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General Art The Voyage to Salem

Pen

The game is on!
Hello! About a year and a half ago we got an assignment in Swedish class to write an "odyssey". I recently started translating the story into English, but since I live in Sweden Swedish is obviously my main language, so my English writing may be somewhat flawed. If somebody does read this I would appreciate feedback on my language in particular. I'm sure there might be a few typos and even grammatical errors. I'm currently working on a Zelda fan-fic and I'm sort of using this story as practice for that one. Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this 7 part story!



The Voyage to Salem

Chapter 1

The Ambush

It was a dark and foggy night just off the eastern coast of North America on February 10th 1717. There lay the large wooden vessel Elizabeth sloshing amongst the waves with her big, white sails which were attached to three tall masts. The moon and the stars, which usually were the only things lighting up this part of the Atlantic Ocean, were completely concealed by thick, water filled clouds. On the quarterdeck stood William, the captain’s first mate, and looked out over the stern gunwales as he thought of Salem, their distant destination. Last month the ships captain, Scarlett, had told the members of her crew that they were heading to Salem to find a special object. She never told them what it was, but William had heard her speaking about it and could tell from the tone of her voice that it was a very valuable object. He also thought of everything that they might encounter on their journey; he had heard stories about ghost ships, gigantic sea serpents, the kraken and about the dreaded Blackbeard.

As if from nowhere came another vessel approaching, slightly smaller than Elizabeth. It was dark brown and had dark blue sails in two masts.

“Ship ahoy!” shouted the newly recruited look-out, Edward, from the crow’s nest. “Pirates in sight, to port!” Surprisingly quickly the crew started working, and Captain Scarlett came rushing out of her cabin to give direct orders. The pirate ship and Elizabeth were already broadside and both ships were repeatedly firing cannonballs at the other. Suddenly there came a loud crushing sound from Elizabeth’s front mast, causing it to fall straight towards the pirate ship creating like a bridge between the two vessels. Over the fallen mast came about twenty pirates creating a great cutlass battle onboard Elizabeth. Cutlasses clang in the air and one could hear shouts of both anger and fear. William, who had by now gotten down to the main deck, stabbed one of the pirates in the stomach and pushed him overboard. Thereafter he spotted something moving in the fore of the pirate ship, so he made his way unseen across the lying mast to the pirate ship which now felt empty and desolate. He walked towards the fore where he had seen the movement, but he did not get very far before he heard a sound from behind. It was a hollow knocking sound that was constantly repeated with one to two seconds interval and got slightly louder over time. As William turned around he saw the silhouette of a tall man wearing a large hat walking down the quarterdeck stairs; the knocking sound was caused by his pegleg as he walked across the wooden deck towards William.

“There’s gotta take a great deal of courage to dare board a pirate ship all alone”, the man said with a raucous yet strong voice and got a big and superior smile on his face. He seemed to be the pirates’ captain. His sideburns, which had previously been black, were now gray and shaggy, and two large scars, probably from cutlasses, stretched across his smiling face. “But apparently courage ain’t all you’ve got, you’ve got foolery too, and that’s gonna be the death of ye!” The pirate captain laughed out loudly and pulled out a pistol which he pointed directly at William’s head. William could not say a word because of how frightened he was. But then the tall captain unexpectedly lowered the pistol, and his facial expression changed from intimidating to terrified in a matter of seconds.

“So, young man, I shall spare your life.” The pirate captain’s voice hinted of an insecurity. “Leave my ship, and remember me name. I be Captain Roger! For I, Captain Roger, will go down in history! So remember now that I chose not to kill ye, despite the fact that ye boarded my ship without my allowance. There, there. Off ye go now, quickly!” Roger laughed nervously and William did not understand anything. Why had the pirate captain suddenly decided not to kill him? Why did he suddenly look so frightened? But William did as he had been told anyway and got back over to Elizabeth. After that everybody could hear Captain Roger shout:

“All aboard! Set sail, lads!” Now he sounded more stressed than he did before. His men canceled their battles and climbed swiftly over to the pirate ship. “Get movin’ ye blooming cockroaches! Get a move on!” The sails of the pirate ship were both quickly caught by the wind, then the ship disappeared with its Jolly Roger flag into the thick fog. Left in the water was Elizabeth as well as the mast that the pirates had cracked.

