5) The pickup line

Little miss necromancer called out "Dibs on the four-armed guy!" As if someone else had any use for a dead guy.

Well, I guess I had some use for him. "I want one of his swords, they look more my size than the cat guys." She nodded in agreement and made a "go ahead" twirl with his hand.

Rob meanwhile was looking the grayish color some black people get when they're ill and bent over the side of the boat to feed the fishes with whatever he had eaten last. I think it was chili dogs.

Glancing around I could sympathize. We hadn't gotten around to clearing off the dead fish guys, and now we had another pile of corpses. But I didn't feel much about the grisly sight myself.

They were never people to me, just dangers. Now they were just a mess to clean up.

After the looting.

First off though, I took a few steps around the bodies and took a long look around in all directions. Far off behind us, I could still see the five ships. Other than that, nothing. "Kev, do we have anything to make sure we don't run into a sandbar or something?"

Rob answered instead. "We got active sonar aiming forward, it's set to ping up top and in the main cabin if we get within twenty meters of something." Then he spit over the railing and headed up to the steering deck.

So, nothing about to attack us. And we didn’t have to worry about running into anything. Time to loot.

Sue had stripped off everything but the pants off the two cat guys, while Erin was trying to pull the big guy's belt buckle around to his back so she could undo it. After studying the dead guy for a moment. I was able to fold up his arms on one side. Erin figured out what I was up to and between the two of us we got him flipped.

As we started to undoing to the triple buckled belt and harness arrangement. I noticed Kev setting down some tools as he sat on the side of the boat. He glanced over at my questioning look. "Taking the navigation lights out, their whole purpose is to let people know where we are. Which is a bad thing right now."

I nodded. I guess the only weird part was that Kev had a thought.

“Rob suggested it.”

Alright, now it wasn’t weird.

Then Kev began to scramble to his feet. "We got someone coming aboard the back platform!"

Up top, Ryan who was at the helm turned to his right to look over his shoulder, which made him lean the same way, and he turned the wheel with him.

All of which made Sue misstep into a dead cat and nearly lose her balance while I was half climbing over the red corpse, snagging one of its cutlasses along the way. All of which put me a step ahead of her as we headed to the back.

The rope that Sue had coiled up and smacked the lizard guy over the railing with had been tied to the ship on its other end.

When the rope had gone over the side with Mister scally he must have kept a hold of it and managed to climb up the rope while being dragged along behind the boat.

Not he was halfway up the back ladder, the rope trailing down between him and the rungs. With no one but Rob on the back deck.

Rob was a wiry mid-sized guy who had been decent with a fencing epee or slinging a twenty sider. So he surprised me and the lizard guy both when he grabbed the back and side rails and "This is Sparta!" kicked the corsair in the face with his black work boots he had changed into at some point since we woke up here.

Catching his balance, he looked behind the ship and pointed. "He still has the rope."

I looked around for the rope's anchor point and lifted my new sword up to cut it away, but two green hands grabbed a hold of it first. The orc woman yelled "Watch it!" as she flinched away from my blade held up above her head. "We only got some much rope, so either put it away or use it on the guy on the other end of the rope.

Then she began pulling him to the boat along with the rope.

Heading over to the ladder, I made myself comfortable sitting at the top. My feet a short drop down to the small platform down below me on the back of the boat. As the rope got pulled closer, I could see the lizard guy doing the math. Then he began letting himself slip down the rope even as Sue pulled it in.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Any chance I can surrender!”

I thought that over as Sue took a few more tugs on the rope. "You any use to us alive?"

He was quick with an answer. "You are new here! You must have questions, I have answers!"

I pretended to think that over. He had a good point, but leaving him dangling on his lifeline made it clear he better have some very good answers because I didn't find his life worth all that much.

Then he threw out a free sample. “If I die, some other will be taken here as my replacement! Spare them if not me!”

I dropped down to the diver's platform and tossed my cutlass up to the rear deck. As the saying goes. He had my attention, now he had my interest.

Once I made it clear I was going to pull him up, he let Sue finish gathering on the rope he was on while he stayed in place clinging to the rope. A moment or two later I was pulling up the half-drowned reptilian creature. At some point being dragged behind a boat had removed everything but its vest. But even then I wasn't sure which gender it was.

Not that mattered. Male, female. Either way, it wasn't an issue for a captive who had been out to either kill or enslave us.

I sent it up the ladder first where Sue was waiting for it with her rope in hand. I asked. “You going to tie it up?” Sue nodded. “It’s more Erin’s thing, but I got plenty of rope to make up for it.”

Not going to ask, don't want to know. At least not until we're somewhere safe and I had a few drinks in me.

Speaking of which I could hear her swearing up front. “What do you mean he’s too big.”

Ryan yelled out from the steering deck. “That’s what she said.”

Which got him a “Damned right that’s what I said. This is bull shit!”

