Rationally, Momo should have expected that being a sea captain would require a little bit of plundering. It was practically an inevitability when sailing the high seas. But Momo wasn’t really the plundering type; robbing, pillaging, embezzling, purloining — these were all verbs reserved for the kind of pirate who actually traveled around in search of treasure and fame and glory. As opposed to a Momo sort of pirate, whose definition of treasure began and ended in weird, outcast necromancers and spinach baklava.
On her maiden voyage to the Vagrant Dunes, Momo had managed to mostly avoid such instances of plundering. All it required was a very strict procedure: sacrificing her pirate dignity and hightailing it the hell out of there whenever a threat emerged. Every time her crew spotted another ship on the horizon, Momo jumped around the deck like a frenzied chimpanzee, rang the alarm bells, flew a white flag up the mast, and had the kids navigate for their life in the opposite direction. This procedure often cost them many days of travel time, but saved Momo something invaluable: the possibility of running into another one of Sumire’s relatives.
The same could not be said of their voyage back.
Dusk was the first one to sniff them out. The cat meowed at the top of her itty-bitty lungs, jumping across the deck until she was finally cradled around Momo’s ankles. Momo frantically surveyed the horizon, but the oncoming threat was the kind of thing that could be heard before it could be seen; there was a deafening series of wooshes as cannonballs rushed through the air, crashing hard and sudden into the Mandrake’s flank. The boat yawned, and the child sailors screamed, scattering like, well… scared children.
“We’ve been hit on the portside!” Ribeye roared. “Gita, get the children to the cannons!”
“Children, calm yourselves! Into the cabins!”
“I didn’t say cabins, Gita, I said cannons!”
The orc woman shuffled the children downstairs, then turned to glare at Ribeye.
“They’re no bigger than a cannonball, Ribeye. How are they supposed to load one?”
Ribeye groaned.
It didn’t take long for the source of the attack to appear out of the dense fog. To Momo’s horror, it wasn’t a bunch of wayward Holy Knights and their captive sailors like before. It was a proper pirate – err, sea scavenger – crew. Even in her head, she could hear Sumire’s voice correcting her.
Their ship was much smaller than Momo’s, a thin, narrow sloop, brushing along the tide like a ripping viper. Spikes bordered its body, and a jolly roger painted with two crossbones and a goat’s skull hung high on their mast, waving like a rattlesnake’s tail in the wind.
“Fine,” Ribeye shouted. “Let the children be useless. Kami, Kas, black-haired girl, dwarf idiot, you get to the cannons and fire back before they blow us to pieces!”
“Aye aye!” Grimli said, saluting and effectively throwing himself into the under decks.
If the situation wasn’t so dire, Momo would have laughed. Under normal conditions, Grimli would have sung Ribeye a song about his bad attitude, scolding him for the next half-hour with underbaked lyrics about his poor manners. But Momo knew there was nothing that Grimli valued more than being able to hide somewhere quiet and dark during a fight, a trait she greatly sympathized with. It’s what she would have done, too, if she wasn’t bearing the terrible burden of responsibility.
Another cannonball plummeted straight into the center of the ship, blowing a hole right through the deck and into the cabins. It didn’t break through to the ship’s underbelly, but Momo knew the next one certainly would. She could see a foggy figure on the sloop loading the ammunition already, hunched over and breathing heavily.
Crap, crap, crap. If they didn’t act fast, they were going to be underwater.
“Ribeye, take the wheel!” Momo yelled out, abandoning the helm and bounding straight towards the other ship. She didn’t leave him even a moment to answer before she cast [Death Monkey Leap], rocketing into the air like a flying squirrel and then crashing down on the deck of the sloop, her clogs crunching through the wood like two small cannonballs.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“[Focus],” she murmured, glancing to the side to find the pirate manning the cannon. As the spell overtook her, the contrast in her vision became stark; gone was the piercing glare of the sun, replaced only by the scarred, sunburnt face of the man who was about to turn her ship into the next Titanic. He had the cannonball held flush to his chest, ready to load.
“If I were you, I’d put that ball down,” Momo said. “Very slowly. Or else it might crush your toes.”
The man noticed her for the first time, eyes going wide.
“Shit, Cap’n! One of the Mandrake’s boys has boarded!”
“Not a boy,” Momo said, thrusting her hands in front of her. “[Nether Fireball]!”