“What the heck just happened, Bill?” exclaimed Captain Scarlett. “What happened on the pirate ship?”

“I met the pirate captain. His name was Roger. He was gonna shoot me, but…”

“But what?” asked Larry, the chief gunner.

“Then something happened that I think scared him off. I don’t know what it could’ve been.”

“I know what it was!” shouted Edward from the crow’s nest. He lowered the telescope from his eye and screamed down in panic:

“It’s the kraken! The kraken’s just a few hundred meters in front of us! Captain, what should we do?”
 
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*M i d n a*

Æsir Scribe
Joined
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Good, I really enjoyed it, as it reminded me of my own The Dark Voyage story, but lemme be honest and say that I felt the action was kind of rushed. Still, though, I wonder what's gonna happen with the Kraken. Awaiting an update soon. ^^
 

Pen

The game is on!
Good, I really enjoyed it, as it reminded me of my own The Dark Voyage story, but lemme be honest and say that I felt the action was kind of rushed. Still, though, I wonder what's gonna happen with the Kraken. Awaiting an update soon. ^^

Thanks! ^^ And yeah, I do see what you mean about he rushed action, it's something I'll have to work on. Future action scenes may or may not improve. :sweat: Anyway, here's chapter two:

Chapter 2

The Kraken

“Larry, you and the other gunners gotta get as many cannons as possible over to the fore. We’ll try to scare the beast away before it reaches us”, ordered Scarlett.

“But captain,” said John, the ship’s steersman, a very muscular man. “Shouldn’t we turn around, or at least find a safe way around it?”

“No, it’s too late for that now. The best we can do right now is to keep sailing northward. And hurry up with those cannons!”

Less than two minutes later the cannons had been placed in the fore, loaded and ready to fire. They were all fired at the same time and many of the cannonballs landed in the water near the gigantic octopus, but a few shots managed to hit it right on. William stood there spectating the events as Elizabeth and the kraken got closer and closer to eachother. After a while he noticed that an area of the water between the ship and the monster did not move regularly. He called Edward down from the crow’s nest and borrowed his telescope to take a closer look at the water. To his dismay it was something that he had earnestly hoped for it not to be.

“Maelstrom! There’s a maelstrom between us and the kraken!”

“We’re already being sucked in!” shouted John. “I can’t steer us out of this!” Elizabeth drew closer and closer to the maelstrom, and so did the kraken, and eventually they were both stuck inside it.

“Fire to port!” shouted Scarlett. “We gotta hurry up now that the kraken is half a lap away from us!” The cannonballs were fired and a majority of them hit the kraken, which slowed it down to the crew’s advantage. But almost immediately the kraken started accelerating again, and was now moving around the maelstrom quicker than Elizabeth.

“The kraken’s catching up!” shouted Larry. “It’s gonna ram the ship!” The kraken was now swimming with the stream quicker than ever before, and when it had caught up it raised all of its tentacles from the water and and slammed them over Elizabeth’s quarterdeck. The monster octopus was hanging over the stern of the ship and a large portion of its body was visible above the water’s surface. The windows at the back of the ship were now shattered and the unmercifully salty water flooded in. Elizabeth started to lose her speed and everyone onboard could feel the ship sinking.

“Chop off all the tentacles you can reach!” shouted Scarlett encouragingly. “We’ve gotta get this damned creature off the ship as quickly as we can!” Everybody drew their cutlasses and started chopping after the tentacles. It was not easy since the tentacles were constantly moving and they were much more compact than they looked, which made it even harder for the seafarers to hurt them. The stern of the ship was now almost completely under water, but at the last second the kraken seemed to have had enough of the cutlass chops and let go of the vessel, which gave Elizabeth a mighty boost out of the maelstrom and into the much calmer waters. They had survived.

* * *
The following morning William and Edward sat in the fore talking.

“There sure were a lot of stuff happening last night”, said Edward, who was still new in the crew. “Is life at sea always this hectic?”

