Why, yes, that page quote is a reference to a well-known Nintendo franchise…
Chapter 7
Copyright J.B. Norman
The ship pulls alongside the Raiders. Its name is written in brazen letters that burn in the sunlight reflecting off the water: Falchion.
“I don’t know what that means,” Dunstana notes. “Or how to pronounce it.”
“It’s like fall-chin. It’s a kind of sword, Captain,” Jimena says.
“It is? Cool.”
The crew of the other ship positions a gangplank over the gap and the Goblin steps onto the deck, the tails of his overcoat billowing in the salty sea wind.
“I do believe we’re being boarded, Captain,” Jimena notes.
“Eh,” Dunstana says with a shrug. “We can take him. He’s, like, shorter than I am. And I’m a kid.”
“Arr,” the Goblin pirate declares to the point of stereotyped piraticality. “It be I! The yarest and halest pirate captain whatever was – me most magnificent and splendiferous self: the famous Captain Goblinbeard!”
A thoroughly unimpressed Dunstana stares back at her new rival – for the first time in her career, she’s facing down a pirate more or less her own size.
“As per the terms as what govern piratical conduct on Salvage Thursday, the long-standing customs of as they say, mos piratarum, I hereby be declarin’ me intent to claim as me own any salvage as what ye may have fished out o’ that there shipwreck.”
“That’s not fair! We got here first!” Dunstana exclaims.
“Aye,” Captain Goblinbeard says. “And I be here now. So, lass, ye’d best be surrenderin’ yer salvag. And ye’d best remember the name o’ Captain Goblinbeard as bein’ the one to bring such an indignity down upon ye!”
Dunstana sticks her hand into the air. “Question. Did you just say your name is Goblinbeard? You don’t even have a beard!”
It be a nickname,” the Goblin replies. “A nom de guerre, as they say. Or ’twas, at first. It be much more than that now. I’ve taken it up as the true and proper name o’ meself and all me kin.”
Dunstana sticks her hand into the air again. “Question. Why are you talking like that?”
“Why, it be the traditional Pirate Voice,” the Goblin answers indignantly. “I be affectin’ the affectation as what seadogs have since the dawn and beginnin’ o’ time and shall forevermore.”
“Hey, Jimena?” Dunstana asks, looking up at her first mate. “Have you ever met a pirate who actually talks in the Pirate Voice? ’Cause I haven’t. I thought that was just a thing in, like, plays and stuff.”
“I can’t say I have, Captain,” Jimena answers. “Though, as I understand it, it’s originally a Middelmerish accent.”
Dunstana turns to Myra. “What about you, Monica? Have you ever heard somebody use the Pirate Voice in real life?”
“I think they’re not paying me enough for this,” Myra notes, idly examining her fingernails. “And my name is Myra.”
“Why, what sort o’ sorry excuse for pirates be you lot, if ye’ve ne’er uttered nor heard the Pirate Voice?” the Goblin asks.
“I think I should kick him,” Dunstana muses. “I’m pretty sure he’s insulting us. Aboard our own ship. What a jerk.”
“It is all rather impolite,” Jimena agrees.
“Impolite? Impolite?” Captain Goblinbeard exclaims incredulously. “That be yer concern here? I be boarding ye, threatenin’ ye to yer very faces – and, by implication, intendin’ to rob ye o’ yer material possessions, and ye only be concerned with impropriety, o’ all things? And ye call yerselves pirates?”
“Oh,” Jimena groans. “Oh dear. You just had to question the captain’s credentials.”
“’Kay,” Myra mutters to herself with a sigh.
She pushes herself off the railing she’d been leaning against and strides across the deck.
“Listen,” she tells Captain Goblinbeard. “I didn’t sign up for any of this. But that is my… kid that I’m mentoring. And—”
“You literally did, though,” Dunstana notes.
“What?” Myra asks, looking back over her shoulder at Dunstana.
“You did sign up,” Dunstana continues. “Like, you really, actually had to sign the big sign-up sheet the Brotherhood was passing around to become a mentor.”
Myra turns back to Goblinbeard. “Today isn’t going how I thought it would,” she says. “But I’m her mentor and if you keep talking to her like that, we’re going to have trouble.”
“Always a pleasure to meet another mentor,” Goblinbeard says, tipping his hat to Myra. “Though irrespective o’ such a shared vocation, I must needs on me honour as a pirate o’ renown to be claiming that their salvage as me own, consequentially despoiling ye o’ ownership, and if I must be engagin’ in combat with the young lass to do it, well, it be what it be.”
“I’m going to do it, Jimena,” Dunstana decides with a nod. “I’m going to kick him.”
“As you say, Captain,” Jimena says.
“Three marks says you can’t kick him all the way back to his ship, Captain,” Abrams interjects.
“Six says he’ll do a flip,” Beasley says.
“Don’t worry,” Williams adds. “There’s no sharks.”
