Mark of the Ranger

XXIV. The Pirate Ship

          "Well, look on the bright side," Jeff said as we had all woken up. "At least we have a change in scenery. I was already sick of walking on that one path, personally." We were locked in some sort of brig. The entire room was wobbling back and forth, so the pirates that kidnapped us must have set sail. Every one of us was chained by our wrists to the wall, and the manacles were built specifically to stop Rangers, so we couldn't trace our Marks and break them. Aside from us, the only things in the room were a bunch of barrels. I had kicked one over and seen it was full of limes.

          "Well, this isn't what I would call 'scenery,'" Elena corrected. She was right. All that surrounded us was wood, barrels, and each other. I had only been awake for five minutes, and I was already bored. I wanted to talk to Isabel or Karen, but they were still gagged, along with Ko. I didn't like it, but I had to admit that gagging those three was most likely the smart decision.

          "Mm mmph mmhmm," Isabel tried. I couldn't understand a word she said, so I just nodded and hoped it wasn't a question. David was just sitting in the corner, by his manacle post, so I tried to talk to him. "What about you, David? Do you appreciate being kidnapped by most likely dangerous pirates?" David snorted and shook his head with a small smirk. "I prefer the sun and open air, even if that's an unpopular opinion. Say, where do you think the pirates are taking us?"

          I shrugged. The pirates had come in the early morning, with no spoken rhyme or reason. Jeff and I had barely been awake when we found that they had our friends. "Beats me, but I hope that it's someplace more interesting than some path," I answered. "Maybe they'll strand us on an island with limited supplies, and we'll eventually starve to death." Karen shook her head as if I was wrong, then tried to spit out her gag. However, it was tied expertly, and her efforts were useless without her hands. She tried her best to convey her message, which was that she knew where they were taking us.

          "You know where we're going, don't you?" I asked her. She nodded furiously, her eyes filled with fear. "What could be that bad?" I followed up. She tried to speak again, but all that came out was muffled grunts. She kicked the floor of the brig in frustration. We heard a voice from above yell at us. "Hey! Don't kick the floor or we'll all sink!" I tried to ask the voice where we were going, but it told me to shut up, or he'd gag me, too.

          I would have given him some very choice words, but Isabel, Karen, and Ko looked even more uncomfortable than we did, and I didn't feel the need to join them. I quieted down a bit and noticed Ko hadn't tried to say anything so far. "Do you have anything to say?" I asked him. He shook his head. A strange thing, really. Ko always had something, whether it be rude or in any other way interesting, to say. So, since most of our team was either gagged or in a bad mood, I chose to speak with Elena, who was seated next to me, analyzing her manacles.

          "Do you see anything? Any weak spots?" I asked her. She made a face and shook her head. "Nothing. These pirates are very careful and clever, I have to say." I racked my brain, full of old wive's tales, for answers. I looked down at my own manacles, hoping for a little ray of hope. After what must have been a half hour, There was still nothing. Suddenly, the door to the brig opened, making Elena and I jump. Standing there was a fat pirate, at least twice my own weight.

          He wore one eyepatch and a beard that reached the bottom of his ribs. He had a bandana covering the top of his seemingly bald head, and the rest of him was covered by a long robe, presumably to hide his portliness. He looked angrily at us all. "The captain wants ye to come up to the deck," he told us with a thick Badlandish accent. They always said "ye."

          One by one, starting with David, as he was closest to the door, the portly plunderer of precious pennies unlocked our manacles from the wall. It was a relief to be able to use my legs again, but my arms were still manacled behind me, so I couldn't trace my Mark of Strength or punch that fat fiend in his giant face. 

          He led us, single file, down two hallways and up a flight of stairs. The sunlight nearly blinded me as we stepped out onto the deck. When my vision fully returned, I saw that there was nothing but water to the horizon. "How far from the mainland are we?" I asked the pudgy pirate. He ignored me and continued up another flight of stairs and through a door, where his captain was waiting on a red velvet armchair.

          The captain was much more fit than the man he had sent to retrieve us. His muscular arms bulged with seafaring experience. He wore a three-pointed hat and a beard even more impressive than his bodacious bodyguard's. He looked at us with deep sea-blue eyes that were full of carnivorous menace. He stood from his chair smiled, showing a grill of golden teeth. "Let me tell you what we're going to do with you Rangers and your Grand Wizardess," he growled.

          "How did you know that she's the Grand Wizardess?" I asked.

          "Because the sun mark on the beck of her neck is golden instead of black, fool." I hadn't even noticed that, but apparently, that was a way of blowing a Grand Magician's disguise. The pirate captain continued his talk to us.

          "Where we're going, we have a bunch of magic farmers. They'll, well, 'take care' of you, and they'll pay us a shipload of coin for it." He sat back down and smiled again. "We'll be reaching land in about an hour."