The Ghost Ship Devils Breath

First Mate Rebecca Jensen sat in the Salty Greenfish tavern, drowning her sorrows in rum and ale. She was a pretty little thing, tall but slight of frame, though infamous for the many arms she had broken when taken up on her usual bet for an arm wrestle. Today, however, she seemed oddly defeated, and retold a tale of terrible and mystical defeat when asked what troubled the well known and widely feared lady of the seas. "You want to know what happened?" she half growled, half slurred at the men that sat next to her at the bar. "well, buy me a drink and I'll tell you... on second thoughts, you'd best buy yourself one, too, lest you have nightmares tonight."

It was ereyesterday night that Captain Flynn received the map in a game of chance. I never understood his need to gamble, but I suppose it was at least a way of honing the skills he needed to wager in lives with the fates and the storms every night at sea. The map was, in a word, unimpressive: a drunkenly scrawled parchment with barely legible coordinates and the stench of bile and beer, truly as much a gamble as the game of knuckle-bones used to acquire it. Captain Flynn, however, was more concerned with not only the potential treasure to be found, but the notoriety of being the captain of the crew that finally located the wreck of the legendary ship Devils Breath. And so we set sail, drafting a small crew of 50 men and loosing the sails of a fast, nimble vessel to more easy navigate the bone-lands where the wreck was said to be located. It was not long before the man in the crows nest signalled to our Captain that the mists of the bone-lands had been sighted on the horizon, and the ships sails were hitched to half mast for an easy approach as the mists seemingly rose to meet us. Navigating the fog shrouded crags with the ease that had afforded him his reputation, our skipper sailed by feel and instinct more than sight until, miraculously, the hull of a derelict rose suddenly into view. On it's side, the name could not be mistaken. This was exactly what we were after. The anchor was dropped and, as the First Mate, I naturally volunteered to board the vessel along with our brave captain, as did the cabin boy, Cliff. Boarding a rowing boat, Captain Flynn, cabin boy Cliff and I rowed to the derelict, where it was apparent we would be able to find access via a large fissure in the hull. aside from that catastrophic gape the rest of the ship was largely undamaged, and I volunteered to go first and check for traps. Using the traditional method of my people, I randomly hacked at things with my sword until a crossbow bolt narrowly missed my face. Satisfied that the primary threat was neutralised, though impressed that the rotten mechanism lasted so long, I gestured for my companions to join me and begin searching the hull for any remaining loot that hadn't been ruined by weather. As was my right as first mate, I pocketed a trinket here, a doodad there, anything of peculiarity and potential value. Captain Flynn went straight for an open cask of gold and a cask of rum, loading them into the rowboat. Cliff however, curse his immortal soul, had to go straight for the crown jewels, a golden, ruby crusted skull ornament that immediately upon contact let out the screams of a thousand tortured souls as its foul magic began to burn the poor cabin boy to ash. Immediately made aware of the danger, I implored Captain Flynn to leave on the rowboat with me, but alas, the captain made his last gamble that night. He began to desperately load his arms up with whatever he could find, even as twisted, bloated sea devils rose to reclaim the vessel. I dared not look back as the accursed crew tore the captain to shreds, and I rowed as fast as I could for the relative safety of the ship we arrived on. That ship, however, was quickly targeted and obliterated by cannon fire from the Devils Breath, and I resolved to escape those bone-lands one way or another, pulling out my trusty compass, picking a direction and rowing harder than I think I've rowed before. The final screams of the crew as the vessel went down were reminiscent of the blood curdling screech that heralded the beginning of this terrible turn of events, but row I did, pursued doggedly by the reanimated vessel with it's infernal crew. The sniper scowled and let out a guttural roar as he loaded and loosed shot after shot, and I remembered a far eastern principle I once heard about fortune following hand in hand with misfortune, always intertwined, always in balance. A cruel joke at best, but a reprieve for which I was thankful. As I wove between the rocky obstacles, the Devils Breath picked up a surprising amount of speed, and with a thunderous roar of crumbling stone, began to plough through the bones of the bone-yard as even the skies opened up in regret. Realising I would never row fast enough to avoid the ferocious ram, I took a deep breath and threw myself overboard, entrusting myself once more to fates cruel whim. It seemed mere moments before I woke up on these shores with the few trinkets I had secured still on my person and my sanity still relatively in tact and only a few scratches and bumps to tend to, though I quickly learned it had been an entire day. And so I find myself in this sad little piss-den, drinking what little money I could get for the jewels I looted, and telling my story to fools like you who'll listen. Maybe the old adage is true, maybe women at sea are bad luck... I suppose I'll never know for sure, because my days of sailing are over as long as that wreck continues to sail these waters, searching ever diligently for the next ship, the next crew, the next prey to send to a watery grave.