Post by Hector Barbossa on Jun 27, 2007 22:43:59 GMT -5
Lonely Tales, Impending Adventure:
In Want of a Crew:
In Want of a Crew:
The witty Jack Sparrow is in search of a crew, and a ship. The Black Pearl has once again fallen into the hands of his former First Mate, and the mutinous buccaneer shows no intention of giving it back. Having foreseen Barbossa sailing away with the Pearl, Jack stole the navigation charts they had secured from Singapore for his own purpose. Thus began his lonely quest for the Fountain of Youth.
Sailing in a dinghy with no company but the voices in his head, the birds that settled on the would-be mast of his perpetually puddled boat, and an ample supply of bottled rum, Jack Sparrow set off to secure himself a ship strong enough to track the Pearl, and a crew brave enough to tangle with its self proclaimed Captain. His search, however, was cut unexpectedly short.
In port on an unfamiliar isle, Jack Sparrow was caught up in a vicious Naval Raid on the notorious pirate gathering place. For all his trouble in setting up an ‘audition process’ for worth seafarers, he was torn from his goals, and even his dinghy, when he was arrested with many other pirates. A face in the crowd, his Royal Navy captors did not recognize the notorious pirate, and for that he was shuffled with the rest into a holding cell on an old, moldy transport vessel. Struck by images of the slave trade he had left far behind, Sparrow found himself deeply troubled and eager to escape.
Later, rather than sooner, he was granted this small grace when the ship landed on a small, uninhabited island. All at once, it became apparent that Jack Sparrow had once again found himself in a situation most unusual. The Navy officers were loyal to their kingdom, true enough, and through that they found justification in seizing their orders and mutilating them to fit their twisted version of justice.
The Navy has stepped up their hunt for pirates under the orders of their King. Some are lawful and diligent, arresting and sending pirates to trial. Others are less exact in the execution of their orders, blurring the lines the dictations set up and molding their own sense of retribution into the way they prosecute their captives. They use their power to capture, torture and murder pirates under the guise of following orders, isolated by the vast waters of the Caribbean seas and the distance from England. Small, ‘uncharted’ islands have started to be used as cruel jails, where pirates are subjected to the torment these self-righteous civil servants decide they deserve.
After a month of unrelenting anguish at one of these dungeons, Sparrow, as is his legend, defied the impossible and escaped, stealing and manning a Navy sloop with three men at his command. While in the jail he was reunited with his dear and loyal friend, Joshamee Gibbs. Together they immediately began to plan an incredible escape, as only Jack Sparrow and the man who could truly say he almost understood the Captain could. But their companionship was unjustly cut short: Gibbs was murdered, drowned in the very ocean he had long ago pledged his services to, by men who were unscrupulous in their killing. Sparrow was forced to execute his escape plan on his own, leading what few he could.
Now, Captain of a stolen ship with only three crewmen to his service, Sparrow has a number of quests before him: revenge himself on the Navy for the time they stole from him, avenge the death of his worthy friend, get back from Barbossa what was rightfully his, and ensure his everlasting life by finding the Fountain of Youth.
The Legacy of a Captain:
Hector Barbossa, Captain of the Black Pearl, has spent his time preparing to track down Jack Sparrow and the navigation charts in order to begin his quest for the Fountain of Youth. Knowing that the wily Sparrow is in need of a crew, Barbossa maintained a steady eye on the activities in some of the main pirate ports, particularly Tortuga. Meanwhile, he orchestrated and oversaw a complete overhaul of his ship, a step towards claiming it for himself once and for all.
He was not oblivious to the movements of the Navy. With the Black Pearl under his command, however, he could not even pretend to feel threatened by their activities.
For ten years the Black Pearl was the terror of the seas, rivaling such legends as the Flying Dutchman in reputation and fearful reverence. It was a power, unchallenged as it haunted the Caribbean, destroying cities and quays, sinking merchant ships with the same viciousness it exploded on heavily armed pirate and Navy ships. It, like its crew, had been influenced by the curse of the Aztec gold. Cutting a threatening path on dark, foggy waters, the black sailed Pearl was a nightmare among bad dreams: the best and worst of the criminal world. The epitome of piracy, and everything a buccaneer could ever hope for in a ship.
In recent times, with the ferocity of the battles it had seen, as well as the purpose behind its being in those fights, the Black Pearl had lost much of what made its reputation so incredible and terrifying. It was no longer an image of the purest evil, but a near respectable, highly honored ship recognizable for the incredible feats it had survived.
Jack Sparrow tainted what the ship had once meant by using it for his silly ends. He was not a fit Captain for so majestic a vessel. The Pearl reminded Barbossa of his time as a First Mate aboard the ship that had once been sunken, restored to the surface by the power of Davy Jones. Formerly Jack’s Wicked Wench, the Pearl seemed to seep memories of those few years when it had belonged to Sparrow. Hector Barbossa resolved to make a forceful claim on the ship he had suffered ten years of a torturous curse with by remodeling it.
