Nocturna League (Episode 1: The Witching Book) (Nautical Fantasy Short Story) (2 page)

“I am not a sailor, Dunklestien. I am
a captain
.”

Colette and Jim exchange come sly smirks, certain The Captain will never change, and that Dunklestein will never realize it.

“Come on, Captain. You sail, that makes you a sailor. Stop acting so superior,” Dunklestein says with a smile, the usual expression he owns when arguing.

“I am too busy being The Captain to care about coming off as a prig. Now please, let us commence with our mark,” he says, straightening his cap as the four walk to a great square of dancing people.

The center plaza is alive with masked merchants, men, women, celebrating and having a fantastic time. The rows of dancers are alight with candles, colorful flags, paper confetti, and joyous music.

“Damn, something smells nice!” Dunklestein says, watching the Captain twitch again at the sound of profanity from one of his sailors. Sure enough, the scent of barbecue and the snapping of frying vegetables overcomes the four as other sailors of the Nocturna come to admire the banquet of senses.

“Indeed,” The Captain says while he taps the shoulder of a masked party-goer. “Pardon me, person enjoying the party,” he says.

The partier turns around to them, pulling a sizable, meated bone from his mouth. “Ey? Oh, hello, friend!” he says.

“Hello, sir: we’re looking for one that knows about the local antiques and legends of this island. Would you know of anyone?”

The party goer hums to himself a moment, scratches his mask as if it were his chin, and then jolts up in realization. “Of course! You should just ask Vuuya! She’s the witch that looks over the town. What do ya’ need to ask her?”

The Captain and his three sailors exchange solemn looks. “Well,” The Captain starts, “We need a book of hers-her witching book to be precise.”

The party goer stumbles over his words as he looks around a bit; a few other masked folks start taking notice to the conversation. “Well, I mean. Vuuya’s here, but not some silly book. You guys probably have the… the uh,
wrong island
.”

“I’m certain the book is here, my fellow-and I’m certain we will have it,” The Captain says, leaning into the masked man’s space.

“But… Yes, I suppose Vuuya can give you that book of hers; she can do anything, after all. Please, but I can’t take you to her tonight. The swamp is dark and quite dangerous! You should wait till tomorrow. Please let us show you some of our hospitality!”

Collette nudges The Captain. “I don’t like this,” she says in a tone quiet enough for only him to hear.

“Ahh, but I do, my little biscuit,” The Captain murmurs. “We’d love to spend the night here, is there an inn?”

The partier looks around and points out a petite, also-masked woman sitting by the side of the square. “She owns an inn, I think. We really just do what we want here. So you guys have fun and let me know tomorrow once you’re ready to leave. I gotta go find my kids; make sure they’re not causing trouble.” With that, he’s off to an empty bench, leaving The Captain to talk to the others.

“This is incredibly peculiar. But I think it’s best we stay on the island to see if there’s anything else we can learn from the innkeeper. That being said, I would understand if you would feel safer on the ship-- especially with so many suspicious masked figures running about. So if you want me to take away your ‘sailor card’ you only need to ask.” There is a pause amidst the celebration around them. “Well? Dunklestien? Do you want me to take away your sailor card?”

Dunklestien huffs again. “N-no sir.” He looks away in some sort of embarrassment.

“I thought not. Colette?” Captain asks.

She scoffs. “No, sir.”

“Very good. Jim?”

Jim twitches. “No s-s-sir.”

The three turn to Jim with alert gazes as The Captain speaks.

“Jim, is
he
coming?”

“No… I’m okay… I’ll be fine,” he says, pressing his hand against his right arm in pain.

The three others stare at him with suspicion, but again The Captain breaks the silence. “Well, nothing we can do about that, then. Let’s get to the inn.” The moment The Captain turns away, Jim looses a deep, bone-chilling laugh.

“You… You
fools
!” He begins screaming and hollering to get the attention of everyone.

“Captain! He’s turning!” Colette yells as the music and dancing stops.

Jim’s eyes are overcome with what seems to be a violent black fire, but Jim seems elated, rather than distressed.

