On a particular part of the sea rest a secretive island, there sits seven men surrounding a bonfire.
They are of different birth, different stature, but share one common trait.
They are all rats that live in the dark underbelly of our society who excels in acts of cunning and deception. Yes, they are smugglers or more specifically they are all members of the smuggler group known as the
After a while the eighth member of their group showed up, bringing along a six and a half feet tall man.
“Sorry, I’m late.”
A man of short stature and a face full of rugged black beard spoke: “ Luke, you are just as undependable as your ship.”
“But I brought some rum.”
“And I'll always forgive you.”
The black-bearded man couldn’t resist and snatched a bottle of rum off of the crate of liquor, popped the cork off, and chugged a few times before stopping with a reddish blush on his face.
“Luke is he the new member you scouted out?”, the man with a goatee question.
“That's right, isn’t he just intimidating?”
“He’s so bulky, can he even perform the task?”, another one of the members asks.
“You can’t judge a book by its cover, you should know that better than anyone Stan. Besides, did you know what happened in the kingdom’s capital? He did that.”
“What? That firework popped in the capital was him?” , Stan said surprisingly.
“I was staying in one of the inns in the slums when that happened, I thought the sun rose early that day.”, the gray-haired man spoke.
“Then does anyone oppose the new members joining? If you do then speak up now otherwise shut your mouth.”, the man with a goatee speaks.
The black-bearded man looked as if he was going to say something but was quickly stared down by the other members who were familiar with his usual shenanigans, turned down he drank some more to show off his displeasure. Everybody else was silent; only the sound of wood crackling in the bonfire was heard.
“Very well then let us welcome the newest member of
“Andy.”, the tall man spoke.
“Let us cheer for Andy.”
‘Andy’ now sitting on a log surrounding the bonfire like all the others, he followed their lead, touched bottles, and sipped some rum. Suddenly the atmosphere became a lot more sociable, jokes were cracked, questions were asked, and laughter passed around. If someone else came along they couldn't tell that he was just a stranger to them moments ago.
As the sky around the grew dark the man with a goatee, who was growing apparent that he to be the leader of the group, gathered the group’s attention.
“It will take the docks till tomorrow to ready the supplies for our boat.”, he said, as he looked toward the orange dusk sun half-submerged in the far sea line, thought about it.
“Lets trade tales, as the tradition of
His eyes glimms over those who're sitting “Who wants to begin?”
The black-bearded man with his glowing red cheeks stood up: “Let me since none of you balless fuckers are men enough to do it.”
His words stirred a wave of boos and cusses from his audience but quite as he began to tell his stories.
He stared at the audience with his pitch-black pupil, slowly spoken with a soft eerie tone: “This is a story of the ghost ship ‘Lady Lovibond’ and her captain, the one going by the title of ‘Davy Jones’ when he is not yet known by that name .”
“A couple of years ago I was in the city of Mavira doing some business where I encountered a captain that I had a couple of friendly encounters with early in my career.”
“He was drunk off of his ass yet he kept on drinking.”
“Now I know him, usually he never drinks more than a pint or two, says that too much would hinder his judgment. So I ask him: “What happened to you that cause you to drink like this?’”
“He looked at me, I saw his bloodshot eyes and those black puffy bags under those eyes suggesting that he hasn't slept properly in days. He told me that recently he and a couple of young bounty hunters have been searching for ‘Lady Lovibond’ and her new captain. Someone put out a bounty of three gem heads to anyone that can bring him his head. He didn’t want to be a part of it at first but when tempted with the reward if they do succeed, he agreed.
‘Three gem heads, that's three hundred gold coins even if evenly split that's close to twenty coins per person, it would take you years to make this much in trades.”
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‘We will be the ones to defeat ‘Lady Lovibond’, we’ll be heroes our names told in every tavern, maybe they’ll even make a play for us.’
‘I’ve heard that the new captain is a strew man, that all those stories of his descriptions and encounters are exaggerated hearsay. In fact, it's rumored that he doesn’t even have blood on his hand, isn’t it ironic that he is the captain of the most fear ship even though he hasn't taken a single life?’”
“One night when the wave is calm and the star is bright, he and a dozen or so ships ambushed and surrounded ‘Lady Lovibond’, at the time there was only the crew and that new captain on board.”
“They looked through their spyglass and couldn’t find the captain on the deck. Just when they thought they had the new captain hiding in a corner somewhere, the said captain emerged from his quarter.”
“By now you all have heard his rumor.”
“Some say that he is a half-giant, ten feet tall, skin hard is diamond, and can punch a hole through steel.”
“Some say that he is the child of the sea mother, he can control the wave and the storm, and all sea creatures obey his command like subjects to their king.”
“Some say that he is a spy sent by the Dayuan dynasty, that over the years some of the kingdom’s royal already became the victims of his marksmanship.”
