Sven's little holiday

It's happy hour, the alcohol is flowing. It's time to pull up a tankard of ale, bottle of wine for the ladies and regail tales of heroism and grandeur.

Topic/Postby Sven » 25 Aug 2016, 10:00

Part 2
The next month passed Sven in a blur of alcohol, gambling and fights. One day he was at a Tavern in the Red Ridge Mountains, the next he awoke smelling of rum on the back of a wagon heading north. Day and night rolled into one and any memory he made he quickly wiped from his mind with more alcohol, his body began to lose weight and his face reflected how he felt inside, his eyes began to sink in and gather dark circles and his hair – what was once his pride and joy – was normally not stuck to his forehead with sweat. Five days passed like this, although Sven would never be aware of exactly how many days it was, until one morning he awoke sitting in a cramped cage suspended about 10ft from the deck of what looked like a transport ship. The bars of the cage were rusted and dried seaweed and shells littered the bottom, he suspected that it was never designed to hold a human.
A weak hand reached up to wipe the sleep from his eyes, he pushed himself to his feet whacking his head against the top of the cell which was slightly too small to stand inside. Below him the crew of the ship were working, pulling various ropes and scrubbing the deck.
“Well good morning, sleeping beauty” a jesting but rough voice called out below, no doubt the Captain of this particular vessel, he was a rotund man with a thick red cloak blowing in the wind from his shoulders, he had one of those tall hats that Sven had often seen Captains wear around the Stormwind Harbour.
“W..Where am I?” Sven asked, blinking his eyes hard against the bright sun.
“You have the great pleasure to be upon The Gale. Best transport ship this side of Stormwind if I don’t say so myself. My name is Captain Gale” the Captain stands tall with his feet apart, he wears a friendly smile and it puts Sven at ease almost immediately.
“What happened?” Sven gestures around at the cage he’s stuck in.
The captain laughs, a few of the crew join in. “You, my friend, cannot handle your drink. Let’s just leave it at that – if we let you out are you going to play nice?”
For a moment Sven loses his concentration, a little ways behind the Captain a man scowls at him – he’s sporting a black eye and at that moment Sven suddenly felt the pain in his right fist. He would never know what caused him to punch the man but he knew it was his fault. A pang of guilt shoots through him as a young girl, no older than 15 runs excitedly up to the man giving him a big hug, the pair are joined by an older woman shortly – no doubt a family.
Sven shakes his head for a moment and looks back down to Captain Gale. “Yeah, I’m sorry – Rum doesn’t really agree with me”
The Captain reaches into his pocket pulling out an old iron key, suddenly a scream takes his attention from across the deck
“Captain! Black sails, 4 off port!”
The captain immediately looks around just as the sound ruptures through the air, cannon fire. The boat is hit with a chain-shot and the precious key from the Captain flies from his hands as everyone struggles to keep their footing, Sven curses to himself, just his luck.
“Man the cannons!” shouts the Captain, immediately forgetting about Sven. For a moment nothing happens and then all at once the crew start scrambling around, more cannon fire erupts and the air begins to fill with the smoke from gunpowder. Sven, being a mere hunter, has often felt helpless – but never quite so helpless as when hanging above the deck of a ship under attack while being locked in a small cage. For a few moments he hoped a stray cannonball would take him out completely and end the misery he had turned his life into. The Captain, at this point had begun herding the other passengers of the ship below deck.
While it actually may have taken an hour for the pirate vessel to disable The Gale and move in close enough to board her in Sven’s mind it was almost instant, the transport hardly put up a fight – before he knew it there were cutlasses clashing and blood being spilt below deck.
“Unleash me” a voice whispers from the back of his mind, Sven simply shakes his head.
The battle below rages for only a few minutes before the Crew are all either dead or surrendering, some of them are given a cutlass to the gut for their efforts where as others are roughly pushed below deck, no doubt to the brig. Sven momentarily wondered why he didn’t get the luxury of being locked in the brig but then decided there were more important things to think about than that right now.
Once the battle was completely over a man dressed in bright red leather armour stepped upon the deck of the Gale, the other men seemed to go to great lengths to avoid getting in his way. He took a straight line across to the deck arriving at Sven’s cage.
“Pirate?” he asks of Sven. His voice is surprisingly soft and innocent.
“No” Sven replied, shaking his head. “Just a drunk” he turns his head away and looks out at sea.
“You’ll join us” the man insists.
“Thank you, but I like my cage just fine” Sven snaps back, he knows he’s toying with his fate but at this point he’s long since stopped caring.
“So be it” the red clad man turns on his heels and approaches another Sailor and engages in a brief moment of conversation too quiet for Sven to pick up. The pirates are surprisingly efficient, in a matter of moments the cargo from the transport is mostly packed on the pirate ship and they’re on their way, leaving behind a small skeleton crew to man The Gale back to wherever they intend to take it.
Hours pass and the sun climbs higher into the sky, sweat runs off Sven’s body like water from a tap. His skin starts to turn red from the burn and the heat begins to make him feel sleepy. Overall as far as he can tell the Pirates have been relatively good to their captives, he didn’t know if the Captain was still alive or not though he suspected the man wouldn’t go let his ship be taken unless it were over his dead body.
The day proceeded baking Sven’s body, the pirates had until now mostly ignored him – now they had made a game of throwing bottles at his cage. As far as he could tell it was ten points if you could could a bottle through the bars and five points if you simply hit the bars and showered him with glass.
“Unleash me, Sven!” the voice calls from within him, this time he feels his heart start to pound a little harder.
“No, there are still innocent people on this ship” he mutters angrily to himself. The pirates take note but quickly assume that the sun has fried his brain.
“Let me kill these men, let me feast upon their flesh and I’ll leave the others alone” the voice starts to bargain with him, it’s never happened before. Sven assumes that the current lifestyle isn’t exactly to the beasts liking. It’s been a week since he’s hunted anything and much longer since he’s had to kill anybody.
“You don’t make deals, I wouldn’t trust you with their lives. Accept our fate” Sven leans back in the cage as another bottle shatters over the cage showering him with broken glass.
Finally the pirates grow bored and the sun dips below the horizon, lamps are lit and some of the pirates have gone below deck to sleep or torment the prisoners. Finally after the exhausting day Sven manages to get some sleep, albeit a brief nap as he’s soon awoken by a scream. The pirates have retrieved the young girl Sven had spotted earlier and were in the process of toying with her on the deck, tossing her back and forth and laughing. He could smell the rum on their breath all the way from the cage, this wasn’t going to end well.
He closed his eyes and let out a small sigh trying to block it out.
“Are you ready yet?” the voice within him starts to toy with him, he can feel how much this is hurting Sven to watch. Sven doesn’t bother arguing he simply drones out the voice along with the scene happening below his cage. After slapping her around a little the bigger of the pirates grabs her wrist as he wrenches her across the deck, tearing what’s left of her shirt off.
“Now?” the voice from within speaking again, laughter almost dripping from each word. He knows he’s won already.
Sven simply sighs whispering “Now”
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Sven
The Snake Dude
 
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