Through Worlds

The South Atlantic Ocean, 1639

There had been rumours that the pirate ship they were hunting was a ship whose captain was possessed by a demoness.

They said her name was Rubykrest. She had tan skin, hellish pink hair and was often seen hovering above the shoulder of the pirate captain - Jyra Kaleer - like a translucent phantom from hell, fading in and out of sight. There were whispers of how wherever she appeared, only ashes and bones were left behind...

Captain Weller believed none of that drivel of course. He had heard it from a group of fellows in a bar and they had all been drunk.

His crew and well equipped British Man-o-War had taken on many pirate ships before and he knew his men weren't the sort to get cold feet before a fight regardless of what they heard. They had more than enough battle experience. However, he also knew, rumour or not, it would weigh on their minds anyway since they were a rather superstitious lot. So he made sure to keep ridiculous rumours off of his ship.

He watched as his men shuffled about on deck, occasionally shooting furtive glances at each other and the nervous demeanour of some of those sitting on barrels with muskets in hand.

Well, as much as I can at least, he thought.

He sighed and then straightened as he heard a warning cry from the lookout. There was a ship on the horizon. 2 o'clock.

They adjusted course and sailed towards the ship they could see far off in the distance, the winds pushing them as the salty sea sprayed the ship in its lazy annoyance with the people sailing it. Soon enough, they saw the Jolly Roger flying high against the clear blue sky and strangely enough, saw that the brigantine seemed to not be trying to get away from their warship at all. She was sitting dead in the water: her stern towards their bow while an eerie silence hung over the ship.

Suddenly, the pirate captain, Kaleer himself was at the stern, standing with one foot on the rail and what seemed to be his entire crew behind him. The scrawny figure was setting light to a cloth stuffed through the mouth of a bottle filled with a clear liquid, his loose cream shirt billowing in the wind and his ridiculously large tricorn hat with a blood red feather perched on his head.

Many of Captain Weller's men were under the deck, ready to start riddling the pirate ship with cannonballs at a moment's notice. He wanted to signal them that they were moving into position, but he stopped when he saw the woman standing, beautiful and terrible, behind the pirate.

Her pink hair was held in a long braid which hung over her shoulder down her front. She had tanned brown skin, clothed in a heavily embroidered orange blouse which cut off at her midriff and a sheer skirt with slits on either side that reached more than halfway up her thighs. Amazingly, her skirt seemed to be on fire, and she was bathed in its light.

No, he thought again. Not on fire. Made of fire. As though it were imitating fabric.

The pirate mouthed something that was lost to the wind and he saw the woman give Kaleer an amused smile. He hurled the bottle at the warship and Captain Weller dropped flat on the quarterdeck, screaming "Take cover!"

He didn't see the bottle as it sailed over their bow and landed in the middle of the ship; he didn't see that it didn't immediately shatter and he didn't see that as the cloth burned and fire met liquid, the bottle exploded.

What he did see was the woman, standing in front of him when he peeked up, smiling a sickly sweet smile as black skeletal men and horses covered in fire engulfed him and burned him black.