Art:AADM/Second round/Quagmire’s Quandary
|
The Short
|
Captain Quagmire wasn't bothered by the pink color of the rum or the giant squid sitting on the foredeck, but when he heard the entire crew singing "Sing a Song of Six-Pence" in unison, he knew that this was going to be a rough voyage. | 
|
Four and Twenty Blackbeards (Bulwer-Lyttony | ||
The Entry
Chapter One: "Four and Twenty Blackbeards"
Captain Quagmire wasn't bothered by the pink colour of the rum or the giant squid sitting on the foredeck, but when he heard the entire crew singing "Sing a Song of Six-Pence" in unison, he knew that this was going to be a rough voyage.
“Quagmire,” he told himself, “how do you get yourself into these situations? Here you are, stuck in the middle of the ocean, on a ship full of lunatics, AND you’re talking to yourself?”
He sighed. He really should have known better than to accept a jobbing position from a bloke called Crazy Mad Dave. He also should have noted that the crew was named the “Inmates”, and the fact that they were on a ship called the “Bedlam”, but Crazy Mad Dave had promised they were a profitable crew, and Quagmire couldn’t resist the thought of easy money. However, only moments after he had boarded the ship, the then-captain had shouted, “DEPORT!” and jumped overboard onto the dock, giggling and shouting “Can’t get me now! Can’t get me now!” And everyone had turned to look at Quagmire… “All hail the new Captain!” the crew had shouted gleefully, before returning to their hopscotch and knitting. And that is how he became the captain of a brig full of nutters.
At first, Quagmire was tickled pink to be made a Captain, but it wore off quickly. Crazy Mad Dave and the rest of crew refused to talk to him or even acknowledge his presence. Quagmire took a moment to look around. Perhaps Crazy Mad Dave hadn’t been lying when he said they were profitable, because there had to be money coming in from somewhere. The war brig “Bedlam” was painted gold, with wardrobes and trinket boxes scattered all over the deck, giving it the air of an eccentric antique shop. The effect was spoiled by the rotting squid oozing over the planks near the front of the ship. Quagmire had ordered the crew to throw it overboard, but so far they had ignored all his orders. They sailed blithely past a number of juicy merchant brigs as Quagmire jumped up and down shouting “ENGAGE, ENGAGE!” The crew seemed to have a mind of it’s own. Or maybe half a mind between them, Quagmire pondered as several of the crew started tying pink ribbons into the rigging.
A captain who can’t give orders has very little to do. Quagmire made a half-hearted attempt at navigating, but someone’s parrot familiar kept chasing him away from the station by pecking him on the head. Besides, the ship seemed to go wherever it liked anyway. Quagmire decided to inspect the ship. After all, that is something a captain is supposed to do, isn’t it?
Most of the stations were festively decorated with tinsel and underpants. The Captains quarters were locked. The hold was packed full of rum and spices, the smell so overpowering that Quagmire had to run out the door, coughing and gasping for air. Finally, Quagmire spotted a few scared-looking jobbers hiding in a corner of the gun deck.
“Hi there crewmate,” Quagmire said to the one called Plsdonthurtme. “How’s things?”
“Go away,” whispered Plsdonthurtme. “They’ll hear you!” He went back to his carp station, looking pale.
“Who will hear ye?” asked Quagmire with a puzzled frown.
“The crew of course, ye numbnuts. Shhhhhh!”
“The crew? Well, I’m the Captain, matey, so you’ll be safe.”
“Do ye really believe that?” implored Plsdonthurtme. “Let me tell ye a thing or too. This crew may look like they’re just a bit eccentric, but they’re not just harmless crazies. And they don’t need a Captain. You’re only here for the look of things. Once you wear out, like the last one, they’ll find someone else quick as whisking.”
Wear out? Quagmire didn’t like the sound of that. But the comment about whisking gave him an idea…
“And before ye try, ye can’t whisk from this ship. The Bedlam doesn’t follow the normal rules, I would have thought ye might have caught on to that by now.”
Quagmire began to dislike this jobber’s tone. He was, after all, the Captain – even if it was just a name. And Quagmire had no intentions of ‘wearing out’.
“Now listen here jobber! I don’t know how long you’ve been aboard this vessel, but...”
“Three years.”
“Wha?”
“You heard me.”
“Well… um… Anyway, I want some answers and I want them now!”
Plsdonthurtme sighed. “Well, I suppose it can’t do any more harm than ye’ve already done. Ask away.”
Quagmire puffed himself up. There. At last someone who respected his authority!
“Thank ye. Firstly, what’s WITH this crazy crew?”
“That’s obvious, ain’t it? They’re mad, I tell ye, mad!” Plsdonthurt me giggled.
“Oh… riiiight. Ahem. Well, what’s with the mess on the foredeck? Was someone keen for salt and pepper squid?”
