Cursed Seas Pt. 01: The Wishing Stone

The spined women scowled, hissed, and spat. "Yer no fun. Ye get e'erythin' ye want 'coz yer a pretty one who never got fucked up, n' ye sleep wi' anythin'," the needle-woman spat. "'Sides, I woulda shared 'im wi' th' Captain! Hell, I'd let the whole crew fuck 'im, cause these puppies can keep him up 'till he bleeds out! He'd die a happy man."

The sound of a lash and an ear-piercing scream rang outside. "Bullshite. Th' cap'n strip his hide off his bones," Shella muttered.

The women, having nothing to fuck, grumbled and left the room. Shella would've left with them, but something on the desk in the room caught her eye. Underneath a journal and a compass was a map, laid flat. Its parchment was an ancient kind of yellow, with the edges torn and fragile. The edge was decorated with an odd pattern. The ink was fading, and there were a good number of discolored stains on the map. The map had a compass rose on it that was an amazingly ornate symbol, with its core a side-ways eight and endless branches coming off of it. It looked oddly familiar.

Shella nearly dropped the dagger as she realized where she had seen this symbol before. Lily had shown her this symbol in that dream! She hastily scanned the map and found a paragraph of Spanish written in fresher, darker ink. Reading was a useful skill, though she didn't use it too much.

The words read, The Ancients made a mighty empire long ago, now lost under the sea. The core of their power was concentrated on a magical stone said to grant any wish - Shella froze, then eagerly read on - It is my duty, to the crown of my country, to seek this power and claim it for Spain - Captain Montague de la Cruz.

Shella looked at her dagger, and then back to the map. The dagger's gem twinkled as if to say, Don't Do It. She looked at the map, tracing coordinates and islands. Triangular waves, shapeless lands, and a central island with a rock pillar on it, conveniently marked with an 'X' and a scrawl of something that Shella couldn't read next to it. It looked good, perhaps too good to believe! Her fingers hovered over the map's edges, tempted to snatch it. Gold? Ha! Rum? Bah! This was promising a true treasure.

If it was real, though, then she'd have wasted the lives of the slain. Aw, hell, she'd already been fucking around for 3 years! Dozens of men's souls were already wasted! There'd always be a price to pay, and sometimes it was paid in ignorance or not knowing the future.

Cracking a smile, then a ragged laugh, then a spiteful cackle, Shella rolled up the map and strode out of the cabin. A crowd of women loitered outside, kicking corpses and milling about. Jenny Ivory, her fleshless maw and toothsome blade coated in blood, cracked, "What ye got there, pretty girl?"

"Oh, just a little something," Shella taunted. Jenny was bitter enough to try and do something really stupid. Shella wasn't going to let her in until Shella had announced the map to everyone.

Jenny hissed at her and wiped a sleeve across her bloody teeth, before heading inside the captain's quarters.

One man had been spared. He was tied to the central mast, stripped naked, his pale back cracked and leaking crimson blood from a dozen gashes. A whip snapped up, snapped down, and the man cried in pain as another line of red was torn into his flesh.

"Thirteen!" Captain Lash said ominously. She raised her whip and let it strike, the man's scream of pain piercing the sky. The whip's end was dipped in sickening blood. "Fourteen!"

Shella shook her head. The counting and screams continued to climb as Shella left the ship. It'd be well and truly looted after the captain had had her fill, and then sunk. Another one for Davy Jone's Locker.

Gwen nervously poked her head out from below decks. She wasn't one for combat, so she was set arming the cannons. "Is it over?" she asked.

Another scream came from behind Shella. "Getting' close," she said.

"Hey, what do you have there?" Gwen asked, looking at Shella's map as she clambered onto the deck.

'"'S a map," Shella said, rolling it out to show Gwen. "Whatcha make of it?"

"Hmm... It's annotated. Was it in that ship?" Gwen asked.

Shella nodded and Gwen traced the map with her finger. "It looks old," Gwen said. "I wonder where they got it from. And what's this?"

Gwen read the paragraph. "A wish-granting rock? Is this real?" she asked.

"I dunno, but I been tryin' fer too long on bringing Lily back in a way that ain't workin. There ain't no reason fer us not t' go an' check it out," Shella said.

"Hmm," Gwen mused. "Do you know what this means?"

"Happiness fer all? I get me girl, ye can 'ave whatever ye want, 'n the other girls can get rid o' their curses. Maybe some o' us will wish fer a pile o' gold too, jes' t' set us up fer life," Shella said.

