Time flew by and when the sun was setting Nick finally finished the roast in front of four thousand bloodshot eyes and two thousand salivating moths. He added the meat pieces to the stew in the big pots that Billies were continuously stirring during the last couple of hours.
Afterwards Nick meticulously checked every single one of them and added spices he took out of the box nearby. This was an important part of the performance – every single move of his was carefully observed and there was no room for a foul play, therefore he never took anything out from any bag or sack that pirates could not recognize. From the very beginning the audience saw every ingredient he put in the pots, even more – most of those ingredients were added by Billies whom everyone knew well.
Half an hour later Nick commanded to take the pots from fire and cover with lids, and ten large ladles were put near each of the pots. All the pirates stood up at the same time almost as if someone gave a command.
“Stop! Wait!” Nick shouted, “Wait for the kings first!”
Pirates grumbled, but managed to hold themselves back. The word ‘king’ had the biggest deterrence in the Paradise city.
“You’ll be able to serve a bowl of ‘Omlette Du Fromage’ yourselves and for that reason there are many ladles here. It will be enough for everyone, so, please, remain orderly.” Nick continued, “Don’t make your king’s loose face by acting like animals!”
Suddenly pirates caught the most important nuance – they had to have a bowl! The next few minutes were particularly amusing for Nick as he watched how the two thousand pirates swarmed to their residences in grotto and then ran back to the docks while holding a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other.
After everyone calmed down, the three kings finally arrived.
King Black got up on few boxes to give a speech while infusing Qi in his voice to make it louder and more impressive.
“This is the first feast we’re having in a long time! Firstly, because it has been a while when all three of your kings are here at the same time. Secondly, because our Paradise city has earned the honor our predecessors could only dream of – we have managed to seize the biggest ship in the world!”
At this point the crowd of pirates started cheering and roaring loudly and the three kings looked at their underlings in satisfaction. King White did manage to perform a feat and the evidence of that was anchored several hundred meters from them.
When the pirates calmed down, king Black continued.
“And the third reason is – we always honor our debts!” Pirate crowd fell silent in confusion, but the king continued, “Almost two years ago, when we first caught the wind that “Queen Elizabeth” was being built in Aurora, king White and I had a bet. I claimed it was impossible for us to get our hands on that ship, but king White insisted he could steal it on its first voyage!”
The loud exclamations were heard in the crowd. It looked like only the kings knew of this bet until now.
“The king White won the bet and now it is time for me to pay my debt!” King Black jumped off the boxes, took off his axe and passed it over to one of his officers, while the latter almost fell over when taking it. Then king Black went to the king White and stood before him.
“The looser of this bet will get slapped in front of the whole Paradise city! Hahaha!” King Black laughed, “King White, do your worst!”
King White was waiting for this for a long time and didn’t stand in ceremony as his huge palm landed on the cheek of the gray-haired old man that was almost two heads shorter. A loud slap was heard and the comparatively small stature of king Black flew fifteen meters or so only to land in the lagoon waters with a big splash.
‘What?’ Nick was totally stupefied, ‘They stole a ship and killed tens of people just for a slap? How sick are these bastards?’
Witnessing the sight the whole crowd burst into loud laughs and cheers. Even kings Red and White laughed heartily and, when the wet king Black got back on the peer, he laughed along with the rest.
“Alright, this is a good start for our party! Let us test the ‘Omlette Du Fromage’, a meal that only kings can normally eat! From now on we’ll have royal feasts all the time!” King White roared and the pirates immediately swarmed all over the pots.
Still, the crown managed to hold themselves back and three big bowls were filled for their kings first. As expected, the order was maintained and pirates one after another filled their bowls. Soon only sounds of slurping and chewing were heard among few shouts of surprise and praise. Nick got his bowl as well and carefully poured its contents in his wristband.
‘How do I even clean this up later?’ He got puzzled – he was really afraid the stew will make the inside of wristband an unusable dirty mess.
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When Nick looked around he saw many pirates go for the seconds – apparently stew was tasty enough.
‘Alright, I guess it’s time.’ Nick thought.
“Billy, when you are finished, get the alcohol for the boys.” He said and in a carefree manner and approached the three kings, “King White, do you like it?”
“Not bad, although I expected something more.” King White wasn’t as ecstatic as the other pirates.
“Sigh, how do you expect me to make the real ‘Omlette Du Fromage’ with a regular meat?” Nick seemed dejected as he shook his head, “I needed the meat of a rank four beast, preferably horned elephant’s or woolly bison’s, and it had to be soaked in expensive alcohol for at least ten days.”
