...sneak down, kill him and steal his uniform.

You run the risks though in your mind and decide that a disguise and a smile would be a better way towards information and progress than threats and stealth. Both of the latter often go unappreciated by those that witness such things; it will take only one passer-by to raze an alarm that will bring the whole islands population down upon you. Meanwhile, a disguise should let you walk the streets, so to speak, and ask for directions if need be. Such simple abilities have taken you go farther than stealth in your career.

You gulp, involuntarily, and almost audibly to the man as another undeniable truth crosses your mind. What better way to see if you can kill in cold blood? For the greater good, of course.

You silently part the leaves before you and move across the hard rock and soft sand to the back of your target. The sound of his stream thunders on the water’s surface as the world seem to get smaller around the two of you. Every step brings you nearer to this man, a man whose life you will soon end. It’s a life that could contain atonement, or as you yourself to remember, most likely more theft, and . The lingering damp doesn’t keep the sweat off your brow in either case.

As you crouch behind him, with the stiletto you cannot remember drawing in your hand, you think; who are you to judge this man’s life? Who are you to see that life end? The stream that emanated from the man finally stops and in the silence you spring up, ramming the daggers point into the back of his skull. Like a marionette with stings cut, he collapse straight down.

Panting and sweating, only partly from the exertion of it, you drag the man back into the bushes that hid you, flipping him on to his front and pulling the jacket off him before moving on to his shorts.

You realise in horror that he doesn’t have any!

You’re sure he did! You would have noticed otherwise! The moment quickly fades as you see them still on the beach where he dropped them, a limp faded yellow flag marking the location of your crime. You quickly run out and fetch them, trying to calm your guilty nerves on the way back.

After sliding out of your nice clean clothes, you change into the grimy leather top and shorts. The shorts are long enough on you to basically act as trousers, with the drawstring around the waist keeping them from falling down. Thankfully, the holes are limited to around the knees, with only one large one on the back of the left thigh and none higher. Perfect for a disguise. The jacket top, on the other hand, was meant to be worn open and only one button remains serviceable in the middle of its front. You fasten it and sigh in a way disrespectful to the dead man. Your somewhat limited chest doesn’t ‘fill out’ the top as much as you would like, leaving it quite loose and liable to expose both of your breasts if you lean forward too much. Still, apart from the ugly colours and mystery stains, it looks good enough for your mission.

The shoes are a problem. You’re loathe to lose them, but the clean and soft black leather would be out of place compared to the other items. After a moment’s consideration, you pull up a nearby plant and rub its dirt caked roots on them, turning them a light brown colour and scuffing them for good measure. You also undo the face mask as no one on the island will recognise you anyway and wearing it will only make you look more out of place.

Disguise worn, and it’s…perfectly serviceable, you suppose. The clothes don’t exactly make the pirate though. Should you let your hair down perhaps? After a moment’s consideration, you don’t bother.

With a sickening scrape of metal on bone, you retrieve your dagger and cover the body with leaves. The face mask makes for a good cloth and you use it to wipe the blade clean of blood. Drawstring tied, putting the blade back in its thigh strapped holster is a challenge you overcome with a bit of impromptu seamstressing. You cut a small pocket gash opening into the upper thigh, just enough to reach through and carefully deposit the blade in its holster.

Without looking back, you continue down the beach towards the docks, brushing your clothes and adopting what you feel are likely pirate mannerisms. You feel a fraud, but one motivated by an unpleasant fate if captured. You see a lit path leading up, likely into a village of some kind from the remembered cluster of lights seen on your arrival. Reasoning that any village is less likely to recognise the clothes of a dead comrade, especially more than the pirates of the dock, you cut through some of the woods and attempt to join the path going up, skipping the busy boardwalks as much as possible.