“Nah, it’s usually much more peaceful. But sure, we have encountered a few other supernatural things in the past. The night we experienced yesterday was no ordinary one though, with this many injured men from our own crew. It’s nothing you’ll have to experience very often. By the way, Edward, I’ve noticed your eyesight is very good and you’re very observant. I’m glad we’ve got you with us onboard.” William patted Edward encouragingly on the back.

“Thanks! I used to sit on the beach at home down in Haiti and spy out over the sea. I always wished I could be on one of the ships sailing around out there. My lookout technique was probably trained on that beach, and I’ve always noticed details that others don’t immediately see. Anyway, now that I’m finally allowed to be part of a real ship’s crew I feel like the happiest man in the world, yet somewhat frightened at the same time.”

“Yeah, it’s nice being out at sea, it’s it? It’s so big and so free! And full of surprises.” William turned to Scarlett who stood a couple of meters behind him. “Captain, we should drop anchor at the first harbour we see. We’ve lost the front mast, the stern needs some major repairing, and there’s some injured crewmen who need proper care. We’re closing in on Chesapeake Bay. I suggest we go ashore there.”

“You’re right Bill”, replied Scarlett. “There’s a small harbour town close to the mouth of the bay called Hampton. We can stay there a few days.

When the ship later that day entered the bay and closed in on the harbour, one could notice that there was a lot of shellfish in the water underneath and around the ship. There were many fishermen fishing along the coast, and one could see a large amount of crabs walking around sideways on the beaches. When Elizabeth finally dropped anchor in Hampton’s harbour some members of the crew went ashore to buy what they needed to repair the ship. Thereafter the process continued without any problems, and in the evening the next day, February 12th, Elizabeth had received a new mast with new sails and her stern had been replaced with new windows and gunwales. On their way out of Chesapeake Bay all members of the crew were in a great mood because their rations of food and rum had been refilled during their visit to town.





Chapter 3

The Girl
The following days flowed on without any trouble. The ship’s whole crew kept their good mood up and worked diligently. On February 17th they spotted a small sandbank in the distance.

“Oh no! John, you’re sailing the ship too close to land! We’re gonna get stuck in the shallows!” Scarlett came rushing from the fore to the quarterdeck. John understood that Scarlett was serious and said calmly:

“But captain, we aren’t too close to land. Take a look for yourself.” He showed her the sea chart and pointed at their current location.

“He’s right!” shouted Edward. “I can’t see land in any direction from up here, but it’s odd to see a sandbank this far out.”

“Yeah”, said John. “And besides, haven’t we passed by here before without noticing this?”

“Hm … Alright, we’re sailing around it. Just make sure to keep us at a safe distance”, said Scarlett who was calmer now – after all, she did trust her crew.

As the ship was on its way around, Larry spotted something lying on the sandbank.

“Edward!” he called. “There’s something on the sandbank. Can you see what it is?” It took a few seconds before Larry got a reply, but then Edward shouted back:

“There’s a human lying on the sandbank!”

“Drop anchor! Then Bill, Larry and I will row out in the dinghy and fetch him”, ordered Scarlett.

As William was rowing over to the sandbank he could see that Larry, the chief gunner, who sat opposite him in the boat looked very excited, as if he thought it was specifically exciting to go out and save this stranger. Scarlett who was sitting next to Larry looked like she thought this was a waste of time, which most likely was what she actually thought. When they reached the sandbank they saw that it was an unconscious woman, about 20 years of age. She lay on her back in the sand wearing a dark blue dress made of silk. There were also strangely enough some beautiful and colourful little flowers growing in the sand. Scarlett went over trying to wake the young woman who remained unconscious. At least they could confirm that she was indeed alive, so they brought her along with them back to the ship. There they took her below decks to let her rest. After this work basically continued like usual on Elizabeth, except that Larry attended to the unconscious woman more and more often.

When Larry, two days later, was sitting by her bedside admiring her, she finally opened her eyes. They were the sweetest blue eyes Larry had ever seen. The woman seemed confused as she looked around the room.

“Where am I?” was all she could say.

“You’re onboard the ship Elizabeth. We’re currently in the North Atlantic, just off the coast of New York. My name’s Larry. What’s your name?”