“Jim! Snap out of it, man! This is incredibly unsailorly behavior!” The Captain says to the writhing Jim who fills his chest with salty breath and screams.

“Jim is no longer with us, Captain. However I did hear that you’re trying
to steal this island’s greatest treasure!
What do you say of that? Imperialist dog-Thief!” Jim, or something inside Jim yells at the top of his lungs.

A chorus of hushed whispers erupts from the frightened party-goers for an awkward moment as everyone on the island learns what the mysterious sailors are here for.

“Son, quiet down! You’re being just horrible!” The Captain shouts as Dunklestein and Colette exchange looks.

“
Son?
Captain, Jim’s your boy?” Dunklestein asks, crossing his broad, greyish arms covered in awesome seafaring tattoos.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older. Now, calm down, Jim, or you’re in for a distinct beating,” The Captain says, cracking his knuckles the way he does to remind the thing possessing Jim of the distance between their strengths.

Jim laughs. “I’ve done my damage, see you later, salt-ass,” at that, Jim wavers and falls to the cobblestone ground, unconscious. The Captain takes up Jim and turns to the cloaked innkeeper across the square. “Come along,” he says over the confused, distressed voices of the townspeople. They get up to the shrouded innkeeper, and The Captain, piggybacking Jim, addresses her. “Greetings, madam, how much for a night at the-”

“I’m a dude,” the innkeeper says with a mountainously-strong voice.

“A-ahh,
yes
. Pardon me then, sir. How much for a night?”

“For you visitors, free-I’m not an innkeeper either, but I’ll take you in for the night. This way,” he says as he leads them along through some less populated streets. “So, I hear you’re lookin’ for a book?” he asks as he works through a key and lock to enter his home.

The Captain nods. “That’s right. The witching book of Vuuya, the long dead sorceress that was said to cast spells from it.” They enter a dark, warm room.

“Gah, that smell!” Colette says, waving her hand to fan the scent away.

The man lights a lantern, revealing a full butcher’s shop, filled with the mutilated corpses of animals and cutting devices of all sorts. “Yeah, well you’re gonna’ have trouble with that. If you were to take my advice you’d just turn around and sail off to wherever you came from.”

The Captain hums. “And why is that, sir?”

“The people hold Vuuya accountable for all the fortune we’ve had in this desolate place. To take the book would be to take our prosperity… Is that really what you want?” The apparent butcher asks as he shows them into a fair-sized, open room with a single bed and no other furnishings.

“We are not after your misery, but we will need the book we’re coming for. I trust you will keep our location a secret?” The Captain says, shifting a few sins, the common currency of the Omniverse, over to the man.

The butcher’s silent a moment, and then nods as he pockets the coins. “’Course,” he says, “goodnight.” He closes the door and the group hears him go down the steps.

The Captain rests Jim on the floor and presents the bed to Colette. “We have a long day tomorrow, so we may as well turn in now. Colette, dear cookie, you may enjoy the bed as the fairest of us,” he says like a doting father.

Colette laughs. “Thanks, Cap, but I’m not going to become a real captain by being pampered. You outrank me, so you should take the bed,” she says, choosing a nice, hard spot on the wooden floor along with Dunklestein, who just plops belly down to sleep.

The Captain sighs, “Very well. I have such matters turning you into a lady of the sea, but I suppose your goal to become a leader among men is stronger than your desire to reject your barbarian upbringing.”

The girl laxes onto the floor, unarmed around her trusted crewmates. “Whatever you say, Cap.” She yawns and turns to the wall. The Captain gets on the single bed, something he is incapable of enjoying, but decides he might as well not cause a fuss about. He lays down in the dark room, only the slight window light illuminating their surroundings.

...

An uncertain time later, a figure climbs in through the window. Aided by shadows it crawls up to the foot of the bed, but feels what seems to be ropes around its inhabitant, as if the person lying there has already been tied up. The mysterious figure feels for a pulse, but feels nothing. It pauses in thought, and then crawls back through the window, presuming someone beat it to the job. It leaves, not seeing, feeling, nor hearing any of the three people lying about at the corners of the room.

