ic I Have Not Yet Begun To Fright!

[EviscerusNox]

Flamborough Head Promontory, Yorkshire England

October 31st, 7:06 AM

 

From seemingly out of nowhere on the morning of Halloween, a dense fog rolls into the waters outside of Yorkshire.  This would not be so unusual, especially for the time of year, but up until exactly 7:06 the weather had been unseasonably warm and no clouds dotted the horizon.  No indication whatsoever gave warning, and what followed after was stranger still.  From the depths of Flamborough Head, a rumbling came, the sea started churning, wails could be heard for miles around, ghostly disembodied wails that put ice in the bones of all that heard it.  As if called, the captains of all vessels currently sailing the ocean felt pulled for an instant to this exact spot, whether they be pleasure boat captains, tug boat captains, or simply a man on his yacht looking to do a little fishing on a warm Tuesday morning.

 

From the churning burst forth a ship, a ship that had not been seen for over 200 years.  It's railings and deck and sails emitted an ethereal red glow and it was partially transluscent.

 

Anabelle Flint felt that pull stronger than most, and was surprised when one of her Skeleton Crew, Handsome Jack, burst into her quarters, it's eyes aglow with an alien yellow light.  The revenant wasn't acting the way her crew usually behaved.  He stood with back straight, his bony hands crossed behind his back and standing in what could easily be seen as a military at ease.  It's decaying chin held high it spoke in a voice that commanded respect, it spoke like a ship captain.

 

"Captain Flintlock, I am Rear Admiral John Paul Jones.  The Bonhomme Richard has risen, and you are needed."

Edited September 28, 2017 by EviscerusNox

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

Nursing her hangover, Flintlock spat our the lemon she was sucking. 

 

"Why of course, Admiral Jones!" she said, unshocked. This was unusual, certainly, not the normal run of the mill daily thing one might see. But on the other hand, she had seen plenty of the centuries. And she remembered well the events of the civil war. 

 

Handsome Jack, for it was he, had clearly been possessed by the spirit of Admiral Jones. Yes, she reasoned. That was it. Clear as mud in moonlight. 

 

"Well then" she declared, slapping her pirates hat on her red curls. "I suppose that if I am needed, I best come!"

 

She swayed out of the captains quarters and started giving orders to set sail and so on and so forth. Splice the ropes, or something, Keep her motley crew active. Too busy to drink. 

 

"Er....where are we going, Admiral?" she asked the glowing eyes of Handsome Jack. "And am I having Handsome Jack, whose skull you are jingling around in, back any time?"

[EviscerusNox]

Handsome Jack pivoted around in a crisp military fashion and nodded.

 

"Of course.   You are heading to Flamborough Head, where the Bonhomme Richard went down.  Who commands her in unlife I can not say.  I can say however, that the La Nochte Triste treasure is most likely responsible.  It was not well known that I had... acquired said treasure in an eariler raid upon a British galley.  It to this day still lays with the Richard."

 

Handsome Jack's eyes blazoned a brighter yellow as the revenant made his way out onto the deck, staring out over the waters towards europe.

 

"My strength wains.  I am no restless spirit or vengeful wraith.  I am happy in my rest.  I just could not sit by the gunsail and watch the great memory of the Richard be sullied by some lesser imp.  Even now she flounders and destroys passing vessels, wreaking her wrath upon the seas."

Edited September 28, 2017 by EviscerusNox

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

"Treasure! Well, that settles it!" said Flintlock, brightly. "Can't let treasure fall into the hands of the wrong people" The wrong people being anybody but me "why, that would be like pouring Rum down a latrine!"

 

"Rest your spirit then, sir!" she bowed to Handsome Jack. "You have a noble soul. A true seaman, if I may be so bold! I salute you!" she said, ignoring her hangover and giving a bow and salute at the same time. 

 

"But now, tis' time to set sail against the spectral winds, said keel against eldritch waves, and let fortune weave the path!" she said, slumping on to the rather splendid wheel of the ship, as the Skeleton Crew busied themselves doing this and doing that. On odd occasion, they did something useful, too. 