The path is fortunately empty, and after walking up the steepest part of the path you glance back down at the dock proper. Its small enough but they have used it well. Two large ships and three medium are docked to it, while several smaller ships are pulled up onto the sands down the other side of the coast. There seems to be quite a bit of activity between the ships, loading and unloading, as well as the clatter of repair hammers, all lit by fire fly like lanterns hovering about at every level. Looking at the two vast galleons, you estimate there could be between 200 to 500 people on this island, from them alone! You hope that most of them have opted for the cheap accommodation of their own ships rather than make their way into town, and from the sight of women dressed in bright revealing clothes, gliding from man to man, there are plenty of dock whores that have hoped the same.

Continuing up the path, you notice two other pirates ahead of you, making a slower way up the path. You slow down, not eager to overtake them, especially seeing they wear the same red and yellow style as you do. The difference is, theirs are stretched over bulging muscle. Their broad backs part as they pass by another pirate coming down the hill, sneering at him behind his back once past. He wears a white top and trousers, with a large red sash at his waist. You can’t suppress a thrill of excitement at the identification; while the red and white mix acts as no sure indication of your quarries presence, it is the cherry on top of a mountain of other evidence!

As he nears you, he doesn’t take his eyes off your body and seems to be judging it by his own inscrutable standards. He has a white beard that could be the twin of the one your guide let infest his face, but this man had no air of frailty about him. Large muscles bulge on his arms and a sabre rattles on his hip. Both promise not just power, but a sense of dangerous skill, emphasised by the confident step of his gait.

When about to pass you he smiles and reaches for your crotch.

Surprised, you quickly side step his advance, which causes him to stop and look at you even as you continue backwards up the hill. You keep your eyes on him, watching his still smiling face, as though you some joke to him. He seems to be considering his next move, but as you move further away and with the briefest glance at the other two pirates further on, he shrugs, still smiling, before he turns and continues on his way.

Heart pounding, you consider what, if anything, the encounter means. Two big boats in the docks, two crews on the island, and they seem to dislike each other? Or at least they share some kind of rivalry. You file this information away in your mind and continue up the road.

As you crest the top of the (maybe half mile) road you finally enter a small village. It’s sparsely populated, with only the two men you followed, two fat rambling drunks, and a cloud of moths circling a nearby lantern for company. There seems to be an inn further down, spilling light and noise into the dirt road street. It draws the two men ahead of you towards it, like the moths to the flame.

You stand in the shadows of a nearby building and study the street further. The single road that runs through the whole village is wide enough for two carts to pass each other, barely, and bent left immediately after the path from the dock leading up here. The buildings on either side of the road are in a state of heavy disrepair, but they seemed to get more stable the closer they are to the inn, which is on the right side of the road, on the corner before the next bend. As you watch, the two drunks get nearer, and you can see that it’s not fat they wear that bulks them, but rigid leather armour coloured the same are your current disguise, covering their heads and torso’s.

As you watch, the drunker of the two wavers in his step, standing as though on rough seas and hoping to stay upright. He fails, crashing spectacularly into the dry dirt in a way that makes you wince. The other looks set to follow. With heroic defiance of his own inebriation, he drags his less conscious friend into a nearby derelict building to sleep it off. You hear a loud thud soon after, as he also collapses.

What to do now? The Inn looks like the best place to gather information about the two crews and the location of their respective captains, and you don’t fancy wondering the streets aimlessly at night. As if on cue, you hear a woman’s distant muffled scream before it is cut short, swallowed mid cadence in the night and echoing only in your mind. The two men, now nearly at the inn, don’t react to it at all.

You prepare to make a quick, confident walk to the inn behind them when an idea crosses your mind. With the two armoured pirates sleeping it off in the dark of the ruined building; you could go in and take their armour. While you have no intention of fighting, the tough leather armour, with its broad torso, high neck guard and arm guards, coupled with the studded leather cap, would easily hide that you’re a woman. Remembering your encounter with the pirate on the hill, and the noise you just heard, that can only be a good thing. It would mean stripping a large drunk man, however, which could be a very bad thing.