After a long night of drinking and planning, Carter had crashed hard. When was the last time he'd gotten so drunk? Also, where had the drinks come from, and why did he suspect the pirate had something to do with their creation?

After climbing out of bed, waiting for the world to stabilize, chugging some water, and otherwise getting cleaned up, Carter finally started to feel like himself again, which meant it was time to get started on figuring out how to make all his ideas from last night into some sort of plausible plan. For that, he'd need to speak with the Sybils.

Walking down another empty hall, Carter heard a familiar dirge accompanied by an equally familiar eerie green light. Poking his head around the corner, he was half expecting to find the pirate singing along with the likes of Erik and Vanessa, but instead, the pirate seemed to be all on his own, in front of a table laid out like the one Carter had first come across, though there was decidedly less mold and maggots this time. Thinking back to what he knew about the mint paste, he tried not to think about what had happened to said maggots as he finally caught the pirate's attention. "Oi, Captain! Come to join yer old friend, 'the pirate?'"

As Carter walked into the room, he smiled a little abashedly. "Ah, yeah, I suppose you heard that. Shared memory and all."

The pirate nodded, 'slamming' his digital tankard onto the table. "Aye, shared memory..."

As Carter pulled up a seat, he continued. "I didn't mean any disrespect about it! I just needed a way to differentiate you three is all."

The pirate laughed. "No offense taken, lad, no offense from me anyway. You might want to avoid the lady for a bit, though. She didn't take too kindly to her chosen title!"

There was no doubt in Carter's mind which lady the pirate was referring to, and he just shook his head. "Probably a good idea, but I doubt my luck will save me her wrath."

Noticing the pirate seemed to be drunk, despite the obvious impossibility of that, Carter thought this would be a good opportunity to change subjects. After all, if the "lady" was going to remember this conversation, the less he said about her behind her back, the better. "So why are you up here drinking all alone? I thought for sure you'd be the one most likely to hang out with our new guests. There's a giant alien viking, in particular, I thought you'd get along with!"

The pirate laughed again, though it was a little more disparaging this time. "Aye, I know of whom you speak, and he seems like a good lad, but they're all a little lively for an old ghost like me."

Carter laughed. "You're no more a ghost than me! Hell, I'm pretty sure you're the more lively of the two of us!"

The pirate held up his now translucent hands. "Am I not? I remember when these hands were made of flesh and bone. They wielded sword and pistol with wild abandon and led the charge on many a raid. Now I'm just an echo, a memory of what I once was, trapped forever aboard the vessel I once called home." He looked over at his tankard and slapped it off the table, but its contents disappeared before it hit the ground and shattered into digitization. "I can't even get rightly drunk anymore! What am I if not a ghost?"

Carter thought for a moment before standing and answering. "You are the great Sybil, the most feared and well-known ghost ship ever to sail the stars. You've been a pirate, a savior, and a legend, and you're just now coming out of retirement to remind the galaxy why entire fleets of ships once cowered at your presence! Now, you can sit alone here in the dark, or you can come with me, and we can figure out how to capture, board, and take a pirate ship for our very own!"

After a moment where Carter started to wonder if the pirate really would decide to sit here "drinking" by himself, the larger man laughed, and the green flames around the outside of the room roared to life, chasing away the eerie gloom of the room. "Now yer speaking my language, lad! You know how to stir the fire in this old pirate's heart! Lead on, Captain, and your loyal privateer shall follow!"

Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added, "Oh, and call me John, by the way. Or Long John, if you prefer! If I must take a name for myself, it might as well be a name worth remembering!"

That made Carter stop and wonder. John? A name worth remembering? It seemed so...average. However, something about it tugged at his mind as if there was something familiar about it, though he couldn't quite remember from where...

-

Vanessa watched as Erik laughed and joked with some of the humans he'd gotten to know in their time on the ship. He'd just blown them all away in a short-distance race, but when they were ready to go again, he waved them off, saying he still needed to catch his breath. On the one hand, she was glad he seemed to be enjoying himself so much, but on the other, she just couldn't bring herself to be entirely comfortable around humans like he could. Unlike her sire's experiences, Vanessa had largely found her interactions with humans somewhat... disappointing.

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Still, she wouldn't let her distrust sour her companion's enjoyment. It was a simple matter of keeping some of her many eyes on the humans and watching for any underhanded mischief. There had been no such incidents recently, but she wouldn't so easily forget some of their earlier "misunderstandings."

