Chapter 6: Engulfed

A faint trickle of water slid down the accents of the ceiling beam. Once it reached the edge, it was just large enough to hang over the floor below.

The room was dark, so the singular droplet collected barely enough light to remain visible.

Soon, it grew heavy enough to fall.

Vaguely seen sailing towards the floor, its miniscule splash against the wood marked the moment of Mikey's return.

Emerging from the shadows like a poster being torn from a wall, Mikey landed on his hands and knees.

He flew into a sudden shock, his mouth unfurled for a desperate gasp for air.

"I'm- I'm alive?" he questioned, gripping his chest to confirm that he was back on the ship and not lost in the darkness.

Mikey didn't recall just how he made it in this dark room, but he pulled himself up using the supply crates next to him.

Echoes of sailors could be heard from a few floors above, their ignorant steps all beating above Mikey.

"Stealing an amulet?" he whispered to himself, having stood up and moved to the door that closed him in. "Wouldn't be the first time."

Mikey swiftly moved through the hold, conjuring a small flickering flame from his fingertips to light the way.

As he quietly moved through the halls and storage rooms at the lowest level of the Blackjack, he arrived at the entrance to the last room. Barely cracked open, just enough to peek through, Mikey smothered the flame and peered in.

Though he spotted a ladder and hatch leading to the next level, Mikey also heard the sounds of a groaning, sorrowful voice. Retching echoes escaped through the crack of the door.

"Ooooo, Mary. Mary, Mary, Mary," the voice seemed to croak out in a drunken sombre. "Why'd ya' leave me Mary?"

Mikey recognized the cadence of the voice, though never in this tone.

As Mikey slipped through the crack of the door, doing his best to keep it from creaking, he saw the plumpy Lumpy bent over an open barrel. His digestive system seemed to be clearing out, though it sprayed from the opposite end. Splashing inside the barrel implied he'd been at this a decent while.

"Ya' were nay suppos' ta' leave me Mary. Was s'pose ta' be me!" the chef roared, slamming his huge fist into the wall beside him.

Mikey began his ascension of the ladder, though his need to stay quiet seemed to be drowned out by the chef's sorrow. Lifting the latch overhead and reaching the next floor, Mikey left the man to his sorrow.

'Did something happen in that… dream? My head. It feels better," Mikey thought to himself as he closed the latch behind him.

Mikey, ascending the ladder, managed to pass swiftly by the next floor - which held the barracks for the sailors - and out onto the deck.

He made especially sure that this latch was opened quietly, as he noticed the sailors at the other end of the floor were awake.

'Can't draw their attention, hopefully this means nobody's on deck,' he thought to himself, emerging into the open air of the Blackjack's main deck.

The stars of the night sky glittered the sails, illuminating the deck in their light. It was well past twilight, allowing the pale moon to take the skies in full bloom.

Mikey crouched and moved quickly to the nearest mast, using it as cover.

The Blackjack may have anchored up, but the dangers of its main deck still lurked in the ropes above.

A zipping silhouette streamed over the bright stars above, only barely being spotted due to the strength of the moonlight. The silhouette eventually landed on deck with a spiralling backflip. The monkey was on patrol.

‘Does that animal ever go to sleep?’ Mikey thought as he watched Darzel make his dazzling display of athleticism. Darzel had then launched off towards the ocean, leaping for a hanging rope over the starboard side. While his back was turned, Mikey quickly used this as a chance to get further up the deck.

With a leap, vault and a final dash to the corner of the captain’s quarters - Mikey watched as Darzel landed on the bow of the ship. This left Mikey only with the challenge of getting into the captain’s quarters unnoticed.

Mikey went to turn the door knob, but the twisting of the copper handle was to no avail. It was definitely locked.

Gritting his teeth, he took a step back to think of what to do.

'Barging in would have me killed, or beaten until they find out where I was hiding, how do I even explain that? Not that it matters, back on topic. Door dash? That stupid monkey would hear me sprinting around. The glow from my, shit what did she call it? Intabigility? Whatever it was, she'd see it,' he thought, stuck in having not planned a single stroke of this heist.

'Fuck Mikey, where's your plan. Does that word even ring any be-" his eyes widened as he came to a realisation.

Turning his head, his gaze moved up to meet the alarm bell suspended in the air. Mikey's idea was to unleash a state of panic where he could slip the amulet off of Captain Tornstar in the meantime.

'What a fucking genius,' he thought to himself.

The alarm wasn't far above the Captain's quarters, barely close enough for him to reach with his telekinetic abilities. Mikey made his way to the side railing, hanging over the edge to hide himself from the crowd that would amass. And so it began.

Ding ding ding ding ding!

The bell, in its magical glow, began tolling with the warning of immediate danger. To those aboard, at this time, it could only mean the presence of a hostile ship - or worse a mage.

Just as Mikey had hoped, there was a stampede of sailors all storming out of the hatches and stairs. Each of them came out readily armed, each looking around in confusion.

At around the same time as them all, the captain and Gisla had emerged from their haven. Gisla still wore her nightgown, whilst her father wore only some shorts. The man was shirtless, however Mikey spotted something hanging from his neck. Though it was night time, the amulet around his neck seemed even darker - almost as if the surface was a black hole warping all of the light around it. The shape of the amulet was misleadingly varied. It seemed to shift and transform constantly. One moment it was a sphere and the next a pyramid.

"What's going on?! What's happened?! Who's been ringing the alarm?!" Captain Tornstar roared out, bearing a rapier in each hand.