“My name is Ligeia”, she answered. “How did I get here?”

“We found you unconscious on a sandbank which was far away from the coast. You’ve been here for two days now, but we’ve got no idea how long you’d been on that sandbank before we found you.”

“I cannot remember what happened. I cannot remember anything. The only thing I do remember is my own name.” She looked very distressed.

“Just be calm”, Larry said cheeringly. “You’re safe here with us. And I’m sure that, in time, your memory will come back. Now let me show you around the ship, and introduce you to the rest of the crew.”





Chapter 4

The Arrival

It did not take long before Ligeia knew everybody on the ship, and everyone seemed to like her more and more as time went by. William could clearly tell that Larry was particularly fond of her, and that she liked him a lot too.

As the days went by and Elizabeth sailed further north, the weather got progressively colder. Chilly winds filled the sails and it was snowing lightly when they rounded Cape Cod. The cold temperature caused the barrels of water to freeze, and early in the morning on February 26th Scarlett and her men could see Salem towering up over the horizon. Without a warning Elizabeth was caught by a strong stream in the water which took her unpleasantly swiftly into shore. The crew’s control of the ship was lost, and there was nothing they could do about it. However, the coast was surrounded by ice so the ship slid right into it and got stuck between two massive ice blocks.

“Damn it!” sounded John’s voice from the quarterdeck.

“Don’t worry about it”, said Scarlett. “We’ll just climb down the side of the ship and walk the last bit into shore across the ice.” William could not understand how she could remain so unruffled when her ship was stuck in the ice. How was she thinking?

Larry was left behind to guard the ship while the rest of the crew disembarked over the ice. Salem was a nice town, and during this time of the year the ground and the rooftops were all covered with snow. Scarlett and her crew went into one of the town’s pubs to get something warm to drink. They were greeted with welcoming scents of malt and fried pork, and their frozen bodies were quickly heated. After a while William noticed a woman in her forties sitting at a round table staring oddly at the group of seafarers who had stepped inside, including himself. But she remained silent.

“Scarlett”, said Ligeia. “I am feeling a bit tired. Would it be alright if I went back to Elizabeth to get some rest?”

“‘Course Ligeia. Go right ahead”, Scarlett replied. Once Ligeia had left the pub, the woman who had previously been staring at them approached and asked:

“Which one of you is the captain?”

“I am”, Scarlett confirmed. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, my name’s Mary and I’d like to warn you of that girl who just left your company. She’s deadly, mark my words, I know what I’m talking about.”

“And why would we believe you when you say this?” asked the captain. “She’s one of the most kind souls I’ve ever had the honor of meeting.”

“Let me ask you where you met her”, Mary provoked. “Was it possibly on an unfamiliar island with pretty flower on it?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact it was. How did you know?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mary exclaimed. “The girl’s a siren!” The moment she said it everybody realized that the words she spoke had to be true. William thought of all the stories he had heard about how sirens seduce sailors, and then kill them. Then he thought of something even more terrible.

“Larry is all alone guarding the ship! We’ve gotta warn him!”
 
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Pen

The game is on!
The reason I stopped uploading chapters here was because I moved to a new town. I don't know if people really read this, but I figured I might as well finnish what I started. :zelda: So, here goes:

Chapter 5

The Emergency

“Listen up! Bill and Edward, you’re the fastest runners. Run as quickly as you can out to Elizabeth, then the rest of us’ll join you as soon as possible”, Scarlett ordered with a sharp voice. “Ah, I should have known there was something fishy going on when we found a lonely lass at a desolate bank of sand. Hurry up now! We gotta get back to Elizabeth!”

