Endless Isles: Tales from the Fringe

Tales from the Fringe

From the very edge of the ever expanding map, stories both absurd and true creep back to the core. There's always time in a pirate's life to slow down with a mug of rum and listen to an old friend, just back from the edge, tell the company a tale or two.

The Tale of Davy Jones

Now Jones was a good captain, always straight and fair but firm, and his men loved him dearly in those deadly days of Navies and Patrol. A cunning old coot, and lucky too, but one day his ship Cornelia had the fight of her life. She won, in a manner of speaking, but such a victory as a sailin' man never prays for; left drifting with a holed hull and no masts left a-standing, barely able to stay afloat much less move.

Now, fourty nights she sat adrift, stores run low and all the while men workin' the bilges, as desperate for a few more hours as any Unoathed you've seen starin' Lady Death in the face.

It was beginnin' to look grim indeed, the good captain considerin' an honest and dignified end for himself and then, should they choose it, when sails were spotted! Help had finally arrived...

...In the form of ol' Two-Dagger himself!

Now old Torrieau pulled up with a bonny grin, and hailed: "Why, is that a waterlogged dog I see, paddling desperately to keep afloat but with no true hope of dry land to be found?"

Wary glances were exchanged and both crews put hand on saber, but sly old Davy stood with stern lips and a cold glare and said nothing, exercising that cunning willpower of his so legendary in a profession where a lack of self-control is practically a prerequisite... Which ol' Torrieau was counting upon.

"Why, no, if it isn't a fox! Me old pal, Davy Jones himself! Looks like you're in a spot of trouble... Come aboard, and we'll tow the Cornelia to Louisport!"

And so it was done, the crews mingling and the Cornelia saved.

While she was being rebuilt, however, Torriaeu beseeched Jones, "We've got quite the job planned, old Davy boy, and I could use another commander and advisor with a level head and a fearsome name! The Cornelia will be fine under the watchful eye of your quartermaster and first mate. Sail with me, just this once, and I'll lead ye to glory!"

Now if it were anyone else, old Davy would have doubtlessly socked 'em in the mouth and stalked out with that steely glare, but Two-Dagger Torriaeu is nothing if not silver-tongued, and against his better judgement, Davy Jones accepted his offer and joined him for another run on the waves.

It would be his last.

Now, here's where the tale starts to go all different accordin' to who'se tellin' it. Where precisely did Jones and Torriaeu strike? What did they take? I've 'eard a thousand different versions if I've 'eard one, but they all agree... it was as grand and bloody a venture as had been seen in the days 'afore Torrieau's Trick. The waters ran as red as the holds did shine of gold, and those who made it out alive were sure to be kings among men.

Torriaeu and Jones almost got away clean, too, when a stray ball of grapeshot caught Davy right across the teeth, taking his jaw clean off.

Well, the mists rolled in and the pirates escaped, but it was a long, hard death for Jones, the last casualty of that glorious haul. Torriaeu, so they say, was despite his own treacherous nature beside poor Jones every minute, even as other wounded in his own crew also passed. Perhaps the guilt was too much even for him to ignore, for it was Two-Dagger himself that brought him along after all.

As the mists roiled and the dying passed, however, talk cropped up on the ship. Death, they said, was walking the planks, to be seen with the naked eye, taking the poor bleeding curs with a gentle caress and a soothing whisper, when their time it was.

Finally, Two-Dagger himself saw her, when only dying Jones was left... and when his eyes alighted on that pale face, to whom he'd sent enemies and prey by shipload and then some, Two-Dagger Torriaeu fell eternally in the purest and most sinister of hopeless love, that love which transcends all logic and even the inscrutable laws of the cosmos itself.

"Stand aside," she whispered. "This one is mine."

None know what Torriaeu said to Death then, and pray that none ever should. He pleaded, he cajoled, he offered and debated, plying that silver tongue like no other trickster in all time has done, and somehow, he stole the heart of Lady Death herself away... but he was too late. As he turned from elaborating some sub-point of his bottomless devotion, presumably, Davy Jones was already gone.

But Death was not.

Whence they sailed then, and what they did, would take years to outline. The Driftings With Death are a whole 'nother Odyssey all their own.

What's important is that, one day, amidst their strange and terrible wand'rings, Death's hopeless paramour came to her, and he pleaded for the famous Trick, that she should take none who sail in his name, ever again.

What he offered in return, if anything, remains a mystery, but, well, as any of you who've taken the Final Oath know well, "in his name" turned out to mean more than just his immediate crew. I like to think old Torriaeu was sly enough to know what that wording could mean, and that this whole state of events isn't just one big supernat'ral fuckup, in which case the old bastard has saved my life a few hundred times now, as a matter of course.

But there was one man... one mean old spirit to be precise... who took great offense at this. Davy Jones.

When the deal was struck, old dead Davy was enraged. Who was Torriaeu to ask for this, rather than bringing back the man he wronged, the man who's death brought Torriaeu his beloved in the first place? This was betrayal, dishonor, blackest treachery!