 

And the Black Flag started up, speeding through strange and dangerous oceans, to reach the misty shores of Yorkshire...

[EviscerusNox]

"Thank you, Captain.  Be wary the treasure, and whatever specter has taken command of my ship."  With that the yellow glow dissipated and Handsome Jack came back to himself.

 

The journey would not be overly long as the preternatural speed of the ghost ship carried it effortlessly through the waters towards the waiting opposition.

 

Within hours the look out pointed through the fog and shouted

 

"Lights to the larboard Captain!"

 

Through the fog flashes could be seen and dim flames could be made out.  The distant report of cannons could be heard echoing off the water.

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

The La Noche Treasure! Cursed by Montezuma!

 

Every single coin!

 

Wait...every single coin? Maybe he missed one or two or a thousand? Surely?

 

Bah! It was wishful thinking. She wanted a silk dress and a velvet hat. Something pretty. She would settle for another crate of rum! Why, the rum stores were getting worryingly low. Probably no more than two months of daily drinking left!

 

"Man the cannons, Jennie!"

 

"I'm manning them already, you stupid red-haired kipper!" yelled back Jennie from below. "Ill shove this Cannon right up your...." she muttered just before a heavy wave splashed into the ship and drowned out her poetry. 

 

The rest of the crew took their places, quite used to Jennie's nature. 

 

"How do we play this, Handsome Jack?" she asked the first mate who was peering through the fog trying to discern the nature of the battle. Whilst Flintlock was a more able sailor, Handsome Jack was the man for naval warfare...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[EviscerusNox]

Handsome Jack closed on the battle close enough that much of the fog had been burned off by the gunfire and the fires onboard the modern crabbing boat being attacked by the spectral Bonhomme Richard.  In anticipation of the orders to come, Jack steered to present a broadside to the Bonhomme Richard, though the angle still allowed for closing distance.  However screams for help could be heard even from this distance from the crab boat.  

 

With her vast experience as a sailor it was not hard for Flintlock to tell that one more volley from the Richard would send the small commercial craft to the locker, and from the timing of the last volley they had only minutes before the next came.

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

Flintlock snapped back her telescope with grave appraisal of the situation. 

 

"No time to stand around singing, lads..." she started. 

 

"Aye! We sing, we sing...

The pirates will swing...

The gold will be plundered,

The sloops will be sundered,

If down on our luuuuuuuck,

We don't give a f--"

 

"SHUT UP!" yelled Flintlock at her unruly crew, kicking the violin out of Thin Lucy's hand. 

 

"Battle stations! All hands on deck! Splice the ropes and furl the sails!"

 

"What--?" said Handsome Jack, scratching his head. 

 

"Never mind!" answered Flintlock, wobbling the wheel this way and that. 

 

"OPEN FIRE!!!!" she finished. With a huge grin on her rotting mouth, Sweet Jennie did just that; the cannons of the Black Flag roared and smoked, aiming for the other ship...

[EviscerusNox]

The ethereal charges splintered wood and ripped holes in rigging as they tore through the Bonhomme Richard.  A cheer went up on the deck of the Black Flag until the smoke cleared and enemy ship still floated, apparently no worse for wear after the barrage.  There came a cackling laughter rolling over the waves towards to Black Flag and Flintlock heard a hollow voice boom from the waters.

 

"RUIN!!!!  ALL WILL END IN RUIN!!!!!!!"

 

As the voice echoed, the cannons of the Bonhomme Richard roared and spectral balls of iron broke the keel of the crabbing vessel.  It immediately started to take on water, cries of "Man Overboard!" could be heard from the small craft.

 

 

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

"By the beard of Sinbad! They be sunk!" cried Flintlock, almost howling into the Fog. She pulled her flintlock out of her belt, and pulled her determination out of her belly. 