“Ahhh haha” laughed the jobber nervously. “No, that’s the Kraken bait.”
“KRAKEN BAIT?!” spurted Quagmire. “What on earth for?”
Plsdonthurtme looked frustrated. “Why, to catch Krakens of course. Ye know, the big, black-blooded, fishy-looking, ship-crushing things?”
“But you’d have to be mad to try and catch a… oh.” Things were starting to make sense somehow, in some strange way. He wandered away from the jobber, thinking so hard he felt his brain bruise.
So they were Kraken hunters? And as crazy as a sock full of fish, of course. Gods! They were going to get themselves killed and the Captain would go down with the ship! He had to get away from here!
Suddenly there was a cry from the crow’s nest. “KRAKEN TO STARBOARD!”
The entire ship creaked as it lurched to the side. Quagmire rushed onto the deck and onto the helm, trying to ignore the parrot, which once again began pecking at his head. The crew were rushing around in total chaos. Some carried barrels. Some hauled sacks. Some were trying on fancy gowns and singing songs from ‘Pirates of Penzance’. Nearly half a dozen were clinging to the mast and pointing out to sea. Quagmire followed the direction of their gaze…
Ahead of the brig, a dark shadow stained the water. They were sailing straight towards it now. Quagmire watched in awe as the sea above the shadow somehow bulged above the waterline. Beneath the water a shape came slowly into focus. It was dark and tangled. The sea broke into a mad rush of froth.
“ALL AT THE READY!” shouted a pirate in lederhosen. Quagmire rushed with several others to the side of the ship. The yardarm was almost directly above the shadow. Something black roiled briefly above the surface of the water and disappeared. Quagmire saw it and felt his heart in his mouth. His mind was screaming at him to run, but it was like watching a tornado. He had to see what happened next. Besides, there was nowhere to run to. His fate was tied to that of the ship.
This time, it was clearly a tentacle that broke through the water. It gripped the rail briefly, and then fell back. Pirates gathered behind the rotten squid, clutching what seemed to be random items of cargo. Perhaps they were making offerings to the Kraken gods in the hope they would be saved? Quagmire felt sick. Another tentacle exploded out of the water and slid onto the deck. It was dark grey, full of black veins and bunched muscle. It probed the foredeck, porcelain white suckers clamping the wood. It reached the squid…
All at once the foredeck burst into activity. Dozens of tentacles were gripping the rails, the deck, and the squid, tearing back and forth like a nest of anacondas. Pirates dodged between the tentacles, throwing ropes, sacks and boxes. A pirate named Foxboro threw a rope rodeo-style, looping the biggest of the tentacles. The other end of the rope was tied to the mast. Quagmire quailed. He had heard stories of Krakens tearing ships in half like Christmas bonbons, and here the crew were TYING IT TO THE SHIP! Tentacles tore at the rigging and broke off the railings. Pirates threw sacks and barrels of some sort of powder over them. Others stabbed the harnessed tentacle with a harpoon. Black blood sprayed the deck. The Kraken thrashed. Furniture was thrown around. A vicious blow from a tentacle struck a pirate to the ground unconscious. The Kraken gripped the front of the vessel and began to squeeze. More sacks of powder were thrown until the tentacles were caked with it. Quagmire thought he might be dreaming, but it seemed like the Kraken’s movements were slower now. The thrashing quietened. The Kraken’s limbs subsided and lay limply upon the deck.
So this was how they got the blood. Quagmire slowly approached a tentacle, which lay on the deck quiet as a sleeping puppy. It was thicker than a barrel. It looked like black, semi-translucent plastic. Quagmire could see blood pulsing in its veins as it twitched. So it wasn’t dead. Pirates were still pouring some sort of powder over the Kraken. He caught a whiff of herbs. Could it be that they had actually drugged a Kraken? Looking closer he could see it was indeed some mixture of herbs. And over by the mast, the crew were collecting the blood from the harnessed tentacle. They had vats of it already. If one small bucket is worth a fortune, he must be seeing millions of Poe poured into kegs before his very eyes. Black gold. P.O.E. Quagmire drooled.
Too soon, Foxboro cried “STATIONS”. As Quagmire tried to follow what was going on, he saw someone cut the rope holding the tentacle to the mast. Others pushed the Kraken’s limbs overboard. They were twitching more frequently now. Sails were brought to full. The brig moved away, pushing gently over the body of the Kraken. Quagmire looked back to see the some of the tentacles begin lash the air. The Kraken was waking! It made a halfhearted attempt to follow the ship, but it soon sank back into the water, no doubt tired from it's ordeal.
Quagmire sat on a step and watched the other pirates clean up the deck. Kraken hunters. Socks. Millions of Poe. Sustainable fishing. That thick toast with raisins. Nonsense thoughts filled his head and he wondered if he was in shock.