William and Edward quickly ran ahead of the others, and by this time William had started to get scared because he did not have a single clue of how a siren kills her victim. When they reached the ice, which stretched about two hundred meters out from the coast, they were forced to run slower as not to slip. Luckily they did not need to worry about the ice breaking, as it was completely frozen solid. When they at last reached the ship they climbed up one of its sides to the deck, there they could see Larry and Ligeia standing together over at the fore. Ligeia held Larry’s head and it looked like they were about to kiss, but at the last second Ligeia fastened her gripp of Larry’s head, jumped over the gunwales with him, and then went out of sight down to the ice on the other side of the ship. William and Edward looked utterly startled and started moving towards the fore, but at that moment Ligeia performed a single high jump back up, still with a steady grip of Larry’s head, and slammed him down into the planks of the deck in front of William and Edward. Larry’s head was cracked – probably from hitting the ice – his neck was broken and blood filled the area surrounding his dead body. At a closer range William and Edward were now able to see that Ligeia’s skin had gotten downy, as if feathers were about to cover her body. William, who was standing closest to Ligeia, drew his cutlass and slashed after her, but she avoided the attacks and quickly made her way past them and disappeared below decks. Edward rushed after her closely followed by William, but when they came downstairs Ligeia stuck Edward down by hitting his head with a stool. Thereafter she jumped on William and bit him hard in the shoulder; suddenly he could no longer move. The pain was unbearable. Just as the end seemed near at hand, a kannonball unexpectedly flew in through the side of the ship hitting Ligeia right in the face. A second later Ligeia was lying lifeless on the other side of the room and her face was totally destroyed. Edward awoke, shocked by what he saw, and helped William to his feet. Then they moved back upstairs where they were greeted by Scarlett and the others who had just climbed up to the deck. Next to Elizabeth they saw to their surprise Captain Roger’s pirate ship floating with their dark blue sails folded in and their pirate flag high up in the mast.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Roger laughed over at his ship as he came tramping with his pegleg to the gunwales to get a better view of Elizabeth. “So, we meet again. And this time I have an obvious advantage!” He turned to face his crew. “There, there. Fire!” Cannonballs were fired from the pirate ship, but at the same time it started drifting away to the north. One of the shots hit Elizabeth on the same side as the first one had, making the hole even bigger. The pirate ship started to pick up more speed drifting northward and Captain Roger suddenly got very astounded.

“What be this now?” he exclaimed. “This ain’t the wind. What could it be?”

“There are streams in the water here!” William shouted back as the pirate ship drifted away further and further to the north.

“Arrr! This is the last time you’re gettin’ away. Mark me words! Next time won’t be as fortunate for ye!” the pirate captain shouted as his ship disappeared in the distance.

After all of this, when William and Edward had told the rest of the crew about what happened at Elizabeth before they arrived, Scarlett and a few others went back to town to thank Mary who had warned them about the siren attack. In the evening, when everybody were back at the ship, they had a moment of silence for Larry. Then they went to bed in order to be well rested for the upcoming day.

* * *
The next day they packed two bags filled with food and water. When all was prepared Scarlett assembled her crew on the main deck and went up to the quarterdeck to make a speech:

“We’ve come a long way now since we weighed anchor back at Hispaniola, and I’m deeply grateful towards you all. Now we’ve finally reached Salem, but we’ve still got one more part of the journey in front of us, which we’ll have to make on foot. I’ve decided only to bring three of you with me as not to risk the lives of some twenty men, and to ensure the ration packing doesn’t get too heavy. And remember, the three of you whom I’ve chosen to go with me will of course be free to decline. We shall venture north, to uncivilized territory, and it can take a few days before we return. The three I’ve chosen to join me are Bill, John and Edward. Are you ready to devote yourselves to this task?” William and John nodded their heads affirmatively and Edward nodded too, though somewhat vaguely.

“Splendid!” said Scarlett. “It’s settled then. Bill, John, Edward and I will set off to the north right away , and the rest of you who are staying gotta make sure to fix the hole in the ship. And you gotta stay together. If some of you are leaving the ship, half of you gotta stay. I don’t want anyone else meeting the same grim fate as poor Larry did.” And with that said she set off, together with her three companions and two bags of provision.





Chapter 6

The Object

As soon as the four of them had started walking the wind started blowing more than it had done since they arrived in Salem, and the precipitation fell as a combination of snow hail and rain. This weather lasted through all of that day. Nobody said much during their walk, and even if they would have been talking they would probably have had a hard time hearing each other in the wind. They wandered through a sparsely vegetated forest, full of snow and sleet on the ground. As they were walking William thought of the three companions that Scarlett had chosen. He understood why she had chosen him, he was her first mate after all. Why she chose John was also easy to understand as he was the steersman of her ship. But William could not understand why Scarlett had chosen to take Edward with them. Sure, William liked Edward a lot because he had seen the potential in him, but had Scarlett been able to see it too? William had never even seen her talk to him. The more he thought of it, the more certain he became of the fact that Scarlett was a fantastically gifted captain who could see the potential even in the crewmembers who she did not know very well.