 

"Get busy lads! Dive! Dive! Rescue them!" she called, pointing with her Flintlock to the lapping ocean waves below them. 

 

"Aye aye! No way for sailors to die!" cheered the undead crew, and a flurry of splashes! could be heard as, one by one, the undead dived overboard, and started to swim. 

 

Thin Lucy, predictably, made the largest splash of all, whilst Billy the Fish could barely be heard...

 

"Now then, prepare for a fate most aweful!" cried Flintlock to the skies, as she curled her fingers and brought forth a most ghastly sheet of ice from dimensions that best not be spoken of. Splintered, dirty, and with a horrible smell of rotting fish. Like it had been dredged from the grinding depths of a plutonian hell. Into the air the sheet appeared, right over the Bohomme Richard. It paused for a howling second, then fell...

Edited September 28, 2017 by Supercape

[EviscerusNox]

It looked like to those in the water and other passersby that suddenly above ghost ship an iceberg had appeared.  It came crashing onto the deck and riggings for the Bonhomme Richard.  Terrible wrenching and cracking noises splitting the mid day air, the sounds almost sounded like a scream of pain coming from the ship.  The ice broke apart on impact and some of it seemed to pass harmlessly through a ship, but enough of it has fouled up the sails and caused enough chaos that the ship seemed to flounder in the water for a second as it slowly turned to put it's broadside to the Black Flag.

 

"BURN!"

 

The cannons howled again, this time their unholy ammunition flying at the sides of the Black Flag and their crew.

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

Flintlock could feel the hardy timber of the Black Flag splinter under the cannonfire. 

 

"Aye! That's not right! You can't be shootin' the Black Flag! The Black Flag should be shootin' you!" she declared, waving her pistol around airily. For all the splintering of wood, the Black Flag stayed firm. It was held together by more than aged wood. Sorcery was woven into every beam. 

 

"Now then, lets see if something wicked this ways comes!" she said, slamming her left hand against the bows of the Black Flag and concentrating. 

 

"Oh, this will be foul" she muttered, mumbling something horrible and eldritch. She wished she was drunk. It made things more bearable. As it was, reaching her spectral soul into the sunken realms of the deepest oceans that swirled around other worlds, this would suck her energy. 

 

But reach she did, and pulled out something large and monstrous and bound by strange sorcery. 

 

A seething bubbling frothed to the surface, and something deformed floated there. All tentacles and eyes, blubbery and fat, with a terrible stench. Maybe a giant squid, but no, too many eyes, too many tentacles, too much slime and ooze and blistering skin. Would not do to look at it long, for fear of sanity or stomach, but look at one must, for it stretched forty feet long, in between the Black Flag and the Ghost Ship...

[EviscerusNox]

For the first time, alarm could be heard resounding from the enemy ship.  It's ghostly crew wailing in fear and shock.  The shots that rang from the guns of the Bonhomme Richard were uneven and unaimed, as if a jerk reaction to fear.  The shots found purchase in the gigantic beast however, as missing was a near impossibility due to it's size.

 

"YOUR DABBLING IN DARK THINGS WILL NOT SAVE YOU FROM THE WRATH OF MOCTEZUMA!" The ominous and ghostly voice echoed through the air, nearly drowned out by the alien and terrifying roar of the monster between the two ships.  The fight, it seemed, had evened up quite a bit, as the crew of the Black Flag had made it's way back to the ship with survivors in tow.

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

"Moctezuma, is it? Pleased to be meeting you! Perhaps you would like some chocolate?" he yelled back, mind still grappling with the slippery beast in the seas whose rubbery pan dimensional flesh was unmarked by the cannon, bar a few burst blisters and a few burst eyeballs. 

 

"Jennie, fire the cannons!" she yelled at the petulant zombie below deck, who gleefully lit fuse and watched cannon eject ball in a burst of gunpowder. 

