As the ghost of Archibell's former swabbie guided them out of the crate, thoughts pushed and pulled at Elise's head like a particularly rough sea current. Archibell's crew weren't dead? They had just been taken aboard as the skeleton crew of the Ghost Ship? Swanson had a particularly gaunt feel to his otherwise hardy face which led Elise to believe he wasn't exactly living anymore either.

As he led them past numerous crates of soul cargo, Swanson continued to elude all questions from the not-so-good captain himself.

"So Swabson?" Archibell asked. "How's tricks in this coastliner. Or should I say, ghostliner?!"

Swanson was silent as he treaded along the creaking, moaning sea craft.

"Quieter than the crypt, eh?!" the captain jeered. "Dead silent are we?!"

Swanson kept his head turned away from Archie but there was a faint growling that was heard from the captain's former crewmates.

"Stop being so mean to him!" Elise said, jostling her captain's sleeve. "It's probably too soon to be making dead people jokes."

"Freckles," Captain Archibell said in his birdlike voice. "Rigor Mortis has already set in for him. He has no feelings left....especially when..."

Archibell crossed his arms as he walked. "You could have at least sent old Archie a message in a bottle if you were still on this here mortal plain."

Swanson turned around for the first time, and he hissed a venom spitting serpent. "And why would I write to the likes of someone who abandoned me, his crew and the one woman that he supposedly loved more than life itself."

"Lyra," Archibell gasped, turning paler than a vat of powder. "Swanson...where is she?!"

Swanson's face lost all traces of emotion. With a bloodless look in his eyes, he said, "I'm sorry cap'n, but between life or her, you chose life..."

Archibell's arms sank in sadness. None of his crewmates, including Elise could offer him anything but looks of condolences. They stood in silence as the ship creaked and groaned over its eon long toil.

As they continued on, they reached a room with an ancient carpet of moldy black tapestry. Purple candles hovered in the air. With jet blue ghost fire and humanlike eyes that watched from their wax they lined a room where an arched throne sat perched. Sitting on the throne, was a much taller reaper wearing a blood red mask with swirling spirals for eyes and black tentacle like hands emerging from it. Elise immediately recognized her. The reaper of the sea!

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Several other reapers stood at her side. Many of highly diverse shapes and sizes, each clutching a scythe of different shades of night.

The reaper stood clutching a piece of the golden trident of triumph in her hand. "Well...at last, the traitor returns," She said, her voice much less deep and garbled from last time. "Finally, we can unpause the cursed day when this mutinous captain erased the sun from our lives."

Archibell trembled and bit his lip, his face contorted in pain. "That voice..." he said, thumbing his hands on his knees frantically. "That voice! It can't be!"

The Sea Reaper seized her mask and removed it. Her face was a glowing white moon of a face. Perfectly symmetrical with a pair of crimson eyes, large and full of turmoil. Shiny dark marble locks of hair framed her face in a circular bob. A knowing smile trailed beneath her nose. "But it is..." she said wistfully.

Captain Jonas Archibell dropped to his knees. "No. No. Nooooooo!" he screamed with his hands up in the air.

Elise couldn't believe it, Archie's love, Lyra Blackswan was the flying Dutchman herself.

As tears trickled down the Captain's face, Lyra merely turned aside. "Quit the water works," she said still quite jilted. "And the theatrics. Being with you for so long has led me to know one thing..."

The captain was quieter than his former swabbie.

Lyra's blood red eyes brimmed with a look of triumph. "When you drop to your knees and scream 'nooooo!' It's just a cheap distraction to allow your crew to run away."

Archibell rose to his feet. "Ok, you saw through me. But is it really that bad to care for my crew? That's what a good captain would do!"

Lyra held out her hand, revealing a disembodied eye at the center of it. "You tried that trick in the depths of the Everworld when we tried to obtain my sister Rosemary's soul and guess what, the dead aren't as deceived by your lies as the living are."

Lyra's voice, which emoted much further than her ghostly complexion. "You know, Archie...those lies may have seduced my heart when I was alive...but..."

She reached through towards body, but her hands slid right through it. "I no longer have a heart to give."

Archibell took a step back and gazed at his current crew. "Me hearties," he said in a faux pirate swagger. "But get ready to run for your lives ...or it will end "

Elise tugged at his sleeve. "But captain! Aren't you gonna make things right with the one you love?! Lyra was your love wasn't she?!"

"She w...." Archibell said and suddenly they were interrupted by another voice and the click of a gun.

"Alreedy alrighty!" Sugar Southerncross's south sea voice snapped. "Enough of this, for guess what..."

Everyone turned to see Sugar aiming her gun right at Lyra. "The only reason we're here is not for some long forgotten love yarn...but because..."

Sugar boastfully held her head high.

"I...need that there golden trident. And even if I have ta kill a ghost in the depths of hell, I will have ma guilded prize!"