"I don't think you'll be able to convince anyone of this, though," Gwen said. "I mean, you admitted it yourself, you may be the most hated woman on the ship."

"Yeah, an' I ain't doin' myself any favors. But ye can help wi' that," Shella said. "If'n ye can back me, 'n convince th' crew tha' this is real n' we should head for it, then all o' our lives will get that much better."

"I'll try, but who knows with that bunch,' Gwen said with a smile.

Behind them, the whip cracked once more with the cry of "Fifty!" There was baited breath as somebody checked the tortured soul. "Dead," and the crowd broke out in assorted noises. Every single human on that ship was dead.

The crowd broke apart, some ripping apart the ship, others milling back to the Harpy. The man tied to the mast was limp, his back exploded in cracked, red, oozing lines. Captain Lash took one look at her handiwork, tried to adjust some of her biting straps, and left, the blood-red tongue of her whip lapping at the ground.

Spare cloth, wood, nails and metal were salvaged from the ship, along with extra cannonballs and gunpowder. The ship's carcass didn't have much of it, as the ship had been tossed out to the wolves, but it was enough and the Cursed always appreciated death done in their name. A few barrels were left to let the ship blow and sink, and the Harpy sailed away to the tune of a thunder blast and the swallowing ocean.

Once the poor prey ship had sunk beneath the waves, the damned crew began to calm down and clean their weapons. Standing in the center of the deck, Shella coughed and dramatically unfurled the map. The crinkling parchment was as effective as getting the women to be quiet as a gunshot was. Shella couldn't help but bear a satisfied grin.

The needle-bearing woman from earlier locked on to her smile. "Oi, jack-ass? What's ye so happy about?" she yelled.

"We," Shella began, holding up the map for everyone to see, "Got a map."

"Well, whoop-de-fuckin'-do! Wha's on it that gots ye grinnin', ya killjoy?" the needle-woman yelled back.

A crowd was gathering around Shella, consisting of everyone from Jenny Ivory, her bare skull unreadable, to Gwen, who had been hovering close by. "This map leads t' a rock tha' grants wishes o' any sort!" Shella said, speaking louder above the crowd.

The crowd was silent, before Jenny Ivory burst out, "Oh, that's a lie!"

"Found this on tha' ship back there tha' we wrecked," Shella said, "I dunno if'n it actually means anythin', but I'm sure ye'd love to see if'n it ain't true."

Jenny hissed and slunk back as Gwen stepped forth. "Do you think it's real?" Gwen asked.

Shella flashed a hopeful grin. "There ain't no reason for us t' try, now is there? Is there any woman on this tub tha' woul'nt like a gander at free wishes?" Shella said, flinger her arms wide and calling out to the entire crew.

The women began murmuring, then nodding, then shouted out full-blown cries of agreement. Some surged forth to look at the map, while others muttered their desires to themselves. It was remarkably easy, Shella thought to herself. Jenny circled back to Shella and spat, "You can't possibly think that this is real. Besides, you've got all the bitches you could ever want!"

"'N tha's where ye're wrong, Jenny girl. We all want somethin', an' we think ol' Saltbeard down there can help us. If'n you were me, then ye'd take the first opportunity tha' came along, even if it sounds like some kinda tall tale," Shella said, shaking her finger at Jenny.

A whip snapped through the air and the women parted like a school of fish. Standing behind them was Captain Lash, her strange stretched form bent and crooked just slightly. "What is all this noise?" she hissed.

"Found a map tha' leads to a wish-grantin' rock," Shella said, holding the map up in front her.

Captain Lash tilted her head, then stalked towards Shella. She towered over Shella by at least a foot of squeezed, belt-crushed height. "That is the stupidest thing I've heard in a long, long while," she said, her baleful eye affixed on Shella.

Shella tapped the words on the map. She was feeling a bit small underneath the captain's withering gaze. "Go ahead, read it," Shella said.

The captain bent down to read the words, her eyes tracking slowly over the letters. She stood up, sneering underneath her straps. "You think this will save you? Any of you?" she said.

"Hey, wha's the problem wi' checkin' it out? That tub we just sunk was Spanish, so th' cap'n o' it was probably this Montague fellow. Maybe he was sailin' towards it? 'Sides, what d'ya think ye could do wi' a wish, even if it was jest one?" Shella said as she straightened her back and looked Captain Lash in the eye.

