*Adventurous music starts*

*Kit Kat comes bursting through a sail with dagger in hand*

I'M BACK..!

Okay, inserting in 5, 4,3,2,1...

**** 

With a last look around the crowded mess hall, Tarus jauntily strolled over to the ladder leading to the storeroom. He shimmied down it, but paused when a tanned hand closed around his wrist.

"Where ya' goin', young un'?" Tarus turned to meet the eyes of Serk, the gunner's mate, a relatively handsome young man, just several years older than him. 

"Oh, I'm off to check on our stores...supplies. Never know what might happen out here on the endless mist..." Serk cocked an eyebrow, but released him. Tarus finished his descent down the ladder, landing lightly on the wooden and iron planks. He waited a second for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, before setting up a bag stuffed with his, and his shipmates, old clothes. He eyed it slightly, pacing around it. Then, in a sudden, alarming gesture, he unsheathed his cutlass, holding it across his chest. 

He danced around the bag, flicking out with his wrist, the blade of the cutlass slicing through the old canvas. It flickered, somewhat eerie in the darkness of belowdecks. Up above him, footsteps. Below him, the tumbling mists. But he stayed focused, warily eyeing up the torn bag that had morphed into his enemy.  

Yay, another cool charrie! Romania's great! I forsee us having much fun with her, yuss yuss.

"Stay down here," Tarus told Romania, and swarmed up the ladder to see what was happening. Sailors were dashing to and fro on deck, shouting in confusion. Tarus made straight for the wheel, where the coxswain was busy bellowing orders. "Miz Gwin, what's goin' on?"

She glanced down her sharp nose at him. "One of the lookouts has spotted a floatin' wreckage, right where th' Fugal Retreat ought t'ave been. See there?" One of her long, bony fingers jabbed at a spot on the horizon.

Shading his eyes, Tarus looked out over the swirling mists. Sure enough, a smoking, blasted hulk was riding low in the clouds, seemingly deserted. "Aye, it looks as if someone got to 'er before we did."

A stiff breeze tossed Gwindolyn's raven-black hair. She gave it an impatient flick. "The Captain ain't goin' t'be pleased with this..."

"Red sails, off to stern and starboard!" bellowed the lookout from the crow's nest. "Red sails! Comin' up fast!"

Gwindolyn hauled the wheel to the right as Tarus snatched a telescope from his belt. Snapping it open, he glanced into it, first right, then back behind them. Several sets of blood-red sails were coming swiftly toward them. The Poison Emerald rolled to the side as she turned to face the new threat.

"Blast!" spat the coxswain. "It's those bleedin' Crimson Corsairs, hoggin' all th' plunder again! I hope we get the go-ahead t' give 'em what for!"

Tarus nodded, wishing he had not left his cutlass below decks.

Wow, Phoenix, you could'nt have possibly set that up any better! Nice job!

Tarus trudged grumpily down the steps into the hold. "Leave the fighting to the MORE SEASONED PIRATES," he muttered mockingly. "How darst he suggest that I, Tarus, feared buckaneer, be not seasoned! I, who has remained on this floating trashcan for nearly five years, faithfully subserviant! I shall show him! I'll MUTINY! An UPRISING! I'll show that lousy scum rat just who's SEASONED."

His incessant ramblings were interrupted by the sugary sharp voice of the dark-lidded, northern Romania. "The first sign of insanity is talking to oneself," she said sweetly.

Tarus ignored her, or maybe he just didn't hear. His mumblings were becoming madder and madder, and he was working himself into a frenzy. "Just WHO does that BILGE RAT think he is to question ME, TARUS? Up there, trying to ORDER THE CREW AROUND AS THOUGH HE MATTERS IN THE SLIGHTEST! WELL, I'LL SHOW HIM! I'LL TEACH HIM!"

With that last "him" Tarus' voice grew high and shrill and a fierce but maddened gleam appeared in his eyes, the gleam of someone who is about to attempt something VERY dangerous.

And Romania, though she'd never in a million years even if threatened by the rack admit it, felt a twinge of worry for the pompous pirate.

(But don't tell her I told you.)

Gee, I'm complimented... you like writing with me so much that you're begging for somebody else! (Just joking.) But seriously, Phoenix is right... can we PLEASE have some more writers? I mean, I know everybody loves the role-playing story (okay, me too, it's the best thing on here), but we'd appreciate it if maybe some previous guys (Kitkat, Commander Kip?) or new people would help out because two people can only think of so many sailing scenarios, especially when one of them (me) is not exactly nautically smart. So I repeat Phoenix's plea... help us out here!

But anyhow... (note that I'll completely avoid the deck scene and huddle in the hold).

Romania, painfully oblivious, didn't notice the prisoner's gaze, fixed on her heavy-lidded face. But sure enough, he was thinking... about her, about Tarus...

Some of his unspoken words were gabbledegook, complaints to himself about the decrepit conditions or filthy smell, but others were dangerous plots.

That just may work... just may. With that self-proud humbug that calls himself a sailor when he's not worthy to be a deckhand and some flattery of that haughty ninny-of-a-girl, that just may work.

"My sweet lass," said the prisoner, licking his hand and pushing his hair back as though that may tame the greasy, tangled mop of untidy tresses. "Pray, tell me your name. Your beauty exceeds that of the loveliest rose. Your eyes alone enchant me to stuttering." But his words were as oily as his hair, hardly pausing in their empty praise. "Even that mangled dress looks fit to be a gown when sewn with thine dainty hand and careful eye. Will you look upon me with good grace or force me to turn my head to wall forever in shame at not receiving your fair favor?"

Romania, of course, was delighted with such lavishing, especially after harsh banter with that horrid Tarus. "Oh, mysterious one," she simpered. "Never have truer or sweeter words been spoken." And so on. After this bland monologue, the prisoner spoke again.

"I will give you anything in the world and more that you desire if you help me," he said. Romania, doofus she is, didn't ask him why he needed her help if he had the power to obtain anything in the world. Instead, she immediately pledged her alligiance to him.

And he began to tell her his evil plan, disguised as buttery speeches.

(Where was Tarus while this little act was unfolding? The captain's cabin. But I'll leave it to somebody else to decide what was going on in there. I've probably written too much already.)

Sorrysorrysorry! Kipin lives a crazy life! *writes furiously*

Tarus was sitting in the hold, keeping an eye on the two prisoners, when an enormous BOOM rocked the ship. Everything tilted crazily to the left. Crates, barrels, and prisoners slid across the floor.

Almost instantly, Tarus was off the deck and on his feet. He knew exactly what had happened. "Brace yourselves!" he shouted to a wide-eyed Romania and a sulking Corsair. "We're bein' broadsided!"

On the word 'broadsided,' another explosion threw the hold into chaos. This time, everything slid to the right, including Romania, who had been too busy screaming to brace herself as Tarus had suggested. Before she could hit the wall, Tarus snagged her by the ankle and dragged her to the middle of the hold. "Stay in the middle!" he shouted. "It's the safest place!" The Corsair lay flat on his face, covering his head with his arms.

BOOM! BOOM! Again and again, the ship was hammered with cannonballs. Cracks and splinters began appearing in the walls. The Poison Emerald's hull was reinforced with several layers of steel plates, but even the tempered steel was no match for the might of the Crimson Corsairs' artillery. 

Yay, explosions! *luffs them* Kipin is very fond of explosions, yuss yuss.