“So I asked him, are the rumors true? What does he look like? Or is he just a straw man like his bounty hunter friends said?”
“He stuttered with a bitter smile: ‘For starters, he is not ten feet tall, only around six to seven feet. He wore deceptively simple bland colors, the kind that if you and I were on the street and saw him we’d only see him as a simple man of extraordinary height.’”
“‘For a moment I really thought his infamy was built on rumors, but I was quickly proven wrong as one moment he was standing on his deck, and the next he was standing on one of our ship’s.’”
“Then he stopped his recall of the events, but it was just beginning to get good. So I urged him: ‘ And then? And then?’”
“His face contorted as if reminiscing some miserable experience: ‘Then I saw with my spyglass something I'll never forget, a hundred or so sailors butchered less than a quarter-hour. He is not human, he's a monster dressed in the skin of a human.’”
“Afterward the news of what happened reached the kingdom and the name Davy Jone truly stuck. A devil made not from birth but created by God to punish us for the hubris of the sea. In our last moments on the sea, he will come to snatch the souls of wicked men and drag them to the deepest part of the sea.”
“Even now ‘Lady Lovibond’ roams the sea together with her most feared captain, looking for her next victims. Captains when you see her pray, pray that you have done more good in your life than evil, don’t pray that Day Jone will show you mercy, it will only give him extra satisfaction when tearing your soul out.”
After the black-bearded man finished his story, silence lingered in the air, only the sound of wood baking in the bonfire can be heard yet it doesn’t bring warmth to the chilling ambiance left by the story. It was only until the black-bearded man flipped his hat upside down to be used as a bowl and held it around the group that someone broke the silence.
The man wearing brown leather armor remarked: “How should I put it... it's not the best tales of terror nor is it the best sea stories I've heard, but overall pretty good.”, as he tossed two silver eagles into the hat, lightly greased with some palm sweat.
“I think it would’ve worked better as an encounter on the sea type of story.”, says the man with a goatee as he tosses a silver eagle and a few bronze scallops.
Everyone tossed some coins into the hat as well their slice of opinion and criticism.
“I think it’s interesting.”, said Andy then tossed a single silver eagle into the hat.
“If you think it's so interesting then donate more than a single eagle.”, the black-bearded man counts the coins in his hat in his tipsy state then as I suddenly remembered something looked up and said:
“Now that I think about it there are sightings of ‘Lady Lovibond’ in the nearby waters. A couple of local pirates fell victims, and now none of my men wants to set sail fearing of running into her.”, he chugs a big gulp of rum then exudes, “Just my luck.”
“By the way, isn't the story of ‘Lady Lovibond’ a bit outdated? I don't know why you Lusians are all scared of a bedtime told to scare little kids.”, says Stan.
“I mean when you are a kid ‘Lady Lovibond’ was the perfect boogieman, no one knows what happens to her captives just that they are never to be seen again and that no one knows her exact origin just that she’s existed since the Lusian sailers can remember. Go to any Lusian pub and a few of her stories are always passed around, they can tell a story right even though their drink is shit with how much they water it down.”, says the black-bearded man.
“Steer away from the archaic and the abnormal…..true, if you plan on living those are the two things to steer away from.”, the man with brown leather armor comments.
“If it were up to me I’d say we destroy her, there is no way that a single ship can match a fleet.”, says Stan.
“You think the asses back at Lusian capital don't want to? Around two hundred years ago the Luse empire sent a reinforced fleet with three warships to hunt down ‘Lady Lovibond’, after exerting a substantial amount of economic and militaristic resources they finally managed to sink her. Within five years ‘Lady Lovibond’ was up and about sailing on the water with a new captain. When the queen at the time found out not only did she punish the noble who suggested the idea but also publicly denounced him for his incompetence. It is said that the noble's family are still mocked for what they did all those time ago. Now nobody wants to continue this fruitless effort.”, the black-bearded man explained.
“All right, all right, stop straying from the activity at hand. Who’s got the next one?”, the man with a goatee asks, trying to move on with this pointless discussion.
“I'll go.”, the grey-haired man spoke, same as the black-bearded man he quickly brought the mood to his desired pace.
“Have you ever thought about why every year, so many souls are lost to the sea yet only the occasional few bodies were scavenged? Let me tell you of a tale brought by a captain who traveled to the northern edge of the sea and witnessed the truth, a tale long forgotten…...."
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What's it like when the people around you tell tales of your misadventure yet you are unable to correct the clearly misconstrued image of you?
Especially when those rumors are all in some way, shape, or form true?
Now I do.
Over the years I’ve been called many things: ‘Davy Jones’, child of sea mother, the spy of Dayuan empire, and now ‘Andy’.
All of this started five years ago.