 

"*By the most aweful sands of Leng, I command you! Take thy grasp of vessel yonder*!" commanded Flintlock in ancient Lemurian to the beast in the sea. 'Twas Eldritch beast from that Eldritch age, and bound to obey the sorcery; its ghastly puckered tentacles, too many too count, reached out to entwine the Ghost Ship...

 

[EviscerusNox]

The terrible tentacles wrapped round the ship as the cannonballs hit the hull of the ship.  There was the shriek of metal and ghosts as the otherworldly strength of the monstrosity squeezed the ship.  Cracks formed on the hull, masts broke, and water rushed in through holes formed by the pressure and beating the ship had taken.  A groaning came from hull and it seemed like it might be broken in half, but the ghost ship prevailed, the glow intensifying around the ship and angry clouds moved in to blot out the sun.  Soon, all the light that remained came from the still fiery crab boat, the Black Flag and her guns, and the eery red light cast off the Bohomme Richard, it was as if it seethed with rage and pain.  No return volley came from the ship, it seemed that now was Flintlock's chance!

[Supercape]

Flintlock!

 

"Come then me hearties! Draw swords!"

 

Swords, knives, and a hefty wooden candlestick holder were drawn as the Skeleton Crew prepared themselves. 

 

"Lets see what chocolate, treasure, and rum Montezuma has! Have at them lads! Charge!" she yelled, as she herself vaulted over the side of the ship to land directly on the Kraken. An eyeball squelshed under her boot but the beast seemed not to mind. It continued the same blare from a thousand eyes that it had previously. 

 

And then Flintlock and all the Skeleton Crew, weapons drawn, rushed over the beast, scrambling over its tentacles, and jumping onto the Ghost ship itself!

[EviscerusNox]

As the undead boarded the ephemeral vessel there stood before them a spirit in ancient regalia.  It's brown skin glinted like gold in the sunlight, tattoos of jaguars and other animals covered it's body.  It had an almost serene smile spread across it's face as it regarded the Interlopers, a small army of Spanish conquistador ghosts behind it, there could also be seen ghosts from every period leading up to the American revolution.

 

"These spirits behind me were the last to seek my treasure, the last to cross me.  They serve me now in death,". With that, from behind the spirit hundreds of glittering gold and silver coins rose into the air.  "Now, so too will those wretches you command!"

 

The coins shot forward, many embedding themselves in the walking corpses of the skeleton crew.  Moctezuma's eyes started to Glow red, as did the coins buried in the flesh of the undead.  All but Handsome Jack turned to stare at Flintlock.  Each opened their mouths and in unison screamed.

 

"RUIN!

 

 

Edited October 2, 2017 by EviscerusNox

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

"By the teeth of Dagon!" gasped Flintlock, wavering slightly. Of course, all manner of sorcery she had seen, and many most foul. But this was her crew by all the wicked Gods, and she had lost them once before. 

 

"Gold ruined many a man's soul. Fortunately not mine, of course. I spend it on Rum and hats!" she shouted defiantly, pointing at her rather elegant number. "I'll be melting your's down and plating my latrine with it!"

 

"Get back here, Handsome Jack!" she yelled at her first mate, who surely needed little encouragement. "We have a ship to sink!"

 

With that, she commanded the blubbery sea creature to squeeze, as hard as it could...

Edited October 2, 2017 by Supercape

[EviscerusNox]

The hull creaked and groaned but due to what could only be herculean amounts of mystical energy, stayed intact.  The Skeleton Crew for their part moved to surround and attack Flintlock in a semicircle, they cutlasses and machetes and other stabbing implements having no effect.  It may have been hopeful thinking but it seemed like there was hesitation with every thrust, just enough for Flintlock to dodge.

 

Moctezuma was luckier.  Another volley of coins rose in the air, twirling around above the head of Flintlock, then in unison they all shot towards her, small spinning discs of death.  Today it was a literal truth.  Money was the root of all evil.  Or at least, at the command of it.

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

"Well my friends! I'm off for a swim!" declared Flintlock, vaulting over the side of the Black Flag, holding her nose and splashing into the water. She was quite able to swim. Could hardly be a pirate without it. 

