Look for the girls

Making sure Blythe and Lia are safe is your top priority. Whatever is going on, it must have happened so suddenly that they couldn’t afford to wake you up. Hopefully, they haven’t gone far.

You make your way up one flight of stairs to the upper deck. The hall with the ten doors is fairly quiet, with the exception of the door to the doctor’s ward. A quick peek inside the room tells you that this is no regular storm the ship is passing through: there’s hardly any standing room inside, with injured sailors laid out on whatever bit of floor available. Luckily, neither of the girls are among them. You consider checking the other nine rooms, but can’t think of a reason you might find either of your companions in officer’s quarters or VIP rooms. With the upper deck cleared, you make your way up to the cannon deck.

There is a lot of action going on around the cannons. Sailors are in motion all around you, carrying cannon balls, loading them, and firing them off using a magic spell with a crystal instead of black powder. Before you know it, you’re swept into the crowd, getting pushed around by everyone as they holler all manner of things at one another.

“Regular shot don’t work!”

“Damned things don’t know how to die!”

“Bloody brigands!”

These are some of the stand-out comments from the horde, which you pick out as they shove you all the way into the center of the cannon deck. There, you find exactly what you were afraid of.

Blythe is laying against a barrel, applying pressure to a fresh wound at her side. Half of her face is also covered in blood, leaking from a cut atop her head. Nearby, Lia is frantically bringing cannonballs over to waiting sailors. You catch her glancing over worryingly toward Blythe as she goes, but she doesn’t happen to notice you.

“Evan,” says Blythe as you kneel beside her. She sounds weak, and her eyes are unable to focus. Shit, shit, shit.

Unlike your thoughts, your actions are calm and purposeful. You raise a hand to the elf’s head and quickly cast a healing spell.

“That should have stopped the bleeding,” you say, “but don’t move yet, okay?” You cast another heal spell on the wound at her side, then ask, “What’s happening?”

“We are being attacked,” says Blythe, with more clarity but no more strength than before. “They seem to be… spirits. The sailors say… they are the ghosts of pirates.”

Ghost pirates. Of all the clichés. You’d be amused if the situation weren’t so deadly.

“They have boarded the ship. I fought… and defeated many, but there was no… end to them.”

“It’s okay,” you say, wiping the blood out of her eye and cupping her cheek for a moment. “We will survive this. Stay with Lia and recover as much strength as you can. I need to get back to the lower deck and grab my {if@ sword = true}sword{elseif mace = true}mace{elseif spear = true}spear{endif}. I’ll see you again once this is over.” With a quick kiss on the woman’s non-bloody cheek, you stand and **** your way back to the stairs at the back end of the cannon deck.

You bound down the stairs until you’re back in the lower deck. The scene down here has quieted somewhat — the storm continues to rage outside, of course, but there are less sailors running about and shouting at one another. What few seamen you do see down here are either arming themselves, as you are, or crouched in corners, praying for their lives. You move past one such coward as you go to pick up your silver {if@ sword = true}sword{elseif mace = true}mace{elseif spear = true}spear{endif}, left untouched among your party’s belongings. Weapon in hand, you start to make your way up the stairs another time.

Until you’re stopped at the upper deck. Blocking the stairs is the doctor and a human woman wearing what you could best describe as a ruby red Victorian dress. The woman has caramel skin and long, dark hair tied up in the back using what appears to be a very expensive ornamental hairpin. Whatever, not important, you remind yourself. What is important is that they’re in your way. And the woman seems to be arguing with the doctor, which is probably what’s keeping them in your way.

“I’ve told ye once, I’ve told ye a thousan’ times, Miss Smith. I don’t ‘ave time for this!” says the doctor.

“And I say you’ll make time!” counters the woman, apparently called Smith. “I am a paying passenger aboard this vessel, and I demand that you treat me this instant!”

“You’ll get yer damn ankle looked at when the rest o’ the crew ain’t so busy bein’ skewered by ghosts!” shouts the doctor.

Miss Smith gasps dramatically, an action befitting of her dress. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t be injured if it weren’t for all this ghost pirate business in the first place! If the crew of this vessel had simply done their jobs, I would have never —”

“That! Is! Enough!” says the doctor. He then launches up the stairs.

Miss Smith yells after him, but doesn’t give chase, and eventually turns around and notices you standing there. “You don’t look like a member of the crew,” she says, ogling your dirty, beaten up doublet and trousers with a disgusted look on her face. Then, her face lights up. “Ah! You must be one of the castaways they fished up the other day. Say, these ghosts wouldn’t happen to be chasing after you, would they?” She smiles, then starts walking away without waiting for an answer to that question.

You think it best to leave it at that and move on, except before you can head up the stairs you hear the woman scream for help. Looking down the corridor, you see a bona fide ghost pirate closing in on Miss Smith from the other end of the hall.

You leap before you look, putting yourself between the frightened Miss Smith and her would-be assailant.