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Stories From a Dark Place
Story 002: A quiet chess game

Story 002: A quiet chess game

Part 1

Year 1492 ADA Pareia calendar; Port Selmy

(DDA: Dopo dark age, for those curious (probably no one), Pareia Calendar starts around the year 824 of Yulian Calendar, most of the records were lost in the Dark age so it’s not 100% precise, more or less the mistake should be of 20 years)

Port Selmy, founded in the year 789 of Pareia Calendar(I’ll abbreviate to PC from now on) by the pirate captain Krill nicknamed “Blue Devil”, since the day of its foundation as main lair for the pirate fleet “sea devils”, it evolved with the course of years to become a dark city, fully populated by criminals and mercenaries.

If you needed a forbidden ingredient for alchemy, a silent assassin or any other kind of underhanded service you were in the right place, the only problem was that you needed an invitation to come, the city was situated somewhere in the deep sea, an area avoided by the ships because of the mighty creatures lurking in the depths, few knows how Capt. Krill even reached  the island, however anyone else could safely reach the place traveling trough portals.

The invitations worked as keys and maps, you needed to throw the invitation in a working portal and it would allow one and only one person to pass through, this way no army could make its way to the city, the only other way to reach the place was to sail, however it was hardly possible and to eliminate all chances, the city had built fortifications all around the island.

Most of the kingdoms and States around the Pangea continent had made illegal to possess an invitation to Port Selmy, and using the sequestrated invitations were used to infiltrate spies inside, however no small number of spies could pose a threat to the city of the infamous.

And this is the place where today story takes place, more precisely in a tavern in the outskirts of the city, “the drunk kelpie”.

The tavern was a shabby place, only two stories tall, the ground floor had barely 8 rotten wood tables and 6 stools next to the bar, the owner of the place was an old thief Napoli, it was built with the spoils of his last hit, a merchant woman with his child, no escort beside the summons of the woman, he neatly placed an arrow in the woman forehead and took everything she owned leaving behind nothing except for the baby.

Napoli was behind the counter, cleaning a glass with cloth, two big men were sleeping soundly on the ground, they were reeking with the stench of alcohol mixed with sweat, the tables were empty beside one in the corner.

At that table sat a lonely pirate playing chess, the first thing you would notice wouldn’t be his red hair or death stench but his limbs, he had none left indeed, instead of normal limbs he had for the legs two stumps of wood, his left arm was an hook bounded to his body thanks to magic and his right arm was an expensive prosthesis.

 The prosthesis was ivory white in colour, smooth to the touch except for a few dents here and there, instead of the elbow a metal sphere linking the stump to the forearm, thanks to this little tweak, the arm could move in any direction and stretch the arm to the staggering length of 2 meters.

The arm ended with a big hole, when needed a mana hand would emerge, fully mobile and with sense of touch integrated, some expert could even morph the mana hand in different shapes like swords, daggers or colanders.

Suddenly the heavy door opened and a youth wearing black clothes stepped in without making any sound besides the creaking of the door, the youth walked to the counter and asked with a very low voice for some wine.

When the glass arrived he lowered the cloth piece covering his mouth to take a sip, then something huge landed on his back and almost made him spit out the wine.

Turning around he saw the limbless pirate with a big grin on his face, his mana hand still on his back.

“HO! U a ninja rite? I heard ninjas wear masks cuz they be fuckin’ ugly, imma rite? har har har”

The laughs of the pirate boomed like thunders, waking up the sleeping “gentlemen”.

“I’m not sure about others, but I wear it to shield me against your stench, when was last time you took a bath?”

“har har, u want to lose yer tongue?”

“I’d rather lose my sense of smell while near you, however talking about losing something, what’s the deal with you, did you fight something very huge and mean or your mother give birth on a minefield? Seriously, I saw more limbs on a slime-“

The hand resting on the ninja suddenly turned to claws that dug deep injuries on the youth, right when the pirate was thinking he had killed the youth, a voice asked from behind.

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Please comment, i love commets....

next part in around 6 hours.

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Part 2

“What are you doing?” 

Ninja youth was already behind him, perfectly sane, the only change that occurred was to his clothes, he left a layer of clothes to the pirate “hand” and now his arms were visible, white and covered in countless scars. 

Staring to his hand, the pirate found only a strip of black cloth then turned to the ninja. 

“har, I just tought u wanted a nice scratch, I see you are still itchi, let me give you a hand.” 

Saying so his mana turned in a sword and flew straight to the youth that avoided it by stepping aside. 

“Do you even have a free hand to spare?” 

“I got plenty!” 

The mana sword turned in a whip trying to capture the little boy, still brilliantly avoided by sprinting forward, when he was almost up the pirate his hook came flying from the right, with a jump he avoided both attacks and was right in front of the pirate. 

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

His hand was already ready to slice off the last appendix of the pirate, however contrary to his expectations, the pirate didn’t try avoiding the attack, instead he put on a wicked smile raising his left leg and pointing it towards him. 