William got surprised when he looked up into the sky and saw that it had gotten dark. Shortly thereafter the small group found a little windless cave where they made a fire and got some sleep.

* * *
The next morning, on February 28th, the weather was much more fortunate. There was no snow, hail or rain in the air, and the wind was not as hard and cold as it had been on the previous day. The landscape still consisted of snow covered woodlands, but it was getting more and more rocky, and occasionally one could spot a small mountain behind the trees. Early in the evening they reached a small, cube shaped temple made out of light beige stone blocks. It was not more than two meters in any dimension. They all took a look around the temple, even on top of it, but there was no entrance.

“This is the right place”, Scarlett said with a satisfied voice. “This is the temple with no entrance that I’ve heard of.”

“But captain”, said John. “How did you figure we’d get inside?”

“Just wait. Look here.” Scarlett stood facing the southern wall of the temple and drew her cutlass, then she raised the cutlass high above her head and thrusted it down with the blade first into the cold ground in front of the small temple. After that she let go of the cutlass, which was now stuck with its tip in the ground, but only a few seconds later the cutlass disappeared into the ground as if there was someone pulling it down from below. The earth started shaking and the middle part of the southern wall of the temple slid down a bit into the ground, thus creating an entrance in the structure. The only thing that existed between the four walls was a staircase leading down, which probably led to some larger underground part of the temple. They went down the straight stone stairs, which despite the fact that it was constantly going down, never got completely dark. When they got down the stairs they found themselves in a chamber with a dozen burning torches along the walls, and in the very middle of the chamber there was a pedestal made from the same stone as the rest of the temple. In the pedestal there was a sword, and it was the most beautiful sword William had ever laid his eyes on. It had a double edged blade made out of silver which sometimes seemed to glisten with a bluish shade. And in the middle of the hilt, which also seemed to be made out of silver, sat a shining, blue sapphire. At first all four of them just stood there admiring the sword in the pedestal in the middle of the chamber, but after a while Scarlett took a step forward.

“What you’re seeing in front of you is a magical sword which is said to have been left here on earth by the gods as a gift to us mortals. I’ve been searching information about this sword for years, and now I’ve finally got it right in front of me.” Scarlett walked all the way up to the pedestal and grabbed the silver hilt of the sword. Thereafter she pulled the sword out of the pedestal and then she stood there a while looking at the sword in her hand. The whole event looked extraordinarily majestic in the red light of the flames.

“Gentlemen”, she said. “With this sword in my hand I now posses the ability to control the wind and the tide, but only as long as I’m out at sea.”

“So captain”, said John, “will we no longer be dependent on tailwinds now that you’ve got that sword?”

“We will now be able to adjust the direction of the wind to our advantage, and tide will bother us no more.” She smiled. “But now I propose we stay here in the temple overnight to be rested enough for our return journey tomorrow morning. Besides, it’s much warmer in here than it is out in the woods.” They had some food to eat before going to sleep, and during the night they could hear the wind whizzing past the entrance of the temple on the top of the long stone staircase.





Chapter 7

The Return

The next morning they woke up because the wind whizzing by outside made a much louder sound than it had been making during the night. They went up the long staircase to take a look outside. By now there was an intense blizzard roaring in the forest, and the snow on the ground was almost half a meter deep.

“We should make our way through this storm right away”, suggested Edward. “If we wait till it’s over we might not have enough food left to reach Salem.

“Edward’s right”, said Scarlett. “We have no idea of how long this blizzard’s gonna last. Our best bet is to start walking now.” And so their walk through the now much whiter woodlands commenced. The four seafarers plodded through the deep snow which constantly got ever deeper, causing their walking speed to decrease. They were never able to see more than ten meters ahead of themselves, and often not even that far. After a few hours in the storm the snow in the air was mixed with hail, which kept scratching them in their faces. After a while William’s head started to ache from the cold and he could no longer feel his fingers nor his toes. They walked in a line with Scarlett in the front, then came William, followed by John, and at the end walked Edward. They did not speak to one another for a very long time.

