Part 7

Arr, it was the 10th of March in the year 03! We had set sail from St. Martin in hopes of finding the man behind the small pile of treasure we had found months before, Jack Rackham!



As always, the Spanish ships were out on patrol in the area around San Juan. Easy targets for wealth!




Too easy, though that's almost never a bad thing in the line of piracy!



A fair amount of gold was gained indeed! Yet one more Spanish ship awaited us!



The ship carried upon it over a 1000 pieces of eight! Truly a great plunder and booster for the morale! That captain, before being tossed overboard, asked of me what I thought I was doing.

What did I think I was doing? Ha ha! I told the man, "I'm little more than a professional pirate!" and kicked him off starboard! Har!

[This gives me an idea. Anybody up for some singing? I'll give you crazy lot until Friday to submit yourselves singing the following song from a great pirate film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Hvt2ijkwk

And the lyrics with a typo or two.

http://www.mlyrics.com/lyrics/Muppe...ssional_Pirate/

The best song wins a special ticket, the "I Choose Your Adventure" ticket which allows the receiver of the ticket to tell me to do any task regardless of whether it is in the poll or not, so you can ask to do anything*.

*Anything, as long as that doesn't interfere with commanders and our own ships and as long as it doesn't involve going against the French or Dutch. Actions may not be done immediately, either.

The contest is not graded on how good you sing, just how close it is to the original. The middle-of-song-speech can be skipped if you wish. Come on then, I'm not handing out that type of ticket like candy you know!]



With the Spanish ships out of the way, I had the crew sail us to Louisville as to make a profit.



Heading to Louisville, I noticed a fair amount of paranoia concerning the Spanish floating about. I ignored it and instead found a great deal with a fellow sailor.




I could tell from the map that it was in the vicinity of Santo Domingo, but I still was unsure of the location. Half a map was useless. It was time to carry on.



Yet another governor going to the Florida Keys. I guessed the other governor didn't change anything in the city.



Just southwest was Jack Rackham's home pirate town, Le Gardon. Not very far away in the least! Soon, we'd have ourselves the good ship Charles!



And wouldn't you know it? Jack Rackham was there to greet the crew!

[In this game, if you dig up a pirate's treasure before offing the pirate, they will chase you down when you're near them. If you off the pirate without digging up their treasure, nothing special happens though their treasure will stop increasing.]



And so on that day, we faced Calico Jack, one war sloop against the other. Who do you think won that battle? Surely you can guess, lad.



He was a witty pirate, I'll give him that, but wits alone can't save you in a fight with the Flying Dutchman.



Our endurance and will alone is what keeps us sailing regardless of numbers! Rackham's day had come!



I grabbed a rope and waited for sight of Jack Rackham from the Flying Dutchman.



And there was the star of the show! Standing before me in dirty, dyed calico clothing, his cutlass at the ready!



And so I roped my way down to the Charles to join the men in their raid.



For a person with two eyes, he was a horrid shot. Even I with only my one eye had better shooting ability!



Regardless, I took out my rapier and proceeded with the swordfight. For a pirate, he handled the cutlass rather poorly! Har har!

Finally, I had him cornered at the stern!








That was the end of Jack Rackham, the tenth most infamous pirate to sail the seas!

[Ship Lessons 101: What, you think I'm going to ignore something as big as this? Man, Calico Jack was great. He employed two of the most infamous female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, from which the name Bonneyread came from. Furthermore, his Jolly Roger was this.



You can't just ignore something like that just because the man prided himself in attacking small fishing boats over grand galleons. Also, the man wore nothing but calico, which is basically a material cheaper but thicker than denim and canvas. That has to count for something. Too bad he was hung though.]



The governor didn't seem to care that we weren't even bothering to take him to the Florida Keys. It didn't matter as our next stop was directly in our sights. What better way to visit a town than after killing their former captain? Of course, much of my crew was recovering from wounds from the previous battle. Surely a trip to the tavern would cheer them up.



The town was either poor or had recently been raided by someone. It was almost saddening to see Rackham's estate in such a state of disrepair.



The new captain didn't seem to mind Rackham's death. A true pirate he was, even if in poverty.



As many of the original 15 were unable to participate in the raids, I asked a local group of pirates to tag along with us.



[Coopers also deal with food, though instead of increasing morale with good food, they increase it by making food last longer with their tasty wooden barrels.]



Har! It was nice to not that people all over the Caribbean were keeping an eye on that filthy deckrunner!



[No comment. I have no clue what the heck is going on here outside of getting rid of some supplies.]



I decided that I was going to get the Flying Dutchman's guns upgraded so that they'd be far more accurate in ship battles.



All the Charles deserved was another owner. I sold it for a petty amount.



Ha ha! We found ourselves the ship in question and proceeded to board!



At sight of who it was he was dealing with, the captain begged I be merciful. Merciful I was. I let them have all the water they could ever hope to drink and decided not to burden them with any sort of boat.


The fishes probably got them.



Just as the rumor went, there was indeed a cooper on board the ship.



Much gold was had, and more from the eventual selling of the ship.



In the distance was an English ship. Recently, the English had declared war upon the French if the rumors upon the wind's breath were to be believed. I attacked.



A poor shot the ship was, missing at even a range in which misses were an impossibility.




And thus was the tale of our first English ship.



The smell of fresh gold bullion is so satisfying. There's nothing quite like the score of taking a ship.




Both ships sold for a decent sum. Specifically, we now had 10,000 gold pieces, a benchmark in the career of Bartholomew Bonneyread Goonham.



And that money became useful as I was sold yet another piece of Roc's map.



[The game really wants us to go after Baron Raymondo, to the point that it gives us relatively useless information like this bit. Expect to get these until we track the little bugger down.]



[For some reason, Waffle Images just refused to accept this image. Regardless, all that is worth noticing in this picture is the text at the bottom. That can't be a good sign.]



The crew decided that we should make a final stop and say hello to an English colony since we had finally made it clear of our dislike of them.



They didn't seem to care. In fact, instead, their resident information salesman decided to sell me the last part of Roc's map!

[Hey guys, that's Sid Meier. Occasionally, the game will replace the Mysterious Traveler with the likeness of Sid Meier, the game's creator and partial namesake. Looking good there, Sid.]



Now that we once again had a full treasure map, we could search for the treasure at our leisure!



That much gold deserves to be plundered! I told my men to drink well as our next target was just across from this town.

Captain's Log

March 1603: Captured a Spanish trade galleon.
May 1603: Visited the settlement of Louisville.
June 1603: Captured a pirate sloop of war. Defeated notorious pirate Jack Rackham. Visited the haven of Le Gardon. Baron Raymondo seen in Cumana.
July 1603: England at war with France. Recruited a skilled Cooper. Captured a Spanish sloop. Captured an English sloop. Spain captures settlement of Louisville. Visited the settlment of St. Alban.

The Choice

Today's choice brought to you by the letter P for Patrick the Piratical Privateer. Buy your own Patrick today!

Har har! It's that time again, folks. We had ourselves a few oddities in the update today, eh? No matter! Ha ha ha!

Pick the next action. If you've got a ticket, you can redeem them for an update that will come that much sooner.

1. Go after Roc
2. Go after Roc's treasure
3. Go after Baron Raymondo
4. Investigate Louisville