With her many eyes, Vanessa could easily see the human Alen as he approached. However, rather than bypassing her to speak with Erik, he paused next to her and nodded in her direction, indicating a desire to address her before doing just that. "So, how're you holding up?"

On the surface, the question seemed to focus on her structural integrity, but of course, it wouldn't be so simple as to indicate she was fit and adequately nourished. The human was asking for a less easily quantified assessment of her general well-being. It was an odd human custom of asking one question when meaning another, but she was used to that much. Thankfully, his inquiry could be succinctly answered with another not easily quantifiable answer. "I am well." Of course, now there was an expectation for a reciprocation of concern for a non-quantifiable status update. "How are you, Alen?"

The human, Alen, bobbed his head in return. "Well enough, I suppose." Then he nodded more directly toward Erik. "He can make friends with just about anyone anywhere, can't he?"

Vanessa wasn't sure where Alen was going with this line of reasoning, but she was certain it wasn't Erik's affable nature he was actually concerned with. The humans referred to this as "beating around the bush." It was in reference to their days as hunter-gatherers when they would beat the ground around shrubbery to chase out small animals that reside within, and indicated they were metaphorically circling their actual query rather than simply addressing their concern. Humans tended to become flustered when confronted with that fact, but Alen hadn't given Vanessa any reason not to humor him as of yet, so she would comply with his verbal game for now. "Indeed. Erik has what you might call a friendly disposition."

The human bobbed his head again before turning to look directly at Vanessa with both optical receptors, indicating that he was focusing more of his attention on her. This meant he was about to bring up his real reason for addressing her. "So, about this plan to just take over a pirate ship like it's nothing. Do you think this is a good idea?"

Vanessa stopped and considered his question. As usual, the single inquiry actually hid a plethora of questions. Thankfully, Vanessa was in no rush and could easily consider the implications while keeping a few eyes on her self-imposed charge. "There are certainly risks, and we are all too likely to experience at least some loss of crew unless the Captain of this vessel has more assets than he'd indicated thus far, which does seem at least somewhat likely. However, I believe it will prove adequate for us to achieve independence from this vessel, which has so many of your people on edge."

This conversation was already the longest she'd ever had with this particular human, or most humans for that matter. Usually, a human would indicate annoyance or impatience by now, but Alen only seemed thoughtful and then shook his head. "I suppose you're right. However, I'd like to do what we can to prevent losses. After sleeping on it, I've got some ideas, and the Captain said I was supposed to contact him if there was anything we needed, but he also said no one was supposed to leave this deck without his permission..."

That was undoubtedly quite a quandary. It seemed contradictory even by human standards. However, perhaps that simply meant a human's leap in logic was required. "The statement about us not being allowed to leave this deck was a general one applied to us as a whole, but the order for you to act as an intermediary was to you specifically. Perhaps that would indicate it overrides the general statement?"

The human experienced facial vascular activity that humans often referred to as having their "blood drain from their face," he seemed to start and stop talking repeatedly before expressing his thoughts on her interpretation. "Yeah...er...maybe... but that's not exactly a theory I want to test the hard way..."

His hesitancy was understandable, given the finality of the implied threat the Captain had made. However, he still seemed to want Vanessa's input on the matter. "Then I suppose you must consider which is the greater danger, the risk of you attempting to reach the Captain to speak of your ideas or the risk of not expressing those ideas."

Now, Alen seemed to be "lost in thought," as the humans say, looking at some distant figure visible only to him as he answered in a rather hopeless tone of voice. "Yeah... I suppose you're right..."

Of course, that was when Erik decided to wander over and join in their conversation. He did it in a manner that seemed to indicate random happenstance, but Vanessa was aware it was likely Alen's visible distress that drew him over. He had his lips turned upward to indicate affability as he spoke. "What'cha talking about over here? And why does the kid look like he's seen a ghost?"

Alen relayed his plan to go and try to speak with the Captain and his concerns. Try as he might. Of course, this kind of trouble was just the kind of thing that would appeal to her companion, and sure enough, he seemed to get excited as the "kid" described his concerns. Vanessa was aware of the danger his interest presented but was well aware that once something like this held Erik's attention, she was unlikely to dissuade him short of an appeal to her companion's loyalty to her, but using that to make him act against his nature was not something she did lightly, so it was inevitable that Erik would say what came next. "Sounds like fun to me! What say we come with?"