"No deals this time, kill'em all."
Gloria seemed disturbed and glared at me a bit.
"What? Have you forgotten that we are a pirate crew? Get over yourself little girl and grow up. The world ain't sunshine and rainbows."
She turned away to not witness the sight of us executing the crew of a merchant ship. Normally, we wouldn't want to do this too close to the Theocracy's base of operations but needs must.
The island named Altar was too fucking religious for any visitor or settler not a part of the Theocracy but some people chose zealotry over homelessness or unemployment anyway.
What was a bit of prayer, donation and racism in the face of poverty?
Anyway, we took over this ship because we needed a disguise. About a quarter or more of my crew was demihuman, and we couldn't be seen with them if we wanted to infiltrate Altar Island. It would just lead to unnecessary questions that would give away the game too fast.
"Alright, people listen here. Donny, you're in charge of Queen and the crew until we get back, you know the plan. Before we go we will fix this merchant ship and disguise it to be unrecognisable. If even one motherfucker realises that this ship is stolen, we are fucked. Well, you guys will be fucked, not me, I can always escape somehow."
With my orders given, I took a pistol I found that was in good enough condition and put it in its holster. My new tricone hat was fitting nicely as well, a gift from the merchant ships captain.
Coco, resting on my right shoulder, nibbled my ear to request crackers. I fed her while watching my crew changing the sails and carving on the name of the ship to make sure nobody could read it. We were going to claim pirates attacked our ship and damaged it.
If anyone asked? We were looking for a new place to settle and become fishers.
We left when our job was done, and Queen sailed away to a meeting point we had agreed on beforehand. It felt weird not being able to control the ship I was sailing with just my mind but I'd manage.
There wasn't much to do so I lit up another cigar while helming the ship. Maybe I shouldn't smoke so much? Hmmm... Nah I don't give a shit.
Gloria still seemed peeved at me. Not that I cared but this was a stupid teenager, you never know what they might do.
"Hey Maria? Can you talk to the girl? She seems like she'll do something stupid if we leave it be."
Maria sighed a bit.
"Don't worry about it. She is a big girl and the task at hand is too important for her to willingly mess it up."
I nodded at that. There wasn't much to say about this as I wasn't the father of the kid. She was someone else's responsibility.
It took us a few hours but we finally reached our destination. The good thing about being a pirate? It wasn't like the movies where it was made obvious who was a pirate and who was a civilian. We didn't look like 'Pirates', we looked like just any other sailor.
"Alright, everyone keep your heads down while here. If anyone asks? You are not against the religious beliefs of the Theocracy, just clueless. Ah right, you three will come with me while these guys pretend to be fixing the ship. Let's go find your quartet."
As soon as we made port there was a man waiting with a leatherbound book and a pen.
"Welcome to Altar Island gentlemen. May I inquire as to what happened to your ship?"
I explained to him that we were attacked by Pirates and that our cargo was stolen. I also gave him a description of a location completely opposite our escape route.
The fewer complications there were the better, though I wouldn't mind the extra challenge the crew might not make it in these circumstances.
I paid him the port fee and Gloria, Maria, Evelyn and Helga followed after me as we made our way to the closest local tavern.
We all sat down at a table and quietly started discussing our next course of action.
"So, where is the person we need to pick up?"
The trio looked at each other and Maria was the one to speak up.
"You remember that the person we came to get is high profile, right? Are you sure there won't be a problem on your end?"
I raised an eyebrow at that. These were things we discussed all the way back at Golden Bay. Why bring it up now, I wonder.
"Yeah, I'm sure. I told you before that even if it was the High Priestess of the Order of the Goddess I would still take the job. Well, I can't guarantee success for something like that, not yet at least, but I would still take it. What is it Maria? It's clear you have something to say so out with it."
They all gave each other another look, and Maria finally revealed who they had come here to get.
"Do you know about King Bertram? He has two daughters and a son. One of the daughters, Princess Rosalinde, was the youngest and had the weakest claim to the throne, so the king allowed her to marry her love. That her love was a noble as well made things easier."
So no commoner marrying into royalty? That would make things a lot more interesting but I never really liked useless drama either. What a dilemma. Oh well, I focused back to Maria.
"She even had a child with that noble, but alas, it was not meant to be. Her love, during one of the many skirmishes with the Theocracy, lost his life. There were a lot of things that happened at the time, but the most important of all was the cease-fire agreement that has already ended now."
Gloria looked downcast and Maria gave her a sad look and continued.
"One of the terms of the cease-fire agreement was the exchange of what was essentially hostages. The Theocracy gave away one of their very rare High Priestess's and the Kingdom had to match that so King Bertram gave away the widowed Princess Rosalinde."
Gloria clenched her fists tightly and gritted her teeth.
"The cease-fire agreement has ended already but the Princess has not been returned to us. There was a lot of correspondence as to why the Princess wasn't brought back. The Theocracy keeps saying she wants to stay here instead of going back but we have managed to get in contact with her directly and learned that they are keeping her here for as long as they can. We don't know why, nor do we care, we just want our Princess back."
I grinned.
"Well, you are in luck then, I always wanted to do a prison break."