“The oceans were vast. As such, on the off chance that friends met at sea, which with the existence of prominent trade routes, were not such an unlikely tale as it might seem, they were bound to pay a visit to each other’s ship to celebrate the occasion, and usually to make merry with one another.

This hospitality between friends at sea was something considered sacrosanct amongst all long-time sailors. Stories about where old friends since turned enemies would at times honor this tradition first, before they get to stabbing each other afterwards, the most famous tale being the one that involved the dread pirate Redbeard and his once-friend Admiral Montaque-Capulet of the now extinct island nation of Verona.

What the story told was how the two men, who had been friends and compatriots, who sailed together as deckhands on merchant barges in their youth, had met in their older age as mortal enemies, because one became the renowned pirate king of the seas while the other worked as a navy admiral for his fledgling island nation.

During those days, naval combat was almost entirely done by ramming and/or boarding the enemy ship. When the two old friends inevitably met, they seemed to have mutually agreed to pull their ships alongside each other, and the two captains stared at each other across the hulls.

Then they broke out the rum, and the story said that both ships’ crew became too drunk to fight at all, while their captains squared off to determine a winner by way of drinking contest. Redbeard notoriously won that contest while the admiral, taking his loss openly, went home and retired honorably soon after.” - Saucisse Reaunviel, Elven historian.

From Gloomshine to Xeluvo, most ships would have taken roughly two weeks to travel the route, as they would commonly first take an easterly route, then turn north-east until they were due south of Xeluvo, then head northwards until they reached the Port City.

The main reason for this was because along the direct route between the two ports were several small islands, which were known to be the home of vicious pirates the port authorities of Xeluvo were powerless against. Most merchants deemed the longer trip in exchange for a lowered risk of pirate attacks - they were less frequently found that far from their home base - to be worth their while.

Contrary to popular wisdom, however, Arquivaldo took the good ship Le Faucon Noir on a direct north-easterly route, which would have brought the ship past the pirate islands without a doubt. It was a route that most nobody dared to take, though some merchants - famously those of the Goldclaw Union amongst them - had long worked out an agreement with the pirates to let them pass for a toll fee and took that route as well when they had items that needed to be delivered as soon as possible.

With the direct route, it took only a little over a week to reach Xeluvo from Gloomshine, which was a massive saving on time, and those merchants with access to the direct route considered the toll fee they paid worth it when they needed to make an urgent, time-critical delivery. Left unsaid was the little tidbit that by cutting an agreement with the pirates, they risked no loss of merchandise from piracy, which was also worth the trade-off.

Vark had spent the last couple of days mostly entangled in one way or another with Arquivaldo himself or the man’s three lieutenants after he learned of their prominent identity from Cal. He was always a scholar at heart despite a few stints adventuring and the likes, and history was one of his favored subjects to learn. In fact, while Vark was head of the department of Practical Usage of Magic in Combat at the Institute these days, he was also learning and researching on the side when he was not on duty.

So quite naturally when he learned that he was on board a ship with two of the most infamous piratical legends of all times, he grew excited and was all too eager to hear their tales from the personages themselves. On their part neither Arquivaldo nor the rest took any offense to his at times childlike enthusiasm on the subject, and they seemed all too happy to ply him with ribald tales from their younger days.

Krystal watched his actions with a mere shake of her head. She had been long aware of Vark’s enthusiasm and propensity when it comes to such things, and had long accepted it as just another part of him. She herself often talked with Avigeya while Vark was kept busy by the Captain or his adopted daughter, speaking about other, less dated things.

The ship itself practically had not needed much commanding once it was underway, as the crew members were skilled and knew what to do for the clearly regular trip, which freed the higher-ups like Arquivaldo to gallivant around with the free time they had. Unsurprisingly he had spent much of that time entertaining his passengers, which on this trip just happened to be Cal’s group alone.

Six days into their journey, when they were but two days away from Xeluvo, Arquivaldo pointed out the islands visible in the distance to them, which he casually mentioned was the base of the pirates that plagued the local port authorities. While merchants and other wealthy people were always treated well in the port city, there were rumors abound of how the local rich would often tread on their poor, and the pirates were supposedly those downtrodden people who refused to take their lot quietly.

Because of the presence of those pirates, merchants from Xeluvo rarely dared to set forth to sea from their own home port, because any such merchants caught and subjected to the mercies of the pirates would simply never be heard from again. Even ships and merchants from other nations rarely accepted to take on local merchants as passengers, as it would often land them into more trouble than usual if the pirates happened to catch them on board.

On the other hand, the pirates that plagued the seas were known to be relatively reasonable otherwise, especially to foreigners, who they would often just let go for a reasonable toll fee. They rarely plundered much less sunk ships, unless the ships belonged to a merchant or noble from Xeluvo, to whom they showed no mercy.

Around an hour after Arquivaldo pointed out the islands, Cal spotted a small flotilla of five ships, two of which were roughly as large as the ship they were on and the other three smaller models, headed towards them from the island.

Once they got a bit closer, her sharp eyes caught the banner that flew from atop the masts of the ships, which depicted a caricature of a man stabbing a second man with a spear, while the stabbed figure held a scale and a bag of coins in his hands, in red over black. Cal knew that the emblem of Xeluvo was precisely a man holding a scale and bag of coins in hand, so she naturally understood from the implied hostility of the flag that these were likely the local pirates.

When the ships got close enough that even humans could see the flags with some clarity, four of the ships turned around and went back towards the islands, while the last one stayed on its course to meet Le Faucon Noir. The pirate ship quickly sailed parallel to their ship, something Arquivaldo had explicitly allowed, because Cal knew that his ship was capable of leaving the other ship in its wake had he any intention to, and approached closer.

They looked more like a welcoming committee greeting respected guests than pirates, Cal thought.