The rest of the crew looked around for an answer as well, though nobody stepped forward with one.

Mikey, seeing his chance, reached forward for Captain Tornstar. He was planning to quickly snatch the amulet with his magic, however the intuition of one vigilant monkey kept him from his prize.

Mikey was effortlessly torn off the side of the ship and into the air. Darzel had clapped him under his arm whilst he used the other to swing off a rope.

Flying past the crowd, Darzel dropped Mikey in mid-air, plopping him right at the centre of the mass with a thud.

"Ouch, fuck! Mikey blurted out, landing square on his rear. He was at the foot of Captain Tornstar and Gisla, looking up at them from the floor.

"Yo-" Gisla went to speak, though stopped herself. She was rather impartially surprised, though let her father talk without interruption.

The captain extended his sword towards Mikey, the blade kissing his neck with a flirtatious ticket to the afterlife.

"This is the part where you tell me why I shouldn't kill you Mikhail," he'd suggest flatly, glaring down at him with the moonlight casting his shadow completely over Mikey.

"Because, well, because we made a deal? Didn't we?" Mikey said, nervously inching back to try and clear space between him and the blade. "You're a man of your word I'm sure, Captain Tornstar - leader of th-"

"Cut the bullshit Mikhail," he replied, pushing the blade against his throat and dragging it ever so slightly. It was just enough to let a trickle of blood run down his skin.

"You want the honest answer? You'll never believe me," Mikey spoke out in an overly enthusiastic tone, one that seemed desperate for acceptance. "So the fat guy, Chef Lumpy, yeah he threw me in a barrel! He said: You're going to die in here! You left me in the kitchen all alone! Then he threw me overboard! I had to catch fish with my hair weaved into a fishing line - my own nails and teeth as hooks! It was a whole three days of pain! Can you believe it? I had to swim all the way back here!"

An eye twitched on the captain.

"It's not even been a day since you went missing Mikhail," he replied, cocking back the rapier for a thrust straight through Mikey's chest. "Well, whatever."

However, as he readied himself to strike, he stopped himself.

Mikey burst into a crazed laughter. One of joyous victory after a hard fought battle.

"You want the truth you big fucking, arrogant cockhead?!" Mikey yelled out at the captain, pulling his hand up and pointing towards the port side of the ship. "Look at that!"

The captain's gaze curiously shifted to follow the lead of Mikey's finger. A soft light hovered over the water, passed the railing. Glowing in the darkness, Mikey had removed the amulet from the captain's neck.

Captain Tornstar's eyes widened.

Woop.

The glow from the amulet disappeared, leaving it to vanish into the waters below.

"You little fucking shit!" the captain slapped Mikey across the cheek with the thin face of his rapier, it's edge slicing a small bit of his flesh. Mikey grimaced, reaching to grab his face, however Captain Tornstar pulled him up by the collar. Dragging Mikey like a ragdoll across the deck, Captain Tornstar quivered with rage. He'd tried desperately to fight back, kicking, punching and scratching even at anything he could.

"You want to throw shit in the water so bad? Why don't you go fucking fishing for it?" he taunted.

Once at the edge, he prepared to hurl Mikey overboard, leaning back to gain a great amount of momentum.

"Fuck! This wasn't how it was supposed to go! I helped you! WAKE UP!" Mikey yelled out, shaking in fear as he was basically shark food at this point.

Whipish!

Captain Tornstar's throw came to a sudden halt. An unmanned rope had whipped down and lashed around his wrist, holding it in place. Mikey hadn't noticed, so he kept kicking and screaming, however the captain looked up as to the origin of the rope - only to find that every single loose rope overhead had begun to move on its own.

Ropes flew in every direction, lashing the crew members around the ankles, wrists, necks and waists - including Captain Tornstar and Gisla.

The sailors, under attack by their very own ship, swiped and thrusted desperately at the ropes to keep themselves from being bound. However, with a hounding from the underworld, the floorboards splintered open into jagged mouths. Each mouth swallowed the sailors hole as they were dragged below deck.

"Do you know what you've unleashed stupid boy?!" Captain Tornstar yelled out as he was devoured right before Mikey, pulled into the Galleon's darkest abyss. "You've no clue!'

Mikey scuttled back, scrambling to his feet as he backpedalled away from the sailors.

"Mikey! Mikey help! Help me!" Gisla yelled out, clawing at the boards as she too was consumed by the ship's insatiable hunger.

Soon, the deck which was once notorious for its chaos lay completely silent. Mikey stood alone on deck looking around like a frightened deer.

"Why are you afraid, Mikhail? Did we not make a deal?" an echoing groan called out from all around the ship. It's as if every crack, crevice and groove warped as if to speak like mouths in their addressing of Mikhail.

Before Mikhail's eyes, his undeniably real eyes, a spectral figure began to form from the illumination of star and moonlight. It was ghostly in form, but flowed like something more ethereal.

"You've fulfilled your side of the deal. The amulet is lost to the current, one with Davannah. Now we shall fulfill ours. The Blackjack. Your Blackjack," it spoke out, moving to a bow that was borderline prostration. "It awaits your command."

Mikey looked to the figure, the 'X' on his mark glowing brighter than ever before.

"Command. Command," he began to chuckle, though did his best to contain his excitement.

It's at this moment, this moment of recent victory, that a sudden reeking smell ruptured from a nearby hatch. An ogre pulled itself up in a drunken stumble, rum in hand.

"Foookin' shaiy', did I miss som'in?" the vomit drenched wretch of a chef Lumpy asked as he tripped over his own feet.