And so that day, the spirit of Davy Jones, the last pirate to fall to Lady Death's cold caress, tore up out of his rotten bones from the seabed below, and set out to stalk the waves, ever searching for his traitorous friend.

It's true, I've seen him myself! On a calm dusk, when the wind dies out, look to the west, and you just might see him, standing there when the sea is flat as though it were a vast decking, stumbling and wailing his torment and a promise of bitter vengeance from his hideous throat, still jawless from his terminal injury.

...and that's why they call it Davy Jones' Locker, for every night the spirit must return to the rotting sea-casket in which Torriaeu tossed him over, all those centuries ago, there to seethe in his betrayal and misfortune, the Last Pirate to Die.

The Iron Molars of Thompson P. Beckman

What's that, yer sailin' west?

Well, there's somethin' ye should know, then, free o' charge. A place... a place ye ought to avoid.

Old Tommy's Molars they call 'em. You know all the good metal, lead for bullets and iron for barrels, comes from the Fringe, aye?

Well, long ago, this *was* the Fringe, and whoo boy did ol' Thompson P Beckman find hisself a whale of a Barony when he sailed out, just that way yer plannin' ta head yerself.

Y'see, t'was a whole archipelago out there, risin' out o' the water like jagged knives... dozens, hundreds of rocks big and small... and each a-one about as solid with iron ore as an island can be, nary a quarter-inch of dirt. Sterile.

Well, now, I don't need ta tell ye what the price o' good virgin iron is, you can just imagine what Tommy saw when he looked at those cold, jagged rocks: not iron at all, but 'twas gold that glittered in his eyes that day.

So he got hisself some poor landlubbers and transported em blinfolded, set up a secret colony, the whole works, put his whole fortune on the line, lookin' ta reap tenfold.

But ol P. Beckman, well, he didn't have much in the way of scruples. Nigh every landlubber is at the mercy of the folk of the wave ultimately, a'spose, but this... this was a pure slave colony, and then some. Worked em to death, worked their women to death, worked their children to death, and always bringin' more back on the return voyages to wherever he could offload all that iron ore... 'prolly Reekwater, I reckon, since it was all foundries even then.

That is, whenever he made it back. Didn't take long fer folks to catch on that there was loot to be had out this far, and, well, the Game was afoot.

Still, in between a few Shadow'd Jigs, he did a fair job of lordin' his turf, keepin' it secret by takin' prisoners of any other pirates that got to close, like a goddamned Crusader madman. Prolly woulda made slaves o' them, too, if the work waren't dangerous enough to offer escape by way o' cheatin' death.

All that death... folk say it's made those waters choked with the mournful spirits of slaves.

But, well, they say that the Isles and the Deathless are proof that good things don't last, and for Tommy that was true.

He was nearin' the end of his labors, fat and rich, with only one big spire left. He'd leveled every single one of the rest of those rocks to just below the waterline, taking every scrap of iron that could be got... and a good thing, too, for Tommy, as by that point the Fringe had expanded and his competition was fierce. Secrecy would no longer do, and instead he had to rely on the treach'rous field of truncated isles surrounding his final spire as deterrent. Kept the few safe routes through t'himself and none others, no matter how many ships he got.

Finally, the day came when ol' Thompson moved his pers'nal effects back to his ship and ordered the slaves to start digging down that last lonely rock. And just as he was about t'board, a pickaxe from nowhere caught 'im full in the back.

Now, see, at this point, most of Tommy's crew were just as sick of the ol' bastard as anyone, so they simply watched him bleed, gasping for death, as a slave sauntered up, all his hate and rage written across 'is face.

"Did ye really think ye could order us to dig away the very last place to stand while you sail off with our sweat, our blood? To file down one last tooth under our own feet, and then stand here 'till a storm comes to wash us off it?"

That was when the rest of the slaves attacked. Unable to leave without Thomas' direction, the bastards were forced to fight, and a bloody day it was, then.

No one knows what happened to old Tommy. Some say he changed 'is name and plays the Game a-still, others say he's wound up in Deadwind, others that the slaves nursed 'im back to health, against 'is wishes, and keep him there on that last rock still so's no one can ever know the way to their home.

But one thing's a-sure. If you spot a spire, stabbing out of the water to the west of here, or hear ghostly work-chanties drifting on the breeze of a moonless night, you give em a wide berth, lest the Iron Molars of Thompson P. Beckman grind yer keel ta bits.

Golden Neckbeard

The Spine of the North

In the east, the feathered moon wanes. In the west, the sun peaks above the horizon. While in the north, a tower remains as dark as the night. The Spine of the North rises from the sea and overlooks all sailors bound for its walls. A thousand men, it took, to build the tower. And one stroke from the sky to turn its men to dust and its walls to black.

