Drunken Sailor

[Roger Smith]

Every day lately had seemed like it was all one huge blurred mess in his mind. It had been a fair while now, since he'd done what he always thought to be the impossible and made it to see the big man, Omni, himself...and he'd sure as hell done a lot of good with what came after that whole mess. Right back to his usual business, only with a lot less adventure to it all. Lot less get up and go. A whole lot less life to go around, now that his life was quite literally in no danger of being in jeopardy for the foreseeable future. Without any hint of real danger — aside from Banishment, but that was a matter of business he was quite happy to leave up to other crazy fools that had done something to earn their trip to Davy Jones' Locker.

He was quite happy to just sit back and splice the main brace out here in the sun of the living world.

"Chalk up one thing fer this..." His rough voice halted mid-sentence, as a coughing hiccup interrupted his slurred speech. "...this whole...bein' a prime malarkey..." An empty bottle, gleaming red in the sun, sailed out over the sandy shore, toward the water. The deafening crack-BANG of a black powder firearm split the serenity of the deserted little island, and a shower of red glass exploded every which way. "...no shortage o' targets...once ya finish the contents..."

The once-proud figure of Captain Crow flopped backward to the sandy ground with a whump, spent pistol tumbling from drink-slackened fingers. "Hoooo....shiver me timbers, what'm I doin'...? Lazin' about out here, not keepin' track of business I need to be tendin' to..." It was with an effort of will he roused himself, slowly hauling himself into a sitting posture, though he looked terribly unlikely to manage much more than his conquering of the whole 'sitting up' thing. He swayed slightly in the gentle seabreeze, shading his eyes with one hand as he looked blearily out over the ocean. "High time...I got 'round to payin' a visit back to civilized parts..."

Whump.

"Just....right...right after a bit of a nap...."

Undertaking the quest 'Curse of the High Tide'.

Current word count: 383

[Roger Smith]

The sun had long since started its slow crawl down beyond the horizon to hide itself for the night when Captain Crow shambled wearily back into what passed for his 'home' on the small little island he'd set up shop on. Barely more than a sandbar, just a heap of sand piled up and dumped there by the ocean. Probably wouldn't last a terribly long time, but the few days it had served the former pirate as a place to laze about and lose himself from the rest of his erstwhile crew had been enough. But now it really was time to clean up and clear out. Not that there was anything particularly wrong with the place, mind...it was nice and peaceful like, but it was growing stale. The quiet life just wasn't what he was cut out for.

There was just one problem, that really wasn't a problem anymore what with him being a prime now...much as he kept forgetting that fact at the most inconvenient of times. When he'd come back to the deeps after returning from his adventure to see Omni, he'd met back up with the remnants of his former crew. He'd dealt with the twice-blighted son of a bilge rat who'd come up with the mutiny idea in the first place, and things had seemed well enough off...until he'd been marooned here on their first outing. It was a nice place, just far enough out of the way that no one would come within any reasonable distance. But just enough of a problem to be tantamount to torture. A much larger mass of land, where Costa Del Sol and the gate to the Nexus and the rest of the Omniverse, lay on the edge of the horizon, just within sight.

Really more of a minor inconvenience than anything, as even at the worst of times it was a distance Crow could have managed to swim if he desperately had to. The main problem stopping him from doing just that was...well, really it was two problems. Shark-infested waters and a general disinclination to actually put forth the effort. The first part didn't really concern him. If he had made the swim, and the sharks ended up taking him down, he'd either respawn at the nexus like primes did, or he wouldn't. And really, he'd be just fine with either option. He'd never had any fear of death when he knew he only had one shot at it, and now, with the possibility of having as many chances at it as it took? He was even less inclined to even spare a thought for being in the same current as afraid of dying.

Of course, being a prime, he could obviate the whole process and summon a reasonable ship to just...sail the distance back to land, and civilization. It really was just a matter of being that put off with the whole thing, and plain being too lazy to bother with it. At least until now, when a wild hare had jumped into his britches. Over the course of the day, as the drunken haze wore off and his senses returned to him in full, he'd gotten the itch for adventure he hadn't felt since he'd been led on by that ghost lass about the whole trip to go and meet up with other adventurous sorts. And that had turned out to be a trip toward seeing Omni himself.

It was doubtful he'd ever undertake anything of THAT magnitude ever again, but hey, it was worth a shot if he might find something to break up the tedium.

Maybe...maybe he could go and track down one of his old pals from that whole trip to Omni? Hmm...

'Curse of the High Tide' word count: 1033