Flash and Prompt Contest Entries

Piratey excitement - 2

I got on the ship just in time. The Cade was about to start and I was counting the Pieces of Eight I'd make if I could stay the full duration. Personally I hated Cading. To be locked onto the same puzzle station would be agony, however, the prospect of making rent money in a few hours of play was more than enough to motivate me.

I took up a sailing station and waited. I listened idly to the pirate chatter. It seems that we would only be Flag Sitting. I had to think for a bit to recall what that meant and then it came to me. There were no active opponents. The current owners of the island, only had to successfully guard the buoys for 2 rounds and that would be enough to seal their hold for another week.

Too bad. For the wages they offered, with my elite sailing ability, they would have offered to pay for top sailing. The thought of going up against other top sailors to get the bonus always made it easier to endure sailing. Wages plus Bonus plus squashing my competitors. The thought alone was thrilling. Although in actuality, my puzzling had gone downhill in the last few years due to the reign of COVID.

One would have thought staying at home, confined to the house would have given me more time to play my game but it actually had the opposite effect. Whereas before COVID, I wasn't home much and my family respected my wishes to pilly for a few hours uninterrupted, by being housebound, we suddenly started spending a little too much time together in close quarters. This constant tripping over each other to use the laundry machine, the big television, who got to use Netflix... It all added up. I could not pilly for five minutes before someone called my name because it was time to take my load out of the washer or dryer so that they could start a new cycle. I couldn't leave my hot food on the kitchen counter to cool because someone needed that space to chop vegetables. Too many of us needed the same space at the same time. It was rough.

So I disappeared from the game for a bit and with that, I lost sight of my friends and my hearties.

Three years later, I came back and found the ocean empty. I called out and only a few pirates were active. Frustrated that I had not returned sooner I checked my shops and to my dismay one of my pirate hearties had delivered a ship against my orders. Worse than that, she did not even attempt to pay for the ship. The shoppe was dark and would have closed except that the ocean had become so barren that the island's governor had no incentive to confiscate the deed to my real estate. Who would buy my land? Who would pay to demolish and rebuild? There were no customers and no market for any goods.

So although I was crushed, I decided to do my best to pay for the shoppes that still stood. There was one shoppe in particular that I wanted to save for as long as I could. That was Poggie's shoppe. She was my best friend and my most cherished hearty. If she never returned to the ocean, at least I would have this shoppe to remember her by so I did the unthinkable, I visited the other ocean.

The Emerald Ocean unlike my fair Meridian was teeming with population. All the pirates had migrated here during COVID. It was a newer ocean and in that sense it was a fresh start. However, I wanted familiar places and familiar names so the unknown map always deterred me. However, I needed to Pieces of Poe to pay the rent. And hence I jobbed for the mind numbing blockades that in better days I'd scoff at them. Now I was more than willing to station and keep silent.

When the Cade ship that I was on sank, I found myself on the island. My first thought was, that's too soon, I barely made any Pieces of Eight.

Then I saw a familiar face. Poggie. I walked up to her and gave her a hug.

She was quiet for a moment but then seemed to recognize me. "Hello, Jamie."

It had been a long time since we last seen each other. We were both older now. She being the older of us two, she now had new stories to tell me.

Her mother in law had passed due to COVID. Her daughter's kitchen renovation had completed.

We exchanged favorite Netflix shows. It was great seeing her again although we both felt a bit under the weather. Clearly neither of us were quite as good as we once were.

There were many pirates here and they clearly dominated. I decided not to get on the next cade. I needed the Pieces of Eight, but suffice it to say, I needed my friend more. From what she was sharing, she didn't have much time left. Her health was poor and she was getting ill more and more often.

Back in the day we always pillided together. It seemed thosed days were gone forever. However, we could still talk a good length and we did. Midnight came and she logged off. I stayed on a bit longer and then I too logged off.