For Our Sakes

Introduction

The ships name was at one time Valiant, but it had long since stopped being called that. English was after all, an ancient, worthless tongue.

Still it's a mockery, a joke, for the ship made of such fine craftsmanship, of such brillant fortitude, of such awe inspiring legend, to be called Valiant. As if it was a hero, or god, or just someone worthy of being beholdened.

Valiant had long since been washed in the blood of valiant heroes. Her decks had been painted in it, her sturdy bold beams slick with the metallic liquid. The sea salt clotting in the pools below deck. She had long since been scrubbed of the worthiness that had named her in her English tongue. She was simply a ship now.

A ship that wore a blacked flag and carried dirty misery in her wake. She parted the oceans in violent spurs, hung in the mist like a myth, a whispered secret between the lips of drunken sailors. She was bad luck, a curse, the reaper of souls and endbringer of the damned.

The ship itself was made of a dark wood, dried by the countless hours in the sun and rubbed raw by the sea salt between her cracks. Waves parted on her bow as she lurched forward on and endless journey of revenge and cruelty. She glowed in the sun, drinking in the horizon.

Valiant was just a word not a name. She was just a ship not a murderer.

And yet, she left in her wake more bodies than any other ship.

Her crew consisted of the demons dragged straight from Hell itself: cutthroat pirates who paid for riches in blood, backstabbing traitors who got off on betraying people who trusted them, liars who thrived on tall tales and controversy, marksmen who on any given day picked up their pistols and offed one another. They came from all over the globe, drawn to the darkness that the ship brought, to the wide open waters, to last minute escapes from the hand of justice. Savage men stalked her decks at every hour, smearing their tainted thoughts on the world.

It hadn't always been like this. Valiant had once been a proud ship, a righteous ship. She had once docked in the ports of cities that herald her name in parades. People had once smiled at the sight of her, crowding the wooden docks and waving, with cheers that lasted well into the next morning. She had transported goods of the highest quality, people of the most importance, riches of the most glorious type.

How had she sunk this low?

How had they turned her name into a beast that haunted children's dreams? Into the deepest fears of young sailors and the scarred memories of the old? How had she, the beacon of hope, become the herald of Hell?

There was a simple answer. The ship itself refused to acknowledge that had been forever destined to end up like this: a lost cause, a nightmare, a slave.

Destiny always had a strange course of action, which it proved, the day the group of mutants dropped on the deck of the ship that had once been known as Valiant without so much as a warning.

Maybe they wouldn't save the ship, but they might be able to sink her corpse to the bottom of the ocean.

~~~

Long time no see my friends! The introduction is a bit short because I figured after two books and a lifetime of waiting, y'all will want to get on with this. As always:

If you were part of the world saving team and held on tight to each other as you fell through time: step right up come, right this way! Adventure are bound for you...as long as you can survive the Pirates and Sirens and Possible Drowning.

If you weren't paying attention to what was going on...well it looks like you might have been lost in the threads of the space time dimension. Good Luck with where ever you end up, when ever you end up!

The Choice is yours!

Per usual I'll have the next chapter out in a day or two.