He could not, however, much change the imposing profile of the beauteous Pearl. Keeping it much the same in appearance, he changed his focus to improving upon perfection. The sails were the first things to be replaced, along with the masts on which they hung. Sturdier wood poles, as black as the soul of the current Captain of the ship, were erected and secured, the roping of each sail meticulously overhauled with new, strong braided cables. The sails themselves were made of thick, ominous black fabric. When filled with air they did not pillow the way the old sails, and those that belonged to any other ship on the seas did, but rather formed around the pockets of air as if the wind itself was bending to speed the Pearl through the ocean it haunted.
From there Barbossa had repairs made to the entire hull, from deep routed and intricate repairs to the most superficial of fixes. Within weeks the Pearl became something of unrivaled beauty, her resurfaced body brilliant and fathomless all at once, the black both absorbing the light and radiating under its brilliance. Refitted with cannons stolen and bartered from the highest end of the Naval and Piratical war far suppliers, she was as deadly as she was beautiful, her sleek form and powerful rudder allowing her to maintain her reputation as the fastest ship in the sea.
It had taken more than a month, and most of the treasure Barbossa had hidden for himself during his ten year imprisonment to the Aztec Curse and the hundreds of ports and villages he and his crew had pillaged, but the end product was more than anything the Pirate Lord of the Caribbean Sea had ever imagined.
Granting the laborers and his crew a well deserved rest, Barbossa returned to Tortuga for a brief reprieve before reinitiating his hunt for Jack Sparrow. There he was met by Elizabeth Swann. She implored him to escort her to Shipwreck Cove, with a visit to Singapore, as she endeavored to relieve herself of the two titles her journeys with Sparrow and Barbossa had bestowed. She sought to hand the command of the Empress, Sao Feng’s flag ship, to someone more fitting a pirate life, as well as rid herself of the title of Pirate King, which only seemed to matter in a time of emergency. Barbossa agreed to be her escort, reserving his right to define his end of the bargain, and the two set off on the Pearl, their destinations clearly defined. They did not seek adventure or danger, yet, somehow, it would not be surprising if it found them.
A Ship of Haunts:
The Flying Dutchman and her Captain, the brave and noble William Turner, have quite a heavy work load, ferrying the souls of those that die at sea to the afterlife. Due to the brutal genocide of pirates in the all but illegal prisons that those in command just happened to not see, there was quite an influx of souls being delivered unwillingly to the oceans. Captain Turner is not a fool, and realizes that there is more going on in these waters than an increase in casualties. The life of a pirate is a difficult one, but if there was one thing each and every buccaneer knew how to do it was survive.
Unfortunately, bound as he was to Dutchman and her unending duty to the dead, William could do nothing to investigate these happenings, or right the wrongs falling on the slaughtered men. He could only do what was in his power: his duty to guide them to their everlasting rest. While crossing between the world of the living and the land of the dead, Captain Turner encountered souls too strong to allow themselves to float in purgatory; beings so wronged their restless spirits refused to let them slip into oblivion. In these stout men William found his crew.
These disturbed souls hoped to attain some level of finality by serving their fair Captain loyally, each left with an incomplete task from their lives to haunt them for eternity. Some were betrayed and desperately sought retribution. Others held passion in their hearts so strongly the fire burned through their stilled veins, while still others carried guilt so deep they could not allow themselves the peace of quiet death. They served Captain Turner expertly, the Dutchman sailing with more grace than it ever had under the hand of its previous Captain.
Will’s father, Bootstrap Bill Turner, served the ship as its First Mate, bound to the haunted vessel by a personal duty to the son that risked everything to save him from its previous curse. The two formed an impressive team, and would be more than capable of handling the vessel were it of a smaller size. Most recently, to his dismay and wonder, Will gained an irreplaceable crewman when he came upon the lost soul of Joshamee Gibbs. Gibbs, murdered and deeply wronged while at the same time regretting failing his friend and Captain, Jack Sparrow, is thankful for the honor of joining Captain Turner’s newly revered crew, and the two revel in the fact that Jack had not suffered a similar fate. Not long before Gibbs, the First Mate of the Empress, Tai Huang had come aboard the Dutchman, though, his story was not willingly revealed to the Captain, and he deigned not to press the man. They had all eternity to gain each others trust.
The most startling and troubling additions to William’s crew had come very early in his duties. To his surprise, the first souls he led to the afterlife were all those that had been killed in the epic battle with the Royal Armada and the Pirate Lords. The crowd of lost sailors included pirates from every flag, as well as those that had died serving Davy Jones and the numerous Navy soldiers that fell when the Endeavor was destroyed. Some William recognized and mourned, others he realized had fallen by his blade, and still more he had never seen before, but pitied their lives had to come to so brutal an end.
