The Fiasco at Scala

The Forsaken, part thirteen

13. As day broke on the horizon, Ilaria and Ennio had commandeered the mysterious galleon as their own. Ilaria had taken the helm of steering the goliath through the waters while Ennio continued to wander the ship, looking for anything that could be of use to him. The sails were a light yellow, the wooden planks had the occasional hole through the tar-black paintwork, and the entirety of the vessel appeared deathly silent. An ominous lack of life was beginning to unsettle Ilaria, just as Ennio was expelled from the lower decks by a thinning old man with an eyepatch and a torn red shirt. He hooted and hollered at the two intruders on his ship, threatening them with a slightly rusted cutlass. Ilaria remained civil to the elder, who boasted his title of Giancarlo, captain of the Rosetta. 

The colors he flew were a white circle on a red canvas as the sun rose higher in the morning sky. Ennio made the inquiry if Giancarlo was a pirate, a post that the latter held with pride. He explained how he had seen the great fleets of scallywags come and go, leaving only the Rosetta to plunder the high seas. Giancarlo took pity on the stowaways as Ilaria offered him one final job to make him go down in history: sailing his pirate ship on one last raid to the capital to restore the queen to her throne. Giancarlo declined as his crew had either died or were enjoying retirement elsewhere, but Ilaria and Ennio presented themselves as a potential crew. The embittered pirate soon accepted their bargain and took to the wheel, driving the ship towards an inlet cave on the north coast of the island. 

The cave was as tall as several houses and large enough for several more, but Giancarlo directed the ship inside to where two other galleons were moored in its depths. Giancarlo had stored two ships away, each containing portions of his treasure to ensure it would have never been taken, a record that remained intact. Ilaria and Ennio each swam to a ship, before Giancarlo led all three galleons out of the cave. With their miniature armada prepared and seaworthy, the pirate, the queen, and the thief began a new voyage round the island to the capital, slightly inland from the southwest coast but with visible neighborhoods on the coast.