Again, not going to ask…

I required my sword and pointed it in the general direction of the lizard person who was still coughing up sea water while Sue twisted his arms up behind him and held its arms in one of her hands while she wrapped the rope around its wrists with the other.

I decided getting some answers might keep it distracted from trying anything. "Your name and what did you mean by saving someone?'

It coughed something up, turned its head, and spit off the back of the boat. "Stist, and every time somebody dies here, corsair, reiver, or pirate. A replacement gets kidnapped to replace them."

“No pattern in the dance, just someone who was on the water. If they won’t sell people they get sold, and another person gets stolen to replace them.”

It looked up at me with its yellow split iris eyes. "We all have to make a choice. Take others captive and get paid to buy food, or get weak from hunger and get sold ourselves. Reivers got the same but worst. All pirates have to do is steal."

Then he looked up above my head. “The real question is what the hell is a shaman?”

Well. That was informative. But I couldn't let that go. Stepping forward, I backhanded it hard enough to spin its head half around. Then I started to berate it for asking.

Only to get shoved halfway across the deck and flailing both of my arms around to keep on my feet. All from a green bare foot kicking me in the gut.

Weird, I would have thought that I would have trouble breathing after that. But I had plenty of air to scream. "What the hell Sue?"

The orc martial artist shook her head at me. "None of that. We may not be goody-goody types, but we don't do that kind of crap." She swept her hand out in front of her. "If he doesn't answer, we can toss him overboard and be done with him. Nothing more."

I took a few deep breaths, but it wasn't enough. Instead, I stomped off to the front deck and started heaving dead cat guys and shark guy corpses over the side. Then went to the front of the ship and looked out over the dark uncharted waters until I cooled down.

Then I went over to where Erin was gathering up the red guy's stuff and nervously eyeballing me. I calmly asked. "What was bullshit?"

She relaxed. "Four arms here is too big for my spell to reanimate, but it still drained all my magic just to try. Here, I think it's the right sheath." she handed me what turned out to be the right matching sheath for my sword. A quick glance showed me that none of the red guy's blades matched each other, but none of them stood out in any way. So I kept the reddish bronze colored one I had first picked up.

The hawk head front finger guard had an open beak which gave me a trigger grip with my forefinger and the end of the blade may have had a bit more of a thrusting point. It would do for now.

Erin glanced at the back of the boat. "I'm not sure what that was all about. But as a good cop, menacing cop thing it worked out pretty good. The lizard has been babbling up a storm."

I took another deep breath and then thought that one over. I guess it could be seen that way, and it sounded like it was working. So I guess I needed to let it go. I can’t always have it my way.

Instead, I took a few things off of Erin, the larger stuff. Then held the door open for her as we headed down into the main cabin and dumped everything on the table.

Big red had a big pouch on his belt which held a hand full of loops of thick wire. In what seemed to be made of copper, silver, and some smaller gold loops. As well as some other coins in copper and silver including what looked a lot like a penny from Earth.

It also had a few vials about the size of the last two joints of my pinky finger. Each with a wax-sealed cork on the end and a water-stained paper label.

One with the picture of a cat, another with a hawk, and the last with a pair of green hands held up against each other palm to palm.

Me and Erin traded the ones we had picked up and switched.

The other two had another set of green hands, and one with a picture of a red flame.

Erin spoke up first. “Magic potions I guess? Do you have any idea what they do?”

I shrugged. "I'm going to guess the animal ones is how they turned into birds and flew at us. The flamey one must do something with fire, but I got no clue what. Green hands?" I shrugged again.

Kev wandered in the open door with a toolbox which he set down on the table and flipped open. Then he held out his hand to me. I glanced at Erin then dropped the two little bottles in his hand.

Without looking he set one down in the toolbox. "Light healing." than the other one "Raven shifting." then he held out his hand to Erin. She started asking how, but he interrupted her while answering her at the same time. "Shipshape. If it becomes part of the sips inventory. I know what and where it is."

He took the potions out of her hand. "Puma shaping, fire casting, and another light healing." Then he snapped the case shut and headed down the hall.

After a moment I realized he had just stolen all the magic potions.

He always did play the sticky fingered types. “Dam it Kev!” Then I headed off after him, yelling behind me. “Bring the rest of it so we can make him identify anything else that’s good.”

One of the cutlasses turned out to have an eversharp edge. It also had a skull-shaped pommel so I let Erin claim it. She had a theme going and I could sharpen my own blades.

Kev told me where the sharpening stone was.

Erin was pretty happy to get the skull blade without even having to ask so she lent me her Makoan skeleton to help me drag the red guy over to the railing and dump it over the edge.

And under her direct control, it turned out to be a fair hand with a mop.

Off in the distance, I could see the now fully lit-up corsair ships scattered and rowing around each other in an ever widening circle.

"Crap, they're trying to catch us blocking their lights off from each other."

We needed information from our prisoner now. Even if Sue objected to my methods.

Our lives, My life, was more important than her morality and I had no mercy for slavers.