Among these ghosts, retaining bodies because of their spirit and unfinished tasks, were the two greatest enemies Will Turner had ever encountered; including the monster that had torn him from the land of the living, and forced his friends to cut his heart from his chest and bind him to the Flying Dutchman. Davy Jones and Cutler Beckett. These two men, who had each at one point had been used by the young Captain Turner in his quest to save his father, were damned souls that were refused blissful rest, each left tormented with the weight of their guilt and confusion, or their unrequited feelings. William had the option of leaving them to wander between worlds, as Davy Jones had forced Jack Sparrow to do by sending him to the Locker, trapped in their own nightmares for eternity. But Will was a man of the purest of souls, despite his ancestry in piracy and his knack for creative problem solving.
He allowed them to join his crew. Davy Jones, appearing now as he had when he was human, before the disloyalty of his beloved had turned him into a monster, took the job as Helmsmen. His skills, in life and death, were almost unmatched in all the oceans, having only ever been bested by one man, in the battle that had sent him to the depths. Cutler Beckett, bearing the weight of his crushing final revelation, became a simple deck hand and busied himself with the easiest of tasks. William left him to it, sensing that there was still far more to both of them than he could yet see, including their intentions on his vessel, and their goals for final retribution.
Will, with his crew by large completed and impeccably adept, goes to a destroyed ship in the world of the living to escort yet more souls that could not find their own path to the afterlife. Instead of finding dead bodies among the wreckage of a twisted, burning pirate ship, however, he finds a crew undead men and, to his surprise, woman. They are cursed by a familiar gold pendant, which each wears proudly around their necks. These are the pirates of the crew of Anne Bonny, after finding by chance a very specific treasure buried by, unbeknownst to Will, James Norrington.
The New Old Curse:
From Sox’s application (because I'm too lazy to paraphrase):
“While preparing to leave the Isle de Muerta, Norrington decided to venture onto the island, to search for any stragglers, make sure his men were obeying the order not to enter, and other such Commadore-ish duties. He came upon /the/ chest of coins. A familiar undead monkey solidified his inner desire, and Norrington couldn’t help himself but to ‘confiscate’ such dangerous materials. That was the first step.
He later took the chest ( after requesting a short leave of absence ) and buried it, finding the situation agreeable for two-fold reasons. One, it was handy in a perilous position such as his to have a little security on the job, and two, if the coins were buried, no-one could get themselves into a world of trouble by accidentally getting cursed.
Using ‘What good am I to everyone dead?’ as justification for his actions, Norrington spent the next while in and out of the Aztec’s curse, enjoying the benefits, and tolerating the definite downsides. He was careful not to be seen in moonlight ( it was much easier to complete that task when covered from his Adam’s apple down in clothes, and wearing a large hat which cast a shadow ), and all seemed to work out perfectly until the hurricane.
Struck with survivors guilt, James fell to rock bottom. He broke the curse, and spent the next while wallowing in guilt in Tortuga, until the issue of the Flying Dutchman came up, and he was offered compensation for a little cooperation by a certain Cutler Becket. He couldn’t refuse, and for perhaps once in his life, ignored his standards, and truly became a pirate.
He was restored to his position, and even promoted further, to Admiral. His dream had come true, but at a great price. Norrington was commanded to do things that, though lawful, were not right, and along with the guilt carried by his actions with the heart of Davy Jones, James spent the next while feeling horrible, and empty.
Norrington now felt that he needed to stay alive long enough to apologize to Elizabeth, and he put himself under the curse once more, wearing the piece of Aztec gold on a leather thong beneath his uniform. He felt the effects of the curse as strongly as ever, but this time bore it gladly, feeling that he deserved nothing less than the constant suffering it put him in. Amazingly enough, Elizabeth soon showed up, and James really felt that he could be absolved of his sins as a pirate. Bootstrap stabbed him, the pain thankfully dulled by the curse. Putting on his best act, James managed to get himself away to some barren shore to begin a new life.”
Norrington has since made his way to Tortuga, where his path crossed with Elizabeth and Barbossa. He joined their crew, much to Barbossa’s chagrin, and serves on the Black Pearl as the lowest of bilge rats, as well as Captain Barbossa’s personal punching bag.
What Norrington could not have known when he buried the chest of cursed Aztec Gold was that an intrepid crew of treasure hungry pirates, led by the fearless Captain Anne Bonny and her trusted First Mate Mary Read, would stumble fortuitously upon the disturbed earth on an island they use as their private rest area. As pirates are wont to do, the two infamous female seafarers had their crew dig up the treasure.