A sense of danger assaulted him however while in mid air he didn’t have anywhere to run nor the time to do something, however at the last moment a miracle happened, the old man behind the counter appeared beside the pirate, pushing his leg toward the opened window. 

The leg produced a huge boom and a lead ball erupted from it flying straight outside, they heard it hitting someone outside but decided to play innocent. 

At the same time, with a push of his hand the old man sent the ninja flying to the back of the room. 

“No more fight in here, either you go die outside or settle it some other way! Gadur, you spend all your time playing chess alone, why don’t you two settle it there?” 

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Part 3

3 hours later…

“Draw!”

“Oh for fuck sake! It’s the 8° draw we had today.”

“I misjudged you, you are quite good at this.”

Said the old pirate, he had been playing chess with the ninja for the past 3 hours, thinking he could win fast he had underestimated his opponent and lost the first game, then he won the second one and from there on they had achieved only draw.

“you too, for being a pirate you are quite tricky, it was fun playing thanks.”

“Har, I had fun too, t’s been lot since someone played with me, the old fart keep saying nah to ma invitations and the average customer in this shit-hole has mush fo brains!”

“btw, where did ya learn to play?”

“I used to play with my mother before she passed out…”

“Aw sorry man, how did she got in?”

“Robbed while traveling, this is also the reason I’m in port Selmy…”

“AH! Looking foh revenge ar’ya? No worries, now that u are with me we will find that fucka’ in a matter of hours!”

The ninja bitterly smiled, he had come to like the old sea fellow in the last hours, even though he talked like an idiot and had no limbs he seemed to be a good person at heart, however he couldn’t ask for his help.

“There’s no need for you to help me, I already know who and where he is…”

Suddenly a thought flashed in his mind.

“Actually, if you want to help, a few blocks from here there is a nightclub, go there and wait, I’ll go get a few things from my room and meet you there, can you do me this favour?”

“Har Har! Sure, I’m always in for a good asswhoop!”

Saying so he got up and walked out of the tavern in a flash, immediately behind him, came the tavern’s owner closing the door with a sigh.

He turned from the door and slowly walked to the ninja waiting at the chess table, his face was calm and didn’t betray any of the thoughts in his mind, in a few steps he arrived and sat.

“When did you understand I was here for you?”

The ninja boy calmly took the lead in the discussion by talking first.

“the moment you stepped in I recognized your gaze, the gaze of someone ready to kill, secondly you are wearing Tal’hashun robes, they only recruit young boys that lost their parents and want to take revenge, and lastly, the confirmation came while you were talking to Gadur.”

He talked in an expressionless and flat tone, while the ninja’s eyes were brimming with hate, just a few more questions and he would get his revenge, he almost couldn’t block himself from cutting this bastard’s throat.

“Have you, even once, felt sorry for what you have done? Killing an innocent woman, robbing a child of the only thing he loved and then leaving him to be sold as slave and suffer!”

Unable to contain his grief and rage, the hand resting on the dagger came to life, grabbing the weapon beneath and placing it against the criminal’s chin, the whole movement was so fast that the first tear dropping didn’t even make it to the ground before the dagger was in place.

“What do you want me to tell you? That I lived a life of regret and wished I could change how things went? Well sorry, however, you and your mother were only another target on my list, after that day I didn’t think about you or that woman not even once, or at least not until you came through my door.”

“I’ll make you pay for what you have done!”

The dagger pushed deeper, biting the meat with its cold body, a line of warm blood dripped out colouring the dagger and for the first time a smile appeared on the thief’s face.

“You think I care about dying? HA, youngsters can’t understand, I’m already 56 this year, how long you think I can go on? 2-3 years at most, and you think I still care about living? C’mon, kill me and save me the pain of growing older while working in this shit-hole!”

The boy was trembling in anger, he had come all the way to this place only to exert revenge and now not only his mother killer wasn’t afraid of dying, he encouraged him!

“You even robbed me from the pleasure of taking revenge while making you suffer! But don’t worry, I won’t leave empty-handed.”

Saying so he stabbed the dagger in one of the thief’s hands nailing him to the table and getting a scram out of the old man.

“now watch as what you built with your criminal activities goes in smoke with you inside.”

A wicked smile appeared on his face as he dropped some alcohol bottles around the place and prepared to light up the place.

“No wait! You want to burn me alive? Killing me is a matter… but this!”

Before he could speak any further the lantern on the counter ignited the fire that expanded in rivers of flames all around the room.

The ninja enjoyed the vain efforts of the old man to take out the knife and flee from the fire, his screams only got louder as the fire marched towards him licking his skin and charring his clothes.

“Please! Have mercy WAAAAAAAAA!”

Finally, the fire devoured the pitiful person that died between screams and smoke, a few onlookers had come to see the scene but none of them did anything to help the old man, that’s port Selmy for you.

In the end, before the fire could burn the nearby buildings the ice mages came and took it out, even if it was a bandit’s city they still needed for services like guards and firemen.

“Mom, I hope you saw this….”