Evander spoke, his voice trembled. "Ya can have it. I don't want to have anything to do with you." He rose his hands and held them in a defensive position, it was clumsy but obviously he tried to cover his head.
To the crew's surprise, the man agreed. Under no condition. Plus he had no visible grudge against the kid who had stolen his most precious treasure. They were outraged. Ardi was furious only because there was nothing he could add that could push the man to ease the exchange. All of his gathered personal informations, in vain!
Nothing to pull the balance to his side. No necessity to use his torture skills, his vast knowledge on the subject hit a blunt surface that day.
Moreover. Evander gave up his most precious treasure, main character to all his tales without fighting for it. It did hurt Ardi's pride.
Keith said. "Thank you Sir Larmur. I'll be on my way today, I won't bother if you miss my departure." The kid could understand the man's fear, Show's abnormalities surprised every of its witnesses.
The big guy used his tangled blanket to hide his face, hoping to not see the monster next time he pulls his head out of it. All of the ghosts could almost hear him whimpering under the sheet, only his blocked breath prevented it.
The name that resurfaced in the conversation had long been lost in the man's past. But the latter would question himself about this terrific night only after sobering up.
Once in his bed, Keith was unexpectedly tucked in his bed by tens of old seamen, alternately getting close to his pillow, sedately whispering their best wish for his travel and luck to shed light on their curse. That until all were done but one, Ardi.
Keith sat down on the edge of his bed. He checked if his room mate was sleeping, and then asked to the pirate while scratching the itchy pink patch on his face.
"Ardi, I want you to headbutt me, with all your might."
Eyebrows rose up in the air. Why would he ask that? They can't interact with livings. But now that he had the coin, would it change? Could it be showtime?
Ardi first gave a try at touching the kid's arm. Nothing, he passed through and didn't even stir the air.
He left a smile hanging on his face, not believing how a strike from his head could change the situation. But it did.
Keith closed his eyes when only a centimetre or two separated their heads, they collided. The next spectacle happened.
Worst only for Ardi, the new witness of Keith's misery.
From the outside, his eyes whitened and his voice was engulfed with his own thoughts. As for the inside, his memory was shared with Keith's in the explanation, the mysterious place was now a new place that existed for Ardi.
The kid caught fragments of the pirate's memory. Tens of battles, no big exploits other than surviving each of them. His meeting with the golden coins and not much indications about the curse... Unless that double-headed bird thingy was. It vanished quite fast. Maybe it wasn't that important.
Ardi was lost between Keith's unwanted parricides and the rat colony that festered the kid's dreams. Everything terrible that the kid went through was suddenly being absorbed in the phantom's mind. The worst part weren't the ones were the kid died. Nor the one with incomprehensible scenarios, being eaten from the inside, yet surviving.
It was the part where Show acted. Behind the scenes, the monster meticulously acted on behalf of the kid, letting him being beaten. Raped. Starved. Killed. The monster saw everything. And anything touched by its thousand hands would soon shatter in their purest, worst ways.
The extreme cannibalistic acts of the kid surprised Ardi, seeing the kid first struggle with the food and 'evolve' to swallow things with more force, adding little by little this small distortion to his face. The gap between his two jaws got bigger and the strength in it grew too.
After seeing various animals and hundreds of corpses being engulfed for what seemed to last years, he became the bystander of Evander's 'unfounded' fears.
"I see." Was all he could say after the few seconds his absent-minded state lasted.
Ardi now stood in a tiny village, one he recognised as Kodra, where the kid grew up. The slightly erased walls and the lack of people in it betrayed its fabrication. It was a dream. Nothing he had seen those past hundred years.
A silhouette with a buffalo skull materialised out of thin air. Already knowing who it was, the ghost did not panic, he observed quietly amazed.
Its wide stature and sudden moves were unforgettable. The unstable mass shaped itself to look more human. The monster knew the purpose of the headbutt, he knew how his form had already been pictured by the kid's fascinating brain.
A hoarse voice came out of the skull. "You need to will to get out of here, your crew is awaiting outside.
Now that Ardi understood where he was, the famous place he could rest in, he gave it a try. He was pulled out of it, he kind of resurfaced from the kid's body in a faint cloud.
"I see." He repeated in front of his flabbergasted friends. He looked at the kid who now knew the many adventures of the man, as well as every informations regarding Evander. Useless ones.
"So?" Keith asked.
Ardi grinned. "Of course, Greenie isn't your name! What a fabulous story this name has! It must have been pretty hard to reach this city... But now that I've seen it all, I've made up my mind!"
He told his friends how much of a weird sensation it was to share his memory with someone, and the kid warned them to not try it themselves, as what they did was considered a curse and thus unachievable for them.
It took him several minutes to explain them who was Foresee.
Finally, he put his hands on his knees to look at the kid in the eyes, he solemnly spoke. "I'm in for the adventure!"
What could he wish more than a kid with an immortal body? That'd sure occupy plenty of his free time.
And so the night soon ended with a short nap.
As planned, Maverick came back in the morning, like the first night he entered the treasurer's keep, all of the kids gathered in the main room to welcome him.
'Weird. It hasn't been that long, do they miss him that much?' Wondered Keith, not understanding why the man was greeted nearly as nicely as a king.
"Not really." Answered Ardi, not noticing he was listening to the kid's thoughts. "They're really happy to have food, in contrary to you, they have been sold by their parents, or the sea separated them. They have nothing."
'Don't they know what they're eating?' Asked Keith, touching the silvery food with his wooden spoon.
"No, else they wouldn't stay here, you know this one's literally a kid stew. They tend to work harder when they have meat in each of their plates."
Evander's seat was empty. He told the kids he felt sick, when the information reached the ghost's ears, things started to feel as planned.
Keith met Maverick in his private office, a new map was on the desk, with plenty of wooden figures placed around it.
"You are going today? It's so early! Wait. Did we find the coin back? I can't let anyone go if we don't get our hand on it."
The man was nervous. He hadn't had the chance to use the kid as an underling.
"I'm sorry for your loss then. But I have to go."
The man unsheathed his sword. "You know what we do to thieves in Chittagong?" Obviously, he was suspecting Keith taking his stay as time off, and not planning to pay it back, as for the coin, it was just an excuse to restock his cellar.
Keith took the torch hanging against a stone pillar. He used a bucket, full of the water it collected from the cave's ceiling to extinguish the torch. And with a distant crack, a mirror that helped the light reach the bottom of the cavern broke, making the place pitch black.
"I don't care." Said Keith.
Five, six... eight... Twelve hands exploded out of his body, instantly plunging on the man. They grabbed his throat, arms stretched on each side of his body. His armor was torn of like a tissue, then four more hands plunged in his torso, forcing his ribcage open in a swift movement.
Agony was a feeling Keith wanted to get used to. After all, he was the one cursed to suffer it more than once. He looked at Maverick in the eyes until the man's last breath. He then went to the kitchens and spoke with the two old ladies. He gave them a gentle nod, to be sure they were listening to him.
"The boss is asking for your presence in his office, time for a promotion."
He exited the cave, hearing no scream until he reached its entrance. Instead of his donkey, he untied Cowtch, and asked the man in charge of the mounts to help him charge the bull with the donkey's baggage, in exchange of few coins.
Outside, the crew members weren't dispatched in the city, they were waiting in the eastern exit, where it was the easiest get out, Ardi would surely pinpoint the way.
"You won't believe me kid but, I think we're being tailed." Ardi said, walking backward next to the bull.