Abducted Treasure

Chapter 2: I Gather A Team Of Cute Guys and Wanted Criminals

~~~Sausage's POV~~~

I dropped the sack holding the Heron in the center of my boat and stepped back to regard it. It was a very good sack. Big and brown and sack-y. Very nice sack.

I was not freaking out at all. I was not at all panicked about abducting the Heron I had been watching for months and been too scared to approach, and I had definitely not kidnapped him now for a treasure hunt. This wasn't happening.

The sack did not disappear. What a terrible sack.

Well, this was happening now, it seemed. Might as well gather the rest of the crew, so there would be people around to keep the Heron from murdering me.

Thankfully, I had also dropped a smoke bomb in the bag when I put the Heron in, so he should stay unconscious for a good hour or so; plenty of time to gather everyone else and set sail.

Hopping onto the dock, I walked quickly to the Kestrel tavern. The sun was just beginning to peak over the mountain on the center of the island. Several people would swear it was a volcano and not a mountain, but they were probably drunk, because it never smoked and therefore couldn't be a volcano.

Joey would have migrated to his luxurious bedrooms sometime after I had left the main bar. Hopefully he had left the tavern alone, although knowing Joey, that was highly unlikely.

I knocked on Joey's door, and after waiting several minutes, rapped it again. He didn't answer. I prayed to the Sun God I wouldn't see anything I couldn't clean out of my brain with ship bleach, and, looking around, seeing no one, I knelt by the doorknob as I pulled my lockpicks out of my pocket and slid them into the lock.

Joey had very good locks on his door, to keep out thieves and friends alike, but I was better than both, and I got the door open in only a couple of minutes.

Stepping inside on silent feet, sneaking past the gold-covered entrance room of Joey's apartment, I walked to where I knew Joey's bedroom was, from past experience, and was about to knock on the door when someone walked into me turning around the corner.

Turning around quickly, I reached for the person's mouth, standard silencing procedure for when one ran into people in a thieving job, before remembering that, no, I wasn't trying to rob Joey, I wanted to find him, and with that I took two steps back.

Unfortunately for me, Joey was not too happy with running into me, and he tried to swing at me with his fist. I dodged, and catched the second one.

"It's me! Don't hit me, I spent waay too long on my makeup-" I said quickly backing away with my hands up.

"What are you doing in my rooms?" Joey demanded. He reached for his side, where Joey normally kept his sword, but it seemed I had interrupted him in something, because he wasn't wearing more than a pair of pants, and his hair was disheveled.

"I told you not to get busy, Joey! Come on-" I said, annoyed. Joey knew we were going to set sail in the morning; we planned it together the night before, before I had gone off to prepare the ship for sunrise.

"You got the crew?" Joey asked, ignoring my annoyance and walking over to his kitchen and pouring two glasses with brandy. He passed one to me and leaned against the counter, sipping it speculatively.

"I've got one- two, including you- and a list. I'm going to grab everyone else now," I said, downing my glass in one gulp before putting it down on the countertop.

I pulled a sheet of crumpled paper out of my pocket. The front was a half finished sketch of the cute Heron, but on the back I had scribbled a few names, the people I wanted for this treasure hunt.