Late in the afternoon everything around them looked just the way it did six hours ago when the hail had started falling, and William was astonished because he had managed to walk this far in the terrible storm. As he was thinking he saw as Scarlett in front of him lost her balance, whereupon he rushed ahead, caught her and placed her in the snow leaning her back against a tree trunk.

“Bill”, she gasped. “Suddenly my body feels all warm. I can’t stand this. You’ve gotta keep going without me.”

“But Captain Scarlett”, said William. He could barely move his lips as he spoke, that is how cold they were. “It can’t be far now. I’m sure we’re more than halfway there. You can hang in there! We’ll help you!”

“It’s too late for that now I’m afraid. I’m gonna die here, soon…” Her voice was weak. “I want you to keep heading in the same direction we’ve been walking thus far. You should be able to reach Salem tomorrow morning. And listen up now, William.” This was the first time that Scarlett had called William by his real name. “I want you to take my sword and my ship. You’re gonna be a good captain, I just know it.” She handed the magical sword over to William. “Now, don’t you spend any time burying me, let the snowstorm do that job for you so that you can get away from here.” By now her voice sounded even weaker than before. “May a fortunate wind always be at your back.” Thereafter she closed her eyes and sagged. William got tears in his eyes, but he still stood up and turned to face the other two.

“Captain William”, said John, whose eyes were also a bit watery. “I say we honor her final wish and get outa here.” Edward looked at William and nodded in agreement.

* * *
Their journey continued, everyone deeply upset after having witnessed Scarlett’s death, and the snow on the ground was even deeper than before, now far over half a meter. The night made its intrusion not much later, so the cold blizzard in the darkness of the night made it even more difficult for them to navigate the snow filled forest. The three of them trekked all night through and luckily the storm eased off somewhat on the way, and just as William started fearing that they were walking in the wrong direction they spotted a vague light source lighting up the distant darkness. They followed the light source and to their big delight they found themselves, earlier than expected, back in Salem. It was the windows of the town’s houses that lit up the darkness of the night. William, Edward and John swiftly made their way over to the frozen ocean, where they could see Elizabeth, still keyed to the ice. When they had gotten up to the ship’s deck they explained to the rest of the crew everything they had experienced while they were away – about the sword and about Scarlett. The crew had repaired the hole in the ship, so they went down below decks to the longed for warmth to have a proper moment of silence for Captain Scarlett.

Every member of the crew gladly accepted William as their new captain, and early in the morning, on March 2nd 1717, William pulled out his sword and changed the tides which caused Elizabeth to break free from the ice. Thereafter he redirected the course of the wind, and so they sailed away eastwards into the sunrise.


The End
 
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Link Floyd

ᵒⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵘⁿ
Joined
Sep 23, 2014
I just finished reading the first 2 chapters. Very well written! I couldn't tell that your main language is Swedish. You describe things very well! I felt like I was actually there on the ship. Looking forward to reading the rest! ;)
 
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Link Floyd

ᵒⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵘⁿ
Joined
Sep 23, 2014
Wow! Thank you so much! It really means a lot! :D

I finished!

It was very good. You're really good at describing things! I did get a little teary eyed at the end, I must admit. :')

Your English is very good as well. The only suggestion I have is a few sentences tended to be run-on, so using more commas to separate words and phrases will make it easier for the reader.

Keep writing dude! You're a natural. ;)
 
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Pen

The game is on!
I finished!

It was very good. You're really good at describing things! I did get a little teary eyed at the end, I must admit. :')

Your English is very good as well. The only suggestion I have is a few sentences tended to be run-on, so using more commas to separate words and phrases will make it easier for the reader.

Keep writing dude! You're a natural. ;)

Thanks a lot Ari! I really appreciate the feedback you're giving! I'll be sure to keep in mind to use comas and whatnot to make reading easier. Thanks again! ^^
 

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