"twas the child o' on' mister Bold Ben. 'n all the time 'fore two-dagger's leg'ndary trick, there was ne'er a scheme er plot 'e 'adn't stuck 'is grimy nose in. Why, e' gave 'imself that name, 'swell, tha slimy git. A coward 'nd a fool, eh was, but 'e 'ad the currency to keep on foolin' the fools.

now 'old Ben was a conman. an ev'ryday crook, he was. Git lucky once 'nd your set fer life! 'T least tha's the way it 'appened ta him. 'Nyways, he took'on a thousand men, from e'ery port in tha known w'rld, as I sees it. He c'ld always count on a succer er two in e'ery town, he says. Now, eh n'ver shared tha purpose o' that tower ta nob'dy, always kipt it fer 'imself. W'll, secrets ne'er sit w'll with tha crew.

So tha rumors spread, as ye c'n imagine. The wildest O' such bein' tha 'e was tryin to steal tha clouds righ' outta the sky. 'Nd 'e may jus' as well, cause no'un e'er found out. 'Nyway, twice a fortnight ou' 'nd he yells fer 'em ta stop. 'E call fer the res' o' tha fleet to unload 'nd set up camp, while 'E 'as a look around. W'll, this was it, 'e figured. So they took tha wood outta the ships 'nd awaited fer the order ta build.

"Men," says he," today we begin our quest towards the sky. So, without hesitation, let us start!"

He was ne'er one fer speeches er nonesuch, bu' the men beg'n work all that same. Twas wood, they dump'd by tha tons, wood w's plenty way b'ck when, 'nd they started ther trek straight ta tha sky. W'll, they worked day 'nd night, buildin' ever higher. 'Nd as 'Ol ben was sleepin' in 'is bunk, he did tha' a lo' ye see, never did a day o' work in 'is life, I reckon. But 'nyways, a boy wen' up ta 'im, why, a boy barely old'r then yerself, saplin, 'nd 'e tol' him they was outta wood. This didn' sit well wi' tha ol' man 'nd 'e 'ad the boy flogged, 'e did. Fer tha bes', i reckon, bu tha's no 'till later.

Ye' ne'er see rage boil o'er a man like tha' 'fore. 'Is face turned tha deep'st red 'nd e order'd tha men ter tear apart tha ships. I reckon he thought 'e woulda reached tha sky by then, with wood ta spare. So tha men start'd takin apart tha ships, bit by bit, 'nd they kept 'er goin 'till on'y tha flagship wa' left. An island o' fools, indeed, boy, as they took 'er too. Well' mos' a 'er 'nyways. Well, by th's time a storm wa' brewin' up somethin fierce, 'nd tha men were ready ta quit. But ol' Ben cracked 'is whip 'nd the men kept workin through tha rain. Tha on'y hands not on tha tower then was tha boy who'd been flogged, lay bleedin' in a dingy, 'e was. As the flagship, tha right 'nd mighty Cutlass, was bein torn plank by plank, (figured 'e could sail 'ome on clouds, eh!) 'Ol Ben saw 'is dream slip away.

'E ran up ta tha top a tha tower, shoutin' curses 'nd all kinds of none sense up a tha clouds. Tha way i sees it, tha clou's jus' didn' like 'im much, weren' many tha' did, so they stayed out 'is reach. Bu' tha man was half a piece short o' a haul, if ye catch ma drift, at tha point. Clouds 'ave pity, I figure, they sit up ther' all day 'nd watch us silly people fightin' 'nd 'cussin 'nd all they do is float 'n by, they mus' feel somethin', ya know. Well, these clouds weren't no different, 'nd they struck tha man down 'as 'e yelled 'imself silly. Ye ever see lightnin', boy? well' i's why ye ne'er want to git them clouds on yer bad side. Tha bolt ran straight down that tower, down tha spine, nd straight through e'ery man 'swell.

Tha tower burned fer days 'fter that, 'nd was still burnin' when tha supply ship 'e sent fer arrived ta find a boy sittin among tha food piles wi' a story ta tell. 'Nd, well, tha rest is 'istory."

Danger on the Shore

The fires down below burn hot
will never reach us briny lot
two more turns on the bowline knot
sailin' on the endless sea

And it's a heave (ho!) hi (ho!), rulin' all the sea
Stealin', whorin', fightin', a-nd other piracy
And it's a ho (hey!) hi (hey!), danger on the shore
For Torrieau's untold legions are comin' for yer door

We're demons, thieves, beggars and cads
and I'd be damned if any ye lads
don't tow a pair of iron nads
sailin' on the endless sea

And it's a heave (ho!) hi (ho!), rulin' all the sea
Stealin', whorin', fightin', a-nd other piracy
And it's a ho (hey!) hi (hey!), danger on the shore
For Torrieau's untold legions are comin' for yer door

sink a ship and kill her men
send them home once again
past the port and devil's den
sailin' on the endless sea

And it's a heave (ho!) hi (ho!), rulin' all the sea
Stealin', whorin', fightin', a-nd other piracy
And it's a ho (hey!) hi (hey!), danger on the shore
For Torrieau's untold legions are comin' for yer door

Our shirts and shoes are all at port
and here we are, a mile short
soon to be the soggy sort
sailin' on the endless sea

And it's a heave (ho!) hi (ho!), rulin' all the sea
Stealin', whorin', fightin', a-nd other piracy
And it's a ho (hey!) hi (hey!), danger on the shore
For Torrieau's untold legions are comin' for yer door