Dunstana strides across the deck until she’s face to face with the Goblin interloper. She looks over her shoulder to Myra. “Thanks for the help and everything,” she says. “But I can handle this. I’m really good at kicking people, okay?”
“Yarr,” Captain Goblinbeard growls at Dunstana as she strides across the deck. “I be not afraid of ye, lass. I wrestle with Turbosharks for a quick mornin’ constitutional. There not be a thing on the Powers’ good earth that I be afeard of, but a little pirate girl, least of all.”
Dunstana responds with the eloquence characteristic of the ten-year-old species by sticking her tongue out at him.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Mr. Goblinface, coming onto my ship and talking to me and my crew and my mentor like that,” she declares, and boots him off the deck with a stiff kick.
“It be Goblinbeeeeeard!” the Goblin pirate cries as he goes flying from the deck.
“Well,” Billie mutters to herself as she watches Captain Goblinbeard splash down into the water. “I didn’t see that coming.” She turns to the crew. “Throw him a rope!” she calls to them. “Get him back up!”
She peers down over the side of the ship.
“Captain?” she calls. “Can you hear me? Are you alright?”
Captain Goblinbeard swims towards the rope, takes hold of it, and clambers back up to the deck. “Much, obliged, Miss Hawkins,” he says before returning to the gunwale as the Falchion pulls away.
“Ye haven’t seen the last o’ Captain Goblinbeard!” he calls. “By the hoary and venerable beard o’ Greybeard hisself and the rich Archipelagian leather o’ Blackboots’ own eponymous footwear, I do hereby swear I’ll have me vengeance yet, come heck or high water, or any combination thereof. Be afeared o’ the wrath o’ Goblinbeard, lass!”
“Can I get you a towel, Captain?” Billie asks.
“Aye, Miss Hawkins. That’d be appreciated,” Captain Goblinbeard says, stepping down from the gunwale. “And maybe me spare boots, while we’re at it.”
“What’s he saying?” Dunstana asks, straining to hear the Goblin pirate as the Falchion pulls away. “Something about pineapples? Man, what a jerk. I’m glad I kicked him.”
“I do believe he is promising vengeance, Captain,” Jimena notes.
“Oh,” Dunstana scoffs. “Well, if he comes back, I’ll just kick him again.”
As the Falchion disappears into the distance, Dunstana turns back to the Raiders. “Good job, guys,” she tells her crew. “I’m proud of us. We found some salvage and I kicked a guy! Sounds like a good day to me! Let’s get back to port.”
She turns to Myra. “Thanks for sticking up for me like that, Myra.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for getting my name right.”
“Well, Abrams,” Beasley says. “He did a flip.” She holds out her hand expectantly. “That’ll be six marks.”
“I’m not even mad,” Abrams says, fishing the coins out of his wallet. “That was the most beautiful flip I’ve ever seen. But you and Williams, huh?”
“Stow it, Abrams,” Beasley mutters.
Dunstana glances down at the chest Williams hauled up from the shipwreck. “Let’s get this open and see what we’ve got. I already promised Myra first pick, so the rest of you are going to have to wait your turn.”
“I thought the Mentorship Program was a volunteer thing,” Abrams mutters.
“That never made sense to me,” Beasley says. “What kind of pirate works for free?”
The Porthaven Raiders, being both pirates and the straightforward sort, elect for the simplest course of action: smashing the lock off the chest to get the thing open. The pieces of the shattered lock fall to the deck and Dunstana flips the lid of the chest. The other Porthaven Raiders crow around to peer into the chest.
All in all, Dunstana’s kind of disappointed. It’s mostly just art and trinkets: some small carvings, lockets with little paintings in them, some fancy combs and mirrors, a few rolled-up canvases and sketches, little ceramic chickens.
At least a few of the things have jewels the Raiders can pry out.
“I’ll take that,” Myra declares, pointing down to a bust of the goddess Pherais, depicted as a young Elf woman in armour.
Pherais is one of the two Realmgardian goddesses of luck. While her younger sister, Anassa, is mostly responsible for giving and taking away good luck – also, the patron goddess of cheesemongers, for some reason – Pherais is usually thought of as helping people endure periods of bad luck before dramatically reversing their fortunes and bringing them sudden stupendously good luck.
“Are you sure you want that?” Dunstana asks. “It’s just a statue. That’s plenty of stuff more valuable than that. She doesn’t even have jewels for eyes!”
“Yeah,” Myra answers sarcastically, “what could I ever want from the goddess who reverses bad fortune? What’s been happening to me lately that I could possibly want reversed in my life? Who could I possibly want Pherais to chuck a couple lightning bolts at? Hmm, I wonder…”
“So that’s a yes?” Dunstana asks.
“That’s a yes,” Myra says.
“Okay, enjoy your statue, Mina. Maybe she’ll look good over your fireplace or something. Oh, unless you don’t have a fireplace. I’m not sure what you’d do then.”
“Pherais save me,” Myra whispers, glancing down at the statue and then hopefully up to the heavens. “Soon, if you don’t mind.”
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