Chapter 3: The Captain and his Posse are met with Considerable Difficulties

The Captain yawns as he wakes in the light of morning and the screeching of swamp birds. “Ahh, what a lovely nap that was. Alright, my crew members, rise and-” The Captain stops when he attempts to move his unusually sedentary body. It seems as though there is something holding him down. “What’s this?”

“C-captain! I can’t move!” Colette calls over the snoring of Dunklestein, also tied up.

The Captain sighs. “Jim?”

A silence.

“Yes?” a voice from across the room starts. The Captain looks over and sees a quite-free Jim with dark, fiery eyes.

“For what reason did you tie us up?”

“So I could have everyone in town help me kill you, of course!” The possessed Jim replies with a wide grin as he steps over to the window and leans out. “HEY, EVERYBODY!" he shouts triumphantly, "THE BOOK THEIVES ARE STILL ALIVE AND THEY’RE IN HERE! GET ‘EM!” At that, Jim quickly collapses and regains himself to his good ol’, non-evil personality.

“Huh? What’s goin’ on?” Dunklestein asks, riling up from the screaming from below.

Colette gets a knife from her thigh side and starts working through her binds. “Jim did it again. The village is coming to kill us!” She says over an uproar among the crowds below.

“What?! Dammit, Jim!” Dunks snaps as he strains against the ropes, quickly fraying them with his hideous strength.

Jim wallows on the floor in half consciousness until Dunklestein kicks him. “Blu-oh? What?!”

“Your tattoo dude tied us up, you dumbass!” Dunks yells as his ropes break.

Everyone hears a rush of footsteps from below as Jim mutters for a response. “I… Uh, you know how it can be! It’s a serious condition. I mean, I’m sorry, but it really isn’t my faul-”

The door bursts open the moment The Captain takes to his feet.

“There they are!” The not-so trustworthy butcher says, pointing to the four, “They’re the ones that want to steal Vuuya from us-our paradise!”

“As much as I hate disagreeing, I fear I must, ladies and gentlemen,” The Captain interjects. “We’re not here to steal anything of yours. We only want an old, useless relic from a witch, one that could not possibly still be alive. However, if you insist on fighting; I will have no choice but to authoritize each and every one of you.” He cracks his knuckles, and while his sailors all experience the Pavlovian nervousness trained into them, the villagers know not who they deal with.

The butcher is the first to rush the tied up Captain. He makes a quick slash with his cleaver-- but The Captain, his arms tied down, uses his leg to deliver an immaculately painful kick to the butcher’s shin.

“GRAH! SHHHHIT!” The butcher, his pain threshold only that of a common man, exclaims as he falls to the ground in agony.

“Watch your language. You should be old enough to be a respectable example to the younger generations,” The Captain says as a man and woman both come forward. The Captain makes a deft, fluid swing of the feet, striking the young man in his nethers and the knife-wielding woman in her face. Again the two of them are reduced to cringing piles of human misery as The Captain turns to his crew.

“Dunklestein. Take Jim and Colette out of here from the window. I’ll meet up with you in the nearest shaded alley.”

Colette, free from her binds, brandishes her knife. “No, Captain! Let me fight!”

“There will be time for your fighting,” The Captain says as he kicks someone again in the shin with a skillfully strung combo, “now follow orders.”

“B-but si-” Colette is interrupted as she is picked up by the hulking Dunklestein and, along with Jim, carried out the large window. “I’m going to kick your ass extra hard in training for this one, sir!” she shouts.

The Captain sighs as he trips another opponent and heels them in the crotch. “Playing quite the child, my cookie. Answer me once I’m done with this: How do you expect to become a leader if you cannot be led?”

The Captain hears a loud scoff from Colette, and she answers sharply, “Because leading and being led are polar opposites! I’m only planning to become good at
one
! You keep holding me back! This isn’t what I signed up f--” her voice disappears through the window as Dunks leaps from the roof with the two of them. Down below she finishes her answer, “This isn’t what I signed up for! You need to let me loose! I’m not a kid!” She struggles out of Dunklestein’s grip and brushes off her clothing as Jim simply tugs himself down politely from Dunklestein’s grasp. “I hate it when he’s like that,” Colette says, ducking into an alley and tapping her fist against a wall.