The orb of pure chaos energy leapt from her fingers and shot through the barrel of the metal cannon. It obliterated the piece of artillery to shreds, then carried on straight through the boards of the deck, leaving a flaming hole in the ship’s flank. Three pirates went down with it, flying right off the edge and into the ripping tide.
“By Nerida,” the pirate at the cannon said, his shirt burnt right off his skin. “These ain’t sea scavengers, these are demons! Cap’n, the treasure’s not worth it!”
“I don’t care what they are! We’re not leaving without that damn dagger!”
Momo looked towards the helm. What she did not expect to see was a goat. A goat lady, to be exact, dressed in tattered clothes and a tricorn. She wore two metal fists around her hoofs.
“An Eldergoat pirate?” Momo murmured to herself. “And I thought I’d seen everything.”
“Ignorant grunt. You are speaking your last words to an Eldergoat sea scavenger,” the goat corrected her, lobbing spit at the wood by Momo’s feet. “Not that you common thieves have any respect for the subtleties of the profession.”
The goat jumped from the helm onto the deck, rocking the ship like a small earthquake when she landed. Damn, she’s heavier than she looks, Momo thought as the goat approached her.
Once they were face to face, the goat-woman sneered, slamming her metal fists together. The sound of the collision was so deafening it made Momo’s ears ring.
“Captain Capricornus of the Bloody Buck,” she greeted. “And you are–”
“Captain Coco of Mandrake’s Revenge,” Momo cut in, offering her a polite smile and sticking out her right hand. “How about this, you stop firing at my ship, and I’ll stop firing at yours. Truce?”
“I wasn’t finished,” the goat said, scowling. “What you are… is dead.”
Capricornus screamed and leveled a fist straight at Momo’s chest. Much to the goat’s shock and dismay, she dodged easily. Momo’s reflexes were as sharp as a knife point.
“Look, usually I’d entertain a little back and forth,” Momo said, ducking out of the way of another swing. “But I kind of have this girl waiting for me back home. And my raven refuses to deliver her another letter, so I’m kind of in a hurry, it’s a whole situation—”
“Gods, stay still, you goblin!”
“Oh, did you notice the horns?”
“They’re bloody hard to miss,” the cannon pirate interjected. He was bent over, still hugging his burnt chest. “Sticking like corkscrews out of your scalp.”
“Less talking, more shooting!” Capricornus shouted.
The goat swung again, and Momo dodged again, walking backwards on the ship’s flank. It worked for a few more swings, right up until she backed into what felt like a brick wall of flesh. She tilted her head, and found herself surrounded by a full gaggle of bare-chested pirates, scimitars pointed at her neck from all directions.
Capricornus broke through the wall of men, shoved them aside, and pushed her metallic mitten under Momo’s chin. It felt like the press of a cold oven on her jugular.
“Time’s up, sweet cheeks.” She reared her fist back. “Have fun swimming with the fishies.”
“Thanks. But I didn’t bring my swimsuit, so I think I’ll pass on that offer,” Momo said, and then grinned. “How about this instead—[Polymorph – Dokkaebi].”
(A relevant and interesting fact about the Dokkaebi Form which Momo recalled recently: it invokes [Fear] into all enemies with an INT below 25. And if your class isn’t a caster, but instead, a guy who shoves cannonballs into cannons, twenty five is a pretty high bar to hit.)
The effect was immediate.
“Oh heavenly gods,” the cannon pirate mumbled, his face draining of all color. He began backing away slowly. His scimitar clattered to his feet. “I— It’s–It’s Morgana. She’s manifested upon Alois to skin us alive. We’re all going to die here.”
Capricornus scowled, whipping her head around in bewilderment as the surrounding pirates began to scream and run. “What in ten hells are you talking about?” she spat. “It’s just some goddamn illusion. Get yourself together, mates.”
Half of the crew retreated to the cabins, the other half sprinted straight off the gangplank and into the sea. It was pure bedlam, screaming and shouting and crying and whimpering. In only a few seconds, Capricornus and Momo were the only ones remaining on the deck.
Capricornus glared at her, steam rocketing out of her nostrils.
“You dare take my crew from me. You dastardly, vile–”
A cannonball shot straight into the goat’s side, flinging her into the water like a ragdoll.
Momo jumped, startled. She looked to her right, where she could see a face peeking out just above one of the Mandrake’s cannon holes. It was Nyk. And for the first time likely ever, she was grinning.