Continuing in their outrages fortunes, the sun had long set before they had pulled the heavy chest from the ground, and when they removed the pieces of gold from its protection they were quickly introduced to the curse the treasure carried. Intelligent and cunning, Bonny took note that one of the pieces was dried with blood, and deduced that returning the coins was not enough to return them to their normal states. Through the remainder of the night, Bonny, Read, and a few of the braver members of their mostly female crew investigated the curse, sampling some of the advantages and disadvantages that it had to offer, some of which had taken the crew of the Black Pearl near ten years to discover.
Bonny and Read quickly realized that this was a gift they could not waste, and a blessing as far as their careers as Pirates was concerned. They fashioned necklaces for their crew, imagining the curse might be at its best with the gold close at hand, and then stored the chest in a locked room aboard their flagship, the Revenge. Bonny and Read, following unwittingly in the footsteps of the cursed crew before them, have set off on a crusade of pillaging and plundering.
The pirates of the Revenge make birth on one of the five mythic islands, called the Five Deaths by superstitious seafarers. Theirs is the Isla de Mataceros, a close cousin to the Isla de Muerta in legend, appearance, and use. In the center of this dangerous island is an impressive, though decrepit, mansion where Captain Bonny stores the loot her crew has collected in their recent, brutal raids of port cities. What this citadel, the entire island, was used for in its past is of little concern to the Captain, despite many warnings from her own crew to be wary of the ancient powers she is taking advantage of.
A Wrath Unleashed:
The seas have been returned to Calypso, the embittered, enigmatic Goddess. The life of a pirate is now an even more difficult one: their ships subject to vicious storms on clear blue days, and whirlpools that swallow ships whole. Weather conditions are unmerciful and unpredictable on the open waters: ships bombarded with anything from torrential rains, maelstroms, or even blistering snow storms. Gone are the days when man owned the waters: the Goddess is back in her seat of power, and she is bent on making sure every vile piratical life form knows it. There is more to her rage than any can fathom, and none turn their thoughts in that direction. The sailors she traps in her emotional outbursts, which transcend her physical form and manifest themselves in the very oceans she rules, can only see that the world they had worked so hard to claim is no longer theirs.
Something like a civil war between pirates is brewing. There is widespread hostility towards the Brethren Court, which is blamed for the condition of the ocean. The nine Pirate lords and their supporters against the pirates who feel betrayed that the seas were taken from them without their consent and for it all they get is misery. With their widespread reputations and the pressure from the Royal Navy bearing down on them, the members of the Brethren Court are strained to their limits trying to protect themselves from enemies on every front.
On top of all this, there is another malice brewing: an ancient and mystical creature. A God of land, displaced by the expanding countries and invading pirates. A living shadow and an ever changing island that moves as freely over the oceans as the Flying Dutchman herself. Very little is known of this being, or of its intent: but there is no mistaking the wickedness of its very aura.
Purifying the Waters:
The King of England, disgusted with the inept handling of the Armada in the hands of Cutler Beckett and the East India Trading Company, decreed the days of Martial Law to be over. The jails were emptied of those who had not directly participated in acts of piracy, and the public hangings ebbed, giving way to trials and rule by law. Peace returned to the citizens of the British colonies, and the lives of the pirates eased back into what they had been before the ego of the East India Trading Company had swelled beyond its capacity. At least. For a short while.
In days recent new orders had been issued to the Naval ships that prowled the Caribbean waters. They were ordered directly to seize any pirate vessels they could spot, either by recognizing piratical colors or witnessing first hand an act of piracy. The officers were granted permission to engage any ship they found guilty of criminal activity, and to use appropriate force. Arrests were to be numerous and frequent, with deaths and casualties avoided whenever possible. These orders, however, were not specific enough for the more vengeful of the Commanding Officers. Being so far from the eye of their king, acting as their own supervision, a collection of Navy men, ranging from the lowest ranks to the most revered of Commodore’s and beyond, created their own justice system.
Following the orders of their King, they seized suspected pirate vessels. They launched raids on ports where such ships were in port, and hunted them across the open ocean when they strayed too close to British waters. They collected as many pirates as they could into transport vessels, ships that resembled the ships of common, reputable merchants and thus would proceed unmolested by other Navy officers, yet armed enough to keep other pirate vessels at bay. Navigating carefully, an eye constantly looking for shadows in their wake, the transport vessel would carry their prisoners to uninhabited, ‘uncharted’ islands: blips of land so small and unremarkable most map makers hardly dot the paper with their quills.
On these islands were built crude, efficiently run jails. Places of torture and cruel activities unbecoming of the British Royal Navy. Pirates were sent to these places and there they died, lost to the world with only a whisper concerning the fate that befell them. Rumors have leaked from the walls of these jails, but the Navy is particularly adept at preventing stories to escape with survivors. Almost every man, woman and even child that entered those hellish islands left only by death, their bodies thrown into the sea.
Almost, but for Captain Jack Sparrow.