“Fine, I’ll get you few rank four beasts. But I want to see the real deal the next time.” King White replied.
“And alcohol! It has to be of high quality as well.” Nick pointed out an ‘important’ aspect.
To his surprise both other kings didn’t say anything.
‘It’s definitely one of them who is suspecting me, but which one? Oh, well. It doesn’t matter, they still have an hour or so left even if they don’t drink the booze.’ Nick thought to himself as he mixed into the crowd.
He tried his best to act as casual as possible and slowly moved through the rows of pirates and then, while being deep in thought, proceeded to the king White’s residence.
Pirates, including the three kings, had eaten the poison and Nick used almost full box of green paste on them. It was enough to kill off ten times bigger crowd, so there was no reason to stay on docks waiting for the poison to start working. Especially if they began to drink the tampered alcohol as well.
He was worried about the person who was still watching him all this time. Even though Nick never noticed anyone directly following or hiding, he was certain he didn’t have paranoia.
When he entered the White’s residence, he immediately wore the black cloak and used the ‘stealth powder’ on it. Then hid behind the door and waited while holding his breath.
After a minute he could hear indistinct sounds of someone moving behind the wall. The person seemed to be crouching from one side to another, probably trying to sense him while staying hidden. Nick didn’t move as there were only two options for the other guy – he could enter through the door or try the window. But surely he was getting nervous because of Nick’s disappearance.
After one more minute his patience seemed to ran out, the door slowly opened and a figure stealthily crouched in. Nick didn’t stand in ceremony and helped the pirate find his location as Wakizashi landed on the poor guy’s neck. The surprise in his eyes was still visible when the pirate’s head rolled down on the floor.
‘Huh? Not a Qi master? Then this guy was really an expert in stealth techniques. If one day he were to reach the level of a Qi master, he might have become the deadliest assassin in the world!’ Nick thought, quickly closed the door behind him and then ran towards the south side where the captives were held, ‘He had the red bandanna so he most likely was king Red’s man.’
It could become troublesome, but Nick was hundred percent confident all the kings ate his stew. Even if he was found out, he only had to run for thirty minutes, maybe an hour. The only way out for them would be vomit everything out and then take some kind of antidote, but Nick didn’t have one and it was possible such thing didn’t even exist.
Nick could’ve waited for everything to settle down, but he wasn’t certain the crazed pirates later wouldn't run to the prisoner cages and start slaughtering people. There was no telling if and what hallucinations they might have, therefore he had to release and arm the prisoners first.
He saw the captives ten minutes later. There were no guards around, probably everyone was confident that no one could escape or, even if someone had to stay on guard tonight, they had sneaked out to have their last meal.
Nick didn’t want to cause a huge commotion, therefore tried to find Steven and Clayton first, but it was dark and captives were mostly sitting while hugging their knees or sleeping in similar pose and there was no way to recognize anyone.
He made a quick tour around the bamboo cages that held over thousand captives and still had no results.
“Steven, Clayton!” Nick finally couldn’t hold himself back and loudly whispered.
After two more tries he heard Steven’s voice, “Nick, over here!”
He finally saw his friend, not in a good condition, but at least alive.
“Nick, they took Conny …” Steven was trying to complain or ask for something, but Nick interrupted him.
“We are getting out of here and then we’ll find your wife. Where’s Clayton?”
“He is in the cage over there with the other Qi masters. Pirates tied them up with a special rope so they couldn’t get free.” Steven pointed at a smaller bamboo cage further away.
“Alright, wait here. We’ll be fine, trust me.” Nick darted off while more and more prisoners noticed the commotion. Few of them were from the “Queen Elizabeth” and started to question Steven.
“I think Nick has a plan.” Was the only answer he could give.
Nick arrived at the cage where the Qi masters were supposedly kept. What he saw were around twenty bodies packed like mummies and three other nailed or tied to the wall with their hands and legs spread apart.
“Clayton!” Nick whispered.
Hearing his whisper almost all of the mummies moved – the Qi masters were on another level after all and didn’t loose hope or gave up easily.
“Here.” Sound came from one of the mummies in the back of the cage.
Nick quickly cut few bamboo poles and got inside.
“I’m here.” Clayton whispered again hearing the footsteps.
Nick didn’t linger and quickly cut the weird ropes with Wakizashi.
“Someone’s coming” Suddenly another mummy whispered.
Nick immediately pressed meteorite ring in Clayton’s hand and slipped outside the cage again. Then, while crouching, went to the opposite side of the cage from where the sound of the movement came.