Suddenly, he was grabbed roughly from behind. It was Crazy Mad Dave again. “Arrrr, so Quagmire, how was ye first Kraken hunt eh?” He pointed to his wooden leg. “They don’t always go so smoothly. But we have a tradition here aboard the Bedlam. Now that ye’ve survived yer first hunt, we have to initiate ya!” Quagmire was dragged roughly to the foredeck. The rotten squid was gone. Instead, Quagmire was stood upon a box and a bucket of Kraken blood was poured over his head. “There you go Captain! And now that ye’ve been blooded, I guess we better put you away nice and safe before we get into port. We have to repair this damage and then we’ll be ready to join the fleet again. Sweet dreams!” He manhandled Quagmire into the captain’s cabin and locked the door behind him.
Quagmire tripped as he was thrown through the door. Fortunately, he fell onto a pile of stuffed animals. He wiped the sticky Kraken’s blood from his face with a plush unicorn. Plsdonthurtme was right about this crew. They were far from harmless and Quagmire wanted nothing to do with them. He began to look about the cabin for a means of escape. There were portholes, so he looked for a way to pry out the glass. Unfortunately, the room seemed to be filled with nothing but toy animals. On the far side of the room he spotted a captains desk and some papers.
Quagmire went to the desk to see if he could pry off a board to use as a lever. As he leant over the desk to examine it, his eyes were drawn naturally to the papers on the desk. They were hastily drawn, covered mostly with stick figures, but there were some maps that looked interesting. Perhaps they would give him a clue about where they would port.
As Quagmire read, he soon forgot about his plans for escape. It wasn’t one hundred percent clear, but it seemed that the Kraken hunters were planning something really, really big. Quagmire sat down on a pile of toys. They squeaked. If these papers were real, then the money from the Kraken blood wasn’t just ordinary profits. It was for a blockade war chest. And not just any blockade – the crew that the Bedlam belonged to, the Inmates, were planning to offer the highest jobber pay ever seen on any of the oceans. These figures jotted on a serviette indicated that they wanted to offer over 10,000 Poe per round! With jobber pay so high they would be sure to win. And it wasn't just that. They were planning on blockading every island on Sage in turn! The Inmates were planning on taking over the entire ocean!
Quagmire paced the quarters restlessly. Something had to be done about this. He couldn’t just let them take over the whole ocean, and he certainly didn’t want to named as their Captain when they did it. But… On the other hand, he might become one of the most famous Captains in history! He would be rich beyond imagining, maybe with a palace of his own and a bevy of beautiful serving wenches at his beck and call… but no, it wasn’t possible. Quagmire didn’t trust this crew, let alone this person called “Captain Broadmoor” who had signed the maps in his hands. There was no guarantee they would treat him well, and that they wouldn’t just “wear him out” like the last captain. He had to get off this darn ship, and take these papers with him.
Luckily they were drawing near port. Quagmire stuffed the papers down his shirt. It didn’t look like they would let him out anytime soon. Maybe they wised up after the last captain escaped. Quagmire began hunting around the cabin again. He stumbled across the unicorn toy he had wiped his face with before. Perhaps the horn would be tough enough to pry open a porthole? Quagmire began scratching at the outside of the frame. It was working! He scratched patiently for what seemed like hours. It was getting dark now, and there were no sounds from the deck above. At last the porthole loosened, and he lifted the glass from its frame.
It wasn’t a graceful escape. Quagmire barely fitted through the porthole, and he didn’t give any thought to what he would do once he got through it. He fell into the water with a splash and swam hastily to shore in case anyone heard him. Sodden, tired and hungry, he scrambled to shore and looked around. It was Admiral Island, thank goodness. Quagmire hurried to Sho Girls and looked for someone to tell about the horrible plans of the Inmates crew. Luckily, a few of the local royalty were gathered in a back room playing poker. He stumbled in.
Thinking back on it, it was hardly surprising they didn’t believe him. He was covered in black goo, wet and babbling crazily. And the papers from the Bedlam had almost dissolved in the water. He was planked from the room almost before he could catch his breath. “And stay out!” yelled Inanna, who was sitting on two high pair, and resented the interruption.
Now Quagmire had to live with the knowledge that somewhere out there the Inmates were planning on taking over Sage. He had to find a way to convince someone, if it was the last thing he did. And perhaps that meant… going back on board the Inmates ship to fulfil his role as Captain? Surely it would be back with its fleet by now. Quagmire shivered at the thought of a fleet of gold-painted war brigs filled with pirates just as mad as those aboard the Bedlam. Maybe there was another way.
But that would have to wait for morning. Right now, Quagmire dragged himself home and tucked his sorry self into his bed. First he would sleep, and then… then he would try to find a way to save Sage.