Captain Lash bent back up, boring a hole through the map with her eye. The leather around her whip-clutching arm creaked as she tried to move them. She whirled around and snapped the whip against the deck. "Navigator!" she yelled.

The Navigator, a withered, hunched woman with a cylinder of glass jabbed into one eye and a peg for a leg, stumped forth, a sextant and compass tied to her belt with strings. Captain Lash showed her the map and said, "Are we heading towards this island?"

The Navigator looked at the map, and then at Captain Lash. There was a brief, quiet discussion, followed by a muffled snort from the Navigator. The Navigator tore the map out of Shella's hand to look at it some more. She turned her sextant to the sun and measured, then referenced the compass. "If you say it came from that vessel we sunk, then we are likely to be heading right for that island, provided we follow the same path of that ship."

"There's your answer, Shella," Captain Lash said, before yelling out, "Get back to work, you lazy idiots! I don't care if a rock's going to solve all your issues for you, this ship doesn't sail itself!"

The muttering crowd of women broke up, some to clean the guns, some to sharpen weapons, some to fix holes, and some with nothing to do at all. The Navigator kept the map, but Shella wasn't too concerned about that. Just as long as they followed that map. Shella giggled giddily and began to head below decks. Everything was going her way! Soon, Lily would be back, and Shella couldn't wait!

Lash's whip tickled Shella's feet. "Not you. I want to talk to you privately," Captain Lash said, her voice as cruel and edges as ever.

Well, it may be a bit rough getting there, but Shella was still walking on clouds. "Whatever ye say, Cap'n," Shella said with a shrug.

She followed Lash to Lash's cabin. It was an unsightly room, a bit too small for the woman who lived in it and its windows were opaque with grime. Rusty spiked tools of torture hung from the walls, and a battered captain's log lay on a splintering desk next to a worn cupboard. The bed was too short for Lash herself, and the one chair was uneven.

Lash closed the door behind them. She unbuckled a few of her straps, enough to let chapped lips protrude even though the straps dangled from her head. She pulled at a few other straps, trying to readjust them, before opening the cupboard. Inside was a beaten cloth doll, a few books, a few chipped glasses, and several dark bottles. Lash took out the cups one at a time, and then one of the bottles. Gripping its cork in her teeth, Lash popped open the bottle and poured its dark red liquid into the cups.

"Izzat wine?" Shella exclaimed. Didn't Lash have a strict no-booze policy on board? Not to mention what other little secrets Lash buried!

"Don't let the crew know. It's only for special occasions." Lash offered one of the cups to Shella and asked, "Do you know why you were put on the Harpy?"

Shella took the drink graciously and bolted it down in one gulp. A familiar burning liquid crawled down her throat. It had been what, 3 years since her last drop of alcohol? More? Probably more. Grinning as she set the cup down, Shella tried to reset herself as she said, "I was brought on 'cuz I'm a woman, n' Saltbeard down below 's got somethin' I want."

"Yes, that's part of it, but He told me about you. Tell me, did you ever honestly think you could fill that dagger up with souls?" Captain Lash said, her eye digging into Shella.

Looking through her glass, Shella said, "There's parts o' me tha's like that. 'S certainly possible."

"Even if you did, I'm under strict orders to prevent you from getting back to your ship's wreck," Captain Lash said.

Shella nearly dropped the glass as she jerked to meet Lash's unwavering gaze. "Really?"

"Really." Lash swigged her drink down, and poured them each another drink. "But that's why Gwen is here. He knew of your taste, and giving you someone to hang onto even as you pine for your ship was another attempt for you to stay here."

"Is she a part o' this?" Shella asked, downing her second glass.

"No, but she would obey me. She's not as tough as you," Lash said, sipping from her drink. "Besides, I have to thank you for picking up that map. If it's true, then you've just saved the lot of us."

"Eh, I think some o' th' women jes' wan' a fuck-toy," Shella said dismissively. "'Sides, save yer accolades fer when we're pumpin' tha' rock fer every wish it's worth!"

* * *

As the Harpy sailed closer to the island of the Wishing Stone, it seemed like a miasmic cloud had been lifted. Heads held low now were held high. Some spoke of their hopes and dreams, or opened up about their past for the first time ever. The Harpy itself began to look better, as a few of the crew were cleaning off the begrimed ship. Suddenly, there was no Eternity in Damned for Eternity, and a cursed life was but a short while.