 

Now, having the Skeleton Crew attack her was most vexatious and distressing. She could only imagine that it was that awful gold of Montezuma, those coins lodged in their flesh. Ah! Gold, sweet gold. To be spent, not hoarded!

 

"By the bubbling breath of Shub-Niruath! Give the ship a shake! Shake it! Shake it! Shake it like Poseidon's Fixture!" she commanded the horrible sea beast, which reached out to the Black Flag and hoisted it in the air shaking it left, shaking it right...

[EviscerusNox]

The Black Flag shook and rolled, the Skeleton Crew doing their best to stay on deck.  Due to the extended battle much of the paraphernalia on deck was not lashed down, and barrels and the like struck members of the crew.  While painful, the intended effect took place and several coins tinkled off the ship and into the sea having been dislodged from the bodies of the Skeleton Crew.  Many of the crew were seriously injured by the jostling, but to undead that was less a problem and more a nuisance.  However at least three of the crew seemed none the worse for wear and were still aboard ship while many others had gone overboard.

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

Amid the lapping waves, Flintlock surfaced to witness the fruits of her labour. Or more accurately, the fruits of the leviathan's labour. Its tentacles stretched through the water and into the air, full of ictal jerking. 

 

The large form of Lash splashed right by her, and started to sink. She was nearly hit by the huge black man, his scar tissue visible even on his decaying body. 

 

"Careful!" she reprimanded him. 

 

"Glug!" gasped Lash, his lungs full of water as he sank. No matter, he did not need to  breathe. 

 

"You shall pay for this, Montezuma, mark my words!" she said, defiantly, tucking her flintlock into her belt. Powder wet, its charge was useless. 

[EviscerusNox]

In answer to the threats leveled his way Moctezuma rose into the air above the deck and lifted his arms to the churning heavens.  Slowly glinting metal of silver and gold rose with him, then started to spin clockwise around him, moving faster and faster.  The coins started to pick up debris and wind with their speed till Moctezuma's form was obscured behind a tornado of bullion.  With a scream that cracked like thunder, Moctezuma released the tornado, driving it into the form of the tentacled monstrosity.  It was to any other creature a mighty blow, but it's form seemed to weather the storm with but a few more pock marks and gleaming bits of metal sticking out of it.  Moctezuma screamed in frustration.

 

"Release me, Kraken!  Or I shall visit upon you the wrath of the Aztecs!"

[Supercape]

Flintlock

 

"Nay beast! By the thousand faces of Nyarlothotep, I command you!" shouted Flintlock, loudly. "Crush and rend! Splinter and sunder!" she managed, before mumbling more ancient Lemurian. 

 

"And now me hearties! Don't hold back! Fire the cannons!" she commanded the Skeleton Crew. Well, those who were not falling to the ocean floor or screwing their head back on the right way. 

 

Sweet Jennie was relatively intact, at least, and grumbling and grunting, full to the brim of malice and miscontent, she swam to the Black Flag, ready to fire the guns...

[EviscerusNox]

With a mighty squeeze the ephemeral hull of the Bonhomme Richard started to buckle.  The keel cracked, sails and masts toppled.  The ghostly sailors that crewed the ship ran this way and that, as they would have in life, fearing for their no longer present skin.  It was obvious that Moctezuma was losing control.  His aura glowed brighter with each sharp crack, with each hammer blow of cannon on wood.

 

"NO!  DAMN YOU!  FIRE EVERYTHING!  SEND THEM TO THE DEEPS!"  With the last of it's power, the Bonhomme Richard blew forth a cannon volley of angry power into the Black Flag, and as she dissipated, sinking into the sea, Moctezuma rose, the whole of his treasure around him, swirling in a vortex.

 

"YOU WILL DIE, WENCH!"  Screamed the ghost and the cloudy of spinning metal descended on Flintlock and her crew, threatening to tear through flesh and bone like a storm of bullets.