A Fire Burns Within Me Version 2

Pirate Jackson

Previously:
We were riding with our friends from Camelot a few days after the tournament only as far as the inn on the outskirts of town. We'd seen a cyclopes our last day at the tournament and knew we had to leave soon. I wasn't entirely sure he wasn't following us out.

Frank led the way through the door to the tavern holding Estelle's hand desperately. I was holding her other hand and Zoë's in my other.

"Frank, you have been elected to take over all dimension hopping from now on." I said, panting heavily. "We finally seem to have just walked into the next one instead of falling."

"I second this notion." Zoë said.

We all paused to take a break. The Cyclopes that had been following us from the tournament was about to catch up with us just before we left the last dimension. We also needed to get a stock of our surroundings.

It appeared we were in a town that had started the apocalypse. I heard multiple cases of broken glass in many different directions. There was one house that seemed to be on fire. At least four people had already run into us completely intoxicated. Fortunately none had bumped into Zoë yet. Or Estelle. Zoë had taken my sister and pulled her close to the wall of the building we'd just 'left'. Out of the way.

"Where are we?" Frank asked, looking around in barely hidden disgust.

Yet another group of guys bumped into Frank and I—one of them hearing Frank's question.

"You don't know where you are either?" He said, in a drunken awe. "Me too!"

"No, Alex, I just told ye'. We're in Tortuga, remember?" One of his friends said, also drunkenly.

"Really?" The first guy said. He turned to Frank. "Psst! I know where we are! We're in Tortoise Tuba!"

"Tortuga!" His friends corrected in perfect drunken harmony. They all laughed and stumbled off.

"Should we help them?" Frank asked, watching them leave.

I eyed the group with disgusted awe as they all at once fell into a pigsty. "Nope."

Frank nodded. "Yeah, you're right, let's go."

"Where?" I asked.

"Anywhere but here, this place is no place for Estelle."  Zoë said firmly.

"Let's try the docks." I said. "Maybe there is someone leaving we can hitch a ride with."

I'll admit, my motives for going to the dock was only partly because of that reason. The name Tortuga sounded familiar. But I could be wrong and if I am, I don't want to say anything just yet.

Frank eyed me with suspicion, but Zoë was already picking Estelle up and following her nose to the shore. I did my best to keep a poker face as I followed after her.

It had to have been early morning because along the way, we saw many intoxicated people stumbling in the same fashion as the group we met earlier. They were dressed in very old fashioned clothing you'd find in the classic pirate era. Nothing was clean, and the air was cold and damp.

I ended up creating each of us a set of clothes that were similar to what I'd seen going around. It was warmer, and the tall boots did better keeping our feet dry than the sandals we were just in.

We fell in step with one very muddy and intoxicated man following a much smaller figure down the dock. It seemed they were heading for a busy port at the end. No other ship port was quite so busy.

"They look to be leaving." Zoë said, pointing at the very same ship I'd noticed. "Let us see if we cannot join them."

"We don't even know where they are going." Frank argued. "Shouldn't we see where they're going first?"