It took them two weeks to spot the island on the horizon. The Navigator had checked and double-checked time and time again, just to make sure their hopes were not in vain. Finally, after burning sun, watching stars, and ominous clouds, a sliver of green appeared on the horizon. The cry from the crow's nest was more vigorous than anything ever shouted for another vessel, and the crew joined in.

Shella was standing on the bow when she had spotted it. All throughout their journey, she had been buzzing with anticipation. That rock of wishes couldn't come quick enough!

It appeared far off on the horizon, almost unreal. A little line of green, so far away it could've been a trick of the eye. And yet, it grew closer and closer! Shella was surrounded by other women, each with the exact same thoughts on their minds; all of their troubles shall just be washed away.

Another day's journey took them close to the island. Seagulls perched dumbly on the Harpy's railings as the sea bottom came into sight. It was smooth and sandy, but the occasional odd block stood out down below, and fish swam idlily through the clear ocean waters. When the Harpy was close enough to send boats aboard, they set the anchor down, the great rusted hulk crashing down into the shallows.

Ahead was the island. It didn't stretch from one edge of the horizon to the other. It didn't lurk, and wasn't foreboding. It looked like the top of a mountain covered in green, and some odd peaks looked like overgrown towers.

Captain Lash stood still, though her whip twitched eagerly. Leather belts creaked as she readjusted them or moved occasionally. Next to her, the Navigator stood with the map rolled underneath one arm. "We're finally here," Lash said, addressing the crew, "And soon, we'll need not worry about what's happened to us. I'll need a crew for landfall. Don't worry too much about it, you'll all get your justice."

The crew roared to life with raised hands and calls for attention. Captain Lash jabbed her fingers almost at random, including at Shella. The landing crew had just about twenty women to it, including the captain.

"Let's get that jolly boat in the water!" Captain Lash ordered. The women who hadn't been selected immediately set about to man-handling the jolly boat, a rowing vessel that could carry over twenty women, towards the railing and lowering it over the edge.

"Before you get to that island, you might want to know something important!" someone cried out from the crowd. Everyone stopped to look, and Shella cussed. It was Jenny Ivory, and she was holding a book. In fact, that kind of looked like the book laying on top of the map, wasn't it?

"Wha's this about, Jenny? Somethin' got yer fingerbones in a twist?" Shella shouted back.

Jenny looked back at Shella with a ghoulish open-mawed grin, as if to mock her. Bone fingers flipped the book open, and Jenny read aloud from it. "In the course of my research, I have found something unfortunate about this lost civilization that I have written about for so long. It seems that the source of their power had been running low, and in their desperation, they accidentally destroyed themselves. If what I have found is true, then the Stone of Wishes has but one wish left in it."

The crew burst out. Chatting, whispering, screaming, insulting, it was a rainbow of talk. Shella's face screwed up in disbelief, and she began walking towards Jenny. "Oy, gimme tha' book!" she said, reaching for the tome.

Jenny let out a hissing cackle and held it out of Shella's reach. "Oh, it's true, it's true you little whore! This is the same journal of Montague De la Cruz from your precious little map! Do you really think that you're so important when all these other women deserve something better?" she said.

"'N it's a big ol' lie, you bony bastard! Yer jes' makin' things up t' get back a' me!" Shella barked back. The book was just out of her reach! Scowling angrily, Shella curled a hand into a fist and slammed it into Jenny's head.

Jenny's structure became loose for just a moment as she squawked awkwardly, her head spinning. She didn't have a chance to resist as Shella tore the book out of her clutches.

A crack echoed like a thunderbolt on deck. Everyone fell silent as Captain Lash stalked towards Shella and Jenny. "Quit your fighting, or I'm locking you two idiots up here together. And give me that book!"

Captain Lash pulled the journal out of Shella's hand and thumbed through the pages. She stopped at the first page to check the author and dates, and then flipped forward until she found what Jenny had been referencing.

Shella's blood pounded as she waited for a verdict from Captain Lash. It was like waiting to be hanged!

Lash closed the book with a snap, and said quietly, "Sorry, Shella. It looks like you won't be getting your ship back after all." Captain Lash turned to walk back to the crew.

Lily wasn't coming back? Lily wasn't coming back?! Shella had thrown her away, it was Shella's duty to bring her back! What would she be if she didn't atone for it? And who was Captain Lash to decide who should live and who didn't?

With a heart-tearing screech, Shella launched herself at Captain Lash, her fingers like claws. She'd take that book and tear it apart!