The Glowing Powder Seas - Surge [4]

Chapter 1/4

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" queries Copper as they tail behind her fox companion, shovel in paw.

It's a few moments before Farley responds, his face buried in the beige parchment in his paws, trying to make any sense of the strange map whatsoever, but eventually he scoffs and says,

"When has the answer to that question ever been yes?"

They'd been wandering around for about two hours now, about a week after the Warmglow had made its maiden voyage, trying to find this one chest buried by some guy Stuart 'Feral' Smokey defeated back in the day, of which reportedly had a whole bunch of money in it – exactly what the duo needs. Turns out maintaining a brigantine is bloody expensive.

"Farley the sun's starting to set," Copper points out, "you'd better hurry..."

"I'm getting there."

"...y'know, seeing as it's your fault we're this late."

Farley spins around and faces her.

"My fault?!" he exclaims. "You were the one who wanted to stop off here and try and find the chest! If we hadn't, we would've made it to Ferndon by now!"

"Well I wasn't the one who was up at the crack of dawn reading about Orion for five hours this morning!"

"I just realised I didn't know anything about him!" Farley defends with a prolonged shrug. "The guy's a badass, can you blame me? Besides, I made sure we left in plenty of time to get to Ferndon by tomorrow morning."

"Why did you even take the cargo? We're pirates, not merchants."

Farley's mind returns to earlier that day. Copper was aboard the Warmglow, preparing to leave Ironpost, Farley was on the dock untying all the complicated knots Copper had done, when a random stranger came up to him.

"Excuse me?" he'd said, "could you do me a favour?"

Farley's used to doing the odd favour for someone, so he asked what it was. The stranger then told him about a crate of supplies he wanted delivered to his wife at Ferndon. Even after Farley mentioned that he wasn't a merchant ship, the stranger insisted.

"Please!" he'd said, "it's our anniversary tomorrow and I've been trying to send this gift to her for weeks but no one will take it because it's so small! I can pay you...I mean it's not much but...please, I don't know what else to do."

It was that point that Farley remembered he had a conscience, and his heart kinda went out for the guy. His empathy kicked in, and he gave the stranger a small smile and said,

"Sure thing pal."

Copper surprisingly didn't take it too well; she was looking forward to hunting for more treasure like they've been doing for just over a week now, but eventually, like Farley, her conscience kicked in and she agreed.

They both thought it would be an easy little quest. They didn't expect to stop off on this island in the middle of the Lush Greens and spend half the day wandering around aimlessly searching for a single treasure chest.

"If we lose another chest because we get caught unawares in the middle of the night," Copper warns, "I'm blaming you."