freed men who I'm sure would love to settle in his idyllic little domain. If he can't pay for 'em, well, there's other markets. Things are looking great for our crew and I'm that much closer to captaining my own galley.
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